Hacker For Hire (Ted Higuera Series Book 2) (26 page)

Ted was back on
board the
Defiant.
Chris was there, and Meagan and Jack too. That
couldn’t be. Meagan and Jack were dead. Shot by the terrorists.

The terrorists.
There was their boat. A big green fishing boat. It was only a couple of hundred
feet away. He could plainly see their faces. Alison Clarke? What was she doing in
the pilot house? And Metcalf. He stood on the bow with an AK-47 in his hands,
blasting away.

Ted felt the
bullets whizzing all around him. He saw Jack hit, then Chris.

Freeman, that
bastard Freeman. He was on the afterdeck. He leveled his gun at Ted. Ted saw
the fire from the barrel. Then someone shoved him aside. Meagan had saved him.
Blood poured from Meagan’s body.

Then Meagan popped
up. She was dressed all in black. Her tight sweater curved around her ample
bust line. Wait a minute. Meagan was short, Meagan was flat chested. Who was
this tall blonde woman? She pulled an automatic pistol from the clip-on holster
on her belt. She cradled the weapon in both hands and ripped off three shots.
Freeman crumbled.

Blood flowed
freely from the blonde woman. She ignored it, turned and fired another spread
of three rounds. Metcalf flew backwards.

“Ted, Ted, are you
all right?”

He felt the bag
over his head tugged away. He opened his eyes. He looked up into a woman’s
face, ringed by blonde hair and a halo from the bare bulb hanging in the center
of the room.

Is she an
angel?

****

Ted heard voices.
They sounded familiar. He felt a blanket wrapped around his freezing body.
Hands tugged at the ropes restraining his feet. He heard the woman’s voice say
something about a key. Minutes later, he felt the handcuffs dropping from his
wrists.

Slowly the world
was coming back into focus. Jeff was there. He had a camera. He was taking
pictures. Of Ted, of the two men lying on the floor.

Off in the
distance he heard sirens. Then saw flashing blue lights erupt through the
windows.

“Cat, are you all
right?”

He recognized the
voice. He looked up and saw the crater marked face.
That detective. The cop
that was sweet on Cat.

Catrina had her
arms around him. She was shaking. He held her tight.

“I’m okay.”

It was Catrina.
That was Catrina’s voice.

“We need an aid
car. Higuera’s dying of hypothermia.”

“One’s on the
way.” Bremen separated from Catrina and walked over to look at the bodies. He
reached in his pockets and pulled out surgical gloves. “Call CSI. Secure the
scene. Get us extra units, we’re gonna have the press all over this.” He was
talking to someone standing in the doorway. A good-looking young man in a
leather jacket with a military haircut.

“We need to get
something warm in Ted.” This was the first time Jeff had spoken. “You guys have
a thermos in your car?”

“No. We don’t get
many hypothermia calls.”

Ted felt the
tension between Jeff and Bremen. These guys had some history.

“I’ll go find a
Starbucks.” Jeff moved towards the door.

“Freeze. You’re
not leaving the crime scene. Marty, take Mr. Jefferson outside and keep an eye
on him. When the uniforms get here, you can take his statement.”

The blanket
helped. Ted’s clothes were cut to pieces. He would have to find something to
wear.

From out of
nowhere, paramedics rolled a stretcher up to Ted’s chair. Gentle hands lifted
him onto the stretcher, wrapped him in warm blankets and strapped him down. The
paramedic placed an oxygen mask over his face. The gas filled his lungs with
warmth.

More people in
uniform began to show up. People with cameras, measuring things, picking up
things.

“Bremen.”

Ted recognized the
voice. He turned his head to see the small Assistant DA.

“What the fuck do
you have going on here?” Petrocelli’s words dripped with venom. “I got word
that Flaherty was involved in a shooting.”

“We’re still
surveying the scene, taking statements. I don’t have enough to report on yet.”

“What’s to report
on? It looks fairly obvious to me. Flaherty and her boy Jefferson have just
shot two people. Take them in. This looks like at least murder-two to me.”

