Driving Heat

  She held up Gallatin’s burner again, which was powered up, but back in its plastic evidence bag. The screen did indicate delivery, right under their message, which was short and plenty concrete: “Urgent. Meet me at the barge. Hurry!”

  Concerned about tying up resources on something so iffy, Heat decided she and Rook would wait in the barge hold alone. To be prudent, however, she had had Detective Feller follow them as backup, and he was parked a block away in the staging area they had used to rescue Rook just a few days before.

  Nikki made another check of her Omega. Twenty-five minutes of dank eternity to go. Rook touched her shoulder. But she had already heard it—the scrape of a shoe topside. She hand signaled him to move back out of the dull light that was filtering down through the overhead ventilation grate.

  The next footfall was softer but closer, on the corrugated steps leading down from the hatch.

  Heat stepped back into the shadows opposite Rook and eased her Sig out of its holster. She held it against her thigh, pointed at the floor. She counted five more footfalls on metal, and then whoever it was stopped, probably at the bottom of the stairs.

  Then the footsteps resumed. Once again, a soft tread, but definitely drawing closer. Heat brought her gun up, then cupped and braced against a steel stanchion. A dark shape emerged from the blue shadows into the dusky light and stopped.

  Yardley Bell had answered the text.

  In the hollow silence that followed, broken only by another moan of steel plates chafing against the wharf, Heat studied Bell, keeping her gun sight on the secret agent’s torso while she scanned for a weapon. As she did, Yardley fanned her arms out from her sides. At first Nikki thought it was a freak of timing, but when Yardley spread her fingers to show that her hands were empty, Heat knew it wasn’t a coincidence at all. Yardley Bell did little by coincidence. This was pure situational aptitude.

  “Jamie, Nikki, I know you’re here.”

  While Heat processed how to play this, Rook emerged from his hiding place against the far bulkhead. He got just to the edge of the dim spill of overhead sunlight and stopped. “You? You’re Black Knight?”

  “Rook, step back,” said Heat, holding position. “Yardley, keep them where I can see them, just like that.”

  Rook stayed where he was. Agent Bell did as she was instructed and even pivoted a few degrees in the direction of Nikki’s voice, presenting her the widest possible target, in full compliance. “My piece is staying where it is,” said Bell. That could be interpreted that two ways: either as a warning not to take it, or an assurance that she wouldn’t bring it into play. Or both.

  Heat read the moment and moved into view. She lowered her Sig Sauer but didn’t holster it.

  “When I got the text message, I thought about ignoring it.” Yardley regarded her ex, who still hadn’t absorbed the surprise. “Then I figured I owed it to you after all you’ve gone through…to let you know it’s over. And that you’re safe.” The faraway sound of a motorcycle rumbling past on the street drew Bell’s attention, and she turned her chin over one shoulder. “I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Funny, I thought the same thing about four in the morning when I woke up with rats racing across my pant leg.”

  “None of that was my doing. I heard about the operation after the fact.”

  “If not you, then who did it?” asked Nikki. Now that Rook’s text bait had panned out after all, she was determined to exploit the opportunity all the way to an arrest. If not of Yardley Bell, then someone.

  “It’s classified. I can tell you that there has been some internal strife at the agency, and—”

  Heat jumped in, hoping solid pushes would get Bell to loosen up. “Which agency?”

  “One I can’t name. Or acknowledge. You know that.”

  “Not good enough. Kidnapping? I need more.”

  Rook recovered enough to get his head engaged and joined in. “If you weren’t involved, why was Gallatin calling you?”

  “He wasn’t. I’m not Black Knight. Black Knight is neutralized.”

  “You killed him?”

  “Please. We don’t operate that way.” For emphasis, she added, “We don’t. He’s been reassigned. He went rogue with an illegal op and paid for it.”

  “Was he the guy with the Okie accent?”

  “I’m not able to say.” Which was the same as a yes.

  “And George Gallatin?”

  “After Black Knight extracted him, he was also reassigned.”

  “He’s my prisoner.”

