by S J Grey
“Bit late for that.” His snark had cooled, and there was no heat left in his words. He looked at Jonathan and shrugged. “What can we do?”
“I’ll liaise with the police and find out what they know,” Jonathan told Andi, like it was as easy as buying a coffee. “I need your friend’s full name and address. Are they also looking for Kaali? Could she be in custody?”
“It’s unlikely,” replied Andi. “What about CCTV around the campus? Can you hook into that?”
“Yep. I’ll ask Nat to do that.” Jonathan scratched his chin, his expression thoughtful. “It’d be good to know who we’re up against. What did you find when you hacked the Immigration network?”
“Not much. I was running a query on little more than a hunch. I searched for patterns of young women coming in from the Pacific Islands, to see who sponsored them. Like I said, the query ran so slowly, I only got a partial result.” She looked at Caleb. “Your data-mining programme would be a thousand times better than mine.”
“It’s academic, anyway. The network was still down when I last checked.” Hold on. Was he even thinking of hacking Immigration? He must be out of his mind. He straightened his back and rolled his shoulders. “Guess we’d better brief the team.”
Andi’s face crumpled, and she hid it behind her hands for a moment. Looking up, she caught Caleb’s stare. Moisture gleamed in her eyes. “Thank you. I’ll owe you for this, and I always pay my debts.”
“We haven’t done anything yet.” And might not be able to, even with the weight of the SIA behind them. “Come on.” He stood and opened the office door, to meet the openly curious stares of the team.
He walked to the smartboard and picked up the stylus. Damn, but this was starting to feel normal. He’d soon be morphing into a corporate flunky, at this rate. Wrenching his thoughts back, he addressed the guys. “Andi’s back on the team, and with a new problem for us to look at. Like before, this is classed as part of the exercise, and unless we’ve anything on fire, it takes our top priority.” He gestured to Jonathan. “Do you want to explain?”
“Sure.” Jonathan stepped forwards. He outlined the story Andi told them, and then assigned tasks, while Caleb wrote them on the board. Nat was looking into available CCTV footage from the campus. Jonathan and Will were going to hit up contacts in the police, while Toby would get an update on Dane’s condition. Devin would continue to monitor the Immigration network, and would alert them when it was back online.
Caleb continued to be both impressed and concerned at how far SIA reached. It was better to have them on his side, than to be their target. Was this was Mark’s life was like? He worked for a shadowy organisation in the UK, one allied with SIA. Fuckin’ spies, the lot of ‘em.
Thinking of Mark— he was due for a check-in soon.
Caleb checked his phone. Two hours to go.
“I want to go to the hospital,” said Andi, “but it makes sense for Toby to make some calls first. What should I do in the meantime?”
“Walk me through your findings from the SQL query,” answered Caleb. “I need to know keywords and references, for my data-mining programme.” He wasn’t planning to hack the network, but it paid to be ready, just in case.
Fifteen minutes later, information was rolling in from the team.
Toby was first. “Dane Castor is currently in surgery, with a gunshot wound to the stomach. There won’t be any updates for a few hours, until he comes out of surgery.”
Andi’s face paled, and Toby gave her a kind smile. “I’m sorry it’s not better news,” he said.
“Thanks,” she muttered, but she still looked as though she was freaking out.
“Have you told your boyfriend?” Caleb asked. “Griff, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I have. He offered to go straight to the hospital, to see what he could find out, so I’ll let him know I have news.”
“Sounds like a good guy.”
“He is.” Andi gave a crooked smile. “He’s my best friend, as well as my partner. He annoys me on a daily basis, but I don’t know what I’d do without him. You know?”
Caleb didn’t know. He’d never had a girlfriend for longer than a few months. Casual suited him best, rather than the responsibility of caring about someone else’s feelings. He pretended not to listen when Andi phoned Griff—the call short and to the point—and instead, focused on the data points he was configuring.
