The Devil's Interval

by Kevin Tumlinson

  “What kind of distance?” Denzel asked.

  Patel shook his head. “Hard to say. Several feet. Maybe as much as thirty feet away.”

  “What do you need?” Kotler asked.

  “My lab,” Patel said. “Everything I need is already there.”

  Kotler looked up at Denzel. “We need to get him back into that lab,” he said.

  “We will,” Denzel told him. “I’ll take him there myself.”

  Holden opened the door to the interrogation room in a rush. “You’d better hurry,” he said, huffing. “We just figured out what Bristol’s plan is, and it’s going down now!”

  “What is it?” Kotler asked, his stomach clenching from dread.

  “Ross Miller and Garrett Chandler are standing on the edge of the roof of the AMSL building, with a countdown timer being laser projected to the building across from them. It looks like they’re going to jump!”

  Chapter 24

  Peters met them in the lobby, having been contacted by Denzel as they rushed to the scene. They had to navigate through police lines and throngs of people standing around, watching. The barricades started a block away, and members of the Press were already pushing against them, looking for a comment.

  Holden had driven ahead of Denzel, his cherry light pulsing and his loud horn and siren doing a lot of the work of clearing people from their path. A squad car brought up the rear, having joined them en route.

  As Denzel, Kotler, and Patel exited Denzel’s car, it was like stepping into a lightning storm. Cameras flashed from thousands of photographers behind barricades at either end of the block. The front sidewalk of the building had been cleared of everyone but emergency crews.

  “What’s the sitrep?” Denzel asked the Fire Chief, who was directing his men.

  “No way we could break their fall enough to save them, from that height,” the Chief said, “but we’re rolling out the mats anyway.”

  Kotler saw that two large, inflatable mats had been brought from one of the trucks, and rolled open as air hoses were attached. They would be inflated in a moment, but it was clear they weren’t adequate to the task. At best, they’d prevent things from getting messy. From their current height, both men would reach terminal velocity quickly, and the momentum would make hitting those mats as good as hitting concrete.

  This was more about showing the public that they were doing everything they could—more PR move than rescue effort, but necessary all the same.

  Kotler looked up, and could barely make out the two men, standing precariously on the edge of the building. He glanced across the street, and saw the enormous laser projection of a countdown timer. They had less than half an hour before it hit zero.

  “Will you have time?” Kotler asked.

  Patel was also staring upward, and he was pale. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

  “Get him upstairs, now!” Denzel shouted to Peters, who rushed forward with two of his men, escorting Patel directly inside.

  “I’m going with him,” Kotler said.

  Denzel nodded.

  Kotler rushed in and joined them just as the elevator doors were closing. The ride to the research level seemed much longer this time. All five men stood in complete silence.

  “How did she get in here?” Kotler asked Peters. “How did she manage to plant the devices on them?”

  Peters shook his head. “I have no idea. My team is reviewing all entry logs now, but so far, we show nothing from the time Miller and Chandler entered the building up to the two of them going to the roof together. They were basically in their offices the whole time.”

  Kotler thought about this. “She got to them before, then,” he said. “She must have planted the devices on them before they entered the building. What about that timer?”

  “It’s being projected by one of our own pieces of equipment. Miller and Chandler hauled it to the roof with them. They also barricaded the roof exit itself. There’s no way up there without a helicopter. We have one standing by, flying a couple of blocks away.”

  “No attempt to land yet?” Kotler asked.

  “Our instructions were pretty clear. Make a move to rescue them and they jump early.”

  “Instructions?” Kotler asked

  Peters pulled his phone from his pocket and showed Kotler an email. The sending address was masked, but it was using the AMSL domain.

  “It was sent internally,” Peters said. “I don’t know how she’s getting into our system. We can’t find any back doors.”

  The elevator chimed and the doors opened. All five men filed out and rushed alongside Patel as he made his way to his lab. He stopped, suddenly, in front of the door, self-consciously patting his shirt and waist, looking for his security access card. Which, of course, he did not have.

  Peters stepped forward, swiped his own card, and the door opened. They were inside, and Patel rushed to a workbench, preparing.

  Kotler watched him as Patel moved quickly, turning on the oscilloscope, warming the soldering iron, and fishing through various cabinets for the components he would need. He was working fast, and had the scrap of paper, with the counter frequencies, spread on the table beside him.

  Kotler wasn’t sure he could offer much assistance in building the counter device, but he couldn’t just stand around, waiting. He began thinking of the problem Peters had mentioned. “Do you have any theories, then? About how she’s infiltrating your system?” Kotler asked.

  Peters shook his head. “None. We have firewalls on our firewalls. Even the NSA has to get my permission to hack in here,” Peters said gruffly, exaggerating of course. “According to her file, Bristol doesn’t have the technical expertise to be able to hack in. Neither does Jack Harris, for that matter. But we’ve tracked every packet coming into our going out of this place, and we can’t find her. It’s as if she’s hiding in the building somewhere.”

  “Could she be?” Kotler asked.

  “I …” Peters started, then shook his head. “We’ve seen no sign of her. If she’s here, how could she have gotten in without us noticing?”

