by Tim Tigner
“Because the same controlled chemicals used to make rocket fuel are also used to manufacture military-grade explosives, like RDX.”
That got a long pause. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I want to go to Florida. I’m saying the missing money might not be Brix’s biggest problem, but rather what the missing Middle Easterners are planning to do with it.”
“With it and a ton of RDX,” Brick added, his tone now more base than acidic.
76
Insufficient
Florida
THE MORE I EXAMINED the angle of Katya as the face of a forthcoming crime, the better it fit the facts. The explanation snapped in place like a custom-made part.
It felt great to have both a working hypothesis and the accompanying ray of hope. Nonetheless, the specific question of why she had been taken remained. Taken to do what?
To get the answer, I kept working my list of Oz’s seven core assets. And I kept running. So buoyed was I by my breakthrough that my feet barely touched the hot sand.
I decided to tackle the Jetpack Technology asset next and found that I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Presumably, it included compact propulsion and guidance capabilities, but I didn’t know what that gave a terrorist that he couldn’t get from a drone.
Other than the obvious ability to put a person in a place that might otherwise be unreachable.
Or get him out of a place that might otherwise be unescapable.
But neither could be accomplished without generating tremendous heat and noise. Or attracting a lot of attention. Whatever characteristics first-generation jetpacks might have, stealth would almost certainly not be among them.
For the moment, I tabled product usage as the driver behind the company acquisition. I’d stick with chemical purchase permits for now.
I moved on to the fourth item on my asset list. Location. NASA headquarters was clearly a high-value terrorist target. Doing something there would be a huge coup, given that the space program was a symbol of American superiority and military might. It was a site that captured American hearts and minds like few others.
I stopped running.
The same could be said of Disney World. And it was only an hour away. Could that be it? Were they looking to blow up Mickey Mouse’s house? It was one of the most crowded places in the States. And unlike the World Trade Center, it was packed with a complete cross-section of American life. It was the perfect terrorist target.
As I ran back to the Seaside Escape, I tried to calculate how many omelets and french fries were consumed every day at The Happiest Place on Earth. My analysis quickly reached the point where accuracy didn’t matter. The answer was undoubtedly enough. Tons.
With that box checked, I found myself picturing Katya delivering a truckload of eggs and potatoes. She couldn’t drive a truck, but she could be taught. In theory, all she’d have to do was get past the gate and then accelerate.
What kind of security did Disney have in place? I was certain it was extensive. Invisible, but expansive. It was probably better than most military installations, given the money involved and the need to maintain a pristine reputation. But would those measures extend to somehow sniffing produce? And if so, how vigilant would the guards be, given that they likely hadn’t ever experienced a genuine threat. Not once while screening tens of thousands of trucks.
Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge, the state-of-the-art system was still a dog. Literally a trained canine.
And then there was the money. The cryptocurrency. Could that be intended as a bribe? How hard could it be to find a gate guard who would take five million dollars to look the other way for five minutes? That was almost certainly possible. But how would you find an amenable guard without getting arrested first?
You’d use Katya.
Whereas Middle Eastern male faces raise defenses, beautiful blonde women lower them. Getting past a Disney gate probably wouldn’t be too difficult for Katya.
I got back to my room and hit the shower.
As I soaped up, I knew I was on to something and nothing at the same time. The broad strokes fit the puzzle pieces, but the picture they formed was too fuzzy. The Disney truck example fit, but so might a Washington-bound train. Or a Miami plane. Or a Cape Canaveral rocket. Something and nothing at the same time.
I grabbed the lone, thin towel and began to dry off. I wasn’t sure what to do next.
I had nothing I could act on.
Nothing to call Vic with.
I needed more.
77
Little Slips
Location: Unknown
OMAR SMILED at Katya’s request for information on the little black box in his hand, exposing the teeth that ruined his otherwise handsome face. “This box senses the one in your belt. They are married, you see. Part of a pair. An electronic couple. The one here in my hand, is the male. The master. The one in your belt is the female. The servant. Do you follow?”
Katya wasn’t sure that she did, but still she said, “Yes.”
“Good. Now, you will note that both display a red light at present. That means that they are engaged, but not yet married. Both are technically free to roam. But—” he raised the box for emphasis “—once we consummate the marriage with a key, their lights will turn green. From that moment on, she cannot live without having him near.”
“How near?” Katya asked, her predicament now crystal clear despite the allegorical explanation.
“The answer is one of signal strength, not distance.”
“Approximately?”
“About one hundred meters across an empty field. Much less when obstructions are involved. Walls and windows and trees. Metal is particularly bad. Entering a bank safe would definitely be a bad idea, no matter how close her master is.” Omar finished speaking, then just sat there waiting. He knew what the next question would be.
Katya couldn’t help but ask. “What happens if she goes too far?”
“The same thing that happens if the belt is removed, the box is tampered with, or the battery dies. The signal keeping the connection open gets cut, causing an electronic bridge to close. Then the female box explodes.
