“Trying to give me a heart attack is more like it.”
“I need you to cut and stack the firewood,” she said. “It’s not in my best interest to get rid of you. What’s going on with Nate?”
“Bunch of California nonsense,” said Jon. “He’s heading our way—indefinitely, from what I understand.”
“Are they in any danger?”
“What do you mean?” he said, staring up at her.
“I eavesdropped,” said his wife. “What’s Sentinel?”
“Nothing. An Internet bogeyman used by conspiracy nuts to blame everything that goes wrong in the world of big business or the government.”
“Should you check into it?”
“Check into what?” asked Jon. “Sentinel? Nate’s biggest problem is the San Diego County PD. He picked the wrong morning to collect seawater in Del Mar.”
She glared at him with that look.
“What?” he said, shrugging.
Leah continued to stare at him, slowly shaking her head.
“All right. Jesus!” said Jon. “I’ll do a little digging if it makes you feel better. Outside of the almighty Internet.”
“It would,” she said, smirking. “Isn’t Quinn’s son at Pendleton?”
“Are you a mind reader, too?” asked Jon. “Never mind. Don’t answer that.”
“I’ll keep your breakfast warm,” she said, winking at him before walking away.
Holding his breakfast hostage again. No surprise there.
Jon walked deeper into the yard, sitting on one of the crude granite benches he’d constructed with the man he needed to call. The five-foot-long, blue-gray granite faced Galena Peak—one of the biggest selling points of the property. They had spectacular views of the nine-thousand-foot peak year round, a point reinforced by several benches strategically situated throughout the twenty-acre plot.
He scrolled through the satphone’s three preset numbers, pressing “Send” as he sat down. The call connected after three rings.
“I assume this isn’t a recipe-trading call?” asked a familiar voice.
“Affirmative,” said Jon. “It’s probably nothing, but better safe than sorry,”
“‘Better safe than sorry’ means Leah’s standing somewhere close by, giving you the stink eye.”
“You guessed it.”
“Let me call you right back from a secure line.”
“I’ll be here,” said Jon, ending the call.
Jon stared at the display, forming a thin smile. Stuart Quinn, retired colonel, had parlayed a twenty-two-year career as a Marine Corps intelligence officer into a successful decade-long run on the national intelligence circuit. Now a beltway insider, Quinn would be in a position to defuse Nathan’s baseless conspiracy concerns.
He hated to bother his friend with this, but Leah wouldn’t give him a moment’s peace until he did his due diligence. More important, she wouldn’t serve him breakfast. And, it couldn’t hurt to ask if Stu’s son might be willing to deliver a few throwaway phones to Nathan before they left tonight, just in case Big Brother was listening.
CHAPTER 23
Flagg stood up and grabbed his headset—ready to rip them off. Nine minutes had passed. Eight minutes too long. Young Nathan sounded despondent, and big daddy Fisher was about to solve his problem. He would have been back on a phone within minutes.
“Where’s the damn feed?” asked Flagg.
The surveillance technician on the other end of the speakerphone conversation immediately replied. “He’s not in audible range of any phone in the building,” said the tech. “I guarantee that. He probably found a conference room with an intra-office phone.”
The dad had been clever suggesting that.
“And why can’t I listen to that?” asked Flagg.
“We’re working on it,” said the tech. “I need a few more minutes.”
“No. I want to know why I can’t already listen to it.”
“The surveillance package didn’t specify intra-office landlines.”
“And it didn’t occur to you to be tapped into that system?”
“The package request was very specific,” said the tech, his voice echoing through the operations center. “We’ll have it shortly.”
“What about the new satphone number?”
“It’s either an unregistered satphone, or the call hasn’t gone through yet.”
“I guaran-fucking-tee the call went through. It’s probably done at this point,” said Flagg, pounding his fist on the computer station and turning to Leeds. “And don’t say a fucking word, Leeds. This is your fault.”
