by Leigh Barker
“That’s the problem, it’s simple. But most of us just delete the browsing history and any download files.”
“So what are we looking for?” he said.
“It’s likely, well, possible, the computer is secured at least a little. The café will probably prevent deletion of any files not in the download folder to stop malicious deletion just for fun or for spite.”
“That’s a bit of a Hail Mary throw there,” Ethan said, and settled back into the seat.
“We’ll see.”
“Worth a shot though, don’t you think?” Kelsey said, and thumped Ethan’s thigh.
“What?” Ethan said, opening his eyes, and saw her hard look. “Jesus, she’s a navy petty officer. Sailors don’t get offended.”
Kelsey sighed.
The café owner was not impressed when he was told that his clients were going to be questioned by federal agents. All three of his clients.
Kelsey’s NCIS badge came in useful to convince him, and Ethan knew he’d made the right decision disobeying an order from the navy’s chief and reading her in. He was sure SecNav would understand, but best not to mention it, the man had a lot on his plate.
It took half an hour to eliminate the three users. The girl was online to her boyfriend at university, one of the boys was playing some sort of shoot-em-up game, and the spotty kid was searching for a job where they didn’t mind spots or the strange smell he emitted.
Ethan stood in the gap between the two rows of tables and thought about ordering a coffee until he saw where it would be served from. He gave up on that and was about to ask Andie what she intended doing, but she was already doing it, moving from one computer to the next.
The café owner stood in front of the counter, his arms folded over his protruding stomach as if trying to hide the grease wipes on his dirty apron.
“What’s your name?” Ethan said, stepping closer, but not too close.
“Is there somethin’ I’m under suspicion of?”
Ethan unraveled the question. “No, not that I knows of if I knows why.” He smiled at the man’s confusion. “You were telling me your name.”
“Robert Styles.” The owner squinted at him.
“Well, Bob,” Ethan said, smiling, “you the owner?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you here all day?”
“Eight in the mornin’, ten at night.” He blew out his breath. “Livin’ the American dream.”
“Tell me about it,” Ethan said. “Got any CCTV?”
“Why’d I want to record the weirdoes come in here?”
“Do you remember anybody…less weird in here Monday, Tuesday last week?”
Bob’s lips rolled back off grey teeth and he leered across the tables at Andie concentrating on the monitor in front of her. “You give me ten minutes with the shy one and I’ll remem—”
“Hey, over there,” Ethan said, and swung up his arm to point out what was over there, but he was standing too close and his fist slammed into Bob’s groin.
He jackknifed forward, gasping.
Ethan couldn’t let the poor guy fall and shot out his hand to grab his collar. He was moving too fast and smacked Bob’s face down onto the tabletop.
He pulled him up by his collar and turned him. “Hey, Bob, you nearly fell there. You been drinking?”
He sat him on the chair and patted his shoulder, then wiped his hand on his pants. “You take a rest there, Bob, and sober up a bit.”
“I ain’t drunk,” Bob said through bloody fingers gripping his nose.
“Just a dizzy turn, then. You should get your sugar checked.” Ethan gave him a friendly smile. Friends are hard to come by.
“You shoved my face on the table. I’m gonna call the cops and get your ass thrown in jail.”
“Go ahead and call them,” Ethan said. “They’ll pat my chubby cheeks for saving a member of the public from falling down drunk.”
“I told you I ain’t drunk.”
“Bit unsteady on your feet there though. You ever do any boxing?” Ethan said. “Being hit in the head a lot can do stuff to your balance.”
“No, I ain’t done no boxing.” Bob looked around. “You goin’ any time soon. You’re killin’ my business.”
Kelsey was leaning on the door jamb, watching with a look of mild indifference. Boys and pissing. Seen it all before.
“You were going to tell me about the un-weird guy who was in here last week,” Ethan said.
Bob looked up at him through streaming eyes. “I got hundreds of weird—customers here every week. I ain’t gonna recall just one. Hell, I don’t even look.”
“See,” Ethan said, “that wasn’t hard, was it? Now you rest up until you feel better.”
He moved away and watched Andie’s fingers flying over the keyboard. Until she stopped. He saw her intense concentration and stepped up behind her to look at the monitor.
She pointed at the screen. “That’s the system recycle bin.”
“Right.”
“It’s where deleted files sit until they are deleted for real.”
“I know that. Saved my ass a few times.”
“I sorted it by date. The drug guy’s bid was on the seventh. So anything around that time should be of interest. And there.” She pointed again. “That’s an email address.”
Ethan leaned over her, saw her flinch and backed off. “What else?”
“A note. Funds will be transferred to the escrow account within six hours as agreed.”
“Is that it?” Ethan was disappointed.
“It’s enough.” She copied the contents of the recycle bin onto a stick. “All I need to do now is find the server in the email header.”
Ethan watched as she loaded software and messed about with the email for a while; then he got bored and glanced again at the counter. He’d eaten live bugs and drunk snake’s blood, but the coffee in this dump was way too risky.
“Okay,” Andie said, and stood up.
Ethan caught Kelsey’s look and took a second to translate it.
“Good job, Andie,” he said with enthusiasm.
