Dark Trojan (The Adam Drake series Book 3)

by Scott Matthews

  Drake walked to the port-side rail and yelled down to the two PSS men below to block off the gangplanks until the police and fire departments arrived. He saw that the huge parking lot beside the ship was already filled with onlookers, even before the wail of sirens now rushing down Queen’s Way Drive had been heard. Hundreds of faces stared up at him, including one standing next to the blue Sysco truck that he vaguely recognized.

  It would be a long day before anyone on board the grand old lady of Long Beach was allowed to leave, and an even longer time before the FBI and Homeland Security completed the investigation that would conclude that the Hezbollah martyr had acted alone. In the suicide video that was posted online later that day, he proudly proclaimed that his sacrifice was in protest of the way the West allowed women to flaunt themselves and wear shameless clothing. Daniela Dekker, aka Adriana Hermann, had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and without additional evidence, she could not be positively identified as the assassin Interpol thought she might be.

  No link was found between anyone onboard the Queen Mary that day and the suicide bomber, and no one identified a second man wearing the same blue jacket with the name of the restaurant food service company on it who had been unloading supplies.

  No one ever learned that a second man had been standing fifty feet behind the bomber with a remote control to guarantee the success of the mission, or that he had been able to slip off the ship before the police arrived.

  Chapter 44

  The flight back to San Francisco on Sunday morning was a quiet one. After a full day of answering questions and giving recorded statements about why they had been on the Queen Mary and what they had witnessed, Drake, Strobel and Green had little to say beyond the occasional expletive Green couldn’t contain. Daniela Dekker, or whatever her real name was, had been the one who had poisoned Mike Casey and now she was fish food in the waters below the Queen Mary.

  Why she had been at Drake’s door at the Marriott was still a mystery, and who had sent her was even more mysterious. There were no obvious connections to the four separate acts of violence that had occurred since Drake had arrived in San Francisco. No obvious connections, that is, except Drake himself and the company he’d visited on just two occasions.

  A manager at Energy Integrated Solutions, Inc. had been killed before he flew in. The drive-by shooting that killed the mother in the parking lot at the foot of the Presidio might have been a random event, but only if you discounted Drake’s presence there. As Megan Casey had been quick to point out, Mike Casey had been shot with a poisoned dart right outside Drake’s hotel room. But the execution of Daniela Dekker, if that’s what it was, didn’t make any sense to Drake. Unless, he was beginning to think, it was meant to erase a connection to someone who wanted him dead.

  Drake was sitting with his head back and his eyes closed, trying to let his mind come up with something that made some sense, when he felt the Gulfstream begin its descent into San Francisco. There was something gently pulling on the shirttail of his mind, something that he knew was important, but it disappeared every time he looked down to see what it was.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw that Liz Strobel had turned in her seat and was watching him intently.

  “You had your eyes squeezed shut so tight I thought you were in pain,” she told him as she shut her eyes the same way.

  “Do that again with your eyes.”

  “Hey, I’m sorry, Adam, I didn’t mean to make fun of you. I was just—”

  “No, just do it again. It reminds me of something that I’m trying to remember.”

  Strobel squeezed her eyes shut and sat facing him for a long minute.

  Then he remembered.

  “That’s it!” he said, slapping his leg. “When I went to the railing on the Queen Mary to tell the guys to keep the gangplanks closed, I was amazed at how many people were down there in the parking lot looking up at me. They all had that shocked look on their faces, like you see at a fire when onlookers know there are people inside the firemen will never reach. Except for one guy. He was standing next to a Sysco truck. He was squinting and he looked angry. I’ve seen him before! He works at EIS. He’s the guy Bradford hired to replace his manager that was murdered.”

  “It’s Saturday,” Strobel said. “Maybe he was just there for a tour of the Queen Mary?”

  “No, I don’t think so. He was wearing the same blue jacket with white lettering as the bomber. Liz, he’s involved in this…somehow. When Bill Bradford tells us where he lives, I’ll need to have a talk with Mr. Squint Eyes.”

  He didn’t wait until they had landed to call the CEO. “Bill, it’s Adam Drake. Are you in your office?”

  “No, I’m out sailing. Why?”

  “Do you know where that new guy lives? The one you hired to replace your murdered manager?”

  “Not off the top of my head, no. I think he had a condo somewhere in the city.”

  “Would someone in your office know?”

  “HR would have it in his personnel file. But there’s no one in HR on the weekend. Besides, he just quit. He said working for me wasn’t his cup of tea.

  “When did he quit?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Bill, that guy may be involved with my friend who got poisoned. And a lot more. I need to know where to find him. Can you meet me at your office?”

  “I’ll head there now. But it’ll take me half an hour to get there.”

  “I’m just landing,” Drake said, “so that’s about how long it will take me. See you there.”

  Ending the call, he told Strobel what Bradford had said, then repeated it again when Green moved to the seat in front of him.

  “If this guy’s involved in poisoning Mike and killing Daniela Dekker,” Green said, “then there’s something more going on at Bradford’s company than those cyber attacks.”

  “And you seem to be right in the middle of it,” Strobel added.

