by Randy Dutton
“Thanks.”
With a dubious expression, Jillian motioned her head. “Who’s he?”
“Him? Just muscle. Since you don’t speak Bulgarian, better to use slow English. Show him the incendiary charges, then lead the destruction protocol.”
“Okay.” Jillian led Pete to the explosives locker and gave him the key to unlock the various boxes in the cable runs under the false floor. She then proceeded to roll a super-magnet past every computer and server. This would wipe the data off every hard drives.
Anna had warned Pete to stay away from the device in case it could damage his leg’s electronics.
At a safe distance, Pete opened containers of accelerants and oxygenates that would feed the fire but not cause an explosion. Afterward, he wheeled the metal cart containing pre-made magnesium charges and placed one on each server rack in the server room—a sealed air-conditioned space—and then on each terminal in the main room. The incendiary charges were pre-set to go off simultaneously, and burn through the computers and eventually the raised hard-plastic floor. Each charge would create a 3,100 degree Centigrade fire that would melt or ignite the metal casings and anything inside them.
Meanwhile, Anna shut down the main and backup power, so only battery-operated emergency lights stayed on. One circuit was left live – a forced-air supply system that would feed outside air into the spaces and allow combusted smoke to exhaust out the building’s rooftop vent and prevent overpressurization. She knew to keep feeding the fire, but didn’t want an explosion – that could allow recovery of unburnt evidence.
Passing the sealed server room, she braced the door open then dashed to the fire suppression control room. Here she spun the valve wheels, shutting off the water supply to a backup sprinkler system, and then opened a drain line to bleed out the trapped water. She closed the argon gas cylinder valves to prevent the inert gas from suffocating the fire, then side-stepped to a second panel, which controlled the server room’s hypoxic air controls, designed to maintain a lower oxygen atmosphere within that sealed space – great for protecting her hacking operation, not so great for eliminating it. She turned them off.
By now the sprinkler system had drained. She opened a different supply valve, which would bring a gravity-fed, flammable and very corrosive liquid through the entire floor’s sprinkler pipes after the magnesium charges had started their work. The ensuing fire and corrosive vapors would destroy all fingerprints and DNA evidence. The bleeder valve she closed when the trapped air had been purged.
Good thing I bought this building last year and moved out the other tenants under the pretense of a major renovation. It’ll prevent unnecessary casualties in case my super-heated furnace breaks through this building level’s specially installed walls and ceiling.
Anna entered a cleaning closet.
Now for a little insurance. Donning a chemical vapor respirator over the stocking and put on chemical resistant gloves. She wheeled a battery-operated commercial sprayer containing sodium hypochlorite, an industrial-strength bleach, near the door. From back to front, she sprayed every ancillary room that might partially survive the conflagration.
Working quickly from room to room, she considered how her paranoia affected each mission’s preparations.
Though I’ve always sanitized surfaces I’ve touched, after all these years in this facility, my latent fingerprints and stray DNA samples must be everywhere! Hopefully this will cover my tracks, and reduce the possibility of them tracking down the employees.
Her lips pursed while pondering the word ‘them.’
She glanced at a stainless steel locker reflecting her stocking-covered head. Who should they fear more? The police or their victims? Hell, I already know the answer...the financiers. A month ago I was their biggest threat, now I’m trying to protect them. No doubt some hackers will eventually be rounded up, but at least I’ve bought them time. They can reveal some of what we’ve done, but not much about me. What they know really just points them to a girl who they’re unaware died years ago...and whose body will never be found. No doubt Jared will figure it out...but pointing me out as the culprit threatens Alexis. And I can fix that!
Moving to the security locker, Anna pulled out the latest building surveillance recordings and put a magnesium charge on the recorder and one on the storage box. As she did with each separate room, she liberally sprayed the surfaces and left the door open.
Nothing is to survive!
She shifted to her office, opened the safe and removed a small box of flash drives and a stack of euros. Placing them in a carrying case, she took a last look around the office.
I spent so much of my life devising ways to grab power...and to what end? Will what we do here today even slow them down?
As an afterthought, she took a couple ice-cold Cokes out of the office refrigerator and added them to the case. The door remained open.
She looked at the clock.
The timers had been set for 60 minutes. Thanks to Pete’s help, we’ll finish in half my estimated time! I’ve always preferred working a mission alone...it’s actually nice having a partner for a change. She allowed herself a smile.
They rejoined at the entrance. Still wearing the stocking, Anna took off her gloves and respirator, and put her hand gently on the supervisor’s hand. “Jillian, get out! No questions! When you’re clear, make the electronic payments to the staff, then break all communications with them...some will get caught...don’t be one of them.”
Suddenly, Anna reached out and clasped Jillian’s shoulders and pulled her into a hug. “Take care of your baby.” The release came just as quickly. “Keep the rest of the money, and leave the country!”
“What about you?” Jillian’s mouth hung open from Claire’s unexpected show of emotion.
“Don’t you worry about me. May the luck be with you.” Anna pointed toward the parking lot. “Now, get the hell out of here!”
“Bye, Claire.” Jillian turned and quickly walked away.
