I’ve found you, Scarlett.
Cutthroat UNSUB finally had a name.
The memory of her conversation with Flint Lewis resurfaced and the new Black Shadow members who had inspired him to break away from the group. A bluish hue flashed in.
Mr Darcy and Scarlett …
She didn’t have the slightest clue how the process of communicating via the e-readers might even begin to work.
She’d let Irv look at it when she got back, but she suspected she knew someone who already had the answer.
Thirty-six
Jenna was relieved when Flint Lewis answered his phone after the first ring. This whole thing had her on edge, and while part of it was nerves that if she couldn’t get hold of the one person who could crack this communication system, odds got better more people would die, another part couldn’t shake off the concern about the very real danger Flint and his family were in. Danger Jenna’s team had put them in by risking them attracting the attention of Black Shadow. Getting Flint back on their radar.
‘Flint, so glad to hear your voice. Listen, I know we’ve already asked so much of you after you’d put this behind you, tried your best to steer clear of these awful people … especially with your sweet wife carrying the next addition to your family and a toddler to care for—’
‘But,’ Flint interjected, his voice flat. Angry?
Jenna bit her lip and closed her eyes. ‘I need your help one more time. I wouldn’t ask again. I really wouldn’t, Flint,’ she said, cringing through every word. She knew better than anyone about trying to get away from your past. Keep your family safe. ‘But lives depend on it.’
‘And what about my family and our lives? They not important enough?’ came Flint’s reply, his tone loud and seething.
Something was different. Something had changed since they’d run out of his home toward the scene of the hospital attack. He sounded mad on the surface, but there was more to it.
‘What’s happened, Flint? What’s going on?’
‘They know, Doctor,’ he fumed. ‘They know I logged on. I don’t know how they know, but I know they do. They know I logged on, they know I dug around. I’m just …’ he paused, his trailing words losing fire. He took a rattling breath. ‘I’m just worried.’
Jenna’s chest clenched. She knew the feeling better than he’d ever know.
‘Help me put them away, Flint. I know how to get them, and I’m close. All I need is one piece of information I don’t have.’
The silence seemed to go on for minutes until finally, Flint sighed. ‘And I suppose you think I do?’
Jenna took the slight opening and launched into everything: finding Marius’s dead body, identifying him and Ashlee, his apartment, the e-readers. She told the landlady’s story about their aversion toward e-books, then filled him in on how she’d made the leap to them being a communication system.
‘I’m sure they use them to pass information to each other without being traced, but I can’t tap into it unless I know their technique. I know this is probably something they put in place long after you were out of the picture, but I guess I was hoping …’ Jenna paused. How to explain?
Flint said nothing, but Jenna could hear him breathing heavily on the other end, assuring her he hadn’t hung up.
‘Please, Flint,’ she said finally.
When he spoke again, his voice sounded tired, frayed at the edges. ‘If they’re doing what I think they are, they’re using the same method as on the old forum when we wanted to get all the members to a private chat room all at once to talk about something we didn’t want the Internet to keep a record of,’ Flint explained.
Somehow, Jenna was pretty sure those private chats probably had more nefarious reasons, but for now, she wouldn’t argue.
‘How did you get in touch? Pass messages?’
‘I made an account on one of the online book review sites and did a review of a book. All the members of the private forum were given the title I’d reviewed, and every day, they knew to check my account there. It would pull up my reviewer stats, and in turn, they could see if I had posted any new reviews.’
‘So, if you had, I take it that they clicked out to that review, where there would be a message waiting for them hidden in it,’ Jenna said, catching on.
‘Something like that.’
But on an e-reader, could you click out on individual reviewer handles? Would it even show reviewers stats?
Flint seemed to have spotted the problem, too. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but I think I know how it works. The more messages we used, the longer the list of reviews under my handle and people got sick of wading through them, trying to figure out which was newest, if one was new, etc. So we simplified by deciding on a single book title. Instead of checking my review handle every day, members checked that book’s page for any new reviews posted that contained the phrase ‘right now’ in any capacity as a part of the title of the review. It was a much more sustainable system, though I have to admit the review titles got pretty creative.’
‘So how do we know what book they’re checking now?’ Jenna asked.
‘I can’t be sure,’ Flint said, ‘But if I had to guess, I’d say they’ve already told you. I’d say it’d be the book that brought you to Black Shadow in the first place. A Tale of Two Cities.’
‘Is the review in some kind of code?’ Jenna asked.
‘Probably,’ Flint replied.
‘Can you read it?’
Flint half-laughed. ‘If your point about how some things change while everything stays the same holds up. Guess we might as well see. Booting up my tablet now.’
Jenna waited, forcing herself not to ask more questions or otherwise distract Flint from looking for a hidden message in the reviews of A Tale of Two Cities.
Almost fifty people had been brutally murdered this week. She needed Flint to give her information. She needed at least a chance of stopping anyone from seeing this brand of horror even one more time.
‘I’m almost done,’ Flint said, his voice jarring Jenna from her thoughts of the bank and the hospital emergency room. ‘I think I know where the next attack’s going to be.’
