by Leslie Jones
Doug entered the room. He took his place at the head of the boat-shaped dark wooden table. The room quieted.
“What’s going on?” Lark whispered. Jocelyn shook her head, putting a finger to her lips.
“First, thank you all for coming at such short notice. I appreciate it. For anyone who doesn’t know me, I’m Doug Huckabee. I run things here in Boston.” He scanned the room. “I’d like to personally welcome our Homeland Security investigators and our special operations partners. This will be a joint FBI-Homeland-military effort. Glad to have you on board, gentlemen.”
Murmurs echoed around the room as the three groups acknowledged one another.
“You can all get acquainted later. All right. Most of you know why we’re here. For the rest of you, we have a time-critical situation unfolding rapidly. We’ve received credible intel that a small nuclear device, also called a suitcase bomb, is here in Massachusetts.”
Gasps peppered the room. Lark almost hit herself on the forehead. Of course. The hunt for the nuke.
“Now’s the time to get everyone up to speed. I want a free flow of information from everyone. We’re going with full disclosure here. I don’t think I need to emphasize how serious a situation this is. Wanda, if you would?”
A heavy-set older woman straightened the already-straight laptop in front of her. “I’m Special Agent Wanda Forth from the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate.”
Lark smothered an irreverent laugh. Wander Forth? She suppressed the urge to ask the woman if she were, indeed, a wandering world traveler.
Wanda tapped a button on the laptop, and a map of the Bering Strait appeared on the monitor mounted on the wall. She activated a laser pointer and guided the red light to the left side of the strait. “We believe whoever stole this device smuggled it through Kamchatka, which is this peninsula here, at the far edge of Russia. From there, it traveled through St. Lawrence Island, just west of mainland Alaska, and was flown to here.” As she spoke, she moved the pointer to each location. “A town called Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory of western Canada.”
“We lost it from there,” Doug said. Wanda shot him an annoyed look. “Using signals intelligence and imagery analysis, as well as every source on the ground we could muster, we believe a neo-Nazi militia here in Massachusetts smuggled it across the border. One of the first things we need to do now is set up surveillance on their farm to verify whether or not the nuke is on their property.”
Wanda poked at her laptop. The monitor flashed to a photo of an open suitcase with silver canisters, switches, and wires inside. “This is a mock-up of what you’re looking for. It might not be in a suitcase, per se. It could also fit into a large backpack.”
“So it’s a dirty bomb?” one of the section chiefs asked.
“No.” Wanda had the long-suffering look of someone who’d answered this question a thousand times before. “A dirty bomb mixes traditional explosives with irradiated matter. The explosion pollutes the area when it discharges the radioactive material, yes, but most of the damage comes from the explosion itself, not the radiation. What we’re talking about here is an actual nuclear bomb.”
“What magnitude are we talking?” the same man asked.
“Five kilotons; that’s about a quarter of the yield of Hiroshima.”
Doug tapped the table to get her attention. “Physical damage, or radiation poisoning?”
“Primarily radiation, although there would certainly be physical damage as well.”
“The CDC is prepping for the possibility this thing actually goes off, right, Wanda?” Doug asked.
“Absolutely, sir. They’re standing by with decontamination equipment and medical personnel.”
Anxious mutters crisscrossed the room. Lark’s gut clenched. The anathema of someone deliberately setting off a nuclear bomb chilled her.
Doug let the noise die down before he turned to a stocky, grim-faced man with a buzz cut, dressed in a green military uniform with a silver oak leaf pinned to his epaulets. Rows and rows of ribbons and badges crammed the left side of the uniform. Topping the ribbons was a rectangular badge showing a rifle against a blue background, encircled with some sort of ivy wreath. It looked important. The man looked important.
“Colonel Granville, if you would?”
The military officer rose and stepped over to the monitor mounted on the wall. He nodded to a woman wearing a similar green uniform. She had three stripes on her sleeve, and only a few ribbons. Lark wondered what it meant. The woman tapped on her tablet, and a photo popped up on the monitor. The man in the photo appeared to be in his fifties, with mostly gray hair, a sagging chin, and protruding ears.
