Endings and Beginnings (Death and Destruction Book 8)

by Patricia Logan

  “There’s bodies pilin’ up, Thayne,” Jarrett said. “We can’t just wait and hope Congress is gonna do somethin’. Them fuckers move at a snail’s pace as it is.”

  Thayne sighed, watching his husband. “Yeah, true.”

  “And, don’t forget,” Diaz said, “the Chinese government is denying they have anything to do with this. They claim that if a Chinese company wanted to corner the palladium market, it would be working outside Chinese law and they even deny there’s a Chinese company involved in such a scheme.”

  “So, the US government is making all this up,” Lincoln concluded with a snort of disgust.

  “And of course they won’t allow us to investigate Chinese companies so we have no choice but to handle this ourselves,” Thayne said. “We could still turn our evidence over to Congress and let them threaten the Chinese government.”

  “There’s not enough evidence yet,” Lincoln said. “That’s what we need to do? Gather evidence here?”

  “Yes, that’s right, Snow,” Stanger said.

  “That’s fucked up,” Thayne sighed. “And Jarrett’s right too. Men are dying but there should still be a way to take away Stryker-Dunn’s contracts.”

  “It ain’t that easy, Thayne,” Jarrett said. “Stryker-Dunn has deep pockets and they funnel massive amounts of dollars into congressional campaigns to get their candidates elected and placed on the top of them influential committees. The company has a lot of friends on the Hill and they see to it that Stryker-Dunn and private security companies like them have autonomy when they go in and support our military. These companies have cuttin’-edge armament and sometimes technologically superior weapons to ours which means our government don’t have to provide these at a great cost. They also don’t have to risk a vote through the appropriations committee to beg Congress for money. I mean, we’re talkin’ tanks, helicopters, armored personnel carriers, fifty-caliber machine guns, and rocket launchers, man. If we didn’t hire companies like Stryker-Dunn, these weapons would have to be paid for through a secret slush fund the DOD keeps just for this and they’d rather draw on that for emergencies.”

  “Not trying to be naïve here, but I had no idea,” Thayne admitted.

  Jarrett nodded. “In any case, goin’ up against them will be like going up against a very mean, very scary army which is many times worse than our own because they don’t have to follow our rules and they answer to no one. Think of Mills Lang and the kinds of weapons he had in the warehouse in Sun Valley. That’s a fraction of what these guys have at their disposal and endless suitcases of cash provided by our own government!”

  “I have met and worked with a lot of these characters over the years. They answer to their own bosses and code of ethics and trust me, though some are honorable, a lot of these guys don’t have morals,” Mac added.

  “So, we’ve hit a wall,” Thayne concluded. “Our own government has hired a monster and let it loose and now it’s gone rogue. Is anyone surprised that it has become our worst nightmare?”

  “We’ve hit a bit of a wall, yes,” Diaz admitted, “but the news isn’t all terrible. We have undercover operatives in the mine but no one inside Stryker-Dunn here in the States. We need someone on the inside at Stryker-Dunn headquarters in Los Angeles,” Diaz said.

  “So, you want me and Mac Mac Mac to go into Stryker-Dunn?” Jarrett asked.

  Diaz blinked. “Mac Mac Mac?”

  Stanger looked over at her and sighed tiredly. “He means McCallahan.”

  She nodded at Stanger and then looked back at Jarrett. “You’re partially right.” She changed the slide again. This time a man’s face popped up on the screen and it was one Jarrett recognized. “I believe you know this man, Evans.”

  “Goddamn. Drake Archer. Yeah, I know that fucker.” Jarrett swore and then glanced away from the screen and back at Diaz and Stanger. He cleared his throat. “Uh, sorry for the language. He’s just ain’t a nice guy.”

  “That’s right, he’s not, Evans. And unfortunately, he’s the guy running Stryker-Dunn’s operation here in the States and sits on their board of directors. Since you know him and he knows you, there is no way we can risk sending you in undercover,” Diaz said. “He does know you, right?”

