Drone Games (38 page)

“Don’t speak unless I ask,” Akil warned. “How many concealed weapons?”

“I have two on me, sir. One in my right pants pocket and another under my shirt on my belt. I have no intention of reaching for them, sir. I don’t want any trouble.”

“Nothing behind your back?”

“No, sir. I never thought that was very comfort—”

“Be quiet,” Akil snapped. “The Barrett.”

Denman thought for a few seconds and then nodded to his left. “Brand-new in the case.”

“How does it assemble?”

“Umm . . . with two pins. A mid-lock and then the rear receiver.”

“Cartridges?”

“In the middle cabinet. I have two hundred standard rounds and—”

“No. Explosive armor piercing.”

“On the top shelf. The ones with green tips and gray rings. The boxes are marked with blue tape. You can have them all.”

“Is the weapon sighted?”

“Yes, sir. It’s dead-on at three hundred meters.”

“Who has access to this place?”

“No one but me. Keys are on the wall. Take my truck, wallet, anything you—”

One round pierced Denman’s forehead. His body collapsed behind the desk.

Akil collected the Barrett and the exploding ammunition. He had found his perfect, accurate weapon. His PAW. The perfect system for destroying a departing aircraft’s cockpit from inside a moving freight train car. He locked the cabin and flung the keys into heavy foliage. He calmly walked to Jdey’s vehicle and placed the weapon inside. He tapped the roof twice.

Jdey headed east.

Akil drove the minivan west. He typed into his portable GPS. A female voice responded, “Destination Lakeside Motel, 920 Jefferson Street, Burlington, Wisconsin 53105, 5.4 miles. Recalculating.”

—

Javits Federal Building

New York City

COMPUTER TECHNOLOGIST Bruce Baltis was ensconced in a glass office in the FBI’s Information Technology Center. A hulking man with a baby’s face and an oversized head, Baltis had dainty fingers that were expertly now typing on three separate keyboards. He finished his input and then tilted one monitor. The screen showed a mass of numbers and cryptic program language.

Riley tapped the window and walked in. He extended his hand.

“Bruce? Jack Riley. I’ve heard a lot about you, pal. I’m glad you’re on our tea—”

“I’m running dual but parallel environments,” Baltis interrupted rudely. “Faiz Al-Aran’s laptop had an older version of Windows 7. I found retained dialogues in both the cache indexes and files. Whoever used it left a cyber-trail that a blind man could follow. There’s also a ton of cookie history. See for yourself.”

“The English version, mister. I’m not Bill Gates.”

“Sorry. Every email sent or received on this laptop is still identifiable. No data, no secret terror plans, no hidden files or evidence of hard drive erasure—just two people chatting. Someone calling himself
Toothdoc2b
, and the other one is
PartyLuvr30308
. That’s probably Al-Aran.”

“How do you figure?”

“Well, the number sequence 3-0-3-0-8 is also the zip code for the Technology Square Research Building in Atlanta, so it’s a logical assumption. Other than that, there’s not much else—just partying, vacations, and shark fishing. I started wondering if you got the right people. But the more I reread the conversations, the more it seemed like the two parties were
trying
to sound like a couple of good ol’ boys. It was a labored deception, but not too labored. Do you get what I mean? And then there’s this squirrelly address one of them mentioned right here in New York City. That’s what my systems are chewing on.”

“Squirrelly how?” Riley asked.

“Well,
Toothdoc2b
said he lived at 0112 18th Street in West Pinehurst. I was born and raised here, and I can’t picture West Pinehurst. There’s no such place.”

Riley flopped into a chair and scratched his head. “Then it’s got to be some sophisticated signal or code. How long will it take you to crack it?”

“I don’t think it’s a code, at least in the normal sense. These two are definitely playing word games, but they don’t seem that smart. Then again, they do. Something just feels odd.”

“That’s great,” Riley said dejectedly. “Talk to me. Odd how?”

