BackTrek

by Kelvin Kelley

“And send McAlister. We’ve got an unknown suspect here, and I want a positive I.D. as soon as possible.” Jack barked into the phone. “Well get them moving, we’ve got a mess over here.” He said and then returned the phone to his pocket.

  “Jack?” Mike asked as he walked up to him.

  “Yeah, Mike. You okay?” Jack asked as he reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder.

  “A little shaken, I guess. But other than that I’m okay. I was talking to Trace, and we thought that it might be a good idea to get the kids out of here. She was thinking of taking them to my place.”

  “Good idea, Mike. Help her get them together and then why don’t you drive them over.”

  “Can I come back?” He asked, as his enthusiasm to help edged into his voice.

  “Sure, Mike.” Jack said, as a smile formed on his face. “Just get them settled, and then head back over.” Mike followed Jack back to where Tracey and the kids where still huddled. Jack knelt down beside her, reached his hand slowly to her chin and turned her head to face him.

  “Jack, I-” She began, as tears welled up in her eyes.

  “Shh.” He said softly. “No words.” A single tear fell over the edge of his cheek and traced its way slowly down the stubble of his day old beard. She reached up and touched it as her own tears began to flow. He took her hand gently, kissed it, and then kissed her on the cheek. “Go with Mike.” He said softly.

  “But-” She began, her voice broken.

  “I’m not through with this yet, Trace. But when I am...I am yours. All yours.” He kissed her again, then stood up slowly as he still looked into her eyes. She could feel his love, and she could see it in his eyes. A warmth that had not been there for years, now seemed to emanate from his very being like an aura. She smiled slightly and nodded her head. She watched after him as he turned and walked away.

  “You ready, Trace?” Mike asked. Her stare lingered another moment as her heart filled with love for the only man in her life. She sniffed, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and nodded. Across the room Jack pulled his phone from his pocket, when Ted called to him. He knelt beside the body of Smith. Jack walked over to him.

  “What’s up, Ted?”

  “Mr. Smith here has no identification. No papers, no credit cards. Nothing.”

  “What did you expect? A birth certificate and map to his house?”

  “No. I just thought we’d find something.” Jack tapped Ted lightly on the shoulder.

  “It’s okay, Ted. McAlister will be here soon and he’ll get the answers that we’re looking for. Why don’t you go outside and get some fresh air until they get here.” Ted nodded and rose slowly to his feet. Jack bent down in front of Smith’s body and stared intently into his expressionless face. “You might be an enigma now, Mr. Smith. But I’ll find out who you are and why you were here, no matter how deeply you’ve hidden it. Your employer has some dues to pay, and I intend to collect.”

  Ted stood outside of the house when the first patrol car pulled up to the curb. McAlister’s van was right behind it, but pulled into the driveway instead. The older man nonchalantly exited his van and stepped to the rear. Moments later he returned, with his bag full of equipment in hand.

  “Inside.” Ted called out. McAlister nodded, as he peered over his glasses at Ted. McAlister went into the house, as Ted dropped his partially finished cigarette to the ground and crushed it with his shoe. Whatever McAlister would find, Ted wanted to be there. He followed the older man into the house and then into the living-room. Jack rose from Smith’s body as they entered.

  “Hi, Jim. This piece of shit tried to waste my family. I had to put him down a few times to get him stopped. What I want to know is who is he?” McAlister looked at Jack intently for a second. His fiery eyes that hid in his weathered face, peered over the glasses that lay perpetually perched on his nose. He nodded, and bent towards the body on the floor. Jack and Ted both stood back as McAlister opened his equipment case and withdrew a small pouch which he unzipped. He removed a device from the pouch and reached back into his bag and withdrew a small wand with a swab attached to the end. Carefully he removed the plastic covering and touched the tip of the swab to the neat hole which was in the middle of Smith’s forehead. Satisfied that enough blood had soaked into the swab, he retracted it and inserted the tip into the device that he had taken out of the pouch. He thumbed the power button on the side of the device and the small machine came to life. Its screen lit up and began to list out the DNA sequences that were contained in the sample that he had inserted. Patterns appeared and disappeared as the sequence was aligned and converted into the same format as the DNA National Database. Suddenly the image became fixed and a single red light blinked on the keypad of the device. McAlister hit the button below the blinking light and the word ‘connecting’ appeared on the display.

