by Ty Patterson
‘It was Stoll’s mention of civilian usage that got me thinking,’ Meghan began slowly.
‘He didn’t say the program was used on civilians.’
‘I know. You want to listen?’
Beth zipped her mouth, settled back, and listened.
‘Stoll’s comment reminded me of a Mayo and Kane case,’ Meghan continued. ‘You remember, the one where they settled on behalf of some firm’s employees.’
Beth jerked forward as if a live current had passed through her. ‘Dividing Zero was involved in that? How—’
She pursed her lips when Meghan raised a warning hand and leaned back again.
‘No, the program had no connection. However, Stoll’s remark and the case got me wondering. What if Dividing Zero had been used by civilians?’
Meghan smiled when Beth’s mouth rounded in an ‘O.’
‘I got Werner to look at incidents in Toccoa and Connersville. Any incident, going back ten years. Deaths. Disappearances. Anything.’
‘Werner came back with two events. A man disappearing mysteriously in Toccoa. Another one who was never seen again, in Connersville.’
‘Both occurrences in the same year, seven years back. Both worked for defense contractors in California.’
‘Here’s the funny thing. Both were whistleblowers. Both had complained to friends about malpractices at their places of employment. They were planning to report to the Department of Defense’s Whistleblower program.’
‘Same employers?’ Beth asked.
‘No.’ Meghan mentioned two well-known names.
‘Whistleblowers disappearing…that would open a can of worms, wouldn’t it?’
‘The local PDs investigated. They’re still open cases. The defense contractors were investigated. They came out clean. The stories died out.’
‘What kind of malpractices?’
‘No details on that.’
Beth pondered for a moment and then shook her head. ‘I don’t get it. So what if they disappeared? Dividing Zero didn’t make them disappear. The program rubbed out their existence.’
Meghan’s smile eclipsed the sunshine. ‘Both men had told friends they weren’t alone. There were a bunch of folks. They were planning to write a joint letter to the Pentagon.’
Her smile grew broader when Beth continued to look puzzled.
‘There’s an image on the internet. Someone took a photograph of a news article that mentioned the two missing men. There’s a reference to a group of whistleblowers.’
‘One name is mentioned in that news report. Billy Bob Feitz. From Courtville.’
She showed the image to Beth who studied it in silence.
Meghan took a breath. ‘Billy Bob Feitz doesn’t exist.’
She broke it down for her sister.
‘Someone came to know of Dividing Zero. That someone thought, wouldn’t it be great if these pesky whistleblowers disappeared?’
‘Toccoa and Connersville didn’t go perfectly for them. They were just disappearances, not erasures. Courtville was smooth.’
‘John Doe found out about the cleanups. Maybe he arranged them and was blackmailing Mr. Mastermind.’
‘Mr. M didn’t like that. He arranged for John Doe to disappear,’ Beth chimed in excitedly.
‘Yeah, and possibly John Doe got wind of it, grabbed Maddie and disappeared, himself.’
They fell silent, each one of them worrying at it, trying to find holes in Meghan’s theory, trying to find other explanations.
‘Why would John Doe contact us?’ Beth chewed her lip, a frown marring her face.
‘He wants us to look into the program.’
‘Why wouldn’t he go to the cops?’
‘He was threatened. Amy Kittrell and Maddie’s lives were at risk. The cops didn’t get anywhere in Toccoa and Connersville.’
‘Is Kittrell the mastermind?’
‘I can’t see how he could be. He is too visible; he would be the first one suspected if the program was discovered.’
Beth pondered for a moment and brought up another name. ‘What about Chuck Keyser?’
‘Nope,’ Meghan replied. ‘I looked up his profile. He doesn’t have the smarts.’
‘He could be involved.’
‘Possible,’ Meghan conceded.
‘Are we in danger?’
‘No,’ Meghan was definitive. ‘This is fact finding for him. He’ll want to know how much we know.’
‘Is Mayo and Kane involved?’ Beth didn’t give up on her line of inquiry. She was emotional and impulsive. She was also relentless when she got hold of a lead.
‘Nope. Werner ran probability algos. Came with very a low possibility.’
‘You know who Mr. M is?’
‘I hope Keyser does,’ Meghan confessed.
‘What about John Doe?’
‘Sis, I thought you would have figured that out by now. He’s –’
The pilot announced they were landing and Meghan took the opportunity to stay silent and let Beth figure out John Doe’s identity for herself.
Courtville’s station was a flat single-story structure when they drove up from Southern Illinois Airport. The station had a large parking yard at the front, a ticket office, waiting area, and not much else.
In front of the station was a road that went into the city. Beyond it were thick woods, and behind the station were the tracks.
The yard had three other vehicles when they rode in; no people were present.
The twins waited for a moment. No person stepped out from the vehicles or from the station, to meet them.
They went inside the station, to the waiting area. It was empty. The agent in the ticket office looked up hopefully when they approached him, and mouthed something they couldn’t hear.
Beth shook her head at him. They weren’t there to travel.
Keyser was waiting for them when they emerged from the station.
