Tough Justice: Countdown Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  “Well, there’s the answer to the Kate Upton mystery,” James said as he joined them in the room. Lara turned to see what he was referring to and found him shining the desktop light at the far wall, directly behind the office chair. Slutty anime posters and drawings covered the entire section of wall.

  “Right in front of his comfy chair where he would want it,” James continued.

  Everybody groaned.

  “That’s just gross,” Lara said to no one in particular.

  “We need to get Dr. Oliviero in here to see all of this.” Nick moved farther into the room, looking around. “Let him update his profile before we move anything. Also, get Christina in here to make sure it’s okay to move this computer equipment back to her so she can do her magic.”

  “We’ve got camping equipment over in this corner.” Ty held up a canteen and water purifying tablets.

  Nick walked over to take a look. “That’s consistent with what the mom told us. That Mitchell likes to hike and camp.”

  “This is definitely more of the wilderness survival category, not the family camping fun category.”

  Now Lara turned and looked at Nick. “He’s probably not planning to come back here. He has a second base somewhere. Somewhere where he can survive for a long time.”

  “Not with this level of computer equipment,” Jennifer added. “This is more than can be run on a generator even if he could get the internet access he needs from wherever he’s hiding.”

  Nick nodded. “Wherever this place is, we’ll find him. We should get crime scene to rush the equipment. If there’s any trace that could locate where it’s been used, or can narrow down the site, we can feed it into the geophysical site search running on the picture from Beckett’s Facebook page, helping us track Halpert, or Beckett Clarke. Either would be a win. The most important thing is, for the first time we’ve got him playing defense rather than us.”

  Chapter Four

  By the next afternoon the high the CMU team had experienced on over finding Halpert’s secret lair was completely gone and tempers were flaring.

  They had set up temporary headquarters at the Westchester Police Station, so they could be nearby rather than having to drive forty-five minutes from Manhattan multiple times a day.

  But now Nick was thinking maybe the time in their cars, away from each other, might have been better.

  Everyone was tense for their own reasons. Nick could admit he was still pissed at Lara for the stunt she’d pulled entering the secret closet room so recklessly. Ended up she was right, and the specialty teams hadn’t been needed.

  But she could’ve just as easily been dead, a bullet through the brain as Halpert sat in his oversized office chair and watched her come in, or even a bomb. Sure, the rest of the team would have returned fire on him, but they wouldn’t have been able to do so in time to save Lara.

  She’d tried to smooth things over with him at lunch today when she slid a piece of paper to him.

  I’ve never been very good at spelling. “teIam”

  It had taken Nick a minute to get it. There’s no I in team. Her way of apologizing for once again forgetting she was part of a group bigger than just her. On a mission that didn’t just affect her.

  He was in no way ready to accept her halfhearted apology which took no responsibility whatsoever.

  He’d slipped her his own note.

  There’s no I in team, but there is a you in fuck you.

  Things had gone downhill from there. Now, two hours later, no one was working well with each other as they’d sat around trying to figure out where Halpert would be. Discover his next move based on his tastes in music and books and anime porn.

  Christina wasn’t there any longer but Nick knew she had her own set of problems trying to get info off Halpert’s computer system. He’d set some sort of electronic self-destruct mechanism in it that had initiated when Christina tried to access the files.

  Nobody in the entire CMU team was happy. Dr. Oliviero was updating them on the changes he’d made in Halpert’s psychological profile.

  “Based on talking to Brenda Halpert and careful inspection of the hidden room, I’ve updated my profile on Mitchell Halpert,” Dr. Oliviero said as he passed around said profile to the team.

  “Give us the CliffsNotes version on the changes, Doc,” Lara said, glancing up from the papers she’d been handed.

  “Not so much changes, as additions. Obviously we know now that we’re dealing with a twenty-one-year-old Caucasian male. He was smart enough to get through an initial interview with BrainWave.”

  Nick nodded. “We’ll be talking to them again now that we’ve ID’d Halpert.”

  “That’s good. Any details about why he wasn’t hired by them could only help us.” Dr. Oliviero tapped the file against his hand. “I doubt it was because of lack of intelligence.”

  “So he’s smart,” Ty said. “We know that. And has insane skills with computers.”

  “Smart probably doesn’t begin to cover it. Genius is probably closer.” Dr. Oliviero turned to Lara. “But to answer your question more fully, I believe that Mitchell Halpert has a compelling need to control things. I called it a God complex before, based on his saving those three people from the bombings, but now I think it’s more than just that.”

  James—a shadow of the man he had been only hours earlier at Dan Smith’s crime scene, had been pacing the floor most of the day, becoming more and more aggravated that they were so close to catching his brother’s killer—stopped and shook his head. “He wants to be more than God?”

  Dr. Oliviero shrugged slightly. “To a degree, yes. He wants to be God-plus. He wants to control every aspect of the reality he’s created around himself. To only bestow free will if he so chooses.”

  The doctor looked around the room. “He’s basically mastered everything he’s put his mind to: computer systems, bombing and undoubtedly survivalist training, based on what we saw in his room.”

