Valerie shoved her weapon inside the waistband of her jeans. She found some paper towels on a workbench and handed them to Rod. “Clean yourself up,” she said, “and go back inside the house to your wife and kids.”
He took the roll of paper towels from her and dried his eyes and blew his nose. He stood on a pair of shaky legs and walked toward the overhead door. He was about to push the button to activate the door when it began opening. Valerie started to draw her weapon, but stopped when two sets of small feet appeared beneath the slowly-rising door.
“Daddy?”
The word was said in a way that made every parent shiver with fear. When the door was halfway up, the two Smith boys rolled under the rising door, with AR-15 rifles aimed directly at Valerie and me before they were standing.
We didn’t move a muscle.
Moore, who followed in close behind them, was the first to speak, shoving Rod’s three children and wife roughly inside the garage.
“Very clever girl, your daughter,” Moore said, pointing at Leecy. “I hadn’t factored her into the equation. But I won’t make that mistake again, will I?”
Porter answered like a seal at Sea World responding to its trainer when prompted with a fish. “No, not a chance, my friend.”
“Leave Anderson and his family alone. You don’t need them anymore. I’ll give you what you want,” Valerie said.
“Oh, you bet you will. Cause if you don’t, I’m going to kill your daughter in the most unpleasant way imaginable,” Moore said.
He walked between Valerie and me, taking Leecy by the arm, saying, “You’re coming with me. Mommy and Daddy can have you back when they get me what I want.”
Valerie was calm. No sign of anger or fear crossed her face. Her hands were as loose and easy at her side, as was her voice when she said, “Just tell me what you want, and I will bring it to you myself.”
The one calling himself Briggs Smith lowered his weapon.
“Not yet, Boss. I owe this one big time.”
He slammed the butt of the AR-15 into my stomach, and as I doubled over he brought the butt of the rifle down on the back of my head. I fell to one knee. I was fighting for consciousness. My vision was blurry and there was a ringing in my ear. Maybe it was Smith yelling at me, but I wasn’t sure.
“‘Considered dangerous,’ my ass.”
He kicked me in the face, and then I only saw black.
Chapter 7
I woke up on the cold concrete floor of Anderson’s garage. I didn’t know how long I’d been out, but at least I was alive. I knew where I was because the first face I saw was Rod’s, staring down at me.
“What happened?”
“Well, after that guy kicked you in the head and knocked you out, he left with the others and your daughter. Your wife is inside the house with this lady named Wakefield, four guys and another lady named Julia. How’s your head?”
“It’s been better. Got any aspirin?”
“Sure, sit tight. You probably have a concussion. Don’t move,” I heard him say as he ran from the garage.
I stood slowly and was immediately dizzy. I fought the urge to vomit. Rod was right; I probably did have a concussion. I walked on very unsteady legs toward the open overhead door and the fresh night air. I used the track for the overhead door to steady myself before pushing off and walking toward the front door of the house. The pathway looked like it was a mile long and curved like the letter S, but I managed to make it to the front door. I fell up the two steps, pushing the front door of the house open. I saw with blurred vision heads turn and look in my direction. I couldn’t make out any of the faces. I heard talking and the sounds of soothing voices, but I didn’t understand what was being said. Valerie’s face came into focus. She was crossing the floor toward me. She was unharmed.
“You’ve got a really nasty black eye and busted lip. Here, look in the mirror,” she said as she steered me to the left.
I saw myself. The left side of my face was red with black and blue streaks. My face reminded me of pictures my Great Uncle John had of Indians ready for battle with faces painted with war paint.
I was still admiring myself in the mirror when I remarked, “I’ve seen worse. Will someone get me some ice or frozen peas for the swelling, please? What happened after I lost consciousness?”
Val steered me to the kitchen table and helped me sit down. She found some frozen vegetables in the freezer and placed one bag on my face and one on the back of my head.
“You have a hematoma on the back of your head the size of a baseball. Sit here. Rod is getting the aspirin.” She turned to walk away but I grabbed her hand and said in my firmest voice.
