Sins of the Titanic (A James Acton Thriller, #13)

by J. Robert Kennedy

  Dawson’s eyes narrowed. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Hey, it sounds like bullshit to me, but two people are dead, the agent I sent was shot twice, and two people were taken hostage.”

  Okay, not a joke. “Where is Acton now?”

  “The professors were both arrested at the scene. My guess is they’ll be released after it’s shown it was self-defense, but here’s the rub. Their friend Milton told the woman who shot Sherrie that they had been arrested.”

  “Sherrie? As in Sherrie White?”

  “Yeah. Oh, that’s right. I forgot you worked with her before.”

  “Yeah. Good agent. She’s fine?”

  “She will be but I don’t think she’s secure.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Boots on the ground. I’m on the other side of the planet, heading into hell itself tomorrow, so I’m going to be out of the loop in less than twenty-four hours. I need to know this is being handled.”

  “Don’t worry about it, I’ve got it covered.”

  “Thanks, buddy, I knew I could count on you.”

  “No problem. Next time you buy the beer though.”

  “You got it.”

  “For all of us.”

  “Are you shittin’ me? I’m a public servant!”

  “Hey, I’ve seen enough James Bond movies to know you’ve got some tucked away for a rainy day. Well it’s about to start raining, my friend.”

  “You’re a cruel, cruel man, Mr. Dawson. But you save my friends, you’ve got a deal.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “Hey, baby, who you on the phone with?”

  Dawson chuckled, the sound of a woman’s voice clearly audible on the other end. “Hell itself, I presume?”

  “You’re a sick, sick man. I’m letting you go now.”

  “Good luck in hell.”

  Annapolis Police Department, Taylor Avenue, Annapolis, Maryland

  Katz looked up as the door opened, a man in a suit, probably a detective, stepping inside, two uniformed officers directly behind him. She picked up the jamming device, slipping it into her pocket.

  “We’re ready to go here,” she said, but she knew immediately something was wrong, the two uniforms each with a hand on their holster.

  “Can I see your ID please?”

  Katz circled the table, pulling out her badge wallet and flashing her ID. “Special Agent Willow, Homeland Security. And you are?”

  “Lieutenant Mitchell.” He held out his hand. “And I’m going to need to see that.”

  “Why? What’s going on here?”

  “Special Agent Willow, we have reason to believe you’re an imposter.” He stepped forward, as did the two officers still in the hall. “Now I must insist. Your badge.”

  Katz looked at him for a moment, her mind quickly playing out what would happen over the next sixty seconds.

  She liked the outcome.

  Her hand darted out, her knuckles crushing the detective’s windpipe almost instantly. As he dropped to the floor, grabbing for his throat, gasping for breath, she pulled his weapon from his shoulder holster and flicked off the safety, burying two bullets in each of the officers, then spun toward Acton.

  “Let’s go.”

  Acton stood, staring at the bodies for a moment until she reached out and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, hauling him out of the room. She fished out her cellphone as an alarm sounded.

  “Get in here!” she shouted as soon as the call was answered, then shoved it back into her pocket as she hauled Acton toward the secure door. A door to her left opened, a detective stepping out to see what was happening. She put a bullet in his head then almost smiled when she saw who was sitting at a table inside.

  Laura Palmer.

  “Professor. On your feet, now!” She pressed her gun against Acton’s head and the woman’s eyes widened. She leapt to her feet and rushed into the hallway as the heavy thumping of MP5’s sounded from the other side of the secure door. “In front!” She pushed the two professors ahead of her then reached down and grabbed a second weapon, turning around, her back to the secure door, as she opened fire on anything that dared look into the hallway.

  A buzzer sounded and she heard the heavy clicks of the secure door unlocking. She glanced over her shoulder and saw two of her men enter the hallway, their MP5’s raised as they aimed down the hall.

  “Let’s go!” She turned and grabbed the two professors by the back of their shirts and pushed them through the doors, her men opening fire, covering their six. They exited the building quickly, their SUV at the bottom of the steps, the doors already open, her driver revving the engine. “In the back!”

  She shoved the married couple toward the open rear door, her men still firing at anything that moved, then climbed into the passenger seat, slamming the door shut. She pointed both guns at the entrance, emptying the magazines as her men dove in the back, the tires chirping as the driver floored it.

  Not exactly as planned.

  But it didn’t matter. She dialed her phone, someone picking up immediately. “Jam them, now!”

  “Done.”

  She looked over at the driver. “Slow down. Their frequencies are jammed, they don’t know who they’re looking for.”

  He nodded and eased off on the gas, expertly putting distance between them by avoiding any red lights that could delay them, always taking the turn before if necessary. Within minutes they were miles away. She turned to look at the two professors.

  “Now let’s talk about a certain painting.”

  Operations Center Four

  CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

  “I might have something here, boss.”

