Take the Fourth (25 page)
Authors: Jeffrey Walton
. . .
R
eynolds was up at his usual time of 4:30, did a few sit-ups, push-ups, put on his sneaks, and headed out into the drizzle to do his five miles. The hotel had a state of the art fitness center complete with pool but he was never comfortable with machines, nope, he settled for what the marines had taught him—use what god has given you. When he returned he showered and shaved then scanned both the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal from front to back, including the comics and sport pages. At quarter after eight he grabbed a cab from the doorman and headed to his appointment. The drizzle had since turned to a downpour. He arrived at his second home a little wet since he never carried an umbrella and after signing in at the front desk, went straight to conference room located on the third floor. Thomas Brickman was already there.
“Good to see you Thomas”
“Likewise.”
“A tad wet I see.”
“Just a tad, I forgot an umbrella… well truth be known, I never carry one. I hate the damn things… beside it’s only water.”
“So what brings you here? It’s been a few months since coming to the main.”
“I got a call from the double o, they need us to handle a use case for them.”
“Requirements.”
“I need one BA, someone like Blake.”
“Do you want Blake? He just got back from Indonesia and I haven’t assigned him to any case just yet?”
“Yes I want Blake, I always want Blake.”
Thomas dialed a direct number on the speaker phone, “Blake, Thomas here, can you please come up to the conference room on the third, thanks. He’ll be here in a few.”
Reynolds took the opportunity to grab some aroma in a cup and when he returned Blake was now sitting with Thomas.
“Hey Blake, how’s it going?”
“Fairly well, our Flyboys had a pretty good go this year.”
“Just need a defenseman or two, they’re still a young team.”
“Gotta love’em.”
“Thomas, would you please excuse us.”
Thomas knew full well he wasn’t going to get any more information and just as he was about to head out the door, stopped and asked “How long do you need him, so I can do his timesheets?”
“I would say no later than the end of the first month of hockey season.”
The door shut behind Thomas who was already thinking of the first Tuesday in November was a safe bet for Blake’s return.
“So Blake let me get to the chase, remember Warsaw a few years back?”
“Yes.”
“Well, same thing here, only a bit more delicate… . let me rephrase that… extremely delicate, wings of a fly delicate,” then Reynolds handed him a file, “here’s her dossier.”
Blake took a few minutes to read it. Reynolds noticed his eyes widened a bit and assumed he had just read her name. He was speechless as he read every word. “Delicate is a fucking understatement is it not?’”
“Well…”
“I mean, I have just one question… . why the fuck?”
“She’s Floyd’s confidant and we need to find out what he is up to, he appears to be Mr. Clean on the outside, but we know he is into some serious shit, scary ass shit, we just need to find out what exactly.”
“And you think she can help?”
“A man of great power usually only trusts one person and that person is usually his wife.”
“How close?”
“Warsaw close.”
“You’re out of your fucking mind, you know that,” said with a slight sarcastic grin, “Just how am I going to get that fucking close?”
“Well first of all, maybe clean up that fucking language a bit, after all she is a southern bell, and security is nowhere near what it would be if she was Anderson’s wife… besides no one, and I mean no one, really knows the name of the candidate for vice president’s wife anyway… hell they don’t even know the first name of our VP’s wife.”
“Oh and that’s going to make it better, she’s almost twice my age for Christ’s sake.”
“Come on Blake, bat those baby blues and turn on that boyish charm of yours, you’ll be in like flynn… . no grandmother can resist that,” he said with a laugh.
“They’re hazel and you’re serious about this aren’t you?”
“I’m afraid so.”
After the initial shock of the name, Blake turned to all business and reread her file. “Alright, I might have an angle here, her charities, she seems to be a good soul, raising money the best she can… how bout… how bout this… . I go to one of her charity events, donate money… maybe have someone close to me die of cancer, a wife, a brother, ask to volunteer in order to cope with my feelings.”
