Dark Justice

by Brandilyn Collins

  MORSE: Did you not make the connection between the video Hannah Shire gave you and the theft of her computer and backup drive?

  WADE: She’d copied the video onto her own computer, but we told her to erase it. Talk about connections—at that point I had four homicides, and every one of the victims was connected to Mrs. Shire. Who had fled. And was refusing to turn herself in, despite public pleas that she do so.

  MORSE: This man broke into her house and stole her computer!

  WADE: As I told you before, there was no sign of forced entry. We surmised he’d been in her house, and maybe she’d shot him. But she could have let him in, and then some kind of argument ensued. Hannah Shire knew about the surveillance, and even which car our deputy was in. Maybe she told Rozland to come to her back door. Maybe she told him to shoot the deputy first.

  MORSE: Did it not occur to you that this FBI poseur shot Deputy Williams on his own? And then expertly jimmied a lock to break into the Shire house?

  WADE: That was a possibility. But without a tip from Hannah Shire, how could this man have known about the surveillance?

  MORSE: Indeed, Sergeant Wade. How could he have known?

  Chapter 32

  Monday, February 25, 2013

  The minutes seemed like hours. Emily huddled in the Mexican restaurant’s bathroom, clutching her cell phone. Any moment Rutger could show up. By now he could have followed the bus to its next stop and seen she wasn’t on board. He’d backtrack to this stop. Search the strip mall, asking if people had seen her. It didn’t help that three women had come in and out of the restroom, all eyeing her torn pants and wild expression with curiosity.

  Five minutes passed. Six. Dave should be there by now.

  Emily’s cell phone rang. Dave’s number. She jammed the Talk button. “Hi.”

  “I’m in back of the building. There’s a rear entrance.”

  “Be right there.”

  She stuck her head out of the restroom, then eased out into the hallway. At the corner, she leaned around, peering across the tables of the small restaurant. No Rutger. No back door, either.

  A waitress came by. Emily tapped her on the shoulder. “Where’s your back entrance?”

  The young woman frowned. “Oh. You must mean the one through the kitchen.” She pointed. Emily limped toward the kitchen door. “Hey, that’s just for employees!”

  Emily flung back the door and hurried through the bustling kitchen as fast as she could. Smells of eggs, cilantro, and sizzling tortillas swirled in the air. Heads turned to gaze at her, eyes taking in her limp, her frightened face. She kept going.

  If Rutger came looking for her, she would be remembered.

  The back door drew near. Emily ran outside, ignoring the pain in her knee. Dave sat waiting, his passenger door open. She threw herself into the car, sliding far down in the seat. “Go, go!”

  Dave took off.

  Emily unlooped the laptop bag’s handle off her head and shoulder. Pulled her cell phone out of her bag and turned it off. “Lock the doors.” She replaced her cell and tossed the bag in the backseat.

  Safety. At least for the moment. Emily tried to breathe.

  “Thank you. For saving my life.”

  “What kind of car is he in?”

  “Don’t know.” If only she did. How were they supposed to watch every car on the road?

  “Baseball cap’s back there.” Dave pointed backward with his thumb. “Sorry I didn’t have a black wig handy.”

  Emily reached into the backseat and snatched up the cap. She put it on her head and tried to shove her thick shoulder-length hair underneath. Her hair wouldn’t stay. She needed bobby pins. Something.

  “Doesn’t work?” Dave glanced at her.

  “No.” She gave up and slipped further down in the seat. Unless Rutger was up high in a truck, he wouldn’t be able to see her.

  “That knee doesn’t look very good.” Dave gestured toward it with his chin.

  “Doesn’t feel very good either.”

  “How’d you get it?”

  “I fell. I was hiding in the parking lot . . .” Words clogged in Emily’s throat. How had she ever gotten away?

  God. Nothing but God.

  “Sorry I don’t have tissues or anything in the car,” Dave said.

  “Doesn’t matter. Blood’s drying now anyway.”

