Nefarious (The Blackwell Files Book 1) (19 page)

CHAPTER 61

Ashland, Virginia

David finally arrived within a few miles of the Super Saver motel in which Alton and Mallory had barricaded themselves. As he neared the lodging, David identified the vehicles being used by the forces preparing to assault his friends: two cars about half-a-mile down the state highway from the motel, and three more in the motel parking lot near the office. As he neared the motel, he threw several remotely-detonated grenades into the empty field across the highway before entering the parking lot.

Some enemy agents were in their cars, while others were on foot, slowly deploying along the walkway on either side of his friends’ room. Originally, David had planned to call Alton and Mallory to discuss an extraction plan, but he could see that there was no time. Within seconds, the agents would be in position to storm the room.

David tossed half a dozen remote-controlled phosphorus and smoke grenades around the motel parking lot in the shape of a semicircle around his friends’ room. He called Alton’s cell phone and told him to prepare to flee.

David detonated all remote devices simultaneously, creating for a few precious seconds blinding light and huge clouds of impenetrable smoke, complimented by deafening blasts from the grenades across the street. At the height of the chaos, he drove across the lot straight into the smoke and phosphorus cloud. Alton and Mallory darted from the room and raced through the billowing smoke, flinching as they heard the occasional crack of random gunshots and ricochets. They could smell the sour odor of gunpowder as they jumped into David’s still-moving LeSabre.

“Gun it!” shouted Alton as he and Mallory spilled into the back seat.

As David pulled out of the parking lot, the LeSabre emerged from the concealment provided by the smoke and phosphorus melee and was met with a hail of gunfire. Loud thuds, reminiscent of heavy raindrops, signaled the impact of multiple rounds into the car’s trunk and side panels. The glass on the LeSabre’s rear and left windows shattered. Alton felt a stab of while-hot pain in his left arm, another stab in his left shoulder, and a dull impact on the back of his head. He heard Mallory cry out and saw blood trickling down the side of her face.

“Are you okay? Where are you hit?” he slurred.

“It just grazed my ear. It’s not bad. What about you?”

Alton tried to answer but felt a furious spinning in the back of his head, which he suddenly couldn’t seem to hold up. His vision began to blur, starting at the periphery and working its way in, until all he could see was Mallory’s face, staring at him with wide eyes. He thought she was crying but couldn’t be sure. He struggled again to speak but couldn’t. Alton wondered momentarily who their assailants were, but found his thoughts returning to Mallory.

Was he discovering within himself a regret he had failed to avoid, a chance for happiness he had failed to pursue, an aspiration that until now he had failed to act on due to fear, uncertainly, and self-doubt? He tried to speak of this to Mallory but was too disoriented to form his thoughts into words. The world became more confused, and his respiration slowed. He met her worried gaze with his own wordless stare for a few seconds, and then, eyes rolling back, was still.

CHAPTER 62

Durham, North Carolina

Polo and Sunglasses met once again to discuss the latest wrinkle in their plans, this time at a funeral home, where their whispering didn’t appear out of place. An air of suspicion pervaded their conversation.

“Luis Romero’s death is a great blow to the project,” said Polo. “He was the undisputed leader of the lab work and was instrumental in keeping the project on track. He’ll be hard to replace.”

“It’s unfortunate,” acknowledged Sunglasses, “but we must press ahead. We’re paying you to drive this project to completion. You’ll need to rise above this adversity. Are there other members of the project who can replace Romero?”

“Several of the team leads in the lab would be adequate replacements. They’d get the job done, but not as well as Romero would have.”

“You know best how to proceed to fill this role. I leave you to that task. We’re in agreement that the project is still on track, correct?”

“Yes, of course,” said Polo grimly. “We’re not throwing in the towel at this point.”

CHAPTER 63

Ruther Glen, Virginia

“You’re lucky, you know that?” said Mallory to Alton.

As Alton’s last thoughts before slipping into unconsciousness had centered on Mallory, so were his first as he awoke.
Yes, I am
.
I’m with you, if only for a few more days
. But in reply, he only grinned weakly and said, “I’d hate to see what you call unlucky.”

“Your arm wounds are gunshots. Your head wound is a concussion, most likely caused by all that flying debris from the trunk panel. Switch those around and you’d probably be dead.”

Alton realized they were still in the back seat of the LeSabre. He had regained his senses enough to be thankful for the darkness that hid the car’s condition.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Headed north on I-95, back towards Washington,” said Mallory. She turned to the front seat. “David, we need to treat Alton’s wounds and ditch the car; the damage is too noticeable.”

“To Al or to the car?” quipped David.

“I was referring to the car, but Alton’s not in the best shape, either,” said Mallory with a laugh, relaxing now that she felt assured of Alton’s recovery.

