by L. T. Ryan
Blake pushed the cart out of the doorway and walked to the edge of the railing. He looked down at the parking lot. There she stood. Staring up at him with wide eyes and a huge grin on her face.
“What are you waiting for?” She said. “Come on.”
Blake laughed at her ridiculous posture. Arms extended like she was going to catch him. Blake looked around. He decided Haeli was right.
Take the window while you can.
He threw one leg over the side and lowered himself until he hung by his hands from the deck of the walkway. He dropped, bending his knees to soften the impact as he landed on the asphalt. Then they ran.
They put at least a half mile between them and the motel before stopping to catch their breath. Back in the heart of the strip, the crowds of pedestrians brought a sense of safety.
“You were great back there,” Haeli said through rapid breaths.
“You too.” Blake pulled his hair back out of his face and fought through the tightness in his chest. “You are full of surprises. If I’m being honest, that was the most fun I’ve had in a while. I haven’t felt this much like myself in a long time.”
Haeli dropped her head. “If I’m being honest, I should tell you I haven’t been.” She paused. “Honest, that is. Not entirely. There’s a lot more to the story that you should know.”
“I know.” Blake walked past her. Haeli kept pace. “I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”
“I know you don’t trust me, Blake, but I trust you, whether you believe that or not. You didn’t have to help me, but you did. After what happened at the conference, any other person would have run away and not looked back, but you didn’t. From what I’ve seen, we have a lot more in common than you think. That’s why I want you to know the truth. Can we start over?”
Blake slowed. “How about we start with your actual name?”
“Haeli is my real name, honest to God. Haeli Becher.”
“Blake Brier.” He held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Haeli Becher. Tell you what, since you’re short a hotel room, why don’t you stay in mine for the night. You can fill me in when we get there.”
“In your room?”
Blake realized how his proposal had sounded. Judging by her reaction, he wasn’t sure if Haeli was offended or delighted. He hadn’t been shooting for either.
“Let me restate. What I meant to say was, I’ll stay with my friend Griff and you can have my room. By yourself.”
“I thought they called your friend away on business.”
“I haven’t been entirely honest either,” Blake rebutted.
“Touché.”
“What do you say?” Blake pressed. “Take the room?”
“Yes. Thank you, Blake Brier. You are a gentleman.”
Blake grinned. “Don’t go pigeonholing me yet, Haeli Becher.”
13
Blake rapped his knuckle on the door. When Griff got to the door and looked through the peephole, he threw the door open.
“There you are, brother,” Griff said. The shift in his expression gave away his surprise to find Blake accompanied by an attractive young woman. “Oh, hello.”
“Hi,” Haeli said, with a meek wave.
“Griff, this is Haeli. Haeli, Griff.” Blake rushed through the obligatory introduction. “Can we come in?”
“Yeah, come in.” Griff stepped out of the way to allow entrance to the suite. Blake motioned for Haeli to enter ahead of him. She did.
Blake stepped in and Griff closed the door. Waiting a moment for Haeli to move from the hallway to the living room area, Griff leaned in as if he were going to reveal a profound secret. “You dirty dog.”
Blake shook his head and walked in to join Haeli. He found her pacing, her feet tracing the swirling pattern of the area rug that covered the faux stone tiles between the couch and two chairs.
“Sit down,” Blake said. “Relax.”
Haeli took half of his advice. She moved to the couch and perched herself on the edge of the cushion.
“Do you want something to drink?” Blake asked.
“Water.”
“I’ll grab it.” Griff bypassed the living area as he moved to the kitchen, separated from the sitting room by a bulky island countertop. He pulled three bottles of water from the fridge and delivered one each to Blake and Haeli.
“Sit down for a sec, Griff,” Blake said. “I spoke with Haeli and we agreed—well, she agreed to fill you in on some developments you’ve missed.”
