by Steven James
The woman I feared I might’ve already lost because of choices I made four years before we ever met.
48
Lien-hua and Natasha were waiting for me in the lobby.
I tried to read Lien-hua, hoping to see if she was harboring any animosity about last night, but she kept her emotions well guarded. She greeted me cordially-neither overly friendly or noticeably distant.
On the walk from my room, I’d noticed that the snow was letting up, but now as I glanced out the north-facing window I saw that the wind was fiercer than ever and the windswept landscape looked arctic and boreal. Even on a snowmobile it wouldn’t be easy to get to the site of the old ELF station this morning, let alone find anything useful.
Natasha went for some coffee, and when Lien-hua and I were alone she asked how I was doing. “Is the ankle feeling any better?”
“It’s not bothering me nearly as much as I thought it would,” I said truthfully.
“The hypothermia?”
“Quite honestly, the whole river incident seems like it happened a month ago instead of yesterday.”
Lien-hua nodded.
We’d discussed this sort of thing in the past-the ways that the mind deals with tragedy or trauma: sometimes events that happened recently become recorded in the brain as if they happened weeks, months, or years ago, and conversely, distant memories can slide forward and obscure more recent ones. “Memory isn’t as contiguous as time,” she told me once. “It’s the mind’s way of dealing with pain and fear and heartache.”
Fear.
Heartache.
Trying to bridge into the topic of last night, I asked, “So how are you?”
“Okay.”
I waited, gave her the chance to say more, but she chose not to.
She excused herself to get some juice, and I awkwardly offered to join her.
“Okay.”
We filled our glasses in silence, then she pulled out some granola bars she’d brought with her. I grabbed a couple doughnuts to get me through until I could get some real food, we found a quiet corner in a private room just off the lobby and waited for Tait, Natasha, and Jake to join us. Silence stretched between us, and even if it was the right time for words, it didn’t seem like either of us could think of what they might be.
Alexei had no intention of killing the woman who lay tied up in the bedroom down the hall.
But he was ready to do so if need be.
Or at least he told himself he was.
Yesterday, after retrieving the remaining $1,000,000 from the drop point and switching vehicles, he’d returned to the cabin near the Schoenberg Inn and parked the woman’s car in the garage and brought her inside. At the time, he hadn’t wanted to know her name because he figured it would just make things harder, but this morning he realized maybe that’s what he needed.
So now he was going through her purse.
Kayla Tatum.
Yes, he’d been right, knowing her name was going to make this harder.
He set down the purse.
Last night, after leaving her bound in the room, he’d gone to the Schoenberg to look for the Eco-Tech team and slipped, unnoticed, into the basement. But when he went to the area of the hotel where he’d had the confrontation with Clifton White, he found it vacant. Even when he wirelessly hacked into the hotel’s registry he found no rooms listed under the four group member’s names he’d been able to identify.
He’d thought about locating the manager and persuading him, by whatever means necessary, to tell him the location of the group, but then Alexei had another idea. Perhaps he could use the manager’s cooperation in a slightly different way.
Using his phone, Alexei went online and, studying the maps of the area, discovered that the Navy used to have a small communication station in the area of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest where the Eco-Tech team had traveled toward with the duffel bag of money before they’d disabled the signal. A little research apprised him that years ago, environmentalists had protested against the base while it was in operation.
On Wednesday when Valkyrie sent him to go speak with Rear Admiral Colberg, Valkyrie had said, “Tell him we need the access codes to the station. He’ll know what you’re talking about.”
So.
Alexei’s gaze went toward the room where he’d left Kayla.
Yesterday, Becker, the ponytailed Eco-Tech member, had told him that his team would be done at exactly 9:00 p.m. tonight. If he was telling the truth, that gave Alexei less than twelve hours to work things out. But he was also well aware that agendas can change, and he wasn’t sure how his flight from the authorities might alter their timetable.
And then there was the matter of Valkyrie, who was quite possibly in the area, evidenced by the fact that the remaining $1,000,000 had been there at the dead drop.
Yes, evaluate, adapt, and respond.
Alexei looked around the cabin. After leaving it this morning, he had not anticipated coming back. He began to pack up his equipment.
His threefold agenda: (1) take care of Kayla Tatum; (2) locate the Eco-Tech team; (3) find Valkyrie and kill him-or her-slowly.
Though he usually worked alone, he had an idea that might move things along more quickly. He knew of one person in the area who could help him, a person he was confident would do whatever it took to find the Eco-Tech team and stop them.
But recruiting him was another story.
49
Natasha returned, and while we waited for Jake to join us, I borrowed Lien-hua’s cell and phoned Sheriff Tait to find out when he would be arriving. He told me he wasn’t going to be able to make it to the briefing because of the roads and the number of emergency calls his department was getting-people trapped on the roads, power outages, accidents. Apparently, with the wind, it was proving nearly impossible for the county to keep the roads cleared. “I’m probably gonna be tied up here for at least a couple hours.” He still sounded sick. “And I wasn’t able to get any officers over to the old ELF site. I’m sorry.”