Leeds raised his hands in a defensive pose.
“You have to do all of the thinking for the tech-support group,” spat Flagg, pausing to catch his breath. Then, again to the tech: “Patch the feeds through to me as soon as you acquire them.”
“Yes, sir.”
Flagg disconnected the call, glaring at Leeds—who shrugged his shoulders.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Leeds. “One way or the other, Fisher is out of the picture.”
“And if he talks to his father about the boats and the SUV?”
“We can take care of that, too—very quickly and very quietly,” said Leeds. “The parents live in the middle of nowhere.”
Flagg shook his head and grimaced. “How soon can you have a team in place?”
“A few hours.”
“All right,” said Flagg. “Let’s hope we don’t have to use the team. Killing the parents will raise questions.”
“Nobody will figure out what happened. They’ll be there one day, gone the next,” said Leeds. “Disappeared.”
The computer screen in front of Flagg indicated an incoming call from Cerberus technical support. He clicked the mouse, transferring it to the operations center’s speaker system.
“Do you have my feed?” asked Flagg, not feeling the least bit hopeful.
“We’re tapped into Nathan Fisher’s office building, but—”
“Let me guess,” said Flagg. “The call is finished.”
“Voice-recognition software doesn’t have a match for any of the ongoing calls,” said the technician. “I apologize for this, sir.”
“A lot of good that does me. I suppose you didn’t have any luck with the satphone either?”
“Correct,” answered the tech. “But for a different reason. The number Jon Fisher gave to his son connects to a National Security Agency satellite-redirect node. It’s a ghost phone. Untraceable and virtually impossible to tap—outside of Fort Meade. The only way we can listen to Jon Fisher is if he calls a line we’ve tapped.”
“Then I want every conceivable method of communication available to Nathan Fisher monitored. Understood?” asked Flagg. “If he buys a prepaid device, I want access the second he activates the phone. If he buys matching pink Barbie walkie-talkies, I want your people listening in on a frequency-hopping radio. I don’t care if he walks out of a store with two tin cans and a spool of string, one of you fuckers better be listening in on the other end. You get the picture?”
“Yes, sir.”
Flagg ended the call and turned to Leeds.
“Deploy the team immediately,” said Flagg. “And dig deeper into Jon Fisher’s background. I want to know everything there is to know about the supposedly retired Marine sergeant major with access to a ghost phone. He either knows somebody or he is somebody. I’d like to know which before we make a move against him.”
PART III
CHAPTER 24
Nick Leeds strolled under the wide palm canopies covering the sidewalk along Third Avenue, casually examining the Villa Camino apartments. In the fading light of early evening, the four-story building’s chipped yellow-stucco facade had absorbed darker shades of the sunset’s deep red-orange hue. He studied the ground floor for access points, noting a gated entrance to a small parking garage under the first floor. Not his first choice, for obvious reasons. He walked beyond the garage entrance, making room for the two young men ap
proaching him on the sidewalk. Walking arm in arm, they passed him with a cordial smile, which he returned with a noncommittal nod.
He slowed his pace and gave the couple time to cover some distance on the sidewalk before briskly turning between the two square-cut, shoulder-height hedges that flanked the apartment building’s front entrance. The front door was a solid black-metal slab fixed with an institutional-looking vertical handle. It resembled the kind of uninviting back entrance one might find in a trash-strewn alley. A worn card reader stood next to the door, partially illuminated in the shadow of the worn alcove. The Villa Camino apartments had seen better days.
A quick swipe with a specially designed keycard turned the reader’s LED indicator green. He pretended to check his phone, giving the decryption program embedded in the card’s chip time to break through the reader’s simple electronic cipher. The door buzzed moments later, admitting him to the building.
