Puppet Master

by Dale Brown

  He still didn’t one hundred percent trust the computer—garbage in, garbage out, as his supervisor had warned when he told him of the plan two days before. But it did make things easier to manage. According to the Smart Metal people, the program was an off-the-shelf security program with a few tweaks—none of which Jenkins understood, though it had been laboriously explained to him by one of the program’s original authors, Chelsea Goodman.

  The vivacious twenty-something had offered to sit with him and his team during the surveillance in case there were bugs; Jenkins had turned her down, citing Bureau rules against civilians in the van, though in reality he was worried she would be too much of a distraction for his unmarried partners, Johnny Givens and David Robinson.

  “Bases loaded,” said Givens, who was watching a game summary of the Red Sox and Tampa on his phone as they monitored the machines. “Lookin’ good.”

  Jenkins switched through the video feeds, settling on a bank drive-up five miles away. Three cars were queued up—a long line for this particular machine.

  The Bureau had tried analyzing the various ATMs that had been targeted but failed to come up with any useful data on why they had been picked. There were no discernible patterns, aside from the fact that they were all within ten miles of downtown Boston. Inside, outside, drive-up, walk-up—it all seemed particularly random.

  “Damn,” said Givens softly. “Big Poppy struck out. Still no score.”

  “They always break your heart,” said Robinson. Though he’d lived in Boston for a few years, his baseball allegiances were still tied to his hometown, L.A., and the Dodgers.

  “Anybody up for coffee?” Givens asked.

  “Me,” said Robinson. “Assuming I can’t get a beer.”

  “No beer,” said Jenkins. “I’ll take one, too.”

  Givens slipped into the cab unit of the van, checked the surroundings, then hopped out. They were parked near a grocery store that anchored a suburban mall; there was a Dunkin’ Donuts at the far end.

  “Think we’ll catch ’em tonight?” asked Robinson.

  “Real long shot,” said Jenkins. “May not even be a skimmer.”

  “It has to be a skimmer,” said Robinson.

  “Yeah, but it bothers me that there’s no marks on the machines and no one’s ever spotted one—you look at most skimmer cases, eventually someone figures it out.”

  “That’s because the bad guys get greedy. Some of these are damn good.”

  “I guess.”

  Givens returned a few minutes later with coffee and a box of doughnuts. The Sox had scored a run while he was gone, prodding him to formulate a theory that the team needed him to be walking so they could score. This of course drew guffaws from Robinson, and the two began trading even more bizarre theories about how the universe intersected with baseball.

  That was Givens’s real asset on a surveillance team—he tended to lighten the mood. Givens had joined the Bureau after a brief stint in the Army, where he’d qualified as a Ranger but not found a slot in the battalion—a distinction that was lost on Jenkins but apparently mattered a great deal to Givens.

  “Time to rotate,” said Robinson finally, glancing at his watch. They changed stations every hour to keep a fresh set of eyes on the monitors.

  “Don’t break anything,” Jenkins said, giving up his seat. He was just about to open the van door and get out when Robinson cursed.

  “Spilled the coffee,” said the agent.

  “It’s not much,” said Jenkins. “Just clean it up.”

  About a quarter of the cup had sloshed onto the floor. A few drops were on the counter near the keyboard. Robinson carefully daubed them up with a napkin while Givens threw paper towels on the floor. The damage seemed contained until Robinson went to switch the feed. The keyboard didn’t respond.

  “It froze,” said Robinson. “Damn it.”

  “Man, you have a bad aura,” said Givens. “No wonder you like the Dodgers.”

  “Let me see.” Jenkins pushed back into the seat in front of the console. The displays had frozen, and nothing he tried could get them to unfreeze.

  “Maybe we should just reboot the system,” said Givens, looking over his shoulder. “Hit Alt-Delete-Control.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Robinson.

  “The computer’s a PC.”

  Robinson shrugged. “Your call, boss.”

  Not knowing what else to do, Jenkins decided it couldn’t hurt.

  He was wrong, though—instead of a frozen screen, the computer went completely blank. A hard reboot—turning it on and off—changed the color to blue.

  “We’re screwed,” said Robinson. “Great going, Johnny.”

  “All right, time to call the cavalry,” said Jenkins, looking for the paper with Chelsea Goodman’s phone number.

  Five miles away, at the Smart Metal building in downtown Boston, Chelsea was watching a video of RBT PJT 23.A pick its way across the debris-strewn railyard where it had been tested a few days ago. It got where it had to go, but its movements still weren’t smooth enough for the scientist, for whom fluidity of motion was an indication of efficient programming. She was just about to reexamine some of the bot’s decision tree when her cell phone began to vibrate.

  She took it from her pocket warily. Her ex-boyfriend had called several times over the past week, trying to “talk things out.” Tired of the emotional roller coaster he represented, she’d blocked his number; he’d gotten around this by using friends’ cells.

  Not recognizing the number, she reached her finger to the Ignore tab, then realized it was the FBI agent she’d been assigned to help. She hit the green button and held it to her ear.

  “This is Chelsea.”

