Divisible man the third.., p.21
DIVISIBLE MAN--THE THIRD LIE, page 21
“I mean, yeah, she’s got a ton of abbreviations after her name—which, by the way, is Farris—but I don’t think any of that means much to Lewko. He can buy all the talent he needs. I think she got in the door because she’s a kindred spirit. A fellow abductee.”
“She got in the door because she used you! God! I hate that she gave you up to him! What was she thinking? After all that ranting about getting us off the grid!” Andy gripped the wheel and as her anger rose, her foot descended on the gas pedal. “You remember that? How she wanted us to just abandon our lives and live on some island? Can you imagine if we’d fallen for that?”
“Could’a been fun for a few weeks…” I pictured my wife in a bikini.
“Please tell me you didn’t have to—you know—right in front of anybody.”
“Close, but no. Actually, the opposite.” I explained what happened. “Dee, I felt something from the moment we entered that building. It pulled on me—tried to make me vanish. I think if I had done nothing, I would have.”
Her jaw clenched and her lower lip, prominent thanks to a slight underbite I find exotic, signaled new worry.
“Is there any chance he saw you do it? Make that thing appear?”
“I don’t see how.”
“Empirical data, Will. They’ve had possession of it for weeks and made no progress. You show up and it suddenly appears.”
“If that’s their thinking, they’re a day late and a dollar short. Their first impulse was to hustle us the hell out of there.”
“Doesn’t mean they won’t review the facts. You’re still the miracle at the origin of this story.”
“A miracle with no memory. I had nothing new to offer and they were not impressed by my scholastic credentials. Besides, they now have something they can sink their teeth into. That debris is no longer hidden. They can analyze it and figure out where it came from. My money is on Bed, Bath and Beyond.”
“Makes sense, since Toys ‘R Us went out of business.”
Her willingness to play improved the overall mood.
“I’m sorry about the communication blackout. Blame Lillian’s paranoia—which, to be honest, wasn’t unfounded. Dee, they had AI talk to us through the stereo in her car! And you should have seen their ID badges. Like little TV sets. After everything you’ve told me about phones, and with Lillian’s paranoia and Lewko’s tech, I decided to pull the battery on mine.”
“It’s fine. It’s been crazy here all day.”
And you’re a big boy. You can take care of yourself, I added using her voice in my head.
“Usual disclaimer. What’s the deal? Are the feds really going to get these bastards?”
“Usual disclaimer. Maybe.”
“Did that thing with Artie help?”
She shook her head. “No. Lee’s been on that all day. You heard him. He took over the workstation downstairs in Processing. He’s been chasing that name up and down all the NCIC files. Right now, he’s combing the Violent Persons File to check everyone with a first or middle name that starts with A. The guy is relentless. He should be resting instead of chasing a dead-end lead.”
“You really think it’s a dead end?”
“I don’t know. But I worry about him. He’s not well.”
“He’s better than he was,” I said.
Andy reached across the console for my hand. “In my heart, I know what you did was good. But it scares me, Will. That part of all this truly scares me.”
I looked for a change of subject. “What made the feds reenact the Normandy airborne invasion?”
“The photos that were released two days ago.”
Had it been two days? I tried to remember when in the recent whirlwind of flights and events the conversation in the Crowne Plaza Hotel room took place.
“The FBI dove deep into those photos,” Andy said. “The lab at Quantico ran them against millions of images on the internet. Don’t ask me how. For all I know they waved a magic wand. That tech is so far beyond me. It paid off, though. Out of twenty-one images, nineteen were copied from web sources and matched up.”
“To a geographic location?”
She nodded, but with qualification. “All over the lower forty-eight. One from Anchorage. One from Spain.”
“Chaff.”
“What?”
“Chaff. Originally, the husks and waste product sifted off the grain by a threshing machine. More recently, the name of the material thrown off by an aircraft to fool radar. Sounds like they were throwing up chaff to screen what they’re really doing.”