Chuck Keyser’s hair was cut close and his face was deeply creased. His body, however, could have passed for a much younger man’s.
There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, as he waited in the parking lot, his feet spread, a brown coat flapping against his legs.
A gray shirt tucked into faded blue jeans and a wide leather belt, completed his outfit.
He removed his shades when they got closer. He looked at one and then the other twin.
‘Meghan Petersen?’
‘That’s me.’ She shook his hand and introduced Beth.
‘Why Courtville, sir?’ Beth asked him.
If Keyser was startled by her abrupt question, he didn’t show it. His flat, black eyes studied her before he replied.
‘Josh Kittrell, the dead man, will show up here,’ he replied in a gravelly voice, ‘if you stay long enough.’
Meghan closed her eyes briefly and clamped down on the surge of triumph deep inside.
I was right! That was the only explanation for the goings on. She glanced at her sister and smiled at the expression on her face. She’s figured it out too.
‘You don’t look surprised,’ Keyser continued. ‘How much have you put together?’
Meghan told him while studying the man in front of her.
How’s he involved?
‘Did you have those men killed? Make Feitz disappear?’
A muscle twitched on Keyser’s face. He didn’t become angry. His black eyes remained flat.
‘No, ma’am. But what Josh and I did, led to their deaths. And to Feitz’s cleanup.’
‘What did you do?’
‘We looked the other way, ma’am.’
Keyser headed the liaison unit when Josh Kittrell joined his team in Baybush. After a few years, their role soon turned to managing potential whistleblowers in the defense industry.
Negotiating with them. Threatening them, sometimes.
Keyser broke off and looked around the yard. Nothing moved other than his coat, which slapped his legs.
Josh and he were asked to go hard on the Toccoa man. They did. The man
didn’t budge from his position. He was determined to spill. He would go public with the insider information he had.
He had evidence of bribes to senior politicians made by his employer. Weapons trials in countries where innocents had died. Coverups of those incidents.
Keyser and Kittrell were asked to back off when the Toccoa man remained resolute. Matters would be dealt with, differently.
‘He disappeared. We knew he had been killed, though his body was never found. The Connersville man suffered a similar fate.’
‘Feitz was different.’ The words flowed out of Keyser as if a dam had burst. ‘He was a loner. One of those people who don’t get along with others.’
‘We were told about Dividing Zero. He was a natural for it. We were given a software program and access to federal and state databases. Asked to execute the program.’
‘We refused.’
A man came out of the station and looked at them. The ticket agent. He watched them for a moment and disappeared inside.
‘We were threatened. Our families were threatened. We were told we would disappear like the three men.’
‘I retired.’ His smile had no humor. ‘I am sorta attached to this life. My kids deserve to live theirs, fully.’
‘They let me live. I guess it was easier to control me, when alive.’
‘Kittrell kept his head down and continued working, though no longer on such cases. He got transferred to New York and I lost track of him. Until I got a call.’
‘I was to say he was dead. To whoever inquired about him.’
‘What happened with him?’ Meghan prompted him when he fell silent.
‘Kittrell was hot tempered. Had outbursts of rage. Couldn’t control them.’
‘I think he threatened the unit during one of those red-mist moments. They probably retaliated. You know the rest.’
‘What about his identity?’ Beth asked, fascinated by the emotionless recital.
‘Dividing Zero happened,’ Keyser replied baldly.
‘So all along, Mayo and Kane have been involved,’ Meghan removed her shades, wiped a speck of dust from the lenses, polished them, and donned them again.
The sun was hot, beating down on them mercilessly, as if it too wanted to hush up the program.
‘Mayo and Kane?’ Keyser looked at her in surprise. ‘Nope. They knew nothing. We worked there, but we were in effect a rogue unit.’
‘We took orders from –’
His head exploded in a spray of blood and tissue.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Meghan flung herself at Beth without conscious thought. She rose, pulled her sister upright, and they ran.
Toward the concrete road. Beyond which woods beckoned. Thick and inviting.
Sanctuary.
She turned her head once and saw men. Four or five of them. In suits. Carrying weapons.
Rounds flew in the air. Thudded in the ground as they ran. Threw up dirt and gravel.
‘No danger, you said,’ Beth screamed.
‘I was wrong,’ Meghan yelled back.
‘Do you have a plan?’
‘No.’
‘I’m going to die here?’ Beth shouted, anger overcoming her fear.
‘I’ll die with you.’
‘You’d better,’ Beth swore hotly.
Meghan upped her pace, ducked and weaved, ignored the angry whining of bullets in the air. She heard Beth panting behind her, matching her stride for stride.
Across the road. Down a small incline which gave them some cover.
She took a second to stop and peer back.
Five men. Running as hard, giving them chase. One of them spotted the sisters and pointed.
The ticket agent. He was one of them. Or warned them. Whoever they are.
Meghan turned around and ran to the woods, Beth following.
Thoughts whirled in her mind. One stood out. If Keyser was killed who stood to gain?
Gravel turned to grass. The first plants appeared.
They became man-sized vegetation.
Trees. Thick and close, blocking sunlight. Turning day to dimness.
