The Blue Nowhere: A Novel

by Jeffery Deaver

  The hacker’d mentioned fire.

  Do something with that.

  He glanced at his watch. It was the deadline for the assault. Shawn’s two remaining eyes flickered passionlessly.

  Do something . . .

  Fire.

  . . . with that.

  Yes! Bishop suddenly turned from Shawn and looked frantically around the room. There it was! He ran to a small gray box with a red button in the middle—the dinosaur pen’s scram switch.

  He slammed his palm against the button.

  A braying alarm sounded from the ceiling and with a piercing hiss, streams of halon gas shot from pipes above and below the machine, enveloping the room’s occupants—one human, one not—in a ghostly white fog.

  Tactical agent Mark Little looked at the screen of the computer in the command van.

  RED CODE:

  This was the go-ahead code for the assault.

  “Print it out,” Little said to the tech agent. Then he turned to George Steadman. “Confirm that Mapleleaf green-lights us for an assault with Level 4 rules of engagement.”

  The other agent consulted a small booklet with a Department of Justice seal on the front cover under the word CLASSIFIED written in large block letters.

  “Confirmed.”

  Little radioed to the three snipers covering all the doors. “We’re going in. Any targets presenting through the windows?”

  They each reported that there were none.

  “All right. If anyone comes through the door armed, take them out. Drop ’em with a head shot so they won’t have time to push any detonator buttons. If they seem to be unarmed use your own judgment. But I’ll remind you that rules of engagement’ve been set at Level 4. Understand what I’m saying?”

  “Five by five,” one of the snipers said and the others confirmed that they understood too.

  Little and Steadman left the command van and ran through the hazy dusk to their teams. Little slipped into a side yard to join the eight officers he was leading—Alpha team. Steadman went to his, Bravo.

  Little listened as the search and surveillance team reported in. “Alpha team leader, infrared shows body heat in the living room and parlor. The kitchen too—but that might just be from the stove.”

  “Roger.” Then Little announced into his radio, “I’m taking Alpha up the operation-side right of the house. We’ll saturate with stun grenades—three in the parlor, three in the living room, three in the kitchen, thrown at five-second intervals. On the third bang Bravo goes in the front, Charlie in the back. We’ll set up crossfire zones from the side windows.”

  Steadman and the leader of the other team confirmed they’d heard and understood.

  Little pulled on his gloves, hood and helmet, thinking about the stolen cache of automatic weapons, hand grenades and body armor.

  “Okay,” he said. “Alpha team forward. Go slow. Use all available cover. Get ready to light the candles.”

  CHAPTER 00101101 / FORTY-FIVE

  Inside the Papandolos home—the house of lemons, the house of photographs, the house of family—Wyatt Gillette pressed his face against lace curtains that he remembered Elana’s mother sewing together one autumn. From this nostalgic vantage point he saw the FBI agents start to move in.

  A few feet at a time, crouching, cautious.

  He glanced into the other room, behind him, and saw Elana lying on the floor, her arm around her mother. Christian, her brother, was nearby, but his head was up and he looked with bottomless anger into Gillette’s eyes.

  Nothing he could say to them by way of apology would even approach adequacy and he remained silent, turned back to the window.

  He’d decided what he would do—decided some time before actually but he’d been content to savor these last few minutes of his life in proximity to the woman he loved.

  Ironically the idea had come from Phate.

  You’re the hero with the flaw—the flaw that usually gets them into trouble. Oh, you’ll do something heroic at the end and save some lives and the audience’ll cry for you. . . .

  He’d walk outside with his arms up. Bishop had said they wouldn’t trust him and think that he was a suicide bomber or had a hidden gun. Phate and Shawn had seen to it that the police were expecting the worst. But the officers were human too; they might hesitate. And if they did they might trust him to call Elana and the others out.

  But you’ll still never make it to the final level of the game.

