by Fritz Galt
Then he pumped Jake’s hand in a strong, friendly grip. “Welcome to our home.”
Stacy’s mother was younger than her father. Slim and blonde, if she was anything like what Stacy would become in twenty years, Jake was there.
She hugged her daughter. “Slinky!” she cried, using as many as four or five syllables to say her name.
Then she turned to Jake.
“How are you, young fella?” She didn’t have a name for him, but he was sure they’d come up with one shortly.
“I’m Jake Maguire,” he said. “Glad to finally meet Stacy’s folks.”
The father was busy arranging tall stools in the well-lit kitchen, and they all sat around a counter sipping iced tea and talking.
Mostly, Jake listened to Stacy chatting about her trip and to her parents describing their summer travels to Dollywood and Hilton Head.
They certainly weren’t hurting for money. He spotted a white hardhat by the front door. Jake guessed they were in mining.
But Labor Day was upon them, and thoughts of work were far from the mother’s mind. “How nice to have a friend to spend the summer with,” she told her daughter. “You can’t let another year go to waste.”
Stacy blushed at the intimation that she and Jake were actually dating, but didn’t correct the misimpression.
Jake was caught in a dizzying moment when he realized he was Stacy’s friend as well as investigating her. It made him mildly uncomfortable, but he showed no sign of it to her parents. “She’s a great girl,” was all he said.
“Of course she is,” her father said, grasping Stacy by the shoulders and squeezing hard.
She beamed.
“And we’re so proud of her,” he continued. “Do you work in computers, too?”
“Naw. Hardly.”
“Slinky takes after her father,” the mother whispered to Jake, as if she didn’t fully approve.
“Is Jake more like his father or his mother?” Stacy’s father asked.
She stared at Jake. “I’ve never met his folks.”
Her mom fetched another pitcher. “More iced tea?”
“They live on the East Coast?” her father asked.
“I didn’t know my father,” Jake said. “He died in a helicopter crash in Vietnam. My mother lives in Florida.”
Her father nodded. “I was in the Gulf of Tonkin when we took on those destroyers.”
Jake was impressed. Her father was in Vietnam from the very start of the war.
“Where did your dad go down?”
“The Central Highlands,” Jake said.
The father shook his head in a hopeless way. “We lost many good warriors up there.”
Jake had no memories of his father, but the tragic event had cast a long shadow over his life, and probably even led to his career at the FBI.
His father’s remains had never been recovered from the jungle, leaving his mother and him with nothing but one huge question mark in their lives. He had long since doused any glimmer of hope that his father was still alive, but there remained an uneasy sense that he had never been properly laid to rest.
There wasn’t even a headstone for him at Arlington National Cemetery.
“Jake works for the FBI,” Stacy said, changing the subject.
“Oh!” Her mother sounded uncertain. She studied him as if trying to make up her mind if it was a good thing or a bad thing.
“Looking for some of those weed growers?” her father asked.
Jake smiled and shook his head. “Just here on a break.”
“We’ll make up a room for you,” the mother said, with a pleasant look that showed she had made up her mind that it was okay to have someone from the FBI staying in the house.
Jake took it as a sign that he was welcome, but wouldn’t be sleeping with Stacy.
Chapter 25
Jake awoke early that Friday. He crept around his bedroom at Stacy’s parents’ house and showered before his cell phone rang.
He pounced on it quickly before it disturbed the others sleeping in that wing of the house.
It was Bob Snow. “Bad news,” Bob began. “There’s been a murder in Louisville.”
Jake’s head was already clear, but suddenly it felt like he’d been given a whiff of smelling salts. “Louisville, Kentucky?”
“That’s right. Epstein just phoned me. Overnight, police hauled a suitcase out of the Ohio River. Inside it were the carved-up parts of a body.”
Bob paused, letting Jake absorb the horror of the crime.
“Turns out to be another employee at Quantum,” Bob said. “Another grad student who did encryption programming for the company.”
“Simon Wu was there,” Jake said.
“There? Where?”
“Yesterday morning, Wu told us he had business in Louisville. He drove west from Charlottesville around nine a.m.”
“Well, that pretty much seals it,” Bob said.
“Any prints?”
“Nothing’s come in to the lab yet,” Bob said. “But I think we know who to look for.”
“I’ll head to Louisville right away,” Jake said.
“I’m warning you. That’s Epstein’s business.”
“Let him stop me.”
“Jake, I’m telling you as your supervisor. Stay away from Louisville. Otherwise I’ll have to inform Epstein.”
Jake knew that Bob couldn’t cover for him forever.
“I’ll take that risk,” Jake said.
He was mad and he was going to Louisville. Someone had to stop the murder spree. It might as well be him.
The only problem with leaving Stacy was that she wasn’t awake.
Jake drove out of Bluefield feeling like he had let her down. He had left without saying good-bye to her or her folks. And he had left her without wheels.
But it was partially for her sake that he was going. He had to confront Wu.
So he followed the Stefansson tradition and left the family a note.
