Cyber Knights 1.0

1

Like a medieval king perched high above a castle’s keep, Angelo Rossi kept a close eye on all that occurred within the garage of the Manhattan-based livery service. From his glass-enclosed booth set on a raised platform, he liked to think he saw everything, from who came in and out of the shop area or hung out on the street when the bay doors were open to who was slacking off. At the moment, he was watching Joseph Torres, the company’s chief mechanic, chatting with a man Rossi didn’t recognize. After tossing his cigarette out into the street, Torres shook hands with the stranger before making his way back into the shop.

Having learned the hard way it was best to trust his gut instincts when they told him something was going down, especially when a person with Torres’s record was involved, Rossi opened the sliding-glass divider and called him over.

Torres knew right off what the little prick wanted. With that in mind, he slipped both hands into the pockets of his coveralls. “Wha’d I do now?” he asked as he approached the booth.

“Who was that?” Rossi asked gruffly.

“A friend of a friend. Why?”

“Don’t give me that shit,” Rossi muttered dismissively.

Taking care to leave the small electronic device wrapped in a wedge of crisp, new one hundred — dollar bills behind, Torres pulled his hands out of his pockets and threw them up in the air. “Hey, how many times do I have to tell you I’m off the junk? You wanna give me another piss test, be my guest. But you’ll be wasting my time and yours, not to mention keeping me from checking out Mr. Caprio’s Lincoln.”

When the dispatcher didn’t give in right off, Torres shrugged. “Fine. But when Mr. Caprio comes down here to find out why that thumping he complained about last time isn’t fixed, you’re gonna be the one doin’ all the explaining, not me.”

Doing his best to keep from showing any sign that he was concerned over having to do so, Rossi continued to glare at him. Torres, who wasn’t about to let the little shit stare him down, returned the shop foreman’s unflinching glare, all but daring him to call him a liar. In the end, it was Rossi who gave in first, not because he was convinced Torres was telling him the truth about being clean. Rather, the idea of sending a car to pick up Daniel Caprio and his wife that wasn’t in tip-top shape was as near a fireable offense as he wanted to go. So he sucked in a deep breath before telling Torres he’d better be damned sure whatever was wrong with the Lincoln Town Car was fixed, or it would be his ass in the sling.

Torres waited until he was well out of earshot before muttering, “Asshole,” under his breath. He waited even longer before pulling the small device out of his pocket and inspecting it. He’d been paid to install it in the Town Car reserved for Daniel Caprio that night. He’d been told it was nothing more than a tracking device by the man he pegged to be a Jamaican. Never having seen anything like it before, he looked for some kind of manufacturing markings or ID. When he found none, he concluded either the people who were interested in keeping track of the notorious lawyer’s whereabouts tonight didn’t want the device tracked back to them or, more likely, the manufacturer had no wish to be named as a coconspirator in a case involving illegal snooping. Not that it mattered to the mechanic. He’d been paid well to do a ten-minute job that, if done right, could be the beginning of a new and profitable business relationship with the well-spoken Jamaican.

Rossi was about to climb down from his perch and head over to where Torres was working on Caprio’s car to ask him why he was under the hood and not checking out the vehicle’s suspension when the dispatcher entered the booth through a door leading to the company’s front office whilst holding a phone to his ear. Clamping a hand over the handset’s microphone, the dispatcher informed Rossi that Daniel Caprio was on the line. “He says he’s decided to have dinner out before going to the theater and wants his car to pick him up early.”

“How early?” Rossi asked.

“He says he’s got reservations at a place in the Village in half an hour.”

Rossi rolled his eyes. “You better tell him he ain’t gonna make it.”

The dispatcher held the phone out to Rossi, taking care to keep his hand over the microphone. “Here, you tell him.”

Knowing better than turning down a request from a man like Daniel Caprio, Rossi took a quick glance out onto the garage floor over to where Torres was still tinkering with the car the lawyer usually used. Upon seeing the mechanic wasn’t finished with it, Rossi drew in a deep breath. “Fine,” he growled as he turned his attention back to the dispatcher. “Just tell Mr. Caprio it’s not going to be his usual car.”

Relieved he wouldn’t be incurring the wrath of a man who was widely known to be the legal mouthpiece for some of New York City’s most notorious figures, the dispatcher brought the phone up to his ear and informed the lawyer a car was on the way even as Rossi was calling out to a driver who had been scheduled to pick up some Brit media big shot later in the evening that he’d be driving Daniel Caprio instead.

Spotting the bodyguard left to keep an eye on both the car and its driver made it easy for the Belizean Creole to keep them from noticing him as he casually walked by the Lincoln Town Car parked outside the theater. After allowing his eyes to linger on the vehicle’s license plates as long as he dared without stopping, the man headed back up the way he had come, where he climbed into the front seat of a yellow cab parked on the opposite side of the street.

