by Orson B Wolf
David knew he was making a lot of people work hard that night—which was a good thing— he couldn’t allow anyone to hack into the communications between the prophet and his people.
He gave out a long yawn and his throat throbbed with pain. That was enough for today. It was difficult to make decisions in his current condition. He logged out of the software and switched the computer to sleep mode
“I should switch myself to sleep mode too,” he muttered tiredly as he turned off the lights and fumbled his way to the inviting bed.
40
Street Smart
Paul stood under a gazebo in Green Park and waited.
He could barely see anything through the veil of heavy rain. Still, he had managed to notice the light had turned off in David’s room, high above him on the fifteenth floor.
“Going to sleep at last,” he mumbled.
Forty minutes before, he had received two alarming alerts from his boss, Matthew Garcia. They had concerns that someone might be following him. Also, it appeared that David’s grandmother had received an unsympathetic visit from two teenage hoodlums. Paul did not know if the two alerts were related, but something was definitely going on.
His conscience was still torturing him over what had happened earlier. He had failed in his duties when he was unable to prevent Jackie and his gang from getting to David. They had actually managed to injure the boy. That knowledge was now eating him on the inside.
Kate had seen it in his resolute expression. She looked into his eyes and softly said a single word: “Go.”
And now he was here. The rain was falling at a sharp angle, soaking his pants and shoes.
He had left the cane in the car, he had no choice: the potential success of tonight’s mission depended on his ability to move stealthily, an impossible feat to perform with a cane. The two painkillers he had taken were supposed to do the trick. He knew that he might worsen his sprained ankle, but the success of the mission came before any other considerations.
Paul had a good reason for performing the surveillance outside, in the midst of a raging flood, instead of from inside his dry and warm vehicle: tonight, he had decided to turn himself into a target. His rich surveillance work experience had taught Paul that as far as the surveillant was concerned, the real challenge lay in avoiding exposure during nighttime.
During the day, there were numerous ways of losing oneself in the crowd without raising suspicion, but when darkness falls, the act of surveillance poses a much greater challenge. Paul knew that an experienced surveillant knew how to assimilate into his surroundings.
Each misstep drew unwanted attention—leading to exposure and often ruining years of strenuous fieldwork. This was why, in order to deliberately expose his tail—Paul had to draw whomever was following him to an environment with extreme conditions, one in which the tail would find it difficult to blend with the view. On a stormy night like this one—Paul knew that anyone else on the street was more than likely to be his tail.
Now the time had come to act. His success in exposing the tail depended on the gut-feeling that had accompanied Paul over the course of the past few days, a feeling of restlessness. That feeling had a scent of its own. Now that he had discovered he was being followed, Paul realized that faint smell constantly accompanying him wherever he went wasn’t a figment of his imagination: it was the smell of cigarette smoke.
Paul took his hand out of one warm pocket and took a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the other. He plucked a cigarette and lit it, taking his time to keep the flame burning for a few good seconds.
He had not smoked for years, and detested it, but he had no choice. It was part of the trap. Tonight was going to be a long one, so he had better get started. He took a long drag off his cigarette, filled his lungs with smoke and slowly exhaled it. The cold air turned the smoke into a large phosphorous cloud emerging from his mouth.
I’m putting one hell of a show, he thought. He followed the cluster of white smoke with his eyes, as it slowly rose like primeval smoke signals.
Now he raised and pressed a small pair of binoculars against his eyes.
He carefully scanned the doors of the houses around him, trying to identify any movement that wasn’t a part of the normal urban view. Through the ocular lenses he could see an enlarged view of gray concrete walls and tree branches swaying in the harsh wind, dripping water. For a whole minute, Paul carefully scrutinized the entire row of buildings.
Nothing.
Either his tail wasn’t a smoker, or he was not currently tailing him. Or perhaps this was just a false alarm and there was no one following him after all.
Paul began to shiver from the cold. His teeth chattered and waves of pain rose up and down his injured ankle. He desperately wanted to sit down, but he decided to keep up the act for a few more minutes. He took another puff of his cigarette and repeated the exercise. The cloud of white smoke swirled over his head. “Yes, yes, I’m enjoying myself. This cigarette tastes like heaven,” he muttered over and over, pressing the binoculars over his eyes again. “Come on, where are you?”
And then he saw it: a miniscule orange flicker, barely visible, under the entrance canopy of one of the buildings to his right. Paul emitted a sigh of relief and slowly placed the binoculars back in his pocket. His plan had proven to be successful. He had caused this mysterious surveillant to expose himself by lighting his own cigarette. Now the tables had turned—Paul’s hunter had become the hunted. He just didn’t know it yet.
***
Paul was not in any hurry. He slowly finished smoking his cigarette, blowing jets of smoke between the raindrops. While doing that, he hummed the most appropriate song that came to his mind: Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water.”
