L.A. Bytes (35 page)

“Yes? Where? Stationary? Good. If it starts moving call me ASAP.”

He fl ipped the phone shut. “They found a suspicious van.

It’s located on Los Angeles Street, about a hundred meters from Temple.”

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“The Federal Court house,” Chris said. His mouth was dry and he tried to swallow.

Booker nodded. “Yes.”

Chris stared at him. Talk about a cold prick, this guy was an iceberg. But then that wasn’t his lover out there at ground zero.

Chris turned his back on Booker and his weasel eyes. He bent over the keyboard, his fi ngers hung in the air over the keys. He tried to focus on the screen, but his eyes kept crossing.

Behind him voices droned on. He heard the words

“sharpshooters in place” and “vehicle appears to be empty.”

Their words hovered just on the edge of his awareness. Belatedly he realized Martinez was calling him.

“We’re heading out,” he said when Chris fi nally looked around.

“We’ve got visual confi rmation of the van’s location.”

Chris tried to shake off his fatigue, but it was entrenched. He had fi nally hit the wall.

“Go home, Chris,” Martinez said. “You’ve done all you can.

We’ve got people moving into place who can handle this.”

“While we certainly appreciate your help, Mr. Bellamere,”

Booker said. “This is a job for experts. No way I’m authorizing a civilian to enter this arena. And that is not open for discussion.”

Then they were gone and he heard the elevator door down the hall open.

Chris staggered to his feet. “I’m going home,” he muttered.

Spotting the washroom, he pushed through the door and leaned over the sink. He met his own eyes in the mirror and stared at his image.

He looked like he’d aged forty years. His skin was gray and his usually perfectly styled hair was in total disarray. His eyes were bloodshot pools of misery.

He lowered his head into the sink and began scooping handfuls of cold water over his face, not caring if it dribbled down his chest or dampened his shoulders. After a few minutes his head cleared, at least enough to form a solid thought.

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Sharpshooters. They were surrounding the van with men with high-powered rifl es. They thought the van was empty. But what if David was in the back?

Chris barely glanced at the haggard old man in the mirror before he grabbed some towels and scrubbed his face dry. Then he headed for the elevators.

Chris emerged onto the sidewalk and stared open mouthed at the street in front of him. The cacophony of car horns and the buzz of overhead helicopters were nearly enough to drown out the low roar of voices. Everything north of 6th was a river of deadlocked vehicles crammed between glass and stone canyon walls. Crowds of pedestrians wove through the abandoned cars, guided in some places by horse cops.

South, toward the towering Bank of America, a steady stream of buses had lined up to evacuate everyone on foot. Most of the vehicles still moving did so under the watchful eyes of the cops.

There were several abandoned cars and vans on the side of the street.

Edging into the mass, he moved north. He felt like a salmon swimming the wrong way. But that’s where David was—

Then something clicked and his mind cleared. He realized what he had seen without registering it: the blue van with a fl ower design. He jumped out of the way of a horse cop struggling to maintain control. He swung around and stared south.

One Wilshire was one of the world’s most interconnected co-location facilities. Hundreds of networks converge at the corner of Wilshire and Grand at this downtown Los Angeles location, bringing together networks from nations around the globe. Over the past decade, it had emerged as the premier communications hub of the Pacifi c Rim. Chris had done business in the One Wilshire Meet Me room with a couple of his clients.

Sunlight glinted off the blue van parked directly in front of the main doors inset in a half a ton of dark marble. It looked like just another abandoned vehicle.

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Had the whole thing been a game? Had Adnan planted the

“evidence” suggesting the Federal Courthouse was the target?

Jean-Gabriel, who wanted access to a remote trigger, didn’t have to depend on Chris or one of the federal techs to “fi x” their attack. They never meant to use the disabled cell towers. It was just there to divert them; to keep their attention off the real target.

Chris pushed through the crowd until he was back on the sidewalk. He peered over the heads of the mob to get a better look. If Booker was right, Adnan would want to be within sight of the target to trigger the bomb. Chris needed to let Martinez know. But Martinez’s cell was not responding. He was back in the dead zone.

