Silver Shirts

by Lee Perry

  “I will never understand that shit.” Johnson muttered.

  “Shut it.” Patton ordered and the man fell silent.

  “Patton and Holden will hide in my car and when I am reasonably sure Dempsey is alone, he has indicated his wife is currently in Europe, I will then text for them to come in and you,” he pointed at Johnson and Parker, “will be a few minutes behind us. You can then drive in and join them at that point, understood?”

  “Yes.” The four nodded and Jeffers continued,

  “Good. I’m going to make this my last bank stop, after my program is fully online and this country becomes mine, we will simply take what we need and want.” He pointed at the laptop, “And that includes nice places like this to live in, is that clear?”

  Patton and the others saluted in unison, “Ja, Herr Schmidt.”

  New York City, NY

  Catherine looked over her shoulder where Cameron sat on the couch, surrounded by his toy cars while he watched a video on TV. “I told you he’d be fine here,” she brought the food containers from their dinner into the kitchen area, “as long as he has his toys and us.” she wrapped her arms around Jordan who washed dishes in the sink, “He’ll be fine.”

  “I know…” Jordan’s smile was strained and Catherine cautiously withdrew.

  “That’s why I keep these with me...” she said, pulling the orange pill container from her jean’s pocket.

  Jordan sighed, rinsing and drying her hands, “I can’t believe I actually feel worse today.”

  Catherine snorted, “I can.” She handed her a single pill and when she took it from her, she caught the hand, “Jordan,” she pleaded in a low voice, “You were shot with a high powered rifle and it…”

  “And it missed.”

  “Barely.”

  Jordan stopped her by kissing her soundly and Catherine felt herself melt into the embrace. When their lips finally parted she whispered, “That’s not going to work every time, you know.”

  “I’m just stiff and the stitches are sore and already beginning to itch.” She gave the hand she still held a squeeze, “That’s all.”

  “Okay.” Catherine got her a glass of water, watching as she downed the pill. “I’m glad Lianna was able to see us this morning...” She took over washing dishes in the sink, “Although I guess it helped to just barge in on her.” She snorted, remembering the look of surprise on her face when Jordan knocked smartly on her door.

  “It’s not like I know this stuff either,” Jordan handed her the glass for washing and got a towel to begin drying the washed dishes. “I just didn’t want you to blame yourself for something he did.”

  “I know… I had no idea there was a difference between precognition and astral projection…” She stopped, her hands in the water, “Although Astral Projection sounds really out there.”

  Jordan laughed, “Yeah, out there.”

  Catherine grinned, relaxing a little, “Well it does, and I think it might be time for me to let Lianna try a guided session with her so we can see what else I can do.”

  Jordan put away the last of the plates and nodded, “Okay, but can I be there when she does that?”

  Catherine looked surprised, “Of course…. If I just had the ability to see it in advance…”

  Jordan turned her from the sink and planted another kiss on her lips. Catherine’s eyes fluttered closed as their tongues swirled and caressed one another and her smile was feral when they parted.

  “Catherine, all by yourself you’re the brains of this outfit, psychic abilities or not. But it’s my job to find the workstation he’s using and plug in your drive so you can shut him down. And I have to find him soon… I mean,” she grinned, “Thanksgiving is coming, and we have to get our Christmas tree.”

  The two men were heavily armed, they wore latex gloves and carried a body between them, “Hurry up,” said the man in the rear, “I got dibs on his watch and wallet.”

  “Fuck you,” said the other, “We split the wallet or I tell Patton.”

  She had plastered herself against the wall as they passed and she was amazed they took no notice of her.

  As they disappeared around a corner the man in front said, “We have time to check his bedroom, right?”

  She walked down the hallway in the opposite direction, stopping abruptly when she heard more voices,

  “This may take a while.”

  “And how long is that?”

  “Forty minutes, is that a problem?”

  She peeked around the corner and saw Jeffers sitting at a computer. A heavily armed, large muscular man stood to one side, facing him,

  “No, we swept this place, it’s gigantic, but there’s no one else here, I guess visitors dropping in this late isn’t likely but Parker’s keeping watch.”

