The Gillespie Five (A Political / Conspiracy Novel) - Book 1 (42) (24 page)

"Are you telling me I could be typing in my apartment or hotel room and someone could be in an adjacent room recording what I type?"

"Sure.  But there are other more common ways to break into someone's computer that don't require someone sneaking in and planting such a device.  Heck, I could use an SMS tracker that could hack your phone without ever touching the device physically."

"Seriously?" She waited for him to elaborate.

Instead, he asked, "So can you get these near their computers?"

"I don't know.  I mean probably.  But as much as I want to get you guys out of here I don’t know how I feel about breaking in to steal their information."

Alex gave her an incredulous look.  He opened his mouth to say something which, by the looks of his expression, was going to be sarcastic, but then slammed his mouth shut.  Taking a deep breath, he asked instead, "Do you have a better idea?  I suppose we could wait to rot here.  Or better yet wait until they drag us before a federal court with a case file full of lies."

Sighing, she nodded her head.  "You're right.  I think I can get it into the room where Barrett usually works when he's here.  But he takes his laptop home with him."

"That's okay.  They just need to log enough to get passwords."

"How do I get it back to them?"

"If they're smart, they'll be using keyloggers with wireless transmitters.  You won't have to do anything but get the devices near their computers and they can do the rest."

"Will wireless work down here?"

"Don't you have wireless running now?"

"Yes, but I thought being underground prevented the signals from being read, you know, outside."

He smiled at her, saying, "Where there is wireless, there is a landline."  As if that meant anything to her.

And the things he had mentioned had her having double and triple thoughts about her
own
computer security.  "I'll see what I-"

She heard the door squeak and jumped up, quickly stashing the laptop in her bag.  By the time the door opened, she was calmly putting her medical equipment away.  She nodded at the guard.  "You can uncuff him now.  Thank you." 

Walking to her office, she quickly formed a message in her mind that she could send to Barrett about why she needed to take a sudden trip to Denver.  She was overdue, so didn’t really expect any issues.  She could ride out tonight on the helicopter bringing in some of the other agents.  

Driving to the hotel, she did a quick search on her laptop, and found that Paris on the Platte was a café and bar located several miles from where the helicopter landed at the Centennial airport.  Which meant she would also need a car.  Once she had all the information together, she called and made arrangements for what she needed and, a few hours later, was ready.  At least for the first part of the plan.  As to how she was going to get into Gillespie's office? 
That
was going to take some more thought.

As she waited for the helicopter, her thoughts drifted back to her conversation with Alex.  Between all the words he had said that she
didn't
understand, she
had
understood enough to realize that it seemed all too easy for anyone to get information.  Of all kinds.  The thought was disturbing.  And she'd seen a lot of disturbing things before, a few of a similar nature.

Just two years ago she had traveled into what soldiers called 'in country' deep within the Zagros Mountains of Iraq.  She had gone with a small group of rangers and two CIA operatives, looking for several high ranking insurgent leaders.  She had been brought along to make sure the right questions got answered and answered correctly. The CIA agents had been there to record it all.  Live.

When they had first told her this, she had been incredulous.  There was no electricity out there, let alone internet connectivity.  They had just nodded at her questions and begun pulling out several gadgets, each looking more alien than the other, until they had assembled a video conferencing unit with satellite uplink.  As the screens came online, she noted several suits sitting in an office staring at her.  She soon found out they were all sitting in an office in D.C. and were there to watch the interrogations.  She had then been asked to conduct her interviews while people from D.C. watched, occasionally prompting her with questions.  In the middle of desert mountains with no electricity or internet. 

Later she had watched as similar looking equipment was used to fly drones into a targeted area and destroy it.  All without the pilot ever leaving the safety of a base camp hundreds, even thousands, of miles away.  The technology had been surreal then, even scary.  But she'd never felt that it had the potential to invade
her
privacy. Now, she was looking at it from a totally different perspective, feeling more than a bit naïve for not realizing this sooner. 

Of course,
technology like that could be used to invade her privacy.  She'd read about it often enough and it was why Gillespie was running this operation.  Hackers stole people's identities all the time.  It had always seemed like something that happened to
other
people.  Not her. But that was just more naiveté on her part and, no doubt, the part of millions more like her who just didn't think it could happen to them.  And she didn't think she liked it. 