What he said next made Jenna’s heart leap into her throat. She couldn’t breathe. Or swallow. So many people … and they didn’t have much time.
Phone still to her ear, she headed for the Haynies’ apartment door, grabbing Grey by the wrist and practically dragging her toward the exit without explaining to her or Nanette Viselli. All she could think was to get to her car. Go!
Hang up with Flint. Rally the team!
It was the ‘Oh, no …’ from Flint that slowed her steps toward her Blazer. She clasped the phone tighter.
‘Flint? What’s wrong?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Flint! Are you OK? Say something!’
A cough. ‘Uh, there’s something else in here,’ he said, hoarse. ‘Oh, man …’
‘Flint? You have to talk to me, buddy,’ Jenna said, prickles of worry creeping up her spine.
‘Jenna, there’s something about me in here.’
Jenna’s breath caught in her throat. Not this.
‘Flint, what does it say? Flint, we can help you. Protect you. What does it say?’
But there was no answer.
‘Flint, are you there? Flint!’
Jenna took her phone from her ear to look at the screen. On it were two words that made Jenna’s blood freeze in her veins: CALL LOST.
Thirty-seven
The Blazer’s back tire skidded into a shrill screech as Jenna bore down on the gas pedal, one hand on the wheel to even out the SUV as she flew down the road, the other holding her phone to her ear.
‘Come on, Saleda! Pick up. Pick up!’ she yelled.
‘I’m sure she would, if she could hear you from here,’ Grey said, still calmly working on fastening her seatbelt. ‘And even if she doesn’t, with the way you all are about your squawk boxes, I’m sure she’ll call you back within seconds.’
<
br /> Jenna forced back the retort burning in her throat. She didn’t have time to play Grey’s games and wasn’t about to try to explain society’s relationships with their phones knowing full well Grey had no desire to understand a brand of thinking she found ridiculous. In Grey’s world, the only urgent matters were matters of urgency to Grey.
Jenna hit redial on her phone after hanging up on Saleda’s voicemail. ‘Come on, damn you!’
‘Saleda Ovarez.’
‘Fuck yes! Finally!’ Jenna blurted out.
‘Wow. I’m sorry I inconvenienced you,’ Saleda said, sounding miffed. ‘I know we’re friends, Jenna, but I’m still your supervi—’
‘Saleda, Black Shadow is about to hit. Today!’ Jenna cut in.
‘Where? How do you know this?’
‘Don’t waste time making me answer everything. Just rally the team and get everyone to The Mall at Holder Promenade. McClean, Virginia. I can explain everything else once you’re on the road, but you have to get moving, and now!’
‘McClean, Virginia?’ Saleda repeated. ‘OK, but you guys will all get there before we do. It’s at least thirty-five minutes coming from Quantico, and that’s if we do it lights blazing, running every red light we meet, and the rest of the cars from here to there happen to be in the shop today. It’s about a twenty-minute drive from Bell Haven, right? Porter and Teva went to DC to talk to some guy who used to know James Asner … ah … JP Haynie at Harvard. If I’d gotten hold of them, they’d have probably gotten there about the same time you will, but neither one’s answered their cells or my pages.’
Jenna blinked rapidly, clutched the phone. ‘You don’t think something went wrong, do you?’
‘No, I’m sure they’re OK,’ Saleda said, and Jenna could hear Saleda’s heels click-clacking rapidly on the tile floor. ‘But just know you can’t count on them getting there before I do, though I’m leaving now. But yeah, the last call I got from Porter, James’s old friend they were interviewing suggested they talk to some Chinese Martial Arts master who used to be the principal teacher of, among other things, kung fu at Harvard who might help us put some pieces together. That’s a good half an hour ago, but Porter also said they’d be turning their phones off and placing them in some bowl before they would be able to sit down with the guy to talk. Something about ‘internal focus and respect.’ Whatever that means. Maybe they found something useful. But either way, we can’t count on them at the mall until they finish up their meeting.
‘So when you get there, send out a team of two to circle and locate a spot to set up a base. I’ll have the local cops on the way to reinforce, FBI SWAT will report to you until I arrive. Scope out the situation and don’t make a move until you’re sure—’
‘Saleda,’ Jenna said, finally finding her voice from where it had been choking from how fast her heart was beating, how hot her neck burned. Was she really about to do this? It wasn’t her call. It wasn’t even good judgment.
‘What?’ Saleda asked, sounding anxious. ‘Is there more I don’t know?’
‘Saleda, you don’t have time to drive it. You need to get there now, be there to run things. Take the chopper. You have to, because I won’t beat you there,’ Jenna said, heart thundering, dread mounting.
‘Is something wrong? Are you broken down? I can send a car—’
‘No, Saleda. I’m fine, but I’m …’ Jenna took a deep breath. You’re doing the right thing. ‘I’m not going to McClean. I’m on Highway One heading North. I’m going to Bethesda.’
‘What in the hell for?’ Saleda exclaimed, confused.
