Next Exit, Dead Ahead

by CW Browning

  “How many does this make? Five?” Rob demanded. The edge in his voice made Stephanie wince as she strode toward the Mustang, her phone pressed to her ear. “How do you lose five witnesses?!”

  “With respect, sir, I didn't lose them. They seem to have lost themselves,” Stephanie retorted.

  “What are we doing to find them?”

  “We have BOLOs out on Nuñez, Porras and the guide,” Stephanie answered as she reached for her door handle. “John put one out this morning on Karl, and we'll get one out on Philip now.”

  “I'll take care of that,” Rob said. “I'll do it as soon as I hang up with you. You worry about finding at least one of them.”

  “I'm working on it,” Stephanie answered, sliding behind the wheel. “I have a lead on Philip. Connor, the agent I put on him, said a white catering van pulled around the building at lunch time, unloading food for one of the conference rooms. It was the only vehicle that went in or out of the parking lot that wasn't an employee.”

  “What was the name of the catering company?” Rob asked.

  “Los Azteca Mexican Restaurant,” Stephanie replied.

  There was a short silence before a heavy sigh.

  “Too much of a coincidence,” Rob muttered. “Follow it up. I'll get the BOLO out on Philip and put one out on the catering van. What's the tag?”

  Stephanie pulled out the piece of paper where Connor had scrawled the license plate number and read it off to Rob.

  “Got it,” Rob said. “I'll call this in now.”

  “Thanks.” Stephanie started the engine and the Mustang came to life with a growl.

  “And Stephanie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Be careful.”

  Michael glanced over to the dining room table where Angela was still working away. He shook his head slightly and turned his attention back to his laptop. After a moment's hesitation, he opened up his work VPN portal and logged in, his curiosity getting the better of him. He had never been one to sit by and let everyone else have all the fun.

  He sipped a bottle of water while he waited for the network to load. Alina still hadn't reappeared and he didn't expect to see her anytime soon. She hadn't said where she was going, and he knew better than to ask. Angela hadn't seemed to notice Alina's attire, but Michael had noted the multi-pocketed cargo pants and loose-fitting jacket with interest. He hadn't seen much of Alina's alter-ego two months ago, but he saw enough to know that cargo pants seemed to go hand-in-hand with work. Wherever she had gone, Viper was prepared for any eventuality.

  That made Michael nervous.

  He set the water bottle down on the coffee table and sat back as the network finished loading. He typed in Lowell Kwan's name and waited. He didn't know if he would pull up any information on the software expert, but Michael figured it was as good a place to start as any. The Secret Service databases were the best in the country, but you had to have a reason to be included in them. As far as he could tell, Lowell Kwan had flown under the radar until now. Therefore, Michael was surprised when he got an immediate hit.

  Raising his eyebrows, he clicked on the file and scanned the information quickly. Born Lowell Kwan, he was raised in Arizona by his mother under the name Jared Yang. Lowell was an early bloomer, brilliant and quick from a young age. He got a full academic ride to college and when he got to Stanford, he was on track to becoming the next Bill Gates. Then, midway through college, he developed relationships with some of the more radical political groups on campus. By graduation, Jared Yang had made it onto two government watch lists, both for radical political affiliations.

  Michael frowned and stared at the screen thoughtfully. Jared Yang made quite a name for himself, and the Department of Homeland Security added him to their watch list just before he closed down his software company and changed his name back to Lowell Kwan. The name change didn't fool DHS, and upon moving to New Jersey, Lowell Kwan was being watched by the government very closely.

  Michael clicked to move on to the next file, only to find that there weren't any. He scowled, glancing at the date on the last report. It was 18 months old, and the last record available.

  “What the...”

  Michael spent the next half hour trying to discover why the trail on Lowell Kwan suddenly ended before finally giving up and pulling out his phone. He hit speed dial and waited. It was picked up before the first ring had even completed.

  “Mike! I was just about to call you,” Chris Harbour, his direct boss, answered the phone.

