Unholy Code (A Lana Elkins Thriller) (27 page)

What young Emma did achieve in shutting off her “find my phone” app was to foil less sophisticated users, like her boyfriend. After reading their emails, I knew precisely why she needed to get away from him: to quiet her conscience.

It was easy for Emma to put Sufyan off her trail. What she doesn’t know is that with a little help from me, Vinko Horvat is no longer able to hack her.

He’d been showing far too much interest in her, even after screwing up an assassination attempt on Emma’s mother. Maybe he was looking to redeem himself. Too bad. Pay for therapy on your own time, Stinko. Not mine. It took me three arduous hours to sever his links to Emma’s phone and computer, which entailed cutting off all the young woman’s service for forty-three minutes, an eternity for a chronic phone user like her. But with all the ISP disruptions these days, she gave no indication of being alarmed, nor did she take any action to try to root out the source of the problem by going to her mother. Not that Emma was likely to, given her new need for secrecy.

I’m certain Vinko is much more frustrated at this point than his young target because my perusal of his emails showed that he knows about her pregnancy. That must have whetted his appetite: white girl coupling with a black guy; the worst kind of beast with two backs to the likes of him. For those who loathe interbreeding and embrace Islamophobia, Emma and her beau would be a sweet target.

But Vinko isn’t going to find her unless
I
want him to. I would say the same for Lana. The manipulation of those two must be coordinated, and I’m in the position to do that, with Vinko now relegated to watching from the sidelines. I’ll cue him when I’m good and ready,
if
I need to.

Originally, I’d thought of corralling Sufyan as well. I even feel some gratitude toward him. His rift with Emma has driven her away from those who could protect her, making his girlfriend little more than chum in the turbulent currents she’s trying to swim.

As for Vinko, he’s already switching his attention to the death of Bones Jackson. The famous receiver had took up residence recently in Oregon, presumably to imbibe the deadly, legal dose of secobarbital that killed him. I don’t blame him. A gentle death versus the ravages of brain cancer? Not a difficult choice.

For all Vinko’s professed hatred of his former teammate, I found it amusing to see that he’d viewed online video of Jackson’s memorial service six times. But what really surprised me was an email Vinko drafted to Bones’s widow Ludmila. I thought Vinko might have expressed a scintilla of regret over his teammate’s passing, but no. He called Ludmila a “slut” for having sex with a “black monkey.” His parting words to the bereaved widow: “You are a degenerate.”

Seriously, Vinko? You wrote that to her right after the service?

At least he didn’t send it. I see that it’s still in his “draft” folder. I’m tempted to delete it. Wait a sec. Vinko’s opening it. I can almost see him subvocalizing as he rereads it.

No, don’t, Vinko. Even for you, that’s going too far.

But he just hit “send,” and there it goes.

Why?

Well, why not? I realize. That’s who Vinko Horvat really is: a racist. And that’s what racists do.

I wonder if he realizes Ludmila is Russian. Does he know the well-deserved reputation of Russian women?

I feel like I’m taking a bath when I leave his site. It’s a pleasure to return to Emma’s Fusion. She’s driven sixty-three miles, so she should be inside Baltimore proper now.

Yes, the GPS agrees.

The sun must be coming up. Her mother must be waking, too. In the next few minutes both she and her husband will start to panic. They’ll wonder if their daughter has been abducted. But how? They’ll check their tight security and find it intact. Then they’ll review the electronic history of the system and learn that it was opened from inside the house by someone who knew the code. They’ll check Emma’s room and discover no signs of struggle. And they’ll see that her phone is missing, along with key personal belongings, if my guess is good about the latter.

Most painfully, they’ll realize their only child is no longer protected by the extensive measures they’ve taken to insure their family’s well-being. And if they’re particularly insightful parents, they’ll also understand that they could protect their daughter from so much, but not from herself.

A seventeen-year-old is impulsive.

A seventeen-year-old feels immortal.

A seventeen-year-old doesn’t understand that death can come in a whisper.

Emma
. I imagine my hot breath on her ear.
I can help you
.

So her parents will be right to shudder at the fact that Em is now vulnerable to the scores of terrorists stalking American cities and hinterlands, hunting for ever more horrors to visit upon the nation.

But don’t worry about all that.

Those are the exact words I would tell them if I could. They need only worry about me. And it’s too late for that. Their only child is trying to free herself of too much too soon, and all she’s really done is seal her fate.

The one I’ve planned for her.

And you shall share it, Lana.

The chainsaws are oiled and calling. Can you hear them? Here, I’ll 
start one.

How about that? Can you hear it now? The blade sounds angry, doesn’t
it? Like it could cut through skin and bone and the last scraps of hope in
a dying girl’s heart.

I won’t let you die without seeing that, Lana. I promise.

That’s how a mother gets to die twice.

JIMMY PUSHED THROUGH THE
door that had delivered the ISIS fighter to his death, entering a short, wide hallway. He immediately scanned the ceiling and corners for surveillance cameras. Didn’t see any but that didn’t mean there weren’t fiber optics embedded in openings no larger than the head of a finishing nail.

Better move faster, then.

He headed to the only interior door, finding a digital pad for the lock. Jimmy tried the handle—a non-starter, as expected—but didn’t dare touch the pad. A false code could alert the security system.

He retreated back to the deck, resigning himself to climbing the rig. His best bet appeared to be a massive chain near the end of the dock, one of four that anchored the facility to the seabed. They ran all the way to each corner of the upper platform, where he’d seen the chief engineer and the roughnecks displayed like human trophies.