“What are you into now?! I was only gone for a few hours.” Griff sounded apprehensive, but Blake knew better. Intrigued? Of course. Excited? Definitely. But apprehensive, no. It wasn’t a tool that existed in either of their sheds.
“Do you want to fill him in, or…?” Blake said.
“Go ahead.” Haeli replied.
“Okay. I’ll try to make a long story short. Haeli thinks we can help her. She has an encrypted thumb drive that contains information related to her father.” Blake turned to Haeli. “What’s his name?”
“Ben. Doctor Benjamin Becher,” Haeli answered.
Blake continued. “So, a guy who works with Dr. Becher gives Haeli the thumb drive and tells her that her father is in trouble, then takes to the wind, leaving her with an encrypted drive with no password. Haeli tries to get in touch with her father but can’t reach him and doesn’t know where he is. Sums it up, right?”
Haeli nodded.
“All right,” Griff said, “we can work with that. Do you think the person who gave you the drive is telling you the truth? Seems like if he went through the trouble to give it to you but didn’t tell you how to access it, he’s just playing games, no? Do you have reason to think your father would be in trouble? What kind of doctor is he?”
“He’s a scientist,” Haeli said.
Blake jumped in again. “And—” he bowed his head and parted his hair to reveal the wound, “—a couple of thugs gave me this when I interrupted their meet-and-greet with Haeli, so I’d say there’s probably something to it.”
Blake left out the part of the story where Haeli dismantled four armed men and saved his life. He wasn’t embarrassed. Or ungrateful. But it was another story. One that he thought would be best left to Haeli if she expounded.
“Now that adds another dimension.” Griff’s excitement spilled over.
Griff had been itching for some kind of task. A mystery to solve, a damsel in distress, or anything that would somehow make Blake realize that he was born for action, or some other garbage. A ridiculous notion that was no doubt planted by Fezz and Khat. But it didn’t work that way. Not in reality. He would rather eat a bullet than crawl back to the CIA.
Plus, Blake hadn’t committed to anything, as far as he was concerned. He was returning a favor, nothing more. Even if he had rather enjoyed it.
“I told Haeli that we’d look at the file and see what we could do. I hope you don’t mind if I stay with you, Griff. I’ve offered Haeli my room for the night. If we can get her what she needs, she can take it to the police, and she’ll be on her way home. Right?”
Blake looked at Haeli and nodded as he spoke. The habit had been so ingrained that he rarely noticed he was doing it. But the subliminal tactic had proven effective in the past. Nodding yes while asking a question made it subconsciously difficult for the other person to say no. In this instance, Haeli would have agreed regardless. There wasn’t any other choice.
“That’s right,” Haeli said.
“Wait a minute,” Griff protested. “We’re not going to leave it at that, are we? What if there is something to it?”
“Who are you, Robin Hood? Since when are you in the vigilante business?” Blake asked in jest, but he knew it was unfair. Griff had been sucked into the vigilante business the moment he met Blake. The instant Blake had asked him, Fezz, and Khat to put aside their principals, morals, and their oaths to uphold the laws of the United States. All in the name of exacting revenge.
“Who are you? Because I thought you we
re Blake Goddamned Brier,” Griff bellowed. If Blake didn’t know any better, he would have believed that Griff was pissed.
“Stop.” Haeli yelled. Her lips quivered as if she was trying to suppress her rage. That, or she was on the verge of tears. “I do need your help. There’s no one else to turn to. I can’t go to the police. I have no one I can trust. It’s a colossal mess and I think I’ve created it. My father could be dead already and it’s my fault.”
Griff shot Blake a look. Blake had nothing to shoot back. Neither said a word.
“I told you I didn’t know who those men were or who they worked for. That was a lie. I know who they are. They work for Techyon. And until a few months ago, so did I.”
“Techyon, the military contractor?” Griff asked.
“You were an operative.” Blake’s face gleamed with the glow of enlightenment. “You’re a mercenary. A highly trained, deadly, holy crap mercenary. That explains everything. The convention hall, the Glock, the silencer. It was obvious, I mean, I thought you were going to say Mossad. Wait, were you? Mossad?”
