Chapter Sixty–Six
Trahison des clercs
Conversation was never hard for Finn and Tonic, and in light of recent developments, it was almost impossible to keep things under a thousand words a minute. Babysitting the John Hancock Standard building from twelve to eight would give them plenty of time to exhaust the topic, and neither of them were optimistic about the chances of their one and only drunken lead turning up to raid his office liquor cabinet.
“I miss Ray,” Tonic said as they pulled up in the parking lot adjacent from the JHS building.
“Well he’ll have his name in lights soon enough.”
“Nah, I mean for shit like this. Over–caffeinated little fucker never slept once that I saw. We could’ve just posted him up on the hood and racked out.”
From where they were, they could see both the front door, the covered parking, and the little dimple in the pavement that marked the once, but no longer, blocked fire exit from the basement. Plus, they were in the only other lot within a couple of blocks, so
if
the idiot decided that he needed to stop by work and kick the shit, they’d probably see him. As Tonic adjusted his pants by squirming up and down in his seat, Finn made calls to the other lucky guys who had been chosen to stakeout Hack’s house.
“What?” came the voice of pure boredom.
“Oh… hey Hop,” Finn said.
“
What
?”
“Just checking in with you guys,” Finn tried not to smile. It was good to see the Boss in the field once in awhile, even better to rub it in a little. Hopkins was a good guy, a pretty natural office honcho, but it wasn’t any secret that he preferred driving his desk to getting shot at. Smart guy. “Feeling the urge to flash your badge a little?”
“It’ll feel even better to get my hand on your dick and twist if you don’t cut it out.”
“Promises, promises,” Finn said.
“I can hear you smiling, stop it.”
“You guys see anything?”
“Nah, we’re short a couple of people, but ain’t nobody gone in or out of his apartment.”
“Alright, we just got out to the bank so we’ll be here.”
Hop accidentally pressed some buttons on the phone. “Jesus could you
get
a smaller phone?” he said to the lucky soul he’d drawn for the surveillance. “Why do I care where you are?” he redirected to Finn. “Oh hey, where’d you guys get those cherry deals?”
After Finn hung up the two sat in silence for as long as they could stand. It was their custom, and the ritual of cops all over the world, to want to save as many words as possible for the times of draught. It was much harder now, but they made it to nearly one o'clock before Tonic finally broke the stalemate.
“How we gonna vote out here?”
“Smoke signals?”
“We’d need a
real
Indian for…” Tonic said just before his voice trailed off and he looked past Finn. His partner had seen enough horror films to know protocol. He sat still.
“What?”
“There’s someone behind you, two of ‘em.” Tonic said, still watching. Mischief filled his eyeballs, making them float about in his head as he considered the possibilities.
“Two of who?” Finn finally snuck a peek over his shoulder. Less than thirty feet away the FBI sedan was rolling to a stop beneath the only tree within a mile of the place. It might have provided some degree of camouflage had there been any leaves. Instead, it acted like a big flag stuck in the top of the car, waving and drawing attention to the pilot and co–pilot; Agents number One and Two.
“Miller and what?” Tonic asked.
“Dupree.”
“Right, right,” Tonic was leaning way over into Finn’s personal space as he gawked. It was agreed that the center console was the natural DMZ during stakeouts, and any attempts at border crossings were strictly verboten.
“Ahem,” Finn gestured to the line of death. “I believe this means that you’re buying?”
“Shit,” Tonic said. He recoiled back, knowing it was too late. “I was vulnerable!” he protested.
“You’re buying tonight, and I think…” Finn looked back at the newcomers, “that we’ll have company.”
“Pizza alright?” Tonic searched through his wallet – it contained equal parts wadded up dollar bills and pristine photographs of his girlfriend.
“Pizza’s fine. But tell ‘em to hurry, they haven’t seen us yet.” The agents had pulled up under the oak, which put them just forward of the detectives at a range of about ten yards. The foot wide tree trunk helped to obscure their view even further. Tonic called in the order and the two melted down into their seats.
