One Child (18 page)

Chapter

31

Soho, New York

Carson
stared at the information on the sheet in front of him on the kitchen table. It was like something out of a spy novel.

Trey Miller was ex-CIA, but lots of people had worked at the Central Intelligence Agency at one point in their lives. They typed memos. They collected information. They wrote software. Most of the jobs inside the agency were fairly mundane. But not Miller's. Not in the least.

Miller had been with the agency over twenty-one years - stationed in the Baltics for three years and Tajikistan and Uzbekistan for another five. During his stint, nine foreign agents had died and three more went missing. While the data inside the file never specifically linked Miller to the killings, the inferences were obvious. He was trained in hand-to-hand combat, knife-fighting, handguns, explosives and held numerous records for sharpshooting. He spoke six languages flawlessly.

And Trey Miller was somehow tied in with William
Fleming
.

Carson
rubbed his hands over his eyes. He didn't need to look in the mirror to know they were bloodshot. His head hurt from pressure behind his left eye - something that happened when he succumbed to stress. The Advil he had swallowed an hour ago was kicking in, but the pain was still there, lurking, ready to spread. A floorboard creaked behind him and he instinctively slid a blank piece of paper over the page with Miller's photo.

"What are you doing?"
Nicki
asked. She sat across from him at the table. The dinner dishes had been cleared and low voices from the television drifted into the kitchen.

"Looking at a potential new hire," he lied. The last thing
Nicki
needed right now was stress of any sort. Telling her he suspected
Fleming
was embroiled in something shady wasn't going to help her already fragile health. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," she said. "My breathing is easier and I have more energy."

"Eating well, too." He stood and hugged her.
Nicki
's body was warm through her robe and there was a hint of strawberry fragrance on her skin from her bath oils. He held her for a minute, then said, "I have to go in to the office for a while. Do you think you can amuse yourself for a bit?"

She didn't pull away. "I think so." Her breathing was rhythmic and slow. "What's so pressing?"

"We're running a series of tests on the new algo. I want to see the results as they come in."

"Okay. How long will you be?"

"It's eight o'clock now, and I should be at the office about an hour. With travel time I should be home by ten."

"I'll wait up."

"Good. I'd like that."

He collected his briefcase, kissed her, then locked the door behind him and hailed a cab. He gave the cabbie the address on Avenue of the Americas and dialed Alicia's number on his cell phone.

"Can you come in for a few minutes?" he asked when she picked up.

"
Carson
, it's almost 8:30 on Wednesday night. I only got home an hour ago."

"You live five minutes from the office. What took you so long to get home?"

"I went for drinks in Bryant Park with friends," she said.

"Come back in, please. I need a favor."

A moment's silence, then she said, "All right. See you in ten minutes."

Carson
hung up and closed his eyes. He always processed thoughts better when there were no other distractions.
Fleming
was tied in with Trey Miller. Miller had spent time working as a spy for the CIA.
Fleming
was in Cabo San Lucas and wouldn't be back until Friday. That gave him a window of opportunity that might not reappear for some length of time. A chance to find out what
Fleming
was up to.

Carson
was worried about where he might stand legally if
Fleming
was gearing up to manipulate the markets. His latest promotion put him in a lead role inside the company. But along with the remuneration and the rest of the perks came a certain degree of risk. If the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated his division and found wrongdoing, he could be hung out to dry. How well did he know William
Fleming
? It was a simple question and an equally simple answer. Not all that well. He'd worked for Platinus for years but it was only in the last couple of weeks that he had interacted with
Fleming
with any degree of regularity. Maybe it was a coincidence that
Fleming
had received that particular e-mail from Miller at precisely this time. Maybe.

Carson
hated coincidences. He didn't trust them.

The cab driver pulled him back from the quiet world of processing disturbing thoughts. The fare was nine dollars.
Carson
handed the man twenty and waved off the change. He swiped his card in the reader and signed in, calling the night security man by name and asking how his pregnant wife was faring with the summer heat. He let the guard know that Alicia would be coming in soon and took the elevator to forty-six. He unlocked his office and powered up his computer. Minutes later, Alicia appeared at his door.