“You sure it’s the right one?” the cabbie asked as the Creole took up the remote control unit from the middle of the front seat and set it on his lap.

“I assure you, it is the right car,” he muttered with an accent most New Yorkers would have mistaken as being Jamaican. This included the cabbie, a native of the city who knew its ins and outs as well as how to make a quick buck on the side.

“Did you test that thing to make sure it’s working?” the cabbie asked.

“It works,” the Creole snapped, annoyed by the cabbie’s incessant need to talk when there was no need to. “You’ve no need to worry about what I do. Just keep as close as you can to the car I pointed out to you when we go.”

Though he was still unconvinced the stranger he’d been saddled with for this job knew what he was doing, the cabbie decided it would be best if he kept his peace. If anyone was going to screw up, it wasn’t going to be him. After dodging New York traffic for eight years without a serious mishap or official complaint, he was one of the most reliable people various cartels like Los Zetas had in the city. Of course, most of the time, all he did was pick up packages at local airports or serve as a guide and driver for various contractors sent north to handle a job, much like the man next to him. His current assignment, that of participating in a carjacking without actually being in the stolen vehicle, was something entirely new. Whether he would have taken the job was a question he probably would have asked himself had he known what the Creole actually intended to do. He didn’t, of course. Like most of the people he dealt with, they told him only what he needed to know, and he kept from asking them anything other than when, where, and how much.

A tapping on the passenger window of the cab startled both men, who had been focused on watching the crowd as it emerged from the theater. Snapping his head about, the Creole saw a fussily dressed middle-aged man bending over, staring at him through the partially open window.

“Excuse me, but are you available?” the gringo asked.

“No,” the Creole snapped.

“If you’re not available, why is your light on?” the would-be passenger asked brusquely even as his eyes were darting about, first toward the cabbie’s face and then to the remote control the Creole was holding on his lap.

“We are not free,” the Creole growled. “Piss off.”

Offended, the man on the street pulled back. He was about to tell the little Jamaican off when the cabbie called out to the Creole. “Is that him?”

Having been distracted by the would-be fare, the Creole didn’t get a good look at the passenger of the Lincoln Town Car before the man was in it and the driver was sliding in behind the wheel. “Go! Go!” was all that the Creole managed to spit out by way of response.

Flummoxed and more than a little annoyed, the man on the street watched as the cab pulled away from the curb and took off, but not before he managed to take the cab’s medallion number. “No one tells me to piss off and gets away with it,” the man muttered to himself as he watched the taxi disappear around the corner behind a black Town Car.

Annoyed by the untimely interruption and determined not to let anything else keep him from carrying out his orders, the Creole abandoned his plan to wait until the Town Car had reached the intersection of Broadway and Forty-Seventh Street before taking over control of it. If truth be known, he wasn’t at all sure the mechanic at the garage he had paid to install the device was reliable. So instead of being patient, as soon as the Town Car’s driver turned onto Broadway and started to head south, the Creole switched on the remote control and took control of the Town Car.

For the first few blocks, the results of his efforts to create panic and chaos did little more than draw attention to the Lincoln Town Car as it bounced off of other cars to its left and right or rammed the rear bumper of the car in front of it. Only when it crossed Forty-Seventh Street and the Creole was able to drive the Town Car up onto the pedestrian area was he able to accelerate it to a speed that turned the car into a guided weapon, sending those late-night revelers who were able to keep their wits about them scattering for safety behind concrete planters and anti-vehicular pillars. Those who couldn’t, people who froze in place when they saw the black Town Car barreling down on them, became what many of the survivors thought were the latest victims of a terrorist attack.

The dispassionate call over the police cruiser’s radio belied the urgency of the unfolding drama on Broadway. Mary Silva, an eight-year NYPD veteran and driver that night, didn’t bother to wait for Patrick Long, her partner, to tell her to step on it. While he was responding to the radio call, she hit the lights, gunned the engine, and pulled out into traffic. Both officers ignored the honking horns and threats hurled at them by other drivers they were forcing aside as they did their best to reach the intersection of Forty-Second Street and Broadway ahead of the runaway Lincoln Town Car.

Doing so was no easy feat. Silva paid no heed to the bumps and sound of metal scraping against metal as she sideswiped several cars that couldn’t or wouldn’t make enough room for her to pass them. Any concern she had about the hell their sergeant would raise for the collateral damage they were causing was strictly secondary to their desperate need to block the intersection before the rampaging Town Car reached it.

