The Lights of Tenth Street

  “What?”

  She drew Tiffany’s attention to the picture. “Remember that first boat party I did, when I was supposed to hook up with some finance big-shot? I told you about that guy on the boat who was furious when the man left because his son got hurt? This is that guy.”

  Doug closed his eyes, disbelieving, then opened them again and looked at the girl beside him. “You were supposed to hook up with a finance big-shot that day?”

  “Yeah, they told me just to keep him company, but I overheard Marco talking about him, and I think they wanted to compromise him somehow. But then his son got hurt and he left before I’d hardly met him.”

  “That was me.”

  “What?” Ronnie sat straight up in her chair, drawing curious stares from the others around the table. Agent McKendrick and the female agent broke off their conversation and looked toward them.

  “That was me.” Doug tapped the photo, his mind whirring. “And what you’re saying is that my boss and your boss were trying to use you to compromise me that day. But Brandon broke his arm, and I never went on the boat.”

  At Agent McKendrick’s curious look, Doug briefly relayed what they had just discovered. The female agent said she’d continue to dig into Jordan’s background, and left the room.

  “Well.” Agent McKendrick turned to the rest of the room. “Since we don’t have anything on that end yet, let’s go through Maris’s reports and see if we break something loose. Quickly.”

  Ronnie was getting tired, her voice raw from hours of talking, her mind blank from trying to remember the smallest details of her club life over the past year. It was after ten o’clock, and she desperately needed a cup of coffee. Beside her, Tiffany looked equally worn.

  Agents McKendrick and Jackson had gone through the weekly—sometimes daily—reports Maris filed electronically, describing her findings, her theories. From the frustrated expressions on their faces, Ronnie knew they were still just dancing around the edges, hitting on nothing.

  “Sorry to ruin your New Year’s Eve like this,” Agent Jackson said to the three visitors. “Let’s at least take a coffee break, get you some food, and we’ll continue in fifteen minutes. Okay?”

  “I need to call my wife.” Doug spoke up for the first time in two hours. “She’s going to be worried.”

  Agents Jackson and McKendrick looked at each other, hesitating.

  “Come on, I won’t tell her anything. It’s almost ten-thirty and I’m missing our own New Year’s party.”

  Agent McKendrick waved his permission. Doug turned on his cell phone as the agent turned away and began talking to someone about bringing food in.

  Before Doug could dial, the phone rang in his hand. He didn’t recognize the number.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Doug. You’re at the FBI, aren’t you?”

  Doug looked around the bustling room, beginning to feel a strange knot in his stomach. “Yes.”

  “I want you to leave the room—wherever you are—and go to the men’s room. Somewhere you can be alone. Somewhere we can talk.” The voice was eerily calm. “Go now, Doug.”

  Doug left the room and walked down a hallway until he found a single-person bathroom. He went in and locked the door behind him.

  “Okay, Jordan, what gives?”

  “You gave them the disk, didn’t you?”

  Malice came clearly through the phone line. Doug caught his breath, answering without thought. “Yes.”

  “I thought so.” There was an odd noise, like a wry chuckle. “Isn’t it ironic that it’s our resident boy scout who wants to throw a wrench in the works? Our religious nut who wants to tear down a divinely crafted plan? Yes, how ironic.”

  “Jordan—what are you talking about?”

  “Well, you know what? You’re not going to win. You and your new friends downtown. I’ll see to that. You know where I am, Doug? You know where? Just take a guess.”

  “I don’t know. Where?”

  There was a moment of silence on the phone, some rough movement. Then a small, shaky voice came clearly through the other end of the line.

  “Daddy?”

  “Genna! Genna, baby, are you okay?”

  The phone was taken away, and Jordan was back on the line. “Now, Doug, listen to me. Are you listening?”

  Doug could barely force out an affirmation. O God, O God … Doug couldn’t find any other words to pray.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do, Doug. You’re going to go back into your nice meeting with the FBI, and you will see to it that they are misdirected in every way, that you take some nice long coffee breaks, that you answer their questions with long, rambling answers. I want you to waste a lot of time, Doug. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes.” Again, he forced the word out.

