“What are you doing?” moaned Felix, ambling to the screen door in his bare feet. “You’re a cop again!”
“I need some more information,” said Bob, hurrying past Felix as soon as the hacker got the latch open. “Quick and easy for a pro like you.”
“OK if I get dressed?” asked Felix, rubbing his unshaven face. “Civilized people do it.”
Bob glanced at the pink boxer shorts that were the only garment the scrawny Felix was wearing and said he, too, would feel better if the hacker got dressed.
“You must have seen the papers these last few days,” said Bob through the open bedroom door while Felix found some semi-clean clothes to put on. “The way things are falling out, I mean.”
“I don’t read anything but the Net,” confessed Felix. “I know what you’re talking about.”
By the time Felix had thrown on a t-shirt and jeans, Bob had already seated himself in front of the new computer Felix had placed on a card table inside the cluttered space that made up most of his house.
“You brought me some money?” he asked Bob.
“Five hundred dollars for an hour’s work.”
“Which is...?”
“Find out if Erin Mondragon has any private boats or planes close to the Bay area, and where he keeps them.”
“That’s ten minutes work.”
“Then I’ll pay you a hundred dollars.”
“When you buy my work,” said Felix, pushing Bob from the chair so he could boot up, “you have to think quality, not time.”
In fact Felix needed only to access two supposedly secure State of California sites, for which he already had the passwords in the black binder he kept next to the keyboard. “In case any of your old friends ask you,” he told Bob, “you didn’t see me do that. Here it is,” he pointed to a column of information scrolling down his screen. “He has a little boat, a twenty-four footer, docked way down in El Granada.”
“He won’t try to sail that all the way to a country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S.,” said Bob. “What’s that on the bottom?” and pointed to a line on the monitor.
“It means old Erin has taken his boat out five times in ten years,” said Felix. “He uses it strictly for parties, so he’s not exactly a sailor boy.”
“Any planes?”
A few clicks later and Felix was inside the FAA’s extremely secure data base. “An Airstream Lear at the Half Moon Bay Airport, likewise down by El Granada, below Moss Beach,” read Felix. “Hey, our boy is a licensed pilot no less. For another five hundred I can tell you how many times he’s been up in the past year. Hey, Buddy?”
He saw the money Bob had left for him on the table, and he turned around in time to see the screen door slam shut.
CIII
01/16/11 06:30 PST
With steam rising from his mouth, Special Agent Robert Fuller called his command together in the parking lot of the Motel Six off the Eastshore Freeway in Richmond, California, early on Monday morning. He made sure every FBI man and Bay area policeman assigned to him had one cup of coffee, two jelly-filled pastries, and an eight ounce bottle of orange juice while they shivered in the damp cold of another cloudy day. Fuller said to his second in command that he knew how men on stakeout tended to forget to eat, and he wanted every one of his people to have something in his stomach; twenty-three years in the Bureau had taught him the importance of a sated stomach to an alert mind.
“Listen up, people,” he said to the crowd of one hundred and eighty men and women.
“I am only going to say this once--anyone leaving or entering the Mondragon Building is suspect. After we go on site, everyone in or out of the building will be stopped and identified. Uniformed personnel on the ground will make themselves visible to civilians in the area. Everyone else stationed in observation posts around the Mondragon Building and on the street will remain alert and will get on the radio if they see anything out of the ordinary.
“Help each other, people. Leave your two-ways on. Watch out for each other. Drink lots of coffee. Nobody goes to the john until you have a replacement, and each new shift comes on scene every eight hours at midnight, eight, and four o’clock sharp. Two uniformed people at every doorway, including the parking garage. Now, there are going to be lots of people on Market Street. I do not, let me repeat that, I do not want any kooks or any goddamned journalists sneaking inside. People watching from observation posts in surrounding buildings will have a better view of things; if you are in those positions, you will have to stay on the horn to everybody on the ground. Understand?”