Yes...goodbye Claire...you’ve served me well. May you now rest in peace! Anna thought wistfully, while closing and locking the steel door. She sprayed the biometric sensor surface and the access button.
“Step outside!” she commanded.
Pete, still mute, walked out as Anna held the respirator against her face with one hand and, with the other, sprayed bleach over the office surfaces and the outer door.
She tossed the respirator to him. The chlorine fumes were overwhelming despite holding her breath.
She opened the fill lid and kicked the sprayer back inside, the liquid spilled onto the floor. The glass door closed automatically.
“Let’s vamoose!” she said urgently, stifling a cough from the corrosive vapors.
They quickly walked around the corner and jumped into the car, threw the articles in the bag, and pulled off the pantyhose.
“Wow! I’m impressed, Babe. You really had that organized!”
He was dismayed by her continual silence while she drove.
She turned off the engine when they arrived at a highway observation point shielded by a couple trees. “This location has a good view of the Dark Energy building and of cars driving up or down the highway, and the trees give us cover from the road,” she explained flatly.
Stepping to the rear of the car, she removed the fake decals and the license plate photos taped to the real plates – more misdirection in case anyone tried to describe the vehicle. Taking out the Cokes, she then put the evidence into her bag for later disposal.
Pete’s eyes widened at the proffered refreshment when she reentered the car, but he noted her intensity hadn’t diminished.
“I smell like bleach. Let’s change into other clothes. We’ll dispose of these later,” she said calmly, and went to the suitcase.
They started their stakeout.
Pete kept watch while Anna cleaned exposed skin with wet wipes then brushed out her hair from the ‘stocking effect.’
After 10 minutes he pointed. “There’s a co
lumn of white smoke spouting out a roof ventilation shaft.”
She looked at her watch. “Right on cue! I cut the fire alarm. We have time before there’s a response. Burn, baby, burn!”
“Think the insurance company will pay out?” he asked facetiously.
“As if I bothered getting insurance.” Her response was less than playful.
The smoke changed to a jet black tower shooting high into the sky—a mushroom cloud formed.
“Must be the plastic flooring burning,” Pete said.
Her smile returned and she pulled out the transceiver. “I wonder if this thing works?” Her voice was curiously playful.
“You haven’t tested it?” He was evaluating her mood swing.
“Nope,” she said casually. “Never had the time. Let’s try it on this car.”
She cabled the device to her tablet and used the SCADA hacking software to search for the right frequency. Once found, she locked on and implemented a firmware update to the car’s computer that gave her computer override access. She pressed a key and the door locked, pressed another, and it unlocked.
“That’s a good sign,” she observed. “Now let’s try starting the car.”
The car’s engine roared to life.
“Put the emergency brake on real tight, then put it into drive. Let it idle.”
He did. The car remained constrained by the brakes.
She pressed some keys and the engine revved. Another key and the accelerator went to the floor and the wheels forced themselves against the brake. She shut it down quickly lest she send the car surging over the edge.
“That thing’s wicked!”
“Gotta love smart cars,” she said. “Okay then, this thing works. Now we need to know the range. I want you to drive 100 meters up the side road and park. I’ll make the engine rev. Go another 100 meters and we’ll do it again, then a third. Then drive back.”
Five minutes later they were sitting in the car. She was grinning. “So about 200 meters is the effective range.... I guess if I boosted it, I could get more, but I’d have so many cars’ frequencies, I’d probably just get intermittent results.”
Pete grimaced. “That thing’s scary. Think of the untraceable accidents it can cause.”
She snuggled up to him and smiled in response. “I’m only thinking of one.”
They watched from their perch. Smoke poured from the ventilation ducts of the Dark Energy building while fire crews tried battering rams to gain access.
After an hour of sitting and talking about their future, Anna zoomed her iPhone camera onto a black SUV pulling up to the fire scene tape.
“There he is. Jared himself. So he knew about the location, or picked up a report about an intense fire in a computer area where the top floors weren’t burning. Okay, I’ve recorded the license number.”
“I count three guys with him.”
“All of them were at my villa. Two are his top lieutenants.”
“And the driver?”
She hesitated and looked coyly at him. “Jacques got me your dad’s water bottle for the bomb.”
“Back in Iraq, we’d call in a drone strike,” Pete mused.
“Ah yes, government sanctioned elimination,” she responded. “I don’t think government’s on our side here.” She then opened her purse and pulled out a small bottle of Chanel No. 5.
“Now that’s the scent I like on you.”
Jared’s SUV left the fire scene 20 minutes later. It headed back the direction it had arrived.
Pete pulled onto the road 20 seconds after the SUV passed.
“Keep about a hundred meters back. I’ll try to catch the frequency. It’s tough when other cars are around.” She opened her window and, with the pistol grip, held the directional antennae out the window.
“Don’t let them see you. They might think that antennae’s a gun.”
“Don’t worry. With these curves, the driver’s mind will be on the road.” Her left hand tapped the keys while her right hand kept the device pointed on the target.
Pete’s attention continually shifted from the SUV ahead, the two-lane road, and the slight sounds coming from Anna that indicated frustration and satisfaction.
