Going Dark (Thorn Mysteries) (29 page)

Mother? Yeah, yeah, her name was Geraldine. She and the manager had gotten friendly, what with Geraldine hanging around so much.

Why was she hanging around? Marta asked.

Babysitting, the manager told her. Babysitting Leslie’s daughter, Julie, cute as a speckled pup.

Geraldine Levine. Julie.

Did the apartment manager know how Marta could locate Leslie’s mother? Well, yes, she’d visited Geraldine once. Last time she saw her, Geraldine lived in an efficiency attached to Motel Blu up near Little Haiti. But the manager didn’t feel safe in the neighborhood and never returned.

Sheffield could understand why. It was a dodgy section, trying hard to catch the next fashionable wave, but not there yet. Not even close. The pedestrian traffic alone, a steady stream of greasy-haired guys pushing grocery carts and a sauntering parade of scrawny ladies in leopard-skin spandex, was reason enough for Kendall apartment managers to stay away.

No one came to the door of Geraldine Levine’s apartment. Sheffield knocked again, then worked his way around the small concrete structure, peeking through the venetian blinds, seeing only a small room cluttered with plastic toys and stuffed animals.

On the grassy bank next to the Little River, he found Leslie’s mom. She was sitting in an aluminum chair reading a paperback while a baby lay awake in a shaded bassinet beside her. The kid wasn’t a year old, but she had a wild patch of Leslie’s auburn hair, and her serious, deep-blue eyes peered with interest at Sheffield as he came up beside Geraldine’s chair.

Geraldine’s hair was bleached a harsh yellow, the roots showing gray at the part. She wore a pair of white shorts and a tight green top and no jewelry or makeup. A woman in her early fifties with the look of someone with a seriously misspent youth. Battered by too much sun, too much booze, too many nights she’d rather not remember.

“Hi, Julie,” Frank said.

The kid kept looking up at Sheffield until he made a goofy face and she grinned and gurgled something. Geraldine dog-eared a page and shut her book and laid it in her lap. But didn’t turn around.

Sheffield drew out his ID, squatted next to her chair, and presented it.

“A croc ate her,” Geraldine said, eyes on the dark-green water. “She’s gone and not coming back. That means I’ll be raising this beautiful girl myself. Which is okay, I’m not complaining. Not every mother gets a second chance.”

And for the next half hour that was all Frank Sheffield could get from her. Versions of that same statement no matter what question he posed. As if she’d rehearsed the speech, knew that Frank or someone like him was coming to ask for Leslie’s whereabouts. A tough nut who would never crack.

Marta was right again. The reason someone went to the trouble to stage her own death was to be considerate. To create a cover story that could be told to a child who would one day grow up and ask the inevitable question: Where’s Mommy?

*   *   *

So he could take Monday off, Claude Sellers pulled two ten-hour shifts on the weekend, going over various assault scenarios with his security squad. They did walk-throughs on all the attack plans Nicole had raised in their tabletop meeting with Sheen from NRC and Special Asshole in Charge Sheffield. Claude knew these predrill exercises with his team were total bullshit, but he needed to cover his ass for the inevitable inquiry that would follow the force-on-force exercise, after it went kablooey.

He knew what the real plan was, and exactly how he was going to foil it single-handedly. He also knew how he was going to keep Nicole out of the action. No heroism gold medal for her. Fuck Nicole. He was cutting the broad loose.

After how she’d been snarling at him, unappreciative, toying with his affections, Claude had decided, as of now, he was 100 percent doing this for himself. It would be Claude Sellers walking away as the white knight who saved Miami from nuclear disaster. The kind of press he’d get after this, he could write his own ticket.

He spent those two days cramming with his guys, a handpicked team. Two days stressing the countermeasures they would take to each of Nicole’s attack methods. The ATVs, the multiple attack points. Laying out each one, then asking the guys what their response would be. Even inviting the numbnut plant supervisor, Ronald Silbert, to sit in for a while, so he could duly note Claude’s professionalism.

Monday morning crack of dawn, Claude parked the van with the magnetic AT&T logo in the huge lot of a condo next to the Silver Sands Motel. Pulled on his jumpsuit, his insulated boots, his hard hat, then a pair of safety goggles for the sake of the security videos that were lurking around the vicinity.

