by Glen Robins
“He is expected to make a full recovery, sir.”
Penh breathed in audibly, held it, then spoke slowly. “He, too, has honored the cause with his courage, but he, too, has failed.” Penh stood abruptly, sending his chair crashing into the bare concrete floor behind him. “How? How does this commoner evade us?”
No one said anything. Each man looked intently at the screen in front of him until the same spokesman arose and cleared his throat and bowed again in deference to their leader. “Sir, if I may, it appears there was a sea plane in the area of the wreckage. The shots that were fired at the boat that carried our brave divers came from the vicinity of that plane. It also appears that Mr. Cook boarded that plane and that it departed to the north moments after the shots were fired.”
Penh cocked his head and squinted his eyes. “So, Mr. Cook is indeed receiving assistance from some external source. But who?”
The spokesman for the group sat quickly and began to peck at the keys of his computer. He looked up at Penh, who was pacing at the far end of the room, and added, “I have something here.”
Penh grunted and lifted his head.
“It’s a signal coming from Mr. Cook’s computer. It appears he is on the move.”
Penh stepped quickly to the man’s side. The man pointed at a pulsating blip on the screen in southeastern Honduras.
“Very well. Send a message to our team in Mexico City informing them that I will move up my arrival date. Now that we know Cook is, we can execute on schedule. Let’s bring the moth to the flame and scorch him.” Penh turned on his heels and stormed out the door. His footsteps could be heard as they pounded along concrete hallway outside and down the metal stairs.
All seven men let out a collective sigh as it were and the tension in the room dissipated with Penh’s departure. Nervous glances were exchanged. The foreman surveyed the other six men with a steely glare, then sat down. The tapping and clicking of keyboards and mice resumed, timidly at first, then more vigorously as the spokesman reminded them of the task ahead of them and the amount of work they needed to do to accomplish it.
****
London, England
June 17, 1:28 p.m. London Time; 5:28 a.m. Pacific Time
Dejection wasn’t quite the right word. Nor was irritation. No. The best way to describe Nic Lancaster’s mood alternated between utter frustration and absolute humiliation. Or maybe futility. Every time he thought about Collin Cook, one of those emotions took control. Collin Cook, the everyday American who was supposed to be so easy to find and track and apprehend had proven to be anything but. It should have been an easy assignment. Nic, the brightest and hardest working young detective in Interpol London’s Cyber Crime Task Force, felt he was destined for the fast track. All he needed was to break one big case and his lane on the fast track would be assured. His name in headlines and front page photos would surely follow.
Finding this Collin Cook fellow appeared on the surface to be just the kind of case he was looking for. Cook was supposed to lead Nic to the “big fish,” Pho Nam Penh, the cyber-terrorist responsible for shutting down the Royal Bank of Scotland for a full day back in April and pilfering millions of dollars from dozens of international banks over the past several months. He and his group were the primary suspects in these and several other embarrassing attacks, but they were, for all intents and purposes, invisible. At least until a photo surfaced online showing Penh sitting with Cook in a London pub. That’s when Nic got his big break, the assignment that would propel his career into the next realm.
This Collin Cook was nothing more than a former electrical supply salesman from California who had experienced a great tragedy and was wandering around Europe apparently trying to find himself. The photos that came to light on the Internet showed otherwise. Cook, perhaps because he had become disaffected with life, had turned to crime. His new cozy relationship with Penh, as evidenced by the London photos as well as a second set of photos released a few days later showing Cook meeting with Penh and his top lieutenants in the Bahamas in early April, made him a suspected accomplice in a rash of high-stakes online larceny. Common man turned criminal. It was sad, but not completely unique.
None of that was Nic’s concern, however. Bringing Cook and Penh to justice was all that mattered to Junior Detective Nic Lancaster. That and his moment in the spotlight, hauling in such an elusive criminal as Pho Nam Penh.
Since receiving this potentially break-through assignment, however, Nic had had to awkwardly explain how each confirmed sighting of Cook had resulted in a dead-end. Cook had managed to not only evade him, but embarrass him at every turn. First, Cook was a no-show on the raid of a Caribbean sailboat eye witnesses swore they had seen him board the day before. Second, Cook had somehow slipped through the net Nic and Interpol had dropped over the Executive Suites Hotel in Panama City, Panama. Planted trained agents, feigning hotel staff while working another case, had reported that Cook was staying there and was in his room, but Cook managed to slip away and disappear. When Cook reappeared two weeks later at the JW Marriott in Lima, Peru, Nic spared no resources. He went all-in, sending a Peruvian commando squad into room 2321, the one triple confirmed to be Collin Cook’s room. At four o’clock in the morning, the room was empty and Nic Lancaster faced the worst torment of his young career for that maneuver.