“Look, I’ve been shot twice, stabbed in the back and chest. I’ve broken both arms and one hand. This is nothing. Tell me what happened.”
“Moore and Porter have Leecy. Wakefield’s team found cameras and microphones all over the Andersons’ home. Moore has had the Andersons under surveillance for who knows how long. Julia and Zachary are trying to use the cameras and their signal to trace back and find a location for Moore and Porter. Julia says the surveillance cameras were using the Andersons’ home WIFI connection to transmit their signals. The cameras and listening devices were sending their data to another IP address. Julia thinks the location of the receiving IP address might lead us to Leecy. Julia also said that Moore is bouncing that IP address signal off of every unsecured WIFI in the area, and in some cases, even a satellite or two. So tracing the IP address signal back to its origin might take a while. Julia is also concerned that if the Andersons’ home was being watched, then INESCO might be under surveillance also. She and Zachary are preparing to sweep INESCO for transmission signals similar to the ones found here when we get back to the office.”
Valerie freed her hand from my mine and walked a few steps away to lean against the kitchen counter. “Zachary and Ryan are also trying to locate Leecy using the earpiece she’s wearing, or hope she’s still wearing.”
There was something else she wasn’t telling me. I could see it all over her face. I felt whatever it was had to be pretty bad in her mind, because she was reluctant to share it.
“Tell me what you don’t want to tell me.”
She was silent, but finally spoke.
“Moore gave me the DOD code that corresponds with the internal alphanumeric code I assign a new product. I don’t know how he got it. Wakefield thinks he hacked the DOD, but we don’t know for sure. It doesn’t matter. I know what they want.”
I waited, but Valerie didn’t say anything else. She pushed off the counter, walking across the room to the dining room table, where Wakefield’s team was working on a laptop.
I stood to follow her, but I saw Rod enter the kitchen from what must have been a hall and say, “I got you aspirin.”
“Great, thank you,” I said. “So what are Moore and Porter after? Do you know?”
“Yes,” he answered, “and it turns out it’s a project of Valerie’s. It’s a new monomer technology. Funny thing,” he paused as he remembered, “she discovered it quite by accident, and wouldn’t have submitted it to the DOD if some of our other products had tested better. Regardless, Valerie’s little beauty is amazing. The compound can be made into a pourable liquid and molded to any shape. The resulting mold is undetectable, as is any object that is dipped in or sprayed with the compound. The compound bonds to the object on a molecular level, and the resulting polymer doesn’t alter the object in any way. The gun still fires, the C4 still explodes, but they are now undetectable to any current detection devices. Do you follow me Ron? You look like you don’t.”
My head was pounding and my face was hurting badly, but I managed a nod to indicate I was with him. In fact, I was thinking of the havoc that would be caused by a product like the one he described. I was running down the list of objects that could be molded to conceal a bomb and stopped after ten. I realized the possibilities were endless. I could see Rod was still talking to me,
and forced myself to listen.
“She ran the entire barrage of necessary tests. I think she was as shocked as anyone. Not one of the objects tested was detected by metal scan, x-ray, or millimeter-wave machine scans. You can see the object with the naked eye, but the object remains invisible to any form of man-made detection, unless, of course, the person carrying the object is being physically patted down. There’s a group at Duke University and another group over in Texas working on cloaking technology as in the Harry Potter movies. They’ve had some success bending light waves around one side of an object. But those groups haven’t achieved the level of invisibility this compound can produce. Valerie’s invention may not make the object invisible to the human eye, but if the object can’t be detected, it might as well be invisible, you know?
“Anyway, Valerie’s compound, or VS621-971, is the first real breakthrough in cloaking technology.” He was leaning in toward me real close now, and I was about to ask him what he was doing when he said, “I can see the print of the boot that kicked you.”