Several minutes had passed when she announced, “Okay, I’ve got the frequency. Now we’ll lock it into the computer, and that’ll make it easier to avoid collateral damage.” She tested the connection by causing Jared’s car brake lights to flash.
“Collateral damage – what we in the Marines call a whoops moment,” Pete jested.
She ignored his joke. “Now we just need to follow them until we get to a good acceleration point. Back off to about 400 meters for the next 30 klicks.” She brought the SCADA transceiver back into the car and closed the window.
“Then what?”
“What part of acceleration point do you not understand?” Anna asked smugly, then sipped the Coke.
“You accelerate them over a cliff, into a truck, a barricade, what?”
“Okay, I was a bit vague. I’m thinking of highway D600...specifically, an overlook called Eze. It’s 40 klicks from here and has some real sharp turns and steep cliff drops. That’s the route he’ll take if he’s driving back to Monaco.”
She cocked her head and made eye contact. “Does any of this bother you?”
“A little, then I remember that guy firing a machine gun at you, so no…not at all.”
“Welcome to my world.” She smiled, and squeezed his arm.
The couple remained fairly quiet until the distance to Eze dropped to 5 klicks.
“Close to 150 meters.” She put the antennae back out the window to reacquire the vehicle’s computer.
“Roger.”
“Got it.... We’re coming to the Eze lookout. Close to 70 meters,” she instructed. “Keep your eye on the road, not the SUV. I don’t want us following them.”
As the SUV approached the sharp left curve, she pressed the keys that told the SUV’s computer to go to maximum acceleration. She pressed another to tell its anti-lock braking system to lock the right front brake to prevent an evasive left turn.
They watched the SUV lurch forward and veer slightly right. As the heavy vehicle left the paved surface, brake smoke from the right front wheel-well became masked by a larger cloud of gravel dust. The heavy vehicle smashed through the barrier, and disappeared over the edge.
Pete drove past the dusty turnoff.
“In half a klick, there’s a pullout on the right just before the bridge over the creek. Take it.” Anna pointed ahead with her left, while her right took a pair of thin gloves, a third Krugerrand, and a VersaTool from her purse and stashed them in her jacket pocket.
“Why?”
“There’s a trail along this creek that follows the cliff bottom. I need to be sure.”
He pulled over and saw dust settling on trees in the distance at the bottom of the cliff. “No one could have survived that crash.”
“I also want to check for anything he may have taken from my villa. Stay here. From a distance, I’ll look like a good Samaritan checking an accident. If anybody pulls in before I get back, drive down the road to the next turnoff. I’ll meet you there.”
“I understand. Be safe.”
“Back within the hour.” She put on a loose windbreaker and pulled out the hood from its zippered collar to hide her hair.
The crumpled vehicle was quiet when she arrived. Upside-down, its roof was crushed, fenders ripped off, and engine pushed into the front seat. She looked inside the vehicle. The bodies of the two men in front were mashed into their seats. The man to Jared’s right had only half a skull.
Only Jared’s somewhat twisted body in the back seat looked mostly intact.
The smell of gasoline was prevalent.
She pulled the black tote bag out of the SUV. With gloved hands she searched the vehicle then Jared’s clothing for other evidence he might have recovered. Every portable electronic that had a computer memory she removed and put into the bag – the cell phon
es, and a broken iPad from the rear of the driver’s skull.
With a smirk, she took the pliers and turned on a Krugerrand and slipped it into Jared’s pocket, then checked his vitals.
“I was starting to worry,” Pete said as she approached the car with the black strap across her jacketed body. Her face was sweating and dirty.
She threw the canvas bag into the trunk, dusted herself off, then got in. Closing the door, she said, “Drive.”
“Are they dead?” His concern was evident.
“And mangled.” She responded without looking into his eyes. She quickly removed the jacket and tossed it in back.
Accelerating up the road, he glanced at her sweat soaked blouse. “What’s in the bag?”
“Just some miscellaneous items Jared collected from my villa.... Nothing consequential. We’ll dispose of most of it tonight.” She was lost in thought while removing the batteries from four cell phones so no one could use the GPS chips to track them.
“Is one of them Jared’s?”
“Yes.” Her voice was flat. “I’m considering sending a message. We’ll talk about it later.”
It was 10 klicks later when Pete took one of his disposable cell phones and called Patrick. It took only one ring for his brother to pick up.
“Patrick, hi.... We’re fine. Meet you in Albuquerque. See you soon.” He pulled the battery out of the telephone. “What’s next, my dear?”
She became more relaxed, wrapped her arm around his and kissed his cheek. She stifled a yawn. “How about a hotel and a bath?”
“That sounds real good.”
“Drive about 60 klicks to Santo Stefano al Mare, we’ll rest there.”
“Saint Stephens by the Sea?” he said proudly.
“All right! You’re bilingual now.”
“You’re mocking me.” He smiled.
She leaned into him tighter, her head resting against his shoulder. “Not really, I’m proud of you, Honey. We want to stay outside French jurisdiction for tonight just in case someone starts checking hotels. We can recuperate there and plan our next move.”