Kill Decision (40 page)

He sighed deeply. “That’s why I have to go back.”

“Why we have to go back.”

He glanced down at her.

“There’s no one who knows more about these things than me. You know it, and I know it. And it’s not negotiable.”

He let a slight grin crease his lips, but then he said nothing.

“Besides, you remember back in Kansas City you had all those experts searching for a pattern among the drone attack victims?”

“Expert Three and Expert Five.”

“Yes. Back then we still thought the drone builders were outsiders, but now we know whoever’s behind this is inside the defense complex—or at least they have access to all the same data your team did. Maybe more.”

“I don’t see how that gets us closer.”

“The Web is a lot like the pheromonal matrix of an ant colony; popular messages get reinforced, less popular messages fade away. That creates a data trail that others can follow. That got me thinking about all this data being gathered on everyone—purchase records, calling patterns, social media, and e-mails, everything. What if the systems that these private security firms built to analyze that data—to keep us safe—actually did the opposite? What if whoever’s doing this is using that data to select targets?”

Odin leaned up on his side, looking at her. He nodded slowly, pondering what she’d said. “Meaning maybe we shouldn’t have been searching for patterns between the victims but instead on who was watching their data trail just before they died.”

McKinney nodded. “That might lead you to whoever’s behind this.”

“But that means the surveillance complex. NSA, telecom, consumer data-tracking firms. All our access was cut off when they discovered my team’s existence. . . .” His voice trailed off as something seemed to occur to him.

“What is it?”

He turned to her. “There’s a man we need to see. A very bad man. . . .”

*   *   *

E
ight or nine miles outside the town of Reynosa,
Mexico, and close by the U.S. border, Mouse, McKinney, Odin, and his team members stood at the bottom of a finished mine shaft hundreds of feet belowground. It was a concrete-lined elevator room brightly lit by fluorescent lights. Yellow wire mesh surrounded the cargo elevator that had delivered them here. The ceiling was mounted with what appeared to be an overhead rail system for hauling cargo down a nearby corridor. The elevator operator pulled the doors closed with a thunderous rattle. Its electric motor kicked in with a whine, and it began to rise to the surface, leaving them behind.

Mouse, whose prosthetic legs were concealed beneath jeans, walked confidently past several tough-looking Mexican men carrying assault rifles. They were dressed unaccountably in suit coats, silk shirts, and slacks. They nodded to Mouse as he brought the team into the corridor beyond.

They’d driven several hours north from Kalitlen through cartel-controlled territory to arrive at an innocuous-looking maquiladora marked by signs as Scholl Manufacturing. Mouse had guided them past several layers of concealed doors and smuggler security to arrive here.

McKinney glanced around as they continued down the corridor to a locked gate a hundred meters away. The overhead rail extended the entire way. “I thought we were crossing the border.”

“You are.”

“But we’re miles away from it.”

“That’s what makes this so reliable. Welcome to the safest tunnel into the U.S. Seven hundred feet belowground and sixteen miles long.”

“My God, sixteen miles?”

“Don’t worry, Professor, you won’t be walking.”

“Did the cartels build this?”

Odin took her by the arm to keep her moving. “Not important. What’s important is that it’s one of the most reliable routes into the U.S., and if someone were to smuggle something or someone truly dangerous into the country, this is the route they’d use.” Odin nodded to the men around them. “These men would let Mouse know. They work for him.”

“Mouse is running an illegal tunnel into the United States?”

“Better a tunnel we know about than one we don’t. If you shut them all down, the cartels just dig new ones.”

“The more I learn about the sausage-making that goes on, the less I want to know.”

They’d arrived at the steel gate. Mouse pulled it open with a clang and ushered the team into a dark, ten-foot-diameter circular tunnel perpendicular to the corridor. The tunnel ended just a few yards to their right, but to the left echoes hinted at a vast emptiness. Rails extended off into the darkness, and a seven- or eight-foot-wide and thirty-foot-long bullet-shaped fiberglass railcar stood in front of them alongside a concrete platform. Aside from its lack of windows, it looked like a tiny commuter train.

Mouse opened a breaker box on the wall and started slamming switches. Section by section a control console on a raised platform came to life nearby with dozens of glowing buttons. This was clearly a sophisticated operation.

McKinney noticed power conduits extending along the walls. A gentle hum started to reverberate along the tunnel. And a moment later the railcar rose several inches.

She nodded to herself. “You’re running an illegal maglev train into the United States.”

Mouse was now poking at switches on the console. “The economics might not scrub for passenger trains, Professor, but they sure as hell do for Schedule One narcotics. Quiet too. No seismic disturbances for the good folks in McAllen, Texas.”

Her technical curiosity was getting the better of her as the solid gray doors opened with a hiss, revealing a Spartan but serviceable passenger and cargo area. “How fast can it go?”

Mouse looked down his nose at her. “It can go nearly two hundred, but you’ll be doing one-twenty. That should get you Stateside in about eight minutes.”

McKinney couldn’t help but be impressed. Any concern she had that they’d be climbing into concealed truck compartments to cross the border had disappeared.

Mouse unslung a light rucksack from his shoulder and opened it. He passed Odin what looked to be a stack of black passports in plastic bags. “Canadian—two for each of you in case your initial cover gets blown. Some credit cards too, but go easy on those. I can’t guarantee the numbers are still active. Oh . . .” He reached into the backpack and revealed packets of twenty-dollar bills several inches thick. “Some operating cash.” He zipped the backpack and handed it to Odin. “The guys at the other end will hook you up with a passenger van registered to a Toronto reality television production company—along with a couple video cameras that’ll give you cover for action just about anywhere.” He stopped to look at the team.

