Stealth Power

by Vikki Kestell

  Could I convince them to allow a cluster of the swarm to leave my body, to “exit the building,” even temporarily, so we could communicate?

  They had done just that only two nights ago: They had sent letters and words to the screen of my laptop, so I knew that what I was proposing was possible. The question was, would they?

  I napped away the day, rationing my food, eating tiny meals whenever I awoke, recovering my strength in increments. As evening shadows lengthened, I found myself curled up in a chair in the living room, deep in thought, avoiding the specter of a bleak future by focusing on finding a route through the dilemma-fraught maze that lay before me. I opened no drapes and switched on only a small table lamp. I couldn’t chance the neighbors noticing that the house was occupied.

  “Nano.”

  I paused for them to fix their attention on me. “Nano, we need to talk to each other. Would you please leave my body and make words in the air?”

  Their response was a fierce, tickling thrum that went on for five seconds.

  “So, that’s a ‘no’? But you wrote messages on my laptop’s screen, right? Some of you left me for a bit. A minute or so?”

  More (but less vehement?) clicking answered me.

  I looked around the room. The décor wasn’t horrible, mind you, just minimal and impersonal. Not a single intimate touch. No magazines or knickknacks. One print of a Southwestern water color hung opposite the sofa. Other than that, entire walls were bare.

  Entire walls.

  Bare.

  I jumped up and faced the off-white paint of one naked wall. “Nano! Can you project words on this wall?”

  I waited.

  Silence.

  “Nano! We must begin to communicate. We must! I know Dr. Bickel told you to hide me, but can’t you send one of the tribes or part of a tribe to paint a word on this wall like you did on my computer screen?”

  More silence.

  “You are not that freaking stupid!” I yelled. I slapped the wall with one hand and left it there. My frustration levels were not improved by the hunger lurching around in my stomach.

  “Nano! Give me a sign that you are listening! That you hear me!”

  Warmth shot down my arm, into my palm, out my splayed fingers. Blue letters leaked from my fingertips and formed on the wall.

  WE

  HEAR

  I sighed. Shuddered. My pent-up anxieties seemed to unravel and ooze away.

  “All right then. We have work to do. What do you need to trace the origin of Dr. Bickel’s email?”

  All was silent—which told me that they were either ignoring me or discussing my question. A full minute later another set of letters sparkled on the otherwise blank wall.

  TERMINAL

  “Right. Like I’m gonna stroll into an electronics store and walk out with a new laptop. And what about an Internet connection? A computer is worthless without connectivity.”

  More deafening silence.

  I paced the living room floor, sifting through schemes by which I might acquire a laptop. The easiest, most logical method to acquire what I needed sported a six-inch, all-cap, above-the-fold headline:

  GEMMA KEYES EMBRACES LIFE OF CRIME

  As I ranged back and forth across the room, growing more frustrated with each crossing, I scowled. Moral scruples be hanged! As Invisa-Girl I can stroll into any store I want and take away whatever fits under my shirt—without the hassle of payment.

  I had a good excuse. It was, after all, a matter of survival.

  And, well, wasn’t “appropriating” whatever I needed the safest, most sane route to go?

  “Pride goeth before destruction, Gemma,” Aunt Lu’s voice chipped in, “and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

  Riiiight. Cuz I hadn’t heard that all my life.

  I shrugged off the arguments on both sides. “Fine,” I informed the nanomites. “I’ll figure out a way to get a computer—but you’ll have to figure out the connectivity thing. I’m not calling the cable company.”

  It dawned on me, as I proposed—and scrapped—various tactics over the next hours, that pirating a neighbor’s network would be child’s play for the mites if they chose to cooperate. So would spoofing an IP address or otherwise masking our computer.

  I snorted. “Our computer?”

  Strange alliances.

  While I schemed and strategized, I also thought about Zander, Abe, and Emilio. I ached to find out how Abe and Emilio were getting along. I wanted to know if Abe had called CYFD yesterday and reported Emilio’s uncle for neglect. And I wondered if CYFD would leave Emilio with Abe, if they would approve Abe for custody of Emilio.

