The CleanSweep Conspiracy (3 page)

He turned slightly to his right. His luck was holding, at least for the moment. Matt saw something odd about the fence. There was a hole in a section of chain link, offering a way through like an invitation. So he wasn’t the first one wanting to get through without being noticed. He forced back the urge to run to the opening.

Looking in both directions to see if anyone was watching him, Matt walked slowly over and pulled back the corners of the severed fence. The weather, his ally, allowed him to walk unnoticed. He passed still
-
smoldering buildings, structures with broken windows that stood as mute testimony to the rioting that had taken place only days earlier.

Now he only wanted to find a way to cross over the Don River. The Old Eastern Avenue Bridge turned out to be just right.

A driving, cold wind blew as he finally reached his destination
—
a red
-
brick apartment building near the lakeshore. Dating to 1937, the art deco design should have made the building trendy and cool, like the neighborhood. It failed to meet the challenge. The brickwork lacked tuck
-
pointing, it boasted unpainted window frames, and a pile of trash leaned against the side of the front steps.

Once he made it inside, Matt’s nose recoiled. A dank odor from years of neglect and mold welcomed him as he stepped into the lobby and looked up at the panels of wallpaper trying to hang on to the wall for dear life. Adding to the dreary setting were mismatched labels of taped
-
up signs and washed
-
out names scrawled with magic marker that decorated the recessed bank of mailboxes. Only one retained its original etched
-
brass plate. It declared that a Mrs. Simmons lived in 403. It was rumored, they said, that Mrs. Simmons had moved in when the building was brand
-
new and had remained an occupant ever since. No one recalled ever seeing Mrs. Simmons, but her mailbox never overflowed.

Matt walked past the mailboxes, stepping over holes in the threadbare carpeting. At the end of the dim hallway, near the rear of the ground
-
floor lobby, he unlocked the door that led to the basement. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching. Snapping on the light switch, he started down the steeply sloping steps, closing the door behind him. At the bottom, he walked to another doorway, ducking under heating vents as he went, brushing ghostly cobwebs aside. Inside a small room, he unfastened yet another door located in a corner, almost out of sight in the low lighting.

With a single bulb hanging on the end of a braided wire, it looked like a place that hadn’t seen visitors in a long, long time.

Matt had made a deal with the building’s super in exchange for a certain monthly sum of money; he was the only resident who’d ever been given access to the basement. He doubted the super passed any of the monthly payment along to the property management company. That was fine with him; Matt wanted privacy, and the super’s duplicity helped to ensure it.

Still, to be extra cautious, Matt always left a “tell” at the door to this basement space when he left
—
a security tip
-
off
—
something small to let him know if the super or anyone else had been snooping around where they didn’t belong. This time it was a simple piece of Scotch tape near the floor that was stuck across the edge of the door and the jamb. It was intact, the way he had left it.

No one had entered since he’d last been down there. Matt stepped through the door to his hidey
-
hole, and into a much different part of the cellar. It was like stepping through a time warp. He left the 1937 art deco world behind and stepped into a room that was air
-
conditioned to a very precise temperature and dehumidified to keep moisture from attacking his expansive array of computers and equipment. This was his electronic operations center, vital to his blogging efforts. He looked around, careful to examine other telltale traps he’d left, and was finally convinced the room was, indeed, exactly as he’d left it. There had been no visitors.

He sat down in front of the primary monitor. His shoulders slumped forward as he relaxed for the first time since receiving the SOS message on his phone. Then he leaned back and stretched out, and his chin dropped to his chest. When he finally opened his eyes and looked around, the clock winked 11:13.

“Is it nighttime? Could that much time have passed?”

He adjusted a lamp overhead, typed a few words, and waited for his message to bounce from one location to the next, to arrive at his intended target sites, which took an agonizing eternity of several seconds. He forced patience, knowing his teammates would still be awake and alert, despite living in a variety of time zones.

