Terrorbyte

by Cat Connor

  My last call was to Rich. I asked for a favor: a car to return Praskovya to Washington. He was happy to oblige. The bar tab was growing.

  I wanted Praskovya and his dark cloud out of my home. I sat at my computer and began to search for an old friend, an old Russian friend, knowing he’d be online somewhere. I just had to locate him. He wasn’t as difficult to find as I’d thought. Within minutes, we’d dealt with the small talk and he had bestowed me with information on Spetsnaz.

  Interesting and helpful information that almost made me forget I needed sleep. What I was going to get was a few hours going over all the paperwork. There were things I needed to chase up: that computer for one, the bug boys for another. And the bourbon. I wanted to know about the bourbon. Why bourbon?

  If our Unsub had carved a trail across Eastern Europe, had he used bourbon then, or something more country-specific? Was this particular brand of bourbon available outside the U.S.? Questions, questions … and no freaking answers. All this talk of bourbon made me want a drink. Not bourbon; I doubted I would ever drink it again, although it used to be my drink of choice.

  Those last four words reverberated around my brain. He couldn’t know that, could he? He’s committing crimes in Virginia; lots of people drink bourbon. As the words rattled inside my head, they rearranged themselves and started spelling trouble.

  I hurried back into the living room. Praskovya’s aura felt so dark and obvious to me, it hung over his head like a thundercloud. I fully expected lightning to fire across the room. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if it had struck me.

  “Praskovya, which Spetsnaz group did she work for?” I enjoyed proving I wasn’t a total fool when it came to things Russian and that I had sources. Vlad had told me a few vital things in our short conversation. After the fall of communism, some Spetsnaz groups remained intact in the various countries that now had them within their borders. Those left inside the Russian federation, once run by the KGB, were now under the umbrella of the Federal Security Service, or FSB. The FSB controlled the primary counterterrorism and hostage-rescue groups. The initials made no sense to me, until my contact gave me the Russian name for the organization, Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti.

  The cloud sucked most of the color from his eyes, making them darker and less attractive. “Spetsgruppa Al’fa.”

  I had heard of Al’fa. It was one of the groups controlled by the FSB, the ultimate crack counterterrorist and hostage-rescue group within FSB.

  “So you are telling me that an officer from Al’fa committed acts of terrorism?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are FSB?” It felt good to know something, even if it wasn’t a whole hell of a lot.

  He smiled. “Yes. I am FSB. We are your FBI equivalent.”

  I stretched out my legs. My mind moved on. “Did we ever see that witness report?”

  “I don’t remember seeing any witness report,” Mac replied.

  “Our nonagenarian.”

  Mac smiled, amused by my description of the relic from Herndon and the scene of the Laura Amos killing.

  Praskovya spoke, “You have a witness? What is nonagenarian?”

  “The crypt keeper,” I replied.

  “What is this crypt keeper?”

  I’d lost him and it brought me unimaginable joy. “Our witness is a ninety-four year old woman. She saw the Unsub leaving an apartment building.”

  “This crypt keeper … saw the killer,” Praskovya said, his voice conveying his mental machinations.

  I started to move. “Yes, we think so … now I must go hunt down the report she made. I’d like a description of our Unsub.”

  Mac stood a split second before we heard a knock at the front door.

  “That will be your car,” I told Praskovya. “We will see you tomorrow.”

  Praskovya rose and followed Mac out. I waited for Mac to return to the living room, glad that the cloud had left with Praskovya.

  Mac didn’t say much when he came back in. I could tell he was pleased Praskovya had gone and that he was concerned over this whole terrorist/killer/Al’fa thing.

  “One second, my cunning wifey,” Mac said. He eyed me with a small amount of suspicion and asked, “How did you know about Al’fa?”

  I smiled. “Did your father ever talk about Vlad?”

  Mac attempted to cover his surprise. “I think … a long time ago.”