Agent Fuller did not have to tell the agents and policemen why he was there rather than Agent Dollworth, the man who had been in charge until Friday. Agent Dollworth was not, as he himself had feared, currently commanding the Fairbanks office but was in the more remote office in Nome, where he oversaw a force that included one other agent and two teams of Huskies. With only five years left before his retirement, Fuller did not intend to take a similar position.
“When the United States Postal delivery man arrives on scene,” continued Agent Fuller, “you will recognize either Agent Mitchell or Agent DuPray as their companions,” and he pointed out two FBI men dressed as postmen. “We do not have such control over private delivery organizations. The real United Parcel man will be a civilian,” he said, pronouncing the word “civilian” with disdain. “Keep an eye on these people in the brown uniforms. Do not allow them more than fifteen minutes inside the facilities. They take longer, uniformed personnel outside the parking garage will go looking for them. We have warned the company not to let their employees malinger.
“Now, the suspect has a proclivity for Chinese cuisine. Whenever he orders take-out, either Agent Lee or Agent Andrews will bring the food inside the building. Look at these faces, memorize them, do not mistake them for anyone else. We have a sheet of photographs of our four agents and of the six UPS men who might bring packages into the observed site. Note, people: no one else goes in unless we know who they are. Identities will be given out on a need to know basis. One more unpleasant thing: Mr. Mondragon--forgive me for mentioning this, ladies.--the suspect has the habit of soliciting prostitutes to come to his quarters. Women from escort services will not be allowed in the building. Prostitution is illegal, even in San Francisco.”
Agent Fuller glanced at this notebook to see if he left anything out. “I nearly forgot,” he said. “There is the matter of the New American Laundry, which makes irregular trips to the Mondragon Building, if the suspect has any dry cleaning. Mr. Clyde McBean is the regular driver on the Market Street route; should he enter the Mondragon Building, he will be accompanied by Agent Charles Anderson, also dressed as a laundry worker. Please step forward, Agent Anderson, and identify yourself.”
A man dressed in blue coveralls stepped in front of the crowd and took a shallow bow as an actor would do at curtain call.
“Very good, Mr. Anderson,” said Agent Fuller out the side of his mouth. “Don’t milk the moment too much. Mr. Mondragon meets at least four times a week with his attorneys. He has more and more attorneys every week. There are fourteen of them at last count. That is up from the eleven he had last Friday. More should be expected by Wednesday. These are people who enjoy being on television. Expect them to attract a lot of cameras around the stakeout site. We have to tolerate it. First Amendment and all that freedom of speech crap. Your objective is to keep Mr. Mondragon from leaving with these legal beagles.”
Someone in the parking lot full of agents raised his hand.
“Yes?” asked Agent Fuller.
“What exactly, sir,” asked the man, “should we do if he does leave the building? We don’t have a warrant for his arrest. My understanding is he is free on bail. Can we legally detain him?”
“You will alert the special team on duty to follow him wherever he goes,” replied Agent Fuller.
Three teams of eighteen agents each, all of them clustered at the back of the lot, nodded to the others. Two men
in every team wore pilot jumpsuits, as they would be flying helicopters.
“You may be assured that, with the co-operation of local law enforcement, they will get on Mr. Mondragon's ass, until he either goes back to ground in his office or attempts to leave the state of California, in which instances we will indeed arrest him,” said Fuller. “Any more questions?”
No one wanted to say anything that would make them stand in the cold parking lot any longer than they already had.
“Now from my lips to your ears and no farther than that: the United States Department of Justice is trying to get Mr. Mondragon’s bail revoked this coming week. Until they can knock some sense into a certain federal judge’s head, you will stay at your postings, people,” Fuller told them. “Let’s get over to Frisco and get dug in, so to speak.”
CIV
01/16/11 20:07 PST
“I’ve seen the plane,” Bob told Felix Collins on the telephone. “It’s not in its hanger right now; they bring it in only for servicing. I saw it on the west side of the field.”
