“What are you looking for? Cause we have it all.”
“I need a six-inch straight knife and sixteen-inch collapsible police baton. I seemed to have misplaced mine back at the Anderson house.”
“No, you didn’t misplace them. Your wife told us the guy that kicked you in the face took them when you went down. Here, we have exactly what you need,” he said.
I spread the mouth of the bag open to reveal guns, ammo, knives, batons, wire tie handcuffs, and concussion grenades. I found the knife I was looking for, and it even came with a scabbard and belt. A baton was also there in a handy little carrying case. I slid it on the knife belt.
“Thanks,” I said, and then asked, “What’s in the other bag?”
Hodges answered. “Night vision gear, directional microphones powered by the same technology as the earpieces and synched with them, a couple of small drones we can fly with our cell phones. You know, the real cool stuff. You want a pair of night vision goggles?”
“No, thanks; my night vision is just fine.”
Just then, I heard Zach’s voice in my ear.
“I’ve got something. You all need to see this.”
Everyone crowded around the rear of the SUV to see a picture of a steel door on the screen.
“What is that?” Ryan asked.
“I was looking for the audio stream that should be here if Moore is listening via the devices planted at INESCO, but it isn’t here; it isn’t anywhere. Julia, you’re sure you found listening devices on our sweep?” Zach asked, “because the only thing being pulled down from the PCPD Internet connection is this video feed I found. Maybe that’s the metal door Leecy talked about?”
I looked at the computer screen Zach was using and saw the image of a steel door, and then I looked at Julia. She was backing away from the group, nervously clutching at her necklace. I turned to walk toward her, but Valerie ran past me and got to Julia first, grabbing her necklace.
“You’ve been fiddling with this thing since the hotel. At first I thought it was just some nervous tic you had, but now I think you’re hiding something. Or lying about something. Or is it both? I’ll give you one chance to tell me what’s going on before I make you tell me. Do you understand me, Julia?”
Valerie was nose-to-nose with the technology advisor. Val wound the necklace tighter and tighter around her fingers, and Julia’s neck. Tears were flowing down Julia’s cheeks. Her mouth was quivering, but no sound was forthcoming. Valerie turned and walked away from her, but didn’t let go of the necklace. Valerie led her by the throat to the rear of the SUV and whipped her around like a rag doll, slamming her into the tailgate and forcing Julia into a sitting position.
“You want to cry?” Valerie said, letting go of the necklace in favor of grabbing Julia’s head with a hand on each side. She turned it to face the computer screen. “My daughter is alone in that room behind that door, why? Is it so your boyfriend can make some money selling something he wants to steal from me? That’s what Moore is to you, isn’t he? Your boyfriend? You better start talking to me, Julia, or I’m going take that little gift from Moore you wear around your neck and make you eat it,” Valerie hissed, inches from Julia’s face.
Valerie had scared her to death, and now I needed to play good cop to Valerie’s crazy cop. I grabbed Valerie by the arm and pulled her away gently, though Valerie made it look rougher than it was. I said in as soothing a voice as I could muster, “No one wants to hurt you, Julia. Just talk to us. Maybe there’s an explanation for why you said there were listening devices and there aren’t any. Help me understand, okay?”
Julia straightened her blouse and rubbed her neck. Then she made mistake number one, glaring at Valerie. Then she lied. Mistake number two.
“Zach is mistaken. I found listening devices. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I knew she was lying because her hand reflexively reached for the pendant. It was her tell.
“Ditch the earpieces,” I said. “Moore’s been listening to us all along. She never recalibrated anything. It’s all one big game.”
I turned away from Julia in mock disgust. I caught Val’s eye, and she drew her weapon as I said, “Valerie, she’s all yours.”
“No!” Julia screamed. “The earpieces were recalibrated, but yes, the listening device thing was a lie. Yes, Moore is my boyfriend, and yes, I was supposed to waste your time and keep an eye on you, and make sure you were all busy till midnight, but that’s it, that’s all I was asked to do.”
