Ten Two Jack

by Diane Capri

  Finally, he shook his head slowly just as the jet leveled out at a lower altitude. She felt the landing gear lock into place.

  She glanced out the window. The storm had gathered intensity. Avoiding wind shear under these conditions could be a challenge. But this pilot seemed to have everything under control. She sent him a quick prayer.

  Mackenzie broke eye contact and settled back into his seat. Otto returned her gun to its holster and grabbed the armrests again. They’d be landing shortly.

  CHAPTER 23

  Friday, February 11

  3:15 p.m.

  Jasper, Kansas

  When the plane’s wheels touched down on the runway, the nauseating pitching, rolling, bouncing, and swaying finally stopped. Icy rain slashed the windows, beating loudly on the fuselage. Strong winds buffeted the Gulfstream on the ground as it taxied to the gate.

  The jet finally came to a halt. Otto pried her stiff hands from the armrests and flexed her fingers to get the blood flow circulating.

  “We’re sorry folks. Those storms came up a lot faster than we thought. According to the radar, they’ll pass through in less than an hour.” The co-pilot came into the cabin, visibly shaken. He swiped a hand through his hair as he glanced around, checking for damage, probably. “We’ll clean up in here, refuel, and check out the plane. Why don’t you go inside the terminal and walk around a little? Come back in about half an hour. We’ll take off again in sixty minutes or so.”

  Bramall said, “I’ll need my bag.”

  Mackenzie smirked.

  Otto followed Bramall to the back of the plane to collect her bags. Her stomach was still roiling.

  The co-pilot lowered the jet stairs and handed them each an umbrella. Otto went first, juggling the umbrella, her bags, and the flimsy handrail on the stairs. The wind pushed her back while the rain pelted her skin. She dared not hurry lest she fall flat on her face. Or her ass.

  At the bottom of the stairs, she set the rolling bag on the icy concrete and slid it toward the door to the terminal. By the time she got inside, she was cold, wet, thoroughly miserable, and seriously wondering why she hadn’t flown straight to Houston as she’d originally planned.

  The terminal was practically deserted. A regional airport in the middle of the day in the middle of nowhere, Kansas, was not a busy place. She looked around. Surely, there was a coffee shop of some kind.

  Bramall slipped inside behind her. Without a word, he spied the men’s room and headed off in that direction. On the way past a trash can, he spiked the air sickness bag, which was filled to capacity.

  Mackenzie came inside. His face had tiny dots of coagulated blood where the crystal shards had pierced his skin. His shirt was bloodstained.

  Otto turned to face him, teeth chattering. “I’d tell you not to go anywhere, but where would you go in this weather?”

  He smirked. “I’ve got a jet waiting to fly me out of here in less than an hour. What about you? You’re not going to stow away twice.”

  The guy was a piece of work. She wished she could arrest him. Nothing would make her happier than to see him behind bars. She’d talk to Bramall about his plans for Mackenzie before they reboarded the jet. If Bramall didn’t have an arrest already set up, like he’d said, she’d make a call to the Boss and get Mackenzie handled.

  She cocked her head and gave him a level stare. “Don’t you wonder why I got on that plane?”

  Mackenzie frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Bramall didn’t mention that he’d shot and killed two of Big Mike Bavolsky’s men? Couple of thugs looking for you. They tried to kill him. Self-defense, he says.” She paused. “Jimmy Two and Little Hugh.”

  Mackenzie blanched.

  “You knew those guys, didn’t you? Business partners of yours, I’m guessing.” She paused. “What’d you do? Steal money from the mob? You got a death wish or something?”

  He shook his head slowly, but his worried eyes conveyed the truth.

  She said, “It’s not likely that Big Mike is feeling warm fuzzies for you right about now, is it?”

  His voice was husky when he asked, “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that you’re better off with me than without me. So cool your jets and find us a place to get coffee. I’ll be back.” When he did not reply, she shrugged. “Or don’t. It’s your funeral.”

  She turned and went to freshen up, pulling her bag behind her.

  At the entrance to the women’s restroom, maintenance had placed a yellow plastic bi-fold sign with a big “Do Not Enter” sign plastered across it. Closed for cleaning. She groaned.

  She looked for another restroom nearby. The companion restroom was unoccupied. With so few people in the terminal, no one was likely to need it immediately. She ducked inside.

  The room was a large, utilitarian space decorated entirely in stainless steel, like a prison. The tile floor had a drain in the center. A stainless steel changing table was bolted to the wall. No baby would be happy to spend time lying on that cold surface.

  The lock was broken. She’d need to be quick.

  She flushed the toilet. She ran warm water over her hands to loosen her tight muscles and splashed a few handfuls over her face. With her eyes closed, she reached for a paper towel.

  The door opened and closed, and the room went black.

  Before she could draw her gun or escape, a man moved in fast and hard. He pushed her against the wall, lifting her off the floor, arms and legs pinned, one big hand squeezing her neck.

  She tried to turn her head to the side, but his hold was too strong. She opened her mouth to scream and nothing came out. He had closed off her windpipe.

  She bucked and squirmed, and he shoved harder.

