by A P Bateman
He cut a number of metre-long sticks, fastened them with the cord and lined the frame with the rest of the bark sheets. It did not take long and he had a small and discreet A-frame shelter which would afford him a sanctuary from both rain and hostile eyes.
The fire was burning nicely and had glowing embers to each side of the rock. The pieces of meat were sizzling and had turned from a dull blue-white, like a raw tiger prawn to a brilliant white like steamed chicken breast. Stone cut into one and it was the same colour all the way through. He took that as a good sign and hooked all three pieces out with the knife and laid them on a piece of the bark sheet. He sliced another three pieces off the carcass and noted the huge quantity of flies that had gathered. The meat would spoil in the heat soon, and he would have to find a way of drying some of the meat into jerky or biltong if he was going to benefit further from the kill. He put the second helping of meat on the hot rock, banked up both sides once more with large branches and sticks and sat back to his meal. He was ravenous and devoured the first steak quickly. He had never previously eaten crocodile or alligator, or whatever the hell it was, but was surprised how good the meat was. A little like chicken and lobster in the same mouthful. It was good and he worked through the meat in no time. He drank plenty of water down, but it was lime green in colour and he noticed a few bugs swimming in the bottom. He didn’t dwell on it, previously experiencing food poisoning and feeling that much of what people felt was psychosomatic. He felt he had literally thought himself ill in the past. He would maintain a positive attitude and wait for illness to strike. Hopefully it wouldn’t, but if he did not maintain his fluids then he would become ill anyway.
He sat back and stretched. He was full, satisfied. He would wrap up the steaks when they finished cooking and eat them later. It was pure protein, so he would be hungry sooner than if he had eaten carbohydrate. He was starting to reflect how he had dominated the situation and had either found or created food, water, fire and shelter when he noticed how low the sun had become. There was less than an hour until dusk by his estimation and he was amazed at how quickly the day had gone. But he had everything he needed. He wrapped up the meat, left the fire starting implements next to the fire and made his way back to the shelter. He had no idea if the smoke from his fire had been seen by the person who had killed the warrior, but he was not going to take the chance of somebody seeing the flames in the darkness. The fire would soon die, and he was confident that he would cut some untainted meat from the crocodile in the morning. Then he would travel further and see if he was indeed on an island. If he was, then hopefully he would see more islands and set about making a raft or paddle board from what he could find.
As Stone nestled into the shelter with his cooked crocodile meat wrapped in the bark he settled down in the gloom and noticed the glowing eyes in the trees once more. The fruit bats, or whatever they were, had settled into the trees for the night, but he had not noticed them come in to roost. Their eyes were unnerving. He would try and get one with the spear tomorrow and carry it to his next camp. He could see the flies buzzing around the crocodile’s carcass in the light of the fire. He hoped he would be able to salvage some of the meat, but perhaps the smaller fruit bat would be a safer bet.
He sipped a little of the water out of a sheet of bark. It did not hold much, and he noticed that it was leaking. He closed his eyes as he sipped the tepid liquid and pretended that it was coffee. The thought spiked a memory of drinking coffee with Kathy. He did not know how long ago, but the memory was vivid and fresh.
15
Stone had got the coffee on and poured a couple of cups. It wasn’t as refined as Kathy’s professional barista machine, but it was hot and strong and the cream was fresh. Stone had some seniority and UHT cartons did not make it up to this floor.
Kathy was pale. Her Asian descent gave her a little paleness, emphasised by her jet black hair, but grief and shock tended to have a paleness all of its own. Her hands shook a little too.
“God, that was horrible,” she said. She did not look up from her cup, which she nursed between both hands.
“I’ve never seen much like it either,” he lied. Stone had seen many things. Although he had to admit, it had been the last thing he’d expected. “Those dogs have your back, that’s for sure.”
“I don’t know what to think,” she said quietly. “I don’t want them harmed, but… won’t the authorities want them destroyed?”