Wakefield grabbed Julia’s hands and restrained her. As Valerie patted her down, I noticed Zach had already started working the computer Julia was using.
“Nothing on the computer communicating with Moore,” Zach announced.
“Two cellphones on her person. Could one of these be used to contact Moore?” Valerie asked as she handed them to Zach for inspection.
“Give me a few minutes and I’ll let you know,” he said.
“Where is she?” Valerie asked. “Where’s my daughter?”
Julia’s hand shot up from her side to grasp her pendant, but Valerie caught her by the wrist and said, “No, not this time,” and jerked the chain from around Julia’s neck. She handed it to Zach, saying, “She plays with this too much. Check it for me, will you?”
Zach stopped what he was doing with the phone and took the necklace from Valerie. I watched as Valerie kept a close eye on Julia. Julia attempted to level her stare back at Valerie. She was about to make mistake number three; she was about to challenge my wife. Julia’s blonde locks hooded her eyes, but I was sure she was staring at Val. Wakefield wire-tied Julia’s wrists together behind her back. There would be no more freedom for Julia now, and Zach didn’t have the necklace long before he made a discovery.
“Bingo,” he said. “Micro recorder and transmitter inside the pendant. Touching it activates the device. The transmitter is just a basic cell phone connection. Looks like it sent bursts of recorded data to a cellphone number every time she touched it. It’s safe to assume he knows everything we know.”
“So we’re blown?” Ryan asked.
A new voice entered my ear now, “Franks, here. If the listening devices aren’t present, can I shut this down? Catherine and Reuben have been arguing for the past fifteen minutes, and it’s getting worse. Franks out.”
Wakefield said, “Yeah; shut it down, Franks, but tell them to remain inside for their safety.”
“Well, are we blown?” Ryan repeated.
“Maybe, I don’t know yet,” Wakefield said. “Zach, is there any way for us to know what information Moore’s been sent?”
“No, but I may be able to find out what’s stored on the device awaiting transmission. That might help us. Give me a minute, here. I need to disable the device’s transmission capability. There…got it. Now I can read the file. Let me plug this in here, and that should dump the file onto the memory stick.”
Wakefield interrupted by saying, “Zach, we don’t need a play-by-play.”
I could see the kid laughing to himself as he worked the keyboard. Valerie was locked in a stare-down with Julia. That situation was going to end badly for Julia; she just didn’t know it yet. Zach turned away from his computer and smiled.
“Okay, we are in the clear. The pendant has Ryan’s conversation with Leecy queued up and ready to send. Looks like we caught it just in time, or Moore would’ve known we were on to him. This thing is really cool. The transmissions from the pendant are very small. Each transmission is about a hundred and twenty characters of dialogue. The transmissions are about the size of a text message, but plays back on Moore’s end as audio. The mechanism takes the recorded audio and breaks it into bite-sized, manageable pieces before sending. Every time she touched the pendant she activated the transmission. No wonder Julia was constantly messing with this thing. But lucky for us, Moore hasn’t heard anything that can compromise us. No, we are good to go,” Zach said with complete confidence before asking, “Wha
t do you want me to do with the thing?”
“That’s a good question. I think we should use it to our advantage, but that all depends on Julia,” Wakefield said.
As if hearing her name for the first time, Julia snapped her head toward Wakefield and said, “What are you talking about? I’m not helping you, and I’ve got nothing to say.”
“Zach, I want that device from Julia’s necklace up and running and ready to be used ASAP. I want to know the origin of that camera view and where it’s sending its video. I want to know how we can use that video to our advantage. I want to know where Moore and his crew are, and I want you to be as certain as if your life depends on it, and I want to know all of that…” she paused and looked at her watch. “It’s ten o’clock now. I want to know all of that in ten minutes.”