When he had finished smoking, he continued to stand motionless for a moment longer, humming the song and even adding a lame guitar solo imitation. Finally, he carefully wrapped himself in his coat and went out into the downpour.
He longed to walk quickly and find some shelter from the rain, but his limp forced him to slow down. It actually fitted with his objective, allowing his unknown follower to draw nearer. He advanced toward the park exit and entered one of the apartment building lobbies, shook the water off his coat, and waited a moment. Then he emerged back into the rain and advanced a few dozen feet to the next temporary shelter.
He pretended to casually look back and was able to see his surveillant for a brief moment. The dark silhouette quickly bounded over puddles and clung to the shadows of the houses and the trees. Paul thought for a moment this was almost too easy, and he emerged from his shelter again.
He wanted to get his follower synced to the steady rhythm of his progress, the regular sounds of his walk. His police friends called it “educating the tail.” Paul was careful to maintain a steady pace, regularly kicking stones on the sidewalk and flinging them forward.
The rain had weakened a bit and Paul felt that his follower was drawing nearer. Twenty seconds, that was the time he estimated separated him from his tail.
He decided it was time to make contact. When he arrived at a street corner, he took a sharp turn, immediately stopped and searched for a medium-sized stone. He found one immediately. He picked it up, waited five seconds, then threw it about forty feet forward. He managed to hit a metal trash can.
Paul assumed the loud clattering sound had reached his follower’s ears as well. Everything was ready—the unknown surveillant would reach the corner in a few seconds, convinced Paul was already somewhere up the street.
He heard the sound of approaching footsteps from beyond the corner, and prepared to charge.
41
A Seat in the Last Row
It was ten at night and Jackie was heading out of the City Tower Convention Center.
The Order of the Prophet’s special event wasn’t over yet. Moses Morse was currently giving a speech, and his amplified voic
e echoed outside the convention hall as well. It was impressive, the way he had of winning his listeners. A real star.
Jackie looked at the signs placed next to the tower entrance and chuckled. It appeared that the signs were more about Morse than building a temple for the prophet. One could think the man was running for president. As he stood on the stage with his hands outspread, spreading catchphrases such as, “The prophet cares about each and every one of us.” Jackie imagined David in the park, holding a bag and bending down to collect his dog’s poop. He was barely able to keep himself from laughing out loud.
But it seemed most of the people in the audience did not share Jackie’s opinions. With sparkling eyes, they followed Morse’s every movement on the stage and thirstily took in every word. Jackie wanted to stay until the end of the event to see how much money the people of the Order would manage to raise.
Actually, he almost did not come to the event. When he had heard of the factory rescue operation, he had lost his composure. All he wanted to do was go back home and organize his thoughts. Then he heard on the radio about the Order’s special event and remembered that he had to be there.
When he arrived at the teeming convention hall, the event had almost started. He saw Shelly standing outside. She was happy to see him and immediately led him to an empty seat in the last row.
The convention hall was filled with about a thousand people, but it felt like a single drop in a sea of millions of believers. Morse knew what he was doing, no doubt about it. Jackie clearly felt the power of the animated crowd.
He would have stayed till the end if Thomas hadn’t decided to drive him mad with five consecutive text messages. These had all been vague, other than the last one.
Thomas: Come home quickly, Alex and I are waiting.
What could have been so urgent? He was planning on staying there until the end of the event, then meet with Moses Morse. He had to check how much the leader would be willing to pay for a direct communication channel with the prophet—a real one.
Now that he was standing outside, the cold, clear air brought him back to reality.
“A temple for the prophet…” he muttered. That sentence had sounded ridiculous earlier, but following an hour and a half of emphatic speeches, he realized what had made so many people flock to the idea.
He took the folded leaflet he had received from Shelly out of his pocket and looked for any contact information listed for the Order’s management. He found a telephone number. He would call later. He looked at the sky, the downpour that had fallen over the course of the last hour had thinned to a drizzle. This allowed Jackie to start walking back home. He shoved his hands in his pockets and quickened his pace.
Back home, he quickly walked past his mother. She sat in the living room wearing a light-blue nightgown, applying pink nail polish on her toes. She raised her eyes at him. “Hi Jackie. Where have you been all day?”
“Hi, mom. Just hanging out,” he muttered and turned to his room, but something had stopped him: the large television screen was on, depicting the image of a familiar woman. He recognized her: it was the schoolteacher David had met with in the morning, at that dog adoption place.
The headline left no room for doubt: “One lucky dog: an animal shelter wins millions.”
That was simply too much. Jackie raised his face up and released a loud and bitter laugh.
His mom gave him a surprised look. “Jackie… your friends are waiting in your room. Is everything all right?”
Jackie didn’t answer. He felt like he was about to explode: that stupid kid had an open communication channel with the prophet and he was using it for his personal advantage every time he felt like it, spreading money like confetti.
He stared at his mother, taking in her words. “Oh, yeah. I know they’re waiting for me.”
