Sabotage: A Reece Culver Thriller - Book 2

by Bryan Koepke

  “This video is a re-creation from an incident that took place in Colombia a few years back. The CEO, CFO, CMO, and CTO of a major U.S. competitor of ours were gunned down in cold blood on a desolate highway on the outskirts of Cartagena. Most of the time we all hear of people being kidnapped and held for large ransom,” Valtrop said. “As executives all of you face this very real threat.”

  Margaret thought about the flash drive she’d taken from Ian’s safe the previous night. She’d copied its contents onto her home computer earlier in the morning before coming to work, though she hadn’t had time to scroll through the files. She was a thief herself. “I need to collect everyone’s corporate cellphones,” Alex said, standing up.

  “What?” Candice Carlyle said, sounding panicked. “I can’t live without my phone.”

  “Yeah, how are we going to do our jobs if we can’t communicate?” another executive a few seats to her left said.

  The room broke into chatter, but Alex James took his cellphone out from the right breast pocket of his suit coat and slid it toward the center of the table. The room fell silent until one by one each of the other executives pulled their cellphones out and passed them to the pile.

  The door to the boardroom opened and in walked the admin from floor three with a large cardboard box. She set it down on the table in front of Alex. Margaret had talked to the woman earlier and knew what was inside the carton. All she wanted was to get her new phone and sprint out of the room while she still had time. Ian wouldn’t pass up an opportunity like this to rally the troops for his nephew’s latest cause. If Margaret was lucky she’d have just enough time to get to his safe and deposit the flash drive before the meeting ended. Yet when she rose to her feet, Ian motioned for her to remain seated. Damn it. What could be so important?

  “Okay, what we’ve come up with is a new type of technology designed to enhance our protection,” Alex said.

  “Basically, what Mr. James is trying to say is your new phones have enhanced features designed to guard you in case you’re kidnapped, being followed, or detained,” Jim Valtrop said over the intercom.

  “We’re going to pass all of your new phones out to you today, and in the next couple of days Jim will be dropping by your offices to explain the new enhancements one on one.”

  Alex ripped open the top of the cardboard box and started passing out the new individually boxed phones to each of the executives. Margaret luckily was one of the first in line, and she hurried out of the room on her way to the safe.

  Chapter 11

  A college-aged woman with shoulder-length blond hair appeared at the bottom of the stairs. She wore a pair of gray cotton pants, a white and orange long-sleeved blouse, and brown leather knee high boots.

  “You must be Reece Culver.”

  “Yes, and you must be Elise Rhodes. It’s nice to meet you,” he said, extending a hand. “This is my friend Haisley Averton.”

  “Oh, wow. This is so cool. I’ve read all about you in Crime Walk, Mr. Averton. Come on, let me show you,” Elise said, indicating the study on the far side of the hall.

  “Crime Walk?” Reece said.

  Haisley smiled as he walked past. “It’s where they write up fabulous guys like me.”

  Reece could hear Haisley as they entered the study. He was yammering away to Elise about his work as a detective.

  Marie Rhodes approached Reece from the rear. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “I’ll have whatever you’re having,” he said, noticing that she held the top of a half full glass of red wine in her right hand.

  “Well, I just opened a bottle of Pinot Noir back in the kitchen. Come this way and I’ll get you a glass,” she said.

  Reece followed admiring the interior of the house as they went. She pushed open a set of white double doors that led from the den to the kitchen and a bevy of food odors came to him.

  “Wow, whatever you’re cooking smells amazing.”

  “I hope you guys like trout,” she said.

  “There’s nothing better,” he said, wondering if he and his friend would ever end up out on the lochs fishing like they’d planned.

  “Reece, can you reach this for me?” she said, motioning to a glass rack that hung above the kitchen counter. “I guess you should grab three.”

  He pulled the glasses down one at a time and set them on the yellow tile counter.

  “What is it you do for a living Reece?”