  And even if he didn’t—if they shot and killed him—they’d search his body and find that he was unarmed and might think that the others would be willing to surrender peaceably too. Then they’d discover that this was all just a terrible mistake.

  He glanced at his wife. Even now, he thought, she’s so very beautiful. She didn’t look up and he was glad for that; he couldn’t have borne the burden of her gaze.

  Wait until they’re close, he told himself, so they can see you’re not a threat.

  As he stepped into the hall to wait beside the door he noticed on a desk in the den an old IBM-clone computer. Wyatt Gillette reflected on the dozens of hours he’d spent online in the past few days. Thinking: If he couldn’t take Elana’s love with him to his death, at least he’d have those memories of his hours in the Blue Nowhere to accompany him.

  The tactical agents of Alpha team crawled slowly toward the stuccoed suburban house—hardly a likely setting for an operation of this sort. Mark Little signaled the team to take cover behind a bed of spiny rhododendrons about twenty feet from the west side of the house.

  He gave a hand signal to three of his agents from whose belts dangled the powerful stun grenades. They ran into position beneath the parlor, living room and kitchen windows then pulled the pins of the grenades. Three others joined them and gripped billy clubs, with which they’d shatter the glass so their partners could pitch the grenades inside.

  The men looked back at Little, awaiting the go-ahead hand signal.

  Then: A crackle in Little’s headset.

  “Alpha team leader one, we have an emergency patch from a landline. It’s the SAC from San Francisco.”

  Special Agent in Charge Jaeger? What was he calling for?

  “Go ahead,” he whispered into the stalk mike.

  There was a click.

  “Agent Little,” came the unfamiliar voice. “It’s Frank Bishop. State police.”

  “Bishop?” It was that fucking cop who’d called before. “Put Henry Jaeger on.”

  “He’s not here, sir. I lied. I had to get through to you. Don’t disconnect. You have to listen to me.”

  Bishop was the one they’d decided might be a perp inside the house trying to distract them.

  Except, Little now reflected, the phone lines to the house and the cell were down, which meant that the call couldn’t be coming from the killers.

  “Bishop. . . . What the hell do you want? You know what kind of trouble you’re going to be in for impersonating an FBI agent? I’m hanging up.”

  “No! Don’t! Ask for reconfirmation.”

  “I don’t want to hear any of this hacker crap.”

  Little examined the house. Everything was still. Moments like this summoned a curious sensation—exhilarating and frightening and numbing all at the same time. You also had the queasy sense that one of the killers had itchy crosshairs on you, picking out a target of flesh two inches off the vest.

  The cop said, “I just nailed the perp who did the hacking and shut his computer down. I guarantee you won’t get a reconfirmation. Send the request.”

  “That’s not procedure.”

  “Do it anyway. You’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you go in there under Level 4 rules of engagement.”

  Little paused. How had Bishop known they were operating at Level 4? Only someone on the team or with access to the bureau computer could have known that.

  The agent noticed his second in command, Steadman, tap his watch impatiently then nod toward the house.

  Bishop�
��s voice was pure desperation. “Please. I’ll stake my job on it.”

  The agent hesitated then muttered, “You sure as hell just did, Bishop.” He slung his machine gun over his shoulder and switched back to the tactical frequency. “All teams, stay in position. Repeat, stay in position. If you’re fired upon full retaliation is authorized.”

  He sprinted back to the command post. The communications tech looked up in surprise. “What’s up?”

  On the screen Little could still see the confirmation code okaying the attack.

  “Confirm the red code again.”

  “Why? We don’t need to reconfirm if—”

  “Now,” Little snapped.

  The man typed.

  FROM: TACTICAL COMMANDER, DOJ NORTHERN DISTRICT CALIFORNIA

  TO: DOJ TAC OP CENTER, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  RE: DOJ NORTHERN DISTRICT CALIFORNIA OPERATION 139-01

  RED CODE CONFIRM?

