One step to go. Using the information gathered during my recon mission, I added icons for the tunnel cameras and the big bad door, which was not represented on any of the architectural drawings.
When I looked at the time, I was surprised to see it was after 10 p.m. I had been working on this model for nearly eight hours. "Jimbo," I said, "hit the road, man. I got this."
Nichols looked up from his book and yawned. "Thanks, but I'm supposed to stay."
"If you get in trouble, I'll tell them I made you go. Now get out of there."
He threw me a little salute. "Sir, yes sir!" He stood, stretched, and left.
And that was exactly what I wanted, no chance of anyone looking over my shoulder for what I was about to do. Carte blanche. That's what Jacob Allen had said, and I have a theory regarding authority: Use it before you lose it.
SINCE I NOW HAD THE key to unlock the secret backdoors in the Decker Digital routers, I could do a lot of exploration inside the SPACE data universe. According to my model, a locked steel panel I had photographed on the tunnel wall concealed a router, even though the network diagram from IT didn't show that it existed. I logged into the router and started querying. I suspected I knew what was connected to it, but I wanted to know. Soon I did. That router was the connection point for the cameras in the tunnel. Damn skippy, and a bonus to boot. I had counted six cameras in the tunnel. The router had an even dozen connected to it.
I put the video feed from the cameras on my screen and quickly accounted for the six knowns and three of the extras. Each of the offshoot tunnels had a camera I hadn't been able to see from the main tunnel. That left three. My three amigos. Unlike the other nine, which were all looking at dimly lit sections of service tunnel, each of the three amigos was looking at a brightly lit corridor. Not a tunnel for trucks. A corridor, a hallway, for humans to walk through. In each view, the corridor was similar, raw concrete, low ceiling. I could see enough differences, however, to know that the three amigos were looking at three separate corridors. I was almost certain these corridors were inside the unallocated space. Too bad Decker Digital didn't make network cameras with built-in geomagic. No worries. I'd eventually figure it out; I had that wonderful tingle dancing all around the edges of my psyche that told me I was closing in.
In addition to the cameras' video feeds, the router also provided me with the manufacturer and model of the cameras. I jumped online and found an app on the manufacturer's website that would accept the cameras' output and record it if I so chose. I so chose, but I set it to record only when a camera detected motion in its field of view. Once that was done, I chose a viewing grid that showed me all twelve cameras on one screen. Only then did I notice that the three amigos were different in another way. Each had a tiny gear icon in the corner of its viewing pane. I clicked the gear on the first amigo and a control panel popped up with four arrows. One up, one down, one left, one right. It also had a plus sign and a minus sign. I clicked the left arrow and the view moved. The three amigos had remote pan, tilt, and zoom. And I had control of it all.
CHAPTER 54
NEAR TUNICA, MISSISSIPPI
MAX SULTANOVICH
MAX STOOD at the window of his suite and watched the first sliver of sun edge above the distant horizon. This bastard land was so flat, it looked like he could see a hundred miles. When the sun was fully risen, he went to the telephone and ordered breakfast for himself and Tatyana. A few minutes later, he heard a light knock on the door and found a USA Today newspaper slid beneath the door.
He picked it up, sat on the sofa, and unfolded it. Before reading, he brought the paper to his nose and smelled the ink, something he had done since he was a boy. According to the headlines, the Arabs and Jews were fighting. Some news that was. They could all kill each other down to the last man, woman, and child, and the world would be better off as far as he was concerned. The American stock market had a good day. Fine by him. He made money if it went up. Made money if it went down. Some teacher was in trouble for slapping a pupil in Ohio. Give her a promotion. About half these ingrate American children needed to be slapped, punched, and kicked. When he turned the page, he saw a headline that held his attention.
FBI QUIET ON CASE INVOLVING MYSTERY CAPTIVES IN MISSISSIPPI
WASHINGTON - Aside from confirming that the investigation is now being handled directly by FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., the FBI today offered little new information on the Mississippi case of nine women who apparently escaped captivity from a hunting lodge near Casino Center, an area that is home to numerous casinos in Tunica County. An FBI spokesman would say only that the investigation is ongoing. He refused to comment on the identities of either the victims or potential suspects, despite repeated questions from members of the press in attendance.
