He looked at his watch. His breach and clear of the premises had taken seven minutes, twelve seconds.
For step two, the security eval, he did a quick walk through of the home, looking for evidence of a roommate who was not home but might return, a dog out for a walk with a walker, a live-in girlfriend who might pop home for lunch, kids who needed to be brought home from school early, or any indication that others came and went. From the closets he determined Ethan lived alone, although it was clear two people had slept in the bed the previous evening.
Dom knew from Albright that the man had a girlfriend, but the only photographs he found around the home were either of Ethan himself or of Ethan’s mother.
Next Dom focused on the file cabinet in Ross’s small home office. He thumbed through the meticulously indexed files until he found a tab that said Home Security. He pulled out the file, shuffled through some papers, and located an index card containing the password for the system’s key panel. He put the paperwork back where he found it, hurried downstairs, plugged the power back in to the wall box, and shut the case. At the key panel by the front door he typed in the password and disarmed the alarm, putting it in a dormant mode that would not activate if the doors were opened or closed.
Stage two was complete twelve minutes and twenty seconds after he entered through the basement door.
Still looking at his watch, Dom felt he probably had several hours before Ethan would return from work, but he didn’t have any information about a possible housekeeper, so he gave himself only thirty minutes to do what he needed to do inside the home.
Now came stage three; the SSE, or sensitive site exploitation.
He began upstairs in the bedroom, and he found a mobile phone by Ross’s bed, which surprised him. Most people have only one phone, and they keep it with them. For a brief, horrifying second Dom worried Ross was still somewhere in the house, but the thought quickly disappeared as Dom realized he’d already checked every room at least once. This guy simply owned more than one phone, for some reason. Dom checked the phone quickly for any telltales, anything Ross might have set up so he could know if it had been tampered with, then carefully confirmed the device was password-protected. Yep. Damn.
Pulling intel off the device would take hacking equipment Dom did not have, but finding this phone was not a complete strikeout. He looked it over closely and decided it was new, the buttons were stiff and the case was pristine. He then carefully opened the back of the phone with a small screwdriver and photographed the number on the SIM card. Dom knew, with the right equipment, the subscriber identity module number could be used to track the phone or trace its usage.
He checked the living room next. It was rather stately for its small size, with high ceilings and antique bookcases. Dom didn’t have time to check all the books for hidden papers or other incriminating evidence, so he set his phone to record video of everything out in the open, paying special attention to handwritten phone numbers, parking stubs, receipts, and other items that Ethan generated in his day-to-day life that might be able to attach him to either a person or a place.
Dom spent the next several minutes looking through the wastepaper baskets, thumbing through mail and receipts, and filming everything as he went.
He didn’t have time to go through everything, but this was exploitation, not analysis. When he got back home he would feed the video file through analytical software that would identify, evaluate, and categorize words and numbers pulled from each image.
Dominic filmed a stack of books on a shelf, and a similar stack on the coffee table. Every last one of them had to do with computer security.
Of course, Dom knew that Ross’s girlfriend was a computer security expert, but these looked like textbooks, not something she would need, since she had earned her doctorate years ago.
So they belonged to Ross? Was this guy a policy wonk, or was he a computer programmer? Dom realized he was looking for reasons to be suspicious of the man, and this proved nothing in itself, but it was at least a little curious.
He kept searching.
A MacBook Pro sat on the living room couch. Dom checked it quickly for any obvious tamper detection traps, such as a hair attached to the lid and base that would break if someone opened it. Just like with the phone he found no telltales, which made Dom think Ross behaved just like most normal people, and he had mistakenly put his faith in a home security system that could be defeated by anyone with a screwdriver and a little knowledge.
Dom opened the laptop and confirmed it was, in fact, password-protected. He imagined there were answers to be found on the hard drive, but he didn’t have the resources to uncover them. He thought about David and his promise for logistical support from the Mossad, but he couldn’t think of a way to exploit the hard drive in the time he had to do so without Ross knowing someone had been snooping around his place.
No. That wouldn’t work. Dom would have to find clues somewhere else.
Five minutes later he was back upstairs in Ross’s office, flipping through the paper on his desk, then digging inside the drawers. In a file folder he found a copy of Ross’s clean title on a 2013 Mercedes Benz E-Class coupe. Red. Dom took a picture of the VIN. If he could find it later—either here at Ethan’s house or in a parking lot near the Eisenhower Building, he would attach a slap-on GPS locator under the bumper so he could track the vehicle with an app on his phone.
On a whiteboard on the wall by the desk Dom saw Ross had written a few notes to himself, and he sucked these up into the video recording.
His watch chirped, alerting him he had ten minutes remaining of his allotted thirty. He went downstairs for a quick check of the kitchen, and here he looked through drawers and cabinets and at cans and jars. He recorded matchbooks, pens and notepads with logos, even the names and vintages of the wines in his wine rack. He found small plastic pill bottles on the peninsula, and they stood out because unlike most prescription medication, there were no markings on any of the bottles. Inside each he saw several pills, with each bottle containing pills of a different color and shape. Dom photographed them carefully, and then put them back where he’d found them.
