“Very politically astute answer, Bill. You’re learning. I got to hit the head.” Reynolds made his exit, totally misreading Bill’s intention. It would not be the last time.
∞§∞
As William Hiccock left Ray Reynolds’ office he looked at his watch and realized it was five past three. He decided to skip a pit stop to the men’s room and get back to his office to meet Carly.
When he reached his office, she was sitting there, filling his office with a French perfume he should probably learn the name of. He made a small apology and sat behind his desk. She was looking very attractive today. Her hair color had changed. It was now a constant shimmering hue. It almost didn’t look real. “Well, what’s on your mind, Ms. Simone?”
“Carly, please.” Hiccock nodded and she continued. “Well, things are happening so fast here at the White House. Yesterday I was offered a job at MSNBC.”
“Congratulations!”
“Thank you. Actually it was in no small part because of you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You are drawing a lot of attention and they want me to cover you.”
Hiccock was intrigued by her directness. “I’m flattered, but I’m doing classified work here.”
“That’s why I wanted to talk with you first. Do you see any way of me covering what you do while you maintain your need for secrecy?”
Hiccock liked that she was clearing it with him… But wait! He caught himself. “Carly, that’s really a question for Naomi’s press office.”
“Mr. Hiccock, I know what she’ll say. That’s why I am coming to you. You can grant me access, I believe, if you feel that you are being treated fairly.”
“Pardon, but the news media has been anything but fair with me. And don’t quote me on that, please.”
“Trust starts here, Mr. Hiccock. I won’t breathe a word of it. After all, I am a print journalist at heart. I like to believe we hold ourselves to a higher standard.”
Hiccock took in the new television reporter for a moment. Now the hair color made sense. He imagined that someone spent two or three hundred dollars on a “colorist” to bring luminosity, highlight, and tone to her soon-to-be nationally broadcast, locks. He found himself smiling at her and her 300-dollar dye job. It was worth it.
He forced himself to look beyond her good looks and tried to look into her heart to see if she harbored good or evil. He gave that up in short order realizing probably only God could do that. Were her eyes always that blue? was the thought that capped his mortal failing at being God-like.
“I’ll talk to Naomi and see what we can do. But, if I say I can’t divulge or talk about something you’ll have to respect that.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ll let you get back to work.”
She stood and extended her hand. Hiccock was amazed at how soft it was. Something was said through the brief eye contact that followed but Hiccock had no idea what that was. She then turned toward the door; he consciously avoided watching her as she left.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Recruitment
CYNTHIA MALLORY RETRIEVED the mail from the box in front of their two-family house in Hollis, Queens. She could hear Dennis out back, trying to get the lawn mower started. She smiled as each pull of the starting cord was followed by chugging, then silence, then some swearing. She entered the house through the front door and proceeded to leaf through the envelopes. One, addressed to her, from Queens Metropolitan Hospital Neurologic Institute, caused her breath to catch slightly. She stuffed it into the pocket of her housecoat. An unfamiliar envelope, addressed to Dennis, caught her eye. She headed out the back door to see her husband adjusting a screw on the top of the uncooperative mower.
“Come on ya piece of … junk,” he barked as he whipped the cord so hard this time it snapped. “Ahhh … crud!”
“Denny, why don’t you just go down to Sears and get a new one?”
“Do you know what they’re asking for one that’s not half as good as this?”
“No, I don’t. But how much do they want for one that works?”
That stopped him. She could always stop him. He threw in the towel and the broken cord, smiled, and asked, “What’s up?”
“There’s a letter addressed to you from GlobalSync.”
“Junk mail?” he asked, wiping his hands and heading toward her.
“No, I don’t think so. It looks serious.”
He grabbed it and tore it open. “Holy Christmas!”
Cynthia was glad that he’d been heeding her admonishments to cut down on the swearing. “What dear?”
“Look at this!”
It was a check. There, next to a big greasy thumbprint was the computer-printed amount of $100,000.
“Holy shit!” Cynthia said, violating her own edict. “What’s this for?”
“I dunno. Probably some computer screw-up. I never heard of this company.”
“My God, that’s an awfully big mistake.”
“Let me go call them and see what this is all about.”
“How about we cash it first and wait ’til they call us?”
He smiled and kissed her on the forehead. “Sometimes you exhibit the heart of a jewel thief, you know that?”
“Just think of the shiny new lawn mower we can get you with that. You deserve it.”
“Don’t cozy up to me just because I’m suddenly rich.” He put his arm around her as they headed toward the house. His hand dropped to her behind where he stole a few soft pats then held on, adding, “A small fortune in my hands.”
Six frustrating minutes later, Dennis hung up the phone having made no progress. He decided he needed to go to the GlobalSync offices himself. Cynthia went with him, the letter from the hospital forgotten for the moment.