  “Long time ago, back when our dads used to take those fishing trips?”

  Our fathers had a long and colorful history together, which we’d only found out about just over a year ago. All our lives we’d listened to our fathers saying they were going fishing, my dad with someone called Tank and Mac’s dad with someone called the Colonel. Imagine our amazement when we learned that Tank was Mac’s dad and the Colonel was what he called my dad.

  “Yeah, back then.”

  “Vlad was a friend they met. He was a diplomat then.”

  “And you contacted Vlad to get some info?”

  “We’ve kept in touch since dad’s heart attack.”

  Mac’s smile became a grin. “I never know what you’ll pull out of your sleeve next.”

  Me neither, except this time my ‘next’ involved running some background checks on Praskovya while we were checking out the witness description and doing all our paperwork. I wanted to know who we were dealing with.

  Music floated around inside my head. It was the opening bars to something familiar, though I couldn’t quite place it. I waited with as much patience as I could muster to hear what song my brain would dredge up this time. I didn’t have a lot of patience to spare. Lyrics belted forth. I jumped. Who’d have thought my internal stereo was that loud? What did a long cool woman in a black dress have to do with our Unsub? I didn’t enjoy the inference that spilled from a nest of bad men and whiskey bottles. I liked even less the reference to the FBI. It was unnerving; if the song had mentioned bourbon and not whiskey, I suspect I may have thrown all my toys from the sandbox.

  I followed the song and began searching through our CD collection.

  “Can I help?”

  “ ‘Long Cool Woman’,” I said.

  “I’ll get it, it’s in my truck.”

  I watched him leave, then hurried to the office. The emails between Julie Trevalli and Selena had arrived from Julie’s husband and were calling to me.

  It didn’t take long for a few weeks’ worth of emails to download. I started at the beginning with the oldest time stamp. After reading the first five I began to skip every other one. There was nothing of any interest. By the time Mac came back in and played the song for me, I’d read almost half the messages. They were normal, if such a thing exists.

  The exchanges contained general chitchat and what appeared to be two friends discussing children. Except – if I was right – only one of them had a child.

  The song triggered nothing other than a feeling of doom. Usually I gained some sort of insight from the songs that stick in my head, or jump out and scream, ‘play me.’ I had no idea if it came from me or was some universal cosmic thing.

  Either way, I know stuff other people don’t.

  Chapter Twenty

  Someday Might Just Be Tonight

  Friday arrived with an early morning phone call. Half an hour later I stood on the edge of the ash-covered sidewalk, peering into the blackened, smoldering shell of Marie’s house. An occasional flame burst from the hot rubble. The two fire trucks parked by the curb were empty of personnel. The fire fighters surrounded the structure in front of us, damping down hot spots as they flared up.

  Mac hustled over to neighboring houses. Windows were shattered in houses on both sides and in the house directly opposite the site. I stood in silence watching the fire fighters. Mac was only gone a few minutes before he came back with information.

  “Neighbors heard the explosion; there’s a fair bit of damage to surrounding homes. A nine-year-old boy, hit with flying glass, is being treated at Inova now.”

  “Nic
e,” I commented. “Whoever set this did a damn fine job.”

  Praskovya stepped up beside me. His black coat swished about his legs, matched only by the swirling thunderclouds above his head.

  “Unpleasant,” he said.

  “I’ve seen worse.”

  “Really?”

  I turned to face him. “Really. I am sure you have, too. Anyone who has spent more than a few weeks in Israel has seen worse.”

  He replied with studied calm. “You’ve done your homework.”

  Mac touched my elbow. “Fire service says there was someone inside.”

  “Who?” Now that was discombobulating. We’d found no evidence to suggest Kline had had housemates.

  “Male, approximately thirty years old, identification pending,” he replied.

  “Cause of death?” It seemed ludicrous asking that when we were standing looking at the mess.

  “Hopefully the smoke got him before the flames did,” Mac said. “We won’t know for sure until the autopsy is completed.”