“Heads up,” said Nat. “By a strange coincidence, the CCTV camera in the hallway of that accommodation block stopped working a few hours ago, but I’ve tracked down footage from a camera on the car park. Come and see.”
Caleb joined the others around Nat’s desk and peered at the fuzzy image on the screen. “Great quality, huh?”
“Yeah… nah. Not the best,” said Nat, “but it’s enough to see a dark SUV backing up to the entrance.” He pointed at the car, the registration plate indistinct. A Mitsubishi? “I’ve zoomed in, which in part accounts for the lack of detail. Anyway, keep watching.”
A stocky man in a suit emerged from the building with something tossed over his shoulder. A large duffel? No, it was a girl, wriggling and struggling.
“Kaali,” whispered Andi, standing beside Caleb.
Kaali was tossed into the back of the car. The guy followed, and moments later, the car peeled away and out of the camera range.
“Shit,” said Andi. “They’ve got her. I was hoping she’d managed to escape.”
“Rewind please, Nat,” said Jonathan. “Let’s get a look at them going into the building.”
Nat did so, right back to the first sighting of the car. It was a Mitsubishi, a recent model, but with no registration plate visible. Probably removed. Two men emerged and strode across the car park, to the accommodation block. The footage was grainy and jerky. A cheap security setup. One of the men lifted his hand near the entrance doors and pointed upwards.
“What’s he doing?” Caleb spoke his thought and answered it in the same breath. “Shooting out the camera.”
The guy carried a small handgun, which disappeared into his jacket pocket right before they entered the building.
“That’s why it suddenly stopped working,” said Nat. “The police need to get forensics down there to check the camera. They might not realise.”
Other people entered and left through the same doors. A few minutes later, one of the guys came out alone and went to back the car up to the entrance. “And this is where we came in,” said Nat.
“Good work,” said Jonathan. “I’ll check if the police are on to it. Anyone else got an update?”
“I have,” said Devin. “I talked to a friend who works for the company that supports the Immigration network. Last night’s attack wasn’t the only one. There’s been a series of DDOS attacks on it over the past week. It gets hit in the middle of the night, and the techs bring it back. They’re working twenty-four-seven at the moment, waiting for each subsequent attack. It’s like someone’s playing a game with them, trying different ways to break down the system. Last night was the most severe, and the first time it’s taken them offline during business hours.”
Andi lifted her head. “It wasn’t me. It can’t have been. I only created my access point last night.” She smiled. “It also can’t have been this team, ’cause you only just made a connection. Am I right?”
Caleb nodded. “That should get the Red Team off the shitlist, if nothing else.” He rewound Devin’s words in his head. “Like a game, you said.” Devin nodded. “And they’ve got a team working around the clock. Are they taking part in a red team exercise too? Or is that too much of a coincidence?”
Jonathan shrugged. “I wouldn’t assume anything is off the table, but you’re right about it clearing us. I’ll be delighted to give that update to my boss. Thank you, Devin.” He held out his hand, and they fist-bumped.
“I’ve another thing, but it’s not related to this,” said Devin.
“We need to focus on this problem,” said Caleb. “Can it wait?”
Devin pulled a face. “I’ll tell you, and you can decide. It’s Freddie Sparks. I found some pictures of him, and he’s got ink. Lots of it. Full sleeves, a snake down his back, and a Celtic knot on his front.”
What was relevant about that? “And?”
“And that means Freddie isn’t one of the men in Nicole’s video.”
Well, duh. The men with Nicole were both clean-skinned, with no obvious marks. “So where the fuck was Freddie? And more to the point, why did Nicole say it was him?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Another thought blindsided Caleb. “Can anyone confirm it was really Freddie they pulled out of my house?”
Jonathan nodded. “Another good question. I’ll find out how they identified the body.”
“I can give you an update on the police enquiry,” said Will. “The new one, that is. They’re currently interviewing possible witnesses into the assault on Dane Castor. There’s no mention of Kaali or anybody living with him.”