Jenna gripped the wheel tighter, her knuckles whitening. She’d asked herself the exact same thing frantically in her head as she approached the turn for Highway 1. A terrorist group who’d left countless bodies in their wake were about to strike again, only this time, the team could be poised to ambush them and end this epidemic of fear that had a whole region afraid to so much as walk out their front doors. And yet, she kept hearing Flint’s voice over and over, those last words he’d said before the line went dead. It wasn’t just the words. It was his tone. There had been a strain in his words, an edge to the way he said them that had unsettled her as he said them. Her skin had prickled, and apple blossom had flashed in the way it would when something didn’t feel right.
The second the call dropped, she knew she had to high-tail it back to Flint Lewis’ home. The team would have to handle McLean. Something awful had happened, she could feel it.
Jenna spoke quickly, recounting the scene inside the Haynie apartment, the conversation about the e-readers and how it had led to her call with Flint that had ended with his deciphering Black Shadow’s cryptic communication about the attack details … and his own knowledge that he was on their radar.
‘Then, he was just gone. I dialed the number back, but it went straight to voicemail. I don’t know whether to think they’d just kill him outright or—’
‘No,’ Saleda said. ‘They’d keep him alive. At first, anyway. Find out how much he’d told us. His help finding their website tipped them off more than ever to the things he knows that are valuable, more vital to their secrecy than they’d noticed or even considered before. They won’t kill him until they’re sure they know what other holes he poked in their operation as well as what he knows about where our investigation stands.’
‘I know I should’ve called in, waited for instructions, but Saleda …’ a lump rose in Jenna’s throat. As much as she wanted to be the person who rose above her demons and never looked back, as she sped down the highway, her eyes burned with tears, her hands shaking. She was only a badass because when she was the person on the other end of that phone call, when no matter how she fought for composure, that panic snuck in, the timbre of it seeming to be the stress inside you itself, gulping for air. She remembered the very first time she’d lost all control of the careful plans she’d made to get help and had dared a phone call to a hotline, desperate to get away from Claudia – get Charley away from her – that very second. She’d talked fast to the operator, trying to present herself as sane, but every now and then, her voice would quaver, and then ultimately, would hit that odd, strained note. It had sounded almost high frequency, like a cat in pain or aliens trying to communicate with their kind.
Jenna sniffed, blinked away the moisture that had built in her eyes. ‘Saleda, we put him in danger. I know Black Shadow is bigger. I know they’re the priority. But, Saleda, if something’s happened to him, we’re responsible for it. For him, his wife. Their kids.’
She heaved to hold back a sob as she thought of Ruthie Lewis’s swollen belly in the pictures she’d seen at Flint’s house. Jenna had known for a long time what being a single mother felt like, but it was only recently that she’d found out the difference in being a single mother to a child with a dead father. ‘Saleda, can’t we do both? Aren’t we supposed to be able to save everyone?’
It was such a childish thing to blurt out, but right now, she didn’t care. Her neck burned as she remembered her stepbrother Isaac’s goading her about it being her weakness – the need to save everyone. Fuck him. However impossible, trying was worth more to her than anything would be to him.
On the other end of the line, Jenna could hear the helicopter’s blades beginning their slow whirl. Saleda wasn’t going to try to talk her out of it.
‘We were never supposed to, Jenna, but that can’t stop us from wanting to. Try,’ her Special Agent in Charge said. ‘Get to the Lewis house. Look around, see what you can see. You have gloves with you? Evidence bags?’
‘Always,’ Jenna answered.
‘Good. Take pictures, collect any hairs, fibers. Talk to neighbors, but stay low-key. Black Shadow’s agenda is something bigger than just wanting to give the finger to those they despise. They want to outlast us, and if we spook them, show them we’re a step ahead, they’ll just go to ground until the trail goes cold for them to rear up again.’
‘I know,’ Jenna replied. The only way to catch these narcis
sists was to keep them believing that no one was even coming close.
‘There’s another thing you need to know. In between all the urgent demands we’ve been placing on Irv, I’ve had him trying to track down the origin of the email Black Shadow sent to the media after the bank attack. I’d assumed it was a dead end, but Irv told me this morning he managed to trace the email account activity to a community college terminal that had been remotely accessed to send the file. He wasn’t able to trace back any further.’
‘So it was a dead end after all?’
‘Not quite. Irv found traces of web traffic that the Black Shadow member conducted during the same session he used to send the email, including a hit to a forum that wasn’t on our radar before.’
That caught Jenna’s attention. ‘Anything good?’
‘Mostly non-relevant anti-government ranting. But he dug up a thread where some of the posters were skeptical of a couple of live protests that were taking place at the time. Another poster replied, claiming he used to feel the same way but changed his mind. Apparently, he’d been involved in a passive anti-government group when he was a teenager, along with his serious girlfriend, nicknamed Milady. Milady had been struggling with leukemia since childhood. She’d gotten them both involved because she was a fierce advocate of the right to die, and her parents had prevented her from refusing treatment. When the group turned radical, Milady went along, but the poster balked, and ended up leaving the group due to his own moral misgivings. That all changed when Milady died miserably due to complications from years of chemotherapy treatments she’d been forced to take. After that, the poster rejoined the group to fight for the cause, claiming the experience had changed him and he didn’t feel like the same person anymore. That now he tries to be active, to be the man Milady wanted him to be all along.’
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