Unwilling to Back Down (Survival of the Fittest Book 2)

by Shawn Keys

  * * *

  Andrew Lark entered the briefing room with brisk purpose. It wasn’t his briefing room. Even though half of his OPC office were part of the Dawn, he couldn’t hold an open gathering in the FDPC offices. First off, not all of the senior members of the Dawn were FDPC. Inviting them into the offices would be strange. Repeated visits might become suspicious. Besides, he didn’t really need to talk to them often. With the benefits of Task Mail, he could pass information quickly. When he needed to hand out assignments in person, those tasks tended to be surgical, executed by pairs of agents. He could hand those out in his private office.

  On rare occasions like this, he would arrange for a meeting room at one of the three conference centers within walking distance of the local FDPC HQ in Seattle. The chosen location was randomly rotated so no-one could guess, and then swept for listening devices ahead of time by Lark’s two personal attendants. Then the senior members of the Dawn would arrive at staggered intervals and patiently wait for Lark. He always arrived last and never wasted time. These meetings never lasted long, minimizing the exposure of having them all together.

  Modern-day business people might suggest that he could do this via video-teleconferencing and avoid all the risk. But he disliked VTCs. He didn’t feel like he could meet a person eye to eye using electrons. Screens didn’t translate his body language well enough: neither anger nor satisfaction. Nothing replaced speaking in person.

  His senior assistant handed him a remote control, which he had pre-tested to ensure it worked. Lark hated unprepared technological aids almost as much as he hated VTCs.

  Andrew clicked on the display. A stock photo of Kyle Hutchings appeared. A measuring strip had been superimposed for reference. It showed a five-foot, eight-inch man who had turned twenty earlier in the year. He was deceptively thin, not showing the lean, wiry muscle underneath. The files on him indicated he was skilled in jiu jitsu and could take one hell of a beating. The agents he had killed had filed reports in which they admitted he had come out ahead when they fought hand-to-hand in the Simmons’ house. There was hidden power in Kyle’s compact frame.

  Scanning around the boardroom table, Andrew made sure the six attending Soldiers of Dawn were sharp and focused. They were all busy. Each of them probably had a hundred emails an hour ticking into their inboxes. Missed phone calls. Double lives to juggle. Some of them even had triple lives. But Andrew needed them here. “Our persistent little problem has raised his head again, Ladies and Gentlemen. He didn’t run. And apparently, now he’s done hiding.”

  Vera Klyde, the local media and social network monitoring expert, said, “There has been zero activity on any social media originating in our area. Anti-FDPC sentiments worldwide haven’t spiked significantly in the last year. None of our A.I. programs have connected any terminology or references that suggest our organization has been identified. Even normal conspiracy theory traffic is down. There haven’t been any reported contacts to any media outlets. Putting out feelers on his end would have shaken the web on our end.” She held up her palms, uncertain what to make of it. “He has faded away.”

  Gregor Jones, their head of internal security and coordinator of the private investigators under the Dawn’s influence, leaned forward in his chair. He added, “If he had information that could hurt us, he would have used it. He’s not a trained spy or even a reporter. He’s a loser from a community college who won the lottery of being a Persterim anomaly. He’s not just a murder suspect. FDPC agents are almost treated like Police. Which means to the local PD, he’s the next thing to a cop killer. Who is he going to trust?”

  Andrew normally let them have their say. He encouraged opinions. Quashing them tended to hide important details. This time, however, he had to shake them out of this complacency. Using a picture to illustrate his point, he clicked over to the next image. This one was an employee photo from the Department of Justice files, freely available to any other government agency. “Allow me to introduce DOJ-ODA Agent Jackie Moraker. She arrived on the coast within the last week in response to a report of FDPC corruption. The complainant was Kyle Hutchings. Despite his status as a fugitive, he managed to convince her to come here, presumably to meet with him.”

  Gregor blustered, “A week ago? Why wasn’t I told about this? We could have been on her like flies on shit from the moment she landed!”

