by John Shirley
“Can you fly this thing?” Seline said, from the back, as she fired out the open side door to suppress the Graywaters.
“Yes I can,” he said. He tapped the phone to close the doors and take the chopper off autopilot. Bullets cracked the windshield. He put the phone away and accelerated the blades, grabbing the joystick, and angled the helicopter up. “Heli’s about the only aircraft I can fly.” It wobbled in the air under his inexpert control. “Been a while though.”
Bullets clanged into the fuselage of the helicopter and shattered a side window. “You keeping your head down back there?”
“Yeah—just get us out of here!”
“Trying!”
Bullets ricocheted from the rotor blades. Another burst clattered into the underside of the helicopter.
He veered the helicopter off to portside, heading south as fast as he could accelerate, not sure where he was going to take the thing. That pilot would report a stolen helicopter and police choppers would be up looking for him. It’d take them a while to get scrambled though...
His mouth was dry as a burnt out match; he tasted metal. Only then did he realize that his pulse was going like a drum roll.
The wind struck the chopper, then, and it bucketed in the air. Wolfe struggled for control. Another thud from a bullet.
South...so where? The Indiana line was nearby. Chicago almost straddled it. Would it be better to set down over there?
The bullets stopped hitting the helicopter. Out of range. Probably the Graywaters were taking their wounded off the roof and trying to get out of there before the cops came...
The wind struck the aircraft again, and once more Wolfe had to work hard with the pedals and joystick to keep it steady.
He was out of practice coordinating the pedals and joystick. The helicopter yawed sickeningly...
“You smell smoke?” Seline asked, coming to sit in the seat beside him.
“No...” He sniffed. But he did smell it. And more. “Yeah I do. We got to set this thing down fast. They hit the engine, maybe the fuel tank...this rich guy’s toy isn’t armored...”
She buckled herself in, then reached across him and buckled him into his seat. There was a certain intimacy in that—which he pretended not to notice.
What the hell are you thinking about that for? This thing’s losing elevation!
He looked at the altimeter again to be sure. Yeah. Losing elevation pretty fast. “Engine’s stalling...”
He looked out the window, and through the distortion from bullet cracks made out one possibility for survival.
The chopper began to dip down. It still had a little power. He forced a little more lift out of it...
“Hold on!” he yelled.
“I’m already holding on!”
Down...lift almost gone. The engine whining, sputtering.
Down...
Then the gray green surface of the water rushed up at them.
They slammed into the water, hard, jarringly, so that Wolfe’s teeth clacked painfully together and his whole body was whiplashed in the seat. They struck at an angle, so that the helicopter skidded a little ways toward the shore of the lake—and then it stopped moving. He heard no engine sound—just a gurgling as the helicopter began to sink...
Wolfe checked on Seline...she seemed dazed as she fumbled at her seat belts, but not much injured. He got his own seatbelt unlocked; she got herself free, and pressed the red emergency handle. The door popped out of the way and started gushing in at their feet.
Seline jumped out, splashed out of the way; Wolfe put his phone in the plastic sack with the laptop, got out on the other side, and found they were in water only up to their chests. They rushed to get away from the helicopter blades, and sloshed toward shore.
“Cops’ll be here pretty soon!” she said.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I think so. Maybe a little whiplash in the neck.”
“Me too. Feel like I was worked over by a drunk chiropractor.”
They climbed up on the shore, where they shivered, wet and cold—and she pointed at a sign. “Look at the name of this lake!”
He looked. It was Wolf Lake. “If I had time, I’d add an e to the end. I know where Wolf Lake is...out below Calumet. I think we’re in Indiana...Come on, we gotta get some transportation...Need to get back to Chicago.”
By the time they found a car that responded to his PearcePhone, a Mercedes parked about two blocks away from the lake, police helicopters were starting to arrive over Wolf Lake.
But Wolfe and Seline were far enough away they weren’t spotted as, teeth chattering with cold, they drove away in the Mercedes...
