No Way Out, page 31
“For now, here’s all you need to know: I like challenges. If you tell me something’s not possible, I’ll find a way to make it possible. I’m a persistent son of a bitch.”
“Figured as much or GQ wouldn’t have anything to do with you.” Rodman watched Uzi’s fingers play across the keyboard another minute, trying to follow the commands he was typing. “Don’t you have to practice hacking to stay sharp?”
“Like anything else, yeah. Once a week I try to penetrate NSA’s servers. Every few months I actually get in. But they shut me down real fast.” He stopped, examined the code, then continued typing. “They’re not very happy with me.”
“Imagine that.”
“One day they’re gonna find out who’s been giving them fits, and that’s not gonna go so well. I may need to call in some favors to keep my ass out of Petersburg.”
Rodman consulted his watch. “How much longer?”
Uzi continued tapping away. “The Brits’ systems are actually pretty secure. I’ve had to be creative, while preventing them from figuring out who we are and where we’re doing it from. Not easy to do on short notice. If I could’ve planted a Trojan on their system weeks ago, this would’ve taken half an hour.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Uzi paused, read the lines of code on his screen, and then typed another command. “When I’ve got something to tell you, I’ll let you know.”
Rodman turned back to his own laptop, and, once again, checked the time.
DESANTOS GLANCED OUT the window. Vail turned to face him and they shared a look of concern. He was giving the medication time to work its magic on the brain, breaking down its conscious and unconscious barriers, loosening its internal safeguards and inhibitions.
DeSantos did not fully understand how these behavioral engineering drugs worked—particularly SP-117, which he knew next to nothing about. The last he had heard, the CIA was still attempting to obtain a viable, fresh sample to study from an FSB double agent.
That was shaky ground, given the damage the Agency suffered in the late 1970s when Project MKUltra was laid bare. It was largely believed that the idea of developing a truth drug had been put to rest. Then again, very few knew about its work on Memogen, or the research on the mind control drug China had used on Scarponi.
DeSantos had heard whispers in the intel community about a year before Scarponi was released from prison that some of the chemicals developed in the MKUltra offshoot, subproject MKAlpha, had been smuggled out of the CIA lab and kept in private university vaults for continued study. He would not be surprised to find out that the rumors were true.
Buck opened his eyes and took a long, deep breath. “Why are you still here?”
“Because I need some answers, sir. Are you working with Hussein Rudenko?”
Buck contorted his face. “Why would I have anything to do with that vermin?”
“You tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell. I am not associated with that terrorist.”
“Are you aware of any other member of the Security Service who’s involved with Hussein Rudenko or his organization?”
“If I knew that, the Queen would’ve knighted me by now.”
DeSantos frowned. The SP-117 did not seem to be as effective on Buck as it had been on Richter. He thought he had used the same dosage, but there was no way for him to be sure. Since he had not intended to use the drug again, he had not paid close attention to how much he had actually administered when questioning Richter. Then again, everyone metabolized drugs differently. He might simply need more time for it to take effect—or it might have no effect on him at all.
A couple of minutes later, while Buck appeared to be dozing, DeSantos resumed his questioning. “I need to know where the ricin is being held.”
“So do I.”
“So do you? What do you mean?”
“I need to know where the ricin is, too.”
DeSantos clenched his jaw. Was the medication flat-out not working, was Buck somehow resistant to it—or was he telling the truth?
He looked at the syringe. There were a few cubic centimeters remaining in the vial. Without forethought, he emptied it into Buck’s neck.
“Ow. Will you stop doing that?”
“I need answers. And this will help me get them.” He waited another few minutes, then asked, “Why did you want Basil Walpole killed?”
“Basil was a dear friend. Why would I want him dead?”
“We don’t have time for this,” DeSantos said. He grabbed Buck’s lapel and pulled him close. “You’re lying. We traced the signal from your CLAIR handset to Thames House. We know you sent those secure messages.”