“That’s what everyone here concluded.”
“Yet you have a location.”
“They feel that the nineteen matched images are false leads. But the perps think they’re being clever by including two genuine images of their next target—so they can point back and say, ‘We told you so.’”
“What were the two images?”
“One was of a mailbox. The other was a rural landscape. In the landscape, there’s a grain silo.”
“The feds found them?”
Andy nodded, looking impressed. “Rumor has it that Google stepped in to help, but that’s absolutely confidential, Will. Seriously.”
I did the lip zip gesture.
“It gets better. The two outliers stood out because they came from the same device.”
“They can tell that?”
“The FBI lab can. Both images came from a device belonging to a lot of pre-paid phones delivered to a Walmart in Springfield, Missouri. The rural landscape matched a location sixty miles west of Springfield. From there, they found the mailbox. It pinpointed a family-owned dairy farm. Identical victim profile. A father, mother, teenaged daughter, two little boys.”
“Wow. I think…but…”
“You’re going to suggest it’s a diversion? Because everyone here said the same thing.”
“Wait! You said the phone was bought at a Walmart. There has to be security video.”
“I didn’t say bought. The device went to the Walmart, but it’s gone—yet it doesn’t show up on sale records. Hence no checkout cam video.”
“Stolen?”
Andy issued a sly grin. “Possibly. Or purchased by switching bar codes with a different item, and then shoving it through a very busy checkout line with a ton of other stuff. How many kids, single moms or retirees working a Walmart checkout do you think are cross-referencing each purchase against the scanner beep? Especially if the price is close. Let’s say a Virgin phone rings up with a bar code for a T-Mobile phone. Who’s going to catch that? And even if they did, our perps would act surprised and ask to reverse the purchase. If they’re smart, they’ll make it look like the error costs more. That way, if they’re caught, it doesn’t come off as theft.”
“Jesus, Dee, how did you come up with that?”
“I busted Jamie Wildeen and his kid brother when they used it a couple months ago. Only they tried to sticker an X-Box with the label from a nineteen-dollar pair of ear buds. Idiots.”
“Still, it seems like a lot of trouble to go to.”
“It beats getting caught for shoplifting. And it guarantees them an anonymous way to obtain a device without us being able to pin them down on video.”
“Do you think Janos and his strike team are chasing a wild goose?”
Andy squinted. “I have no idea. Truly. And it doesn’t matter. We have an obligation to protect the family—who are now under guard. The airborne invasion you saw is Janos gambling that he can catch the killers on site.”
I whistled softly. “I don’t think I’d go anywhere near a farm this weekend. With what’s been covered by the media, trigger-itchy farmers are probably packing heat while they milk the cows.”
“Packing heat? Who are you, De Niro?”
I let my mind wander.
“Dee…where was the first one?”
“West Virginia.”
She looked sideways at me. “I know what you’re going to say. The FBI had a team on that idea days ago.”
“An airplane.”
“It would explain some of the regional movement, but we still don’t know how they got to the farms and played on their victim’s trust. They didn’t land an airplane in the farmer’s field. Even so, the feds ran computer analysis of every flight plan filed and flown relevant to each of the crime scenes. Nothing came up as a pattern or repeat.”
“You don’t have to file a flight plan,” I said, “but I agree on the logistics. You still need ground transportation.”
We rolled up to the Sunset Circle roadblock manned by Essex County Sheriff’s deputies. Andy dropped her window and traded small talk before being waved through.
“Does this ambush plan mean Sandy has changed her mind about paying?”
Andy shook her head.
“She doesn’t know yet. Which is why I was sent here. Sandy wants to pay—and I can’t blame her. It could save a family.” She glanced at her watch. “She plans to make the payment at 8 tonight. Janos wants me to talk her out of it—or at least into waiting until tomorrow morning. He wants to give the ambush a chance.”
“Are you? Talking her out of paying?”