  “Count your blessings,” said Bell. She had a remoteness, a chilly aspect to her nature that probably helped her sleep at night. Heat wanted to bring her to human level.

  “You don’t need to tell me to feel blessed.” She holstered her weapon. “I thought I’d lost him.”

  “I tried to spike this as soon as I learned about it, Nikki.”

  “You think that’s good enough? Not for me. Not after all this. Not after what it did to him and to me.”

  Yardley spoke to Nikki pleadingly. “This is me making it right.”

  “This is you making it right for yourself.” Nikki stepped closer. “People don’t just ‘go rogue’ for laughs. Somebody sanctioned your man’s operation. Who? Tangier Swift? Congressman Duer?”

  “That is classified. National security.”

  “OK, fine,” said Rook. “Off the record.”

  “Look, obviously I made a mistake in coming here.”

  “Seems like it,” said Heat.

  The air went out of the conversation. The three of them stood there in a triangle, each feeling equally unfulfilled: Heat and Rook wanting hard answers, Yardley Bell wanting to be let off the hook emotionally.

  “So.” Rook gave his ex an appraising glance and softened. “You did all this—and put an end to the whatever operation, doing what you could to help me from the shadows.”

  “Yes!” Yardley’s face brightened, and she took a half step to him. A bubble of jealousy surfaced in Nikki’s gut. Irrational, she knew, but whatever connection these two still had, however distant, she wasn’t eager to see it dramatized before her.

  Rook said, “That is so…” He hesitated, searching for the word. Nikki thought he would say thoughtful, or caring, or maybe just cool. He surprised her—and Yardley. “Bullshit.”

  Bell’s eyes, usually so fully under her control, widened. “Jamie? How can you say that to me?”

  “Because it’s true. You said you came here to make me feel safe. No, you’re only here hoping to soothe your conscience, and know what? I’m not sure you even have access to it.” In his agitation, he started to pace. “This is why we never made the long haul, you know that. The way you always keep a safe distance from anything. You held back from us, from your job—”

  “Not this again.”

  “Yes this again, because you still haven’t changed. Why? Because owning means risk.”

  Heat didn’t know whether to enjoy this or not. His words had exposed an intimacy she might regret witnessing. Especially when he waved his free arm in her direction.

  “Ask Nikki about risk. And I’m not talking about courage. You have lots of that, Yards. I’m talking about the kind of risk where you go all in. No playing the margins or having, I dunno, an escape hatch of deniability.” He paused and rubbed his upper arm through the sling. “Listen, I’m not trying to hurt you or work out our baggage. I just wish…I just wish you cared more. If not for yourself, for what the job really is. And I don’t mean career. I mean why we really do what we do.” He cast a look at Nikki before he continued. “I interviewed a dad who lost his wife and a four-year-old who thought he was going for a ride with his family to visit the grandparents. But their car had a freak rollover caused by a defect in the stability-control software. You can guess what happened to them. They’re the job. At least for some of us.”

  Yardley swallowed loud enough for Nikki to hear it. “I can’t go on the record. I’d lose my security clearance. Everything.”

&n
bsp; “I get it.” He half smiled. “Anyway, thanks for telling me I’m safe. Look at us. We’re all safe, right?”

  Then Agent Bell said, “But I will speak off the record.” As Heat and Rook traded surprised looks, she continued. “I’ve seen you do that before with unnamed sources. You’d protect me, right?”

  “Uh, sure, absolutely.” Then he added, “The unnamed thing only goes so far, but it’s a start.”

  “Well, I can also give you names of people who will go on the record. There’s plenty off pissed-off people at work who don’t give a shit anymore.”

  “My favorite kind.” Rook grinned.

  “I’ll be your whistle-blower.”

  “One of your specialties, as I recall.” He chuckled, then stopped himself, suddenly mindful of Nikki’s stare.

  Heat got out her notebook. “Maybe we should start talking about why he was kidnapped.”

  “See?” said Rook. “She’s all in.”

