PRIMAL Reckoning (Book 1 in the Redemption Trilogy, the PRIMAL Series Book 5) (25 page)

CHAPTER
30

The police headquarters in Chihuahua City
was a modern construction of polished concrete, exposed metal beams, and a high
glass-walled entrance. It would have been more at home in Silicon Valley.

Mitch walked up the stairs to the foyer
and felt a little intimidated by the constant stream of law enforcement
officers coming and going. Dressed in a polo shirt, slacks, and a smart pair of
leather shoes, he stood out from the uniformed personnel but they paid him no
attention. Over his shoulder he carried a backpack loaded with his tablet,
laptop, and a soft case filled with tools. Everything you would expect to find
in the bag of an IT technician. If it was not for his bulging arms he might
have been mistaken for a nerd.

He walked to the reception desk and
smiled at the policewoman through the ballistic glass. “
Hola
, do you speak English?” he asked in a terrible American
accent.

She
smiled. “Yes, how can I help you?”

He pushed
his ID card through the gap beneath the glass. “I’m from GE. Here to upgrade
the
C4I4 software
.” Mitch almost grimaced at the sound of
his accent. Bishop had tried to school him in the art but he didn’t have an ear
for it. Well, he was committed now.

“I’m
sorry, I don’t know what that means.” The woman turned and spoke to another
officer. A third man, in civilian clothing, came over and spoke to them before
approaching the glass.

“Hello,
you are here to fix the computers?”

Mitch
nodded. “Yeah, sort of. I’m here to update the software on the biometric recog
system.”

The man’s
face was blank.

“OK, yeah
I’m here to fix the computers.”

“Yes, you
wait here. We will send someone down to see you.” He pointed at the waiting
area.

Mitch sat
and picked up a magazine. It was in Spanish. He thumbed through the pictures.

“Excuse
me.”

He looked
up and saw an overweight man dressed in a suit and tie, sporting a full beard.

“I was
told you are here to fix our computers? I’m the head of IT.”

Mitch
stood and shook his hand. “Hi, I’m Bruce from GE.”

The man
smiled. “Oh, you must be here for the Cognitive system.” He handed Mitch a
visitor’s pass.

“That’s
the one, partner. We’ve got a new patch, speeds up searches by twenty percent.”

His smile
turned into a frown. “Your people usually do that remotely. Have there been any
problems?”

“No, not
at all. We just like to get out on site every now and then to check things over,
and make sure our clients are happy. Don’t worry, it doesn’t cost you
anything.”

The IT
manager looked relieved. “Well in that case, let me show you to the server
room.”

Mitch
followed him to the elevator. “So, have you had any problems with the system?”

“No, it’s
been very good.”

That’s
right, thought Mitch. The CIA would want it to work perfectly.

The
manager led him out the elevator and down a corridor to a security door. He
swiped the key access and they entered the server room. Mitch shivered; the
air-conditioning was running full bore to keep the room at an icy fifty-three
degrees.

“This is
the Cognitive rack here.”

Mitch
gave it a once over then pulled out his laptop and plugged it in.

“How long
do you think this will take?”

He keyed
in a few commands. “About twenty minutes.” He rubbed his hands together. “It’s
a bit colder in here than outside. Is there any chance you can whistle me up a
coffee?”

The
manager nodded and left the room. Mitch pushed in an earpiece and wirelessly
tethered it to his laptop. “Flash, can you hear me?”

There was
a slight delay as the signal bounced seven and a half thousand miles and back again.
“I’ve got you loud and clear, bro, and I’ve got access to the system.”

He
watched as code raced across the screen of his laptop and heard Flash humming.

The door
beeped and the IT manager appeared with a disposable cup filled with black coffee.
“Hey thanks, bud.” Mitch took a sip from the beverage. He was more of a tea
kind of guy but no one seemed to drink it in the Americas.

The
manager peered at the laptop screen. “No problems?”

“No,
everything seems good. I’m just running a diagnostic, then I’ll upload the
patch.”

“OK, well,
I’ll be back in about ten minutes, yes.”

Mitch
gave a broad smile. “Should be all done by then. Thanks for the coffee.”

Once he
was out the door Mitch transmitted to Flash. “The IT guy here looked straight
at the screen, mate. Is he going to be able to read any of this?”

“Hell no.
Would be like asking Chua to check out my code. That man wouldn’t know ASCII
from BASIC.”

“I’m going
to tell him you said that.”

“He knows
it. OK, I’m in. I’ve got access to the Cognitive database and the real-time
feeds.”

“First
things first, you need to get Christina and Bish off the system. Then we need
to track down the Chief of Police. We want full pattern of life.” Mitch could
hear Flash’s fingers racing over the keyboard.

“Hey slow
down, big fella. It’s not often I get a man inside the bad guy’s server room. Now,
while you’re there you might be able to patch the police email server into the
Cognitive server. That’ll give me full access to everything the dirty cops are
up to.”

Mitch
glanced at his watch. “OK, but I’ve only got a few minutes at most.”

“No
problem. Use the cable from your laptop. The email rack should be labeled.”

He moved
down the aisle of servers searching for the email database. The servers were
numbered not named. “Flash, they’ve got numbers stuck on them.”

“OK, wait
a sec.” Flash’s fingers were racing again. He was not sure if it was possible
but it sounded as if he was typing even faster. “Got it. You’re looking for
rack number three.”

He examined
the labels. Three was directly opposite the one they were working on. “Found
it. He plugged the cable into an empty LAN port and connected the other end
into the Cognitive server. “It’s in. You’ve got to hurry, Flash. I can’t leave
this cable hanging halfway across the room.”

“Yeah,
yeah, keep your panties on.”

