The Code Within: A Thriller (Trent Turner Series) (17 page)

He calculated how long it would take to run up the three flights of stairs to the apartment he shared with another member of The Collective, and figured it would take just over a minute to make it inside from the bar. He and his roommate had both been strong-armed into working for the Kozlov Bratva, and sharing a room was one of the few bright spots in a situation that had become progressively worse. He couldn’t believe he had grabbed the wrong laptop when he took off this afternoon. He wasn’t sure what he was waiting for. If Dimitri Sokov wasn’t onto him already, he knew he would be soon.

The hacker felt the waitress’s presence behind him. She started cracking her chewing gum again. This would be the third time she had invaded his personal space since he’d sat down at the table near the front window.

“What’ll it be?” the waitress asked. Her tone was insistent.

He turned to look at her this time. “Uh, nothing. I’m fine.” He turned back to the window so he could keep an eye on the apartment building.

“Aw, well isn’t that just terrific,” she said. “You’re fine. Just fine.”

From the time he’d arrived, Zander could sense that he wasn’t welcome in New Generations Lounge. He figured the sentiment was par for the course in the armpit of Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood.

He let out a muted laugh as he considered making a remark about her clientele’s collective IQ, but decided being a smartass wouldn’t be the brightest move. Instead he said, “Really, I don’t need anything.”

“This is my table,” she yapped, placing her hands on her waist. “How am I supposed to earn a living with an inconsiderate prick like yourself taking my space, ergo my tips?”

Zander looked around the room. She was the only employee there, and the place was practically empty. There were three hard-looking locals sitting on stools at the bar, and each shot him a gaze that oozed violence.

He shifted nervously in his seat and said, “Look, lady, there’s nobody here. I don’t see the prob—”

“Dwayne, do you hear how he’s talkin’ to your woman?”

Zander watched a hulking man with a pockmarked face push himself away from the bar and take three long strides toward him.

“You disrespectin’ my woman, boy?” Dwayne said with a scowl.

He reached for the hacker with violence in his eyes.

The grip he had on Zander’s shoulder was painful enough for him to break a sweat. “No, no…it’s cool,” he said.

“It’s not cool,” Dwayne shot back, and lifted Zander up off of the chair.

He needed to think fast, or he’d end up with a first-class beating. He jammed his foot into the ringer’s slot of a wheeled yellow mopping station next to him and wrapped his legs around the man.

“What are you doing, punk?” Dwayne barked as the yellow bucket rolled behind him.

Zander thrust both hands into the man’s face. His flailing motion caught the man by surprise, and the squeezing motion from his legs wedged the metal handle for the mop ringer between the brute’s legs.

The meathead began to lose his balance.

“You little fucker,” he yelled as they both started to tumble backward over the rolling yellow bucket. He released his grip on the hacker and tried to catch his fall.

Zander managed to stay on his feet and latched on to the table to regain his balance. He watched the beast crash to the ground, then grabbed his backpack so he could make a break for the door. He threw the door open and sprinted across the street to his apartment building, pushed through the entrance and ran up the stairs to his apartment. He fumbled for his key and entered as quickly as he could, before locking the door behind him.

“Dennis.”

It was a deep voice, definitely Russian.

“Where have you been?”

He was still out of breath and realized he had jumped from one fire into another.

“Man, you scared the shit out of me,” was the only thing he could think to say.

The Russian pushed his chair back so it was on two legs. “Do you have something to hide? Is that why you’re scared?”

“No,” Zander said. He turned the light on so he could get a better look. “It’s a rough neighborhood.”

Zander recognized the man’s face. He was one of the soldiers who normally guarded the server room. He didn’t have his gun out, but given the fierce look in his eyes, he didn’t need one. The hacker focused on trying to act normal.

“We need to take a ride. Dimitri would like to speak to you.”

