Unallocated Space: A Thriller (Sam Flatt Book 1)

by Jerry Hatchett

  Daria wondered how one could listen up or down. So many things about English she did not understand yet.

  "In a few minutes, Daria will give each of you a picture of a man. I want to know if any of you have ever seen him. Ever. I also want everybody to be alert for anything strange about your computers. Anything at all. We have been breached."

  Alex paused, and the room was so quiet that Daria wondered if everyone had stopped breathing.

  Then he went on. "I want each of you to stop what you're doing and immediately start a network capture on your machine. Get everything. No filters. I want it all." Alex looked at his watch. “At noon, save the captures to the server. Then do it again at end of day. Clear?"

  Daria looked around and saw some confused faces. She said, "Mr. Alex, I think maybe not all understand."

  "I thought everyone here spoke English?"

  "Yes, but some not so well. Still learning details."

  "Do you understand what I want?" he said.

  "Yes."

  "Explain it to them so they do, too."

  Daria stood and relayed his instructions in Russian, then asked them to raise their hands if they understood exactly what they were to do. Every hand went up. She looked at Alex and nodded. "It is done."

  "Good. Back to work, everybody!" he said, then walked away, pulling his mobile from his pocket as he went.

  CHAPTER 71

  MEMJET EXECUTIVE AIR SERVICE

  MEMPHIS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

  MAX SULTANOVICH

  RED-FACED, the thick blue vein above his eyebrow pulsing, Max stood on the top step of the fold-down stairway of his jet and loosed a stream of Ukrainian invective into the phone. When he looked as if his head might actually burst, he spiked the phone into the asphalt at the foot of the stairs. He descended, covered the space between the plane and the building in ten long strides, and burst through the door into the lounge of the executive aircraft facility.

  Businessmen tending laptops and mobiles from plush leather chairs and sofas looked up as if they were so disturbed. Max stopped, looked around a moment, started to dare them all to fuck with him, changed his mind. He continued through the room and out the other side. Down the corridor. Into the pilots' lounge, where his two bastards sat talking and joking with other white-shirted bastards.

  "Come!" he said. "We will take off right now."

  The two pilots looked at each other, their monkey mouths open. Looked back to him. One said, "We still have no clearance to leave, sir."

  Max took in a long, slow breath through his nostrils, switched to Russian, and with great calm said, "Nemedlenno podnimayte svoy zad, cherez pyatnadtsat' minut moy samolyot dolzhen letet' nad zemlyoy, inache cherez pyatnadtsat' dney vy i vashy sem'i okazhetes' pod ney." You get off your ass and get my plane off the ground in fifteen minutes, or within fifteen days you and your families will be under the ground.

  Now his bastards were on their feet. He followed them through the building, outside, then pounded up the stairs into his plane. The pilots readied the outside, pulling the wheel blocks and the covers from the front of the engines.

  Two minutes later, the pilots were in their seats and fingering their switches and knobs.

  THE MEMJET RAMP supervisor was on the far side of the tarmac when he saw the pilots of RF-46923, a beautiful Dassault Falcon, pulling the covers from the engines and unchocking the wheels. What the hell? Any such prep, whether for parking, storage, or departure, had to be done by MemJet personnel. That was the rule, it wasn't negotiable, and every pilot who used their facility was made aware of it with great perspicuity. Plus, this aircraft had an FAA hold on it.

  As he broke into a trot toward the Falcon, the supervisor cupped his hands and shouted, "Gentlemen? You can't do that."

  Neither pilot showed any sign of having heard him, though he knew they had. The trot became a run and he shouted again. Ignored again. He was still fifty feet away and both pilots were now aboard the aircraft, stowing the fold-down stairs and preparing to close the door. Realizing he wasn't going to reach the plane in time, he stopped and pulled the handheld radio from its holster, keyed to transmit, and said in an urgent tone, "Jet control, jet ramp. Jet control, jet ramp."

  RADIO: "Ramp, control. I see it. Falcon four-six-niner-two-three, this is jet control. You are not unauthorized to move, sir. I repeat, you are not authorized to move. Power down your engines now, and exit the aircraft. Repeat, power down immediately and exit the aircraft."