He got out, worked his way onto the property of the Silver Sands Motel, found a thick hibiscus hedge with a good view, and started surveilling room 106. At just after eight that morning, Sheffield came outside in gym shorts and a T-shirt, looking groggy, hair disheveled. He drank a mug of coffee at the concrete picnic table, stared through the palms at the water, then went back inside. Half hour after that, all showered and shaved and dressed in street clothes, he locked the front door, got in his Chevy, and drove off.

Claude came out of the bushes and swung into action. Pulled on his work gloves. Jiggered the lock, pushed the door open, and stepped into the room. Before he got to work, he took out his tube of electro gel and glopped some on the outside aluminum doorknob. Smeared it thick, then closed the door but didn’t let it latch. He carried his work bag over to a rattan table in front of the TV.

He spotted the closest wall plug to the front door, took the microwave capacitor out of his bag, and wired it to the exposed leads of a heavy-duty extension cord, then screwed on the yellow junction caps. Now the 120 volts coming out of that wall socket would flow into the capacitor and exit as 4,000 volts, so hot it would approximate direct current.

He attached the heavy cable exiting the other side of the capacitor to the copper mount he’d fashioned in his workshop at the plant. It clamped tight to the knob on the inside of the door of 106. He stretched the cord out, made sure there was enough slack to reach the plug. Which there was. A foot extra.

He drew open the door. Walked over to the socket, plugged the sucker in, listened to its pleasant, deep-throated hum. Then went back to the door. Nudged it open, his glove on the wood frame. Stepped outside with his tool bag, then with one finger, he tugged the door until it was nearly closed.

Given the bleary state he was in when he left this morning, Sheffield would think he’d forgotten to close the damn thing. He’d grip the knob, and, bam, you’d have yourself a special asshole-in-charge smoke bomb.

THIRTY-FOUR

FRANK SPENT THE REST OF
Monday morning sitting in the waiting room outside his own office, in a chair across from Marta’s desk that was usually reserved for the next agent in line desiring to have a word with Sheffield.

He’d been ordered to do so by the official presiding over the internal investigation, a guy named Banks, sent down by the attorney general.

Inside Frank’s office, along with Banks, there were a couple of guys Frank knew vaguely from DC seminars, one woman he’d had drinks with years ago. All of them taking regular smoke or pee breaks, walking out of Frank’s office and coming back a few minutes later without comment or eye contact.

As he’d predicted, the full range of federal officialdom had descended overnight. Eager beavers couldn’t wait, took the breakfast flight from Reagan. The forensic specialists went directly to Prince Key, while the debriefing group settled into Frank’s office.

Two in matching suits and crisp white shirts from the Office of Professional Responsibility worked under Director Mansfield himself. They were the disciplinary crew who would listen to the stories of all involved, and after careful consideration they’d dole out whatever punishment was decided.

The woman, Gayle Holly, was from the Office of Integrity and Compliance. Doing the right things, the right way. That was their credo. Sheffield was pretty sure neither he nor Magnuson would be charged with doing much, if anything, right. Processes and procedures, violations of laws, regulations, and policies, misconduct, staying within the letter and spirit of all applicable rules. The barf beamer, the faulty radios, the flawed chain of command, and vague rules of engagement. Sheffield was confident that the letter and spirit of lots of applicable rules had been violated and re-violated.

And three more. Two women in their thirties who chatted noisily on their way into the office, speaking a brand of Spanish even Sheffield, who was halfway fluent, could not begin to decipher. Those two were from the Office of the Inspector General, young ladies no doubt recruited from the top of their respective law school classes, who reported to the attorney general about such matters as integrity, efficiency, and effectiveness in operational situations. OIG was looking for criminal misconduct. Not just a demotion or a turd in Sheffield’s file, but real, actual jail time.

Then there was a gentleman in his late sixties wearing a bow tie and suspenders with his silver hair in a braided ponytail. Hippie inquisitor from the Security Division. A polygraph guy and cyber-expert whose job was to ferret out unreliable employees, ones dabbling in espionage or using their Web access to commit crimes, leak information, or download off child-porn sites.

One by one, Magnuson’s men and Frank’s SWAT guys had been parading by Sheffield into his office, looking worried when they entered and more worried when they exited. A lot of tight faces and sweat-stained shirts. No one spoke to him or looked his way.