“They were defending you.”
“I know, but part of me even thinks it would be for the best,” she sniffed, close to tears. “I mean, they killed a man.”
“A man who tried to shoot me. A man who hit you, who would have killed you after he had killed me. For sure.” Stone sipped his coffee and opened his laptop on the desk in front of him. He put in the flash drive and opened the next file. “How much of this have you read?”
“Most of it. Edwards had more. He was really excited about what he had. This was what was prompting him to talk about the paper publishing a book, or serialising a large piece.”
“Did you get to talk about what he discovered?”
“No. He was cryptic.”
“And it involved military veterans,” Stone mused. “The money is significant. Our tech guys will get on to it. They handle all the Treasury Department’s work, they’re good at what they do. A team are on route now. If it can be found, these guys will find it.”
“Where are they?” she asked.
“They will be here soon. A team of close protection operatives are bringing them in. They’ll work from the computer suite downstairs. They have the most powerful hardware and the fastest secure internet connections.”
“Why are they under protection?”
“The tech guy I called from your house was killed on his way in.”
“That’s awful!” she held her hands to her mouth. “Was it connected?”
“That’s what we need to find out. Washington PD are on it and I’ve had a team of Secret Service operatives sent over to liaise with them.”
“What happened?”
“Carjacking gone wrong,” Stone said a little tersely.
“And you don’t think so?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Stone put down his coffee and turned back to the screen. “He had a pretty shitty car.” He shrugged. “A family run-a-bout with scratched paint and dings all over it. Curbed wheels, the lot. A Porsche or a Range Rover is one thing, but a well-used Prius? Open-topped roadsters in the summer time are the main cars to get jacked.”
“It’s late summer,” she ventured.
“It just feels wrong. Nobody jacks a Prius.” He opened another file and stared at the screen. “Besides, the man was trained to a basic field operative level, which meant he had plenty of range time under his belt. He knew how to use a firearm, and use it well. Recent terror level alerts have made it compulsory for all of our support staff to carry a loaded weapon, at all times. On or off duty, and especially commuting to work.”
“It can still happen.”
“No doubt. But a carjacking is one thing, a professional hit is quite another.”
“And you think it was a professional hit?”
“Yes. In light of what happened at your place,” he paused as she flinched at the thought. He knew she’d never see those dogs in the same light again. “I used your phone and I think they listened to my conversation with him and moved quickly. They have the resources and they have the motivation. Which means they know we are now in possession of the files and have probable cause to look into it further and shut down their operation. So we need to get moving on this and work out what Edwards had.”
“And we need to find him,” she said. “Which, in light of what has happened, seems less likely than it did earlier this evening. Finding him is our priority.”
“If Edwards is still alive, then there’s every chance he soon won’t be…” The phone on Stone’s desk rang and he picked it up. He spoke briefly then repl
aced the handset and turned to Kathy. “The tech guys are here.”
They walked down the corridor and took the elevator down the four floors to the computer suite. Stone swiped his card to access the room. There were cameras covering all the angles and Stone knew that the footage was time-stamped. Stone’s security clearance was at the highest level and he had access to most departments. Kathy was under Stone’s umbrella as part of his investigation, but she was lucky to be with Stone, and lucky at the lateness of the hour. He may well not have got her in the building in the middle of the day. Not without a mountain of paperwork, at least. The building was quiet at night and there were less officials walking the corridors. The investigation was not yet official, and Stone had used a lot of resources so far. He would have a lot of talking to do tomorrow. But he had always found it easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission. He did not like to think that his tech guy’s death would help him, but if he was honest with himself it would seal the deal when it went before the chiefs. The Secret Service would be on it like a limpet until the end now. They didn’t like to lose one of their own.
