by Lois Winston
Gavin had chosen to execute the operation late in the evening, waiting until after Michael and Jane Smith arrived home. He wanted them trapped on one of those buses where his people could keep an eye on them while he and Cassandra searched their house.
Not knowing how long the operation would take, Gavin made arrangements for one of the Sigma Moms to spend the night at Cassandra’s home. Hayley and Cooper were told she had an unexpected business trip. The kids had balked that they were too old for a babysitter, but she wasn’t about to leave them alone overnight.
“They’re about to knock on Michael’s door,” said Cassandra as two workers approached the house. Gavin pulled his attention from one of the other feeds and positioned himself behind her, looking over her shoulder at the monitor.
She pushed a button on the keyboard, sending the audio from the listening device in Michael’s cloned phone to the computer’s speaker. As she and Gavin watched the bogus gas company worker bang on the door, they heard Michael mutter, “Who the hell is that?”
“How should I know? Go answer it.”
A moment later the front door of the faux French chateau swung open and Michael asked, “What do you want?”
“We need to evacuate the property, sir. There’s a gas leak.”
“What gas leak? I didn’t hear anything on the news about a gas leak.”
“You can’t smell it?” asked the second worker.
Michael sniffed. “So fix it. Why do we have to leave?”
Cassandra rolled her eyes. “What a clueless idiot.”
“We’ll fix it as soon as we find the source, sir,” said the first man. “Meanwhile, the entire area could blow at any moment. You need to leave. Now!” He grabbed Michael’s arm and pulled him out of the house.
Michael dug in his heels. “I need my things.”
“No time,” said the worker, holding fast to Michael. “Anyone else in the house?”
“My wife.”
“I’ll get her,” said the second worker. “You head to the bus with him.” He entered the house and because he, too, wore a listening device, Cassandra and Gavin heard Jane say, “I have to get my key to lock the door.”
“We need the houses unlocked in case the source of the leak is in one of them,” said the man.
“But—”
“Lady, don’t argue with me,” he yelled as he hustled her outside. “We’ve got a serious situation here, and the sooner I get you to safety, the sooner I can keep your house and everyone else’s from going ka-boom.”
“Oscar-worthy performance,” said Cassandra.
“They don’t call him Brando for nothing,” said Gavin.
“Brando?”
“As in Marlon. For his movie star good looks and acting chops.”
Twenty minutes later Gavin heard from Hanna. “The last bus just pulled out. Power’s been cut to disable home surveillance cameras. The alarm companies were notified of the gas leak and told the police are already on scene, so they don’t need to notify them. You’re good to go.”
Cassandra and Gavin inserted earbuds to stay in touch with the other two members of Alpha Team once they left the van. Then under the cover of darkness they made their way to Michael’s house and slipped inside. Maglites in hand, they checked out the first room.
“This place doesn’t even look like it’s ever been used,” said Cassandra, noting the sparse furnishings of the living room—a sofa, one chair, and a coffee table. No knickknacks. No pictures on the walls. No books or family photos on the floor-to-ceiling built-in shelving that flanked the fireplace.
“First do a cursory sweep of each room,” said Gavin. He reached into his pocket and pulled out two pairs of rubber gloves. Handing one pair to Cassandra, he said, “Wear these, and take care not to disturb anything. Let me know if something stands out as unusual. I’m going in search of their computers.”
Cassandra walked from room to room, checking closets and opening drawers and cabinets. She even got down on her hands and knees, sweeping the flashlight under the one bed in the home, a king in the master bedroom. What she didn’t find told her much more than anything she discovered.
She found Gavin in a downstairs office where he was downloading the contents of two laptops onto jump drives. “Something is very odd,” she said.
He looked up. “What did you find?”
“It’s what I didn’t find that’s interesting. Jane Smith is eight months pregnant with twins; yet, there’s no evidence in this house of a woman about to give birth. No decorated nursery. No cribs waiting to be assembled. No car seats. No layettes. No diapers. Nothing.”
“Maybe they haven’t gotten around to it yet. Some people are superstitious about buying baby things before the birth.”
Not the sort of trivia most men would know. Cassandra couldn’t see Gavin’s expression in the dark, and she didn’t dare shine the Maglite on him. Questions about his deceased wife and children swam in her head, but she refrained from asking them.
Not my place.
And definitely the wrong time for such a discussion. Then again, there would probably never be a right time for a discussion like that between the two of them. Instead she said, “I suppose.”
“Did you check the garage and basement? They could have all the baby paraphernalia piled up somewhere else.”
“Not yet but there’s more.”
Gavin removed the jump drive and powered down the first computer. “I’m listening.”
“When I saw no evidence of an impending birth, I did a bit more digging. I couldn’t find a single bottle of prenatal vitamins anywhere, not in the bathroom, bedroom, or kitchen. I even checked the purse sitting on the kitchen island. Doesn’t it seem odd to you that a well-educated pregnant woman wouldn’t know to take prenatal vitamins? Michael’s phone calendar listed a number of doctor’s appointments, so she’s obviously under a doctor’s care.”
“Maybe those appointments weren’t for her. What if he’s seeing a doctor for some reason?”
