by Lee Perry
“Catherine, where are you?” She waited for what felt like long minutes before her phone chimed softly,
“I’m here. I just got into Shen’s car and we are about to leave SFO’s p-lot.”
Jordan closed her eyes, collecting her thoughts before typing, “Coastanoa hanged himself in his cell this morning. He is dead. We still have a press blackout on any info about him.”
There was a long pause and Jordan bit her trembling lips together while she stared down at her phone.
“Now what?”
“Back to the drawing board,” Jordan typed as a lone tear slid down her cheek, “We/FBI are still looking for his car in LV. If we can find a vehicle linked to him we will be able to trace it back, via description/plates, through surveillance cameras on toll roads to area of departure.” Jordan stared at her screen, And then what?
San Francisco, CA
Catherine handed Shen the phone so he could read the series of messages, “Oh my god…” he mumbled, “Oh god, I’m so sorry…”
Catherine covered her face with her hands and wept. Just hours before she felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She believed she was within hours of being reunited with Cameron, Now what? She wailed silently, Now what? How will we ever find him? She felt Shen drape his long sinewy arms around her in a gentle hug.
“I can’t believe it…” she traced on her palm, her head shaking helplessly from side to side, “I can’t.”
Shen drove her home, and when he pulled into the apartment building’s garage and parked the car he turned to her, “I’m gonna’ reschedule my appointments for today.”
“No…” she shook her head adamantly, “Everything cannot come to a stop…” She caught his eye, “Go… it’s okay…” She shrugged and sniffed, “I need to think…”
“Okay,” he nodded, if reluctantly, “I remember how intense that can be for you.”
Once inside Shen’s apartment she dropped her bag on the couch and dropped down beside it. Slumping on the cushions, she activated her phone and texted Jordan,
“Jordan, are you there?” She waited with her phone in her hands until it beeped quietly,
“I’m here.”
“Are you alright?”
A long minute passed before the message appeared, “Yes. I am so sorry, Catherine. I am so sorry. How are you holding up?”
Catherine’s chin trembled when she smiled, blinking back tears, “I’ll be okay, I wish I was with you though.”
The reply was swift, “Me too.”
“We’ll think of something, Jordan. I love you.”
“I know we will, I love you too.”
She sat limply on the couch, staring at her laptop on the coffee table. There has to be something… somewhere… She stood and crossed to the wide window, looking at but not seeing the expansive view. The FBI monitored all her online accounts and she’s used none of them since… Parking her hands on her hips, she closed her eyes and drew a deep, clearing breath, What is her Achilles’ heel? What… Her eyes snapped open, narrowing as a remembered passage from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations suddenly echoed, “To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions.”
What would make Alex sloppy? She emitted a soft sound, almost sounding like a chortle, Her vanity… She shook her head, returning to the couch and opened a browser, No, Jordan said they checked all her accounts on these sites and there was no activity… Her hands hovered over the keyboard, because Alex would have created new accounts… A tiny smile pulled at her lips, But she always used the same password for everything: ardnaxelA… She always thought that was so clever and funny… She searched her laptop for a program she could quickly modify and rigged it with several bogus points of origin leading ultimately to an obscure Nigerian server, should anyone attempt to trace her intrusion.
She navigated her encrypted browser to Alex’s favorite online clothing store. Once she hacked her way past the firewalls and made sure her presence was undetected, she smoothly entered the secure database housing user names and passwords. She activated her modified scanner program and watched while it searched for the only password Alex ever used, Alexandra, spelled backwards. I told her she needed to be more careful… Catherine’s heart began to race when the screen flashed the results:
ardnaxelA
Her fingers flying over the keyboard, Catherine quickly accessed the file associated with the password and checked the security question; “favorite video game?” She smiled and shook her head at the answer, Dark Warlords. She opened the completed online order placed by Louis Carna in Darien, Connecticut. She shook her head slowly from side to side, incredulous as she looked at the impressive order of expensive dresses and skirts and silk blouses, All in her size…
So… finally, Alex… there you are.
She made copies of Alex’s shipping information and new email address, including the full header and her IP address on the order then carefully extricated herself from the site and closed the browser. She snatched her phone from the table and tapped the lighthouse icon. She stared at the beam of light streaming from the small dark lighthouse on her screen and hesitated, Just stop… and think for a moment…
Returning her phone to the coffee table and opening her browser again, she pasted Alex’s delivery address into Google Earth and watched as the earth turned and the program zoomed in to seemingly hover over verdant-looking fields and stopped over what looked like a large estate; It’s a compound… She squinted at the satellite image, with a long long driveway leading up to it. Could be difficult for Jordan and her team to sneak up on them … such a big place housing Cameron and the Rossi Outfit… it would make any assault by the FBI very dangerous…
Alright then… Her fingers flew over the keyboard, this time she hacked into Alex’s IP address and within minutes she found her laptop. She’s online… She quickly withdrew, digitally wiping her browser clean. Okay… that was scary. She returned to Alex’s email account and scanned her files, Same lazy Alex… She rapidly downloaded copies of the files and lists of Rossi email addresses, SIM codes and serial numbers for their tablets and cell phones.