  Kotler thought about this, factoring in all that they had learned and all that had happened lately. “When Ashton Mink took the data from the AMSL servers, how did that go undetected?”

  “He used his priority access,” Peters said. “He just logged in and downloaded it. Nothing in our system would have prevented that, though we did track it. There was just no alert, because there was no protocol to demand on. He had complete and unrestricted access.”

  “But he would have had to empty his pockets if he went through the front door, right? Or the metal detectors would have gone off. The scanners would find that SD card. Ashton didn’t want that. So, he left by helicopter, from the roof.”

  “Right,” Peters said.

  “And now we have your two top executives on that roof,” Kotler said. “Your biggest security hole is up top.”

  “You think Bristol infiltrated us by flying in?” Peters asked. Then shook his head. “There haven’t been any incoming helicopters since Ashton’s death.”

  “I don’t think Bristol infiltrated through the roof,” Kotler said. “I’m starting to think something else entirely. You gave us access to the AMSL employee records, right?”

  Peters nodded. “You should be able to get to them from your phone, I already granted you and Agent Denzel full access.”

  Kotler started sifting through emails until he found the one granting him access to the employee files. It took only a few seconds to find the information he was looking for. He turned to Patel. “The sooner you can get that countermeasure built, the better,” he said. Then he turned to Peters. “Things just got weirdly complicated,” he said.

  “More weirdly complicated, you mean?” Peters asked. “What have you found?”

  “For starters,” Kotler said, “I think we’ve been very wrong about a lot of things, right from the start. We we’re wrong about Lawny Bristol. She’s not alive after all.”

  “What?�
�� Peters asked. “How do you know?”

  “Because she could never have gained the access she’d need. And she wouldn’t have had the resources to track down Gail McCarthy. Plus, all the moles and leaks have been right here onsite—Jack Harris and the Partano brothers. And even after Jack and the Partarnos and Bristol herself no longer had access to the AMSL servers, someone was still able to gain access, without triggering any of your security measures. I was wrong before. She didn’t get to Miller and Chandler before they entered the building, she couldn’t have.”

  “Because we would have found the devices on them, as they entered,” Peters said. He thought for a moment. “There’s another inside man?”

  “Actually,” Kotler said, “Right now I think he’s an outside man.”

  Chapter 25

  “What are you saying?” Denzel asked.

  Kotler held his phone in front of him, scrolling through the personnel file as he talked to Denzel on speakerphone. He and Peters were moving through the wings of the Executive Suite, the floor that housed both Miller and Chandler’s offices, along with the other executives. The place had been evacuated except for Peter’s security force.

  “I’m saying we were fooled. Bristol isn’t behind this. I don’t even think she’s alive. I think she really did die, months ago. Whether it was an accident, I can’t say for sure. Not yet.”

  “Then who is behind this? Who has Miller and Chandler ready to jump?”

  Kotler took a deep breath. “I think it’s Garrett Chandler,” he said.

  There was a beat from the other side of the line. “C’mon,” Denzel said.

  “Seriously,” Kotler replied. “I’m looking at his personnel file now. There are things we didn’t quite catch. Or we didn’t put together. That I didn’t put together.”

  “Like what?”

  “He’s very active in the LGBT community, for starters. He has a portion of his salary allocated to the Equal Colors Fund. I had to look it up. They’re an LGBT advocacy group—organizing protests, helping with legal fees for discrimination lawsuits, that sort of thing."

  There was another pause. “Uh, Kotler …” Denzel started. “I don’t think we’ve ever talked about this, but you do know that it’s not a crime to be homosexual, right?”

  “Yes, Roland, thank you. But what I’m saying is, I read the voice from my abduction all wrong. I thought the voice on the other side of that tech was a woman, because everything I knew at the time suggested that was the most likely answer.”

  “But it was a woman,” Denzel said. “We identified her with the manager from that porn store. I showed Bristol’s photo, from her personnel file.”

  “I believe that Guy identified her because Bristol looked similar to Ingrid. They resembled each other, and that may have been intentional.”

  “So if it wasn’t Lawny Bristol, who was it? We’ve determined that Kate Bristol didn’t exist.”

  “She didn’t,” Kotler said. “I think Ingrid was Garrett Chandler.”

  Another beat. “What, in drag?”

  “I believe he’s transgender,” Kotler said. “And hiding it from everyone. He has the background to build the tech, according to his file. He might not fully understand all the science of it, but he was an engineer, previously. Using the data he got from the SD card, and the frequencies from the missing pages of the journal, I think he was skilled enough to build a prototype, and then replicate it.”

  “But Bristol took the journal,” Denzel said.

  “To her home,” Kotler replied. “Where all of her possessions were claimed by a sister she doesn’t have.”

  “Chandler was pretending the be the sister,” Denzel said, quietly.

  “He would have had access to the manifest of Bristol’s belongings. He’d know that the journal wasn’t in her possession. He also had access to her personal files, when they were archived after her death.”

  “You realize how this sounds?” Denzel asked.

  “I do,” Kotler replied. “But believe me, Roland. I think Chandler is using this scenario on the roof to run an end game. He’s showing that the technology works, and then he’s going to make his escape.”

