The Kill Order

by Robin Burcell

“I’m trying to think positive here. That we’re going to make it and return the car in one piece.”

  “I’ll be happy if we return in one piece.”

  They all got out and walked to the crest, where they could see the ranch below. Griffin went over the plan one more time.

  “Which one’s Quindlen?” Sydney asked.

  “Denim jacket. The man on the right.” He eyed the two men on the porch, both sitting on chairs. The other, wearing a long-sleeved plaid shirt, he didn’t recognize. Both men were drinking beer, but the one in the plaid shirt was also smoking a joint.

  Carillo and Tex started off to the right, while Griffin and Sydney waited, watching the front of the house. Griffin glanced over at Sydney, thinking about what Tex had said. Sleeping with her wasn’t the answer, but right now he was at a loss. And when he tried to think of something profound, that it wasn’t all about the sex, the front door opened, and a woman with long black hair stepped out. Wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, she was carrying two plates. She handed one to Quindlen, but when the man in the plaid shirt seemed to take offense at something she said, she dumped the plate onto his lap. He got up, backhanded her across the face, then dragged her in the house. Quindlen just sat there eating, like it was commonplace.

  “Seems to be a fight,” Griffin radioed to Tex. “Plaid Shirt and woman inside. Quindlen alone on the porch with the dogs.”

  “There’s half your distraction,” Tex said.

  Griffin adjusted his radio’s earpiece as he watched Tex and then Carillo traverse across the side of the hill. There was just enough shrubbery to offer concealment and the two men kept low.

  “I can actually hear the two in the house arguing,” Tex said. “The other guy is named Lee . . . Apparently he’s been cooking all day . . . and the least she can do is have his dinner ready on time.”

  “Which means,” Griffin said, “one of those buildings is where they’re cooking their meth. Something to keep in mind. A lot of chemicals, never mind someone might still be in there.”

  “If I had to pick one,” Tex replied, “it’d be the old bunkhouse. All that missing siding gives it better air circulation. Safer.”

  “Yeah,” came Carillo’s voice. “Always high priority with meth cookers. My money’s on the nice shiny warehouse, where they can lock it up.”

  “From whom?” Tex asked. “Not like they have to worry about some passersby seeing it.”

  “Boys,” Griffin said. “Can we get back on task?”

  “Almost there,” Tex said. “It’s a bit steeper than I thought.” A minute later he landed at the bottom of the hill.

  Griffin could no longer see him, because of the chicken coop. That did not mean anyone else couldn’t, and Tex still had another fifteen feet of open ground to cross to get to the goat pen. He looked at his watch. The sun had disappeared behind the hill. The only source of light came from inside the house and spilled out onto the porch where Quindlen sat eating his dinner, the two dogs at his feet, one a pit bull mix, the other a German shepherd.

  “This is insane,” Sydney whispered. “We shouldn’t be here.”

  “You think of a better way to get this code?”

  “For all we know, there isn’t one. He’s setting us up.”

  “A chance we have to take, unless you’re looking forward to sitting in prison or worse.” Griffin lowered his binoculars, unable to see Tex or Carillo anymore. “Status,” he radioed.

  Carillo answered, “Looks good from up here.”

  Tex said, “I’m moving in.”

  “Get ready,” Griffin told Sydney. He figured they had about one minute to slide down the hill and get to the far side of Rico’s trailer, and what he called the bunker house, a cinder-block structure that looked as if it was partially dug into the hillside. Griffin eyed it, wondering if there had been some purpose to building it that way. Rico didn’t seem the type to prepare for nuclear fallout. Who knew? Right now the only thing he cared about was getting in there, finding the code, and getting out.

  “Tex is at the pen,” Sydney said.

  He could just make Tex out, figured he was opening the gate. The goats brayed, shifted around, but stayed within the confines of the barbed wire.

  “They’re not cooperating,” Tex said.

  “Can’t you get behind them? Scare them into running out?”