  Andrew put up a calming hand. “If we had known her travel plans, you would have been the first to know. Unfortunately, she requested that her activities remain off the books. Her superiors have given her the latitude she wanted. Our own computer experts have tried to gain access to her finances, but so far nothing.” He gestured to a prim, neat woman with large glasses sitting nearby.

  Angela Mainland’s glasses were purely decorative: part of her latent, public persona. Myopia, hyperopia, stigmatisms, and other eye issues requiring corrective lenses were uncommon among those who met baseline, but practically unheard-of among those of the superior standards within the core Dawn members.

  With clinical precision, Angela described the results of her computer investigation, “The agent flew under reserved law enforcement seating which does not divulge the name on any flight plans. She flew into Vancouver instead of Seattle, then crossed the border using a rapid-transit ferry. She rented a car from a waterfront company without a reservation. By the time these details were compiled, she was well beyond any possibility of surveillance.”

  Trisha Stanford, head of the Dawn’s clandestine financial pool for the region, clicked her tongue in disappointment. “Hasn’t modern science produced something like the fantastical satellites we always see in movies? You know, the ones that have the whole country under scrutiny 24 / 7? Can’t you hack into gas station cameras along the highway and traffic videos and all that stuff?”

  “We’re not the NSA,” Gregor scowled. “Not yet, anyway. Hell, even the NSA isn’t the same NSA that you see on screen. They have a few tricks, but nothing like that. Satellites have a narrow scan width. Takes weeks to take video strips detailed enough to make out individuals. Gas stations have cameras, but they aren’t wired into the internet all that often.” He waved a hand. “I’m not going to explain this again. I told you the odds of finding Hutchings in that way. We’ll tap into whatever technology we can, but the odds are only a little better than winning the lottery.”

  Andrew agreed, “Which means this is only going to get resolved by renewing our active investigation. You want our dead agents to be treated like police? Well, then, we might as well follow their reputations for hard work. We need to work the problem. We’ll continue to dig away at Agent Moraker. If we gain access to her finances or records in any way, we might be able to retrace her movements. Until we catch sight of her, assume she is in the same, rather well-hidden location as Hutchings.”

  He clicked the slides and advanced two more faces onto the screen. “In the end, she is not my concern. She has the means to complicate our lives, but not until she is given proof. These two people are my real concern.”

  On the screen were the FDPC file photo for Claire Erinson and a teacher ID photo for Yvette Laurier. After the months of their initial investigation, the pictures were familiar to everyone. While there were always a couple of hundred anomalies with implant transmissions at any one point in time in the northwest states, their early investigations had nailed down which implants that were ‘off the grid’ were part of Kyle’s group in exile.

  The investigations into their lives had fallen on Gregor’s lap, in cooperation with Angela’s computer teams. He grimaced now. “We looked into their families. Their personal spending habits. Favorite resorts. Both Megan Clarke and Yvette Laurier dumped their houses on the market and shifted money around. We have a suspicion that Laura Greene and Danielle Nyqvist received some financial aid from their fathers, though we have no proof of that. As you know, implicating any of the others in the murders, other than Hutchings and Simmons, would be problematic. So, according to the public institutions and banks, th
ey are still clean and we can’t use a warrant to access them.”

  Andrew nodded, mulling over that decision. They had decided together that convincing the police that a pair of reputable education professionals and members of the FDPC itself had gone rogue and turned into killers sounded far-fetched. They couldn’t exactly show the police the real reasons that the women had indeed turned to violence: aka, a shadow organization that had tried to kill them.

  Gregor interrupted his thoughts, “After all that, why are these two your concerns?”

  Andrew summoned up one detail from each of their files. He started with Claire. “She was the system operator for the computers at the Lionsgate FDPC office.”

  Gregor frowned. “Alright. So?”

  “That means she had access to the computers of Niles and Lawson.”