  Heat watched the sky empurple across the Hudson, just like the sunset she had glimpsed twenty-four hours prior from the Verrazano Narrows, except the bridge she was seeing it from now sat atop an NYPD Harbor Unit vessel. “There’s your MD600,” said the skipper, aiming the bill of his cap to ten o’clock so she could pick the chopper out amid the reflective glass of the West Side high-rises.

  Nikki acknowledged him, then stepped out of the pilothouse to where Rook was riding the thirty-five-knot chop, bracing himself against a bulkhead. “So far, so good with Yardley. She said his Gulfstream filed a flight plan from DC to Teterboro, and now here he is.”

  “Yardley’s solid, don’t worry.” As usual he was attuned to Nikki’s feelings—this time, her anxiety about getting things right.

  Together they watched the blinking lights of the helicopter descend gracefully onto the fantail of the SwiftRageous. A minute later the diesel twin tens of the Gladding-Hearn throttled back and the V-hull settled down into the river with a peaceful sigh.

  While the captain angled the rescue recess toward the transom of the luxury yacht, Tangier Swift arrived and stood waiting to meet them personally, although not alone. His security crew flanked him. This time, however, instead of matching polo shirts, everyone, including Swift, wore serious suits from a day in the capital. “I saw your rooster tail from the six hundred,” he said. “You might as well have sent up magnesium flares.”

  Heat said, “This isn’t a tactical raid, Mr. Swift. But I’d like permission to board.”

  “No.”

  She held up a warrant. “I’ve got a golden ticket.”

  The billionaire nodded once. Three of his companions moved aft to accept the mooring lines from the Harbor officers. On the deck above Heat and Rook, a squad from the Hercules Unit appeared and lined up along the rail, a statement of power made with black helmets, heavy armor, and submachine guns cradled at rest. The bodyguards were cowed, and should have been.

  “Not a tactical raid, huh?”

  “Last time we talked you kinda threatened me.”

  “Heat, this is bullshit, and you know it.”

  “Maybe you should write your congressman,” said Rook. “No wait. We can make that easier for you.”

  Tangier Swift’s mouth actually gaped when Congressman Duer emerged from the bulkhead door and stood between Heat and Rook. “Hey, Kent,” was all Swift could manage. None of this fit his algorithm.

  “You going to invite me aboard, or not?”

  While the SwiftRageous crew assisted the senior representative aboard, Swift approached Heat and stared at her bandage. “What happened to your face?”

  “This?” she said. “It’s my game face.”

  Nobody offered refreshments, nobody asked for any. There was no small talk, no compliments about the decor, no attempt to diffuse the tension as they took their places in the conference salon on the mezzanine. In deference to the congressman, Swift took a seat across from Heat and Rook and gestured for Duer to preside at the head of the long table. The old man ignored him and sat against the wall on the couch beside Detective Raley, whom Nikki had asked to come along. Although he took the backbench, the lawmaker kicked things off. “I have not been briefed by Captain Heat on the substance of this meeting, other than to be assured that it is of the utmost importance. That’s good enough for me. I’m ready to listen.”

  “Thank you, Representative Duer.” Even though Heat was there to confront Swift, the congressman played a key role in her strategy, and so she addressed herself as much to him as to the tycoon. “I can make this very brief. Mr. Swift has been a person of interest in a homicide investigation into several murders. The victims were whistle-blowers attempting to expose a fatal safety defect in one of his SwiftRageous software products. Today I have learned he was not responsible for those homicides.”

  “Then you did make this brief,” said Swift, half rising in his chair.

  His attempt at humor was met with silence. Nikki continued. “However, evidence exists proving that there is a safety defect in the auto software and that there has been an illegal cover-up by Tangier Swift and his company.”

  “You can’t prove that.”

  “I don’t have to.” She touched Rook’s knee with hers. “Others will. But this is about something else. Something of interest to you, sir.” She turned to the congressman to make sure he was with her. Duer had stacked his wrists on the carved head of his cane and gave her a nod to proceed. “I have sources who tell me that, under your sponsorship, Mr. Swift has negotiated a contract with the Department of Defense to provide software allowing our military to hack enemy aircraft in flight.”