But that wasn’t the end. Cook managed to sneak out of Peru and into Argentina; and from Argentina to Canada; and from Canada he was somehow able to cross the border into the United States. He showed up in Chicago, where he outran, out-maneuvered, and outsmarted a group of FBI agents sent to detain him at the Chicago Convention Center. Should have been easy, but this amateur evaded eight trained agents and wasn’t seen or heard from until Nic’s counterparts, FBI Agents Reggie Crabtree and Spinner McCoy, tracked him to Key West, Florida. From the marina there, Collin drove a small dinghy headlong into the mounting Hurricane Abigail and was presumed dead. No one survives a Category 2 hurricane in a twelve-foot rubber dinghy with only a 15-horsepower engine. No one, that is, except the enigmatic Collin Cook.
Two weeks had passed since Cook’s supposed demise. Nic had been given several other, lesser assignments in the meantime. He viewed these menial tasks as a punishment, but realized he had to work his way back into the good graces of his bosses. Most of those menial tasks were completed successfully, as they were essentially grunt-work assignments that required little brain power and zero elite-level talent. But Nic had managed, by working late hours and weekends, to keep track of the Cook case because, as he learned, Crabtree and McCoy had not given up on it. And if they weren’t giving up, neither was he, except for when he had to deny his involvement to his boss.
Nic was asked just two days ago for his help. This put him in a difficult spot in light of recent inquiries and his vehement disavowals to his superiors. But, to his surprise, his boss, the unpredictable Alastair Montgomery, had not only agreed to help, but had used his impressive social and professional network to get the Colombian Coast Guard involved in the search for the sailboat Cook was alleged to be on.
Once again, all signs pointed to Cook being dead. The sailboat went down and several survivors were found floating in the water nearby. The Captain and crew all vowed to the fact that Cook had been killed and his body disposed of two days before in the middle of the Caribbean.
Nic was ready to wash his hands of the Cook case after his chums from the academy begged him to let it go. It had done enough damage to his ambitions, they said. It was time to lick his wounds and move on. Time to rebuild. His career may not take the meteoric rise he had hoped for, but it was still salvageable. Their urgings almost worked, at least when he was awake. The problem was the dreams he kept having. Perhaps they were daydreams, conjured up as a way to inspire greatness within himself. Maybe it wasn’t real, but the sweet sniffs of the essence of victory they provided was a powerful motivator.
Nic was still working on a sandwich and a bag of crisps at his desk when a call came in from a San Franci
sco number. He knew it was Crabtree’s mobile. He knew he didn’t want to answer it. But, he also knew he should. Professional courtesy and all.
“This thing is not over yet, Lancaster,” came the low, fatigued voice of Reggie Crabtree.
“Why did I know you would say something like that?” Nic crunched on a crisp and ground it between his teeth loudly to exaggerate his nonchalance.
“Because, deep inside, you want the chance to prove that you were right and to get this guy,” said Crabtree, who Nic knew had not slept much the past few nights as they all frantically worked to figure out how Cook disappeared again. The two of them had been in frequent contact since the Cook case hit Nic’s desk. Crabtree and McCoy, his FBI counterparts, had worked on this case as hard as he had and were closer to it in some ways than he was. They had more invested, emotionally speaking. “There’s no hiding that, Nic. You’re too good a detective to let this case sully your record. You don’t want this thing hanging around your neck for the rest of your life. Not when the collar is so close at hand. You need redemption and I think I have a way for you to get it.”
“What are you on about now, Reggie?” asked Nic, his voice rising an octave with that uncomfortable stress that comes when determination and disbelief occupy the same brain at the same time. “We have four eyewitness accounts stating that Cook was killed and dumped overboard.”
“We have four very similar stories from four of Cook’s friends who have aided and abetted him at least twice before. They’re in this thing with him somehow and will say whatever needs to be said to protect him and possibly themselves.”
“What about the Asian guys? Didn’t they say something similar?”
“They said he was dead, sunk with the ship. But they are considered unreliable sources, especially since only one body, their leader’s, was found on the boat.”
“Then what information are you going on?” asked Nic, leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling. He wiped the sour cream and onion powder from his fingertips onto his slacks.
“Two divers were brought into a hospital on the island of Providencia about an hour ago,” explained Crabtree. “One died shortly after arrival. Killed by a fishing spear to the diaphragm. The other had a gunshot wound to his shoulder. The surviving diver and the other two people on their boat told authorities that the man who speared the other diver swam toward an airplane and that the airplane flew away to the north.”
“So . . .”
“So, the guy was white, not Asian. He had long brown hair.”
“Once again, I don’t see the relevance,” stammered Nic, trying desperately to sound disinterested.
Reggie exhaled in mock frustration. He must have sensed Nic was getting excited, but was trying to control his display of emotions as best he could. Reggie played along with Nic’s charade, for now. “You know what I’m trying to say, Nic. You sense it in your gut the same way I do. We’re detectives and detectives know when something ain’t right. This whole situation smells. It smells like Collin Cook to me. He’s up to something and he has someone helping him. We need you to help us figure out who it is. Then maybe we can find him and get some useful information about our pal Pho Nam Penh before he strikes again.”
Nic involuntarily let out a little chortle. He was hooked again. The pump inside him that filled his veins with ambition and energy kicked into gear once more. “I don’t know why I should believe anything you say anymore, Reggie. What have you got in mind?”