“Mr. Petrocelli,
you’re getting way ahead of yourself. Let’s wait until CSI clears the scene and
we have a coroner’s report. Don’t let your hard on for Flaherty cloud your
judgment.”

“Don’t let
your
hard on for Flaherty cloud
your
judgment, detective.”

“That’s
sergeant, Mister.
Assistant
DA.”

The paramedics
rolled the stretcher out of the room. Ted saw a high ceiling over him, then gray
sky. He was lifted down some steps. The stretcher rolled up to the aid car and
he was shoved in without a pause. His last view of the crime scene was Cat,
following the stretcher, tears flowing from her gray eyes.

Ted tried to find
his voice. His throat ached, his lungs were empty. “Freeman. . .” he croaked
softly. “It’s Freeman.”

Then the aid car
doors slammed. A moment later the siren screeched and the car lurched forward.

****

Richard Freeman,
dressed in a crisp black SS officer’s uniform with a swastika arm band, paced
the floor, leather riding crop held behind his back with both hands.

“Come, come, Mister
Higuera. You vill talk. We haff vays of making you talk.”

“Fuck you.”

Behind Freeman,
Gina, in a black lace Merry Widow, garter belt with black fishnet stockings,
stiletto heels and a peaked Nazi officer’s cap lounged on a straight-backed
chair.

“Come to the
Cabaret, old friend,” she sang, her huge breasts heaving with each breath.

Pain seared
through Ted’s testicles.

“Talk, you
sniveling little bastard.” Freeman whipped Ted in the face. “Where did the
Queen of Hearts hide the teacake?”

Huh?
Ted
opened his eyes. He was blinded by bright light.

He was lying on an
operating table, a flood light inches from his face.

“Keep him covered.
Keep the IV going,” a gray-haired woman in a lab coat was saying from very far
away. “I want vitals every thirty minutes.”

The room spun. All
color drained from the scene. He saw a clutch of nurses in shades of gray.

“Teddy.” Meagan
stood there, bare naked with holes in her chest. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

“No” Ted struggled
to keep his thoughts straight. Meagan couldn’t be here. She was dead. “I still
have stuff I hafta do.”

Meagan reached out
and caressed Ted’s forehead. Her soft hands felt cold.

“Come with me
Teddy.”

“
Teddy, ven
aca.”
It was Abuelito, his great-grandfather.

The room filled
with people. Jack MacDonald, the old SAS agent killed on the Inside Passage
with Meagan, Juanito, his childhood buddy killed in a drug deal in East LA.
They were all there; his friends, his family. It felt so good, so natural. The
room glowed with love.

“Mister Higuera,
can you hear me?”

He looked up. A
blonde woman in blue scrubs held his wrist, looking at her watch.

“How are you
doing?”

He tried to speak,
but all that came out was “Aghhh.”

****

Catrina paced back
and forth at the emergency room. Jeff sat on the floor, slumped against the
wall. No one thought to call Chris or Gina. Catrina tried calling Ted's
parents, but the only number she had was for his father's restaurant. As
expected, it was closed at this hour.

"You okay,
Cat?" Tom Bremen asked as he came through the automatic door, three cups
of coffee on a cardboard tray, trailed by detective McGinnis.

"Yeah, I'll
be fine." Catrina didn't believe it. She'd never be fine again after the
shooting. "What did you find out?"

Jeff stared at the
floor, taking no notice of the conversation. When Tom handed him the cup of
coffee, Jeff just put it on the floor and continued staring.

"Daniels and
Dombroski were MS employees. Worked in the security department for Freeman.
Freeman says he has no idea what they were up to."

"But Ted
clearly said that Freeman did it." Catrina sipped at the lukewarm coffee.
"I know I heard it just as they put him in the ambulance."

"Then he
better pull through. He's our only witness."

"Higuera?"
the young doctor called as he came through the swinging door.

"Yes,"
Catrina spun to face him. Jeff jumped up from the floor.

"Are you
family?" the doctor asked.