  The supervisor heard the Falcon's engines spooling up and saw the plane begin to move. The plane was parked so that they could move straight ahead; no need for a pushback. Was this really happening?

  RADIO: "Ground control, this is MemJet control. We are declaring an emergency. We have an unauthorized departure in progress by a foreign aircraft that is subject to an FAA hold. Repeat, unauthorized departure in progress by on-hold aircraft."

  RADIO: "MemJet control, ground control, roger on unauthorized departure. Identify aircraft, please."

  RADIO: "Ground, MemJet. The airplane is a Falcon jet, tail number romeo-foxtrot-four-six-niner-two-three."

  RADIO: "MemJet, ground control. Confirm that this is a romeo-foxtrot aircraft?"

  RADIO: "Ground, MemJet. Confirmed. Falcon, romeo-foxtrot-four-six-niner-two-three."

  RADIO: "Roger that, MemJet, we have it from here."

  The supervisor adjusted the frequency on the radio so he could monitor all the frequencies that were about to be in use here.

  RADIO: "Falcon romeo-foxtrot-four-six-niner-two-three, this is Memphis ground control. You are not authorized to taxi, repeat, you are not authorized to taxi. Stop the aircraft and power down your engines immediately, or more aggressive measures will be implemented."

  Five seconds passed without reply from the Falcon. Ten. Fifteen.

  RADIO: "Falcon niner-two-three, you are ordered to stop the aircraft and power down your engines immediately. Acknowledge."

  The Falcon had made it to a taxiway and was picking up speed. Baker estimated it at 50 MPH and it was no more than a half mile from making a left turn onto runway 18C. Sirens were sounding now from every direction as emergency vehicles moved toward the jet. The most notable of those was a modified Armored Personnel Carrier that had turned onto the southern end of the runway, the 36C end. The bulky vehicle, covered in armored plates, had a pointed metal extension on the front that looked like a brush guard on steroids. It was this addition that turned the vehicle into a battering ram designed for this exact purpose.

  Now the APC was the only thing that had any chance of stopping the Falcon, because the jet had made the turn onto the runway. Its engines screamed as the pilots pushed them to full throttle, and the nimble aircraft was accelerating quickly toward rotation speed as the APC came toward it head-on, also picking up speed. Baker watched the surreal confrontation unfold. It was close, but not enough. The gleaming white Falcon's nose rose and the aircraft left the ground, passing at least ten feet above the APC as it climbed into the hot summer sky.

  CHAPTER 72

  SPACE

  ALEX

  ALEX LOOKED AGAIN at the picture the girl had found. Then he picked up a second picture he'd been given, this one a frame from one of the thousands of surveillance cameras on this property. Same man, no doubt about it, and he'd bet money this man was involved in their loss of access to the SPACE network. He slipped the phone from his pocket and dialed the number again. This time he got an answer.

  "It's me," Alex said. "We have a major problem."

  Two minutes later, Alex ended the call and returned the phone to his pocket after checking the time. 12:22 p.m. He moved the mouse to wake his screen, and navigated to the folder on the server where the workers had saved the network captures from that morning. Starting with the capture from the computer that had taken the picture of the intruder, he began to pore through the mountain of network data.

  Twenty minutes into his dig, he found the first confirmation of his fears. "Sonofabitch," he s
aid to no one. Now that he had found the first tamper, he knew exactly what he was looking for on the remaining computers. He set a filter to show him only the traffic generated by the spyware app the intruder had left behind. It was already on twelve of the twenty computers on the floor. It was moving from machine to machine, duplicating itself and self-installing on the computers one by one.

  How the hell was that possible? This wasn't some simple trojan. It was a sophisticated snoop that would make a record of everything that happened on a computer, and no doubt deliver the results to the asshole who planted it. None of their antivirus or antimalware scanners had picked up the slightest trace of it, and they were running superb scanners that were updated daily and supposedly capable of finding and eradicating any threat, including activity recorders like this. If Daria hadn't found that picture, they would have never known. But they did know, and now he had the advantage.

  He also had a plan for how to press that advantage. He stepped out of the office and onto the workfloor, then called out, "Daria, come here."