"What's going on,
Carson
?" she asked. "Does this have something to do with the algorithm?"

Carson
shook his head. "No. Chui and I were watching how it performed today and it was okay. Chased a couple of smaller stocks, but didn't drive anything beyond a realistic value. I think it'll be okay. We're going to keep our eye on it, though."

"Okay, then it's about that e-mail from Trey Miller that you asked me to trace."

He nodded. "Sit down, please," he said, pointing to the chair facing the desk. Behind them the skyline of Manhattan was darkening. Shadows danced off the buildings and the park was a huge black rectangle.

"This thing with Miller has me worried," he said.

"No shit," she replied. "The guy is CIA."

"Ex-CIA. He hasn't worked for the agency for a few years."

Alicia shook her head. "It hardly matters. Aaron sent me a copy of the file. He killed people,
Carson
."

Carson
's hands were shaking slightly. "I know, Alicia. It's not good news." He leaned forward, his elbows firmly on the desk. It masked the tremors coursing through his body. "That's why I want you to pull every e-mail Miller has sent to
Fleming
off
Fleming
's computer."

She stared at him, wide-eyed. She didn't move for fifteen seconds, then shook her head. "That's crazy,
Carson
."

A strange calm settled in over him and he stopped shaking. "No, it's not. It's what we have to do. It's possible that
Fleming
is involved in something illegal, and whatever he's planning could easily filter down and bite you and me and Chui in our proverbial asses. We need to protect ourselves, and the best way to do that is to find out exactly what
Fleming
is up to."

She didn't look convinced. "You're talking about hacking into his computer. William
Fleming
's computer. I don't need to remind you that he's one of the richest men in the world. And powerful. And I doubt if he would be very forgiving if he found out. You, and I, could kiss our careers on Wall Street goodbye."

"So let's make sure we don't get caught."

"Not funny,
Carson
."

"Can you get in?" he asked.

She didn't answer for a minute, just stared out the window at the privileged view. Finally, she nodded. "Probably. I could go in through your computer and since it's on the same server I'd only have to figure out his password to have access to his e-mail. It's not difficult."

Carson
's eyes bored into her. "Alicia, I'm worried and I can't sleep. If
Fleming
is planning something, we need to know. Breaking through firewalls and cracking passwords isn't my thing. I need your help."

"When?" she asked.

"Now. He's back from Cabo on Friday and his secretary told me that he never checks his e-mails while he's there. I'm not sure when we'll have another opportunity like this. When he's in New York he always has his Blackberry on."

She glanced over at
Carson
's computer, the screen backlit and casting a soft pall across the room. "This is dangerous," she said.

"So is doing nothing."

Alicia stood and walked to the window. There was no reason for her to do what
Carson
was asking. William
Fleming
was her boss - the man who ran one of the most prestigious and powerful trading firms in the world. He had the right to conduct business as he saw fit, providing it didn't circumvent the law. Pushing things to the limit was a trademark of almost every billionaire on the Forbes list. They didn't get there by being the nice guy on the block and allowing the competition to run roughshod over them. They set the pace and others followed.
Fleming
was no different.

But what
Carson
was suggesting was troubling. The reference to a crash being inevitable was like being hit in the gut with a sucker punch. The last thing Wall Street, or America, needed was another market crash. If
Fleming
was setting things up for a fall, with plans of swooping in and picking the meat off the carcass, then he had to be stopped. But it was a huge
if
. They had no proof. Nothing tangible. Not yet, at least. A quick look into his computer could change that.

She sucked in a deep breath and said, "Okay, but we're in and out. We find what we're looking for, download it and leave. The shorter length of time we're poking around in his e-mail the better."

"Of course."
Carson
slid out from behind his desk and Alicia took his place.

She started typing. "I need to capture the traffic inside the network. The easiest way to do that is to use EnCase to make an offline copy and analyze it later, or to insert a packet sniffer like WireShark to identify and capture e-mails. But both of those require foresight."

"Sorry about that,"
Carson
said.

