Serpents in the City (Mac Ambrose Book 3)

by HN Wake

  The elevator pinged at L and the doors slid back smoothly. She stepped out slowly, turned toward the wall of windows, the gray sky beckoning beyond. Were they waiting for her in the lobby? She placed one foot in front of the other in a deliberately calm pace. If they weren’t prepared for her, she’d be fine. The private security guys behind reception would not be trained well enough to act quickly on the fly.

  Up ahead it was a clear shot through the turnstiles and to the revolving door. No security. If there were police outside, that was another story.

  She quickened her pace and walked briskly toward the turnstiles. As she pulled close to the reception desk, a private security guard moved toward her, his eyes honed in on her. But he was five feet from the turnstiles. He raised his hand and said, “Miss—“

  She pushed off her back foot and lurched into a full run. She hurled herself toward the middle turnstile, leapt upwards feet first, and slid across its smooth top. The security guard paused in shock, his mouth open.

  Her feet hit the hard marble on the other side. She steadied herself. She leaned forward and pounded through the lobby. The small crowd in the lobby slowed.

  The security guard yelled, “Wait, wait!”

  The crowd stilled.

  She slammed into the revolving door, throwing her body against it, sending it rotating.

  “Stop her!”

  The siren from the lobby blared just as the revolving door released her into fresh air. She leapt out and jolted right on the sidewalk.

  The lobby’s siren burst through onto the busy street. Pedestrians slowed, attracted to the blaring alarm. She zig-zagged through bodies now standing like well placed concrete barriers outside an embassy. Up ahead, the subway entrance stood sentry over her escape. If she made it down into the subway, she could ditch the wig. Her odds of blending in with the crowd were 80%.

  She banked left and right through the crowd, weaving past couples and solitary figures.

  The subway entrance was twenty yards ahead. She was hitting a full stride.

  Someone barked, “Stop, NYPD. NYPD.”

  Christ. Police involvement upped the ante.

  She tore toward the subway entrance ten yards away. There was no way she could let them catch her.

  “Stop! NYPD!” The pitch intensified. He was closing in on her.

  The crowd was at a complete stand still, ogling the commotion, the blond woman sprinting, a cop in pursuit. No one helped.

  She reached the subway stairs, grasped the railing, and swung her body downwards, her feet flying down the concrete.

  Behind, at the top of the stairs, someone yelled, “NYPD! Stop right there!”

  Her feet flew down the stairs. At the bottom, her right foot hit the tile and slipped. Her ankle twisted left and upwards. She went airborne, both feet off the ground. She clung to the railing, hoping to stop her fall. As her body swooped into the air, her right arm extended and her hand tightened around the railing. Suddenly, the full weight of her body yanked against her grip and with a momentous force, the top of her arm snapped out of the shoulder socket. Pain seared through her shoulder and she cried against her teeth. She released her hand and dropped to the ground.

  The cop was clamoring down the stairs behind her, but he was slow.

  She pushed herself up, found her footing, and sprinted down the passage. Her shoulder screamed in agony and she cradled her arm against her stomach.

  Up ahead, a subway car pulled to the platform, and stopped, its doors sliding open. Light beamed on the concrete platform.

  At the turnstile, she planted her good right hand, jumped up, and slid over the top.

  “Stop! Stop!”

  The train pinged and car doors started to close. She planted her feet on the platform and threw herself through the closing doors just as they slammed shut. The train pulled from the platform as the cop shouted, “STOP!” Inside the car, passengers glanced but turned away quickly. They didn’t want to be involved.

  Her shoulder was burning with every jostle. She bit down hard on her lip and leaned against the closed door. Sweat ran down her face as her chest heaved up and down.

  Four stops later, the crowd had thinned and her breathing had returned. She slid gently down into an empty corner seat and leaned down over her knees. She pulled air into her lungs, assessing the damage to her left shoulder. It was searing and the arm hung limp against her side.

  She pulled out her cellphone with her good arm and typed slowly, “Aborted. ID’d me.” She hit send and leaned her head back against the window glass.

  The pain was excruciating.

  89 responded, “Copy. You safe?”

  Slowly, gritting through the pain, she typed. “Yes.”

  “You deploy the password?”

  “Yes.”

  The phone went silent.

  28

  New York, NY

  Robert Kitsune, Head of Security for Patriot News, was breathing hard. A slender, fifty year old Eurasian American and former marine, he had run from his office two floors below. He darted through Fenton Warrick’s door, his movements feline and controlled. “We’ve had a breach.”

  Warrick sat back in his large desk chair.

  Kitsune rounded the desk holding a tablet with a video teed up. He hit play. On the screen, a woman with long, blond hair stepped into the darkness of Studio 3. “She walked straight through the lobby, through the turnstiles, to the elevator, took it directly to the basement. She knew what she was doing. The video is from the cameras in the control room.”

  A darkened image of the blond showed her sitting at the desk nearest the door. They watched her back out of the dark room and sprint down the hallway, escaping into an open elevator. In the next footage, she was sliding over the lobby turnstile and racing out onto the sidewalk.

  Warrick was still, contemplative. This was a daring attempt. Someone bold was taking direct action against his empire. This was war.

