Unallocated Space: A Thriller (Sam Flatt Book 1)

by Jerry Hatchett

  The view showed one of the corridors I suspected to be inside the quasi-bunker of the unallocated space. A male figure who looked to be in his twenties walked toward the camera and left the field of view as he passed underneath. I backed it up and played it again. And again. Paused the image on the frame with the best view of his face. The image quality was excellent, at least compared to most surveillance imagery. I used a feature in the surveillance app that let me grab a still image of the guy's face and save it to my hard drive.

  More routine service vehicles in the tunnel, followed by another corridor clip. Same guy as before, no new information. At first. Then two more people—one male, one female—entered the scene. The three stopped and talked, dead center in the camera's field of view. I went back and forth until I found the frame with the best view of the second guy's face, grabbed it, saved it. Did the same with the girl. That done, I left the paused image on screen and studied it. The girl was slim, with dark hair and Slavic features, quite pretty. Both males were unremarkable. Slender, dark hair of average length, T-shirts with no logos or other identifying information. The first guy's shirt was black, the second one's lime green. No watches. No visible tattoos. Generic jeans, both blue denim. Shoes. Black Shirt was wearing white sneakers. Not Lime Green, though. He had on a pair of leather shoes with his jeans and T-shirt, light brown loafers. A little unusual, but not unheard of. The style of shoes, however, told a tale. Long, flat, tapered toes. I'd never seen a young person in the USA wearing that type of shoe. But I had seen them many times before. In Eastern Europe. Damn skippy.

  CHAPTER 59

  TUNICA, MISSISSIPPI

  MAX SULTANOVICH

  MAX FOLLOWED his driver-bodyguard up the few steps and through the door of the small government building. Red brick, squat, ugly as his withered old ass-cheeks, like most non-casino things he saw in this forsaken land. Inside was just as bad. Cheap tile floors. Buzzing lights in one of those ceilings made of drop-in panels so cheap they sucked up a bit when a door was opened, then settled back down when the door closed. Cheap bastards. In Kiev, government buildings were regal, strong, worthy of a country.

  He stepped to a desk in the middle of a room where an American cow sat pecking at a computer. She looked up at him and squinted through spectacles that made her eyeballs look the size of golfballs. "Help you?"

  "I am Max Sultanovich, come to get my son, Mikail Maximovich Sultanovich. His body."

  Now her eyes looked even bigger. "What? Oh, that—him? Oh, he's not here."

  "This is coroner's office of Tunica County, correct?"

  "Sure, that's right, hun. But the body's not here. We don't have bodies here, for heaven's sake." The cow gave a little shiver.

  "I don't understand. Why would coroner not have body?"

  "Can't say as I can tell you why, but it doesn't work that way here."

  "Then where can I get the body of my son?"

  "Well, I expect he's over at the hospital. In the morgue. But they won't let you have him."

  "I am his father. How you say—next of kin. It is my right."

  "Oh, you can get him when they're done, I'm sure. It's just th—"

  "Done?" Max said.

  "With the autopsy, of course."

  "No!" Max slammed the heel of a fist down onto the cow's desk. "You may not cut my boy."

  The cow jumped, her huge breasts jiggling. "Uh, look, mister—sir—I think you need to talk to—"

  But Max was not waiting to hear the rest. He was on his way out the door and down the steps, his man trotting ahead to open the car door.

  Once he and the driver were inside and the car was running and ready to go, Max said, "Go to this hospital."

  THE HOSPITAL LOOKED NEW, still had the smell of new carpet and fresh paint when Max walked through the revolving door and into the lobby. He walked straight ahead to a high counter with a uniformed man sitting behind it.

  "Can I help you, sir?" the man said.

  "Where is the morgue?" Max said.

  The man pointed to a pair of elevators on his right. "Down to the basement level, turn left."

  Max grunted and started toward the elevator with his man in tow, but they turned toward a commotion at the hospital entrance they had come through a minute or two earlier. The ruckus was a small army of police and FBI. Moving toward and around him.