The road to Louisville led across West Virginia to Charleston. He crossed over and under bridges and then passed directly by the large, golden capital dome.
The sky was gray, and there was no direct sunlight to glint off the building, but it did catch his eye.
Soon he was following the river toward Huntington at the border with Kentucky. The drive remained hilly as he passed into Kentucky, but all signs of humanity dried up and he was left with forested hills for hundreds of miles.
He saw his first man-made structure an hour after crossing into the state.
The city of Louisville came as a surprise. Tall buildings climbed up from a river that was spanned by gracefully curving bridges.
His first task was to find Wu. His cell phone had lost coverage in the hill country of eastern Kentucky, but he had patched together some intelligence from the field office in Louisville.
Simon Wu had checked in with the field office and the local police the previous afternoon. And Wu had made a reservation at the Galt House. Aside from that detail, Jake had little to go on.
Jake was just passing the Galt House hotel when he learned it was Wu’s last known location. His car was running on empty from the long drive that morning, but he decided that filling the gas tank might waste time. He’d go to the hotel first.
The twin-tower hotel occupied a prominent location overlooking the Ohio River. Jake took a ticket and headed into the underground garage.
Nearly all the parking spaces were taken, but he found a spot for his car by the elevator.
He took the elevator up to the lobby.
Inisde, the hotel was dark, with people hustling out into a shadowy driveway where wind howled up from the river.
At the receptionist desk, he flashed his FBI badge at a young woman working there.
“Has a guest named Simon Wu checked out yet?”
The badge worked, and the woman’s fingers flew over her computer keyboard. “He’s booked for two nights,” she said.
That was strange. Why wasn’t Si
mon fleeing the scene of the crime?
“What’s his room number?”
At that point, she hesitated. “I can’t give out that information without a manager’s approval.”
“Then get your manager to approve it,” he said. He leaned back against the counter and surveyed the busy lobby.
While he waited, his cell phone rang.
This time it wasn’t Bob Snow or the field office in Louisville. This time it was Werner Hoffkeit, the Director of the FBI.
“Agent Maguire, as you know there have been several murders in the past few days. I can’t let the FBI have even incidental involvement in these crimes. I’m taking you off the case.”
Jake’s hand nearly froze to the phone. “Then who’s going to…”
“Nobody. We’re dropping the case.”
“But I was just getting to the bottom of it.”
“Tough luck. It’s no longer your concern.”
How could they just drop the case? “Was it something I did, or failed to do?” His head spun with possibilities. Maybe Hoffkeit had set him up to fail, but Jake thought he was close to solving Chu’s murder and getting to the bottom of the serial killings at Chu’s computer firm.
“You did fine. That’s not the point. Agent Maguire, I’m putting you on temporary administrative leave starting immediately.”
That did it. Jake was not dropping the case, even if the FBI was shoving him out the door. “Sir, there’s a serial killer on the loose.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“It’s my business if Stacy Stefansson’s life is in danger. She’s my witness.”
Jake could hear Hoffkeit scowling. “I want you to turn in your badge and gun to the field office this morning. You will have no authority within the FBI from this moment on.”
“How about the Commerce Department’s threat assessment? Levels Three and Two had been breached. You said so yourself. And Stacy’s the last line of defense against a complete hack of the internet.”
“I’m sorry it has come to this, but for the sake of national security, you’re now a private citizen.”
“You’re firing me?” he said, the fact finally sinking in.
Hoffkeit hung up, and Jake got the idea. He had either massively failed or gotten too close to the truth, or someone had gotten to Hoffkeit.
It was time to follow Hoffkeit’s advice from the first morning they met. It was Jake’s job to kick in doors and bend some rules.
There were two sets of elevators in the lobby, and Jake had been watching the doors of those that traveled down from the tower.
He spotted a small Asian man emerging from the elevator that came up from the parking garage.
It was Wu, a cautious look on his face as he stepped into the lobby.
Private citizen or not, Jake wasn’t going to let the guy skulk around without answering a few tough questions. For that matter, he resolved to pursue the case to its very end, no matter what.
He pulled his pistol. “Stop right there.”
Seeing the gun, Wu jumped back into the elevator and pushed a button.
Jake sprang to the elevator.
The door closed.
Jake spotted a stairwell leading down to the garage.
Before heading there, he checked the elevator indicator. Wu had stopped at the first garage level.
Jake ran down the stairs to the first level and looked around. Not far from Jake’s sedan, a sports utility vehicle peeled out of its space. Wu flashed him an alarmed look from the driver’s seat.
Jake had his keys ready and jumped in his car to follow. With fuel low, the engine coughed, but started.
Wu’s SUV was just passing the garage attendant’s booth when Jake lined up with the exit. The arm was lowering in front of him.
Jake started to reach for his wallet, then realized he couldn’t waste time dealing with the attendant.
He gunned the engine, ducked under the dashboard and bashed through the gate.
There was no spray of glass, just a crack straight up his windshield.
Jake’s car vaulted onto the street, and he looked around.
The SUV headed away from the river and turned at the first intersection.
