by Lee Perry
“Yes, but he believes nothing can compare to standing in the middle of a crime scene…” she suppressed a yawn, “and I get it, but Jeffers is thorough, he stripped the hard drives here like he did in Winthrop, and neither you or Bea were able to recover any data from them, right?”
“Unfortunately.”
“We know his method…” Jordan gestured helplessly as she wandered in slow circles in the large room, “get in, kill, steal and leave.” She craned her neck, groaning inwardly at the stiffness, “You’re getting up at six?”
“As always…”
“Well then get to sleep you,” she checked her watch, “it’s after one and way past your bedtime…”
She heard the smile in Catherine’s voice, “Yes ma’am…”
“Good, then will you call me when you get up? My return flight’s at five-thirty.”
“But it’ll only be three o’clock there when I call you.”
“Right, I’m hoping for at least three hours sleep before I drive back to the airport.”
“Jordan,” the humor left Catherine’s voice, “you’re going to take a nap in the house where Jeffers killed someone?”
“Don’t worry,” she assured her, “I’m safe here, I promise. I’m locked in and there’s a sheriff’s deputy standing guard out front. Trust me, Jeffers got what he wanted, he’s not ever coming back here again.”
“Okay,” Catherine sounded mollified, at least for the moment, “I can’t wait for you to get back.”
“Me too, I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Now go to sleep.”
“I promise,” Catherine chuckled, “good night.”
New York City, NY
Her body lay heavy and still in the bed; apart from the slow rhythmic breaths that made her chest rise and fall, muscle activity was absent. Deeply asleep, her brain produced delta waves at only three cycles per second, and having fallen asleep only ninety-eight minutes before, Catherine began the transition from the fourth stage of sleep to the rapid eye movement of the fifth, the REM stage. As her heart rate and breathing slowly increased, her blood pressure began to rise and her brain activity increased, cycling at nine cycles of oscillating electrical voltages per second, producing alpha waves at the same speed and fluctuation as when she was awake. Her eyes began moving beneath closed lids as she began to dream, and in spite of the release of paralyzing glycine from her brain stem, a soft smile touched her lips and crinkled the skin at the corners of her eyes. She lay curled in a warm ball under the covers on Jordan’s side of the bed, and images of the tall brunette began flickering in her mind’s eye. The alpha wave activity increased to thirteen cycles per second, the high end of normal, and her fingers gripped the pillow, pulling it further under her chin as the image of Jordan became clearer, more colorful, more present, and as Catherine sank further into the image, her brain began to cycle at sixteen, then seventeen, then eighteen cycles per second:
Jordan shuffled tiredly from room to room, pausing to touch and investigate each item; she opened the medicine cabinet and all the drawers, peered into the shower stall and opened the doors of the linen closet. She walked in slow motion and Catherine hurried to catch up, looking up into smiling oceanic blue when she took her hand. They walked through the house together, and when Jordan lay on the snow-white couch, she smiled when Jordan pulled her down and into her arms. A soft, inaudible sigh of utter contentment escaped her parted lips and when she closed her dream eyes, she suddenly found herself standing on a wide wooden deck. She stood between a ping pong table to her left and Jordan stood at her right. When she opened her mouth to speak, she suddenly found herself standing next to Warren Jeffers. She saw him in profile as he stood looking at the ocean view in boxer shorts and dirty white socks. Catherine backed away in fear and bumped into the ping pong table behind her, and when she turned her head to look at it…
She woke with a start, gasping as she sat bold upright. Fumbling to turn on the lamp next to the bed, her fingers shook as she frantically grabbed the phone and called Jordan. It rang twice before she answered,
“Hullo?”
Catherine held the phone to her ear with one hand and gripped her hair with the other in an effort to calm herself, “Jordan? Jordan it’s me…”
“Oh, hi,” Jordan mumbled then cleared her throat, “thanks for the wakeup call…”
Catherine checked the time on her cell phone, five thirty-one, and cringed, “Oh Jordan, I’m sorry, I called you too early… I’m sorry, I had a bad dream and I…”
Jordan suddenly sounded wide-awake, “Are you alright?”
