by Young, Mark
“Had an ATM card. Left it with the rest of our stuff.”
He nodded. “Good, because that’s one way of getting to us.”
“I thought they had limited tracking capabilities.”
“Technology’s changed. Now, almost every bank, every financial institution, has the capability of tracking you with that card. Small RFID tags have been inserted in those ATM cards, particularly VIP customers so when you enter a bank, a sensor hidden in the doorways alerts when this card is carried into the bank. A signal is transmitted to bank representatives—such as the manager or tellers—that would allow them to greet important customers by first name and allow them to scan a summary of current transactional history and other information generally only known to the customer.”
“I thought Wal-Mart and others just used them for product identification and tracking.”
He nodded. “RFID use has been expanded. Theoretically, those tags can be tracked anywhere. Using RFID technology, a manufacturer can trace razor blades you purchased right down to your bathroom shelf. In the past, they’ve been limited by the signals emitting from the tags and scanners powerful enough to track and locate their product.”
She moved farther down the aisle. “So if they know I bought this jacket I’m holding, they could track me anywhere I take it—theoretically?”
“Exactly. That’s why Joe wants us to dump our old things and buy new. And this is just the start. RFID and other tracking capabilities have flooded the market. It’s in everything. Cell phones, clothing, even woven into our money.”
“They track money?” She shook her head. “You are an expert in this technology? I must have missed that in your file.”
“It was never my area of interest—I focused in nanosystem integration as it pertained to warfare and nanoelectronics. I knew this technology was out there, but I never paid much attention.”
“Well, now would be a good time to start learning. Our lives may depend upon how much you grasp.” Her words carried a hard edge. “So, tell me about tracking money.”
“I’ll let Joe go over all that later when we catch up to them. But I want to look at this with a practical and objective eye. Study the data and determine appropriate responses. To simply toss our belongings every time we smell danger…that’s just stupid.”
“You calling Joe stupid?” Again, anger flared in her eyes.
“No, but I want us to think in terms of logical and reasonable consequences. I know the dangers we face. Any mistake we make, any lapse in judgment, will have catastrophic repercussions. I’m talking arrest, imprisonment…even death. There is a lot at stake. And these guys play for keeps. Winners take all. Losers die. I know all this, but we still must be practical.”
She looked away for a moment. “Do not preach to me about the dangers and consequences, Gerrit. Joe and I have been living with them for years. And you…what, less than a week?” There was a look in her eyes as if each word she chose carried with it a history, an event, something painful that underscored her meaning. He could only guess what she was thinking, but whatever it was, those memories must have cost dearly.
He lowered his voice. “I just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page. Even though I’ve been running for a few days, I do know the dangers—as a cop, a Force Recon Marine, and a scientist. In Recon operations, I’ve used satellite tracking stations to home in on the enemy. Once locked upon a target, I was able to backtrack their movements for intelligence purposes, or hover over their current location until that particular satellite was out of range. I know you’ve used some of this technology in Israel, too. Tell me, how did you handle our meeting at the airport?”
Alena waited until they’d purchased their items and walked outside, heading toward Union Square before picking up the conversation again. “Prior to contact with you, we needed to reloop surveillance cameras off-site to allow us to spot and track the tail on you—the threesome we tagged.”
“Okay, but would they also be able to spot you on camera?”
“Once we locked into the targets and had you sighted, we jammed the signals and made it appear they had a major malfunction. Then we were able to move in and incapacitate the two guys and plant a thumbnail sample of explosives on the woman. That allowed us a brief window of time to have our private sit-down at the airport.”
“How did you track those three following me?”
She looked around them, studying each vehicle, each pedestrian. “Joe and Willy will have to explain. They handle the technology; I handle the contacts—or enemy. Now, I have to worry about someone planting RFID chips on me.”
Gerrit smiled.
“What are you grinning at?”
“I was just wondering where your RFID chips might be hidden. Want me to help search?”
She laughed. “I can take care of myself, thank you. Besides, that is where Joe and Willy—and maybe you, one of these days—come in. Tonight, they will search us and our new belongings to make sure we are clean of bugs before we go anywhere.”
“What are they going to do? Strip search us?”
Alena looked at him with mischief in her eyes. “They are going to search you in places where you could never search yourself…and they are going to let me watch.”
He eyed her suspiciously. “Why are they going to let you watch?”
She smiled without answering.
Gerrit smirked. “Well, since I need on-the-job training, I’ll speak to Joe and see if I can work on you. What do you say?”
“Forget it, Gerrit. Only in your dreams.”
Chapter 32
If Kane’s peopled had tracked their movements, this would be the place for an ambush.
Gerrit watched Alena approach the door. He held his breath as she eased open a gray metal door leading into the hangar, the same location they had arrived from Idaho forty-eight hours earlier. He edged closer in case of trouble, feeling helpless without any weapons. She scanned the area and motioned him inside.
Gerrit glanced at his new watch; it was a quarter past midnight. “Running late?”
She seemed nervous, answering him with a shrug.
“Isn’t this risky returning to the same place we used upon arrival?”
Alena grimaced. “I know it’s risky, but if we are all clean of tracking devices, we should be okay.”