“For one thing, no physical mailing address starts with a zero. And anybody can create an anagram like Mike Waleu for Milwaukee if you start with a city’s name. The difficulty comes into play when you first try and identify all potential names. There could be thousands, and the only limitation is the number of letters.”

“You’re losing me,” Riley said.

“Think about it. There are no rules for a person’s name. It can literally be anything, especially a phony one. This guy may be slick, but so am I,” Baltis said with a sly grin.

He rolled his chair across the room and tapped a keyboard. The screen saver disappeared and a status bar said 9 percent completed. “This is a simple program that takes a city crash site name, like San Diego or Chicago, and crunches out all possible words and names. Then it compares the results to names found in US databases. If we don’t get any American hits, then we’ll go international.”

“Criminal databases? What if he has no record?”

“Criminal files are only the tip of an information iceberg,” Baltis explained. “Don’t get me wrong—the US government has a ton of data at the IRS and Social Security—but I’m talking all data and databases. The kind that’s harvested, stored, and managed by the monster of monsters, Acxiom. The biggest data god in the world. Scary big. They peer deeper into American life than the FBI, IRS, or even those prying digital eyes at Facebook and Google. If you’re an American adult, then, quite frankly, they know more about you than you do. And right this second, 23,000 computer servers in Conway, Arkansas, are processing more than fifty trillion data transactions a year. They have double the databases of any competitor, and they’re particularly good at focusing on personal human habits. It’s all about marketing. Their search programs are the most sophisticated and intuitive anywhere. That means they’ll help you even if you screw up the input. Instead of returning
not found
errors, they’ll flip data around and make suggestions. Their financial credit databases alone have over two billion accounts.”

“Do we have access?”

“Sure, the FBI has access.” Baltis gave an evil chuckle. “But most normal users don’t have the navigation skills. Only the most sinister users do.”

“I see.” Riley smiled. “How long will it take you?”

Baltis moved to yet another PC and brought up a logon screen. He entered a user code, company ID, user ID, a mandatory 16-character password, and finally a series of security answers. He filled in the address blocks, leaving the zip code field blank.

“Let’s see if we get lucky.”

0112 18th Street, West Pinehurst, NY appears to be incorrect. Did you mean 2110 81st Street, East Elmhurst, NY 11370?

“
Si, señor
,” Baltis responded. He clicked “OK.”

The program continued searching for approximately twenty seconds and then produced several lines of data along with a MapPoint location.

“Gotcha. One of Acxiom’s marketing databases tracks automobile registrations and vehicle repairs. They provide that data to companies who sell repair warranties and roadside protection. Follow? If you take your car in for service, somebody somewhere knows about it. It’s all about keeping track of customers and their personal preferences. Let’s see what we have . . . on Saturday, April 11, Queensboro Toyota in Jackson Heights repaired the odometer on a 2003 Camry. The owner listed 2110 81st Street as his home address. Someone by the name of Kenneth Wory.”

“Gotcha,” Riley whispered to himself. “Ken Wory . . . New York.”

Baltis drilled further into the selection and brought up a Google Earth satellite view of the surrounding neighborhood.

The residence was located across the street from LaGuardia International.

San Diego, CA

The Russian Star Tattoo Parlor

Tuesday, June 9

CHENG NAVIGATED his vehicle around a series of police barricades and pulled up to curb on Kettner Boulevard.

“Am I glad to see you,” FBI Special Agent Ben Jeffers said, straightening his necktie and extending his hand. “San Diego PD isn’t very happy about us roping off this whole block and barging into the middle of a double domestic homicide. Their assistant chief, Cheryl Bryden, wants answers. It’s one thing to take over an investigation, but to simply lock down a crime scene and not let anyone in or out?”

“Did you tell her it was a Homeland Security priority?” Cheng asked. “If she’d talk to her own DHS Liaison, she’d know this might be connected to the airline crashes.”

“Things are moving so fast that I’m not sure I know what’s going on,” Jeffers admitted, handing Cheng a charcoal-lined dust mask.