Wakefield waved the rest of the group toward the doors of INESCO, and we followed. Valerie walked with one hand firmly grasping Julia’s arm and the other on the butt of her gun. I brought up the rear behind Franks, Ryan, and Hodges. Zach was left standing at the rear of the SUV, working on Wakefield’s to do list. I didn’t know what Wakefield had planned, and I was reaching the end of my patience with all the high tech stuff, but I didn’t really have a choice; I had to be patient. We moved through the offices of INESCO until we found the kitchen and Franks. He was telling the family the hoax was over.
Wakefield said, “Not so fast. I think we might be able to use them and this equipment to help us after all. Simons, take a break, but don’t leave the building. I’m going to need you, so don’t go too far.”
Reuben stood stiffly and said, “Okay, we’ll be right back,” and he, his wife, and sons left the room.
Wakefield pulled out a chair, and as she cut Julia’s wire ties with a pocketknife, she said, “Have a seat, sweetheart, and spill. Or I’m going to leave you alone in this room with Valerie.”
Julia huffed, “Whatever,” to Wakefield, but kept her eyes trained on Valerie.
“Oh, I see you don’t think that’s a problem for a gal like yourself? You may not be a full-time field agent, but you did go through the standard CIA training. You know the basic self defense techniques, and I understand that affords you a certain level of confidence over your average citizen, but,” and Wakefield paused here for dramatic effect, “Valerie is no average citizen.”
I thought that got Julia’s attention, but I couldn’t tell for sure, because Julia remained focused on Valerie.
“There isn’t anything average about Valerie at all. Quite the opposite, really. And of the long list of things that make her extraordinary, there is only one item on that list you should be aware of.”
“What’s that?”
“Valerie,” Wakefield glanced at Val, and receiving the go ahead nod, said, “is a former agent of the Mossad.”
Julia whipped her head toward Wakefield.
“Bullshit. There is nothing in her background that indicates membership in any organization, let alone the Mossad.”
“That’s right; there isn’t. Why would there be? Unlike the US intelligence agencies, the Mossad keeps their agents’ secret forever. They never reveal their identities, and the agents aren’t allowed to reveal they were part of the Mossad, but I think we can make an exception to that rule tonight, given the circumstances.”
Wakefield paused and took a seat at the table.
“Do you know what Mossad agents do, Julia?”
“No,” she said, “not really.”
“Their primary function is that of assassins. See, that’s another thing the Israelis do that the US agencies fail at. The Israelis make it clear what agents of Mossad are all about. The US agencies like to hide their true purpose behind the veil of intelligence gathering, but that’s all bullshit. If you don’t believe me, just ask Ron. Oh dear, I almost forgot about Ron. See not only did you and your boyfriend target the child of an agent for the Mossad,” Wakefield informed her, “but that child is also the daughter of a former CIA kill squad agent. In fact, he was so good at his job that he was a squad of one. Those rumors Moore talked about in the hotel? Well, those are all true, and the man those rumors are about is standing right over there.” Wakefield pointed at me and then said, “So pick your poison, Julia. You can talk to me and tell me what I need to know and live, or you can die. Which is it?”
All the color and anger drained from Julia’s face. She was as pale as her shirt now. She reached for the pendant that was no longer around her neck. Her security blanket, as it were. She looked away from Valerie’s face, to me, and then back to Valerie.
“Okay. I’ll talk.”
Chapter 8
“We’re listening,” Wakefield demanded.
Julia was crying now.
“It started eighteen months ago. Tom and I had just begun our relationship. We’d been working together for about six months, and finally decided to date each other. Anyway, we were reading the news one rainy Sunday morning when I stumbled across an article online. The article was about government waste, like that was something new, but this article detailed hundreds of millions of dollars being fraudulently sent to people by the IRS. The problem was, the people receiving the money didn’t exist. The IRS eventually tracked down the group perpetrating the fraud, but never got back all of the money. I made a silly observation that Tom took seriously. I commented how the perps in that case could’ve avoided being caught and totally gotten away with it. He begged me to tell him how. So I did,” she paused, and the tears turned to sobs as she said, “but I never thought he would try to do it for real. I swear.”
