Kill Decision

  McKinney nodded. “That might lead you to whoever’s behind this.”

  “But that means the surveillance complex. NSA, telecom, consumer data-tracking firms. All our access was cut off when they discovered my team’s existence. . . .” His voice trailed off as something seemed to occur to him.

  “What is it?”

  He turned to her. “There’s a man we need to see. A very bad man. . . .”

  * * *

  Eight or nine miles outside the town of Reynosa, Mexico, and close by the U.S. border, Mouse, McKinney, Odin, and his team members stood at the bottom of a finished mine shaft hundreds of feet belowground. It was a concrete-lined elevator room brightly lit by fluorescent lights. Yellow wire mesh surrounded the cargo elevator that had delivered them here. The ceiling was mounted with what appeared to be an overhead rail system for hauling cargo down a nearby corridor. The elevator operator pulled the doors closed with a thunderous rattle. Its electric motor kicked in with a whine, and it began to rise to the surface, leaving them behind.

  Mouse, whose prosthetic legs were concealed beneath jeans, walked confidently past several tough-looking Mexican men carrying assault rifles. They were dressed unaccountably in suit coats, silk shirts, and slacks. They nodded to Mouse as he brought the team into the corridor beyond.

  They’d driven several hours north from Kalitlen through cartel-controlled territory to arrive at an innocuous-looking maquiladora marked by signs as Scholl Manufacturing. Mouse had guided them past several layers of concealed doors and smuggler security to arrive here.

  McKinney glanced around as they continued down the corridor to a locked gate a hundred meters away. The overhead rail extended the entire way. “I thought we were crossing the border.”

  “You are.”

  “But we’re miles away from it.”

  “That’s what makes this so reliable. Welcome to the safest tunnel into the U.S. Seven hundred feet belowground and sixteen miles long.”

  “My God, sixteen miles?”

  “Don’t worry, Professor, you won’t be walking.”

  “Did the cartels build this?”

  Odin took her by the arm to keep her moving. “Not important. What’s important is that it’s one of the most reliable routes into the U.S., and if someone were to smuggle something or someone truly dangerous into the country, this is the route they’d use.” Odin nodded to the men around them. “These men would let Mouse know. They work for him.”

  “Mouse is running an illegal tunnel into the United States?”

  “Better a tunnel we know about than one we don’t. If you shut them all down, the cartels just dig new ones.”

  “The more I learn about the sausage-making that goes on, the less I want to know.”

  They’d arrived at the steel gate. Mouse pulled it open with a clang and ushered the team into a dark, ten-foot-diameter circular tunnel perpendicular to the corridor. The tunnel ended just a few yards to their right, but to the left echoes hinted at a vast emptiness. Rails extended off into the darkness, and a seven- or eight-foot-wide and thirty-foot-long bullet-shaped fiberglass railcar stood in front of them alongside a concrete platform. Aside from its lack of windows, it looked like a tiny commuter train.

  Mouse opened a breaker box on the wall and started slamming switches. Section by section a control console on a raised platform came to life nearby with dozens of glowing buttons. This was clearly a sophisticated operation.

  McKinney noticed power conduits extending along the walls. A gentle hum started to reverberate along the tunnel. And a moment later the railcar rose several inches.

  She nodded to herself. “You’re running an illegal maglev train into the United States.”

  Mouse was now poking at switches on the console. “The economics might not scrub for passenger trains, Professor, but they sure as hell do for Schedule One narcotics. Quiet too. No seismic disturbances for the good folks in McAllen, Texas.”

  Her technical curiosity was getting the better of her as the solid gray doors opened with a hiss, revealing a Spartan but serviceable passenger and cargo area. “How fast can it go?”

  Mouse looked down his nose at her. “It can go nearly two hundred, but you’ll be doing one-twenty. That should get you Stateside in about eight minutes.”

  McKinney couldn’t help but be impressed. Any concern she had that they’d be climbing into concealed truck compartments to cross the border had disappeared.