  “Whatever it is,” Drake said, “I think we need to get Mike out of town and back home in Seattle. If they, whoever they are, don’t know we’ve positively identified Dekker as his attacker, they might want to make sure Mike never identifies her. Larry, can you make sure he gets home when he’s released tomorrow?”

  “Sure. But what are you planning on doing?”

  “I’m going after Bradford’s guy.”

  “And what will you do if you find him? If he’s working with a bunch of crazy jihadis, you can’t go after him by yourself. Are you even armed?

  “No. I’m not licensed for concealed carry in California. I didn’t think I needed to be when I came here.

  Chapter 45

  Saleem Canaan, aka Anthony Capelli, former employee of Energy Integrated Solutions, Inc., returned to Ryan Walker’s mansion on Pacific Avenue Sunday morning to return the keys to Walker’s condo and the BMW M3 he’d been driving. He was escorted by the same bodyguard as before to the upper level of the three-story home, where Walker was having coffee and croissants on the deck.

  “Coffee, Mr. Canaan?” Walker asked. “Or would you like some champagne to celebrate your success on the Queen Mary?”

  Canaan sat down in a chair across the small glass-topped table and helped himself to a croissant. “I’m not in a mood to celebrate the needless sacrifice of a martyr,” he said. “You should have let me kill her.”

  Walker shook his head. “We’ve been over that. I’m rather pleased that the FBI is calling this a terrorist attack. You should be, too. No one’s looking for us.”

  “That may not be true. That attorney from Oregon may have recognized me.”

  “Please explain.”

  “Not sure that I can,” Canaan said. “I was standing on the dock next to the truck we used and Drake was looking down from the deck of the ship. He looked right at me.”

  “But he only knows you as an employee of Energy Integrated Solutions
. He couldn’t know about your work for me. Besides, your work here is almost finished. Now I need you to go to Lake Tahoe before this Thursday and take care of the two men who are about to be blamed for the blackout.”

  “Why Lake Tahoe and why before Thursday?”

  “Because that’s where the men are staying before they attend a trade show that starts in Reno on Thursday. David Klein has a large estate on the north shore of the lake. And Thursday is the day the worm you planted will activate and cause transformers all over the energy grid to fail.” Walker smiled. “I thought it was a nice touch to start the blackout on the same day the solar energy trade show opens.”

  Canaan laughed and said, “You really are a bastard. Have you planted the evidence the police will find that incriminates the two men?”

  “The police will find a thumb drive in the safe in David Klein’s office when they follow up on emails we’ve planted on his laptop from his co-conspirator Bobby Parker. The thumb drive has an exact copy of the blackout worm on the thumb drive I gave you.”

  “Well, that should do it,” Canaan said, picking up his cup of coffee. “How do you want me to kill them?”

  Walker studied the young man seated across the table. It was easy to see why Hezbollah had selected him for special training and then given him a command position in its American contingent. He seemed eager to kill two men he knew nothing about, just as he had been eager to kill the Brazilian model. He had the skills of a warrior and the looks of a Latin movie star. His only weakness was his brazen arrogance, which Walker feared would get him killed one day.

  He explained some of the game plan to his assassin. “Mr. Klein and Mr. Parker must appear to have been remorseful and ashamed and to have decided that suicide was the only way to avoid being tried as terrorists. They’re cowards for choosing the easy way out, so an overdose would seem to be appropriate. But I don’t know enough about either man’s drug use history. I think hanging would fit the picture we want to paint for the authorities, don’t you?”

  “I think that will work. Is there a suicide note you want me to leave?”

  “It’s on a thumb drive in my office. I’ll get it for you on your way out. Just upload it onto Klein’s laptop, or whatever he uses at home. When you’re finished there, get away as quickly as you can. Come Thursday, transportation around the country will become difficult. Airports will be closed, trains won’t run, and gas stations won’t be able to pump gas.”

  Walker stood up and led Canaan to his study, where he gave his young killer a map to the mansion on the north shore of Lake Tahoe and a small white thumb drive with an eloquent suicide note decrying America’s dependence on oil.

  Chapter 46

  When they pulled into a guest parking space in front of the EIS building, they immediately spotted Bradford’s white Audi A8 parked in the CEO’s reserved space. Drake opened the door for Strobel and walked with her into the building. Bradford was waiting for them in his office.

  The CEO was sitting at his desk with Anthony Capelli’s personnel file open on his desk and a look of obvious concern on his face.

  “Bill,” Drake said as they walked in, “I’d like you to meet Elizabeth Strobel, Secretary Rallings’ administrative assistant. Liz, this is Bill Bradford.”

  “Ms. Strobel,” Bradford rose and walked around his desk to meet her, “please have a seat. Adam, I retrieved our guy’s personnel file. There is an address for him, but I tried the phone number he gave us. It’s no longer in service.”

  “What do you know about him?” Drake asked.

  “Not much, I’m afraid. In my haste to complete the energy grid software project, we didn’t check him out as thoroughly as we normally do. He was referred to me by a CEO I know, and I relied on his recommendation.”

  “Who’s the other CEO?”