  “Oh yeah?” Michael asked. “Good timing, then.”

  “What are you doing working while you're on vacation?” Chris demanded. “I thought I told you to relax.”

  “I am relaxing, I'm just...wait, how did you know?” Michael asked with a frown.

  “Because I just got a not-so-nice call from the CIA,” Chris answered bluntly. “Why are you interested in Lowell Kwan?”

  “Why is the CIA interested in why I'm interested?” Michael retorted.

  Chris chuckled.

  “That's what I said,” he admitted. “They never actually answered that particular question.”

  “They never do,” Michael muttered. He closed his laptop and glanced into the dining room where Angela was still talking on her Bluetooth. “What are they doing monitoring Kwan's file?” he asked, lowering his voice.

  “I don't know, Mike, but they aren't happy with you poking around,” Chris answered. “They wanted to know what you're working on that led you to Kwan. I stalled them for now, but they won't go away for good. What are you doing?”

  “It's a long story, Chris,” Michael sighed. “A friend of a friend got herself into a jam and this Kwan character is making life uncomfortable for her.”

  “How uncomfortable?”

  “Very.”

  Chris sighed.

  “I know it's pointless to tell you to go back to Brooklyn and play pinochle, or whatever your folks do up there, but I'm going to try anyway,” he said.

  “Bingo,” Michael interjected with a grin.

  “Whatever this Lowell Kwan character is all about, you don't want to be involved.” Chris ignored him as if he hadn't spoken. “Leave your lady friend to the proper authorities, whoever they may be in that area, and go back to vacation. Have a beer. See a show. It's Halloween in a few days. Go to a haunted house.”

  “The haunted attractions around here seem to make people lose their heads,” Michael murmured dryly.

  “Mike, do my acid reflux a favor. Drop it,” Chris said. “The last time you got involved in the CIA's backyard, your kitchen was set on fire.”

  “Since I'm not home, that's not a concern this time,” Michael retorted cheerfully.

  “This doesn't have anything to do with that rogue agent, does it?” Chris demanded after a moment's silence.

  “She wasn't a rogue agent,” Michael snapped. “She was cleared.”

  “Oh God.” Chris groaned in resignation.

  Michael chuckled.

  “What can you find out for me?” he asked.

  “Not much,” Chris replied. “They have it all locked up. I'll see what I can do, but don't hold your breath.”

  Michael pursed his lips.

  “How bad do you think it is?” he asked after a moment.

  “They knew what you were doing three minutes after you ran the search,” Chris told him. “Whatever it is, Kwan is a priority for them. Hell, they probably already have a lock on your location.”

  Michael glanced at his laptop, then at the dark plasma screen above the mantel. He thought of Alina and her paranoid, GPS-altering security measures and smiled.

  “I wouldn't lay bets on that,” he murmured.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Stephanie hadn't even made it out of the parking lot before her phone started ringing again. She glanced at the caller ID and pulled off to the side of the lot, putting the Mustang in park.

  “Matt, tell me you have something good!” she answered.

  “I have something go
od,” Matt obliged.

  “Thank God!” Stephanie exclaimed. “What is it?”

  “I've got a few things for you,” Matt said. Stephanie could almost picture him pushing his glasses up on his nose. “Let's start with the cigarette butt.”

  “Cigarette butt?”

  “From the maze where you found your informant's remains,” Matt reminded her. “You didn't forget about it, did you?”

  “Matt, if you had any idea what's going on, you'd understand how a cigarette butt slipped my mind,” Stephanie told him. “But now that you've brought it back to my attention, did you get anything off it?”

  “Of course I did,” Matt answered cheerfully. “I'll spare you the fun, forensic details and skip right to the important points. The cigarette was a regular, full-tar Marlboro, but it was a Mexican-produced Marlboro.”

  “Is there such a thing?” Stephanie asked, surprised.

  “Oh yes. Marlboro produces cigarettes in several other countries, and Mexico is one of them. They have their own factories there,” Matt explained.