  Mouse unslung a light rucksack from his shoulder and opened it. He passed Odin what looked to be a stack of black passports in plastic bags. “Canadian—two for each of you in case your initial cover gets blown. Some credit cards too, but go easy on those. I can’t guarantee the numbers are still active. Oh . . .” He reached into the backpack and revealed packets of twenty-dollar bills several inches thick. “Some operating cash.” He zipped the backpack and handed it to Odin. “The guys at the other end will hook you up with a passenger van registered to a Toronto reality television production company—along with a couple video cameras that’ll give you cover for action just about anywhere.” He stopped to look at the team.

  Odin, Foxy, and the rest of the team embraced him one at a time with slaps on the back.

  Foxy looked saddest. “Mouse, man. We owe you. Again.”

  “You don’t owe me. Just complete your mission, and earn your damn paycheck.”

  “Wish you were coming with us.”

  He laughed good-naturedly. “Fuck that. I got my own war to fight. Find the bad guys and get back safe—and keep the professor here out of trouble.”

  McKinney hugged Mouse too.

  He studied her with his one eye. “You remember what I said.”

  She nodded. “I will. Give my best to Lalenia. Hopefully we’ll see you both again.”

  He saluted as they all entered the railcar, and the doors closed behind them.

  CHAPTER 25

  Personae Management

  Linda McKinney gazed across the street at a generic four-story stucco office building near Palm River in East Tampa, Florida. It was the type of building you could drive past for years without noticing. The rest of the neighborhood was dotted with liquor stores and check-cashing outlets. She was dressed in business slacks and a cotton blouse, with a leather handbag over her shoulder. Odin walked next to her in khakis and a green polo shirt with loafers. It was a balmy seventy degrees and sunny. They traversed the cracked, weed-encrusted sidewalk to enter a musty lobby with a faded NO SOLICITING sticker stuck to the window.

  Odin perused the disheveled lobby directory and tapped the black-and-white push-on letters above “Zion Strategies” on the fourth floor. He led the way to a worn-looking elevator carved with messenger graffiti.

  McKinney spoke after the doors closed with a loud thump. “Would we need this person if we hadn’t lost Hoov?”

  “Probably. Hoov had scruples.”

  “How do you know this guy?”

  “Someone I worked with in the past. His specialty is data—getting it and misusing it.”

  She looked at the shabby elevator car. “Looks successful.”

  “Flies below the radar. That’s why he’s useful to us. Which reminds me: Don’t believe anything he tells you. He has talents we need, but this man is a manipulative sociopath.”

  “Sounds like a great addition to the team.”

  The doors opened and Odin brought them down a mildewed hallway past cheap wood veneer doors with no-frills black plaques listing immigration attorneys and mail order companies. Soon they arrived at a door with no plaque at all, only a peephole and a massive dead-bolt lock. None of the neighboring office doors had either.

  Odin examined the lock. “An old Medeco biaxial. I should be able to bump this.” He reached into his pocket to produce a small leather case, which he flipped open to reveal an array of tools. He slipped a small brass key out, then took his small Maglite with the end wrapped in duct tape. “If anyone’s coming, cough.”

  McKinney raised her eyebrows. ?
??Are you really—?”

  “Watch the hall.” He worked so fast, she barely had time to see it. He slipped what looked like a simple filed-down key into the lock, pulled it out slightly, and then gave it a quick whack with the taped end of the Maglite. He then turned the dead bolt as though he had the correct key and entered the office. A glance inside, and he nodded for her to follow.

  Before McKinney had time to debate breaking and entering, they were both walking into a low-end reception area without an actual receptionist, just an empty front desk piled with FedEx and UPS packages. She could hear people talking and hands clattering on computer keyboards as they moved down a central hallway. The hallway opened up to a modest cubicle farm with tinny Christian rock music playing on PC speakers somewhere.

  “. . . my savior! Savior! Say-vii-ooorrr!”