As it turned out, their timing could not have been better — or worse, depending on where you were at the moment they rolled out onto Broadway. Silva had no sooner entered the intersection after swerving around a city bus than a set of high beams drew her attention away from what was ahead and to her left, just in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of the Lincoln Town Car before it ploughed into her side of the cruiser.

The force of the impact drove the cruiser sideways several feet and staved Silva’s door in, causing her to yelp. Long, after being rattled around like a cat in a tumbling barrel, recovered just in time to see the Town Car back away. But instead of going around the crippled cruiser, the driver of the Town Car gunned the engine and rammed them again.

Realizing he had no choice, not if he wanted to save his partner, Long threw open his door and bailed out, unsnapping the strap of his holster as he did so. By the time the Town Car had backed up yet again but before its driver had a chance to make another attack, Long leaned across the hood of the cruiser and took as good an aim on the driver as the situation and his adrenaline-charged state allowed him.

Whether his was the first shot that caused what followed or those of two officers who had been on foot patrol and had also responded was unimportant. What was important was the way the three patrolmen blazed away, emptying the magazines of their pistols as quickly as their fingers could work the triggers.

The devastation left in the wake of the Town Car followed by a volley of gunfire thoroughly rattled the cabbie. Without waiting for a word from the man next to him, who was doing all he could to stare straight ahead past the traffic piling up before them, the cabbie threw his cab in reverse. This did little more than plough into the front end of the cab behind them. In panic, after glancing about, the cabbie threw his door open and fled on foot, leaving the Creole little choice but to do likewise. He at least had enough sense to take the control unit with him, holding it close against his side as he lost himself in the crowd of screaming city dwellers and out-of-town visitors as they fled a scene of bloody carnage and confusion. It wasn’t until he was several blocks away that the Creole dropped the controller into a trash bin on a side street before making his way down into the subway, where he had no difficulty blending in with the crowds on the platform.

2

The temptation to ignore the chirping of his mobile phone was almost too much to resist. But, like the early morning call to the colors, Andy Webb found it wasn’t in him to do so. Muttering a few well-chosen expletives to himself, he turned off the shower, pulled the curtain aside, and reached out for his mobile.

Naturally, the bloody thing slipped through his wet fingers and bounced off the tile floor, causing Andy to wince as he listened to it clatter about before adding a few more oaths to those he’d already uttered. After picking the mobile up and checking to ensure it was still working, he hit Redial and then held the phone to his ear whilst stumbling about the cold bathroom floor, groping for a towel.

“Ah, good. I’m glad I caught you,” Edward Telford boomed in a tone of voice that was far too cheerful for Andy, given his current mood.

“I hope to hell for your sake this is important,” Andy growled as he began dabbing himself one-handed with the towel.

“How would you fancy a trip to America?”

“That depends,” Andy shot back.

“Depends on what?”

“Where it is you’re wanting me to go.”

“New York City,” Telford declared cheerily.

In a foul mood already, Andy found himself incapable of holding back. “How would you like a sharp stick in the eye?”

“Oh, it’s not all that bad, is it?”

“When was the last time you were there, Ed?”

“It’s been a while. Why?”

“Because it seems you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be conveyed through the canyons of the Big Apple while traveling in the backseat of a New York cab.”

“Funny you should mention that,” Telford countered as he did his best to ignore his friend’s churlish attitude and moved on to the purpose of the phone call. “Meet me in an hour.”

“The usual place?” Andy asked as he continued to struggle to towel himself off with one hand and hold the mobile to his ear with the other without slipping on the tile floor.

“No, not today. Meet me near the East Surrey Division’s monument.”

Though this odd choice of linkup point piqued his curiosity, Andy wasn’t about to play a thousand questions with his friend, not while he was standing there, stark naked and dripping wet. “Yeah, an hour. Now piss off.”

“And a happy good day to you too,” Telford responded, pleased that he had for once been able to rattle the notoriously unflappable Andy Webb.

Andy was more than a little perplexed as to why his friend had asked him to meet in Battersea Park instead of some more civilized venue as he made his way to the monument dedicated to the men of the Twenty-Fourth East Surrey Division who had died in a war so very different from the one he fought each and every day. Curiosity about his friend’s unusual request was replaced by amusement the second he spotted the former Guards officer turned very proper civil servant. A man who spared no expense when it came to cultivating an air of sophistication was feeding pigeons, a creature he was known to detest. Even more amusing was how Telford was attired. His efforts to blend in by wearing wraparound sunglasses, a gray hoodie, and an Arsenal baseball cap were, to Andy, almost comical. Deciding he needed a little payback for the way Telford had upended his morning routine, Andy slowed his pace and changed direction quickly. Then, taking his time, Andy slipped up behind him in the same manner he’d relied on in Belfast before announcing his presence.