“What if they used some other technique to track us—like satellites?”
“Then we just shoot our way out, Gerrit. How do I know?” She seemed surprised at her own outburst. “Sorry. This whole thing has me jumpy.”
A portable MRI machine had been wheeled into one corner of the hangar. He pointed. “Is that for us?”
This seemed to break the tension for a moment. She gave him a quick smile, nodded, then walked to the main hangar door, pushing on a button for a second and then releasing it. The door opened up just enough to see outside. She crouched down and peered into the night. He heard a jet taxiing about a hundred yards away, the sound growing stronger. It was heading toward them.
She studied the approaching aircraft. A moment later, her shoulders relaxed. She sprang to the side and pressed the button to allow the door to open all the way. “Here they come. As soon as they’re inside, I am going to shut this door. Keep your eyes open on that back door for anything unusual.”
He shook his head and headed for the smaller door. Even if there was something suspicious, what was he supposed to do? No gun. No badge. Couldn’t even call the cops. Some army here. Not even a Taser gun between them.
He grabbed the handle and opened the door just a crack and looked outside. Blackness punctuated with stabs of yellow light from nearby streetlamps. No one moving around. As dead as a heart monitor in the morgue.
The aircraft taxied into the hangar, the huge doors swinging closed as soon as the aircraft engines died down. Joe was the first one down the stairs. He hurried toward Alena, where they whispered for a few moments, occasionally turning their attention toward him.
Willy came down the s
tairs and saw Gerrit standing near the door. He waved and came over to chat. “Whassup, man?” He gave Gerrit a high five. “See y’all still alive and kicking. That’s good.”
“Tell me what’s going on, Willy. Got that message from Joe.”
“Oh, Mr. J will fill you in on everything. Just give him a moment to chat with Al.” He eyed the MRI machine. “You ready to get fried?” He jutted out his chin toward the machine. “I heard those things can make a guy go sterile. Any truth to that, Mr. G?”
“I thought you were up on all the computer technology and stuff. You think an MRI will cook your privates?” Gerrit could not hide his grin.
Willy frowned. “You got to be careful with all this stuff. You never know what they got inside these machines.” He saw Gerrit’s grin widen. “What’s so funny?”
“Reminds me of one of the old salts I worked with at SPD. He liked to work motors and used those portable radars for traffic enforcement. One day he backed me up on a call, a domestic violence case where a young punk kept getting in my face. He thought he was a tough guy, and I could tell he terrified the girl. But the guy wouldn’t say a thing I could use against him. I knew this clown had been pushing her around, but I couldn’t get anyone to say anything. There were no visible injuries, and the house was a mess, so I couldn’t tell if he’d been shoving her around the place. I would have to leave without taking action unless one of them came through and gave me a statement.”
“So what happened? You have to leave?”
“Nah. The old-timer I was telling you about went outside and returned a moment later with his radar gun. He moved in on this young stud—still sprawled out in the chair without a care in the world—and pointed the gun right at his crotch.”
Willy gave him an incredulous look. “What was he going to do with that thing? No power source. It was dead in the water.”
“You know that, and I know that, but this piece of garbage in the chair didn’t know it. He’d put down a few brews, and his breath was so strong I could have lit up the room with a cigarette lighter. The booze must have addled what little brains this clown still possessed. Anyway, he looks up at my partner and stammers, ‘Whatcha gonna do with that, officer?’ My partner looks over at me and says, ‘Ask that moron one more time what he did to the girl. If he tells you a lie, I’m going to hit him with a blast from this radar gun. This radiation ought to put him out of the baby-making business—for good.’”
“What happened? Did he talk?” Willy looked at Gerrit, then over at the MRI machine.
“Man, that guy low-crawled over to me, got down on his knees, covered his crotch, and began spilling his guts. Gave me enough information that I called a female officer to come check the girl for injuries. Sure enough, that piece of garbage had been hitting her in places where he knew we’d never see and couldn’t look without the girl’s cooperation. Before we arrived, he’d warned her that if she let the cops take a peek, he would kill her and then start in on her folks.”
Willy looked back at the MRI. “Getting back to my question…”
Redneck emerged from the plane, heavy steps causing the metal to groan as he lumbered down the stairway. “You guys miss me?” He acted as if it was a family reunion.
Joe came over to where Gerrit and Willy stood, followed by Alena. She gestured toward the MRI machine. “Well, Gerrit, ready to strip down?”
Joe looked at her. “What are you talking about? That machine’s headed for a rural hospital tomorrow.”
Willy and Alena looked at each other and began laughing. Willy pointed toward Gerrit. “He thinks we’re going to strip him naked and run him through the MRI for bugs and chips? I just played along like I was stupid or something.” He wiped a tear from his eye and pulled out a handheld scanner from his backpack. “Here you go. Mr. G. Park yourself over here and let ol’ Willy check you out.”
Joe stared back. He was not laughing. “Look, we picked up traffic that they planned on sending a team to the cabin in Idaho late last night. We passed it on, and Travis and Frank White Eagle caught a couple of them crossing the river early this morning. The others scattered, and the two they caught clammed up. Couldn’t make anything stick. Had to let them go.”