  Odin walked with purpose, having put away the key and Maglite, and he headed toward the closed office door at the far end. McKinney couldn’t help but catch the eye of one of the office workers, a twentyish white kid with piercings and dyed blue hair. She nodded to him and kept going. He immediately turned back to his keyboard, uncurious.

  Before they reached the office door, a heavyset, middle-aged blond woman in jeans and a bright pink T-shirt for a charity 5K came around the corner holding a manila folder blooming with colorful Post-it flags. She slowed. “Can I help you?”

  Odin shook his head. “He gave me a key. You his admin?”

  “The office manager.”

  “Then, no, you can’t help me.” He kept walking straight to the closed door at the end of the hall. It opened up into a sizable corner office containing IKEA furniture, a flat-screen TV, and gaming consoles. The whole office was a mishmash of styles. There were thick folders piled everywhere and stuffed shelves lining the walls, overflowing with fat programming books—dozens of languages and methodologies, from Perl to Java to Hadoop, to pen-testing, and exploiting online games.

  The occupant of the office sat in a brown leather chair, talking on the phone with his back to them as he faced downtown Tampa in the distance. His silver-toed cowboy boots rested up on a credenza. McKinney followed Odin inside, still with no clear idea how she should be acting.

  Surprised that someone had entered his office, the man put his feet down and rotated his chair, still talking into the phone. “. . . aged accounts—at least a year. The older the better. And active posters.” He frowned at the office manager, then at McKinney—and then his eyes went wide when he saw Odin. He spoke into the phone. “Hey, man. I gotta take this. Text me when you got ’em. Yeah.”

  He hung up and just stared.

  Odin nodded. “How are things, Mordecai?”

  His office manager frowned. “There’s been some mistake. Mister James is—”

  “Get out, Maggie.” When she didn’t hop to it, he shooed her out with ringed fingers. “Now! And close the door.”

  She nodded and obeyed, her face taut with humiliation.

  McKinney kept her eyes on the man. He was in his mid-twenties, reasonably good-looking, but with the oily presence of a gold-chain salesman in a bad part of town. He wore a denim shirt with embroidery on the chest pockets. His fingers held several rings of similar design. Though he was still young, his hair was thinning, a situation he compensated for with Isaac Asimov–style muttonchop sideburns. He was still staring at Odin with utter incomprehension.

  Odin dropped into one of the chairs in front of the desk. “No hello?”

  “Thanks for using my real name, asshole. I see you got rid of that bin Laden beard of yours. I barely recognized you. Why the fuck are you here?”

  Odin motioned for McKinney to take a seat next to him. “So what is it now—Ryan James? That’s pretty bland for a guy like you.” Odin gestured in their host’s direction. “Professor, this used to be the far more interesting Mordecai Elijah Evans—a very talented member of a U.S. Cyber Command worm squad—part of the Joint Functional Component Command for Network Warfare. Mort here was their pet black-hat. On a short leash under the threat of—what was it again, Mort?—sixty-five years and a two-million-dollar fine?”

  “I paid my debt to society.”

  “But not your debt to me.”

  “You don’t— You’d better not be here for me, Odin. One phone call, and you go away. I have friends now. Powerful, official friends.”

  “I need your talents.”

  “I don’t work for DOD anymore. I got my package, motherfucker. Legal pardon. A new life.” He gestured to the office. “I’m a legitimate businessman.”

  Odin nodded appreciatively. “Yes, very lifelike.”

  Evans sneered back at the sarcasm with an intense nasal imitation of Odin’s voice. “Mmm . . . vera lifelike. Fuck you. I’m not the same person I was back then.”

  “Not the same name maybe, but I don’t think you’ve changed. You forget how much I know about you.”

  “Leave, or I make a call.”

  Odin spoke to McKinney, keeping his eyes on Evans. “Morty here sold zero-day exploits to international criminal gangs—helped advanced technology escape to parts unknown. What we’re dealing with right now might be because of him.”

  “I got my deal. They need people like me, Odin. It’s that simple. Door kickers like you are replaceable—or should I say disposable? I am not.” He frowned. “How did you get in, anyway?”

