The CleanSweep Conspiracy

by Chuck Waldron

  “There’s more traffic than I expected. If I can get to the left without calling attention to us, there’s another road off to the right we can take—not far. I can take back streets from there.”

  He turned on the lights and drove as Susan held on. Carl turned corners faster than she thought was safe.

  “I’m lost,” she said.

  “Almost there.”

  Carl’s forehead was creased in concentration. He made a turn to the left, and they saw the sign for Tilson Avenue.

  “There it is!” Susan yelled and pointed to the left.

  Carl slowed the truck as they coasted past the sign for Tiny Tots Day Care Center.

  “That’s so sad,” Susan said. “The windows are all covered with newspapers.”

  Carl didn’t say anything about that. He spotted a lane ahead, between two buildings. “I think that leads to the alley in back. I’d just as soon get off the street anyway.”

  He drove back between a hardware store and a convenience store, reaching the lane. He turned right next, driving a short distance until he saw a sort of alcove just wide enough for them to park in behind the day care. “I can’t believe it! I think we’ve made it,” he said, his shoulders sagging in relief.

  They got out of the truck and stretched. It was dusk, but there was just enough ambient light to illuminate the electrical panel. Carl pulled open the rusty panel door. It sounded like it was screaming as it opened. He reached in and pulled the tape away from a key.

  “That could really use some spray lubricant.”

  He motioned with his head as he inserted the key into the back door. They stepped through, locking it behind them. Light from the street pierced the newsprint-lined front windows, casting the interior of the building in an unnatural glow. They saw randomly strewn toys, along with an assortment of tables and overturned chairs. It was an indication of the haste with which the owners had vacated the place.

  One of the front windows was cracked, and the gusting wind was trying to find a way into the room. One of the newspaper corners flapped in protest.

  Susan was tough, but she appreciated it when Carl turned to her. He pulled her close and drew her head to his shoulder, stroking her hair with his other hand.

  “Whatever happens, I love you with all my heart,” Carl whispered.

  CHAPTER 38

  Breaking News

  “How long do we wait?”

  Carl was walking back from the bathroom when Susan asked him that question. He looked at his watch.

  “It hasn’t even been an hour yet.”

  He helped Susan up from the floor.

  “I’ve had softer beds,” she grimaced. Rubbing her left arm with her right hand, she leaned to stretch her back. “Thanks for letting me sleep. What time is it?”

  “Almost half past three,” Carl said. “There hasn’t been any traffic at all, maybe a car or two and a delivery truck. None of them stopped, though. I don’t—”

  The quiet was shattered by the back door opening and slamming shut. Matt stepped out of the shadows and looked around, adjusting to the light. He gestured them over.

  “You have to hear this,” he said, holding his phone out. He put it on speaker.

  “This just in to 520 News. Police have not confirmed the identity, but Matthew Tremain, a popular investigative journalist, apparently jumped to his death from a midtown condominium roof earlier this evening. Detective Wallace Carling is quoted as saying he thinks it was a suicide, but he won’t issue a formal statement until later today. A witness said the body was damaged beyond recognition, but our reporter saw the police detective removing a wallet from the jumper. Tremain has not been posting on his blog lately, and there have been rumors that he has been getting treatment for depression.”

  “Freaking unbelievable,” Matt sputtered. “You guys will never believe what I just had to do.” He turned the radio off and started to cry—a muffled sobbing. “It was awful, let me tell you.”

  Matt began to shake and turned away, walking to the front of the room and back, pacing and crying.

  Carl and Susan looked at each other and shrugged as if trying to make sense of what they were hearing and seeing. Susan started to say something, but Carl motioned for her to hold her questions. They waited for Matt to wind down. Finally, he turned to them.

