by Jim Magwood
He quickly saw that all the messages routed back from their ultimate destinations through three re-senders, or mail forwarding systems. Beyond the third one, though, a re-sender in Spain, the trail was lost. No telling how many cutouts were beyond that one, or where they had begun.
His system had created a separate file for the form letters that had been attached to every message. It was a letter to the holders of each account, with mail-merge spots for individual information, instructing them to stop sending their mortgage payments, just as Paul had described. There were no instructions for the banks as to what they should do with these form letters, so Roger knew the instructions had to have been sent earlier. He wrote another search program telling his system to look back through the days preceding this batch of messages to try to find ones to the banks with instructions on what was coming.
As he knew the search would likely take a long time, if it was possible to find anything at all, he decided he and Jacob needed to take a long break for food and some outside refreshment. The northern weather suited them well and they looked forward to getting out whenever they could enjoy it. Maybe a jaunt down to the lake was in store. Snow on the ground, ice next to the shore, a few hardy souls boating and fishing (though the rewards at this time of the year could be magnificent.) It was about a half-mile walk to the shoreline, but they couldn’t think of anything more stimulating (other than cuddling with Roger’s lovely computers at the cabin. Even there, though, a break was necessary.)
CHAPTER 75
The soldier lay stretched out on the floor and slowly did pushups. Two hands; left hand only; right hand only. Slowly. On and on. He didn’t count them anymore, just knew he was well over one hundred because of the burning in his arms and shoulders. The room was hot, stifling, the air heavy. He seldom turned the air on. Ignored the temperature for the most part. It was just how he had been trained and so temperature didn’t mean much. Sweat dripped off his body and pooled beneath him.
Without deciding to, he just stopped. Didn’t count. Just knew it was enough. Besides, he had more things to do. A mission—finally. It had been a couple of weeks since he had last had something that needed doing, so he was definitely ready. It was what he was for—doing jobs that someone needed done.
The police lady had already had her day, even if by accident, so he was looking forward to this next one.
He walked to the little table and picked up the big, brown envelope. Took out the papers and spread them on the table. One page of typed plans and a page of a hand-drawn map. The map had a street with a box for a house on it with an X in the box. Across the street and down two houses was another box. A dotted line connected them. A simple note by the second box said, “House is empty; for sale; no alarms. Third floor front window looks into second floor side window of subject. Bed in full view.” It was his target for tonight.
The text described when the owner would be home after a special meeting he had to attend and what his usual course was for getting ready for bed. Usually a small snack; clean up in the bathroom; lock all the doors and set the alarm; toss down one small drink quickly; then upstairs and lights out. Unless it was raining heavily or storming, he always slept with the window open. It would be a simple shot through the window to the bed. One more mission down.
He walked over to the little closet and pulled out the special garment bag, took out the Remington M24 sniper rifle, locked the 10x42 Leupold Ultra scope in place, carefully filled the 10-round magazine with .300 Winchester Magnum slugs and laid the beautiful rifle on the bed. He loaded another magazine—just in case, and laid it beside the rifle. Twenty pounds of hardware with the two magazines. He knew he really wouldn’t need the scope for such a short distance but decided he would have a better view in the dark. As long as he got there early and sighted in while there was still some light, he would have the target still sighted in as darkness fell. He could finish the sighting with the bedroom light. No problem.
Finally he loaded the H&K USP-CT handgun with the .45 ACP hollow points and laid it beside the other equipment. Likely wouldn’t need it, but it would be the best weapon if he had to fight his way out of any situations.
Then he sat and looked lovingly at the weapons. They were a beautiful sight, lying safely on the bed. Magnificent weapons. Some of the most powerful and specialized on earth, and he loved them like the children he had always wanted. They had personalities of their own and they almost spoke to him. Their purpose was so specific, so defined, so exact. Handle them right and nothing would deter them on their mission. Someone had casually picked up the rifle to look it over one time and he had just as casually broken the man’s forearm as he had taken it back from him.
The government had had these weapons specially made, tooled to perfection, the best the manufacturer could make. Then the soldier had refined them and added to the perfection over the years he had them. He knew there was no such thing as perfect, but these were perfect. The best there was.
Now they would perform another mission.
He packed them carefully back into the special garment bag, dressed carefully in his night clothes and walked carefully and quietly down to his car in the underground garage. The weapons went into the trunk, tucked neatly into a sleeping bag for padding. The car came to life and he drove quietly out of the garage and headed across town. He knew most of the directions well and only looked at the map when he got into the neighborhood. He drove down the street and looked carefully at the target house and then the one across the street. Both were dark except for the tiny porch light at the target. He drove down the street two blocks, then turned and drove past the houses again. Then he drove another two blocks before turning down a side street and back on a parallel street to the first.
It was only nine o’clock and he had lots of time to get ready. Most of the homes were dark. People got up fairly early here to get across town to work. He continued down the street, then turned away from his target and parked four blocks further away. He sat in the car for thirty minutes to be sure nothing was moving around him, then got out, quietly closed the door, opened the trunk and took out the garment bag. He had rigged the interior and trunk lights to only come on with a switch, so no light betrayed him. Then he casually tossed the bag over his shoulder and began walking back to the target.