  “Not without coming into view of the ranch house window. Lee’s still going at it with the woman. I can see them in the window. If we weren’t busy with this, someone needs to go in there and pound some goddamned sense into him, like he thinks he’s doing to her.”

  “Goats, Tex.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Tex reached down to the ground, grabbed something and threw it into the pen. Griffin guessed it was a handful of pebbles. Whatever it was, it had the desired effect, and the goats scurried toward the gate, even faster when Tex repeated the process.

  The dogs’ ears perked up, and suddenly both animals were on their feet, barking, then racing around the trailer.

  “Dogs coming your way,” Griffin reported. Quindlen got up, went inside, then came out a moment later. “Quindlen’s got a gun.”

  “Copy. I’m outta here. Hoping the dogs chase after the goats not me.”

  “Let’s go,” Griffin said to Sydney, the moment the front was clear.

  They started down the hill toward Rico’s trailer, crouching down below the windows, as they stopped at the back of it. Griffin glanced across the dirt road, didn’t see anyone outside, then motioned for Sydney to wait. He ran toward the bunker, seeing the door was secured with a standard padlock. He didn’t see any alarms, and, using the pick in his wallet, it took him about thirty seconds to open the door. He hung the lock on the hasp, hoping that if anyone glanced that way, they wouldn’t notice. He opened the door, signaled Sydney over, and she followed him in.

  The bunker was larger than he expected and seemed to be used primarily for storage of old computer equipment and boxes of zip drives and floppy disks. Even if any computers still read that type of data storage, it would take weeks to go through it all.

  There was a thick coating of dust on everything. Apparently no one had been in here in who knew how long.

  He walked toward the back of the room, opening a door that led deep into the hillside. Definitely deceptively small from the outside. More importantly, he found the safe, and hoped it wasn’t the sort that required explosives.

  Sydney searched the battered metal desk first, something that looked like a military castoff. It contained little of interest, a few pens, paper clips, and a drawer full of blank envelopes, and she moved on to the file cabinets, going straight to the one that was locked. It took about ten seconds to pick it with a paper clip, and she pulled open the top drawer, which held a number of hanging file folders. They were neatly tabbed, and she thumbed through a few, seeing several filled with odd diagrams and hand-drawn notes, many of which looked like they were outlines for projects Rico had started detailing. Not seeing anything that stood out, she opened the next drawer down and saw a tab marked “SINS.”

  “Bingo.” She pulled it out, saw a hand-drawn chart for the program. A circle was drawn in the center, where the word SINS was written. Then emanating from the circle, like spokes on a wheel, were lines leading to various points he’d written listing what the program could do. It was very much like an octopus, she realized, and she thought of what Ronson, the investigative journalist, had said prior to his murder. That the tentacles reached far into the government. Scary to think that someone could get that much information about your life, banking, utilities, phone records; essentially anything that passed through the Internet could be viewed. Or manipulated.

  The next chart seemed to outline the back door and show how it worked in concert with the computer chips that had been designed specifically to allow SINS to work undetected. There had been a deal with China to mass-produ
ce the chips, and the U.S. had purchased the majority of them.

  They were everywhere, she realized.

  Griffin walked in, looking defeated.

  “There’s no code,” he said. “The only thing in there was money. Maybe a few hundred K. The bills are all from over twenty years ago, I’m guessing payment for services rendered.”

  She looked around the room. “Maybe it’s somewhere else. One of these disks or something.”

  “We’ll never find it in time.”

  “If nothing else, we have the early workings of the SINS, detailing the back door. Sort of in the planning stages, including the deal with China to manufacture the computer chips. Why the hell would someone like Parker Kane allow this sort of incriminating evidence out where anyone could find it?”

  “He wouldn’t. That’s mine.”

  They both turned, saw a woman, late fifties, standing in the doorway, pointing a shotgun at them. Too old to be the woman they’d seen earlier, Sydney figured this was undoubtedly Rico’s wife.