  "Maxim Sultanovich, freeze!" It was the leader of the little army, a man in a dark blue jacket with “FBI” in yellow letters a half-meter tall splashed across the front. He had his gun drawn and aimed at Max. So did the others, many of whom were dressed as if they were going into the battle of the century, with all their armor and helmets and other overwrought bullshit.

  As Max raised his hands, he turned toward his man to tell him to cooperate, but it was too late. The simple-minded act on instinct, and this stupid bastard's instinct was to pull his own gun and take on at least a dozen assault rifles and numerous handguns, all wielded by a gaggle of testosterone maggots who had probably dreamed their whole pathetic lives of shooting someone. His man's gun never cleared its holster. Max heard the shots and watched as the bullets tore into his man's torso, each one leaving a small crater as a gout of blood erupted. He looked at Max, a look of bewilderment on his dumb face. Then he went to his knees, stayed there a few seconds, and fell face first onto the clean tile floor.

  The leader advanced toward Max. "Maxim Sultanovich, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney…"

  Max tuned the voice out. More men were around him now, pulling his hands behind his back, snapping handcuffs into place. He said nothing, offered no reaction of any kind as he was shuffled into the center of the herd of silly men. Then the herd was moving toward the door. The leader's eyes were still on Max and his lips were still moving, but Max wasn't listening. Instead, he looked the man in the eye, held the gaze for a while, then smiled.

  CHAPTER 60

  SPACE

  I KEPT THINKING BACK on the meeting with Jacob Allen. I expected him to shut me down on anything involving the unallocated space. I expected it more so after he told me the details of what it was and who owned it. Just the opposite. He almost begged me to do something, anything, to extricate him from the coming tsunami of trouble. Yes, he'd been inebriated by the end of the meeting, but that didn't matter to me. I had authorization to act. A lack of authorization doesn't necessarily stop me from acting, mind you, but having it in your pocket sure can grease the skids.

  After watching all the surveillance footage recorded the night before, I had identified a total of four different people inside the unallocated space, which I started mentally calling “the bunker.” Three guys, one girl. All looked to be in their twenties, and I believed all of them were most likely from Eastern Europe. Much of that belief was based on common sense, given that the owner of the space was a Ukrainian, but there were other things. The shoes I spotted earlier. Mannerisms. And with the girl, the eyes. The camera had caught a great shot of her face as she looked up while talking to one of the guys. She had classic Slavic features, especially the eyes, a pale blue so striking it looked almost metallic. Were these the hackers, or at least some of them? My gut said yes.

  After some time inside the router feeding the bunker and the area around it, I had gotten access to the router inside the bunker, and then to the electronic lock on the bunker's steel door. Sort of. I had gotten the lock's electronic serial number. Once I had that, I compared pictures of the keypad/credential sensor I had taken with my tablet, to pictures I had shot of other access panels around SPACE. The keypad-sensor on the bunker door was different. I moved on and compared pictures of the device to similar keypads and locks on Google. The result was a short list of three potential lock makes and models. I called the first manufacturer; the serial number didn't match their numbering convention. The second one did. I was looking at an ElectroSmith PX1462 keypad with proximity sensor. It was a high-security access control device that was no doubt controlling an ele
ctric deadbolt.

  Things got touchy after that. Since I had knowledge that the bunker didn't belong to my client, any attempt to circumvent the lock could be interpreted as criminal breaking and entering. Strike “could be interpreted.” It would be breaking and entering. Fortunately, I was certain the people inside wouldn't be calling the police. I couldn't shake the feeling that all this was tied together, not just the hacking operation, but the rape videos, as well. And on that front? Rules and laws were of no interest to me.

  CHAPTER 61

  NEW YORK

  COURTNEY MEYER

  MEYER STOOD in front of Belt's desk and waited, anxious for her boss to get off the phone and tell her what was going on.

  After another minute, SAIC Belt hung up the phone and looked at Meyer. "Sultanovich is in custody and en route to the field office in Memphis."