“That’s fascinating, buddy,” said Felix. “Listen, are you lonely or is there a reason you’re calling me? You’ve got a wife. Maybe you should give some thought to getting back to her.”
Bob hated calling from a public phone outside a grocery store; people were coming in and out the front door. He did not know who any of them were or what they might overhear.
“I was thinking earlier about calling you about a fake ID,” said Bob. “You were in the fake ID racket at one time, I recall.”
“I didn’t do time for that. If you don’t do time for something, you might as well have not done it.”
“Be that as it may,” said Mathers, “I picked one up in Richmond for a hundred dollars. It actually looks like me.”
“You phoned me to tell me this?” said Felix. and at that moment located at the side of his monitor the day-old piece of pizza he had been searching for since the day before; he took a bite and decided it still tasted good enough. “Think about that wife, chief. Nothing bothers computer guys. You guys used to married life and, you know, sex, do odd things like this when they’ve been alone too long--pestering me like this, for instance.”
“I called because I remembered you were involved in some sort of bomb making scheme on the Net. Kits one can assemble at home, I think. You did do time for that one.”
“Technically, no,” argued Felix, “That was the deal that taught me I should never do business with a crazy. All I did was make a web page for this militia guy who wanted to tell his brother loonies how to make bombs. How was I to know he was selling them these ready-to-assemble kits. I had nothing to do with that. Try telling that to the ATF; you just try talking any sense to those guys. Anyhow, I copped a plea, testified against the guy, and got an additional year in the joint for my troubles. The militia guy’s still doing time the last I heard.”
“Does this individual’s organization still operate a web site?” asked Bob.
“Not the one I did,” said Felix. “They have the same old information: how to make bombs, how to kill with a piece of electrical cord, how to make a shelter out of Popsicle sticks. It’s all on FiresforFree.org; no, its FiresofFreedom.org. That’s it. Why do you ask? You thinking about making a bomb, chief?”
“No, our friend Mr. M. makes bombs,” said Bob. “Manufactures his own plastique. I want to see how he does it.”
“OK, but keep your nose clean,” warned Felix. “I can’t afford to involved in anything illegal.”
CV
01/17/11 09:15 PST
“The job might not be much of a challenge for a man with your background, Mr. Stevenson,” said the personnel director of Half Moon Bay Airport to Bob.
The former deputy sheriff and policeman had moments before completed a fraudulent application and was about to be hired as a night security guard for the airfield under the false name of Franklin Stevenson. The phony driver’s license and forged letters of recommendation he had purchased the day before had helped him secure the position.
“I need a break from police work,” said Bob, glancing from the corner of his eye out the personnel director’s window at a sleek white Airstream Lear parked on the far side of the airfield. “A cop is on duty twenty-four hours; they can call you at any time.”
“You might sleepwalk through this,” said the director. “You have to work the parameter of the field, check the tower, log in on the computer at the end of each round so central control knows there’s nothing amiss. You’ll be pleased, or perhaps you’ll be displeased, when I tell you not much happens out here. We’re a long ways from the city.”
“Tell me, Hank—it’s all right if I call you Hank, isn’t it?”
“Certainly,” said the director. “We’re very informal here, Frank.”
“Tell me,” said Mathers as they left the office together and strolled toward the small airport tower, “those planes lined up on the north side of the field; they’re private planes?”
“The little red and white belongs to Roger Thornton; he’s sort of famous in an odd way, a daredevil skier and surfer.”
“Surfers down in L.A.,” recalled Bob, “they used to speak of Half Moon Bay as the
ultimate destination on the West Coast.”
“Yes,” said the director, “I understand it’s very dangerous. The strange experimental one, the one with the rear propeller, belongs to Ralph DeMuth, a big wheel in Silicon Valley. The two on the end belong to another software millionaire.”
“What about the big jet?”