  “Carling had this crazy-ass plan. Then he called a friend of his, Scotty. It turns out that Scotty has a contact at the morgue. They have these thick plastic bags to carry corpses. Look at these clothes I’m wearing. They’re not my clothes, not even close. They belong to a dead guy I helped carry…”

  “PTSD,” Carl said. “Posttraumatic—”

  “I know what PTSD is,” Susan said, her voice raised in challenge.

  Matt walked up to the front window and pulled back the corner of a newspaper taped there. He peered out through the opening and finally turned around.

  “It was beyond crazy.” His voice was now under some control.

  “Who’s Scotty again?” Susan asked.

  Matt filled them in on the close call at his apartment building. He told them about Clifford leaving his apartment and hiding in the basement until Carling arrived. He told them how the two of them escaped through the coal chute and hid in the garage, even managing a half laugh as he described Carling’s version of projectile vomiting.

  “It was an outstanding display,” he said.

  He told them about how they had made their way to the reservoir park and met up with Scotty.

  “He’s another cop, one Carling trusts,” Matt added. “You wouldn’t believe the plan Carling came up with.”

  Carl and Susan didn’t remind him that he was repeating himself; they just waited.

  “We went to the morgue. Some crazy woman let us in and showed us which drawer to open. When we slid this one out, a naked guy was lying there with his arms crossed. It was just like they show it on TV or in a movie. I stripped and was embarrassed to be standing there in front of the morgue woman, but that wasn’t all. His clothes, the dead guy’s, were on a shelf. I put his stuff on, and we put my clothes on the shelf, and then the woman, Marsha—” Matt took a deep breath.

  “She handed me these clothes. I had an unnerving feeling wearing them,” he said as he pointed at his outfit, “knowing they came from a dead guy. Anyway, Scotty gave her some money, and we put the dead man, dressed in my clothes, into a body bag. It made quite a sound when it was zipped shut. Then Carling said he had to go, and he disappeared like a cat. That left Scotty and me to carry the body bag out to a van. Then it got really weird. We drove to this condominium, and Scotty used his key card to get us in. All cops seem to have masters.

  “We took a service elevator to the roof and unzipped the bag. I held the body by the feet, and Scotty held it under the shoulders. Scotty waited until his radio chirped, a preordained signal, and we crab-walked to the edge of the roof and just threw the body over the side. Then he drove me here and took off. I don’t…”

  Matt had told the story at a jackhammer pace. Now it fell quiet. Nobody spoke.

  Finally, it Susan’s chimed in. “That’s the suicide they’re reporting on the news,” she said. It wasn’t a question. “That’s absolutely diabolical. It’s brilliant. You’re now officially dead,” she said, pointing at Matt.

  “I could use a little help here!” Carling was outside the back door of the day care, kicking it to get their attention. “A little help here!” he yelled again.

  Carl rushed to the door and saw the detective with a large brown bag in one hand and a tray of coffee cups balanced in the other. “I figured you guys could use some nourishment.”

  “Oh my god,” Susan said. She stepped forward and took the tray of cups. “You’re a lifesaver!”

  Carling reached in his jacket pocket and handed over creamers and sugar packets. Carl held up his hand to help carry them. Su
san took one, and Carl noticed that her hand shook as she tore a corner from the sugar package and dumped it into her cup.

  While they were drinking, Carling walked over to a small table and began laying out breakfast sandwiches and donuts. The scene was surreal: Carl, Susan, and Matt all sat on child-size chairs, munching their breakfasts in an abandoned day-care center, with the morning light a gauzy-beige as it filtered through the newsprint taped to the storefront windows.

  Yes, Matt thought, Alice would be right at home here.

  Carling perched on a desk and lit a cigarette, waving the smoke away from his face as he inhaled. “My first smoke in seven years,” he said, ignoring Susan’s scowl.

  “Did you hear the news report?” he finally asked.

  They nodded.

  “I made sure I was the first responder on the scene. It wasn’t a problem. Great job with the body, by the way,” he said, looking at Matt. “I know it wasn’t an easy thing for you to do. It made quite a mess of the John Doe. His face was smashed up pretty bad, but that was the plan, eh?”

