Friendly Fire (24 page)

“So, they'll be found,” Spike said.

Vinnie took a step closer. He seemed ready for a fight, and he seemed to think a fight was inevitable. “I suppose they will, if someone comes looking for them. How about you tell us all what happened at the school? And in the park, if you're ready to talk about that.”

Spike felt himself flush.

“I'm not here to do battle with you,” Vinnie said, “But I think we can all agree that bad shit is happening, and we need a plan to figure out what it is.”

Given the personalities in the room—and their talent for homicide—it was difficult for Spike to think of any of the assembled team as anything but dangerous, but he owed them an explanation. He prepared himself with a deep breath. “Okay, here it is,” he said. “The guy who coldcocked me at the park got the paper with the address on it.”

“Who was he?” someone asked.

“I have no idea,” Spike confessed, “but he had skills. Look at my face. But he didn't kill me, which makes me believe he's a cop.”

“Oh, shit,” someone else said.

“I don't know the details, but the fact that the Baker girls never left the school, and that cops swarmed the place leads me to believe that they're figuring things out that we don't want them to know.”

Vinnie took another step closer. This time, though, it was less threatening than it was an expression of interest. “Where does that leave us with the sheik?”

“In a delicate spot,” Spike said. “Al-Amin wants terror. At the end of the day, that's the goal. The fact that his own people couldn't pull off a snatch actually helps us. He understands that success will be harder than he originally thought.”

“What about our money?” asked another voice. It belonged to a guy with the avatar Avery.

“Well, that's the key, isn't it?” Spike said. “Our purpose on the planet, as far as the sheik is concerned, is to deliver terror. The big play is Operation Armageddon. I fear that that's been blown by the property office clerk, but I think the way to make it work is to pull the trigger now.”

“Excuse me, Boss,” Drew said, “but we're not ready.”

“I disagree,” Spike said. “We've got the uniforms, we've got the weapons. The only reason we've been waiting this long is for the kidnapping bullshit, and God knows that hasn't been working.”

“The money,” Bill repeated. “You're talking ephemeral bullshit. I just want to get paid.”

“And that will happen,” Spike said, “after we hit Mason's Corner and the police station. We go on Friday night. Tomorrow. The sheik told me that half of our payments have already been deposited in whatever accounts you provided. I checked and mine was there.”

“How much?” Vinnie asked.

“One million,” Spike said.

“That's a hundred short of half,” Drew said.

Spike waited a beat, hoping that they would catch on without him stating the obvious. “We didn't deliver the kids,” he said. “There's got to be a penalty. Trust me, the sheik wanted it to be more of a penalty than that, but I told him we wouldn't do the rest for any less than two million apiece. Finally, he agreed.”

“Who said you can talk for the rest of us?” said Alfie Burdick, a long-ago agency contractor.

“The rest of you,” Spike said. “I've been speaking for you from the beginning.”

“From the beginning, it was two point two million for each of us. I didn't approve no cut in pay.”

“Then walk away,” Spike said. “Take your money, disappear, and never sleep soundly again. Remember these are the guys who like to burn people alive.”

“We're not the ones who screwed up the kid snatch,” someone else said.

“No, we're not,” Spike said. “That guy is dead. We hired him, and he let himself be killed, so yeah, it was us.”

Spike crossed his arms and strolled among the assembled team members. “I can't stop you from doing whatever you want to do, but we signed up for this, and the sheik has played it pretty straight with us from the beginning. Do what we're told, and we get paid for it. He's always been good on his word. He paid us for the three cop shootings in the Midwest, and he paid us for the judge we killed in Arizona. Those were our auditions, and we knew that from the beginning. The kidnappings were a distraction, and they didn't work out.

“Y'all need to make your decisions now, though. If we get to H-hour and you're not where I've been counting on you to be, then al-Amin will be the least of your problems. You might be good at what you do, but you don't want the rest of this team hunting you down. So, what'll it be? Do you do this and retire with two million bucks, or do you walk away? I need final answers right now. Alfie, I'll start with you. Are you in or out?”