“I must say, football mufti does not become you, not in the least. Forgot to pick up your laundry again?”

Though he tried to keep his friend from seeing he’d been surprised, Telford couldn’t help but flinch. Coming around to face Andy, he tossed the last of the bird feed out in a wide, sweeping arc as he did so, crumpling the empty bag in his hand as he subconsciously drew himself up before his friend as he often did when trying to use his height to impress the person he was speaking to. “I’ve got a favor to ask you,” Telford informed Andy as he took to slowly walking alongside his friend. “This one is strictly on the QT.”

“All right, mate, you’ve got my attention,” Andy replied as he eased over to Telford’s left. Subconsciously, he fell in step with Telford as if on parade, even as he was unconsciously scanning the area to see if anyone was paying any attention to the two of them; something in Telford’s voice caused old habits to kick in.

“I’ve had a number of members of the cabinet, including the PM — as well as quite a few members of Parliament — approach me one at a time asking if I could discreetly look into the death of Randolph Mullins,” Telford muttered as the two men sauntered along the park path side by side.

“I thought that was all wrapped up and done with. Shot with his homicidal driver by New York’s finest in what the American tabloids call suicide by cop.”

“So did I,” Telford responds grimly. “I was tempted to fob the matter off as nothing more than political paranoia. But I changed my mind after I went to see the people who usually deal with such things at the Foreign Office and asked to speak to whoever it was they had looking into the matter. To say I ran into a stone wall every time I brought the matter up is a monumental understatement.”

“Maybe they’re happy with what the American authorities are telling them — that it was a terribly unfortunate incident and they wish to close the book on the matter as quickly as possible. After being pilloried by the tabloids and conspiracy crackpots for years in the wake of Lady Diana’s death, I don’t blame them for wanting solid, irrefutable evidence that HMG is innocent of any wrongdoing, that the whole incident is what the Americans say it is — an unfortunate incident involving one sadly disturbed psychopath.”

On being reminded of the aftermath of the Princess of Wales’s death, Telford visibly winced. He had just reached the dizzy heights of the senior civil service when that had occurred, plunging him headfirst into a political shit storm of epic proportions. “That’s what they, meaning our people and the Yanks, want everyone to think,” he replied warily once he’d managed to stuff his memories of those awful days back into the corner of his mind where he hid his personal feelings and concerns. “The truth is, behind the smiley face they’ve slapped on the incident before filing it away under ‘nothing to see here, move along,’ there seems to be more than a few people wringing their hands even as they’re glancing over their shoulders to make sure there actually is nothing creeping up on them that’s going to bite them in the arse.”

As Andy well knew, Edward Telford had sources burrowed within all the agencies, ministries, government offices, and corporations he dealt with, people he relied on to provide him with a peek behind the curtains from time to time to see what was really going on. “I’m all ears,” Andy replied dryly as the two men slowly sauntered through the park, each giving every passerby a quick, surreptitious once-over.

“I’m told by people who know about such things that, a while back, the U.S. Department of Defense experimented with using the built-in computer system of a car to remotely gain full control of it.”

“That’s no great state secret,” Andy scoffed as he used the toe of his shoe to gently boot aside a scrap of paper someone had tossed onto the path.

“That may be, but the fact that such a system may have been used to kill Mullins would be.”

Doing his best to keep from reacting to this tidbit, Andy dropped his nonchalant, ho-hum demeanor as he took to peppering his friend with a barrage of questions. “You sound as if there is no doubt in the minds of those who would be privy to the case. Did they find the car’s ECU tampered with?”

“It’s what?”

Reminding himself that he needed to explain anything even remotely technical to Telford using the simplest words possible, Andy took to describing how a sophisticated telemetric device could be used to override any security measures the vehicle’s manufacturer had built in to prevent someone from controlling certain mechanical and electronic components of a car remotely. “Once a black box is properly wired into the targeted vehicle’s computer bus line, all a person needs is a transmitter set to the same frequency as the receiver, and you have yourself a full-scale radio-controlled car.”

“That’s just what the powers that be might be suspecting — or, more correctly, fearing, which is probably why I’ve been asked to have someone like you look into this discreetly,” Telford replied glumly, almost to himself, before going on to explain his comment. “Despite the profuse apologies from both the mayor of New York and the American Secretary of State, there are quite a few people who are a part of HMG, or closely associated with it, who either believe there’s more to this story or wish to do everything within their power to make sure there isn’t.”

Although he suspected he already knew the reason for such skepticism, particularly given Mullins’s reputation as a man with a file on everyone, Andy felt compelled to pose the next logical question. “If that’s so, why all the tiptoeing about?” he asked candidly while glancing over at Telford out of the corner of his eye to gauge his friend’s reaction. “You’d think everyone would be eager to find out who did it.”