  “I'm not going to ask how you can tell the difference between cigarettes produced in the States and ones produced in other countries, but someday, you'll have to explain that further,” Stephanie said, momentarily diverted.

  “Anytime you want a lesson, you know where to find me,” Matt replied. “Now, not only was the cigarette Mexican, but so was the smoker. It's a shock, I know, but try to contain yourself.”

  “Ha! You're being funny today. Did you get a DNA match off it?” Stephanie asked, her pulse quickening.

  “I did,” Matt told her. “I ran it against our databases and got a perfect match. Ramiero Losa. His DNA was collected from a crime scene in Puerto Vallarta last year. He was arrested, but never convicted. He's an enforcer for your new friend, Jenaro Gomez.”

  “Matt, if you were here, I would kiss you,” Stephanie said with a grin.

  “Now, now, I'm not finished amazing you yet,” Matt retorted. “That's just the cigarette butt. I haven't gotten to Rodrigo's computers yet.”

  “You finally have something from them?” Stephanie asked. “It's about time!”

  “I beg your pardon!” Matt exclaimed. “Do you have any idea the level of encryption built into those machines? I'm talking government-level encryption here. He had two booby traps built into the layers, not to mention the unique coding he...oh, never mind. You're just lucky I had two of the encryption analysts down here with me, or you'd still be waiting.”

  “I'm sorry,” Stephanie apologized. “You've spoiled me, Matt. When you're on the job, I'm used to fast results.”

  “I should hope so,” Matt retorted, mollified.

  “Tell me what you found on the computers,” Stephanie said.

  “Rodrigo planted a virus on the bank's mainframe by injecting it into the back-end coding,” Matt told her. “The crazy part is, the virus was actually injected six months ago. When he went in again just before he disappeared, he didn't do anything with the actual virus. I'll put all the details in my report, but the essential point you need to know now is that the virus is still there. At least, it was when we got the computers. It's been built to work undetected for any amount of time. When you're finished, you go into the mainframe and extract the coding, erasing the evidence. It's like it was never there.”

  “What does it do?” Stephanie asked.

  “I can't know exactly what it's doing without seeing the extraction logs, but it appears to have been designed to withdraw a designated amount of money at regular intervals from multiple accounts,” Matt said. “My guess would be that it pulls a small amount from all accounts. The genius of it, however, is when it pulls the money, it doesn't transfer it anywhere. So no alarms go off within the system at money being moved around from millions of accounts. Instead, the virus takes it from the accounts and holds it in a file within the system. The system fail safes don't catch it because, even though the money is gone from the accounts, it's still technically in the system.”

  “I don't understand. The money doesn't go anywhere?”

  “Not until the virus is extracted,” Matt said triumphantly. “It's really quite brilliant. Once the virus is extracted, the money disappears. All evidence of the virus is gone, and so is the money. The system alarms go crazy, the system locks down, but it's too late. Anything able to show what happened has been erased.”

  “So the banks would have no idea until it's all over,” Stephanie exclaimed.

  “Exactly. Brilliant, isn't it?” Matt sounded almost reverential. “Do you have any idea what they can do with this? They could crash the global economy and no one would know what happened.”

  Stephanie was silent, her mind spinning.

  “What do you need to find out exactly what this virus is doing?” she finally asked.

  “Well, I would need access to the bank's mainframe,” Matt said matter-of-factly. “That's the only way to know for sure I'm right, even though we both know I'm never wrong.”

  “Get your report to Rob ASAP,” Stephanie said grimly. “Let's see if we can get you that access.”

  “Are you kidding?” Matt demanded, half-laughing. “It's a bank! They're not going to just hand over the keys to the vault.”

  “They will if we can stop them from getting robbed,” Stephanie replied. Her phone beeped in her ear and she glanced at the screen. “I have to go, Matt. I have a call coming in. Get that report to Rob!”

  Stephanie hung up on him before Matt could argue and switched over to the incoming call.

