CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
“Quinn”
They reassigned Brubaker to the Sudan for six long years but then a new administration came into power and summoned him back to the capital to serve his new president with his expertise and experience. The East Germans simply had better intelligence that time. Brubaker waited years to become Director and once it happened he wasted no time in initiating a SHC program of their own. At first the infrared seemed to hold some possibility but the technical problems were overwhelming. The source of power simply didn’t exist.
One more reason why it was vital to reverse-engineer the alien technology. Whatever powered the immolations and the central unit very likely represented a vast new source of energy. Whoever figured it out would pull so far ahead of the rest of the world it wouldn’t even be close.
Brubaker never learned what caused Gohnkorov to blow up like a Roman candle but he had his suspicions. For the past week, he had been searching for a link between the Russian scientist and Pawnee Grove without success. Two different worlds. A different time. Perhaps there was a transfer station in Siberia.
A free White was a wrecking ball. Whatever he knew must not be permitted to pass into hands other than Brubaker’s. Regretfully, it was far past the point they could have brought White in. He was officially rogue, a killer on the loose. Brubaker needed to take him out fast.
For that he had just the man.
But first there was the problem of finding White. Here is where Brubaker’s long game came into play. He had been an original, behind-the-scenes investor in Brainiac, the gaming company whose CEO Bryan Ayres was among the early SHCs. Brainiac had developed the Ocelot secretly in conjunction with the Pentagon. While it was true the Ocelots were untraceable, Brainiac had designed a back door signal that activated a tiny transmitter inside the phone. There were only fifteen Ocelots in use. Twelve since Hornbuckle’s murder.
White still had his. Of that, Brubaker had no doubt. It was time to activate the transmitter. He would do that from his study as soon as he contacted Quinn. Quinn was the agent of last resort. The U.S. wasn’t supposed to have any Quinns but they all had them. Quinn would find White, force him to talk and then kill him.
And then what? Would the knowledge put Brubaker in position to stage a coup? God knew the present pack of clowns in the White House and Congress had not the slightest clue how to save the republic from smashing into the iceberg. Reynolds had been clueless and Burke was no better. They had so distorted the meaning and intention of the Constitution as to render it irrelevant. The United States was the greatest, kindest nation that had ever existed. True patriots would not stand idly by as feckless heads of state and legislators played party politics and lined their pockets.
Kagemusha contained hundreds of patriots ready to act. Many were in the military but there were also patriots planted throughout the civil service, the intelligence community, the Congress, and yes, the White House itself. There were even patriots in Hollywood. Thomas Jefferson’s words about the necessity to water the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants were never more true.
Mastery of SHC was essential to controlling the opposition.
Brubaker removed his Ocelot and placed the call. Now it was his turn to listen to the pings and crackles of the Ethernet. Invented by the Defense Department, you’re welcome.
The phone rang twice.
“What’s up, chief,” came the low voice.
“Are you stateside?”
“I’m in Florida.”
“Good enough. The subject’s traveling with a transmitter--I’ll send you the code directly. It will start transmitting the next time he makes a call. His name is Otto White.”
“Aardvark?” Quinn chuckled. “How did that fool ever survive Firebrand?”
“He’s lucky. And don’t you forget it. I want you to find him, find out what he knows about the SHCs then kill him.”
“Is he alone?”
“I don’t know. I leave that to your discretion. Drop everything. Get it done.”
“You know the numbers, Boss,” Quinn said. “I’m on it.”
Brubaker hung up.
‘Honey,” Doris called from the dining room. “Supper’s ready.”
***
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
“The Plan”
Friday evening.
Kleiser sat at the terminal for forty-five minutes tapping keys and eating pizza. Otto was after the Russian report on Dmitri Yakovitch, CEO of Odessa Oil and international playboy. Kleiser kept up a running commentary on what he was doing, using worm programs to sneak in the back door and bypass passwords using Trojan updates designed to resemble the standard security measures sent out five to six times daily.
Otto only half-listened. Occasionally Kleiser would say, “ho shit,” or “bite my schwanz,” usually in response to a security warning. He would then describe his retreat and flanking attempts. At last, he exclaimed, “bingo.” Kleiser slid out of his seat and gestured for Otto to take his place.
TOP SECRET/NSA SAFEHOUSE ODESSA/AUG7/20**/
INFORMANT UDO FLESKO SUBJECT DMITRI YAKOVITCH
AGENT 2691 REPORTING
Yakovitch had invested in a lavish club called Scruples in the resort city of Anapa. The night before he died he partied at his club, which had flown in the Korean hip-hopper Sis Boom Ba for a rumored half mil. Yakovitch was there until four in the morning snorting cocaine and drinking vodka. At one point, he required service from two Ukrainian prostitutes. His bodyguard Udo Flesko drove him home in the pre-dawn hours. Yakovitch was alone in his bathroom when he burst into flames.