Reluctantly, she found herself beginning to understand a little bit more about Barrett's almost overzealous pursuit to stop people from being able to do this.  But that didn't give the government the right to just take people from their homes and interrogate them at their leisure.  Or to completely ignore their rights in the pursuit of stopping hackers.  And it certainly didn't give them the right to hold innocent people. 

Whether it destroyed her career or not, she was going to try and do something to free the detainees and
stop
it from happening again.      

Chapter Forty-Nine

Jane tried to shake her nervousness as she headed toward the rendezvous point. She had given herself an hour’s buffer in case she became geographically dislocated - something she was, unfortunately, all too prone to do - and was feeling confident and a little excited as she headed toward the congested and quaint area the coffee shop was located in.

After the long, late night drive from the airport on Monday, she had slept a few hours and then woken and driven to downtown Denver to spend the day on 16
th
Street Mall.  The drive from the hotel had been both inspiring and frightening as she had been torn between the surreal mountain views and the massive amount of traffic - not as bad as California - definitely intimidating.  But despite today’s meeting, she had somehow managed to relax as she walked around window shopping, eating, drinking, and people watching.  Especially people watching.  She wasn’t sure yet if the most interesting character had been the man covered in trash bags screaming about how everyone was ruining the earth, or the man on the Segway dressed like a very colorful pimp.  Thinking about it now brought another smile to her face. 

This morning she had woken up refreshed, if agitated, and it had taken all the patience she could muster to enjoy her breakfast and try to relax.  Moments after breakfast she gave up on the relaxing part and pulled out her laptop.  After setting an alarm so she didn’t work past the time she needed to leave, she rapidly lost herself in her work.  Now, as she spotted the coffee shop, she began wishing she was still at her hotel working.

As Jane scanned the streets on either side she began to realize that she wasn’t going to find a parking spot nearby.  She smiled a bit as she congratulated herself for adding the extra buffer of time.  It had never failed her in the past.  She was just beginning to relax, the smile still on her face, when it began to dawn on her that she was going to be forced to parallel park.  Her smile fled in the wake of the cold terror that suddenly shot through her.

Jane frowned as she searched and finally found a spot on the busy street.  Parallel parking was not something that came easy to her and it took several attempts, accompanied by impatient honks from the cars stuck behind her, before she was able to finally pull successfully into the small space.  She waited several minutes as the angry drivers passed by, hoping none of them were heading to the same place, before hopping out and grabbing her laptop bag.  The warm air, much cooler than the desert she had been in, enveloped her.  She hesitated, looked up at the clear blue skies and wondered if she should bring her jacket.  She had been warned that Colorado had mercurial weather and, if you didn’t like it, you just had to wait fifteen minutes.  Deciding to err on the side of caution, she grabbed her jacket, locked the car and proceeded down Platt Street toward the Paris café.

When the entrance appeared, she stepped inside only to find herself suddenly plunged into almost darkness.  When her eyes adjusted, she noticed that the place was actually a bar.  Confused, she walked to the bar and asked the bar tender if he had coffee.  He pointed over his shoulder, directing her to the back of the bar where she found a doorway leading to another area.  It was there she found the coffee shop.  And it was packed.  After looking around, she realized the only place to sit was at a long common table. 

Reluctantly, she took a seat and tried not to appear nervous as she attempted to discreetly scan the room.  She had pictured several scenarios of who she was supposed to meet, all of them resembling James Bond types in suits.  But, though the crowd seemed to hold someone of just about every type, she found none that met the description in her head.  Deciding she was looking too obvious, she opened the laptop so that she could pretend to work as she watched the people coming in and out of the café.

As time passed, her agitation grew and she decided to distract herself with real work.  Pulling up her notes, she went back to trying to organize them, only absently noticing the people coming and going.  Eventually, as her notes absorbed her, she lost track of what was going on around her until someone moved close to her periphery vision. 

Glancing up, she noticed a slender, dark haired kid laying his motorcycle jacket down on the chair next to her.  She didn't see a helmet. 

Stupid kid,
she thought, wondering why anyone would ride a death on wheels vehicle like a motorcycle and
not
wear a helmet.

She waited a bit, trying to be discrete as she watched him.  When he made no contact she became a little irritated.  How was someone going to approach her now with this kid sitting so close?  She thought about asking him to leave because she was expecting someone but decided against it. 