“Ooo… what’s that one?” Finn pointed to a photograph showing some skin, but was careful not to violate the DMZ.
“
That
… is one you don’t get to see. Perv.”
“I’m not the one carrying around porn in his wallet.”
“That’s because your gay. Gay people don’t
like
porn.”
"No, you just don't like
my
porn."
They carried on the conversation as they watched the FBI pair setting up shop.
“Binoculars… camera. Jeez, a
nice
camera. Why don’t we have a camera like that?” Tonic asked as he peered over the edge of the door. “I bet they’ve got nods too, you just watch.”
“What?”
“Nods, night vision. All that shit. Yep, yep… there ya go,” Tonic confirmed as an agent opened a pouch and held an expensive looking night vision scope up to his eye.
“Son of a bitch,” Finn said. "We gotta talk to Hop, that’s cool.”
“Wanna bet that they still don’t see us until the pizza gets here?”
Finn opened his wallet and placed a five on the dash. FBI guys were pretty sharp. They’d catch a whiff. Tonic matched the bill, and sixteen minutes later collected his ten dollars.
“We need to keep bettin’ so I can get the pizza money back,” Tonic said as they both watched the frizzy haired Dominos kid search around the lot for a “shitty blue four–door sedan.”
Finn smiled. "Never gets old.” The pizza kid came right up in their blind spot like a ninja and tapped on the window. They jumped on cue, and then Agent number One–this was Miller they agreed – rolled down his window and said something that was probably bordering on rude judging from the way the kid stepped away from the door. The FBI, as a rule, was chastised for actually
being
rude in public, but technically they were in their car. A sacred place not to be invaded by irreverent city cops.
Mr. Pizza pointed, still balancing the box, and obligingly, both Finn and Tonic gave their best Forest Gump waves. More words were exchanged between agents, as the pizza kid’s joints began to freeze up.
“Is this a spat or is this some sort of negotiation?” Finn asked.
“Dunno, but Frodo there should have worn a coat.” The kid was hopping around now. The pizza was probably frozen. Finally, the window came back down and the pie was passed in with a little wave of acknowledgement from Agent number Two, Dupree. The kid vanished, and then reappeared at Tonic’s window with a second pizza.
“I guess they decided that the cheese wasn’t strychnine,” Tonic said as he rolled down the window. The kid was eyeing the roof and trying to keep his cap on his head.
“Dude, I think somebody shot your car.”
Tonic handed the money out, plus five bucks for coming out into the cold, but minus two for being a dumb ass and not wearing a coat. Cop equity.
The kid wrangled the big box in the window, handed over a six pack of sodas and ran to his car, pumping his arms into the wind the whole way.
Tonic watched until again Agent Dupree looked over, and then waved for the FBI to come and join the D.C.P.D. for late lunch.
Dupree, much to Miller’s dismay, shook his head and then mimed talking into a radio. He went so far as to hold one up and wave it around. Tonic made a dismissive gesture and twenty seconds later both detectives were standing outside of the FBI sedan waiting to be let into the back seat. They looked at one another over the roof of the car as the agents inside decided whether or not it was safe to unlock the doors.
Click.
“Heyas,” Tonic said. "You guys gotta get cell phones so you can get off of those radios.”
“Cellular telephones are not adequately encrypted,” Agent Miller said.
Finn rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, well… anyway,” Tonic went on, “good to see you guys again.”
Dupree, who had a little pizza sauce on his lip now, seemed much more amiable. Maybe he had just needed to eat, or maybe he was second fiddle and knew when to keep his mouth shut. At any rate, he raised his slice of greasy pizza in a toast. “Thanks for this.”
“It’s nothin’, cops need to eat,” Tonic opened their pizza and took out his own slab. “Besides, it might be a long night eh?”