Branches swatted their faces, slowed their response.
A stout one slapped her face and when she pushed it away, all the pieces fell in place.
Who else could it be?
She turned and twisted, finding trails to go deeper, away from the pursuers.
She knew who and why now. Not all the details. They could wait, if she and Beth survived. Escape came first.
She slowed her breathing. Tried to hear above the beating of her heart.
She heard shouting. Pounding in the distance.
She paused under the cover of a tree thicker than the two of them put together.
Glanced back. Saw her sister’s white face. Scared eyes.
Cursed herself.
I was overconfident. I should have known it was a trap.
Beth straightened when the voices came closer. Took the lead and headed off.
There was no particular direction in which they were heading.
Away from the gunmen. Deeper. That was all that mattered.
Meghan followed her.
We didn’t even bring our handguns. The GPS tags on us probably won’t work. Poor signal.
She cleared her mind. Zeb had taught them to focus on the now and the immediate, in times of combat. Negativity was to be discarded.
Beth picked up speed when the woods thinned out, the trees spaced out.
Meghan followed.
Trying to breathe lightly. Trying to keep their jackets from brushing against foliage.
Beth stopped suddenly.
Meghan rammed into her. The two stumbled.
She bit back an oath and recovered. Looked angrily at Beth.
Why did you stop?
The words died in her throat when she saw why.
Four men were ranged in front of them.
Fifteen feet away.
Holding guns. Assault rifles. Confidently, the way experienced shooters did.
Their eyes and faces were expressionless. Some of them were in suits while others were in combat fatigues.
She looked behind as the sounds of running came closer.
The five pursuers crashed through the woods and halted behind them.
Gunmen at the front. Shooters behind.
It ends here. Maddie will never be found.
‘You’re right,’ a voice read her mind.
Her eyes widened. She didn’t expect him to be here. Beth made a small sound.
They knew that voice.
She schooled her face and marshalled her thoughts.
A man stepped forward from the four men.
He was dressed in camouflage trousers and a black T-shirt. The handgun in his hand was held loosely. Confidently.
He looked at ease and in command.
He had looked at ease and in command when they had met him first.
Josh Kittrell, the lawyer, smiled at the shock on Beth’s face.
‘I am sorry, Ms. Petersen. It does end here.’ His voice wasn’t regretful.
His eyes rested on Meghan. ‘You don’t look surprised.’
‘I figured it out.’
The lawyer looked at two men. They stepped forward and frisked the twins thoroughly. They grabbed their jackets and ripped them from their bodies.
‘Remove your shoes,’ Kittrell ordered. ‘We know you have sensors in them.’
‘Like hell we will,’ Beth shouted.
Another man stepped forward. A knife appeared in his hand. He thrust it at her left shoulder. Where another blade had pierced, previously.
‘Do it,’ Meghan urged and slipped off her sneakers and threw them at a gunman. He caught them easily, pierced a blade in the heels and removed the GPS tags.
He crushed them and destroyed the ones in Beth’s shoes.
‘We aren’t alone,’ Beth spat.
‘But you are,’ Kittrell laughed. ‘We have been watching you since New York.’
‘We have friends. They will be coming soon.’
‘No they won’t.’ His voice was bored. ‘They will come at some point. They will find your bodies.’
The lawyer’s eyes remained on Meghan’s face. ‘How did you figure it out?’
Tell him. Anything to buy time. Anything to delay the inevitable.
She told him about the interview with Stoll. Ignored his, we should have killed him long back comment and mentioned the disappearances.
She took her time, scanning discreetly for any escape routes.
There were none. Shooters surrounded them. They were alert, vigilant, not paying attention to Meghan’s recital.
Kittrell’s brow creased when she brought up the news article. ‘We should have gone after that server.’
He shook his head. ‘I thought removing it would be too noticeable. That picture was taken by some whistleblower.’
‘He’s no trouble now,’ he concluded in satisfaction.
‘Why?’ Beth burst out, unable to contain herself any longer. She had her arms crossed across her body protectively, yet her eyes blazed, her face was fierce.
Kittrell looked genuinely surprised. ‘Money. Lots of it. Why else?’
‘I got the idea when a contractor approached me.’
‘They had a problem employee. They knew I was a good negotiator. I solved that problem.’ He spoke without prompting, relishing the captive audience he had.
‘The client was happy. Mayo and Kane got a bonus; they were happy. I wasn’t. That bonus should have been mine.’
‘A four-star general had mentioned Dividing Zero when he was drunk. I was entertaining him.’
‘I did some very discreet digging. Understood the program. Realized I could use it for myself.’
‘You stole Stoll’s program?’ Beth asked incredulously.
‘Nope. The software wasn’t important. I got other folks to write it. The genius of the program lay in its concept.’
He grinned expansively. ‘I went freelance. I got access to all the databases. You’ll be surprised at how many doors, the right sums of money will open.’
‘I had access to defense contractors. To generals. I could make their problems go away.’
‘Initially it was just negotiation. Then I amped the pressure. Made one dude disappear. Killed him, really.’