The Senator: A Blake Jordan Thriller (16 page)

“You don’t want to do that,” Morgan said with a matter-of-fact tone of voice.

“Pack up, Lennox, let’s go,” Shapiro ordered. Morgan raised his left hand in a
stop right there
kind of motion and kept his right hand on the laptop’s keyboard, glaring at Shapiro before returning his eyes back to the keyboard. He brought his hand back down to the laptop, finished typing a command, and hit
enter
.

“I had a feeling this was going to happen. Those coordinates I gave out earlier weren’t accurate,” he said.

“What the hell are you doing?” Shapiro barked.

Mallory looked at Morgan, then turned back to Landry and Shapiro to get their reaction. “In addition, I’ve just spent the last few minutes deploying a worm with a highly complex spread algorithm into your network that by now should be fully propagated into your system, thank you very much Agent Mallory for the detailed information on your security, by the way.” Mallory stared him down.

“You’re good but not that good.”

Landry crossed his arms. “You’re bluffing.” Morgan stared back at Landry.

“Alright, then,” he said and typed a command into his laptop. The lights in the entire building went out for five seconds. All I could see during the short blackout was Morgan’s grin, illuminated by the laptop screen. He was enjoying this.

The look on Landry’s face when the lights came back on was priceless. He had underestimated Morgan.

“I’ve set an internal timer. When it goes off, the worm – which has already spread to every file, every device, anything connected to your network as of five minutes ago – will start corrupting everything. The entire Chicago office will be brought to its knees. Unless I enter the override code. My insurance policy, just in case you try to do something to me before that time,” Morgan said and gave Mallory a wink.

Roger Shapiro stepped forward. “Do you realize what you’re doing? Coercing a government agency through unauthorized access to one of their networks with the intent to alter or erase data, it’s considered a class B felony with up to five years in prison. Are you prepared to spend the next five years of your life behind bars for what you’re about to do?” he asked.

“First of all, it’s not unauthorized access. Agent Mallory logged me into the Bureau’s network when I got here. I didn’t hack in, the door was wide open and I was invited in. Second, I technically haven’t done anything –
yet
.”

Jami and I looked at each other as we realized where Morgan was going with this.

“The Senator will very likely be elected to the presidency. I feel compelled to make sure he’s found safely. Blake Jordan knows the man better than any of you. He’s as much of a pain in my ass as you all are, but he’s the only one I believe can get Keller back. You honor the arrangement you agreed to with him. You let Jordan run this operation, and when he gets the senator back, I’ll activate the deletion of the worm.”

Landry stared at Morgan. “Backups are made every thirty minutes. We have extra equipment we can hand out to our agents. We can even run this operation out of DDC if we need to,” Landry countered.

“Yes, but that will take time and the clock is ticking. And as far as DDC goes, I placed a copy of the worm on their central drive. I’m still logged into their network, you know.” Morgan had thought of everything. I wasn’t surprised by his drive to do the right thing, no matter what. He knew I could get Keller back alive.

Landry hesitated for a few seconds and then finally addressed me. “What do you need?”

“Give me my gun, I’ll need ammo, my badge. I want new phones for Agent Davis and me. An audio kit for us to communicate with Lennox and direct access to him at all times. We’re going to need a car,” I said.

“We’ll get everything ready for you. Original plan – you’ll run this but Mallory stays with Lennox… and I want him involved in everything. The minute we think you’re taking this operation in the wrong direction, we take back control of the wheel.” Landry looked at Mallory who then turned to me. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I need you to stay the hell out of my way.”

“Where is he!?” Victor Perez screamed into his cell phone. His plan was falling into place, but there was one more thing he needed for tonight’s performance to have the full effect. “I’ll meet him outside,” he said and slid the phone into his back pocket after disconnecting the call. “Five minutes,” Perez said to the woman.

She was in one of the bedrooms looking after Jim Keller. Perez entered the room to check on them.

“How is he?” Perez asked.

“He’ll be fine, he’s stabilized now,” the woman said. The senator was laying down with his hands strapped to both sides of the bed with zip ties. The woman had a bowl of ice water in her lap and a wet rag that she squeezed before placing it on Keller’s forehead. “I’m just trying to reduce his fever.”

“We need him conscious for the broadcast. It won’t be long now.” She nodded.

“He should be ready.”

“What are the options should the senator fall unconscious again?” The woman looked up at Perez.