They turned around as a man entered the room. He was clean-cut and smart, but a little geeky. He was younger than Stone by almost a decade, and young enough to carry off a little quirkiness to his dress sense. To Stone he looked like someone wearing a school uniform, but under extreme protest. The shirttails untucked, the tie a little low. But it had been fashioned so, and as the man walked across towards them, Stone noticed the trouser hems were high and Bart Simpson looking up at him from one of his socks. Comic Book Guy was on the other and Stone imagined the man having time off for Comic Con every year. The man held out his hand, Stone frowned, shook it and stared at the man’s tie. It was a novelty reference to MS-DOS computer systems. Stone lost interest before the punchline.
“Max Power,” the man said. “I’m the team leader. Pleased to meet you, Special Agent Stone.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“No,” the man smiled. “I really am pleased to meet you. Your reputation is the stuff of legend.”
Kathy smiled. Stone looked back at the man. “Max Power?”
The man smiled. “It’s John, really. Maximillian is my middle name, after my grandfather. On my mother’s side. Power was thanks to my dad. I got to college and suddenly thought Wow! The girls will love this! And did the ‘ole switch-a-roo to my middle name. shortened it to Max, obviously…”
“Obviously,” Stone interrupted.
Max smiled. “And there it was…”
“An instant hit,” Stone smiled.
“Well, more or less. A bit less,” Max said. “Well, actually, a lot less…”
“But it’s an interesting anecdote,” Stone smiled. “This is Kathy Newman. She’s the reason you’re here.” The two nodded to each other. Kathy was smiling. She’d obviously enjoyed Max’s anecdote a little too much. “We need to get down into the dark web.”
“How deep?”
“As deep as it gets,” Stone replied. He handed Max the USB and nodded to the file on the desk. “We have a missing computer and web specialist; we think as a result of what he found there. We need to find out the what, where and who behind it. It involves missing US military veterans and many of them had deposits of between five and twenty-five grand deposited into their accounts shortly before they disappeared.”
“By the same account?” Max frowned. “That would be sloppy.”
“It looks to have come from a veteran’s charity, though not one I’ve heard of.”
“So what aspect of the dark web are we dealing with?” Max inserted the USB and started tapping keys. Stone barely saw what the technician had typed. “A charity wouldn’t route accounts and transactions through layered web. They are on the surface, clean and accountable. Do you have your key-in card, agent Stone?”
Stone fumbled for his wallet. He pulled out an orange card similar to a credit card and gave it to Max.
“This will help you,” the technician said, keying in the digits. “I’ll route everything to your cloud which means you will also be able to view what I find on outside terminals.” He smiled. “Plus, if I uncover a shit-storm, it will have your computerized fingerprints all over it. That will hopefully still allow me to draw a service pension.” He handed the card back to Stone. “Here, tap in your user ID.” Stone did so and as he stood back, Max’s fingers went much the way as a concert pianist’s. The screen flashed and the front page of a program, or what looked like an app appeared and Max clicked through to the search bar.
“We are interested in what these veterans were paid for. My guess is that Edwards, the computer expert, found something either shocking or potentially ruinous for somebody, hence his excitement and cryptic reasoning that his fee should change and that my paper could serialise a piece or publish a book about it,” Kathy said, watching Max’s progress intently. “Edwards was talking about it like he was wired.”
Max nodded. The screen in front of him looked nothing like Google and his search keywords were written like strings of programming code. At least that’s what it looked like to Stone. The searches were fast though, and Stone remembered hearing somewhere that the Secret Service’s mainframe was as powerful as anything that the NSA or NASA had at their disposal.
Stone looked at Kathy. She was leaning on the desk studying the screen. The reflection played in her glossy eyes and seemed to make them sparkle. She was concentrating and pouted a little. Women simply shouldn’t be this good looking. How the hell was a man to get things done in their vicinity? He was staring a little too hard, a little too concentrated when she looked up at him. She frowned at first, then smiled when he snapped back to it. The smile was warm, and her lips parted a little to expose brilliant white, perfectly straight teeth. Orthodontist work through her teenage years; nothing natural was ever that good. Stone looked at the screen, then glanced back and saw she was still watching him. The smile was coquettish and she leaned ever so slightly into him as she turned her eyes back to the screen. She was almost touching him now. It had been left up to Stone to close the gap.