  Dave tapped the steering wheel. “I suppose you won’t be surprised to hear I kept looking at that video after you left.”

  “Yeah. I figured.”

  “I saw something else at the end. Just before the encryption. I had to enlarge it just like the message at the beginning.”

  “And?”

  “One word. ‘Abort.’”

  Emily gasped. “Abort?” She rolled the word around in her mind. “That has to mean the encryption that follows tells how to stop the plan.”

  “Guess so.”

  Emily’s eyes fixed on the dashboard as she checked her logic. She could see no other reason for the word to be there. “So I was right. There is a way to stop this.” Excitement and hope shot through her. “We just have to find the key.”

  “Big ‘just.’”

  Emily ran a hand through her hair. So much of this made sense now. It was one thing to possess a video that depicted a terrorist plan. But to possess the means to stop it . . .

  “Dave, I need your cell phone.”

  He handed it to her.

  Wait. She’d captured her mom’s last incoming call from her aunt’s number on her own phone. Emily hit the seat with her fist in frustration. She’d have to turn her phone on again.

  What might that cost her?

  “What’s the matter?” Dave glanced at her.

  “I want to make a call now.”

  “So make it.”

  “I’m afraid to turn my phone on in case they’re tracking it. Better wait at least half an hour, until we’re out of this area.”

  For thirty interminable minutes Emily scrunched down in the seat. Her muscles went numb, and her knee hurt, but she tried to ignore the pain. Meanwhile her mind raced. All her conjecture was proving true. Morton Leringer had told her mom how to stop the terrorist attack.

  Raleigh.

  This was way too much for her and Mom to handle.

  Emily rubbed her forehead. “You might as well know it all, Dave.” Hidden down in the seat, she told him about Morton Leringer’s accident. His message to her mother.

  He frowned. “What’s Raleigh mean?”

  “That’s what we have to find out. Mom and me, that is. Not you. I just want you to drop me off and head home. Erase that video on your computer. If we fail, you’ll at least have time to get home before the electricity goes off.”

  Dave’s mouth thinned. “Part of me can’t believe this is happening.”

  “Nobody in America wants to believe it. And look what happened on 9/11.” Bitterness tinged Emily’s voice. “Total surprise and shock. Terrorists like this—they want us to think our safe little lives will go on forever.”

  She cradled her head in her hands. “But why us? Why me and Mom?”

  “Wrong place, wrong time.”

  Too pat an answer. Emily couldn’t bear the randomness of it. Who was she to stop this? Or her mom? They were just normal people.

  She swallowed hard. “Where are we?” They’d head north on the freeway for about eighty miles, then go east toward Fresno.

  “Just turned onto 101.”

  Time to make the call.

  Emily twisted around to fumble her phone out of her bag. She turned it on, found her aunt’s number and dialed it on Dave’s phone, then turned her own cell off.

  Her phone had been on less than a minute. She prayed it wouldn’t matter.

  “Hello.” Her aunt’s voice sounded cautious.

  “Au
nt Margie. It’s Emily.”

  “Emily, dear, how nice to hear from you.” The edge in her tone remained. “Your mother and grandmother are both napping. Well, maybe they’re awake now, with the phone ringing.”

  “I need to talk to Mom right away.”

  “I’ll get her.”

  Emily heard footsteps, then low voices. The click of a second receiver being picked up.

  “Emily, hi.” Her mother’s greeting sounded thick with sleep and fear. “Where are you?”

  “In a car on the way to Fresno.”

  “What?”

  Keeping her voice as factual as possible, Emily told her mom what had happened. She didn’t mention her hurt knee or how close she’d come to being caught. Her mom was already worried enough. “We’ve been driving a half hour. So we’ll be there around”—she calculated—“2:30. I’ll need directions.”

  A long silence followed. No doubt her mother was trying to take it all in. “That young man with the Southern accent is with the real FBI?”

  “Looks like it. But I’ve got something else.” Emily related what Dave had found on the video. “So apparently the encryption is about how to stop the attack.”