David stopped at a Walgreens pharmacy and returned with first aid supplies, ibuprofen, Doritos, and a six-pack of Gatorade.

“Breakfast of champions,” he said as he handed over the food and supplies. He then left to acquire a replacement car while Alton and Mallory locked themselves in the bathroom of a nearby BP gas station to dress their wounds.

“Drink this,” Mallory told Alton, handing him a Glazier Freeze. “It’ll help replace the fluids and electrolytes you lost from bleeding.”

Mallory swabbed the dirt and blood from Alton’s arm and shoulder wounds and applied a disinfectant and antibiotic to both.

“Your shoulder wound is a clean ‘in-and-out.’ The bullet passed right through,” she said. “The round that hit your arm is still there. I can see it. Stay still for just a moment.” Alton grimaced but did not cry out as Mallory used tweezers from the first aid kit to deftly remove the round from his arm.

“It wasn’t too deep,” she said as she dropped the flattened round into the bathroom’s grimy trash can. “It must have been a ricochet.”

“Like you said…my lucky day.”

Rolling her eyes, Mallory reapplied disinfectant and antibiotic to both wounds and wrapped them several times in gauze. She ended with a dressing for his head.

Alton in turn cleaned and bandaged Mallory’s ear wound. They each took several ibuprofen tablets for the pain.

“Is my modeling career over?” she joked. Alton smiled in return but did not speak.

During these ministrations, David had rented a Focus and returned to pick them up. Mallory used another disposable phone to call Mark Sutton.

“I can’t stay on the phone long or whoever is chasing us will be able to triangulate in on our position,” she told him. “Let’s agree on a meeting location, and we’ll debrief you in more detail there.”

They arranged to meet at an Exxon on the outskirts of Alexandria and ended the call. On the way to their rendezvous, Alton fell into a pain-induced silence, and Mallory struck up a conversation with David.

“So you’re Secret Service now, David? I guess that’s due to your Army background?”

“Certainly it helped me get the job,” replied David, “but to be honest, the best preparation was growing up on a cattle ranch in Wyoming.”

“I don’t follow you. How did that help?”

“On a ranch, you develop a good eye for trouble. The cattle usually know something’s wrong before you do, so it helps you develop an instinct. When something ‘just doesn’t feel right,’ there’s usually a reason.”

“On Alton’s behalf as well as my own,” said Mallory, “thanks for stepping in when something wasn’t right with our situation. We owe you our lives.”

CHAPTER 64

Alexandria, Virginia

Alton, Mallory, and David arrived at the Exxon as planned. Upon seeing Sutton already there, David dropped off his passengers near the waiting car. He then left to check in with his supervisor, agreeing to stay in the vicinity for a while in case he would be needed later.

Mallory entered the front seat of Sutton’s Camry while Alton climbed into the back. As he entered, Alton made room for himself in the disorganized back seat by pushing aside empty coffee cups, a used piece of notebook paper, and several days’ worth of newspapers.

“Chief, we need your help again,” said Mallory.

“Tell me what I can do,” responded Sutton.

Mallory briefly described the events of the past twenty-four hours.

“I have two requests,” she said. “First, we need to clear out from Washington again—the chances are too great that our ‘friends’ will spot us in this area. Can you take us to Virginia Beach? It should be far enough out of the way to avoid a repeat of the Super Saver motel incident but close enough to return to Washington quickly if necessary. Once we find an internet café there, we’ll finish off our research. If you’re agreeable to this, I’ll describe my second request on the way.”

Sutton agreed with her reasoning and plan, and they were soon headed east. Alton called David to inform him of their next steps and to let him know he could return to Washington, at least for the time being. Alton thanked him again, and they ended the call.

“So, what’s request number two?” asked Sutton.

“Do you remember the four suspects I mentioned yesterday—three Briggsfield employees and an Army colonel named Drake? They’re all still on the list, but our top two candidates for having some type of illicit involvement are Jeffrey Finch and Colonel Charles Drake. Could you arrange for some type of in-person meeting with these two? We’re hoping that if we interrogate them hard enough, we can entrap them in incriminating statements, which you could take to FBI Director Helton or possibly even the president’s chief of staff.”

“It seems a little shaky to me,” said Sutton. “Do you have enough concrete evidence to startle either one of these two into divulging incriminating information? If they’ve carried out some kind of illegal scheme for as long as you say they have, they don’t strike me as the type to be easily rattled. We’d have to be sure of our facts to have any chance of succeeding.”

“That’s exactly why we want to find an internet café in Virginia Beach, Chief. We have several logical but mutually-exclusive theories: they all make sense, but they can’t all be right. I want to dig deeper into the backgrounds of our four suspects to determine which theory is true.”

