Chasing the Captain

by Terry Shepherd

  “Shit,” Ali muttered. “How universal is this thing?”

  Andy shrugged. “Who knows? But my guess is that your Russian friend is working for some entity that would benefit, either politically or financially, from social upheaval and economic chaos.”

  An agent interrupted the conversation. “Excuse me, Mr. Riemer. We think we’ve found the device they are using to connect their servers to the fiber cable. Do we have your permission to remove it?”

  Ali saw CJ and Andy exchange wordless communication.

  “Are you sure that dish is still out of commission?” CJ finally asked.

  Andy tilted his head. “Only one way to find out.”

  CJ nodded to his associate. The agent disappeared back into the building.

  “How many more of these nodes do you think have this little technological gem in their equipment racks?” Ali asked.

  Andy pointed to his laptop, still chugging away on the roof. “That guy should be able to tell us. A network is a network, and now that we know enough about how your friend has set his up, we should be able to get a list of devices, perhaps even locations.”

  At that point, a klaxon sound effect from Star Trek—The Next Generation wailed from the speakers on Andy’s computer.

  “Uh oh,” Andy said, scampering up the ladder.

  Ali watched his eyes scan the screen. “Yup. I was afraid of that. The box in the rack phones home via the fiber, too. They know we’re here.”

  Ali barked a command. “Out of the building, everyone. Now!”

  Andy disconnected his laptop from the dish and scampered down the ladder.

  The SIS vehicles faced away from the structure, drivers already behind the wheel with engines running. The group piled in. Wheels spun, tossing dirt clod rooster tails in their wake as the team put distance between themselves and the blockhouse.

  “Did you get the box?” Ali asked, shooting a glance into the back seat of her SUV, where Andy and CJ sat.

  CJ held up a nineteen-inch by two-inch object. “Hopefully, this thing isn’t full of explosives, too.”

  Ali didn’t want to take the chance. She grabbed the device, tossing it out the passenger window.

  Andy Milluzzi’s eyes were glued to his laptop screen. He spoke like a NASA flight controller, counting down to liftoff.

  “Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”

  As Ali looked out the back window. The building and everything in it exploded.

  65

  The American Center—Moscow

  The American Center was the ideal venue to dangle some tasty bait in front of Vladimir Prokofiev’s nose. It was located at the Embassy and was the one place in Moscow where American Culture could be publicly celebrated.

  Jessica Ramirez stood behind the podium in what might have passed for a quiet library back home.

  The title of her talk, “The Local Police Officer Who Crushed a Hacker,” was titillating enough to draw a capacity crowd.

  She could see Michael standing at the back of the room, arms crossed, unsmiling. She also recognized several Embassy security people dressed in casual clothes that did nothing to make them blend into the mix of ex-pats and locals who filled the room.

  Jess was not a natural public speaker. Somewhere along the line, she had learned to lock on to a friendly face in the crowd and pretend she was talking one on one with that individual. Here, about as far from Paloma as one could get, everyone looked like a criminal.

  Tonight, Jess knew that, at last, the good guys had a competitive edge. Ali’s message had reported that she knew Prokofiev’s exact location, a restaurant less than two miles from the American Center.

  Despite the explosive incident in Cornwall, Andy’s trackers still had The Captain in their crosshairs. MI6 had a strike team en route to take Prokofiev into custody.

  Jess’s job was to keep his attention focused on her until that team could steal into the country.

  “I’m Jess Ramirez. I’m a first-generation American-born US citizen, the first in my family to go to college and the only one crazy enough to become a cop.”

  That line always drew a smattering of laughter and broke some tension.

  “I live and work in a place called Paloma, Illinois. It’s a river town on the Mississippi. Author Mark Twain passed through several times, and some say he got the idea to write Huckleberry Finn while fishing on the banks of what is now the Paloma University campus.”

  Jess motioned to a staffer who dimmed the lights slightly. A tiny projector flashed her slides on a screen behind her. Dim, but not dark. Bad things could happen in the dark.

  “Last year, I got into a little trouble at work and earned a bit of a vacation, something you all might call a ‘suspension with pay.’”

  More laughter. The crowd was connecting with her.

  The image on the screen changed to show the sprawling magnificence of the Grand Canyon.

  “I decided to visit my uncle. He’s the sheriff who shares jurisdiction with the National Park Service over this beauty. He was dealing with a serial killer, and being a nosy girl, I got involved.”

  A couple of people in the audience nodded, possibly remembering the news coverage of what became an international headline.

  Jess looked for that one friendly face and saw one that was familiar. It would take a moment for her to conjure up its identity. Her focus was on the speech, not on the man. But Jess decided he would get her constant eye contact.

  “It turned out that our bad girl was also a computer genius with designs on doing some pretty bad things. Tonight, I’ll share that story and how we could stop her.”

  Jess told Vega’s story in as much detail as she was allowed, how the woman dispatched her murder victims by tossing them off the canyon’s rim, how she created a computer virus that infected the statewide police computer network and how she nearly destroyed the New York Financial District.