"No. . . I'm
his employer." Catrina suddenly felt a chill run through her. "His
family is in California, we haven't been able to reach them. Is he okay?"

The doctor
hesitated. Catrina's heart stopped. He had to be okay.

"I'm not sure
I should give you any information about his medical condition." The doctor
looked confused. "But we're going to need someone to take him home, to
care for him."

Air came flooding
back into Catrina's lungs. She realized she had been holding her breath.

"He's going
to be fine." The doctor smiled at her.

Jeff wrapped his
long arms around Catrina. She looked up to see the tears in his eyes.

"He can go
home now," the doctor said. "He has a moderate case of hypothermia.
We've restored his core temperature with heated saline solution in his blood.
He's coming back nicely."

"That's one
tough little dude." Jeff's voice sounded gruff, strained.

"Keep him
quiet for a couple of days. Watch him for signs of confusion or mental
slowness. He should be past any danger now, but you can't be too careful. If
his heart rate suddenly increases or he feels pain in his left side, get him
back to urgent care immediately.”

"Thank you,
doctor." Catrina couldn't contain her tears.

The doctor walked
away. Catrina watched him disappear down the hallway and felt drained. What
more could happen in one day?

"Cat."
Tom put his arm around Catrina's waist. "This doesn't look good. You said
Higuera had a hood over his head. I'm doubtful he can make an ID. We need more
evidence."

Jeff, now showing
signs of life, moved closer. Tom lowered his voice.

"I need for
you to do something for me."

Catrina felt her
skin prickling. Tom had never asked her for anything.

"Do what you
do. Dig around some more. Go where I can't go. Find me something that links
Freeman to Daniels and Dombroski. I want this guy."

A surprised look
came across McGinnis’ face. He turned and walked down the corridor.

"Tom, do you
know what you're asking?" Catrina's blood ran cold.

"I'm not
asking anything. I just want you to know that they’ll be a stakeout at
Freeman’s. The patrol car just might leave when you pull up. Just remember, I
didn't say anything, you never heard this."

****

“What tipped you
off that Davis and Dombroski were holding Higuera?” Detective Marty McGinnis
questioned Catrina. Attorney Jennifer Trask sat at her side.

Tom stepped back
from the interrogation because of his personal relationship with the suspect.

“He didn’t show up
for work. We used the GPS in his phone to track him. We didn’t know that Davis
and Dombroski had him. We didn’t even know that they existed.”

McGinnis paced
back and forth in the interrogation room. “So how come you went in shooting?”

Catrina stopped to
think this one over. Her instinct, the Chevy Malibu, the location all told her
to expect trouble. How did she explain it to McGinnis though?

Jennifer leaned in
to her and whispered, “Cat, you don’t need to answer any of his questions.”

“No, I want to.”
Catrina spoke in a normal voice. “We need to get this cleared up. I did nothing
wrong.” Then she turned to McGinnis. “Gut feel. I never expected to drop the
hammer, but you have to be prepared.”

“So you just
dropped two guys?”

“They shot first.
Your CSI guys will verify that. They’ll find two slugs in the wall next to the
door. I felt one go by my head so close that it gave me a headache.”

The interrogation
lasted more than an hour. In the end, the detectives determined that there was
no reason to hold Catrina and Jeff.

“Petrocelli’s
gonna shit a brick,” Tom told McGinnis.

“Tough shit. I
never liked the little bastard anyway. There’s nothing to hold them on. CSI
confirms it was self-defense.”

Chapter 31

“Are you sure it
was Freeman?” Catrina drove the delivery van.

Ted ached in
places he didn’t know he had and figured that he would walk bow-legged for a
month. Catrina had totally forgiven him. He was back in the family.

“He’s the only one
whose network I hacked that had anything to do with MS.” Ted rode shotgun,
taking as much weight as he could on his hands. Just sitting was painful, every
bump in the road was sheer torture. “I never saw his face, but he said ‘Why did
you choose to hack in from my home?’ I remember that distinctly. It told me
that it had to be Freeman.”