“Yes,” she said, now feeling both relieved and foolish, “I’m fine, it started out very nice… you were in it. We were walking through that house you’re in, I guess. But when we went outside onto a big wooden deck I was suddenly standing next to Jeffers and when I got scared and bumped into the ping pong table I woke up and called you,” She squeezed her eyes closed, grimacing, “half an hour early… I’m so sorry.”
“But are you okay now?”
“Yes, Jordan, I’m fine, I promise, I’m just so sorry I didn’t wait till six to call you.”
“No…” She thought she could hear Jordan struggle to sit up, “no, that’s okay, I’d rather you call me, I’m just sorry I’m not there in bed with you right now.”
Catherine snorted, “Me too.”
“I like it when we wake up early; it always means we have time to start the day off right.”
“You mean we have time for sex.”
“Yah,” Jordan said drolly, “that.”
She snickered, “Now I really can’t wait for you to get home.”
“Me too.” Jordan again concurred, “I should be there in another… uh, seven or eight hours or something.”
“Try nine or ten.”
“Shit,” she muttered, “I need caffeine.”
Catherine’s brow furrowed, “Now listen, Agent Hawkins, I need you to wake up and be alert when you get behind the wheel, okay?” She tried to sound stern and her brow furrowed worriedly even though Jordan chuckled,
“I promise you, I am going to splash cold water on my face right now, and I’ll call you when I get to the airport, how’s that?”
“Acceptable.”
“Good, then I’ll talk to you in a while.”
“Can you use your Bluetooth and call me from the car?”
“Okay… I love you, Doctor Bernard.”
“I love you too, Agent Hawkins.”
La Jolla, CA
Jordan emitted a jaw-popping yawn, Oh sweet Jesus… She stood and stretched, raising her arms overhead, yawning again as she did so. When she brought her hands back down she gazed sleepily at her phone, Two thirty-three. I hope my phone charger works in the rental… She headed for the bathroom and after relieving herself, washed her hands in Mister Zegher’s sink and true to her word, splashed cold water on her face. I’ll stop at the all night quickie mart I passed and get some coffee… her stomach suddenly growled, and something to eat.
Thinking about Catherine’s latest nightmare, when she left the bathroom she headed for the kitchen again and stood before the bank of wide windows, gleaming blackly in the night. Hands on her hips, she gazed around the still brilliantly lit kitchen until she spied a long bank of light switches. Some were already on, “Those have to be for in here so these…” She began flicking on the other switches, and as the area outside the tall glass windows became fully illuminated Jordan’s mouth dropped open in shock and surprise when she saw the ping pong table sitting in the middle of a wide wooden deck,
“Well, son of a bitch.”
New York City, NY
She got in the car and promptly leaned over to kiss Catherine on the lips, “Hello… where’s Cam?”
Catherine’s eyes closed in bliss at the feel of Jordan’s lips on hers and when they parted she hummed, “Mmm-still in daycare, trips to the bathroom are much more easily accomplished there compared to here at the airport.”
They jumped suddenly at the sharp rapping on the windshield and an airport police officer yelled at them, “Move it! Now!”
Jordan gave him a look and when she flipped open her badge wallet and ID the officer waved his hand impatiently and moved on to the next curbside parked vehicle. She looked back at Catherine, “I have to admit I love being able to do that.”
Catherine burst out laughing and clicking on the turn signal, merged into traffic. “I love it too.” She stole a quick look at her, “You look exhausted…”
“I did sleep on the plane.”
“I don’t think that counts.”
“Oh, I’m wide awake, I’m anxious to get your watcher program online.”
“Well, in that case…” Catherine brought the minivan to a stop at a red light and reaching behind Jordan’s seat, pulled out a new tablet, “ta-dah!”