  “Get your hands up. The both of you.” She aimed the barrel at Griffin. “You. Hands. Now.”

  “We’re federal agents.”

  Her gaze was on the file Sydney held, but the gun was still pointed at them. When she looked up, she said, “They must’ve lowered their standards over the years. Ain’t none ever come with less than ten, fifteen men. You’re in here with what? Four?”

  “Budget cuts.”

  “Yeah. See, that’s why I don’t bother to vote. Just a bunch of nitwits sitting in Washington. Crooks, too.” She angled her shotgun at his hands. “Keep ’em up. Away from your weapon. Who sent you?”

  “Rico.”

  A look of disbelief swept across her face. “He wouldn’t do that. Who are you?”

  “FBI,” Sydney said. “I have ID if you want to see it.”

  “FBI? You got a death wish?”

  “Not really,” Griffin said. “So if you wouldn’t mind lowering the weapon.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want to get shot.”

  “No. I mean why now? Why are you interested in that file. There’s gotta be a million dollars of meth on this property, and several hundred thousand in cash in that safe you just opened—I got a video in my house. You didn’t touch none of it. Not a lot of folks would leave the money. What I want to know is why now and not back when Rico tried to tell the FBI about what was going on?”

  “We weren’t around back then,” Sydney said. “And it seems like anyone who’s looked into it has had singularly bad luck.”

  That snort again. “Ya think? And here you two are, not looking real lucky, either.”

  “Except you haven’t shot us.”

  “Don’t think I won’t.” She moved the barrel, pointing for them to step away from the file. “You got about fifteen seconds to tell me why I shouldn’t.”

  “You know who Parker Kane is, right?”

  “You being funny?”

  “No.”

  “Because if you’re trying to say he sent you, then you’re full of shit. You realize he owns this property?”

  “The records state otherwise.”

  “He’s not that stupid to put his name on the deed. Who do you think is running all that meth?”

  “You’re saying Parker Kane is?”

  “Weren’t you the one talking budget cuts? How do you think he funds all his operations? The illegal ones, that is. Uncle Sam?”

  Not the first time someone from the government used drug trading to fund their ventures, Sydney thought. “What sort of operations?”

  “Anything the Network sees fit. Just depends on which way the wind’s blowin’. But if you’re looking for evidence of that, you’re on the wrong side of the road. And seeing as how this little valley will soon be filled with Parker Kane’s men, I’m thinking don’t bother buying a lotto ticket. It ain’t your lucky day.”

  Griffin looked as calm as ever, but Sydney saw him eyeing the door, then the gun, knew he was probably working out how to disarm her. “You called Parker?” he asked.

  “Me? Hardly. Id and Yut did.”

  “Who?”

  “The two IdYuts across the road. One of your guys must have tripped the alarm in the meth lab sometime after he let the goats out. Saw one of your guys snooping around in there. Might want to warn him, not a good place to hide. All those chemicals and propane, one well-placed bullet and boom!”

  “How long have you been watching us?”

  “Since you first showed up to check out the place. I was coming back from the store, saw you pull into the old service road. Knew right away something was up. Right now though, we’re running out of time. So I’ll ask you once more? Why that file?”

  “The other half of the code,” Griffin said, surprising Sydney that he’d come right out and admit it. “We’re trying to get it before Parker does. Rico said it was in the safe.”

  “And what are you planning to do with it?”

  “Use it against Parker.”

  For the first time she smiled. It wasn’t a nice one, either, but she did lower the gun at the same time. “I’d pay good money to see that. You got a pen?”

  “Pen?” Griffin asked.

  “You want the damned code, don’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then to Sydney. “Not too bright, this one. The desk, numbskull. Top drawer.”