  A message popped up:

 

  These few minutes could give the killers inside a chance to prepare for an assault or to rig the house with explosives for a group suicide that would take the lives of a dozen of his men.

 

  This was taking too much time. He said to the communications officer, “Forget it. We’re going in.” He started toward the door.

  “Hey, wait,” the officer said. “Something’s weird.” He nodded at the screen. “Take a look.”

  FROM: DOJ TAC OP CENTER, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  TO: TACTICAL COMMANDER, DOJ NORTHERN DISTRICT CALIFORNIA

  RE: DOJ NORTHERN DISTRICT CALIFORNIA OPERATION 139-01

 

  The man said, “It’s the right number. I checked.”

  Little: “Send it again.”

  Once more the agent typed and hit ENTER.

  Another delay. Then:

  FROM: DOJ TAC OP CENTER, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  TO: TACTICAL COMMANDER, DOJ NORTHERN DISTRICT CALIFORNIA

  RE: DOJ NORTHERN DISTRICT CALIFORNIA OPERATION 139-01

 

  Little pulled his black hood off and wiped his face. Christ, what was this?

  He grabbed the phone and called the FBI agent who handled the territory near the San Pedro military reserve, thirty miles away. The agent told him that there’d been no break-in or theft of weapons that afternoon. Little dropped the receiver into the cradle, staring at the screen.

  Steadman ran up to the door of the trailer. “What the hell’s going on, Mark? We’ve waited too long. If we’re going to hit them it’s gotta be now.”

  Little continued to gaze at the screen.

 

  “Mark, are we going?”

  The commander glanced toward the house. By now there’d been enough of a delay that the occupants might have grown suspicious that the phones were out. Neighbors had probably called the local police about the troops in the neighborhood and reporters’ police scanners would have picked up the calls. Press helicopters might be on their way and there’d be live broadcasts from the choppers. The killers inside could be watching the accounts on TV in a few minutes.

  Suddenly a voice in the radio: “Alpha team leader one, this’s sniper three. One of the suspects’s on the front steps. White male, late twenties. Hands in the air. I have a shot-to-kill. Should I take it?”

  “Any weapons? Explosives?”

  “None visible.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Walking forward slowly. He’s turned around to show us his back. Still no weapons. But he could have something rigged under his shirt. I’ll lose the shot to foliage in ten seconds. Sniper two, pick up target when he’s past that bush.”

  “Roger that,” came the voice of another sniper.

  Steadman said, “He’s got a device on him, Mark. All the bulletins’ve said that’s what they’re going to do—take out as many of us as they can. This guy’ll set off the charge and the rest’ll come out the back door, shooting.”

 

  Mark Little said into his mike, “Bravo team leader two, order suspect onto the ground. Sniper two if he’s not face down in five seconds, take your shot.”

  “Yessir.”

  They heard the loudspeaker a moment later: “This is the FBI. Lie down and extend your arms. Now, now, now!”

  NO INFORMATION . . .

  The agent then called in, “He’s down, sir. Should we frisk and restrain?”

  Little thought of his wife and two children and said, “No, I’ll do it myself.” He said into the mike: “All teams, pull back to cover.”

  He turned to the communications officer. “Get me the deputy director in Washington.” Then he pointed a blunt finger at the conflicting messages—the go-ahead printout and the “no information” message on the computer screen. “And let me know exactly how the hell this happened.”

  CHAPTER 00101110 / FORTY-SIX

  Lying on the grass, smelling dirt, rain, and the faint scent of lilac, Wyatt Gillette blinked as the searing spotlights focused on him. He watched an edgy young agent move cautiously toward him, pointing a very large gun at his head.

  The agent cuffed him and frisked him thoroughly, relaxing only when Gillette asked him to call a state trooper named Bishop, who could confirm that the FBI’s computer system had been hacked and that the people in the house weren’t the MARINKILL suspects.