  “Excellent,” said Jeffers, “go help him, we’ll leave as soon as I finish.”

  The large man turned and walked right past her and she again cowered against the wall when he passed…

  “Ah!” Catherine sat bolt upright in bed and fumbled for the lamp on the nightstand.

  Jordan sat up and cried out when her neck and shoulder objected, “Catherine?”

  “I’m okay…” she panted, “alright, I’m okay…” She turned to her, “Are you okay?”

  Jordan snorted and chuckled in spite of her throbbing neck and shoulder, “Yes.”

  “I had a dream, Jordan,” she shook her arm excitedly; “I saw Jeffers!”

  The smile faded from her lips, “Oh god.”

  “He was with uh…” She closed her eyes in concentration, “wait, one, two… three other men, the one big guy referred to a fourth…” the excited smile faded, “They killed someone.” Her eyes clouded, “I first saw two men carrying a body… they talked about taking his watch and wallet and other stuff from his bedroom then I saw Jeffers sitting at a computer and he said he’d be forty minutes and the big guy should go help… Parker keep watch.”

  “Jesus,” Jordan whispered, “you saw a dead body?”

  “Yeah, it was like when you see a movie but I was in the movie.”

  Jordan gripped her shoulder and squeezed the spasming muscles, “Okay… so maybe that wasn’t too… traumatic.”

  “It wasn’t gross… I absolutely felt like I was there, I was only scared when I thought they could see me…” She got of bed, smiling again, “But they couldn’t.”

  “Because you were projecting, uh astrally? Hey, where’re you going?”

  “I have to pee…” Catherine disappeared into the bathroom. “If I just could have realized they couldn’t see me maybe I could have seen more.” She spoke while she relieved herself, “Jeffers wasn’t armed but the three men I saw were heavily armed, Jordan; they had semiautomatics on their hips, and they also had shoulder holsters.”

  “You saw and remembered all that?” Jordan heard the toilet flush and could see Catherine when she stood at the sink, washing her hands.

  “Yes, it sure was a nice place.” She returned to the bed, holding a glass of water and another pill. “Could any of it be helpful?”

  Jordan sat up stiffly, “I’m sure it will be.”

  Center Island, NY

  “Alright, my Silver Shirts,” Jeffers stood with his hands on his hips, facing the four standing in a line before him, “I’ve finished what I came here to do.” He felt gleeful but schooled himself to an authoritative tone, “I know you had concerns about his security cameras but I’ve disabled them and scrubbed every hard drive so we will leave now.” He checked his watch, “We’ll retrieve the other vehicles and head to our beta site for some rest so we can prepare for the final assault, is that clear?”

  “Ya, Herr Schmidt.” they intoned, executing flawless Nazi salutes.

  Jordan nodded to the officer posted at the door and once she stepped inside she stopped to regard the granite and marble entryway, “Wow, she wasn’t kidding, this really is a nice place.”

  Arnold Dempsey, victim number seven, had purchased his palatial home as soon a
s he cashed in on the subprime market debacle in 2008 to the tune of sixty-five billion dollars. With that much money you’d think these guys would utilize more than just security cameras for safety. She slowly advanced into the huge living area and regarded the bloodstained floor in front of the bar. “Huh,” she said aloud, “that’s different.” Jeffers usually waits till his victim sits down at the computer… She wandered over to the bloodstain and looked from it to the computer on the other side of the room. At least Catherine didn’t see the murder happening… She drew a long breath in through her nose, noting the smell of fresh salt sea air and continued her walk through the house. Dempsey’s home had views of Long Island Sound and Cold Spring Harbor and she found herself sighing tiredly as she wandered through the open sliding glass door and out onto the wide terrace. So, when Catherine saw the two men carrying the body down the hall they were taking him out to the dumpster on the side of the house. Dempsey’s body was found there, his throat garroted and the word TRASH, carved into his chest. It’s curious Jeffers didn’t sodomize him… What’s the matter Jeffers? Afraid your little band of Nazis would think you were gay? According to the time stamps on the victim’s financials, Jeffers had taken his time and transferred three hundred million dollars from dozens of the victim’s offshore accounts before stripping the servers. While he did that, his minions stole the victim’s Rolex watch, wallet, and cleaned out his wife’s jewelry box. Just like Catherine said you talked about...