“This is Mikhail Kerghakov. He works as a mob accountant for Viktor Sokolov, the head of the Sokolov crime family here in New England. We think he’s one of the bidders for the nuke, acting on behalf of someone, most probably Sokolov himself. We haven’t discovered the names of other potential buyers, but we believe there are at least three other interested parties.”
Lark’s world tipped sideways. Mr. Sokolov? Bidding on a nuclear bomb? Well, at least now she knew what the fifty million was for. Before she could stop herself, she blurted out, “But what would be his objective? Why would the mob want a mini-nuke?”
“It doesn’t make sense, actually,” one of the section chiefs said. “The mob thrives because it exploits existing business enterprises. Racketeering, extortion, loan sharking. Also, the corruption of elected officials and labor leaders. Stock manipulation. Destroying those infrastructures would only hurt them.”
“Maybe they intend to eliminate their competition?” someone asked.
A woman sitting beside Mace answered. “There are much easier ways to eliminate competition. The murder of key figures, for example. Either the organization collapses from the inside, or they fall into line.”
“All right,” Doug said. “We’ll work on that. Meanwhile, Kerghakov gave us this woman, Fatianova Uvarov.”
The new photo showed an unsmiling blonde, classically beautiful and impeccably groomed.
“She’s a Russian national here on a B-1 visa, purportedly to attend the International Symposium on Nuclear Safety next week. According to Kerghakov, she’s the one brokering the auction for the bomb.”
“Do we know where she is?” Mace asked.
Doug grimaced. “We know she checked out of her Boston hotel and rented a truck, but we can’t confirmation where she went. In fact, the only contact we have for her is an Outlook.com account. Unfortunately, when we contacted her, we realized she sent her email through a proxy server.”
One of the Homeland Security representatives raised his hand. “A proxy server hides her IP address, right?”
“Yes,” Melvin said. “We can’t track her location.”
“Technology has gotten much more sophisticated,” Doug said, giving a wry smile. “People don’t want the government snooping into their private business.”
Lark clasped her hands together. Should she speak up? Contradict Melvin in front of his boss and everyone in the room? If she did, it would cement Melvin’s hatred of her. But this was just too important to kowtow to his miserable ego. As she opened her mouth to speak, Melvin shot her a warning look.
“Ms. Larkspur? Do you have something to add?”
She started at Mace’s voice, which echoed through the room. She looked across at him. He’d obviously witnessed their silent exchange.
She hesitated, but when he nodded encouragingly, she took a deep breath.
“What Melvin is saying is true,” she said directly to Doug, “but not always. Outlook.com is really nothing more than a website, even though it acts as an email server. It’s entirely possible she just changed her browser’s proxy settings, instead of using an actual proxy server like AnonyMizer or Vtunnel. That’s good enough for most people. But Outlook.com keeps IP logs, same as all email services do. With a court order, we could make them turn over those logs.”
Doug Huckabee zeroed in on her. “Wh
at would that give us?”
“Well, the complete message source. Including the IP address of the original sender.”
“It’s not as simple as she’s making it out to be,” Melvin said, puffing out his linebacker-sized chest. His lowered eyebrows, jutting jaw, and huge frame leant him an impressive air. Too bad other people couldn’t see the big bully inside.
“No,” she said. “Of course it’s not. I’ve made it seem simple so you’d understand, but Melvin’s a hundred percent right. There’s no guarantee it will work. It depends on how sophisticated she is.” There. That should make the asswipe feel better. Who says I can’t play nice?
“I’ll get the court order,” Doug said. “Meanwhile, Lark, here, had an interesting encounter with the mob. I’ve opened a formal investigation. Lark, want to fill us in?”
Full disclosure, Doug had said. He therefore wanted her to be as honest and open as possible. Fine. She could do that.