  I itched to know the answers to these concerns—and a simple, five-minute conversation with Zander would put my fears to rest. Except (and here I swallowed down a fresh burst of anxiety) except I needed to proceed with extreme caution. Because of Cushing. Because of what she would do to my friends if I slipped up.

  Even once.

  Zander. How would I communicate with him on the “down low”? Maybe I could slip into some random store or business and use a land line to call Zander at his office—but what if the church secretary picked up instead? Or, more concerning, what if Cushing had already tapped DCC’s phones?

  And what means could we arrange for him to reach me in an emergency? What we needed was a new and covert means of communication. A secret means.

  The phrase “burner phone” popped into my head. Dr. Bickel had given me what he called a burner phone. I’d left it in my bug-out bags, and it was likely in Cushing’s possession now.

  “What exactly is a burner phone?” I asked aloud. “And where can I get one?”

  I noodled that around and realized I would need two phones. Well, of course! One for me, one for Zander.

  By default, I was back to a Walmart Supercenter. I could think of no other store that was open 24/7 and that had, in one location, everything I needed—maybe not the best of what I needed, but usable. Shrugging, I also admitted that at Walmart I could avoid theft by checking out at the self-serve registers.

  I started a list: Laptop, two burner phones, food, and clothes. Personal items. Might require two trips into the store and out to the car—

  “Oh, yeah. No car. So, how exactly do I get to Walmart and back? Walk three miles and tote all that stuff home? The mites can’t hide everything I need to pick up—and I sure can’t carry it all home in one trip.”

  While my strength was returning, I would not be strong enough to undertake anything so physically demanding. All my planning led straight back to the transportation quandary: I needed a car!

  The tenuous grip by which I kept my emotions in check slipped another notch—until out of the downward spiral sprang the glimmer of an idea.

  ~~**~~

  Chapter 4

  FBI Special Agent Ross Gamble studied the burned-out shell of an old building. He glanced around, taking in details, assessing the markers of the rundown southwest Albuquerque neighborhood: weeds growing up through cracked and buckled sidewalks; boarded-up shops and gang-tagged walls and fences; broken streetlights and the disreputable dumps the area residents called homes.

  The ruin before him had been a respectable bodega at one time—back when every Albuquerque neighborhood boasted of its own little corner market. If one believed the news, the seedy storefront had most recently been used to cut, package, and distribute drugs—meth, coke, and heroin.

  Gamble rehearsed what the Albuquerque news outlet had reported: Sources in APD’s gang unit believe that the building had housed a drug processing hub belonging to a local gang with ties to a Mexican cartel. A spokesperson for the gang unit, who asked not to be identified, suggested that the fire might have been started by a rival gang out of California seeking to horn in on the market and trafficking routes through Albuquerque. The unit has cautioned APD to be on the alert for gang-related reprisals.

  Gamble and the other agents of the FBI’s Albuquerque field office didn’t involve themselves in lo
cal gang activity unless a case had direct international ties and/or crossed over into terrorism—or unless APD requested assistance from DEA’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, OCDETF. The FBI participated in the OCDETF, as did APD; however, most federal law agencies left the menial, small-town stuff to local law enforcement.

  But today? Gamble was here today because of one tiny tidbit a confidential informant had slipped to him—a name: Arnaldo Soto.

  Arnaldo Soto. The hair on the back of Gamble’s neck bristled.

  An unmarked car pulled up to the curb, and two men stepped out. Gamble spied his contact in the APD gang unit as he exited the passenger side. He raised his hand in greeting. The driver, who was unfamiliar to Gamble, nodded in his direction. The man scanned the area, lit a cigarette, and stood watch while his partner approached Gamble.

  “Hey, man. Good to see you.” Pete Diaz thrust his hand toward Gamble and they shook.

  “You, too, Pete. Who’s your friend?”

  “Don Benally. Good man. Been with the gang unit five years.”