He carefully surveyed everything as he walked, looking into shadows, down lines of shrubbery and driveways, and twice slowly turned around and walked back a few steps to be sure there was no one around. He passed his target street, walked to the middle of the block, again carefully looked around, then quickly slipped to the left down a dark alley that ran between the two streets of houses. Garbage cans lined the way and he could see into the yards as he went past. There were no alley lights so he just walked carefully and quietly. Apparently any dogs were being kept inside so he never raised any alarms.
There had only been the one three story house this far down the street and he stopped and stood in the dark of the fence behind it. He waited for at least ten minutes before moving again. He went over to the back yard gate hoping he would have no trouble getting in. He really didn’t want to climb over it. Fortunately, he found only a circle of wire looped over the top boards to secure it, and was able to reach over to the inside latch easily. He closed it carefully behind him and walked up the rock path to the back door. Again he stood quietly for several minutes before moving.
The house had an old fashioned screened back porch on it. He carefully put down the bag and reached into his back pocket for an old Swiss army knife. The blade easily cut a small slice through the screen beside the doorframe and he reached in and flipped the old hook and eye lock open. He picked the bag back up and slipped into the porch, then relocked the door behind him. It was only two good steps over to the kitchen door and he put the bag down again.
The door had four glass panes in it. He turned his back to the door, put his elbow against one of the panes and then slammed his elbow gently but firmly against the glass. It punched easily
through the pane and the sound was very muffled. He figured if anyone did happen to be here and screamed, or if a neighbor called out, he would simply turn and walk away. He stood quietly for several minutes and there were no sounds, so again he simply reached through the small hole and turned the inside lock, then picked up the bag and entered the house.
The curtains weren’t closed so there was enough street light for him to see quite well. He walked slowly and carefully through the kitchen and down the hall past the dining and living rooms to the stairs just off the front door. Took a quick look through the front windows to be sure the street was clear, then turned and went up the stairs. He paused on the second floor and listened for any movement, then went down the hall carefully looking in each room to be sure. Finally he went back to the stairs and up to the third floor. Once again he checked all the rooms and finally entered the master bedroom. He looked through the main window and, yes, the view to the target house went just over the porch of the house beside it and into the second floor bedroom.
He pulled a large padded chair over and then opened the window fully. A slight breeze ruffled the curtains a bit, and as he settled into the chair and adjusted his position relative to the target house across the street, he thought, “This is nice. I wonder what it would be like to live in somethin’ like this?”
He opened the garment bag and carefully brought out the rifle, then one of the magazines. He emptied the rounds from the magazine and reloaded just to be sure everything fit smoothly, then carefully inserted the magazine into the weapon. He rested the rifle on the windowsill with only a few inches of the barrel protruding through the hole he had cut in the screen and sighted on the bedroom window across the street. “Perfect view,” he thought. “But I’ll have to kneel when I do this. I have to bend over to get down to the right level and I’ll need to be steadier than that.” The bed at the other house was perfectly framed in his scope.
From the moment he had arrived at the house and all during his entrance and setup he had worn a simple pair of thin driving gloves, so he knew there would be no trace of him left behind. He carried nothing in his clothing or on his body that could be left behind. No jewelry or wallet or paper. His little Swiss army knife was all. His wallet and room keys had been left in the car. His car keys were on the ground under the car beside the left rear tire. He would leave DNA traces behind, a hair or something, but he wasn’t worried. They could never actually find him through that, and he did not intend to be caught to match the traces later. If he was caught, then it was simply his time and didn’t matter anyway.
So he sat back in the comfortable chair and waited.
CHAPTER 76
“Paul, I just can’t believe how dead this case is. I’ve never seen a case before that went on this long and we came up with nothing. This stuff has been too physical. Schools getting torched and nothing left behind. Nobody calling in to brag, or with information. What is it, three people been shot now and no information? Nothing to even begin with. Couple other shots fired and that media building fire, and all related in some way, but nothing. Can’t even get started.”
“I was thinking the same thing when I got up this morning. I’ve never seen anything myself that didn’t have something come up that started pointing. And we’ve been over and over these files how many times and still can’t get a direction.”
“I checked with Sammie when I got in this morning, see if he had anything at all, and he said no. Same old links, but nothing to go after. And your guy in Canada says the same. He has a little more info coming in than Sammie does, but still nothing getting at that first thread.”
“I can’t stop thinking that we’re going to have to catch this guy in the act somewhere, but that’ll mean there are going to be more incidents. But I’m afraid that’s what’s going to happen. Some street cop is going to stop someone setting a fire, or on a traffic stop, and that’ll be the end.”
“Yeah.” Jake’s tone seemed to express complete discouragement.
Paul chuckled and said, “So, you wanting to be the one making that stop, Jake?”
