“Why so unfriendly, boss? Going somewhere?” He pocketed his handheld and plucked the phone from the man’s hand. “Hands up right where you have them, just like you’re still on the phone. Move for that gun and you’re a dead man.”
Patel brought the man’s phone to his left ear. “I’ll bet you speak English, don’t you?”
The voice on the other end said, “Yes. Yes, I do, but not as often as I’d like. Why don’t you stay right where you are so we can have a talk?”
“No, thank you,” Patel said. “I’ve got a new friend I’d like to get to know. But we’ll meet soon, don’t worry.”
He thumbed the phone off. “Mike, did you get that?”
“Got it. Now lose that phone and get out of there.”
“I’m on my way back. Do what you can to alter the street cameras accordingly.”
“I will,” Mike said. “Now get the hell out of there.”
Patel dropped the phone on the sidewalk and crunched it under his heel. He smiled at the wounded German. “Now, let’s all behave ourselves and get moving nice and slowly. No reason for you to die, too. Not yet, anyway.”
WHILE SCOTT, Tali, and Roger finished searching the building, Hicks had spent the last ten minutes looking at a silver box installed above the front door.
He knew it wasn’t a doorbell. It was too new to be a relic from another business that had been in that space before. It was fifteen feet off the ground, making it impossible for him to see it up close. No one had been able to find a ladder in the entire building.
It was too high to be a fuse box. It had been placed high for a reason. Someone didn’t want it tampered with.
He could see an electrical line came out of it and ran upstairs, disappearing into the ceiling.
There was no obvious reason for it to be there, but it was there for a reason.
Hicks walked upstairs to the room where the laptops had been set up. He looked at the front wall and saw the wire didn’t continue up to the third level. He wondered if the wire ran under the floorboards. He eyeballed it and saw it led to a port in the floor beneath the tables where the laptops were set up. Several sets of wires ran from the port, directly into the docking station of each of the three laptops. Hicks walked over to take a closer look.
Three of the plugs were clearly power cords. A second set looked like standard fiber optic cables that probably gave the laptops access to the internet.
But the third set of cables didn’t make sense.
He took a closer look at the laptops. All the USB ports on each device had been removed. Disk drives, too. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure no one could download information on a memory stick or a disk.
What’s that extra wire for?
Scott interrupted his thoughts. “We’re ready to go, Hicks.”
Hicks kept looking at the wires. “Not yet.”
Scott didn’t look happy. “Look, we’ve been over this goddamned place twice already, and the only thing we found was a half-assed torture area up on the third floor. A chair and a couple of jumper cables attached to a car battery. Crude but effective. Looks like it got plenty of use, too.”
“Was Roger impressed?”
“Disgusted, more like it. Said it looked amateurish and ‘lacked panache,’ the sick fuck.”
That sounded like Roger. “What about the rest of the place? Any papers?”
“No files, no paper, and no cash,” Scott said. “They have a safe in the corner over there, but it’s empty.”
Hicks was still puzzling over the purpose of the last set of wires. “You take photos and prints from the dead?”
“Done, even on the guys in the stairwell. The grenade didn’t leave much but we got what we could. Everything will upload to OMNI as soon as we’re outside and get a clear signal. Look, I’m not trying to be a hard ass here, but we’ve been here two hours already. Tali and Roger are loading the weapons into the car, and the street out front is full of cops with more on the way. If they set up a perimeter around this place and search the trunk, we’re fucked. I say we plug the survivor, pull these laptops, and get the hell out of here. Maybe Rivas can get something off the computers back at the Penthouse. If he can’t, your new friends at Langley can probably do it.”
Hicks didn’t budge. “We’ve still got an hour before the cops come in. Besides, Mike’s not a tech. He’s here to provide tactical support while we kick in doors. I’m working on something.”
Those wires.
The Vanguard had gone through a lot of trouble to secure this building. They hadn’t done it to protect money in the safe or the torture area upstairs. There was nothing else in the building to take.
