The Outer Circle (The Counterpoint Trilogy Book 3) (25 page)

Farmington, USA

Things could have turned out differently if the local movie theater had a slightly later showtime. Or if Antonio was not talking to his girlfriend and instead had answered an incoming call. A call that turned out to be totally unimportant. Or if Jim Brobak was a touch less conscientious and did not answer the call when he was hurrying to get out the door. Or if he didn’t spill coffee on his shirt earlier that day and decided that he must go home and change.

But things happen the way they do, whether by design or by accident. The unimportant call was answered by Jim Brobak. It delayed Jim by eight minutes. As the result, Jim was running a touch late for meeting Gloria at a movie theater.

For a week after sending his research to David and Maggie, Jim was on the edge, expecting a call or a visit asking what was the purpose of his database queries. But nothing happened and he started to relax. Three days ago Maria, the office manager, invited him for a home-cooked meal. Jim accepted, figuring Maria wanted to talk about Iraq, where her son had fallen. During dinner Maria’s daughter-in-law Gloria stopped by. Both Jim and Gloria suspected afterwards – rightfully – that it was a setup of two lonely people. But it worked. Jim called Gloria the next day and they agreed to go see a movie together.

Jim did not know that three armed people waited for him in his house. These people were professionals, they watched the house beforehand, knew that Jim would drive into the attached garage and come into the house from there. When they received the call from the fourth person who’d been following Jim in the car, the three inside got into their positions near the door leading from the garage.

But this time Jim was trying to save a few seconds. He parked on the street and went in through the front door. The people waiting for him rushed to the front. One bumped into a door. Jim, hearing noise, pulled out his gun.

Gloria waited for half an hour, then left thinking that Jim stood her up. It was only the next day that she found out that Jim had been shot.

Richmond, USA

Erik King, Nancy Westlake, and FreedomShield’s head of special operations, Blair White, sat around the conference table in the King’s office. A small phone sat in the middle of the table.

“Unfortunately, our people couldn’t take Brobak alive,” said White guiltily.

“Yes, I wonder why your vaunted commandos failed at such an important task,” King was not happy. “We needed to interrogate him.”

“I am sorry, Brobak somehow figured out that there was someone in his house, probably thought a burglar, came in with his gun drawn. He wounded two of my people, they fired in self-defense.”

“How the hell are we going to find out who Brobak’s been working with?”

“Our people found this,” White pointed to the phone, “and overnighted it to us.”

Westlake picked up the phone:

“We looked at it just before the meeting. A typical limited-distribution secure device. Built-in strong encryption with an embedded key. The address book has one name, “JohnP,” and a number with a Newfoundland area code.”

“Newfoundland?” surprised King.

“It’s a gateway to a TOS-3 router, the area isn’t relevant.”

“Can we trace it?”

“Perhaps if we establish a regular communication, set up some data and traffic patterns... this will take a long time and has no guarantees.”

“Can we get the encryption key out of this thing?” King pointed to the phone.

“We can’t extract it from the outside. The secure processor is sealed and will self-destruct if we try to get inside of it.”

“Why don’t we just dial the number?”

“Doesn’t buy us anything. They’ll know that we have the phone and we still can’t trace the call.”

King got up and paced the room.

“Are you telling me the trail ends here? There is nothing we can do?”

“Well, there is one thing we can try,” said Westlake carefully. “We can send some data there. That’s how Brobak communicated with them.”

“And what good would that do?” wondered White. “We still don’t know where it ends up.”

“We can include a small snippet of our code.”

“So the phone on the other end will start sending us signals?” asked King hopefully.

“Kind of. Remember, these phones are secure and they won’t allow an external application to just start sending anything out. We created a code that looks like a certified Bluetooth 6 update. If the phone allows signed updates of standard applications, it will update its Bluetooth program. Then at programmed intervals the phone will send out a special “pairing” message. If we hear it from three different detectors, we can triangulate the precise location.”

“Have we tried this previously?”

“Yes, we did it once before and it worked.”

“Great! What are we waiting for, then?” King spread his arms in mock wonderment.

“It’s not that simple. In the previous case, we had a roughly one square mile area to operate in. Here, we are looking at the whole country. Bluetooth 6 has the maximum range of about 500 feet. This exceeds our detection capabilities by a couple of orders of magnitude.”

“Nancy, in such a case I don’t know why you even mention it. Just to tease me or something?”

“Erik, we don’t have the capability. The U.S. government does. If we instruct all the drones and electronic listening devices deployed nationwide to listen for this signal, we might be able to triangulate it.”

“We are talking about an unauthorized use of the U.S. surveillance infrastructure. If this comes out, nobody will save us,” commented White somberly.

King waved him off.

“Nancy, can we technically do this?”

“To some degree. Through our government contracts, we have access to most of the surveillance infrastructure. If we do it during the night hours when supervision is less tight and for relatively short periods of time, we might be able to do this undetected. But as Blair said, they’ll fry our asses if this comes out.”

“Nancy, let me worry about that. How quickly can you set it up?” King sat back at the table.

“We can run it tonight.”

“Do it, then.”

Westlake and White got up to leave. King stopped White:

“Blair, stay a minute.”

After Nancy Westlake closed the door, King told White:

“Suppose Nancy succeeds. I would want these people taken or eliminated immediately. Preferably taken.”

“But we don’t know where they are.”

“That’s why I am talking to you. Prepare as much as you can in advance. Have your commando’s teams and support drones ready to go. Mobilize teams in major cities. Particularly in Los Angeles.”

“Why Los Angeles?”