  Leroux looked over at Randy Child, one of his top computer guys, his mad skills at tracing Internet communications unmatched. It had been a dream to get him on the team, Morrison only giving him the news last week. He was young, which Leroux liked, he still finding it difficult to not even be thirty and have some staff that could be mistaken for his parents, though in this case Child fit perfectly in with his insecure management skills.

  “What have you got?”

  “A possible jumping off point for that security alert.”

  Leroux smiled. “Awesome! Show me.”

  His enthusiasm seemed to rub off on Child, his underling beaming a smile. He quickly began explaining, Leroux fortunate enough to be able to follow the tech unlike Morrison, still in the room now that they had received word Sherrie had been shot, probably to back him up in case he couldn’t continue.

  But he was determined to.

  Sherrie had called him and told him she was okay, then went into the details. He had lectured her on this method in the past after a bad experience years ago when he had been pulling onto the interstate. His phone had rung and the call display had shown it was his parents. They never called in the morning, they fully aware he would be on his way to the office, so he knew immediately it was an emergency.

  “I had to take your father to the hospital last night.”

  “What!”

  “Don’t worry, he’s okay.”

  “Mom! That’s how you start this type of conversation! Tell me he’s okay, then tell me what happened!”

  She had learned her lesson.

  “English, please.”

  Leroux and Child looked over at their boss. “Sorry, sir. Essentially we’ve found the piece of hardware that was used to leave the Internet.”

  “So you know where it is?”

  Child cleared his throat. “Not exactly, sir. We know the IP address—the unique identifier for it. This was hardcoded into the security software almost twenty years ago by the looks of it. There’s no evidence it’s been changed since then, and with modern security practices when it comes to version control, any unauthorized change to the code would be caught. I think we’re looking at something that was put here when the system was originally developed.”

  Morrison crossed his arms and tapped his chin. “Okay, if I’m under
standing you correctly, you’ve found a number that identifies a machine that you don’t know the location of or even if it still exists today.”

  “Oh, it exists.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because if it didn’t then nobody would have known the security alert had been triggered.”

  Morrison nodded. “Good point. Okay, so it exists. Do we have any way of finding out where it actually is?”

  “Given time we might get a general idea,” said Leroux. He turned to Child. “Run that address against our database, see if it’s ever been used before.”

  Fingers flew then the results appeared onscreen, Leroux gasping.

  “Holy shit!”

  Assembly Covert Communications Facility, Moscow, Russia

  “Our problem in New Orleans is growing.”

  Ilya Mashkov frowned. Things weren’t going well for The Assembly. In the past twenty-four hours he had been called to more emergency meetings than the past year, and the news never seemed to be good, or if it was, it wasn’t for long. His last briefing on what had been the major crisis, the Titanic incident, suggested things there might be soon wrapped up, most of the parties either in custody or soon to be. Once the primaries were eliminated, a fake copy of the painting, already being prepared, would be planted at Professor Acton’s university to be found after his death. It would be tested by those already contacted, declared a forgery, and then quickly forgotten.

  The records clerk was dead, which meant the infection had been stopped at the military end, the Congressman was dead and all indications were he had been too scared to tell anyone after the security protocols had ended his phone conversation, and the taps in Wainwright’s house suggested the only people who knew in his family were his wife and sister. They had kept things quiet after their conversation at the university, it apparently shaking them enough to decide to keep quiet.

  Once they and those at the university are dead, it’s over.

  But now there was a new problem.

  New Orleans.

  And it was his problem to deal with, the entire financial side of the Jones’ presidency bid his responsibility, Quaid his man.

  “A New Orleans Police Detective named Isabelle Laprise is holding our man Peter Quaid along with a minor operative, Russell Saunders,” reported Number One.

  “What do they know?” asked Number Seven.

  Mashkov leaned forward, clearing his throat. “Saunders knows nothing except that Mr. Quaid is his contact. Even if he talks, all he does is implicate Quaid. Quaid on the other hand is of more concern. He has met with several of our senior operatives, and should he talk, our chain of command could be compromised.” He already knew how his colleagues would want this handled, but he wanted them to ask it so he could prove to them his resolve.

  “How do you suggest we solve the problem?”

  “We eliminate both liabilities before the infection can spread, then send a new representative to continue in Mr. Quaid’s place. Now that Mr. Jones knows who is true masters are, there’s no need to replace Mr. Saunders.”

  Once again, kill them all.

  Unknown Location within Arlington, Virginia

  Acton blinked rapidly as the hood was yanked off his head. Someone shoved him from behind and he stumbled toward a group of chairs in the middle of a massive concrete expanse. As he gained his bearings he looked about. Steel girders and large glass windows surrounded them, it clearly a warehouse of some sort, a warehouse completely devoid of anything except two SUV’s and half a dozen chairs. To his right there was what he assumed to be an office, perhaps with a bathroom, he suddenly noticing that he had to piss like a racehorse, the several beers he had partaken in earlier making their presence felt on his bladder.

  He forgot all about that when he saw Mai and Tommy sitting in two of the chairs. He rushed forward. “Are you two okay?”

