by Tom Haase
“When did this email come from here? I’m sure no one has used this for over three weeks,” the maid said.
“Where was the cardinal the last three weeks?” Matt asked.
“He visited Brazil,” she answered.
Grossman joined them again. “I called Jonathan and updated him,” he said to Matt sub voce, then turned to the group and said, “When I went out of the room during your discussion with the cardinal, I also called the Vatican travel office to check on him. She’s right. He and five priests spent the last three weeks in Brazil at an ecumenical conference of the Latin American churches.”
“Three weeks?” Scott said. “This is definite proof the emails were planted on this machine to distract us.”
“What? How?” Matt asked. He moved over to the computer and flopped down into a chair to examine it.
The sound of glass breaking reached his ears as he raised his eyes to the computer. The bullet missed his head by mere inches. He grabbed Scott, pulled him to the floor, then sprang up and tackled Maria as another bullet plowed into the wall above their heads.
Grossman ran outside on hearing the shots.
A few seconds went by before the sound of gunfire erupted somewhere beyond the window. Two shots. Then silence.
Grossman ran back into the room. “I shot and killed the shooter. He had started to flee, but turned and tried to fire at me. I fired first. Are you all right?” He looked at each in turn to search for wounds.
“I have to check on the cardinal,” Maria said in a shaky voice and departed.
“Thank you,” Matt said to Grossman. “What now?”
“The police will be involved, but I’ll report that I think this attack appeared to be focused on the cardinal. They will defer to our police at the Vatican. It will be handled in a quiet manner. I need to go outside and do a few things. I’ll be back in a minute.” On his return he said, “I called the police and took photos of the shooter and his fingerprints on a piece of the glass from the shattered window. We should have his identity in no time.”
Maria returned. “He is resting, but I think you should go before he comes down. He is rather upset, even angry. I have never seen him this distressed. Please go.”
“How are you?” Matt asked. He felt sorry for the old lady, who appeared to be on the verge of shock with her ashen face.
He received a nod and a raised hand with a slight wave as a reply.
Matt smiled at her and then went over to Grossman. He whispered, “Do whatever you can to smooth this over.”
“I think your friend McGregor will need to handle it. It’ll take someone of his stature to placate this cardinal. He’ll want something to remain silent, and that’s Jonathan’s bailiwick,” Grossman whispered into Matt’s ear as he moved toward the door.
When Scott looked up from his computer, his face had turned serious. “I think we should thank the lady and depart.”
Captain Grossman said, “Excellent idea. We can talk in the car.”
They thanked Maria for her offer to help. “I’m sorry for the mess in the house,” Matt said. He could see her trembling. No wonder, but now she seemed to be regaining her composure.
“Think nothing of it.” She stood up. “Now I have something to dine out on for a long time. I witnessed a shoot-out, like in the Wild West, no? That’s so exciting.”
“You’re some lady. Again thanks, and the police will be here soon. I would appreciate you not mentioning that we were here, only Captain Grossman,” Matt said.
She nodded.
Matt grabbed Scott by the arm and hurried him out of the house. He had almost killed the man. His actions were wrong in every aspect, so what the hell was he thinking? He had to get himself under control. If he didn’t, he might inadvertently kill an innocent person next. He couldn’t let that happen.
Now the cool night air hit him in the face and brought him back to earth. He wanted time to think. He decided they needed to depart immediately and use the flight time to regroup, because he realized he had to get some self-control and tone down the anger. He would not do Bridget any good by continuing to fly off the handle; he had to return to being a logical FBI agent. Grossman and Scott joined him in the car.
“What did you find out that you didn’t want to say in there?” Matt asked.
As Grossman drove the car out the gate, he placed his cell to his ear.
Scott took a few seconds before answering. “My new patch on the previous software cut through all those false leads and traced the email back to the original source—an IP in St. Petersburg.”
Grossman interrupted Scott. “I received information on our attacker. It seems he worked as a contract killer and is known to work for the highest bidder—a hit man open to any contract,” Grossman said. “But lately he’s been working for a Middle Eastern country, the Iranians, according to my sources.”
“The Iranians!” Matt exclaimed. “That makes no sense.”
Matt requested that Captain Grossman take them to the airport. He sent a text to the crew, telling them to prepare for an immediate departure. Matt felt his spirit sag. The adrenaline from the confrontation with the cardinal seeped out of his body. The trip had proven futile. They’d obtained nothing to go on but an IP address in Russia, another potential red herring.
“In my follow-up analysis with this program, it determined the emails appearing to be sent from the cardinal were backdated and were planted there a few days ago. Probably when his nephew played on the computer.”
“What the hell does this mean?” Matt asked. “Couldn’t you have found this out before we raced here?”
