by Lynn Ames
“I trust you.” Jay got down off her stool. “Excuse me for a second.” She walked into the library, picked up the bound copy of the manuscript she’d put together after her discussion with Kate, and returned with it to the kitchen. “Here you go.”
Dara reverently touched the title page on top. “I’m honored that you trust me with this.”
“I’m honored that you want to have a look at it.” She smiled broadly. Constance Darrow was going to read her manuscript. “By the way, I don’t know what you’re thinking in terms of casting, but the role of the main protagonist calls for a thirty-something actress with enough gravitas to play an accomplished, smart reporter. Do you know anybody like that?”
Dara fixed Jay with a knowing smirk. “I might. I’ll have to check her availability, though. She’s tough to get.”
“I heard that about her.”
Dara set the manuscript aside. “I’d hate to spill on this.”
“I’m pretty sure I know where you could get another copy.” Jay took a bite of salad. “Do you need a second copy for Rebecca?”
“We’ll play nice and share.” Dara winked.
“Assuming you like what you read, and what’s not to like,” Kate smiled at Jay, “what’s the next step?”
“First, I’m certain I’ll love the book—”
“You should know it hasn’t yet gone through the editing process.” Jay bit her lip.
“I’m sure it’s in excellent shape, Jay. As I said when we met, I’m a big fan. And I know enough about your writing to know that what I’ve loved about your style isn’t editorial—it’s your talent and gift for storytelling.”
Jay felt the heat in her cheeks. “You’re very kind.”
Dara ate the last bite of her salad. “I’m very honest.” She patted her stomach. “And very full. Lunch was great. Thank you.” She wiped her mouth with her napkin. “As for what comes after we read the manuscript, we’d sit down and talk about your vision for the movie and our take on it, and then talk about who we’d like to bring in to work on it. First, we’d need a script, and then we’d have to take a hard look at financing. Without money, no movie sees the light of day.”
“I worry that might be an insurmountable obstacle,” Jay said. “If the IRS and FBI put pressure on the publishing industry to leave this alone, imagine that magnified times ten if they get wind that we’re trying to bring it to the big screen.”
Dara waved a hand. “Don’t underestimate me. I’m not easily intimidated, and I know lots of people just like me who’d jump at the chance to be part of this project.”
Although Jay was somewhat more skeptical about how easily this might go, she badly wanted to believe that Dara was right. She needed something, anything positive, to come out of this morass.
Sabastien’s eyes were glazing over. He had looked at so much code that the sequences were beginning to blur together. He grabbed the bottle of Visine, tipped his head back, and squirted three drops in each eye. “C’est fou. This is crazy. It is like looking for a pin in a stack of hay.”
As he stood up to stretch, one of the three computers on which he was running an algorithm, beeped. Sabastien sat back down so quickly the chair nearly rolled out from under him. He scrolled first up, and then down, and then up and down again. “Mon Dieu.”
He ran a screen capture, plugged in a USB drive, and saved the search he’d executed on the drive. “I have you now, you little bastard.”
He punched keys on the keyboards connected to the other two computers to cancel the searches presently in progress, initiated another custom program on each, and typed in a name: John Robie. In seconds, a series of alarms blared and a list appeared on the screen on the far right.
Sabastien nodded and dialed a phone number.
“Elliott.”
“I have something.”
“I’m listening.”
“I know what name our hacker friend has used in the past. It is John Robie.”
“John Robie?”
“Yes. I am puzzled by this, though.”
“Why?”
“Because I know of no hacker who has ever used a real name. It is always a handle.”
There was silence on the line.
“Vaughn Elliott? Are you still there?”
“I am. John Robie is a handle.”
“I do not understand.”
“That’s because you’re not a fan of old films. John Robie is the name of Cary Grant’s character in the classic Hitchcock film, To Catch a Thief. The movie co-starred Grace Kelly. It was the last film she made for Hitchcock.”
“You are a fan of old-time movies? There is something I did not know about you.”
“You can’t know everything.”
“I have saved the search and will send it to you and to Peter.”
“Make sure you translate it into English first.”
Sabastien furrowed his brow. “Of course it will be in English. Your French is not that good.”
Vaughn laughed, surprising Sabastien yet again. “You know how to laugh?”
When Vaughn’s laughter subsided, she said, “What I meant was, explain what we’re looking at in terms we can understand, not in geek-speak.”
Sabastien blushed. “Oh. I see it now.”
“I get it now.”
“Quoi?”
“The correct expression is, ‘I get it now.’”
“Yes. That.” Sabastien opened a new document. “I will put this in a form even you can understand and have it to you within the hour.”
“Was that a joke you just made? Because that sounded suspiciously like intentional humor.”
“It was.”
“Don’t do it again.”
“Vaughn Elliott? What is wrong with you? You are far too happy to be you.”
“Don’t get too used to it.”
The line went dead and Sabastien held the phone out. “Goodbye to you too.” He clicked on the blinking cursor and began to type.
He’d just finished and hit Send on the encrypted e-mail to Vaughn and Peter when he noticed an anomaly on the computer on which he’d revealed the hacker’s identity.