She frowned at him. “Thanks, Kelsey.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I can get back to business?” the bloody-faced owner said, and opened the front door either to let them out or to let the eager clients in. Should any arrive.
Ethan waited for Andie to settle in the back seat of the Suburban and fasten her seatbelt. “So what d’ya have?”
“The email originated in Pakistan.” She said it as if she was commenting on the weather.
Ethan and Kelsey exchanged a long look.
“Al-Qaeda?” Kelsey said.
“That would be my guess.” He turned in his seat. “Can you get anything else?”
“Back at NCIS, yes. Not here.”
“Then time to ask Beatrice and Tim to vacate their office again,” Kelsey said.
“Beatrice and Tim?” Ethan said. “Really?
Kelsey shrugged. “Maybe. Never spoken to them before today.”
“Your people skills are awesome,” Ethan said, and went to sleep.
“Do you think he’s ill?” Andie said, looking up from her laptop.
“No. It’s a marine thing.”
“Right.” Andie seemed to think that was enough.
It was.
Ethan put his newspaper on the glass table next to his coffee and watched Kelsey cross the reception area towards him. Maybe some roads really were worth risking. Thinking like that was what got him married, and look where that finished up.
“That was quick.” He sipped his coffee and pointed at the sofa opposite. “That kid knows her stuff.”
“So does this kid,” Kelsey said, sitting and taking his coffee.
“You’re going to tell me anyway, aren’t you?”
“Andie’s a whiz, strange, but a whiz.”
“I said that.”
“While she’s busy cracking the server to find the owner of the email account, I made a call t
o the hosting company.”
Ethan sat up, but didn’t ask the question he was supposed to. Playing along with a woman also contributed to his short and tumultuous marriage. He should’ve been honest right at the get-go.
“Turns out the hosting company’s owned and run by our fellow Americans.”
“That’s handy.”
“It is. They gave up the email owner without me resorting to threats.”
“True patriots. I think I’m welling up.”
“That or they know we have bombers flying over their heads.”
“That’ll do it every time.”
“Except their head office is in Palo Alto.”
“We have bombers there,” Ethan said.
“The email account belongs to a shell company in Pakistan.”
“Let me guess. Al-Qaeda R Us.”
“Not quite, but might as well be.”
Ethan stood up slowly and stretched. “I could do with a bit of warm sunshine.”
“Pakistan is nice at this time of year, I hear.”
“I’ll send you a postcard.”
Ethan and his team were in his hotel room, gearing up for the long flight to Pakistan. Loco was watching an old boxing match on cable with his feet up on the bed.
“You’re not ready to go,” Ethan said, “we’ll just jet off on our sun-soaked vacation without you.”
Loco pointed at a lumpy backpack near the door. “Done, dusted. Inspection passed.”
“You do know you gotta wear that stuff you’ve packed.”
Loco flinched as Ali landed a right that knocked George Foreman out. “See that?” He pointed at the plasma. “Ali takes a nap on the ropes and lets Foreman punch himself out, then wham! It’s all over.”
Ethan glanced at the screen. “Ali should’ve hung up his gloves before then. Might still have been around.”
“Yeah, Top, like we all know when it’s time to quit, right?”
Ethan couldn’t think of a snappy comeback. He’d think of one later.
“Wheels up at twenty-two hundred,” he said instead.
“Can’t believe SecNav gave us his Gulfstream again,” Smokey said, looking up from folding his socks.
“Saves a lot of explaining to the other agencies,” Ethan said. “And going commercial with this wasn’t viable.” He pointed at the weapons laid out on the bed next to Loco.
“If you’ve got to hang in the sky for fifteen hours,” Winter said, “might as well do it in style.”
There was a tap on the door and Ethan pointed at the weapons. Loco rolled off the bed and threw the cover over them while Ethan opened the door.
Kelsey came in and looked around. “It’s like a boys’ dorm in here.” She wrinkled her nose.
“That’ll be Loco,” Smokey said, and ignored his hurt look.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” Ethan said. “Not that you’re not always welcome.”
Good catch, bit late.
“You come to tell us SecNav’s had a change of heart and we’re doing the trip in the hold of a C-130?”
“I’m here to tell you you’re not going to Pakistan.”
Loco groaned. They ignored him.
“What have you found?” Ethan said.
“SecNav asked the CIA to take a look at the guy with the email address. Turns out it’s a sixty-year-old shoe seller with a bad knee.”
“Could be faking it,” Loco said, but not even he believed that. “We could just go and double-check.”
They ignored him.
“Not Al-Qaeda,” Ethan said. “Unless they’ve revised their recruitment policy. That being young kids brainwashed into blowing themselves up.” He pointed at the bed.
Kelsey gave him a long look, then sat on the edge, flinched and flipped back the cover to see the M16 she’d sat on.
“We stand down, then?” Ethan said.
“No,” Kelsey said. “You’re flying out on schedule, but your destination’s a bit cooler.” She smiled. “Seoul.”
“Seoul?” Loco said. “That’s Malaysia. I think.”
“You think correctly, my little Hispanic friend. Seoul is the capital of Singapore,” Winter said.