“Wow!” She took the tablet, her eyes opening wide, “It’s ready already?”
Catherine chuckled, “It is, I ran the software through some diagnostic programs I wrote some time ago, at this point I consider this device untraceable.”
She powered it on, “Even to Warren Jeffers?”
“Especially to him.” The light turned green and Catherine pulled the van onto the onramp, “I used some of his code to make sure he just chases his own tail when he gets our messages on his accounts.” She threw Jordan a concerned look, “But just so we’re clear; this tablet is fresh from the box and the only non-factory thing it has on it is our Screw with Jeffers program… you cannot use it for anything else, not email, texts, notes, nothing.”
“I totally understand.” Jordan grinned and regarded the new device, “It’ll be weird carrying two tablets around, but it is a completely different brand,” she regarded it thoughtfully, “and it feels and looks different too… so I won’t confuse them by feel, thank you.”
“I cleared the screen of all but that one icon…”
Jordan’s brows arched in surprise but she still chuckled, “And of course it’s the Silver Shirts logo…”
“Well, the Silver Legion of America’s logo.”
“Rockwell Extra Bold font?”
“Of course.”
“Can I open it?”
“Sure.”
Jordan tapped her fingertip on the large scarlet red letterL encapsulated in a silver-gray box and waited for it to open.
“The interface is simple enough; I labeled each of the fields so the function of each is readily apparent…”
Jordan caught the name at the top of the page and laughed, “You did! You named the program Screwing with Jeffers!”
Catherine’s grin was impish, “Thought you’d enjoy that.”
“Very nice…” Jordan pointed at each field, “This indicates the account Jeffers’s accesses, date, time, transaction type, what was done and… location?”
“Yeah, I don’t think we’ll have any luck with that one though.”
“And I can send a message to Jeffers’s account in real time; maybe establish a dialogue with him…”
“Yes, see the list?”
“Oh, I love them...” she chuckled, “You programmed the messages to pop up when he accesses the accounts…”
“Is that okay?”
“I should think so.” Jordan beamed, “can he reply?”
“He will clearly see that he can, yes. If he replies, the program will chime and his response will appear in the account box.”
Her eyes flicked to the top of the screen, “Got it.” She sighed, feeling suddenly tired, “You know, this would all be so much simpler if these Caribbean governments didn’t protect criminals and their billions.”
“I gather helping us is not nearly as profitable.”
“Yeah…” she sighed again, suppressing a yawn.
“Ready to send it to the Bahamas?”
“I can do that from this tablet right now?”
“Absolutely.”
“And how do I…” Jordan’s forefinger wandered over the screen, “Oh, don’t tell me, let me guess; I tap the button at the bottom that says, Initiate Program.”
“Yes ma’am, touch that button once, then touch again to confirm your choice and the program will launch into cyberspace and infect all of Grace Goodale’s offshore accounts.”
Jordan tapped the button and it transformed into another button that read, Are you sure? She touched the yes button that appeared and it transformed into a dialog box that read, your program has been activated. “So this will just stay on now?”
“You can turn the tablet off, of course, but this software package is now headed for his accounts like a digital heat-seeking missile. If it encounters some kind of problem, another window will pop on the screen...” Catherine gave her a look, “but it won’t.”
Jordan’s huge smile faded a bit, “Okay, next bit of business; your dream…”
“Oh yeah,” keeping her eyes on the road, Catherine lifted a shoulder in a shrug, “It was spooky, but still unhelpful to say the least.”
“Well,” Jordan looked out the passenger window, “going all the way to a processed murder scene in California produced nothing useful that I could see…” She looked back at the fair profile, “But you clearly saw the wooden deck, and the ping pong table.”
“And Jeffers standing there in his socks and shorts…” Catherine glanced at her, “I saw that but what good is it?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, “but I think it’s time we acknowledge something pretty deep is going on here.”