  Jarrett swallowed hard. Archer did know Jarrett. They’d worked together a few times and he knew just how cutthroat and ruthless Drake Archer was. He was without conscience. He nodded to the two SACs at the front of the room.

  “Yeah, we worked together a few times and he’d recognize me on sight, I reckon. Besides, the last time we worked together, it didn’t end well which ya already know if you’ve read my file. If I was recognized, it would blow the whole operation and if getting close to Archer is what we need to do for this op, I’d only be a liability,” Jarrett admitted. “I had no idea he sat on the board of directors for Stryker-Dunn.” He looked over at Thayne who gazed back at him intensely. He looked almost relieved that it wasn’t going to be Jarrett this time.

  “That’s what we thought, so, when I said you were partially right, we’ve decided to get Special Agent McCallahan hired as a merc. That should be easy enough.” She glanced over at Mac who nodded.

  “Yeah, no problem, boss.”

  “Good,” Stanger said. He glanced at Jose. “You and Snow will be running the op from the outside and Mac will be eyes and ears inside.” Stanger smiled. “It’s time you run your own op, Galvez. You spend way too much time taking a back seat to all the heroics. Since it’s technically an FBI op, Snow will be right alongside. You okay with that?”

  “Yes, thank you, sir.” Jose looked inexorably pleased with his job at the moment. Jarrett knew he’d backed Thayne up when he was undercover in Mills Lang’s organization and was more than capable of running an op from the office or the field. Jarrett turned his attention back to Stanger as he addressed Nico.

  “You’re also going into Stryker-Dunn, Devecchio.”

  “Okay, boss. What’s my role?” he asked.

  “We need someone to ingratiate themselves with management and obtain access to sensitive files. That will be you. The CIA has identified the person in charge of Stryker-Dunn’s IT operations as a man by the name of Josiah Flynn. Until yesterday, he was working hand in hand with Drake Archer and we believe Flynn was part of Archer’s scheme.”

  “Was?” Jarrett asked.

  “Yes,” SAC Diaz interjected. “We have been monitoring Flynn and his communications with Archer but about twenty-four hours ago, he suddenly dropped off our radar. At this point, we believe he got scared and is making himself scarce. Something Stryker-Dunn is doing really must have spooked him. When we hacked into his computer, we found searches for flights to countries which shared one thing in common… they’re all non-extradition countries. We believe he may be planning to skip the country and get away from Archer and Stryker-Dunn. After all, he does have access to what the company has been doing and he would know how dangerous Archer and his mercenaries truly are. For now, though, our plan is to have you take his place. You have an extensive IT background, correct?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Nico answered. “I have a master’s degree in computer science but I decided to become a cop instead since I felt like it was my true calling.”

  “Right,” Diaz said with a smile.

  “Won’t Archer recognize Devecchio and wonder why he’s impersonating Flynn?” Mac asked.

  “No one knows what Flynn looks like,” Diaz answered. “He’s always insisted on working remotely. Apparently, the man is the ‘ghost’ of Stryker-Dunn. The only man inside the company who’s ever met him is Drake Archer’s assistant, Titus Kerr, and Kerr is working out of the mine in Pretoria on a long-term assignment. We’re pretty confident it will be safe for you to take Josiah Flynn’s place and run IT here in LA. The only problem is that because Archer has worked with Flynn remotely, he will know his online voice, his inflections, his speech patterns. We’ve arranged for you to sit down and review emails of their conversations so you can commit these things to memory,
Devecchio. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, ma’am, but I do have a question.”

  “What is it, Special Agent?”

  “By online voice, you don’t mean his actual voice but what he sounds like on paper if you’d read hundreds of letters or emails, correct?”

  “Yes, that’s correct, Devecchio, and since Titus Kerr also speaks to him by email, he might be able to expose you.”

  “Thank you. One more question, ma’am. Why do we need someone inside to obtain access to these sensitive files?” Nico asked. “The FBI has hackers in cybercrimes that can do that. They can break encryption keys to Pentagon operations if necessary, ma’am.”