“I’m not sure I can.”
Neither of us spoke again until we reached the Stone house on Leander Lake.
39
Sandy met us at the door. I tried to remember what she’d been wearing the last time I saw her but drew a blank and dismissed the idea that she hadn’t changed or slept. She wore flat sandals that slapped her feet when she walked, and a pair of white jeans under a gray t-shirt without text or a logo. As Andy does around the house when she doesn’t want to invest time in her hair, Sandy trapped her blonde locks in a functional ponytail.
My wife held her in a hug for a few seconds longer than would have been warranted by mere formality. I gave a nod to the Wisconsin State Trooper on guard duty. He checked me over, then scanned the sidewalk and the circle in front of the house where we had parked. He closed the door behind us and remained at his post when Sandy led us into the great room overlooking Leander Lake.
The sun had another hour to shine before kissing the treetops on the far side of the lake. Back light gave the trees between the house and the water a green luminosity. Reflections off the lake made the leaves shimmer and appear to wiggle, even though the evening air hung still.
Arun jumped to his feet as Andy and his boss entered. I would have taken odds that he slept in the clothes he was wearing. A stubby love seat and accompanying end table had become his office. Piles of files occupied a nearby coffee table.
A pair of FBI agents sat in an adjoining room facing laptops across Sandy’s dining room table. Andy had warned me they were there, monitoring Sandy’s landline and cell phone. In a movie, wires and cables would be snaking across the floor; headphones and cryptic devices in suitcases would clutter the room. Except for the laptops, their station was tidy. These two could have been playing World of Warcraft. At the sight of visitors, one of them rose and politely closed a set of doors separating the two rooms.
“Where’s Senator Keller?” Andy asked after greeting Arun and releasing him from his gentlemanly obligation to stand. Andy folded herself onto a sofa beside Sandy.
“A county planning commission meeting.”
“On a Saturday evening?” I asked.
“It was rescheduled from last Monday, I guess,” she replied.
“She couldn’t find something to binge on Netflix?”
“I don’t know. Lorna got excited when she heard a deputy secretary from the DOT is coming. I’m not sure. She seemed to think it was important enough to stop smother-mothering me for a few hours. I don’t think she wants to be here when I make the payment.”
Arun looked like someone just murdered his puppy. Sandy paid him a commiserating glance, reminding me that paying the ransom ended Arun’s short career as manager of her Education Foundation affairs.
And mine as pilot for the Foundation airplane.
“Mr. Larmond will be coming soon. He spent time today preparing,” Sandy said. “I’m not sure I understand it. We had to set up accounts—er, a Bitcoin account, make transfers and—I guess—purchase the bitcoins, which seems to be controlled by passwords. And of course, the bank is closed today, but when you’re moving around millions, I guess they make special arrangements.”
“Keys,” Arun corrected her. “Mr. Larmond set up a Bitcoin wallet with public and private keys.”
“What about the land sale?” I asked.
“Done,” Sandy said. “All very rushed, but the money has been wired.”
“We now have enough,” Arun added. “Although I still do not understand why you’re paying this, Miss Stone. I don’t understand why this isn’t a matter for the government.”
“Our government doesn’t pay ransom.”
I asked, “The code in their message provides a—what is it?”
“An address,” Arun said.
“An address to send the bitcoins,” Sandy said. “You’d think the government could trace it, but I guess there are infallible ways of masking or encrypting the address.”
“The keys,” Arun interjected.
Sandy waved a hand in the air. “It depends on the recipient. The two agents in the other room say they will try to trace it, but they said not to count on it. Chances are the money will vanish as soon as payment is made.”
“About that,” Andy began.
Sandy saw it coming. “No. My mind is made up.”
“I understand. But something is happening.” Andy spelled out what she told me about the images, the FBI conclusions and the decision to mount an ambush. As she spoke, Sandy’s tension grew until she took to her feet and paced the wide room.