They walked inside the building to a rear bedroom. The odor of human decomposition was strong.

Cheng knelt to the carpet.

“Who found them?”

“A utility meter technician had a key to the rear entrance,” Jeffers said. “The victims are Karkula. Viktor F. and Tamara L., ages fifty-four and fifty-five. The medical examiner said they’ve been here nine, maybe ten, days. Apparently, the husband killed his wife and then himself. She was shot once through the chest. He was in the kitchen. Powder burns on his left temple. Textbook murder-suicide. The gun was still in his hand. According to police records, this place had its share of violence. There are Russian gangs, and neighbors said they were always screaming at each other.”

“What’s upstairs?” Cheng asked.

“A vacant apartment and bathroom for the homeless. Pretty bad.”

“Employees?”

“None on record. They come and go—part-timers who work a few days for cash and then leave. Hard to keep track of the movement.”

Cheng drifted into the kitchen and spotted a file cabinet next to a desk. He slid out the top drawer and casually fingered the folders. One was curiously labeled “Pigs
”.
Inside, there was a copy of a money order. The signature was sloppy but readable. It was issued by a bank in Milwaukee.

—

Javits Federal Building

Information Technology Center

New York City

RILEY PUT his cell phone on speaker so he could write.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

“Jack, it’s the same MO. He rented an upper-level apartment with a clear view of San Diego International’s Runway 27. The name on the money order is Ginosa,” Cheng spelled it. “First name, Eddie.”

“E-D-G-I-N-O-S-A,” Riley translated the letters. “San Diego.”

“We also struck gold on someone who recently leased an office at the O’Hare Aerospace Center on the airport’s east perimeter,” Cheng explained. “You can clearly see Runway 22. The building’s access logs showed that the tenant was there early on the morning of May 19 and then never showed up again. The time slot dovetails with the Airbus departure. The lessee is Ghoacci, an anagram of Chicago. First name, John.”

“That’s some beautiful work, David,” Riley said. “You get two out of two. Now all we need are descript—”

“We’ve got one,” Cheng said. “He was caught on a lobby security camera. Medium complexion, male. Medium height and build with long brown hair. He’s young. The image is a little blurry, but enough for a bulletin. He fits the description from the American Legion witnesses in Milwaukee. One more thing: there is no Michael Waleu registered in Marquette’s Dental School. Jack, I think we’re dealing with the same person in all three cities.”

“We’ve got him,” Riley whispered to himself. He pumped his fist once and made a kissing sound. Then his eyes narrowed and his face grew stern. “That’s for you, mister.”

“Do you want a nationwide alert?” Cheng asked.

“No,” Riley said smugly. “I think I know exactly where he is.”

Riley clicked off and headed for the door. He turned. “No offense, Mr. Baltis, but you can unplug your programs. We’ve got the names.”

“Mr. Riley?” Baltis stood. “I’m paid to use my head and to give opinions, so here goes: this was too easy. I mean, just flipping an address around? It doesn’t make sense. These people are either really careless or they’ve worked things out so perfectly that they’re leading us down this path.”

“Too easy for you may mean too hard for someone else,” Riley countered. “Why do you feel this way?”

“I won’t get into details, but I
am
experienced in ‘sinister.’ You should trust me on that. Call it a gut feeling.”

“Point taken, pal,” Riley said. “And thanks for your . . . sinister service.”

“Sir? My cousin lived in Queens just two blocks from that address. She died on 9/11. She never made it out of the first tower. I hope the guy you’re looking for is there, and I hope you nail him.”

—

FBI Operations Center

7:30 p.m.

THE TWENTY-THIRD floor was buzzing with staff agents and members of New York’s Joint Terror Task Force. Riley took a seat in a large conference room next to the man in charge of the New York field office. Special Agent Robert Farino bore the striking, albeit hairier, resemblance to his second cousin, ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He also shared a family trait for tenaciously prosecuting of evil.