  He took a long draw on his smoke and exhaled slowly, puffing rings into the air. “I did feel sorry for the woman who saw the body hit the ground. She was pretty shaken up by it all. I made sure everyone saw me take your wallet from the body,” Carling said. He laughed at Matt’s surprise as he handed it back over now. “I don’t need it anymore. Sorry—I spent your money.”

  Carling went on, “Then I called Marsha. She was driving the van from the medical examiner’s office. She parked a few blocks away, as directed, and arrived in a rush. I think she wanted to get the body back to the drawer as soon as possible, before the morning shift came on duty. I heard a few sharp-elbow comments from the brass about the speed of my investigation, but everyone seemed pleased to be rid of Matt Tremain.” He smiled at Matt’s discomfort.

  “What’s next?” Carl asked.

  Susan stood up so fast her coffee cup turned on edge; the remaining liquid drained off the table and spilled into a rapidly widening puddle on the floor. “I’ve had enough of this crap.”

  The three men looked at her.

  “We have our evidence now.” She looked to her left and said, “Carl has our investigation recorded on media cards. Matt, you have your stuff. Then we got the final bit: we made contact with Ulrich. It all adds up. It’s time to go public. I dated a guy once—you might say we were more than good friends. He’s a major talent at World News Network now. Oh, don’t give me that look, Carl,” she said with a laugh. “WNN will make sure this goes viral. We need a way to get this to him somehow.”

  They turned when Carling began speaking. He was holding his police-issue radio. He raised it up next to a fluorescent light fixture and clicked the Transmit button.

  “I just saw the TV reporter and her camera guy…” He held the radio over his head while he said it. “They’re driving a red Camry and heading west…on Lakeshore.” There was more static. Then he clicked the Transmit button off and back on. “I can’t keep up with the car. They’re west of the city—heading toward the old refinery at…”

  He started a chuckle that turned into a belly laugh when he heard another, similar, report a minute later. “That’s Scotty. He’s also claiming he saw some people that looked like you two.” He pointed to Susan and Carl. “We just sent them chasing your shadows. A clever diversion, wouldn’t you say? Now we’ll find out how much time we just bought.”

  He began to laugh at his own fluorescent-bulb prank. “That’s an old trick. When I saw the tube flickering I knew it would cause static, make it seem like my radio message was breaking up.”

  They heard radio traffic escalating. “All units respond. CleanSweep, please be advised. All cars, this is a red alert.” The frequency was buzzing with calls and clicks.

  When they realized what Carling had just done, the other three breathed a collective sigh of relief.

  “Absolutely fucking brilliant,” Susan said.

  Carl looked at her from the side. In all the time he had worked with her, he had never heard her use the f-word.

  CHAPTER 39

  Claussen, We Have a Problem

  Charles Claussen was used to being in total control. He’d built his financial empire on a foundation of self-control, demanding the same from people he hired. He couldn’t think of many mistakes he’d made in choosing personnel, and he considered himself a master at reading potential in his hires. Now he realized he had made two very wrong hires in his career: Tanner Woodson and Angela Vaughn.

  He turned his chair toward the window and stared south, out over the lake. Inky, angry clouds and waves rearing back as if recoiling from the wind. It suggested the CleanSweep whirlwind now blowing toward him. It was a view that typically gave him pleasure. Today, however, he couldn’t see anything except turmoil—or worse. It was represented what he dreaded most of all: failure.

  Angela Vaughn had let him down. He had no way of knowing who was infiltrating CleanSweep’s communications and security.

  Who is the hacker helping Matt Tremain, Susan Payne, and Carl Remington to evade capture?

  He didn’t know, but he recognized the genius it took. Claussen had designed a masterful surveillance system that relied on the newest computer technology. Despite that, the three had slipped under the radar.

