The sound of an engine rumbled in the yard below. Shit! They were back already. Her pulse quickened, but Dallas didn’t panic. She dropped the mattress, smoothed out the blanket, and locked the door on her way out.
Chapter 14
Monday, Oct. 6, 8:16 p.m.
Luke sat down at his desk, turned on his laptop, and waited for it to boot up. The dialogue box opened, and a notice flashed: Files downloaded.
What files? Had someone accessed his computer? But how? He keyed in his password, a series of numbers that no one knew or would ever guess. Whoever it was hadn’t gotten in that way. Maybe it was nothing. He’d recently downloaded photos of their rock-swinging adventure to a thumb drive, and maybe this was just a delayed message. Or had Aaron done a remote access/download? He would ask.
Luke checked his email, a web-based account that he changed regularly. The first was from their anonymous donor: I can’t fund your missions for a while. Maybe never again. I’m sorry. Best wishes. GJW
The news crushed him. How could they continue? They had enough money to last another month or so, if they cut all the side trips and skimped on groceries. Cree always had spending money, but it wasn’t enough to pay Hana’s mortgage, plus utilities, food, and gas. They would either have to move or get part-time jobs or find a new donor. Compelled to do something, Luke crafted a fundraising email, but didn’t know who to send it to. They had to be careful about letting people know about their missions. For now, the inner circle had to accelerate its activities and get as much accomplished as they could before the money ran out.
To distract himself, he searched for political news and got another jolt. The governor of Virginia was giving a speech in Richmond the next day, and he was expected to announce that the state would turn over another group of its prisons to a private company. Oh hell no! It was immoral. Luke had been incarcerated in a for-profit facility, and now he knew why those prisons filled up faster than the state-run lockups. They had to stop this. He began to strategize, taking notes as the ideas came to him.
First, he would ask the JRN organization to flood the governor’s email and phone lines with messages opposing the move. Then they would mobilize as many protestors as they could for the event tomorrow. A crowd of picketers would draw the media, and the public would learn what was happening. Luke wouldn’t speak publicly, of course—the risk was too great. But the inner circle could hijack the A/V system and broadcast their own message, like they had last time. They would inform the state lawmakers at the luncheon of the real facts: For-profit systems had fulfillment expectations built into the contracts. Typically ninety-five percent. If the state failed to keep the prison that full, it suffered financial penalties, which negated the savings of the private system. The end result was that the judicial system, driven by economics, pushed people into prison who didn’t belong there—people who otherwise would be put on probation, sent to rehab, or placed in a mental facility. It was wrong on so many levels.
Finished with his notes, Luke jumped up and rushed next door. “Abby!” He pounded on her door.
She peered out, her green eyes dull. “What’s up?”
Had she been sleeping? “I need your help. We have to gather everyone we can to protest at Governor Slaybaugh’s speech tomorrow.”
“What’s going on?”
“He’s proposing to turn over more state prisons to CSA.”
“Oh fuck. The asshole.” Abby gestured for Luke to come in. “JRN has been pushing him to take back control of the one that’s already private. What the hell happened?”
Luke stepped in, feeling strangely uncomfortable in her personal space. “The same thing that always happens. Someone offered him money to see things their way.”
“What a setback.” Abby shook her head. “Where is the speech? I’m not sure how many supporters we can round up on short notice.”
“It’s in Richmond, the capital, only a couple of hours drive.”
“Your plan is to disrupt his speech like we did at the fundraiser?
“Yes.”
“We have to stop him. It’s time to step up our tactics.”
Dread and rage fought for dominance. He’d never been a criminal and didn’t want to become one. But too many lives had been wasted and too many more were at stake. If he and the others weren’t willing to get radical, the cultural shift would be too slow, and a whole new generation of minority men could be lost. “Are you talking about framing the governor and giving him a taste of incarceration?”
“Yes. I’ve got the drugs.” She reached toward a drawer.
