Ghosts in the Machine (A David and Martin Yerxa Thriller - Book 3)

by Ed Markham

  .

  THURSDAY, MAY 6

  Chapter 41

  The night air was crisp and smelled of pine needles as David, his father, and Megan Brandt exited their SUV and made their way onto Stanford’s campus. David had considered bringing Guy Walker with them, but had decided to leave Walker behind to coordinate a discrete search into Derek Gould’s files.

  “Report what you find to me and me only,” David had instructed him before he and his father had departed with Brandt. “Tell no one outside our core team what we’re working on.”

  During the drive down to Stanford, Walker had called to provide them with some more biographical detail on Gould.

  An accident had orphaned the grad student at thirteen. Gould’s father, a career Navy man, had been piloting a small private aircraft when it went down in the hills near the family’s New Mexico home.

  Like many military families, Gould’s had moved through a succession of different cities during his childhood, and a consequence of this was that the boy had few friends. After his parents’ deaths, he had apparently withdrawn into the electronic world of 1’s and 0’s.

  David noticed the parallels between Gould’s background and Peter Newton’s. Both were young men who had lost parents, and both seemed to feel a filial devotion to Vince Beatrice.

  It was nearly three a.m., and the walkways and lawns laced among the buildings on Stanford’s campus were well illuminated but deserted. Brandt hung a few paces behind David and Martin, and no one spoke until they’d reached the bone-colored graduate residence building.

  “Who are we meeting here?” David asked, turning to look at Brandt as they stepped beneath the building’s awning. He saw she was already on her phone.

  “Head of facilities,” she said to him. And then, into her phone, “Yes we’re at the southwest entrance.” She hung up and said to the group, “Two minutes.”

  David nodded. “You informed no one else about our coming here?” He said it as though he was confirming something he already knew to be true.

  She nodded.

  “And you don’t need more explanation from me on that?” This time, his question was sincere.

  She nodded again. “The way NSA has interfered, and the fact that Dean has rolled over and let them do it, which isn’t like her . . . Guy and I—a lot of us, actually—agree something really strange is going on.”

  Her glance moved from David to Martin. “At first we assumed it had to do with you two. But we’ve seen enough now from both of you to agree you’re straight shooters. You may be from out of town, but your still FBI, not NSA. So you tell us to keep our mouths shut, and we’ll keep them shut.”

  David turned away from her when he heard the building’s door creak open. A slender, middle-aged black man stood holding a flashlight in one hand. He shined the light on David’s gray T-shirt, and said, “I’m going to need to see IDs.”

  David produced his, and the man introduced himself as Michael Caffey. He waved them forward, and one by one they stepped into the building.

  “Gould’s room is this way,” Caffey said.

  Leading them through a central foyer, he bypassed the stair and elevators and instead took them down a few steps to a sublevel that stretched away from them via a long corridor of closed doors. They passed a dozen of them before Caffey slowed and then stopped in front of a door marked B5. He removed a fobbed key from his pocket.

  “OK,” he said, looking first at the number on the door and then at David and the others. “You want me to—”

  He stopped speaking abruptly when David raised a finger to silence him.

  David reached forward and took the key from Caffey’s hand. He motioned for him to move down the hallway.

  As the facilities manager did as he was told, Brandt followed him until she had reached a point a few paces beyond Gould’s doorway. She then brought a hand to her belt and unclipped the holster that held her firearm. She didn’t draw her weapon; instead she rested one hand on its grip and the other on the base of its holster. She nodded to David to let him know she was ready for anything that might be waiting for them on the other side of the dormitory door.

  David knocked hard three times and said, “Derek, this is David Yerxa of the FBI.” He waited, and when there was no reply he repeated the knock and the address. When there was still no answer, he looked to Brandt. She withdrew her firearm from its holster and, gripping it in both hands, pointed it at the floor.

  Watching the stance she assumed, David was reminded of the shooting lessons Butch had insisted on. He missed his girl, and he felt suddenly as though he had been gone from her and from Northern Virginia for a very long time, though it had only been a few days.

  The key slid easily into the knob-set lock, and David crouched as he pushed the door open two inches. Peering into the darkness of the room, he was struck by the aroma of dryer sheets and something that smelled like pencil shavings. He said, “Derek, this is David Yerxa from the FBI. Are you in here?” Again he waited for an answer, and again he received no reply.

  Pushing the door open a little farther, he stood and reached in a hand. Finding the light switch, he flipped it upward. The room’s features burst to life as he pushed the door fully open and took a step back to allow Brandt and her weapon a clear line of sight.

  David’s eyes went immediately to the room’s lone bed. It was a single, positioned in one corner and against the far wall of the room. The sheets and comforter were neatly made, and a quick scan of the rest of the room suggested Gould was elsewhere. Still, he stood motionless alongside his father as Brandt stepped forward and confirmed the student was not crouched behind the door or in some other unseen pocket of the room.

  “Not here,” she said after her brief search.

  David and Martin joined her in the room while Caffey stood in the doorway observing them.