“No. It was due to that TOR. Remember I told you about it before. There are levels upon levels of deception built into a TOR. The name stands for ‘the onion router.’ So our program had to peel back layer after layer to get to the real IP source. It takes time, and there are always traps built in to prevent someone from cracking the code. So it demands a certain type of experience for a great hacker to break through the firewalls. The layers we experienced deposited false trails. We now know the cardinal took a trip to Brazil at the same time the emails were sent from his computer in Rome. Which is impossible for him to do, but they appeared to originate from his house in order to be flagged as authentic. I’ve now determined that they weren’t sent from the cardinal’s computer, but made to look like it by some TOR.” Scott held up his hand as he looked at the screen of his laptop.
“So, put it in English,” Matt demanded.
“It appears the TOR sent us on a wild goose chase,” Scott continued. “This new patch to my program has verified the original location of the emails was accurate. Someone noticed we were tracking the email and employed an onion router to deceive us. Like two or three days ago. I can now tell you with absolute certainty they originated in Russia, St. Petersburg to be precise. Now I’m also getting a text message in DOS format from the program that’s flagging another problem it discovered. Some malware placed on my phone.”
“What now?” Matt queried.
“My phone has been cloned.”
“What do you mean?” Matt almost shouted. “How could that happen?”
“It means that someone’s been listening to all of our conversations.”
“When did that happen?” Matt queried as he glared at Scott.
“No idea. It could’ve been anytime. The program picked it up after I connected the computer to the hot spot on my phone. But, logically it must’ve been in the recent past. Like, after all this started. Hell, it could have happened at the funeral, in the hospital in New York, or in Washington, at an airport, almost anywhere.”
“I can’t believe this shit is happening. You couldn’t have discovered this earlier?” Matt indicated, gesturing for Scott to give him the phone. “Captain, could you to pull over on this bridge and stop?”
Grossman did as requested.
Matt exited the car with Scott’s phone in hand. He opened the cell, removed the battery, and ejected the SIM card. He s
napped the SIM in half and threw the entire collection of parts into the river. He returned to the car and signaled for the driver to go on.
“Sorry, I had no way of knowing earlier. What now?” Scott asked.
“I want you to verify everything you told us again. Make sure this time that our information is accurate and not another false trail. We’re going back to visit your father-in-law ASAP. We’ll need his assistance for what I’m planning.”
“What plan?”
“Wait and see.”
21
Robocop Voice
“You’re a bumbling fool,” the synthetically altered voice shouted into the phone. “They found out the emails came from St. Petersburg. It won’t take them long to figure out who you are and come after you. You need to handle the contract immediately.”
“How do you know this?” the man asked, sweeping his long hair out of his face.
“I have ears on them. They will come after you. You haven’t fulfilled your contract, and I will not complete the transfer of money to your account.”
“I will complete the contract, and you will pay me the money. Give me some time.”
The phone went dead in the man’s ear. The caller had again underestimated him. With this information received, he would be prepared to handle the arrival of the targets. He’d failed to eliminate them in the States, but he would now handle it on his own turf. He wouldn’t rely on unknown and untested outside help. He would use his own assets.
He picked the phone up and dialed a number. He didn’t relish making this call, but he felt he had no choice. He had previously provided this group with weapons, and now he needed them to make the down payment on the order they’d submitted yesterday. But he needed them to pay him in men instead of money. They would be his army when the Americans arrived.
The Iranians would arrive within forty-eight hours. No Russian would be anywhere near the scene if anything went wrong. No blame could come his way to disrupt the delicate balance he maintained with the local cops. He and his men would be in Moscow when some terrorists attacked his home for some unknown reason. The police would attempt to solve the mystery of whatever happened at his house as he remained in Moscow and only two security guards remained behind to protect his estate.
Stupid Robocop. The man would be dealt with after he received his money for completing the contract. He had discovered where the man lived. Silencing the bastard would be a real pleasure, and he intended to make it permanent. The man treated him like an idiot with the theatrics of his call, but Dmitri had outmaneuvered the caller and knew to whom the voice belonged. Nobody outsmarted Dmitri Alexander Alexandrovitch.
* * *
Matt and Scott arrived on Schultz’s plane in New York exhausted from the many hours of flying to and from Rome in such a short time. They went straight to Schultz’s apartment on Central Park. As they exited the taxi, the sun made its last effort to illuminate the Manhattan skyline as it sank into the western horizon.
“Welcome,” Schultz said on opening the door. “You both look like you could use a drink. I’m having my evening Dalmore scotch. Would you care to join me?”
“I’d like a double,” Matt said. Scott nodded agreement.
They accepted the drinks from Schultz and took comfortable chairs in the sitting room.
“What did you learn?” Schultz asked.
Matt brought him up to date on the visit to Rome and the dead end they’d encountered at the cardinal’s house.
“We did have a problem,” Scott interrupted. “Someone was listening to what we did.”
“How?” Schultz asked.
“My phone got cloned recently. They would know all that we were doing. Everything—where we went, and what we found out up till our departure from Rome.”
“So whoever listened knows whatever you did and what you might do?” Schultz queried.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Matt said. “Now we need to plan our next move.”
