by Randy Dutton
“Maybe they caught a hacker,” Swanson said hopefully.
“Then the coin tracking history would have originated in Las Vegas. The history shows she turned on 296 of the 300 coins in her Caesar’s Palace hotel room. The Black Hat hacker conference was the venue where she distributed them, wasn’t it?”
“That was her idea...yes,” Swanson said.
“Within a day of the FBI getting theirs, every green dot around the country started going red. Even the hackers who were tipped off that the FBI was arresting their compatriots kept the gold coins on them. She cleverly had me microscopically etch a serial number and contact number she told them they could use to get financial or legal help. That’s ultimately how the FBI found the runners.”
Gabriel emitted a small laugh, then continued, “I’ll guess that whomever they called...had a badge in his pocket.... Not quite the legal help a hacker would hope for. But then...turning in hackers to the law wasn’t the original intent of the tracking coins...was it?”
Swanson smirked. “No.”
“Were your plans to find and eliminate the hackers after they had done your bidding?”
“It’s none of your business,” he said gruffly. “It’s moot now. How will turning off this coin help?”
“Because, my old friend, your young assassin mostly trusts me. I recruited her for you when she was an escort paying her way through Harvard. I trained her and outfitted her with the best toys—”
“Of course, of course! I paid the bills!”
“And for that I’m grateful, but over the past decade, didn’t you get your money’s worth from her?”
“Well, yes. But that’s not the point.”
“Let me explain then. Because she was an orphan, bitter at the world, and didn’t trust anyone, I invariably became her confidant.”
With widened eyes and an uneven sneer, Swanson leaned forward. “You think you can lure her into a trap?”
“I think I can find her and bring her in. But this isn’t the time.”
The older man leaned back and angrily shook his head. “Are you kidding me?! Time’s critical! She knows Jared only killed her dogs and pursued her on my orders.” His free hand resumed flexing.
Gabriel cocked his head. “What did Anna do that was so egregious that you sent Jared and his men to bring her in?”
Swanson lit another cigar and puffed. “It was Jared’s idea. A Russian contact told him about a mysterious woman handing out Krugerrands for hacking assignments and then closed her booth early and disappeared.”
“So?”
“Anna didn’t check in as planned, and she didn’t return follow up messages.”
“Hasn’t she’s disappeared unexpectedly before for personal or operational reasons?”
“Yes, but not during such critical times. Jared suggested she had an ulterior agenda...that I had lost control over her.”
Gabriel nodded slowly. “And then she saw her dead dogs in the yard, and Jared interrogating her servant.”
“Apparently.”
“We need to go over everything about her activities, what she knows, and what she doesn’t. Did you personally give the order?”
“I told Jared to do whatever was necessary to eliminate her as a threat.”
Dismayed, Gabriel shook his head. “Look, I can understand capturing her for interrogation, searching the villa...but shooting her dogs?” His cursor moved to a photo gallery and clicked a photo. Anna’s blissful face was being nuzzled by two very large Rottweilers. “Big mistake. Those two were like her children – the closest to any person she’s ever loved since her father died. They looked intimidating but were lousy guard dogs – too friendly. Why she even offered you the truce hours later is a mystery, and yet”—his finger rapidly tapped the table—“it’s a clue.”
“What do you mean – clue?” Swanson’s brow furrowed.
“Anna Catherine Picard”—Gabriel said the name with reverence—“believes in vendetta...but she’s not following her normal pattern.”
Chapter 2
August 6, 2010 hours
Anna’s Villa
Cap Ferrat, French Riviera
The pungent odor of cordite and burnt phosphorus reminded Haver Fridleifsson of Afghanistan. But drifting out of the steel-lined concrete vault were other trace chemicals that he couldn’t quite place. The former CIA agent’s brow narrowed. Overhead LED lights were reflecting dust and thread-like particles flowing out of the villa’s destroyed armory. Like a chimney, the air current carried the contaminants into the basement dojo, through its security door, and up the stairs into the main floors of the villa.
Where’s the air originating from?
His eyes evaluated the sliding steel door and the hidden biometric lock that a fire department security detail had found and hotwired open.
Even though Swanson held title, she’s not entirely heartless, he thought, while giving nodding approval for Anna’s precaution to save the small coastal villa from unnecessary destruction.
Not only did she design the vault to contain the furnace, she probably was the anonymous caller that alerted the fire department. Jared’s guys probably would have opened it too soon.
His knuckles rapped the solid fire door.
Just four centimeters of metal separated the attached wood bookcase on one side from what must have been a raging inferno on the other.
A wide pile of books had been shoved off the wood shelves in the guards’ search for access.
What a person reads reveals a lot about their personality.
He quickly scanned the titles strewn on the floor. He lifted one and thumbed through it. Shaking his head, he snorted and tossed it back onto a pile. Romance paperbacks and not particularly good ones at that. All in French, and well-thumbed like one would see with....
His mind froze, then backtracked to past conversations he had had with her onboard Swanson’s yacht. His brow narrowed.
Her topics were always technical. For the few times we spoke, I can’t recall her ever revealing anything personal.