What? “Why do you have them?”
“I wanted to be ready for this!” Abby’s tone was sharp. She held out a small plastic bag filled with white powder.
Most likely meth. Luke repressed a shudder. “It’s dangerous for you to even be around dope. Why take that risk?”
“I told you, I had an opportunity to acquire some, and I wanted us to be ready.”
She was right that they had to get more aggressive. But he was glad he’d taken a step back from her emotionally. “Okay. We’ll plant them in the governor’s car, then report his license plate later for reckless driving or something. But with your record, you can’t carry the drugs. You can’t risk a long sentence.”
“Tara should do it. She’s the most expendable.”
Reluctantly, he agreed. “I have some bad news. Our donor is cutting us off.”
“What the fuck?” Abby put both hands on her head and started to pace. “Why?”
“They didn’t say. But we have to act more quickly now. Once our money runs out, things could fall apart for us.”
“What about the money Aaron hopes to siphon from the campaign funds? We can use that.”
It was so tempting. “No. We’re not keeping it. We’re activists, not thieves.”
Abby spun toward him. “Stop being such a moralist. Politicians are thieves! And law enforcement is sometimes more criminal than the people they arrest. We have to meet fire with fire.”
Still torn, he wanted to postpone a decision. “Let’s focus on this new mission first, then we’ll all discuss funding as a group.”
Abby started to argue, then stopped and shook her head. “Send me a link with details, and I’ll contact the network.”
“I’ll do recon on the event building and get Cree going on a hack of the sound system. We’ll have Aaron record the voiceover.” Aaron had volunteered to make the last one. If anyone captured part of their message on a cell phone, and the FBI analyzed it or tapped their phones, it could lead the bureau to them. Because Aaron didn’t have a criminal record or much longer to live, he’d taken the risk. Luke hoped he would do so again.
He rushed back to his room, sat at his laptop, and crafted a message to JRN members, asking locals to protest at the governor’s speech. He sent the text to his friend Jason, asking him to relay the message as soon as possible. The last-minute notice would limit the number of people they could rally, but any amount of distraction would be helpful. Now he had to conduct the security recon.
A quick search produced photos of the Lee Plaza building, but not enough information to plan a sabotage. He sent the links to Aaron, who could find anything online, including blueprints. Once they knew the layout, they could determine where the VIPs parked and how to access the area. The dual mission made him nervous, so he mapped it out.
Cree and Tara could handle planting the drugs. Tara would pick the locks and gain access to the back of the building and the private garage, then Cree would hack into the computer on the governor’s car to digitally unlock it. That meant Aaron would have to take control of the A/V system. Aaron wasn’t really a hacker, only a search-and-analyze specialist, but with Cree’s guidance, the older man was picking it up quickly. They would have to get Aaron close enough to the system, then cause a distraction to send the security in the wrong direction while their message played. They could pull it off.
The question for Luke, as always, was whether he should go in.
The inner circle had agreed that he should hang back whenever possible, because he needed to continue the mission if everyone else was caught. But it never felt right. Yet, actively participating and risking incarceration again terrified him. Prison was so much worse than he’d ever imagined. The conditions varied from state to state, but in the south, they were often horrendous. He’d been beaten by the guards and sexually assaulted by other inmates. Almost everyone was. But solitary confinement had been the worst. Weeks, or sometimes months, with no human contact, very little food, and the stench of a leaking toilet that trickled sewer water down the concrete wall. He’d wanted to kill himself but hadn’t had the means in his tiny hole of a cell. If he ever faced prison again, he would find a way to commit suicide. Ten, twenty, or thirty years would all be the same—a death sentence. If necessary, he would trigger a cop or a guard to shoot him.
The irony of it gripped him. A thousand people every year—who wanted to live—died while incarcerated. A heinous memory surfaced and he tried to suppress it. But Charlie, the mentally ill man who’d shared his cell for three years, haunted him. The oddball had annoyed the hell out of him at first. But he’d grown on him, and the more he’d witnessed the guards abuse Charlie, the more he’d tried to intervene. Until that fateful day.
