Blood Line (17 page)

Reuben stood stiffly and said, “Okay, we’ll be right back,” and he, his wife, and sons left the room.

Wakefield pulled out a chair, and as she cut Julia’s wire ties with a pocketknife, she said, “Have a seat, sweetheart, and spill. Or I’m going to leave you alone in this room with Valerie.”

Julia huffed, “Whatever,” to Wakefield, but kept her eyes trained on Valerie.

“Oh, I see you don’t think that’s a problem for a gal like yourself? You may not be a full-time field agent, but you did go through the standard CIA training. You know the basic self defense techniques, and I understand that affords you a certain level of confidence over your average citizen, but,” and Wakefield paused here for dramatic effect, “Valerie is no average citizen.”

I thought that got Julia’s attention, but I couldn’t tell for sure, because Julia remained focused on Valerie.

“There isn’t anything average about Valerie at all. Quite the opposite, really. And of the long list of things that make her extraordinary, there is only one item on that list you should be aware of.”

“What’s that?”

“Valerie,” Wakefield glanced at Val, and receiving the go ahead nod, said, “is a former agent of the Mossad.”

Julia whipped her head toward Wakefield.

“Bullshit. There is nothing in her background that indicates membership in any organization, let alone the Mossad.”

“That’s right; there isn’t. Why would there be? Unlike the US intelligence agencies, the Mossad keeps their agents’ secret forever. They never reveal their identities, and the agents aren’t allowed to reveal they were part of the Mossad, but I think we can make an exception to that rule tonight, given the circumstances.”

Wakefield paused and took a seat at the table.

“Do you know what Mossad agents do, Julia?”

“No,” she said, “not really.”

“Their primary function is that of assassins. See, that’s another thing the Israelis do that the US agencies fail at. The Israelis make it clear what agents of Mossad are all about. The US agencies like to hide their true purpose behind the veil of intelligence gathering, but that’s all bullshit. If you don’t believe me, just ask Ron. Oh dear, I almost forgot about Ron. See not only did you and your boyfriend target the child of an agent for the Mossad,” Wakefield informed her, “but that child is also the daughter of a former CIA kill squad agent. In fact, he was so good at his job that he was a squad of one. Those rumors Moore talked about in the hotel? Well, those are all true, and the man those rumors are about is standing right over there.” Wakefield pointed at me and then said, “So pick your poison, Julia. You can talk to me and tell me what I need to know and live, or you can die. Which is it?”

All the color and anger drained from Julia’s face. She was as pale as her shirt now. She reached for the pendant that was no longer around her neck. Her security blanket, as it were. She looked away from Valerie’s face, to me, and then back to Valerie.

“Okay. I’ll talk.”

“We’re listening,” Wakefield demanded.

Julia was crying now.

“It started eighteen months ago. Tom and I had just begun our relationship. We’d been working together for about six months, and finally decided to date each other. Anyway, we were reading the news one rainy Sunday morning when I stumbled across an article online. The article was about government waste, like that was something new, but this article detailed hundreds of millions of dollars being fraudulently sent to people by the IRS. The problem was, the people receiving the money didn’t exist. The IRS eventually tracked down the group perpetrating the fraud, but never got back all of the money. I made a silly observation that Tom took seriously. I commented how the perps in that case could’ve avoided being caught and totally gotten away with it. He begged me to tell him how. So I did,” she paused, and the tears turned to sobs as she said, “but I never thought he would try to do it for real. I swear.”

Wakefield slammed the flat of her hand down hard on the tabletop. The resulting noise snapped Julia out of the personal pity party she was having.

“Listen to me, Julia. I don’t care about that crap. I want to know where the girl is being held, and where Moore and his crew are. I want to know to whom they are selling the technology. We’ve made an educated guess as to the location Leecy is being held, but I want confirmation. We know the buyer is coming in from the Middle East, but I want a name. I want details. Start telling me what I want to know or all bets are off, and you have option two chosen for you. Stop wasting my time.”

“I don’t know any of that stuff! Tom kept me out of the loop about details like that.”

Julia tucked her long blonde hair behind her ears and wiped her face with shaky hands. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know. You think you’re the first person to ever threaten me? Think again!” She was laughing and crying, but this time uncontrollably. “And threatening me with Susie homemaker here,” she said, jabbing a thumb in Valerie’s direction, “won’t change a thing. I suggest you give Tom, Porter, and those two Smith guys what they want, or,” she reached for the missing necklace again, this time clasping her shaking hands together, “or Tom and his friends will make sure that girl suffers. This is something I do know; it’s not an empty threat. Other than that, you can go fuck yourself, Special Agent Wakefield,” she said, turning to face Valerie, “And you, you can…”

Valerie shut Julia up by landing a right cross on her chin. The punch landed with enough force that Julia was thrown out of her chair and slammed into the adjacent wall. Julia was KO’d. Valerie was still sitting in her chair as if nothing had happened. It was like watching a black mamba strike and recoil. Valerie was that quick, and that powerful.