Odin, Foxy, and the rest of the team embraced him one at a time with slaps on the back.

Foxy looked saddest. “Mouse, man. We owe you. Again.”

“You don’t owe me. Just complete your mission, and earn your damn paycheck.”

“Wish you were coming with us.”

He laughed good-naturedly. “Fuck that. I got my own war to fight. Find the bad guys and get back safe—and keep the professor here out of trouble.”

McKinney hugged Mouse too.

He studied her with his one eye. “You remember what I said.”

She nodded. “I will. Give my best to Lalenia. Hopefully we’ll see you both again.”

He saluted as they all entered the railcar, and the doors closed behind them.

CHAPTER 25

Personae Management

L
inda McKinney gazed
across the street at a generic four-story stucco office building near Palm River in East Tampa, Florida. It was the type of building you could drive past for years without noticing. The rest of the neighborhood was dotted with liquor stores and check-cashing outlets. She was dressed in business slacks and a cotton blouse, with a leather handbag over her shoulder. Odin walked next to her in khakis and a green polo shirt with loafers. It was a balmy seventy degrees and sunny. They traversed the cracked, weed-encrusted sidewalk to enter a musty lobby with a faded
NO SOLICITING
sticker stuck to the window.

Odin perused the disheveled lobby directory and tapped the black-and-white push-on letters above “Zion Strategies” on the fourth floor. He led the way to a worn-looking elevator carved with messenger graffiti.

McKinney spoke after the doors closed with a loud thump. “Would we need this person if we hadn’t lost Hoov?”

“Probably. Hoov had scruples.”

“How do you know this guy?”

“Someone I worked with in the past. His specialty is data—getting it and misusing it.”

She looked at the shabby elevator car. “Looks successful.”

“Flies below the radar. That’s why he’s useful to us. Which reminds me: Don’t believe anything he tells you. He has talents we need, but this man is a manipulative sociopath.”

“Sounds like a great addition to the team.”

The doors opened and Odin brought them down a mildewed hallway past cheap wood veneer doors with no-frills black plaques listing immigration attorneys and mail order companies. Soon they arrived at a door with no plaque at all, only a peephole and a massive dead-bolt lock. None of the neighboring office doors had either.

Odin examined the lock. “An old Medeco biaxial. I should be able to bump this.” He reached into his pocket to produce a small leather case, which he flipped open to reveal an array of tools. He slipped a small brass key out, then took his small Maglite with the end wrapped in duct tape. “If anyone’s coming, cough.”

McKinney raised her eyebrows. “Are you really—?”

“Watch the hall.” He worked so fast, she barely had time to see it. He slipped what looked like a simple filed-down key into the lock, pulled it out slightly, and then gave it a quick whack with the taped end of the Maglite. He then turned the dead bolt as though he had the correct key and entered the office. A glance inside, and he nodded for her to follow.

Before McKinney had time to debate breaking and entering, they were both walking into a low-end reception area without an actual receptionist, just an empty front desk piled with FedEx and UPS packages. She could hear people talking and hands clattering on computer keyboards as they moved down a central hallway. The hallway opened up to a modest cubicle farm with tinny Christian rock music playing on PC speakers somewhere.

“. . . my savior! Savior! Say-vii-ooorrr!”

Odin walked with purpose, having put away the key and Maglite, and he headed toward the closed office door at the far end. McKinney couldn’t help but catch the eye of one of the office workers, a twentyish white kid with piercings and dyed blue hair. She nodded to him and kept going. He immediately turned back to his keyboard, uncurious.

Before they reached the office door, a heavyset, middle-aged blond woman in jeans and a bright pink T-shirt for a charity 5K came around the corner holding a manila folder blooming with colorful Post-it flags. She slowed. “Can I help you?”

Odin shook his head. “He gave me a key. You his admin?”

“The office manager.”

“Then, no, you can’t help me.” He kept walking straight to the closed door at the end of the hall. It opened up into a sizable corner office containing IKEA furniture, a flat-screen TV, and gaming consoles. The whole office was a mishmash of styles. There were thick folders piled everywhere and stuffed shelves lining the walls, overflowing with fat programming books—dozens of languages and methodologies, from Perl to Java to Hadoop, to pen-testing, and exploiting online games.

The occupant of the office sat in a brown leather chair, talking on the phone with his back to them as he faced downtown Tampa in the distance. His silver-toed cowboy boots rested up on a credenza. McKinney followed Odin inside, still with no clear idea how she should be acting.

Surprised that someone had entered his office, the man put his feet down and rotated his chair, still talking into the phone. “. . . aged accounts—at least a year. The older the better. And active posters.” He frowned at the office manager, then at McKinney—and then his eyes went wide when he saw Odin. He spoke into the phone. “Hey, man. I gotta take this. Text me when you got ’em. Yeah.”

He hung up and just stared.

Odin nodded. “How are things, Mordecai?”

His office manager frowned. “There’s been some mistake. Mister James is—”

“Get out, Maggie.” When she didn’t hop to it, he shooed her out with ringed fingers. “Now! And close the door.”

She nodded and obeyed, her face taut with humiliation.

McKinney kept her eyes on the man. He was in his mid-twenties, reasonably good-looking, but with the oily presence of a gold-chain salesman in a bad part of town. He wore a denim shirt with embroidery on the chest pockets. His fingers held several rings of similar design. Though he was still young, his hair was thinning, a situation he compensated for with Isaac Asimov–style muttonchop sideburns. He was still staring at Odin with utter incomprehension.

Odin dropped into one of the chairs in front of the desk. “No hello?”

“Thanks for using my real name, asshole. I see you got rid of that bin Laden beard of yours. I barely recognized you. Why the fuck are you here?”