“No,” Haeli said. “My father started working for Techyon before I was born. My mother died when I was a year old. We lived on the Techyon compound in Tel Aviv throughout my childhood, as far back as I can remember. My father was bound to his work. If he wasn’t sleeping, he was working. Always saying he was on the verge of a new discovery, always an excuse why we couldn’t spend time together. There weren’t any other kids around, so I made friends with some people who worked there. They taught me shooting, hand-to-hand combat, all kinds of fun stuff. I didn’t know any different, it was all a game to me. When I got old enough, I went to work for them. It was a natural fit.”
“Then how did you end up on opposite sides?” Blake asked.
“Over the years, my missions grew bigger. More important. More secretive. More intense. I travelled the world, moving in and out of the shadows, doing things I can’t talk about. One day, I was surveilling this guy—let’s just leave it at that—and he was with his family. They seemed so content and it dawned on me I’ve never had a life. Not a real life. Not like everyone else. I never went to school with other kids. I never had friends and family or had to struggle to pay student loans or work my way up from some menial job. I missed all of it.”
“What’d you do, quit?” Griff asked.
“Yes. I went to my father and told him I was going to quit. He tried to warn me. He said that it wasn’t possible. Like they owned me or something. That just made it worse. We had a big blow-out over it, and I left. I just up and walked away. My father must have left a hundred messages, pleading for me to come back. I deleted them. Every single one, so I’d forget. Why did I do that? I should have just listened to him. I should have taken his calls.”
“And you think they’re using your father as leverage to force you back?”
“I don’t know, I guess so. After I left, I came to the United States, moved around, saw some things I always wanted to see. I was lying low, but I wasn’t in hiding. I kept my same phone, used my real name. No one ever showed up on my doorstep. Until one day, I got the call from Karl Wentz.”
“Who’s Karl Wentz?” Blake’s attention had focused with the intensity of a laser beam after learning Haeli had worked for Techyon. He was familiar with the company, with the company’s owner Levi Farr in particular, but he let Haeli say what she needed to say.
“Wentz was the man who gave me this thumb drive.” She produced the small plastic device from her V-neck shirt. “He’s the reason I know I’m in deep. Before he could give me the password, they took him out. Sniper. Textbook Techyon, I’m sure of it. And I was next. Trust me on that. I escaped, but they must have tracked me down to the conference center.”
“You know too much. Is that it?” Blake verbalized his mental scratchpad. “They give you some time to reconsider and when you don’t, you’re deemed a liability and you’re eliminated. It still wouldn’t explain what all of this has to do with your father.”
“It shouldn’t have anything to do with him,” Haeli responded. “There isn’t anyone at that place more loyal than him. I’ve worked with plenty of people who have retired or moved on to other gigs. It never seemed to be a problem. There’s something else going on here. Dr. Wentz mentioned something about a program. He called it Eclipse. But I’ve never heard of it.”
“We have to look at that drive.” Griff was almost giddy over the prospect of getting a glimpse at anything that might detangle the sordid web Haeli had spun in front of his eyes.
Blake ignored him. “Where’s your father now, then? Tel Aviv?”
“In his messages, he said that he was transferring to the United States. A new facility dedicated to the Scientific Division of the company. He didn’t say where. I wouldn’t expect him to have said. His work is secretive. The location of a clandestine laboratory is not something you leave on someone’s voicemail.”
“Why are you telling us this?” It had just dawned on Griff that they were complete strangers.
“Because I know who you are,” Haeli said. “Both of you.”
“Okay,” Griff said. “What’s my last name?”
“I don’t mean I know you personally. I mean, I know what you do. Special Forces? CIA? DIA? Am I close?”
“I work for the State Department, if that’s considered close,” Griff said.
“Uh huh. That’s what I thought.” Haeli settled back into the couch cushions.
