Unallocated Space: A Thriller (Sam Flatt Book 1) (15 page)

N
EW YORK

S
.A
. Courtney Meyer

S
pecial Agent Courtney Meyer
looked across the conference table and tried to wrap her mind around this turn of events. After eighteen months of trying and failing to get something on the Sultanovich family, she had reached a breakthrough last night with the computer expert working for SPACE. Truth be told, his threat had rippled chillbumps from her stem to her stern. But his first report had shown up this morning.

Now she was looking at a trio of witnesses who had simply strolled into the bureau's New York field office at 26 Federal Plaza and said they wanted to "make deal" for information on Max Sultanovich. When it rains, it pours.

She knew the two men were who they claimed to be, although she had not connected the portly Crimean, Maslov, to the Sultanovich operation. Zuyev was a long-time foot soldier and looked the part with his broad Slavic face, pitted with old scars that looked a bit like acne, except they were fewer and larger. The knife scar across his forehead was fairly recent and didn't help his severe case of ugly.

The girl—Christine Gamboa was the name she gave—was straight out of left field, an unknown. She looked spent and scared. She also could not have looked more out of place than she did right now, sandwiched between Fat Boy and Dogface, and Meyer instantly distrusted her for it. When a girl who looked like this one was running with underworld characters twice her age, the reason wasn't hard to deduce.

Meyer started with her: "Miss Gamboa, how do you know these men?"

"I don't know Mr. Zuyez at all, since I just met him today. As for Sasha—Mr. Maslov—he's a client."

Meyer had expected Gamboa to sound like a gum-smacking bimbo, but that's not what she got. Her tone, her eyes, her manner were all intelligent and articulate. "What kind of client?"

"I'm an executive host at a casino."

"Executive? What exactly do you do?"

"I facilitate wonderful experiences for our most discerning clients."

That was straight from some brochure, and Meyer didn't appreciate the bounce and sass with which it was delivered. "Listen, honey, I'm not someone you want to get cute with. Got it?"

Gamboa picked up the business card Meyer had given her, looked at, then laid it back on the table. "Miss Meyer—"

"It's Special Agent Meyer."

"You know what? I don't care if it's Queen Meyer. Don't call me 'honey' or any of the other condescending tags I'm sure you have tucked away. I haven't committed any crimes. I'm here to help you and hopefully to find a way out of this mess I wandered into."

Meyer stared at her, deciding on the approach she'd take from here with the little size-four bitch who was way too full of herself. In an even tone, she said, "Can you please elaborate on your client relationship with Mr. Maslov?"

The Crimean burst to his feet, looking at Zuyev and spouting a stream of what Meyer assumed was Russian. Then he turned to her. "I am very rich gambler. Casinos like rich gamblers. Chrissy take care of me at casino, okay? She get food I like, seats to shows I like, these things. Okay? Now we stop the stupid and talk about cold killer Max Sultanovich or not?"

Meyer blew out a long breath. "Please sit down, Mr. Maslov."

His big face was red, eyes bulging, tiny crimson veins on his nose almost glowing. But he did ease back down into his chair. Meyer said, "I'm listening. What do you have to tell me about Maxim Andreyovich Sultanovich?"

"We can to tell you everything about Max, but first we make deal, yes?"

"Sure, we can talk about a deal. After I know something about the evidence you have."

Maslov nodded, a nod of satisfaction.

She had no authority to make a deal, but she'd be happy to “talk about” it. "Well?" she said, and motioned for him to start talking.

But he wasn't listening. He was tapping at an iPhone with those sausage fingers of his. Once he finished and put the phone away, he leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Mr. Maslov?" she said. "The evidence?"

A knock sounded on the door. Two seconds later, the door opened and a fifty-something straight off the cover of GQ walked in.

"Excuse me?" Meyer said. "Who are you?"

He strode toward her with his hand out. "Jerome Balderas, representing Mr. Maslov. And his companions, for now."

Ho-ly shit.

M
eyer had never met
Jerome Balderas before. In fact, she had never seen him on TV or otherwise. But she knew who he was, just like everybody else in the FBI knew who the sonofabitch was. He was the lawyer who got the case against the bureau's former director dismissed. A director who was a scumbag, whose corrupt political shenanigans had gotten good agents killed. A director who deserved to be wasting away in a federal prison right now, not golfing his time away like he was.

So much for getting anything out of Maslov on the quick, without really talking deal. She shot him a look, stood, and approached Balderas with her hand out. "We didn't expect you."

He shook her hand. "You didn't. Fortunately, my clients did. Shall we get down to it?" He placed a briefcase on the table, pulled out a chair, slickly unbuttoned his suit coat, and sat. He opened the briefcase and withdrew a small stack of documents, then slid copies to each person around the table.

Meyer picked up her copy and looked at it.

M
eyer finished reading
the first page, flipped to the next page, saw it was nothing more than boilerplate logistical language, along with designated areas for dates and signatures. "Mr. Balderas," she said, pointing to a signature line with her name beneath it, "I'm sure you know I don't have the authority to negotiate a deal like this. But if I did? Full blanket immunity for unknown information would be a non-starter, as it will be with my bureau superiors, not to mention the U.S. Attorney."

"Miss Meyer," he said, "I'm—"

"Special Agent Meyer."

"Of course, my apology. Special Agent Meyer, can we please skip the rote posturing and proceed?"

"Beg your pardon?"

"Do you doubt I prepared before coming here?"

"I'm certain you did," she said.