Torn maroon carpeting held down by three off-white lawn chairs greeted him in the lobby, competing for his attention with dank, musty air. For what they paid her, he hadn’t expected the place to be a complete shithole. Then again, the housing situation matched her official paycheck, so maybe a smart move on her part. Nothing drew more attention to a moderately paid civil servant than that exquisitely furnished apartment in a trendy neighborhood, or the sudden appearance of a six-figure luxury car.
Judging by the appearance of the building, Leeds opted for the staircase. Given the choice between maintaining mandatory California Resource Protection Act upgrades or handicapped-accessible elevators, most landlords would rather take their chances with the Americans with Disabilities Act. ADA violations didn’t get you deported from California.
The concrete stairwell held most of the building’s heat and humidity, leaving him with a thin film of perspiration by the time he reached the third floor. He opened the door, strangely relieved to breathe the stale air circulating through the hallways. The hallway was empty, and he found apartment 3C a few doors away from the stairwell on the right side. Convenient enough. Leeds examined the door, opting against using the decryption keycard.
The building’s landlord hadn’t upgraded the security system in more than a decade, a fact only the most security-clueless tenant might overlook. He could expect a minimum of two physical security measures holding 3C’s door in place. A deadbolt for sure, backed up by either a chain lock or some type of heavy-duty door jam. The chain-links could be snapped quickly and quietly. The doorjamb was a different story.
He reached into his left pocket and removed a black thumb-size rectangular device, fixing it in place against the peephole. With the object snuggly in place, Leeds flicked a small switch with his finger and waited for the signal light on the back of the item to flash green. Then he unzipped his windbreaker and drew a suppressed compact pistol from a concealed, nylon shoulder holster.
Leeds knocked on the door and waited a few seconds before knocking again. The floor creaked inside the room, betraying her presence before a shadow appeared under the door. He tensed, aiming the pistol directly in front of him.
“How can I help you?” asked a muffled voice from the other side of the door.
Damn. He’d hoped she might open the door without any questions. The digital video feed playing through her peephole showed her two uniformed San Diego County Police Department patrol officers, but they wouldn’t appear to respond to her questions. He might have to force his way in.
“Detective Peck?” asked Leeds. “Officers Hopper and Santiago. The Virtual Investigative Division has received a credible threat to your department. Something to do with the Sinaloa Cartel. Captain Volk wants all VID detectives back at headquarters for a security briefing.”
“We have phones for this kind of shit,” she said, turning the deadbolt.
“They suspect a device hack within the division,” said Leeds.
“Hold on,” she grumbled.
A clunking sound came from the bottom of the door, confirming his suspicion of a doorjamb-type security bar. He could have kicked this door all day and never broken inside. When the door went quiet, he edged closer, holding the pistol in a stable two-hand grip. The door opened to a few muttered obscenities, followed by a confused look.
“What the fuck is—” she started, a bullet hole appearing between her trimmed eyebrows.
Leeds slid inside the room and grabbed the collar of her gray San Diego State Aztecs sweatshirt with his left hand, lowering her limp body to the carpet without a sound. He retrieved the peephole device and checked the hallway, confirming that it was still empty before closing the door and sliding the deadbolt in place. Tucking the pistol into the shoulder holster, he headed to the kitchen table, eyeing her phone.
He removed a thin wallet-size digital tablet from the inside pocket of his windbreaker and set it next to her phone, activating its screen and entering a six-digit code. The tablet immediately recognized her phone and automatically transferred a self-erasing virus designed to scrub any deeply hidden evidence that she spied on the San Diego County Police Department.
While it sanitized her phone and all peripheral devices with any possible link to Cerberus, the program rewrote her digital life, adding fake geographic tracks, bank transactions, text messages, calls, and web-browsing history to match the data profile she had unwittingly uploaded to the heavily encrypted Virtual Investigative Division portal earlier today.
Peck’s VID colleagues would have a field day piecing together her connection to the California Liberation Movement and other shady characters implicated in the sabotage of the Del Mar Triad Station.