  SAC Diaz frowned. “I don’t even want to know how you know that, Devecchio, but just so you know, we’ve tried and failed to do that from the outside. The CIA has learned that Stryker-Dunn stores all critical documents on eight-inch floppy Minnow disks that cannot be copied. We believe that if Archer is working independently of others on the board at Stryker-Dunn, he might use the same type of disks to store evidence of what’s been going on in the company and who all is involved in any of their dirty business around the world. If he was able to get into the system through a back door which would be undetectable by IT, he could make copies of everything at Stryker-Dunn without leaving a trail. That way, he could blackmail members of the board of directors who may object to what’s going on in South Africa if he and his co-conspirators are found out.”

  “So, his Minnow disks would be his insurance,” Devecchio said.

  “Yes,” SAC Diaz said. “He probably keeps them in his office away from the other backups the company uses, perhaps in a safe.”

  “What’s a Minnow disk?” Sarah asked, frowning.

  “Minnow disks were patented by IBM in 1972, after they were developed by two engineers,” Nico said. “They were introduced by IBM commercially in 1971 though. The Minnow disk was eight inches square and held eighty kilobytes of data which was a massive amount of information at that time. To give you an idea, eighty KB of data is equivalent to one low resolution photo from an old cell flip phone. Eventually, the large disks were replaced with 5 ¼-inch floppies in 1976 and then the even smaller 3 ½-inch hard disks which were very popular until the internet came along with flash drives, external storage, and the cloud. Almost no one uses the original 8-inch Minnow disks anymore because they can’t be read unless you have an antiquated Minnow disk reader.”

  “That’s exactly right. Even if you could get all the disks out of the building, and we could find a device to read them on, just the act of trying to get them out could be lethal to you, Devecchio,” SAC Diaz said. “The problem lies in doing it without Stryker-Dunn and Drake Archer missing the disks while they’re gone.”

  “It’s hard to believe Drake Archer would use such an antiquated system,” Jarrett interjected.

  “Don’t fool yourself,” Nico replied. “The US military still uses them.”

  Jarrett laughed and Nico pinned him with a serious look.

  “He’s right, Jarrett,” SAC Stanger said. “Do you realize that the US military trusts the technology of those disks to protect the launch commands in nuclear silos?”

  Jarrett’s eyes widened. “Shit.”

  “Look,” Stanger went on, turning back to Nico. “The moment they’re missed, the entire operation is blown. That’s why we’re sending you in to find Archer’s disks and get them to a reader and retain the information up here, Devecchio.” Stanger pointed to his own head. “You’re the only one with an eidetic memory to be able to do that and posing as Josiah Flynn, Stryker-Dunn’s IT specialist, gives you access. We don’t think anyone will question you. Stryker-Dunn employees are scanned and x-rayed every time they leave the building, even for smoke breaks, so it’s impossible to take any type of drive or paperwork out of the building. And, all of this has to be done quickly, in case the real Josiah Flynn decides to get back into contact with someone in the company.”

  “But for now, he’s gone dark,” Thayne stated.

  “Yes,” Diaz replied.

  “What am I looking for in particular, SAC?” Nico asked.

  “Everything. We want you to memorize everything you see. Pay particular attention to any accounting files that look like a revenue stream. If there’s a revenue stream, there’s a paper trail we can follow from the outside. The goal here is to catch Stryker-Dunn in the act of espionage and fraud as well as exposing Drake Archer as a traitor.”

  “Archer won’t question why Josiah Flynn suddenly wants to go into the office?” Nico asked.

  “No. In recent emails, Kerr says that Archer has wanted to meet Flynn for a while and has insisted on it. It looks like the meeting is all arranged so there shouldn’t be any suspicion. We believe Flynn got cold feet after the meeting was arranged, prompting his disappearance.” Stanger glanced at Mac. “You’ll be watching his back. You’re going to have to find a way to get assigned to duty near the IT offices and then get him out if the operation goes tits up, McCallahan.”

  Mac nodded.

