The Janson Command (23 page)

* * *

JERRY’S SPORTSMAN’S PARADISE,
a bar in a New Jersey strip mall off Route 17, was a fifteen-minute drive from the expensive bedroom communities of Saddle River, Ho-Ho-Kus, and Wyckoff. Of the twelve patrons watching football reruns and horse races on the flat-screens midafternoon on a weekday, four were unemployed, three were retired, and five were engaged in the business of suburban housebreaking—three as thieves, one as a fence of stolen jewelry, and the fifth as a steerer who had an uncannily unerring ability to tell the thieves whose house was unoccupied.

The housebreakers knew him as Morton, an unassuming white guy with the beginnings of a potbelly, a pasty–always-indoors complexion, a very expensive leather jacket, and a gray porkpie hat. He was not often at Jerry’s, showing up once or twice a month, but his information was good as gold. He sat at the corner of the bar, where he could see the room, smiling faintly.

Morton was smiling because he liked what he was hearing through his iPod buds, which connected to a mini-dish amplifier. At the far end of the bar a thief he had dealt with before was putting a new dude hip to Morton’s talents.

“If Morton tells you the home owner has gone to St. Barts and the housekeeper takes Monday off, then the guy’s in St. Barts and the housekeeper ain’t there on Monday.”

“How does he know?”

“Fuck knows. But he knows.”

“Maybe he’s psychic.”

“Whatever, he’s good at it. Check him out.”

The new dude walked down to Morton’s end of the bar. Morton pretended to turn off his iPod. “Hey, buddy. What’s up?”

“I hear sometimes you have information.”

“Sometimes,” said Morton, who had already satisfied himself that the thief wasn’t a cop by eavesdropping on a cell phone conversation the guy had earlier with his wife about picking up their kid from soccer practice.

“I hear it’s good.”

“It’s gold,” said Morton. “Gold is expensive. Twenty-five percent.”

“Can you give me an idea where you get it?”

Morton looked at him. Did this jerk really think he was going to explain that geotags embedded in the smart phones of rich fools who posted photos on Twitter gave away home addresses and vacation locations, not to mention a picture gallery of unattended swag worth stealing? Or did he think that Morton was going to confess that he, the best computer hacker in the world, was a “white-hat” do-gooder who protected corporations from criminal “black-hat” and “gray-hat” hackers—except when sometimes he came down to Jerry’s Sportsman’s Paradise to pick up a couple of extra bucks, stick it to some rich bastards, and get off on hanging with lowlifes good geeks weren’t supposed to know?

“No,” said Morton. “I cannot share such an idea with you.”

The guy wasn’t stupid enough to be surprised. He shifted gears and asked a different stupid question: “I hear that it won’t cost me anything until I put it to use.”

Morton looked him in the eye. “You don’t pay me until you’ve sold whatever you’ve got that my information enabled you to get.”

“Yeah?” he asked in a tone that said,
What’s the scam?
“What makes you so sure I’d pay you, ever?”

“Self-interest,” said Morton. “You will pay me because you will want another tip— Excuse me a sec.”

One of five cell and sat phones tucked in a row of custom-tailored pockets in the lining of his leather jacket was vibrating. He checked the screen. SITA SATELLITE AIRCOM. Someone calling from an airliner telephone. And that was all. Not who they were, what plane they were on, where they were going. Just somebody who flipped over their in-seat handset, ran their credit card through it, and punched in Morton’s number, which SITA’s OnAir service routed through a satellite to vibrate his phone. Not as much as he wanted to know, but they did have his number.

“Hang on a minute; I have to take this,” he said to the thief, hurried out to the parking lot, which contained the sort of recently detailed, certified preowned Audis and BMWs you could cruise a bedroom community in without drawing the attention of the police.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t hang up.”

“CatsPaw,” said a woman.

“Go ahead,” he said, trying not to sound too eager. CatsPaw meant money. A lot more money than walking the wild side with house thieves.

“Has my sat phone been compromised?”

“Give me the number.”

She did. He said, “Turn your phone on, ringer off. Call me back using the airplane phone in five minutes.”

The thief had stepped out the door to smoke a cigarette. “Hey, what about—”

“Later.”