  “Tell me good news, John,” she said without preamble.

  “I found Lorenzo Porras,” John told her.

  “Fabulous!” Stephanie exclaimed and put the Mustang in gear. “Where is he? Have you talked to him yet?”

  “Not exactly,” John replied. “We're at the marina in Riverside. I don't think he's going to be very chatty, though. He's been shot in the head.”

  Back in its heyday, the old abandoned building used to be a bustling factory. The factory floor was a huge open space that occupied the majority of the ground level, with a small front room separating the entryway from the rest of the building. The cement floor was crumbling now, and the upstairs offices and foreman areas had long since collapsed, weakened by the elements that poured through gaping holes in what was left of the roof. Located in an isolated section along the River Line train tracks that ran from Camden to Trenton, the old building was almost part of the landscape. People passed by it every day and never gave it a second glance. It was just another decrepit, deteriorating shell from the past that had been abandoned and forgotten.

  Late afternoon sunlight filtered through the holes in the roof, making its way through the dank atmosphere in a half-hearted attempt to shed light on the deep shadows of the factory floor. In the far corner were a couple of folding chairs and a camping table. Aside from that corner, the old factory was bare of furniture or debris. It had been swept out and emptied, leaving a wide, desolate expanse of space that was cold and dark. If one looked closely and took the time to notice the details, they would note that the corner still had metal support beams running overhead. Looped over one of the beams were two two-inch thick, stainless steel chains, hanging about seven feet from the cement floor. The walls were discolored and there was a strange odor lingering there, at once both sour and sickening.

  The smell didn't appear to bother the men lounging on two of the chairs, playing cards on the camping table. They were using an empty bottle as an ashtray, and the heavy fumes of cigarette smoke hung around them.

  Jenaro Gomez walked onto the factory floor from the direction of the front of the building, glancing past them into the corner where a figure lay slumped on the floor.

  “Turi, is this his?” he asked, motioning to a laptop sitting at the end of the table.

  “Yes,” one of the men answered, stubbing out his cigarette. “He had it with him.”

  “Did you have any trouble?” Jenaro asked, stopping at the table and opening the
laptop. He hit a key and frowned when a password prompt came up on the screen.

  “No.”

  Jenaro nodded and closed the laptop, glancing at the two men.

  “Where's Lorenzo?” he asked.

  “Went to see someone last night,” the other man answered. A cigarette hung between his lips as he selected a card from his hand and laid it on the table. “Not back yet.”

  Jenaro watched him, his eyes narrowing.

  “Go find him,” he ordered.

  The man glanced up at him, startled, and nodded. A line of ash fell off his cigarette and he pulled it out of his mouth, dropping it into the bottle. He stood, pushing the chair back as he did so, and threw his cards on the table.

  “You're lucky this time,” he told Turi as he pulled his jacket off the back of the chair. “I had two pair.”

  He turned to leave, grabbing his pack of cigarettes off the table, and nodded to Jenaro. He was halfway across the floor when Jenaro stopped him.

  “Ramiero!” he called.

  Ramiero Losa turned to look at him questioningly.

  “Don't come back without him,” Jenaro told him, the scar on his face twitching.

  Ramiero nodded and turned to disappear into the front of the building.

  “You think he found a drug house?” Turi asked, gathering up the cards and glancing at Jenaro.

  “If he did, he won't find it again,” Jenaro retorted. “How long's he been out?” he asked, nodding to the slumped figure on the floor.

  “Couple hours.”

  “Wake him up. Use the salts.”

  Jenaro took off his jacket, draped it over the back of Ramiero's chair, and picked up a steel case from the floor. Setting it on the table, he unsnapped the locks and opened it up. Inside, neatly arranged in padded sections, were a variety of blades, pliers and screws. Glancing up, Jenaro watched as Turi went over to the slumped figure in the corner and bent over him. A few moments later, Turi straightened up and nodded to Jenaro.

  “He's coming around,” he said as he stepped back.