“I think that’s obvious,” Scott said.
“What do you mean?” Schultz asked.
“Matt didn’t mention that I’ve traced the email to its real source with the new upgrade I received. The original contract came from Russia.”
Schultz refilled their glasses. “What are you thinking of doing?”
“Scott has worked on narrowing down the location. You know there’s only one person there who has any connection to us. Scott told me about the trip that he and Bridget took to St. Petersburg, and that’s where his software tells him the email originated. Bridget and Scott had some help from one of your colleagues there. I plan on going to visit that man and getting him to help.”
Schultz sat down. He looked at Matt, then with deliberate intonation, asked, “You mean the uncle of the man one of you killed in Savannah?”
“Yes, Dmitri Alexander Alexandrovitch,” Matt answered.
22
New York Conference
Matt took a drink from his scotch before speaking again. Scott glanced at him in anticipation of hearing a plan. Schultz took a seat opposite them on a couch and also waited. An initial strategy had germinated in Matt’s mind, but now, after the phone cloning, the security problem seemed much bigger than before. Someone had actually tracked their movements and might know where they would go next in their pursuit of the ultimate target.
“The fewer people who are aware of what we’re planning, the better,” Matt said. “We can’t afford a leak of any kind. We’re going after a killer. Make no mistake about it. Dmitri will kill us if we don’t get him first. The man is smart and well connected. He’ll use every asset at his command to neutralize us once he realizes we’re coming after him.”
“From what we learned about him during your last encounter with the Russians in Savannah, he could without doubt carry a grudge against you for being involved in the killing of his nephew,” Schultz said.
“That provides the element of this puzzle that was absent in Rome,” Matt said. “I can see this Dmitri has real motive. He controls the means, and he can create the opportunity by hiring killers.”
“Are we going to Russia?” Scott asked.
“I have to. We can’t expect him to come here, since he has no reason to do that,” Matt said. He stood and walked over to the sliding glass door leading to the balcony overlooking Central Park. He looked out for a few seconds before rotating to face them.
“Matt, I’m not so sure that’s the best course of action. Why not lure him to the US?” Schultz asked. “There must be some way to make that happen.”
“We currently have no leverage over him. He’s in his safe haven with no reason to come out. Do you have any ideas about what we could use to compel him to leave Russia?” Matt asked.
“Actually, no,” Schultz said. “But could this be another red herring? You went to Rome on a false lead.”
“I know, but this seems like the right course to me. We now identified a man who has motive.” Matt took a sip of his drink.
“While you two were gone, I was thinking about how clever it was for my men to capture the shooter in Washington—but maybe it was too easy. Perhaps the organizer of all this planned for him to get caught and give us the Rome connection. It could have been set up before, and a mastermind criminal could think like that. Setting up all the pieces in advance for various contingencies.”
“Good point,” Matt said.
“Matt, perhaps we should take some time to evaluate all this. Is it wise to go rushing off to Russia? Mr. Schultz has a valid point. Look what happened the last time. We ran in like bulls in a china shop and damaged ourselves. This could be another set-up like he just points out,” Scott said.
“Scott makes a good argument too,” Schultz said.
“But Dmitri is the only lead. I say we go after him,” Matt said. “Besides, I don’t think he knows who shot his nephew. That info has never been released.”
“Who did kill him?” Schultz said.
“Not important now,” Matt replied.
&n
bsp; Scott moved over to face Matt. “If you’re going, I’m coming with you,” he said. “I can continue to work on refining the location. I don’t want us to get blindsided like we did in Rome. If for some unknown reason the email’s physical position proves to be another false lead, I’ll need to be there with you. You know, in case something changes due to the software I’m using.”
“We’ll need some funding and again the use of your plane, if possible.” Matt looked at Schultz.
“I wish I could. Funding is no problem, but there is a problem with what you ask. I have to apply for clearance to enter Russian Federation airspace seven days in advance. Do you want to wait?”
“No,” Matt said. “We’ll go commercial. They fly every day and we both are fortunate enough to be able to get Russian visas before we go. So it’ll be two days before we can leave, but that’s better than seven.”
“I want this man stopped before he can get at my daughter.” Schultz hesitated a moment, then continued, “I mean, stopped before he gets to any of you.”
“We’re going to St. Petersburg. It may take some time to get at him, but at least we’ll be in the belly of the beast, so to speak,” Matt said.
“I’m a patient man, but if I feel it’s taking too long, then I may be obliged to act,” Schultz said.
“What do you mean by that?” Matt asked.
“Nothing. Really, nothing.” Schultz took another drink from his glass and looked away from Matt.
Matt returned to the center of the room and signaled Scott it was time to depart by inclining his head toward the door.
Outside the apartment, Matt said to Scott, “I didn’t like that last threat.”
“It sort of took me by surprise. What do you think he would do if we can’t get Dmitri?” Scott queried.
“I don’t know. We better go to St. Petersburg and solve this matter so we never have to find out.”