Stealth Retribution

by Vikki Kestell

  I chewed my lip. “Nano, if we sent email to those three email addresses, to Soto’s family, would you be able to spoof the origination IP? Could you ensure that they couldn’t trace our email to us, to this house?”

  Yes.

  Their next words floored me.

  We already have, Gemma Keyes.

  ***

  The call Gamble had been expecting came in shortly after noon. It was 2 p.m. in Georgia when he picked up the phone.

  “Gamble.”

  “This is Agent Larken, sir. We located the cemetery and Dr. Bickel’s remains.”

  “Did you exhume the grave?”

  “No, sir.”

  Gamble steeled himself. “Give me the details.”

  “Sir, Dr. Bickel’s body was not given a conventional burial as reported. He was cremated, sir, and his ashes were interred in an urn garden.”

  Gamble sputtered a protest. “But the memorial service held here in Albuquerque for Dr. Bickel and Dr. Prochanski said that their bodies would be laid to rest in their home towns. News coverage of their deaths and the memorial service said the same.”

  “As we’ve discovered, sir, those reports were in error.”

  Gamble hung up and stared at the wall.

  “As we’ve discovered, sir, those reports were in error.”

  Well, of course they were—and intentionally so. Dr. Bickel’s only family members were distant cousins who lived in Idaho. No one in Georgia had attended the burial service; no one had visited Dr. Bickel’s final resting place.

  Cushing had lied at the memorial service and had counted on no one ever fact-checking her. Even if they had, it would have been too late—as it was now.

  Because you can’t pull DNA from ashes.

  If confronted with the lie, Cushing would likely assert that the two sets of remains recovered from the lab’s fire were in such sad shape that, of course, they had assumed they belonged to Dr. Prochanski and Dr. Bickel. When she had presented a closed casket at the memorial service and said that Dr. Bickel would be buried, she was offering “a simple kindness to his friends.” However, cremation of the body and interment of the ashes at a later date had been the best solution.

  “She’s stalemating us at every turn,” Gamble breathed. “At this point, Dr. Bickel’s charges against Cushing amount to his word against hers.”

  No, it’s worse. It’s the fantastical story of a crazed physicist against the word of a decorated, two-star general.

  As he rubbed his tired eyes, new and darker thoughts rushed at him, including one very bad premonition: Would Cushing seek a way to turn the tables, to clear her name? To countercharge Dr. Bickel for slander? Would she charge Dr. Bickel with the bombing of the lab and the theft of valuable government R&D?

  For the murder of Petrel Prochanski?

  ***

  Zander pulled into Gemma’s driveway and got out of the borrowed pickup. He bounded up the front steps and rang the doorbell.

  A high-pitched voice answered. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Zander Cruz, Genie. I’m here to fix the side door like I said I would.”

  He glanced up. Gemma’s nosy neighbor, Mrs. Calderón, peered through her living room curtains at him. He gave her a friendly wave.

  Sheesh. No wonder Gemma felt like she was living in a fish bowl.

  Genie unlocked and cracked the interior door. She left the security door closed and bolted so that she stared at Zander through the metal mesh. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Nothing. Just wanted you to know I was here. Of course, I’ll be pulling off the old door, so you’ll have to put up with a bit of a breeze for a few hours. Oh. And I’ll need you to unlock the deadbolt if it’s latched.”

  “All right.” She closed the door in his face without another word.

  “You’re welcome,” Zander muttered.

  He spent the next few minutes unloading the replacement doors and other materials from the truck. Then he shoved open the broken door and surveyed the damage to the frame’s jack studs.

  He talked to himself as he made his plan. “Stain the new door. While it’s drying, take down the bent security door. Rebuild the doorframe.”

  He set up two sawhorses and wiped the new door with alcohol and steel wool. Then he began to apply a coat of stain to one side.

  Jake bounded from the porch and landed near him.

  “Hey, Jake. How ya doing?”

  “I’m not abusing him,” Genie spat. She leaned against the cracked doorframe, watching him.

  Zander, wiping off excess stain, grinned to himself. “Well, just so you know, Jake will tell me if you are.”