“I can give him another shot of epinephrine. There’s some danger in administering two doses so closely together, but if we don’t need him alive much longer, then it won’t matter anyway. We should be fine,” she said.

“I have to step outside for a few minutes, if anything changes, come get me,” he said to the woman while looking over Keller. He was sweating badly and looked like he could go into shock at any moment. The original plan was for the woman to join him at the warehouse after her shift ended at the prison and bring some medication with her in case he needed it. But bringing Keller to her ended up being a better plan, anyway.

Perez walked through the house, inspecting each room as he passed through. He hadn’t been here in months, but it was just like he had remembered the place. This is where he’d get his revenge.
Plan B.

The large family room became an improvised broadcast studio. Perez had been setting up the lighting equipment so he could air a clear, crisp image of the senator begging for his life before his execution. Although the world would be watching, the performance was really for an audience of one – Blake Jordan.

He headed to the front door and walked out front. It was late afternoon and in just under two hours, the sun would be down and the show would be on. The temperature was dropping and the wind picked up. Perez didn’t like last minute changes; he preferred to make a plan and follow it. The change of venue threw him off at first but he was starting to adjust. Now if he just had the last thing he needed, he’d be set.

A few minutes later, he saw movement through the trees that were scattered all around the property and down the road. A car was approaching the house. He put a hand on his Beretta, just in case it wasn’t the company that he was expecting. The driver lowered his window and stuck a hand out to wave at Perez.

The car pulled into the driveway and parked. A man stepped out, closed the door, and walked over.

“Aasaal Nazir sent me,” the man said. Victor Perez looked him over before speaking.

“Why did it take you so long to get here?” he said and the man started to look nervous.

“All of the roads are shut down, there’s checkpoints everywhere. I had to take backroads just to get here and I almost got caught.”

“Were you followed?” The man shook his head.

“No, I was careful and followed all of the directions given to me by Nazir.

“Very well. Did you bring me what I asked for?” The young man nodded.

“Come look for yourself,” he said and Perez followed the man to the back of the car. He popped the trunk and slowly lifted it up and the two men stared inside.

“Good work,” Perez said before he brought the Beretta to the young man’s back and pulled the trigger and watched him fall to the ground. Perez holstered the gun and grabbed the man’s arms and dragged him to the side of the house. When he returned to the car, he looked at his prize possession.

Now the plan is complete.

Agent Mallory handed me the keys to one of their cars. “It’s been prepped with everything you asked for,” he said and walked Jami and me to the elevator and we took it down to the ground floor. Similar to DDC, their agents parked in a heavily-guarded and monitored area within the building for safety concerns. I was surprised to see that the SUV they gave us looked exactly like mine.
Standard issue
, I thought to myself.

Mallory left us and Jami and I climbed in. We had been given our guns back upstairs. Jami got her old badge back and I was issued one from the FBI. I placed a test call to my dad with one of the two phones. He didn’t pick up. I looked at Jami’s phone, found the number, and called so she’d have my number, too.

“Morgan, do you copy?” I asked as Jami and I put our earpieces in.

“Copy,” he said. “Take Madison east to North Ogden. We’re watching.” I looked at Jami. He was letting us know that he and the FBI were tracking our car.

“Copy,” I responded.

We left the parking garage and sped down Madison. I saw Jami looking out the passenger window. She leaned forward and looked in the mirror, then turned around and looked out the back window of the SUV.

“We’re being followed,” she said. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw a car trailing us at a distance. They were easy to spot with no traffic on the streets.

“I knew they wouldn’t give us too long of a leash.” Jami looked at me.

“What are we going to do?” I turned to Jami, then looked back at the road before responding.

“Not give them a reason to take over,” I said as I picked up speed on Ogden, trying not to waste any time.

“Okay, Blake. Turn east on Chicago Avenue,” we heard Morgan say as we drove over Interstate 90.

“Where do you think he’s taking us?”

“Downtown,” I answered as I saw Jami look out the passenger window where we could see the skyscrapers that appeared from the top of the overpass. We made a right on Chicago and raced through midtown as we saw the downtown buildings getting closer as we approached.

When we got on the bridge to drive over the Chicago River, Morgan made contact again. “Left at Wabash, right at Pearson.”

“Copy,” I answered. I knew this area well. I had proposed to Maria not too far from here, at Navy Pier. Earlier that same day, I had taken her to the theater on Michigan and Pearson. It was one of her favorite things to do.