“How do we know we'll get paid the rest?” Alfie asked.

“In or out?” Life came without instruction manuals or guarantees. He saw no reason to answer the question.

Alfie took his time. He scanned the room for an indication of what others were going to do, but it was room full of poker faces. Spike admired that. Professionals never showed what they were thinking.

Finally, Alfie said, “I'm in.”

“Good,” Spike said. “Thank you.” From there, Spike polled the room. Twenty people present, twenty people in.

They were good to go.

Chapter Twenty-five

V
enice gathered the team into the War Room.

Jonathan and Boxers had been in the basement armory when she told them that she had news. She said it was big, and that they should come up right away. While known for an expansive sense of drama, Venice was never one to bluff, so Jonathan was anxious to hear what she had to offer. By the time he and Big Guy arrived in the War Room, Venice was already ensconced at her command module. Occupying the end of the long conference table, opposite the enormous LCD television monitor/computer screen, she was surrounded with multiple keyboards and mice, a cornucopia of toys that rendered all doors useless and all secrets moot.

“What've you got, Ven?” Jonathan asked as he entered. Boxers was right behind him and he closed the door.

“You said Wolverine wants you to find and track down your friend in the Corvette.”

“Indeed.” Jonathan could tell from the set of her smile that something big was on the way.

Venice explained, “I thought to myself, how in the world will I ever be able to trace down a random red Corvette and tie it to a particular person? I suppose I could have dredged up a list of all Corvettes sold, but my God, that would take forever. So I got to wondering—”

“Do I have time to make a sandwich before you make your point?” Boxers asked.

Venice glared, but she barely broke stride. “So I got to wondering what other options were available to me. And then I remembered how we knew about the Corvette in the first place.” She looked expectantly at Jonathan, clearly waiting for him to connect his own dots.

“You know I don't like this game, right?” he said.

“Your body cam!” she said. There was a triumphant tone in her voice. “I remembered how it was that I saw it in the first place. I saw it on your body cam! So I was able to replay the video, and with a little manipulation, I was able to find his license plate number.”

Jonathan recoiled. “You mean it was that easy?”

She scowled. “No, of course not.”

“Of course not,” Jonathan parroted. How could he have thought that anything would be easy? “But you're still smiling. I presume that means you've taken another step.”

“I have,” she said, and she started typing. Up on the screen, computer stuff happened. Lots of screen movement and numbers, and finally a list of license plate numbers, addresses, and makes, models, and years of automobiles.

She used the arrow pointer of her mouse to highlight a particular line. “Here's the license plate you found on the car. It's a Missouri plate.”

“Is this public record?” Jonathan asked.

She looked offended. “Of course not. This was actually a very tough get.”

Boxers growled.

“And as you'll see,” Venice went on, “the license plate in question does not belong to the car it's attached to. Unless he was able to turn a Dodge Viper into a Corvette.”

“The Viper is a good car,” Boxers said. “I'd prefer one of those over a 'Vette any day.” When Jonathan gave him an impatient look, Big Guy feigned surprise. “Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we wanted to talk about irrelevant shit. My bad.”

Venice's jaw set, and Jonathan stifled a chuckle. “Go ahead,” he said. “I'm listening.”

Venice held the glare for another second or two to sell her point, and then returned her attention to her screen. “That plate—that Viper—belonged to a Samuel Deffenbaugh out of St. Louis. He passed away earlier this year at the age of eighty-two.”

“I didn't even know he was sick,” Boxers grumbled.

“Please give it a rest, Big Guy,” Jonathan said. “What's the significance of him being dead?”

“I thought it was interesting,” Venice said. “Think about it. Our guy has license plates that belong to someone who died. Now look at this.” She zoomed her picture in closer on the license plate. “Look at the date on the tag. It's new. He's got another two years to run on those plates.”