  “By now, if the Feds are clever, they will have figured out that the audio file on that disk is meant for broadcast. They won’t know what it’s for or how it will be broadcast, and of course I’m not going to tell you that.” Again, the deathly chuckle. “You didn’t expect I would, did you, Doug?”

  “No.”

  “But I know what it’s for, and I can’t afford for someone to stumble onto it and stop the broadcast. A broadcast, Doug, that will take place in precisely eighty-eight minutes.”

  Doug looked at his watch. Midnight. That would be midnight. His brain was slow to process the facts, his entire being focused on his family, on the terror in the voice of his baby girl.

  “My family …”

  “Your family, Doug, your sweet family, is at this moment tied up in your living room along with your friends, listening to me talk to you. Are you listening, Doug?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have several guns trained on them, Doug, several hired men who will have no compunction about putting a bullet through the head of your sweet little girl. In fact, we’ll start with her, if you don’t cooperate.”

  “O God! Jordan, no! What do you want, Jordan? I’ll do anything! Please … please let my family go. I’ll come take their place. Take me!”

  Another chuckle. “Now, isn’t that just like our nice boy scout? Unfortunately, if you were to leave the FBI at high speed, questions would be asked and someone would follow. No, Doug. You stay there, obtuse and obstructionist as you possibly can, foiling all questions for the next—oh—eighty-five minutes or so. See, Doug, I have a way of knowing whether the broadcast is going to happen. I have a way of knowing whether it’s being loaded, whether it’s about to run. I’ll be able to tell, Doug, looking at my nice little computer screen, whether you’ve been a good boy and led the FBI astray. Because if not, at one minute after midnight, a bullet goes into your daughter. Then your son. Then your friends. Are you listening, Doug?”

  Doug couldn’t even respond, his brain frozen.

  “Then, of course, your wife. Of course—” again, the hideous chuckle—“I might tell our boys to take their time with her.”

  Doug felt as if he was going to throw up, to collapse. He wanted to fling the phone against the wall, shattering the voice on the other end.

  “Are we clear, Doug? If I do not see what I need to see and hear what I need to hear at midnight—if I find that someone has tampered with our broadcast—I make the call. What’s your decision, Doug?” The voice was suddenly hard. In the background, he heard the cocking of a gun, heard some stifled screams. “I have the gun pressed against your baby girl’s head, Doug. What’s your decision?”

  “I’ll do it!” Doug shouted into the phone, begging, crying. “I’ll do it! Don’t hurt them, please! Please!”

  “And what will you do?”

  “I’ll draw them off!” He was weeping now, the image of little Genna with a gun to her head more than he could bear. “Please, Jordan, listen to me! I’ll distract the FBI, waste their time. Just don’t hurt them, please!”

  “And if you should foolishly decide to tell the FBI, hoping they’ll mount a rescue mission—as, of course, the macho men of the FBI like to do—we’ll
see you coming. Our boys are good at such things. And your family will be dead before your little commandos can reach the back door.” He paused for effect. “So keep your bargain, boy scout. Your family’s counting on you.”

  Click.

  Doug leaned against the wall, shaking, retching with sobs, his hand pressed against his mouth. How on earth was he supposed to go back into that meeting, pretend everything was normal, when he felt that he couldn’t even take a breath without throwing up?

  He took several deep breaths. He walked over to the sink and splashed water on his face, then dried himself with a towel. He looked in the mirror, despairing. No way could he hide these red eyes.

  He didn’t even know how to pray. O God … help, Lord!

  There came, then, a moment of supreme clarity, the certainty of what he must do. He felt the steadying hands of the Master on his shoulders, comforting him, holding him, giving him courage.

  He went down on his knees on the cold tile floor and wept into his hands.

  “Lord, I have to tell them, don’t I? I have to tell them. There’s so much more than my family at stake. I have to trust my family into Your hands, in order to save many, many more.”