He had just started to check for trace markings on a blank notepad attached to the refrigerator when he heard a noise, like a footfall, on the small brick porch outside the front door of the row house, just twenty-five feet from where he now stood. He was understandably startled at first, but within a half-second he deduced it must have been the mailman.
Dom stood there for a moment, watching the mail slot, expecting his assumption to be confirmed when a stack of letters and ads fell to the floor. While he watched, he reached over and flipped back on the wireless security camera covering entrance and the living room.
But just as he flipped the switch, Dom heard the unmistakable and panic-inducing sound of a key sliding into the lock of the front door. The door latch clicked instantly, and a shaft of light from outside raced toward him along the hardwood floor.
21
DOMINIC DROPPED flat on his chest in the kitchen behind the peninsula, shielding himself from the entryway. He spun himself around to face the doorway at the back of the kitchen, which led to the hallway that ran along the northern side of the first floor. He began pulling himself forward with his hands so his sneakers didn’t squeak on the polished floorboards, using his cotton coveralls to slide silently.
Behind him, he could hear the front door close and someone in the living room walk over to the wall security system keypad and punch a couple buttons.
A male voice muttered, “What the fuck?”
Dom suspected this was Ross, and he’d obviously just noticed the security system was disarmed, meaning either someone had changed it or else he had forgotten to set it this morning when he left for work.
Dom kept pulling himself across the floor, slowly but surely. While he did so he thought Ross would have to be either incredibly switched on or a complete obsessive-compulsive to have no doubts he had remembered to alarm the system.
br />
There was an entrance to the hallway to the back stairs from the living room, and another from the back of the kitchen. Dom hoped like hell Ross would bypass the kitchen altogether, but he heard the creaking footfalls on the hardwood as Ross began moving in his direction.
Dom picked up the pace, moving along the floor. He kept his legs up and pulled himself with his forearms, using the low friction of the slick surface to slide along on his chest and hips. It took all his upper-body strength to accomplish this, and doing so without grunting with effort was difficult.
He pulled himself into the hallway out of view, and he’d just kicked his legs out of the kitchen when the kitchen light snapped on. Ross was just fifteen feet behind him at the light switch, and very possibly still heading his way toward the stairs up to his bedroom.
Dom launched to his feet and moved straight back down the hall, making his footsteps as soft as possible and doing his best to keep them in perfect cadence with the louder steps of Ross behind him. Dom passed the staircase on his left and ducked through the open doorway of a tiny laundry room on the right. The dark space was barely enough room for a stacked washer and dryer, but Dom pressed himself hard against the appliances to stay out of view from up the hall.
He heard keys dropped on a counter, and the footsteps behind halted for an instant, but then they started up again.
Looking directly ahead, Dom could see the stairs in front of him. If Ross climbed the stairs he would only have to glance down and to his right to see a man in gray coveralls and a white hard hat leaning back into his washer and dryer.
Ethan Ross entered the hallway on Dom’s left and began climbing the stairs.
Dom pushed himself against his backpack with all his might, backing himself up another inch or two. He was furious for allowing himself to get into this compromised and dangerous position. He had a pistol in a shoulder holster under his coveralls, but he wasn’t about to pull it on a guy who, so far, Dom had enough evidence to suspect only of being a rich mama’s boy. If Ross saw him, Dom could do little more than run for the front door.
ETHAN CLIMBED THE STAIRS toward the second floor, slowly and distractedly, in great contrast to his movements since leaving his office a half-hour earlier. He’d all but raced home, intent on getting in touch with Banfield and Bertoli as soon as possible, but this all changed the moment he entered his house and tried to turn off his home security system only to find it had already been disarmed. He was out of it today, not nearly as confident as he needed to be, but he couldn’t believe he hadn’t armed the security system before he left this morning. He thought back and was nearly certain he remembered doing so, but he had to admit to himself that, despite his sharp intellect, for mundane repetitive tasks it wasn’t hard to get one day confused with the next.
Ethan pushed the alarm system out of his mind as he headed into his bedroom, and immediately he returned to his main worry. Special Agent Darren Albright. Ethan had left work shortly after Albright left his office. He wasn’t concerned about appearances, he told Angie he was heading out for lunch before his dentist appointment and would be gone for the rest of the day. And although he was certain she’d heard at least part of his conversation with the special agent, he knew Angie wouldn’t suspect him for an instant of being a whistleblower. He changed out of his suit and then stepped into his closet to grab a pair of jeans and a cashmere sweater. All the while he thought about how he would get in touch with Banfield. He had to be sharp now, sharper than he’d obviously been so far. Making contact with Banfield without using the fire-hydrant signal was a danger, of course, but he thought it so important now it was even worth risking a phone call, although he knew he had to use some sort of code in case either he or Banfield was under surveillance.
When he was still in the process of getting dressed he picked his home phone out of its cradle by his bed, then brought it to his ear. As he did so he noticed the mobile Banfield had convinced him to purchase a few days earlier, and he occurred to him it would be foolish of him to use his landline to make the call.
He cradled the home phone and snatched up the mobile. While he dialed the number with one hand, he struggled to pull his head through his cashmere sweater.