She clicked to a different screen. “Now, if you look at the transfer records for the Viper—”

“You're kidding, right?” Jonathan interrupted. Exasperation had morphed into pure admiration. Who thought of dong this level of research?

“I thought it was important,” she said, but her eyes stayed on the screen as she searched for what she was looking for. “There it is, right there.” She navigated the mouse arrow to the right spot. “In the transfer record, the plates are listed as lost.”

Jonathan cocked his head. He wasn't getting it.

“Not stolen,” she said, her voice gaining more excitement. “But
lost
. That means our man has two years to use someone else's plates free and clear. No record is going to show anything stolen.”

“Suppose he gets pulled over?” Boxers said. “Won't that be a problem?”

“Thank you for asking,” Venice said with an even bigger grin. “So, I looked up Mr. Deffenbaugh's driver's license.” More clicks, and a new image. “Gentlemen, meet the new and improved Samuel Deffenbaugh.”

“That's my guy,” Jonathan said. He'd recognize that jawline anywhere. It amused him to think of what it might look like now.

“I thought that might be the case,” Venice said. “Now here's the bit of bad news. I ran the image through all the facial recognition software—and as you know, we have the best available—and the image came back negative.”

“What does that mean?” Jonathan asked.

“Well, on the large scale, it means that there's no record of him. He's as invisible as our Mr. Stepahin. And before you ask, yes, I looked for all Samuel Def-fenbaughs—there are more of them than you think—and none within the correct age range look anything like your guy.”

Truth be told, Jonathan wasn't going to ask that because it hadn't occurred to him. This was the way Venice's mind worked. Her logic stream tunneled her into some wild, unexpected places.

“But there's good news within the bad news,” she said. “All indications are that these off-the-grid guys are some kind of government contractors.”

“How can that possibly be good news?” Boxers asked.

“Because it's data,” Venice said. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Now we can say with a pretty high degree of reliability that the government is somehow involved in whatever is going on. The question is, why would the United States government be trying to kidnap congressmen's and senators' children?”

“We've seen worse,” Boxers said. “Sometimes I really hate what we do for a living.”

Jonathan made a waving motion with his hand. “No. I think that's a step too far,” he said. “Wolfie told me a story that I haven't passed on to you guys yet.”

Boxers shot him an angry glare. “You keeping stuff from us, Boss? That's not the way we do things. At least it never has been.”

“It's not like that,” Jonathan said. “At least, that's not the way I'd intended it to be. It's a pretty big deal, and she asked me to promise not to spread it around. Even to you guys.”

“You could have said no,” Boxers said.

“Yes, I could, but no, I didn't. And I apologize. The gist of it was that over the years, our alphabet agencies have had to hide the identities of a lot of wet-work contractors in order to protect them from prosecution by the Justice Department's witch hunt. That's what happened to Stepahin. There's no reason to think that the same thing didn't happen with this guy—Deffenbaugh or whoever.” He looked to Venice. “So, what I'm saying is that government-level cover does not necessarily mean current government-level involvement.”

Venice scowled deeply. “So, we just created these monsters and then unleashed them on the world?”

“Wolverine assures me that it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“You know this is madness, right?” Venice said. “This is no way to run a world.”

“Depends on where you sit in the equation,” Jonathan said. “We hired these guys to do a job that needed to be done, and we did it on good faith. You can't change the rules after the deal is done. And if I sound a little defensive, it could be that I'm talking about myself.”

“You're not an assassin,” Venice said.

“No, I'm not,” Jonathan said. “And I never would be. But the finer distinction would likely be lost on the families of the people I've killed in pursuit of the greater good.”

“Can we please move on?” Boxers said.

Jonathan nodded for Venice to continue with her presentation. “Forget about his true identity. How are we going to find him?”

Another coy smile from Venice. “That's my biggest get of all,” she said. “I mean, think about it. There's only about a bazillion cars on the road, right? Finding the one out of the masses was a daunting task. I wasn't sure how to tackle it until I remembered that Fairfax, Braddock, Prince William, and Loudoun Counties all photograph license plates.”