Each steel link was half his height and thick as his thighs. But the openings were ample enough for solid footholds. Keeping his pistol in hand, knife belted, and the Kalashnikov strapped across his back, he started up slowly. Nothing like those Greenpeace maniacs who’d climbed a Shell rig like they were spiders. Then again, they hadn’t just survived a boat crash and a nasty case of smallpox. Nor had they been facing armed ISIS terrorists on the platform above them.

Jimmy climbed up the anchor chain methodically, but the steel was slippery from an early morning mist that shrouded him. Good cover, bad for climbing. He paused with every advance, hearing nothing till he’d moved thirty feet above the water—Arab gibberish drifting down through the thin fog, which would burn off soon enough. It already appeared to be vanishing to a frightening degree.

Speak English
. He shook his head, but otherwise remained as still as the steel that held him—except for his stomach, which felt queasy. He tried to clear his belly with a big breath, and it might have worked. Feeling better, he looked upward, listening intently for a chopper. There had been a number of them keeping watch on the platform, including some news crews that could give him away in the time it took to hit a camera switch.

Would they do that?
he wondered.

Hell
,
yeah
,
they would
, he answered himself a beat later. It’d be a scoop: Smallpox McMasters climbing the towers geared up like a Gameboy commando?
Are you kidding?
 
’Course they would
.

Move.

He had to get up there before the mist disappeared completely and someone spotted him. He had no allies in the sky, and the only ones on the platform probably had knives at their necks.

He moved up several more links, passing girders and metal handrails and mesh walkways beside him. Corrosion everywhere he looked. The salt air was an omnivore, eating everything it touched.

An agonizing groan froze Jimmy. It arose about ten feet above him. Then more gibberish violated his ears. Definitely not from the groaning guy.

Jimmy hated the sound of Arabic. He didn’t feel that way about Spanish or French, the two languages other than English that were spoken in the Gulf. But Arabic made his ears curl. Yeah, he knew there were millions of right-thinking Arabs who were great people, and had met a few who spoke English, but unfortunately he wasn’t dealing with the great mass of nice ones. He figured he’d be coming face to face with the most blood-thirsty killers he’d ever heard of, and the sound of their voices made him want to start shooting.

The groaner grew silent. Jimmy had little doubt about the language that man had been speaking: agony.

What the hell are they doing to him?

Jimmy looked up to see if he could get any kind of visual. Nothing. He took little solace in having his gun ready; firing it would be an act of desperation, for it would alert everyone. It wasn’t like that Saturday night special, which had sounded like a cap gun, and he was drawing ever closer to the ISIS brigade that could hear it.

He did spy overhanging walkways and ledges that would make murdering him a challenge.
Unless they also come at you from below
.

But he moved as quietly as he could on his bare feet—heavily callused from beach life—and hoisted himself up onto the next link. It was right below a recessed area that was painted red, which he realized must be where the groaner was feeling so much pain. He had no idea what purpose that area usually served. A lookout, maybe?

Should have paid a little more attention
. And partied a whole lot less on his three-week stint.

A damn seagull landed on the link above him and squawked. Christ, they were loud. He saw others gliding around the rig, guessing the roughnecks fed them when they got bored.

The gull squawked again. The Arabic speaker shouted at it and lunged toward its perch right above Jimmy. He caught a glimpse of another bearded man long enough to know the guy hadn’t looked down, which saved Jimmy’s life—for the time being.

The gull flew off, leaving a fresh deposit that dripped down the link. Jimmy moved up, careful where he held on, stopping when he was just below the overhanging ledge; the chain continued straight up to the left of it.

He peered over the four-foot section of red-painted steel. A hulking man was facing the lone surviving oil worker, other than the chief engineer, whom Jimmy could only hope remained alive. The roughneck had a grease stain on his face, and was gagged so hard his cheeks had whitened from loss of blood. His eyes betrayed his pain and terror. So did the muffled groans still rising from him. Then Jimmy saw why: ISIS’s finest was cutting off a six-inch strip of skin from the man’s knee. It looked like he was peeling him alive: The roughneck’s entire calf and shin had been stripped and glowed bright red with fresh blood.

Jimmy wanted to shoot the torturer, but couldn’t. Not if he wanted to live long enough to actually get off the platform.

Instead, Jimmy slipped the gun into his belt and drew the long knife. He’d have to rise up slowly, scurry across the four feet of steel ledge, and drive the blade into the bastard’s back. First, he looked at the pale sun to make sure it wouldn’t throw telltale shadows from him.

Not a problem, thanks to the dim light.

Then Jimmy checked his footing, glad that he did: His left foot was half an inch from the gull’s greasy waste, which could have given him a noisy slip.

He drew a long steady breath, which was interrupted by the
whup-
whup-whup
of a helicopter.

Using the noise for cover, he lifted himself up as the knife-wielding man gazed at the sky. Jimmy hurled himself across the ledge as the man glanced back and spotted him. But Jimmy drove the blade into his back, shocked at the sudden resistance to such a sharp steel point.
A bone
. He twisted the blade in the next instant, plunging it past whatever hard matter had brought it to a halt—maybe spine—leaving the knife buried to the haft.

Not a scream or moan of protest from the bearded man, who pitched forward onto his victim. The roughneck’s eyes looked right at Jimmy.

“Shush,” Jimmy whispered, though the gagged man could scarcely speak.

Jimmy dragged the dying man off the oil worker and grabbed the knife that had been used to peel the roughneck’s skin. Then he cut off the prisoner’s gag and sliced through plastic cuffs binding his ankles and wrists.

“Man, you saved my life,” the roughneck said softly. “He was skinning me alive. Who are you?”

Jimmy was about to say “A boat racer,” when the man recognized him.