Red Right Hand

by Chris Holm

“All right, then,” Hendricks said. “Let’s do this.”

  The plan was Cameron’s.

  “So,” she’d asked as they sped north from Palo Alto, “this Segreti guy you’re looking for—how do you expect to find him?”

  The highway had been eerily devoid of traffic. In the wake of the attack, it seemed Bay Area residents were staying home.

  “I’m working on it.”

  “You mean you have no idea.”

  “I mean I’m working on it.”

  “Are you open to suggestions? Because I spent most of our flight thinking about it, and I have a thought. A couple, actually.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s hear ’em.”

  “First off, it seems to me the most logical place to start would be the family from the video.”

  “Too risky,” he replied. “Anybody looking for Segreti would be onto them, which makes approaching them dangerous.”

  “That’s not an issue if you look into them online.”

  “Which I’m guessing you did.”

  “Yup. First, I combed through their social media—the parents are on Facebook, the mom’s on Pinterest, the eldest child is on Instagram and Snapchat—but found no pics of Segreti or anyone who looks like him in their lists of friends. Then I hacked the parents’ e-mail—”

  “You did what?”

  “—but none of the searches I ran turned up anything of interest. It looks to me like bumping into him was a chance encounter.”

  Hendricks thought back to the video, which he’d watched on Cameron’s laptop a couple dozen times on the plane before dozing off. “Yeah, that seems to track.”

  “But I still think they’re worth questioning. They might’ve seen which way he went or gotten something useful out of him before the camera rolled—”

  “Much as I’d love to, we can’t. If I were the Feds or the bad guys, I’d put someone on the family as a matter of course, which means they’re off-limits to us.”

  “But what if I—”

  “Seriously, drop it. It’s not going to happen. What else have you got?” Hendricks felt bad slapping her down, but after the mess at the Salty Dog, he couldn’t afford another sloppy play, and approaching the Restons qualified.

  “If you didn’t like my last idea, you’re going to hate this one.”

  “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”

  “You ever heard of COWs?”

  “Sure. Big, dumb, tasty things, go moo.”

  “Not cows like dinner,” she said. “COWs like cells on wheels.”

  “Can’t say as I have.”

  “A COW is basically a cell-phone tower attached to a trailer that can be rolled into an area as needed. It’s meant to support the existing system when there’s an increase in demand, which could be due to anything from the Super Bowl to September Eleventh. Hell, during Obama’s inauguration, they brought in twenty-six of them to accommodate the million-odd spectators, most of whom expected to be able to live-tweet and Facebook the event.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Now I know what COWs are. The question is, why?”

  She held up a picture on her phone for him to see. “That’s why.”

  He took his eyes off the road just long enough to glance at it. The image was grainy but seemed to show precisely the sort of device she’d described. It was in the middle of a broad expanse of pavement, enough dotted lines visible on either side of it for six lanes of traffic at least. In the background, out of focus, Hendricks saw some kind of tent.

  “I take it this is somewhere near the bridge?”

  Cameron nodded. “That’s a detail of a still I pulled from CNN. They’ve set up a command center for the rescue effort right outside the toll gates, and they brought in that tower to support their data needs.”

  “And?”

  “And I think that we should hack it.”

  “Come again?”

  “It’s not as crazy as it sounds. I did some digging on the dark web about that model. Turns out, it’s an old one and easily exploited. So I talked to a gamer buddy of mine—an off-the-grid crypto-anarchist type who siphons off of local cell systems when he wants to go online—and he sent some code to get me started. I tweaked it to suit our needs, and the end result’s a program that’ll gain us access to all the data passing through that tower—calls, texts, photos, you name it.”

  “I’m guessing you’ve never broken into one of these before. How do you know it’ll work?”

  “Code’s code. It’ll work. And it sure beats knocking on doors.”

  “Assuming we could get access, what would we do with it?”

