The Kill Chain

by Nichole Christoff

  With the help of Rappaport’s phone and a GPS satellite, we did. We followed a dirt track that would do the trick. And running dark, we went off road not long after, cutting along the edge of a field plowed in anticipation of the growing season.

  All the while, the tower served as a landmark, growing large as we grew closer.

  When we were behind it, and a scrim of woodland blocked our further progress through the field, I slipped from the car and into its border of spring undergrowth.

  “Jamie?” Rappaport called to me, his voice little more than a whisper. “Be careful.”

  I nodded solemnly and ducked beneath the branches of a white pine.

  From my earliest childhood, my father had worked to instill certain skills in me. And from my teen years, he’d insisted I develop the ability to navigate in the woods. It was something he’d easily acquired growing up in the forested Midwest. Moreover, it had kept him alive through his tours in Vietnam. Admittedly, I’d never be a master of the craft. I’d leave that to guys like him and Matty. But I could hold my own, and without being seen and without making a sound, I advanced on the clearing where the panel van sat by the powerhouse.

  Now the cellphone tower rose above me like a skyscraper. Its footprint occupied prime real estate. Before it, the ground fell away in a steep slope. Behind it, a cinder-block structure, no bigger than a glorified outhouse, crowded one of its four mighty feet.

  Two heavy black cables, as thick as my arm, swooped from the little building. They threaded the center of the tower and ran right to the top. One of them would be a power cable, feeding the tower from the generator grinding away behind the cinder blocks. The other was a bundle of fiber optics. Its insulated casing had been printed with its carrying capacity in yellow ink.

  Chain link surrounded the whole shebang. It marked the place as off-limits. And just in case that wasn’t clear, posted notices hooked to the fencing helped spread the word.

  High Voltage.

  Keep Out.

  The van continued to idle just outside the fence. I dropped to the ground, lay flat behind a fallen log, and could make out two men sitting in the front of it. Half a platoon could’ve been crammed in the cargo space of the back.

  The vehicle bore no signage or identifying marks. Only the license plate labeled it. Pulling my burner phone from my coat pocket, I snapped a quick pic of it.

  Off to my right, deeper in the woods, a twig snapped in half. The sound was way too close and much too loud. Adrenaline shot through my system. I rose to a crouch, my heart rate amped, ready for fight or flight.

  But a budding hawthorn shivered. A hand brushed a low branch aside. A man nodded to me from the cover of the trees.

  That man was Barrett.

  In a combat crawl, he joined me.

  The van’s driver swung his door wide. He stepped down to the ground. And my breath caught in my throat.

  Senator Grady Einhorn looked ridiculous in pristine white coveralls. A new leather tool pouch hung from his hip. A painter’s cap covered his hair. This was a fat cat’s version of what a working man was supposed to look like. And I didn’t know who Einhorn thought he was fooling with his getup, but it certainly wasn’t me.

  Barrett pressed his mouth to my ear.

  “Is your father into horses?” he whispered.

  I shook my head.

  Not so much, I thought.

  “What about cell towers?” he asked.

  That’s when the van’s passenger emerged. To my shock, it was my father. He wore broken-in hiking boots and twill pants fit for the woods. His chamois shirt was the color of old wine. It would camouflage him against the coming night’s shadows.

  I wondered if he’d planned it that way.

  Up the hill strode the person from the house. As she neared, my pulse pounded. She was Madeline Donahue—also known as Sarah McDermid.

  She smiled to see the men waiting for her.

  “Good evening, gentlemen. Thank you for being on time. I appreciate punctuality, you know.”

  “I remember,” my father said.

  A note of bitterness clung to his voice.

  “Cut the chitchat,” Einhorn interrupted. “Sinclair here has come to terms.”

  “Fantastic.” Madeline beamed. “Did you bring what’s required?”

  Einhorn reached beneath the van’s seat. He withdrew a brown-paper packet the size of a throw pillow. He handed it to Madeline—and I was willing to bet it was chock-full of cash.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll deliver promptly.”