  Looking around them, they saw the spare furnishings and sparsely decorated walls of an Ivy League post-graduate’s living quarters, although there were touches of fastidiousness that belied the stereotype of the sloppy student. A few articles of clothing were folded neatly in a laundry basket at the foot of the bed, and the top of a tall dresser held loose change stacked in orderly columns, like poker chips. There was also a desk, which matched the bed and dresser and held a keyboard, two monitors, and a dense braid of cords that wound their way down to the floor. There, two computer towers and several other pieces of electronic equipment sat softly humming, their tiny fans spinning to keep them cool as they performed their digital labors.

  David stepped to the dresser. As he pulled on a pair of latex gloves, he examined the stacks of change. He then pulled out the drawers slowly, one by one, and examined their contents, which were predictable; tube socks, jeans and khakis, T-shirts and sweatshirts.

  “I realize it’s too late to be asking this,” Caffey said to his back, “but now that you’re looking through the boy’s things, I’d like to know if you have a warrant.”

  David didn’t acknowledge the question, but he heard Brandt say to Caffey, “We’re expecting it any minute. But because of the late hour we’re waiting for it longer than usual. I can tell you the situation demanded that we not postpone this search.”

  Caffey sighed but did not raise further protest.

  Stooping to examine the contents of Gould’s wastebasket, David withdrew several receipts. All were for gas purchased at stations with Palo Alto or Menlo Park addresses. He was about to dismiss them when he noticed the amounts charged for each purchase; in most cases, the student had spent fewer than $10 per trip on gasoline. He considered this for a moment. He’d heard anecdotes about perps keeping their tanks perpetually full—the reason being that, if something went south and the person had to leave town suddenly, his car would be fully fueled.

  Dropping the receipts back into the trash, he walked to the other side of the room to join Brandt, who was closely examining Gould’s computer setup while Martin stood nearby, scanning the room quietly and observing the goings-o
n with a look of weary curiosity.

  “Anything?” David asked her.

  She turned to him and shook her head. “Password locked, but thought it was worth a try anyway. You can hear it’s working hard on something. Those cooling fans don’t keep running when it’s in sleep mode.”

  David stepped back from the desk and balanced his hands on his waist, his eyes lost somewhere on the floor as he thought about their next moves. He pulled out his phone with the intention of calling Walker for an update on his search of Gould’s records. But he stopped when he heard his father say, “Does anyone else smell that?”

  When his son and Brandt looked at him questioningly, he made an exaggerated show of tilting back his head and sniffing the air. “I smell piss,” he said. “Old piss, like a baseball stadium urinal.” He looked at his son and said, “Your mom used to joke I couldn’t smell or taste anything weaker than George Dickel because of my smoking. But now that I’m down to one a day the old snout is working again.”

  David stepped to his father’s side. It took a moment, but with effort he picked up the sharp, cloying aroma of oxidized urine.

  He scanned the floor, which was covered in a thin layer of gray carpeting, beneath which he had no doubt was concrete. He saw no signs of stains, and he bent down to get a better whiff. The scent didn’t waver, but neither did it strengthen. Crouching now, he scanned the room in search of the smell’s source. As his eyes shifted to Gould’s desk, something caught his eye. He stood and walked quickly toward it, and then crouched again to examine the back side of the student’s computer setup. Near the floor, he could see several of the computer cords disappear into a small opening cut roughly into the base of the wall. Just to one side of this opening was an AC outlet, and plugged into this was a small hourglass-shaped device with the words “air sanitizer” printed on its torso.

  Standing abruptly, he walked out of the room and back out to the dormitory hallway. Walking a few paces down to the next door, he saw it was labeled “B7.” He dropped down onto his stomach and examined the bottom of the door. Unlike the door to B5, this one was sealed with some kind of weather stripping.

  With his face still pressed to the bottom of the doorframe, he called out, “Caffey.”

  He rose to find the facilities manager was already at his side. Martin and Brandt were a few paces behind him.

  Pointing to the door of B7, he asked Caffey, “Do you know who lives in this unit?”

  Caffey pulled out his phone and spent a few seconds swiping and tapping on it. Finally he said, “No one. Vacant until the academic year ends this June.”

  David reached for the knob and tried it, but found it locked. “You have a key?”

  “I’d have to go get it.”

  “Go get it,” David told him. He knelt again to examine the base of the doorframe. “And run.”

  “Run?” Caffey asked.

  David turned his head around and looked at Caffey. He didn’t have to repeat himself; Caffey started to hustle down the hallway in the direction they’d all come from a few minutes earlier.

  “What have you got?” Brandt asked him.

  David didn’t answer her question. Still examining the doorframe, he asked the group, “Does anyone have a pen or a pencil?”

  “Right here,” Brandt said. Kneeling beside him, she withdrew a pen from the inside breast pocket of her suit jacket.

  David took it and worked it underneath the door. The rubbery weather stripping held for a moment, but soon gave way in response to his prodding. As soon as it did, the odor trapped inside escaped and forced both him and Brandt to jerk their heads away from the door.

  David stood and looked down the hall for signs of Caffey. When he didn’t see him, he told Brandt, “Call 9-1-1 and request an ambulance. Make no other calls, and tell the 9-1-1 dispatcher a student is having a seizure.”