“Where do you want
to park?” Catrina slowed down as she turned onto Freeman’s street.

She drove the
block slowly looking for unmarked cars. A dark Dodge Charger started up and
pulled away from the curb as she drove by.

Tom had been as
good as his word.

“Anywhere within a
block or so.” Ted eased himself out of the passenger seat and gingerly worked
his way to the back of the van. “I’ll see if I can pick up his network.”

Catrina remained
in the front of the van, keeping watch. “Jeff’s here.”

Ted looked through
up through the windshield to see Jeff drive slowly by in Catrina’s armored
Explorer.

“He’ll park a
couple blocks up the street.” Catrina said. “This time, we have back up.”

Was Freeman stupid
enough to keep his personal network up? He’d been stupid enough to have a
wireless network in the first place.

“Shit. The ‘Dragon’s
Lair’ is gone.”

“The Dragon’s Lair?”
Catrina looked back over her shoulder at Ted.

“Yeah, that’s what
he called his network. If he doesn’t have a wireless network, we can’t hack in.”
Ted sat back in his chair and shrugged. “Game over.”

“Not quite yet.”
Catrina slipped out of the driver’s seat and climbed into the back of the van.
“We can still get information the old-fashioned way.” She opened a plastic
storage box on the van floor and tossed a brown uniform to Ted. “Breaking and
entering.”

Ted watched openmouthed
as Catrina slipped off her T-shirt and jeans.
Damn, she’s got a fine body,
for an older lady.
She was not what Ted would have called slim, but she had
a great figure. He practically drooled following her long legs up to her hips.
There was nothing sexy about her underwear. Her substantial bra supported heavy
breasts. Her panties were briefs like something his mama would wear.

She pulled on a
brown delivery person uniform and clipped her holster to her belt, under the
brown jacket.

“What’s a matter,
Higuera? You afraid to drop trou?” She sneered at him. “Stop staring and get
dressed.”

Ted gathered
himself together and stripped off his T-shirt.

Catrina grinned at
him. “Nice abs, junior.”

He felt the heat
in his ears as he pulled on the brown shirt. After changing his pants, he was
ready to go.

“You wait in the
van for my signal. Change the signs while you’re at it.”

Ted rummaged
through the stack of magnetic signs in the back of the van until he found
“Express Package Delivery” signs. That would do.

Catrina called
Jeff on her cell phone. “Jeff, we’re going in. Keep a sharp eye out.” She
picked up a clipboard and a small box from the storage container. “The trick
is, to look normal. I go up to the front door. If someone answers, we’ve got
the wrong address. If no one answers, I pick the lock.”

“What about the
security system? Freeman’s bound to have a state of the art security system.”

“If an alarm goes
off, you make a bee-line to his office and rip out his computer. The security
company will call and I’ll play the dumb housekeeper who forgot the password.
If they buy it, we’re okay. If not, we take his computer and high-tail it
before the cops get here.”

Catrina opened the
van’s side door and stepped out. Ted felt his blood pressure rising.

Watching Catrina
walk up the path to the front steps felt like watching her walk to the gallows.
Ted knew that they would get caught. That was all he needed, more trouble with
the law. Didn’t Cat have any limits?

Catrina rang the
doorbell. Ted watched from the van.

No answer. The
butterflies churned in Ted’s stomach.

Catrina rang
again. Still no answer.

“We’ll try one
more time.” She pushed the button a third time.

Ted held his
breath.

When no one
answered, Catrina signaled for Ted to join her. She handed him the clipboard
and package and reached in her rear pocket for her lock pick set.

She tried several
picks. Ted felt sweat running down his back.

“Freeman has good
locks, I’ll give him that.” There was an audible click, then Catrina pushed
open the door.

On the wall, to
the left of the door, Ted saw an alarm console.

“State of the art.
A Pierson 3000.” Catrina studied the console. “Very nice. Too bad they don’t
use it.”

“What?”

