Schmidt hit the stop command for the video file. “What about you, Ladder?”
Ladder turned to Schmidt. “But didn’t you see? He’s acting. He said so. He’s in control of the medication and of the electrical pads.”
Schmidt was totally taken aback. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“But he told us,” protested Ladder.
“I don’t understand you. He was screaming; he didn’t say anything—at least, not yet.”
“No, of course he didn’t speak. Didn’t you see? He was signaling.”
“You saw him signal? He was strapped down and whoever was torturing him was watching. How could he signal?” Schmidt did not hide his perplexity and growing frustration.
Ladder looked worried. He closed his eyes for a moment, opened them, and said. “Hold out your hands. Tuck your thumb away. You’ve got eight fingers showing, right?”
Now Schmidt looked worried.
“Go on, do what I said,” instructed Ladder.
Totally bewildered, Schmidt held out his hands and folded his thumbs into his palms. “Okay.”
“Extend your fingers.”
Schmidt did as Ladder instructed.
“Fold them back.”
Schmidt folded his fingers back.
“Now on your left hand, extend your second last finger and on your right hand extend your last finger.”
“What the hell?” Schmidt barely hid his impatience as he struggled to move his fingers.
Ladder demonstrated. He folded back all his fingers and then extended all his fingers. He folded them all again and extended his second last finger on his left hand and his last finger on his right hand. He said “Upper case A.”
He kept his left hand steady, focused on his right hand and first folded his fingers and then extended the second last finger. “Upper case B.”
Schmidt stared at Ladder, his eyes round. “You didn’t—he didn’t—”
“Binary code. Eight-bit. Used by computers. Logically, a bit can be true or false, on or off, or one and zero. His extended fingers represent numeric ones and the others, those he’s folded, represent zeroes. He’s using ones and zeroes. Each finger is equivalent to a bit. That gives him an 8-bit binary code, as I said. Understand?”
Schmidt nodded his head; the light was beginning to dawn.
“So 01000001 is upper case A. 01000010 is upper case B. He really doesn’t have to move fingers on his left hand—the changes for the upper case alphabet are all on the right. I followed most of his message. He flicked his fingers back and forth, all zeros and all ones, a number of times, coinciding with the electric shocks. He went through the vowels. After that he started to signal. His words are in upper case. The message portion I saw was something like GITMO OHARE NSA IM OK HVE CTRL BLKING PAIN. There were other words but he was fast and I missed them. We’ll have to replay the tape and watch it through to the finish to get his full message.”
“You’re a bloody genius, Ladder. Get Anna back. I’ll call my office.”
While Ladder was persuading Anna and the children to return to the study, Schmidt phoned Maeve. When she answered, he said, “Stop watching the tape. Connect Linda. You both need to hear this. It’s critical.” He waited until Maeve connected Linda Schöner into the call and continued, “Mark is signaling in 8-bit binary code. Watch how his fingers move. He’s in Gitmo. As we suspected, the guy who has him is O’Hare. Mark says he’s controlling the pain. Ignore the apparent torture and degradation—watch his hands. Get someone on this immediately—he’s fast. No, it wasn’t me, it was Ladder. He’s a damn genius. Go, go!” he disconnected the call.
He looked at Anna and the children who had returned to the study. They were wide-eyed. “Mark is signaling us using a binary code. Ladder recognized it. He says Mark is controlling the pain, he’s in Gitmo, and we know who kidnapped him. Linda will have the entire message for us within fifteen minutes. You don’t have to watch that horrible video.”
Anna grabbed Ladder and hugged him, her tears flowing. “Oh, Ladder. Thank you so much.” The children stared at their visitor, their expressions wondering.
Alex shrieked and said, “You’re ours now. You’ve helped save Mark.” She wrapped her arms around as much of Ladder and Anna as she could reach. She was copied by Gabrielle and Niland.
When eventually they released each other, Schmidt said, “Ladder, congratulations. I don’t know whether my team would have recognized Mark’s code or not. You did. I’m impressed. You’re resigning from the Redmont crime team and coming to work for me. Okay?”