DIRECTLY DOWNSTAIRS, Dominic slipped off his sneakers, then tied the laces together quickly so he could hang them around his neck. In his stocking feet, he scooted along the floor of the downstairs hallway so as to stay as quiet as possible, and he moved to the back of the house. He entered the covered porch— he was in front of the lens of the security camera in the pantry, but he knew it wouldn’t matter now that Ross was home. The wireless camera wouldn’t send an alert to his phone if his phone was connected to the same network, because it knew he was home.
Dom first planned to make his way out the back door, climb the fence, and clear the scene, but the fact Ross was home gave him an opportunity Dom could not pass up.
He took a knee by the messy coffee table on the closed in porch and he recorded all the paperwork there with the video function of his camera phone. He found more papers in a magazine rack next to the couch, and this he pulled out and sifted through quickly, careful to record each sheet.
While he worked he kept his ears tuned to the footfalls directly above him. He could hear Ross moving into and out of his closet, and then he heard a muffled voice.
It was only Ross speaking, so Dom presumed he was talking on the phone.
Dom didn’t know if he was using the mobile phone by the bed or another mobile, but he sure as hell wasn’t using the landline in the house, because Dom had disconnected the wire in the box outside.
Dom couldn’t make out anything said until the very end of the one-sided conversation, when Ross all but shouted, his voice agitated, “I mean today! Right the fuck now!”
Dom thought this sounded highly suspicious. He finished his work on the porch and headed for the door. It had a serious exposed slide lock and a massive deadbolt. Dom unlocked the deadbolt, but just as he reached for the sliding lock, he jerked to a stop. Behind him in the hallway came the sound of creaking stairs—Ethan Ross was on his way down.
Shit.
On the other side of the back door was a screen door, and Dom imagined it would be a noisy proposition to open this in a hurry. He turned away from the exit and scooted in his stocking feet back to a hallway closet by the entrance to the porch. He pushed himself inside, hiding behind the array of thick coats hanging there. He just needed a place to stay out of sight until Ross left the house. He’d peeked in the closet earlier, and now he decided it was his best possible option.
But Murphy’s Law kicked in. He heard Ross’s shoes squeak on the hallway floorboards when he turned at the stairs and began walking in Dom’s direction. Dom realized Ross was heading for this very closet. Dominic rolled his eyes, pushed his backpack hard against the wall, and fought the urge to yank his Smith & Wesson out of his shoulder holster.
The closet door opened, Dom remained pressed flat against the cedar back wall, he didn’t move a muscle, and he held his breath.
Son of a bitch.
Ross fumbled with his coats for what seemed to Dominic to be an eternity. He yanked out a suede riding jacket, then put it back in favor of a camel-wool three-quarter-length coat, and then finally he settled on a high-tech red North Face synthetic down ski jacket. When he pulled it out Dom was exposed at the back of the closet, but Ross had already turned away. He shut the door and headed toward the front of the house, and Dom blew out a long, silent sigh.
As Ross entered the living room, his mobile phone rang. Dom heard him answer, and he managed to pick up the majority of the conversation because Ross’s voice carried down the hallway.
“Hey, Mom. No, I left early. I told you. Dentist appointment. Taking the rest of the day off.”
Next came some grumbling from Ross that Dom couldn’t understand, then he said, “I’ll do it later. I don’t have time right now.”
After several more seconds of frustrated complaining, he said, “
I’m walking out the door. It’s up in my office. I’ll call you later and—” A long hesitation and an almost childish sigh Dom could hear even through the closed closet door. “All right! Wait a minute.”
Dominic heard Ross running back upstairs; he sounded annoyed and hurried. When Dom knew Ross had stepped into his second-floor office, Dom pushed his way out of the closet and walked in his stocking feet to the back door. There he carefully unlocked the wooden door and opened it, then slowly pushed open the screen door. As he suspected, it squeaked upon opening, but Ross was talking on the phone upstairs, giving his mother someone’s name and e-mail address.
Dom walked through the tiny backyard, staying close to the wall of the house in the offhand chance Ross was looking out a second-floor window right now. He made it to the driveway, knelt to put his shoes back on, and then he turned to head around to the front of the property.
Dom found the red E-Class parked in the drive. He reached into his backpack as he walked up to it, and he barely broke stride when he knelt down and placed a slap-on GPS receiver under the rear bumper.
He reattached the phone line at the junction box, and then closed it up, and he headed toward the street. With a quick glance to the front door of the Ross row house to confirm he was in the clear, Dom stepped out onto 34th and began walking north.
As he walked away he heard Ross open and then shut his front door. Dom didn’t look back, even when the Mercedes pulled out of the drive into the street and screeched off to the south, again with heavy music blasting from its speakers.
Dom relaxed for the first time in an hour. He’d done it, he didn’t think he’d gotten much for his troubles, but he had collected some data he could analyze, and he had a way to see where Ross was heading. He suspected he was not going to the dentist. Whoever he was meeting with, Ross seemed to think it was an emergency.
Dom wouldn’t try to track him to his meeting, it was too risky. Instead, he decided he’d go home and sit at his laptop and watch his movements in real time him while he loaded all the data he’d picked up into the analytical software.