I turned my face away from him to see Valerie walking toward me. I could see she was wearing the responsibility of the situation like it was hers and hers alone. I reached out my hand and she took it, and I pulled her to me. I held her there for a long moment. I felt her melt into me. She sighed deeply, not wanting to be the strongest person in the room at that moment, but just wanting to be a mother and a wife.
“They have her, Ron,” she whispered. “They have our baby. Those men who threatened Rod by saying they’d do such horrible things to his family. They have our Leecy.”
“Moore and company won’t do anything to her. They want something and they need Leecy to get it, that’s all,” I said, trying to calm her, and I hoped I was right.
Wakefield’s voice was the next sound I heard in my ear. “Let’s not forget it was your baby that figured all this out. I think she’ll be just fine. How’s Moore going to contact you?”
“He said he’d call the offices of INESCO at midnight with a time and place to make the exchange,” Valerie answered.
Looking at her watch, Wakefield said, “It’s now 8:30 p.m. We have more than three hours to prepare. I suggest we turn the tables on these little shits and use what they want against them.”
Valerie looked around the room and then said, “Let’s get back to INESCO.”
We made the drive to INESCO in a little less than ten minutes. The earpiece chatter was constant. Wakefield and her team were trying to track the IP address they’d discovered with no luck, and also preparing a signal sweep for listening devices at INESCO. I was about to ask a question when Julia’s voice came through the earpiece.
“If our security sweep of INESCO indicates surveillance is in progress, I don’t think we should disable whatever it is, but instead use it to gain an advantage.”
“How do you know they aren’t listening to us right now, and have been all this time?” I asked.
“Mr. Granger, we made that assumption the moment Agent Moore revealed himself to be working for his own self interests. I sent each earpiece a recalibration signal that blocked him as soon as we left Atlanta.”
“Wonderful,” I said.
“Everyone stay in their vehicles,” Wakefield ordered as we pulled into the INESCO parking lot. “Hodges, you and Franks bring the Simon family outside and secure them in your SUV. We’ll hold our positions and maintain radio silence, just to be on the safe side. Julia and Zach, you two run the diagnostics and report back to my position with the results.”
I heard ‘ten-four’ in my ear five times, and added one of my own. Valerie and I watched from the Jeep as a black SUV rounded the corner a block away and headed for the parking lot. The Simons exited the building under Franks’ watchful eye as the SUV, driven by Hodges, came to a complete stop. With David, Isaac, Reuben and Catherine safely tucked away inside the SUV, Julia and Zachary exited the vehicle they were sharing with Wakefield and Ryan.
Julia’s voice was in my ear again saying, “Zachary will check the phone lines for listening devices, and I’ll sweep the rooms for the same.”
There was nothing to do but wait and watch. I looked at the dashboard clock; it was 8:45 p.m. Leecy had been gone for almost an hour. I reached out and took Valerie’s hand. I wanted my daughter back safe and sound. I wanted my family back together, and I wanted to get my hands on Moore, Porter, and the Smiths. I realized I was squeezing Valerie’s hand too hard when she punched me in the arm mouthing ouch at me.
The doors of INESCO opened. Julia and Zachary exited the building. The two computer techs made a beeline for Wakefield’s SUV and gathered at the open window on the passenger’s side. I was just about to break the radio silence when Julia walked toward our vehicle. She came along the driver’s side to my open window.
“We have multiple listening devices inside the main office, but no tap on the phone line. Zachary wants to extend the sweep to the production areas and the R&D labs, but we need access. He’s asking your brothers and father now, but I wanted to check with you, Valerie.”
“Do it,” Valerie said, “but I think it’s highly unlikely they gained access to plant listening devices to those newer areas of the facility, and I don’t think Rod planted devices for them. He would’ve told us, but better safe than sorry. Do your sweep.”
Planting a listening device in the unsecure office wouldn’t have been too difficult. The Simons didn’t remember to lock the front door at night half the time. Gaining access to the new building located behind the office wasn’t so easy, but it could be hacked by someone. That someone would need a key, key card and passcode, or the ability to hack all of those security measures plus disable an alarm system and cameras. Tough, but not impossible.