He pulled another book. Inside the front cover was a price – a quarter Euro. He placed it on a bare shelf and randomly picked another, and another, until a couple dozen books were stacked onto a shelf.
Identical prices written in an identical script and green ink. His grin grew. These were all bought at the same flea market. A date written on one page brought a smile. Three weeks ago. That helps my timeline.
Next, he stepped in front of the opening and felt a stronger breeze.
Pulling back the white sleeve of his Tyvek protective coveralls, he noted the time.
I’ve still got 20 minute.
In deference to Swanson, the fire marshal had promised Haver an hour access before their own team would start their official investigation and start removing evidence. Haver had started upstairs in Anna’s suite. The sterility of every living space showed more advanced planning. There were no clothes, no personal photos, no mementos of any significance. But it was the large hidden closet with the professional makeup table and studio-quality FX equipment that intrigued him. The forced ventilation even hinted at her use of hazardous chemicals. With full length mirrors, multi-angled cameras and two monitors, Haver didn’t have to stretch his imagination to know their purpose. It was where the chameleon transformed herself.
Now, about to enter the vault, Haver slipped on a respirator and nitrile gloves, and pulled over his white hood. Lifting the fire department barrier tape, he turned on an LED flashlight and entered an interior coated in heavy black soot. The floor was littered with white and black ash twenty centimeters deep. In front and along the adjoining walls were warped steel shelves holding debris piles that Haver concluded must have been workshop tools.
Almost everything’s melted or was incinerated with white phosphorus.
His pulse quickened at seeing numerous melted glass containers. The colors were varied and muted by residue coating the insides.
Hopefully, whatever biologics or poi
sons she had in them aren’t still active.
He shone the light on the ceiling and found an exhaust vent that had kept the intense fire going. And yet, when he first walked the villa’s perimeter, the exhaust stack was only detectable from the pillar of smoke. Years ago, she had strategically planted four fast-growing Acacia trees to grow as one around the textured pipe.
I wonder how she did this construction without Swanson or Jared knowing?
His beam lowered. Studded along the wall were rows of steel shelving brackets, several of which had been sheared from the wall. He peered closer and saw explosive residue.
He aimed lower still. Shuffling his feet forced many odd shaped pieces of metal aside. One particular item captured his interest. His black boot tipped a meter-long piece of metal so his gloved hand could grab it.
Hmmm. Has a curved spine and flayed edges. Looks like a sniper rifle barrel ripped apart from the inside.
He momentarily lifted the mask and sniffed the inside curve.
PETN. She must have threaded detonation cord through it. With such precautions, it’s a good bet the police won’t find any intact weapons for forensic testing. Good. That’ll help prevent Swanson being linked with any of her victims.
Using the former tube as a probe, he stirred the ashes, starting at a raised pile to his left that had been partly protected by fallen shelves and a fallen file cabinet with open ash-filled drawers. Buried deep were unburnt book pages.
I’ll venture she didn’t anticipate her explosive charges would cause fallen shelves to partly shield evidence from incineration.
He pulled out the remnants of a mostly intact book.
“Seriously? The Book of Poisons?” Haver’s spoken words were muffled by the respirator, which he wiggled to ensure a tight fit. Putting the book back, he continued rummaging through the pile.
Five minutes later he abandoned the burnt library that had included references on antique weapons, electronics, forensics, and military history.
Not a romance novel amongst them.
Moving to the next pile, he lifted a fallen shelf and found two crushed computer skeletons.
Maybe there’s something of value.
Slipping a multi-tool out from his boot, he opened the blade and pried out a hard drive. It was black and warped and the only one he thought might have retrievable data. It dropped into his pocket.
Haver shifted his attention to the center. Shuffling his feet, he found and picked up the least warped ammo clip. Flipping it around in his gloved fingers he was able to extract the only .338 caliber Lapua sniper cartridge that hadn’t cooked off in the intense fire. It joined the hard drive.
Moving further right, his flashlight illuminated a river of fast upward-flowing dust. Scanning the floor, he found a square hole half a meter on each side. Next to it, underneath the ash, was a metal lid.
Ah yes, the escape hatch, and how Anna was able to evade the guards.
Looking down into its depth he felt a cool breeze on his forehead and saw a glimmer of reflected twilight off uneven rock walls. Cocking his ear, he heard the sea cliff’s crashing surf.
A sea cave. How convenient.
Being careful not to tear his protective suit, he lowered his tall, wiry body down a blackened metal ladder that angled down the natural cliff fissure. Like tiny banners, each rung had finger-length greenish-gray plant fibers, clinging against the updraft. Along grooves cut in the sandstone walls were thick ribbons of white powder. Again lifting his mask, he brought a pinch of it to his nose.
More burnt phosphorus. She wasn’t leaving anything to chance by superheating the air flowing into the armory.
With a knit brow, his focus returned to the threads.
Which means, these accumulated over just the past few hours?
At the ladder’s end, Haver stepped onto flat cement and turned off the unnecessary flashlight.
So this is how she got through Jared’s perimeter.
Like broken eggshells, chunks of textured cement lay scattered on the landing just inside an irregular hole. Its rough surface streamed with larger threads. Lying on the debris was a scorched hand sledge.
