by J. D. German
He unfolded the dark green coveralls. They were well-worn with a few smudges of dirt and grease on them. He checked the pocket and found half a dozen patches for different types of service companies. He chose one that said “Professional Plumbers, Inc.” and stuck it on the Velcro square above the breast pocket. He pulled out a John Deere ball cap and tried it on. With the bill pulled down low, hotel security cameras wouldn’t be able to capture his face.
Jack packed his suitcase, computer, and the leather bag and took them down to the truck. He wanted to be able leave quickly if something went wrong.
At 7:50 Jack stuck the key card in the lock of room 342. He showed up a little early to catch the guy off guard, in case he was planning a surprise for Jack. He opened the door to an empty room and announced himself “Maintenance, here to fix your clogged drain.” No answer. Jack headed through the bedroom to the bathroom to “fix the drain” and stopped in his tracks. There was a body on the floor. He checked the pulse to see if the guy was alive. He was definitely dead, but his body was still warm. From the marks on his neck he was probably strangled with something thin, maybe a piano wire. Good way to kill someone. No blood, no screams.
There was no wallet or other ID on him. As Jack studied the face, he realized he recognized him. It was the inside accomplice on the Shiloh mission. The one Jack had blackmailed to get the door combinations. A quick search of the room didn’t turn up anything he could use. There was a laptop charger on the desk, but no laptop. Whoever killed him must have taken it.
He finished his search in the bedroom and found an Ipad under the mattress, which he tucked it into his coveralls. After one last look around, Jack left the room and hurried down the back stairwell to the first floor landing, checking to be sure there were no security cameras. He stripped off his coveralls and hat and put them and the Ipad into a cloth bag he pulled from the inside pocket of the coveralls. He calmly opened the door to the parking garage and walked to his truck.
He turned right out of the parking garage and drove through traffic for awhile, making moves to shake a tail in case someone was following him. Where to now? He couldn’t go back to his mountain place because they would surely be watching that. To be safe he had to assume they might try to frame him for the murder, so he had to get out of this area.
He joined the late commuter traffic on I-95 south and drove a couple hundred miles. There weren’t any roadblocks, so the police weren’t involved yet. If “they” weren’t trying to frame him, they may have removed the body themselves.
He took the next exit onto a country road and drove 10 miles until he found a small town and stopped at the Appalachian Trails motel. These local motels kept their guest lists on the office computer, so his location wouldn’t show up on the central computer of a hotel chain. He paid cash in advance for a three-day stay stay, but he didn’t intend to stay that long. He had to stay under their radar now.
He got some carry-out food from the motel restaurant and settled into his room to see what the Ipad had to tell him. He pulled it out, put black tape over the selfie camera so he couldn’t be seen or recorded, and turned it on. Of course the guy had it password protected, and it’s not likely to be an easy one to crack. He didn’t know the guy’s name, birthday, or address – the most commonly used passwords. The dead guy’s involvement in the Shiloh mission might be a clue, so he typed in “Shiloh” and bingo, he got in.
The screen wasn’t as cluttered as his was; there were only six file folders with alpha-numeric names – letters followed by numbers. One jumped out at him; JJP112312. Those were his initials and the date he was assigned the mission that was still open in the FRA files. He opened it and found the complete FRA records of his classified operation. Somehow, this dead guy had the file Jack was trying to hack out of the Agency.
Everything was there – his name, dates, location of the target file he was assigned to steal, who he delivered them to – everything except what was in that file. He clicked on the “Status” tab and the box “Mission Complete Date” wasn’t filled in. A footnote read “Final disposition of this mission file awaiting evaluation of long-term effectiveness.” Another piece of information he didn’t know was where the assignment came from originally. Who directed the Agency to carry out the mission? He clicked the “Background” tab and, in the “Authorized by” space, there was one word: “Hermetrius.” Jack knew of no one in the Agency or elsewhere with that name. It must be a code name for someone high enough up to get the Agency to do its bidding.
Jack turned his attention to the other five other files. The dates all matched up with his list of open files he got from the Darknet. The first one, AER031513, must be for mission initiated on March 15th 2013. Who was AER? He opened the file and found out; Alan Edward Richardson. His mission was similar to Jack’s – break into the records room of a company, in Richardson’s case Caspian Industries, and exchange some files. He opened each of the other files on the Ipad and found the same pattern – sneak into a Government contractor facility, remove some records, replace them with a new file, and deliver the stolen files to an Agency operative. The “Status” on all of them read “Final disposition of this mission file awaiting evaluation of long-term effectiveness.” And all five were authorized by Hermetrius. The missions, starting with his, covered a six month period from November 2012 to May 2013.
He didn’t know what all this was about, but if the dead guy, the informant Jack used to get into his target, Silicon Software, gave his life to deliver this information, it must be important. Important enough to get him killed. Jack rummaged through his memories of that mission for the name of the informant . . . Steve . . . Steve Adkins, that was it. He searched online and got a bunch of hits from lots of men named Steve Adkins. He narrowed his search by adding San Jose, CA, the location of Silicon Software, and got a single hit – Steven Thomas Akins. He dipped into the Darknet to get more details and found that he worked for Silicon Software, was married to a woman named Susan, and had two children. So that’s who the dead guy was.
