They're Watching (2010) (14 page)

"Of course--you think Summit hired me for my temperament? I was an intercept analyst in the Corps. That's all anyone does anymore in Hollywood. Wiretapping. They barely even make movies these days."

"Look, I gather this is really advanced stuff. Do you have any contacts who can do it? Someone more current?"

"Fuck you 'more current,' you reverse-psychology prick. I'll admit--you've piqued my interest. I mean, if this stuff is what you described, I should take a look. Never hurts to see what new gadgets are in play."

"So you'll come?"

"If"--a pause--"you promise you'll never try to come near the lot again."

I blew out a deep breath of relief, leaned my forehead against the wall. "I promise. But listen, they might be watching the house."

"You tore your place apart, yeah? So how 'bout an early-morning visit from your contractor?"

An hour later the doorbell rang. I glanced past Jerry, dressed convincingly in jeans and a ripped long-sleeved T-shirt, to the white van at the curb. Magnetic signs on the door and side proclaimed SENDLENSKI B ROS. C ONTRACTORS. He hefted one of two giant toolboxes at me and barreled by, introducing himself brusquely to Ariana. Unsnapping the catches, he pulled out a remote, aimed it through the closed door, and clicked a button.

"Wideband high-power jammer in the van. Your cell phones, wireless Internet, any surveillance devices--they're all squelched."

I said, "Sendlenski Brothers?"

"Who couldn't believe a name like that?" He tugged out a directional antenna and hooked it to what looked like a laptop with a shoe box-thick base. An electronic waterfall traversed the screen, a red stripe running down the center. "First things first. Let's see if there are any other devices still operating. You'll need to go about your business and stay out of my way. Now, listen, I have to turn off the jammer to pick up any signals. It's a good idea anyways, because that thing takes out a four-block radius, so your neighbors are already dialing tech support." He fished an iPod nano, which he wore on a lanyard, from beneath his collar. A small contraption--a mini-speaker?--plugged the headphone jack. "Most high-end devices will only operate if there's noise to record. That's how they save juice. So guys started playing Van Halen when they swept rooms. Then the devices were upgraded to only transmit speaking tones. So . . ." Raising a finger to his lips, he aimed and clicked the remote again, turning off the jammer, then thumbed the iPod dial. A voice issued forth: "Philosophy in the Boudoir, by the Marquis de Sade."

Ariana caught my eye and mouthed, Marquis de Sade? Really?

While Jerry busied himself in the foyer, I settled on the couch and flipped through Entertainment Weekly but found myself rereading the same paragraph. In the kitchen Ariana emptied all the mugs out of the cabinet and then replaced them in what looked like the same order. She tore the lid from a box of mac & cheese and let the noodles patter on the countertop. No device hidden inside like a Cracker Jack prize. She lined up slices of bread by the sink. Crimp-searched the dry cleaning. Plucked a barrette from her hair and studied it. Her anxiety was infectious; I found myself eyeing our banal household clutter over the top of the magazine, wondering at each item's Trojan-horse potential. A ninja blowgun hidden in the potted philodendron?

Jerry made his way meticulously from room to room, the silence broken only by the drone of the audiobook from his iPod. De Sade's characters had plied an exhausting variety of orifices by the time Jerry whistled us over to the living-room coat closet, where he sat before a different, but equally bulky, laptop. My Nikes were set on the floor near the turned-back flap of carpet, Ariana's favorite raincoat spread out beside them.

He pointed at them. "I got something here. Embedded in the heel. See those hairline incisions? And stitched into the coat lining. Here."

From around his neck, the iPod cheerily proclaimed, "I'm going to shoot the burning jism to my entrails' end."

"So they're listening?" I asked. "Right now?"

"No." A glance to the laptop screen, a confusion of charts and amplitude waves. "These things are sending extremely short messages, once every five minutes. A low-power quick signal, hard to detect. Clearly not audio or visual."

"Shake it roughly! It's one of the finest pleasures you can imagine."

"Tracking devices," I said.

"Precisely. They're sending out position reports every so often, just like your cell phone does. In fact, the signal analyzer says it's transmitting over the data side of the T-Mobile network. Like a text message."

"That's the coat I wear the most," Ariana said. "They've been paying attention. Can you remove the tracker?"

Jerry said, "I wouldn't."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because," I said, "this is the first thing we know that they don't know we know."

She frowned at her jacket, as if mad that it had betrayed her. "Can you find out where the signal's sending to?"

"No," Jerry said. "I can grab the device's cellular ID number, but once it hits the destination gateway, it's gone."

"Raise your ass just a wee bit higher, my lover!"

I asked, "Would you mind turning that off?"

"Or up?" Ariana said.

"Sorry, old habit." Jerry clicked off the iPod. "They're less suspicious if they think they're eavesdropping on embarrassing stuff. Plus, it's a tedious job. You get bored. So, you know, stimulating material."

"Hey," I said, "it beats Tolstoy. Now, what do you mean you can't source the signal?"

"The destination gateway is connected to an Internet router, so from there it goes off into the soup--onion-routes and zips through an anonymous proxy in Azerbaijan or whatever. But that's the least of your problems." He tugged the laundry basket over and dug a hand into the tangle of gear, producing an envelope-thin component. "This uses the emissions of sensors from your burglar alarm and wireless router and such to power itself. No heat signature, no batteries to refresh."

"You're gonna have to dumb this down for me."

"This is not the cheap Sharper Image shit you get from Taiwan. This is the kind of no-serial-number, top-drawer gear that comes out of Haifa." He dropped the emitter into the basket again. "I did some joint training in Bucharest back in the day, when the Russians were particularly attentive. We found stuff like this in our hotel-room walls." He grimaced. "You pissed off the wrong folks, Patrick."