Chris darted around a pair of arguing businesswomen. The front desk was empty and no one challenged him as he entered one of the elevators and punched the fi fth fl oor.

Troy looked up in surprise when he swept back into the room.

“Booker said there’s trouble,” Chris said. “He needs you downstairs.”

Troy frowned. “Why didn’t he call?”

“Phones are going out all over.” Chris hoped his lies were convincing. “The problem’s spreading.”

Troy must have believed him. He grabbed his jacket and without a backward glance left the room.

Chris sat down at the same computer he had used before.

He logged back in and immediately opened the directory where he had found Adnan’s worm. He unpacked the code again and studied it with a different eye. Now he wasn’t interested in stopping it, but in using it. Just as he’d expected, Adnan had found a way to target his sites. It was a simple matter to expand the range of attack.

He thought about what he was about to do. Then he thought about David. He took a shuddering breath and launched the recompiled worm.

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Nothing dramatic happened. He hadn’t expected anything. He hastily shut the computer down, knowing it wouldn’t cover his tracks from someone who knew what they were looking for. But Troy was gone, for now. And Chris didn’t care what happened after. Not if he found David safe and well.

Back outside he joined the mass of people moving south down Grand. It was immediately obvious Adnan’s worm had worked as intended. The lights were out as far as he could see.

He could feel the panic moving through the mobs.

He pulled out his Blackberry. The signal band scanned for a signal that wasn’t there. His ploy to expand the dead zone had worked. Adnan’s cell phone would no longer be able to remotely trigger his bomb.

He jogged down Grand toward One Wilshire, his feet thudding heavily on the harsh concrete, praying he didn’t make a misstep. If he fell he had serious doubts he’d be able to get back up again.

He spotted another horse cop. He waved frantically and nearly stumbled into the horse’s side. He grabbed the leather straps at the same time a distraught couple clutching a wailing baby slammed into the horse from the other side. The horse sidestepped the trio, and Chris stumbled to his knees. His head ended up between the horse’s legs. Only the animal’s calmness kept him from being kicked. Two pairs of hands grabbed him none too gently and hauled him upright.

Dimly he could hear the horse cop arguing with someone. All their voices were distant, as though from another room. Even further away he could hear the thump-thump of helicopters and the wail of sirens.

The horse cop stopped arguing with the couple with the baby.

His harried look fell on Chris and he frowned.

“All of you need to move toward 7th, they’re bringing in buses to get people out—”

Chris jerked away from the solicitous touch of the man who had helped him up. He stared across Grand, and again saw the
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blue van, still parked in the same spot in front of One Wilshire.

Directly behind it was the fi rst of several Metro buses being loaded with scared people. And they wanted to funnel thousands more people down this way?

Chris grabbed the horse’s bridle. “Listen to me. They think they’ve got it fi gured out. But they’re wrong. He tricked them. He tricked all of us—”

“Sir, if you don’t move along I’ll have you removed from the area.”

Chris looked at the radio attached to the cop’s uniform. He still clung to the horse. “Are you in communication with anyone in charge? Can you contact Detective Martinez Diego? I know he’s in the area, his cell phone’s in a dead zone.”

“Please step away, sir.”

The cop was going to say more but something else caught his eye. He pulled the horse’s head around and urged it in the other direction.

Chris surged through the crowd, pushing when he had to, ignoring the irate curses thrown at him when he did.

Ahead of him the crowds grew denser as people thought they were heading toward safety. A white parking ticket fl uttered from under the left windshield wiper of the blue van. The traffi c cops had probably been in the process of removing the vehicle when the cyber attack had started. Which meant Adnan had put it in place prior to the cascading failures he had set off.

Chris looked towards the facade of One Wilshire. The thirty story structure was not the tallest building in the area. But the two hundred plus telecommunications fi rms housed inside it helped run the whole state. Destroying it could set back communications throughout southern California and beyond. It could take years to recover.