“I was kidnapped last Saturday. It was actually the second attempt,” she said, stepping forward. “The first time, one of our special operations partners—” she deliberately parroted Doug’s term “—saved me. The second time, my kidnappers delivered me to Mr. Sokolov.”
She waited for the flurry of whispers to subside.
“Someone is framing me for the theft of fifty million dollars of mob money,” she said baldly. “The theft was accomplished through electronic means, which I’m still tracking down.”
“How do we know you’re being framed?” Melvin asked, voice aggressive. Almost accusing, damn him. “Why would the mob think that unless there’s some truth to it? It wouldn’t be the first time a hacker’s gone rogue.”
Her eyes flashed. How dare he impugn her integrity? Before she could speak, though, Doug held up a hand.
“Melvin, we’ve verified that she isn’t involved in this except as an innocent bystander. Lark, take us through what happened.”
Still huffy, she glared at Melvin. “Most of the great hackers leave tags in their hacks for bragging rights. Something that says ‘Look at me! I did this!’ Or, sometimes hackers aren’t careful enough, and leave tiny footprints behind that can be tracked.”
“Someone used your tags,” Doug said. “Right?”
She nodded. “Way back when, I might have played around in some systems where I technically shouldn’t have been. I never compromised systems safety, and I never stole information for material gain.”
Melvin made a scoffing noise. Her eyes narrowed to daggers. Too bad she couldn’t incinerate him with her laser vision.
“My signature included the words fix yer shit and my handle, SPURious. Both of those were embedded in the code fragments Mr. Sokolov gave me. Also, the hacker renamed a root access file SPURious, and also created a user profile with that name. It’s overkill. Like signing your name four times in a row. But someone who knows me used my past against me.”
Doug nodded. “Finding that money trail is your only priority starting now.”
“Gotcha.”
The Homeland Security representative set down his travel mug with a bang. “You can’t possibly be considering returning the money to the mob. Clearly it’s earmarked for the suitcase bomb. We can’t allow that nuke into anyone’s hands except ours. We need to keep that money.”
Doug raised his hands to calm the rumblings echoing throughout the room. “First we need to find that money. At the moment, it could be anywhere, in anyone’s hands.”
Mace poked the man sitting in front of him and whispered into his ear. The man cast him an exasperated look, but knocked on the table.
“Jace Reed, heading the Rapid Reaction Force. Doug, I’m sure you’ll agree that Lark needs to be put into protective custody.”
So that was Mace’s boss. She looked him over curiously. Dark curly hair cut short, straight nose, strong chin. Broad shoulders and muscles straining against his plain black T-shirt. Eyes that returned her gaze with a directness that startled her. She looked away.
“Absolutely. Sokolov gave her a week, which expires in roughly two days.” Doug turned to address Lark directly. “While you’re probably safe until Sunday, I’m taking no chances with your life. And after that, we have to assume you’re in imminent danger.”
Mace stood directly behind his boss. “I’ll head the protection detail, if that’s acceptable.”
“Fine.” Uh-oh. Jace sounded annoyed. “We’ll coordinate with you, Doug, for additional assets. Are you good with that?”
Doug looked from her to Mace and back again, a grin tugging at his mouth. “Would it do me any good to say no? I take it you two know one another.”
Lark felt herself turn beet red. A couple of people laughed. So much for keeping their budding relationship under the radar.
“Do it, then,” Doug said in resignation. “Run your plans past me, all right?”
“I will,” Jace said. “And when the Rapid Reaction Force is in play, we’ll make sure she’s safely inside this building.”
“Good. Does anyone else have anything to add? No? Then we’re adjourned.”
Chapter 27
Lark hung back in the room, waving Jocelyn to go on ahead, hovering until Mace disengaged himself and came over. Her smile seemed wan and apologetic. He forced himself to keep a professional distance.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” he said.
“You didn’t. Not really, anyway. You just surprised me. I’m going to take a bunch of shit from my co-workers, though.”
“I’m sorry. I just want to make sure you stay safe.”
She gave a more genuine smile, and the knot in his stomach unclenched. “I kind of want that, too.”