“What the hell?” Wakefield exclaimed when she saw Julia’s head bounce off the wall and her limp body slide to the floor.

“She was useless. She’s obviously suffered some trauma at the hands of Moore or someone else. No point in dragging it out,” Valerie said, as she stood to leave the room.

“Was that necessary?” Wakefield said.

Valerie whipped around to face Wakefield from the open doorway of the kitchen.

“You gave her two options. I assumed you weren’t bluffing. If I misread the situation, that’s my bad, but you said it yourself: I’m an assassin. I don’t make idle threats, and I don’t expect the people I work with to waste time, either. Julia is going to remain loyal to Moore till the bitter end. She was going to waste our time with some long, sad story and say nothing helpful. The best thing we can do for her is get her some help, but until then, our choices are to waste manpower watching her, kill her, or incapacitate her until she can be useful. So I gave her a version of the option two you mentioned because I didn’t want to kill her. She can still be of some help.”

Wakefield thought a moment and then said, “Sounds like you have a plan. Do you want to share it?”

“Not yet.”

“Okay. Fair enough. But what do we do with her now?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Valerie said, and turned away from Wakefield, signaling that she was finished with that conversation and moving onto something else. “Ron? I’ll grab some of those extra large black bags from the warehouse and a roll of duct tape. Bring Julia and meet me in the rubber lab. Franks, if you will grab her feet, you and Ron can move her.”

“Okay,” Franks said, “which way to the rubber lab?”

“Just follow me,” I said, grabbing Julia’s body under her arms and walking out of the kitchen.

I heard Wakefield’s voice in my earpiece. “I’ll be outside with Ryan and Hodges talking with Zach. Find me there when you three are finished in here. I’ll tell the Simons to wait for us in the kitchen.”

I led Franks through to the rubber lab, which was nothing like R&D. The place was covered in a thin layer of carbon black from all the rubber compounds being produced and tested in the lab. Valerie was waiting for us.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Now, we wrap her up in the bags and tie her up with duct tape. Make certain she can breathe, though. We don’t want her dying on us, but we don’t want her making any noise, either. So make the package snug so it’s easy to transport. We’ll need her later,” Val said.

We loaded Julia into the trunk of the Honda.

Frank said, “Will she be okay in there in this heat?”

“Sure, but to be safe we’ll leave the lid of the trunk open till we have to close it,” I said, as we turned and walked toward the others.

“Good news.” Zachary said. “Leecy is in the old jail beneath the City Hall, exactly where you thought she might be. She…”

“How do you know?” I asked, cutting him off.

“The camera filming the image of the door is sending what appears to be video through the WIFI signal from City Hall.”

“Why do you say appears to be video? Again, how do you know?” Valerie asked.

“Long story short, I hacked the phone company and determined City Hall uses the phone line for Internet access, but spreads the signal throughout the building via a WIFI router the phone company installed. That WIFI signal is being hacked by a computer using the PCPD Internet cable. I’ve identified the computer at PCPD by the IP address we’ve been searching for. So, I’ve found the computer, and I’ve found Moore,” Zach said, almost admiringly.

“And the video?” Wakefield ordered.

“Oh, sorry,” Zach said. “The bandwidth usage at the PCPD is off the charts. That’s not surprising, given the images coming from the old jail. And Moore is also routing the transmissions from the pendant to his computer. I assume he’s doing this to prevent his phone from being tracked in case we got on to Julia.”

“What about the video? The video!” Valerie demanded.

“Just a second; let me verify one thing,” Zachary said, before pointing at his screen. “If you look closely at the image of the door, you will see that it’s not a streaming video at all. I found a code embedded in each image. That code is unique to the image it appears with. It’s actually very ingenious, because the images cannot be looped to fool the person watching the camera view of the door.”

Wakefield asked, “Can we get eyes on Moore and verify he is actually in the police station? I don’t want to fall for some elaborate hoax.”

“The schematics we found for the police station don’t indicate security cameras being installed,” Zachary replied. “So I can’t hack what isn’t there, but because the computer viewing the camera images from the old jail is plugged directly into the phone line, I might be able to activate the computer’s camera. I would need to trick the person watching the screen into opening a virus to do it, though.”

“How?” Wakefield asked.

“I could load the virus on the pendant as part of an audio file transmission. We click the pendant; it sends the file. The file arrives on Moore’s computer in the form of an email. As long as someone opens the file, the virus will be uploaded.”

“Do it,” Wakefield said, “and while you’re at it, we need to lay out the plan.”

“Valerie?” I said.

Valerie pointed to the map.

“One thing first. Zach, can you kill the feed to Moore’s computer?”

“Sure, no problem.”

“Great, that’s exactly what I wanted to hear,” Val said. “Ryan and Hodges will take up positions here and here. I want you both on the roof of Howells’ restaurant. The left side of the building is directly across the street from the front door of the Police Station. The front right corner of the roof has a direct line of sight to the entrance of the old jail. You guys can park here.