  Griffin found a pen, then grabbed one of the envelopes, having to scribble circles to get the ink to work. When she finished reciting the numbers, she asked him to turn the envelope so she could see it. She nodded. “Ten little numbers . . . Hard to imagine they could be worth so much. So what do you need to do? Call them in somewhere?”

  47

  Washington, D.C.

  Lisette stood at the window and kept an eye on the parking lot and the road beyond, the darkness occasionally broken by a vehicle’s headlamps as it drove past. Donovan was watching the monitors, while Izzy was working the code Sydney had called in to him. On the one hand, Lisette thought, at least they had now confirmed that Piper did not know the whole code, which was one reason they kept her from the computers, not letting her see anything that was visible. Maybe that would be a bargaining point with the military, assuming they could escape Parker’s men as well.

  Piper walked over to the window to stand next to Lisette, and in a low voice, asked, “What if he doesn’t get it up and running in time?”

  “He will.” But Lisette glanced back, saw tenseness around Marc’s eyes, and knew he was worried. “And if he doesn’t, we’ll just move again.”

  Piper sighed. Then, after a moment, she asked, “You think any of this would have happened if I’d gotten into witness protection? I mean, if I hadn’t run off to Venice and you got me to the right people?”

  “Perhaps,” Lisette said, trying to instill some peace into the girl. “Then again, maybe you saved your life by doing that very thing.”

  “This is beautiful,” Izzy said. “Like a candy store, with something everywhere you turn and you don’t know what to buy.”

  Marc said, “Buy me anything with Parker Kane’s name on it.”

  “You’re assuming what you want has his name on it. He was CIA. Don’t you think he’d be smart enough to make sure that isn’t an issue?”

  “Let’s just say I’m hoping he made a mistake.”

  “Kid’s got a point,” Donovan said. “Look for anything related to Brooks or Trenton Stiles from W2 or that can connect Kane to them.”

  Izzy was opening and closing files so fast that they couldn’t keep up with what he was doing. After a moment, he said, “You guys realize you’re asking me to do the impossible? Twenty years of investigation in what? A couple hours?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Donovan said. “Just find us somethin
g we can use.”

  Izzy glanced at the other monitor. “Not going to do us any good if they find us before I find—well, whatever it is I’m trying to find. It’d be nice if I had a hint.”

  “Same here,” Donovan replied. “Something that looks like proof ought to do it.”

  “That narrows it down,” Izzy said.

  Several minutes later, Lisette noticed Marc pacing the room. “You should sit. It’s bad enough we have one person who can’t keep still,” she said, nodding toward Izzy.

  “How can I when it’s taking so long?”

  “Sorry,” Izzy said. “I have to keep moving our location, while they’re probing the Internet. Last thing we want is for them to come knocking on our door.” Izzy pulled the other computer keyboard toward him, bringing up a different screen. “This,” he said, pointing to the monitor and a map, “is where we are. This is where they see us. The problem is they’re moving. Hate to say it. They found us.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “Driving time from there to here.” He went back to the computer, read something on the monitor. “Yes. You want proof? How’s this?”

  He kept them in suspense while he typed, then stopped, turned in his chair and faced them. “Guess who chartered a jet to California, landing at a private airport a few hours before Bo Brewer was murdered? That is Parker Kane’s name on that manifest. The location was listed elsewhere, but once they got in the air, bingo . . .”

  Donovan leaned over to see the monitor. “Do you show when it returned?”

  Izzy brought up a different screen. “Next morning. But I’ll do you one better. Bring up the video surveillance at the airport parking lot . . . and voilà!” He typed something else, leaned back so they could see. “His car. Bingo! That’s the beauty of this thing . . . If it travels through the Internet, we can find it.”

  “It’s still not proof,” Donovan said. “Find me the connection between Parker Kane and W2.”

  “What was the W2 name again?”

  “Trenton Stiles.”

  “Easy enough . . . We put in Kane’s name, search for phone records that match up to Stiles or Wingman’s . . . Nothing’s coming up for any number associated with W2.”