Gerrit looked from his uncle to Alena. “They’re looking for us.”
Joe said, “I think they were looking for you, Gerrit. You contact anyone up there since we left Seattle?”
Shaking his head, Gerrit looked at the others. “What about the rest of you?”
They shook their heads. Alena piped up, “We know better than that.”
“So who tipped them off?”
Joe scratched his chin. “Maybe no one. Maybe they found out about the connection between Travis and me and came snooping to see what they could dig up.”
Gerrit coughed before responding. “What do we do now?”
Silence filled the hangar. Finally Joe stepped forward, placing a hand on Gerrit’s shoulder. “It’s time we stopped running and took the offensive. It is time we attack.”
“Attack?” He stared at his uncle to make sure the man was serious. “What are we going to attack? Better yet, what are we going to use to attack once we have a target? We don’t even have a pea shooter between us.”
Redneck drew closer, chuckling. “Man, you have no idea what kind of weapons we have. When Mr. J gives the word, we can go to war with weapons you only dreamed about.”
“And who’s going to fight this war, R. D.? Willy the computer geek? Alena the book binder? Joe the scientist? And you…what kind of fighting have you done outside of a barroom? No offense, guys, but this is hardly a fighting unit.”
Redneck looked at the others. “I think this man just disrespected us, Mr. J. Shall we give him a demonstration?”
Joe shrugged. “Just don’t hurt him.”
Redneck nodded toward Alena. The next thing Gerrit knew, he was lying on his back, with Alena kneeling on his chest, switchblade pointed at his neck. She had swept his legs from under him in one fluid motion, using his weight to her advantage.
She leaned closer and whispered, “And that’s how a chef does it.”
Chapter 33
After Alena allowed him to rise from the floor, Gerrit saw they were all laughing. All except Joe. “Are the rest of you as slick as she is?”
Redneck seemed to speak for the group. “Until you joined us, Al and I were the muscle, so to speak, and Mr. J and Pea brain the techno geeks. Now that we’ve got a jarhead with us, we should be unbeatable.”
Willy glared at Redneck before speaking. “Hillbilly, the only muscle you got is between those two cauliflowers you call ears. A waste of space, in my book. Let’s line up and get this over with. You first, Mr. G.”
Armed with the handheld scanner, Willy searched everyone and their belongings for any readings that might have given them away. He identified and neutralized every signal embedded by manufacturers just to make sure. Once he finished, he let them know they were clean. Thirty minutes later, Joe and Redneck had them in the air.
While Redneck took over the controls, Joe left the cockpit and sat near Gerrit, pulling out a satellite laptop from a carry-all case. “I encrypted this baby to use anywhere in the world. Even if they were able to pick up my IP address, it would be bounced from one part of the globe to the other.”
Gerrit leaned over. “What are you planning?” He watched the screen come alive, and a familiar site appeared on the monitor. “NSA? How’d you…?”
Joe didn’t answer for a moment as he punched in a series of codes. “The bad guys have their people and we have ours.” It looked like his uncle opened up a second program. Once on the screen, it appeared Joe had entered a chat room. Only two people logged in. Joe was obviously one of them. Both active users used a series of numbers as identifiers. “I’m requesting resources to be available when we land. And a search of communications traffic between known identifiers used by Kane—cell phones, IP addresses, the works. I need to find out what information Kane has been trying to access.
And what information came to him.”
His uncle worked quietly for a few minutes, then paused as if waiting for a response. “I’ve tried to hold back on this because I am concerned that Kane might have piggybacked his communications with a code that would alert him if anyone else tried to track him. But we need to move forward, particularly since we now know a little about what he’s up to.”
“Which is what? Trying to find us?”
Joe shook his head. “In the grand scheme of things, we’re small potatoes to him. Just irritating flies. Something to be swatted out of the way while he works on bigger things.”
“Do you know what he’s working on?”
“Remember that project Megiddo?”
“The thing Dad stumbled on?”
“Exactly. After they were…after your parents died, I began searching for a connection between what your dad told me and what happened to your folks. After I re-created myself, I began to develop trusted contacts within the government and business, those I felt I could depend on.”
“That’s hard to determine, isn’t it? I mean, almost anybody can be bought or rolled.”
Joe leaned back and squinted. “My, that is a very cynical outlook on God’s creatures.”
Gerrit stared back. “Tell me I’m wrong, Joe. Tell me there are a lot of people out there you can trust. I mean, truly trust. People who can’t be bought, compromised, or just simply paid off to rat on their own mother. It’s just the way of mankind.”
Joe looked at him for a moment, then leaned over the laptop. “Well, unlike you, I feel I can trust those I befriended over the years. Those I learned to trust in one way or another.”
His uncle watched a response come over the screen. “Anyway, I cross-referenced everything your dad worked on and compared it to Kane’s life—his business interests, government connections, his communications I could unscramble. Everything.”
The jet hit an air pocket and fell for a few seconds. Finally, the aircraft leveled out and Gerrit slowly unclenched his armrest. “So, did you find a lead?”
