Take the Fourth (34 page)
Authors: Jeffrey Walton
T
he Chief of Staff wasn’t in a good mood but his neck was the one in the noose and he wanted to breathe a little easier and remain in the game. He thought about the current hand that he was dealt. John Smith was the key, yet he wasn’t in the system so he wasn’t going to use the system, instead he opened the military’s database once again. From there he doubled checked that John Smith was injected with Frank Simosiks’ bio-nano concoction in October over three years ago. He also found that he was in the IIR’s database for immunizations and the lot number was tied to his social security number. He should be in the system, “unless,” he thought, “unless, just how feasible could it be a faulty lot,” as he reached for the phone. He dialed his buddy’s number and waited. Four rings, five, six, seven rings. It never went to voicemail. Eight rings, then nine, and this happened almost all the time. On the other end his buddy would be so engrossed in whatever it was he did, the ringing of a phone became ambient noise; even a fire alarm once went unnoticed by him. Ten rings, eleven, twelve… .
“Yes?”
“What, you’re not busy today, you answered rather quickly Frank?”
“Well, I was just thinking about perfume, why do they always have to smell flowery, I mean if a woman had perfume that smelled like steak or pepperoni pizza, they’d have men all over them.”
“Like that one commercial where a woman has a taco or something in her purse at the bar, next thing you know the men are all over her.”
“See that’s my point, men are attracted to smells they like, not what women like, I’m telling you, if she smelled like pepperoni pizza, I’d eat that. I was also thinking of developing a line of candles strictly for men, fuck that vanilla and mango shit, how about wet asphalt, fresh cut grass, or even gasoline.”
“Frank, what are you lighting with that Bunsen burner that’s making you so high?”
“Huh?”
“Nothing, listen I have a question for you, for your bio injections, that stabilizer with the radio nanos, have you ever had a faulty lot.”
“Sure.”
“So that might explain it then.”
“Explains what?”
“Well we had a person get injected and was never put in the system.”
“It’s not a faulty lot.”
“But you just said…”
“What I said was an answer to your question, do I ever have a faulty lot, and that answer is yes, but each lot is checked before it leaves and if it leaves then it is not faulty and besides, these things have a good five year shelf-life. What was the lot number?”
“BR7”
“One sec… . okay, here it is, out of the three hundred people injected with that lot number, two hundred and ninety seven people are in the system. The three who have gone to meet the maker and are bereft of life are Kathryn Gilberts, a one John Smith, and Stacy Bel… . Bel… fuck it, there’s no way I’m pronouncing that name.”
“What system are you looking at?”
“I’m doing a combination search, my database, the IIR’s and the system.”
“Okay, but see John Smith, he was injected but his records were never in the system, doing a quick check both Kathryn and Stacey were, not now though, since they are both pushing up the daisies.”
“Kicked the bucket, expired and gone to meet the maker, joined the choir invisible.”
“Listen John Cleese wannabe, will you please pay attention.”
“I got it, I got, he was never in the system, yet this John Smith, real original name there huh? Well, this John Smith was injected with BR77UK which was working as it went out the door of my plant, it was put in my system on October nineteenth and looking at the upload file to the system, there were no exceptions reported during or after that upload. He has to be in the system.”
“Well he’s not.”
“Well something’s wrong.”
“Gee you think? I’m betting that your little nano thingys failed in some way shape or form.”
“I beg to differ and I will not accept that until proven otherwise. Who is this John Smith, if that is his real name.”
“He’s an ex-marine, black ops, now consultant and is off the grid.”
“I think you’re out of the loop.”
“What?”
“Okay, let me get this straight, your guy, ahem, John Smith, was injected with our solution, yet was uploaded to the system, yet never appears in that system, so what do you think the chances are that the one faulty lot in BR7, which by the way, is not possible, but just for your sake I’ll roll with it, just happens to go into a person who is black ops… come on I’m waiting, . . . I said I’m waiting.”
“I know, I know, I’m just trying to rule out coincidences.”
“And?”
“And I hit a fucking wall.”
“So do you like the smell of burning wood?”
“Yes, umm.”
“How about a locker room?”
“Huh?”
“You know the smell of sweat, dirty clothes, you know for my candle collection?”
Click.
After his conversation with the doctor and his smells, he figured Frank’s logic was spot on, someone was hiding something and his money was on his partner in crime. There were only four people who had access to the system, the big man himself, Mr. DNI., Frank, and the obvious. Frank and the President dabbled in the system more for their curiosity than for obtaining actual knowledge in crisis situations but his colleague knew the database all too well; he certainly knew all the finer details of data collection and storage so he was the blood-doping favorite to blame in this race.
. . .
I
t was rare that the President took his toy out for a ride but this time he was curious to find some information on his Chief of Staff from firsthand knowledge. It was an even rarer occurrence that he got an ACCESS DENIED error.
“Son of a… .,” and before he could finish, the reply came from the phone.
“I know, I know… I’m in the process of bringing it back up, the system was down.”
“Why?”
“Doing research.”
“Yes, but”
“I was going on,” and paused for a rather long time before he continued, “going on a hunch, I was just restoring the application to point to the secondary database… . and… .whoa… whoa…”
“Whoa what?”
“I found him.”
