Kill Fee (20 page)

O
jeda shook his head. “Can’t get a fix on him,” he said. “His location keeps moving. Boston. Houston. Moscow. Beirut. He won’t stay in one place.”

Stevens peered at the screen. “How can he do that?”

“IP blocker,” said Ojeda. “It keeps moving his IP address. Hiding it. He’s not in those places, but we can’t break through and find him.”

Windermere looked at Ojeda. “Is there a way to beat this?”

Ojeda shook his head. “Not quickly,” he said. “We give it to a techie
for a few hours and he’ll crack it, probably. Depends how good our guy on the other end is.”

“This cybercrime stuff,” said Stevens. “I feel like a goddamn barnacle.”

Windermere grinned at him. “It’s not your fault you’re old, Stevens. And computer illiterate.”

Ojeda grinned at them. Then he looked back at the laptop and his grin disappeared. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, shit.”

Windermere looked over his shoulder. “What’s the deal?”

Ojeda clicked the mouse. Pressed a couple of buttons. “We’re out of the database,” he said. “Killswitch just kicked us out.”

“He can do that?”

“Why would he boot us?” said Windermere.

“Must have figured out it’s the FBI and not Comm,” Ojeda replied.

“Well, shit.”

Stevens studied the screen. “Can your tech guys still trace this guy’s IP address?” he said.

Ojeda frowned down at the laptop. “I don’t know.”

T
he tech was a young guy named Kam. He copied the Killswitch IP address into his own tracer. Pressed a button and studied the screen. “Shouldn’t be a problem,” he said. “I’ve dealt with this program before.”

Windermere grinned at Stevens. “Finally,” she said. “Something’s going right.”

“What’s your bet?” said Stevens. “Where do you think our guy’s located?”

“Who, Killswitch?”

Stevens nodded. “I figure O’Brien’s a Philadelphia local. That’s the kid. But what about our mystery accomplice?”

Windermere thought about it. “His plates looked like Virginia,” she said. “And Triple A Industries has a P.O. box in Richmond. Guess that makes sense to me.”

“Sure,” Stevens said. “As long as we’re guessing, I’m saying San Diego.”

“San Diego?” Windermere frowned. “We have no evidence whatsoever that Killswitch has ever
seen
San Diego.”

“I know, I just figure this guy’s unpredictable. I’ll give you whatever odds you want we don’t find him in Richmond.”

“You’re on. What are we betting?”

“Dinner.”

“If he turns up in Richmond, you buy me dinner?”

“That’s right. Anywhere else, and you’re buying.”

“I thought you said San Diego.”

“Just a wild guess,” Stevens said, grinning. “He turns up in San Diego, you’re buying me the whole restaurant.”

Kam swore behind them. Stevens and Windermere turned to find him staring at his computer screen, shaking his head. “What’s the deal?” said Windermere. “Where’s our IP address now?”

Kam held up his hands, palms skyward. “I beat the IP cloaker,” he said. “Traced the address to a virtual private network. Beat the VPN no problem, but now this.” He gestured at the screen. “I don’t think I can beat this.”

Windermere looked at the screen. Found a very angry-looking message from the Department of Defense.
Confidential
, it read.
Password protected. Access denied
. Windermere frowned. “What the hell is this?”

“Defense Department,” said Kam. “Either your guy’s an elite hacker or this IP address is originating from somewhere inside the DoD network.”

“Shit.” Stevens rubbed his face. “Can you beat it?”

Kam snorted. “If I could, I wouldn’t be working here,” he said. “I’d be on a beach somewhere or in jail.” He paused. “Probably in jail.”

Windermere looked up and met Stevens’s eyes. “Nothing’s ever easy,” she said. “Not with this case.”

“So, what?” said Stevens. “We get in touch with the Defense Department. See if they’ll let us look around.”

“And if not?”

He shrugged. “We turn off the computers,” he said. “Find this guy the old-fashioned way.”

P
arkerson sat back in his chair. “There,” he said. “That’ll teach you.”

He studied his computer screen, trying to make sense of what had happened. The FBI had found its way into Killswitch. And they’d done it from Miami, through Comm. How?

Parkerson opened another Internet window. Did a Google search for the Cameron Ansbacher murder. Found what he was looking for on the
Miami Herald
’s home page: “FBI Questions Suspect in Marina Shooting.”

No names. But it had to be Comm. The Feds had caught up to him somehow, and he’d told them everything. Even logged them in to the Killswitch database. So the FBI knew. What did that mean?