“Merde! C’est ne pas possible.” His eyes grew wide and his palms started to sweat. He yanked the plug on all three computers, disconnected the laptops from their monitors, hastily loaded them, along with peripherals, into a custom-built briefcase, and ran into the bedroom to pack.
Within ten minutes, he was in a car and racing down a dirt road, gravel and dust flying behind him. He keyed the Bluetooth built into his Audi. “Appel Vaughn Elliott.”
When Vaughn picked up the phone on the second ring, Sabastien said one word: “Mayday.”
The burner phone on his desk vibrated, and Peter snatched it up. Without even saying hello, he asked, “What’s going on?”
“The Frog is in trouble and on the move.”
Peter sat up straighter. “What happened?”
“Check your e-mail. You should have an encrypted folder. He called to tell me he ID’ed the Black Knight, or at least the moniker he uses in the hacker world. Fifteen minutes later he sent us the details. Less than five minutes after that, I received his SOS from a phone he and I only use in case of extreme emergencies.”
“Do we need to extract him, wherever he is?”
“He didn’t say. But the reason we save this phone for occasions such as this is that I have a tracker device on it. I know where he is now. I’m watching his progress.”
“What’s our play?”
“Digest the report he sent us, then work as fast as we can to put a real name to this asswipe and take it from there.”
“And the Frog?”
“I suspect he already had another location ready in case of this eventuality. I’ll continue to monitor him from here.”
Peter opened his e-mail program and scanned for an e-mail from Sabastien. “I’ve got the folder. Lorraine and I will have a look right now.”
“I’ll keep you posted from this end. Let’s
touch base in a few hours.”
The phone went dead and Peter shoved it aside. He downloaded the attachment from Sabastien’s e-mail and unpacked it onto a secure external hard drive.
Lorraine, who had been sitting at her own desk across the room, came to look over his shoulder. “Sabastien’s in trouble?”
“Looks like whoever he unearthed has a bead on his whereabouts. He’s on the move now.”
Peter opened the folder and clicked on a Microsoft Word document succinctly titled, “Summary.”
Here is what I have uncovered so far. John Robie apparently specialized in stealing classified data from governments and major corporations around the world. He then leveraged the information to extort large sums of cash. In every case, it seems the ransom was paid in order to keep the stolen information off the market.
Although many tried to catch him, none ever did. The last theft for this John Robie took place in January of this year. After that, he disappeared off the hacking scene completely without a trace.
How do I know all this? I have included in this folder all of the hacks in which he used the same technique, line for line in the code. Also, he kept a sort of diary of the heists. He is very arrogant, thinking no one can access it. But I did.
At the same time, Peter and Lorraine said, “That’s probably what tripped an alarm.”
Peter opened the remainder of the files, which consisted of seemingly endless lines of code. Here was Sabastien’s proof. Peter pushed his chair back and swiveled around to face his wife.
“What do you think?” Lorraine asked.
“I think Sabastien’s information is rock solid. What I find most interesting in all this is that John Robie fell off the face of the Earth in January.”
Lorraine nodded. “Suspiciously close to the time when the Hyland data was leaked.”
“Exactly. My guess would be that this guy, whoever he is, was hired by someone to do this job off the books in an exclusive contract that was too good for him to pass up.”
“But, according to Sabastien, the hacker had been watching him for a long period of time, surely longer than the two months between the time John Robie disappeared and the time the Black Knight showed up.”
Peter steepled his fingers. “You were on the inside. If John Robie was hired by the Commission to take on this assignment, how would it have gone down?”
Lorraine sat down and stared blankly out the window. Over time, Peter had come to recognize this as Lorraine’s way of sifting through seemingly disparate pieces of information and compiling them into a scenario that made sense.
Several moments later, she said, “The Commission would have done a significant amount of homework on John Robie. If I had to guess, I’d say one or more high-value Commission members in corporate tycoon positions were past victims of Robie’s entrepreneurial enterprises.”
“That makes sense.”
“But, as Sabastien pointed out, this guy is arrogant as hell, and no doubt greedy. He probably couldn’t resist keeping his hand in play as John Robie while this long-term, probably tedious-to-him, assignment dragged on. If the Commission twigged onto Robie working freelance on the side, they would not be pleased. You know money is no object for them and I’m sure this guy commanded a hefty price to work ‘exclusively’ for the Commission, which they would have required.”
“So they would’ve stepped in and told him to shut it down, or else.”
“Mm-hmm.” Lorraine nodded. She chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“Imagine if Robie stupidly and ignorantly picked as a freelance target another member of the Commission. I can hear the ass-chewing he would’ve gotten from here.”
“Ah. Got you.” Peter swiveled back around and closed the open documents. “For argument’s sake, let’s assume it is the Commission behind the Hyland leak.”
“I’d be shocked if that weren’t the case.”
“Me too.” Peter faced Lorraine again. “Where would they be keeping this guy? Would they require him to be physically present at one of their black sites, as you were?”
Lorraine got up and began to pace. “I don’t know. That was a long, long time ago. Technology has changed, and the major players in the Commission have likely changed too, especially with Grayson’s death. I suspect their strategies might have shifted with the times.”