  “Right.” With a sniff of disgust, Genie turned away.

  Zander chuckled. Bet she’s miffed that she hasn’t got a door to slam in my face.

  Whistling to himself, he grabbed a pry bar and started to tear out the ruined studs.

  ~~**~~

  Chapter 14

  Dr. Bickel fixed us a lovely Sunday-morning breakfast—and I salivated as the aroma of fried sausages permeated the house. We sat down together and ate with companionable conversation. He had a single egg, a sausage, and an English muffin to my three eggs, three sausages, three English muffins, and three chopped and fried potatoes.

  Dr. Bickel smiled his appreciation. “You are enjoyable to cook for, Gemma.”

  “Well, a girl has to keep her strength up.”

  We laughed together, cleaned up the kitchen, and then I did something I’d never done before: I readied myself for church—not to attend as a spectator, as I had a few weeks back, but as a participant.

  “I wish I could go with you, Gemma,” Dr. Bickel murmured. “I would like to hear Zander preach.”

  “Well, maybe he won’t be speaking this morning. Usually the senior pastor gives the message.”

  “Still, I’ve been giving it some thought, and I’d like to, well, I don’t know what to call it . . . I’d like to return. To God.”

  I grinned at him. “That is so cool! I just did, you know.”

  “I do know. I can see it in you, Gemma.”

  I was suddenly shy. “It’s not me, not anything I’ve done. It’s all Jesus. He . . . he’s so much different than I thought he was.”

  Dr. Bickel nodded. “Maybe Zander can come and talk to me sometime?”

  I shook my head. “He can’t know where you are—not as long as you’re in danger. I know it’s hard, staying cooped up in here, but that’s how it has to be. For a while longer.”

  “We went to the grocery store.”

  We had. The nanomites had covered him while I shopped as the younger Kathy Sawyer. It had been relatively simple for Dr. Bickel to avoid other shoppers; he’d stuck close by me, under the nanomites’ umbrella, and we’d bought everything he’d jotted on his list.

  Easy-peasy.

  “I hadn’t thought about taking you with me.”

  The nanomites could likely disguise both of us, but navigating the crush of five hundred people within the same building concerned me—what if Dr. Bickel and I were separated? What if we were forced apart by the crowd? How would the nanomites maintain our disguises then?

  But perhaps we could arrange something else. Something safer.

  “Well, what if . . . what if we watched from up in the choir loft?”

  Apart from the crowd. Less chance of disaster.

  “Yes, please, Gemma.”

  I tossed my original plan to attend as Kathy Sawyer out the window, but I was more than okay with our revised strategy. Dr. Bickel and I—under the nanomites’ cover—left the house, walked to the parking garage, and drove to Downtown Community Church.

  We waited until the crowds entering the church thinned before we, rendered invisible by the nanomites, approached the church’s tall front door. This time, as I looked above the doors at the round, stained glass depiction of Jesus with the lamb over his shoulder, it touched a precious place in my heart. I not only knew what the image meant in its biblical context, I now knew what
it meant to me.

  Jesus, you came after me and rescued me. I was a lost lamb and you didn’t give up on me! Thank you. I will never stop being grateful.

  I lifted the cord strung across the narrow staircase and led Dr. Bickel upstairs into the empty choir and organ loft. We sat together in the same place I’d sat Thanksgiving weekend when Zander preached.

  I wondered how Dr. Bickel would react to the loud and spirited worship service. I even giggled as his mouth fell open. But when the music shifted to a slower, more majestic song, we were both caught up in its beauty. The words were plastered on the huge screens, so I managed to follow along and join in on a few choruses.

  After the singing, Pastor McFee was to give the message. But first, Zander walked out onto the platform to greet the congregation and welcome visitors.

  “Good morning, DCC family! Isn’t it wonderful to worship the Lord with all your heart?”

  “Nano,” I whispered, “uncover us just long enough for Zander to see us.”