She shrugged. “Michael is a bit of a hypochondriac. By the way, I also checked her wallet for ID. She’s Jane Smith on everything—driver’s license, insurance card, credit cards.”
“As I expected. Someone who’s gone to such lengths to hide her past wouldn’t slip up by carrying ID in her real name. Snap a picture of her driver’s license so we have a better picture of her.”
“Already done. She looks like she might have Mediterranean ancestry. Or even Middle Eastern. Either way, she certainly doesn’t look like a Smith. Maybe she tells people she was adopted.”
“Interesting. Text the photo to Noreen. Maybe we can get a hit off the facial recognition software. Up until now Delta Team hasn’t been able to get a shot where she’s not wearing large hats and glasses. We didn’t have enough markers. Did you notice her phone anywhere?”
“No, she must have it on her.”
“Check the basement and garage for the chemicals. As soon as I finish here, we’ll start a more thorough search of each room, but hopefully, everything we need is on one of these computers.”
Cassandra headed through the kitchen into the combination laundry room/mudroom. She opened the door to the three-car garage and gasped. Then she raced back to the office. “You’ve got to come see what I found in the garage.”
ELEVEN
Gavin followed Cassandra back through the house to the door that led to the attached garage. She stepped aside and aimed her light into the darkness, exposing a UPS truck. “This explains why they park on their driveway instead of in their three-car garage,” she said. “I’m guessing we’re looking at how Michael plans to deliver the bomb.”
Gavin stepped into the garage, slid open the driver’s side door, and hoisted himself into the truck. A second later he stepped back out. “It’s empty. Have you checked the basement yet?”
“No, I’ll do that now.”
“Noreen, are you hearing this? Find out if any UPS trucks have been stolen recently.”
Cassandra he
aded down to the basement, returning a few minutes later. She found Gavin crawling out from under the truck. He stood up and brushed his hands together. “I hid a tracking device where no one will notice it even if the truck is up on a lift. Find anything in the basement?”
“Nothing.”
“Any indication of recent activity down there?”
“You mean like an assembly line of yellow minions building bombs? Don’t you think I would have mentioned that right off the bat?”
Gavin grunted. “I meant residue from building one—stains on the floor from spills, empty containers of drain cleaner, bleach, and acetone?”
Cassandra shook her head. “That basement doesn’t look like anyone has ever set foot in it. There’s nothing down there except bare cinderblock walls, a pristine concrete floor, and a few cobwebs in the corners and hanging from the rafters. If he’s already built the bomb, my guess is he didn’t do it here.”
“And we haven’t observed him anywhere else that could serve as a staging area.” Gavin smacked his hand against the side of the truck. “Damn!”
“There’s got to be something on their computers. Did you hear back from Noreen?”
“I told her not to bother. I already know the answer.” He swung his flashlight into the far corner of the garage to expose an empty five-gallon can of brown paint and an industrial paint sprayer.
“He had to get the truck from somewhere,” said Cassandra, “whether he bought it or stole it. Can you run the VIN?”
“Sure, if I had one. Someone removed them. I doubt that would help us anyway.”
Cassandra lowered herself onto the steps leading down from the laundry room and placed a hand over her mouth to stifle a yawn. Although physically exhausted, her mind continued at breakneck speed. The discovery of the UPS truck put an entirely new spin on their investigation. “Jane is part of this. She has to be.”
Gavin joined her on the step. “No doubt about it. Kind of hard to explain having a fake UPS truck in your garage.”
“You’ve had Michael under surveillance but what about Jane? Has Delta Team kept tabs on her?”
Gavin cursed under his breath. “They didn’t see any reason to. She never popped up trolling any pro-jihadist, foreign extremist, or white supremacist sites and never made any comments on social media that would lead them to suspect her of any involvement.”
“Maybe not as Jane Smith, but I doubt that’s her real name. If we knew her true identity, we’d probably find something. I think Jane’s the one cooking up the bomb somewhere, not Michael.”
Gavin rose and began pacing in the small area between the steps and the UPS truck. “If so, she’s nuts. The woman is eight months pregnant. Those bombs are extremely unstable. What woman in her right mind would jeopardize her unborn children in that way?”
“Who said she’s in her right mind? Besides, based on the lack of anything baby-related in this house, I’m beginning to think she’s not really pregnant. Or if she and Michael are even married. I didn’t find a single wedding photo in the house. How many married couples don’t have a wedding portrait on display somewhere in their home?”
“An interesting observation,” said Gavin, “but we know a marriage license was filed in Essex County.”
“Which might be a fake, along with all of Jane’s ID. Or maybe the marriage is somehow tied to the terrorism.” She grew silent for a moment, then said, “Here’s what I think: Jane Smith might very well be the puppet master you’re searching for.”
“I have to agree with Cassandra on this,” said Noreen from her monitoring position at headquarters.
“And the two of you are basing all of this on not finding any pregnancy vitamins in the house?”
“That and a few other things,” said Cassandra. “Like the fact that with all the toys you have at your disposal, no one can find much of anything about Jane Smith. Everyone has a past, Gavin. Why can’t we uncover hers?”
