Hard Road (11 page)

“Listen, I've not got time for this, Thomas.”

“OK, let's focus on the here and now. Forget about that. What I'm about to tell you is something that sounds a bit far-out there, I understand that.”

“Thomas, please, it's late.”

“Just bear with me. I've been busy working on developing a new bit of software. It helps achieve tight bandwidth compression of the speech signals like you wouldn't believe. Have you heard of MELP?”

Drake sighed. “No, I've not.”

“It's enhanced Mixed Excitation Linear Prediction.”

“What the hell is that?”

“It's a speech voding standard used mainly in military applications and satellite communications, secure voice and secure radio devices. Vastly improves the previous quality. I'm talking primarily speech quality, intelligibility and noise immunity, whilst at the same time reducing throughput requirements.”

“Thomas, I don't understand this technical stuff you're throwing at me.”

“My technology is a major leap forward even from MELP. I began to piece something together before my security clearance was taken away. It's not related to the reason they fired me. This is something bigger and far more troubling. Lance, all I ask is that you take heed of what I'm saying. I believe there is a very real threat to America.”

A long silence opened up for what seemed like an eternity.

“Did you hear what I said, Lance?”

“What did you say?”

“There is a very real threat. I can't tell you the ins and outs on the phone.”

“Why haven't I heard of this?”

“Good question. But that's just half of it. There's more I've discovered recently. I've been listening to the voice again. I think I've identified the person. You wanna know who it is?”

“In the name of God, Thomas. You don't work for the NSA or Xarasoft anymore. Are you telling me you've taken secret recordings off site?”

“I'm not going to say. What I will say, Lance, is that if you just meet up with me and put me in front of that committee, then they can decide. I swear you have to listen to what I've got.”

“I can't believe what I'm hearing. Look, why don't you take what you've got to the NSA?”

“I have. I sent them the details anonymously, but I haven't heard back. Nothing.”

Drake sighed again.

“Lance, I did over two hundred hours of speech data tests, and I know I'm correct. The cover audio I picked up was an innocuous pop song, but underneath was an encrypted conversation. I stripped away all that shit. But Lance, it's not just the conversation I've decrypted. I believe a covert message has been embedded within the digital audio signal.”

“What?”

“I'm still working to decode that side of things. America needs to wake the fuck up.”

“I can't believe what I'm hearing. You were sacked for wrong analysis.”

“I told you that was lies. Do you really think I don't know what I'm talking about, is that what it is?”

“I've spoken to people at the NSA and you know what they're saying about you?”

Wesley closed his eyes, knowing what was to come.

“They're using words like paranoid and deluded. Look, maybe it's best if you don't email me anymore.”

Wesley shook his head. “They've got to you, haven't they? Someone has told you that this guy is nuts, and for your career, leave him alone. Is that what's happening?”

“Thomas, I think we're going round in circles. OK, let's assume for a moment that what you're saying is the truth.”

“It is!”

Lance sighed heavily.

“Look, I'd like to meet you at your office, and let you know everything.”

“That ain't gonna happen.”

“Why?”

“There are procedures for doing things. The right way of doing things.”

“Lance, what's more important? To do things the right way, or do the right thing?”

“Look, this is getting us nowhere.”

“So, what do you suggest I do with what I've got? No one is listening.”

“Thomas, we're done. I'm sorry. Don't bug me again with this.”

Then the line went dead.

EIGHT

The ranch-style house in Weston appeared algae green as Reznick peered through night vision glasses. He was slouched down low in the car, watching and waiting, with Luntz still out cold in the back seat.

His mind flashed back to the green tinged landscape of Fallujah at night.

Blinding lights. Screaming and pleading. The smell of the open sewers. The dust. The filth. The Black Hawks flying low, strafing the neighborhood. The green smeared vision through night sights as Task Force 121 scoured the warren of streets and alleys in the darkness, looking for insurgents.

He'd lost count of the number of kills. He'd become desensitized until he almost didn't care. They'd trained him that way. It had become second nature. But somehow, he still managed to keep a small part of his soul intact. Even when his team had killed an insurgent, and cut off his blood-stained clothes to check for tattoos to help identify the person, Reznick always remembered what his dying father – haunted by memories of Vietnam – had once said when he said he was going to join the Marines. “
Never be blasé about death. Don't forget, every man you kill is somebody's son
.
”

The words stayed with him. Echoed down the years. He always clung to that even as he felt his soul was turning black. Even when they were scanning the dead man's iris and fingerprints with a portable biometric scanner. It was always
somebody's son
.

The front door opened and Reznick snapped out of his thoughts. A woman in her thirties emerged wearing a smart jacket, dark slacks and kitten heels, speaking into her cell phone.

Reznick watched as she locked the door, turning the handle a couple of times. She climbed into the driver's seat, slamming the door shut. Then she reversed out of the driveway and drove off past the lake.

He had a split second decision to make. Follow or fold? Was Chad Magruder inside? He felt conflicted.

“Fuck,” he said, feeling himself grinding his teeth.

He hung back for a few moments until she was nearly out of sight. Then he started up the engine but kept his lights off. Time to see where she led him.

He pulled away slowly and waited for a couple of minutes before he switched on his lights. A few moments later he caught sight of her car further along the north side of the lake. He hung back as much as he could as he negotiated the quiet residential, palm-lined streets before they skirted downtown Weston. It was like a Mediterranean village, all pastel colors and low-rise buildings.

Then she took a right at some lights and drove down Racquet Club Road, past the Hyatt.

A few moments later, she pulled up outside a low-rise motel overlooking another lake.