  Kitsune said, “Foot patrol gave chase. They lost her down in the 42nd Street station.”

  Warrick breathed through his nose. “How long was she in the control room?”

  “Five minutes.”

  Warrick’s collar tightened.

  “We found a USB drive. It’s with my guys, they’re doing a scan.”

  “A physical attempt on our network?”

  “Yes.”

  “When will you know if she was successful?”

  “An hour,” Kitsune said. “They are doing full-scale back up. Seek and destroy. So far, they haven’t been able to detect any anomalies in the system.”

  “But someone could be in our network. As we speak.”

  Kitsune stepped back, putting space between them. “I don’t think so. Our security guys have watched this footage and believe she was spooked. They think she fled too quickly. Her attempted intrusion was remotely wiped quickly by someone working with her. They estimate it would have taken much longer to download its full payload. But that’s only an estimate.”

  “And you?”

  “I believe there is a 20% chance we have been breached.”

  Roger’s pulse raced in his neck. Someone was going to pay for this. “Let me know when they’ve done a complete assessment.”

  “Of course.”

  Warrick splayed his hands wide on the top of his desk. “Why Control Room 3?”

  “We don’t know. It’s a rudimentary but audacious way to get to a network, to do so physically. But if one is successful, it’s the quickest way. She probably tried remotely, like the Russians and Chinese. Our systems are strong though.”

  “Do we have a facial image?”

  “A partial.” Kitsune handed Warrick an enlarged photo of the blonde’s face. “She was particularly adept at staying out of the camera’s line of sight for most of the time she was in the building. We only have her for the five minutes during her exit through the front door. And it’s only a side of her face.”

  “Am I right in assuming, that in addition to the FBI, you’ve
asked CIA and NSA to look into this?”

  “I sent it five minutes ago. It will take them a while.”

  “Okay. Keep me posted.” It was a dismissal.

  After the door closed behind Kitsune, Warrick called Martha’s Vineyard.

  The voice was raspy. “Fenton. How nice of you to call.”

  “Miss Kugal, how are you?” He imagined her in a big chair in the front room of a mansion on a hill, dressed in grey. She was always in grey. Her hair in that god-awful bun.

  “Tell me,” she demanded like a warden.

  The walls in his office moved closer. “We’ve been penetrated by what appears to be a hacker.”

  “What’s the worst case scenario?”

  “That she breached the network.”

  “Did you know your security was so lax?” It always surprised him that an old woman could deliver such calculated venom. He glanced around the room, his face flushing, thankful he was alone. He remained silent. What could he say? The few times he had contradicted her, the tirade had been thoroughly demoralizing. Emmerie Kugal held all the cards and played her hand with fierce resolve. “Do we know who she is or who she represents?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  Her voice was ice. “With all your researchers and analysts toiling down in the bowels of that expensive building?” Beyond the Underground, Patriot News employed a regular team of 100 analysts who worked around the clock checking facts, digging up dirt, and following news feeds from around the world. “What about the banks of computers and high paid graduates that I fund so that your little news channel can try to chase the big guys? What about them? They have no ideas about this intrusion?”

  He felt the noose constricting. “No. Not at this time.”

  “Typical,” she murmured to herself, loud enough for him to hear. Then, in a dizzying instant, her tone turned gentle and seductive. “Don’t worry, dear Fenton, this is why I keep you around.”

  In his mind, he saw his own mother opening the closet door, light flooding in on his ten-year-old-self, a boy who had soaked his pants after hours of need. Self-loathing overwhelmed him. “Thank you.” His dependency on Kugal was total. Without her, there was no Patriot News. Without her, there was no Fenton Warrick. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Yes you will.”

  29

  New York, NY

  The blond wig had long since been discarded.

  Mac rode the subway for thirty minutes, sagged down in a corner dissecting the mission: the darkened control room, the manager’s voice as he yelled in alarm, the rush through the lobby, and the fall down the subway stairs. The images played on a loop in time with the pounding in her damaged shoulder.

  She eventually returned to her stop at Bleecker Street and gently stood, cradling her agonizing shoulder, and headed toward the long exit hallway. A busker on a violin twanged soulfully from up ahead, the forlorn pitch sinking her further into despair and frustration. If she had been caught, they would have thrown the book at her. People like Fenton Warrick were all about law and order. He was a powerful man with allies across the government. The Agency would have lined up behind him. They would have charged her with trespassing. They would have sent her to jail.

  How was she going to explain this to Joe? The thought was terrifying.

  She stretched her neck away from the pain and inhaled deeply. Nothing worked: the injury was agony. She focused on putting one foot in front of the other, timing it with the word tripping through her mind: failure, failure, failure.

  “Shit!” she yelled down the empty hall.

  The busker’s lament went silent for a moment, then restarted.

  What the hell was she doing? Screw Senator Gillis and the blackmail video, screw the operation, and fuck democracy.

  She stumbled slowly up the stairs toward the violin’s melancholy. Hiding her face from the security cameras, she slipped through the turnstiles.

  Out on the street, she fished out her cell phone and texted 89. “I’m safe.”

  “Okay. Good news: I wiped the USB remotely.”