  “Anything we want!” she said. “See, unlike the Super Bowl or Obama’s inauguration, there aren’t a bunch of these towers, because there’s not enough demand to warrant them. There are only eight hundred or so full-time residents in the Presidio. Most of the residents and all the businesses are clustered on the western edge, which is served by several towers atop buildings in the city proper. So almost all the traffic on that mobile tower is directly related to the bridge investigation, and almost every aspect of the bridge investigation is passing through that tower. Witnesses’ cell-phone pics. Written statements. Surveillance feeds, probably. There’s a good chance all we need to do to get a bead on Segreti is run the data through some keyword searches and facial recognition.”

  “Jesus,” Hendricks said. “That’s incredible.”

  “Right?” she replied, obviously pleased by his compliment. “But there’s a catch. A big one.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The tower can’t be hacked remotely. The program has to be physically inserted into a port on the control panel for this to work. And the tower’s parked right next to, like, half the law enforcement agents in the state.”

  Hendricks fell silent for a mile or so, thinking.

  “How hard is it to install?” he asked finally.

  “Not very. Insert a thumb drive, maybe execute a few commands.”

  “So you’re saying I could do it?”

  “If I walked you through it, maybe. But if you fucked up, the techs responsible for keeping the tower operational would know immediately.”

  “Then I guess I’d better not fuck up.”

  As Hendricks rounded the corner onto Lombard Street heading east, away from the Presidio, it was all he could do not to look at the agent manning the gate. He’d left his sweatshirt in the car, and he carried the backpack Cameron had bought for him over one shoulder. A navy windbreaker, its nylon stiff and crinkly with newness, was tied around his waist and whispered to itself with every step. “Has the guy at the gate got eyes on me?” he muttered.

  “Yeah,” Cameron said, her voice tinny through the cheap Bluetooth earpiece. “But he doesn’t look particularly interested.”

  “Be sure to tell me if that changes.”

  “Roger that,” she said.

  Hendricks strolled casually down Lombard, then took a right onto Baker Street, a wide, tree-lined drive where stylish, single-family row houses with oversize bay windows and roofs of Spanish tile sat shoulder to shoulder with funky midcentury multi-unit buildings. Peppered in between were local businesses: grocer, bistro, bar, dry cleaner. It was midafternoon. The sky was clear. The sun was warm and bright. Hendricks suspected this area, which exuded a friendly neighborhood vibe, would typically be bustling with activity and good cheer on so lovely a Sunday as this. Sidewalk brunches. Dog walkers. Newspapers read on narrow balconies. But today, the streets were empty of cars save for those parked at the curb. Businesses were shuttered, blinds drawn. People were afraid.

  It broke Hendricks’s heart. He’d seen this kind of fear too often overseas. Children cowering behind their parents’ legs as drones passed overhead. Wide eyes peeking around parted curtains as war erupted in the streets. We played our part in the name of freedom, Hendricks thought, but what good were our reasons to the innocents we killed or displaced? All our fighting ever seemed to do was feed the military-industrial beast, which
profited mightily from every ratcheting of tension, every escalation of conflict, every convoy attacked, every hovel destroyed.

  When war became big business, shareholders were bound to demand more of it, regardless of how many young men and women it left abandoned, rudderless, adrift. Too many of them found solace in extremism, only to discover the life vest they’d been tossed was laced with explosives, and thus the beast was fed again. The fatter it got, the greedier it became, like a rat that learned to push a button or an addict who lived needlestick to needlestick.

  Hendricks loathed the notion of perpetuating the cycle.

  But today, he didn’t have much choice.

  With a glance up and down the block to see if anyone was looking, he trotted into the street. He walked calmly and quickly, his head down, his eyes fixed on the mottled pavement at his feet.

  In the middle of the road, he shrugged off the backpack and set it down. Then he took off, running south toward Greenwich Street.

  As he rounded the corner, his laden cargo pockets thudding heavily against his legs, he glanced over his shoulder toward the backpack, but it was no longer in his line of sight. And though he strained to hear, there was no indication anyone had seen him and followed.