  “Well, actually, I have two jobs. I work for a mid-sized aerospace company named Caulder Space Systems, and then I have a part-time investigations business I opened up a couple of years back.” He could have easily skipped telling her that he was an investigator, but he wanted her to know. Reece still wasn’t convinced that this beautiful woman didn’t have something to do with Thomas Billington’s murder.

  “Wow, that sounds like a diverse mix,” she said, bringing a spoon full of sauce up to her lips and blowing gently across it. “Would you do me a favor and taste this? I never can tell if I’ve put enough pepper in.”

  Reece took the tablespoon from her and brought it to his lips. The taste was rich with a hint of mint, and it made him want more.

  “That’s great.”

  “You’re sure. It’s not too spicy?”

  “I think you’ve nailed it.”

  “So, what is it you do for Caulder?”

  “I’m a spacecraft test engineer,” he said.

  “That sounds impressive,” she said, taking the spoon back from him. “And your part-time business. What sort of things do you investigate, Reece?”

  “Mostly missing person’s cases, but I also do some work for a company, Wentworth Insurance, when things are slow.”

  “And how about your family? Are you married? Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “Neither. I was in a relationship, but that ended a while back,” he said thinking of Natalie for the first time since setting foot in Scotland.

  “So, you and I have that much in common,” she said, smiling at him.

  The double doors to the kitchen swung open and Elise waltzed in with Haisley following.

  “Mom, guess what? Haisley and I have the same book on computer forensics. How cool is that?”

  “I’d say very cool,” Marie said. “I hope she’s not bugging you too much, Haisley.”

  “No, Elise and I are getting along famously,” he said.

  “Elise, can you set the table? The plates are over by the toaster oven, dear.”

  “Can I get the water glasses or silverware?” Haisley said.

  “She’ll show you where everything is.”

  Reece watched Marie’s daughter point out the silverware drawer to Haisley and the two men exchanged a smile. I wonder if Thomas Billington has a computer?

  As Haisley passed by with a table setting, Reece said quietly to him. “You know, I think we might need to pay a visit to a place in Glasgow.”

  Chapter 12

  Later that afternoon, Reece drove their new rental north on Springburn Road out of Glasgow. The fog had lifted considerably since they’d arrived in the large city. Only one Thomas Billington was listed in the phone service directory he’d called earlier.

  “I’d still rather be fishing,” Haisley grumbled.

  “We’re just going to check out this one lead,” Reece promised. He’d had a few glasses of the pinot at lunch, and he was feeling in an expansive mood. “I’m sorry, I can’t just let this go.”

  Reece saw the address. It was a brown wood-sided three-story apartment complex. At this time of day, if someone lived with Thomas, they’d still be at work.

  “I’ll take us around the back side. If it’s okay with you, I’ll go up alone,” Reece said, pulling the truck into the complex.

  “Oh, it’s okay with me. I don’t even want to be here.”

  Once parked, Reece reached into the glove box of the Nissan truck and pulled out the pair of thin black leather calf skin golf gloves he’d bought earlier in Glasgow.

  “Y
ou have any idea what you’re looking for?” Haisley said skeptically.

  “No, not really, but I’ll know if I find it,” Reece said.

  “Here,” Haisley said, reluctantly pulling something from the side pocket of his jacket and placing it in Reece’s hand. “If there’s a computer in Billington’s office, slide this into one of the spare USB ports.”

  With the gloves in his rear pocket and his small leather lock-picking case in a pocket of his leather bomber jacket, Reece left the vehicle and climbed the white steel railed stairway toward the third floor. The air was cool and he was glad he’d brought his coat. Reaching the top of the steps, he walked down the hallway, looking for apartment # 327. There it is near the end.

  The leather case in his jacket was cool to the touch, and he wondered if any of the neighbors were home, then dismissed the thought. He’d have to count on luck.

  With the steel pick and a second narrow tool he probed the door keyhole the way Haisley had taught him years earlier. In less than a minute Reece was in.