“If the case involved anyone else, that would be true.” Telford sighed as he averted his gaze. “Unfortunately, Mullins — a man who clawed his way to the top of the news business the old-fashioned way — knows, or I should say knew, where all the political bodies are buried here and more than a few in the States. While I don’t think anyone is sorry to see the wretched hack go, there are quite a few people who are very concerned over what his family or his solicitors may find when they start going through the private files he was rumored to have kept on both his friends and enemies.”

Knowing that in cases like this there was no such thing as a dumb question, Andy asked the obvious. “Why me? Wouldn’t it be better if a computer hack like Ian McDonnell over in Legoland or DS Marbury looked into this?”

Whether it was a subconscious response to Andy’s question on his part or not, Telford took a quick glance about the park before answering. “The people who asked me to look into this aren’t quite sure who can be trusted. Until we know for sure there’s a ‘there’ there, they want to keep this on the low down. Besides, if I’m not mistaken, you have a friend in New York who is uniquely qualified to help you in this case,” Telford added as something of a knowing smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

Seeing no point in asking who the mysterious they were that Telford was referring to — or how he knew about Susan G. — Andy moved on to the next order of business. “So what’s the mission? Pursuit of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, or do you expect me to ferret out any hint of impropriety that can be linked to HMG and bury it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure? When will you be?”

“I won’t know until you tell me if there is something HMG needs to concern itself with,” Telford replied after giving the matter some thought.

“You do appreciate this isn’t Belfast,” Andy muttered, making no effort to stifle the irritation he felt over the manner with which his friend was playing upon his dedication to queen and country to back him into a corner. “If I’m hearing what you’re saying right, there’s not going to be an all-powerful brigadier watching my back, ready to come galloping in to pluck me out of the muck if I step on some very sensitive toes.”

After drawing in a deep breath, Telford took to looking about at everything around him save Andy as he slowly let it out. “I know,” was all he said by way of response.

Realizing he wasn’t going to get a straight answer, Andy shrugged. “When do you need an answer?”

“Two days ago.”

Unable to help himself, Andy rolled his eyes. His friend’s response was as predictable as it was vintage Edward Telford, one Andy suspected he used to motivate otherwise slovenly government bureaucrats who had the unfortunate need to answer to him.

Having gotten as much from Telford as he suspected he was going to in regard to the forlorn hope he had been volunteered for, Andy moved on to more practical matters, the kind he, as a businessman, needed answers to. “Who’s picking up the tab?”

“A retainer that should be more than enough to cover your travel expenses, billeting, and subsistence, as well as an advance you’ll probably need to pay your American associate will be wired into your account by the end of the day,” Telford informed him in an offhanded manner without letting on where the funds were coming from. “The balance of what’s owed you will follow when the job’s done.”

Again, seeing there was no point in pressing him for a straight, no-bullshit answer, Andy moved on. “Since you’re so hell bent on keeping this sub rosa, when and where do we meet again?”

“At the game on Saturday next, if that’s possible.”

“I don’t have tickets for it. It’s sold out, remember?”

Telford stopped and waited for Andy to do likewise before stepping in front of him. “There’s one for you in the newspaper,” he informed his friend as he handed over the paper he’d had tucked up under his arm.

Unable to help himself, Andy chuckled. Like so many other veterans he knew from his time in Belfast, Telford never missed a chance to play secret agent man. “I hope the seats are better than last time,” he informed the Guards officer turned government flunky.

“You get what I can afford. After all, I’m just a humble servant of HMG.”

“Yeah, right,” Andy sneered as Telford turned and walked away.

Only after Telford was gone did Andy find himself wondering if one of the people who had been on the shit list Randolph Mullins was rumored to have kept was Telford himself. Not that it made any difference, Andy told himself as he turned away and headed off in the opposite direction.

From the doorway of the Calico Row office belonging to Century Consulting, Andy took a moment to look about. “Where’s Spence?”

Without bothering to look up from his monitor, Tommy grunted, “I sent her to fetch tea, biscuits, and milk.”

“You sent her?” Andy asked incredulously as he made his way to his desk.

Tommy grinned. “In a roundabout way, I did.”

Unable to help himself, Andy chuckled, for he knew Tommy’s ways. Rather than coming out and telling Karen Spencer they needed to restock various items they were out of, whether it be office supplies or tea, he’d make a great show of noisily poking around the office searching for things he knew they were out of until Spence, unable to concentrate on her work with him noisily thrashing about, asked him what he was looking for. After informing her, she’d save her work, get up, and go over to the cabinet where the item Tommy was looking for was kept. If they really were out of something, she would inventory their supplies and draw up a list of items they were out of or low on before heading out the door to the local corner shop.