The first file she opened was a file labeled, “Rossi Administration Flow Chart”, Oh Alex… she moaned silently, Octavia? Really? Catherine counted the number of family members on the list; Coastanoa’s dead so that leaves… seven, including Rossi. Seven guns at least.
She licked her lips nervously and returned to the files she downloaded from Alex’s email account. The next contained Alex’s notes about her new collection of servers in a warehouse, located not far from the Rossi compound. She made a mental note of the physical address and navigating to the mainframe’s IP address, tried hacking her way in. She quickly discovered Alex had placed multiple layers of firewalls to protect the data and Catherine backed out. So, this must be the hardware stealing money for Rossi if Alex was this careful. Hacking in isn’t the problem… not alerting Alex is the problem… and I’d have to physically be there to download that much data from a mainframe of that size anyway… I’d never get it done remotely…
Hmmm… Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the screen, if Alex believed I was alive and about to infiltrate her servers… she, and at least some of Rossi’s “soldiers”, would come after me… right? Then Jordan would have fewer of those thugs to deal with getting to Cam.
She leaned back on the couch cushions and drew a deep, clearing breath, I could plug in a program at that warehouse that would hack and download every file on every server and send it in data packets to Jordan’s Cyber Division while she safely gets Cameron out of there…
Sitting up straight, she opened her browser and stared intently at the screen while her fingers again flew in a blur over the keys, Now I just need to hack Cyber Division and find a good place to send all that data.
New York, NY
When Jordan first sat down in Stewart’s office her hands were folded together on top of her tablet and she cr
ossed her legs, looking somehow relaxed and professional all at the same time. But as she and Stewart talked about Coastanoa’s suicide and their frustrated efforts at locating Rossi and Alex Sparrow, he noticed Jordan began hunching tensely and her hands gripped each other, her knuckles showing white.
“This is so fucked up, Jordan…”
“I know.” She concentrated on breathing through her nose and out her mouth.
“It’s inexcusable; even if Coastanoa absolutely wasn’t overtly suicidal they should have anticipated every possibility and covered their own asses, if nothing else. He was just going to be there overnight…” He threw the pen he held on his desk in disgust, “for Christ’s fucking sake!”
“I know,” she repeated, “they thought his intimidating his cellmate was simply a ruse to get a cell by himself… for privacy.” She emitted a derisive snort, “They didn’t even think twice about it.”
“Privacy?” he scoffed.
She shrugged and shook her head, “These guys… these wise guys, they don’t feel they should have to rub elbows with common criminals… they consider themselves several cuts above them in term of class and self-worth…” She shrugged again, exhaling heavily, “I just don’t understand why they didn’t move the cellmate to another cage and leave Coastanoa where he was.”
“Our guys are still looking for his car in impound lots and the area where they arrested him.” Jordan only nodded and he slumped back in his chair, “The arresting officer’s report said Coastanoa resisted arrest and when they wrestled him to the ground a gun fell out of his waistband…”
Jordan mumbled, “And the trace led us nowhere.”
“And he really had nothing else on him but the gun?”
“Just a couple of rolls of cash…” she shrugged, “he’d been in the life too long to carry anything other than a gun and some cash, Stewart.”
“Fuck…” he sighed.
“Yeah…” Jordan stood, “pretty much.”
Catherine had tried to sleep on the red-eye flight to New York, but she was too anxious to nap for very long and avoiding the entrance ramps from LaGuardia to the Grand Central Parkway, she drove until she passed a diner and pulled her rented car into the parking lot.
She sat at the counter and pointed to the menu to place her order then quickly typed on her phone, “Is the coffee here nice and strong?” The waitress was an older woman and Catherine saw her look from the scars on her neck to the message she typed,
“It sure is, honey.” She smiled sympathetically, “One strong cup of caffeine comin’ right up.”
She only told Shen she needed to go back to New York, and after his boyfriend Tommy carefully explained how to legally transport her handgun on a commercial flight, he offered to accompany her to the check-in counter to make sure her inability to speak didn’t interfere with her checking her weapon or boarding her flight. Shen had waited in his car at the airport hotel’s parking lot while Tommy escorted her. She had taken care to have her notes ready, and when her turn came he stood next to her, holding his badge and police ID for the customer service person to see while Catherine held out her phone with the typed note, “I am checking an unloaded firearm in a locked case and I have the only key.” Placing her locked gun case on the luggage scale connected to the check-in counter, she took the key she had clipped on a lanyard from around her neck and unlocked and opened the case, allowing the counter person to see her two empty magazines, box of ammunition and locked open semi-automatic Glock nestled on the foam interior.
She shook her head, sighing inwardly; still feeling somewhat incredulous that she was traveling with a firearm now locked in the trunk of her rental car. The waitress left with her order and she tapped the lighthouse icon.