  The mites did better than I asked. As Zander swept his eyes over the congregation, the nanomites spun a sparkling arch across the tops of Dr. Bickel’s and my heads and down our sides. With an aura that shimmered from one side to the other, Zander couldn’t miss us. I smiled and waggled my fingers at him; just as quickly, the nanomites “disappeared” us.

  Zander’s reaction was priceless; amid the lively responses to his question, his grin spread wide; he laughed aloud and gave a little wave of his hand. The congregation may not have known what tickled Zander so, but they laughed with him and waved back.

  Then he bowed his head in prayer. “Lord, we can never be grateful enough for the gift you gave us in Jesus. Your mercy, your love, your grace. They overflow in our hearts. May we walk worthy of the high calling of Jesus Christ. Amen.”

  The amens filled the hall as the DCC congregation agreed. Up high in our perch, Dr. Bickel and I joined our affirmations with theirs.

  ***

  “General Cushing, we’ve traced the escrima sticks to an online purchase in November. Three weeks ago.”

  Trujillo wasn’t enthused about reporting the information to Cushing. The more she reflected on the work she did for the general, the less comfortable she felt with the position she found herself in.

  She’d flinched at the news of Colonel Greaves’ death and that of his aide: One death was curious, perhaps suspicious. But two? Trujillo was convinced that Cushing had given orders to “dispatch” Colonel Greaves and his aide.

  To whom Cushing had given orders for their deaths, Trujillo didn’t know, but the fact that Cushing hadn’t asked Trujillo or her fellow agents to perform tasks that were illegal or questionable told Trujillo a lot: It told her that Cushing had other means . . . other people at her disposal, people who operated outside the scope of the law—people to whom murder posed no ethical impediment or scruple.

  Cushing huffed with impatience. “Well? Give me the file.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Trujillo handed Cushing the short dossier she’d assembled.

  “Kathy Sawyer. Age 52. Terrible photo. Address is a box in a UPS store. Checking account, credit card, vehicle.” Cushing reread the file and then began to peruse the list of credit card purchases. Trujillo had contacted most of the online retailers and assembled a list of the items Sawyer had purchased.

  “I see she used her credit card to buy these sticks as well as two sets of practice sticks and shoes.”

  “Yes.”

  When Cushing finished reading the list of purchases, she came back to the same bit of information Trujillo had homed in on.

  “She used her credit card to activate three pay-as-you-go phones. Why does anyone need three phones?”

  “Husband? Kids?”

  “Not if this is merely a cover, a fabricated identity for our subject. No, she has allies. Collaborators.”

  Trujillo felt a twinge of sympathy for the elusive Gemma Keyes. Perhaps she even felt concern. She didn’t know specifically what the young woman possessed to warrant Cushing’s rabid pursuit, only that it was connected to Dr. Bickel’s missing research.

  The concerning bit was Cushing’s ruthlessness. If the general had no qualms about eliminating loyal operatives because they possessed intimate knowledge of her illegal activities, what would she be willing to do to the woman who held a secret Cushing so desperately wanted? Or, for that matter, what would Cushing be willing to do to Trujillo and the rest of her teammates when they, too, became “inconvenient”?

  Trujillo swallowed down a frisson of foreboding.

  “This Kathy Sawyer is twenty or more years older than our subject,” she suggested.

  “Indeed—so why would a woman of her age need escrima sticks? The same sticks that were left in the facility when Dr. Bickel escaped and, I would judge, that were used on Colonel Greaves and his aide as well as the guards. Colonel Greaves’ injuries, in particular, were consistent with blows from a hard, blunt object.”

  Cushing stared forward, thinking. “I don’t know if this Sawyer person is a cover or an accomplice, but your task is clear: Find this Kathy Sawyer and apprehend her.”

  “Uh, I have one more piece of information, General.”

  “Well, out with it.”

  “The martial arts supplier said he received another order from Sawyer yesterday.”

  “For?”

  “For three pairs of escrima sticks. Identical to the last pair.”

  “To replace the ones left behind. This is a stroke of luck! Who’s the carrier?”

  “UPS, ma’am.”

  “Intercept that order before it reaches Albuquerque, Trujillo. I want geolocators attached to the order. When Kathy Sawyer picks up her package, we’ll follow it—and her—to her lair.”