  “Robert Parker. He runs Ra Solar and is a member of a business leaders association I belong to. He said Capelli had done some consulting work for him and was looking for a permanent position here in San Francisco.”

  “Maybe Parker knows more about him,” Drake said. “Give him a call, will you? Liz and I’ll check out the address he gave you. If he’s gone, maybe his neighbors will have a new address.”

  “What did he do for you, Mr. Bradford?” Strobel asked. “I’m familiar with the DAARPA grant you were working on.”

  “Anthony Capelli replaced Nick Kawasaki, the team manager who was murdered, on our internal testing team. The energy grid security software was back from our external beta testers, and we were fine tuning the final version of the product before its release last Friday.”

  “Was he qualified to do the work?”

  “According to his resume, he was probably over-qualified. I did check with another CEO that he listed as a reference. I learned that he had worked on a project for him that was more technical than what he was doing here.”

  “If you will make a copy of his application for me,” Strobel said, “I’ll have DHS take a closer look at him.”

  Bradford made a copy of the four-page application as Drake said, “Liz, would you like to go with me to check out this address? Or do you need to stay and get this to your people?”

  “I have an app on my phone that allows me to scan and send documents,” she told him. “I’d like to go with you. If you don’t mind.”

  “Great. Bill, call me if you learn anything from the guy who recommended Capelli. We’ll check out his last known address. Meet you later for a drink?”

  “Sure,” Bradford said. “Just let me know where and when.”

  As they walked out of the EIS building into the warm fall sunshine, Strobel said, “I’m concerned about Capelli’s quitting the same day the software he was working on was released.”

  Drake nodded. “There’s a number of things concerning me right now, not the least of which is his work for EIS. I have a hunch this guy is involved in all the weird things that have happened since I got here.”

  When they were belted in and Drake had entered the address from their quarry’s personnel file into the navigation GPS, they drove to South Beach and found the luxury condos known as the Infinity Towers. There was a parking garage next door.

  “This all looks pretty upscale for a software consultant,” Drake said a few minutes later as they stood on the street looking up at the forty-two floors of the round, glass-walled tower.

  They went in and learned from the secretary in the on-site property manager’s office that all 650 homes in the residential tower were sold and occupied. The only exception was the condo on the thirty-sixth floor that had been listed as the residence of Anthony Capelli. He had moved out of the condo that weekend, they were told after Strobel had shown the secretary her Special Agent DHS badge and asked to see him. If they wanted to speak with any of his neighbors, whose names she wasn’t authorized to release, they would need to have the neighbors’ permission in advance. The Infinity protected the privacy of its residents.

  They left the building. “I’ll have the ownership of the condo identified, along with the other information on his resume,” Strobel said. “This just smells. The guy moves before the end of the month as soon as he quits his job.” She shook her head. “It’s what you’d expect when an operation is rolled up and everyone clears out of town.”

  Drake nodded. “Let’s go back to the Marriott. I’ll buy you a late lunch. Maybe Bradford’s learned something that’ll help us find this guy. Right now he’s all we have. Whatever’s going on, our guy’s the key.”

  Chapter 47

  Saleem Canaan decided to ride his Suzuki Hayabushi motorcycle to South Lake Tahoe and spend a night there before riding north to Crystal Bay to deal with the two fools who had gotten in bed with Ryan Walker. Desperate men did stupid things, he knew, but thinking they could work with someone they barely knew to cause a blackout all across America was beyond stupid. If they had known the fascist Alliance fixer li
ke he did, they would have known there was only one way their plan would end.

  Muslim elders had long kept a watchful eye on the Nazi looters during and after World War II as they fled to South America and began to construct a new German empire, or reich, there. Hitler had made a lot of promises to his Arab collaborators in return for their assistance in building up the Third Reich. This thousand-year reich had not endured. Now, almost seventy years later, the Nazi progeny and their Alliance were making the same promises of mutual assistance and cooperation between a new Islamist caliphate and a new fascist reich.

  Well, Canaan told himself, he didn’t believe any of it for a minute. And he didn’t trust Ryan Walker or the Alliance, either.

  As he rode through central California on I-80 East to Sacramento, and then on US-50 East through Placerville and the mountains of the El Dorado National Forest to South Lake Tahoe, Canaan daydreamed about his role in the world of the future. In his world, men would be men and he would be able to enjoy a woman without having her run to the police crying rape every time. In fact, it would be like tonight, with a woman skilled in her trade who would do as he wished.

  Two and a half hours after leaving San Francisco, Canaan rode into South Lake Tahoe and took an “executive king” room at Harveys Lake Tahoe. After a shower and change of clothes, he took the elevator down to the casino and made his way through the slot machines, past the black jack tables to the roulette gaming area to begin his night of pleasure.

  From past experience, he knew that it wouldn’t be long before there were two or three beautiful women at his side, watching him and gauging both the size of his bankroll and his willingness to share some of it. And then after a dinner, during which he had pleasantly negotiated a respectful quid pro quo with one of them and adjourned to his room, he would begin the ritual he had developed. It would begin with escalating carnal pleasure that prepared him for the greatest pleasure of all, killing two men the next day.