I watched the minutes pass on the clock on the dashboard of the Jeep. Nine o’clock came and went, and then 9:15 rolled over to 9:20 before Julia, Zach and David exited the building. David took his seat in the SUV with Hodges and Franks, while Julia and Zach met with Wakefield. It was 9:30 p.m. before we heard Wakefield’s voice in our ears.
“No devices were found in the production area or in R&D, but we do have devices throughout the office area to deal with, and Julia has a very interesting plan. We’re going to use the fact that Moore is listening to gain an advantage, but first we need to make a few recordings. Everyone listen to Julia, and do exactly what she says.”
“Okay, gang, if this works, we’ll be able to be in two places at one time.”
The next ten minutes were spent repeating phrases and key words that Julia and Zachary compiled into a database for a program Julia had written to utilize. We were all playing a part, including the Simons.
With the recordings completed, Julia explained to us what she and Zachary were doing. “We’ll use these new recordings and the recording of the meeting with Wakefield and the Granger family in the hotel to create a virtual conversation. David, Isaac, Reuben and Catherine will role-play with our computer-simulated conversation, so the Simons will be having a conversation with my modified laptop computer, which is running a program I wrote called Talktome. Once I activate the program, it will not only be able to listen to what’s being said, the audio playback will be crystal clear through the wireless Kronos speakers, and Franks will be wearing a wireless Bluetooth headset to monitor the situation.”
“I thought all the computers were destroyed by Moore,” I said. “How did you get a copy of the meeting in the hotel room?”
“The back of the SUV Wakefield’s in is also our mobile command post and tech center. Our earpieces and the equipment in the rear of that SUV are synched, and pick up everything any of us have said or heard.”
“A couple of points before we begin,” Wakefield said. “We’ll all go and start the charade in person while the program is booting up and all the equipment is put in place.Then we’ll temporarily jam the listening devices Moore has installed before we start the operation. Julia tells me it’s very common to have listening device
s like the ones Moore installed experience periodic static burst, so this shouldn’t arouse suspicion. While the jamming is in progress, Franks will set up outside INESCO to listen to the conversation and provide protection for the Simon family if it’s needed. The rest of my team, along with Ron and Valerie, will take up a position behind Hodges’ SUV. We’ll transfer our gear to David and Isaac’s vehicles in the event we need to roll. We can’t drive around Park City in the big black government cars, but we can go unnoticed in a Honda Civic and Toyota 4-Runner. The plan is to leave the INESCO parking lot when we get the call from Moore. If we pinpoint Moore’s location before midnight, I want Hodges and Ryan ready to move. I want eyes on Moore and his partners to make certain they are where we think they are and not running some game on us. Understood?”
We all nodded yes.
“Everyone go inside the main office building. Let’s leave earpieces on for now. If there is a meeting room, let’s use it.”
Valerie spoke for the first time since leaving Marion and the Andersons.
“Wait, there’s one more thing we need to discuss before we go inside. We need to discuss what Moore and Porter are after.”
“What’s there to discuss?” Wakefield said. “You can’t give them what they want. Our plan will work. We’ll find Leecy and extract her, taking Moore and his boys down in the process.”
“With all due respect, Agent Wakefield, that’s not a call you get to make on your own,” I said.
“Your plan hinges on pieces of this puzzle that aren’t in our possession suddenly falling in our lap,” Valerie said. “I don’t like the risk that poses for my daughter. There are still too many variables.”
“Okay, what do you propose?”
I looked at the clock; it was 9:40 p.m. Where was the time going? We had two hours and twenty minutes to figure this thing out before Moore called to make the exchange. At that time, Valerie would be forced to give away a technology that could result in unprecedented terrorist action around the world. If the technology Moore was after lived up to its billing, bombs – undetectable bombs – could be molded to take the shape of everyday objects and placed anywhere and everywhere. Part of me, the CIA agent part, wanted to argue against giving away the technology, but the other part of me, the father in me, didn’t want to take any chances with my daughter’s safety.