  “Should we stake out the UPS store where she has her mailbox?”

  “No.”

  Trujillo was taken aback, but she knew not to argue with Cushing. Why wouldn’t she want us to capture the Keyes woman when she picks up the package?

  Cushing chewed the end of her thumb as she held an internal debate. “I don’t want to spook Keyes. It’s more important to track her back to her hiding place than try to apprehend her when she picks up the order.”

  Coming to a decision, Cushing added, “In fact . . . I want those geolocators switched off until after the shipment is picked up. When you’ve been notified that the shipment was picked up, wait two hours, then remotely activate the geolocators.”

  Trujillo wondered what the woman was hiding from her team. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll take care of it.”

  ***

  Late that evening, the nanomites spoke to me. Gemma Keyes. We have received a reply from the family of Arnaldo Soto.

  I shivered. Lord, if the nanomites’ idea isn’t your will, please tell me? Don’t let me make a mistake.

  “Show it to me.”

  I scanned the email and shivered again. The message, although not signed, was from Miguel Soto’s email account.

  In your message, you assert that you have located my nephew Arnaldo, and you indicate that he has created a significant problem for you. I believe you are sincere in your request for our assistance in solving your problem.

  I have dispatched trusted emissaries to Albuquerque. My associates will arrive Tuesday and will await your further direction at the number below.

  If your information is valid and results in the safe return of my nephew, you will be entitled to the posted bounty.

  The email ended with a phone number.

  “Nano. Send this reply: ‘We will call the number you provided on Tuesday after Arnaldo Soto has sent his instructions. We can then inform your associates how to proceed.’”

  Yes, Gemma Keyes.

  “And Nano? Trip the counter on Soto’s website so that he knows we’ve seen his post.”

  Done, Gemma Keyes.

  ***

  After reading Miguel Soto’s email, I was too restless to sleep. I jogged over to the martial arts school so Gus-Gus and the nanomit
es could give me the workout I needed.

  Perhaps they gave me too much of a workout? I was so tense and aggressive, that I actually broke one of the school’s sticks across Gus-Gus’ thigh.

  I left an envelope with money in it for my use of the dojo. I put in extra for the escrima stick I’d broken, and added a note.

  Hey Doug,

  Sorry about the busted stick. I guess I got a little too enthusiastic. If this doesn’t cover it, let me know?

  —Emily

  I grimaced. Emily? Sheesh. Why did I pick Emily? I stuffed the note into the envelope with the money and headed home, hoping I could sleep a few hours.

  I itched for the comforting feeling of my own sticks again. I was glad that I’d ordered three pairs—especially if breaking them was going to be an ongoing “thing.”

  “Nano—”

  Gemma Keyes, your new sticks will not arrive until Friday.

  I was not pleased. “What? I thought you used expedited shipping.”

  We have checked the supplier’s database, Gemma Keyes. The sticks were backordered; the new shipment will arrive at the supplier’s warehouse Wednesday. The supplier will overnight your order on Thursday. It will arrive Friday.

  I grumbled, but had to accept the fact that not everything in life was measured in nanoseconds.

  Lord? Zander says you know the end of an issue from the beginning, that your timing is perfect. All right. I trust you. I trust that your timing in this is perfect, too.

  I had no idea.

  ~~**~~

  Chapter 15

  I woke Tuesday morning keyed up, itching to move, needing additional exercise to blow off my anxiety over the day ahead. I scanned the nanocloud, but Soto’s website had shown no fresh activity. I started to lace up my shoes for a run and thought better of it.

  I’d better read my Bible before I begin my day.

  Since Thursday evening when Zander had given me my own Bible, I’d read from it every chance I got. I read so quickly and was so hungry that it didn’t matter where I opened to: I devoured what was in front of me—large chunks, whole books, and simple psalms.

  At times, I wanted to call Zander and ask him what a verse or a passage meant. I didn’t, though. He didn’t call me, either. It was probably for the best . . . because despite the sweet fellowship we’d shared over coffee Thursday night, it hurt to think about what we might have had together.