"Correct. As part of that preparation, I made inquiries to certain sources within your agency. I know that this is your case. I know of your well-deserved reputation for, shall we say"—he made air quotations with manicured fingers—"your 'aggressive tenacity.’ And we both know that a recommendation from you on this particular case would carry great weight. So while you are not able to officially offer a deal, as a practical matter, you can."

Meyer looked at him, studied his smooth tan face, the flawless white smile, every hair in place. She didn't like him, but she had to respect him. His summary was on target. She could probably push through any deal she wanted on this one. What he hadn't articulated was the most important reality: If he could get a deal with her signature on it, even if it wasn't binding, he would use it to obfuscate and delay any prosecution of his clients with an unending stream of pleadings, hearings, appeals, and any other challenge he could dream up. The asshole was shrewd.

She shrugged. "I'm willing to talk, but not without a sworn statement from you and each of them"—she nodded toward “the parties”—"that says I've warned you beforehand that I don't have the legal authority to guarantee any kind of immunity for anything."

Balderas's smile widened and he reached into the briefcase. He pulled a single sheet and handed it to her. It was exactly the sworn statement she had just described. She wondered how many steps ahead of her and the bureau this guy really was.

S
PACE

M
att said
his goodbyes and headed back to McCarran International, and I returned to my workroom. By the time I got back, the network map was a thing of beauty, which is to say it was populated from top to bottom. I was now able to instantly track the physical source and destination of almost any electronic communication within the SPACE network. And it took mere minutes to see that my suspicions were right: The hacking originated within the unallocated space beneath the central tower of the SPACE complex.

Armed with architectural drawings on my tablet, I locked my computers and left the workroom. Nichols wasn't back yet, so I was alone. I took the elevator down to the casino floor; the clear, space-walk-like people mover was a fun ride, but after a few times on it, the slow speed outweighed its charm. Once I reached bottom, I navigated through the Craps Corridor, the Blackjack Belt, and finally the outer layer of gaming machines. Getting out of the casino was like ciphering a maze, but I worked my way through the airlock doors and into the great outdoors. Not at the front of the property, but the rear.

The August Nevada air was hot enough and dry enough that it felt like the atmosphere itself might catch fire at any moment. This was my first time to be at the back of the tower, so I took a look around. It was pretty much like the front, on a smaller scale. A portico with a few valet attendants around, a driveway that looked like an interstate highway, and sidewalks that fed off either side of the portico. According to the drawings, I needed to go left. I did. After a few minutes of walking, I found what I was looking for.

Veering off the main drive, a wide concrete service ramp sloped down into the basement of the tower. There were no sidewalks. I watched for about five minutes as a few service vehicles drove down and in or up and out. A Sysco food delivery truck. A van from NV Energy. A pickup pulling a trailer full of PVC pipe. Typical service flow.

I stuck close to the nearer wall so I wouldn't get run over and walked down the incline into the bowels of SPACE. When the ramp leveled out, I encountered a security guard manning a little booth that sat between the in and out lanes, both of which were blocked with a fold-down barrier arm. He eyed me as I walked up to an electronic reader and touched it with my bracelet. The reader turned green and the arm raised, and the guard returned to whatever he'd been doing. In front of me, the two-lane road went left, right, and straight ahead into a tunnel. I went straight.

The tunnel was dim, lit by sparsely placed overhead lights. Beyond the guard shack, a raised sidewalk with a handrail hugged the righthand wall, so I walked there. And walked. And walked. An inbound UPS truck passed me and about fifteen seconds later, veered off the tunnel to the right. When I got to where he'd veered, I saw a sign that said PARCEL DELIVERY ONLY, above another tunnel curving deeper inside the structure. I took a minute to study a drawing on my tablet, and continued straight ahead. As my trek continued, I passed a couple more offshoot tunnels, one on the left (LAUNDRY ONLY) and one on the right (PHYSICAL PLANT PERSONNEL ONLY).

A couple hundred yards past the last offshoot, the drive dead-ended at a cinder block wall. A large, gray, steel door sat dead center. At eye level, I saw what looked at first glance to be a peephole. When I looked closer, I decided it was a video camera. Beneath the tiny lens, a fluorescent orange sign was lettered with bold black type: ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE. The door handle was a lever style, similar to ones I'd seen often up in the tower, but made of steel instead of the glasslike material in the doors above. I grabbed the lever and pushed, and got exactly what I expected. Locked. What I didn't expect, however, was what happened next. At the exact moment a tiny LED beside the lever glowed red, so did my bracelet. That was new.

I
looked
at my glowing bracelet and tried to remember if it had failed to open anything else since I had been at SPACE. Nothing came to mind. Maybe the red glow was routine, a signal to make it clear you were in the wrong place. Before heading back up the tunnel, I used my tablet to take photographs of everything notable at this dead end. The door. The non-electronic, key-driven part of its lock, and the three tiny cameras. The one in the door, plus one nestled in each upper corner where concrete wall met concrete ceiling.

On my way out of the tunnel, I did the same thing for every camera I saw, and that included some really unusual ones considering that I was in a concrete service tunnel that appeared routine until you got to the dead end and its door into the unallocated space: The signs were fastened to the wall with what looked like four screws, one in each corner of the sign. Something about the first one I photographed triggered my spidey sense, though, and when I looked closer, I saw that the sign was really fastened by only three screws. The bottom left "screw" was really a tiny camera lens, exactly like the one in the big bad door. How freaking weird was that? Very.

I also shot pictures of every offshoot, every light fixture, and anything else that looked remotely notable. I recorded verbal notes for each photograph, like how many paces since the last notable feature, which side of the tunnel, and estimated height off the floor. Make every recon mission count.