  Angela knew where he was going with this. It was her turn to object. “We recovered both access-key dongles from those computers. She didn’t walk away with any ability to access Task Mail.”

  Andrew didn’t argue, but then he highlighted a piece of Yvette’s background. “Intermediate knowledge in ancient languages, including a dissertation written for her PhD on the Aeolic dialect of Ancient Greek.”

  “She isn’t necessarily there to translate,” Gregor objected. “She has a prior personal relationship with the Clarke woman!”

  Andrew got a little angry. “Enough! I don’t like coincidences. It’s time we stopped looking for reasons why they aren’t ahead of us and start assuming that they are. If we think any differently, then we’re going to keep playing ‘catch-up’ with them. We’re the big, bad government agency, remember? They are the ones who should be on the back foot. They’ve built themselves some room to breathe. I don’t like that. I want pressure put back on them. With these two, they have a way they could go on the attack. We can’t allow that!”

  He gathered his temper again. “Now, look at the pattern. Hutchings’ childhood friends crossed into Canada hours after he vanished. His parents flew out of the country. Anyone who wasn’t directly involved, he either asked them to leave or forced them away. He shed the comfort of having people he cared about. Those that stayed with him had reasons to be there! Do you think Megan Clarke asked her lover to stay with her so she wouldn’t be lonely? No. We need to assume they drew the Laurier woman into the mix for her expertise. If they know they need that expertise, that means they have some examples of our private communications. Maybe even brief exposure to the Task Mail site itself.”

  “It isn’t impossible, considering the skills of the Simmons woman,” Angela grudgingly admitted. “Dazz is a known quantity online. Her handle is ‘Dazzle’, and she has decent hacker contacts in certain circles. That doesn’t change the fact that all key-dongles have been physically accounted for as recently as a week ago. They don’t have one. They can’t be actively reading our mail.”

  Always astute when it came to online personae, Vera added, “Not to mention that our identities are cloaked on Task Mail. Piecing together everything they are reading and making sense of it would take years.”

  Andrew didn’t fight any of that. “Which may be why they have been laying low all this time. They are trying to figure out what they have in their hands. They don’t have everything. At most, they have the files and contacts that Niles and Lawson would have access to. Enough to be dangerous, but not enough to prove anything beyond what a conspiracy theory nut could conjure up on their laptops over a weekend. Think people. What do they need?”

  Dirk Crowder was the heavy in the room. He handled killings when they needed to be done. His people weren’t field agents. They went out to tie up loose ends. He had been quiet. He was the sort of man who reserved his right to speak until it mattered. His shark-like stare was devoid of emotion. Practical and cold were the only two words that came to mind when looking at his gaunt face and empty eyes. “They need live access.”

  Andrew nodded. “Yes.”

  “From where?” Trisha huffed.

  “That’s on us to figure out. This is our chance to step out ahead of them. We can stop chasing where they are and focus on where they will strike out in an effort to prove their legitimacy to this DOJ agent. Her arrival might be beneficial news if we get it right. We need to evaluate our own vulnerabilities honestly. You all have their files. You know their capabilities. They are novices in covert operations, but that doesn’t make them clueless or without skill. We know from our investigation at the safe house that they have at least two skilled shooters, at least one of whom could pass as a sniper. As Angela mentioned, they have a serious hacker threat. A language expert. A genetic scientist. A nurse, giving them decent medical capability. Put that all together and figure out the real threat. Look at your organizations again. Find the holes.”

  He gestured to Vera. “All the CEOs we’ve bought have Task Mail access. Re-engage them on their security protocols. I don’t see how they could know which businesses to focus on, but make sure they are being careful and aren’t saying anything provocative or indicative of their allegiance as part of their social media campaigns or press releases.”

  To Gregor, he said, “We’ve issued several access keys to our own people. Angela will do another count, but I need you to work with her. Drive home a little fear to make sure no-one is getting sloppy handling their dongles or opening any phishing emails… that sort of thing. Do a covert confirmation of Angela’s count. Make sure they haven’t sold their real one on the black market and are passing off a fake or something like that. Send another wave of agents out into the countryside. They probably aren’t hiding in the city. See if anyone in the backwoods has seen any of Hutchings’ group haunting one of the small towns.”