Morton got into his unassuming Honda, locked the doors, Wi-Fied into a large computer under the backseat, and punched up her number. When she called in five minutes he said, “They scored you big-time, sweetheart.”

She muttered something that sounded like, “Fuck.”

He waited a second for the usual indignant
How did they hack into my phone?
At that point he would explain that since he hadn’t been there he could only guess that they got her by walking alongside her in the airport terminal with a powerful transmitter disguised as a laptop or sitting next to her in the lounge or even on the plane. Unless they simply “borrowed” her phone for a minute when she left it lying around, which, being CatsPaw, she probably hadn’t. Instead of asking a dumb question, she asked the only pertinent one: “When did it happen?”

“Twelve hours ago,” he answered, which would tell her where it had happened. “Do you remember how to upload your SIM card?”

“Yes,” she said in a pissed-off voice that made that single syllable sound like,
Fuck, yes, who the hell do you think you’re talking to here?

“Upload immediately to this number.” He gave her a number. “Okay, turn your sat phone off. Turn it on again in ten minutes. Wait five minutes, then call me back on the AIRCOM phone.”

He got another
yes
. Hey, not his fault she got hacked.

He found the routing drone they had slipped onto the SIM card. It was a sophisticated East Europe jobbie that redirected her voice and text signals to some number in Bucharest. Oddly, it also blocked her communications; the usual way was to let the messages through; that way the target wouldn’t know she was hacked and would keep sending more messages to spy on. He wiped the drone and uploaded the contents of her SIM card back to her otherwise intact.

First thing she wanted to know when he told her the sat phone was now clean was, “What did it do to the guy’s phone I’ve been calling?”

“His is clean as a whistle.”

“How do you know it didn’t give his the virus?”

“I know because he called a half hour ahead of you with the same sort of problem and I checked it for him.”

“He called before I did?”
Now she sounded pissed off she’d come in second.

“Yeah. He was hip to the issue.”

“Fuck! Did it give the hackers his number when I called him?”

“Well, yeah. If we’re talking about the same guy. About whom I can tell you nothing, just like I can’t tell nobody nothing about you, because I don’t know nothing.”

“Did you change his number?”

“Well, yeah. Like I’m going to change yours.”

“How do I know how to call him?”

“The old number will ring through. If he wants to answer you, he will.”

“Okay. I got that. What about these people who hacked me? Were they able to see where he is?”

“Only if he was dumb enough not to disable his GPS when he answered their call.”

“He’s not.”

“I didn’t think so,” said Morton, “but let me give you some advice.”

“What?”

Why am I doing this? he wondered. The answer was, he could not help himself. Deep down—way deep down—he was a white hat.

“What advice?”

“Don’t call him from where you’re at now. For all you know, whoever hacked you twelve hours ago could be on the same plane you’re on.”

“Thanks for the help.”

“Pleasure doing business with you.”

Morton returned his phone to its slot in his jacket, chose another, and called his mother. Thankfully, the machine answered. He left a message that he would not be home for supper. Then he drove to New York City to find an expensive woman to celebrate earning in two twenty-minute sessions of private security consultation more than top IT guys earned in a month.

Hours later, avidly watching his reflection in a mirror over a king-size bed, Morton suddenly remembered the routing drone’s odd feature of blocking the woman’s calls when it passed them on to Bucharest. He probably should have mentioned it to her. But she would figure it out in the end, Morton supposed.

* * *

HURRYING FROM THE
arrivals gate, looking for the first place she could call Janson without getting arrested for violating the rule posted on huge signs that you couldn’t use a mobile phone in a security area, Kincaid paid close attention to the crowds streaming off their planes. Had one of them hacked her in the Johannesburg airport?

She got through Immigration and past Customs.

Finally, in an exit corridor that led to the terminal hall, she called Janson. And wouldn’t you know it, the goddamned phone dropped the call. As she redialed she noticed other people were staring perplexedly at their phones and poking buttons as if they, too, were losing calls. She looked at her screen.

“No Service.”

She felt the skin prickle on the back of her neck.

She looked around to see who was jamming the signals. Passengers, tired from the long international flights, were all carrying and rolling bags big enough to conceal electronic blocking devices. She slowed down and watched the faces of the people she had been tracking since she went by Customs. Businessmen and -women, tourists, homecoming Aussies with backpacks, families, two look-alike tall, stocky blondes, sisters, each dragging a yellow-haired kid.