“Somebody must have seen them carrying her out of the building,” said Andi.
“Maybe not,” said Jonathan. “The car is parked right up to the doorway, and they were quick. Also, how did they know she was there?”
“I’m requesting facial-recognition priority on the two men,” said Nat. “The quality of the images is poor, but it’s worth a try.”
“I’m petrified for Kaali,” said Andi. “What the hell will they do to her now? They might punish her to keep the other girls in line. We have to find where they took her.” She paced up and down, fists clenched. “How can we locate her?”
“You’ve no idea where she was being held?” Caleb asked. “Can we look a map and narrow it down?”
“It was underground, underneath someplace that was quiet all day and noisy at night. She made it to the street by climbing through a bathroom window, and then ran away from the lights and hid in the shadows. She had no clothes on until she stole some.”
“If it was night-time when she ran,” said Jonathan, “where did she get the clothes from? A shop? A house? That would tell us if she was in the CBD or further out.”
“She pulled them out of a builder’s skip.” Andi furrowed her brow. “I don’t think she said much more about it, other than she was near the harbour and lots of small boats. She hid on one the first night, and went in search of food at daylight.”
“That narrows it down a bit,” said Jonathan, “but it’s not enough. Our best bet is to trace the guys in the Mitsubishi SUV.”
“Blurry faces and a non-existent registration.” Andi’s voice was tight. “Not looking good, aye?”
We’ll find her, Caleb wanted to say, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. It’d be wrong to give her false promises. There was a young girl’s life at stake, but Caleb might be able to help. If he could get into the Immigration server, that was.
“I have an update on Freddie.” Jonathan looked up from his phone. “He was ID-ed by fingerprints and the wallet in his pocket. Cause of death was a single bullet to the head. The current thinking is that he was killed elsewhere, and the body dumped in your house, Caleb.”
“We need to find an alibi for you,” said Andi. “What about the traffic cams? Did they corroborate your story?”
“Yeah, thanks to the guys here. My bike was tracked going back into Wellington, after I went to dinner at Emma’s parents, and again when I headed back to Peka Peka. There’s a small window of opportunity, as the lawyer put it, for me to have offed Freddie and dumped him in my house, but the cops would struggle to make that stick without evidence.”
Caleb had a feeling he was still the Number One Suspect in the eyes of the police, but for the moment, he was okay. He knew only too well how quickly things could change, though. He wouldn’t feel safe until the real killer was found. Until then, he’d be on alert, waiting for the next time the cops pounded on his door, ready to throw another charge at him. It was exhausting.
He spent the next hour working with Andi on the parameters for the mining tool and matching them against the data she’d gathered. It was a way of keeping her busy, to stop her worrying about her friend undergoing surgery and the missing girl.
They broke off when Devin announced the Immigration network was up.
“That was one hell of an attack,” said Nat. “It’s been down over twenty hours. I imagine they did emergency patching before they brought it online again, to get it as stable as possible.”
“We need to check if Andi’s login is still intact, or if they’ve wiped it,” said Caleb.
“No time like the present,” said Andi. She fired up a tool Caleb recognised—one that would mask her location and hide her digital footprint—and then connected to the Immigration network. The cursor flashed, and a little wheel spun while the command processed.
The prompt changed, and Caleb let out a breath. “You’re in. That’s good to know. Log out again, and with luck, they won’t even notice.”
She did so, and then sat back in her seat. “Are you going to run your programme? Won’t they be looking out for any unusual activity at the moment?”
“I don’t know. It needs more work before it’s ready, anyway.” And he didn’t want her here, if he did. She had enough to deal with.
“Your boy is out of surgery,” said Toby.
“He’s okay?” Andi’s tension was visible.
“I don’t have that information. Sorry. The police will be waiting to interview him, so be careful if you go to the hospital. They might recognise you as the girl who ran off.”