  “When?” my father demanded.

  “Right now, if you’ll accompany me to the stables.”

  My father shook his head. “I can’t be seen down there.”

  “Why is that, James?”

  My father held his tongue.

  And Einhorn opened his mouth.

  “We know what goes on down there,” he snapped. “We know your assets are busy. And we know you’re piggybacking on this hunk of junk like we built it as back channel just for you.”

  By we, he meant the United States Government.

  And the hunk of junk was this cell tower.

  Worst of all, Einhorn’s supposition was entirely possible. Madeline, it seemed, really had an engineer’s education even if she’d assumed another PhD’s identity. It would take nothing more than power, cable, and a homemade transponder for her to imbed a broadcaster at the top of this tower. With enough juice, she could crank out hertz at a frequency that most Americans would never notice as they went about their daily lives. AM radio stations might have reason to complain about interference, and so would ships at sea.

  But some of those ships wouldn’t be our own.

  They’d be sitting in international waters just off our own shore, waiting to receive coded messages from Madeline.

  Any complaints about noise infringing on another broadcaster’s frequency would be filed with the FCC. Einhorn’s buddy Farnsworth would hear about them. And I strongly suspected he’d shared the info with Einhorn.

  In that info, Einhorn saw an opportunity.

  I just wasn’t sure what that opportunity might be.

  Madeline laughed at Einhorn’s false outrage. As she tossed her head in the twilight, I saw what Niilo had seen in her, and maybe what my father had seen in Sarah. To two lonely men, Madeline looked like light and life and love.

  But I was about to find out she was the opposite of all those things.

  “Come down to the stables or don’t,” she said. “It’s not my daughter you want me to clear of murder charges, James.”

  Chapter 35

  Barrett’s hand closed over mine.

  And that’s when I realized I was trembling.

  The past week had begun to make sense now. Madeline had had other irons in the fire. She’d conned Niilo and used her position at Stellar Unlimited to infiltrate the hush-hush Maryland lab. There, she’d given robotics expert Robert Fraley the come-on and corrupted soldier Dylan Pruitt. She’d arranged for the theft of a classified government project, the CubeSat, and she’d attempted to sell it at the arboretum.

  But that wasn’t all she’d done.

  Those endeavors were just the tip of the iceberg, as Rappaport had said.

  Because all the while—and maybe for years—Madeline had been a spy, industrial and otherwise, collecting information and beaming it, probably to a foreign power’s shipboard receivers. Senator Grady Einhorn, with his bluff and bluster about his concern for the integrity of our communications infrastructure, was alerted to Madeline’s activities by his pal, Mitchell Farnsworth, and he used FCC info in his dirty work.

  Had Einhorn realized Madeline was Sarah renamed and that she’d dated his nemesis, my father, once upon a time? I couldn’t know unless I asked him. But in any case, he hadn’t hesitated to pay her
to destroy him.

  And that’s when things had gotten messy.

  Madeline had drawn me in, pleading fear of Fraley and making up a complete fiction about his history at Stellar Unlimited. Worst-case scenario, I would’ve ended up as an accessory to the sale of that stolen CubeSat to a hostile nation, rogue state, or nongovernment actor. But upset that the government’s human lie detectors had tried to leverage Barrett’s relationship with me to force a confession, I went after answers from the only man left standing at that point: Fraley.

  At his home, I’d inadvertently placed my fate in Madeline’s hands.

  When I’d put the fear of God into Fraley, Pruitt had panicked. He’d attacked me, and I suspected Fraley had attacked him in my defense. Meanwhile, Madeline, witnessing my arrival, left her heap of a car in the alley, entered Fraley’s through a bedroom window, blindsided Matty, and set me up for a charge of second-degree murder.

  Einhorn had done his part to frame me, too, by feeding the false story to Kenneth Jones in the guise of a scoop. Madeline had arranged the evidence, pressing my prints to Fraley’s laptop. And with that ammunition, she’d blackmailed my father into running for office to set up a sure win for Einhorn.

