A Breck Death (Jill Quint, MD, Forensic Pathologist Series Book 3)

by Peche, Alec

  Marie was developing a profile on Bogachev that said a lot about his personality. He didn’t use any of the typical social media sites she searched and she couldn’t remember looking into a Russian applicant in her day job. The Russians used a site called VK rather than Facebook, but the effort of translating everything into English made it a time consuming proposition. Instead she had found some computer hacker chat rooms that yielded far more interesting information on their suspect. He had clearly been in the U.S. for several months and had entered through Canada by walking over an undisclosed, unguarded border.

  “What kind of things does he talk about in the chat rooms?” asked Jill.

  “Bogachev and the other computer hackers communicated with each other by logging onto a restricted online chat room and sending messages to each other,” Marie explained. “As reflected in the chat room messages, in the months prior to a hack of the FDA servers, he bragged to the other hackers in the chat room that he was searching the Internet for computer servers that were running a particular software program. He was aware that the program contained a vulnerability that he could use to gain unauthorized access to those servers and manipulate the data seen by the FDA. This hack and the other actions that he and Jason took allowed them to get approval for several pharmaceuticals that brought RMCT millions of sales revenues. In the chat room, he mentions moving on to exploit the credit card data of the ski resort, but needing to manipulate the chairlift system as leverage against the resort. It’s all data that likely the FBI can use to prosecute, but I haven’t come across anything that gives us his location.”

  It was getting close to midnight. Maybe they should all get some sleep and hope that Jake got something out of Mr. Brown in the morning that they could use to pinpoint his location.

  Then Jill heard Agent Sanders’ phone ring and she looked over at her hoping that Sophie was calling back with a solution.

  “Agent Sanders,” said the agent as she listened to whatever the caller said.

  “Hi, Sophie. Just a moment and I’ll put you on speakerphone.”

  Jill had a brilliant thought and asked David to join them as their resident on-site computer expert.

  “Okay Sophie, you are on speakerphone with me, Dr. Quint, and David Gomez. He is a private citizen involved in this case who happens to have a hobby of entering hacking contests. So he may understand you best. The rest of the cabin may be able to hear you but they are not participating in this call.”

  “Dr. Quint, I did some experimenting with what you suggested about inserting a virus into Bogachev’s computer and I could kick myself for failing to think of that solution earlier. You are pretty good for not knowing much about computers."

  Sophie continued, “Can you tell in your photos who the manufacturer is of the computer he is using in the footage you have of him?”

  “It’s a Lenovo laptop,” said David remembering from the multiple frames he looked at.

  “Awesome, I thought it might be since they’re the number one company in Russia. I know exactly how to exploit his vulnerabilities. Give me an hour and I’ll call you back.” Just like the last call, Sophie ended the call before giving them a chance to say anything in response.

  David looked at Agent Sanders and asked, “How old is Sophie?” He had missed the earlier conversation between Jill and the agent prior to the first call with Sophie.

  “Nineteen,” replied Agent Sanders. “She has worked for us since she was fifteen when we found her doing illegal things on the Internet. Now she takes great pride in trying to bring down hackers worldwide. She looks at it as a hacking competition that she is determined to win.”

  “I had guessed that was her age,” mused David. “As you can imagine as both a school teacher and a hacker, I’ve come across students like her. I guess I should be directing them to my local FBI office for safe-keeping and employment.”

  “I’ll leave you a pile of business cards so you can connect the kids to me,” noted Agent Sanders.

  Jill’s eyes felt gritty as it was well beyond her usual bedtime, but she was on the hook for Sophie’s call in an hour. Nathan had noticed her flagging energy and murmured to her, “Why don’t you go lay down for a nap and I’ll come get you when Sophie calls back.”

  Jill looked around the room and had to agree that not only she, but most of her team should head for bed. Nick and Angela had finished tracking Bogachev in pictures; Marie had been going blind waiting for the translator software to translate Bogachev’s messages from the Cyrillic alphabet into English. Jo and Nathan had resolved the travel arrangements.