“Okay, I’ll buy that for a dollar.”
Blake paused before he spoke, “Hey where’s that line from?”
“Nineteen eighty-seven.”
“Nineteen eighty-seven?”
“When Robocop was in the theater.”
“Hmm, not what I was thinking, never saw it.”
“So anyway, back to the cancer thing, I like your angle… . no wife though, you’ve never married, you’re a lost soul, lonely, never finding the right person, she’ll warm to you more that way.”
“What about my boyish charm?,” and before Reynolds could crack a smile, “and since I’ve never been married, let’s go with the brother dying thing, easier to pull off on my part. I’ll have to work up a story with the appropriate players and names.”
“I’ll take care of the legwork when you’re ready.”
“And I take it the timeline is critical?”
“We only have a few months to get what we can, in looking at her schedule she has an event this weekend to get you started on, a walk for breast cancer.”
“Looks like a sister then… and it doesn’t give us much time.”
“You shouldn’t need that much to get the ball rolling, just a meet and greet.”
“I would stand out if I made a sizable contribution, easier to get noticed and schmooze with a sizeable check in hand.”
“Agreed, I’ll find out what the budget is but it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Anything else?”
“Just remember to skate lightly… . this is going to be the thinnest of ice.”
“This isn’t going to be easy.”
“Never is, but that’s why you make the big bucks, you’ll be able to buy another Porsche in no time,” pronouncing it without the “uh” sound on the end.
“So you’ll be in touch?”
“Yes or just call the usual when you need me,” and with that Reynolds got up from his chair, grabbed his cup, and headed out the door.
“Oh by the way, she didn’t have any children or adopted any, so she can’t be a grandmother.”
“Just be sure to take your dust buster and a can of WD-40” and walked out with a smile knowing he had the right man for the job.
. . .
W
hat nobody realized was during the morning pow-wow with the feds and the various investigating officers, there was someone else working the case. When the story broke on the AP wire little attention was paid by the other parts of the country. It wasn’t until CNN broke the story that people paid attention and one person in particular. He was already at work and at his computer and within an ear shot range of the television tuned to CNN. Just because he worked for the DNI it didn’t mean he was in tune with everything going on in the world, sometimes, just sometimes, the media plays a key role of up-to date news that mattered. Although the news of the serial kidnapper had nothing to do with the worldly business of his employer—it struck a chord with him—a deep chord. When they flashed a picture of Ripley Newenberg his heart skipped a beat; it was a dead ringer for his godchild, his niece—the same buttery blonde hair, the almost exact same smile; he almost called his sister. After getting up from his chair and moving closer to the TV his heart was still in his throat, even though he learned it was not her, he was still in shock. How could anyone, someone, the answers were beyond him, she was just adorable and his imagination ran wild almost to the point that it made him sick. What if he could… . maybe he could… . yes he could… . he had the power… . so he believed… . the power to help.
While being a Brunonian, he fell into computer science, not really a science at the time since it was a fairly new field, mostly tedious punch card work and magnetic tape backups (old school stuff by today’s standards) which earned him credits but couple this with a second major in political science and a barely dry ink diploma from a top notch Ivy school and he landed a fine government job at the Central Intelligent Agency. If someone would have asked him the typical freshman question, “what do you plan to do after college?” the farthest thing from his mind would have been to work for the government. But that’s what college is all about, finding yourself, being exposed to new ideas, new concepts, meeting new people, and making new friends . . By the time he turned a junior he was well on his way of becoming a changed man; one with new ideals, new beliefs, so much so he actually believed he could change the world… of course with the much needed help of a few new best friends. It was a snap getting accepted into the agency—again the schooling didn’t hurt but neither did the recommendations from his friend’s parents—some of them being among the most powerful in Washington. After the agency was persuaded by his potential he fit like a well tooled cog within the bowels the CIA’s central nervous system; its computer core. Unlike anything he had seen or even heard of before, the room or in this case rooms upon rooms, maybe even warehouses of massive machines filled his comprehension almost to the brink but after six months of working with the beasts they had succumbed to his every command. He was a natural and climbed up the ladder with ease and could have moved well beyond his pay scale but he realized he could make more of a difference if he stayed right where he was. And he did until the President persuaded him to take a new position with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. His primary job or his official job title quote unquote states database administrator; meaning he was responsible for the entire realm of data within the entire intelligence community, what data was stored, how it is stored, how it got there, who had access to it, and how it was accessed. At this stage in his life he was the head honcho of the department, basically there were no other watchdogs beyond him that knew anything about database architecture, only managers with their budgets and project plans. Being a manager himself meant he wasn’t supposed to do any coding, only delegate the work to his peons, his subordinates, but he ventured outside the lines on occasions much to the knowledge of no one.