One step forward, two steps back.
“There’s nothing out there anyway, Agent Bowers.” Weariness in his voice. “I’ve been there myself, last fall-some poachers on forest service land. I’m telling you, the station is gone.”
“I understand,” I said.
If an underground bunker and tunnels for electromagnetic lines did exist, the Navy would’ve had to take herculean measures to keep it a secret-not just from the environmental activists and protestors, but also from the locals. And while that wouldn’t have been an easy task, over the years I’ve learned that despite government bureaucracy, pork-barrel spending, and WikiLeaks, when the government puts its mind to keeping something a secret they can be surprisingly effective at it.
After all, there are currently six military detainment facilities on US soil that the media has never gotten wind of, not to mention the FBI’s two domestic processing centers and the CIA’s sub rosa facilities abroad.
I assured the sheriff that I would brief him on everything we covered in our meeting, then picked up a key from the clerk at the front desk so we could lock ourselves in the room beside the lobby and not worry about being disturbed. A few moments after our call ended, Jake arrived and we began.
“All right,” I said. “We have a lot to cover.” It was hard for me to broach the next subject. “First of all, do we know how Ellory’s family is taking the news of his death?”
Natasha answered, “I talked with Linnaman last night and he said that until we have a body he can’t officially pronounce Ellory deceased.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Ellory might have surfaced somewhere downstream,” Jake said. “It’s possible he’s still alive.”
“No.” I shook my head. “There weren’t any other stretches of open water in sight.” This discussion only made Ellory’s death weigh more heavily on me. “He didn’t make it.”
All three of them were quiet. Finally, Natasha said, “I think his wife is s
till holding out hope. Linnaman’s probably just trying to help her deal with all of this.”
I’d seen this type of thing before in other cases, and it wasn’t helpful; in the end it would only exacerbate her pain. In addition, I’d already sent my condolences to her. I rubbed my head. “Okay, we’ll tackle that later. Let’s move on. Bobby Clarke, the truck driver. Any word?”
Everyone shook their heads.
“I heard from Torres,” Jake said, switching to our other case. “He said Reiser’s time of death was sometime late Tuesday, which would have given Basque plenty of time to clear out.”
But Reiser was seen entering the trailer Wednesday evening…
The killer returning to the scene?
Maybe, or maybe just an unreliable eyewitness.
“They also found newspaper clippings,” he said, “about the murders with Basque fourteen years ago and the more recent ones over the last six months. And some recorded television news footage covering the crimes as well.”
So, Jake’s instincts had been right after all.
“Cable or local?” I said.
“Both.”
“But only the crimes with Basque?”
“Yes.”
Lien-hua spoke up. “I’ve been thinking about Basque. About the knives. Using them isn’t just a way of prolonging the victim’s death, but also, the penetration of the knife into her body has obvious sexual connotations. For him, this act represents coition.”
If you buy into the psychosexual theories of criminal behavior, which I did not, Lien-hua’s observation made sense. It occurred to me that Jake, who’d been working on this case for months, and who did share that perspective, hadn’t made that connection.
“Yes.” Jake nodded. “Reiser’s psych profile is consistent with a tendency to associate violence and sexuality.”
Lien-hua shook her head. “That’s not exactly what I’m getting at. Basque’s partner would be less dominant than him, more easily manipulated, have a lower sense of self-worth, and most likely have followed Basque’s lead in the crimes and the documentation of them.”
“So you’re saying?” Jake sounded irritated.
“Considering his submissive role in the murders, the significance of the blades would likely be different for him, might not even be part of his signature-if he were to have committed crimes without Basque present.”
“Which seems probable, given thirteen years apart,” I noted.
“Yes.”
My mind was spinning, trying to sort through all that had happened in the last two days-searching for Reiser in his trailer, getting called to Woodborough, visiting the scene of Ardis and Lizzie’s murders, finding the helmet, chasing Chekov, nearly drowning…
Letting Ellory die.
Jake stared at Lien-hua coolly. “I’ll have to share my notes with you. Show you what I’ve come up with.”
“Yes, that will be helpful,” she replied.
I flipped open my laptop. “I’m not sure yet how all this is connected, but has everyone had a chance to review the files Margaret sent about the ELF station?”
Jake and Natasha nodded, but Lien-hua shook her head. “The ELF station?”
I filled her in and when I was done, Natasha took the floor and mentioned that she’d pulled prints from the light switch in the study of the Pickron home. “In addition to Ardis’s and Donnie’s, I found one set of unidentifiable prints. I sent them to the Lab to see if they can dig anything up, do a more integrated AFIS search. The only prints in the laundry room were of family members.”
She consulted her notes. “I spent some time yesterday going through Donnie Pickron’s computer and reviewing his deleted files. Whoever accessed the computer wasn’t just looking up deployment records, but also searched through schematics of Ohio Class subs.”
“Schematics?” Lien-hua said skeptically. “Those are available to the public?”