Ladder smiled, not sure what to say. He was overwhelmed by the outpourings of emotions and uncertain why he was the only person who had seen the signals and understood the code.
In a follow-up call to Maeve and Linda, Schmidt said, “As I said, the boy’s a genius and I’m adamant he’s going to work for us. We’ll subsidize his college fees. I don’t care what it costs.”
Linda said, “I don’t know if we would have caught it. If we did, it would have been after we’d played the video through a dozen times, looking for clues. I agree, he will add value to our team.”
“And he’s not Cerberus,” Maeve commented. “Well, I assume—”
“You’re correct; he’s not, as far as anyone knows. He’s a young man with an alert mind. Linda, I’ll arrange for him to meet with you—interview him, introduce him to some of your senior analysts. I’d like your team’s feedback. Your’s too, Maeve.”
Both Maeve and Linda assented to Schmidt’s request. He continued, “So we have confirmation it’s O’Hare. Not enough evidence yet to arrest him, but close. We believe it was his helicopter, and the victim has identified him even if in unusual circumstances. I’m not sure we can use the torture video as proof enough for an arrest warrant. We’ve enough, though, to launch a rescue mission and I’ll start Helen thinking about how we use the 145th once we finish this call. Linda, I want you to focus your experts on O’Hare. I want his life history, whatever you can discover. I want him trailed everywhere he goes until we recover Mark. I believe ICE has his lady friend?”
“Confirmed. She is not being co-operative, apparently,” Maeve said.
“Can we get her transferred to Camp Brewer? I’d like to question her. While she may stonewall ICE, I’m confident there’s more to her than a green card fraud. If we place her in a military environment with a threat of sending her to Gitmo, we may open some floodgates. We could let O’Hare know she’s in our hands—that would add more pressure.”
“Yes, I agree,” Linda said. “Also, I’d like to arrange for the banks that advanced funds for his house and aircraft purchases to call in their loans. I’m sure my team can find breaches or flaws in the documentation.”
“I know people in Compliance in both the banks that wrote the initial mortgages,” said Maeve. “They’ll work with us. They also tell us if the loans have been sold on to other investors.”
“We could buy them out; that might be a way to apply more pressure. Imagine O’Hare’s reaction when he receives a communication to make his repayments to General Schmidt,” Linda said.
Schmidt did not smile. “I’m struggling with motive—why does he want to swap Mark for me? It’s been bugging me ever since I heard his demand. Maeve, can you present a summary of all this to the president? Show him excerpts from the torture tape. He’ll give his go ahead for us to use the 145th, I’m sure.”
Chapter 31
O’Hare was on the list of attendees for three meetings, two of which were categorized as critical business. He ignored the third meeting; it had been called by another department and he had no interest in the subject matter. The two critical meetings were providing a challenge; while he could watch the presentations on his computer because his desk monitor was large enough to cope with two sets of PowerPoint graphics and whiteboard displays, he had to take care which of his two cell phones was connected to which presentation. He cursed whoever had set up the meetings. He had accepted neither invita
tion; however, an instruction from his boss, relayed via MJ, had made it mandatory for him to be involved in both. He shrugged. Next time he would protest vigorously if someone set two meetings to run simultaneously and he was required to attend both.
He had managed to improve his meeting-switching expertise and routine when his office phone rang. He checked the caller ID. It was Roy Hoskins. That was the idiot from DHS who refused to help him with Zarina’s green card problem. He hoped the man burned in hell. He was tempted to ignore the call. Eventually curiosity got the better of him. He reached for the phone.
“O’Hare.”
“Hoskins. I thought you’d like an update. Your little Russian piece is no longer in our hands. She was transferred today to Army jurisdiction. They want to question her for spying or something. So don’t call us again, okay?”
“What?” O’Hare’s shout echoed off the walls of his office. “What shit are you trying to pull? The fucking Army has no jurisdiction over civilians.”