“They’re rubbing your nose in it,” Marta said quietly after Pipes, the barf beamer, had gone into the office and shut the door. “Make you sit here, outside your own office, them inside. They could use the conference room, but, no, this is for humiliation.”

“I’m aware of that,” Sheffield said.

“And it doesn’t piss you off?”

“Is this conversation being recorded?”

Marta made one of her faces, squinching at a putrid smell.

Pipes left; Dinkins came in a few minutes later.

He stopped and said to Frank, “We’re still on for Friday, right? The force-on-force?”

“Don’t know if we’ll have jobs on Friday, Dink.”

“Oh, come on. It’s not that bad.”

“That what you’re hearing from the others, it isn’t that bad?”

“The shit’s going to fall on Magnuson, that’s how I’m hearing it.”

The door to Frank’s office opened and one of the Latinas said, “You Dinkins?”

When Dinkins was inside, Marta said, “They’re Brazilians, those two. In case you were wondering. Knew each other in Rio. Both unmarried. That’s Portuguese they’re speaking.”

“You’re a font of information.”

“And Zach called, wanted to talk to you face-to-face.”

“I don’t know a Zach.”

“Agent Magnuson.”

“You’re first-naming with this guy?”

“I first-name with all the handsome men around here. Except you.”

“Why’d he want a face-to-face?”

“Didn’t say. Maybe to get your stories straight before all this started. It was early this morning. I told him to call your cell, but he’d tried and you had it turned off as usual. So I told him where you lived; he said he might just drive out to the Key and speak to you before the day got started.”

“Well, he didn’t make it.”

Another half hour passed. Marta was typing, Sheffield on his phone, surfing the Net, shopping for outdoor light fixtures, something to illuminate the bases of the palm trees around the Silver Sands. He was giving serious consideration to some solar-powered tiki lights that flickered yellow. Very retro. Give the place a
Beach Blanket Bingo
vibe. Which got him thinking about Annette Funicello, Sandra Dee. Then he was exiting the light-fixture site and typing Nicole McIvey’s name into the search box, something he hadn’t done till now. Not wanting to invade her privacy, and, hell, truth be known, he didn’t want to find out something that cooled his feelings toward her.

But after her performance at the Four Seasons, then last night, her self-preservation speech, distancing herself from this shitstorm, the cooling was in process.

He found her professional listings, scanned for anything he didn’t know. Just the usual stuff, college degree, then her jobs. Hired at GAO, General Accounting Office, about as boring as it got. Then the jump over to NIPC, guarding the nation’s infrastructure. After that, her pay grade made a steady upward push, reaching GS-10, then leveling off. Shifting to the South Florida division a couple of years back, and after that, still no promotions. Seemed odd she’d moved up so fast, then stalled out, as if she’d lost her drive. Or maybe not. Maybe it was just the economy, things slowing down, federal budget cuts, shrinkage.

“Can I speak to you, Agent Sheffield?”

Frank bobbled his phone, nearly sent it flying.

Angie Stevens, the cybergeek, had sneaked up on him and was standing so close, her skirt was brushing his shirtsleeve.

He leaned back and looked up at her face. Noticing for the first time that her blond bangs were cut at a cockeyed angle, at least an inch higher on one side than the other. Maybe some screwy new style he wasn’t aware of. Frank was no expert on makeup, but her blue eye shadow looked glopped on. More showgirl than FBI agent.

Angie was looking down at him, her eyes not meeting his, circling his face as if searching for a safe place to land. “I drove down to Turkey Point like you asked. Homeland’s guys missed something. A software bomb.”

“A software bomb?”

“Yeah. I defused it. It took a while. The guy that wrote it, and I could tell right away it was a guy from how it was done, well, it was pretty intricate.

“Turkey Point’s operating system uses a version of RuggedCom. The systems are deployed in harsh environments, heavy-usage applications like traffic-control systems, railroad communications, military sites, electrical substations. And in power plants. Beyond networking, these devices provide serial-to-IP conversion in SCADA systems.”

“And?”

“Thing is, RuggedCom is known to have an undocumented backdoor account with a factory-enabled password that’s dynamically generated based on the device’s address. A hacker like this guy who’s good with SCADA systems has to know about this vulnerability.”