“It won’t be a big explosion. Nothing like a suicide vest. But it will blast you in half. Your spinal discs will shred everything between your hips and ribs.”
Katya fought back the shivers and sobs, but couldn’t restrain her tears. It was his shift from the generic her to the specific your that did it. That and the demonic dot winking up from her waist.
“No need to get upset. You’ll get a warning. If the signal strength drops to ten percent, the box will beep and the light will turn yellow.”
Katya didn’t find that particularly reassuring. Suddenly, she could no longer cling to logic. Her brain struggled as if starved of breath. Horrible images burst through her natural defenses, flooding her mind and depriving it of oxygen.
Both captors seemed content to sit silently and watch her suffer. Omar even lit a second cigarette.
Katya focused on breathing deeply, then forced her analytical mind to reengage. Sticking with his analogy, she asked, “What about divorce?”
Omar nodded, approvingly. “Yes, that is permitted. Once the woman has served her purpose.”
“And what purpose is that?”
“You’ll know soon enough.”
As Omar spoke those words, she heard a car approaching. Katya recognized the beefy engine. So did Shakira.
Omar rose and walked to the barn entrance. They’d covered the glass square in the pedestrian door with a piece of cardboard, but had punched a peephole into it. He peered through, then wheeled the big door aside.
The black Charger rolled in.
Katya couldn’t see who was behind the wheel because the front windows had been tinted dark. Either that or they’d swapped one black Dodge for another. That seemed unlikely. She checked the license plate just in case. It no longer displayed the blue mountains and yellow sky of Nevada. Instead she saw two oran
ges flanked by green letters.
A Florida plate.
Florida, not Mexico. Arizona, California or Texas she would understand. You’d want to switch plates before crossing the border in a stolen car. But Florida didn’t border on Mexico.
She turned to Shakira. “We’re in Florida? Not Mexico?”
Shakira crinkled her mouth. “What would we want with Mexico?”
“What do you want with Florida?”
Before she could answer, an Arabic command interrupted. Katya looked back to see that Oz had exited the car.
Shakira froze.
Oz walked toward them, looking first at Katya then back at Shakira. He wasn’t happy. He launched into angry Arabic.
Shakira and Omar both responded apologetically.
When they finished, Oz reached into his pocket. Still mumbling, he whipped out a key. Not the brass padlock key. A round-nosed silver key. While he was extracting it, an object fell from his pocket and landed amidst the corncobs and crap at his feet.
He didn’t notice.
Omar didn’t notice.
Shakira didn’t notice.
Katya did. It was his gold trinket. The one he kept kissing in the bunker. Katya didn’t know what made the coin-sized object so special, but it clearly held value for him.
She threw herself at his feet.
78
The Missing Ingredient
Florida
I CALLED THE FRONT DESK and offered the clerk five dollars to print out a personal email. He was happy to do it for ten.
I put my swimsuit back on, grabbed my damp towel and a ten-dollar bill, then headed for the pool via the front office.
The printout was the PPS purchase history Vic had texted. I’d expected the equivalent of an annual credit card statement, but the FBI had gone the extra mile. They’d converted the codes and abbreviations into full descriptions. The list included product name, price, quantity, vendor and date. They’d also separated out the production-related purchases from the personal and operational expenses.
I saw what Vic meant about chemicals that were hard to pronounce. Hexamethylenetetramine. Polybutadiene acrylonitrile. Bisphenol-A diglycidyl ether epoxy resin. I read it all through twice, then began swimming laps. Swimming could be even better than running for thinking because the scenery wasn’t the least bit distracting.
My plan was to keep reading through the lists until things started to click. Credit card purchases are windows into people’s lives. They track movements, meals and interests. Pictures and patterns emerge.
Aside from the California trip and another to New York, the purchase history showed that Oz and Sabrina had stayed in the central and southern Florida area. Primarily along the eastern coast, with only a few flight-related purchases in Orlando. That moved Cape Canaveral back to the center of my geographical focus.
I looked at the items Vic had classified as Operational Expenses. There wasn’t much beyond utilities. Some stationery. A few standard office and cleaning supplies. No bills above a hundred dollars. The first notable was forty gallons of house paint. Eight five-gallon buckets. Six enamel, two flat. Colors not listed. That caught my eye only because I’d seen nothing to indicate that Oz and Sabrina cared one whit about the walls in either their home or office. They certainly hadn’t repainted. And there were no paint brushes listed either.
But that wasn’t much of a lead.
The only other noteworthy item was a thousand dollars’ worth of Flex Seal. But I didn’t know what to do with that information either.
I filed both oddities away for later consideration.
Then the absence of paint brushes made me think about the missing egg and potato receipts. I double checked to see if Vic had missed them, perhaps due to a misclassification.
He had a section titled Personal Purchases which included food and very little else. That mirrored what I’d seen in the castle and reiterated the transient tone of their lifestyle. As for food, the receipts indicated that they cooked at home far more often than they ate out.
