Authors: David DeBatto
“And who recommended her?” Sykes said.
“Maybe, maybe not,” DeLuca said. “She could have come in clean and turned halfway through. It’s still a good question, but
not one we need to answer right now. We have more immediate concerns. I think it’s safe to say we’re caught up in something
bigger than we were led to believe initially. I think it’s also safe to say we’re being watched, and we’re being hunted. I
don’t know how many op centers they have, but we’ve essentially shut down three of them. They can’t use Cheyenne anymore,
and they can’t use Sinkhole, and they can’t use the RV. I’m going to guess that each time they move, their systems get less
and less secure.”
“Well that’s good to know,” Sykes said. “They should be surrendering any minute now. On the other hand, they could vaporize
any one of us the second we step out the door. I say we pull a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid escape like at the end of
the movie with guns blazing. It beats going like a bug in a bug zapper.”
DeLuca looked at the younger man.
“That’s very dramatic,” he said. “But not helpful.”
“Why would she mess with our oxygen?” Vasquez said. “They obviously have other means at their disposal. For our disposal.”
“They wanted us to disappear,” DeLuca said. “We found out more than we were supposed to. Romano knew when we debriefed the
mission that we’d be doing some diving—she talked it over with Truitt. Nobody was going to find six bodies at the bottom of
a lake a mile underground in a part of a cave nobody knew about. Not for a while, anyway.”
“What do you recommend, then?” Sykes said. “We’re cut off. We can’t use the vehicles we have, we can’t use the phones—we can’t
even use our ATMs. We can’t use any of the cover identities we brought with us, and we can’t leave this building. And I personally
can’t sing, so staying here for karaoke night isn’t an option either.”
“He’s right,” Vasquez said. “I’ve heard him sing. He’s awful.”
“Cash won’t be a problem,” DeLuca said. “I wasn’t sure what our expenses were going to be or who we’d have to grease, but
I’ve got about three hundred thousand dollars in my suitcase that I brought just to cover. The larger issue is going to be
identities.”
He set his new cell phone on the table.
“I bought a new one for each of you,” he said. “But Dan’s right—we can’t use the covers we brought with us because they’re
on file. We’re going to have to get new ones.”
“How?”
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to steal them,” he said. “I registered mine to the name of a credit card carbon I pulled from
the trash at the phone store. The Mormon Church has a Website where you can find people’s mothers’ maiden names.”
“I can get what we need off the motel registry computer if somebody can get me two minutes alone in the office,” Vasquez said.
“I used to work the front desk at a Best Western when I was in college. All I need is somebody to distract the desk clerk.”
Through the double doors, they could see the front desk, manned this afternoon by a lone young man of Pakistani origin named
Bindar.
“I’ve got it,” MacKenzie said. She held a credit card in her left hand. With her right hand, she reached inside her blouse,
which was sleeveless, and unfastened her bra, extracting it from her left armhole with a tug. “Has anybody got a penknife?”
“I don’t know why,” Sykes said, “but every time I see a woman do that, I feel like I’m watching Houdini escape from a locked
box.”
“Get over it,” MacKenzie said, stuffing the bra in her purse and undoing her top two buttons. “Penknife?”
DeLuca handed her his Gerber knife, which she used to alter the final digit on her credit card, an 8, into a 3.
“What are you doing?” Sykes said.
“The last digit is the validation key,” she said, “using the Mod 10 LUHN formula algorithm. You double all the other digits,
add them together and then subtract the total from the next highest number divisible by ten. If the last digit is off, the
card reads but won’t verify. You ready?” she asked Hoolie.
“Ready when you are,” he said. “Why don’t you give it another button, just to be safe?”
“Two is enough,” MacKenzie said. “You know what P. T. Barnum said. ‘Make ’em laugh, make ’em cry, but make ’em wait.’ Cleavage
works the same way.”
The others watched as MacKenzie approached the front desk and leaned over as Bindar tried to total up her bill before checkout,
his eyes moving from his computer screen to her card to her eyes to her chest and then self-consciously back to his computer
screen, while Hoolie slipped quietly into the office behind him. When the young man turned his head momentarily toward the
office door, MacKenzie leaned harder on the counter, lifting an arm to scratch the back of her neck.
“Poor kid,” Sykes said. “Five more seconds and we’re going to see smoke coming out of his ears.”