Wakefield slammed the flat of her hand down hard on the tabletop. The resulting noise snapped Julia out of the personal pity party she was having.
“Listen to me, Julia. I don’t care about that crap. I want to know where the girl is being held, and where Moore and his crew are. I want to know to whom they are selling the technology. We’ve made an educated guess as to the location Leecy is being held, but I want confirmation. We know the buyer is coming in from the Middle East, but I want a name. I want details. Start telling me what I want to know or all bets are off, and you have option two chosen for you. Stop wasting my time.”
“I don’t know any of that stuff! Tom kept me out of the loop about details like that.”
Julia tucked her long blonde hair behind her ears and wiped her face with shaky hands. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know. You think you’re the first person to ever threaten me? Think again!” She was laughing and crying, but this time uncontrollably. “And threatening me with Susie homemaker here,” she said, jabbing a thumb in Valerie’s direction, “won’t change a thing. I suggest you give Tom, Porter, and those two Smith guys what they want, or,” she reached for the missing necklace again, this time clasping her shaking hands together, “or Tom and his friends will make sure that girl suffers. This is something I do know; it’s not an empty threat. Other than that, you can go fuck yourself, Special Agent Wakefield,” she said, turning to face Valerie, “And you, you can…”
Valerie shut Julia up by landing a right cross on her chin. The punch landed with enough force that Julia was thrown out of her chair and slammed into the adjacent wall. Julia was KO’d. Valerie was still sitting in her chair as if nothing had happened. It was like watching a black mamba strike and recoil. Valerie was that quick, and that powerful.
“What the hell?” Wakefield exclaimed when she saw Julia’s head bounce off the wall and her limp body slide to the floor.
“She was useless. She’s obviously suffered some trauma at the hands of Moore or someone else. No point in dragging it out,” Valerie said, as she stood to leave the room.
“Was that necessary?” Wakefield said.
Valerie whipped around to face Wakefield from the open doorway of the kitchen.
“You gave her two options. I assumed you weren’t bluffing. If I misread the situation, that’s my bad, but you said it yourself: I’m an assassin. I don’t make idle threats, and I don’t
expect the people I work with to waste time, either. Julia is going to remain loyal to Moore till the bitter end. She was going to waste our time with some long, sad story and say nothing helpful. The best thing we can do for her is get her some help, but until then, our choices are to waste manpower watching her, kill her, or incapacitate her until she can be useful. So I gave her a version of the option two you mentioned because I didn’t want to kill her. She can still be of some help.”
Wakefield thought a moment and then said, “Sounds like you have a plan. Do you want to share it?”
“Not yet.”
“Okay. Fair enough. But what do we do with her now?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Valerie said, and turned away from Wakefield, signaling that she was finished with that conversation and moving onto something else. “Ron? I’ll grab some of those extra large black bags from the warehouse and a roll of duct tape. Bring Julia and meet me in the rubber lab. Franks, if you will grab her feet, you and Ron can move her.”
“Okay,” Franks said, “which way to the rubber lab?”
“Just follow me,” I said, grabbing Julia’s body under her arms and walking out of the kitchen.
I heard Wakefield’s voice in my earpiece. “I’ll be outside with Ryan and Hodges talking with Zach. Find me there when you three are finished in here. I’ll tell the Simons to wait for us in the kitchen.”
I led Franks through to the rubber lab, which was nothing like R&D. The place was covered in a thin layer of carbon black from all the rubber compounds being produced and tested in the lab. Valerie was waiting for us.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Now, we wrap her up in the bags and tie her up with duct tape. Make certain she can breathe, though. We don’t want her dying on us, but we don’t want her making any noise, either. So make the package snug so it’s easy to transport. We’ll need her later,” Val said.
We loaded Julia into the trunk of the Honda.
Frank said, “Will she be okay in there in this heat?”
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