He cut across the angle of the crowds. A thickset cop with a gray crew cut blocked his path. Now he fi nds a cop. Just when he didn’t want one.

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Chris backed away. He couldn’t afford to be pulled in by a nervous police offi cer. “Martinez. Detective Martinez Diego. I need to fi nd him.”

The thickset man shrugged. “Move along, buddy, the buses are ahead of you.”

Chris kept trudging toward the van. He was shambling now, barely able to maintain a straight line. In case anyone was listening, he repeated, “Detective Martinez Diego. I need to fi nd him.”

Hours passed, or maybe it was minutes, he could no longer tell. He kept moving, he no longer knew in what direction. An ambulance roared through the intersection of Grand and 7th, lights blazing. Chris continued toward the van. A dark shadow blocked his path.

“You want to kill yourself, you don’t do it on my watch.”

Chris focused on the chartreuse shirt two inches from his nose. He blinked and met Martinez’s brown eyes, which did not look happy.

“I thought you were told to stay put,” Martinez growled.

“What are you doing here?”

“Got this call from a horse cop who said some guy kept babbling my name. I fi gured it had to be you. I thought I’d better check it out.” Martinez made a face. “Besides, it looks like our boy’s active again. The area south to 9th is out of power.”

Chris shrugged uneasily. “There’s a van at the Courthouse?”

“Don’t worry, they’re still watching it.”

“Did anyone check to see if it was empty? I’ll bet if they did, they’d fi nd nothing in it.”

“Sorry, Chris,” Martinez said. “Homeland Security is in charge of that operation. They’re calling the shots now.”

“Did anyone even check to see if David is inside?”

Martinez put his hand on Chris’s arm. “I’m going to take you home, Chris. You can’t go on like this—”

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“Screw you.” Chris shoved Martinez in the chest and made to step around him.

Martinez grabbed him. “I can’t believe what a stubborn jerk you are,” he snapped. “If I had an ounce of sense I’d cap your ass and keep you in lockup until this whole thing is over.”

Chris glared at him. More horse cops and a few on foot moved by, herding the growing throng of people toward the nearby buses. Sitting ducks in the coming confl agration.

“I think they’re wrong about the Federal building being the target,” Chris said. “I think Adnan decoyed us.” Chris pointed out One Wilshire. “I think that’s his target. You’ve got to get people down here to move these people out of here.”

“No can do,” Martinez said. “Every division this side of Cahuenga is buried under 911 calls. Every patrol car is in play.”

“Pull them off.”

“Can’t. There’s no way to tell which ones are legit. We can’t take the chance; they all have to be checked out. We’re on our own down here.”

Wednesday, 2:55 pm, One Wilshire, Grand Avenue, Los Angeles
David stirred fi tfully. He was aware in some dim, still active corner of his mind that the van was no longer moving.

His mouth was beyond dry. The memory of the water Adnan had given him was gone, along with all his fl eeting thoughts of food or hope.

He tried to roll over, to ease the growing ache in his shoulders.

The jolt of pain roused him enough to become more aware of his surroundings.

He heard the distant whisper of voices outside. They had moved following Adnan’s attack on his partner. But they hadn’t moved far. Periodically he heard sirens, both police and ambulance, as well as the overhead beat of helicopters. Something was defi nitely happening outside. He had no idea if it was related to Adnan, though logic said it was.

The voices grew shriller and louder. Sirens came closer. A helicopter swooped low. Had they found him?

But no one came. The van grew hotter as the day progressed.

Just his luck the end of the year had proved unseasonably hot.

Sweat dripped off his face, stinging his eyes and where the tape had chafed his skin. The stink of blood thickened in the closed space.

He tested his bonds again. His hands were blood-slicked.

Maybe some of the fl uid had soaked into the tape. He felt it give a bit when he twisted his arms under him, trying to rub them against the fl oor of the truck. He could feel the knife under his hips.

He braced his legs and twisted his bound arms toward it.

The friction created a searing heat. But the bonds slipped. He
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did it again. More blood poured freely down his arms. Pain tore through him.