  The agent then ordered Elana’s family out of the house. She, her mother and her brother walked slowly out onto the lawn, arms raised. They were searched and handcuffed and, though they weren’t treated roughly, it was clear from their grim faces that they were suffering nearly as much from indignity and terror as if they’d been physically injured.

  Gillette’s ordeal, though, was the worst and that had nothing to do with his treatment at the hands of the FBI; it was that he knew that the woman he loved was now gone from him forever. She’d seemed to be wavering on her decision to move to New York with Ed but now the machines that had driven them apart years ago had almost killed her family and that was, of course, unforgivable. She would now flee to the East Coast with responsible, gainfully employed Ed, and Ellie would become to Gillette nothing more than a collection of memories, like .jpg and .wav files—visual and sound images that vanished from your central processing unit when you powered down at night.

  The FBI agents huddled and made a number of phone calls and then huddled some more. They concluded that the assault had indeed been illegally ordered. They released everyone—except Gillette, of course, though they helped him stand and loosened the cuffs a bit.

  Elana strode up to her ex. He stood motionless in front of her, making not a sound as he took the full force of the powerful slap against his cheek. The woman, sensuous and beautiful even in her anger, turned away without a word and helped her mother up the stairs into the house. Her brother offered a twenty-two-year-old’s inarticulate threat about a lawsuit and worse and followed them, slamming the door.

  As the agents packed up, Bishop arrived. He walked up to the hacker and said, “The scram switch.”

  “A halon dump.” Gillette nodded. “That’s what I was going to tell you to do when they cut the phone line.”

  Bishop nodded. “I remembered you mentioned it at CCU. When you first saw the dinosaur pen.”

  “Any other damage?” Gillette asked. “To Shawn?”

  He hoped not. He was keenly curious about the machine—how it worked, what it could do, what operating system made up its heart and mind.

  But the machine wasn’t badly hurt, Bishop explained. “I emptied two full clips at the box but it didn’t do much damage.” He smiled. “Just a flesh wound.”

  A stocky man walked toward them through the blinding spotlights. When he got closer Gillette could see it was Bob Shelton. The pock-faced cop greeted his partner and glanced at Gillette with his typical d
isdain.

  Bishop told him what had happened but said nothing about suspecting Shelton himself as being Shawn.

  The cop shook his head with a bitter laugh. “Shawn was a computer? Jesus, somebody oughta throw every fucking one of ’em into the ocean.”

  “Why do you keep saying that?” Gillette snapped. “I’m getting a little tired of it.”

  “Of what?” Shelton shot back.

  No longer able to control his anger at the cop’s harsh treatment of him over the past few days, the hacker muttered, “You’ve been dumping on me and machines every chance you get. But it’s a little hard to believe coming from somebody with a thousand-dollar Winchester drive sitting in his living room.”

  “A what?”

  “When we were over at your house I saw that server drive sitting there.”

  The cop’s eyes flared. “That was my son’s,” he growled. “I was throwing it out. I was finally cleaning out his room, getting rid of all that computer shit he had. My wife didn’t want me to throw out any of his things. That’s what we were fighting about.”

  “He was into computers, your son?” Gillette asked, recalling that the boy had died several years ago.

  Another bitter laugh. “Oh, yeah, he was into computers. He’d spend hours online. All he wanted to do was hack. Only some cybergang found out he was a cop’s kid and thought he was trying to snitch ’em out. They went after him. Posted all kinds of shit about him on the Internet—that he was gay, that he had a record, that he molested little kids . . . They broke into his school’s computer and made it look like he changed his own grades. That got him suspended. Then they sent some girl he’d been dating this filthy e-mail in his name. She broke up with him because of it. The day that happened he got drunk and drove into a freeway abutment. Maybe it was an accident—maybe he killed himself. Either way it was computers that killed him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gillette said softly.

  “The fuck you are.” Shelton stepped closer to the hacker, his anger undiminished. “That’s why I volunteered for this case. I thought the perp might be one of the kids in that gang. And that’s why I went online that day—to see if you were one of ’em too.”