  That was the extent of the pleasantries. Gamble and Diaz had too much on their plates to waste time with chitchat.

  Gamble jutted his chin at the gutted storefront. “So, what did RCFL come up with?” The Regional Computer Forensics Lab served all New Mexico law enforcement agencies, federal and otherwise.

  “They confirmed that the fire was arson. It was set from the inside, and whoever did it intended to make a statement. If you look over there, you can make out the safe.”

  Gamble spied the blackened hulk, its door hanging open on twisted hinges, and nodded for Diaz to continue.

  “When the fire started, the door was open just like you see it. We think whoever set the fire emptied the safe, piled everything that was in it on the floor, and lit the fire there. No accelerant, though.”

  “Huh. Any idea what was at the ignition point?”

  “Sure. The forensics geeks found traces of drugs and cash, couple of handguns, and the scorched remains of ammo casings.”

  “The arsonists burned cash?”

  “Apparently.”

  Gamble, hands on his hips and a scowl on his face, surveyed the heap of rubble. “I don’t get it. I thought this was a rival gang hit.”

  “That’s the word on the street—except no rival gang has taken credit for it. Besides, that theory doesn’t make sense, does it? Ever hear of a gang burning money and drugs instead of taking them? Nope. Doesn’t hold water.”

  “So, if not a rival gang, then who?”

  Pete shrugged. “Not too many possibilities. For instance, couldn’t have been a greedy employee, right? Greed and ‘let’s burn the drugs and cash’ don’t jibe. If it had been an inside job, they would have taken the money and left town in a hurry.”

  “Sounds right. So, who else?”

  “Maybe a disaffected ex-employee? Someone with a grudge against the gang leadership? Possibly a vigilante?”

  “Speaking of gang leadership . . .” Gamble let his question hang.

  “Guess you’ve heard the same rumors. You’re here because of Soto.”

  “Well, suppose I am?”

  “Yeah, and if Soto is in Albuquerque and the fire proves to be a rival gang hit, the streets are gonna run with blood.”

  “What if it wasn’t another gang?”

  “Then Soto is going to thin his own organization, weed out any loose or suspicious members, and shake down anyone who might have an inkling of who burned him out. You know Soto’s reputation for payback: If he even thinks he knows who did this, it ain’t gonna be pretty. He will make an example of them.”

  “Yeah, I get that. He’s feared by those who work for him and eyed with caution by those up the chain. If he weren’t connected by blood at the top—” Gamble let that thought linger before he asked, “Any idea why he was sent to Albuquerque?”

  “The gang’s local leader, one Mateo Martinez, had a bit of a problem a few weeks back. Seems his girlfriend clobbered him over the head, hog-tied him while he was unconscious, stole the gang’s take from the night before—and Martinez’s prized muscle car—and burned rubber. Got clean away. Quite the loss of face for Martinez. His superiors sent Soto to temporarily take the reins, assess Martinez’s standing, and shape up the organization.”

  Gamble looked unconvinced. “Over what? A domestic dispute and a small chunk of change?”

  “That and the disturbing news that someone other than his girlfriend called the cops on Martinez—from his own phone, even. That means an unknown participant was inside his house, someone party to Martinez’s girlfriend’s theft. When the officers arrived, they found Martinez trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey—and a brick of coke sitting on his table in plain view. The gang higher-ups want to know who ratted them out.”

  “Still seems like overkill, sending in Soto’s kind of, er, management style.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve heard rumors.”

  “Of?”

  “Of Soto screwing up bad in Mexico, of him being sent here to ‘think on his sins.’”

  Gamble didn’t comment; he returned to the curious details around Martinez. “Whoever messed up Martinez and called the cops also left the drugs on the table for the police to find?”

  “Uh-huh. So . . . care to share your interest?”

  Gamble didn’t answer. He looked down at one polished shoe tip and, instead of answering, he pondered what Diaz had told him.

  In both cases, neither drugs nor money seemed to have mattered. Could there be a connection between the burned-out drug house and Mateo’s girlfriend? Between this fire and the call to APD from Mateo’s house? A common thread?