Matt and Cyberia had cautiously recruited associates to their online team, like
-
minded members from around the world. Over time, they became intimates. Connected by their words, each had pledged allegiance to the truth, though they never thought to give the group a name.

Dobroye utro,
the first reply message winked on the screen. It was Gennady, the Russian
—
screen name Cyberia. He was quickly followed by the others.

Ubari logged on from somewhere in Africa. Lake Devil logged on from her undisclosed location in Florida, to be joined by Chin from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in southwest China. Questions about precise addresses were never asked. They were best kept secret for the safety of all.

Except for Cyberia, the others knew Matt only by his alias: Veritas.

In spite of the dehumidifier working at maximum effort, Matt felt a trickle of sweat under his arms. His nerves felt raw and exposed.

They’re on to you,
Cyberia typed.
It’s the same here. It won’t be long until I hear footsteps at my own door. It’s just like the ghost of Stalin rising from the grave.
His words were stripped bare of his usual humor.

It is worse than we thought,
Ubari added.

Lake Devil and Chin remained silent, not needing to restate the obvious.

I don’t know what to do,
Matt typed. With those words, he succumbed to shock and started to shake as tears formed and rolled down his cheeks.

Hang in there, dude. We will talk later.
It was Lake Devil, reminding everyone they had reached the maximum limit of two minutes of connectivity, set as a safeguard that they hoped wouldn’t allow anyone time to trace their communications.

As Matt watched, his screen friends disappeared from view. He had never felt so alone or afraid.

He looked to his right, at one of the wood panels that lined the wall. If anyone really looked, they would see it was different from the rest. There was a slight curl at the upper left corner. Matt stood and pulled at the corner. A second door to the room was concealed behind it.

He hoped he would never have to make a getaway through there; it would mean he was in dire trouble. He’d paid the super to keep him from snooping around.

But did I pay him enough?

CHAPTER 3

Cleansweep

C
harles Claussen
—
never Chuck
—
walked through the lobby, his stacked
-
leather heels
click
-
clicking
on the marble floor, his posture military straight. He didn’t just walk, he marched like a man with a purpose. In reality, he was deeply troubled. He had spent all his political capital and considerable financial resources developing CleanSweep, his top
-
secret project. “Imagine a world with streets swept clean
—
no crime and no criminals,” one of his PowerPoint slides boasted.

His project was at risk, however; the safeguards he’d so meticulously designed had somehow been bypassed, and the project’s internal computer security had been compromised. Something wasn’t right. He thought he knew what the problem was
—
better yet, he now knew
who
the problem was.

Not given to cursing, he made an exception as he muttered under his breath, “That damn blogger.”

Clenched jaw muscles gave away his anxiety as he paraded with his entourage through the lobby and toward a waiting elevator. Two uniformed men behind the security counter stiffened to attention, the guard on the right tugging his jacket down.

“Good morning, Mr. Claussen,” they almost shouted in unison, their voices combining to create a stereophonic effect. He raised his right arm in passing, a not
-
quite
-
casual wave. Later, they would both savor the moment, recalling how the great Mr. Claussen had acknowledged them in passing.

The guard named Fred, who spent most of his free time watching the History Channel, thought the gesture seemed familiar
—
a sort of salute that tugged at his memories.

Claussen had learned the gesture when he was a young boy, sitting in a darkened room with an old man. “Show me one of your movies,
Grossvater
,” he would often say to his grandfather, Otto. The two spent many hours during Claussen’s childhood watching grainy home films.

“
Geheime Filme
,” the old man would mutter, lapsing into his native language. “They are old films. Old like me. And they are a secret, just between the two of us, eh?”

When he was older, Charles understood why the old man had referred to them as
geheime
, or
secret, films. They were from the old man’s private library, home movies from his days as a young officer. They showed him in German military attire, strutting around with groups of other men, each trying to outdo the other in form and frenzy, flaunting their importance before the camera. They all demonstrated tailored ceremonial poses, posturing in garish uniforms, mimicking high
-
ranking party officials
—
and especially the Nazi leader so familiar to viewers of newsreels from those days.