She nodded. “Noted. I’ll go with Griff, and he can act as lookout. Thank you.” She looked at Caleb. “I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
“No worries. If we turn up anything, I’ll let you know.”
She grabbed her things and hurried out the door.
Caleb looked at Jonathan. “A word?”
“Sure.” Jonathan followed him into Caleb’s office. “What are you planning?”
“Let’s say I go into the Immigration servers and expand the search Andi tried to run. If I can narrow down possibilities for the people behind the visa scams, you could then cross-match the data against identity profiles, using the SIA network of information. Maybe.”
“Maybe.”
“Do you have any other suggestions?”
“Nope. We know the Immigration techs are going to be all over their network like a rash. It’s risky, going in there with a backdoor login.”
“Tell me. If I get caught, I’m fucked.”
“Well, then, don’t get caught.” Jonathan was as serious as Caleb had seen him.
Caleb’s phone buzzed with an unknown number. He contemplated letting it go to voicemail, but it might be important. “Hello.”
“Caleb Rush?” The man on the line sounded uncertain.
“Yeah. Who is it?”
“This is Edmund Collier. We need to talk, sooner rather than later. Are you free now?”
Caleb clicked the puzzle pieces together in his head. Nicole Golden’s father, the Minister of Immigration. “I might be.” He needed to record this call and grab Jonathan to listen in. “Give me two minutes, to go into my office.”
“No. Not on the phone. Face to face.”
“Uh… okay. You want to come here?” That’d work, with all the recording devices at the team’s disposal.
“Of course not. I’m going to take a stroll past the rose garden outside Parliament, and grab a coffee from the barista cart opposite the Thai Embassy. Walk with me. And come alone.”
—the hell? “Okay,” Caleb repeated.
“Don’t send someone in your place. I know what you look like, Mr. Rush. And no wires or recording devices. This is between you and me. I’ll meet you at the Cenotaph in five minutes.” Collier disconnected.
Talk about cloak and dagger, but while Caleb might have to go alone, he’d make damned sure he had someone on his tail.
“I’ve been summoned by Nicole Golden’s father, who happens to be the Minister for Immigration,�
�� he told the team. “He wants to talk to me in private, with nobody listening in. We’re meeting in a few minutes at the Cenotaph. I’d feel happier if I had eyes on my back, in case it comes down to another their-word-against-mine scenario. Agreed?”
Jonathan nodded. “Nat and Will, you go with Caleb.”
Caleb sighed. “I don’t mind saying I’ve got a bad feeling about this. And yeah, I’ll put a fiver in the Star Wars jar.” He shrugged into his leather jacket. It still smelled of the fire. “Thanks, guys.”
The rain was steady, the wind cold, as Caleb trudged down the street. Will and Nat were some distance behind, hopefully not looking as though they were tailing him. What did Edmund Collier want? Guessing was pointless. Caleb would know soon enough. It was unlikely to be about the DDOS attacks, and if the guy suspected Caleb and Andi of hacking into the network, he sure as hell wouldn’t want a private, no-ears conversation outside.
Caleb turned the corner, walked past the bus station, and saw three men huddled against the white marble of the Cenotaph. One held a black umbrella, and the other two were getting wet. There was nobody else around. Umbrella-Guy must be Nicole’s father. Caleb straightened his back and walked up the steps to meet them. He had to remember they wanted something from him, and not the other way around. He had the power in this.
Was it only two days since he met Delilah here? So much had happened since then—curveballs, flying at him from all angles. This was going to be another.
The guy with the umbrella stared at him, his eyes cold. “Mr. Rush, I’m Edmund Collier. Please hand over your phone while we talk.”
“Uh… no. I didn’t agree to that.”
Collier sighed. “Very well. Switch it off and give it to me, and I’ll do the same with mine.”
Caleb could do that, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He looked pointedly at the two security men by Collier’s side. “What about your minders?”
“They’re staying here, but first, my colleague is going to scan you, to make sure you’re not carrying any recording equipment. Please lift your arms.”