  Garbage collectors had come in the predawn hours to empty the dumpsters, neatly camouflaged by a row of tall hedges, and the lift operator began screaming in horror when Dempsey fell out and his belt hung up on a metal flange, making his body sway stiffly while bags of garbage fell past him and into the truck. Jordan closed her eyes and breathed deep, careful to rotate her neck very slowly. He killed him just twelve hours ago and I am no closer to finding Jeffers now than when I first got this fucking case… She turned and walked back into and through the house, heading for her car.

  New York City, NY

  Stewart knocked on the open door and walked in, “Where’s Doctor Bernard?”

  “She’s reviewing Jeffers and Nancy Ward’s code…” Jordan sighed, leaning back in her chair, “Which probably means she’s committing it to memory, knowing her.”

  “So what about Jeffers?”

  She shrugged, unhappy, “I think it’s safe to say he won’t be contacting me on Catherine’s special program anymore.” She pointed limply at the scuffed tablet. “I have it on, just in case, but why would he risk it? And now that he’s three hundred million dollars richer and he knows we’re on to him he needs to hurry up and get his program online.”

  “But he’s an arrogant asshole, Jordan.”

  “I know,” she waved her hands impotently; “I need to think of another way to tease him into another confrontation… and I need to do it fast, Stewart, or we are screwed. And I do mean that in the grander sense.”

  “Well,” he sighed, shrugging one-sidedly, “yeah, rolling blackouts would be bad.”

  Her phone rang and she answered, “Hawkins.”

  “Agent Hawkins this is Arthur Mills at Dynamic Infrastructure?”

  Jordan’s nose crinkled briefly, “Yes… yes, where Nancy Ward worked.”

  “Yes…” his voice shook slightly, “yes, Agent Hawkins I believe I may have found something of hers.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a notebook.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes… it’s a… graph notebook… like a bound composition notebook. It has names and addresses in it.”

  “How do you know it’s hers?”

  “Uh…” he sounded uncertain, “it does have her name inside the cover page, and… it was found in a lab she worked in.”

  “Aright, please don’t touch it any further and I’ll come get it.”

  “Thank you; please come to this address…”

  Jordan wrote down an address in White Plains and thanked him, adding, “If you’re going to be there I’m on my way now.”

  “I will be…” he assured her and they hung up.

  Jordan exhaled heavily and stood, “Well, Nancy Ward’s employer says he’s found some sort of address book or something belonging to her.”

  “Victim number one?”

  “Yep.” She shrugged into her jacket and automatically felt for the flash drive in her pants pocket, gun, phone and badge wallet, “Unless traffic is crazy I should be back in a couple of hours.” She handed him the tablet with Jeffers’s chat program, “You want to babysit this while I’m gone? I’ll stop by and pick it up when I get back.”

  “Sure.” He took it and followed her out the door, walking with her to the elevator. While he pressed the down button, she pulled her phone from her jacket pocket and tapped Catherine’s cell icon. The elevator doors opened just as the brief automated outgoing message completed and she said hurriedly,

  “Catherine, it’s me; Nancy’s old boss called saying he found a notebook of hers with names and addresses in it so I’m going to White Plains to get it, when I have it I’ll call again and fill you in. Talk to you soon.”

  White Plains, NY

  Jordan stretched when she got out of the bureau car and left her sunglasses on the dash before slamming the door and remotely setting the car’s alarm with the key fob. The parking area appeared incongruously small compared to the two-story building she headed for; This is just one of Dynamic Infrastructures’ data centers and it looks as though it could easily swallow two football fields… big and creepy as hell...

  Catherine had shown her pictures on an image search of what the insides of data centers looked like; aisle after aisle of glowing servers stacked six feet high or more, and every so often a deceptively plain-looking workstation tucked in between. She pulled her badge wallet from her jacket pocket as she approached the tall glass doors and held it up for the security guard standing behind a tall desk just inside. He acknowledged her with a nod and when she heard the electronic sound of the lock magnetically disengaging, she pulled the huge glass door open and stepped inside.