  The smell of baby wipes was prominent. The television unit of built in cabinets was the largest piece of furniture in the apartment. Reece worked fast going room to room.

  He was on the lookout for anything that looked like it had been placed there recently. It could be a notebook, a file folder of papers, or DVD’s. It stood to reason that if Billington had evidence against Karl Rhodes or Draecon International, the kind of evidence that would be the basis of a big newspaper story, he wouldn’t drive all the way to Tarbert carrying his only copy. He was on the look out for a laptop computer, filing cabinet, or anywhere else that Billington might have filed his research.

  Reece walked past a bathroom tiled in beige with two equally spaced brown bath towels hanging off a towel rack. Moving on, he passed a narrow closet that felt hot, and he imagined it held the water heater. Continuing on, he spotted a room on his left that looked like Billington’s office. A wooden door sat a top two stacks of concrete blocks, making a desk like the kind in a college kid’s apartment.

  Billington’s laptop computer was in the center, and a stack of file folders sat to the right. Reece, wearing his leather gloves, paged through the folders. Each of the pages were copies of bills. He wiggled the mouse, bringing the computer to life. A password screen came up with the user name already entered. He typed in “Password” and hit enter. No go. “Password invalid.” Next he typed 1,2,3 and got the same answer. He knew he most likely had only three tries before being locked out, so he focused on the desk, looking for a scrap of paper.

  There was nothing, and this was starting to seem like a bust. He reached into his jacket and took out the flash drive that Haisley had handed to him earlier in the truck. He leaned over the left side of Billington’s laptop and found two unused USB ports. He plugged Haisley’s device into one of them, next to the power cord.

  When its red light stopped flashing, Reece removed the flash drive. He was about to leave through the rear entrance when something in the mudroom caught his eye. Down near the bottom of the dryer was a steel milk crate with an old pink bath towel partially draped over the front. He squatted down, pulled the towel back, and saw a stack of file folders and papers stacked inside.

  The name Draecon International caught Reece’s attention, stenciled in blue ink across the top folder. Using both hands, he pulled it out. The thin cardboard folder was badly worn. Reece stood up and set the folder down on top of the washer. That was when he saw that a green folder was stuffed inside the first.

  Ah, a name that I know, Karl Rhodes and a few more I don’t know—Ian Drae and Alex James. Looks like a list of attendees and minutes from a call to someone named Joseph Woodbine. Reece paged through the first folder, stopping to read each page. To him it all looked like general office correspondence, but he knew the key to Billington’s death might lurk somewhere within these files.

  He felt the rattle of his cellphone in his jacket.

  “You’ve got to get out of there,” Haisley said, sounding hurried.

  “Yeah, is someone coming?” Reece said as he heard a noise from the front of the apartment.

  “Looks like the widow came home early from work. Get out of there now.”

  Chapter 13

  The expansive hangar floor was spotless. Alex walked to the rear corner and found the doorway he’d been told led to the lower level. This was his first time in the hangar, and it would be the first time he’d be able to see the expensive machinery up close and personal.

  Down the short hallway, he entered an elevator and rode it down to the next level. The place had been built during World War II as a prominent RAF airbase. It was now surrounded by a growing Scottish city.

  The doors opened and in the distance two sleek metal drones were parked next to one another in an inverted V with their short white speed probes extending outward like stingers on some evil-looking weevil. The fuselage sections of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) were shaped like triangles with swept wings integrated into the body and a large intake duct molded into the top of the airframe that led to the interior mounted jet engine. On the bottom of the aircraft to his right just behind the nose wheel two metal doors hung open.

  The dull gray exterior of the airplanes was devoid of markings, and the only differentiation between the two was that the bomb bay doors were open on the one on the right, and there was a solid covering over that area on the second vehicle.

  “So, you’re going to meet the deadline,” Alex said, sounding excited.

  “Easily. All we have to do is troubleshoot the rotary weapons system. They both work fine, but Nevius doesn’t like the performance. We’re not quite up to his specs yet,” the scientist in the white lab coat, said.