  “I need help,” said Jenkins without introducing himself. “The computer froze. I tried to reboot—”

  “No, you shouldn’t do that.”

  “I know. Now.”

  “Where are you? I’ll get an Uber.”

  “I’ll send someone to get you if you want,” said Jenkins.

  Chelsea spotted the blue Bureau Malibu twenty minutes later. The driver pulled over to the curb and flashed his FBI credentials.

  “I’m Johnny,” he told her. “You’re Chelsea?”

  “Yup.”

  “You need tools?”

  “They’re right here,” said Chelsea, tapping the side of her head as she got into the car. The Red Sox game was on the radio. “What’s the score?”

  “Four-two. We’re up.”

  “Good.”

  “You a Boston fan?” Johnny asked.

  “Now. But I grew up in San Diego.”

  “Don’t tell me you like the Padres. That’s a triple-A team.”

  “Ouch.”

  “At least you know something about baseball,” said Johnny.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Which do you prefer?” asked Chelsea, deciding to needle him, “defense-adjusted ERA, or defense-neutral ERA.”

  “Um—”

  “The one advantage of defense-adjusted ERA is that it can give you an indirect idea of how good a team’s defense really is, since it goes back to NRA.”

  “I don’t really get all that stat stuff,” confessed Johnny.

  “So you’re not really into baseball.”

  “No. It’s just—there’s more to baseball than statistics.”

  “Like?”

  “Like hot dogs. What’s baseball without hot dogs?”

  Chelsea laughed.

  “Hamburgers you can do without,” said Johnny. He was just about to expound on his reasoning when the scanner mounted under the dash crackled with a call.

  “That’s a robbery at an ATM,” said Johnny. “It’s about ten blocks away.”

  “Are we going?”

  “Yeah, definitely.”

  Johnny pulled the car up behind a city police cruiser, angling it so the other vehicle could pull back if it needed to. He flashed on a
scene from his childhood—the football field where the varsity team played was only a block and a half away, and he’d spent some of the best days of his youth there. On one particularly glorious afternoon, having completed twenty of twenty-five passes with two touchdowns and no interceptions, he’d run down this very street, shouting, “We’re Number 1!” with a pack of friends.

  Faded glory now.

  “You stay in the car while I see what’s going on,” he told Chelsea. “Deal?”

  “All right.”

  “They probably don’t need us,” he added. “But, we’re here. So, you know.”

  “OK. Fine.”

  He was torn—Jenkins was waiting. On the other hand, maybe this was related. It involved an ATM.

  Outside the car, Johnny trotted toward the bank. He waved his creds at an approaching police officer. “I’m with the FBI. What’s going on?”

  “Two suspects, somewhere in that back alley, we think,” said the officer. “Sergeant McLeary’s in charge.”

  “Where’s he at?”

  “Up over there, behind the car.”

  McLeary’s skeptical glare when Johnny introduced himself told him everything he needed to know: he wasn’t needed or wanted. That wasn’t atypical—many local departments felt the Bureau interfered or at best tended to hog the glory when they were involved in a case.

  “We’ve been watching ATMs in the area for a case,” Johnny explained. “We’d be interested in talking to your suspects.”

  “Gotta catch them first,” answered McLeary. “We have them in that alley, we think.”

  “I may be able to get some backup,” offered Johnny.

  “I have a couple of more cars on the way, and a helicopter with infrared,” said McLeary, warming a little.

  “I know this street pretty well,” said Johnny. “I grew up around here. They could go over the roofs of those houses on Pierce and get out that way.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You have somebody there?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I can drive around there for you.”

  “All right. I’ll have a car out there in five minutes, maybe less. I’ll tell them to look for you.”

  If there was one thing in the world Chelsea wasn’t good at, it was waiting. The police radio made it even worse, tantalizing her with snippets of action that she couldn’t be involved in. It was clear from the clipped communiqués that the police believed they had their suspects trapped somewhere in the alley, but it was equally clear that they weren’t sure how exactly to get them.

  The driver side door suddenly opened. Surprised, she twisted around.

  It was Johnny.

  “Hang on,” he said, pushing the car into reverse. “We’re going around the corner to watch the buildings.”

  Johnny slowed as he turned the corner. He scanned the street ahead, then glided into a parking spot across from the buildings.

  “They might come out that way,” he said, half to himself, half to Chelsea. “Off the roofs.”

  “Do you know this area?”

  “Definitely. There’s a high school that way.”

  “Your school?”

  “No. We wanted to steal the mascot one time. We got caught . . . well, chased, actually. We ended up in that alley. And we got out climbing the building.”

  “Really?”

  Johnny laughed. “Good times.”

  “There’s a car down the block with someone in it,” said Chelsea. “Is that a cop?”

  “What car?”

  “Way down near the corner.”

  “The pickup?” asked Johnny.

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s a truck. It’s not a cop.”

  “There’s someone in the driver’s seat.”

  “You’re sure?” Johnny strained to see.

  “Positive.”

  “Stay here.”

  Chelsea folded her arms across her chest, watching Johnny walk down the street. He reached his right hand behind his hip as he walked.

  He’s got a gun there, she thought.