MAX STOOD WITH THE NEWSPAPER, crushed it into a wad, and walked across the room to drop it into a trashcan. It said nothing. This could mean they knew nothing. This could mean they knew a little or knew a lot. FBI bastards. He hated them, every one.
CHAPTER 55
SPACE
I WOULD HAVE PREFERRED to put this update off until I knew more, but I went to Jacob Allen's office first thing the next morning, to get it out of the way. When I walked into his lair of leather and wood, I found not only Jacob waiting, but Brandy Palmer as well. Swell. Who doesn't enjoy dealing with a queen bitch first thing in the morning? I nodded a greeting to the two of them, then got down to business. Didn't bother sitting first. "Jacob, I've identified the source of the hacks."
Both their faces went on high alert. "Of our machines, or the broad scheme you told me about?" Jacob said.
"They're one and the same."
Palmer: "Who is it?"
"Let me rephrase," I said. "I've found the location the hacks are coming from."
Jacob: "And?"
I handed him the document I'd brought with me, which was a printout of one of the architectural drawings. I had highlighted the wireframe rendering of the unallocated space in red and slapped a bull’s-eye icon on it. "There," I said, leaning over his desk and pointing to the bull’s-eye.
It lasted the tiniest of moments, but for that half second or so, Jacob looked like he'd been gut-punched. Then the droopy-eyed, unflappable Jacob was back. He stared at the printout for thirty seconds without saying anything, eyes locked on the document, lips pooched out like he was prepping for a duckface selfie to post on Facebook. Then he looked to Palmer and said, "Brandy, excuse us, please."
She scrunched her eyebrows down, her lips parted. "Jacob?"
"Please, Brandy. Just go."
And in a huff of drama and Botox, she was gone.
"For some reason," I said, "this area of the building seems shrouded in mystery. Nobody knows what it is, what it's for, who's in there. I know what's happening from there, but if you want me to really get to the bottom of this, I need information."
Jacob raised his hound-dog eyes to mine. Puffed his cheeks out. Exhaled. "This," he said, with a stab at the bull’s-eye on the document, "this is a time-bomb. It's been sitting down there, ticking, ticking, ticking, and now it's about to blow a mountain of bullshit all over us, all over me."
He stood, leaned over his desk, hands on his beautiful blotter, eyes down. A good two minutes passed. When you need answers, the best strategy is often to keep your mouth shut and let the other person fill any awkward silence, so I said nothing, although I did sit down in one of his leather wingbacks. When he finally stood upright, he walked over to a credenza that had a crystal bar service on top. He set aside two glasses, pulled the top from a decanter, and poured. I could smell the Scotch from my seat. I hate Scotch, just like I hate every other kind of whiskey. No, that's not true. I hate Scotch much worse than other kinds. But when he returned and handed me the glass, I took it.
I needed information and wasn't about to break the flow of what was happening. Because of what I had heard from Bert Addison, the facilities manager who didn't know what was in the bowels of the facilities he managed. Bec
ause of what I'd seen with my own eyes in the tunnel. Because my gut told me this case was all about this unallocated space. Because I had expected Jacob Allen to clam up or freak out or something when the subject was broached. Most of all, because once I start a case, I must solve it.
Jacob and his once-again pooched lips eventually made it back to his chair and sat. After a deep draw from his glass, he removed a coaster from a holder on the desk. Put the coaster on the desk. Carefully situated the glass atop it as if he were handling nitroglycerin instead of a foul-smelling liquor.
"Sam," he said, "this goes no further, understood?"
"That's a given."
He gave a little nod, took another drink, repositioned the glass on the coaster. "In addition to my duties as general counsel, I own…a small minority stake in the company."
I took a sip of the liquid crap, said nothing, waited.
"I got that stake by working my ass off to put this deal together, securing investors, handling the logistics. I spent five years on it before anyone ever heard of SPACE." He took another drink.