He wondered if his death had been reported to his wife or his employer. He started with a call to the switchboard at Silicon Software and asked to be connected with Steve Adkins. The operator connected him and he listened to a dozen rings before he hung up. Next he tried Susan Akins at the home phone number listed in Whitepages.com. She picked up on the third ring and he asked if Steve was home.
“No, he’s out of town on business, but he’ll be back tonight. Can I take a message?”
“No, I’ll try his cell phone,” Jack answered and hung up.
So by tomorrow morning the cat will be out of the bag. Steve’s employer and his wife would realize he’s missing and law enforcement would have to get involved. Jack wondered how Steve’s killers would handle it. Would they dispose of the body? Or stage a car fatal crash? Those ligature marks on his neck would be hard to hide, so they will either have to get rid of the body, or leave it in the hotel room . . . or wherever they dumped his body, and let the police sort it out..
However they did it, the Alexandria police will start a search for the killer. If Akins had registered at the Hyatt using his real identity, it won’t take them long to look at surveillance tapes and see the maintenance man enter and leave his room. By matching that up with parking garage surveillance of vehicles that left about that time, the police would probably start looking for a truck like his. He had put fake plates on the truck and used one of his false IDs to check in, but if they know what the vehicle looks like they may put out an BOLO, be-on-the-look-out, based on the vehicle description. It will be time to move first thing in the morning.
When he came back from supper he scanned the parking lot for any suspicious vehicles but nothing unusual stood out. A young couple walked out of he restaurant and went into the room next to his, but he saw nothing to be suspicious of.
He hadn’t planned beyond tomorrow. The two-lane highway through town headed west up into the mountains and wound its way through West V
irginia and on through Kentucky. He didn’t expect anyone to be watching the small, remote highways, so he would stick to the back roads for awhile. As he tried to get to sleep he heard the couple next door talking. The wall was thick enough to keep him from understanding the conversation, but it was enough to keep him from sleep. They finally quieted down, so they were probably going to sleep.
Jack was almost asleep when he heard them again. This time they weren’t talking, but it was clear what they were doing. He made a mental note to look for motels with cement block walls from now on.
He was wide awake again. What he heard brought back the memories of Helen on their honeymoon. That part of their relationship stayed solid right up until she was killed by a drunk driver. He hadn’t realized how much he missed the physical side of their relationship. He pulled his mind away from those thoughts and looked for something else to think about. Lynn Martin came to mind. Since he was still wide awake he decided to check for a new email from her.
Hello Jack,
The pickle experiment was dazzling. Flashes of green, orange, and yellow accompanied by snap, crackle, and pop! We all loved it. We took a bite out of the pickle, but a hot pickle isn’t as good s a cold one.
Sorry to hear about your wife. I lost two sisters before I got out of high school. The reason we moved to Florida in 10th grade was because my sister Betsy died and left two kids in grade school. No one else could take care of them so I moved into Betsy’s house and raised the kids. I didn’t have much of a social life, but I’ve always been a caretaker so raising the boys was rewarding. I did get some excitement at the race track in high school. I had a ’57 Chevy that I drove in drag races on Saturday nights.
I do remember your friend, Carl. He was so short and you were so tall they used to call you two Mutt and Jeff, after the cartoon characters. I remember the lunch room, too. My friends and I danced in there at lunch hour every day. It was called Dance ‘n Eat. They didn’t have anything like that in the Florida high school, so lunch times were boring there.
If you are ever out this way, let me know and maybe we can get together.
Lynn
Jack thought ‘Well, she passed the test of knowing trivia from high school, so she must be for real. It would be fun to get together and talk over old times.’
Hi Lynn,
I’m glad you all found the pickle experiment entertaining. I have several other fun experiments I did with my boys when they were young. One of their favorites was making tiny rockets out of paper matches. My grandson did a science fair project on that one. My boys also liked to make their race cars for the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. I worked out the physics of the ideal car design for them and they won most of their races.
I don’t get to see them often because of the distance between us, but when the families all get together we have fun recounting all our adventures (and misadventures – the ones their mom wasn’t told about.) Now that I’m semi-retired maybe I can find more time to visit them.
If I’m on the road out your way I’ll let you know and maybe we can have lunch.
Jack
Jack woke up before dawn and headed west. He watched for headlights following him out of town but the road was empty. In his dirty, outdated pickup truck he wouldn’t stand out in the back country towns, so there wasn’t much chance whoever was after him would find him.
Chapter 7
George Jenkins called his Blackworth team into his office for an update on locating Jack Preston.
“O.K., where are we? Any new leads since he got away from us at the Hyatt?”
Frank Wright answered “Not a thing. We added more helicopter flights looking for his truck but no luck. I think he’s long gone from the Washington D.C. area.”
“How about the woman in the emails we intercepted? Any progress in locating her, Ed?”
“We have identified 23 women named Lynn Martin living in the Rocky Mountain area, and that’s just in the U.S. We could extend the search up into the Canadian Rockies, but we have no assurance he’s even headed that way. Once he left his cabin we had no way of intercepting his emails. We could stake out the 23 Lynn Martins we found and see how many redheads there are, but that’s not in the budget.”