  “I kicked the door in.”

  “Look, this is all moot. You can’t twist my arm anymore. I’m part of the system now. The system wants you to leave.” He swept his arm dramatically to point at the door. “So leave.”

  “I need information. You’re going to help me get it.”

  Evans just laughed. “Are you deaf? I’ve got powerful allies, and I don’t work for you.” He put his hand over the multiline phone system on his desk. “One more word, and I make the call.”

  Odin leaned forward and produced a black automatic pistol from the waistband at the small of his back. He held it up for Evans to clearly see. McKinney noticed a short exposed barrel with threads at the end of its blocky body. The words USP Tactical were engraved in letters large enough to read on its side.

  Evans just frowned at it. “What, are you kidding me?”

  Odin produced a metal cylinder from his pocket and proceeded to screw it onto the end of the barrel.

  Evans laughed. “I feel insulted by this posturing.”

  McKinney grabbed Odin’s shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Odin finished screwing on the suppressor. “I’m doing what’s necessary, Professor. I assure you, there’s no other means to secure Mordecai’s cooperation.”

  “But you’re making me party to a— I don’t think we need this person so badly that we need to resort to this.”

  “Listen to the lady, Odin.”

  Odin shook his head but kept looking at Evans. “Mort, would you cooperate under any circumstances other than the threat of physical force?”

  Evans chuckled and ruefully shook his head. “You know, I’m going to have to say no to that—in fact, I’m going to say no to physical force as well.” He picked up the handset of his desk phone. “If I disappeared—all these witnesses. Too many cameras. They’d track you down. It would be suicide to lay a finger on me.”

  Odin chambered a round. “Good thing I don’t give a shit.”

  “Well, you care about your team. The man can get to them to get to you.”

  “My team’s all dead. Betrayed by someone inside the system. The same system you now belong to, apparently.”

  Evans’s smile started to fade.

  “And if you check around, I think you’ll find they’re already hunting for me. Killing you would have no effect whatsoever on my afternoon, much less my life.”

  McKinney could see the change in Evans’s face—the first time he’d shown any regard whatsoever for Odin. She watched, feeling bad for being a party to threatening this man she’d never met, and tried not to react to Odin’s lie.

  Evans had gone
pale. “Who’s your pretty friend, Odin?” Evans grinned weakly.

  “You call her ‘Professor.’”

  Evans extended his hand. “Good to meet you, Professor.”

  McKinney nodded and shook his clammy hand.

  Evans didn’t let go immediately but instead studied her hand. “Not an operator.” He pointed toward Odin but spoke to McKinney. “See that callus on Odin’s gun hand? You get that firing fifty thousand rounds a year. The training acclimates you to gunfire. And the screams of innocents.”

  Odin still held the pistol aimed toward the drop ceiling.

  Evans kept a wary eye on Odin. “Professor, do you have any idea how many people he’s killed?”

  McKinney couldn’t help but glance with concern at Odin.

  “You remember that shopkeeper in Dushanbe, Odin? How he pleaded for his life, and you just double-tapped him in front of his kid. So glad I could help you locate him. Makes me proud to be an American.”

  Odin remained emotionless. “If you were so disturbed, why’d you take his cigarettes?”

  “Because they were French cigarettes.” Evans was starting to perspire. “In your experience, Professor, what usually happens to witnesses when heartless guys like this get what they want? See, I think they kill witnesses to cover their tracks. That’s what I think.”

  McKinney cast an impatient look at Odin and motioned for him to put the gun down. “Mr. Evans, we just need information. If you help us, I promise you that I won’t let Odin harm you.”

  Evans laughed. “Oh, you won’t let him harm me. I’d like to see that. What sort of information?”

  McKinney cast Odin another look and kept the floor. “Communications records.”

  He looked back and forth between them, and then let out an exasperated sigh. “Okay, we’re doing this the hard way: What sort of communication records?”

  McKinney hesitated. “We need access to historical data—we want to find out who in the intelligence sector might have been searching for drone attack victims just before they were killed.”