The kid stalked slowly back to the coffee counter, moving with an animal-like grace Jane couldn't help but watch.  Eventually Jane returned to her notes, only looking up again when he returned with a cup of coffee.  The delicious smell wafted her way, making Jane realize she had already been here for over an hour and hadn't even had a cup of coffee. 

Deciding that getting a cup was now in order, she left her coat behind, took her laptop to the counter, and ordered an Americano.  After dumping in her requisite four packages of raw sugar and stirring it within an inch of its life, she returned to her seat to find the kid had left. Sighing in relief, she took an appreciative sip of her coffee as she sat down to wait some more.

After another hour, Jane settled down to reading her notes and making corrections. 

"Ma'am?"

The girl who had been working behind the counter looked down at her.

"Yes?"

"We're closing in five minutes."

Jane looked around and noticed the place was all but deserted.  Confused, she then glanced at the clock on her laptop.  Her eyes widened at the time.  "Oh! I'm
so
sorry."

"No worries. Take your time."

Jane gathered her things, putting on her coat and wondering what had gone wrong.

Maybe she had gotten the wrong place or time?  Maybe it was next Wednesday?

As she walked to her car, she reached into her coat pocket for the keys and felt something else as her hands closed around the keys.

Pulling her hand out, Jane stared at her keys and the two black devices in her hand. 

When had these gotten there?

Her mind flashed to the kid who'd come in earlier.  He'd been the only one to sit anywhere near her.

Well, package delivered
, she thought. 

Now
she just had to figure out how to get these near Gillespie and Barrett's computers.  Taking a calming breath, she thought about the appointment she'd scheduled with Gillespie at his office tomorrow morning.  It just had to work.

011000110110111101101110011100110110001101101001

Yuri looked at the number on his phone and sighed.  "What is it?"

"Hey bro!  What's hanging?"

"Get to it, Gregor."

"Dude, you seriously need some help."

"Just give me your report."

"Fine.  The doctor has somehow managed to have as boring of a day as she does back at the hotel."

"What did she do?"

"Sat all damn day in an internet café-cum-coffee shop-cum-wine shop.  Didn't talk to anyone. Nothing.  It's ridiculous.  Why would she come all the way back to Denver to do that?"

"Are you positive she did not meet or speak to anyone?"

"Yep.  Even had someone follow her into the bathroom.  Zip, nadda, zilch. Seriously this chick is as boring as you are.  Hey!  Maybe you two should hook up, you know?  I mean you could-"

Yuri hung up, staring out one of the large windows that overlooked the river.  Doctor, doctor.  What are you up to? 

The sound of footsteps echoing down the long hall interrupted his thoughts.  He looked up to find his head of security walking toward him.  Yuri said nothing until the man stood in front of his desk and gave a quick bow.  Yuri motioned with his hand for the man to speak.

"Sir, the information you requested on the unwanted visitor is complete."  He reached into his coat pocket and handed Yuri a flash drive. 

Yuri accepted it, plugging it into his laptop before asking, "Any change in the families positions?"

"No, sir.  But they are impressed so far with the momentum you’ve managed to build.  They are watching."

Yuri nodded his head slowly, careful to keep his smile to himself.  It would not look good to show triumph this soon in the game.  He moved to dismiss the man when his head of security hesitated.

"What is it?"

Hesitantly, the man asked, "Sir, I would like to understand why we are not eliminating the intruder immediately.  It seems a gamble to allow him to live."

Unlike most men in his position, Yuri appreciated when his people asked questions.  It meant they were going beyond their typical duties and striving to be better.  It also gave him a chance to teach, and he loved sharing the strategy lessons he had spent a lifetime learning.  Especially with one of the family. 

Giving the man a small but appraising smile, he answered, "Sometimes, sacrificing the pawns – while seemingly easier – is not always the best answer.  Sometimes those pawns, unexpected as this one might be, can be used to forward the attack in unexpected ways.  I want to see if this pawn can be used to do just that."

"And if he can’t?"

"We’ll eliminate him."

Nodding, the man left. Yuri turned to open the files on the flash drive and began to skim through them.  Most of the information he already knew.  What he was looking for was something that he could leverage.  Fifty pages in, he found it.