  When she arrived, he gestured for her to sit in the lone visitor's chair.

  The girl looked scared. "Yes, Mr. Alex?"

  "Just Alex, okay?"

  She nodded.

  "We have a lot of work to do this afternoon, and I need your help."

  "Yes? What can I do?"

  "We are going to build a trap, Daria. We're going to bait that trap, and then we're going to catch us a predator."

  CHAPTER 73

  FBI - NEW YORK

  CHRISTINE GAMBOA

  "SASHA, I think maybe we're safer here, in a locked apartment in the middle of an FBI building."

  Sasha turned to her on the sofa and took her face in his pudgy hands. "Chrissy, you think this because you do not know Max. We must to go from here. We must to hide."

  "How could he know we're here?" she said. "And even if he did, how would he get to us in here?"

  "Chrissy, you must to trust Sasha. Max own people everywhere. He knows. Max is man who will kill one thousand people to kill one person."

  She heard the electronic lock on the front door beep as it unlocked, and turned toward it. The young FBI employee who had been bringing them food and other requests since they were put in the apartment stepped through the door with a large pizza box in hand. Zuyev walked to him as if to take the pizza. Instead, at the last moment Zuyev picked up a heavy ceramic table lamp and hit the man in the side of the head with as much calm as a normal human being might have when picking up a newspaper. The lamp shattered and the man grunted as he went down to his knees.

  Zuyev took the pizza from his hands during the fall and said, "Thank you very much."

  The man looked confused for a couple seconds, then his eyes closed and he crumpled onto the carpeted floor.

  "Now we go," Zuyev said.

  CHRISTINE FELT like she was in a dream as the cab weaved in and out of New York traffic. She wasn't worried about a car wreck. The taxi driver wanted the thousand-dollar tip Sasha had promised upon successful delivery, and he was handling the yellow Crown Vic with expertise, blowing his horn and cursing out the window at other drivers who somehow offended him. Best as she could tell, that included every driver they encountered. Plus she was wedged tightly enough in the back seat between Sasha's width and Zuyev's bones that she probably wouldn't go anywhere even if they did crash.

  What scared her was everything else. Max Sultanovich had already wanted her dead. Now? He probably wanted her flayed alive or some such. Sasha had won a lot of trust from her over the past couple days, so she didn't worry about him, but that Zuyev was another story. She had looked into his eyes after he attacked the young man and did not sense a soul behind them. Then there was the fact that she was on the run from the FBI. Was it illegal to run from the FBI when you hadn't been arrested? And would the FBI honor the deal they had made, now that they had taken off? Maybe she should have refused to leave. And maybe she should have been a little more forthcoming about the full extent of her own involvement, such as it was.

  Now, unbelievably, Zuyev was opening the damned pizza box. The smell of pepperoni, onions, and peppers flooded the small sweaty space and her stomach roiled. Enough. Without saying a word, she reached across Zuyev, rolled the window down, yanked the pizza box off his lap, and flung it out the window. Zuyev stared at her and she stared right back.

  Sasha burst out laughing. "Yes! Yes, Chrissy! I must to marry you!"

  CHAPTER 74

  FBI - NEW YORK

  COURTNEY MEYER

  MEYER LOOKED in the restroom mirror. No surprise there, but what a sight. Bloodshot eyes in puffy sockets. Pale face. And that hair. Good grief, that hair. She dabbed at her face with a damp paper towel, trying not to wipe off what little makeup remained, and did the best she could with the mess on her head. Time to go.

  She arrived to a full conference room and walked to the end that had the wall-mounted display. "Can someone dim the lights, please?" The lights softened and she picked up the remote for her presentation. She clicked and the FBI logo on the screen faded to a picture split in vertical thirds that showed photos of Maslov, Zuyev, and Gamboa.

  Someone in the room, a man, quietly said, "Wow."

  She turned away from the screen and toward the room. Picked up her cup of coffee and took a sip. Looked at a young man at the far end of the room who looked like a penny that had just been struck. "Chad, and the rest of you men, can you please get your gawking at Gamboa out of the way right now?"

  Nervous chuckles rippled around the table.