  “We trust you, Devecchio. We know your background in IT and as cop and a trained ATF special agent, but you’ll be focused on your job and Mac will be focused on his,” Diaz said. She turned to glance at Mac. “McCallahan, I can’t overemphasize the importance of your role in this. You’re going to be solely responsible for Devecchio’s safety and your own inside their building,” she said. “Our best guess is that they have as many as three thousand employees in the building during office hours and trust me, most of those aren’t clerical. The building will be filled with mercenaries and there will be an armory inside as well. We can’t do anything from out here and if we try to send in agents, they won’t be coming back out.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I understand.”

  Jarrett looked hard at Nico. He was nodding, seeming to take his undercover role in stride.

  “Have you ever gone undercover before, Devecchio?” Jarrett asked. The man was young, probably no more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight, but Jarrett didn’t know what his background as a cop had entailed. He’d once said he was a NY beat cop but maybe he’d done undercover work for the NYPD before joining the ATF.

  Nico shook his head. “No, but I’m willing to do anything once. I have to act like a nerdy genius, right?”

  Stanger and Diaz nodded.

  Nico smiled. “Well, that’s not even a stretch. I’ve been doing that all my life without even trying.”

  The others at the table laughed and Mac’s hand returned to Nico’s back where he patted him. Jarrett raised an eyebrow, noticing how the massive Green Beret was watching Devecchio with rapt attention. How the fuck did I miss that? He was unsure of what he was seeing but it sure looked like Mac was interested in their colleague. The way Devecchio turned and looked up into Mac’s face when he felt his gaze on him and his large hand on his back was telling. Jarrett couldn’t understand how he’d missed it before. Huh.

  “You may have been a nerdy genius before, Devecchio, but you have to pretend to be someone who is already known to Drake Archer, at least online. Fooling a man like Archer won’t be easy so don’t minimize the danger in your mind. I’m sure Evans here can attest to how he looks when he’s angry or even suspicious.”

  Jarrett nodded, not wanting to think about Nico getting a bullet in the brain like the last guy who’d crossed Drake Archer.

  “Yeah, you gotta be careful, Devecchio, seriously.”

  “I got his back,” Mac said to the gathered group.

  Jarrett watched Nico’s slow smile widen.

  “Do you have a role for us?” Thayne asked, pointing to Sarah, Dev, Jarrett, and himself.

  “Yes, actually, you and Evans will be outside support staff working from the SCIF so that you can monitor the cameras and listening devices that McCallahan and Devecchio will be wearing,” Stanger said. “If something happens and our TAC teams have to go in, you two will be heading those teams in an armed assault. That will be a last resort, however, until that happen
s, you are strictly support on this op, Wolfe.” Stanger smiled. “That okay with you?”

  Thayne nodded. Jarrett knew that he’d normally want to be at the center of all the action but at the moment, if he was feeling anything like Jarrett was, he was happy to work on the outside, looking in.

  “Yes, sir. That’s just fine.” Thayne looked over and winked at Jarrett before turning back to the boss. “Just fine, sir.”

  “Connor, you and King will be working with the FBI, the State Department, and Interpol to help identify the mercenaries who may be working for Archer. We believe there are some real bad apples out there at the mine and in Stryker-Dunn headquarters here in LA. Getting IDs on these guys is critical to building a case against the company. You will be traveling to northern California to interview a man we believe may have information on the company and various employees. He was arrested on an unrelated charge and is currently serving two consecutive life sentences at High Desert State Prison in Susanville.”

  “Wait a minute, that sounds like Robert Rios,” Sarah said after a few seconds.

  Stanger smiled. “It is.”

  “Rios,” Thayne said. “Isn’t he the guy who testified against the Los Lobos Cartel out of Mexico?”

  “He’s one of them, yes. He’s a former Marine captain who provided security for Miguel Garcia, the head of the cartel after a dishonorable discharge. He’s a known mercenary,” Stanger said. “We know he has ties to Stryker-Dunn and we want you to interview him to see if we can gain his cooperation in naming names.”

  “If I remember correctly, he took a plea deal to avoid the death penalty for the two murders he was charged with. He named names in the cartel which is why he’s doing his sentence at a supermax where members of the cartel can’t get to him,” Dev said.

  Stanger nodded. “Yes, that’s right, Special Agent King.”