Catherine sounded stubborn, “I am not… not going to stop working this case with you.”
Jordan chuckled and gave the slender arm a soft reassuring squeeze, “I know, I meant maybe we should ask Lianna for some more help in understanding this.”
Her brows arched in surprise, “Oh, like maybe she could help me develop it into a skill?”
Jordan frowned, “Uh, no… I was thinking more of having her help you understand what’s going on so it doesn’t scare you so much and…”
“But that implies development.”
“I…” Jordan sighed, “I want to make sure you understand what that means first.”
Catherine opened her mouth to reply then abruptly clamped her jaw shut. “Oh,” she said slowly, “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“That’s okay,” she stroked the arm, “that’s why you have me.”
The smile Catherine flashed her was brilliant, “And that’s just one of the many, many reasons why I love you.”
La Jolla, CA
He briefly stretched his interlaced fingers, palm-out over the keyboard before unlocking it. His smile was cheerful as he waited the few seconds it took for the expensive computer to boot up, It’s a beautiful day, and it’s time to move some cash around and check on my little digital darlings. His fingers flew over the keyboard as he accessed one of his offshore accounts. He quickly filled in the form data and rapidly typed in his fifty-two character password: dedicated_to_those_whose_downfall_is_destined_by_god.
He breathed in through his nose and exhaled, contented as his gaze drifted to the expansive window and ocean view beyond. When he heard the soft beep of completion, he looked back at the screen and frowned. Expecting only to see his current balance and account activity, his expression became increasingly bemused as he stared at the small glowing dialog box in the center of his screen,
“I can see you.”
His brow furrowed in honest confusion for long seconds before full understanding began to form, “Oh my god…” he breathed, feeling his heart begin to pound fearfully in his chest. “Oh my…” His hands flew to the keyboard and froze, hovering over it, Wait… don’t touch anything… Just calm down… Sweat began to bead on his upper lip and his hands and fingers trembled where he held them in midair. Ice-cold dread and fear filled him and he distantly felt his genitals shrivel, retreating into his body, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN CALM DOWN? YOU’VE FUCKING BEEN HACKED! He gripped the mouse and quickly closed the account befor
e clicking open another,
“I can still see you.”
A small whimper escaped his tightly clamped lips and he closed that account and opened the next,
“Yep, I can see you in here too.”
“NO!” He shouted. He shot up from his chair, sending it and himself reeling backward until he tripped over the swivel base and fell heavily to the floor, “NO NO NO NO!”
PART 3
Sabotage
New York City, NY
“Life isn’t complicated enough…” Lianna pointed to the two tablets Jordan held in her lap, “now you need two?”
“That’s certainly how it looks… but no, this tablet,” Jordan briefly held it aloft, “contains the secret weapon we’re using to catch our Nazi serial killer; software program courtesy of the brilliant Doctor Bernard.”
Catherine nodded until she heard the word brilliant then shook her head, rolling her eyes, “Well, thank you, but I’d hold off on the brilliant part until we see if one, Jeffers takes the bait and two, if his security protocols are shoddy enough we can get a location on him.”
Lianna’s brow arched high, “You could find him?”
“Well, yes we could but we probably won’t.” Catherine shook her head, “His code, as written, or pirated or whatever is quite sophisticated or he wouldn’t have gotten this far. I’d be shocked if he let his IP address slip.”
“And has he nibbled?”
“We got a notification while we were in the elevator; he accessed three of his accounts and got three of our messages.” Jordan went on to describe the pop up messages adding, “But he hasn’t replied to any of them... yet.” She quickly filled her in on their case, including Catherine’s oddly accurate dream/nightmare, “To cut to the bottom line, Li,” she shifted in the chair, “I think what she’s experiencing are psychic events in her dream state…” She shrugged, “and I don’t even know if that’s an accurate way of describing it, other than to add it’s happened more than once now. What she’s seeing in her dreams is accurate, and there’s just no way she could have known the specific details in advance.”