  The image of Genna … Brandon … Sherry floated in his mind’s eye, and his words came out as sobs. “But, Lord—how can You ask that? They’ll kill them.”

  They’ll kill them anyway.

  Doug put his face in his hands, recognizing another truth with supreme clarity. “Lord, my family—my friends—have all accepted Jesus. If—if they die, they will go to be with you.” He began to sob again. “I entrust them into your hands. O God, take care of my family. Protect them, heavenly Father, as I do what I know is Your will, this night.”

  Caliel reached out to strengthen the man of God as he rose from the floor, wiped his eyes, and made his shaky way down the hall to the conference room.

  As Doug entered the room and prepared to make the irrevocable stand, Caliel’s face was sober. For he did not know the outcome of this night, did not know what would come of the decisions of dark-hearted men. The Lord, in His unfathomable wisdom, had allowed individuals the free will they seemed to desire above all else. And the heavenly host had seen—time and again—the consequences of that free will. Consequences that, in the fallen world, often caused the Creator and His creation immeasurable pain.

  The Lord had even given the ultimate sacrifice to show His love, to draw His children back to Himself. All they had to do—all they had to do—was grasp this sacrifice, this salvation, and it was theirs. But so many—so many—still insisted on going their own way. And so, many times, the gracious Father let them have their way—even knowing of the great damage that would come to the ones He loved.

  Caliel lifted his prayers again to the Throne, feeling both the infinite goodness and justice of the Lord of Hosts. Only when the last trumpet blew would there be no more consequences of the sinful path chosen by the children of Adam and Eve. On that day, every knee would bow and every tongue would confess that Jesus was Lord. But until that day, some consequences of sin would not be overruled.

  All around him, the heavenly host was poised, tense, waiting … for the word from the Throne.

  SIXTY-TWO

  Doug stepped back into the conference room, unable to feel his feet on the floor. At one side, the decoding expert was deep in conversation with the lead agents.

  “… and since some of the code was inaudible, I think we’re dealing with a frequency intended for broadcast of some kind. At a guess, it’s intended to trigger a remote receiver. We haven’t had time to dig into it, but the audio appears to have a pattern to it, sort of like what we used in Afghanistan to detonate bombs via satellite. At least—” he threw up his hands—“that’s what we surmise at the moment. But it does seem like a broadcast signal.”

  “I can confirm that.” Doug closed his eyes, willing himself to continue. He could feel everyone in the room turning to look at him. “It’s intended for broadcast. At midnight tonight.”

  Doug felt Agent McKendrick guiding him back into his former seat. Dimly, out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ronnie and Tiffany staring at him.

  “Doug … Doug!” Agent McKendrick finally got his attention. “How do you know that?”

  Doug sent up a frantic prayer for peace, then looked the agent in the eye and recounted the entire phone call.

  Within five minutes, the room was a hive of furious activity. Agent Jackson barked out orders, calling in a special SWAT team, giving hurried instructions, getting directions and descriptions about Doug’s house and subdivision … and reassuring the anxious husband and father that every care would be taken.

  Again and again, Doug pushed back pure terror and prayed, releasing the care of his family to the Lord’s hands. Prayers coursed through his mind even as he answered questions, drew maps and diagrams, and watched a team of hardened men, led by Agent Jackson, run out the door. Every reflex screamed at Doug to go with them. But he knew—somehow, he knew—that he had to stay, that he had to see this through.

  “How can you be so calm?” Ronnie had tears streaming down her cheeks, and Tiffany looked drawn and worried. “How come you’re not stomping around, screaming or something? How come you’re not demanding to go with them?”

  Doug turned his head, feeling the weight of his decision pressing in on him, making it difficult to breathe.

  “I believe,” he managed to croak out, “that this is what God told me to do. And if so—” he closed his eyes—“I have to trust my family to Him.”