  “I think I’ll do that,” Jill said to Nathan. Then turning up the volume of her voice she said to the group at large, “I’m going to go and try to get a little nap. Nathan will wake me up when Sophie calls back.”

  She heard a chorus of “goodnights” and “sweet dreams” as she left the room. She lay on top of her bed with the comforter covering her and quickly nodded off. She was awakened forty-five minutes later by Nathan’s voice telling her that Sophie had called back.

  Jill joined the speakerphone conversation tossing a “hi Sophie” at the phone.

  “Hi, Dr. Quint. I was just telling them I designed a virus that penetrates a vulnerability in Lenovo’s operating system. Each time he logs on to an internet connection, the virus will send me his geographical coordinates - latitude and longitude. I’ve set up a system here so that each ping I get of activity goes to Agent Sanders.”

  “Where is he now?” asked Jill.

  “I don’t know, the computer is turned off,” observed Sophie.

  “So then you haven’t actually infected his computer yet? You don’t actually know if your virus will work?” challenged Jill.

  “Pleeaaasse, I know what I am doing and I am sure this will work. Bogachev has gone to bed and that’s where I’m going, too,” asserted Sophie and she ended the call.

  Jill found herself grinding her teeth. She knew the FBI was lucky to have this young hacker and that she was brilliant, but the absolute confidence in her virus creation was astonishing to hear. She looked to Agent Sanders and raised her brows in question.

  “She hasn’t failed yet for the FBI so I am sure the program works. I recommend we all head for bed. We may have our answer early in the morning depending on whether he is an early riser or not.”

  The cabin contained several bedrooms with multiple beds. So Jill and Nathan were quiet as they entered the room they were sharing with Angela and Marie. Jill was as always lights out in no time, waking five hours later due to her body clock.

  She had been awake for awhile when Agent Sanders entered the living room carrying her cell phone.

  “Sophie was correct, her virus did work. Bogachev must be awake and connecting to the internet. Do me a favor and start monitoring these coordinates while I wake everyone up and we put together a plan to capture him. Jill, your idea of speaking to Sophie was excellent. We now have the means to capture our fourth Most Wanted suspect in a week.”

  “I’ll study his position and see if I can get a view of where he is staying from Google earth. If you need help from my team, feel free to wake them up.”

  “We don’t need them yet. I may wake David up since he is the most knowledgeable about this area,” commented Agent Sanders.

  Soon Jill had the coordinates entered into Google Earth and she had a picture of the building he was staying in up on the screen. The other agents were soon dressed and would be shortly joined by additional agents from Jake’s cabin. They were watching the screen as they were dressing in bullet proof vests and weapon holsters. An agent from Jake’s cabin would lead the operation.

  The building that Bogachev appeared to be holed up in was an unpretentious A-frame ski house. Court records showed that it was likely a rental as the owners had been in the area for twenty years. A Hummer was parked in the driveway, but there was no activity outside. There were homes in the area but they were at least a hundred yards away. A winter storm was expected to hit the a
rea in about two to three hours and there was light snow growing heavier by the moment. Within the hour, two agents were doing surveillance outside of Bogachev’s house. Each was hunkered down examining the trees for any security cameras, but they didn’t locate any. Hopefully that was because Bogachev had believed he couldn’t be found, and therefore had no need for additional security rather than they missed sight of a camera.

  The agent running the Operation soon mapped out a plan. This left Jill and her team back in the cabin with three agents. They all piled into a few cars and left for the cabin where they thought Bogachev was hiding. The snow was getting heavier; the visibility worse.