  He shifted to Trisha. “Wherever they are, they are spending money. They are trying to hide at least twelve people. They aren’t hiding in a swamp. They aren’t crouching at the side of the road. After all this time, they won’t screw up and start spending money on a credit card or anything. But they are renting a hotel room or they bought a house… something where they can live through the winter.”

  Trisha inclined an eyebrow at him. “Do you have any idea how many transactions there are we would have to comb through?”

  Andrew frowned back at her. “I do. Use your imagination and follow your instincts. They aren’t going to buy a house and then submit the deed to the local regulatory office for us to find. If they do, it will be under a false name. Get creative. Figure it out.”

  He turned to the last of the group, the only one he hadn’t addressed: Fred Reigns, headmaster of training at the central Dawn indoctrination facility and organizer of any refresher training he provided the other loyalists scattered around the nearby states. “Obviously, you have a large number of keys at the school. Lock down what you have and push your security briefs about insider-threat training. We’re all undercover, so a mole or double-agent is a fact of life we’ll have to deal with eventually.”

  Fred huffed. “Eventually? Already have. I dump a few bodies in the bay every year. You know, from reporters or investigators who try to ‘infiltrate’ the camp because they think they have a lead.”

  Nodding again, remembering the reports, Andrew said, “Alright, we’ll leave it there for now. Take another look at the relevant files and see if you can look at this from another angle. Don’t assume I’m right about where the danger is coming from. We have more resources than them. We can come at this from multiple directions. Be ready for wherever this takes us. There is attention on this at the federal level. They are giving us room to maneuver, but we don’t want to disappoint them.”

  He tapped the table one last time. “We are into a critical time, here. Hutchings has someone to listen to him. He’s not going to waste time. He’s an amateur. Which means he is impatient; he is going to make a mistake. When he does, you have my authority to take immediate action. We have backing all the way to the top. Call in what you need. If possible, capture him for interrogation so we can burn out everyone and everything he has
infected. If not, kill him. Better to put a bullet in him rather than having him escape. Understand?”

  They all did.

  Andrew gave them a last, grim smile of support, then walked out, leaving his two assistants to clean up the site and erase any residual presence.

  Chapter 2

  Kyle eased up on the gas on the old station wagon they had bought. It was one of the last models built back before the turn of the century. The old rancher who had owned it had bought it for his wife. When she died, he had stashed it in his barn and rarely touched it. It wasn’t flashy, and didn’t have much in the way of guts to its engine, but it had great carrying capacity and didn’t look at all like a vehicle porting around wanted fugitives.

  They were keeping clear of the interstates. He was on a backroad somewhere in Washington, following signs leading into Bridgeport, still more than four to five hours away from Seattle. It was in the middle of the morning, and they hadn’t stopped for breakfast. Now brunch was getting on their minds, and the gas indicator on the car was drifting toward empty.

  Kyle noticed a hand-made sign on the side of the road, advertising a diner with a gas bar coming up in a couple of miles. “Probably a good time to stop.”

  Jackie was in the passenger seat, lost in her thoughts. She glanced up, realized what he was saying, and agreed. “Sounds good to me.”

  In the back, Dazz had earphones strapped around her ears, curled up in the seat, with her eyes closed. He didn’t know if she was sleeping or just zoning out. Either way, he wasn’t going to bother her. He knew she wouldn’t care.

  On the other side, Chloe was reading a book on genetics. That was as much as Kyle could understand about it. The subject matter was far past his incredibly limited understanding. It wasn’t Chloe’s expertise, with her being more of a chemist, but she was clearly trying to expand her scientific vocabulary to be more of a help to Claire in the future. She fished herself out of the book and gave a sigh of appreciation. “Finally. I’m starving.”