Terrified at what might happen to him at Russian hands, Flesko was now in an American safe house in Odessa, the only reason the Russians had agreed to share their information. The police attributed the conflagration to Yakovitch’s “gangster rivals” and had instituted a nation-wide crackdown on criminal gangs.
Yeah right, Otto thought. The Russian government
was
a criminal gang.
Something else was bugging him, a memory floating around in the short-term slurry tank waiting to be retrieved. Something about the way Yakovitch went out. Could a drug overdose trigger the combustion? These aliens had no experience of cocaine, marijuana, heroin. Did they become addicted too? Now he would have to go back through all the victim files searching for drug use. He wished He could call Gus.
The memory popped. Fonzelle Armstrong, rapper and hip-hop mogul. Los Negativos were one of his acts. Fonzelle admitted he’d used but claimed to be clean since ‘10.
So what? Yakovitch had never been to the Grove but Armstrong had. Was Armstrong a delivery system for Sis Boom Ba and she in turn for Yakovitch? Was that how they spread? Armstrong’s international empire made for an effective base of operations. But Sis was a woman. At least everyone believed she was a woman. Upwards of sixty thousand people attended her concerts in sports arenas in Spain, racetracks in France, parks in Australia. Not exactly the target rich environment the aliens sought.
Otto would have to find a way to get that information to Yee without revealing himself. By now every agency in the country had his name and face. He was afraid to turn on the television for fear of seeing himself.
Finally he checked Drudge. Nothing. If Drudge didn’t have it it didn’t exist. The feds were keeping the lid on, which meant the hunt for him was widespread, intense, and sub rosa. The new administration had enough unforced errors on its plate.
Otto mentally reviewed the last few days. Who could connect him to Kleiser?
No one. They’d been careful. And Kleiser was good about covering his tracks.
How long could their luck hold? Some snoop was bound to ferret this out. Wikileaks.
The National Enquirer
.
Kleiser pushed himself away from the flat monitor in a wheeled mesh chair. He chugged a Red Bull. Two dead soldiers lay in the wastebasket. Otto wondered why Kleiser didn’t self-combust from all the caffeine. Witherspoon had loved that shit.
“How would you find out if any of these victims drank a specific soft drink?” he said.
Kleiser put his hands behind his head and stretched. It was seven-thirty. “Oh mannnn I don’t know. Go through their trash?”
The FBI had gone through the trash. They spent the next seventy-five minutes hacking into the CJIS to go over the manifests. The room was uncomfortably warm from all the machines despite the open windows. Otto pored over the evidence lists. They found empty cans of Mt. Dew, Red Bull, Coke Zero and V8 in six victims’ trash. Forget the Coke Zero and V8. Four of the victims favored Mt. Dew or Red Bull.
What did it mean? The alien mind craved caffeine? Causation was not causality.
By now it was eleven-thirty and even Kleiser showed signs of fatigue.
“What else?”
Otto looked at his watch. “It can wait. We’ve been at it for six hours.”
“What’s next?”
“We hit the road. We need to bust a guy out of a mental hospital in Virginia.”
“What guy?”
“Lester Durant, the Below the Beltline Sniper.”
“Seriously?”
Otto stood and stretched. “Ever since he got creased by a bullet Durant can see the aliens. Everyone of those people he took out had a connection to the Grove.”
Every ace needed a wing man.
***
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
“On the Road”
Saturday.
They left before dawn in the old Ford, tires inflated, gas tank full, back seat and trunk crammed with supplies and equipment. Using a McNally Atlas of the U.S., they drove blue highways. They could have used GPS but that would only provide a homing signal. It was radio silence from here on out.
Besides. Kansas City was pretty much a straight shot.
Kleiser drove, slamming Red Bulls and periodically stabbing at the AM/FM/8 Track player in the center of the dash. Otto dozed in the shotgun seat, occasionally looking out at the flat, featureless landscape punctuated here and there by graying farm buildings and lonely windbreaks.
He dozed off.
Thumping bass and monotone braggadocio ripped him from sleep as Kleiser cranked the volume on a rap station out of KC. Otto’s hand shot out like a piston and banged the whole control panel until the sound went off.
“Hey!” Kleiser exclaimed.
“No rap! Shit makes me violent!”
“That’s my music, dude!” Kleiser said defensively, wondering whether he should put it on again. Otto sat like a coiled cobra glaring at the dash through slitted eyes. Kleiser refrained from turning on the radio.