“All true. But if you’re right about how and why John Robie was still active long after the time he should have gone dark, my guess would be that the Commission wouldn’t trust him. Heck, I wouldn’t trust him.”
“I see where you’re going with this. They would’ve pulled him in to keep an eye on him. They’d be babysitting him.”
“Bingo.”
“Now if only we could figure out who in the modern-day version of the Commission would be in charge of an op like this, we might be able to narrow down his location.”
Peter re-opened Sabastien’s summary document and scanned it again. “It’s too bad our boy didn’t give us a list of governments and corporations hacked by Robie in the summary.”
“If he had, we could cross-reference those companies and governments with the other information Sabastien culled and try to find a match.”
“Potentially.”
“Do you think Sabastien’s safe? What did Vaughn say?”
“Just that Sabastien had activated an emergency protocol the two of them used and that she had a tracker locked onto him. She figured Sabastien had a backup safe house set up and that he was headed there.”
“Is she going after him to protect him?”
“Not yet. She seemed content to sit tight and wait for a bit.”
Lorraine stopped in her tracks and put her hands on her hips. “Sabastien’s not trained to evade a tail. He doesn’t have any fire power with him. He doesn’t even know how to use a weapon. She’s willing to leave him out there like a sitting duck?”
Peter held a hand up, palm out. “Easy, sweetheart. Remember that Vaughn knows Sabastien a lot better than we do. They’ve been on countless ops together. I’m sure Vaughn is well aware of Sabastien’s capabilities and his weaknesses. If she thought he couldn’t handle it, she’d be on a plane by now.”
Vaughn settled into her seat and buckled the safety belt. The tracker on Sabastien’s cell phone had last pinged him in Gibraltar. Then it had gone dark. Gibraltar was on the southern coast of Spain, but Gibraltar also was a British territory. Britain had an extradition treaty with the United States, and therefore was not a place Sabastien would pick as a destination. Morocco, on the other hand, had no extradition treaty with the United States, and was just a short ferry ride from the southern tip of Spain.
Sabastien really was a genius. She hoped that by the time she landed, she’d have news from him, but that seemed highly unlikely. Sabastien wouldn’t have turned the phone off of his own volition unless someone else had hacked into the phone’s tracking data. If that wasn’t what had happened, it meant that Sabastien hadn’t been the one to sever the connection. In either case, he clearly was in trouble.
Vaughn stowed the false passport on which she was traveling in her backpack. She’d been fortunate to catch the last flight out headed for Barcelona. From there, she would make the journey to Casablanca, the largest city in Morocco.
She should probably touch base with Peter. Because of the timing, she’d been unable to send a message securely before racing to the airport.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be closing the cockpit door momentarily and we ask you to turn off all cellular devices.”
Vaughn stared down at the phone in her hand. It wasn’t encrypted, although she believed it was secure. Still, she was a known associate of Sabastien’s. If someone was on the hunt for Sabastien and hadn’t yet found him, Vaughn was a likely starting point to troll for clues as to his whereabouts.
Vaughn powered down the phone and stowed it in her pocket. When the plane landed in Spain, she’d have to find a secure connection to fill Peter in. In the meantime, she s
hould get some rest. It might be a long time before she got another chance to sleep.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The streets of Casablanca were noisy and dusty. Sabastien checked the rearview mirror yet again. The two men who had been following him were nowhere in sight. In fact, he hadn’t seen them since he’d left Gibraltar.
Grudgingly, he had to admit that all of the time he’d spent working with Vaughn had served him well today. Out of an abundance of caution, he’d booked passage via three different modes of transportation leaving Gibraltar. He settled on the chartered plane paid for with a fraudulent credit card for his escape because it presented the most controlled environment. He would’ve been too exposed on the ferry or on a commercial flight.
Casablanca was an easy city in which to get lost. Sabastien was grateful he’d kept the goatee. Bearded, and dressed like one of the locals, he blended in seamlessly. He honked the horn at a goat standing in the middle of the street. The goat glanced at him briefly and tossed his head in the air.
“Why do I not get any respect? Not even from a goat. This is the state of my life.” He honked the horn again, and finally the goat slowly ambled to the side of the road.
Sabastien stepped on the gas. His tires spun, kicking up dirt and adding to the pollution in the air. At the next opportunity, he turned right. It had been a long time since he’d been here, but not much had changed.
An hour later, deep in the countryside, Sabastien turned off onto an unmarked, overgrown path. He was grateful for the Jeep’s four-wheel drive.
A minute later, a house came into view. To all appearances, the place was untouched. Still, Sabastien wasn’t about to take any chances. He stopped the car, reached onto the passenger seat, and opened a small case. Inside was a drone the size of a bee. He grabbed a tablet and a wireless joystick from the backpack on the passenger-side floor and clicked on a custom app. Then he opened the car window and let the drone fly.
He maneuvered the joystick and piloted the drone around the perimeter of the house. The video feed on the tablet was crystal clear. All the windows and doors appeared to be secure, and the drone did not pick up any heat signatures. Satisfied that his hideaway was as secure as it could be, Sabastien recalled the drone, packed everything away, and drove the rest of the way up the drive.
