The Kill Order (28 page)

“It can do all that?”

“If you can think of it, it can do it. It’s the closest thing to artificial intelligence out there. And trust me. You go back with what I tell you, you’ll find yourself transferred to some outpost, or discredited, or brought up on false charges. Or dead. So have at it. The global elite have already set it in motion, and once they get the Devil’s Key, the world is theirs.”

She was beginning to wonder if this was a dead end, that Rico wasn’t going to tell them anything they could use. “The global elite? So the world is being run by a bunch of billionaire Bilderbergs or something?”

“Bilderbergs?” Rico said. “The conspiracy theory that those guys are running Europe?”

“So they say.”

“Yeah. Well the group here? In charge of running the world from Capitol Hill? They go by a different name. The Network.”

And that was a name Sydney and Griffin
had
heard of.

It certainly explained why Parker Kane was so hot to shut down ATLAS. Who wouldn’t want that sort of knowledge and access to not only the world’s money supply but all its computers?

Sydney glanced at her watch. They had a little over an hour to wrap up this interview and get out of here before they were found out. “You have any questions you want to ask?” she said to Griffin. “Pretty sure this is all way over my head.”

Griffin moved closer, leaning toward Rico. “Why are they keeping you alive?”

“Because they need me.”

“There’s a lot about this that doesn’t make sense. The money, being able to move it seamlessly, maybe. But you obviously don’t have the key and couldn’t re-create it, or they’d have forced that from you a long time ago. And they’ve spent countless resources trying to recover the key . . .” He looked at Sydney, then back at him. “There’s something you’re not telling us. Something they know that we don’t.”

Rico shrugged.

“You realize
we
have the key?
We
recovered it. Maybe that’s why you’re suddenly being transferred.”

There was a flicker of something in Rico’s eye. Fear? she wondered. “That’s impossible,” he said.

“No, it’s not,” Griffin said. “Robert Orozco found it. In fact, he’s the one who sent us to
you
.”

“You’re lying. Robert left the country. I’m the one who helped him. Helped erase his tracks.”

“Well, you forgot to erase her father’s tracks. He’s the one who helped Robert steal the key.”

Rico glanced in her direction. “Who was your father?”

“Kevin Fitzpatrick.”

His brows went up a slight fraction. “Doesn’t mean anything.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “What does is that I went down to Robert’s villa just north of Ensenada, and he gave me the key, which was tucked in a bank bag, and he told me it was the tip of an iceberg so large, they didn’t dare let the American public know the truth. Sound about right?”

He gave a dismissive shrug, but she could tell he was shaken. Which meant they were close. Carillo had said that Orozco had written something on the back of that business card, which he couldn’t decipher. That RC had one, one, two. One hundred and twelve . . . What the hell had he been trying to say about the Devil’s Key? One one two . . .

Not one one two. One
slash
two. “Oh my God. You have half.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit. Orozco only had half the code. That’s why they needed you. Doesn’t do them any good if they only have half. They
had
to keep you alive, because you were smart enough never to allow the entire key together. That would be suicide. Where is it?”

A bead of sweat appeared on his upper lip, and his nostrils flared as he looked from her to Griffin, then back. “They’ll kill me.”

“They probably will,” Sydney said. “They killed Orozco. And that was when they thought he might still have his copy. The way I see it, though, you’ve been granted a twenty-year reprieve. You should have been dead a long time ago, like every other player in this game.”

“If I give it to you, I’m going to need protection.”

“We can’t make any promises,” Griffin said.

“But you’ll try?”

“We’ll try. But your best bet is going to be to get us the other half before they do. And I’d avoid mentioning that we were here.”

“They’re going to find out. They always do. They’re paying someone on the inside. They have to be.”

She glanced at Griffin, wondering if the warden was the one, especially since he failed to mention the impending transfer.

Griffin, however, blazed right past that. Probably figuring there was no sense spooking him any more than he was. “And where does one find this program key?”

“It won’t do you any good, unless you got someone who knows a lot about computers.”

“Pretend we do.”

“Stored in an underground bunker out near Pocito, a little town between here and the border.” He gave them the address. “It’s locked up in a safe.”

“That’s it?”

“Yep. But good luck getting to it.”

“Why is that?”

“You know those methamphetamine charges I was convicted on? Well, the people who were actually making it, that’s their land. They tend to take a dim view of trespassers.”

“Who lives there now?”

“Besides my wife? She’s on the other side. Dirt road divides the place. Like a little compound in the valley. Hatfield and McCoys.” He laughed.

“You were saying about who lived there?”

“Right.” He closed his eyes. “New guy, my wife told me. Moved in a couple years ago . . . Quin, Quint? Something like that.”

“Quindlen?” Griffin asked.

“Yeah. That could be it. You know him?”

“His name’s come up a time or two.”

“Undoubtedly. The guy’s running the largest meth operation this side of the Mexican border. Heard there was a big gun bust not too far from there. Some federal operation. You can guarantee he had his hands in that, too.”