He reached his room and swung the door open. Thomas and Alex were sitting and speaking in a low tone, and they jumped to their feet when Jackie entered. Thomas looked at him with a triumphant smile. Alex, as always, shifted in his seat nervously while scratching his acne-riddled cheeks.
“What’s going on?” Jackie asked. “This better be important. You’ve no idea what I had to give up in order to come here.” He sat on the edge of the bed.
“So it’s like this,” said Thomas. “We went to David’s grandmother’s house. Alex’s uncle has an empty apartment not too far from there, so we decided to kidnap her.”
Jackie blinked at him. “You decided to do what?”
Thomas continued enthusiastically, “Just to give him a scare. You know how he worries about her. So instead of running after him and getting tired every time, I thought we should maybe get some leverage on the kid. We almost pulled it off…” He went silent at once when Jackie raised a hand.
“Wait, let me think for a minute.”
Thomas looked at Alex and nodded with encouragement. His friend returned a concerned look.
Jackie sat on the bed and knit his eyebrows angrily, but it was merely an act. In his heart, he admired their initiative. It was obvious that David was attached to his grandmother; maybe Thomas could save him some effort with this new approach. Jackie had nothing to lose.
Should anything go wrong and David or his grandmother would go to the police, he could always claim he had nothing to do with it. And more importantly, should the plan work and David cracked—Jackie would win the jackpot. After all, a direct channel of communication with the prophet would mean that he’d have the police in the palm of his hand.
Besides, Thomas would never snitch on him, ever. Even now he had that pathetic eager-to-please puppy look in his eyes. It always made Jackie sick, but now was the time to reap the benefits of his blind admiration.
“Tell me, what did you do exactly?” he demanded.
That was the chance Thomas had been waiting for. He told him everything, without omitting even a single detail: how they had made sure the building was empty of neighbors, how the sign on Edna Emerson’s door with the drawings of cats on it had given them the ingenious idea of impersonating children collecting donations for animals.
Jackie sat with a blank expression on his face and listened to every detail. When Thomas came to the part in which they had had to escape because of the man screaming from inside the house, Jackie stopped him.
“I don’t get it. First, she shouted out the door for neighbors to come and help, and only then she called out ‘are you there’ and you heard a man screaming from inside the apartment?”
“Yes, exactly. It seemed weird to me too when I thought about it later.”
“I think I know what happened there.” Jackie chuckled to himself. “I’ve heard about this gizmo.”
“What do you mean?”
Jackie didn’t answer. His mind had finally cleared again, free of anger and distractions. He knew what he had to do next.
“All right, listen up,” he said authoritatively. “Here’s the plan.”
42
Five Thousand
The woman was lying flat on her stomach. Her hands were tied behind her back and her face was pressed against a puddle.
Paul leaned on her with all his weight, his knee crushing her back, pinning her to the ground. That hold prevented her from moving a muscle. She struggled to lift her head up from the water and catch a breath.
He pulled her hands up forcefully, stretching her shoulders at an unnatural angle, causing her head to sink back into the muddied water. She groaned with pain.
“Know the story about the man who drowned in a four-inch water pool?” he asked indifferently, trying to sound bored.
“Stop it! Let me go!” The water entered her mouth. She turned her head aside, spitting and coughing. “What do you want?”
“Wrong answer.” He twisted her hands some more, making her head sink back into the murky water. She tried to keep her head above the surface of the puddle,
gurgling and coughing.
They were in a secluded parking lot. Paul knew he would be able to interrogate her there undisturbed.
“Smoking will kill you,” he said disapprovingly, as if lecturing a group of teenagers. “And in your case, it’s even more obvious than usual.” She did not reply.
Paul thought he heard a soft wail. He did not enjoy this, but knew that he had no choice. He had to play the part of the heartless interrogator. He knew from experience that the subject must be made to feel fear during an investigation. This woman had shadowed him, and he had to find out who she was, who had sent her, and what her motives were.
Thirty minutes earlier, he had lunged at the person following him, sent a single and precise punch that smashed his nose—and was surprised to discover that he was actually a she.
The woman tried to resist, but her martial arts skills matched the poor surveillance capabilities she had demonstrated. He quickly disarmed her of her two weapons: a small pistol with a silencer and a taser.
She had no chance of resisting, and Paul knew that it was only a matter of time before he would get the information out of her.
In her pocket, he found a driver’s license under the name of Diane Colt. He took a picture of it and sent it to Gabriel so he could dig up anything he could find about the woman. Paul was hoping for a quick answer.
“You realize I have a lever here.” He held her cuffed hands and stretched them a little further up.
“You’re breaking my arm!” she screamed.
“Just in case you don’t know, with a lever, you can apply the slightest of pressures on one end, to create a whole lot of pressure on the other end,” he said monotonously, as if reading from some physics textbook.
His cell phone buzzed. It was a reply from Gabriel. His mouth gaped open with astonishment.
Unknown: FBI.