  He slowed to a walk and dabbed the sweat that had sprung up on his brow with his sleeve. “It’s done,” he said to Cameron through his Bluetooth earpiece once his heart had stopped racing. “You’re on.”

  22.

  SARAH KLINGENBERG POLISHED off a can of Red Bull—her third today—and chucked it into a trash bin as she trotted across the bustling pier. Yesterday, Pier 80 had been just a barren stretch of weed-cracked pavement in San Francisco’s Central Waterfront jutting six hundred yards into San Francisco Bay. Now it was the base of operations for one of the biggest Bureau manhunts in history.

  The Port of San Francisco was primarily designed for break-bulk cargo, the sorts of things that had to be unloaded individually, such as wooden barrels, steel girders, and industrial-size paper reels. The advent of containerization had sounded San Francisco’s death knell as a shipping hub because the port’s old-fashioned piers were ill suited for unloading container ships, and there was little real estate to expand them. As a consequence, the majority of cargo shipped to the Bay Area headed to Oakland instead, and many of San Francisco’s piers sat vacant.

  Today, though, Pier 80 was crowded with armored SWAT vehicles and police helicopters, cop cars and unmarked government sedans. Police boats came and went in a steady stream. Inside the command trailer, dispatchers studied maps and blueprints and coordinated with the tactical units in the field.

  The Bureau had learned a lot about the True Islamic Caliphate in the last twenty-three hours. They were part of Sunni Islam’s ultraconservative Salafi Jihadist sect, mostly operating out of Syria’s lawless southeastern region, and their hatred of the West was second only to their violent opposition to the Assad regime. What the Bureau didn’t yet know was why they’d suddenly decided to execute an attack on American soil, where they’d staged it from, or what they intended to strike next.

  The Bureau had, however, identified three men associated with the group who’d entered the United States on student visas in the past six months. They’d soon apprehend them, Klingenberg thought, provided her boss—James to his wife and friends, Jimmy to the president, and Assistant Director Osterman to those who worked beneath him in the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division—stopped saddling her with bullshit assignments when there was real work to do.

  She reached the unmarked sedan the San Francisco office had provided her—a nondescript Ford something-or-other, its once-glossy black faded by years of sun and salt air—and ducked inside. When she closed the door, the relentless din of the command center receded. Then she opened Osterman’s e-mail on her phone and clicked the number he’d provided.

  Osterman had instructed her to call the CEO of Bellum Industries, Harrison Wentworth, and update him on the investigation. Why, she had no idea. Wentworth was a former three-star general who’d served as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency under the prior administration, and his son, Trip, headed up the Senate’s Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, so he had a lot of juice inside the Beltway. Lately, he’d been using that juice to lobby for more domestic contracts for his corporation, citing Bellum’s successful peacekeeping efforts in New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy hit and in Baltimore during the recent racial tensions. But, to Klingenberg’s relief, the widespread privatization of domestic security had proved a nonstarter on the Hill. As far as she was concerned, profit margins had no place in law enforcement, and even if they did, there were half a dozen other firms better suited for the gig; Bellum’s reputation overseas was less than stellar.

  Wentworth’s receptionist answered—icy, competent. Klingenberg explained who she was and why she was calling. The woman put her on hold, no company but the hiss of the open line. Klingenberg had expected better from the private sector. They didn’t even have the decency to pipe in music or tell her how much her call mattered.

  She remained on hold for eleven minutes. Eleven minutes, as it turned out, was long enough for her to crash, for adrenaline and caffeine to abandon her. As she languished on hold, her thoughts wandered, and her eyes began to close.

  “Wentworth here.”

  His authoritative baritone startled her awake. She dropped her phone and had to scrabble to pick it up. “Hello, sir. This is Special Agent Sarah Klingenberg. My AD instructed me to update you on the status of the investigation.”