  “Did virus succeed?”

  It felt like forever before the phone beeped. “No.”

  “Fuck” she hissed into the night with a quick decisive angry shake of her head that caused her shoulder to scream. She typed, “I need help. I’m hurt.”

  He responded quickly. “What do you need?”

  The one handed typing went slowly. “Bowery Hotel. House visit from a doctor. Bring Etodolac 500 mg, acetaminophen w codiene.”

  “Roger that.”

  Across town, Ernest climbed the stairs in the Alphabet City building, his mind looping on the arrest: the crowd, Reddenbacker’s racism, the squad car tearing down 7th. The arrest had been clean.

  He reached the landing on the fourth floor and stared out the open window. The friendly shouts of a basketball game in the park echoed against the asphalt. The sky had darkened. It had been a long day.

  His cell phone pinged. The email attachment was a signed warrant for the fourth floor apartment.

  He used a lock pick to open the door and was greeted by darkness, silence, and the dry sour of dust.

  A block from the Bowery Hotel, she slowed her pace, favoring her right foot to ease the jarring against her shoulder. She called Joe. “It’s me.” Her breath was small, weak.

  “What happened?”

  She stopped, leaned over and rested the good forearm on her knee. “It went south.”

  “How bad?”

  “It was close.” Her voice cracked. “I’m hurt. I dislocated my shoulder. A doctor is coming.”

  “What hotel are you?”

  “Bowery.”

  “I’ll be there in 2 hours,” he said. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.” For the first time that day, she did not feel alone.

  Inside the fourth floor apartment, Ernest flicked on the lights and stepped to the desk. He moved deliberately, photographing each of the pieces of equipment at a time—the laptop, the telephoto lenses and the new boxes piled on the floor. He turned and shot ten photos of various angles of the living room, documenting the contents. He walked back to the bedroom, opened the closet and took photos of the police uniform and the gun safe. He stepped to the bed, turned on the side lamp and shot photos of the room, the messy bed, the empty walls. He did the same in the kitchen.

  He returned to the living room, pulled on gloves, slipped the laptop back into its box, and put the box inside a large, plastic evidence bag.

  He locked the apartment door on his way out.

  Mac opened the hotel room door to let in the private doctor. She nodded toward her shoulder. “It’s dislocated. I need you to put it back in.”

  He instructed her to sit on the bed and take off her shirt. She slowly unbuttoned, let her injured arm rest against to her side, and slid her arm out of the sleeve. The pain ripped through the nerves in shockwaves.

  The physician washed his hands with soap and dried them with a clean towel. Out of a black doctors bag he pulled a needle, rolled up the sleeve of her t-shirt, swabbed her shoulder, and inserted the long needle directly into the shoulder. She winced as it penetrated.

  His voice was deep. “I need you to relax and stay loose.”

  She nodded. He was going to reset her shoulder and it was going to be excruciating.

  He gently lifted her elbow at a 90-degree angle from her body. The pain was searing. He grasped both hands around her elbow. She closed her eyes. He slowly leaned away from her, the grip on her elbow raising her arm up and away. The pain was intense and interminable. She squeezed her eyes and panted.

  He kept the traction on the elbow as he let his weight lean away from the bed, slowly stretching her shoulder. She ground down on her teeth against a scream.

  Suddenly the shoulder released with a pop. She hissed, “That’s it.”

  He leaned forward, releasing the pressure. She emptied her lungs. He gently rotated the elbow to test the shoulder. It was extremely tender but it was
n’t the searing agony of moments before. She nodded to him and he slowly set her arm against her side.

  After he left, she ran the shower on hot, letting the steam fog up the mirrors. Stepping out of the rest of her gear, she moved into the shower and let the jet stream pin prick the damaged shoulder for a long time. She closed the drain and slid down against the tile to the bottom of the tub, laying herself full length along the cold porcelain. Warm drops rained down, thousands of distractions against the pain and the exhaustion.

  The haze of the prescription slithered through her veins. Psychedelic images swarmed. The policeman screaming from behind, this time in slow motion “Stop! NYPD!” Her feet thwacking down subway stairs, this time plodding and awkward. The rip in her shoulder, one agonizing ligament at a time.

  I failed. With my new freedom I made the wrong decision. I should never have agreed to this.

  The hot water rose along her sides. The warmth crested her hips and flooded over her stomach.

  I need to fix this. I need to fix it all.

  FRIDAY

  The first essence of journalism is to know what you want to know, the second, is to find out who will tell you.

  — John Gunther

  People unfortunately have been plagued by guilts and frustrations from the beginning. But if we have insight, and recognize the forces that have subjected us, we can pass that stage.

  - Louise Nevelson, “Do Your Work” in “Eight Artists Reply: Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Artnews, Retrospective, June 2015.

  30

  New York, NY

  The Jacob K. Javits Federal Office Building at 26 Federal Plaza dominated a city block not far from City Hall and China Town. The honeycomb windows of the 41-story building peered down like a thousand eyes on Foley Square. On the twentieth floor Ernest stepped into a tight office and handed a fresh coffee to Asif Patel, one of the top FBI computer techs in the city.