Griffin had actually been involved with the case, even if only peripherally. Quindlen was implicated, but they weren’t able to make him on it. If Quindlen was connected to this, Griffin wanted to take him down. He looked at his watch. “Hate to break up the reminiscing here, but we’re running out of time.”

“Time? For what?” Rico asked.

“We’d rather not run into whoever is picking you up.”

“You
are
going to stop them, right? From transferring me?”

“We don’t have a lot of say in that. But once we take care of business, we’ll see what we can do.”

Griffin moved to the door, hit the call button to get the guard to let them out.

It wasn’t until they were several miles away that Sydney thought about what Rico had said about the property and trespassers. “That name he mentioned. Quindlen? As in the Quindlen that was mentioned when you and I were in Pocito? Ex-CIA, current drug runner?”

“Too much of a coincidence to think otherwise.”

“Assuming he was connected with the dirty cops in Pocito, and he’s one of Parker Kane’s men, we might want to call in a little help.”

“How fast do you think Carillo and Tex can drive down here?”

“It took us what . . . thirteen, fourteen hours? I think if we want their help, they’re going to have to risk a plane trip. Maybe Doc can set them up with some suitable undercover IDs.”

45

T
he air was brisk, cold, and so dry that it hurt Griffin’s eyes. Tex and Carillo had arrived sometime close to dawn, and after lunch, they drove out to Pocito.

They were parked on a hill, a dirt road overlooking the land where Rico’s old trailer sat, where he’d lived with his wife before his arrest. They had circled the complex, which was located in a shallow valley between two hillsides, and discovered a little-used dirt road adjacent to one of the abandoned mines in the area that ran into the back of the property. Apparently the small complex where Rico and his wife had made their home used to be part of the mining operation.

The mine had been abandoned long ago, and the road they’d taken rough from non-use. It ended on the west side of the complex, giving them a decent view. Griffin and Tex left the car higher up the road out of sight, where Carillo and Sydney were acting as lookouts, while he and Tex moved farther down the hillside on foot. They crouched down behind some shrubbery and a large boulder about five hundred feet west of the compound.

Just as Rico had described the place, the complex was divided in two by the main road, which appeared to be gravel. On the right was a small ranch house, and next to that a dilapidated old bunkhouse, probably left over from when the mine was open, but now little more than a gray shell of wood that looked about to fall down at any time. Next to that was a corrugated metal building large enough to house a car or two, or even some ranch equipment, though it didn’t look like anyone was doing any ranching, unless you counted the half-dozen goats in the pen and the chicken coop located behind the ranch house.

On the right of the gravel road was the trailer, presumably where Rico’s wife, Charlene, lived. And just behind her trailer was the bunker Rico described, the cinder-block structure where the safe was supposed to be located.

Tex handed Griffin the binoculars. “Couple dogs on the porch of the ranch house. That could be an issue.”

Griffin surveyed the property. “Never mind getting down there without being seen by anyone in the house. I don’t like this. Too risky.”

“What about a distraction on the right side where the ranch house is, so the bunker side is out of the limelight?”

“And how would you do that?”

“We set up there,” Tex said, pointing to a curve in the dirt road. “Carillo and I can skirt along the hillside to the right. Of course, that’s assuming you and Sydney can now get along.”

“We’re fine.”

Tex looked over at him. “Just an observation, but she seems . . . tense around you.”

“Let’s just say we’re a work in progress.”

“You might try working on something besides the sex.”

Griffin would have denied it, but Tex had already turned his attention back to the compound, saying, “I think we can get past the dogs. I can head down the hill behind the ranch house. A few hamburgers or something, get the dogs’ attention off you, while you come down to Rico’s place, get in, get the code, and when you’re clear, we all leave.”

“And what if those animals are trained not to eat meat thrown down?”

“Look at that place,” Tex said. “Does it scream highly trained canines?”

“Don’t forget that Quindlen allegedly lives there.”

“Yeah, well what I remember most about him when he was with the CIA was that he was an ass.”

“A highly trained ass.”

“Agreed. But let’s say he did train the dogs, they’re still going to be back there, barking. At me. Not you. So unless you can find any other agents who want to go in on an illegal search, we’re it. Let’s just hope the Pocito Police Department isn’t as corrupt as it was on your last mission in this area. I’d rather be arrested than shot.”

“That makes two of us.”

46

A
bout an hour before dusk, they drove to the edge of the valley, waiting for the sun to drop toward the horizon, casting their shadows across the red dirt in the direction of the compound. When the sun was just over the hilltops, they started out, the vehicle idling until they reached the slope, and then Griffin put it in neutral and shut the engine off, allowing it to roll down the hill, slow enough not to kick up too much dust or make any noise. As Griffin let the car roll into the same spot he’d parked before, it bottomed out. Sydney heard metal hitting rock. “Careful,” she said. “This car’s on Doc’s credit card.”

And Carillo, sitting next to her in the back, laughed. “Doc’s aiding and abetting federal fugitives,
and
harboring Piper’s brother who is currently listed as missing in every police department in America. I’m thinking Doc’s got bigger issues to worry about.”

“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.

S
ydney 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-produce 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?”