King got up and paced the floor again. Then deciding on something, he abruptly turned to White:

“The FBI’s surveillance of Jeff Kron picked something up today. Kron was talking to his campaign manager Marosyan as they were walking from campaign headquarters to Kron’s car. They were talking about information possibly tying John Dimon to the 2019 crisis. Marosyan wanted to use it, Kron didn’t feel comfortable, thought it was a trap. I think whoever is on the other side of that phone is talking to Kron. Doesn’t mean they are in LA, of course, but makes it more likely.”

“What are you going to do about Kron?” asked White quietly.

King stood in front of the window, took a couple of deep breaths.

“Blair, John Dimon must win this election. Otherwise, not only does this company goes down the drain, but so does the country.”

Laguna Beach, USA

Jennifer was trying to focus on driving, but her thoughts kept creeping back to the fight. She and Jeff did not fight a lot, but when they did it was intense. They were both stubborn.

She told him she was going to Laguna Beach to ask grandfather for help with communicating Dimon’s information to the president. He tried to talk her out of it. She refused. Jeff eventually gave up:

“You are so God-damn stubborn! Sam Baker would not want to get involved with this. We need you here, your townhall program is very popular with women. Instead, you’re going to waste a day on a useless pursuit!”

Jennifer slammed the door as she left. She did not think that grandfather would help either, but she had to try. Jeff was falling further behind Dimon in the polls. Besides, the prospect of Dimon becoming the President now terrified her.

Jennifer parked the car, walked into the house past the guard that nodded at her, made her way to the patio. As she expected, her mother was there with Caroline.

“Hi, Mom, hi, Caroline!”

“Hi, Jennifer! I didn’t know you were coming?” Karen was surprised.

“Yes, it was unplanned.”

“Nana went to the beach with some friends, they should be back soon.” Seeing Jennifer’s expression, Karen quickly added: “Two armed guards went with them.”

“We watched the interview that Jeff and you gave on SBS,” jumped in Caroline. “You guys were great!”

“Thank you, Caroline.”

“Jenny, I recognize this determined look,” Karen’s eyes narrowed. “There is a reason for your visit besides seeing your daughter and your mother, right?”

“Yes, mom, there is. I came to ask Grandpa for help.”

“What kind of help?”

Jennifer remained silent. Caroline got up:

“I just remembered, I have something I need to pick up at the hardware store...”

“Caroline, sit down,” Karen stopped her. “Jennifer, if you want something from the old grouch, you better get Caroline to help you. She is the only one he’ll listen to. He has a thing for her. And I don’t blame him. Also, the patio is swept for listening devices weekly and has some jamming ‘white noise’ doohickeys installed to prevent remote listening. And least, that’s what I’ve been told.”

“Very well,” Jennifer sat down and poured herself iced tea.

After she finished the story of meeting Oleg and then David, Maggie, and Dimon’s possible involvement in the 2019 crisis and suspicious financial activities, Karen exhaled hard:

“So this Oleg, he saw Pavel in St. Petersburg a few days before Pavel’s death?”

“Yes.”

Karen dubbed handkerchief at her eyes.

“I am sorry. Eighteen years and still... Maggie and David, they’re still wanted, right?”

“Yes, they’re wanted for questioning.”

“Do you believe them?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And what did Jeff say?”

“He did not want to go after Dimon. Thought this might be a provocation.”

“What a wuss!” Caroline slammed the table. “Your husband is a decent man but he is swimming with sharks. That slick Dimon character, he reminds me of those priests that preach celibacy, but once a curtain is down, they bugger little boys in the back.”

“So, Caroline, you think the story is true?” asked Karen.

“Of course I do. I remember how two years ago they broke the story and people were ready to march on Washington with pitchforks. But then the spin started and people went back to watching the Kardashians in ‘ultra-high frequency 3-D.’ And then the ‘immersive experience’ came and everyone forgot. Poor Maggie and David risked their lives and ended up with dirt smeared all over them.”

“Do you have any proof?” Karen turned to Jennifer.

“Yes,” Jennifer pulled from her bag the folder that David Weinstein brought from the meeting. “Account numbers, names, amounts, dates... Not only Dimon, but that FreedomShield security firm that works for him is involved as well.”

“And you want to do what?”

“I want to ask Grandpa to take this to Joe Maxwell.”

“The president?”

“Yes, the president.”

“Gutsy, but makes sense,” agreed Caroline. “Trying to publish this won’t do any good. The president can investigate and arrest Dimon.”

“Your Grandpa is out of politics,” said Karen. “But let me bring him here, see if we can convince him.”

Sam Baker may have aged on the outside, but his mind was going strong, he quickly grasped the implications:

“This is either an elaborate trap or Dimon broke the law and someone with enough resources might be able to blackmail him… plus a possible foreign involvement. And only someone really high up can investigate and do something about it.”

“Yes, Grandpa,” confirmed Jennifer. “Would you help us?”

“My dear child, you know that after that horrible scandal two years ago I quit politics and swore to never set my foot in Washington again.”

“But Sam, you were not involved,” protested Caroline.

“No, but others were. And I did business with them, and I shook their hands. And then they managed to avoid responsibility and many are still there, business as usual.”

“Then go and help to change it! Your grandson-in-law is trying to end business as usual, help him!”

“Dear Caroline, I’m sorry, but I’m old and I washed my hands of all politics.”

“Grandpa, please help us!” pleaded Jennifer.

“Jennifer, have you thought of the possibility that this information is not correct? The people you are dealing with, they are fugitives from the law. They tell you that some of this research came from the FBI but you have no way of verifying this? If this turns out to be not true, Jeff, you, me – we’ll all be ruined.”

Sam Baker got up and shuffled back into the house.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Karen patted Jennifer’s hand. “I’m not surprised. It was a lot to ask of him. It’s getting late. Would you have dinner with us and stay the night?”