“They do?” Jonathan said. “How?”

“If you look around, you'll see cameras on the back of police cars. There are pole-mounted cameras as well. They're not supposed to keep the data, but the Virginia attorney general doesn't enforce the rule, so the counties keep it anyway.”

“Why?”

“To track people,” Boxers said. “Big Brother is watching.” Deep inside Boxers' body, there had long been a conspiracy theorist trying to break out.

“He's mostly right,” Venice said. “It's part of a post-nine-eleven security package—the same one that gave Braddock County an armored personnel carrier. The idea is to be able to search back after a terrorist event to find the perpetrators.”

“It worked pretty well after the Boston bombings a few years ago,” Jonathan said.

“Different system, same idea,” Venice said.

Jonathan thought about that for a few seconds, about the ramifications for him and his operations. “So, you mean that every time Box and I roll out with the Batmobile, there's a photo record of it, and our license plates are tracked?”

Venice chuckled. “Not a problem,” she said. “I went into the system back when I first found out about it. There's a back door that allows national security assets to hide from Freedom of Information requests. It was a pretty easy hack. Every time the system registers your tag, it automatically erases it.”

“So, is it safe to say that you put the system to work for you?”

“Indeed it is,” she said. She stroked some more keys, and more data popped up on the screen.

“Also not public information?” Jonathan asked.

Another glare.

“Do I want to know how you got the password information?”

“Would you understand what I told you if I did?”

“Probably not. Pardon me for interrupting.”

“So, I searched the database and got a total of six hundred thirty-seven hits on his license plate.”

“Holy crap,” Boxers said.

“Not unexpected,” Venice said. “These are passive devices. They suck in everything, and once sucked, it gets categorized and it just sits there forever. But those six hundred-plus sightings go back quite a ways.” She tapped some more. “So I copied all those locations into mapping software, and I got a pattern.”

The screen turned into a series of lines, squiggles and circles. “Here's where your buddy in the Corvette has traveled over the course of the past four weeks,” she explained. She clicked again, and time and date stamps appeared, overlaying the image of the travel routes. “Like most of us, he's something of a creature of habit. We all spend most of our lives within the same few-mile radius—well most of us, anyway. Our man nee Deffenbaugh has a few outliers, but not many. That line there”—she indicated with her mouse arrow—“that's his trip to Brookfield, where you spotted him and beat him up. You can see the date stamp.”

“Got it,” Jonathan said. The phrase
beat him up
rankled him a little because it seemed juvenile, but he let it go. “So, we know where he's been. How does that help us—”

“Just listen,” she said. “I'm getting to it. “So, let's take that data and gray it all out.” More clicks, and the once-green lines faded and turned gray. “That there is his historical data. Now, if we lay in his travel for the past five days, this is what we get.” The lines around the park in Brookfield turned green again, and so did others.

“Here's where we got lucky,” Venice said. “We've got seven hits since your fight. If we put them together from oldest to newest, we get a travel path. So, let's isolate that.” All but one line faded back to gray. “That's where he's heading.”

Jonathan scowled and leaned into the table for a better view. “I don't get what I'm looking at,” he said. “It looks like it ends in the middle of nowhere.”

“But nowhere has an address,” Venice said. She tapped some more. “Look. There's a picture of him turning into what turns out to be a former Moose lodge.”

“How did you get that photo?” Boxers asked. He, too, was leaning in to see better detail.

“From a pole-mounted camera,” she said. “And if I bring back the historical data, look what we get.” The image on the screen changed again. “He goes out here with fair frequency.”

Jonathan exchanged looks with Boxers. Impressive work.

“Is he still there?” Big Guy asked.

“I'll keep checking, but as of about fifteen minutes ago when I finished putting together this presentation, he had not left.”

Jonathan stewed over the data. “What is that, about an hour's drive from here?”