  He had no way of finding anything out about Cyberia. Claussen had created an impregnable electronic wall, but it was a wall with a back door. A key to that door, provided by Tanner, had allowed the hacker access. Claussen knew Tanner was a traitor, but he was now beginning to fully realized how complete the damage was.

  It felt easier to blame Angela Vaughn.

  As he sat looking out the window, he was subdued. He felt reluctant to accept what needed to be done. He had to pick up the phone and call his coconspirators. He had promised them the future, and they had put their collective financial and personal reputations on the line. Now the memory of his glowing media presentation at Winston’s lodge near Lion’s Head haunted him.

  How quickly the CleanSweep plan is unraveling!

  Something else was bothering him even more. He’d never told the others he had a sort of second mortgage on CleanSweep—another group of backers. Having to inform them of that felt far more chilling than the fact the program itself was in danger.

  When additional funding was needed, Claussen made discreet inquiries using the Dark Net. It had led him to a secret world and a small group with more money than Charles and his coconspirators combined. They readily loaned him the money, but demanded collateral. The loan was secured by Claussen’s holdings—and his life. It was a contract Faust would recognize—a contract signed in blood.

  After the launch, the rioting had gone as planned, and soon CleanSweep was cleansing the city of undesirables.

  It had been going so…His thoughts trailed off. He knew his beloved plan was now going off the rails.

  He swiveled around and looked at three photographs on a nearby bookshelf. He frowned at his wife’s photo as he thought of her weight problem. He considered the second photo, which showed the faces of his two children. He was proud of their Teutonic features; the older son would have been a poster boy for Hitler’s Germany. He turned to the last photograph, the one of his grandfather.

  It was all for you, he thought, his eyes blurring. Especially for you, mein Grossvater.

  Claussen opened the mahogany box on his lap. Its brass plate was engraved with a monograph of a double eight. The numbers were chosen in honor of his hero. The eighth letter of the alphabet was H, so the 88 stood for HH: Herr Hitler.

  Claussen placed the box on a side table. He opened the top and looked at the weapon resting on the felt lining. It was a gift given to his grandfather, reportedly by the famous gun maker Georg Luger himself. His grandfather had given it to Claussen on his sixteenth birthday. It was a .9mm pistol, and Claussen cleaned it at the end of each day before ret
urning it to its box.

  The pistol exerted a mystical power over Claussen.

  “Angela Vaughn,” he hissed, saying the name out loud. “This is entirely your fault. If only you…”

  He quickly closed the lid and turned to the telephone. Claussen initiated a conference call and waited for Waverly, Spencer, and his one true friend, Winston, to answer.

  “Charles?” It was Winston who spoke first. The steely, questioning tone he used to voice the name was unmistakable.

  “Spencer here. What’s up? Why the call? You said we shouldn’t talk like this.”

  “Waverly is in some committee meeting. I ordered him called out; he should be with us shortly,” Claussen said, trying to keep his voice modulated with calm.

  “Is something wrong?” As Claussen suspected, Winston was the one to guess there was a problem.

  He didn’t want to say anything until all of them were on at the same time.

  “What’s so important?” Waverly’s voice broke in, sounding breathless. “You had me called out of a critical meeting.”

  Claussen hesitated, unsure of how to begin. He decided that the best way was to be direct. “There’s no way to sugarcoat this,” he started. “We have a problem—”

  “What do you mean by we?” It was Winston who interrupted, and Claussen didn’t like the chill in his voice.

  “That blogger got wind of what we were planning with CleanSweep. I thought we had him neutralized, but he connected with that TV reporter, Susan Payne. They started digging around, and…”

  The line was silent except for a slight electronic hum. Nobody spoke. Claussen could hear them breathing.

  “I put my security team on them. They were ordered to confiscate any incriminating evidence, verification, or proof that Tremain and Payne may have uncovered. We never had a clue how slippery they would prove to be. We got close, but…”