  Swift slammed his palm on the table. “That’s not true. This is guesswork.”

  The congressman said, “As a ranking member of the Defense and National Security subcommittees, I can tell you, Captain, that if such a DOD program existed, it would be classified.” A couched reply, for sure.

  Tangier scoffed. “Sources. You have no sources.”

  “It’s called SwiftJack,” said Heat. “You don’t have to respond, I can tell by your reactions that I’m right. And I don’t have to tell you about the high stakes this creates for our national security. Which leads me to the kidnapping of Jameson Rook.”

  “Kent, come on. Murders I didn’t end up doing, auto safety allegations, now kidnapping? I didn’t kidnap anyone. She is going all over the map.”

  “Then let me give you a GPS. You had no part in the kidnapping—directly. That was carried out—illegally—by some US government black ops for the purpose of stopping Jameson Rook from continuing his investigation of you, Mr. Swift. And do you know why? Because they were investigating you.”

  That got Swift’s attention. He turned to a member of his staff and signaled for water. While he took the bottle, Nikki swiveled her chair, directing herself to Duer. “Tangier Swift has been secretly double-dipping. While he has a deal with DOD, he has also been bidding out his SwiftJack software under different product names to foreign entities. A violation of federal law.”

  “And a patriotic no-no,” said Rook.

  “That’s bull.”

  Congressman Duer’s brow sagged. “What countries you talking about?”

  “So far he has secretly been in contact with North Korea, China, Russia, and Syria.”

  “And you can confirm this?”

  “More importantly, as committee chair with the power of subpoena, you can confirm it,” said Heat. “But I can tell you that I have a contact in the Syrian government I spoke to this afternoon who has verified this for me personally.” She let the old man absorb this with closed eyes and a wagging of his head. “And sir, since criminal behavior is generally not confined to one incident or area, I’d like to make you aware of one other critical breach. For that I have brought Detective Raley. Sean?”

  Raley stood. “Short and sweet,” he began. “The captain heard a report that this cyber attack we’re going through was so hard to stop because the NYPD’s MISD—that’s the Management Information Systems Division, or
our IT—relied on so many different applications from third-party developers. On the surface, it seemed like a bunch of programs that randomly wouldn’t behave. One handled database communication, another controlled the intranet, you get the idea. With all these programs, fixing the damage caused by the cyber attack was like herding cats.” He flashed a smile at Heat. “I’m sort of a techno geek, so Captain Heat sent me to MISD to investigate a hunch she had. Informally, of course. I learned that the applications causing all the trouble were written by about twenty different companies. They all seemed unconnected until I did some provenance tracking with some detectives in the Information Technology Bureau. It was all pretty well firewalled, but we finally broke through today and discovered that all the code for all the programs causing the blackout was written by secret subsidiaries or subcontractors funded by one company.”

  “Let me guess,” said the congressman, staring balefully at Tangier Swift.

  “That’s correct. In short, this dude shut us down. Sir.” Raley sat.

  “That’s bogus,” said Swift. “Why would I want to hack New York City’s IT? Makes no sense.”

  Heat wasn’t so sure of that. “Really? It would make perfect sense if you were trying to curry favor with the Syrians. Like showing the cyber-jacking capabilities of your software by using it for their cause? Or to show Kim Jong Un what you could do? Or Putin? Or those Chinese gentlemen we ran into that you tried to pass off as industrialists looking to buy this yacht? And, if not that, then your cyber attack was targeted directly at NYPD. What better means to slow down my investigation, stalling my progress until all the whistle-blowers coming after you were dead?” She turned from Swift to the congressman. “Or it could be both. Kind of synergistic. But the thing is, now that we know it was him, the reasons are academic.”

  “More academic than you know,” said Duer. “My buddies at the Department of State are brokering a deal on this Mehmoud character as we speak. That kid’s going to be on a plane back to the desert by the weekend.” The congressman then rotated his hooded gaze to Tangier Swift, who continued to play the role of the victim.