Buck blinked. “Yes.”
DeSantos tilted his head. “Yes?”
“Yes.”
Buck’s eyelids fluttered and his body relaxed.
DeSantos released him back against the seat and slapped him gently on the cheek. “Sir, look at me. Look at me!”
His eyes rolled back and his breathing noticeably slowed.
DeSantos grabbed his wrist and felt for a pulse. “Oh, shit.”
He noticed Vail cupping her hands and looking in the driver’s side window.
DeSantos opened the door. “Dial 999, emergency services.”
“What? We can’t call the—”
“He’s having some kind of reaction to the drug. Do it now!”
50
Vail made the call, doing her best to disguise her voice as she provided the location and a brief, though cryptic, description of the problem.
It’s not like I can tell dispatch that we injected the MI5 director general with a truth drug and that we just may’ve killed him.
She hung up and pulled open the rear door. “Help me get him out. They’re on their way.”
“And do what?” DeSantos asked.
“Prop him up against that maintenance shed. We can’t be here when they arrive.”
“Can I pound my fist into a cement wall first?”
“It went that well, huh?”
DeSantos struggled to get hold of Buck’s body in the tight confines of the back seat. They finally dragged him out and leaned him against the gray stucco wall of the flat-roofed building, as Vail had suggested.
They quickly backed away and climbed into the car.
Vail started the engine. “If Buck dies—I don’t even want to think where that leaves us.”
“Honestly, we probably wouldn’t be a whole lot worse off than we were before.”
“And that accurately sums up just how fucked we were before we kidnapped Buck.” She turned right onto Vincent Square and then left onto Rutherford Street. “Did you get anything worthwhile?”
“I’m not sure. I used a Russian psychoactive drug on him. A truth drug. But it didn’t work as well as it did on Richter.”
“You used it on Richter?”
DeSantos did not reply.
“Where the hell did you get it?”
“Reid and Carter had it at the safe house.” DeSantos leaned both elbows on his knees and massaged his temples. A moment later, he said, “Buck admitted he sent the secure messages.”
“Okay.”
“No, not okay. I don’t know what the hell that means. Did he understand which secure messages I was talking about? He sent us totally legit texts that were fine. It was the one leading us to Walpole that caused the problem.” DeSantos sat back. “But his ‘admission’ came right before he lost consciousness. He was, I don’t know…groggy, I guess. No idea what ‘Yes’ means. Don’t know what it gets us.”
Vail slowed and tried to look nonchalant as a Metro police cruiser passed.
“Hear anything from Uzi while I was with Buck?”
“If I’d heard something,” Vail said, “I would’ve—”
“Fine. Just keep driving. Get us the hell away from here.”
“Where to?”
Sirens sounded in the distance. “We’ll figure it out as we drive.”
UZI SAT BACK in his seat. “Whoa, got something.”
Rodman slid over. “Important?”
“Yeah. Get Santa on the line.”
As he confirmed what he had just discovered, the call connected. Rodman handed him the phone.
“Talk to me, Boychick. Give us something good.”
“I found a signal path that leads to an office at Thames House; I believe it’s the director general’s office. But from what I’ve been able to determine, there’s some kind of anomaly that could indicate it came from 2 Marsham Street.”
“And what’s at 2 Marsham?”
“It’s the Home Office. Run by the home secretary. Buck’s boss, so to speak.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, that’s the point. I’m not sure. It’s hard to explain. Put it this way: it looks like it came from Buck’s office, but I found something that strongly suggests it actually came from the Home Office. There are irregularities that don’t make sense, so I’ve got to dig deeper. I wasn’t even going to say anything until I was sure—or more sure. But since I don’t know what stuff you’re finding on your end, in case this meant something to you, I didn’t want to keep it to myself.”
“Okay, I’ll shout at you soon.”