Chuckling to himself, Andy took a seat at his desk. “You know, one day that girl is going to catch on to that little charade of yours and tell you to stuff it.”

Tommy was unfazed by Andy’s warning. “I daresay if she hasn’t figured it out by now, she never will.”

After enjoying a chuckle over this, Tommy turned his attention back to what he’d been working on while Andy took a few minutes to poke around the Internet, pulling up whatever he could find concerning the death of the media mogul. Now that he knew there just might be more to the story, he took care to see if there was anything hidden in the published stories he could follow up on. When he found none, he next turned his attention to handwriting a letter to a former NYPD detective named O’Conner he’d worked with before when he’d been tasked to track down a notorious Russian computer expert living in New York who had had links to the IRA.

After finishing the letter, Andy eased back in his seat, wondering how she would react to his letter. It wasn’t the nature of the request he was making to Susan Giovanna O’Conner, whom everyone called Susan G., that worried Andy. Like him, she was a consummate, tenacious, take-no-prisoners professional. What concerned him was whether the two of them would be able to work together as effectively as they had in the past, even providing she was willing to. She’d changed since he’d last seen her. She might not be keen on renewing their relationship, even if it was a purely professional one, just as the last case they’d worked on together had started out, for he imagined it might be just as awkward for her as it would be for him.

Setting that thought aside, Andy lurched forward and read the letter to her he’d drafted. Satisfied with it, he turned his attention to addressing an overseas express envelope. If there was, as Telford had put it, a “there” there, the last thing Andy wished to do was to send anything regarding the case bouncing about the globe via the Internet, ricocheting off one server to the next where anyone tapped into the Web who was interested in any traffic regarding Mullins’s death could pluck it out of the ether and find out what he was up to.

Finished with addressing the envelope, Andy glanced over to Tommy, who was hunched over his keyboard in a pose that always put him in mind of a tech-savvy version of Quasimodo. “Whatever it is you’re working on, finish up as best you can by noon. Then go home, pack your kit, find your passport, put your household on lockdown, and be ready to pull pitch either tomorrow or oh-dark-thirty the day after.”

Ever eager to go off on one of Andy’s adventures, provided it didn’t involve tromping up and down Hadrian’s Wall or meandering about some other tumbled-down edifice left behind by the Romans whilst listening to a drier-than-dirt description of how the damn thing was built, Tommy asked what he needed to pack. “What’s it going to be? Brown stuff, green stuff, or gray stuff?”

“Gray,” Andy replied, using Tommy’s terminology for clothing appropriate for an urban environment. “Definitely gray. About a week’s worth.”

“We taking Tinker Bell with us?” Tommy asked cautiously.

Andy had considered doing so, but only briefly. If it did turn out Mullins’s death was the result of carjacking by remote control, the method used would involve hardware, which was Tommy’s field of expertise. Spence was the software wiz of the team, well-schooled in the dark art of navigating her way through vast oceans of code. As true as that was, the real reason he’d dismissed the idea of including her on this foray was personal. Andy wished to spare himself the necessity of taking on the role of mother to a pair of bickering siblings. While Tommy Tyler and Karen Spencer were consummate professionals whose technical expertise was second to none, the two were like vinegar and oil — palatable in small doses but difficult to mix. This had proven to be especially true in the wake of the Kirkland Hospital case. As much as he liked Tommy’s brash, no-nonsense demeanor and his ability to get right to the heart of a problem, the man had the unfortunate habit of going from tolerably annoying to downright aggravating when gloating over his latest triumph. “No, not this time.”

“Aw, too bad,” Tommy muttered while flashing Andy a Cheshire cat grin before turning his attention back to what he’d been working on, leaving Andy free to reread the letter he’d written. As he was doing so, he thought about adding a personal note at the bottom before slipping it in the express mail envelope. No, he finally concluded. This is going to be awkward enough without making a comment that might not be appreciated or might be taken the wrong way, he thought to himself as his mind once more turned to Susan G.

3

The idea Susan Giovanna O’Conner wouldn’t be there to greet them never entered Andy’s mind. The way she had gone about catching his attention as he and Tommy emerged from customs didn’t surprise him, either. It was more than her five-foot-nine height, further enhanced by the two-inch heels of her stylish black boots that caught Andy’s eye straight off. Not even her coppery red hair was the main draw. Rather, it was the sign she was holding that caught his attention.

Standing front and center in a cluster of limousine drivers, she held a sign up as if she were just another chauffeur waiting for a client. But rather than a last name scrawled on a plain white sheet of paper, the background of hers was a Union Jack upon which was written in an ornate script:

That, along with the lopsided smile she flashed him when their eyes met, were more than enough to tell him she’d not lost the quirky sense of humor that had made working with her years ago more interesting than it should have been.

