by Ty Patterson
He led them up a flight of stairs and showed them to two rooms. ‘He wouldn’t be wrong.’
It was over breakfast, the next day, the sixteenth, that the General brought up Dividing Zero.
‘You have heard of WITSEC, the Witness Security Program, operated by the U.S. Marshals?’
Meghan swallowed a bite and washed it down with water before she replied. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Witnesses are provided with new identities, trained for jobs, and are relocated. The Marshals haven’t lost a single witness who entered their program.’
Meghan nodded, wondering where General Klouse was going. From the corners of her eyes, she saw Beth was similarly puzzled.
The National Security Advisor didn’t keep them hanging for long.
‘Dividing Zero came into existence more than two decades back.’ His sentences were short, sharp, staccato bursts. ‘When PMCs, Private Military Contractors, were increasingly used.’
‘A smart guy thought up the program for those PMCs who were deployed in black op missions.’
He smiled thinly when he sensed the impatience in the twins.
‘Dividing Zero was the opposite of WITSEC.’
Meghan stopped chewing. Beth followed suit.
‘In Dividing Zero, people ceased to exist.’
She laid her cutlery down, wiped her mouth with a towel and listened.
The general took a long pull from a glass of juice. ‘The PMCs’ identities were not changed in this program. They were erased.’
He snapped his fingers. ‘It’s as if they had never existed. Total deniability took on a new meaning.’
Meghan sat stunned as she took it in. ‘That...’ she searched for words, ‘sounds right out of Hollywood.’
General Klouse acknowledged her point with a nod. ‘Yes, and that was a big part of its appeal.’
‘What about the legal stuff? I can’t even imagine the various rights and civil liberties this program trampled on.’
‘The military machine distanced itself. The smart guy, one Russell Stoll, ran a defense contractor firm, Brown Spear Corporation. Brown Spear ran the program.’ ’
‘Brown Spear was a public company,’ General Klouse elaborated. ‘Very high profile, the then favorite of the defense establishment. It was a software company; wrote intelligent algos. For facial recognition, thermal imaging, that kind of stuff.’
‘The smart guy, Russell Stoll, was the CEO of that company. He was its chief programmer too. He got the military to sign off for a pilot. Brown Spear did the rest.’
He sighed. ‘The military didn’t question any contractors too much. There was none of the oversight and checks that we have today.’
‘The program was sexy,’ he continued, ‘The military gave Stoll the operatives. Single men or those who didn’t have large families. Stoll washed their pasts. Out came operatives who didn’t exist.’
‘The operatives weren’t its own?’ Meghan couldn’t hide her incredulity.
‘No. Brown Spear provided the washing program and did the dirty deeds of eliminating their identities in various databases. The military provided the operatives.’
‘Who were they?’
‘I am trying to find out. You can imagine, not a lot of folks are talking. I reckon they were private contractors.’
He spotted the impatience in Beth’s eyes and smiled thinly.
‘You have spotted the defense contractor connection, but it isn’t valid.’
‘The program is inactive.’ He let them digest that bombshell for a moment. ‘The military didn’t use it for long. Dividing Zero trampled on too many freedoms and rights.’
‘It would be political suicide for any government,’ Beth gestured with a hand. In the direction of the Capitol.
General Klouse nodded. ‘And for any Chief of Staff too. The program was criminal in the first place.’
A phone buzzed softly in the vastness of his home. He ignored it.
‘Things didn’t work out well for Stoll. He got embroiled in legal battles almost as soon as the pilot got approved.’
‘He went to prison ten years back. For embezzlement. He’s still there, in Hazelton, West Virginia. He’s got another ten years to serve.’
He rose and they followed him to the living room where he poured coffees for them.
‘How did this program get off the ground in the first place?’ Beth shook her head in disbelief and anger at the revelation.
‘The same way the intelligence establishment started snooping on us.’ A fleeting expression of regret crossed the general’s face.
‘What happened to Brown Spear?’
‘It’s still around; however it’s a failing company. It had a hundred staff at its peak. Now it’s down to ten.’
‘There must be employees who worked with Stoll. Who know all the details.’
The general shook his head. ‘Stoll worked alone on Dividing Zero. He wrote the software. He did whatever he had to. No one else got their hands dirty.’
His eyes peered keenly at them through tendrils of steam from his cup. ‘Mayo and Kane didn’t represent them, it that’s what you are thinking.’
‘None of the firm’s clients were involved with Dividing Zero. ’
The twins returned to New York in the afternoon after the general had finished briefing them. They were silent on the flight back, their minds whirling, trying to fit the new information with their latest assumption.
Meghan pulled out her screen when they were in the air, tasked Werner to look into Brown Spear.
She reflected for a moment and then expanded the search to include all those associated with the program. The general had given them some names; those went into the search command too.
A yellow cab brought them back to their office. The sisters stepped out quickly; the hunt had a scent to follow. They had to move fast.
‘John Doe could be one of these contractors,’ Beth queried her sister while paying off the cab.
Her sister didn’t get to reply.
An SUV screeched to a halt behind the cab.
Three dark-suited men sprang from it. Grabbed the twins and bundled them into the vehicle.