  “What spec is that you’re talking about?”

  “It’s in the statement of work Professor Nevius showed you,” the scientist said.

  “Nevius isn’t happy, but I’m sensing you are?” Alex said.

  “Yes, like I said, both of them work fine. I think it’s the hydraulics. All we need to do is drain and refill the system. The problem is probably just air bubbles.”

  “Air bubbles. You’ve seen this kind of thing before?” Alex said.

  “It’s like your car—well, probably not your car, but an older model. The brake fluid gets contaminated over time from rust in the lines. You push down on the brake and the pedal moves toward the floor instead of giving a solid feeling against your foot.”

  “Yeah, I know what you’re talking about. I used to drive my uncle’s Volvo back in high school. It had mushy brakes. I’d pump them a few times and they’d be fine.” Alex started walking over to one of the dart-shaped drones. “So you need to bleed the brakes?”

  “That’s it, sir.”

  “How about the weight to thrust specification?” Alex said as he eyed one the fifteen-foot long drones. The wings were swept rearward like those on Northrop Grumman’s X-47 military drone, except these were smaller. Per Alex’s direction three years earlier the drones had been built for one mission. They were built as a single-use weapon—one flight and one destined outcome.

  “Ah, Mr. James, it’s good to see you,” a tall man with a receding hairline and thick black plastic-rimmed glasses said as he approached.

  “Dr. Nevius,” Alex said.

  “I’m glad you could drop by. I assume you’ve been briefed on developments.”

  “Yes, I was just coming up to speed on the hydraulics issues you’re having with the weapons system,” Alex said, squaring off to the scientist and noticing the sharp smell of garlic on the other man’s breath. “I wanted to ask you about that other favor I asked for about a week back.”

  “The computer setup?” Nevius said.

  “Yes, the setup. That’s all part of covering our tracks on this.”

  “Everything’s in place, sir.”

  Chapter 14

  Karl Rhodes sat alone in his London apartment with his hands upon the keyboard of his personal computer. The view out the flo
or-to-ceiling windows just off the kitchen was nothing less than spectacular. He entered the latest amount into the window on the screen, and with a tap of his mouse the transfer was done.

  The phone on the granite kitchen counter buzzed. Karl got up and walked over to it.

  “Rhodes,” he said.

  “Jim Valtrop here. I’m glad I caught you. It’s about the hack into Draecon’s computer system. I need to check your home computer too. There’s a very real chance that’s been compromised as well.”

  Karl thought about what he’d just been doing and recoiled at this idea. Tampering could set off a whole chain of events that would kill his scheme.

  “My home computer?” Karl said as he carried the phone back over to the desk. He ran his finger over the keypad of the laptop, bringing the screen to life.

  “Yes, there’s no need to worry about your phone. The new ones we just handed out are clean,” Valtrop said.

  What if Valtrop has a way into my computer when I’m logged into the work server? I wonder if he can see everything I’m doing on it, Karl thought.

  “Well, I guess that’s a positive development. Hey, I’ve got to ask how do you know it was my computer that got hacked?” Karl said as he clicked on a blue icon, taking the device offline. He didn’t know much about computers being hacked or how that was accomplished, but he did know if the computer wasn’t connected to the Internet there was no way in. That would be like them to call me on the phone while they’re connecting to my laptop and snooping through my personal files.

  “We don’t know if it’s yours. What we need to do is stop these buggers in their tracks. Now, when would be a good time for me to meet up with you at your London apartment?”

  Never. “That will have to wait. I’m scheduled on travel tomorrow morning for a series of meetings in Asia,” Karl said, knowing he had no such trip planned. “Tell you what. When I return, I’ll bring my computer into work and you can check it over then.”

  Karl ended the call, calculating what he still needed to accomplish. I’ll keep it off of the Internet and keep their noses out of my business. Better yet, I should buy a new laptop.