“Not in their entirety,” she explained. “Obviously, there are restricted areas that weren’t detailed, but the basic design of the submarines apparently isn’t any secret. I mean, just watch the movie The Hunt for Red October or Crimson Tide. But there was more on his computer than there should have been.”
I typed a few thoughts onto my computer.
(1)
Above top secret clearance.
(2)
One-way communication.
(3)
Deployment routes.
(4)
Schematics.
(5)
First-strike orders.
“Track with me for a second,” I said. “The deployment patterns for the subs would certainly have changed since the eighties as world powers and threat assessments have changed over time, but those subs are still in use. I’m guessing they would still have the capability to receive and decode ELF signals.”
“If they were still able to be sent,” Jake added.
“Yes,” I acknowledged. “If they were. So maybe whoever was searching through these files wasn’t just looking at where the subs were deployed but also-”
“How they were designed,” Jake interrupted impatiently. “Yes. We’ve established that.”
I was getting tired of his attitude and was about to tell him so when Lien-hua leaned forward. “What are you thinking, Pat?”
“By knowing the most likely targets and the routes the subs traveled in relation to those targets years ago, it might be possible to extrapolate, at least generally, where the subs would be deployed today, taking into consideration the location of countries that currently pose a threat to national security.”
“It’s worth a look,” Lien-hua said.
I turned to Natasha. “As soon as we’re done I want you to follow up on those schematics.”
“I can also ask the DoD about any recent chatter regarding US subs.”
“Good.”
A thought. “Go ahead and see if their data analysts can review the most likely targets of the late eighties and early nineties and compare those to today’s threats. Maybe it’s possible to come up with an algorithm that might anticipate the current deployment routes. If the Defense Department’s number crunchers can do it, someone else might have been able to as well.”
“You think we’re looking at an attack on one of the subs?” she asked.
Not an attack on one, I thought, an attack from one.
“I’m not sure, but Donnie Pickron is a Navy information warfare officer, and if he’s still alive and he’s gone rogue, I don’t want him sending any messages to our subs. Any messages at all.”
“Or if he hasn’t gone rogue,” Lien-hua said, “but is being held by someone, forced to work for them.”
Silence spread through the room.
Natasha nodded slowly, jotted a note to herself on the legal pad in front of her.
I told them about what I’d discovered last night on the Routine Orbital Satellite Database and my theory about the shots through the Pickrons’ living room window being intended to obscure the view into the house. “We’re looking for a hacker, or a team of hackers, with the ability to access some of the DoD’s most sensitive information.”
For nearly an hour and a half we tackled various aspects of the case, each of us offering our analysis, input, findings.
Sean still had my cell, so at 11:00, as we were wrapping things up, I borrowed Lien-hua’s phone and called Angela Knight in Cybercrime to see what she’d uncovered about Alexei Chekov. She informed me that she’d had to pass the project along to a woman on her team and hadn’t heard back yet.
“This is a priority,” I said.
“Everything we’re working on is a priority.” She didn’t sound argumentative, just exhausted. “I’ll follow up with Alyssa, let you know.”
“Thanks.”
End call.
I’ve never been one to put much stock in profiling, an ongoing point of contention between Lien-hua and me, but now I had two of the NCAVC’s most experienced profilers sitting here with me and I knew that despite my
reluctance to trust profiles it would’ve been negligent of me not to tap into their expertise.
“All right,” I said. “Jake, I want you to fill in Lien-hua with regard to the profiles you’ve been working up for both the Reiser case and the Pickron family’s killer.”
“You think they’re related?”
“I’m not sure how they would be, but I want all the puzzle pieces on the table before we dive headfirst into fitting them together. Talk through what you have on Basque as well. Broad strokes, see if anything overlaps. I know we’re limited on time.”
He looked like he was going to object but remained silent.
“There’s plenty to do,” I said. “I have an idea on how to solve the mystery of how a Ski-Doo 800 XL could travel on a straight course a hundred meters without a rider. Also, I’m going to try to find a way for us to visit the ELF site so we can see if there’s anything there that might lead us to Donnie Pickron or Alexei Chekov. Let’s break, get back together at noon, and see where we’re at.”
Everyone stood.
By now the Advil had kicked in, and although my ankle was still stiff, thankfully, it seemed like putting pressure on it wasn’t going to be as big a deal today as I’d thought it would be when I woke up.
Lien-hua’s phone rang.
At first I thought it might be Angela returning my call, but when Lien-hua answered it, she looked at me quizzically. “It’s for you.”
“Who is it?” I asked her.
She shook her head, held it out to me.
“I’ll bring it by your room when I’m done,” I said.
The three of them left and I spoke into the phone. “Hello?”
“I hope you’re feeling better, Agent Bowers.”
I recognized the faint Russian accent.
Alexei Chekov.
50
Quickly, I evaluated how to respond. From everything I’d seen, this man was a professional, and I doubted gimmicks and games would work with him. I decided on a direct approach: “Where’s the truck driver, Alexei?”