Miller, who was still staring forward, binoculars in his lap, glanced at Finn in the rearview mirror, then looked away.
Finn took his cue, "Hey sorry about all that before.” He dangled the remaining three colas forward, and Miller took them without looking back. “I was a little tired. We’ve been working this case hard without a break.”
“Yeah me too,” Tonic said with his mouth full. "But I wasn’t tired, I’m just a prick. Sorry.” He popped open a can and swallowed, “This is a pretty nice ride.” They all looked around the interior like mourners staring at a coffin’s lining.
“It’s not bad,” Dupree ventured. "But not as nice as yours.”
This time Miller rolled his eyes. It made Finn laugh.
“Yeah but we don’t have night vision goggles.”
“We’ve got a
thermal
scope in the trunk,” Dupree said with no small measure of glee.
“No shit? Lemme see,” Tonic said. They were perfect for each other.
“No,” Agent Miller said a little too forcefully. He looked into the mirror and then amended his vote with, “It’s not dark yet.”
“Alright then, when it gets dark,” Finn said. "Can’t wait.” Agent Miller closed his eyes in resignation and Finn imagined the FBI generated jargon popping up in his head.
Inadvertent invitation! Darn. Darn. Darn.
Car talk degenerated into talk about the length of shift, which morphed into gun talk, which further decomposed into stories about past busts. It was hard for cops not to lapse into this kind of banter, and even Agent Miller, try as he might, broke down and told a tale or two in the end. It helped pass time, and as long as no one got the farts, the law enforcement world would remain at peace.
Chapter Sixty–Seven
Trace
"I presume that you have something good to tell me?"
Tanner, again, could only nod as he stood in Mr. Baker's doorway panting.
"Well let's hear it son," Baker prompted without looking up from his stack of loose papers.
"I found it. I found the signal, well… it's not really a signal, but you know… I mean…"
Baker looked up. "Settle down. We're all a little tired here. Just… come over here, sit, and tell me son."
Tanner did as bidden, even though he was sincerely afraid of falling fast asleep in front of his boss. "I found the code that he's using to hide himself sir. I haven't messed with it at all yet. Nothing. But I can see it. I'll see how it reacts to a ping… maybe there's nothing attached to it, but this is when we have to be
most
careful."
"Is that what you've got for me right now?"
"Yes, that's… that's it," Tanner said, blinking away the sleep.
"Get back to it. And bring in some clear heads to make sure you don't blow us up."
Tanner staggered out.
* * *
“It’s getting dark,” Seth said.
Ray examined the faint light that sifted in through the papered windows upstairs. “You know, I’ve lost track. Feels like morning to me.”
Seth nodded. "It’s the bagels. You’ll be like the first hostage in history to gain weight as a prisoner.” There were rings under his eyes, dark heavy ones that competed with his fading bruises. Meek was wrung out, but they were upstairs sitting on the floor like a couple of half–assed urban campers, which seemed almost normal.
Ray’s ankles were still bound, and he worked them around a little to keep the blood flowing. He’d found that over time it had been his hips that ached the most from having his feet tied. Why, he didn’t know, but the only thing that made it better was arching his back over and over. It made Meek smile and again he promised. "It won’t be long now.”
“I’m alright.” He added his empty can to the pyramid they’d been building. “Sorry about blowing up on you.”
“Are you sorry because I’m the one with the gun, or because you think you shouldn’t have been slightly irked at life in general? Because both are kinda fucked up aren’t they?”
“You’ve got plenty to think about without me throwing a fit,” Ray said. His can balanced perfectly. Another week and they’d have the beginning of a monument.
“That sounds a lot like you’re worried about me giving you a third eye.” Seth flipped open his laptop.
“Not really, I just told myself that I’d be an observer… nothing else. I got in the way.”
“Hell I dunno Ray,” Seth began. “How’s a guy keep his pants clean in something like this?” That Ray’s pants were covered in scribbles and more was a fact not lost on either of them.