The SUV disappeared into the traffic
Chapter Thirty-Four
Two SUVs were parked in front of their Columbus Avenue office when Zeb stepped out from his cab. Their engines were growling softly. There was no one inside them.
Four people were huddled around one person. His body tightened involuntarily, sensing something wrong, as he took in the bunched crowd.
Bwana, Roger, Chloe, and Bear. Surrounding someone.
Chloe looked up on hearing his approach. ‘The twins have been grabbed.’
The beast roused itself within Zeb. Surged from repose to action in less than the blink of an eye.
Wait. Hear things out.
His step didn’t falter. He didn’t swear or curse. Listened as Bwana explained rapidly.
The fifth man was the cabbie. He had dropped the twins when a black SUV came from behind; three men emerged, and kidnapped the twins.
It happened so swiftly, he hadn’t time to take the number. The security guard from inside hadn’t heard anything.
Ten minutes later the four of them arrived. Zeb came two minutes later.
‘Twelve-minute lead,’ Chloe confirmed when Zeb looked at her. She had a screen in her hand read out from it. ‘Their GPS is dead. Cell too.’
All their clothing had GPS tags, tracked by Werner.
Attackers made them remove it. Disposed their phones.
Zeb was moving before she had finished. Hauled himself in one SUV, Chloe and Bear crowding behind him. Bwana and Roger went to the other.
They slapped on near invisible headsets.
He joined the slipstream of vehicles, uncaring of furious honking and swearing.
Faster, the beast urged.
Not yet.
‘Where to,’ Roger drawled in his ear. The Texan’s voice was relaxed. Zeb knew he wasn’t.
&
nbsp; ‘Go to LoJack. Find which vehicles were here. Track them. Get camera footage.’
Chloe nodded. Grasped what he had said.
From the LoJacks they would know which vehicles were present at the time of the grab. Security cameras at their building would show the images.
In urban traffic, a bunch of vehicles usually stayed together for a time, before peeling off to their destinations.
Werner would dip into the traffic camera feed and track the vehicles, and home in on the black SUV.
It wasn’t perfect. The slim lead the attackers had, worked to their advantage. A twelve-minute lead was too small for a getaway vehicle switch.
There were five men in the large seven-seater SUV. They were silent. They had worked as a team before. They didn’t need to speak. No wisecracks, no casual conversation.
They were all dressed in dark suits. Looked quite similar. Hard bodies. Dark hair cut short. Tanned faces. Searching eyes.
The grab had been executed at short notice. Not enough time to get the right equipment; however, It had gone down well. They now needed to put time and distance behind to transfer vehicles.
The women hadn’t put up a fight. Not much of one. They had been cuffed and gagged. Their cell phones crushed. One man had torn their outer wear off.
One woman, the one called Beth, had lashed out. The man had buried a blade in her left shoulder.
No words spoken. One knife. One shoulder. One scream. Total control.
The driver looked in the rear mirror. The injured twin was leaning against her sister. Her eyes closed, her face pale, blood streaming down her naked belly. Her twin was glaring at them, her face red in anger.
No vehicles were pursuing them. The police scanner lay quiet.
He veered off and joined Amsterdam Avenue and notched up his speed. A second vehicle was waiting in a warehouse near Harlem River. The women needed to be interrogated.
The drive to the warehouse was uneventful. Traffic thinned as they neared the warehouse and turned onto the asphalt road that branched into the deserted warehouse.
It was abandoned. It was perfect for their purpose.
The driver slowed as he entered the warehouse entrance and stopped.
He exited the vehicle and heard doors open behind him as the rest of the men started clambering out.
He lifted his head sharply. Something? A vehicle’s throaty roar?
The SUV came from around a wall of the warehouse, so fast that none of the men had time to react.
It rammed into the larger SUV. A couple of the black suited men stumbled.
Zeb leapt out. Didn’t bother to turn off the engine. Didn’t bother to turn to track Bwana’s arrival.
A dark suit was in his vision.
The man turned to Zeb. Light glinted off a barrel.
Now!
The beast surged. Zeb dived under the straightening arm. Caught hold of the wrist. Crushed it. His elbow flew out. Punched the suit in his throat. Suit went down.
Zeb turned. His Glock appeared in his hand. Pointed at another suit.
He lowered it. Roger shot the suit from behind.
Zeb ran to the large SUV and flung open the rear door. Took in the twins. In their underwear. Beth bleeding.
Another attacker appeared from the back of the vehicle. His gun pointed.
‘Stop!’ The man yelled.
Bwana rose from behind the man. Tall. Black. His face an iron mask. Bwana had seen the twins. Had seen their condition.
His ham-like fist swung, casually backhanding the shooter. The gunman’s head bounced off the roof of the vehicle. He slid down, out of Zeb’s sight.
Zeb’s eyes were fixed on Bear, visible through the opposite door of the vehicle.
Bear was grappling with another suit. A shooter was running toward Bear, his gun raised.
Zeb’s left hand grabbed the roof railing. The beast inside him snarled silently as he powered himself up and flew. Up and over the roof.
His body was tight and narrow, his Glock rising again.