“I’m afraid they do if they’re illegal Russians who are suspected of criminal involvement with Army personnel. She has terrorist links, I hear. Your problem, not mine. Enjoy.”
Hoskins disconnected.
O’Hare stared at the now silent handset in total disbelief. The bastard Hoskins had stiffed him completely. He ignored the in-progress meetings, both of which had gone quiet except for the two meeting leaders each repeating his name. He had more to deal with than the safety of NSA resources in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. He hadn’t agreed to locate teams there—it was up to their project managers to sort it out. He shut down the laptop and disconnected it from all cables. He locked the NSA computer in its security cabinet and stormed out of his office. He didn’t know where he was going, he only knew he wanted out. He ignored his open-mouthed PA who watched him head towards the elevator bank.
###
Linda Schöner knocked softly on Maeve’s office door and entered at the silent invitation.
Maeve said as she removed her earbuds, “I was listening to a recording. We received an interesting tape of a conversation between Cromarty and a third party—we’re trying to identify the other person. What can I do for you?”
“I want to make a quick report. We had a good response from the banks involved in lending to O’Hare’s Delaware companies. The compliance manager for”—Linda checked her papers—“Barto Aviation Funding LLC, in particular, has provided copies of all their documentation. He’s had his team sifting through the fine print, and he thinks he’s found a breach for us to use.”
“Good to hear. Details?” Maeve sat back in her chair. She brushed a wave of hair back from her face.
Linda explained, “The loan conditions require a copy of the maintenance log and airworthiness certificate of the subject aircraft to be provided to the lender within ten days of the date of the granting of the certificate. That’s an annual requirement. The latest documents are two months overdue, so either the helicopter is out of airworthiness or O’Hare has forgotten to send the paperwork. We bought the loan thirty minutes ago, with the assistance of Barto, and we’re about to issue a default notice to the company, and O’Hare will receive a copy as guarantor. The notice will request repayment of the mortgage because of a breach of conditions. If the aircraft has not been certified airworthy, the failure is fatal to the loan. He’ll have seven days to repay. We’re also advising the FAA the aircraft may not be airworthy.”
“You are an evil player of the game,” Maeve said. “Will we be adding a helicopter to our assets?”
“You never know,” Linda replied. She handed Maeve some of the pages she was carrying. “A summary for you—the rest is available in our cloud, reference O’Hare. We’re using our attorneys’ address and they’re issuing the notice. We’re checking his house mortgage next; the mortgage on that is over a million dollars—that’s a lot of money, even for a senior NSA employee.”
“You still have your escort from the 145th?”
Linda frowned. She disliked the idea of having a team of MPs trailing her, especially after Schmidt had hauled them over the coals for their slow response to her attempted abduction.
She replied, “Yes, they follow me all the time. They are totally on tenterhooks—Schmidt must have ripped them.”
“Good. I have a feeling you’ll need them.”
###
O’Hare had barely reached his SUV when his cell phone buzzed. He checked and opened the message. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Someone—he’d find out who and ream them a new one—was claiming his chopper was not certified airworthy, and the current holder of the mortgage was demanding repayment of the loan. He had seven days to remedy the situation. He checked again. No, the notice required payment; it was the only remedy offered. He sat in the driver’s seat and fought to restrain the explosion of his temper. If his pilot—no, he couldn’t blame Ferguson, the responsibility was his alone. He’d arranged the annual inspection, he was certain. He’d have to check the documents when he got to his apartment. Or were the documents at his home in New York State?
His cell phone buzzed. It was Ferguson, his pilot.
“Yes, Fergo?”
“I’ve been informed by my buddy at the FAA that the chopper is out of certification. Did you forget? I thought Brown Aviation handled that?”
“Don’t you have the log book?”
“No, I handed it off to you—it must have been ages ago. Remember, you wanted to check with Browns about some requirement or other. I’m not sure what you were chasing—maybe a new transponder.”