“How’s the voting going?”
Meek seemed almost intoxicated, he was slow to reply. “You really want to know, or should it be a surprise?”
Ray shrugged. “I’ve had plenty of surprises lately.”
“Just one more then,” Meek said. “Weird isn’t it?”
“What’s that?”
“
Voting
. It’s like picking some kid who can sing on television. Right now the world’s getting a chance to weigh in on the oldest question of justice. The whole ‘eye for an eye’ thing. And without pretense. They can vote how they want, no pressure, no church breathing down their neck, no politicians waving a battle flag.”
“They are though you know…” Ray said. They’d been watching the television feeds. Talking heads abounded. Left wing, right wing, evangelists and hairdressers… everyone had an opinion on
The Trial.
And everyone was trying to rally their troops to vote one way or the other.
“Sure, but the
voting
isn’t done in public. This grand jury votes in private and finds out in the end what they’ve decided. Of course, it’s no better or worse than the system we have now – it’s still all fucked up right? It’s
all
influenced by how the tapes are played, cut up, how people interpret them, how they’re handled… by who’s shouting loudest about what a cock–up I am. Say one of those news crews decided not to go down into Widmore. Say they didn’t find that Saul kid’s mom. She didn’t get her time on TV. What if the other one’s parents were all squeaky clean praying over their lunch? Well spoken and in business suits? Would it change anything? I dunno. This way… my way, is all fucked up too, but at least everyone gets to see everything and, I guess that’s what I wanted all along maybe. I could pull the plug right now and the world would be different. In a way I've won.”
"How's it different? The world I mean."
Seth turned to Ray directly, "There's no maybe in what I'm doing."
Ray was shaking his head, "I don't understand… I'm tired."
"Everyone has to ask themselves what they would do if given the chance to right the world's shitty injustice on their own. And it's not just some abstract thing, because it takes about two minutes to vote. It's either yes or no, life or death. Do they
care
enough to vote? Do they hate something, a kid, a principle, an injustice in their own lives… enough to kill? Or do they love enough to stop it all? Do you bless these fucking kids or curse them? In the end, I hope… the world will be more polarized. People will believe in what they believe in… more. Does that make sense? Listen Ray, I didn't plan this all out very well, you've seen how close I've come to just ending those two. But from where I sit right now, drinking what'll probably be my last Coke, this sounds pretty good. I think that if people believe in something, they'll fucking fight. We've become too passive about the hate, the killing, rape, and suffering that's on TV every damn day. We just can't process it all. To survive we have to tune it out. But if we do… if we stick our heads in a hole and wish it away, it'll get bigger and bigger until it climbs over the back fence
and kills your kids
. That's what I did isn't it? I tuned it all out until it killed me. Hell Ray, we've all become too passive about
everything
, even love. Fear not, believe only, right? If people believe in
something
, I think I've made my point."
“Are you really going to let them go?” Ray asked. There was something different here, but he couldn't decide what it was–fatigue maybe–or just a man recognizing his own impending death. Maybe Seth was just excited for the end to be so near, but that didn't seem quite right either. His endgame was severely limited.
A nod. “If that’s how the jury decides it, yeah.” Meek squinted at his laptop and said, “Hello.”
Ray watched, but said nothing.
Seth wiggled fingers over the keyboard. "My former employers are looking for me.”
“What’s that mean?”
Seth smiled his jack–o–lantern smile. Ray had come to ignore the broken teeth. “See, they don’t know what’ll happen if they start putting pressure on my encryption. Everything is safe, I mean, the control towers at all of the airports aren’t going to shut down or anything. But computers are delicate creatures, so they’re testing. Trying the boundaries and seeing what they can or can’t do to defeat a system that also protects them.”
“Doesn’t someone else understand it all?”
“Sure, I’m not the only Keymaster, lots of ‘em understand it, but you see… that’s exactly it. It’s random. It’s all based off of atmospheric noise, which is as random as it gets. The encryption recycles all of the time based on what it hears from outer–space.”