  My father had done her bidding. But only to clear my name. That’s what he’d meant last night when he told me the dark cloud of charges wouldn’t dog me much longer. He’d already capitulated to Einhorn’s wishes. My father had stepped into the role of the less-than-worthy contender to make Einhorn look like the best choice to voters—and then agreed to accompany him here to get the evidence that would exonerate me from Madeline’s own hand.

  I’d been the start of her kill chain. My father was meant to be the end. But so far, no one had managed to bring us down.

  And then Madeline said, “Bring the van down to the stables. You gentlemen will need it. But you shouldn’t have worn white, Grady. The bloodstains will never wash out.”

  Einhorn looked a little green around the gills when she said that.

  And my father seized him by the collar.

  “You son of a bitch,” my father seethed. “If you’ve hurt Jamie, I’ll kill you.”

  Trembling, Einhorn let loose with a roundhouse punch. He clocked my father in the ear. My father seized Einhorn’s arm. He used the man’s own weight against him. With a smooth move, my father threw Einhorn to the ground—and then he pounced on him, pummeling him with both fists.

  “I’ll kill you…” he grunted. “I’ll kill you…”

  Einhorn curled into a ball, covered his face with his hands. But that didn’t protect him. My father’s fists slammed into Einhorn’s soft middle, the vulnerable small of his back, and the tender side of his head.

  Revulsion twisted Madeline’s lips. She tucked the brown-paper packet under her arm. And withdrew a small, silver pistol from her pocket.

  She aimed the pistol at my father’s head.

  No!

  I bolted from my hiding spot. Startled, Madeline swung the muzzle of her gun toward me. Without a single thought for my own safety, I rushed her.

  Seizing Madeline’s wrist, I forced her arm skyward. But she knew what to do about it. With a twist, she turned into the move.

  With a jab to my solar plexus, Madeline knocked the breath out of me. Concentric circles of radiating pain coiled around my rib cage. And my grip on her wrist grew slack.

  “Military police! Drop the gun!”

  Barrett had drawn his service weapon. He leveled it at Madeline. Not that she cared.

  She swung her arm wide, brought the pistol up, and jabbed into my gut. If she got her way, I knew what would happen next. And that knowledge made me brave.

  I planted a foot behind her heel, grabbed her by the throat, and shoved. Madeline landed flat on her back. The gun flew from her hand.

  On the ground, a few feet away, Einhorn began to keen.

  My father kept beating him, landing blow after blow. This was a bare-knuckle brawl. And though they were the same age, Einhorn was, in many ways, an old man.

  “That’s enough!” I shouted. I dropped to my father’s side, tried to pull him off his fellow senator. “I’m okay! I’m all right! He doesn’t have me locked up in the stables!”

  With one last slap to Einhorn’s bloody cheek, my father staggered to his feet. He shook me off. He was breathing hard and his hands were like hamburger.

  And then semiautomatic gunfire burst from the woods behind us.

  Tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk!

  Chapter 36

  “Cease fire!” my father ordered, as if the shooter would obey him.

  I shot a glance at Barrett. Had he come through the woods as advance man for McIlvoy’s team? Or was that gunfire the sound of Shelby bringing up the rear?

  Tuk-tuk!

  Tuk-tuk!

  This new barrage had me diving for the dirt. My father scrambled behind the van’s engine block. Barrett seized Madeline by the scruff of her neck. He forced her onto her stomach, protecting her, but wary of her, too.

  Tuk-tuk-tuk!

  Now I worried for Rappaport, a city boy alone in his car. He was here because I’d asked him to be. And just then, there was nothing I could do to help him.

  A crashing through the woods made me hold my breath. I peered through the dusk, couldn’t see much. And then a voice called to me.

  “Jamie! You must tell your friends not to struggle!”

  “Niilo?” I didn’t dare stand quite yet. “What are you doing here?”