  Ronnie pressed a shaking hand to her mouth, a new awareness creeping into her tear-stained eyes. Beside her, Tiffany pressed her lips together in a thin line of disagreement, and shook her head.

  “Everyone!” Agent McKendrick, the remaining senior officer in the room, raised his hands for silence. “If what Doug learned is correct—and it’s possible, of course, that he was deliberately misled—then we have a little more than one hour in which to avert some sort of attack. God help us.”

  Agent McKendrick looked to the side and spoke to one of the agents.

  “Go make sure that we’ve informed Washington, and that they have informed the president. Make sure that the specialists at headquarters drop everything and dig into Jordan’s background to see if they can come up with anything that would provide a clue.”

  The agent made a move toward the door.

  “Wait!” Agent McKendrick thought another moment. “Snoop helped us track one of the principals—a man named Tyson Keene—to a private jet at the airport. Check the file, get the information, and see if we can put a hold on air traffic out of Atlanta. And get an APB out on all the principals!”

  The agent nodded and hurried out.

  “Now.” The senior agent looked at the three visitors. “The stakes just got raised. We’re talking about some sort of broadcast, most likely via satellite. Does that ring any bells for any of you?”

  “Yes,” Doug said. He described the deals he’d been blackmailed into approving, deals that had to do—among other things—with linking satellites and broadcast technology.

  “So do you have any idea what these partnerships were to be used for?” Agent McKendrick asked.

  Doug shook his head. “Dozens of things, I would’ve thought. I mean, looking back at it now, I think Jordan was setting up an infrastructure that would allow him a wide range of possibilities, not just one particular satellite broadcast. He had everything from telecommunications to defense contractors woven into the deal. You could use satellite signals to broadcast anything. I feel like the answer is just so close, but I don’t see it!”

  One of the other agents jumped in with a question. “Was there any deal that you approved that specifically had to do with conventional broadcasting? I mean straightforward stuff, like television or radio?”

  “No … well, sort of. But it was tangential, and wasn’t just one broadcast. We set up the technical specs for a new advertising agency that was creating a series
of high-profile television commercials.”

  “Television commercials.” Ronnie had been hardly listening, not understanding the technical discussion. But now she broke in, looking sideways at Tiffany. “Television commercials?”

  Tiffany sat up straight. “Which ones?”

  The room was suddenly electric. Agent McKendrick seemed to hardly breathe as Doug racked his memory.

  “Uh … it was months ago, and for us it was only a small deal. Oh, it was for Speed Shoes … for the series of advertisements that would culminate at the Super Bowl.”

  “That’s it!” Tiffany almost shot out of her seat. “That’s got to be it!” She turned to Agent McKendrick and explained about Marco asking her to broker a deal, to seduce Wade into agreeing to use their advertising agency to create the Speed Shoes commercials.

  Agent McKendrick thought a second, then looked up at his team. “Reactions?”

  A tall agent standing in the corner spoke up. “That audio file Mr. Turner brought in could be either simulcast beside or embedded in the audio of a television commercial. Easily. But then—” he looked slowly horrified. “But then, it could trigger a receiver anywhere in the country, anything within audio distance of an active television set!”

  A young woman across the table was busy on her laptop, speaking to Tiffany and typing at the same time. “You said that the commercials were made in a series, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Didn’t Maris’s report say something about one of the dancers going to a gala for the grand opening of one of those commercials?”

  Agent McKendrick started to dig back through his papers, but Tiffany spoke up.

  “Yeah, that was me.”

  The female agent was looking at something on her screen, scrolling downward through a list. “What date was that, do you know? If you can possibly remember, I’d like to cross-reference—”

  “I couldn’t ever forget.” Tiffany shuddered. “It was the same night that the dam exploded and killed all those people.”

  Every head in the room lifted. Everyone stared at each other.

  “The same night the dam exploded …” The female agent’s eyes were wide as she tapped her keyboard. “Hold on—wait.” She looked at Agent McKendrick. “The file says the incendiary device on the boat had a remote receiver attached. The origin of the signal was never discovered.”