One second when time stood still. When the earth stopped rotating.
His Glock spoke and the attacker fell.
Zeb landed on the other side of the vehicle and relaxed when Bear clubbed his opponent.
Footsteps came pounding. His gun rose. Lowered, when he saw Bwana.
‘All clear, bro.’
They went to the captor’s vehicle and peered inside.
Beth looked at them and managed a smile.
‘Took you long enough.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
The warehouse was soon flooded by cruisers and police officers. Red and white flashing lights bathed the desolate structure and brought it to life.
Beth’s shoulder was stitched and bandaged by paramedics. The blade had pierced the fleshy part of her shoulder and hadn’t severed any ligaments or tendons.
She would be okay in a few days. Painkillers were given. A hospital visit was urged. Rest was recommended.
She took the pills and snorted inelegantly at the recommendations.
She joined her sister who was briefing Pizaka and Chang, the former looking like he was on a Hollywood set.
‘Three dead, two alive, one of them barely; the one Bwana hit.’ Pizaka summed it for her, his shades reflecting red and blue flashing lights.
She looked at Bwana who shrugged unapologetically. ‘He must have a thick head. He wasn’t meant to live.’
She waited for Chang to finish talking to other cops and when he was free, she turned to her sister. ‘Did you tell them about Dividing Zero?’
‘Nope.’
As the sun disappeared below the horizon, and evening turned to night, Beth told her friends and the two cops about Dividing Zero.
Day seventeen was spent in investigating the kidnappers.
The one man who could talk, wasn’t speaking. He stonewalled the cops and sat silently in his cell with an impassive face.
The grab vehicle was rented using false IDs. None of the suits carried any identification. Their prints weren’t on record. Their faces weren’t in any facial recog database.
No attorney came forward to represent the surviving men.
‘It’s as if whoever employed them has disowned them,’ Chang finger-combed his hair yet again in exasperation.
The two cops were in the Columbus Avenue office. Zeb’s involvement in the rescue was covered up. The NYPD took the credit. Witnesses had alerted them to the kidnapping, a smart cop had spotted the getaway vehicle and the cops had arrived just in time.
The story suited Zeb. Limelight wasn’t his thing.
They’re deep black operatives? Meghan looked at Zeb for confirmation, on hearing Chang’s comment. He sensed her thought and nodded imperceptibly.
Employed by whom? Someone doesn’t want John Doe to be found. John Doe wants us to find him, however.
She didn’t find any answers. Neither did anyone else.
Werner came back with more details on Dividing Zero after going through the most covert databases in the country.
It confirmed what the general had said; none of Mayo and Kane’s clients had been involved with Dividing Zero.
Werner couldn’t find whose records the program had erased.
‘That was the point, wasn’t it?’ Beth winced as she moved gingerly in her seat.
‘You should be resting.’
‘We should be hunting,’ Beth flared at her sister. ‘General Klouse get back with any names?’
The general had promised to dig out who Dividing Zero’s operatives had been.
‘Nope.’
‘I wouldn’t hold my breath,’ Zeb called out from his couch. ‘The military has a habit of closing ranks. Even the general may not get far.’
Beth swore softly. ‘Where does that leave us?’
A hand shot up. Roger. ‘I know y’all have more brains than me…’ he ducked the paper ball that came his way. ‘But, maybe, we should talk to Stoll?’
They were in Hazelton, in the fede
ral prison, in the afternoon, in an interview room with Russell Stoll.
Clare had made calls, turned on the juice and had arranged the interview. The visitors wanted to know about Dividing Zero, the prisoner was told.
Stoll agreed readily.
‘No one mentioned the program to me. Not once in all these years. Not a single person.’ Stoll’s gray prison wear hung loosely around him. His face was pale, he was short, and he was contemptuous.
‘They got me for embezzlement. They showed some discrepancy in my company’s accounts, which I explained.’
‘No one listened though. They wanted me put away. For Dividing Zero.’
He warmed up, knowing he had a captive audience in the twins and Zeb.
‘The military was scared. So were the politicians. They were interested in their own asses. I devised a brilliant program for them. Ran a pilot. And what did they do? They canned it. And imprisoned me.’
‘All these terrorists who capture our soldiers…if my program had been alive, those captives would have no identity. The terrorists would lose their advantage.’
He slammed his hand on the table separating them. Spittle flew from his mouth. ‘Did anyone listen to me? No one.’
He laughed. A short bark that echoed in the small room.
‘Who were the program’s operatives?’ Meghan rushed in when Stoll fell silent for a moment.
He didn’t answer her. ‘The pilot was for five operatives. Only five. We erased their identities. Two went to Afghanistan. One to Africa. One in Europe. One was right here.’
Meghan bit back a sigh. ‘Who were they? Where are they now?’
‘They did their jobs. Returned. Missions successful. And then the military pulled the plug.’
‘Who were they, sir?’ Maybe some politeness will help.
It didn’t.
She pushed John Doe’s photograph across the table, towards him. ‘Is this one of the operatives?’
Stoll looked at it and frowned. ‘Could be. The guys looked similar. Average. These dudes look the same.’