The
security door beeped and opened. Mitch reached across and put his hand on the
plug in rack 003. The IT manager had the door open but was talking to someone
in the corridor. “Hurry up!” he whispered.

Just as
the manager pushed open the door Flash gave him the OK. Mitch yanked the cable.

“How’s it
all going?” the man asked.

“Good,
I’m all done. The system’s purring like a kitten.” Mitch unplugged the cable
and stashed it in his backpack. He slid his laptop inside and slung it over his
shoulder. “I think you’re going to be very happy with the increase in
performance.”

The
manager returned his smile. “Very good. Now, I’ve got to go to a meeting. Do
you mind showing yourself out?” he asked as he guided Mitch out of the server
room and shut the security door.

“Sure
thing.” He offered the man his hand. As they shook he realized his palms were
sweaty. He turned and walked down the corridor to the elevator. It took him to
the ground floor where he made a beeline for the exit.

“Hey,
stop!”

Mitch
froze, his heart in his mouth. He turned around slowly.

“You need
to hand in your security pass.”

He walked
across to the desk and handed over the pass. “Sorry, I forgot.” He turned and strolled
out the doors, down the steps, and hailed a taxi.

“We should
definitely do this more often,” said Flash through the earpiece. “I could get
used to this sort of access.”

“Go fuck
yourself,” replied Mitch. “Remember I’m a geek like you, mate, not an
operator.”

“Well,
I’m not sneaking around in Mexico with a machine gun.” Flash chuckled. “Anyway,
I’ve wiped all links to the team. It’s going to take us a few hours to get the
intel Bish wants. I’ll check in later.”

A cab
pulled up and Mitch got in. He gave the driver a slip of paper with an address.
They drove three blocks before pulling over. He paid the man, walked through a
park, and got in the blue Dodge pickup waiting on the other side.

“We
good?” asked Bishop as he pulled out into the traffic.

“Good to
go, mate.”

“Excellent.
Emilio’s back from his nephew’s and he’s got everything we need. Bishop glanced
at his iPRIMAL. The device was directing him to their new safe house, the empty
warehouse on the outskirts of town.

“So,
we’re in business then.”

Bishop
nodded. “Let’s take these bastards down.”

***

Howard and his team had been working on Objective Yankee for
three days but were no closer to identifying him or any of his associates.
Pershing was calling every few hours and his boss, Everest, was demanding
results. He figured he had a day to dig up a lead or the director was going to
shut him down. Once that happened his resources would disappear and Pershing
would cut off the payments.

He
slammed a fist down on his desk. “How the fuck can these people simply not
exist? They’re running around killing cartel guys and no one knows who the hell
they are.”

Ben, his
signals analyst was trawling through phone activity in vicinity of the mine.
Shelly, the all-source analyst was on her lunch break.

Howard
loosened his tie and waddled over to the bar fridge in the corner of the room.
He popped a can of zero-sugar energy drink and took a hefty swig.

The door
to the room opened and Shelly entered. “Any luck, boys?”

“No,”
mumbled Ben.

“Nothing,”
added Howard.

She sat
at her workstation and got back to work.

The sound
of fingers tapping away at keys was the only noise in the room as Howard stared
at the wall. Shelly looked at him from over her screen. “Hey, Terry.”

“Yeah”

“I’ve got
some good news.”

“You won
lotto and we can all go home?”

“Not that
good. The BfV got back to me about that information request.” She referred to
the
Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz
,
Germany’s internal security agency.

Howard
put his drink down and remained seated as he scooted his chair around to her
desk. “Did they get a hit?”

“Yeah, that
tall guy, Objective Red Sox, is one Wilhelm Jaeger, a former police officer and
GSG 9
operator.”

“No shit.
So what’s the go, has he gone rogue?” He leaned over her shoulder to read the
email.

“No
further information. If we want more details they’re going to have to get a
court order and put in a formal request to the German Federal Police.”

“Did you
search the name on our database?”

Shelly
nodded. “Yes, we’ve got nothing.”

He rolled
back to his desk and took another sip of the energy drink. A formal request for
information was a big deal and would take the Germans days to get the required
paperwork through. It would have to come from Everest so he needed to get
moving. He adjusted his tie. “Can you print off what we’ve got? I’m going to
have to go and see Everest.”

***

Pershing took the memory card from Burro
and slotted it into his laptop. The pictures that appeared on the screen were a
little fuzzy but they served his purpose. “Good work, son. Now go and get me
that piece of shit rancher.”

Burro
nodded and left the office. He hit print on the photos while he waited.

When
Roberto was dragged in, Pershing winced. His face was battered and swollen, one
eye completely closed over. He almost regretted letting the Black Jackets take
out their frustrations on the prisoner. They had lost over a dozen of their
comrades to the ranchers and mercenaries in the last week and Roberto had borne
the brunt of their anger.

“Burro,
can you get Mr. Soto a glass of water please.” Pershing tipped back in his
chair. “At first I thought that kid was a bit of a waste of time. Got to admit,
he’s really coming into his own.”

The
rancher stared at him with his jaw clenched.

“Still,
that’s not why we’re here. I’m going to give you one last chance to tell me
where the rest of your buddies are at.”

Burro
reappeared with a glass. He put it on the desk in front of Roberto. The rancher
never even looked at it. He just stared at Pershing.

“Look, I
understand. I grew up in area not unlike this on a ranch not too different from
yours. It was a hard life. Pop was tough and he would have fought tooth and
nail had someone tried to take his land. But, it wasn’t worth shit and when he
died, he died a poor man. You tell me where your friends are and I’ll give you
twice what your land’s worth. You ask Burro, I’m good for it.”