  But even as the words came out of my mouth, Madeline burst out laughing.

  And the bushes fluttered with Niilo’s approach.

  At last, he emerged from cover. His twill jacket was loden green, his trousers bark brown. And the gun in his hands was a flat-black AR-15, the equivalent of a military-grade M16.

  Niilo, Enid had said, admired form and function.

  In his grip, he held both.

  “Jamie,” he said. “I am impressed. You did not activate your phone, so I could not trace you as I intended.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m just a bundle of surprises.” I took a chance, rose to one knee. “So, what’s going to happen here, Niilo?”

  Madeline took that as her cue to slough off Barrett. She grabbed for his M9. He rolled into her, not away, pinning her arms to the ground.

  She cried out in surprise and pain.

  And Niilo aimed his black barrel at Barrett.

  “Wait!”

  Jumping to my feet, I charged Niilo.

  He swung his weapon at me.

  I froze mid-stride.

  “Take the gun of your friend,” he ordered, letting me ponder the depths of the AR-15’s bore. “Bring it to me.”

  But that was the last thing I wanted to do.

  Slowly, I approached them. Madeline lay behind Barrett, like a cute couple spooning. I crouched before him, looked him in the eye. Mutual understanding passed between us. We’d wait for our moment—or we’d make one.

  I collected his handgun, removed it from his and Madeline’s joined hands.

  Keeping my body between him and Niilo’s angry AR-15, I delivered it as directed.

  “You know,” I told Niilo, “for a genius, you aren’t very smart.”

  Niilo stuffed Barrett’s weapon into the waistband of his trousers.

  “There are more things to this life than great knowledge,” he told me. “More things than money and power. There is love.”

  “You may be here for love, Niilo, but Mads would rather have the rest of it.”

  The corner of Niilo’s mouth twisted wryly. His chuckle was soft and low. Madeline had him well and truly snowed.

  Behind me, I heard Madeline scuff the ground as she regained her feet. Barrett did the same. Einhorn moaned softly where he lay, but I couldn’t see my father.

  “Did Mads call
you?” I asked Niilo. “Did she beg you to come rescue her?”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the woman.

  That fresh face of hers was flushed with exertion—and had narrowed with shrewdness.

  I turned to Niilo again, tried to ignore the gun in his hand. In a stage whisper, I said, “Did she tell you her name’s really Sarah? Do you know she makes money exploiting lonely men?”

  Niilo shook this off. “We are together, she and I. It is an understanding we both share.”

  “You’re alone together,” I reminded him. “Soon, you’ll just be alone.”

  Deliberately, I looked heavenward, at the grand cellphone tower. Behind its antennae, the last light of day faded from the sky. Red and white safety lights beamed their well-meant warnings.

  And that likely wasn’t the only signal the tower sent.

  “Mads can’t stay in this country, Niilo. She’s stolen top-secret material. She blackmailed a senator. And she murdered a soldier.”

  I hadn’t witnessed the crime. But in my mind’s eye, I could picture Madeline Donahue clobbering Matty before stealing down the hall to beat down Fraley as he stood over Pruitt. If not for that man, I might’ve been the dead one, throttled when Pruitt panicked.

  “Prison sentences are long for crimes like those,” I said.

  “My attorneys are excellent,” Niilo boasted.

  “I’m sure they are. But Madeline doesn’t want to take that chance. Hell, she doesn’t even want to sit in a cell to await trial.”

  I pointed to the mighty cell tower, its lights throbbing now at the brink of nightfall.

  “You weren’t the only one she called, Niilo.”

  “You have no knowledge of this.”

  “Oh, but I do. And so does the FCC. Foreign powers, intelligence agencies, your professional competitors…Madeline Donahue’s been calling the highest bidder for several years now, and selling them secrets. Even your secrets.”

  “This is not so.”

  “She gets close to a source. Then she uses him for her own ends.”

  Niilo smiled wistfully.