  “Oh.” Her mother spoke almost under her breath. “And now . . . This is . . .”

  “Mom, what?”

  “I think I know what ‘Raleigh’ is. It’s R-A-W-L-Y.”

  Emily listened to her mother’s tale of the news story. When the words ran out—where to begin?

  “A stuffed dog? A favorite toy of a little girl who just lost her dad. Oh, that’s just terrific.”

  Her mother sighed. “I thought maybe something’s sewn inside it? A piece of paper with the key on it for the encrypted message.”

  “But we don’t know that. It sounds so crazy. May be just coincidence.”

  “It’s all we’ve got.”

  Emily closed her eyes. She was so tired. Half an hour ago she’d have been thrilled to learn what Raleigh may mean. But this. “What are we supposed to do? We can’t get anywhere near that family. They’ve got to be in constant contact with Wade and Harcroft.”

  “I know. And even if we could, I’m not taking that poor little thing’s toy away. You should have seen the way she clutched it.”

  Emily blinked back tears. Man, she was on edge. Or maybe it was because she’d lost her own father not that long ago. “Mom, we have to call somebody. I mean, not everybody in law enforcement is in on this. We can’t do this! We don’t have the slightest idea what we’re doing.”

  “I know.” Her mother sounded even more exhausted than Emily. “But my brain can’t think right now.”

  “Homeland Security,” Dave said.

  Emily stared at him. Of course. Clearly she wasn’t thinking all that well herself. “How about Homeland Security, Mom? This is what they’re for.”

  “Oh. Right. I’ll call them.” Her mom didn’t sound convinced. Little wonder, after so much had gone wrong. Would they even listen? The story sounded so bizarre. But it had to work. It had to. Already the weight on Emily’s shoulders was too much to bear. “Okay. Let me know what happens. Call me back on this number. My cell phone’s off.”

  She punched off the line and laid her head against the seat, struggling to understand the inexplicable. Why would people do this to anyone? Much less their own country.

  Emily heaved a sigh. She’d been crunched down long enough. With effort, she sat up in the seat, stretching her muscles.

  “Recline the back of the seat if you want,” Dave said. “Take a rest.”

  She touched his arm. “Thank you so much. I don’t know what I would have done without you. What did your wife say, by the way?”

  “She doesn’t know yet.”

  Terrific. She’d think they’d run off together or something. “You’d better call her.”

  Dave hesitated. “I don’t know how much to say. I don’t want her in danger.”

  The comment punched Emily in the stomach. That’s what she and her mother had become, wasn’t it. A danger to anyone who tried to help. Her grandmother was already caught up in it. Now her aunt was involved. And Dave. Maybe his wife. “I’m so sorry,” Emily whispered.

  “It’s okay.”

  But it wasn’t okay. Not at all. Either they’d be caught today and killed, or tonight their world would go black. Then who knew what kind of chaos would follow?

  Chapter 33

  SPECIAL HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE INVESTIGATION INTO FREENOW TERRORIST ACTIVITY OF FEBRUARY 25, 2013

  SEPTEMBER 16, 2013

  TRANSCRIPT

  Representative ELKIN MORSE (Chairman, Homeland Security Committee): Now, regarding Hannah Shire’s daughter, Emily—was it around this time you began to look for her?

  Sergeant CHARLES WADE (Sheriff’s Department Coastside): Yes. I thought it would be likely that Hannah Shire would contact her. I asked local police to go to her Santa Barbara apartment, but she wasn’t there. At that point they needed to find out where she worked and send an officer to talk to her. They informed me they would let me know when this task had been completed.

  MORSE: So in this escalating situation, wouldn’t you agree the time had come to call the FBI for help? You had four murders, two missing women, a victim posing as an FBI agent, and a video that showed the destruction of a power generator.

  WADE: Looking back, I could say yes. And I wish I had. At the time, I was working with my colleagues at the Moss Beach substation, including Deputy Harcroft, as well as the San Carlos police and California Highway Patrol. We had a lot of men on this. As for the FBI, I did call them regarding the badge victim number four was carrying.