He spent years, literally years, at his computer typing out lines of code that no one would ever see. Code that connected computers that no one would ever see. Code that connected databases that no one would ever see. And that was his part, his part in the overall scheme concocted so many years ago, the part of connection without detection. Of course he was just a side of an equilateral triangle but his part made it come alive just like the three of them planned… so many years ago. One interface in particular downloaded data instantaneously from the Immunization Information System (IIS) into a database located in the hills of Virginia. This was the starting point for all. This data contained the lot number of all vaccines and the social security number of those who received the injections. From there it was a matter of downloading the data from Etimiz containing the lot numbers of the stabilizer and the NID’s encoding numbers through yet another interface. The last interface and the most important was one that was piggybacked onto a few satellite uplink interfaces and cellular phone services. Since he was responsible for interfaces as well, it went undetected. This interface was responsible for uploading the positions of the NID’s every hour into their database. With these three interfaces in place they could track every hour the position of everyone who ever received a rubella vaccination or something containing the STBL5 stabilizer and since it was practically law to be vaccinated, pretty much ninety-nine point ninety-nine of the injected people in America could be tracked from space to within an hour of their last known whereabouts and that time frame would grow smaller as technology progressed. From there it was just a few clicks of the mouse to cross reference databases to get names, ages, addresses, and pretty much any piece of data within an electronic file. With this type of information he could become god-like, he could find people, track people, and help people and no one would ever know.
And that was the key, who would know if he helped little Ripley Newenberg? Who would know if he helped the little girl with blonde hair that looked like his goddaughter? Who would know if he helped a little girl age five taken by a monster? Just who would know? He thought about calling the others to “ask permission” but quickly squelched that idea in fear of their typical response—“You just can’t go around helping everybody in this world who needs help, people will start asking questions.” And that was indeed the biggest fear of the group.
Her picture flashed again on the screen and he felt a pit in the bottom of his stomach once again… he could help; he knew it, and again who would know? That question weighed heavily on his mind. He learned from the rest of the newscast that twenty-four hours hadn’t elapsed… that too was key. The weight grew heavier. Time grew shorter so he thought, he also thought it just might be a moot point, it just might be too late anyway but he could try, just this once, who would know? And so the wheels of rationalization were put into motion and once the wheels start spinning, rarely was there any turning back. He headed back to his desk and with a few keystrokes he was in the system, the most powerful system in the world… . he felt like God for an instant, then the beads of sweat appeared on his brows and then he prayed he did not get caught.
Within minutes his answer appeared on the screen.
32.728303,—84.012891
She’s still alive, still alive as of four minutes ago, and still alive roughly eighty miles outside Georgia’s capital, still alive and in the home of one Kyle Kraner, age thirty-seven, and no relation whatsoever to Ripley Newenberg. He contemplated about just picking up the phone and calling the hotline or police or FBI but he would need a cover story and it would have to be convincing enough for them to act upon the information, not to mention, it would have to be done through an untraceable line and that alone would a raise red flag. No, if he were to help, he would need to come up with another way, a better way, a plan, and so he put his morning chores aside and racked his brain.
. . .