Crude, but effective. Must have taken her a few minutes to break through the cement shell.
Listening to the surf rhythmically hitting the rocks, he imagined Anna timing her hammer strikes.
His multi-tool scraped the white powdered edge of the entrance.
More burnt phosphorus. For the fire to have flared out this hole, the detonations must have been simultaneous.
Stooping through the hole, he took a step outside and found himself under the scorched metal steps that crossed a natural rock gap in the sloping shoreline.
Decades ago, these stairs would have led to a private motor launch.
His smile widened while considering the local history of Cap Ferrat. After Monaco, it was the world’s most expensive real estate, but centuries ago it also had more sinister residents.
I wonder if she knew the cape was a favored Saracen pirate staging point? Yeah, probably.
Once out from under the stairs, he was able to fully appreciate the isolation of her well-concealed tunnel. The thin cement cover had matched the native rock, and a boulder further blocked its visibility from the Mediterranean.
While transfixed at the surf breaking several meters away, he pushed back the hood and removed the mask to shake dust and soot out his blond crew cut. Turning back to the slope, a blood smear on a jutting rock caught his notice. His eyes traced the route a tumbling body might have traveled.
Stepping off the stairs and onto the steeply angled rock with its many deep fissures, Haver discovered a blood soaked corpse wedged into a crevice. After a couple minutes of inspection, he traversed the rock another 20 meters and found a second body similarly tumbled over the edge.
After confirming the identities as Swanson’s two missing men, he moved back to the stairway.
Removing the blackened Tyvek suit and gloves, he balled them up and walked the several dozen steps up the rusted, salt-encrusted metal and concrete stairs.
Now on the touristy Cap Ferrat peninsular cliff walk, he stepped past the dried bloodstains.
Haver glanced down in the direction of the cliff’s blood trail. He mentally calculated the dead guard’s trajectory to the first blood spot on the rock face and slowly shook his head.
Anna couldn’t have thrown the guard that far. It would have taken a very strong man equal in size to the victim.
Walking next to the villa’s tall rock wall to his right, Haver next paused at a blood spot, no bigger than his fist, just before the rear gate. After analyzing angles and the broken top stems of a bush on the seaward side of the path, he concluded, Second victim, same outcome.
Haver cocked his ear, then glanced at his watch. Voices of investigators were resonating from the pink villa’s tidy courtyard. My hour’s up.
With his untucked t-shirt hiding the damaged hard drive in his back denim pocket, Haver sought shade under a walkway tree and made an encrypted call.
Chapter 3
August 6, 1145 hours
Dallas Fort Worth Airport
Hullobaloo Caneck Caneck! The Aggie War Hymn ringtone evoked a smile on the tall, athletic Texan’s lips. Pete Heyward dug into his jeans pocket for the cell phone while wheeling a suitcase through the airport and under an escalator’s sign: ‘Welcome to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.’
“Hi, Patrick.... We just cleared customs.... Yeah, we’re good. See you at arrivals,” Pete said.
A deeply-tanned woman with Mediterranean features sidled up to him as he put the phone away. “I never thought I would say this, Honey”—her voice was just above a whisper—“but I’m glad to be in Texas and not the French Riviera.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t catch your name,” he deadpanned. “Who are you?”
“Come on, Pete.” Anna looked over the top of her large, tortoise-shell sunglasses and through long bangs. “I had to use the fake passport coming
back.”
“You know, I’m partial to tawny blonds, and...well...not so much to redheads.”
With a hand trailing her rolling suitcase, she leaned in to him and added in a Middle-eastern accent, “We’ll just see about that tonight in bed if I don’t take off this wig. You just might get a hankering for a bronzed-skinned woman with a copper-colored mane...and a shoulder tat.”
“And a thick uni-brow?” His lips tightened and his head shook. “Wouldn’t happen. That’d be cheating on my wife, whom I adore, I’ll have you know.” His straight face cracked into a grin. “And anyway, she’d beat me to a pulp if she caught me!”
Her voice became very sultry. “Then...don’t...get...caught.”
His brows rose over widened eyes and his jaw slackened.
Enjoying Pete’s confusion, she removed her sunglasses and hooked them to her burgundy silk blouse. Her hand wrapped around his muscled arm and pulled his 6’3” frame forward. “Come on, Honey, your Expedition’s over there.”
A younger man was resting against the white SUV. He was as tall as Pete, with similar chiseled features, but leaner in the chest.
“Hi’ya Patrick,” Anna said in a credible southern drawl.
The man’s sandy hair flowed from under a black Stetson. His shaded eyebrows lifted as the couple approached. “Welcome home, guys!”
“Great to see you, Slim,” Pete wrapped his large hand over his younger brother’s shoulder.
Patrick lifted Anna’s large rolling suitcase as if it were empty and threw it into the back, then opened the right side door with a slight nod. “I’ll chauffeur...you two relax in back.” He did a double-take at her appearance as she stepped past.
“Thanks.” Her hand gently touched his arm before sliding in. She scooted across the leather bench seat to the center, next to a large makeup case on the right. Pete slipped in after her.