  “My name is Hawkins,” she explained, returning the wallet to her pocket, “I’m here to see Arthur Mills?”

  The armed heavyset guard was dressed in a gray military style shirt and black battle dress uniform pants and he nodded again, pointing to a doorway behind her.

  She turned and immediately held her hands out to the side in surrender, “Mister Mills, are you alright?”

  Arthur Mills knelt on the cold tile floor, his hands clutching one another while a large and very fit-looking man dressed in the same uniform stood next to him, resting the end of a silencer screwed onto the barrel of a semi-automatic handgun on top of his balding head.

  Jeffers stood on his other side, “Of course he is, and he did a very good job reading the script I wrote for him when we called you. And now that you’re here,” he grinned ferally, “we can let Mister Mills go.” He gave the larger man a nod and he pulled the trigger.

  Jordan jumped when the gun made a sharp wet sound and Mills’ body jerked once in convulsion before falling face down on the floor. She reached back to grab her weapon when she felt cold steel on the back of her neck.

  “I wouldn’t,” Jeffers smiled sweetly, “if I were you.”

  She felt the guard behind her reach under her jacket and pull her weapon from the paddle holster and Jeffers turned to another similarly dressed guard who pushed his way through the heavy swinging doors behind him,

  “Are we set?”

  “Johnson’s finishing up now, the guard was right; there’s just a skeleton crew of two guys here.” He gave Jordan a look, adding, “It’s just us now.”

  Jeffers was dressed in the same shirt, but he wore only black slacks, Don’t tell me, let me guess, Jordan mused silently, they’re gray but they’re supposed to be silver shirts.

  “Mmm…” Jeffers waved a finger at the bandage and large surrounding bruise on Jordan’s neck, “See, Patton? You did m
anage to tag her, at least.”

  The muscled man stood impassive and unresponsive as he unscrewed the silencer from the end of his weapon, re-holstering it and slipping the silencer into a large pocket on his uniform pants.

  “Let’s go then.” Jeffers waved a hand, gesturing grandly, “Shall we?” The guard behind Jordan shoved her forward with the end of his semiautomatic and she followed him, his three Silver Shirts surrounding her. He walked ahead down the hall and when he pushed through the swinging doors he threw his arms wide, “Impressive isn’t it?”

  He referred to a fourth member… so Catherine was right, there’re probably only four of these guys in total. She remained silent, only regarding the rows and rows of servers and Jeffers continued,

  “What we’re looking at, is the past.” He turned to the right and walked to another set of swinging doors, “This,” he said, pushing the doors open wide with dramatic flourish as he walked through, “is the future.”

  Jordan and her captors followed him into a cavernous room filled with orderly rows of tanks arranged in a semicircle around an enormous twenty-foot tall silver drum dominating the center of the room. She noted the cool temperature and warily eyed the labels on the silver cylinders, Liquid Nitrogen.

  “What you are looking at,” Jeffers beamed as he walked over to an ordinary looking workstation, “Is the world’s largest quantum computer.” He sat in the swivel chair and began typing furiously, “Universities have been playing with four qubit computers, making them crack primes of fifteen.” He turned to them, “Not fifteen digits, mind you, they’re excited when they determine the prime numbers used to get the number fifteen.” He snorted in contempt, “This magnificent structure has, welded on its base, two hundred and fifty-six qubits…” He turned to her, “I don’t expect this to make any sense to you,” his smile was condescending, “but as my pursuer, my ordained foe… so easily vanquished, I wanted you to be here when I use it to raise this country from the ash and ruin it has become, and bring it to glory.” He turned to look briefly at the hundreds of small dialog boxes populating the screen. “Quantum computers,” he nodded at the giant drum, “can only operate in an environment colder than space, which explains all the liquid nitrogen in here.” He snickered and began typing again. “Quantum-mechanical phenomena will provide me with the complete and instant access I need to take control of the power grid in the blink of an eye, and from here, I shall proceed to first neuter and then take command of the entire industrial congressional military complex.”