It had to be about the laptops, what was on them or the information they could access. They were using laptops, not desktops, so they wanted mobility, but there was something about the extra wire to each device that didn’t make sense.
The building had been shielded to prevent cell phones and their handhelds from working. The Vanguard was obviously technically savvy. The third set of cables served a purpose. Just like the steel doors and the removed USB ports served a purpose.
Security.
He looked over at the wounded man. Scott had bound his hands and ankles with plastic strips. “He still alive?”
“Barely. Why?”
Hicks held out his hand. “Let me borrow your knife.”
Scott produced his combat knife from his vest. “You already shot the poor bastard. Are you going to stab him, too?”
“Only if I have to.” He stood over the man and said in German, “Tell me how to access the laptops.”
“Please,” he replied. “I’m dying. I didn’t do anything to you. I’m just an accountant. Get me to a hospital.”
“I don’t know too many accounts who have nine millimeters in their desks, and all three of you were armed.” He moved the knife from one hand to the other. “Tell me how to disable the security features on the laptops.”
“I know nothing of any such features.”
Hicks dropped to a knee right next to the man’s face, causing him to flinch. “Three sets of wires, asshole. One for power. One for the internet. The third one fries the hard drive if the laptop’s undocked without the proper password.” He laid the blade on the man’s cheek, just below his eye. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
The wounded man swallowed hard. “The wire is connected to the keypad at the door. If the door is kicked in or someone does not enter the right code, it triggers a bleaching program that wipes the hard drives.”
Hicks patted his cheek with the blade. “Good boy. And you’re going to disable them for us.”
“No. I mean, I only know mine, I swear it!” His face was thick with sweat from pain and fear. “They wanted it that way, so no one could ever access the network from more than one laptop at once. Mine is the last one on the left.”
Hicks didn’t want to believe it, but it made sense. If the Vanguard had been this intent on security, they had probably compartmentalized access. “Give me your user name and password.”
“If I tell you, you’ll take me to the hospital?”
“If you don’t tell me, you won’t be going anywhere.”
Scott brought his boot down an inch from the man’s ruined legs.
The man screamed out his user name and password.
Hicks went to the laptop and was about to begin typing when he realized the keyboard didn’t look right. It took him a second to realize why, but only a second.
There was a black pad above the number keys on the far left of the keyboard. A pad just big enough for a thumbprint. It would have been easy enough for someone to miss it if they were in a hurry. Fortunately, Hicks had all the time in the world.
He looked back when he heard the man on the floor sobbing.
Hicks admired his dedication. “Nice try, Fritz. Come here.”
He wheeled over a chair and cut the plastic strip binding his wrists. The man screamed as Scott helped Hicks dump him in the cha
ir and push him over to the laptop, his legs dragging the entire way.
Hicks leaned over him, knife pressed against his throat. “Open it up. Any mistakes, you die in this chair.”
With a trembling hand the man tapped the spacebar, and the screen came alive. The camera on the laptop activated, scanned the man’s face, and prompted him to use his thumbprint to proceed.
The screen opened to a spreadsheet filled with more data and tabs than Hicks could count.
“Now disable the security measures so we can undock the computer. Turn off the screensaver and enable the Wi-Fi so I can still use it afterward.” He pressed the knife harder against his throat. “And don’t forget I read German.”
The man’s hands were shaking so much it took him several tries, but he was finally able to type the right commands to allow the laptop to be safely undocked.
When the man sagged and began to weep, Hicks knew he’d entered the right code. He removed the laptop from the docking station and saw it was still operating.
Scott went for his side arm to finish the man off.
Hicks stopped him. “Give him a dose of morphine and a shot of XStat for his wounds. We’ll leave him here for the cops.”
Scott’s hand stayed near his sidearm. “Are you fucking kidding me? He saw us. He heard our names. He can identify us.”