  “How?” Denzel asked.

  They arrived at Chandler’s office, and Peters used his key card to gain access. Kotler scanned the room, looking for anything that might support his theory. Or anything that might tell him Chandler’s next move.

  He spotted a photo on Chandler’s wall that made him stop.

  “He’s going to fly out by helicopter,” Kotler said.

  “What? How? There’s no bird on that roof.”

  Just then, the sound of blades cutting the air filled the office space, dulled slightly by the thickness of the office windows. Kotler rushed to the glass, craning to look up.

  Denzel spoke up from the line. “I see it,” he said. “That’s the bird they put in the air for support. It flew in from across town.”

  “I’d be willing to bet the pilot has one of the Devil’s Interval devices on him,” Kotler said. “And Chandler is a pilot. There’s a photo of him behind the stick of a Bell 206. He can fly that chopper.”

  “Alright, I’m on it,” Denzel said, hanging up. Kotler knew he would put in calls to bring more helicopters this way, filled with agents and police. He’d also lock down the airways. But Kotler knew it would all be too late. Chandler wasn’t stupid. He had a plan.

  And the countdown on the side of the building was just a distraction. A sleight of hand meant to fool everyone into being off guard. Chandler’s demonstration of Devil’s Interval was going to be more than simply the suicide of the CEO. He was going to show that he could outwit even the FBI.

  “We have to get onto that roof,” Kotler said to Peters.

  Peters shook his head. “I told you, it’s barricaded. It would take an explosion to open that door, and you might as well push Miller off the roof at that point.

  He was right. Anything that might clue in Chandler that they were on to him would make him accelerate his plan. By this point, he’d already proven what the technology could do. Any potential buyer would be willing to risk the investment. So, the only thing saving Ross Miller, right this minute, was Chandler’s showmanship. He was making as big a spectacle as possible, to erase all doubt in Devil’s Interval, and he could end the show with just a single spoken command.

  There had to be a way to get up there, though. There had to be a way to end this without Miller dying. Kotler refused to believe …

  “How close are they standing to each other?” he asked.

  “What?” Peters asked. “Who?”

  “Miller and Chandler,” Kotler said.

  Peters shook his head. “I don’t know exactly. A couple of feet.”

  “Less than two?” Kotler asked.

  Peters nodded.

  Kotler smiled, and raced away from Chandler’s office, with Peters close behind. Kotler first thought he might skip the elevator and run down the stairs to the research level, but it was nearly thirty flights, and he was more likely to vomit than to make good time. Instead, he impatiently stood next to Peters as the elevator opened. They stepped in and glided down to the research floor. As the doors opened, Kotler sprinted for the lab.

  The guards let him in without question.

  “Simon!” Kotler shouted, as he was let through the secured door. “How difficult would it be for you to replicate the Devil’s Interval tech?”

  Patel looked up from his work, blinking. “I … I suppose I could do it in a couple of hours. But isn’t it more important to create the counter measure?”

  “We don’t have a couple of hours,” Kotler said. “At best, we have a few minutes.” He patted his coat, and pulled out the evidence bag containing the busted Devil’s Interval device. “Could you repair this one in that time?” He tossed it to Patel.

  “Yes,” Patel said, nodding. “But why?”

  “Could you use it to transmit a signal to the device that Ross Miller is wearing?”

  P
atel paused to think, and again nodded, then smiled. “Yes, I can do that. And I have already built the transmission circuit we need,” he said, nodding to his current work in progress. “It would not be very targeted, but I believe that is an asset at this point, yes?”

  “Yes,” Kotler said, grinning.

  Patel got to work, removing the broken Devil’s Interval device, and taking components of it carefully out of the shattered housing. He transferred these into the makeshift housing of his own device, and began soldering and connecting components. He replaced the damaged components from the bins of parts within the workshop, and after just a few minutes he waved Kotler over.

  Kotler stood, bent and looking over Patel’s shoulder as he pointed out the trigger for the device. “The range is not good,” he said. “But if you can get within 20 feet, it should be fine.”

  “What about barriers?” Kotler asked. Will it work through a metal door?”

  Patel shook his head. “The range will be dramatically reduced,” he said.

  Kotler cursed. “We’re back to the same problem,” he said. “No access to the roof.”

  “I think I have as solution for that one,” Peters said. “Take that thing to the street, and I’ll meet you there.”

  Chapter 26

  Kotler, Denzel, Patel, and finally Peters, along with a handful of SWAT officers and FBI agents, exited the two elevators of a building directly facing AMSL’s towering frame. This building was shorter by a third, but it would be enough. They rushed up a set of stairs and burst onto the roof.

  SWAT members took positions, and leveled rifles on Garrett Chandler, across the way. The sound of the helicopter was louder here, as it had set down on the roof behind the two men and echoed through the city canyon. This was the end game, alright. They had only moments before Chandler gave the command for Miller to jump. Presumably he would rush to the helicopter then, taking it over from the entranced pilot. He would fly out, staying low within the canyons of the city to avoid being tracked by radar, and would make his way to whatever extraction point he had pre-arranged, likely letting the mind-controlled pilot take the chopper back into the air as a distraction.