The potent combination of pressure and fear challenged his concentration. “Sure thing,” he said as he switched the laptops. “I was just heading back there anyway.” He forced a smile. “I realized I grabbed the wrong computer on my way out.” He decided he’d try to sound excited. “I’ve got some great news. I finally fixed that bug I’ve been working on. Can you believe it?”

The Russian wasn’t affected by his words and motioned Zander toward the door. “Let’s go.”

They headed down the stairs and then outside.

“This way to the car,” the Russian said with a shove to the left.

Zander knew once he got to his car there would be no way out.

Island Industries satellite office, Reston, VA

“CALM DOWN, MATILDE, I can’t understand a word you’re saying,” Addy Simpson said in a calm but deliberate voice. He had spoken to Matilde Soller infrequently after she’d married his old college rival, but each time she reached out to him it was for something significant. He tapped his index finger on his desk. His other hand held his cell phone to his ear.

“They took my baby, Addy,” she said, sobbing uncontrollably. “They took my baby. She’s all I have left!”

“Who, Matilde? Who?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

He had never heard her so terrified.

“People are dead. She was screaming. They tried to get me, but I got away.”

“Who’s dead?”

Matilde’s voice was desperate. “I…I don’t know. God, they better not hurt my baby.”

The news filled him with anger. “Who tried to grab you?”

“I don’t know, Addy. They came at my car while Maria was checking the house. She wanted to see if she could find out who they were.”

“Hold on a second, wait,” he said. He needed to calm her down. “Bella, you’re losing me. Where are you?”

“I’m driving,” she said.

“Okay. Take some deep breaths and start over from the beginning.”

Simpson hadn’t called her Bella since they had been dating in college. He hoped doing so would slow down her panicked thoughts and help to ground her.

He told her to pull the car over to the side of the road to collect herself, and then she gave him the details about everything she could remember. She explained how the phone had cut out, and that it had happened just after she had driven away. She said it sounded like they were leaving the house at the time.

“Does your car have a GPS?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Tell me about the house. I’ll have an analyst examine the waypoints from your car.”

“It was offset from the road, surrounded by trees in a very quiet area. It had a long gravel driveway. Someone left in a car just before Maria went to take a closer look. It wasn’t one of the SUVs. I’m not sure what kind of car it was.”

“Do you know how many people were in there?”

“No. I heard several different voices. The men that went inside after they grabbed Maria sounded Russian.”

“Russian? Are you sure?” He could sense she was reliving the event in her mind, and winced.

“I don’t know for sure. Their accents were pretty thick, but the phone cut out and…” She paused, and he could hear her try to reel in her sobs before she continued. “And they said they wouldn’t kill them if they cooperated.” Despair had crept into her voice by the time she added, “She said she loved me, Addy.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“It was the last thing she said to me. I was too scared to tell her I love her too.”

He heard her sobbing and then try to regain control.

“I didn’t want them to know I was listening,” she said.

“Don’t worry, Bella. I’ll find her. You did the right thing. Does Max know you’ve called me?”

“No.”

Simpson knew how to handle her husband. He’d been doing it for years. First he got the best of him on the field, and then, despite the man’s attempts to bring him down, in Washington. It was a jealous rivalry that ran deep. The senator had gotten the woman in the end, but he was never able to steal her heart.

He used the phone on his desk to confirm the Poolesville location with an analyst at The Shop. It pained him to hear her crying in the background, and just before he relayed the news, she spoke.

“I’m sorry, Addy.” There was a deep sadness in her voice. “For everything.”

Leaving him when he had finally achieved his goal of becoming a Navy SEAL, she had once told him, was her biggest regret in life, and marrying Max Soller two years later was a close second. Her husband had cost Simpson his post at the CIA, and when she found out about what the senator had done, it was the beginning of the end of their marriage. Maximillian Soller was a powerful politician, and the couple had stayed together, first for the children, and then for appearance’s sake. That, she confided in him, had been another mistake.

Simpson closed his eyes and took a deep breath before finally saying, “There’s no need to apologize, Bella.” He needed to compartmentalize and treat this like any other operation. “Maria needs you to be strong and keep your head clear. Let me know if you think of anything else. Anything,” he insisted.