  MORSE: But you did not tell them about the video.

  WADE: At the time I didn’t believe it necessary.

  MORSE: Some members of this committee see that as a rather convenient belief.

  WADE: Nothing about that day was convenient, Mr. Chairman.

  MORSE: Well, while you were busy chasing Mrs. Shire and her mother, and focusing on these murders instead of the video, the zero hour of 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time was fast approaching, was it not? And despite the working together of you and your colleagues at the substation, and the San Carlos police, and the California Highway Patrol—not one thing was being done to stop it.

  Chapter 34

  Monday, February 25, 2013

  Stone stood in front of his TV, legs apart and arms crossed, watching the news. More pleas for Hannah Shire to turn herself in. More posturing by Sergeant Wade.

  No mention of the video. Stone narrowed his eyes at the screen. Couldn’t be better.

  His cell phone rang—Tex. Relief shot through him. “You get her?”

  “She got away.” Tex sounded enraged.

  “You let her get away?”

  “I didn’t ‘let’ her. She hid in a restaurant and escaped. She had help. But I talked to people who saw her go. She’s with a white male in his fifties. Driving a black Nissan.”

  “Terrific, but you have no idea where they went.”

  “I’ll find her.”

  “You let her get away once.”

  “I’ll find her.”

  “You don’t have much time.”

  Traffic noises sounded over the line. “Stone. I’ll die before I fail to come through for you.”

  Stone knew he meant it. Tex and his girlfriend, Bo—both of them lived for FreeNow.

  He eyed the TV. That video of Eddington’s little girl and her stuffed dog was playing again. Too bad for that family. Eddington should have thought of them before he turned traitor.

  Stone was tired of men not coming through for him.

  “Let’s just see that doesn’t happen, Tex.” He punched off the line.

  Stone checked his watch. Eleven o’clock. In eight hours the cyber worm they’d released into the targeted power generato
rs would go into action. Nothing would stop it except the code he’d instructed Eddington to encrypt on that video. The video was their backup plan, a way to halt the worm’s destruction if something went wrong. Stone had instructed Eddington to hide the code’s encryption key in a place no one would find it. When he turned traitor and gave the video to Leringer, Eddington must have also told the man where to find the encryption key. Had Leringer told Hannah Shire? Even if he had, now that Wade had ensured Shire and her mother were pariahs in hiding, their finding the key wasn’t likely.

  Still, not likely wasn’t good enough.

  Stone jabbed in the private number to one of his badges—a number known only by him and a few members of FreeNow. The first ring cut off. “Hi.”

  “You take care of it?”

  “It’s done.”

  The TV had turned to commercials. Stone pressed the mute button.

  “Something else,” the badge said. “Roz was found dead in his car. Shot four times. He had Shire’s computer and backup drive.”

  The information jagged through Stone’s veins. “Who killed him?”

  “Can’t be sure, but it looks like Hannah Shire.”

  Roz’s voice, sputtering, breathy, when he’d called. Stone’s theory had proven right. The man had already been shot. “Where’s the computer and extra drive?”

  A second’s pause. “Also taken care of.”

  Why did that sound like a lie? “You sure?”

  “It’s done.”

  Stone nodded, a smile on his face. About time these loose ends of potential evidence were sewn up. No thanks to Roz. Now just one danger remained.

  “Stone, I have one more thing. Not sure if it’ll help, but . . . Shire’s got an aunt in Fresno. Margaret Dexter. And a policeman not far from that area thinks he may have seen Shire’s car heading that direction.”

  Why hadn’t Tex discovered this aunt? Stone had a gut feeling Emily Shire would be headed to the same place. He smiled. “Good.”

  He hung up, more than satisfied.

  His next call was to Tex. “Get back here,” he growled, then punched off the line.

  Humming to himself, Stone searched his cell’s address book for the number of Mack, his main man in Fresno.