  Meyer pumped a fist. "Yes!"

  Belt said, "Get down there, Court. Now that we've committed ourselves on this thing, we need to move."

  She nodded, left his office, and walked to the conference room where her informants waited. When she entered, every head turned her way. "We got him," she said.

  Balderas: "Protection for my clients needs to begin immediately."

  Maslov: "Max will to try to kill us as soon as he knows we are to speaking with you."

  "Don't worry," Meyer said. "We have a secure apartment here in the building that will be safe until we get longer-term arrangements in place."

  Zuyev said, "Where is Max now? What city?"

  "Memphis, Tennessee. I'm on my way there now."

  "You should know," Zuyev said, those flat eyes locked on hers, "Max will think nothing of having you killed, or a dozen of you. He is a man who is capable of anything."

  Meyer felt a little ripple of goosebumps on her neck. "Thank you for your thoughts, Mr. Zuyev. I'll be fine."

  Zuyev locked those dead eyes on her. "I am trying to help you."

  She left the room and, for the first time since this thing had started to unfold, entertained the notion that she could really be in danger. If the stakes were as high as Maslov claimed, and if Sultanovich was as ruthless as his colleagues believed him to be, what was he capable of?

  CHAPTER 62

  FBI FIELD OFFICE

  MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE

  MAX SULTANOVICH

  MAX SAT in a straight-backed metal chair, posture erect. His hands were still locked in handcuffs, but at least they were in front of him now, resting on a small wooden table in the interrogation room. He had been exactly this way for more than three hours, had seen no one, heard no one, although he knew the bastards were watching him through the mirror on the wall facing him. He looked at the mirror now, stared into his own eyes, and waited.

  He heard a series of soft beeps, then a click, and the door opened. The man who had arrested him entered, carrying a manila file folder, and sat in the chair across the table from Max.

  The man placed the folder on the table, opened it, and removed a single sheet of paper. Then he removed an ink pen from his shirt pocket and laid it across the document. "Mr. Sultanovich, I'd like to ask you some questions. Before we begin, I need you to sign this document, indicating that you understood the rights that have been explained to you. There has been some discussion as to whether you, as a foreign national, are entitled to those rights, but I'd like to see you afforded those rights."

  Max said nothing. He watched as the man rotated the document to face Max, then smoothly slid it and the pen across the table to him.

  "Will you sign the waiver, sir?"

  "I will consider your document." Max looked down as if he were reading the paper, then raised his eyes back to the man and said, "If you do something for me first."

  "What would that be?"

  "Are you a married man?"

  "Beg your pardon?"

  "Married. Do you have a wife?"

  "I don't see how that's relevant, but yes."

  "Good. I will sign this document right after your wife sucks my fat Ukrainian cock." Max's mouth broke into a slow, thin smile.

  The FBI man's face colored like a beet. His nostrils grew and quivered.

  "She must swallow my seed." Still holding his gaze on the man, Max hocked up a big wad of saliva and sputum, then spat it onto the document. He leaned forward over the table. "And I want you to watch while she does it. I think you will learn much, you pathetic American cunt."

  The American waited a long time before saying anything. When he spoke, his voice was controlled, flat. "You're making a big mistake."

  "It is you who has made the mistake. Now I want my lawyer."

  CHAPTER 63

  SPACE

  AT A LITTLE AFTER 11:00 p.m., I watched the surveillance feed on my computer as a stream of people exited the bunker. No new ones entered. Workday over? It was nearly midnight when I saw that things had finally gotten quiet around and in the tunnel. I locked the computer, said good-night to Nichols, and went to my room. Things were moving in a little different direction now, and it was time to start exercising some common-sense caution. After changing into a pair of black cargo pants and a black T-shirt, I needed to take care of a pesky problem. I didn't want to be tracked with my magic SPACE credential bracelet, but I might need it to get in (or out of) somewhere if things got dicey. The bracelet tech wasn't particularly complex. Each bracelet has a tiny chip inside it, about the size of a grain of rice. It's called an RFID chip, and it contains a unique serial number. As I move about the property, thousands of RFID readers hidden in walls, doors, elevators, and a plethora of other places sense that the chip assigned to me is nearby, and logs that information in a database. That's it.