With an affected nonchalance, Andy made his way up to her, dragging his sole piece of luggage behind him. He stopped when he was still a respectable and safe arm’s distance away. After making something of a show of inspecting her from head to toe, he grinned. “I must say, you certainly have changed.”

Unable to help herself, even as she was lowering the sign, Susan averted her gaze. After an awkward moment of silence, she peeked back up into Andy’s eyes through her lashes. “And you haven’t, not one bit.”

It was now Andy’s turn to go all shy as he stuffed his free hand in a pocket of his trousers and shrugged, wondering if the coloring of his cheeks was betraying a most unwanted response he was unable to tamp down.

Tommy, who’d been standing off to one side, couldn’t help but grin as he watched this scene play out. For once, he kept his tongue in check, resisting the urge to say something that would spoil what he believed was an emotional reunion between two former lovers. That he was about as wide of the mark as he could be was something neither Andy nor Susan did anything to make clear by the way they conducted themselves. Instead, the tall, well-proportioned redhead cleared her throat.

“If you’re finished here, my car is outside double-parked in a no-parking zone. I thought I’d drop you two off at your hotel and give you a chance to freshen up and sort yourselves out before we pitched into this mysterious quest of yours.”

Realizing it just might be best if he did take a bit of time to collect his wits and figure out how he was going to go about dealing with Susan G. now that he had had an opportunity to see just how different she was from what he had expected, Andy nodded. “Yeah, right. Good idea.”

Having managed to pry precious little out of Andy at the hotel after Susan dropped them off, Tommy wasted little time pumping the tall redhead for information as she was driving them to the NYPD impound lot. “Andy never did say how you two met,” Tommy blurted from the backseat of Susan’s car as she bobbed and weaved through early afternoon traffic with a reckless abandon that put the taxi drivers to shame.

“I think it would be best if Andy told the story,” she replied just before cutting off a city bus that was pulling away from the curb. “You were, after all, the one who came to me back then,” she added as she glanced over at Andy, sporting a devilish grin that told him her wording was meant to be suggestive.

At the moment, Andy wasn’t up to playing along with Susan’s wicked little game as he wondered if it would be best if he closed his eyes and used what precious little time he had left to watch his life flash before his eyes or keep them open to bear witness to the calamity he expected was but a hair’s breadth away. “Are you trying to reenact Mullins’s death, or is this the way you drive all the time?”

“What’s wrong with my driving?” Susan asked innocently as she gave the wheel of her car a quick jerk to the left to avoid rear-ending a cab that had stopped in the middle of the lane she was in to pick up a fare.

“You either have a charmed life or you’re crazier than you were when I last saw you,” Andy intoned as he watched Susan zip past a cyclist who flashed them a one-finger salute.

“And when was that?” Tommy asked in a feigned offhanded manner as he once more tried to find out what had gone on between her and Andy.

“You’re rather persistent,” Susan chirped brightly. “Just like your boss is.”

“Aye, he can be as tenacious as a terrier when he wants to be. But I guess you already know that.”

“A terrier?” Susan quipped as she glanced over at Andy out of the corner of her eye. “I always thought of him as something of a Labrador — you know, the cute, cuddly kind.”

Not at all pleased with how this exchange was playing out, Andy glanced over his shoulder, shooting Tommy a look that warned him the fun and games were over, that the time had come to cease and desist, or else.

Taking heed, Tommy acknowledged the wave off with a broad, toothy grin. He expected there’d be ample opportunity later to find out more about the woman Andy was doing his damnedest to keep from looking at, he told himself, as he eased back in his seat and settled into enjoying the wild ride she was treating them to.

At the impound lot where the NYPD stored abandoned and illegally parked vehicles, the trio was met by a man Susan identified using only his first name before introducing both Andy and Tommy in a similar fashion. “Kevin and I were partners,” she informed them.

Andy didn’t let on that he remembered Detective Kevin O’Banyon as the two men shook hands. They’d met only in passing in 1988 when he’d been working with Susan. No doubt she was doing all she could to keep anyone from knowing more about the others than was absolutely necessary — just in case someone got wise to the unauthorized visit O’Banyon had arranged for the two men who Susan had told him were friends of hers from the UK. Likewise, he didn’t bother asking her if Andy was still working for the same people he had been when he’d been sent in to the States to track down a Russian with ties to the IRA, as well as a number of other nefarious groups.

After being admitted to the yard with nothing more than an exchange of nods with the officer on duty at the gate, O’Banyon led them to where the wreckage of the Lincoln Town Car Mullins had died in now sat. As they were doing so, Susan used the opportunity to engage O’Banyon in some idle chitchat of a personal nature. “What’s Kevin Junior up to these days?” Susan asked.