  "All done?" she said. When the room was quiet, she went on. "Alexander Maslov, Benjamin Zuyev, and Christine Gamboa. As most of you know, these three assaulted an agent earlier today and fled from one of our in-house apartments. They were in protective custody, not under arrest. That said, Maslov and Zuyev are admitted felons, and now that they've assaulted a federal officer, all three have been classified as wanted and warrants have been issued. Their capture is a high and immediate priority."

  Click. The screen switched to a photo of Sultanovich sitting in the interrogation room the night before. "Meet Maxim Sultanovich. This frail-looking old man is the head of the Ukrainian mafia and the most powerful organized crime figure in all of Eastern Europe."

  "Including Russia?" someone said.

  "He operates out of Kiev, but his reach is long and complex. We believe he has a personal relationship with, and the blessing of, Putin himself. So yes, including Russia."

  Fresh-faced Chad said, "Where is he now?"

  "He was apprehended in Mississippi yesterday and taken into custody by our Memphis field office. We were forced to release him when a legal attaché from the Ukrainian embassy presented papers showing Sultanovich to be a special envoy."

  "Diplomatic immunity?" someone said.

  "Yes. It's trumped-up nonsense, of course, but State gave us no support and we had to cut him loose, at least temporarily."

  "Where'd he go?" someone else said.

  "I'm getting to that," Meyer said. "We were able to get the FAA to put a hold on his plane while we tried to get around the diplomatic cover. An hour ago, however, his plane defied that order and took off from Memphis."

  "They couldn't stop the plane? I thought airports had ways to deal with that kind of thing since nine-eleven?" Chad said.

  "Homeland Security tried and failed. I understand they were attempting to ram the plane on the runway and missed getting there in time by a matter of feet."

  "What now?" someone said.

  Meyer took another sip of coffee. "The FAA is looking and we also have at least some support from the Air Force."

  Someone gave a low whistle.

  "Yeah," Meyer said. "It's a great big deal, people. Our immediate objective is to apprehend Maslov, Zuyev, and Gamboa. They're our best evidence—actually, our only evidence—against Sultanovich. We don't think they fled to avoid any potential prosecution. They came to us, and we had succesfully negotiated a deal for their cooperation."<
br />
  Young Chad was full of questions. "Then why?"

  "Fear of Sultanovich getting to them."

  "Here?" Chad said.

  "I know, I know. Secure apartment, secure building, surrounded by federal agents. So if two career criminals like Maslov and Zuyev were scared enough to run, that should give you some idea of what we're dealing with in Sultanovich. Let's find these three, and let's do it before Sultanovich's people do."

  CHAPTER 75

  SPACE

  IT WAS A LITTLE AFTER ELEVEN. Less than an hour until the first batch of midnight reports should start arriving from the bunker computers. I had worked until about seven on a comprehensive report I had begun writing for Jacob Allen, one with lots of detail and data. It would take several days to put together, and on this night I was tired of it. I closed the file and sent Nichols away, told him I wanted to work on some personal things for a bit.

  I opened the rape videos and all the data behind them. I studied that data, tried to find clues that would let me trace the origin of the monstrous videos beyond the anonymity of the deep web. I dug into the metadata, the hidden data buried in the code of the web pages that contained the videos. Hoped I'd get lucky and find some piece of information left behind by a sloppy tech, something that would let me get even a tenuous grip on who built the pages. Nothing. Generic pages that could have been put together by any of a countless number of people using any of a hundred different apps.

  Next came the actual video files. Pictures and videos often contain a lot of hidden data, as well. It's how you can load them into some electronic photo albums and get a pretty little map with cute little pushpins showing where they were shot and when. I extracted and studied that data. No go. Every field of metadata had been stripped clean.

  After stepping away for a couple minutes to grab a cup of coffee and stretch, I sat back down and pulled up my address book. After a bit of searching, I found the guy I was looking for. A professor who had done a lot of research on photographic and video evidence. He had discovered that even when you don't have the metadata, cameras leave electronic fingerprints behind. Artifacts in images that aren't visible to the human eye. Patterns in the way they process color and light that can be tied to a specific manufacturer, sometimes even a particular model. If you have the source camera, you might even get lucky and match that particular camera to images it created.