“Jordan,” she typed, “are you there?” She waited patiently for the reply, a small smile tugging at corners of her mouth when it came,
“I’m here Catherine.”
“I found Alex and I need to send you the info.”
Jordan sat in the Bureau’s cafeteria sipping coffee, and when her phone chimed softly her heart skipped a beat in a confused mix of joy and despair when she saw the lighthouse icon fill her screen and the texted words,
“Catherine is sending you a message.”
She tapped the screen,
“Jordan, are you there?”
Sighing deeply she typed, “I’m here Catherine.”
“I found Alex and I need to send you the info.”
Jordan stared uncomprehendingly at the words glowing on her phone’s screen and she blinked when it beeped, indicating it had received an email.
“You what?” Jordan typed then tapped the screen again adding, “Are you sure?” She got up from the table and walked hurriedly to the elevator.
“I found her via a purchase she made at one of her favorite online stores.”
The elevator doors opened and Jordan stepped inside, hitting first the button for her floor and then the button to close the door. Her phone chimed again,
“She and Rossi and Cameron are in Darien, CT. The address and more information is on the email I just sent you.”
Jordan leaned on the polished metal interior wall of the elevator and grinned, shaking her head, “You are amazing, Dr. Catherine Bernard,” she typed, “and I love you. I am heading to Stewart’s office now. We’re on it.”
Catherine smiled and nodded her thanks to the waitress when she placed the hot plate of bacon and eggs on the counter in front of her.
She tore off the check and slipped it under the edge of the plate, “You need anything else you just wave at me, okay?”
Catherine nodded, mouthing thank you and looked back down at her phone, “Cameron is there, Jordan…” she typed, “Please go get him!”
She placed her phone on the counter next to her plate and picked up her fork. Drawing a deep clearing breath, she had taken a bite of her scrambled eggs when her phone chimed softly with one more message,
“I’ll text you again when we’re on the road.”
“You have got to be shitting me!” Stewart stared at her, open-mouthed.
Jordan was grinning when she grabbed the phone from his desk and punched an extension, “This is Special Agent Jordan Hawkins,” she said calmly, “Scramble SWAT to the briefing room immediately.”
“Alright people!” Stewart stood to one side of the multimedia screen and Jordan stood on the other, “We just got this intel and we’re acting on it as fast as we can. We’ve got a location on the Rossi Outfit, and these sonsabitches aren’t even an hour away in Darien, Connecticut.” While he spoke, Jordan used the remote to click up a satellite image of the Rossi compound. “As you can see we got a long driveway to traverse so instead we’re gonna’ go in through the woods, here…” He used a laser pointer to indicate their point of entry, “and here… These are dirt roads… probably for fire access and our vehicles should traverse them with no problems…”
Jordan stood quietly, her eyes glued to the clock on the wall at the back of the room, impatient to get on with the mission. Catherine’s email was full of information covering how she found Alex and included the physical address of the compound, the Rossi administration chart and Alex’s email contact list, with a note stating she believed that was extent of the people in the house, emphasizing she couldn’t be sure there weren’t more. Jordan’s eyes swept over the twenty-seven agents that comprised the entirety of the bureau’s local Special Weapons Assault Team. Once the notification had gone out from the squad’s commander that the murderers of five of their own had been located, every member in the building reported for duty and suited up. Come on, Stewart…she moaned silently, hurry up so we can go get these rat fuckers!
Catherine paid her tab, tipping the kind waitress generously and exited the restaurant, walking rapidly back to her rented car. Okay, let’s just slow down … we have no idea how long it’ll take Jordan to get there. She unlocked the door and climbed in; forcing herself to calm down, she slowly and deliberately turned the key in the
ignition and fastened her seatbelt. See? Now… we’re just going to go for a drive… She signaled and pulled into traffic, we’ll just take our time… she reassured herself and headed for Darien.
Darien, CT
She had waited patiently through two cycles at a traffic light and was sitting through a third when her phone chimed and she held it below the dash,
“Jordan has a message for you.”
She tapped the lighthouse icon, “Stewart activated SWAT and we are on our way.”
She smiled and quickly typed, “Good.” Flicking her eyes at the red traffic light, she swiped her screen and tapped open the special icon she created, labeled Phase 1. Tapping it again, she activated a program that sent a flurry of infected emails; Get ready Alex, a lot of shit is about to hit your fan…
Alex was distracted, busily calculating how much money she would accumulate per month in her offshore account, Business is booming… She chortled silently; Anthony’ll probably shit his pants when he checks his balance. She closed the program and opened a calculator and calendar; staring at both, she began projecting profits, How much money can I realistically depend on…The screen suddenly reset and she blinked, Huh… She cocked her head to one side; I think that’s the first time it’s ever done that. She clicked open a diagnostic tool. I’ve put this laptop through a lot since I took it out of the box… She mused; It might be time for a new one.