“Unless she’s really in WITSEC,” said Noreen, “which I’m beginning to doubt.”
“Ditto,” said Cassandra.
“I’m running the facial recognition program,” said Noreen. “Hopefully, we’ll get a hit.”
“Maybe you should hand Delta Team their walking papers and let Cassandra head up a new team,” said Hanna, contributing to the conversation for the first time. “As far as this particular threat goes, she’s contributed more in a few days than they have in several months of monitoring Michael Schuster.”
Still angry with Delta Team, Cassandra silently agreed with Hanna but instead only said, “Beginner’s luck.”
“Let’s not forget Delta Team did identify the initial threat,” said Gavin.
“And have contributed little else since,” said Hanna.
“Other than accuse Cassandra of being a mole,” said Noreen.
“All right,” said Gavin. “Let’s table the discussion about Delta Team for now. We have more pressing matters that need our attention.”
He returned to the step, took hold of Cassandra’s elbow, and drew her to her feet. “Not bad deductive reasoning. This is why I hired you.”
“Too bad we waited so long,” said Hanna. “We’d already have those two behind bars by now.”
“And be deep into tracking the next threat,” said Noreen.
Cassandra wondered if there would ever come a time when there wouldn’t be a next threat. Every day more and more disaffected youths around the world, especially in America, were being wooed into the clutches of madmen who convinced them to commit gruesome murders in the name of a twisted ideology. Then there were the losers, like her ex-husband, who blamed everyone but themselves for their lack of success and committed heinous crimes to get even. She sighed.
“Something wrong?” asked Gavin.
“Just a bit overwhelmed by what we’ve discovered. Up until now part of me hoped you’d be proven wrong. After all, Michael’s still the father of my children. Now there’s no denying his involvement in something sinister. Suddenly it’s no longer abstract. It’s all too real.”
“I know it sucks, but we’ve got a lot of work to do yet tonight. You’re not going to fade on me, are you?”
“Don’t worry. No one wants him nailed more than I do.”
Together she and Gavin did a more thorough search of each room but found no other evidence. Then they backtracked to make sure everything in the house was left the way they’d found it. Before leaving the property to make their way to the van, Gavin attached a tracker to the undercarriage of Jane’s car.
Once they returned to the van he contacted Noreen again. “We’re heading out. Wait ten minutes, then reestablish the power and have Carla’s team bring home all the residents. You and Hanna go home. First thing tomorrow I want the two of you coordinating surveillance on Jane Smith. Cassandra and I will head back and start digging through the files I downloaded from the computers.”
“I guess we’re pulling an all-nighter?” said Cassandra.
“We have no choice. With that truck painted and ready to go, they could set their plan in motion at any moment. We still don’t know if they’ve already built the bomb and what or who they plan to target.”
“What some people won’t do for paid health insurance,” she muttered under her breath. “You better have lots of coffee. At some point my adrenalin is going to need a surge of caffeine to keep going.”
Gavin chuckled. “I’ll gladly brew you a pot from my private stash of Kona beans.”
~*~
After arriving back at MAC headquarters, Gavin first stopped in the IT department located behind one of the unmarked locked rooms in the basement. He grabbed two laptops, then led Cassandra up to his third-floor apartment.
Once inside, he handed her the computers and the jump drives. “You start downloading the files; I’ll start the coffee.”
She glanced around the large room, an open concept living area with a small, ultra-modern kitchen at one end with sleek ebony cabinets, marble countertops, and marble subway tile
backsplash. A marble-topped island with two black leather upholstered barstools separated the kitchen from the living space. At the far end of the room an open door led to a bedroom.
She bypassed the stools and walked over to a black leather sectional positioned opposite a wall of ebony built-in shelves and cabinetry that matched the modern kitchen cabinets. The largest flat screen TV she’d ever seen hung between the floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Myriad high-tech electronics equipment filled the shelves under the television. Cassandra assumed the system was much more than just an entertainment unit.
She nodded toward the sectional, a far more appealing choice than forcing her butt to camp out on a wooden barstool for hours. “Mind if I sit here?”
“Not at all. Wherever you’re most comfortable.”
She placed the laptops on the ebony coffee table and waited for them to power up while Gavin ground coffee beans. “I need passwords to proceed,” she said.
“Yours will work on both laptops.”
She logged in, then inserted a drive in each computer to begin the download process. “Weren’t Michael and Jane’s computers password protected?”
“Those jump drives contain special software that enabled me to bypass their security systems.”
“In other words, you hacked into their computers?”
He shrugged. “We do what we need to do to save lives.”
“Couldn’t you have hacked their computers off-site when you first suspected Michael?”
“We could, but we ran the risk of him realizing his computer had been compromised. We didn’t want to take the chance of being discovered early on in the investigation. We had more secure methods of monitoring his online activities.
“Besides, given the information Delta Team had uncovered, we weren’t looking at Jane. If your theory is correct, the information we need won’t be found on Schuster’s computer; we’ll find it on hers.”
Cassandra wondered what Gavin planned to do regarding Delta Team, but she decided not to broach the subject with him. She doubted he’d tell her, anyway.