“That belongs to Erin Mondragon,” said the director. “The Erin Mondragon. I’m sure you’ve heard about him on the news. He hasn’t been here for months. He used to fly it himself, never let anybody but our maintenance crew touch the contraption.”
“Really?”
Bob stopped at the tower door and looked back at the sleek profile of the Lear jet from its sweptback wings to its tapering fuselage. Of special interest to him was the small storage hatch near the tail. The small square door covering the hatch had an eyelet lock, one that an experienced policeman could easily find a way to open.
CVI
01/23/11 21:05 PST
Erin Mondragon refused to turn himself into a desperate man. Finding himself in a situation that would have seemed an escapable trap to another man, he had the sang froid to make detailed plans for a future everyone else in the world was doubting. Late Sunday night he sat at his grand office desk and charted a flight route to Sao Paolo, Brazil via a refueling stop near Mexico City. His Airstream could not make the full passage on a single tankful of fuel. Thankfully, he knew of some people south of the Mexican capital city who would allow him to land on their private strip and sell him whatever he needed; from there he would make one final eight hour flight to the land of samba and Sugarloaf. He knew enough Portuguese to order food in a four star restaurant and enough to solicit the favors of a woman. During his sojourn in South America Erin had discretely made contact with several Brazilian attorneys who could secure his freedom after he arrived in their country.
Weeks before, Mondragon had transferred fifteen million dollars into a subsidiary of Mondragon Corporation and then quietly moved the money into a Zurich account. He fretted to consider the frugal life he would be forced to lead with a mere fifteen million dollars to his name, He realized the dollar was currently strong and that the standard of living in Brazil was much lower than in the U.S., but still...
Would he be able to buy one of those fortified compounds on the outskirts of Sao Paulo where everybody who was anybody lived? And afford one of those helicopters other rich Brazilians used to fly over the dangerous barrios? What was the cost of a month of blondes? He pictured himself living in the quiet solitude of Sao Paolo’s street level cafes and tiny city parks, an outcast among the aging Nazi war criminals and fugitive drug dealers the city’s respectable rich kept at arm’s length.
It meant living in the shadows, slowly rebuilding his position until the day cam
e when he could leverage himself back to a level of real wealth. By chance on Saturday night he had watched a History Network documentary on the latter life of Dr. Mengele, the murderous physician of Auschwitz, and had seen how the old Angel of Death had hidden in South America for years, shifting from Argentina to Paraguay to Brazil and Bolivia, Israeli agents in pursuit until the day he drowned in a jungle river. Mondragon tried to put himself in Mengele’s place, tried to make himself a little apprehensive about his future. He realized he would land on his feet no matter in what circumstances he found himself. Mengele, he decided, was in the end merely another chump who started strong but did not know how to react when the rules of the game were altered. He, on the other hand, would do quite well in a new environment.
“Life is funny,” thought Mondragon, and while he realized the sentiment was trite he concluded that there was not much more that could be said on the subject. “It’s unfair that I must flee the country at the point in my life when I should be playing golf in Pebble Beach or fishing for bone fish off Boca Raton.”
Mondragon followed the line of his flight plan across his desk map, through Mexico and the Caribbean, to Brazil and then beyond the corner of his map to a photograph one of the security cameras in the parking garage had taken that afternoon. The picture showed the new delivery man for the Hong Lee Chinese restaurant in profile as he walked up the concrete steps leading to an interior entrance, a cluster of white cardboard boxes hanging from both his hands. Erin did not know the man’s name. He assumed--with good reason--that he was a federal agent. All the new faces Mondragon saw about the building this past week were surely those of federal agents. Mondragon ran his index finger across the outline of the man’s jaw; next he ran the same finger along his own jaw. The man was partly of European descent; his hair and skin were lighter than one might expect, and he was tall, a good four inches taller than Mondragon. Erin took out his pocket comb and tried parting his hair in the same manner as the man in the photograph.
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