Reznick drove on and took a left into a parking lot on West Mall Road. It had a clear line of sight over to the motel's car park a couple of hundred yards away. He picked up his night vision glasses and peered into the darkness towards the deserted motel parking lot. The woman was sitting in her car, lights on, engine running, cell phone pressed to her ear, occasionally nodding her head.

The woman then ended the call, got out the car and walked into the reception of the motel.

Reznick edged the car around the corner and back on Racquet Club Road, then got himself into a position at the far end of the motel's parking lot, shielded by an island of shrubs and palms. He switched off his engine and lights, slouched in his seat. Then he picked up the night vision glasses.

Did she work there? Maybe she was an innocent. But what if… what if his daughter was being held there? Was that too far-fetched? The thought triggered an adrenaline rush to his heart. His breathing quickened.

The seconds ticked by, then the minutes.

Just as he was about to get out of the car and head into the motel, the woman emerged alone. She got in her car, switched on her lights and pulled away, oblivious to Reznick.

What now? Follow her or sit tight? He couldn't barge into the motel and go room to room. The cops would be called and he would be taken in. And then what?

“Goddamn.”

Reznick decided to sit tight. He wondered if the woman had taken a message to someone inside. Was that it? Was Magruder holed up inside?

His mind flashed back to news footage of Magruder being led away in handcuffs from the courtroom, impassive, eyes dead.

The time dragged like a chain at the bottom of a sandy seabed. He waited. And waited. And still he waited. More minutes being eaten up. But no one left or entered the motel.

“Fuck,” he said.

He turned the car around and drove back into Weston town center. He stopped to pick up some sandwiches and provisions from an all-night deli to keep them going for the next few hours, intending to head back to the ranch house to find out who the woman was or see if Magruder turned up.

The plan changed.

As he headed along affluent residential streets, he took a right at the lights into Main Street. As he drove by, his gaze was drawn to a Jeep, parked diagonally opposite a Starbucks under a huge palm. He checked the plates. It was hers.

Reznick drove on for a couple of hundred yards, pulled a U-turn and parked fifty yards behind the Jeep with a perfect view of the coffee shop on the corner. The clock on his dashboard said it was 5.31am. He switched off his lights and picked up his binoculars, switching off the night vision facility as the lights were on in Starbucks.

Scanning the inside of the shop, he saw the Magruder woman sitting at a table with a couple of coffee mugs. His instincts told him she wasn't having her morning coffee alone. But a few minutes later the woman walked out of the Starbucks alone. Her clothes looked expensive, well cut.

“Who are you?”

He slouched down in his seat as she walked towards her car, opened the Jeep with a fob and drove away down Main Street.

Reznick felt torn again. Should he follow her or sit tight? But there were two coffee mugs on the table. He decided to stay where he was and peered through the binoculars into the interior of Starbucks. A young woman was wiping down the tables.

A couple of minutes later, the Starbucks door opened. A lean white guy in his mid-thirties walked out. He wore faded jeans, cowboy boots and a black T-shirt, long blond hair, thick scar on his face.

It was Chad Magruder.

Reznick felt his flesh crawl.

He watched as Magruder lit a cigarette and walked further down Main Street and then disappeared up a street to the right. Reznick switched on the ignition and headed the same way. A few moments later, he saw Magruder climb into the black SUV – the same one Reznick saw on the surveillance tape at the Monterey Club.

“OK, you bastard,” Reznick said to himself, “where are you going?”

Reznick drove on past at the same time as Magruder was getting into his car. Five hundred yards up ahead, Reznick pulled into a space at the curb outside a deli and switched off his engine and lights. He checked his wing mirror and a minute later Magruder drove on past, oblivious, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

Reznick waited a few moments before he pulled out and followed Magruder's car. He was about one hundred yards back and it looked like he was heading for the freeway. Five minutes later, he was heading up a ramp and onto I-75S. The traffic was heavy even at that ungodly hour. He was now four cars back.

Reznick crossed lanes for a couple of miles to try and stay out of his rearview mirror. They were headed in the pre-dawn darkness towards the Dolphin Expressway. Then Magruder changed lanes, and slowed down, only two cars ahead, glancing in his rearview mirror.

Counter surveillance move.

Reznick stayed in lane, knowing not to dart off in another direction. He stayed calm as Magruder continued to check his rearview mirror for tails. Then he turned round and stared at the car behind him.

A few minutes later, a sign for Miami and Magruder changed lanes again, took the Miami Avenue Exit 2.

Reznick was about one hundred yards behind and followed Magruder towards the huge skyscrapers of Miami's business district. All the time, Reznick kept his distance. Glass and steel office towers loomed over Brickell Avenue.

Then Magruder hung a sharp left and headed into an underground parking facility. Reznick drove on by and went round the block twice, before he headed into the basement car park.

Reznick caught sight of Magruder's car parked in a disabled space right beside the elevators. His left arm was out of the window, cigarette dangling from his fingers, cell phone pressed to his right ear.

Reznick passed within fifty yards and took a ramp to the upper level parking. He drove around the deserted car park for a couple of minutes and then headed down to Magruder's level.

Cruising past, he stole a quick glance in his rearview mirror. At that moment, Magruder stepped out of his car, dropped his cigarette and crushed it with the heel of his boot. Then he placed his cell in his back pocket and headed towards the steel elevators.

Reznick drove into a space straight ahead beside a massive concrete pillar, engine still running. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw Magruder press an elevator button. He picked up the binoculars and turned to see Magruder get into the elevator. Then he trained the binoculars on the light indicating which floor. It eventually stopped at the
forty-second floor.

Reznick switched off the engine and got out of the car. He checked on Luntz who was still out of it, centrally locked the car and then took the elevator to the
forty-third floor. From there, he headed down a flight of stairs. A metal sign on an outer door for Norton & Weiss Inc.