16
Stone looked up into the trees but there were no signs of the fruit bats. He hadn’t seen them fly into the trees and he hadn’t seen them leave; but he had seen their sinister looking eyes watching him through the night. A reddish, amber glow that unnerved him and snatched at his chances of sleep, and with it brought fear of what else was out there, unseen and deadly. The death of the warrior had unnerved him. He was tired and his head throbbed like a bad hangover. He was thirsty again, almost constantly so. He recognised the signs of dehydration, and he knew he had not drunk enough, but the bugs and larvae had put him off and he knew he needed to purify the water somehow. He had been lucky, he had not been ill through the night, but if he continued to drink dirty water then it would only be a matter of time. Perhaps if he got the fire going and put in some rocks and waited until they were hot enough, he could drop them into the water traps and boil the water that way. Yes, he was sure that would work. A few rocks would raise the temperature adequately and kill the bugs and bacteria. He had a plan, and that was enough to raise his spirits once more.
Stone froze, suddenly aware of movement across the pond. The man stood at the fire and kicked at the embers. He was tall and fit-looking and wore khaki safari trousers and a vest jacket. He carried an old Springfield M-14 rifle with a large optic on top. Stone couldn’t identify it from his distance of sixty metres or so, but the scope was a powerful wide-angle model with at least ten-times magnification. The rifle was obsolete, but was still in service with US Navy SEALs and Marine Recon snipers, and a favoured mid-range sniper weapon for the rest of the military. It was a heavy rifle with polished wooden furniture, but chambered in powerful 7.62x51mm NATO calibre. It was a semi-automatic weapon with a twenty-round magazine. Stone had been equipped with one for a three-month tour of duty in the Secret Service’s advanced security detail; scanning rooftops as a counter-sniper and waiting for the Presid
ent and his motorcade to arrive. He had spent plenty of time on the range with one and knew what it could do in capable hands. Which was why he was still sitting motionless and not intending to move until he watched the man further.
The man crouched and touched the ashes of the fire. He rubbed them between his thumb and forefinger and the dust crumpled and fell to the ground. The man took notice of the drop. Stone figured he was gaging wind direction and speed, as well as the temperature of the burned-out fire. He stood and took off his floppy hat, held it up to the sun and looked at the sky. Stone felt a shiver run up his spine and tingle at his neck. The man was a hunter. And Stone felt sure he was the prey.
The man’s movements were minimal. He strode over to the crocodile’s carcass, prodded it with the muzzle of the rifle. A cloud of flies dispersed and buzzed around his head. He crouched down, wiped a finger on the exposed meat and then sniffed his fingertips. He stood up slowly and looked at the ground around him. Stone noticed the machete attached to his belt. Could that have been the weapon to take the warrior’s head? Stone was sure of it. The thought had crossed Stone that the man may be a rescuer. Someone who knew of Stone being stranded somehow and was searching. But the evidence of the camp would have brought on an attempt to make contact. Surely the man would call out Stone’s name? Use a radio or cell phone to contact other rescuers?
The man would know that Stone was close. The kill was only hours old and the fire would still have some heat to the ash. Stone wanted to know for sure. Wanted to make contact. Wanted to see the man’s intentions.
The man studied the ground and dropped down on his haunches. Stone watched, knew that the man was starting the process of tracking. He was searching for a tell. A broken twig, ground into the dirt to point to the weight of the footstep and the direction of the pressure behind it. Or a toe print. A pressing heel – something to give a sign to the next clue. Stone knew that some people were extremely good at this skill, and once they found a couple of tells, they would be off like a bloodhound that hit the scent.