I found nothing in the production products that might have been pallets of eggs and potatoes. But there were two paint sprayers. That explained the missing brushes, but not the plain walls.
Again, I filed the information for future reference.
I decided to dedicate the next few laps to thinking about the produce. It was just such an odd find, a dumpster full of raw potatoes and eggs. Given that the purchase wasn’t on the credit card, either it wasn’t their trash or they’d gone to some effort to conceal the acquisition with theft or cash.
The not their trash option seemed more likely. If you weren’t hiding the purchase of large quantities of volatile chemicals, why hide pallets of produce?
There was one obvious answer. Concealing that link was somehow mission critical. Obfuscating the purchase made perfect sense if the eggs were ultimately going to explode when cracked, or the potatoes when put in a fryer.
But overall it made more sense that the eggs and potatoes were someone else’s trash. When you hear hoofbeats, assume horses, not zebras.
This line of thought was taking me in figurative circles and literal laps, but it eventually gave me another idea.
I returned to the edge of the pool. Dried my face and hands, then read through the production purchases again. After three passes, I dove back into the pool and pondered what wasn’t there.
I didn’t know enough about chemistry to do a chemical analysis. Or about production to analyze that aspect of the PPS operation either. So instead of bottom-up, I tried performing a top-down analysis.
Suppose Oz was planning to explode NASA’s next rocket. Access aside, did PPS have everything required?
They had the chemicals. They had plenty of mixing and measuring equipment, plus heating and cooling apparatuses. They’d also purchased mold-making equipment. In short, as far as I could tell, the answer was yes. They could manufacture military-grade bombs. Perhaps even crude missiles using modified jetpacks.
Now that was a scary thought.
No, wait! I corrected myself. They had everything they needed to create explosives. They did not have the electronics required to transform their explosives into missiles or bombs. Specifically, they didn’t have the detonators. There was no reason a jetpack company needed those. And therefore, they had no permit to purchase them either.
79
Red Light, Green Light
Florida
KATYA didn’t have to work hard to appear sincere while begging Oz not to key the box. If forced to choose between that act and another more common violation, she’d need time to think about it.
But she didn’t think about it.
Instead, she focused on the gold trinket now pressed beneath her palm. She wriggled her hand to work it in tight between the base of her pinkie and thumb. She was no magician, but she didn’t need to perform a trick, to pull it from a nose or ear. She just had to slip it into her pocket as she rose.
Omar picked her up off the ground by hauling on the back of her shirt. He just grabbed a fistful and yanked. Oz’s older brother proved surprisingly strong for his size and weight. So sudden was his move that she nearly dropped the precious object. With a clumsy but plausible fumble, she managed to smack it against her chest in a move somewhere between I’m choking and Oh, gracious!
As Omar let go, she bent over coughing, then slid it into her bra. The precious object wasn’t a coin, she realized as it went in. Much too jagged and rough.
What was it then?
She couldn’t look now.
“I see my brother has explained his special construction to you,” Oz said.
Ignoring her condition, he stepped forward and placed one hand on the side of her waist, like he was about to lead her in a dance. But instead of taking her hand in his, he reached his other hand around to the small of her back and thrust the key into the black box. While she gasped, he twisted.
The box beeped and the diode’s color changed from red to green.
&n
bsp; That was it.
She was married.
Not to Colin. Not to Achilles. To a vile man with scarred hands and nicotine stained teeth.
“Would you like to test it out?” Omar asked. “See how far you can walk before you get the yellow light?”
Katya knew she should. It would give her valuable information. A statistic that might soon save her life. But she didn’t think she could handle the additional emotional strain. Not right then. Not right there. Not with three heartless monsters watching. Where was Sabrina? she wondered. “Maybe later.”
Omar grinned at her answer. It was a smug expression, like you’d see on someone making a winning chess move.
“Very well then,” he replied, pulling out the brass key.
Katya knew what that meant. Despite the electronic leash, she was to be shackled in her cell again. Locked up like a bad dog.
She dropped her gaze so he wouldn’t see that she welcomed the opportunity. She welcomed it because she wanted to be alone, to reflect on what had transpired—and examine her prize.
Katya wasn’t sure why she cared so much about Oz’s silly trinket. But she knew that he valued it. Highly. The fact that she had taken his treasure from him gave her hope. Hope that there just might be greater things to come.
“Remember what I said about the signal,” Omar said as he snugged and locked the chain just below the explosive belt. “It’s the only thing preventing detonation. See that you don’t do anything to disrupt it.”
“When do we leave on our mission?” she asked.
Omar said nothing.
Katya figured he still stung from his brother’s earlier rebuke.
“Has to be soon, right?” she pressed. “Otherwise you would have waited with the belt. You don’t want an accident either.”
“You would be wise to spend your time getting right with God, rather than guessing about things that really don’t matter.” Omar said. He left her there with that lovely thought.