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Her wet hair wrapped in a towel, Seline walked over to him from the kitchenette. She had a cup of tea in her hand. “”You want some tea?”
“Tea’s not my cup of tea.”
“Funny guy. It didn’t even occur to me to ask if the laptop got wet when we had to slog through that lake...”
Wolfe shook his head. “It was in plastic. Double wrapped. It should be okay...” He was sitting at the desk, with the PC shoved aside for the laptop.
They’d both showered—her first. He’d given her plenty of privacy. He was wearing his only other outfit, jeans and an old Army t-shirt, and a pair of sneakers. She’d put on some extra men’s clothing Pearce had left here, trousers and a button up Arrow shirt. It didn’t fit very well—the trousers were rolled up over her bare feet. Wolfe glanced at Seline.
She actually looks kind of cute dressed that way...
Don’t start thinking about that. Focus.
“What’d you find on the laptop?” she asked.
“It’s just now booted up...oh, here’s the password form. What’s the password?”
She knew the password. Remember GlowWorm.
The laptop accepted the password, and the screen showed a block of text:
Problem: Someone at Blume is using ctOS related wifi to block uploading of files from wifi. If anything relating to Roger Verrick is attempted to be uploaded, the upload is blocked both at 2.4GHz and 5GHz. The blockage is accomplished with wifi signals that immediately overload the band. Other bands are also being searched and blocked.
Cable blocking of any upload relating to Verrick is accomplished via a NSA-quality ctOS search spider constantly checking all uploads in the area.
Solution: Leave town.
Drawback: They’re looking for you to leave town and watching airports, stations, freeways, boats. And if you leave town you will not have the advantage of using the transmitter being prepared for you.
Preferred solution: We have located an area where the wifi blockage is not effective. It is southeast of your location, in the Washington Park area. by tomorrow morning, a powerful transmission device will be installed at that location, by sympathetic local hackers working with SystemsLeak. The device will transmit directly to a satellite. The file upload will go out worldwide. Blockage will then be impractical. The address of the transmitter, available at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow, is—-
Wolfe memorized the address. “That’s one of the toughest neighborhoods in Chicago...”
“Let’s make sure the file’s there...”
He opened the text and graphics file on the desktop—the only file on the laptop. He had to use the second password for that: Remember Ruth.
CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN
Ruth Medina Case File 237.
In summary: 1. There are strong indications that Major Roger Verrick, U.S. Army, was planner and key in executing the cash theft from the Road 23B Incident, Somalia Case File 2289...
2. There are further indications that the testimony given by Master Sergeant Mick Jeremiah Wolfe, was in fact substantially accurate.
Verrick appears to have laundered money through a casino in Chicago know as the Four Clubs...
It went on for page after page. “She knew...” Wolfe said, after he’d scanned the extensive file. “Medina knew I was right. She knew what Verrick did...”
“She knew,” Seline agreed. “But she didn’t have enough evidence to convince her superiors. She needed more to have Verrick and Van Ness arrested. The money vanished, sure. They know millions of dollars were laundered through the casino—and that a payment was made to Roger Verrick from ‘Iceberg Investments’. He later ‘reinvested’ a lot of it in Iceberg. But the connection is mostly circumstantial. And the footage you put on disk just isn’t there anymore. So, she was gathering evidence...she spent more than a year doing it.”
“The year I was in prison! Christ. She could have told me.”
“She wasn’t free to do that, Wolfe. She was allowed to investigate but she wasn’t allowed to tell anyone what she knew...except whoever this file was to go to. When she was about to make a move with this data...they killed her.” Seline shrugged, sighing. “She got it to me because she suspected they were moving in on her.”
Wolfe opened a desk drawer, took out the Scotch and two glasses. “Why didn’t she just email the damned thing to her superiors?”