“What if they take away its ears then? Isolate one thing and work on that?”
“That’s what they’re doing. Just not all at once. They’re afraid it’ll lock down. It won’t, but they don’t know that, not yet. It’ll take them at least eight hours to really isolate the last signal received and break it down into decipherable parts.”
“Eight hours?” Ray asked. “That’s not long at all.”
“This’ll be over in eight hours Ray. But it was close, yeah. They figured things out faster than I thought they would, but… oh well. I’m not ever going to get another chance to make a better system." He looked up in the glow of the screen, "I’ll miss it.”
Ray had hesitated to ask a question since he’d arrived but it appeared that he may not get many more chances, so he risked it. "What’s after this for you?”
“Not much probably.”
“What’s that mean?”
“We’ll Ray, let’s talk options,” he said as he poked at his keyboard. “As I see it, I have some issues with the law don’t I?”
Ray waited until he saw Seth smile to add his own. "Right, but… is there an answer?”
“No, not really. At the local level, there’s enough to put me away for a long time. I don’t know what you’d call it in legal terms, but running people down with your car is not a good start in a long line of screw ups. Tack on the FBI’s kidnapping charges and a bunch of irate National Security types who figured out that I dicked around with their computers…I’m probably a terrorist by now." Meek yawned.
“So you run…” Ray said and began writing in a boxed off region just above his knee.
“No.”
The writing stopped. "No?”
“Where am I going to run to Ray? Seriously. Who hasn’t seen this face?” Still swollen and bruised and broken, Meek was unmistakable.
“So what’s that leave? Killing yourself?” Ray was incredulous.
“Ray, you’ve got some pieces of your story turned around. As much as I’d love to be the hero in this, I’m not. If ever there was a villain…well, that’s me.” Ray started to speak but Seth cut him off. “I let my family die on my knees, I've kidnapped people, I twisted the law, hijacked the NSA’s whole system, and I’m ready to execute two minors in front of the whole world. But you know what? At least I'm not dying on my knees." He looked at Ray again without really seeing him. It was as if he were realizing something on his own. "I'm not fucking passive anymore. I did something. I believed." His eyes refocused on his captive and he smiled. "I’m sure you’re a good writer and all, but look, I’m not waiting around in Federal pound me in the ass prison for your book to come out in hopes that it’ll clear my good name. Besides Ray, what do I have to live for?” Meek changed the subject with ease, almost as if he weren’t talking about his own death at all. "Wanna see how close they are?”
Seth twisted the computer around. The glow lit up Ray’s face in the darkening room and Seth took a moment to watch him. Probably, they could have been good friends in real life. Given different circumstances Ray would have fit right in with the Friday night crew at Esoteric, playing games and eating pizza. Complaining about commutes and gas prices and why the next World of Warcraft patch wasn’t out yet. It felt like another time, like his memories of elementary school – all smells and colors and holiday celebrations. But, it also felt tantalizingly close. As if he could just straighten up his tie and slide back into his cubicle as per usual. He’d get off work, play some games with his friends, go home to his wife’s best attempts at dinner, and his little girl’s half–hearted flute playing. It was all right there in his mind, but it wasn’t reality. Not any more.
A web–cam was broadcasting on the screen, refreshing every few seconds so that it came across very much like a slow motion cartoon. “This is Potomac Mills mall, the public webcam for the kid’s play area. Meek peered over the screen and then pointed. "And that… right there… is one of my cell phones, well where it will be anyway.”
Ray leaned close. The camera was positioned up above what looked like a big, indoor playground. Parents milled around the perimeter, some read books, others pointed and directed their toddlers through a maze of yellow and orange plastic blocks. One kid was standing up to his chest in an enormous vat of plastic balls, unsure of his next move. Ray had been through the mall in the past and he’d seen the play area, just never from above.