“Yeah, why not? Really, though, I just want this guy stopped. Too much chaos; too many people hurt. I’m just real tired of him getting away with this so long. And nothin’ to tag him with. Just nothin’.”
“Look. Just thinking here. We’ve got how many cases? The schools. The shootings at the schools. We’ve got the shooting out at that senator’s party ‘cause the slug matches the ones at the schools. Plus the poetry. And that ties in the fire at the news building. So we know those are all tied together.
“Then we’ve got Sarge, however he might be tied into this. And the guy at the hotel room, ‘cause Sarge sent us there. They’re tied together. And Sarge's comments about that guy talking about the fires. That almost certainly ties all of them together. So what else?”
“You mean that isn’t enough? I’m with you, though. I don’t think Sarge is tied into these except he has some place to get information. Maybe old buddies or hangouts, that sort of stuff. I think he’s real. Probably too old to get much involved in this kind of stuff, anyway. But everything else? Yeah, it’s all coming from the same source.”
“But still nothing to give us a lead to who it is. This guy, or guys, I guess, are just too good.”
“So where do we go from here?”
“I don’t know, Jake. Without some sort of lead coming in, I don’t think we can just sit here and mull this over forever. We do have other stuff on our desk.”
“Yeah, and we do have the boss breathing down our necks on that other stuff.”
“Okay so let’s put this aside for now, until something else comes in, and look at the rest of our load.”
“Which amounts to what? Mainly all that bank stuff, right?”
“Yeah. Where’s that list I made last week? Here. Right where it’s supposed to be. I listed out all the events related to these banking things. We’ve got those messages to the Federal Reserve banks getting them to slow down their activities and cancel credit lines and stuff. We’re still feeling the chaos from that. I’ve heard that there are banks all over the world that will simply not trust the Fed any more. They have to use them, but they sure do it reluctantly.
“Then we have the mortgage stuff. Somehow, someone told a bunch of mortgage companies and banks to send messages to their customers telling them to hold off making their payments for a while, and then never got around to telling them to start up again. And all the electronic files were erased. Of course, the FBI is handling all the major work on these things because they’re national and the banks are federal jurisdiction, but it’s still on our desk to keep up with.”
“Hmmm. I didn’t get one of those notices. How come they bypassed me? I could use a few months of no mortgage payments.”
“Yeah, me too, but we’re the honest ones that would make them anyway, so it wouldn’t matter.”
“Speak for yourself. They’d never see another dime from me.”
“Jake. You mean you’d become a scofflaw?”
“Darn right. Scoff anything I could.”
“Okay, so what else do we have?”
“Well, we have that senator that got killed way back. Shot at his door in the early morning. Nothing ever from that. Another one for the Feds, I guess, but we’re still on that one. Straight from the White House mouth.”
“Yeah. What was the message that was attached to that one?”
“You know what? You just reminded me. The note with the senator was the same type of language as the earlier ones from the school fire. The guys at that meeting immediately said it was related because of that.”
Jake sat up straight in his chair. “So we have another link to the fires. Did we give that to Sammie?”
“Yeah, I remember doing that. It was on the list we gave him.”
“How about your Canadian guy?”
“I don’t remember. I’ll make a note here to look that up when we finish and get it to him.”
“Okay
, so what else? I just thought about something else. What about that DEA thing where all the reservations got lost, or cancelled? That’s not ours but I remember hearing about it. That’s kind of a bank thing. Could it be related to our banks?”
“I don’t know. Let’s make another note here to check with the FBI. See if they’re working them together.”
“We’ve got that case from the Smithsonian bomb. I can’t see where that one is connected to the others, but it’s still ours for the chasing. And the shooting at you back then. Slugs too smashed to compare, but we still thought it might be related, remember?”
“Yeah, I sure do remember that one. But neither one of those cases seem to be related to these, unless the shooter was the same.”
“And that kind of brings us up to the hotel bomb and the latest fires. So, we have a lot of cases, and some of them are related. Where do we go now? Does any of this ring with you?”
“No, but…” The phone interrupted him. “Detective Corbin. How can I help you?”
“Detective?” the voice slurred. “Isn’t this the pizza place?”
“No, ma’am. This is the police…” He stopped. “Sylvia? Is that you, Sylvia?”
“Yeah, you big goof. But can you bring me pizza, anyway?”
He almost shouted, “Jake, it’s Sylvia.” Jake was already standing. “Sylvia, what’s going on? How are you? What do you need? And, yeah, I’ll bring pizza. Or anything else you need. What are you doing?”
Her voice was clear but she sounded tired.
“If you just slow down a bit, I’ll tell you.”
“Okay, so tell. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, but I need a ride.”
“What do you mean, a ride?”
“They’re letting me out of here today and I don’t have a car. They wouldn’t let me drive, anyway, so I thought…”
“Say no more. We’ll be there. When, and where? And are you okay to be getting out?”
“Yeah, I’m tired and sore, but they can’t do anything else right now to make me look better, so I figured I should just get home. They’re letting me out at two. So, can I get a ride?”