  Mai was crying, fresh tears rushing over old stains as she leapt into his arms. Tommy though was more of a concern. His face was caked in dried blood and he seemed groggy.

  “Professor,” he mumbled.

  Acton let go of Mai and redirected her to the loving arms of Laura, then knelt in front of Tommy, carefully examining his head wound. He turned to their captors. “He needs a hospital. Now.”

  “Not yet,” replied the woman. “When we have the painting, then we will deal with your friend’s wound.”

  “He’s just a kid. They both are. Let them go and I’ll cooperate fully with you.”

  “We both will,” said Laura, holding Mai in her arms. “We won’t resist. Just let them go, please.”

  Their words and Mai’s sobs seemed to have no impact on the woman, her expression cold, her eyes dead. He hadn’t seen any emotion from her beyond slight smiles that were so exactly alike he’d swear she was a cyborg if he thought they existed.

  Could she be a psychopath?

  She’d have to be a special bit of crazy to be doing what she’s doing. It was one thing to kill for your country like Kane or the Delta guys did, but he could tell from this woman’s eyes she intended to kill every last one of them, not for any emotional reasons, but simply because she felt it was necessary for her mission.

  She not only intended to plug the leak, she was going to mop up anything that had escaped.

  And it had already started, Congressman Mahoney dead in what he was certain was a staged car accident.

  The woman looked at him. “Where is the painting?”

  Acton quickly decided he needed to cooperate. Sherrie would be missed, he was sure of it, and they needed time for additional resources to reach them. He had swallowed the tracking device and it was still good for at least a day.

  They would be found.

  The question was whether they’d be found dead or alive.

  And at this moment in time, he had no leverage over this woman, but she had three people he cared about, including one that was priceless.

  He looked at Laura.

  “At the university, in one of the archeology labs.”

  “Then, Professor, you and I are going for a ride.”

  Operations Center Four

  CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

  “What?”

  Leroux looked at the search result on the screen. There was only one other hit in their database, and the contact on the record was him. And he knew immediately what it was. “That’s the message.”

  Morrison looked at him. “What message?”

  “The message.”

  Morrison looked confused for a moment then his eyes popped wide. “Oh. Are you sure?”

  Leroux nodded.

  “Clear the room!”

  Everyone looked at each other for a moment, puzzled, then jumped to their feet, the room emptied except for Leroux and Morrison within seconds.

  “What are you saying?” asked Morrison as he sat in one of the now vacant chairs. Leroux dropped into the chair vacated by Child just seconds ago. After the BlackTide incident he had been tasked to try and find out who The Assembly were. He had found absolutely nothing until the New Orleans plague scare when all surveillance laws were suspended, automatically opening up Langley’s taps to data sources they didn’t normally have access to. During that incident his monitoring routines were still running and they found something. A single hit.

  A single email.

  Sent through the IP address in question.

  Because the email was discovered by accident, and would have been illegal to obtain if it hadn’t been for the crisis, Morrison had ordered it quarantined, not to be looked at, he concerned it could destroy any future case against those behind the North Korean incident. Leroux had understood the decision but it had driven him nuts since, his one piece of evidence forbidden fruit that might actually help lead him from the purgatory he found himself in, constantly under surveillance by a protective detail.

  But maybe that was all about to change.

  “The email you had me quarantine, our one lead to who The Assembly might be, went
through this same IP address.”

  “You mean—”

  “The Assembly is behind this entire thing, and this email might lead us to them.”

  Morrison leaned back in his chair, his lips puffing in and out. “So if we open this illegally obtained email, we might find out who is behind all this.”

  “Yes.” Leroux bit his lip, stunned at what he was about to say, possibly causing his boss to stick with his original decision, a decision he sensed was about to change. “But the same was true all along. If I had opened it before it might have led to their discovery.”

  Morrison nodded. “But until now, we didn’t have a corroborating piece of evidence. Am I right in assuming that now that you have this IP address, you would be running it against everything we have?”

  “Absolutely. Actually, it’s running now. That hit was just our own internal database.”

  “So it is conceivable that you would have found this email eventually.”

  Leroux knew what his boss wanted him to say, and his tone, with a slightly tilted head and ever-so-slightly elevated eyebrow suggested he was right.

  “Yes.”

  Morrison smiled. “Then it is no longer fruit of the poison tree as far as I’m concerned. Open it.”

  Leroux hesitated, his heart pounding as he realized he was about to open what could be Pandora’s Box.

  Or spam for penis enlargement pills.

  He clicked on the entry, entered his authorization code, and the email suddenly appeared on the screen. He switched it to one of the large monitors so Morrison could read it.

  Eureka!

  Morrison rose from his chair, mouth agape. “This is it,” he whispered.

  Leroux couldn’t believe what he was reading. It was an email congratulating Ilya Mashkov on his acceptance into The Assembly and assigning him a designator of “Number Twelve” for all future correspondence. A simple reply at the top read, “Number Twelve thanks you, Number One.”