“It’s not music,” Otto said. “Music is composed of rhythm, harmony, and melody. There’s no harmony. There’s no melody. It’s just some ghetto crawler with bogus street cred braying about the size of his penis and his guns and that includes Marshall ‘The Beav’ Mathers!”
Sighing, Kleiser pulled out an iPod, fixed buds in his ears and bopped to whatever cacophony he wished. Otto went back to sleep. They were both awake by the time they reached the outskirts of KC at three p.m. They made a pit stop at a Bosselman’s, stocked up on Slim Jims, corn dogs and pudding and hit the road. They were driving straight through. At five they switched places. Kleiser, who’d been driving for twelve hours, crawled into the back seat, heaved the duffels and boxes around until he created a cat-like space for himself, curled up and went to sleep.
The plan was to set up shop somewhere near the hospital and arrange for Durant’s release into their custody that involved impersonating federal officers. Otto was making it up as he went along, trusting his unlikely partner more than he might have wished. Kleiser claimed to have contacts all over the country--fellow hackers and followers. He was much admired in the hacking community.
Kleiser started to snore, a low-level grinding noise. Otto turned the radio on low, switched to AM and found a news channel. From sea to shining sea the situation was FUBAR. Transportation had ground to a virtual halt as the TSA, Homeland Security, the Coast Guard, and all local municipal police departments went on the highest alert. Once Otto spied a roadblock a quarter mile to the south on the interstate.
The No Fly order persisted. Long lines formed at all manner of public transportation as every traveler had to submit to a search and/or scan. Hysteria ramped up at every possible level. Parents kept their children home from school. Underlings refused to go to work for fear their bosses might go nova. Bomb squads rushed from office to hearth futilely trying to keep up with the avalanche of alarms.
Sen. Lamont Cranston, D, New Jersey, demanded that all regular immigration be halted and that all diplomats and citizens entering or reentering the country be subjected to the blood test. Sen. Marie de los Santos, R, Texas, introduced a bill requiring all members of Congress to take the test. Someone else proposed the test for welfare recipients. CDC didn’t have enough enzymes for the tests. The whole world lacked the necessary ingredients. Pharmaceutical companies in Germany and the Sudan operated around the clock trying to keep up with the demand.
Otto switched to FM and quietly searched until he found a blues station out of KC. His plan had been to drive straight through, swapping off with Kleiser. But Kleiser claimed to have an ally in Mexico, MO with all the gadgets bells and whistles. At one-thirty in the morning, Otto pulled off the blue highway into the entrance to a cornfield and shook Kleiser awake.
“Wha--?”
“We’re about ten miles from Mexico. Call your friend.”
“Yeah, right,” Kleiser mumbled, opening the door and staggering to the three meter corn. He unzipped his pants and relieved himself. He came back to the car and pulled out his cell phone, poked at it.
“No service.”
Otto reached into his pocket and pulled out the Ocelot. “Try this.”
***
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
“Porter’s a Little Weird”
Sunday morning.
Kleiser folded the phone and handed it back to Otto. “He’s up.”
They got back in the car and headed toward Mexico, a town of 12,000 twenty miles northeast of Columbia.
“I should warn you, Porter’s a little weird.”
“Of course he is.”
“He had a snowboard accident up at Keystone a couple years ago and bashed a hole in his skull. They had to insert a metal plate. He’s been a little funny ever since.”
“Randall, I would be shocked if your pal was normal.”
“Actually, he was a little weird before that. I think he’s got a touch of Asperger’s. He also hoards shit. He’s still got all his old monitors and hard drives stacked in the kitchen. Collects all sorts of shit. If he weren’t so paranoid he’d be a big hit on
Hoarders: Buried Alive
.”
Kleiser’s friend Porter lived in a sagging wood frame farmhouse with a collapsed barn in back and a ‘72 Chevelle listing in the gravel driveway. The rear end was plastered with bumper stickers: “Coexist,” “Occupy Kansas City,” “We Are the 99%,” and “No Nukes.” The light burned in the living room window.
Porter opened the door before they got out of the car. He was six four and couldn’t have weighed more than 160. His Emperors of Wyoming T-shirt hung on his bony frame like a flag of surrender. He had a mop of black hair with a purple streak, pierced ears, nose and lip. You could lead him around with a strong magnet.
Kleiser went up the creaky wood steps and they embraced, slapping each other on the back.
“Dog! When’s the last time you took a shower?” Kleiser said.
“I don’t know. What day is it? Hey, man! Welcome!