Ahead the corridor opened wider and Kincaid could see people lined behind ropes hopefully gazing to greet their loved ones. She slowed more and let people overtake her. One of the blondes went ahead with both kids. The other was bumping into Kincaid, making excuse-me gestures as she jammed a pistol into her side and whispered in a nasal Australian accent, “It’s wearing a can, doll. No one will hear.”

Kincaid saw a sound suppressor screwed onto a Beretta, a quiet weapon to begin with.

“Hollow points. No blood, either. The bullet won’t leave your liver.”

TWENTY-THREE

J
essica Kincaid ground her teeth. They nailed her good. She never saw it coming.

Now who was the football clod?

Forget it.

New Game.

How did the woman get a gun into the secure area? Had to have an accomplice among the security officers, who would be watching closely for Kincaid to resist. No way she could fight back, not here. There were people all around and security cameras everywhere. The Australian was holding the Beretta with reasonable competence, but she looked jumpy, nervous enough to be unpredictable. If Kincaid screwed up taking the gun away from her, some bleary-eyed yawning travelers would end up with hollow-point expanding slugs tearing through their lungs.

“Keep walking!”

Kincaid had slowed to gauge the reaction. Very jumpy. A rogue cop, she thought. The woman had been or still was a cop, moonlighting. That would explain getting the gun through Security. And the case of nerves. Knowing her face could be recognized on security cameras or that she could bump into officers she was acquainted with, she had to have some kind of plausible story but damned well didn’t want to have to use it.

Kincaid picked up speed, though only slightly. “You got me,” she said. “Take it easy. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

“Walk ahead of me. Follow the signs to the car park.”

She had a van in the parking lot with no windows in back. Two more women were waiting inside. It smelled like they’d been drinking wine. The back cargo door was locked by steel bolts, and there were no side doors. A translucent sunroof let in light from the overhead street lamps, but it was not the kind that opened.

The woman at the wheel—the other “sister,” who must have handed off the kids to somebody—started the engine as soon as they got the doors locked. The third woman was a heavyset grinning maniac with a cocaine blizzard in her eyes, a prison matron’s mean mouth, and a pistol in her waistband.

They pinned Kincaid’s wrists behind her with a disposable nylon double lock flex-cuff—more cop stuff—and took her phone and her bag and shoved her into the cargo area, which was covered with a musty carpet. Blondie, the woman who had nailed her in the terminal, stole her gold bracelet and put it on. Kincaid pegged her as the leader of the trio. Cokie took the ring Janson had given her in Amsterdam, which pissed her off. The thievery was more confirmation of what she suspected. They were locals for hire—a crew of rogue cops and crooks who usually robbed pimps and drug dealers. Who had hired them to snatch her? Who but Securité Referral?

Blondie felt the slot under Kincaid’s bag and appeared surprised not to find a knife. Through airport security? Did she think Kincaid was nuts? But they did know to look for it. Proof positive they were working for the diver. Kincaid shifted internal gears in an urgent attempt to dampen panic. She knew she could not master panic, no one could, but Cons Ops had taught her ways to go around it, by concentrating step-by-step on questions and answers that might guide her toward action.

Clearly, she and Janson had underestimated Securité Referral’s reach. But what was this, revenge? The thought of being delivered, handcuffed, to the South African mercenary whom she had taken down and humiliated threatened to redline the panic.

What about the doctor? Wasn’t the doctor what Van Pelt wanted? But her capture was about both the doctor and revenge, she feared. That Van Pelt was hunting Dr. Flannigan didn’t mean he couldn’t spare an hour to give her a long and terrible death.

The only good news Kincaid could cling to was that the women were happy with her expensive bracelet and beautiful ring and didn’t bother stealing her cheap Swatch. They couldn’t see her hands behind her back. She worked her fingers past the cuff and pressed the Swatch’s stem to switch on her GPS asset-tracking signal that would allow Janson to track her location on Google Maps—God bless the Internet and the CatsPaw hard geeks and soft geeks who had tweaked a device originally marketed to parents to spy on their teenagers.