“Who?”
“That lieutenant colonel Scott wanted me to find.”
“John Smith.”
“Yes, it looks as though on October nineteenth, about three years ago as per company regulations, a one John Smith was injected with STBL5 from a lot produced by our friend from the Etimiz Corporation and on that very same day was placed into our system.”
“And?”
“I’m getting to that.” The President could hear his typing on the other end. “For three years his entire travels where tracked by the eye in the sky and his last entry was… . less than twenty-four hours ago at twelve thirty-seven a.m. just after the shootings at the Carson Estate.”
“What do you mean his last entry,” as he could hear the feverish clicking of keyboard strokes, “is he off the grid?”
“Yes but I think it’s a bit more permanent than that, I think he’s dead, his last marker readings were just before one this morning, probably right after the murders but the interesting thing is someone manually removed him from our system, erased him, then literally erased him.”
“Then how did you find him.”
“Whoever erased him forgot the backups, like I said we have a few redundant systems in the hills here and there, and he was in the secondary database but not the primary.”
“So this who?”
“Only one person it could be, that is unless you or Frank recently graduated from Lincoln Tech.”
“Scott?”
“Bet the house but you have to ask yourself why, why give us the name of the marine in the first place?”
“To throw us off the track, you know the complicated headgames this dick can play, the master chess player he thinks he is.”
“Isn’t that why you hired him?”
“Yes, but he’s still a dick.”
“So do you want me to tell him or what?”
“Can you monitor him?”
“That’s not a problem, it will take some time to put listeners on his cell, email is pretty easy as well as his office phone.”
“Then, when he calls you, go ahead and tell him John is dead.”
“And when he asks how I know?’
‘Tell him what you told me and see how he reacts.”
He bit his tongue because he was about to say some smart-ass remark regarding the fact he couldn’t see Scott, just hear him, besides he needed his ass to sit in the chair, “Do you want me to accuse him of deleting John Smith.”
“Let’s not go there, if he wants to play chess, let’s see his next move before we take his queen off the board.”
. . .
“W
hatcha got for me?’
“I was just about to call you Scott, that marine you wanted me to find, well I found him, sort of.”
“What do you mean sort of?”
“Well, I found him in the backup database, only he’s no longer transmitting.”
“Are you saying he’s dead?”
“Well he was in the system, now he’s not, like I said, he’s no longer transmitting which for all intents and purpose means he’s dead, he was extinguished just before one this morning.”
“By who?”
“I don’t have that information but it looks as though whoever did this did not have any marker injections, or it could very well have been the senator.”
“Was John around the Carson’s residence at the time of the murder?”
“Yes, and so was his last marker reading.”
“Okay, now you said you found this out how, a backup database?”
“Yes, he was erased from the primary.”
“Erased… who erased him?”
“I’m not saying, not all the facts are in at the moment.”
“But you suspect me?”
“I didn’t say that Scott.”
“Yes, but I could tell, there are not that many players in the game and we both know Jonathan nor Frank have that ability, so your only logical choice is me.”
“Well deduced Mr. Spock.”
“Well just for the record I didn’t, besides why would I ask you to find him if I knew he was dead?”
“Good question Mr. Fisher.”
“So you are saying I’m doing this as some kind of freakin’ chess game, you know what, go fuck yourself, I’m trying to find answers for the President.”
“Then why did you tell me the President wanted to find the lieutenant colonel.”
“Listen, my ass is in hot water big time, things didn’t go as planned and right now I suspect you had something to do with this.”
“Me?”
“Yes you, you have access as well my friend, you’re smart enough to pull something like this off, you have other connections within the CIA, and I know for a fact that I did not erase him, so that leaves you, only problem I see is why?”
“So that leaves us at a stalemate, because I know I didn’t fucking do it.”
“Okay, okay, for a moment let’s say neither one of us erased him, did the President authorize access to anyone else?’
“No, because that request would have to go through me.”
“How about, how about a malfunction of some sort?”
“Can’t see it happening, the primary gets the record first then it’s copied almost real-time to the secondary.”
“Then how about this, either the President or Frank gave someone access that we didn’t know about, through their own computer.”
“Plausible.”
“That’s it, plausible? I think that is a likely scenario, first off who does the President trust more than us?”
“Yeah but still, your point is valid but I don’t think in a million years he would just open his computer up for a little show and tell, after all the work, the years, the planning it took to get this system up and running. Why take the chance to expose something greater than the moon landing cover-up? I don’t think he could trust anyone with that type of information except, except maybe for Tamra.”
“The First Lady? Ha. He would never.”
“That leaves Frank.”
“I just don’t see it, he’s too busy with scented candles.”
“Huh?’”
“You know how he is, that brain of his is always in Einstein mode, once his next train of thought leaves the station, the last one is completely forgotten, besides he has no political agenda whatsoever, I don’t even think he knows Whitaker is a republican.”
“So it looks like we are right back to square one… you think I did it, I think you did it.”
“We’re missing something.”
“Yeah, checkmate, but I’m going to be planning my next moves.”
“You do that, I suggest you keep an eye on all your pieces, and I’ll do the same”
After he was done with his phone call with the President’s Chief of Staff, his first move was to lock him out of the system.
. . .