  He squeezed harder.

  One after another she attempted the best self-defense techniques in her arsenal, to no avail. He was taller, wider, stronger, heavier.

  He had every advantage.

  He was in total control.

  The best she could hope for was that he wouldn’t kill her just because he could.

  Bramall might intervene, get this guy off her if she could hang on until he arrived.

  Which was her last thought before she blacked out.

  CHAPTER 24

  Friday, February 11

  4:45 p.m.

  Rapid City, South Dakota

  Scorpio figured whatever was on Mackenzie’s flash drive could be turned into cash pretty fast. He knew the dark web well. Before Reacher, he’d sold the majority of his products there using Tor clients and I2P services.

  He was willing to expand his product lines. As it was, his business was highly specialized. Pharmaceuticals only. Single sourced from a top-notch manufacturer. He had an inside man to keep an eye on things, but he handled most of the fulfillment himself. Safer that way. The fewer fingers in the pie, the better.

  He was tired but glad to be home. He settled behind his desk and awakened multiple screens to check the status of his business. He’d been away for less than thirty-six hours, but a lot could happen in that short time. He clacked the keys quickly, moving from one computer to the next, reviewing each segment briefly.

  When he’d satisfied himself that all was well, he found Mackenzie’s two-terabyte flash drive and inserted it into a buffered reader on a computer segmented from the rest of his network.

  His pulse quickened as the volume successfully mounted inside the sandboxed environment. A dozen directories with hashed and unreadable names were listed, along with the text file. He opened it to see a warning from BlackTech, makers of one of the most secure encryption algorithms on the planet.

  Each algorithm BlackTech created had a unique aspect, the bespoke elements that were specifically designed for the user. Far more secure than a salted hash, it was like salting the entire algorithm with the user’s life.

  He wondered again why Mackenzie needed such high-level security. What could he possibly have stored on the flash drive to justify this kind of protection? Several option
s came to mind, and none of them were legitimate business enterprises.

  Whether he was a genius or an idiot, Mackenzie was playing with fire here. The kind of people who used systems like these were, well, men like Scorpio. Drug dealers, data thieves, corporate spies engaged in lucrative intellectual property espionage and the like.

  Scorpio’s view of Mackenzie, before he found the flash drive in Mackenzie’s bedroom wall safe, was far from any of those types of criminal enterprises. Perhaps he’d be forced to change his opinions.

  But first, Scorpio had to look at the contents of that flash drive. He tried to puzzle through the steps.

  His doctors had told him that some memories were still there in his brain and others were gone. He had to discover what knowledge remained and relearn the rest. The mere mention of his brain damage fueled his constant rage, which he directed solely at Reacher, where it belonged.

  But Reacher wasn’t here. First things first.

  He slowly worked through the steps that once were second nature to him.

  He’d need to find out the password and locate Mackenzie’s private key file to decrypt the remainder of the file structure.

  A private key file combined with a password would be used to generate a hashed token. That token would be used to unlock the encrypted section of the drive.

  The plan sounded like gibberish and on the screen, it looked like a bunch of chimps had been pounding the keyboard for a couple of hours. But it was really multi-level security guaranteed to be hacker proof. Or so BlackTech claimed, to justify their ridiculously high prices.

  Scorpio leaned back in his chair to think, which was harder to do since Reacher had tossed him into that tumble dryer. His brain worked poorly, especially when he was tired. But he had no time to rest. He needed to know what was on Mackenzie’s flash drive before he lost his chance.

  BlackTech created encryption security for governments to protect weapons, strategies, and covert operations. They designed encryption for high-tech industries to secure and prevent industrial espionage. In short, BlackTech was the best security money could buy.

  No real hacker would fail to recognize the BlackTech logo. Script kiddies would give up the moment they saw it. Clever breachers might try to trick Mackenzie into coughing up the password using social hacking techniques. Which could work, sure. If you had the time to burn. Because Mackenzie wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.

  Scorpio tapped the rim of his coffee cup. He was fully familiar with BlackTech because he’d used it for his business, too. He remembered exactly what the salesman said when he pitched the expensive product. BlackTech’s advanced encryption algorithms would take a thousand of the world’s most powerful computers until the heat-death of the universe to crack.

  Could have been hyperbole, Scorpio supposed. But the point was made. BlackTech was unhackable.

  Except for one thing.

  The weakness in BlackTech’s system was the end user. The user controlled the passcodes. No security in the world would protect anything if the user’s loose lips could not be sealed.

  A guy like Mackenzie was not a sophisticated computer user. Scorpio would bet Mackenzie had bought way more tech security than he understood. He’d have found the password process overwhelming and too difficult to remember.

  Which meant he would have recorded it somewhere. A place where he could easily retrieve it when he needed it.

  Scorpio leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes to think. Where would Mackenzie have written down that passcode?

  He could have done something as stupid as writing it on a piece of paper and stuffing it into his wallet. Idiotic. But effective. Unless the wallet was lost or stolen.

  He might have sent it to himself in an email. People did dumb crap like that every day. Searching Mackenzie’s email would take a while, but not forever.