“Look, I know this is frustrating, but I’m not entirely sure of what I’m seeing—yet. I’m gonna stay on it. But I can’t guarantee I’ll get any further than I’ve gotten. And yes. I know time’s running out.”
“I need help with something else,” DeSantos said. “Buck had a bad reaction to a drug I used on him. Give it a bit, then find out if he’s okay. We were near Vincent Square, so check the closest hospital. I don’t know what their procedures are when a high ranking official goes down. But I’d have to think they’re going for the closest medical facility when every second counts.”
“We can check hospital databases, but do you really want us diverting our time from the problem to check on Buck?”
“Have Hot Rod give it five minutes. If he can’t get anywhere, forget it. I’m sure it’ll be on the news soon enough.”
“Copy.”
“Something else. Contact Clive Reid and Ethan Carter for us. If Buck survived and told them what we did to him—I want to make sure we’re still cool with them.”
“We need to find Hussein Rudenko,” Vail said. “Another project for Rodman. Have him tap into the CCTV cams and see if he can locate him. Reid told me most of the cameras aren’t part of the government’s system, but he suggested it’s possible to tap into the entire network.”
“If it’s possible,” Uzi said, “we’ll get it done.”
“Buck also told me they checked St. Paul’s for ricin. It was clean but a forensics unit of some kind found traces in a storage room. If true, they must’ve moved it. But I have no idea if he was bullshitting me. See what you can find out.”
DeSantos hung up and leaned his head back against the seat.
“We need to eat. Where, I’ve got no idea. But we need something. Fast food, protein bars, whatever. But it’s gotta be a place where we can avoid being filmed.”
DeSantos closed his eyes. “Good luck with that.”
51
Vail stopped at the Yellow House Bar and Kitchen in Surrey Quays, near where Uzi and Rodman were camped out in their mobile digital lab. DeSantos ordered several dinners to go: Scottish beef burgers with Gruyère cheese, hand-cut chips, Cokes. Once back in the car, he called Uzi and told him they would be there in five minutes.
“Good thing,” Uzi said, “because I’ve got a few things to show you.”
“You’re getting my hopes up, Boychick. You’d better deliver.”
“You deliver the food, I’ll deliver the goods.”
When they approached the cyber café, they circled the block three times, ensuring that they were not being followed—and that Uzi and DeSantos were not being watched.
They climbed into the back of the van and pulled the doors shut behind them.
“Whoa,” Vail said, taking in their setup.
“Not bad for a go bag and a couple of laptop cases, eh?”
Uzi’s ultrabook sat atop two stacked milk crates, with a third serving as a seat. Rodman’s workstation was identical, with an extra computer sitting off to the side.
Uzi pointed to the unattended laptop’s screen. “We’ve got three mini cameras stuck to the outside of the van, just to make sure no one suspicious comes by. Nothing outrageous, but it gives us eyes on the ground. We can play the CCTV game, too.”
“You using that cyber café’s wireless signal?” Vail asked.
“For now. We’re doing low bandwidth stuff, so it won’t raise any alarms, and I’m masking our PCs, so they can’t be discovered.”
“Need be,” Rodman said, “we’ve got the ability to use an encrypted internet connection provided we have some unobstructed sky.”
“Satellite?” Vail asked.
“Very good,” Uzi said with a nod.
“Why is everyone so surprised when I know something?”
DeSantos chuckled. “You really want an answer to that?”
“I’m going to ignore you,” she said as she reached into the brown shopping bag and pulled out the Styrofoam meal containers. “We should’ve brought a can of aerosol deodorant with us. It stinks in here.”
Uzi sniffed the air. “Of what?”
“Hardworking men,” Rodman said.
Because of Rodman’s size, Vail felt it was better not to recharacterize his description. She left it at that.
“All I smell is food.” Uzi popped the lid on his and sniffed the sandwich. “Oh, that’s heavenly. Red meat, ketchup, and fries. Excuse me. Chips.” He turned to Vail. “How’d you know?”
