Freefall

by Adam Hamdy

  Working with the Bureau’s cybercrime team who were able to circumvent the proxy servers Babylon used, Reeves had traced all the emails to Network Connections, an internet café in a Brooklyn mini-mall. Babylon usually sent them within forty-eight hours of a murder, always between midday and 2 p.m., and the manager of Network Connections, Jeff Sandos, an overworked middle-aged man who looked like he didn’t see enough daylight, said there was a guy who might fit the profile who came in every couple of weeks or so.

  Andie Fong’s girlfriend had found her body at nine the previous evening, and forensics estimated she’d been dead for no more than two hours, so Ash had assembled the team and ordered a stake-out. She and Reeves were in the van with monitors that were hooked up to five remote cameras watching the entrance to the mini-mall, the parking lot, the interior of the internet café, the main entrance and the emergency exit.

  Parker was inside the café. “Because you look the nerdiest,” Ash had joked, adding, “and because you get to make the arrest,” in an effort to mollify his ego.

  Miller and Price were posing as employees of Bull Burger, a fast-food joint opposite Network Connections that garishly proclaimed it was the home of Brooklyn’s best quarter pounder. Miller was a tough, stocky agent, three years out of Quantico, and reminded Ash of a wild boar, someone who’d incessantly sniff around a case and charge down any trouble. Price was right at home in Bull Burger, joking with the staff and customers. Four years from the Academy, Price had an effervescent personality and a broad smile that could charm snakes.

  The last member of the team, Valentina Romero, sat in a beat-up Sebring in the mini-mall parking lot, playing the part of a homeless person living in her car. The tragedy was the car actually belonged to Romero, as did all the personal possessions piled on the back seat, which she’d hurriedly collected from home. Ash got the impression that Romero modeled herself on Al Pacino’s Serpico, grunting through life with anti-establishment belligerence. She seemed far more comfortable in army surplus and heavy boots than she did in the Bureau’s standard business casual. Most in Federal Plaza viewed her as an oddball, but Ash knew Romero was a diligent, dedicated agent.

  The mini-mall was located on the corner of Linden and Rockaway, a couple of blocks from Brookdale Hospital. It was a squat complex of buildings arranged around the north, east, and west sides of a small parking lot. Potash red, the low structure was covered by years of ground-in pollution and was home to an assortment of struggling independent businesses—a dry cleaner, a mailbox provider, a nail salon—places that survived on the margins.

  “You should get some sleep,” Reeves advised, as Ash rubbed her eyes.

  “I’m OK,” she replied, forcing herself to sit upright. They’d been in the van since midnight, and it was now approaching noon. Apart from a couple of bathroom breaks and a short period when she thought she’d fallen asleep, Ash had spent the night staring at the screens, watching the comings and goings of a handful of people who still needed access to a public computer. The remote camera inside Network Connections showed Parker sizing up every new entrant before returning his attention to his computer, one of a dozen arranged in rows on either side of the café.

  The stake-out wasn’t the real reason for Ash’s tiredness. She’d been pushing herself too hard, leading the Babylon investigation for the Bureau while spending every free moment trying to tie up the Pendulum case. As far as the world was concerned, the killer had been caught, but despite SAIC Harrell’s concerted efforts to convince her otherwise, Ash was certain at least one other person had been involved and she was determined to prove it.

  Ash wasn’t the only one struggling with the aftermath of the Pendulum killings. The death of so many innocent victims had generated real anger, and there was a growing consensus that people should be prevented from exploiting the anonymity afforded by the internet. The older generation, people who remembered a time before technology connected every home to a world of potentially dangerous strangers, was particularly vocal in demanding some sort of protection, and it looked as though lawmakers were finally responding to their call. Two senators—Joe Castillo, a sharp Republican from Florida, and Polly Blake, an Arizona Democrat—had proposed the Blake-Castillo Bill, otherwise known as the International Online Security Act, which they claimed would reshape the internet. Among a number of other changes, the bill would end anonymity through the issuance of biometric digital passports. Officially, the Bureau supported the bill, but Ash had reservations, viewing it as a knee-jerk reaction to a deranged killer.