“I can’t take the chance, Andrea. Can you imagine what it might mean if they’re wrong? I pray to God they’re not and they can arrest these people—but we have no guarantee! What if they set up this ambush in—where was it?”
“Missouri,” I said.
“And while they’re waiting another innocent family is murdered. I can’t—I can’t let that happen if there’s something I can do about it.”
“And if they do it anyway?” Andy asked. “Are you ready for that?”
“I have to be. But I will have done all I could.”
“They might come back for more,” I said. “If you pay.”
Sandy shrugged weakly. “Then they’ll just have to wait until the second week in September when I get my first school district paycheck.” She laughed weakly.
“Sweetie,” Andy pulled her back onto the sofa and squeezed her hands. “They sent me here to convince you to wait. From behind my badge, I can tell you that it’s the best opportunity we have of ending this with an arrest. Just twelve hours. But as your friend—and I shouldn’t be telling you this—you’re not wrong. You do what you need to do. Understand?”
“I know.”
“Have you slept? Have you eaten?” Andy asked.
“The last three days have been a dieting windfall. I call it the Trauma Diet.”
“Let’s get you something. I’m starved.”
I didn’t need to be told twice and took to my feet anxious to raid Sandy’s kitchen. I wondered if Keller left any of that Scotch.
Andy’s phone rang as she stood.
“It’s the Chief. I have to take this.” She stroked her phone and strolled toward a set of French doors that opened onto the deck where several nights ago she and I had decided Bargo Litton was responsible for this nightmare. I gave Arun a surreptitious head gesture toward Sandy and then the kitchen. He folded his laptop and set off after her. I followed Andy into the evening air to listen to her side of a conversation with the Chief.
“When? Where?”
“Was he with it?”
“Nothing?”
“I should go. I can have Will fly me. I can—”
The Chief spoke for a while during which Andy grew agitated.
“Which one, Chief? Johns? This Farm Family case? How do we know it’s not that? I know they’re stretched thin, but—”
The Chief explained.
“You can’t be serious! Illinois CID?”
She shook her head, harsh but silent judgment of the Chief’s instructions.
“But he’s been missing for thirty-six plus hours!”
I heard the Chief’s deep voice rise.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Andy listened. Then the call ended. She looked at me in pain.
“They found Lyle’s unit. In Rockford.” She answered my question before I could ask it. “No sign of Lyle.”
“Arun has an idea,” Sandy said as we rejoined her and Arun in the vast Stone family kitchen. Arun had produced a plate of fruit from a gigantic refrigerator. My stomach rolled over, reminding me that my last meal included haggis. Sandy gestured for Arun to speak up.
“We already have the transfer address. The transfer protocol allows for a message to be sent—like a memo for a check.”
“What’s wrong, Andrea?” Sandy asked, reading Andy’s expression.
“Our officer. Lyle Traeger. His unit was found. In Rockford, Illinois.”
“What was it doing there?” Arun asked.
Andy said she didn’t know. That no one knew.
“He hasn’t been found?” Sandy asked.
“No.”
“Dee, does Tom think this is related?” I asked.
“We don’t know.” Andy cleansed her thoughts with a deep breath. “I’m sorry. You were in the middle of saying something.”
“At 8 p.m. Miss Stone plans to make the payment,” Arun said. “What if she pays one bitcoin at 8 p.m. and tells them in the memo that she will pay the balance at 8 a.m. tomorrow? It forces them to issue a new address because the address we have can only be used once.”
“A new address doesn’t necessarily help us,” Andy said.
Sandy said, “I know I’m not law enforcement, Andrea, but this might hold them off of hurting anyone—”
“And they might make a mistake. Get impatient,” Andy mused. “Or disrupted. Maybe they’ll move into position or get caught doing a pass on the target. If I know the feds, no vehicle will be able to move in a fifty-mile radius of that farm without them knowing who’s at the wheel.”