Dulles Airport, Northern Virginia

THE AIRPORT WAS light on travelers for a Saturday evening, which would make it easier for Trent Turner to spot anything out of the ordinary. Heckler put Etzy Millar in contact with technology assets at The Shop before they headed to the airport, and under the circumstances, the fact that someone else knew their itinerary made the operative a bit uneasy. He used a kit at the townhouse to create a new driver’s license for Millar, and the hacker was now Jerry Rask, someone with the same birth date and age to make things easier. The Shop had made sure everything would check out when his ID was scanned into the airport’s computer systems.

“Okay, Etzy, are you ready for this?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Do you remember the signals for the cameras?”

“Yeah, you’ll be like a third-base coach.”

Turner laughed. “I’ll try to be a little more discreet than that. We don’t want the cameras to scan our faces, or we might end up having some company.”

“Are you sure they have facial recognition?”

“These days they can recognize people by their walk.”

“So let me get this straight,” he said, pulling his baseball cap down. “I go first, and if I get searched at the checkpoint, you’ll be behind me or mess with your stuff until I’m clear, and if you get searched I should keep going toward the gate but find a place to wait for you so you can point out the cameras.”

“That’s right. If I’m searched, remember to keep your head down until we link up.” Turner put a firm hand on Millar’s shoulder to calm him. “Just take it easy. It’ll be fine. Remember what I told you about being anonymous. It works. You can become invisible.”

“What about the bag?”

Turner winked. The hacker’s smile told him he’d finally put it together.

“Bagman. I get it.”

Turner dropped Millar off at the departures area and drove to short-term parking. Less than five minutes had passed when Turner casually strolled past him and led them to the ticket kiosks. He made sure the machine spit out the hacker’s plane ticket after he scanned in his new driver’s license.

They headed toward the security checkpoint. The operative used the reflections in the massive windows to make sure they were in the clear and that Etzy recognized his signals. He stopped to adjust his bag so the hacker could go through the security-checkpoint line first, as planned. Both men emptied their bags and placed their electronic devices, jackets, belts, and shoes into plastic containers. Turner was concerned with the amount of cameras that canvased the checkpoint area and hoped Millar would do a good job of keeping his head down.

The fact that Francis “Etzy” Millar’s name had been kept out of the headlines made their trip through the airport easier, but there was a bigger problem brewing, based on Cannibal’s latest report. It had revealed that the top man at the FBI had been purposely holding back information about his presence at the murder scene. Millar was already nervous enough, so the development wasn’t something that Turner wanted to share just yet.

He overtook Millar on their way to the gate so he could identify the cameras. He took the seat with the best vantage point when they arrived at the gate, and Millar sat across from him without making eye contact. The slog through the cameras was over. Now it was time for the nerve-racking part. Turner stood and placed a newspaper on his seat.

“Excuse me,” he said to the elderly woman sitting next to him.

“Yes?”

He gave her a warm smile and said, “I’ll be right back. Could you please make sure the plane doesn’t leave without me?”

“Of course.” She laughed, before her expression changed to one of concern. “Don’t you fly much?”

“No, ma’am. I try to keep my feet on the ground.”

She smiled. “They don’t wait for anyone these days, so it’s best for you to hurry back.”

Turner bowed his head in thanks and grabbed his bag before heading down the corridor to take care of business.

Englewood neighborhood, Chicago, IL

EVERY COUPLE OF steps he felt a push to hurry him along. Dennis Zander was walking as slowly as he could, and his Russian chaperone was clearly getting annoyed. They were headed toward South Halsted Street, where he assumed the Bratva soldier’s car was parked, when he had an idea. It was crazy, desperate even, but he wasn’t exactly drowning in options.

Zander looked up at the Russian and said, “Hey, can we take care of my car really quick? I don’t want it to get towed.” He didn’t even own a car, but he hoped the Bratva man wouldn’t know that.

The Russian ignored him.