  The Bureau had embarked on a massive investment program to bolster its capabilities to deal with cyber-threats and had adapted its profiling to take account of the potentially random connections the digital world could facilitate between victims and criminals. But for all the money and resources being thrown at ensuring a future Pendulum would be caught, Ash couldn’t help but resent the fact that no one believed her testimony that someone had been helping the killer, and she was angry that she was being forced to build a case alone.

  Despite this, Ash considered herself luckier than John Wallace. He’d retreated to Afghanistan, claiming to be on a mission to remind the world of the plight of the Afghan people. But Ash knew the truth; he was out there chasing death. He’d been unable to come to terms with his role in the Pendulum killings and Ash could sense him almost drowning in the deep guilt he felt.

  They’d spoken a couple of times since he’d left New York, and exchanged a handful of emails. Ash had used each communication to try to convince Wallace not to return to Afghanistan, but to find some other way of doing something meaningful with his life. She even offered to help him get work in New York, but Wallace hadn’t listened, and eventually their communication had become more sporadic, as if he was trying to avoid her. Even though he was in some godforsaken part of the world, Ash knew he still had access to the Web because a Google Alert had informed her that he’d uploaded new photographs to Getty, pictures of Afghan fighters in the Hindu Kush Mountains. Haunted consciences were writ large on the craggy faces of the hardy warriors, and Ash wondered whether they and Wallace had bonded over their common experiences of grief. She had emailed Wallace a short note of congratulations when she’d seen the pictures, but had not received a reply. She knew there was every possibility that she’d wake up one day and see a Google Alert drawing her attention to Wallace’s short obituary in a photography magazine. Whenever she had such dark imaginings, she regretted not telling him the real reason she didn’t want him to go to Afghanistan: she missed him. Forced together for a few frantic weeks, Wallace had been closer to Ash than she’d allowed anyone since she was a child in California, and his absence had made her much more aware of the lonely, detached life she’d created to protect herself.

  When they’d first met, Ash had thought Wallace a vulnerable child who needed to be protected, but their ordeal had demonstrated how resilient he was. He’d overcome the confines of his lesser self to save her life, and for that Ash owed him a profound debt. He’d come into her life seeking nothing more than protection and had trusted no one but her to give it to him. Despite herself, Ash had responded in kind, and the damaged Englishman had become the closest thing she’d ever had to a true friend. She recalled how Wallace had looked at her in the motel room they’d shared, and wondered whether his feelings had run deeper.

  “That’s him,” she said suddenly, indicating a man walking across the parking lot.

  She and Reeves peered at the screen, which showed an overweight Caucasian male with cropped black hair heading toward the café. He wore jeans and a cream sweater and had a black backpack slung over his shoulder. The guy cast the occasional glance around the parking lot, but Ash saw no evidence of nerves; he was like a bobcat checking its surroundings for other predators. The interior camera showed five people: Parker; Jeff, the bored café manager; a young mother with a toddler asleep in a buggy; and an old guy who sat at one of the terminals with a thick sheaf of papers and an expression of constant annoyanc
e.

  Ash spoke into her lapel mic. “I think this is our man. I want everyone sharp.”

  On screen, she saw Parker shift in his seat as the target entered the café.

  “Over here?” the man asked Jeff, pointing at one of the available computers. Ash noted that it was in the far corner, away from the other customers. Jeff nodded, and the target settled into a cheap plastic chair opposite the machine. Ash guessed he was about six-one and well over a couple of hundred pounds.

  She checked an iPad which displayed a mirror of the Post’s news desk email account and waited. She watched the target’s chubby fingers dance around the keyboard. Then they suddenly stopped and the man looked over his shoulder toward the counter and caught Parker watching him.

  “Hey, dude,” the target said, getting to his feet. “I forgot to pay.”

  “He knows something’s wrong,” Ash said.