The sound of his cellmate talking to himself had woken Luke early. Not that he ever really slept. The prison was quieter at night, but the noise never stopped. Toilets flushing, overweight men snoring, cellmates arguing. And the constant hum of generators. They also often left the lights on at night to punish the cellblock for that day’s infractions. So true sleep was elusive. Just another form of the daily torture.
Charlie’s demons got the better of him, and his chatter morphed into a loud argument. An inmate down the hall shouted for him to shut up. Charlie picked up a book and started pounding the wall.
“Hey, Char, talk to me,” Luke said. “Tell me what’s happening.” Distracting him from the voice in his head sometimes worked to calm him down.
“The chip is signaling the enforcers again. He wants me to tear it out.” Charlie didn’t look at him. The man was thirty-six, or so he claimed, but he looked closer to fifty, with deep lines around his mouth. His eyes were gray and hazy and never quite focused directly on anyone.
“But you’re here, where they can’t get to you. Just ignore him.” They’d had a similar conversation before. Charlie’s morning dose of anti-psychotic medication usually arrived around ten. Hours away.
“The enforcers are everywhere!” Charlie started pounding again.
His cellmate’s mental health had deteriorated rapidly in the last year after back-to-back stints in solitary. Luke had seen plenty of that in the years he’d been inside. People who were borderline depressed or bipolar often plunged into full psychosis after being locked up for a while.
The screaming started next, and Luke was unable to calm Charlie. A few minutes later, three guards arrived, equipped for an extraction. Normally, extractions were for inmates who refused to leave their cells at all, but Charlie only fought the trips to solitary.
“He just needs his meds,” Luke said, risking punishment.
“Shut up and get out here,” the guard yelled through the bars.
The metal door opened and Luke stepped out.
“On the floor!”
He dropped down, knowing there was nothing he could do. They just wanted him out of the way. The cellblock went quiet, as the prisoners tuned in to the extraction. Luke kept his face down, but looked up with his eyes. The guards moved into the cell, single file, the first one with a riot shield. The second guard carried a taser. Both shouted at Charlie to come out of the corner with his hands on his head. Instead, he mumbled profanities, begging to be left alone. The second guard stepped to the side and fired the taser. Charlie cried out and went down to his knees. The first guard booted him in the back, shoving him to the floor. When the poor man was face down—and still cursing the enforcers—they cuffed his arms behind his back, shackled his legs together, and looped a cord between the two restraints. Once he was hog-tied, they beat and kicked him until he was quiet.
Luke cringed at every blow, willing himself to stay still. He’d learned the hard way he couldn’t help Charlie, only make things worse for himself.
Finally, two guards carried Charlie out, banging his head against the metal bars on the way. The third ordered Luke to return to his cell, then slammed the door.
A few inmates cheered as they took Charlie down the hall. Others expressed their disgust with the guards. Luke found some paper and with shaking hands, began a letter to the American Civil Liberties Union, asking them to intervene and get the mentally ill man transferred. The mail snipes would probably throw it away, but he had to try. His first attempt at activism.
Two days later, he heard Charlie had died in solitary, supposedly from a stroke.
Chapter 15
Tuesday, Oct. 7, 7:35 a.m.
Dallas tucked her phone and pepper spray into her yoga pants, pulled on sports shoes, and headed out for a run. She always carried the spray when she jogged alone, but it was worthless if someone really wanted to hurt her. On her last assignment, she’d run under a pier on the beach, and an unsub she’d chased earlier had clobbered her with a rock and dragged her into the water. Another reason—besides the Phoenix heat—that she preferred the elliptical machine, which was easier on her body. But she was stuck out here with no access to anything, and she really needed to burn off some energy.