I waited.
He continued: "It took three years to build this place, so we're talking almost ten years of my life tied up here. Anyway, I had everything lined up. The money. The designs. Every damned thing there was. I had already struck the deal to buy this land, had paid millions for an option to keep it off the market until all our funding was in place."
This time, he didn't sip when he picked up the glass. He killed it. I pretended to sip mine, unable to stomach another swallow of the rot.
"At the last minute, when we exercised the option and were ready to close the deal on the land, ready to start building, the bullshit started."
Jacob looked up at me. I raised my eyebrows in anticipation, urging him on without words, which might distract.
"The land was owned by a European holding company based in Frankfurt, or so all the paperwork said, all the title searches, all the research. When it was time to sign the deal, though, guess who turned out to be the real money behind this 'German' holding company?"
I picked up the start of a slur in his words, not much, but enough that I thought he was now on a roll. Safe to engage. "Not the Germans?"
"Hell, no," he said. "Ukrainians. Scratch that. One Ukrainian. Any guess what the most corrupt country on the planet is, Sam?"
"Ukraine?"
"You got it. We're at the closing, I mean literally sitting around the conference table, me with a cashier's check in front of me for forty-six million dollars, ready to slide it across the table. In walks this old husk of a man, looks old enough to have drunk Stolichnaya with Marx. Guess what he said?"
I shrugged and faked another sip, threw in a little slurp to make it sound good.
Jacob stood, headed back to the credenza. "I need another drink. And you are not going to believe this shit."
CHAPTER 56
NEW YORK
COURTNEY MEYER
"TOM, I was on the phone and swapping emails with Balderas until three a.m. This is the best we can do, and it's worth it." She took another sip of coffee, held eye contact with her boss, Special Agent in Charge Thomas Belt.
"I don't know, Court. If these guys are legit—"
"Everything checks out. I think they are, for the most part."
Belt raised an eyebrow. "The most part?"
"Gamboa, the woman, she's hiding something, but that's covered in the agreement. If we find out she lied, her immunity is null and void."
"Letting them walk is a huge give," Belt said. "Sounds like Maslov and Zuyev are up to their eyeballs in this thing, and, Christ, Zuyev's record in Eastern Europe reads like a horror movie. I'd like to know just how the hell he was ever allowed to set foot on American soil."
"It's not like we're used to making deals with shining examples of the human race, Tom."
She stayed focused on Belt. He was the key. Not the little weenie of an Assistant U.S. Attorney who had sat there for the whole meeting without uttering a word. Meyer couldn't even remember his name. Belt had the clout to make the deal happen, and everybody in the room knew it.
Belt steepled his fingers, elbows on his desk, propped his chin on the steeple. "And the girl?"
"Christine Gamboa," Meyer said. "No record, nothing, I think she's incidental."
"Maybe," Belt said. "But why is she here?"
"She's scared, hanging with Maslov, hoping he can protect her."
"But that's my point, Court. Why does she need protection?"
Meyer shrugged. "She won't give details without the deal, only that she stumbled onto information that put her in danger."
Belt wheeled back from his desk, stood, and stretched. "It smells like a pig in a poke to me, but if you're convinced, I'll go along with it." He paused and looked at Weenie. "What do you think?"
Weenie straightened his tie and cleared his throat. "Well, I see one major problem."
Screw my deal up and you'll be the one with a major problem when I toss your scrawny ass out that window. "What's that?" Meyer said.
"Let's pretend it all goes as planned. You get great evidence, build an airtight case against Sultanovich."
"That's my plan."
"What are you going to do with it? The old man is in Kiev. What makes you think Ukraine will hand him over? For that matter, who knows who's actually making the calls over there? The Ukrainians? Or Putin? He's not exactly our closest friend at the moment."
Now she had him. "It's irrelevant," she said. "Max Sultanovich landed in Memphis last night. He's in the presidential suite at the Magnolia Star Casino, just outside Tunica, Mississippi."