  She did as he was told. At the same time, Martin took a knee and sniffed at the base of B7’s doorway. He raised his eyes to his son’s and found David was holding his phone to his ear.

  “If we find him behind this door,” Martin said to him, “that live feed is going to let the whole world know about it—including Gould.”

  David nodded to let his father know their minds were in the same place. After a single ring, he heard Wes Harris answer.

  “We think we’ve found Mark Weissman,” David said to him.

  There was a brief pause. “It doesn’t look like—” Harris began to say, but David cut him off.

  “I understand Weissman is still showing up in the live feed. We haven’t entered his room yet. We don’t want whoever’s behind all this to know if we can avoid it.” He looked up and saw Brandt was still speaking with 9-1-1 dispatch. “Megan,” he called to her. “How long?

  She said something into her phone, and then held up five fingers.

  Addressing Wes Harris again, David said, “We have about five minutes until EMS arrives. Is there any way to loop an existing portion—”

  Harris saw where he was headed and cut him off. “Got it, and I’m two steps ahead of you on that. I thought we might run into this. I’ll call you right back.”

  “Wes,” David said before he could hang up. “You remember what we discussed. Say nothing.”

  He pocketed his phone and stood back from the door.

  “Shouldn’t we be calling in SWAT here?” Brandt said to him. “If that is Weissman in there, we have no idea what kind of booby traps or—”

  “I understand your concerns,” David said. As he spoke to her, his eyes never left the door to B7. He turned on the flashlight function on his phone and began examining the door’s frame. Still not looking at her, he added, “You’re welcome to go. I’m not going to leave a man dying in there while I wait for SWAT to show up.”

  Brandt’s mouth tightened, but she stayed put.

  After finishing his examination of the door’s frame, David dropped to the ground and shined his light through the gap in the weather stripping below it. Again, the noxious smell from inside struck him and threatened to force him back. But he ignored it and did his best to see into the room within. He could see nothing.

  As he stood, he caught sight of Caffey jogging back down the hallway toward them. At the same time, his phone rang.

  “You’re good to go,” Harris said to him. “I’ll explain later.”

  David hung up just as Caffey reached his side. He took the key from the facilities manager, and told him to go to the nearest entrance to wait for EMS.

  As Caffey departed, David inserted the key into the door’s lock. Without pausing to draw his weapon, he tried to push it open. When the door didn’t budge, he dropped a shoulder and heaved himself against it. The door gave way, and he stumbled forward into the darkness.

  .

  Chapter 42

  Although his eyes were closed, the light burst into Mark Weissman’s head bright and hot as a supernova. His eyelids lifted, allowing more of the light in, and he felt as though his brain were being cleaved in two.

  His mouth shaped itself around a moan, but for a moment no sound escaped him. He felt it collecting at the back of his throat even as the restraints tightened and squeezed his arms and feet; his bonds felt like they had dug through his skin and flesh to his very bone. He saw the contours of a head and shoulders floating toward him, and then more bodies coming in through a rectangle that seemed to hold the light.

  He found his voice, and he screamed at the bodies to keep away from him, and it seemed to work. The closest one stepped back from him and raised an arm to keep the others away. But then, together, they moved closer to him despite the stomach-burning fury of his attempts to keep them back.

  He could smell them—could smell the food on their clothes and in their hair, despite the noxious layers of perfume and detergent in which each of them seemed to be soaked. He felt his mouth watering even through his screaming, and he felt all the muscles in his body straining to help him break free so that he might taste the food on them. He’d sink his
teeth into their supple flesh and feel the richness of it wash down his throat and quench his incredible thirst.

  His mouth was now filled with saliva. The putridness of it caused him to begin coughing—to expectorate the stuff out into the room. The bodies leapt back from him, as though his spit were acid. He understood that, because it tasted as though it was acid. It stung his mouth and nose with its acrid filth.

  Now there were voices coming to him, though he could tell the bodies were addressing one another and not him. He couldn’t understand what they were saying. It sounded like gibberish—like conventional syllables rearranged into made-up words that had no meaning.

  He shouted at them for help—for nourishment—hoping that they might move close enough and release him so that he could take nourishment for himself. But his own words came out as garbled howls. He shouted again and again for relief from his pains, but he understood his pleas did not carry the weight of coherence.

  Despite the futility of his efforts, he screamed and pulled against his restraints until he felt a darkness opening in the middle of the light. It flooded out to the edges of his vision, even as a weight fell on his limbs. And then he felt and saw and heard nothing at all.

  .

  Chapter 43

  David watched as the two paramedics approached Mark Weissman with trepidation.

  Considering the state of the room and its captive, David couldn’t fault them for their caution. Weissman was practically marinating in a mixture of his own feces, urine, and vomit. The skin of his face was pale, and both sallow and distended—as though it were made of clay that had been watered and stretched away from the bones of his jaw and skull. The grainy black-and-white live video feed had revealed little of the tech scion’s truly inhumane conditions. To be in the room with him now was horrifying.