  Scorpio thought about the Lake Forest mansion Mackenzie owned. The dry cleaner business in that dilapidated neighborhood. The jewelry box containing all those loose diamonds and emeralds. The amazingly gorgeous wife with the equally gorgeous twin sister.

  No, a guy like that wouldn’t carry around a passcode in his wallet where his wife might find it. And he wouldn’t send it to himself in an email he’d have to search for several minutes every time.

  Mackenzie must have been somewhat tech savvy. After all, he owned the flash drive. He kept it in a safe in his home, not his business. He must have had a computer he could use to access the contents of the drive.

  Scorpio thought about the master bedroom in Mackenzie’s mansion. He hadn’t found a laptop there, or anywhere in the house or his destroyed dry cleaner.

  Scorpio had located Mackenzie’s identity on the dark web before the trip to Lake Forest. He pulled up those files now. He scanned through until he found Mackenzie’s personal banking records. He scrolled through pages of transactions looking for patterns.

  Which was when he noticed the monthly payments to DiamondSecure, a backup service. The payments were withdrawn automatically, the tenth of each month, going back several years. Would Mackenzie have been dumb enough to store his BlackTech passcode at DiamondSecure? Worth a look.

  Scorpio turned to another computer and pulled up a web browser on the Clear Internet. The one most people used. He found DiamondSecure on the first try and attempted to log into Mackenzie’s account.

  He grinned when he made it past the first login prompts. Mackenzie was such an idiot.

  And then the two-factor identification notice popped onto the screen. DiamondSecure had sent a code to Mackenzie’s phone.

  Scorpio moved back to the other computer and rapidly scanned Mackenzie’s bank records seeking his phone provider. When he found it, a feeling of relief filtered through him. It was one he already had hooks into. A few keystrokes later and he’d located the text. He memorized the code and then deleted the text. Mackenzie might have seen the notification. If he had, then Scorpio would have a whole new set of problems. But he couldn’t think about that now.

  He returned to the DiamondSecure screen and entered the code.

  “Open sesame!” he said, flicking the five fingers of his right hand for emphasis, as the service opened to a dashboard listing all Mackenzie’s files. A quick scan was all it took to locate the private key file. Scorpio resisted the urge to fist pump the air with his one good arm.

  Now all he needed was the passcode to open the key file and generate the token to decrypt the flash drive.

  Where would that dolt have saved the key file passcode? It wasn’t stored with the files at DiamondSecure.

  He looked through the materials he’d gathered on Mackenzie, seeking inspiration. He scrolled through bank records, tax returns, even emails for a while until he got bored.

  Which was when he saw Mackenzie’s phone texts were filled with reminders. Could he have texted the passcode to himself? Seriously? The guy was a walking grenade with the pin already pulled.

  It didn’t take long to scroll through.

  “Bingo!” Scorpio shouted into his empty office. There it was. Right there.

  He used the passcode to open the key file and generate the token. He moved to the first computer and used the token to enter the flash drive.

  “Yes!” This time, he fist-pumped the air.

  He walked around the room to stretch. He pulled a cold bottle of water from the office fridge and struggled to open the twist top, snuggling the bottle close to his body with his useless left arm and twisting with his right hand. Water spurted from the bottle, soaking his shirt, but he didn’t care.

  He took a long swig of the icy drink. He’d done it. He’d beaten BlackTech’s security.

  “Dayum!”

  He swigged the water again and swished it around in his mouth before he swallowed it. His throat was always dry these days. Something about the nerve damage, they said. He finished the bottle and tossed it across the room into the trash can, hitting the opening on the first try.

  “You’re on a roll, Scorpio,”
he said aloud, with a smile. “Let’s see what kind of national treasures Mackenzie has stored on here, shall we?”

  He returned to his seat, pulled up the contents of the flash drive, and opened the first file.

  All the color drained from his face.

  CHAPTER 25

  Friday, February 11

  5:25 p.m.

  Rapid City, South Dakota

  At his age, after all the things he’d done, Scorpio would have said new and delightful life experiences were over. But the thrill of finding the flash drive, knowing how it would change his life, was one such surprise.

  “Excellent,” he muttered under his breath.

  Extreme porn had significant retail value on the dark web, and Mackenzie’s films were a treasure trove of potential cash. Scorpio was beyond pleased.

  The drive contained video files numbered one through nine-hundred-eighty-six. Which left some storage room for more films in the future. All the files were dated in European-style, months first followed by day and year.

  The production company was identified with a logo that looked like an old-fashioned dancing couple dressed in costumes. The logo reminded him of Slavic folk dancers of some kind. German or Polish or Czech, perhaps. The logo would be traceable, so he’d change it.

  Each video film had a cutesy title, too, which made them seem tamer than they were. Just in case the FBI or Interpol came sniffing around. Things like Frank and Joe Do Paris seemed harmless enough.

  He watched enough of the first file to be sure he had a marketable commodity. Then he opened another at random. Marianne and the Teacher’s Pet was dated last summer.

  He watched the opening credits, a few minutes of the beginning, skipped through to the middle for several minutes, and then to the end. Where the murder happened. His stomach churned. Disgusting.