Satisfied that the tablet was doing its job, Leeds withdrew a two-inch-thick, rubber-banded roll of fifty-dollar bills from his jacket and approached Peck’s corpse, careful not to step on the bloodstained carpet. He opened her right hand and closed it around the money wad a few times, spreading her fingerprints evenly—a small detail meant to boost the murder investigation’s confirmation bias. Finding ten grand in relatively inconspicuous fifty-dollar bills was a recipe for jealousy and foregone conclusions.
Leeds stepped into Peck’s tidy, modestly appointed bedroom and headed for the closet. He slid the mirrored door open and examined her tightly jammed wardrobe, selecting a ski jacket pressed against the inside wall. The coat displayed a few tattered ski tags from Snow Summit, and plenty of inside pockets. He slipped the money into a zippered phone holder on the left waist, and tucked the jacket back into place.
Back in the kitchen, the tablet screen told him the digital transfer was complete, with no errors. He pocketed the device and left the apartment, walking briskly down the dingy hallway to the stairs. Less than thirty seconds later, he was back on the sidewalk, headed north on Third Avenue toward the car he parked just out of sight on Robinson Ave. Approaching the intersection of the two streets, he spied the nondescript silver sedan to the right, partially obscured by a line of brown-tipped dwarf palmetto palm plants lining the corner lot.
He removed the skin-colored latex gloves after turning onto Robinson Avenue, checking his watch when he peeled one of the gloves away. He still had two hours to get the teams situated for phase two of the evening’s operation.
CHAPTER 25
Jon Fisher heaved an olive-green, five-gallon plastic jerrican into the 4Runner’s cargo compartment, pushing it against the back of the seat bench, next to a second water can. He loaded two black milk crates filled with packets of dehydrated survival food, MREs, first-aid supplies, and tools next to the water cans, barely leaving enough space on the other side to fit two five-gallon cans of gasoline.
The red fuel containers, similar in shape and size to the water cans, filled the void, leaving little side-to-side wiggle room. After several dozen camping trips, he’d developed a system that fit all their gear in the rear compartment—leaving the second row of seats open for Leah’s last-minute surprises. Without fail she always had a few up her sleeve that somehow took up most of the back seat. On cue, Leah appeared next to hi
m, carrying a camouflage-patterned backpack over one shoulder and dragging an oversize duffel bag along the garage floor. He smiled and shook his head.
“Aren’t you supposed to spring a few extra suitcases on me a little later?” asked Jon. “Those are part of my planned loadout.”
“I’ll throw something together a few minutes before we leave,” she said, dropping the backpack next to the SUV. “Thought I’d help out.”
“Spying, is more like it.”
“Can’t a man’s wife of thirty-six years spend a little time with him without raising suspicions?”
“Thirty-six years has left the man paranoid,” he said, lifting the backpack into the 4Runner and turning to her. “I’ll be fine, honey.”
“I’d feel better if you took one of your buddies along for the ride.”
“I can take care of myself,” he said. “And I might need the extra room if they have car trouble, or if Owen wants to drive with his grandpa.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her in, gently kissing her neck. “I’ll give them a proper escort through Nevada. Things aren’t exactly safe and sound there, especially for someone like Nathan.”
“I don’t think you give him enough credit,” she said. “He’s a smart kid. Very capable.”
“He doesn’t own a gun,” said Jon, stepping back to push the backpack deeper into the SUV. “Smart and capable will only get you so far in the high-desert wastelands.”
“Guns don’t solve every problem.”
“They’re a good start,” he said, lifting the duffel bag filled with guns, ammunition, and optics gear and sliding it into the open backseat.
She’d started to respond, when his satphone rang. He’d synched the phone with his home satcom system, allowing him to receive a notification when a call was inbound.
“Hold that thought,” he said, pulling the phone out of a cargo pocket and rushing onto the driveway, where he could acquire a signal.
“I thought I might hear from you earlier,” said Jon. “It’s pretty late there, right? Did you find something?”
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