  I nodded and wondered how much was left to autopsy.

  “You think our Unsub really wanted this place cleansed or is this a happy twist of fate?” Mac said, rocking back on his heels as he surveyed the smoldering wreckage.

  “Cleansed, how ironic.” I smiled.

  “Forensics will come through once the smoldering has settled,” Mac said. “We’re not going to know much until then.”

  “Let’s hope they find something.” I turned to Praskovya. “Your terrorist favors bombs, yes?”

  He nodded.

  “Our Unsub enjoys them too.”

  “Another happy coincidence?” Mac asked.

  “Oh, I doubt it,” I replied. “Just like I doubt our Unsub set this explosion.”

  Another flame shot skyward.

  “So who was caught inside?” I was thinking aloud rather than actually asking.

  My gut’s opinion was interesting. It thought it could be the baby’s father. Maybe he’d heard about Marie’s demise and come for the child. Alternatively, maybe he’d killed the child and tried to make sure no one discovered his secret. Bet the crime-scene tape and sealed doors were a nasty shock.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Mac whispered in close proximity to my ear.

  “Speculation not worth repeating.”

  As always, Mac was on my wavelength. “You’d have to be pretty dumb to get caught in your own explosion.”

  “That’s true.”

  He continued, “How smart is someone who knocks up a crack whore?”

  “Not the brightest crayon in the box.”

  “Can’t argue with that.”

  Praskovya cleared his throat. I didn’t know about Mac but I had almost forgotten Praskovya was with us.

  “Did you have something to add?”

  “We are being watched,” he said. Pensive.

  Mac and I turned to Praskovya. The three of us stood, heads bowed in a tight group.

  “Where is our watcher?” I asked. “Could it be a nosy neighbor?”

  “Could be.” He sighed. Experience told me people were nosy like that no matter where you were in the world, although I had a feeling that in some places they would be more discreet.

  “Direction?” Mac asked.

  “Fifteen meters behind you, in the trees across the road.”

  I did the conversion in my head. Sixteen yards. Then flipped my phone open and passed it to Praskovya. “Make like you are texting someone and get a photograph.”

  He did as I asked and then handed me back the phone. Mac and I kept facing the burnt wreck of a house. I emailed the picture to Lee and to myself, with notes to compare it to the description we had of our Unsub. It was only a possible description and not much help. Our nonagenarian witness was awesome and did her best to supply us with a usable description. Male, approximately six feet tall, short brown hair, square chin, sharp nose, unattractive in her opinion. Within our huddle, we all viewed the photograph.

  “Anyone you recognize?” I asked Praskovya.

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “Is he still there?”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded and turned to Mac. “We’ll carry on. Get the fire department to let us know when they release the scene to our forensics team.”

  Mac strode over to the scene commander, then met us back at the car.

  Sometime later, we met up with Lee in the Hoover Building. I slid into my desk chair and waited while everyone made themselves comfortable. Lee had a possible name for the father of the baby; some poor unfortunate called Kadin Bowen, listed in Marie’s records as primary contact during her stay after the baby was born. He also paid the hospital bills.

  “Can you get someone to go by his last known address? If he isn’t the father then he may know who is.”

  “I asked Mednick and Charles to drop over and make inquiries.”

  “Good.” I guess.

  Mednick was an experienced agent, which is a polite way of saying he could’ve retired five years ago. Charles had a few authority issues and had been partnered with Mednick to learn some manners. The perfect pair to dig up some background on Bowen.

  “Have we got usable DNA from the baby and from the fire body?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied.

  “I’d like you to find out and have them compared. That might be the only way to ever know if our crispy critter is related to that poor baby.”

  I watched Lee’s shoulders tense. “Won’t bring the little soul any happiness.”

  None of us quite knew where to file the dead baby. It wasn’t something we usually came across. The horror of it would live on in our collective psyche for a long time to come.