They wouldn’t be able to trace Killswitch to this office. He’d made damn sure of that. No way they could connect him to the project at all. They’d accessed the database, but he’d made sure to wipe out every one of Comm’s records immediately after he’d received final payment. The FBI agents would have found themselves staring at a blank screen.

Security was compromised. It was a scary notion. But ultimately the
FBI couldn’t have gained much from Comm’s little bird act. They knew about Killswitch. Knew that it existed. But they wouldn’t know where it came from, or who it planned to target next.

Jamie knocked and looked into the office. “Hey,” she said, frowning, “the board’s looking for you. Everything cool?”

Parkerson logged out of the database. Disabled the VPN and turned off his screen. He smiled at Jamie. “Everything’s fine. Just a little emergency. Kid stuff.”

Jamie’s frown softened. “Oh,” she said. “Is everything okay?”

“Is now.” He grinned at her and stood. “I’d better get back to that meeting.”

Y
ou picked up Killswitch from your dealer,” said Stevens. “We’re going to need his name.”

Comm stared across the table at him. “You know what they do to snitches in prison?” He shook his head. “Hell no. I’m not talking.”

“You’re already talking,” said Windermere. “You’re already a snitch. The question is whether you’re going to talk enough to convince us to protect you, or clam up until we throw you in a cell with the baddest
ese
in D block and let him make you his girlfriend.”

Stevens leaned across the table. “Look,” he said, “you lead us to Killswitch, hell, that’s a serial killer you’re helping us catch. Nobody’s going to let you get hurt, Phillip.”

Comm shook his head again. “I’m not talking,” he said. “I gave you all I could give you.”

“What about Spenser Pyatt? What do you know about him?”

Comm stared at Stevens, blank-faced. “I’m supposed to know something?”

“What about Mickey Pyatt?”

“I never heard of the guy.” Comm looked at Windermere. “Look, whatever your boyfriend’s on about, I have no idea. I paid an Internet zombie to kill Cameron Ansbacher. That’s all I got for you. I don’t know shit about anybody named Pyatt.”

Stevens swapped glances with Windermere. Windermere rolled her eyes. It had not been a very productive afternoon. The Department of Defense had categorically refused to allow Stevens and Windermere access to the Killswitch IP address. Then Derek Mathers had called Windermere from Minneapolis, his investigation into Mickey Pyatt both exhaustive and fruitless.

“Nothing,” he told Windermere. “He showed me everything I wanted to see. Bank statements, financial records. For the rest of the family, too. No strange six-figure payments. No extra life insurance policies. I asked him about Killswitch and he just stared at me. He doesn’t know, Carla. I think he’s clean.”

“Damn it.” Windermere sighed. “I was kind of getting that feeling myself.”

Now she followed Stevens out of the tiny interview room. Comm wasn’t talking. Mathers had hit nothing but dead ends. Killswitch was slipping through their fingers.

“What the hell do we do now?” she asked Stevens when they were out in the hall. “How do we find this guy?”

Stevens rubbed his eyes. “We break Comm, we can follow his dealer back to someone who knows Killswitch.”

“We’re not breaking Comm, Stevens. You saw him.”

“So we work around him. Talk to his friends. They give us his dealer, and we move from there.”

Windermere sighed. “That’s a lot of pounding the goddamn pavement.”

“What if we trace the main Killswitch website?” said Stevens. “Not the special projects database. Just the front page.”

Windermere shook her head and looked out the window. “It’s the same IP address,” she said. “The same DoD firewall.”

“What about the credit card? Triple A Industries? O’Brien’s used it for three jobs now. Rented Liberty every time. We follow it backward, find more leads.”

“Mathers had the same idea.” Windermere shrugged. “Liberty has no sign of anyone with a Triple A Industries card before Saint Paul. I figure he’s too smart to use the same card for long. Different shell companies, and all of them leading to the same place.” She paused. “How the hell do we catch up to these guys, Stevens?”

Stevens shook his head. Gestured into the interview room. “I guess we keep working on Comm.”

AS IT TURNED OUT,
Comm didn’t provide the answer. Roman Ojeda did. The Miami agent poked his head into the interview room about an hour later, grinning wide.

“Amtrak,” he told the agents, out in the hall. “Figured I’d check out the bus stations, train stations, charter aircraft companies. Maybe our boys ditched the Cadillac somewhere.”

“Amtrak,” said Stevens. “They took the train?”