CHAPTER 57
SPACE
JACOB KILLED another hefty glass of the liquor before continuing, and by then the slur was pronounced. "This old man—his name is Maxim Sultanovich—nodded to one of the gaggle of lawyers on their side of the table, and this guy pulled out copies of a new purchase agreement and slid them around the table. I asked for an electronic copy so I could quickly find the changes. Guess what those changes were?"
I shrugged. "No idea, but I'm betting they didn't favor your side of the equation."
"That's putting it mildly, Sammy. You mind if I call you Sammy?"
Okay, he was fully lit. "Not at all."
"Good, because I feel like I can talk to you, Sammy."
"I appreciate that, Jacob. I try to be a good listener." Truth? I worked hard to become a great listener. Hearing and interpreting tiny details has saved my life more than once.
Jacob went on: "The changes he made are to this day the most bizarre thing I've ever seen in a real estate transaction. Hell, in any transaction! You see this damned space you've got highlighted, this 'mystery area' nobody knows anything about?" This came with three knuckle-raps on the document.
I nodded.
"He refused to sell that exact space. The thousand or so acres around it? No problem! Mineral rights? No problem! Hell, get this, Sammy: He didn't even have a problem selling the ground and sky above that space. Just that one narrowly defined area, which is underground. That's it!"
My face no doubt registered confusion. I picked up the document and looked at it for a moment, then laid it back on the desk. "He only wanted to keep that little rectangle of ground, and even then, he just wanted the portion of it that runs from twenty feet below ground, down to forty feet below ground? That's what you're saying?"
"Bingo! Is it not the dumbest bullshit you've ever heard in your life?"
"It's way up there on the list. I assume you went along with it?"
"Had no choice," Jacob said. "Oh, and he also demanded that the space be built out to his specs, and that we give him free everything in the way of service. Power. Internet. Infrastructure."
"And let me guess," I said. " No one is allowed to enter the area?"
Jacob pointed a wavering finger at me. "Gonna start calling you Bingo Boy, ’cause you just hit another one, Sammy."
BRANDY PALMER
IT FELT LIKE FOREVER,
but the hillbilly finally left Jacob's office. Palmer walked back into the inner office and found the lawyer sitting behind his desk with a drink glass in one hand and an almost-empty liquor decanter in the other. "Jacob?" she said. "Are you drunk?"
He looked up at her as if he hadn't heard her come in and didn't particularly care that she had. He raised the decanter to eye level and squinted at it. "I'd offer you a drink, but I want it all for me."
She stared at him, her brain trying to make sense of this scenario and failing. "What in hell are you doing, Jake?"
"It's all gonna come down on my ass." He picked up the decanter again. "Or more likely on my head, I suppose. Hard for something to fall straight onto the ass, wouldn't you agree?" He burst out laughing.
"What's coming down? Tell me what's going on, Jake!"
"It's that old bastard. That old commie bastard. I knew it, knew it all along." He looked like he was about to cry.
Palmer walked around the desk and took both the decanter and glass from him. She took them to the credenza, then returned to Jacob and took his face between her hands. "Jake, what are you talking about?"
"Sammy. He's my only hope, you know?"
"Sammy? Are you talking about Flatt? I warned you at the beginning not to hire that countrified hick. What has he done? "
He burst out laughing again. "Done? He'll save me, you'll see. You'll s—" His head flopped straight back. He was out.
Palmer pulled her phone from her purse and started to dial. Changed her mind. Put the phone back, dug around, came out with another one, a basic little flip-phone. She dialed a number from memory and put it to her ear. A few seconds later, she said, "Not sure yet, but we may have a problem."
CHAPTER 58
SPACE
I OPENED the surveillance app that had recorded the cameras in the tunnel and the unallocated space overnight. I told the app to show me the segments in which motion occurred in any camera's field of view, hit PLAY, and settled back with my cup of Jelorian Java to enjoy the show. I watched mundane traffic in the tunnel for the first few minutes, then a more interesting clip made me sit up.
Unallocated Space: A Thriller (Sam Flatt Book 1) Page 14