Mi casa es su casa
. Whassup? Whoozis? Your brother?”
Otto stepped up, wrinkling his nose. Porter smelled like graphite. “Otto White. Thanks for putting us up.”
“No problemo,” Porter said leading them into the house. His movements were quick and jerky revealing a patch the size of a half dollar on the back of his head hidden by lanky locks. Otto spotted the ubiquitous Red Bull on a computer desk but the scarecrow might have been tweaking too. Dream catchers hung on the walls and in a window.
The grimy living room was filled with servers, hard drives, keyboards and monitors just like Kleiser’s. It smelled of ozone, cigarette smoke and body odor. Ashtrays overflowed. Two monitors were lit: a chat room and scrolling numbers.
An ancient dog of unknown provenance crawled out from its doggie bed, tail sweeping. Otto stooped to pet.
“That’s Opie.”
Porter slid into a folding chair facing the monitor. “Dig it--I’m almost into Whole Foods’ database. Ahmina publish all the board members’ names and addresses. That’ll teach that motherfucker to donate to Rethuglicans. You want something to eat? You want eggs? I got six dozen in the fridge. They were on sale for a dollar a dozen.”
“Dude,” Kleiser said. “I need to use your equipment to set up a prison break.”
“Cool!” Porter enthused. “I coulda used that in January when the fucking pigs locked me up for holding a half fucking gram! I was in there for thirty-six hours before my PD got me out.”
The scarecrow opened a drawer beneath the computer, withdrew a smeared hand mirror with a pile of white powder on it. “Either of you guys want a bump?”
“What is it?” Kleiser said.
“The finest crystal you can get.”
“No thanks.”
Porter used a balisong to wrangle a line, which he snorted through a cut soda straw. “So what’s the plan?” he said wiping his nose.
“We’re going to fake an FBI pick-up to bust this prisoner loose.”
“Radical!” Porter said. “What do you want me to do?”
“Let me sit there,” Kleiser said.
Porter slid out. Kleiser slid in. The first order of business was to break into Tuscadero State Hospital’s computers to study the security system and the transfer procedures. They would have to present the hospital with legitimate transfer orders and authentic ID. Otto could no longer use his current IDs because of the APBs. However, the sheer audacity of their action, carried out fifteen hundred miles from where everyone believed him to be, increased their chances of success, as did his knowledge of the bureaucratic mindset.
Otto was dog tired. Porter showed him to a sofa in the “media” room which featured a huge flat screen TV, speaker towers, and shelf after shelf of CDs and DVDs, long boxes covering the floor labeled “Marvel,” “Dark Horse,” etc. The sofa had an old Indian blanket buried under tons of graphic novels, books and rubble.
“Make yourself at home,” Porter said leaving.
Otto carefully transferred the books to the floor, slipped the Ruger out of the small of his back, slid it between the sofa cushions and fell into a mercifully dreamless sleep.
The light woke him. His first impulse was to reach for Steve. He remembered and sadness filled him. He glanced at his watch.. Seven-thirty. Sounds of a printer from the other room. Opie came into the room and began licking his face. Dogs were like that. Otto sat up, rubbed his eyes, padded into the bathroom, took a shit, shave and a shower.
Kleiser stood next to the printer in the living room, Porter sprawled on a sofa. The room stank from Porter’s intense body odor exacerbated by the meth. At least Kleiser had resisted temptation. He looked up as Otto approached.
“What do you think?” He handed Otto a sheet of white foolscap affixed with the Bureau seal and heading.
“Very nice. But we’re going to need a transfer order signed by a judge.”
Kleiser turned, sifted through some papers and handed Otto what appeared to be an official FBI Request for Transfer.
“Holy shit! How did you get this?”
“You want the long version or the short version?”
“Never mind. Outstanding work, Randall! I’m putting you in for a No-Prize.”
Porter lurched up off the sofa popping a fresh can of Red Bull. “A Marvel No-Prize? I got one of those. Did you dig when they turned Spider-Man into a gay Puerto Rican?”
Otto and Kleiser stared blankly.
Porter looked around like a man discovering his surroundings for the first time. “I got that shit somewhere. Lemme dig it out.”
“Not necessary,” Kleiser said.
Porter got down on his knees and pulled two long cardboard boxes labeled “Spider-Man” from under the card table holding one of the servers. Otto envisioned a long fruitless meth-fueled search.
`“I’ll take your word for it,” Otto said.
“No, wait. I know where it is.”
Porter got up and headed into the kitchen. Otto looked at Kleiser and mouthed the word ‘great.’
There was a pop and a thud followed by the snarl of an old dog defending its master.
***