The man flinched as Hicks dug his hand into the man’s pocket and took out his wallet. In German, he said, “You can identify us, but now we can identify you, too. We’ll find you and you won’t be happy when we do. Tell me you understand.”
The man nodded as quickly as he wept.
Hicks released him with a shove and handed the knife back to Scott. “Give him the morphine and XStat and let’s get the hell out of here.”
Scott swore as he opened a Velcro patch on his vest. “I don’t like this.”
Hicks closed the laptop and went to find Tali. “Join the club, Ace.”
The Penthouse, Berlin
WHILE TALI and Mike analyzed the Vanguard laptop off-site, Hicks, Patel and Scott were in the Penthouse living room, watching the camera feed of Roger preparing their prisoner for interrogation.
After injecting him with a mild sedative that kept him still but conscious, Roger had cut away the man’s clothes before tying him to a straight-back chair in one of the back rooms of the Penthouse.
They could hear Roger humming a section from Die Walkure as he finished applying the last node to the prisoner’s naked body. He was still humming as he left the room.
A vein in Scott’s neck was beginning to turn red. “I thought Hicks was crazy for letting that other Kraut live. Then I find out you brought one of the sons of bitches back here. Congratulations, pal. You win the Dumbest Move of the Day award.”
Patel shrugged. “What else was I supposed to do? He was calling his mates to come pick him up and I couldn’t very well follow him on foot, now could I? The laptop you nicked might have data, but this man?” He pointed at the screen. “This man’s got live intelligence. He can tell us a hell of a lot more about what we’re up against than any laptop could.”
“He’s right,” Hicks said. “Bringing him here was the right call.”
Scott’s vein turned purple. “You wouldn’t bring the laptop up here, but you’re okay with a prisoner being on the premises.”
“The laptop’s probably got a tracker on it,” Hicks said, “or will as soon as it hits a Wi-Fi signal. That’s why I’ve got Rivas and Tali uploading the hard drive to OMNI off-site. They’ll hand off the laptop to one of the Barnyard’s Farmhands after they’re done.”
“At least you’re keeping the same terminology,” Scott said, “if not the same methodology. I still don’t trust those Agency bastards.”
“Neither do I. That’s why we’re copying everything to OMNI before we even let the Barnyard know we have it.”
“And if the Vanguard tracks Tali and Rivas to wherever they’re uploading the information?” Scott asked. “What then?”
Hicks had thought of that. He’d thought of the danger he’d put Tali and the baby in. He remembered the danger she had been in on the street. She’d handled herself well enough then. He hoped a simple upload and handoff would be a minimal risk. But still. “We’ve got a contingency in place if something goes wrong. Don’t let the wheelchair fool you. Rivas used to be a hell of a field man in his day. Saved your ass once or twice as I remember.”
“I remember he had two good legs when he did it.”
Hicks couldn’t argue with him there. He couldn’t entertain his concerns either. Not for Tali’s sake. Or his own. “His legs might be gone, but he’s still Mike Rivas.”
Scott folded his arms and kept his mouth shut.
Patel sat forward and squinted at the television. “Where the hell did Roger go, anyway? What’s he up to?”
Hicks knew better than to try to guess what Roger was doing.
Roger appeared back in frame, still humming, wheeling a large black and silver equipment case into the room.
They watched him pull over a chair and sit down only about a foot away from the prisoner. Hicks knew Roger preferred his interrogations to be intimate affairs.
Roger smiled with all the warmth of a country doctor consulting an old patient about their arthritis. “I know you’re a professional soldier, my friend. A ruffian. A mercenary. The amount of scarring on your body tells me you’ve seen your fair share of action, so there’s no sense in being coy about how this is going to end. You have seen where we are. You know where this building is located. You have also seen all our faces and probably heard one or two of us call each other by name, haven’t you?”
The prisoner’s head lolled a bit as the effects of the sedative began to wear off, but he kept his silence.