“Okay,” said Sutton. “Once you’ve finished your research, use another disposable phone to tell me what you’ve found. If you can convince me that we have a strong suspect, I’ll round up him—or her—for questioning. It can’t be an arrest, of course, since there’s no crime of record, but we’ll see if we can shake our suspect off his perch.”

They had several more hours to drive and after a bit more conversation, they fell into silence. Feeling the effects of his wounds and blood loss, Alton dozed off in the back seat. Eventually he awoke, feeling sore and restless. He took more ibuprofen and picked up the newspaper. An article caught his eye: “US Drone Strike in Kabul Province Credited with Elimination of Key Al-Qaeda Leader.” The piece led Alton through a quick succession of memories as he scanned it. He read a different article concerning the Orioles’ playoff chances and another postulating on the cause of the stock market’s recent strength.

Alton surveyed the back seat. What a mess. He gathered the newspapers and old coffee cups into a pile and listlessly glanced at the notebook paper he had moved aside when entering the car. It contained information about historic landmarks. He abstractedly read down the list: “1) Washington: Lincoln Memorial, Smithsonian Institution, House White (1600 Pennsylvania Avenue), Congress Building, Jefferson Memorial…” and “2) Philadelphia: Betsy Ross house, Independence Hall, The Liberty Ball, Lincoln Field,…” Someone had apparently been making the rounds.

“Do you need this list of landmarks?” he asked Sutton.

“Naw,” replied Sutton. “My brother was visiting from California a few weeks ago and wanted to see the sights in this part of the country. I guess he just left it behind after his trip.”

Alton tossed the list on top of the trash pile. Still feeling the restlessness of fatigue and pain, he gazed out of the window until he saw the “Welcome to Virginia Beach” billboard.

As they entered Virginia Beach, Mallory and Alton spotted the perfect location for conducting their research: a “Virginia is for Internet Lovers” shop located just a block away from another nondescript motel. After dropping off Mallory and Alton at the motel, Sutton left to return to Washington, and his former passengers set out to begin their work.

CHAPTER 65

Virginia Beach, Virginia

After checking in and leaving their few belongings at Life’s a Beach motel, Mallory and Alton returned to the internet café. Mallory paid in cash, knowing it was the only way to use a computer without leaving a credit card trail directly to their location.

They still faced a challenge: used normally, the café’s computer itself would give away their geographic location the moment Mallory used it to access FBI systems. Alton’s “rabbit hole” program had been useful once, but it was a commercially-available product. Alton knew that their adversaries would be waiting for them to use it again and would employ known countermeasures to track them down in a matter of minutes.

Using more advanced software still under development at Kruptos, Alton bounced the signal through multiple servers and modulated the user names, passwords, and IP addresses at each server, rendering their identity and location unknown and untraceable for at least twenty-four hours and probably longer.

“It won’t stand up forever, though,” Alton told Mallory, “so we’ll need to make good use of this time.”

Mallory set out to apply her forensic accounting background as she had never used it before, digging into the history of all four suspects. She and Alton also followed up on a few factual anomalies from the past week for which they did not yet have suitable explanations.

By the end of the second evening, they had pieced together a portrait of deceit and intrigue that would have been unthinkable only a few short days before.

Mallory called Dr. Roland of the CDC and asked him to use a new formula she provided to mix a small batch of Rabinil to be used as evidence. The doctor readily agreed to prepare a small canister of the mixture and ship it overnight to Mallory’s FBI office.

Mallory called Sutton on a disposable phone.

“Chief, we still don’t know all the facts, but I think we have enough information to justify bringing all four key suspects together to see if our understanding of the case will surprise one of them into a confession.”

“I know you can’t talk long or you’ll give away your location,” said Sutton, “so I have to trust that you have your facts straight. Are you sure you’re ready to round them up?”

“Pretty sure, Chief.”

“Okay—I’ll concoct some type of plausible explanation. Do you want them in the same interrogation room or separate?”

“I think gathering them in the same room would be more effective,” replied Mallory. “As you’ve told me previously, the cross-accusations which often occur in that type of environment could put additional pressure on the guilty party. Plus, a few innocent parties need to be warned.”

“Okay. Let’s plan on meeting at one p.m. tomorrow in the Rokesmith building. I’ll reserve room one-oh-six. It should be large enough to hold the entire group. Do you need a ride back to Washington?”

“No thanks, Chief,” replied Mallory. “We’re making our own arrangements for that.”

Mallory concluded her call, and Alton immediately contacted David Dunlow.

“David, can you give us a ride from Virginia Beach back to Washington?”

“Sure, Al. Just let me know where to meet.”

Alton told him their location. After agreeing on a pickup time, he added, “Don’t forget your Beretta. There’s a good chance we’ll need it.”