  Those hidden readers can't log what they never see, and since this whole game works on radio waves, there's an easy answer. I took a coffee packet from the SPACE Refreshment Station in my room, opened it, and dumped the coffee into a filter and put it in the coffeemaker. Empty foil coffee packet in hand, I removed my bracelet and dropped it inside. Boom. RFID invisibility, thank you very much. Slid the whole thing into a pocket. Time to go.

  DESPITE THE FACT that I planned to render the bunker cameras moot, I still wanted to conceal my face. I wasn't going to tamper with the footage from the casino's tunnel cameras, and I didn't want to be recognizable as I passed them. I decided against anything radical. A guy on a casino property at midnight, slinking around dressed in black and wearing a face mask, might draw exactly the wrong response. I didn't intend to be seen by anyone in the flesh, and my e-wanderings had shown me that casino security almost never looked at the tunnel cameras and didn't even have access to those inside the bunker. Still, Old Man Murphy is always lurking and never far from my mind. I decided on a compromise and put on the black SPACE baseball cap from my “SPACE Supplies” bag that had been in my room when I first arrived. I pulled it down low before entering the tunnel. I had cut a generous slot in the brim so I could keep my head down but look up through the slot and at least get a partial view ahead and above if needed.

  Thanks to my electronic chicanery with the bunker door's lock, I had all twenty-eight codes capable of opening it. This, of course, suggested that since that lock went active, a total of twenty-eight people had been granted access to the bunker. I had looked at the lock's records and memorized the three most recently used codes with a lot of activity. Those would be the ones least likely to draw anyone's attention should the logs be examined.

  Keeping my head angled down for the camera, I entered one of the seven-digit codes into the keypad and the LED glowed a beautiful green as a soft click sounded. I turned the lever handle and pulled the door open. Stepped inside. Closed it behind me. I was in a corridor that looked exactly like the portions of it I'd been watching through the surveillance cameras. I went left. Twenty feet later, the corridor turned right. Head down and eyes up, I stepped around the corner and saw one of the cameras I'd been watching. It was mounted high on the left wall pointed away from me, down the length of the corridor. Familiar with
its view, I moved ahead. It was one of the ones I'd neutralize later, but in the worst-case scenario it would see the back of a figure in black. Big deal.

  As I moved forward, I encountered doors on my right every twenty feet or so. Their doors all had conventional locks, but all were unlocked. Janitorial supplies. Empty. Empty. A big copier/printer, paper, other office supplies. Empty. Another right turn. A quick scan showed no visible cameras. A couple more empty rooms on my right, then I came to a door that was obviously more important. Big. Heavy steel. And a lock with a keypad exactly like the one on the main door. I entered the same code that had opened that main door. Success again. I stepped inside.

  CHAPTER 64

  MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE

  COURTNEY MEYER

  THE FBI JET touched down at Memphis International Airport just shy of 10:30 p.m. Per instructions, an SUV from the Memphis field office was waiting on the tarmac when the plane taxied up to the fixed base operator, a fancy name for ‘airplane service station’ in Meyer’s estimation, that had the current bureau contract in Memphis. No security hassle, just get out of the plane and into the vehicle. She was on her way within two minutes of the plane rolling to a stop. Within minutes, she'd finally be face to face with the man she had pursued for so long.

  When they arrived at the FBI's Memphis office, she walked through the door talking: "Where can I find Agent Kline?"

  A man cut from classic FBI cloth approached from the corridor with his hand out. "David Kline. I assume you're Agent Meyer?"

  Meyer nodded and shook his hand. "Any developments?"

  "Nope. We let him make a lawyer call several hours ago. Nothing since then."

  "Who'd he call?"

  "Not sure. He dialed a cellphone registered to John Doe. Not kidding."