“Easy,” DeSantos said. “I’m the one who ordered it.”
Uzi slid over a couple of milk crates and Vail and DeSantos took seats.
A moment later, after all of them had dug into their meals, DeSantos asked, “What’d you want to show us?”
“I checked on Buck,” Rodman said, his jaw working vigorously. He swallowed, then continued. “He’s alive. Treated and released. Don’t know what the deal was, but I figured you didn’t care. He’s fine.”
Vail felt a sense of relief. Guess they won’t be adding Murder One to my case. Oh, wait—that would’ve been the second count. Or third?
“Nothing yet on the St. Paul’s search,” Uzi said as he wiped ketchup from the corner of his mouth. “Might not be in the system yet. If they haven’t filed the report, it won’t be on their server. I can’t find what’s not there.”
“Keep me posted on that. It might give us a clue as to whether or not Richter, and Buck, were telling the truth. If they lied about that, they may’ve lied about the other stuff, too.”
“Those guys you asked us to get in touch with,” Uzi said. “Reid and Carter. Spoke to Carter, but it wasn’t easy. He didn’t know who the hell I was, and I had to talk in circles around everything in case his phone was being monitored. I’ll send you Reid’s new number. When you’re ready, don’t use the iPhone I gave you. Since he’s vulnerable to being tracked, it’s not worth being voice ID’d to it and losing it altogether. Call them from a burner phone and dump it.”
“We’re using SIM cards,” Vail said.
“Fine. Just power down the handset and remove the battery after each call. Dump the card.”
Pain in the ass.
“At least they’re still willing to talk to us, after what we did to Buck.” DeSantos dug out some fries that had fallen into the bottom of his Styrofoam container. “We’re gonna need more SIM cards.”
“Thought you might.” Rodman rooted around his backpack and pulled out a small metal box. He tossed it to Vail.
Uzi took another bite. “Got some more good news.” He chewed a moment, then swallowed. “I disassembled the CLAIR and hooked up my gizmos to it. And it looks like someone else may’ve sent that message sending you there to kill Walpole. You were set up.”
She snorted. “We already knew that. Was it Buck?”
Uzi took another bite. “Don’t think so. I’m getting close to locating where the message originated from.”
“How?” DeSantos asked. “It self-erases its memory.”
Uzi looked over his burger, determining where he would take the next bite. “There are historic buffers available for user review, as well as internal diagnostic buffers protected by specialized hardware that self-destructs if an unauthorized person tries to access it. A number of gaming companies use this technology to protect information on systems returned for repair. The CLAIR has a specialized network chip with a circular buffer that holds a few minutes of the last communication.”
Vail looked at DeSantos, who merely shrugged.
“So where’d the message come from?” she asked.
He took a bite, holding up an index finger while his jaw ground from side to side. After swallowing, he said, “That building I told Santa about, the Home Office. Because of their setup, I couldn’t locate which room it came from. Or even which floor—yet. I’m still working on it. But Hot Rod found something.”
All heads swung toward Rodman, who was taking a pull from his Coke. He set it down and said, “I put together a backgrounder on Walpole, to see if we could explain why someone would want him offed.”
“He’s a politician,” Vail said. “I’m sure the list is long.”
“Here’s the part where you thank me profusely. Turns out that Walpole was sitting on a secret government commission that was investigating a British bank that’s suspected of laundering lots of dough for Hussein Rudenko.”
“Uh oh,” Vail said. “Big money equals big motive.”
“Walpole was the driving force to shut down the bank’s operations. He apparently got a lot of pushback because the bank’s a British institution and they’ve got a tremendous amount of influence in Parliament.”
“How do you know all this?” DeSantos asked.
Rodman popped a few fries in his mouth. “Simple. I looked. They have minutes from their meetings. It may be a secret commission, but I’m guessing they think their systems are secure.”
“Doesn’t every government?” Uzi asked. “Until they’re hacked?”