“I’ve seen it a
dozen times before.” Catrina kept her voice low and her hand on the gun on her
hip as she invaded the dragon’s lair. “Usually it’s the wife. Hubby puts in a
high-tech alarm system and it’s too much trouble for wifey to set it, then
deactivate it when her arms are full of groceries, kids or pets. More often
than not, when she leaves the house, she doesn’t even bother to set it. ‘I’ll
only be gone for a minute’ she says to herself to justify it.”

“I can’t believe
it.” He found his way into Freeman’s office. “They spend that much money on a
security system, then don’t even use it.”

“Believe it. What
does he have?”

Ted slid behind
the desk and booted up the computer. It whirled a minute and the splash screen
came up, then a popup box asking for a password.

“Uh oh. It’s
password protected. I expected that.” He removed a flash drive from his pocket
and inserted it in the USB slot. “We’ll see how well it stands up to Cracker.”

He rebooted the
computer. This time, when the login pop up box appeared, a window with a
progress bar and a label popped up.

Please Wait.

Attempting to
Crack Password.

Ted could hear
Bear’s whisper in the back of his head. “Easy . . . Easy . . .”

The popup box
flashed “password cracked” and disappeared from the screen. Ted immediately
started downloading the contents of the hard drive to his flash drive.

“What’s there?”
Catrina asked. “You find anything?”

“I don’t know
yet.” He turned to look at Catrina over his shoulder. “We’re taking everything.
We can sort it out back at the office.” He focused his attention back on the
computer monitor. “Hello, what’s this?”

“What?” Catrina
bent down, her head next to his.

She never wore any
fragrance when she was on a stake out, but she still smelled overwhelmingly
feminine to Ted. His heartbeat sped up. For an instant, he pictured Catrina in
her bra and panties in the back of the truck, then he focused his attention
back on the computer.

“There’s a second
computer in the house. Very well-hidden. I’m betting that Freeman doesn’t know
about it. I’ll bet it’s his wife’s, no it’s his kid’s. If his wife can’t set
the alarm, she certainly can’t hack into his system.”

Ted inserted
another flash drive into the second USB port. “We filled up the first drive.
Damn, this kid’s careful. He’s password protected his computer so that Dad
can’t get to it.”

Once again, Ted
invoked the Cracker program and busted the second password.

He browsed through
the drives on the kid’s computer, then decided to download everything.

“He’s got some big
files on this drive. Looks like a lot of video. This is gonna take a few
minutes.” Ted felt his palms sweating. “How long do you think we have?”

Catrina was busy
searching Freeman’s office. “Hard to say. If the little woman left without
setting the alarm, she might just be on a quick run to the store. Jeff’ll call
us if anyone shows up. You better be ready to run for the back door at any
second. Hey! Looky here.”

Catrina held up a
silver picture frame with a picture of Freeman and a boy with fishing poles and
a string of fish. Someone’s keeping an eye on things.”

Ted looked up.
“What is it?”

“Nanny cam. Why
does Freeman have a nanny cam in his office? Is he afraid that someone’s
breaking in on him?”

“Or, it could be
someone else’s.” Ted pulled the flash drive from the computer. “There are a
bunch of big mpg files on the kid’s computer. I would bet that those are
videos. He could be spying on Dad.” Ted tossed an empty flash drive to Catrina.

Catrina snatched
the drive out of the air. “You done? Let’s get out of here.” She replaced the
flash drive in the nanny cam with a new one and headed for the door.

Ted didn’t need
any encouragement to follow.

****

“Holy shit.” Ted
sat at his desk while Catrina made coffee. “What do you want to see first? The
porn or the spying?”

Catrina brought
two steaming mugs from the kitchen. “Don’t tell me Freeman’s into kiddy porn
too.” She put her arms around Ted's shoulders and gave him a hug.

“Better than that."
The hug felt good, but what did it mean? "Take a look at this. He’s been
making homemade sex tapes.”