“It could be she didn’t trust them enough. Maybe she was planning to go over their heads. Right to the Pentagon. Defense Intelligence Agency. She was gathering information and she had some pretty damning stuff...Don’t pour any whiskey for me, thanks...And then...”
Wolfe sipped Scotch from the small tumbler. “And then someone killed her.” He looked at Seline. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Yeah. They didn’t know I had the file—not until after I got here. I had a friend in the area with some connections with the local chapter of DedSec and I knew they have been working with SystemLeaks so...”
“You sure you don’t want a drink? You don’t really have to worry that I’m trying to get you drunk. I’ll keep an eye on you to make sure you don’t put roofies in my drink.”
“Okay, wise guy. Just one.” She put her tea cup on the desk.
He poured her a drink. “Looks like when we go to that address in the morning, there’ll be someone there ready to help up us do the satellite upload...”
“Uh huh.” She looked around.
“The sofabed,” he said, guessing at her thoughts. “You take that. I’ll be on the cot in the bedroom. Sofabed’s more comfortable.”
Wolfe sipped some Scotch, then got out the PearcePhone and sent a text.
Don’t be throwing your face up on the system here unless you want it to be seen by my guest. . .We’re doing the upload tomorrow. Crashed a chopper in a lake. Yes that was us. . .Hope this is secure. Yeah I know: always secure.
He sent the text.
“Who’re you texting?” she asked, going to sit on the sofabed.
He drank off his Scotch, and stood up. “I’ll have to get his permission before I tell you. A friend.” Wolfe looked at her. “Nice new look. Have to get you some loafers to go with it.”
She smiled and sipped her drink.
He said, evenly, “You were pretty cool headed today. Glad I had you on my side.”
She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Are you patronizing me?”
“No. I meant it.”
Seline raised her eyebrows in mild surprise. “Okay. Thanks.” She grimaced. “But...tell you the truth, I felt kind of weird on the roof when I...”
“When you shot that guy? I don’t think it was a killing wound.”
“I never shot anyone before.”
“I wouldn’t feel bad about it where those shit-dicks are concerned. They were ready to shoot us dead.”
“I don’t feel bad about it exactly. Just...a weird feeling. I could have gone my whole life without shooting anybody and been fine with that.”
“I hear you. Only two ways to feel about it. Feel nothing—or the way you do. Me—I think it’s better to give a damn if you have to do it.”
She nodded, just slightly.
Wolfe kept looking at her. No special way. Just looking.
She glanced up at him—then quickly away. She opened her mouth as if to say something...
Then she gave her head a small shake and raised her glass to him. “See you in the morning.”
He nodded, and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
#
A dull thumping sound woke Wolfe up the next morning. He grabbed his .45 from under the pillow and jumped out of the bed...
And then realized it was only the sound of something thumping in the clothes dryer.
He put on his pants, stuck the gun in his waist band, and opened the door into the other room a little, peering through. He didn’t want to rush out and startle Seline.
Especially now that he knew she had a .44 in her purse. He knocked on the door.
“It’s your place, come on out,” she said.
“It’s not really my place,” Wolfe said, coming out into the living room.
Seline was hunkered down next to the small dryer, taking her clothes from it. She was still wearing the oversized pants and shirt.
“Get all the pond scum off your clothing?” he asked.
“Most of the pond scum’s out there in Chicago,” she said.
She straightened up and looked at him. He thought her eyes lingered on him—and he realized he was bare-chested.
She looked away. “If this is not your place, whose place is it?”
“You go on and change your clothes, and I’ll see if I’m allowed to say whose place it is.”
She shrugged and carried her clothes into the bathroom to change.
He sat down at the desk, and looked up the file he’d organized on Tranter. He copied and pasted select parts of it, making a summary, that he uploaded to the PearcePhone. He had a feeling it could be useful in the search for allies.
Then he picked up the phone and called Pearce. It took a while for the system to bounce the call around securely enough. The heard Pearce’s voice crackling gruffly through. “Wolfe?”