  “Was there a name in the records?” I asked.

  “Crystal was written in the margin of the birth notes.”

  Mac spoke to him. “She’s in a better place now.”

  He was right. I had no doubt that the short life of that innocent child was miserable and filled with pain.

  I shoved thoughts of the baby aside. Back to the killer: enough sidetracks, clever though they are. Our Unsub couldn’t have had a better distraction if he’d engineered it himself.

  I spun my chair slowly in a circle; as it came back to face the room I said, “Don’t you wonder where our Unsub is and who his next victim will be?”

  The strangest feeling followed. Someone walked over my grave and back again. I shuddered.

  “How many people have signed up with the Butterfly Foundation?” Lee asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  He was right: that was a good place to start to look for our next victim; maybe get there ahead of time. I realized suddenly there was an odd silence in my head, no songs, no old TV shows, no random voices dropping clues. I suspected that the revelation had just jinxed it. Anyway, I was still processing the last song. It had definitely unnerved me.

  I swiveled to Mac and asked, “Any idea?”

  “No. I can find out.” He pulled his laptop from the backpack he carried. “Scoot over.” He slid his chair around the desk. We share well.

  Lee made himself at home on the sofa and started making calls to get the DNA ball rolling. Praskovya stayed on the periphery. I knew he was taking notice of everything that went on. He kept his interest mute, which worked for me.

  “Is there any pattern at all to the deaths?” Lee asked. He plonked his phone down on the low table in front of him and yawned. “Apart from the women all being mothers? I mean Butterfly is all about kids, so wouldn’t they all be mothers?”

  “Yep, they would,” I replied, as I watched over Mac’s shoulder. “There must be a pattern or a reason he chose these particular women … and a way to predict his next victims.”

  “He’s been tossing out bodies thick and fast, so time is something we don’t have a lot of,” Mac said.

  I had an idea. “Lee, get your laptop, we’re going to drop you into Butterfly to chat as a ten-year-old girl whose mommy is going on a rampage.�
�

  “I don’t know if I can be a ten-year-old,” he replied, firing up his laptop.

  “Mac, make him a profile. Give him a really interesting background.”

  Mac grinned. “I’ll use yours.”

  I slapped his arm. “Thanks.”

  “I have a good reason. We can help Lee better if we know the background.”

  Mac emailed Lee all the information he required to begin chatting. Lee called out, “Thanks. Did you have to give me such a goofy name …? Do I look like a Charlotte to you?”

  Nope, he did not. He looked like someone you wouldn’t fuck with or, in the right light, a rock star.

  He was on the other side of the room with a laptop on his knee.

  I looked over and said, “Absolutely, Lee, I so see you as Charlotte, maybe Lottie is the pet name your friends use.” I nudged Mac. “Was that a bird? Did you see something fly my way?”

  He laughed. “You’re mighty brave when Lee’s across the room.”

  “Kemo Sabe … I am in the chat room. Now what?”

  “Dig deep. Act like you’re a harassed ten-year-old taking refuge from your rampaging screwball of a mother.”

  We watched Lee’s progress from Mac’s computer. He wasn’t half bad as a scared kid.

  Praskovya piped up with a surly question. “And your point to this game is?”

  “Your terrorist was in here looking for someone. If the killer is choosing victims from the Foundation, we need to know his criteria. This is as good a place as any.”

  “But isn’t this a protected chat room, outsiders cannot be there?”

  “Yes.”

  “So how does he do it?”

  “He needs to be posing as a kid, like your terrorist did. He’s hacked into the website or tricked someone into handing over their password and other information.”

  “This is what Vadbolski was doing too, yes?”

  “We think it was similar. She seemed to have information that suggested our Unsub is connected to the Foundation … she was looking for him inside the chat rooms.”

  “Was there a record of what she did on that machine?”

  “Oh yes. We know every key stroke. Fortunately for us she used a Defense Department machine to do her hacking.”