His grandfather had patiently explained the rigid protocol for offering the official Nazi salute. “The right arm is to be extended to at least eye level or higher,” he said, insisting the little boy practice until it was absolutely perfect. But watching his grandfather on the screen, Charles detected something odd about that salute. The stiff
-
armed gesture was occasionally performed in a particular variation, one that copied top party leaders. Sometimes they would raise their right arm in a more casual manner, almost like a wave, the arm bent at the elbow and the palm facing outward.

Like other men and women addicted to power, Claussen felt a need to create a signature habit that would set him apart from others. He adopted that old gesture as his personal salute, arrogantly, as though it were a casual, tossed
-
off wave. In his own mind, he believed it did indeed set him apart from his many subordinates. In fact, he considered nearly everyone to be subordinate, inferior. Claussen’s salute as he walked through the lobby that morning was his private, formal homage to his own personal heroes
—
the men in those secret films.

Charles Claussen, at forty
-
nine years of age, had become a man of considerable power and influence.

“He’s at the top of his game,” someone had said with a flavor of envy.

“He’s a force to be reckoned with,” a national news magazine reported.

As Claussen entered the lobby that morning, a member of his security team raced ahead, making sure an elevator would be at the ready. A young woman held the door open with a glare that warned away any uninvited persons who might think they could take the opportunity to share a ride with the boss. It was her job to remain at her station in the lobby until it was time for Claussen to reverse direction and head out at the end of the day. The security team was a constant presence, hovering around him like swarming insects.

In the elevator, Claussen stood facing the door, hands clasped behind his back as the car whisked him to his floor. Claussen was a man who understood the meaning of posture and body language. Behind him, two men stood precisely two steps back, watching over him. He wouldn’t have approved if he had known one of them was secretly longing for a cigarette to smoke. A harsh reprimand awaited any team member who left his or her post
—
it could compromise the safety of Mr. Claussen.

One small detail did not escape his notice, however. In the reflection of the polished elevator door, he saw the two guards look at each other and roll their eyes. It was a sign of impudence
—
close to insolence. Charles stepped out of the elevator and made a mental note to call his head of security, Angela Vaughn. It would be her job to make sure two different men shared his elevator ride down at the end of the day.

The elevator slowed gently to a stop, and the doors opened onto a small foyer. There was no need for a receptionist
—
this wasn’t a waiting room for people with an appointment. This was a top
-
secret floor, one not listed on the directory in the lobby. Admittance was granted by electronic technology that determined a passenger’s eligibility. Unique biometrics were matched to a database profile comprising measurements of facial features, height, and weight
—
even identifiable body scent. If any unauthorized person happened onto that elevator, it would simply wait with the door open, chirping a simple warning message to vacate. It would repeat the message until the unauthorized person complied by stepping out.

Optical recognition software scanned both irises of everyone entering and exiting the elevator. A special infrared digital camera focused on the eyes, scanning the structure of each iris in high resolution, noticing the subtle differences between the two. It was much more accurate than a simple retinal scan. All details of each iris were required to match the records of their intricate elements stored in the database before the door would open to the top
-
secret floor. Charles knew all this, because he had personally designed the technology.

Charles strode across the small vestibule to a door, held his palm up to a glass panel that would grant him entry
—
his final security measure
—
and waited for a gentle chirp to signal that access had been granted. Once through, he started down a wide corridor.

A young woman waving a paper blocked his path. She tried to avoid looking hesitant, a trait she knew her boss detested.

“He’s been spotted, sir.”

Claussen bellowed in a cold voice, “Boots on the ground!”

There was no need to state who “he” was. Claussen glanced at the paper handed to him, then made a face as if he had been offended by a foul odor.

“I want the bastard in handcuffs before my coffee gets cold,” he said. Then he stomped into his private office while his workers in the open office behind him scurried into a state of red alert. He closed the door and began preparations.

Everyone knew he was talking about Matt Tremain.