"It's okay, I have other ways." She worked for another couple of minutes, then pointed at the screen. "There it is. The e-mail from Trey Miller."

"Can you group all the e-mails from him together?"

"Easy." She hit the
from
tab and the computer ordered the e-mail alphabetically.

"Download all of them,"
Carson
said, then added, "please."

There were four in total and she highlighted them and sent them to the memory stick. Another click and the e-mails went back to being ordered by the date they arrived. Alicia moved the curser to sign out, but
Carson
touched her hand.

"Open that one," he said, pointing.

She hesitated, then clicked on a mail from Jorge with
Arrived safely in KAF
in the subject line. It opened revealing a message only five words in length.

Crates at KAF. Submit invoice.

"Why this one?" Alicia asked.

"I think KAF is short for Kandahar Airfield. I have a buddy who spent some time over there and he always referred to it as KAF. He said it a lot and it stuck." He leaned closer to the screen, peering over her shoulder. "Can you reorder them so everything from Jorge is together?"

She glanced back at him for a second, then clicked on the
from
button. There were three from Jorge since July 27
th
. "You want me to save them?" she asked.

"Please."

Alicia sent them to the memory stick, reset
Fleming
's e-mail to its original settings and exited the program. She pulled the memory stick from the USB port and handed it to
Carson
.

"Thanks for doing that," he said, taking the stick and slipping it in his pocket.

"It's okay," she said. "Let's hope we're still employed next week."

Chapter

32

Kandahar, Afghanistan

Halima was beginning to see the upside to living in Peshawar. The days without food and clean water would be history. Watching her younger sisters go hungry was no longer something she would have to live with every day.

It had been a while since she'd seen her father happy. She couldn't remember the last time, but she knew it was while her mother was still alive. The Taliban had ruined his hand when they crushed it with the rifle, but they had ruined his life when they came back to reclaim the area around Kandahar. It brought more war and a never-ending stream of conflict. Finally, when he met the man from Peshawar, there was a glimmer of hope in him.

He wanted this so badly for her. And for Aaqila and Danah. He had told her that if she went to live with this family in Pakistan that he would be able to buy food and water for years. That the family would be so happy to have her that they would pay him. He cried when he told her this - and begged her forgiveness for selling her. She had touched his hand and told him that he wasn't selling her, simply making a good decision.

He left the room, the tears falling freely.

When he returned he was composed. He apologized for showing such weakness and asked her if she could refrain from telling anyone. She burrowed her head into his chest and held him as tight as her thin arms could. That was three days ago. Now, today, he had left a few hours earlier with a different man to go to the bank. She didn't understand what a bank was, but he told her it was a place to store money. She thought it was strange that he didn't keep it under the blanket. That was where he always kept his money, even as much as two or three dollars.

Footsteps from the stairwell echoed through the room and all three girls looked at the door with fear and mistrust. Seconds later their father shuffled into the room. He smiled and knelt down with his arms out.

"Aaqila, Danah, look what I have for you," he said. He thrust his hand into his tunic and pulled out a small bag of candy. They scampered over to him and he doled it out to them as they giggled. When each had taken their share and had retreated across the room to compare their treats, he motioned to Halima. "Come here," he said softly.

She sat beside him. He was trembling as he slipped a thin package from under his tunic. It was a plastic bag from a store in the center of Kandahar. One of her friends had brought a similar bag to the marketplace. Everyone was envious. The friend had never told what was in the bag, just having it was privilege enough.

"Open it," he said. His voice was so gentle.

She cracked open the top flaps and peeked in. "Oh, father," she whispered as she pulled out the book and pencil. The cover was bright red and inside the pages were lined and blank. Ready for writing. The pencil was emblazoned with multi-colored flowers and sharpened to a flawless point. She ran her hand across the book cover, feeling its strength and smoothness. She had never held such a treasure.

"It's for your first day of school," Kadir said.

Halima looked at her father. There was no mistaking it. Her father was finally happy. She slipped her hand around his waist and snuggled into him. His breathing was slow and rhythmic. She felt something she had never felt before.

She felt safe.