  Well, duh. He’s an FBI agent.

  Until that moment, it all had been very theoretical—modifying the program, helping them test it and implement it, then coming out to help them. But now she realized it was something a lot more than a problem to be solved in a laboratory, more than a movie or a video game.

  He was really walking down the street, approaching a truck that might be involved in the case.

  Or maybe it was just a guy waiting for his wife, or catching a smoke, or . . .

  The truck jerked forward.

  Chelsea started to climb over the console to the driver’s seat. Something flashed behind her—a police car had just turned onto the block.

  It took Johnny Givens a few seconds to realize the truck was moving. He started to raise the gun, then realized he had no idea whether the vehicle was involved. He raised his left hand instead.

  “Stop!” he yelled. “Police! Police!”

  The truck lurched in his direction, accelerating. As he jumped back, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Then something hard smacked him in the buttocks, and he was dizzy, and everything was black.

  9

  Boston suburbs—forty-five minutes later

  Jenkins stared at the phone in disbelief. “Why was he there?”

  “Someone was robbed at the ATM. We went over to help.”

  “What hospital?”

  “Boston Med.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Jenkins hit the Disconnect button and slumped back from the console. The van seemed to have shrunk in half, everything closing in.

  “What’s going on?” asked Robinson.

  “Johnny was just run over by a truck and a cop car. They don’t know if he’s going to make it.”

  “What?”

  “We’re closing down for the night. Shit.” He spun the phone in his hand, still in disbelief. Finally he clicked the map program up and queried the location of the hospital.

  The Trauma Center and Emergency Department at Boston Medical Center was one of the finest Level I trauma centers in the world; the acute-care facility was studied as a model throughout the Northeast. It was a place where miracles occurred. But there were some things that no hospital, no doctor, could do, no matter how skilled, and the face of the first surgeon Jenkins met told him that saving Johnny Givens’s life very well might be one of them.

  “We’re talking very severe injuries,” said the doctor. “It’s touch and go.”

  Jenkins bit his lip so hard he could taste blood in his mouth.

  It was better than the bile that had been rising from his stomach, and far less painful than the mental anguish turning every thought red. Against all logic, he felt responsible.

  He’d never lost a man, not at the FBI, nor the two police departments he’d worked at before joining the Bureau.

  God!

  “I need to see him,” he told the doctor.

  “Heavily sedated, but come on.”

  The physician led him down the hall, past a computer station where patients were tracked. Spare equipment lined the walls below a large clock that ticked off seconds with a staccato beat. About halfway down the hall, they entered a room crowded with doctors, nurses, and other aides, all focused on a man who looked agonizingly small. Wires and tubes rose up from him, connecting to machines and displays that blinked with analytic precision, a sharp contrast to the hushed whispers of the people staring at the injured man.

  “No—you’re going to have to get out,” said one of the doctors through her mask.

  “I’m his boss,” stuttered Jenkins. “FBI.”

  “I’m sorry. We’re doing what we can. Please.”

  The surgeon who had led him in apologized and put his hand on Jenkins’s arm.

  “We’re doing our best. His legs are gone.”

  “His legs?”

  “Completely crushed. His spine, his lungs—I don’t know that we’ll save him.”

>   Jenkins let himself be led out of the room. The voices seemed to get louder once he was in the hall.

  “There was a woman with him,” said the surgeon. “She’s in that room over there.”

  Chelsea Goodman was sitting in a chair next to an empty bed, her cell phone in one hand and a Styrofoam cup in the other.

  “How is he?” she asked, looking up.

  “I—I don’t . . .”

  “I’m so sorry. I saw—”

  She stopped. Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes. Jenkins wanted to comfort her but had no idea what to say.

  “Maybe we should pray,” he told her finally.

  “OK. Tell me what to say.”

  10

  Boston—time unspecified

  Lying helpless on the bed, Johnny tried to focus.

  Blue and red, blue and red—what did any of it mean?

  Legs? Where are my legs?

  There.

  Arms?

  Present.

  Johnny’s heart floated above his head. He could see it pumping, pumping, and pumping. It started to move slowly around the room.

  This is what it felt like to be alive: surrounded by pain and a world gone alien.

  11

  Boston—that same night

  It occurred to Jenkins that he was closer to Johnny Givens than anyone else at the Bureau, which very possibly meant that Jenkins was the closest person to Johnny in the Northeast and maybe the world. Johnny wasn’t married or involved in a relationship: the girlfriend he’d broken up with had moved to Chicago some months before, something the young agent spent much time grousing about. He was an only child and had no relatives in Massachusetts or the Northeast, for that matter. His mother was dead; his father was in Florida somewhere. He’d listed his father as his next of kin, but the number had been out of service for six months, according to the phone company.

  Jenkins wasn’t sure what else he could do, aside from stalking up and down the hospital hallway, a reminder to the staff that he was here, damn it, and that someone cared, and that they better do the best they could to save the kid’s life. He was angry and he was sad and he was tired, all at the same time, and when his wife, Joyce, called to ask where he was, he didn’t even bother to guard his feelings, either from her or anyone nearby.