  Agent Pugh, located in the cabin with Jill and team kept them informed of the Op. By now, Jill had been joined by David, Nick, Marie, and Angela. Nathan and Jo were still asleep. About an hour into the Op, they got word that when they entered the cabin, Bogachev was not there. It was clear he had been there at one time, but sometime before the FBI had organized their resources on-site, he had escaped out his back door on cross country skis, based on a trail that left the cabin. Unfortunately, no one in their party had the skill to follow Bogachev and they had no snowmobile at their disposal. One could be delivered within an hour, but the tracks were fast disappearing under the weight of new snow from the storm which was picking up. Initially they had concluded that Bogachev would likely die in the storm given the level of snow and backcountry trees that his tracks hinted he had skied towards. Then Marie put an end to that conclusion.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Interesting that he took off on skis,” remarked Marie. “I remember somewhere in all of the research that I did on him that he had been a member of the Russian World Championship team for cross-country skiing, so he must have some serious ability to ski and likely survive in this snowstorm. Just a reminder, Jo and I have about six hours before we have to leave for the airport. I am hoping this storm passes through by then or the shuttle operates in snow storms. Nick, you were heading back to the airport about that time as well, I think?”

  “Let me get word to our team leader of Bogachev’s skiing ability,” declared Agent Pugh. “He may want to go after him with a snowmobile. As for your travel, I would think we would have you well out of here by your deadline.”

  “How long ago was Bogachev detected in his cabin? I think we could do a calculation of how far he could have skied. I might shave twenty-five percent off the top assuming he is no longer in competition shape. That should give you a radius of where he is,” David suggested.

  “Yeah, but he could have picked up a car along the way,” said Angela.

  “True, but”. Jill didn’t get any more words out of her mouth because bullets started flying through the front door. They all dropped to the floor, crawling behind large pieces of furniture for protection. One of the agents had been hit, as was David. Fortunately, both were superficial wounds. They made a big mess dragging their bloodied bodies across the floor.

  Jill looked around her and saw the two agents in a shooting position on their bellies. Angela, Marie, and David had all taken cover. Who was shooting and why? She had a fleeting thought about Nathan and Jo, maybe still asleep if they were able to sleep through the noise of the bullets striking things.

  The front door sat ajar on its hinges. Bullet holes everywhere around the door frame. Snow was blowing through the opening in great gusts. Then something else came through the door, and Jill saw it was a grenade.

  She yelled at everyone.

  “Run toward the kitchen and take cover; it’s a grenade!”

  But no one had time to get to the kitchen by Jill’s count the grenade detonated three seconds after it came through the door. Thankfully, the heavy furniture they all took cover behind saved them from most of the explosion. Everyone had ringing in their ears and cuts wherever their skin was exposed from flying debris.

  The cabin’s living room looked like a tornado had gone through it. Then she heard some grunts from the front porch along with another explosion outside which was muffled thanks to the heavy snow.

  She looked over at Marie and Angela and said “Should we move toward the kitchen or head outside to see what is going on?”

  And then the decision was made for her as one of the agents raced to the doorway, peered outside, and then exited the cabin. Jill headed in the same direction when she heard a gunshot sound outside.

  Jill looked outside then and was startled to see Nathan taking heaving breaths, and the FBI agent standing over a man on the porch, who was bleeding heavily into the snow around him.

  “I think this is Bogachev and he took a bullet to the stomach. Call 911 and the other agents, and then come back here and care for him. Nathan is fine, he just can’t speak at the moment.”

  The agent’s comments about Nathan caused her world to balance again. She had been momentarily frozen when she saw Nathan lying on his back taking deep gulping breaths. She stuck her head back inside the cabin.

  “David, call 911 for an ambulance for a male wounded in the abdomen by a gunshot and get the other agents here. Marie and Angela, can you come outside with me and help?”

  Everyone hurried to follow Jill’s requests.

  Jill knelt by Nathan’s side and asked, “What happened? Where are you hurt? What happened to your throat?”

  He whispered in the smallest of voices, “snuck out bedroom window, circled to porch to stop him from throwing another grenade,” he paused for a few moments then added, “Bastard knows Sambo, had me in a choke hold when the agent finally got the opportunity to shoot him.”