  Nick didn’t disagree. But genius or not, they were still going to catch him.

  “Based on the pornographic style Japanese anime drawings we found on the wall and en masse in some of the folders, I also believe that Halpert has invested a large part of himself into gaming.” Dr. Oliviero looked at Nick. “I have confirmed through my talks with Mrs. Halpert that Mitchell always played computer games as a child. He hasn’t stopped as an adult.”

  Lara leaned back in her chair. “Doc, you know I appreciate the profiling you do. And while it’s totally interesting that our perv—ahem, I mean, perp—wants to have dirty sex with cartoons that’s not going to help us find him.”

  The doctor wasn’t offended by Lara’s point. “I know. All I can offer you is that he is now probably an expert on wilderness survival just like he is on computers and bombing techniques.”

  James stopped pacing again and slammed his fist down on the conference room table. “But that doesn’t really help us at all, does it?”

  “James...” Lara reached toward him but he snatched himself back.

  “This bastard destroyed my brother, Lara. And even knowing his face and his name we are no nearer to catching him.”

  “Hey partner, you’ve got to give it more time,” Xander told him. “You know that.”

  James sat down in the chair, silent for a long minute. “I know we will. But even then I’m going to have to face the fact that Halpert wasn’t the one who destroyed William’s life. William destroyed his own life. Halpert just caught him at it.”

  “We’re going to catch Halpert, James,” Lara said softly. “Bet on it.”

  The team needed to get out of this office. They’d talked all morning. Going over evidence they’d found, discussing where Halpert might be, looking through the notebooks and paperwork, even talking to Mitchell’s mother again.

  Not that tal
king to her had helped much. Even having found the secret room and all the nebulous items inside, she still didn’t want to believe the worst about her son. Kept saying he was just misunderstood. Caught in this own head.

  The only useful information she’d provided at all was that his laptop didn’t seem to be anywhere in the house. Whenever he came into the kitchen or she passed him anywhere else in the house he always had his laptop with him.

  They’d put out an APB on the license plate number she’d provided, but Nick wasn’t holding out much hope given that they’d found two dozen more license plates in the hidden room. Mitchell probably put a different one on every time he went out.

  They were running the plates regardless, but so far, nothing.

  Nick stood up, looking at Lara. “Let’s get moving. I think that’s best for now.”

  She stood with him. “Absolutely agree.”

  “Ty, Jennifer and I will head over to the community college. See what we can find. Friends. Professors. Somebody has to know him if he’s been taking classes.”

  She nodded. “Okay, Xander, James and I will go talk to the directors of BrainWave. Now that we’ve narrowed it to Halpert, maybe they’ll remember more about him.”

  He and Lara didn’t say anything further, anything personal, to each other as they went their separate ways. They both had a job to do and right now—for the best—it had nothing to do with each other.

  * * *

  Lara made her way with Xander and James back to the BrainWave office in Manhattan, thankful to be out doing something. Out of their temporary headquarters in Westchester.

  Nick was still pissed at her decision to storm the secret hideout yesterday if his note was anything to go by. She wanted to pretend like his anger, his disappointment, didn’t bother her at all. That he was just a guy and whatever was between them was casual.

  Which was all true.

  But Lara didn’t lie to herself. She hated the distance between her and Nick. Wished she could close the gap in some way. Except the only way to do that seemed to be to change the very fiber of her nature.

  To do things his way.

  Thinking things through. Going by the book. Becoming a team player.

  Lara grimaced, looking out the window as they came back into the city from Westchester. Hell, the best she’d done as a team player was allowing Xander to drive and allowing James to sit shotgun.

  She scrubbed a hand over her face. Nick was right, and that was perhaps the hardest part to swallow. The CMU team was so much more effective when they worked as exactly that: a team.

  Lara needed to try harder.

  James ended his call with BrainWave.

  “Okay, Kai Aoki and Paul Prentice are already in the office. Terra Mapson is on her way in and should be there by the time we arrive.”

  “Do they remember anything about Mitchell Halpert?” Lara asked.

  James shrugged. “I mentioned him to the executive assistant without any specifics. She’s pulling everything they have on him.”

  “That’s not going to be a lot, I would imagine, if their system is still down,” Xander said as he changed lanes to avoid slowed traffic. “Company like BrainWave probably does everything electronically. Including records. Never thought they could be hacked the way they have.”

  When they arrived, they were taken back into a large server room. Paul Prentice and Kai Aoki looked a hell of a lot worse than the last time they’d been interviewed. They were in rumpled clothes, obviously worn more than one day in a row, and the cocky grins were gone.

  The system was still down.

  For a company which prided itself on innovative computer technology, being electronically hacked was a bitch slap in the face. These two guys—brilliant in their own right—had obviously been trying to work the problem, but with little success.

  “The system is still down,” Kai said, as if that wasn’t already pretty obvious by massive amounts of computer equipment lying around the room in pieces. “All of it. TalkTank. Our internal system. Everything.”

  Paul sat down in a chair, exhaustion evident in his posture. “We couldn’t believe someone was good enough to hack us that thoroughly from the outside. We thought it had to be something that had been done internally to the system.”