Jace appeared beside them before Mace could respond. He’d missed her, more than he’d been prepared for.
“All right, Sir Galahad,” Jace said, voice a deep rumble. “Write me up a calc protection plan. We’re official now, so bring me what you need—within reason—and I’ll make sure you get it.”
“I appreciate your—”
“Like you gave me a choice, asshole. Make sure you plan for when they pull the trigger on the Rapid Reaction Force. At that point, you’re purely operational.”
“Yes, sir.” He deserved an ass-chewing for speaking over Jace in the meeting, essentially backing him into a corner. His boss understood him, understood all of the men under his command. But when it came to a mission directive, he expected his teammates to perform at one hundred percent.
“We’ll keep you safe, Lark,” Jace said directly to her. “Sokolov won’t be getting his hands on you again.”
“Thanks. But it’s not something we need to worry about for a few days, at least.”
The special operators gathered around Mace, looking Lark over curiously. He couldn’t blame them. They either knew or suspected his relationship with her, and they intended to put their lives on the line for her.
“Meet the rest of the team,” he said. “You know Alex, Tag, and Gabe. These knuckleheads are Ken Acolatse, Gavin Selle, and Scott Griffin. Jace is my team leader and his wife Heather is our intel analyst. The gruff bear talking to Huckabee is our squadron commander, LTC Granville, and the woman in uniform with him is Sergeant Tams, our researcher.”
“Nice to meet you all. I’m sorry to drag you into my mess.”
“Actually, you’re our most direct link to the nuke. That makes you the most important person here.” He couldn’t have her thinking she was a burden.
“If you say so,” she said, wrinkling her nose at him. “I got work to do, though. And so do you all. You can skedaddle now.”
“Actually, I’m sticking to you like white on rice,” he told her unapologetically. “Until I have a solid plan in place, I’m your shadow.”
She turned to Jace, who nodded agreement. “It’s the best move.” He glanced around and saw Stephanie, who immediately made her way to his side. “Steph, would you email our clearances over here? We’ll need access to the SCIF.”
“Sure thing. I’ll do it now.
” The woman could work miracles with nothing but a tablet.
Lark gave him an irritated look. “Fine. But you have to be an über-silent bowl of rice. I need to concentrate. I can’t do that with you looking over my shoulder.”
He couldn’t help himself. He smiled down at her, his tender feelings on display for anyone who was looking. She glared back at him.
“Come on, shadow. I have my orders.” She stalked toward the door, and he followed.
Doug excused himself from LTC Granville and intercepted her. “Do you need anything? People? Processing power? Coffee?”
Clearly he knew his employee. Mace stifled a grin.
“Nothing right now. Well, except for the coffee. I need a vat of coffee. I’ll swing by the break room.”
“You think of anything, come to me.”
“All righty. Thanks.”
Lark power-walked out of the conference room and down the carpeted hallway. He hustled to keep up. She made a sharp left turn into a small kitchenette. The brunette who’d been standing next to her during the briefing stared into the refrigerator. When she rose and turned with a yogurt in her hand, he was treated to an eyeful down her white silk blouse.
“Well, hello, handsome,” she purred. Glossy red lips parted in a sensuous smile. “Let me be the first to welcome you to our little party. I’m Jocelyn Katsaros.”
Her hips swayed as she crossed the room and offered her hand. He took it, the feel of her fingers sliding across his palm an annoyance. He tried a polite nod.
“Mace.”
She didn’t take the hint, scooping his arm in hers and leaning toward him conspiratorially. “We’d all better be on our toes on this one. This will either make or break ol’ Dougie’s career. And probably ours, too.”
Lark stomped to the counter and filled a Styrofoam cup to the brim, her back to him. Deliberately, he thought. He disengaged himself from Jocelyn’s grip, ignoring the pout on her face.
“Why don’t we focus on the damage a nuclear bomb detonated on US soil could do, instead of on careers being made or broken?” he said, maybe a little more sharply than he’d intended.