“Cool. See, I know stuff,” Loco said. “Hey, we still get to go in the Gulfstream?”
They ignored him.
“What have you found?” Ethan asked again.
“Ed found it,” Kelsey said, and shrugged. “Somebody in Seoul buying aerospace components and polymers.”
“South Korea builds planes,” Ethan said. “I guess.”
“KAI,” Kelsey said.
“If you say so. Is it this KAI we’re looking at?”
“No, some third-party dealer’s doing the buying.”
“Any guesses as to its final destination?” Ethan said.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Kelsey said, and put her finger to her lips. “Pyongyang maybe?”
“North Korea doesn’t have any money to build orbiters,” Chuck said.
“Kim Jong-un doesn’t have money to feed his people, but plenty to feed himself and his cronies, and to buy weapons and military equipment.”
“Folks love him though,” Loco said. “Seen them all wavin’ and cryin’ when he shows up.”
They waited for the punchline. There wasn’t one.
“So what’s the plan?” Smokey said, and turned to Ethan.
“Simple. We get our asses over to Seoul and ask this…dealer what he’s doing with all the aerospace stuff. Then we go there and get the plans back.”
“Home in time for dinner, then,” Chuck said.
Flying the team in SecNav’s Gulfstream G280 was like putting a puppy on a mink coat. They didn’t notice what they’d got, except it was comfortable, and they slept pretty much all the way.
Andie stopped working on her computer again and stared at the men crashed out around the sumptuous cabin. A marine thing, Kelsey had said. She’d never understand it.
She returned to the data that was her real friend. Ed was online and now she’d assured him his manhood was safe, he was sending her anything he thought interesting. At some point she knew he’d send her something inappropriate, but she was steeled for it and would just delete it without comment. He was a borderline tech genius, so there was little space left in his head for common sense.
She opened her eyes and wondered why it was suddenly dark beyond the plane’s windows. She’d been asleep and hadn’t even realized she was tired. She looked again at the team and for a moment felt the first ripple of panic as a little voice told her she was becoming one of them and would be dropping asleep whenever she boarded transport. Any sort of transport. She calmed down. That would never happen, traveling was when she got her best work done. Nobody to butt in on her thinking process or demand a response to a dumb question.
An hour before dawn the cabin lights came on and the team woke and buckled up without being told. Andie took the hint and clipped her seatbelt just as the Gulfstream started its descent into Osan US Airbase, south of Seoul.
Ethan had been here before, but his arrival then had been less elegant, on board the Patriot Express with a couple of hundred servicemen and women all ready to celebrate leaving the United States for a stint in lovely South Korea, with everything it had to offer. That being damp weather, stew, and people who’d sooner the Americans went home.
He felt the plane touch down with barely a bump and watched the lights on the historic airfield flash past. The plane taxied down the two-thirds of the runway it hadn’t needed, then turned onto the apron and came to a halt in front of a low building. What it was used for, they’d never know because as soon as the engines stopped and the steps went down, there was an SUV waiting for them. Five minutes later they exited through the main gate.
“I brought my passport,” Loco said from the rear seat. “I feel like I should show it to somebody.”
“You can show it to me if it makes you feel better,” Winter said.
Ethan exchanged a quick look with the airforce sergeant driv
ing that conveyed everything the man needed to know.
“Where’re we bound, Sergeant?” Ethan said, to see if he could get the man to say something, anything.
“Not here.”
Well, that was a start.
“You and the geek find anything useful with all that clicking during the flight?” Ethan said over his shoulder to Andie, who looked pale and tired in the false-dawn light.
“Yes,” she said, “but you’re not going to like it.”
“There is nothing about this whole mess that I like.”
“We did the aerospace purchases to death by about ten o’clock last night. You were all asleep.”
“Something you should’ve tried by the look of you.”
“Thanks, Top,” Andie said. “That’s just what a girl needs to hear first thing in the morning.”
That didn’t come out right, but they all let it go.
“Most girls share my night look worse’n that in the morning.”
Except Loco.
“What is it I’m not going to like?” Ethan said.
“We trawled the dark web for anything that clashed like cymbals in church.”
Ethan smiled. “And what discordant din did you find?”
“Somebody in Bulgaria just sold a Russian nuclear warhead to a buyer in Gwangju.”
“That’s in Africa,” Loco said, and nodded firmly.
“That’s good,” Ethan said.
“How’s that good?” Chuck said, tuning into the discussion from watching the depressing high-rise apartments zip past the SUV.
“The orbiter can carry two nukes.” Ethan shrugged without turning. “One’s better.”
“You worry me, Top. You know that?” Chuck said, and went back to sightseeing.
“Also means we’re in the right place,” Winter said, then glanced at Loco. “Gwangju being south of here.”
“Like I said, Africa.”
Winter closed his eyes and sought a sane place. Considering where he was looking, it was always going to be a fruitless search.
The silent sergeant turned off the expressway as soon as they crossed the river and entered Seoul city. It was a little before seven and the city was already showing signs of waking up to a new cold November day.
The sergeant cut down side streets and played jump the lights like a local. Then he pulled up in front of a litter-strewn alley and sat dead still, just looking straight ahead.