“Yeah. So—you know about Seline Garnera.”
“Yeah. Got your message. So—you crashed a chopper together? Good first date. She’s there with you now?”
“Yeah. She’s taking a shower. Doesn’t know you could be watching her get undressed and stuff.”
“I could even watch her in the shower if I wanted to. But I don’t have those cameras turned on. Never have been.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“You never had to worry I was going to check out your naked ass, Wolfe. You know what to do about the uploading?”
“Yeah. I got the address. Doesn’t look easy.”
“Best way to do it right now.”
“Uh—look. You want to meet Seline? I mean—onscreen? We’re already tangled up with her. And she’s already here. And it’s not like you haven’t been all over the news about three hundred times in your life.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Pearce hung up.
Seline came out of the bathroom, dressed in the clothes she’d worn yesterday. “Only problem is my shoes. They’re still kinda stiff. Wasn’t easy getting the mud and stuff off ‘em.”
Aiden Pearce suddenly appeared on the television screen. “Hello, Ms. Garnera.”
Seline gasped, spinning toward the television. “What the fuck.”
Pearce smiled crookedly at her from the TV screen. “Wolfe said you might want to meet me. Here I am. Aiden Pearce! You’re staying in one of my safehouses. Which means I saved your ass. And so did the software I gave Wolfe there. Just keep it in mind—and in return keep your mouth shut about anything you find out about me.”
“Uh...sure.”
“I’ll let Wolfe explain the rest. There’s some instant coffee in the cabinet to your right.”
Pearce’s image flicked off the TV screen.
#
The windshield wipers chugged with metronomic regularity, wiping off sleety rain, as a man’s deep voice said,
“Wild action in downtown Chicago last night where a helicopter was stolen from the helipad atop the Armstrong Arms, a high-priced apartment building just a block south of Union Station.
The helicopter pilot, David Hendle, had been waiting to take a client to Las Vegas when apparent gunfire broke out on the roof. Escaping the gunfire, Hendle climbed down from the rooftop using an emergency ladder. Unidentified persons, reportedly a man and woman, hijacked the helicopter and flew it a few miles south only to crash it into Wolf Lake, possibly as a result of bullet damage to the helicopter’s fuel line. ctOS security camera footage is inconclusive...The thieves were not found at the scene of the crash. The lake is being dragged for their bodies.
“Blood was found on the rooftop along with shell casings but none of the wounded or the other gunmen. This is CKNW, Chicago’s News Radio...Now let me tell you something I bet you didn’t know about car insurance. For a fantastic deal...”
Wolfe switched off the radio of the stolen Ford Explorer. “I’ve gotta stop stealing cars and helicopters and things. One of these days I’m going to be arrested.”
Seline, who was driving, just smiled. “At least you don’t keep them or sell them for parts.” She glanced at him. “Do you?”
“Nope. They get back to their owners eventually. I’m not sure the police would accept the ‘I just borrowed it from a complete stranger’ concept though. And the truck I took from Verrick got special treatment—I let it roll into Lake Michigan.”
“Ha. Good.”
He glanced down at the small backpack on the floor of the Exporer. In it was the laptop with the file for SystemLeaks.
“Wolfe—’look!”
Up ahead the road was blocked by orange cones and blinking temporary traffic barricades—stolen from some roadwork, somewhere, probably. Standing behind the barricade were half a dozen African Americans in hoodies with day-glow orange trim. Two of them carried AR15 semi-auto rifles. The tall one in the middle had a Desert Eagle pistol stuck in his waist band, the grip showing over the bottom of his sweatshirt. He grinned at Wolfe, and waggled his fingers in a joking wave.
Wolfe snorted. “It’s okay—those are friends of mine. Black Viceroys. The one in the middle’s the boss of his own little chapter of the Viceroys—Shuggie’s his name. Just pull up and let me talk to them.”
“I’m getting out too. If you’re their ally I want them to be clear that I’m here with you.”