  “You always ask me to pay before I use a machine,” the heavy man said, indicating a notice hanging next to the counter which read “All time to be paid for in advance.” “It’s policy. It says so right there.”

  Ash saw Jeff choke with nervous tension. His mouth opened and closed repeatedly, making him look like a suffocating fish. He glanced at Parker, who was watching the exchange, and finally said, “You’re right. Boy, did I have a late night.”

  “He’s reaching,” Ash told her team as the target put his hand inside his backpack. “Everybody move!”

  She saw Parker draw his pistol as he got to his feet, but he wasn’t fast enough.

  “Sit down!” the target yelled, smacking Parker across the face with a heavy revolver—it looked like an old .357.

  Parker fell back, unconscious, and the killer reached down and picked up his gun.

  “Come on,” Reeves cried, opening the rear doors and jumping out of the vehicle. Ash rushed after him, adrenaline surging with the sudden shift from stake-out to crisis.

  She ran across the parking lot and crouched over the hood of a blue Ford, her Glock trained on the glass-paneled door. The target had acted quickly, locking the front door to prevent Miller and Price from entering. He’d pulled the slatted window blinds, leaving the door as the only way to see into the café.

  Realizing they weren’t going to be able to storm the building, Reeves returned to the surveillance van to inform command of the hostage situation, and to relay information on what was happening inside. It seemed the target didn’t know about their cameras. Miller and Price had taken up positions either side of the café, and Romero was stationed by the emergency exit at the rear of the building. Ash could see Parker’s legs through the door, and caught intermittent glimpses of the other hostages’ limbs, but the killer was very careful not to expose himself and stayed behind the protective cover of the blinds.

  They were now facing a hostage situation and Ash knew that she’d quickly lose control to the Bureau’s negotiator and NYPD SWAT, who were on their way. Reeves had told her the target had attached devices to the hostages’ necks, and she’d asked him to instruct local PD to establish a blast cordon when they arrived, even though she harbored a dark fear that the devices were not explosives, but something far more terrifying.

  She finally saw the devices Reeves had been talking about when the mother approached and unlocked the door. A taut black wire ran around the woman’s neck, pressing tight against her windpipe. The woman looked behind her, and then pulled the door open.

  “He’s gone!” she shouted.

  Ash was surprised that the suspect had given up the advantage of hostages.

  “I’ve got movement at the fire exit,” Reeves said, as Ash ran toward the café. “He’s trying to escape through the back.”

  “Copy that,” Romero replied. “Freeze!” Ash heard Romero’s shout over the roof of the building, a millisecond before the radio transmitted it into her ear, creating a strange echo effect.

  Two gunshots rang out, and Romero exhaled violently as the wind was knocked from her.

  “Romero’s hit, she’s down,” Reeves said urgently. “Target’s running.”

  Ash spoke into her lapel. “Get after him!” She turned to Miller and Price, who’d taken up position by the door. “Go with him.”

  Miller and Price nodded and set off toward the rear of the building at a sprint, while Ash entered the darkened café. Behind her she heard the sound of the van’s engine roaring to life and the squeal of tires as Reeves accelerated away from the parking lot.

  Parker was on his feet but looked unsteady and was bleeding from a long gash across his face. The mother was checking her child, who had managed to sleep through the incident, and Jeff was helping the old guy to his feet. Ash approached Parker, whose hands were bound by a cable tie.

  “I screwed up,” Parker said apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

  Ash froze as she noticed a device attached to the wire at the back of his neck: a black box about four inches square and two inches thick. The wire ran through two eyelets and vanished into the device’s innards. The only visible marking on the box was an LED, which had just illuminated.

  “Ash,” Parker cried nervously, drawing her attention to the other hostages.

  She saw red lights on the devices that were fixed to the back of their necks. She could hear a whirring coming from all four of them, and noticed that the black wire was starting to change color as it dug into Parker’s neck.

  “It’s hot,” Parker said as he tried to pull at the wire, which was getting tighter and tighter.