Blake looked at Griff and shook his head. Griff’s eyes widened and his hands twisted in a lazy ‘What did I say?’ gesture.
“First thing’s first. Let me see your phone,” Blake held out his hand.
She turned it over. “Switched it off after we left the conference center. Figured they had used it to track me.”
Blake checked that it was off and handed it back.
“You need to get rid of this, we’ll pick you up a burner.”
The statement was practical enough. Flowing effortlessly from his lips, considering the betrayal it had inflicted on his intentions. To the casual observer, it would appear he was getting involved.
Griff had sprung up from his chair, then returned with his laptop in hand. “May I?
Haeli handed Griff the memory stick. He slid a tab to expose the metal USB jack and inserted the stick.
“Let’s have a look.” Griff ticked away at the keyboard. “This is good. Better than good.”
“What is it?” Blake moved to a spot over Griff’s shoulder.
“Standard Zip 2.0 encryption,” Griff said.
Instead of having to deal with the more secure AES Encryption, which would have required the use of classified technology, they had a simple task of breaking the Standard Zip 2.0 encryption, which required a common password recovery tool.
“Do you have what we need?” Blake asked.
“No. And it would take days on this laptop anyway,” Griff said. “But I know where we can get what we need.”
“Where?” Haeli chimed in.
“The expo hall. One vendor, I think they’re called Sumatra or something like that. I stopped by their booth. They showed a pre-configured forensic computer system. It was one of these twenty-five-thousand-dollar jobs. A good amount of processing power, multiple graphics cards, water-cooled, hot-swappable RAID, you know, the usual. The vendor was showing the speed of the system with Passware.”
“Passware? What is that?” Haeli got up from the couch and crowded in next to Blake so she could see what they were looking at on the screen.
Blake was glad to see Haeli trying to stay in the loop, but the raw hexadecimal representation of the encrypted file couldn’t have meant much to her.
“It’s a software product for breaking passwords,” Blake said. “Mostly using dictionary attacks, brute force, that sort of thing. It’s commercially available, so not useful for the stuff we normally deal with. But in this case, it’ll work fine.”
Haeli threw her arms around Blake. “Thank you, thank you, than
k you.”
The soft floral fragrance of her hair made his pulse quicken. His arms yearned to wrap around her. But he was strong willed. In the battle between his mind and body, there was no contest.
Blake reached up, gently grasped her wrists and separated her arms until she dropped them to her side on her own. “It’s no problem.”
“Now.” Griff shut the laptop’s screen and pulled the thumb drive from the USB port, oblivious to the awkward interaction that had just occurred. “We just have to steal us some screen time.”
14
Blake pulled the handle of the fourth and last set of doors leading to the exposition area.
“Locked,” he said.
It surprised no one.
There were other options. An infinite number of them. But this option was the quickest and easiest. The proverbial bird in the hand. If only they could get in.
“You didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you?” Haeli’s demeanor was more upbeat than expected, considering they had been at it for over forty-five minutes.
The cleaning crews, maintenance staff, and security guards swarmed in unpredictable patterns. It had taken patience, timing, and a lot of luck to avoid being spotted. The daytime, with its herds of people, brought a sense of anonymity. It was something Blake only considered in retrospect after having experienced the opposite effect. Now, he was one of a few rats in a several million square foot maze.
“It’s a matter of time before someone comes by,” Griff said.
Blake had already considered that contingency. A kiosk located to the right of the row of doors would provide enough concealment for all three of them if a security team forced them to duck behind it.
Haeli was already rummaging through the packets of registration paperwork, class schedules, and product brochures laid out on the kiosk counter.
Aside from the security personnel, Blake worried that cameras were mounted within the mirrored glass drones that protruded like boils from the paneled ceiling. That no one had accosted them yet meant that no one was monitoring the video feeds. With the place closed, management didn’t see a need for live monitoring. Blake was glad they weren’t trying to pull off something like this in the hotel or casino.