“Just O’Brien. The kid bought a one-way ticket from Palatka, Florida, to Philadelphia the night of the shooting. Would have made it home the next evening. Guess he didn’t bolt after all.”

Windermere looked at Stevens. “Where the heck is Palatka?”

“Don’t look at me. You used to live in this state.”

“Palatka, Florida,” said Ojeda. “Just south of Jacksonville. Just east of Gainesville. Home of the Florida Azalea Festival.”

Windermere shook her head. “I’m not even going to ask, Roman. It’s a hell of a drive from Miami, isn’t it?”

“Train came in around ten,” said Ojeda. “The kid had time.”

“Drove all that way to climb on a train? They don’t have Amtrak in Miami?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Stevens. “What matters is he got on that train, and he rode it back home. He’s in Philadelphia, that’s the point.”

Windermere grinned. “Well, shit, Stevens. If O’Brien’s in Philadelphia, I’d say we should be, too.”

P
arkerson wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep. Right now, though, sleep wasn’t an option.

He endured the board meeting. Slogged through the rest of the day. Waited for Jamie to leave, and then set to work establishing new identities for the assets. For Lind and Gray both.

There would have to be changes in procedure. The Liberty trick was over. That loophole was closed. Even if the rental company didn’t realize what had happened, it was too risky to assume the FBI wasn’t watching. Parkerson would have to establish a new protocol for ground transportation. He would need a new credit card, too. Another pain in the ass. He’d hoped to use the Triple A backdrop for more than just a handful of scores.

Hell, he’d have to review every aspect of the jobs. The FBI would be looking. They no doubt had a handle on the Killswitch MO. They’d be looking for patterns and waiting for recurrences.

Parkerson reopened the Killswitch database and typed messages to
the two clients he’d already screened, informing them of the need for advanced security measures. Reassuring them their jobs would still be completed as scheduled. Asking them to kindly change their database passwords, for good measure.

Satisfied, he logged out of the database and left the office. Drove out of the complex and headed north on the interstate for a half hour and pulled off near the lake. There was a McDonald’s near the off-ramp; he picked up a bag of hamburgers and a couple of Cokes at the drive-through and brought them with him to the lake house.

Wendell Gray had torn his room apart. He’d hurled the bed at the door. Clawed at the walls. Upturned his waste bucket. The room stank like shit. Parkerson looked in at him. Set his jaw. “This place is a mess,” he said. “Clean it.”

Gray stared at him. Wide, terrified eyes. Quick, shallow breaths. He sat on the floor, arms hugging his knees. His whole body shook. “Clean it,” Parkerson told him. Then he closed the door again.

He turned on the projections and waited ten minutes. The asset hadn’t moved when he opened the door. Parkerson sighed and left him again. Went into the locker where he stored the guns and ammunition and came back with a sap. The asset still hadn’t moved.

Parkerson hit him. Hit him hard. The asset gasped and fell back. “Clean it,” Parkerson told him. “Clean this damn room or you won’t eat, understand?” He walked to the door. “Clean it,” he said, “or the visions come back.”

This time, the asset listened. When Parkerson opened the door again, ten minutes later, the bed was remade and moved back to its corner. The floor was scrubbed clean. The bucket was upright.

The room still smelled like shit.

Parkerson smiled at the asset. “Good work,” he said. “Great job. You had another nightmare. It’s okay.”

The asset sat huddled at the edge of the bed. He was still shaking. He
favored his right shoulder, where Parkerson had hit him. Parkerson sat down beside him with the McDonald’s bag. “You’re okay,” he said. “Everything’s fine. You just had a nightmare. I’m here now.”

The asset stared at the floor, his breathing slowly calming. He didn’t say anything. Parkerson brought out a burger. Lifted a Coke. “I brought food. Are you hungry?”

The asset nodded. “Yeah.”

“Eat up,” Parkerson told him. “Eat your burger before it gets cold.”

The asset looked up from the floor. Stared at the bag of food. Then he reached in and took out a burger in wax paper. Parkerson watched the kid eat. Watched his shoulders straighten, his spirits start to lift. There was life in his eyes again. A shame. It wasn’t going to last.

Parkerson stood and walked to the doorway. “Good work,” he said. “Great job. Great first day.”

The asset looked at him. Chewed his burger.

“Tomorrow, try not to spill your waste bucket. This place reeks.”

The asset didn’t say anything. Parkerson looked back at him. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. “Be good.” Then he closed the door again and locked it. Turned on the nightmares and walked out of the house.