“Damn. I’ll have to check with them. I thought it was done. The paperwork’s probably sitting on their desks somewhere. Take it easy, I’ll get back to you.”
O’Hare paced back and forth beside his SUV as he thumbed through his contacts to find the number for the aviation company. He made the call. He entered the extension for the sales engineer. The call went to voice mail. He disconnected and re-dialed. He pressed the required numbers for the front desk. That too went to voice mail. At this point he was ready to throw bricks. He returned to the driver’s seat and tried to force himself to relax. He re-dialed the number for sales engineer and left a message, hoping the man would return his call before the day was out. He could feel his fury building. He tried to swallow the bile that had forced its way into his mouth. Someone was going to pay and he was starting to suspect where the pressure was coming from.
Schmidt.
He punched the door of his SUV and cursed the surge of pain.
This was not part of the plan.
This was war.
Chapter 32
The helicopter touched down precisely on the center of the H landing pad at Camp Brewer. Schmidt signaled his thanks to the pilot after he removed his headphones. He exited the aircraft as the blades whined to a stop. Helen Chouan and her aide were waiting for him.
“General, welcome.” They exchanged salutes and Helen led the way to her office.
“Thank you. You received a report from Linda?”
“Yes, I did. That tape was difficult to watch.”
“She explained the code?”
“Yes. Her report was detailed. So we’re going on a trip?”
“Donnelly is meeting with the president, probably as we speak. She managed to get an urgent session for fifteen minutes. It should be enough time to get his authorization. Once I hear from Donnelly that the president has given us approval, I’ll meet with NSA, SECDEF, and SECARMY. These are tentatively scheduled for today if possible, otherwise tomorrow. Once everyone’s in the loop, I’ll talk to USSOUTHCOM to confirm plans with them. Local command, JTF-GTMO, is under the control of a rear admiral, so it’s a jurisdictional mess. We have to be cautious—O’Hare will have listeners who’ll report back to him if they hear about our proposals. I’m hoping we can cause him enough grief to keep him distracted. What’s your status?”
“I’ll have half the battalion available and ready to move within six hours. Oh, I know we’re not planning to
leave quite that soon; however, it’s good training. It’s not enemy action, so we’ll travel light. The other half of my battalion is on duties I can’t defer; protective details, for example. What will you do if we don’t get a go-ahead?”
“Resign, look for volunteers and mount my own raid.” He had to go through with the rescue.
“You’d be overwhelmed with volunteers. My people would step forward, to a man—and woman. Me included.”
“Thank you. I hope we don’t need to exercise that option.”
Helen laughed. “There’s a few thousand non-military Cerberus people with law enforcement experience who’d jump into a fire for Midway. I’ve heard we have over a thousand in police and FBI, and as many in other federal agencies. We can add military and ex-military—we’ve a couple of thousand ex-military on private security contracts, according to Maeve’s last status report. You’d have no shortage of resources to draw from.”
Helen stood at her office door and Schmidt indicated she should enter first. She sat behind her desk and Schmidt sat in one of her visitor’s chairs. It was passably comfortable.
“We’d be declaring some kind of war—that’s not the way to go. At least, as long as we can rescue Mark with the president’s approval for action.”
“I’ve arranged for three of my captains to join us in thirty minutes. One had a posting in Guantánamo for a couple of years so has good local knowledge. What do you want to cover first?”
“Transport?”
“We’ve two new Hercules C-130Js based here. The pilots have been eager for a long flight. We’re supposed to be testing an enhanced model for HALO action, using the wings RDEz developed. We’ve room for up to a hundred men in one aircraft, more than we need. We can use the second aircraft to carry vehicles. It would be prudent to bring our own. The aircraft will be ready when we are, guaranteed. The pilots tell me flight time will be closer to three hours and thirty minutes. They expect a headwind for the first half of the trip and the edge of a hurricane might hit as we get closer to our destination. They’ll confirm details when you lock in our departure time.”
Mark Midway Box Set: Mark One, Mark Two, Mark Three, and Mark Four Page 85