Roger went on. “So you know there is absolutely no way this ends with you walking out of here. Nothing you tell me will win you your freedom. Your journey ends here, in this room. When I’m done questioning you, I’m going to put your body in that box I just brought in here. Then, I’ll wheel you downstairs and dispose of you with the rest of the hotel’s garbage. No one will ever be the wiser.”
He leaned further forward so the man couldn’t help but look at him. “Nothing will change how this ends. We’ve already scanned you for tracking devices and we know you don’t have any. Your friends have no idea where you are and no one is coming to rescue you. And since you tried killing us today, no one here will take mercy on you.” He pointed at the case. “That box is your destiny.”
The prisoner looked over at the box, then back at Roger. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
Roger continued. “I know how helpless you feel right now, but you’ve got more power over your situation than you think. You see, you control how much pain you feel between now and the time I put you in that box. I’ve hooked you up to two different sets of equipment. The first is a lie detector. It’s a bit old, I’ll admit, but accurate enough for our purposes here today.”
He picked up a small box from the floor. “You’ll find the second machine familiar. The nodes I just finished applying to your chest and thighs are attached to a car battery capable of giving you quite a shock. It’s the same setup I noticed back in your facility, so you know how it works.” Roger’s smile broadened. “Karma can be a real bitch sometimes, can’t it, my friend?”
Roger jiggled the box.
The prisoner flinched.
Roger set the box on the table, at his elbow. “The rest of it is really straightforward. I’m going to ask you several questions. I already know the answers to many of them, but obviously there are some bits of information I’m going to need you to tell me. If I didn’t need answers, you’d be dead by now. If you tell the truth, we keep talking like two professionals should. But if you decide to lie to me, either the machine or I will know it and I’ll give you a jolt. Then we go all the way back to the first question and try again. If your previous answers don’t match up, another jolt and we start again. Each jolt will b
e longer in duration and exponentially more painful. I won’t stop, no matter how much you beg me to. Is that clear?”
The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed again. Hicks was surprised to hear him ask in Russian, “And if I tell the truth?”
Roger brightened. “That’s the spirit,” he responded in Russian. “As long as you’re truthful, the jolt box stays on the table and your reward will be this.” He picked up a syringe from the table. “Remember how you felt when we first tied you to the chair?”
“Yes,” the man croaked. “I felt very…peaceful.”
Roger jiggled the syringe. “That was this. Heroin. Rather high quality, if I do say so myself. I gave you just enough to calm your nerves and make you pliable. Tell me the truth, and when you’ve answered all of my questions truthfully, I inject enough of this in your system to make you go to sleep and never wake up.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “And if I refuse to tell you anything?”
Roger set the needle aside. “Oh, you’ll tell me plenty of things before we’re through. And eventually you’ll get around to telling me the truth. I think that’ll happen sooner rather than later. You’re not the hero type. If you were, you wouldn’t have cut and run once the going got tough back there.”
Roger sat back and looked the man over. “You strike me as a reasonable young man, so I think you’re smart enough to know when a situation is hopeless. Tell me the truth and you’ll die with dignity. Your life will end in state of pure, blissful euphoria.”
He suddenly rocked forward and grabbed the arms of the prisoner’s chair. Their faces were less than an inch apart. “But if you lie to me, I’ll bake you like zharkoye. Either way, the box in the corner awaits. How quickly you end up there, and how much you suffer before then, is entirely up to you.”
Roger gave the prisoner’s legs a goodhearted shake as he stood. “I know this is a lot to absorb all at once, so I’m going to give you a couple of minutes to process it all, and when I come back, we’ll begin.”
He hummed Die Walkure once more as he stepped out of the room, and was still humming it when he joined the others in the living room. He poured himself a cup of coffee from the silver pot on the table. He sat in a chair and took a deep swallow, as if he’d just sat down after a long trip home from work.
A Conspiracy of Ravens Page 16