“All of the buildings on that side of town are vacant except for the pharmacy, Howells’ and the hardware store. All the storefronts in the town square face City Hall. The alleyways run behind the buildings. The alleys will allow you to move around unseen. Once you’ve parked, walk one block south along the alley; you can access the roof of the restaurant from the adjoining hardware store roof. There’s an old fire escape on the alley side of the hardware store. Once in position, signal Ron and me with the word ‘ready.’”

“And where will you and Ron be?” Ryan asked.

“Here,” Valerie said, and pointed to the opposite side of the town square, “on the East side of City Hall, directly across from your position on the roof of Howells’, at the old movie house. We’ll park in the alley behind the vacant theatre. This position gives us a clear field of vision of the back of City Hall and the old jail access point. We’ll be able to see anyone approaching the entrance to the old jail, and the City Hall building itself will act as a shield blocking our movements from anyone watching from the PCPD.”

“Sounds like we have a plan,” Wakefield said. “I’ll remain here with Franks and Zach and advise everyone of any changes. We’ll roll to your location once contacts with Moore and company have been made.”

I looked up to see Zach jogging in our direction from INESCO.

“I’ve sent the transmission.” He retook his position at the computer. “Now we just wait and see if someone takes the bait.”

“What did you send them to listen to?” Ryan asked.

“Oh, I sent them the sweet sound of the Simons arguing again. It really doesn’t take much to get them started, does it?”

“It’s just how they talk to one another,” said Valerie, smiling. “If they didn’t argue I’d think something was wrong.”

“We’re in; the file has been opened. Give me a few seconds,” Zach said. “Here! Look at this.”

The image of Agent Thomas Moore filled Zach’s computer screen. We watched in silence as Moore stood. We could now see the image of the man calling himself Porter seated behind him, and heard them talking.

Moore was saying, “Damn, those two old birds argue enough.”

“Old Jewish people love to argue,” Porter said. “Christ, this is painful to listen to. Turn it off.”

“It’s a thirty-second burst,” Moore said. “See, it’s over. At least we know what’s going on with Wakefield.”

“Yeah, absolutely nothing.”

“Speaking of what’s going on, when is the Captain – what’s his name? Lester? – due back?”

“I don’t know. He went to check on his pregnant wife. Don’t worry about him or his officers. They’re staying out of our way.”

“Travis!” We heard Moore call. “You and Briggs go check on the girl. I don’t trust the WIFI connection. The Internet is crap in this town, and we’ve only got an hour till I call for the meet.”

We all stared at the screen. We watched as Porter stood and walked out of the view of the camera, and Moore retook his seat.

At that moment, Zach killed the feed.

“Why did you do that?” Ryan asked.

“We couldn’t risk staying on the camera any longer. The red light that illuminates when the camera is in use might have been spotted. Better we play it safe. We got what we needed, right?”

“Yes, we got what we needed,” I said. “Switch over to the feed from the old jail door, will you?”

We all looked from Zach’s computer to the one Julia had been using in time to see the Smith boys enter the camera view. Their movements weren’t fluid, but more like stop action animation. I watched as the two men stood in front of the metal door. Briggs started to speak, and I heard his voice in my earpiece.

“Not much longer now,” he said. “Your parents will bring us what we want, and it’ll be over.”

Leecy didn’t respond. We watched as the two men then grabbed their crotches and thrust their pelvises at the door. The one named Travis couldn’t contain himself. He threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah, and then we’re going to have a party with you.”

I closed my eyes. I could hear my daughter crying quietly in my ear.

Valerie had all the information she needed. She handed her cellphone to Zach. “Make sure all INESCO incoming calls are routed to this cellphone so I don’t miss the call from Moore. More importantly, be listening for my signal to cut the feed from the old jail. That’s when our game begins. The timing has to be perfect. Got it?”

“It’ll take me a minute to forward the calls, but not a problem. I’ll be ready to cut the feed.”

“Wait,” Ryan said, “wait just a second. Are you going to dash into the basement jail and back out with your daughter? Let’s say by some miracle you beat the two Smiths to the metal door and retrieve your daughter. Moore and Porter won’t be too far behind. What do you plan to do about them? You and your husband are going to face down four armed Rangers with your daughter by your side? With what? One gun, a knife, and a police baton?”

“Something like that. Don’t forget; I have what they want,” Valerie answered. She pulled the memory stick from her pocket.

“But I never said anything about running in and out with my daughter. You said that. I just want Zach to cut the feed from the old jail when I tell him to do it. I want to force the Smith boys to show themselves. Sure, I could assume they’re back inside the PCPD, but why assume when I can be certain? I figured if Moore were worried about the Internet connection, then cutting the feed wouldn’t alarm him. Moore sent the Smith boys over once to check on Leecy. I figure he’ll send them over again. That’s all. I just want all the players on the field so there will be no surprises.”

“Boss?” Ryan pleaded with Wakefield. “We’ve got three experienced operators she’s not using properly. Two of us are on lookout duty, and Franks is babysitting.”