  Jill puzzled over the word Sambo. She at first thought he said Samba but couldn’t figure out the connection between dancing and choke holds. Seeing that Nathan was ok, just recovering from having the air choked out of him, she moved quickly over to Bogachev.

  “I can verify this is Bogachev. His pulse is fast and faint. Fetch me some towels so I can apply pressure to this wound,” commanded Jill.

  She could hear a siren in the distance but, with the snow, wondered how long it would to reach this cabin. She wanted to move the man inside but didn’t want to risk moving the bullet; instead she asked Marie and Angela to set up a makeshift tent over him and to throw a comforter around him. She really didn’t want to do CPR on this man so she kept talking to him demanding he keep his heart going. Meanwhile, Nathan was making a strong recovery and had been able to move indoors out of the snow.

  The ambulance turned into the driveway. Jill told one of the agents, “Go get a paramedic over here quickly with some oxygen and a mask. Tell him we’ll need to do CPR in about a minute.”

  The agent returned in about thirty seconds, paramedic in tow with the necessary equipment in hand.

  Jill looked up, “I’m a doctor. This is an abdominal gunshot wound. We need to get him out of the snow and into your ambulance for treatment and move towards a hospital.”

  The paramedic nodded and went to work. The other agent came on a run with the other paramedic with the stretcher. Between the three of them, they were able to move Bogachev onto the stretcher. It was getting really slippery with the snow and moving a stretcher now weighted down with a two hundred pound man was tough going. As soon as he was in the ambulance, they spent a minute trying to get an IV started before taking off. Jill and two agents accompanied Bogachev in addition to the paramedic. In this weather, the hospital was a twenty minute ride. His heart rate was poor and Jill conferred with the paramedic. “If you’ll get me the supplies for a venous cut-down, then we’ll stop this ambulance for less than a minute while I do the procedure to get fluids going into him. I have not done this procedure on a live patient in about fifteen years, so I am really open to other suggestions.”

  “Dr. Quint, I am worried about the condition of the roads making this trip longer, I agree we need to make an attempt to start fluids as soon as possible. I’ll get the supplies ready then have Aaron stop the ambulance. If you can’t succeed in two minutes, I would suggest moving on.”

 
“It’s Jill, and I like your timeline. Let’s do it,” said Jill quickly reviewing in her head the steps to get an intravenous line going in this man.

  A minute later the ambulance came to a stop and they had a go at starting a line. Forty-five seconds later Jill had the line inserted and taped in place and the ambulance began rolling again. She took over at the head of the gurney and began ventilating Bogachev manually. The paramedic was in touch with the base station and had started fluids to support their victim. Their ambulance was now being escorted by a state trooper who was trying to clear the path for the ambulance to keep going. They were barely able to avoid doing chest compressions on the man and Jill was thrilled to see the lights of the hospital come into their snowy view. The weather was probably too bad to get a helicopter here to take the patient to a trauma center in Denver, so it would be up to the emergency room and surgical staff to keep him alive. She had done her part.

  After the stretcher was removed, the two agents accompanied the man inside the emergency room. Jill was left alone in the lobby and began to shiver when the state trooper approached her.

  “Hello ma’am, I’m Trooper Hanson. Do you know why the FBI is involved with the man from that ambulance?”

  “Hello, Trooper Hanson. I am Dr. Jill Quint and thank you for the escort today. That man is on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list and one of the agents shot him in the stomach as he tried to kill all of us.”

  The trooper looked at her as if accessing whether she had been drinking. She could swear he even sniffed her breath looking for fumes. She decided to take mercy on him.

  “Trooper Hanson, let me give you my business card. I was called into the investigation to assist a family member of someone who was murdered. During the investigation of this case, it was discovered that three of the players involved were on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. That was when I called the Denver FBI office to involve them in this case.”