∞§∞
Janice and Hiccock were escorted by two-uniformed Madison, Wisconsin, cops past the crime scene tape into Martha Krummel’s home. Although the local police already broomed the house, Hiccock and Janice flew here to see it firsthand. There was a chance that Janice could pick up some psychological clues as well. Once inside, the smell reminded Hiccock of his grandmother’s house: it evinced the same Cashmere Bouquet–scented memory. He fingered through a candy dish, found and unwrapped a cherry red sourball, and took one more nostalgic deep breath. They studied each room. The kitchen was locked in a time warp, every appliance the cutting edge of 1960’s Westinghouse technology. Hiccock imagined a woman dressed in a Pat Perkins day dress or in Capri pants like Mary Tyler Moore in the old Dick Van Dyke Show, with a casserole and pink oven mitts, singing a song from the 1964 World’s Fair. “The future will be dandy. The kitchen will be handy. At the Westinghouse hall of …”
The living room possessed the quiet comfort of a cozy place where someone smoked a pipe while Martha read or did needlepoint. As he appraised the room, his eyes were drawn to the huge RCA furniture console color television and hi-fi stereo unit. Then, it struck him. In the whole house there wasn’t a stick of furniture, or anything else for that matter, that was acquired after the 1970s. Bill examined her collection of books, all garden-related, while Tyler searched through the drawers.
“There’s nothing here,” he said, his head tilted sideways, reading spines.
“So how did a seventy-something grandma master railroad signaling and control?” Janice asked as she rummaged through a drawer full of hatpins and hair combs.
Out of frustration, Hiccock collapsed in the chair behind Martha’s desk situated in front of the picture window overlooking her garden. To Janice, who was standing behind him, it appeared that he was looking through the window at the now abandoned flowers and shrubs. He wasn’t.
“What’s wrong with this picture?” he said.
“Nothing. She had a great life. I’d like to have it set up like this when I’m her age. Without the federal charges, of course.”
“C’mon, we’re looking right at it!”
∞§∞
“Carly Simone, the White House. Back to you Br
ian. How was that?”
“You blew it at the end by asking me ‘how was that?’ Never break your attitude until the cameraman says ‘cut!’ You just showed 10 million Americans that you are worried. Now let’s try it again and here’s a trick. Practice a completion face, the face that you will put on when you are finished. It should say, ‘there I’ve told you, but I stand ready to answer any questions you might have on follow up.’ Okay. And camera’s rolling, speed!”
Carly counted down to two then silently to zero and began, “…in 3, 2, … Good evening, Brian. In a move that caught Washington by surprise today, the White House was sold at auction to a bidder from Boulder, Colorado on Ebay!” As she read another gibberish story into the camera that was only feeding a tape machine for her review, Carly’s rehearsal for her new job as White House science beat reporter for MSNBC was taking shape. She was learning “on camera” etiquette, in a crash course, from one of the best field producers at NBC. He had been flown in specially from his ranch in Montana and out of semi-retirement. The network was hot on Carly and wanted her “on-air” in record time. They worked for two days on when to smile and when not to smile. She mastered the skill of listening to the earpiece and talking at the same time. Eventually they moved on to audio prompting, where she practiced becoming a ventriloquist’s dummy for a producer who would put words in her ear only to be regurgitated a split second later.
∞§∞
Hiccock and Tyler came blasting through the doors that identified the FBI’s Washington, D.C., Electronic Crimes Lab as an “authorized personnel only” area, pushing Martha’s computer on a rolling cart. Kyle Hansen, thirty-two and already the top computer expert for the FBI, followed.
“Is that all of it?”
Hiccock nodded yes. “What’s a seventy-year-old gardening grandmother need with a computer?”
“Careful, Bill. You’ll have the AARP all over you for that insensitive remark,” Janice said.
The technicians hooked up the machine and rebooted it in record time. Hansen got to work.
“You’re looking for any activity that would bring her close to railroad info and practices,” Hiccock said.
“One of our Cyber Action Teams obtained a warrant and secured the ISP’s records from her account. We know when she logged on and for how long, but we only know the material that she downloaded, which was supplied by her internet service provider,” Hansen explained as he typed away.
“We’re going to need more than that and maybe her hard drive will tell us.”
∞§∞
DuneMist: There was a man and a woman poking around the Krummel house today.
SABOT: Were they police, FBI, or real estate agents?
DuneMist: Definitely investigators of some kind. They had a police escort.
SABOT: Interesting.
DuneMist: I watched from across the street. They left with a computer from the house.
SABOT: That’s a good point. I shall instruct our members to erase all communications.
DuneMist: That would be a good thing.
SABOT: Thank you for this information.
DuneMist: :)
SABOT: Signing off.
DuneMist: TTFN
As Bernard shut down his computer, a flood of thoughts invaded his mind. First, DuneMist must live in Wisconsin because that’s where the Gardening Grandmother lived. Second, if one of his own members had figured that Martha was carrying out his orders, then maybe he should become more proactive.