  “It’ll be just a few more moments, gents.” McAlister said confidently, as if there could be no chance that Smith’s DNA pattern was not registered. Jack heard another car pull up outside and glanced through the open curtains. Mike had returned. He stepped towards the entrance into the hallway.

  “What’s up?” Ted asked.

  “Mike’s back.”

  “You gonna keep him out of this, Jack?”

  “I’m not going to stop him if he wants to help.” They heard Mike enter the house and walk down the hallway towards them.

  “Anything?” He asked as he rounded the corner into the living-room.

  “Not yet.” Jack said. Suddenly a strange sound echoed throughout the living-room. Mike looked puzzled as both Jack and Ted reached for their weapons instinctively. Only McAlister looked calmly amused by the sudden sound, and quickly located its source. He removed the phone from Smith’s pocket and tapped a button to silence the device. With a devilish half smile he reached up and handed the phone to Jack. Jack took the device from him and looked visibly relieved that it was only a phone that had caused the noise. He glanced at the alert on the display. A series of numbers appeared on the screen, but obviously not a phone number of any type. He turned to Ted and handed him the phone.

  “Make any sense?” He asked as Ted looked intently at the numbers. Mentally Ted began to rearrange the numbers in his mind, as he tried to make them into a valid telephone number. But the number of digits didn’t match, no matter how hard he tried.

  “Let me see it.” Mike said. Ted looked at Jack and Jack nodded slightly. Mike carefully took it from Ted’s outstretched hand and peered cautiously at the display, as if he thought that just to glance at it would erase the numbers from its memory.“GPS.” He said after a moment’s hesitation. Suddenly a smile broadened across his face. “These are GPS coordinates. And it looks like they are somewhere in this area.”

  Jack Looked at Ted, and Ted returned his surprised stare. Even McAlister lifted an eyebrow, as he exhibited the limit of his ability to show surprise.

  “How did you figure that out?” Jack asked his brother.

  “I use them in some of my consulting work. Luckily I just recognized them as being from this area. Everybody uses them now. They’re even more popular than directions.” Mike said enthusiastically.

  “So how can we find out where this location is, Mike?” Jack asked.

  “Give me a second.” He said as he pulled his phone out. He tapped the screen a few times, glanced back at the numbers on Smith’s phone, and entered them into the application he had activated. A few seconds passed, and then a map of the city flashed onto the screen. A red ‘x’ marked the spot. Mike tapped on the ‘x’ and the map zoomed in. He tapped again, and it zoomed in again.

  “That’s the Bus Station downtown.” Jack said, as he recognized the map. “How exact are those coordinates?”

  “Within inches.”

  “Where in the bus station is that location?” Jack asked. Mike again tapped the red ‘x’ and again the map zoomed, this time to street lev
el. He tapped it again and a map of the bus station came into view.

  “Looks like a bathroom on the north end.”

  “Jack.” McAlister said.

  “Who is he?” Jack asked.

  “Karl Von Hogue, a German National. He resides in a small town outside of Berlin.”

  “Berlin? Germany?”

  “That’s his listed address. His occupation is listed as import export. I searched the INS files and found that he was here on a work visa issued out of New York.”

  “Thanks, Jim.” Jack turned, puzzled. “Mike, the guy’s name is Karl Von Hogue, see what you can dig up. While you do that, Ted and I are going to the bus station. There has to be a reason that Von Hogue got that message, and we need to find out what it is.” Ted followed Jack out of the house and silently got into the passenger side of the Jeep. Jack slammed his own door after he sat down, and fired the engine. He pulled out into the street before even fastening his seat-belt.

  “Von Hogue, huh?” Ted asked.

  “Ever heard of him?” Jack asked.

  “Not at all. It sounds like he had himself well insulated.”