Her back to the wall, Ariana slid slowly to the floor.

"Could it . . ." My throat was too dry to speak, so I swallowed and started over. "Could it be the cops?"

"This kind of gear wasn't paid for by a municipal purse. This is next-level shit."

"Agency stuff."

Jerry touched a finger to the tip of his nose.

"But the detectives lifted a boot print from the front yard," I said. "A cop make--Danner Acadia?"

His brow furrowed. "Danners aren't cop boots. A detective might think that, see it on a few SWAT wannabes wearing them to show off. But no, Danners are mostly used by Spec Ops guys. Or field agents."

"Oh," I said. "Swell."

"Why the hell would an agency or some kind of spy want to mess with us?" Ariana said. "We don't have much money. We're not influential. We've got nothing to do with politics."

Jerry started packing away his gear, neatly and lovingly. "There is your movie."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"It pissed off a lot of folks. We had some back-and-forth with D.C. The CIA agents are hardly painted like American heroes."

"What? The CIA actually read the script?"

"Sure. We wanted official cooperation, the hardware, use of the seal, locations, all that. It can save millions. But it's just like dealing with the Pentagon--if it's a friendly script, they'll loan you a Black Hawk, open up facilities. But they won't give you shit for Full Metal Jacket. And let's face it, They're Watching puts the fuck on the Agency. Makes them look like the KGB or something."

"Oh, come on," I said. "That was just stupid movie fun. It didn't mean anything."

"Maybe it did to them. One man's fun is another man's jihad."

"It's a popcorn thriller, not some groundbreaking commentary. And I'm just the writer, not a powerful studio head or something." I was sputtering. "Besides, the government's always corrupt in movies."

"Maybe they're sick of it."

"You really think it would provoke this?" I fanned a hand at the torn-up walls, ending with Ariana sitting on the floor, her face drawn and bloodless.

"You got a better explanation?"

Ariana broke the silence. "If it's some agency, we've got to go to the cops for help."

"Because they've shown such an inclination to believe us," I said.

"Look," Jerry said, "these guys have already demonstrated that they can monitor what goes on inside a police station. I mean, they didn't just know that you went to the West L.A. station; they knew which desk you went to. On the second floor."

Ariana asked, sharply, "How do you know that?"

I said, "I told him. On the phone."

We all regarded one another warily.

Ari said, "Sorry."

Jerry's face was tight. "As I was saying, you still can't rule out that they have a guy inside LAPD. Even if they don't, they've tapped into the internal surveillance cameras or something. They're watching you and the police, and they know how. You really want them finding out that you're starting a counteroffensive because you trotted back into a cop shop? You could be giving up what little you do know, your plans, your strategy."

Ariana coughed out a laugh. "Strategy?"

All business now, Jerry checked his watch, then continued guiding his equipment back into the pristine foam-lined toolboxes. "The rest of the house is clean. Neither of your computers is sporting spyware or anything, but watch what you print. Printers, copiers, fax machines--everything's got a hard drive now, and people can get at 'em and know what you've been up to. Your cars are good, but check them now and again for a slap-and-track. Take this--it's a minijammer, knocks out any recording devices in a twenty-foot radius. They advertise fifty, but don't push your luck." He handed me a pack of Marlboro Lights and flipped up the lid to show the black button protruding through the fake cigarettes. "Use it to be safe when you talk in the house, in case they come back and install something else when you're gone. If neither of you smokes, stick it in a purse or a pocket--don't leave it lying around. Oh, and you might want to shit-can your cell phones. Or at least turn them off when you don't want your location known. Cell phones function more or less the same as the transmitters hidden in your shoes and jacket. If you need to use yours, turn it on, make a quick call, then shut it off. It takes a while to zero in on the location, so calls a few minutes long are more or less safe."

Ariana's elbows were locked, resting on her knees. Motionless. She said, "I'm assuming there's no point in changing the alarm or locks."

Even his smirk was exacting, as if he'd programmed it for precisely such occasions. "You can't afford technology that would keep these guys out."

"So . . . what? We just move?"

"Depends. Do you guys run from your problems?"

Ariana's eyes ticked over to me. If he hadn't been busy packing up, Jerry would have noticed how much was riding on the look between us. "No," I said to her. "We don't."

The phone rang.

Ariana scrambled to her feet. "No one calls us this time of morning. What if it's the cops?"

I glanced at my watch, barely registering that I was already a half hour late to start my commute. I said to Jerry, "Are the phones tapped?"

Another ring. The cordless was stuffed somewhere under the picture frames and cushions we'd stacked on the love seat.

Jerry snapped the catches on his toolbox and stood to go. "Only amateurs would tap you at a junction box and show draw on the line. They use electronic intercept these days. Undetectable."

I started digging through the stuff on the love seat, sourcing the ring. Squirming a hand between two cushions, I pulled out the phone. RESTRICTED CALLER. My thumb hovered over the "talk" button. "She's right. No one calls this early. It could be important."

Jerry shook his head. "I wouldn't risk it."

Another ring.

"Shit," I said. "Shit." I turned it on, listened a moment to the crackle of static. "Hello?"

Punch's hoarse voice said, "Patrick, man--"

I said, "I know, Chad. It's a bad time right now, though, a lot going on. I told you I'd have the papers graded by Friday."

More crackle while Punch contemplated my calling him "Chad." Finally he picked up the ruse. "Okay, it'd really make my life easier if they were done earlier."

"I'll see what I can do." I hung up. Exhaled. Jerry was already at the door. I said, "Hey, wait. Thank you for this. If we didn't have your help, I honestly don't know what we'd do."

Ariana said, "You have no idea--"

Jerry looked right at me, ignoring her. "This better not come back on me with the studio."

"It won't," I said.