His engine sputtering, Jake accelerated straight into the intersection and turned after Wu’s car.
Tall buildings that housed the financial nerve center of the region stood at attention as Jake floored it to keep pace with Wu. They passed an old church, some parking lots, and Wu cut a sharp turn away from the river. Jake was ten car lengths behind, following every move.
Clearly Wu had taken the same course in evasive maneuvering that Jake had taken. Both knew and used every trick in the book, and Wu wasn’t getting away.
There were some residential streets when they passed through Smoketown, but Wu weaved out and back past a state-of-the-art hospital run by the University of Louisville.
Jake wondered if Wu knew where he was going.
A long straightaway sent the two cars through numerous intersections on a streak of green lights. They were heading toward the airport.
Jake checked his fuel. The needle lay motionless in the red.
He needed to bring Wu to a halt before his car quit. And an on-ramp down to the highway would let Wu get away.
Against all rational instincts, Jake floored the accelerator and met up with Wu just as he veered onto the ramp.
Jake cut his wheels into Wu’s path, and the two cars skidded down the ramp, and turned back into oncoming cars heading for the highway.
Dodging oncoming cars, Wu steered at reduced speed back up the ramp.
In Wu’s wake, Jake caught up quickly and rear-ended him repeatedly until he pulled into a large corporate facility.
Again, they faced a guard booth with a lowered arm. This time, it was Wu who slammed through the gate, splintering wood in all directions.
Jake was just yards behind.
They sped into a massive parking lot. It was a flat, corporate complex with a huge warehouse in the back. Jake caught the name of the place: UPS Worldport.
An airplane was landing parallel to their cars.
They were at UPS’s distribution hub.
Wu zigzagged through the parking lot with nowhere to exit. Jake coaxed the accelerator, but the engine hiccuped and nearly stalled.
To avoid endless circling, Wu aimed for another traffic gate. He rammed through the wooden arm and raced across a flat, open area buzzing with all the ground traffic of an airport.
Several dozen UPS planes were nosed up to three loading terminals. Wu sped past curved containers that were being unloaded from the planes by scissor-shaped lifts. There was no way out between the airplanes, as Jake successfully preempted all attempts to circle out of there.
So Wu pulled up to the enormous, four-story building at the end of the loading area and jumped out of his SUV.
Jake’s car gave a final cough, lurched forward and died. He threw his door open and followed on foot.
Wu seemed to have no idea where he was heading, and bolted in a random direction to get away. They were in a colossal spaghetti bowl of conveyor belts. Parcels rushed past them faster than a man could run. Tubs carried odd-shaped parcels down long chutes.
Wu climbed onto a wide tub gliding past on a track, and lost his balance. The speed of the railway prevented him from regaining his feet in the tub and climbing to the other side. He remained in the tub that moved quickly away from Jake.
Jake hopped onto the rails and fell into the netting of a tub that held a six-foot-long parcel.
Wu gained no distance on Jake, nor did Jake gain on him. They ducked under the red eye of scanning equipment and held on tight as the tubs were directed onto new sets of tracks.
He and Wu were transported toward adjoining tracks that paralleled each other, then dumped them into a holding area where college-aged men and women wearing gloves and hard hats manhandled the packages into cargo containers.
Jake jumped to the ground and lunged for
Wu.
But his feet shot out from under him. He had stepped on some sort of spinning wheel. The whole floor was one giant surface of ball bearings. Workers were hauling one-ton containers across the floor with ease.
Jake picked himself up and stepped between the ball bearings after Wu, who was also struggling to gain traction.
The containers were being pushed into position to haul out to the planes. Jake might lose Wu if he got free on the tarmac.
So he slammed into a moving air cargo container with all his weight and pushed it toward the exit where Wu was headed.
The container picked up speed on a slight descent. Soon it was travelling faster than Jake could move. He aimed it straight for Wu and shoved it in that direction.
He came to an ungainly halt on the spinning balls, and watched the trajectory of the box.
Wu turned and saw the fast-approaching container a second before it struck him.
He jumped out of the way just as the container crashed into the exit.
Cornered, Wu scrambled along the far wall, but found no exit.
Jake pulled out his pistol and aimed at Wu’s chest.
“Show me your hands, Simon.”
Slowly Wu gained his full height and raised his hands.
“A gun!” one of the cargo handlers shouted.
Jake heard the sound of footsteps as handlers headed for cover.
He also heard cargo containers piling up.
“Who are you?” Wu said, with anger and a tremor of fear in his voice.
“I’m from the FBI,” Jake said. “And I’m onto you.”
“The FBI? Then why are you following me everywhere, and chasing me all over the country? Are you trying to kill me?”
“Don’t act so innocent,” Jake said. “I’m going to turn you in for a whole raft of murders.”
“What murders?”
Jake was thrown by the defensive stance. He’d heard people plead innocence, but rarely ignorance. “Try the murders of Han Chu, Jason Yang, and the engineering student here in Louisville. You were present in each city during the time of the crime. Your fingerprints were found at the scene of the crimes. Try fighting that in a court of law.”