  “Yeah, and now we’ve got to peel back the layers.” Jack accelerated down the street, as Ted began to try and work the pieces of this puzzle together in his mind.

  Soon, Jack had stopped the jeep in front of the bus station and he and Ted entered the building at almost a full trot. Jack glanced around and Ted caught his eye. He had found the bathroom. They walked towards the doorway and looked both ways before they entered. Silently they ensured that the bathroom was empty.

  “What are we looking for?” Ted asked.

  “I don’t know yet, but it’s small enough to be hidden here. It could be a note, a small package, a key, a photo. Just about anything, but whatever it is, it’s got to be here. You start there.” Jack said as he pointed towards the bank of sinks. As Ted bent over to look under the sinks, Jack entered the furthest stall and bent over. He ran his hand under the backside of the porcelain toilet in front of him. He came up empty, but continued to eye the stall for any other hiding places. He lifted the lid to the tank and again came up empty. He backed out of the last stall and entered the fourth stall. Immediately he bent down again and felt behind the bowl. He let his hands run up the smooth cold porcelain and raked the underside of the tank. Still nothing. Again he lifted the top off of the tank, and again found nothing. He moved into the next stall and ran his hands under the tank. He had found something taped underneath.

  “Ted! I’ve got it!” He said as he stared at the key he had found. He removed the tape that had held it in place and exited the stall. “It looks like a locker key.”

  “Well, let’s find that locker.” Ted said. They left the bathroom and walked towards the locker area. In moments they had located the locker which matched the key, and opened it. Jack reached down inside and grabbed the envelope which lay alone inside the locker. He opened it carefully and stared blankly at the small sheet of paper inside.

  “More numbers.” He said.

  “GPS coordinates?” Ted asked.

  “No...something else. I’m not sure what it is. See this number? It’s three times as long as a coordinate, and this one...it has letters in it too. This makes absolutely no sense.” Ted took the paper from Jack and stared at intently for a moment. “Okay, let’s think this through. Smith...Von Hogue...was a hitman. Supposedly one of the best in the business. An employer could contact him via his phone and leave coordinates for the key to the locker which would hold information on a hit. Why else would he be contacted?”

  “To get paid.” Jack said.

  “Exactly!”

  “It’s an account number! The first number is an routing number. Then an account number. It has to be.” Jack exclaimed.

  “And the third set of numbers? The one with letters?” Ted asked, as slight smile appeared on his face.

  “The encoded name of the bank?”

  “They would already know which bank, the routing number contains that info. What about a passcode?”

  “Of course! Come on, let’s go!” Jack said as he turned and left for the door. Ted followed close behind.

  As Jack started the jeep and pulled out into traffic, Ted dialed a number on his cell phone. A voice on the other end answered.

  “Mike, hey, it’s Ted. Can you access banking records via the internet?”

  “Sure...as long as you don’t tell anyone. Has it got anything to do with Von Hogue?”

  “Yeah. Why?” Ted asked, perplexed that Mike would be ahead of the game.

  “While I’ve been waiting on you guys, I did some digging around. This guy was loaded. So far I’ve found fifteen separate accounts that this guy has accessed in a Switzerland bank. There’s no telling how many he’s actually got. Until he accesses them they are still tied to whoever opened them. I’ve added up over five million in US dollars so far.” Ted stared at Jack, dumbfounded. He covered the mouth piece of his phone.

  “Your brother seems to have found the bank.” Ted said quietly to Jack. Jack turned his eyes from the street and looked at Ted. His face mirrored the surprised look that Ted wore. “Let me give you an account number and passcode. See what you can find out.” He read the account number and the passcode, and Mike read it back to him for verification. “We’ll be back in a little while.” He told Mike and ended the call.

  “I always knew he was smart, Ted.” Jack said. Ted just nodded his head. There was something about this that he didn’t like. Sure he was glad to progress on the case so fast, when at every turn it had looked like the leads would dry up. But the pieces of this puzzle seemed to be coming together too neatly for him to feel comfortable. He just had that gut feeling that something was amiss.

  Chapter 32