  The mother cried out in pain, and the old man yelped, as the wires bit into their necks.

  “Get it off me, get it off me!” Jeff shouted.

  “Reeves, Price, Miller, I need you back here now!” Ash said into her radio as she cast around the café for something that could help.

  “You want us to abandon pursuit?” Reeves asked incredulously.

  “Yes, get back here,” Ash responded urgently.

  “I don’t want to die,” Parker croaked as the wire started to glow red with heat. It had dug so deep that it was almost lost between two massy folds of flesh. “Help me.”

  Ash tried not to think about the victims she’d seen killed by this man, their heads separated from their bodies, but, confronted with four people about to die, she could not avoid imagining the trauma of their deaths, trauma that was now being played out in front of her. The old man was struggling to breathe and collapsed to the floor. Ash knew it would not be long before the wires started slicing through their necks.

  “I’m going to try something,” she told Parker, and she raised her pistol as she approached him. The thin cable looked tough enough to resist anything but wire cutters, so her only hope was to go for the mechanism. “Cover your ears.”

  Parker did not have the strength to comply, and he fell to his knees as the first blood started to flow. Ash pressed the barrel of her gun against the device on the back of his neck and pulled the trigger. Whatever was in the box was under high tension, and the device burst open with a mini explosion that sent tiny pieces of razor-sharp shrapnel searing into Ash’s arm. But she didn’t care; the wire around Parker’s neck stopped contracting and cut no further. Elation quickly turned to horror as she noticed a shard of plastic embedded deep in Parker’s neck. Blood started to ooze around it in steady, rhythmic pulses and Ash knew that the shrapnel had hit an artery.

  “I don’t . . .” Parker managed before passing out.

  The other hostages were struggling to breathe as the devices tightened around their necks, and Ash felt rising panic; she knew that she’d have to risk causing similar injury in order to save them. As she moved across the room, she saw Miller and Price enter.

  “Get an ambulance,” she cried.

  Miller radioed for assistance as he and Price hurried over. Ash could hear the sound of sirens approaching—local police department.

  “Help him,” she commanded, indicating Parker. “But be careful, I think it’s hit an artery.” She moved to the young mother, praying this
bullet would chart a better course as she held her pistol against the device and squeezed the trigger.

  6

  Wallace feared the thunderous pounding of hooves would betray their location. His white gelding bucked and twisted as it galloped through the forest, chasing the other horses. He clung to the reins and rode low, close to the neck, to avoid being unseated by stray branches. He could hear the horse snorting and panting, and felt its muscles straining as fragrant cedar trees flashed past. High above them a helicopter purred, a tiny tell-tale green light indicating that someone was using night-vision goggles to scour the landscape. Vosuruk spurred his horse forward, urging them on with a cry, claiming there was safe haven less than a mile away, and so Wallace and Kurik pursued the Kom magistrate through the forest, pressing their horses, desperately hoping they would not be spotted.

  Wallace caught sight of a solid shadow through the blur of trees. Lying ahead of them, slightly to their left, he could make out the jagged edges of a rock formation protruding from the mountainside. Vosuruk threaded his horse between the trees and pulled up within feet of the base of the rocks. He leapt out of the saddle and took his gray forward at a run. Kurik followed, but Wallace stumbled when he dismounted and realized that his whole body was trembling. He held the reins to stop himself falling, and forced himself up the rocks in pursuit of Vosuruk.

  “Come on,” his host urged, looking nervously toward the chopper, which was sweeping the forest in their direction.

  Wallace pulled his horse into a narrow gap between two high rocks and followed Kurik along the damp earth that covered the bottom of the ravine. Looking back toward the approaching helicopter, he felt a momentary stab of panic when the luminescent green pointed directly toward him. He redoubled his efforts, moving even faster, but when he turned his attention to the ravine, he was dismayed to find it empty; Vosuruk and Kurik were nowhere to be seen. He looked back at the insectile silhouette of the helicopter, which was coming directly toward him.