  The audience seemed mesmerized. Tears appeared when Jess talked about her father’s murder. And there was applause when she concluded her narrative with the stunning single combat that had taken place in the Arizona whitewater in the dead of night.

  The burly male face Jess had picked as her personal connection wore the hint of a smile. His open-collared shirt and blue jeans didn’t seem part of the memory she was trying to bring back to the front of her mind.

  “So what did we learn, ladies and gentlemen?” Jess concluded. “Danger often dresses in casual clothing and looks like the girl next door. We can protect our tech with complicated passwords, virtual private networks, and vigilance, but the bad guys keep getting smarter, and we need to keep getting smarter, too. Like putting more weight on the barbells at the gym, it’s about continuously building our strength, increasing our knowledge and developing a strong situational awareness.”

  Jess pressed a remote control to bring up her last slide. It was a picture of children playing in a park.

  “These kids will ultimately know more about technology than any previous generation. It’s our job to create a world where they can use it responsibly and safely. Thank you all for coming tonight!”

  The wave of applause felt good. Once she had launched into her tale, Jess forgot about where she was and her dislike for being the center of attention. She was a woman on a mission. This was just a necessary tactic to hopefully get the job done. Affirmation for her work was icing on the cake, a brief sugar high she knew would quickly evaporate, but still, a moment worth savoring.

  The Center’s director stood and turned to the audience.

  “Are there any questions for Detective Ramirez?”

  That was when the lights went out.

  Michael Wright knew that the building had emergency generators. Despite Russia’s copious natural gas reserves, power outages in the country were still a thing.

  A glance out the windows told him that the streetlights still worked. There was power feeding the adjoining buildings. This darkness was deliberate.

  The security team spread out
like spiders, weapons drawn, flashlights on.

  “Breaker box,” one shouted to the director. “Where is it?”

  Beams of luminescence danced around the room. The crowd wasn’t hysterical. This was Russia. Things like this happened. They calmly stood, pressing toward the exits.

  A moment later, the lights came back on. The room was nearly empty, except for a smattering of guests and armed embassy men pointing handguns and flashlights in every direction.

  Michael looked at the empty podium area. Fear grabbed at his throat as his eyes darted around the venue, and realization dawned.

  Jessica’s cell phone and ID badge rested on top of the podium. But she was gone.

  66

  Tallinn International Airport—Estonia

  The 1960s era Antonov AN-12 transport plane lumbered off the single concrete runway at Tallinn Airport on the outskirts of the Estonian capital city. The aircraft usually required a crew of five, but tonight only two were flying her, carefully selected local contractors who wouldn’t attract attention when they filed a cargo flight plan to Moscow.

  Alexandra Clark and Liyanna Evans looked exactly like their MI6 wet team counterparts, dressed in black paratrooper garb, strapped into the hard plastic seats that lined the outer bulkhead of the aging cargo plane.

  “What are the chances that the Russians will figure out what we are trying to do?” Lee asked Ali.

  “Cargo flights from Estonia to Russia are not uncommon,” Ali answered, checking to make sure that the special satellite phone Andy had built for her was in working order. “If we suddenly see a couple of MiGs on either side, we’ll know that things are about to get interesting.” She checked her watch. “Just give us two hours, Lord.”

  Ali replayed Director Gerhardt’s personal briefing at Heathrow.

  “You will depart Tallinn for Moscow, where the wet team will parachute into the outskirts of the city, retrieve the subject and depart on a Boeing CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter that already has take-off clearance to return from an airshow that took place earlier this month.

  “We purposely delayed its departure on the chance that an operation like this might develop and your only challenge will be to elude airport security and board the aircraft undetected.”

  Gerhardt made it sound easy. Ali knew that this would be the most dangerous part of the extraction plan.

  “An RAF aircraft carrier will await you in the Baltic. The Russians don’t like it, but we run exercises there this time of year, so a re-fueling stop won’t draw undue attention.

  “Under no circumstances are any of you to fall into enemy hands. You all have self-destruct devices that will vaporize your body and anything within fifteen feet into virtually undetectable particles. If that eventuality occurs, make sure you take as many of the enemy with you as you can.”

  Gerhardt turned his wheelchair to face Lee and Ali.

  “You are all aware that this is a voluntary assignment. If you’re having any second thoughts, now is the time to voice them.”

  Ali remembered stealing a glance at Lee and exchanging shrugs.

  “Fine. Board your aircraft, and good luck.”

  Alexandra Clark patted Lee’s knee. “Any regrets?”

  Lee smiled and shook her head. “None. My life became a lot more interesting the moment you walked into it. I don’t know a single detective inspector who’s visited Russia, let alone with a device that can turn us both into sand through an hourglass in a nanosecond.”

  “I always focus on the future in situations like these. It keeps the fear at bay,” Ali said. “What do you want to do when we get back?”

  It was Lee’s turn to touch Ali’s leg. “The same thing we did before we left.”

  Moscow

  Now Jess remembered the face that she focused on during her speech. It was the customs guy from the airport. Michael had interacted with him, too. Why didn’t he make the ID?