  Pete Diaz and the APD gang unit didn’t mind partnering with the Albuquerque Division of the FBI, but they didn’t like working in the dark—and Gamble had evaded Diaz’s gentle probe.

  Time to probe less gently.

  “Give it up, Gamble. Why your interest in Soto?”

  The FBI man shrugged. “Arnaldo Soto is a sociopath who needs to be taken out of play. Wherever he goes, law enforcement agencies have to restock their body bags. Isn’t that interest enough?”

  Pete shook his head. “Nope. I’d appreciate a little more detail.”

  Gamble’s smile was thin. “You know the whole ‘I’m not at liberty to discuss the specifics’ spiel, but . . . I guess I can tell you that Soto is a suspect in the deaths of several Mexican undercover cops. Unfortunately, one of those undercover operatives was FBI, working with the Mexican authorities. Another was DEA.”

  “Okay, so it’s agency interest. Not personal.”

  Gamble’s eyes hardened. “I didn’t say that.”

  “So, it is personal. To you.”

  “I didn’t say that, either.”

  Pete’s nod was almost imperceptible. “Got it.”

  “Thanks. You’ll be calling me?”

  “I’ll keep you in the loop.”

  The two men shook hands again and strode to their respective vehicles.

  ***

  I rested another entire day, parceling out the remainder of the snacks I’d bought at the minimart, taking naps, drinking copious amounts of water. All the sitting around wasn’t good for my mental state, though: I had too much time on my hands to think without being able to act. I tried to ignore the nagging sense of despair, but it adhered to me like static cling.

  When the food ran out, it forced me to get moving, to confront my logistical problems.

  Remember my “glimmer of an idea”? After dark that evening, I made a careful circuit of my near neighbors’ homes, taking note of the cars parked in driveways and along the curbs.

  What if . . . what if I were to ‘borrow’ a car for a few hours in the middle of the night? I wouldn’t keep the car; I’d just use it and put it right back.

  The Ghost of Aunt Lucy Past rattled its chains at me, but I kept walking, looking for the “right” vehicle. Zander’s disapproving face hovered at the edge of my vision, too, but I refused to look at i
t.

  I returned home, fed the nanomites, and waited until after midnight. Then I turned off the living-room lamp, slipped out the back door, climbed over the wall, and headed down the alley. At the corner, I turned right and jogged two blocks.

  I’d spotted a likely candidate on my earlier reconnaissance.

  Three cars lined the driveway of a single-story stucco-and-brick house. A fourth car sat on the street.

  Sheesh. How many cars do people need?

  I waltzed up to the car at the curb and placed my hand on the driver’s window near the locking mechanism. My next moves depended on the nanomites and their cooperation.

  “Nano,” I breathed. “Unlock this car.”

  Silence.

  I waited. Fidgeted.

  “Nano. Remember what you asked for? A laptop? I said, unlock this car.”

  A few chitters and seconds later, a tiny blue light jumped from my fingers and through the window. I watched the light touch down on the manual door latch.

  Saw the lock rise.

  I blew out a pent-up breath. “Nano. Make sure the interior lights don’t come on when I open the door.”

  I waited while the twinkling blue specks did their thing. When I lifted the handle, the door opened, but the car’s inside lights remained off.

  “All right . . .” I whispered. I slid into the driver’s seat, eased the door closed, and sat there, watching the house. When nothing happened, I buckled up and studied the dash for a minute.

  “Nano. Start the car.”

  While staring at the house I counted under my breath, “One, one thousand; two, one thousand; three, one thousand; four, one thousand; five—”

  The engine turned over and caught. I didn’t move; my eyes were glued to the house: No alarm; no lights. A full minute later, I slipped the gear shift into drive and let the engine’s impetus roll the car down the street. I glanced back at the house. Still no lights. No shouts. No movement. I put my foot on the gas and, at a sedate speed, headed toward the nearest Walmart.

  I spent the drive down Candelaria thinking through what had just happened.