Catrina put Ted’s
mug down on the desk and walked behind him. On Ted’s screen, Mrs. Freeman was
removing her rather ‘work-a-day’ bra and panties. “Hmm. . . The carpet doesn’t
match the drapes.” Catrina pointed to Mrs. Freeman’s dark pubic hair, then her
blonde locks. “I’m as anxious as the next guy to be a voyeur, but what does
this have to do with our case?”

“I don’t know, but
it’s interesting. They both act like they don’t know they’re being taped. See
there.” Ted stopped the action. Freeman dismounted his wife and turned towards
the camera. “He’s picking his nose. He certainly wouldn’t do that if he knew he
was taping himself.”

Catrina leaned
forward. “Well I’ll be damned. They don’t know about the camera. Look, Mrs.
Freeman, I presume that’s Mrs. Freeman, just put a shoebox in front of the
camera. It spoils the view.”

Ted fast forwarded
through several more videos. “These all came from Junior’s laptop. I think the
kid has a spy-cam in Papa’s bedroom.”

“Interesting
family dynamics, but nothing to help our case. What else do you have?”

Ted closed the
video file with a mental note to himself to go back and check it out more
carefully at his leisure. Mrs. Freeman was a looker.

“I found several
files with Donna on them on Freeman’s computer. They were watching her pretty
close. I’m guessing they knew what she was doing at MS.” Ted fast forwarded
through several files. They were boring. Donna cleaning various offices. Then
came the big one.

“Check this out.”

Donna pushed her
cart down a long hallway. Then she stopped and took a step stool off of her
cart. She climbed the stool and dusted the camera. Her face filled the screen. She
reached up over the camera for a moment, then the screen blinked. Donna stepped
down off of her stool and pushed the cart to the office door.

“Did you see
that?” Ted stopped the action. “It’s easy to miss.”

“See what.” Catrina
drained her coffee cup and leaned closer to the screen again.

“Right there,
after the blip on the screen. Look at Donna. I’ll back it up.”

Ted reversed the
video and slowed the motion.

“See, when she
reaches up to dust the camera, she’s wearing a wedding ring. Then when she
steps down, the ring is gone. She must have overridden the camera with old tape
here.”

“Okay.” Excitement
crept into Catrina’s voice. “This must be the day she finally broke into MS’s
systems. Fast forward.”

The rest of the
video was the usual boring stuff. Donna cleaning an office, then pushing her
cart down the hall.

“Wait a minute.”
Catrina jumped up from her seat. “She’s got the ring back on.”

“This must be
where she cut out the override and let the security cameras go back to real
time.”

“I’ve got to hand
it to her,” Catrina said. “She was really slick at this. You have to be looking
pretty hard to see it.”

The next file was
startling.

Two security
guards confronted Donna when she tried to enter the elevator. Donna pulled a
gun, but Freeman jumped her from behind. There was a brief struggle, then
Donna’s hands were secured behind her back with a plastic tie and she was led
into the elevator.

“That looks like
it’s the end of Donna’s story.” Ted said. “This other file is from this week.”

“Let me get more
coffee, then we can look at it.” Catrina rose, grabbed both coffee cups and
headed for the kitchen.

While Catrina was
in the kitchen, Ted perused the files on the flash drives. Most of them were
large, that was to be expected with videos. One was huge. Ted double clicked on
it.

Instead of the
grainy surveillance video, this one was high def. It looked like the video that
Deep Throat had sent them of Metcalf telling someone to take care of Donna.

“Cat, get back in
here.”

She was at Ted’s
desk in an instant. “What have you got?”

“This was from
Junior’s laptop. How he got a hold of it, I don’t know, but he’s got the goods
on Dad.”

Catrina stood
behind Ted and leaned over, her face inches from his. He felt her warmth, her
presence. This heartbeat shot up.

The video was dated
the day that Metcalf had been found in his office. Metcalf sat behind his desk.
He was not happy. He railed at the man in the chair with his back to the
camera.

“This has gone far
enough.” There was real fear in Metcalf’s voice. “Shut everything down. Burn
all traces of the project. We’ve got to cover our tracks.”