  Perhaps he did. The goal was to put her in harm’s way. That had worked out perfectly.

  This time, metal handcuffs secured her wrists to the wall of the van. Her captor had manacled Jess’s ankles and knees. Gray duct tape covered her mouth, leaving her nose as the only airway.

  The burly Russian sat in the driver’s seat at the front of the unmarked van that Jess knew would take her to The Captain.

  “No cell phone this time, shlyukha,” he said, looking back at her handcuffed form. “I could have killed you myself at your little speech. You will wish I had after we get to our destination.”

  Jess ran the calculations in her head. If everything went as planned, she wouldn’t be the only American greeting The Captain tonight.

  A voice she knew well whispered into her ear.

  Things like apologies and affection do not come easily to me. But I hope that in your heart, you know how proud I am of you and how much I love you.

  Her father’s phone message, recorded in the moments before his death, echoed from that part of her brain that held every suppressed memory from a lifetime of compartmentalization.

  She pictured her mother, sister and grandmother, relaxing on the beach in Cancun, Secret Service agents discretely watching over them.

  She thought of Ali and the decade of friendship they shared. She wondered if her partner were on board the aircraft she knew was wending its way toward Moscow with the elite team on board who would either take Vladimir Prokofiev back to London for trial or kill him on the spot.

  And she thought of Michael Wright. Of Jess’s many suitors, Michael was clearly above and beyond. She replayed his drug-addled marriage proposal in that Phoenix hospital bed and the two very different nights of passion they had shared.

  The physical attraction wasn’t the issue. Could she ever give her heart to one man? Jess could feel the chain around her neck and pictured the beautiful golden star with its three blue stones woven inside, swinging back and forth as the van bounced Jess toward her destiny.

  Was what she felt for Michael true love?

  Jesus, Jess. Focus! The game is just beginning. Where is your professional discipline?

  Then another voice from the past spoke to her. The vision of her father’s face morphed into an innocent man strapped to an electric chair.

  God, forgive me for my sins. I surrender myself to His will.

  67

  Research Lab—British Secret Intelligence Services / MI6—London

  In the bowels of MI6 headquarters, CJ Riemer and Andy Milluzzi looked at the eviscerated black box they retrieved from the wreckage of the fiber node in Cornwall.

  CJ squinted at the circuit boards. “This is way too simple, Andy. It’s just a control interface, addressable to one or more devices.”

  Andy Milluzzi scratched his chin. “The brains must be in the server. If only we could break into that CPU.”

  “It could be anywhere,” CJ mused, looking at a visual depiction of the worldwide Internet on one of the lab’s flat screens. “A true needle in an enormous haystack.”

  Andy studied a second screen. The Captain’s cell phone icon blinked at the same location in Moscow. “Could it be that simple?” he murmured.

  CJ focused on his American counterpart. “What do you mean?”

  “Is The Captain stupid enough to have the brains of this whole thing that close by?”

  He punched a couple of keys to change the visual from a graphic representation to the latest spy satellite scan, hitting the enlarge command again and again to zoom in on the roof of Govyadiny Moscava. “See the satellite dishes? We know that the place is dead center on the fiber path that winds from the Kremlin toward the Baltic. Is the server in that little restaurant?”

  CJ lit up like a sparkler. His fingers flew across the keyboard. “We’ve identified the other node locations. There are only four. If I ping them with the same bogus packets, they should phone home.”

  A red dot appeared at four points on the Mercator projection of the world. A series of crimson lines flowed from the nodes toward one central location,
illuminating Govyadiny Moscava with a pulsing yellow circle of light.

  “Bingo,” CJ whispered. “That’s the nerve center. Take that facility out and we negate the threat.”

  Andy held up a palm. “Before we do that, how about trying to hack the place and grab as much code as we can?”

  CJ continued to bang the keys. “Way ahead of you, mate. We had better work fast. Looks like things are about to heat up at Moscow Beef.”

  Andy focused on the video depiction of the city, zooming out to visualize the location of the blue arrow at the top of the screen. A tiny aircraft icon appeared, heading straight for Moscow.

  Between the American Embassy and Prokofiev’s flashing icon, another image was moving inexorably toward the restaurant.

  “That’s Officer Clark’s team,” Andy said, pointing to the plane. “But what’s this other icon?”

  CJ glanced up from his work only long enough to confirm the ID. “Your friend, Detective Ramirez, seems to be converging on Comrade Prokofiev, too. I’d say she’s about five minutes out.”

  Andy wiggled a finger. “And the blue icon behind her?”

  “That’s Agent Wright.”

  68

  Moscow

  A discrete distance behind the battered van that held Jessica Ramirez captive, a Russian UAZ Hunter tailed an American Embassy vehicle that followed in pursuit.

  A plainclothes security guard was behind the wheel. Michael Wright’s eyes were on his cell phone screen.

  “Yup. She’s headed to the lion’s den.”

  The driver concentrated on dodging traffic without losing his target. “I’m sorry about the personal vehicle. Director Taylor insisted on...” he paused to get the words right. “Discretion where his friend, Agent Wright, was concerned.”