George said “I checked with the client and there will be more money coming in the morning. With nothing else to go on let’s break up into three teams and stake out their homes to see who can spot a redhead.”
“We’ll fly out to Denver first thing tomorrow and start the search.”
#
Jack got all the way to Memphis before he stopped again. He was back on the Interstate Highways now and made better time. He grabbed some dinner to go and stopped at another no-name hotel for the night.
After he showered he tuned through the TV news channels looking for anything that he ought to know. Nothing of interest showed up, so He opened his laptop and checked the Washington papers for any news about the murder at the Hyatt. Nothing there either. He remembered that Steve Adkins lived in San Jose, so he checked the obituaries from there. Nothing. He expanded the search to nationwide obituaries in case Susan had taken the body somewhere else for burial, but he still got nothing. ‘Does Susan even know her husband is dead? If they hadn’t told her yet, how were they keeping her from calling missing persons? They must have come up with a cover story so she wouldn’t worry.’
As he lay down to sleep his cell phone dinged with a text message. It was from Bob Kendrick!
“Jack. After you answer this text, wait 10 minutes and I’ll call you. Switch your phone to the encrypted mode before you answer.”
Jack texted back “How did you know I’ve been trying to reach you, Bob?”
“I have tracking software that lets me know when anyone searches for my name on the internet. Then I backtrack it to the source.”
“How do I know it’s really you?”
“My wife’s sisters name is Phoebe. You’ve met her.”
“O.K. Call in 10 minutes.”
Jack switched his phone to encrypted, turned on his laptop to take notes, and waited. He picked it up on the first ring. “Bob?”
“Yeah. I want to make this short. What do you need, Jack?”
“I had a mission a couple of years ago code named Shiloh. I went into a company, removed some files, and replaced them with fakes. Now it’s come up again and I need to know what it was about. It was authorized by Hermetrius, whoever that is. I’ve found five other missions that may be related.”
“Jack, you’re into something pretty deep . . . and dangerous. Hermetrius is bad news. You don’t want him after you.”
“I think he already is. A surveillance team has been on my tail for several days, but I shook them.”
“O.K. Jack. Give me until 6 a.m. and I’ll contact you again. Do you have VPN, Virtual Private Network, on your computer? I would rather communicate with encrypted emails.”
“Yes. My VPN email address is [email protected]. I also have a dozen untraceable throw away cell phones if we need them. But who is Hermetrius, what’s his real name?”
“No one knows. He’s known by his reputation as someone who will do anything to get what he wants.”
“I’ll look for your e-mail, Bob.”
Jack knew this situation was serious when the body showed up, but it’s sounding like there’s more at stake than he thought. He’d have to keep his mental ‘radar’ cranked up to full power.
At 6 the next morning he was already at his computer waiting for Bob’s email. By 6:30 he hadn’t heard from Bob so he called Bob’s phone. He got a recording saying that number was no longer in service. What was going on? Did Bob bail out on him? Did the name Hermetrius scare him off?
By 6:45 he was about to give up when Bob’s email came in.
Sorry I’m late Jack. There were some hackers trying to get into my system early this morning so I had to trace the thread back and dump multiple viruses on their systems. They won’t be hacking any time soon, but I’m worried that it’s go
t to do with my digging around in the Agency’s data base last night. They backtracked on my links trying to identify me, but that will never happen. I wrote my own antihacking program that is way above their expertise. It let’s me know when someone is trying to hack into me, then sends them off on a wild goose chase to somewhere else. I can even divert their hacking attack to the White House, where the NSA will locate them within 15 minutes and sick the black helicopters on them. I’m saving that one for when I really need it.
Here’s what I found, Jack. The six missions weren’t about stealing some files, they were about putting files with false information in their place. I don’t know what the false information is or whether it was the same for all six missions. That’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll keep digging.
Bob
Jack sat back and wondered what to do next. He had to find a way to get ahead of whoever was after him, but he had run out of ideas. He decided to sleep on it and see if he had any new thoughts in the morning. He woke up out of a dream at 3 a.m. with the answer. He was dreaming about being chased by zombies and he had to break into their lair to get the secret to defeating them. That was his next move! He would break back into Silicon Systems and look at the file he left there. There must be something in it that will tell him what’s going on.
He didn’t go back to sleep. Now that he had a plan he was anxious to get moving. He checked his map and saw that he could make Albuquerque in 14 hours, spend the night, then head up to San Jose for another 16 hours. He would plan the break-in while he was driving. He still remembered the codes to the rear entry door and to the file room that he used to get in to the company the first time. With a little luck they won’t have been changed.
Two days later Jack pulled into a hotel two blocks from Silicon Systems headquarters. He pick this one because Google Earth showed that there was nothing but scrub brush from the back of the hotel to the rear fence of the headquarters grounds. He could do the entire mission on foot from the hotel. He would scout out a path and get a look at the fence in the morning and make his entry tomorrow night. That would give him a day to hack into their security system and find the routes and timing of the guards making their rounds.