  Both men looked around them at the wreckage.

  “It wasn’t,” Paul said. “Whoever it was, was just good enough to hack in.”

  “His name is Mitchell Halpert,” Lara told them.

  Paul looked over at Kai. “We should offer him a job.”

  “You probably should’ve done that when he applied here three years ago,” Xander said from where he’d parked himself against the wall, away from the computer pieces on the floor.

  “What?” Kai stepped carefully around the pieces on the ground to take the pictures Lara held out.

  “Mitchell Halpert applied to work here when he was eighteen, three years ago.”

  Kai shrugged. “We interviewed a lot of people three years ago as we were first starting out. Wanted only the best and the brightest. A lot of people weren’t hired.”

  “Do you happen to know why Halpert wasn’t hired?”

  “Dammit,” Paul said, working his way over to Kai and Lara. “If we could get into our own freaking human resources system we could tell you exactly why he wasn’t hired. We had detailed notes about anybody who made it through to the second—the real—interview.”

  “If you don’t remember him, how do you know Halpert would’ve made it to the second interview?” James asked.

  Kai rolled his eyes. “Anyone who’s capable of doing to our system what this guy did? He definitely would’ve made it to the second interview.”

  “Have you guys talked to Beckett Clarke yet?” Paul asked. “He did a lot of the initial interviewing. He would know. We put a call into him after you guys first talked to us, but then got busy with other things. Haven’t heard back.”

  “No.” Lara shook her head. “No one has been able to find Mr. Clarke.”

  “Beckett Clarke is not our problem, but this Mitchell Halpert is.” Terra Mapson strode in looking much more put together than her partners. Her black pencil skirt fell to midcalf, coupled with a crisp white blouse and tailored black jacket. Stiletto heels completed the outfit.

  Lara wouldn’t be able to walk five steps in them.

  “Not participating in trying to fix your computer issue Ms. Mapson?” Lara asked, one eyebrow raised. Mapson didn’t seem the least bit ruffled by the chaos around her.

  “I have a meeting with some of our main shareholders in a few minutes. Paul, Kai and I all agreed that my showing up looking anything less that poised, confident and secure would be a mistake.”

  Lara couldn’t argue with that logic, but looking closer at Terra, she could see tension bracketing her mouth and giving weight to her shoulders. The cyber attack on BrainWave was affecting her just as much as Paul and Kai.

  “Beckett Clarke didn’t leave BrainWave on very friendly terms, Agent Grant,” Paul said, his eyes flicking to Terra.

  Evidently the man hadn’t left on good terms with Terra, thus her lack of interest in finding him.

  “True,” Terra commented, studying her nails. “But Mitchell Halpert. Wasn’t that the really angry guy Beckett talked about?”

  Kai rolled his eyes. “Oh, Jesus. The guy that had him singing that ancient Styx song? Made us listen to it over and over. I thought I might kill myself.”

  “What song?” Lara asked.

  “‘Angry Young Man,’” Paul responded. “It’s like from the seventies or something.” He began to sing. “Why must you be such an angry young man, when your future looks quite bright to me...”

  “See,” Kai said, throwing some small computer part at Paul to get him to shut up. “This is why I said we should
n’t hire people in their forties. I’m telling you the organ solo in that song—”

  “It wasn’t a fucking organ, Kai,” Paul cut in. “It was keyboards. And Beckett was thirty-five, not—”

  This argument was going to escalate quickly. Lara got them back on track. “Did any of you ever actually meet angry young man Mitchell Halpert?”

  “No,” Terra answered first. “I don’t have anything to do with that part of the hiring.”

  “Yeah, we didn’t meet him either,” Paul explained. “We would’ve if he’d passed the interview with Clarke, but Clarke thought Halpert was too angry. Not able to play well with others.”

  Terra nodded. “Yes, I remember Clarke was upset because evidently Halpert was brilliant.”

  Kai rolled his eyes. “Fucking brilliant enough to completely shut us down for three days. We should’ve hired him no matter how angry he was.”

  “Do any of you remember any specifics? Anything else about Halpert or what Clarke might have said?”

  “We would know a lot more if we could get into our damn electronic files,” Paul muttered. “And we will get everything back online.”

  “I have to get to my meeting, Agents.” Terra gave a short nod. “And Kai and Paul need to get back to work putting back together what Mitchell Halpert tore apart. Every day we’re down it’s costing us over a million dollars in revenue.”

  James whistled through his teeth.

  Terra turned and gave Lara a short smile. Nothing about it friendly. “All we can tell you about Mitchell Halpert is that he wasn’t hired here despite his brilliance—a commodity we value most highly—because Clarke could tell there was something wrong with him. And the way the guy seems to be burning down the whole world? It looks like Clarke was right.”

  Chapter Five

  Nick, Jennifer and Ty arrived at Westchester Community College, where Brenda Halpert said her son attended classes, to find out what they could about him. It wasn’t easy given that Mitchell had been totally erased from the college’s system. No listing of current or past classes or that he’d ever been a student at all.