  “Yes. I gathered as much from my girl.”

  His girl, she thought. Jesus. “Okay, then. What specifically would you like to know?”

  “Specifically,” he said, “I’d like to know the status of the investigation.”

  “We’re currently pursuing a number of leads in parallel.”

  “I’m certain you are,” he said. “Perhaps you could indulge me by walking me through each of them.”

  Klingenberg sighed. “State’s identified three known associates of the TIC who entered the country separately on student visas in the past six months. We believe they’re responsible for executing the attack, although their whereabouts are currently unknown. We’re attempting to reconstruct a timeline of their movements now, working forward from their points of entry.”

  “A sensible approach,” he said. “I assume you’re pursuing leads nearer to the attack as well?”

  “Of course,” Klingenberg replied, tetchiness creeping into her voice. “As I’m sure you’re aware, all commercial and recreational boating in San Francisco Bay has been suspended. The Coast Guard is in the process of inspecting any vessels already on the water and clearing them to dock at designated locations. It’s been an arduous, time-consuming operation, and by their own estimates, they’re only halfway through.”

  “Have they found anything yet?”

  “A party boat full of hookers and hedge-fund managers. A pot shipment coming down the coast from Humboldt County. A few commercial vessels with expired paperwork. Some workers with lapsed visas.”

  “Are you searching the waterfront as well?”

  “Yes. But there’s over eight miles of urban waterfront in San Francisco alone, which adds up to a lot of boats and buildings. Washington’s pitched in with dedicated satellite coverage and fast-tracked warrants, but boots on the ground are still a limiting factor, and we can’t rule out the possibility that the tug might have originated from Oakland or Sausalito.”

  “Have you the manpower to search nearby municipalities?”

  “We’ve enlisted local PDs, and we’ve got FBI SWAT on standby, should anybody find anything.” She looked through the car’s side window at the helicopters lined up at the far end of the pier, dark and sleek, and the armed men milling anxiously around them, all itching for the go order.

  “That sounds like a no, which explains the debacle in Alameda.”

  “The neighbor’s tip sounded credible at the time,” she snapped.
<
br />   “The dentist whose apartment you raided has adopted a less charitable view of the situation. He’s been crying racial profiling to anybody with a microphone, and I understand he’s enlisted the assistance of the ACLU.”

  “With all due respect, sir, we’re doing the best we can with the resources we have.”

  “What about the threat of additional attacks? I heard something on the news about a gunman in San Mateo.”

  “False alarm,” Klingenberg replied. “Some poor bastard with a BB gun attempting suicide by cop. Truth is, our sources have been quiet. But then, they didn’t see the first attack coming either.”

  “No one did,” he replied. “I assume you’re in San Francisco now?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, how long’s it been since you last slept?”

  “I don’t know. Since before the bomb went off, I guess.”

  “You must be exhausted.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Of course you are. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. Tell me, Klingenberg, do you have a room in town yet?”

  “Uh, no?” In Klingenberg’s confusion, it came out more a question than a statement.

  “Then I’ll have my girl book you one straightaway. I know some people swear by the Ritz-Carlton, but I’ve always been partial to the St. Regis. It’s where I stay whenever I’m in San Francisco.”

  “That’s very kind of you, sir, but I’m not sure it’s entirely appropriate—and anyway, the gesture would be wasted; I’m too busy to have much use for a room.”

  “Not anymore,” he said.

  “Come again?”

  “Didn’t your director tell you? Oh, never mind—how could he have? You were on hold for me when last we spoke.”

  Klingenberg’s stomach went all fluttery. It felt like something more than hunger, exhaustion, and Red Bull. It felt like that moment on a roller coaster where the bottom drops out. “Didn’t tell me what?”

  “Bellum will be taking command of the investigation from here on out.”

  There it was. The reason for the call. Klingenberg was being benched—by a goddamn private contractor, of all things. “I don’t understand. Have I done something wrong?”