A minute later, Hoolie slipped out the office door, moving quickly to the pay phones, where he pretended to make a phone call
before returning to the bar. MacKenzie returned a moment later.
“I’ve always said that if women knew the power they have over men, they’d rule the world,” Sykes said.
“What makes you so certain we don’t?” MacKenzie replied.
“I can use the laptop in my room to get the maiden names and socials,” Vasquez said. “I have a screen name no one knows about.
What? It’s not like I use it to download porn or anything.”
“Of course not,” DeLuca said. “When you’ve got it, set up new phones using the stolen identities. We should at least be able
to communicate with each other, for a while, anyway. We’ll reimburse the good citizens loaning us their identities later.”
“Meanwhile, how do we get out of here?” Vasquez said.
“This might help,” Sami said, holding up the cardboard display sitting between the salt and pepper shakers and the artificial
sweeteners and on it, the motel’s event schedule, including, today, an antique car show and swap meet taking place in the
parking lot. The bar was full of car show aficionados, old men reminiscing about their first Fords and Chevys and young guys
wearing “I Love Dale Earnhardt” or “I Hate Dale Earnhardt” T-shirts. “If you’ve got cash, I’m sure we could pick something
up.”
“To what end?” Sykes said. “Where are we going?”
“Usually there’s safety in numbers,” DeLuca said, “but not just now. We can’t stay here. And we can’t go home. We can’t even
call home. I’m going to talk to LeDoux, but it’s going to have to be face to face. Meanwhile, we disperse. Once you get ’em
set up, keep your phones off and only turn them on for five minutes on the even hours. I’ll call you when it’s safe. I’ve
asked Scottie to hack Peggy Romano’s system and disable her reset to default codes. That should give us the hundred-yard margin
if they do find us, but it won’t take them long to recalibrate. It shouldn’t come to that, though. What’s wrong?” he asked
Hoolie.
“I’m going to have to sell my Cadillac. I spent six years working on that car.”
“You can’t sell it,” DeLuca said. “Not without putting whoever buys it at risk. You have to leave it. You can come back for
it when this is solved.”
“What are you going to ask LeDoux?”
“I’m going to ask him what’s going on,” DeLuca said. “But I don’t think he knows. I think somebody is manipulating him the
same way they’re manipulating us. He wouldn’t run me, even if he was ordered to, so he’s got to be blind, but he won’t know
it until I tell him.”
“Are you sure?” Sykes asked.
“I’m sure,” DeLuca said. “Meanwhile, think of a safe place to go and go there. And we don’t tell each other. In case we’re
asked. I should think we’ll all be home in another week or two.”
“And if we’re not?” Sykes asked. “Not to be paranoid, but Theresa Davidova thought she was in a safe place. Cheryl Escavedo
was headed for what she thought was a safe place. We could go back to Lechugilla, but I’m not down with that.”
“We’ll be all right as long as nobody knows where we are,” DeLuca said. “And that shouldn’t be for too long. Once I reach
LeDoux, I’ll figure out a way to bring you in. In the meantime, pick up some fat Tom Clancy novel in the gift shop and catch
up on your reading.”
“I don’t know,” Hoolie said. “All that military/government intrigue. It’s so unrealistic.”
DeLuca distributed the cash in his motel room. Mingling in the crowds examining the antique cars assembled in the motel parking
lot, over a thousand in all, CI Team Red resupplied itself. Hoolie bought a 1951 Ford with a grille and nose cone that made
the car look like it had a face. He also purchased a massive sombrero in the gift shop, telling the others it was the same
satellite defense system used by the Mexican army. When the others laughed, DeLuca told them it wasn’t such a bad idea—NSA
had been working hard on biometrics after 9/11, in its search for Osama Bin Laden, developing cameras and ways of identifying
people from space. The others bought umbrellas in the gift shop and found them useful when a light drizzle began to fall.
Sykes bought a 1970 GTO, MacKenzie a yellow 1964 Volkswagen bug with thirty-one thousand original miles on it. DeLuca bought
a red 1968 Dodge Dart with a slant six in it with only eighteen thousand original miles on it. Sami was headed east, the same
direction as DeLuca, and decided to ride with him. For all the years that DeLuca and Sami had ridden together as partners,
patrolling the streets of Boston first as uniformed officers and later as detectives, they’d never taken a cross-country trip.