He rebooted his computer and went to the web site of an Illinois ISP. He decided to open an account and to use the name, address, and credit card number of Terrance Johansen of Decatur, Illinois. Terrance’s letter to the May Company, demanding credit to his card #2314-012312-9090 expiration date 09/30/13, had been mangled and was inadvertently ripped open and resealed with a cellophane tape bearing the words “Received in damaged condition, re-wrapped at Parkerville Station.” It was then sent on its way after Bernard photocopied the letter and the envelope containing Terrance’s return address. The online system required either a phone number for billing confirmation, a debit card, or a credit card. Of those three choices, the easiest identity for Bernard to steal was the credit card. The online registration form accepted the “borrowed” information, and Bernard picked the ISP because they offered a seven-day free trial. Bernard knew that as long as he cancelled the account before the free trial was up, Terrance would never see a bill or even know he had an account opened in his name. Bernard already knew this trial period would last only a few minutes, just long enough to e-mail the chief of police in Madison, Wisconsin, whose address was conveniently located at the bottom of the Madison Police Department web site.
∞§∞
With any international corporation, twenty-four-hour buildings were a necessity. The White House was no exception. Late-night staffers and hangers-on from day shifts, attempting to whittle down the millions of tasks the administration was duty-bound to fulfill, populated the halls and basement apart from the president’s residence. Even chiefs of staff sometimes had to burn midnight oil; it was not unusual for Reynolds to turn off his desk lamp at 12:00 AM. He grabbed his coat and walked down the hall to find Hiccock bent over reams of printouts.
“It’s midnight, Bill.”
Hiccock rubbed his eyes. “There’s something trying to knock on my brain here, but so far …”
“Bill, go home and catch a few winks. Then maybe you’ll hear the doorbell.”
“Do you think this is odd?”
“What?”
“We checked. Martha had a computer. The kid had a computer. Every one of these ‘homegrowns’ had a computer.”
“You think they were all wired up to an organization on the web?”
“No, that goes back to the mole theory. What if they were all recruited, trained, and coordinated on the web?”
“How’s that different from what I said?”
“What if none of them knew it?”
Reynolds sat with his coat over his lap as his mind began to race. “Have you been able to confirm this?”
“That’s going to be tough. Every one of them but Martha is dead.”
“Then where’s this coming from?”
“It’s the only plausible common denominator.”
“Let me see if I follow your thinking. You are alleging that somebody—we don’t know who—is recruiting random people on the web—but we don’t know how. These random recruits are attacking this country—without knowing why. Is that it?”
“Yeah, I know it’s off the charts. But it’s the only scenario that ties together all the loose ends. Could be a whole new method of recruitment, training, and deployment. One that is airtight.”
“So what’s the wife—” Hiccock held up his pointer finger— “ex-wife think about this?”
“She feels there is an external behavioral moderator at work here.”
“Inglese, por favor.”
Just then Janice entered the office rubbing the bridge of her nose and yawning. “I just finished reading all the profiles. These people exhibit a hybrid schism”—she noticed Reynolds and “dumbed down” for his sake—“they all have no connection to their targets and no apparent aptitude in the means of destruction. In my opinion, it’s safe to assume that all these people were aware of their actions but probably would have had no recollection of how or why they did it—or how they knew how to do what they did, for that matter.”
“If that’s true that makes them the perfect operatives,” Reynolds said. “Even if you catch them, they don’t know anything. That only leaves how they are being recruited and trained.”
“That’s why I’ve got that meeting tomorrow with someone who might be able to shed some light on the subject,” Hiccock said.
“Speaking of which, the boss has approved your wild idea of bringing him into this, but for Christ’s sake, Bill, he’s not even in the government. Couldn’t you find a smart guy who’s already on the payroll?”
“Wow,
that’s a floater just waiting to be creamed, Ray.”
Reynolds simply smirked. It was too late at night for this.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Pen and Sword
THE EXCLAMATION “PULL!” was followed shortly by an ear-piercing shotgun blast that shattered a clay pigeon. The pieces fell serenely into the Chesapeake Bay. The skeeter, in shooting goggles, ear protectors, duck hunter’s hat, and red flannel jacket, was best-selling author Frank Harris. When he was forty-five, he started fooling around with some military-styled video games and a year later wrote his first thriller, which became a huge hit. At the age of fifty-five, the former bank manager was a multimillion-dollar word machine churning out high-tech spy and political novels. Although Harris never served in the military, when his publisher dressed him up in pseudo military casual attire for the picture on his dust jackets, he looked every bit the part of a retired flag officer. He had handsome features, and the peaked cap covering his balding head made him appear years younger.
He was firing from the jetty that extended into the bay from his twenty-five-acre waterfront estate. Hiccock, standing next to him, recoiled from the kickback as the next blast emptied out of the double-barrel shotgun.
“This is about the terrorists, isn’t it?” Harris asked as he removed his ear protectors and walked over to the gun table.
Hiccock smiled. How could he have expected this guy not to figure it out? “Let’s make believe you didn’t ask that and I didn’t nod, okay?”
“Just like in one of my books. What’s the Washington brain trust think?”
“They’re looking for the ghost of cold wars past. They are so inside that box, a light goes on when you open the door. That’s why I’m here.”
The Eighth Day Page 12