“Blake? Are you okay?” Jami asked and I became fully present. A few seconds later, we heard Morgan’s voice again.

“Stop Blake, you’re there.”

I parked the car across the street from a Macy’s under a row of huge oak trees that lined the street. We were in the Streeterville neighborhood, just east of Michigan Avenue and a few feet away from the historic Water Tower. We sat still to get our bearings and come up with a plan. The streets that would normally be bustling with Magnificent Mile shoppers and tourists was now deserted because of the city-wide curfew.

“Are you sure this is it? There’s nothing here. I don’t see any apartments anywhere.” Morgan came back on.

“I’m sure, Blake. The files were created within a twenty yard radius from your current location.”

Jami and I stepped out of the car and looked around. There was a park to the south of us next to the Water Tower and a hotel across the street. “The Ritz-Carlton?” I asked.

“Not sure, Blake.” Jami put her hand to her ear.

“When were the files created, over a period of a few days or weeks?” We stood together, waiting on Morgan to confirm for us.

“Based on the creation dates, it’s looking like several months, Jami.”

“We’re going to try the hotel first,” I said as we walked across the empty street and stepped inside.

A man in a suit and tie greeted us immediately.

“Good afternoon, may I help you, officers?” he asked from behind the concierge desk. Jami spoke first.

“We need your help. Do you have any guests here on extended stay?” The man thought for a moment.

“There’s a woman who’s been here for about two months, she just moved to the area and is trying to buy a house, from what I remember.” Jami pressed.

“Anyone else?” she asked and the man slowly shook his head.

“Not in recent memory, no. But I can check the reservation system just to be sure.”

The man started typing. “Yep, just the woman, she’s been here for sixty-two days now, next closest is a couple at fourteen days. Newlyweds, I’ve helped answer questions for them a few times now. It’s been a while since we’ve had anyone staying here for long periods of time, there’s cheaper options out there.”

“Are there any apartments or condos close to here?” I asked.

“Yes, actually – The Residences at Water Tower. It’s right next door, 180 Pearson. We have an agreement where they can use the Ritz’s concierge whenever they need anything, so I know many of the residents over there, I talk with them frequently.”

“Has anyone new moved in over the last three to six months?” I asked. The man brought a hand up to his chin to help him think.

“A family moved in a few months ago. Lawyer, nice guy. Very young kids.”

“Have you seen anything out of the ordinary?”

“Actually, about two weeks ago I had to pull a double because the overnight guy called in sick. Just before midnight, I saw a guy exit 180 wearing a janitor uniform. I had never seen him before and I thought I knew all of the residents. I figured that maybe he was just here fixing something but then he came back at eight in the morning right when I was getting off work. That blew my mind… condos aren’t cheap, even if you’re just renting. I haven’t seen him again, but I also haven’t worked an overnight since then.”

“Did you happen to get a name? Did you talk with him?”

“No, I only saw him that one time. It looked like he was in a hurry. If you talk to Bryant, he may know the guy. He’s the doorman over there.”

“What did he look like?” Jami asked.

“Tall, Hispanic man, late thirties if I had to guess. Dark hair. Goatee. He walked right past me and didn’t even make eye contact. I remember him because I said hello and he didn’t respond.  Like I said, I thought he was just here repairing something, otherwise I would have introduced myself. I was inside getting ready to leave when I saw him return and walk right back in.”

Jami and I looked at each other. It sounded like our guy.

“Thanks,” I said and Jami and I walked back outside.

“There it is,” Jami said and pointed at the words
Residences at Water Tower
above the entrance.

“You’re there, Blake. You’re in range now,” Morgan said. That’s when I realized that he was tracking us by our cell phones, not the car.
Good to know
, I thought.

“Morgan, we have a description. Hispanic male, late thirties, lives at 180 Pearson. I need you to run a check and let me know if you can find a name for any new residents,” I said.

“On it,” Morgan replied.

Jami and I approached the revolving door. I pushed, but it wouldn’t budge. I noticed a slot to the right of the door to insert a keycard. I looked inside and saw the doorman sitting at a desk. When he saw me, he shook his head to let me know that he would not be letting me inside. “Residents only,” he said.

“My name is Blake Jordan, I’m a federal agent – open this door now!” I yelled and showed him my badge.