They’d decided to drive straight through in shifts. They were having a late dinner in a truck stop in Memphis when DeLuca
said he felt as if there was something simple that was eluding them, something obvious.
“The information Escavedo copied was all financial,” he told his old partner. “Why?”
“She needed to get Koenig to back off,” Sami said. “Maybe she threatened to go public if he didn’t leave her alone.”
“Maybe,” DeLuca agreed.
“What did Walter say about the money?” Sami asked.
“She’d isolated an account Koenig was using for home improvement,” DeLuca said. “That was the last document she’d worked on,
anyway. She suspected he was misusing government funds. Or covering up black-budget spending by assigning other uses to cook
the books.”
“Was he?” Sami asked.
“Which?”
“Using government funds for home improvements?”
“Twenty-one million dollars?” DeLuca asked. “Maybe, but what was he doing? Putting on a golden dome for a roof?”
“So what’s left?” Sami asked. “What’s not accounted for?”
“I don’t know,” DeLuca said. “He took out the DVD factory in Beijing to improve his stock portfolio. Or maybe he had other
reasons. That seems thin. He took out a caravan on a glacier on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, I’m guessing, just because
the target presented itself. He didn’t know Frank Pickett was with them because Pickett hadn’t been able to report in yet,
but as soon as Koenig learned, he took out the witness, too. He was probably targeting Fowler for the work he was doing with
the House Armed Services Committee.”
“But he didn’t target Fowler,” Sami said.
“Not after he knew we were watching him,” DeLuca said. “If I hadn’t mentioned Fowler’s name to Koenig, I’m sure there would
have been a mysterious and unexplained disappearance at sea. So all we’ve really got is a note Theresa Davidova found with
the words ‘Tom never,’ but, Tom never what? Tom never loved me? Tom never told me… ? Tom never wanted… ? It’s not
enough.”
“Is that with a capital
N
or a lowercase
n
?”
“I don’t know,” DeLuca said. “She mentioned it to me over the phone. I never saw the note. It wasn’t in the house and apparently
she didn’t have it on her. Why?”
“Maybe it was a capital
N.
There’s a town called Tom Never, on Nantucket. Just south of Siasconset. I’ve taken fishing parties out that way when they
want to fish the Gulf Stream for bluefins.”
“Near Siasconset?” DeLuca said.
“Yeah,” Sami said. “There’s a big Coast Guard Loran station there.”
“That’s where Koenig’s house is,” DeLuca said. “The family compound. I saw a picture of it on his screen saver.”
“You think he’d go there?”
“Why not?” DeLuca said. “He’s not afraid of us, that’s for sure.”
“Maybe he did spend $21 million on home improvement,” Sami said. “That’s gonna buy you a lot of gizmos at Staples for the
home office.”
“Maybe even a satellite dish or two,” DeLuca said.
“Call LeDoux and tell him to have an aircraft carrier meet us there,” Sami suggested.
“Except that LeDoux’s office isn’t secure,” DeLuca said. “I don’t know where the leak is or where the system is compromised,
but it is. I think I’d prefer to handle this first. Who do you know on Nantucket?”
“A couple guys,” Sami said. “I know a party boat captain. And a conch fisherman.”
“Anybody you could ask to sail up the shore with a pair of binoculars and find out if Koenig is in residence, without raising
too much suspicion?”
“Sure,” Sami said. “We could check with the general store, too. If he’s been in to buy a
New York Times,
they’d know. Particularly midwinter. The year-round population is pretty low. Everybody knows what’s going on and who’s there
and who isn’t.”
An hour later, somewhere near Nashville, Sami’s cell phone rang. His contact on the island said General Koenig had been seen
in town during the last few days, and that a younger officer was with him.
They hit a bad snowstorm in Cincinnati that, according to the radio reports, represented the trailing edge of a weather system
socking in the entire East Coast. They left the Dodge Dart at the airport in Columbus, caught the last flight to Boston, and
managed to talk a charter pilot into flying them to Nantucket despite the weather by offering him twice his normal fee, landing
in the dark just before eight o’clock. The owner of the car rental service on Church Street had left a note on his door saying
if anybody wanted him, they could find him at the Cambridge Street Café. DeLuca paid him cash for a one-day rental on a Honda
Odyssey. The road to Siasconset, a village on the eastern side of the island and seven miles from the harbor, was iced over
by a freezing rain that blew in horizontally, and they were the only car on it.