The scenery was lovely, with groves of trees turning bright crimson and orange. An occasional car passed, but otherwise the morning was quiet. Between the trees, she caught glimpses of upscale homes set back from the road. The farmhouse where the inner circle lived was a relic of the past, the last one standing in what was now an upper-class rural suburb.
At the two-mile point she turned around. This was an opportunity to call Drager, but she had nothing new to report. The inner circle had a mission planned for the afternoon, but it was another event sabotage like the last one, and the bureau wasn’t interested in the small-time stuff. Drager had made that clear. Dallas was still waiting for the opportunity to bring up Senator Pearlman and steer the group toward the takedown Drager had in mind. At dinner the night before, Luke had briefly discussed the next day’s outing, then he’d gone to his room, and Abby had left in the van and not come home until midnight. Where had she gone? To buy drugs? Finding Abby’s gun had made Dallas look at her in a new light, and she would have given anything for access to her car, so she could follow Abby if she left late again. Dallas thought about the GPS device back in her apartment. Too bad she hadn’t been able to sneak it out past Luke.
No, she wouldn’t risk calling Drager on her Tara phone again, unless it was something critical. Every contact she made had the potential to blow her cover and get her killed.
After a shower, she spent an hour online, reading articles on the JRN website and working on another political blog. She also visited the Real Food blog as a setup, in case she needed to use it later to contact Drager with critical information. She didn’t think Aaron monitored her internet activities, but she had to assume that he might. Everything she did in this house had to build and protect her Tara Adams persona.
At ten, she went down to the kitchen, expecting to find her roommates preparing for the mission, but only Cree was at the dining room table, eating a sandwich.
“Hey, where is everyone?”
Cree shrugged. “Probably doing last-minute prep for this afternoon. It’s an unfamiliar location, and the security could be tighter this time.”
Jitters filled her stomach, and Dallas lost her appetite. It wasn’t committing the crime that bothered her. Not something as low-level as sabotaging a political speech. Not after all the undercover work she’d done, preceded by her wild years in college. And she’d grown up with meth addicts, who’d broken the law on a regular basis. What worried her was getting arrested. She’d never been in jail, and she had some c
oncerns about getting out. What if the inner circle didn’t post her bail? The bureau probably couldn’t help without blowing her cover. Dallas shook it off. The last sabotage had gone well.
“What’s my role this time?” she asked Cree, standing across the table from him, too hyper to sit.
“I’ll let Luke tell you. We’ll be leaving soon.”
“Should I wear running shoes?” Dallas mimed someone in a hurry, then laughed.
“Always.” Despite Cree’s smile, his tone was serious.
Dallas headed to her room to change. At the bottom of the stairs, she heard loud voices and paused. From Abby’s bedroom, she heard Luke say, “Don’t get started again. You’ll put us all at risk.”
Abby yelled back, “It’s none of your business. You broke up with me, remember?”
“Don’t make me kick you out.” Luke’s voice came toward her, and the doorknob clicked.
Dallas hurried up the stairs. What was that about? Started again with what? Drugs? In her room, Dallas changed into running shoes, pulled on a dark sweater, then stuffed a twenty-dollar bill into one pocket and her lucky cloth into the other. Not knowing what they had planned was both exhilarating and frustrating. She sensed they didn’t fully trust her yet. After packing a few things into her small backpack, Dallas grabbed her laptop and stuffed it in too. She might have a chance to send her report.
Downstairs, Luke and Cree were in the dining room, and she heard Abby in the kitchen.
“Is Aaron coming with us?” Dallas looked at Luke. How should she play this? Still a little nervous?
“That’s the plan.” Luke turned to Cree. “See if he’s ready, would you?”
After a few minutes of waiting, during which Abby made a trip to the van with water bottles, they all headed out. Luke fell back to lock up. As they crossed the gravel, Abby tapped Dallas’ backpack.
The Trap (Agent Dallas 3) Page 9