O’Banyon grunted. “Don’t ask. I’ve not heard from the boy in weeks. I’d like to think he’s too busy studying.”

When she responded with a snicker followed by a glib remark that caused O’Banyon to guffaw, Andy, who was walking a few paces behind, couldn’t help but be struck by the way the two carried on as if nothing had changed. It had, of course. Even from behind, a single glance of Susan’s figure and the way she carried herself told himself it most definitely had.

“Here we are,” O’Banyon declared as he stopped before the black, bullet-riddled Lincoln Town Car with a crumpled front end. “If the people from the Technical Assistance Response Unit found anything when they went over it, it didn’t make it into this,” he added as he looked side to side before reaching inside his jacket and pulling a thick envelope out of an inner pocket.

Neither Andy nor Susan had any need to ask O’Banyon what was in the envelope.

“I imagine I owe you big-time for this,” Susan stated as she quickly took it and slipped it into her oversized purse.

“Oh, you bet,” O’Banyon replied with a grin. “You can start by coming by on Sunday for dinner and talking some sense into Fran.”

“Okay, what did you do to piss her off now?” Susan asked glibly.

“Me? Nothing. It’s Kevin Junior who’s in the doghouse. She wants me to drive up to that overpriced college Junior talked me into sending him to and making sure he’s still alive.”

“And what do you expect me to do?” she asked as she maneuvered herself so that O’Banyon had to turn his back on the Town Car to talk to her.

“Fran will listen to you. She doesn’t believe me when I tell her boys tend to fall off the face of the earth when given their first taste of freedom.”

“And what makes you think she’ll believe me?”

“Besides knowing what it’s like, she trusts you.”

As amusing as it was to listen in on this lively exchange, Andy’s attention was distracted by Tommy, who had eased away from the others. While Susan distracted O’Banyon, Tommy took to rooting about under the bonnet of the wreck like a ferret burrowing a nest for itself. Only when he backed off, turned toward Andy — who was doing his best to keep from watching him — and gave him a quick nod while slipping something into his pocket did Andy interrupt Susan. He reminded her the last time he and Tommy had eaten was on the plane.

When she looked over O’Banyon’s shoulder and saw Tommy stepping away from the car, she knew he’d found whatever it was he had been looking for. Turning her attention to Andy, she chuckled. “You’re worse than he is,” she mused as she cocked her head toward O’Banyon. “There are only two things he’s ever interested in.”

“Dare I ask what they are?” Andy asked.

“One’s his stomach,” she replied as she pivoted about on her heels and began to head back to the yard’s gate. “I expect you can work out what the other thing is on you own.”

As he and O’Banyon watched her walk away, Andy grinned. “She really hasn’t changed, has she?”

Knowing exactly what the Englishman was saying, O’Banyon nodded. “No, she hasn’t. If anything, she’s become more of a pain in the ass.”

“I heard that,” Susan called out without bothering to look back over her shoulder at Andy and O’Banyon or slow her pace.

From where he was listening in on this exchange, Tommy watched as the two men broke out in laughter before following Susan, wondering if there was some kind of inside joke he wasn’t privy to. Deciding it might be worth his while to look into the tall ginger’s past to see if he could sort out just what was so special about her, he gave the black box he’d found connected to the Town Car’s computer bus line a pat as if to ensure himself it was there before stepping off and following the others.

After buying lunch for O’Banyon as a way of repaying him for the favor he’d rendered them and bidding him a quick farewell, Andy asked Susan if there was someplace Tommy could examine the black box he’d found while they went over the report O’Banyon had slipped to them.

“My office, of course. I’d be rather shocked if Jenny Garver, my assistant and in-house computer whiz, didn’t have everything Short Round over there might need.”

“I heard that,” Tommy muttered as he came up to Susan’s left.

Looking down at the man beside her who barely stood higher than her shoulders, Susan flashed him a devilish grin and winked. “I know.”

Realizing it was game on, Tommy returned her steady, unflinching stare. “You never did tell me how you two met.”

Once more, Susan winked. “I know.” With that, she turned to Andy, who was on her right. “Come on, cowboy. I expect you’re on the clock.” With that, she stepped off and headed out the door of the midtown restaurant.

“She’s something else, isn’t she?” Tommy proclaimed as he watched her from behind.

“That she is,” Andy muttered more to himself than in response to Tommy. “That she is.”

4

At five foot four, Jenny Garver was as close a match in height to Tommy as could humanly be. That’s where the physical resemblance ended. While Tommy looked like someone had attached a pair of stubby legs, two short arms, and a round head with chubby cheeks onto a beer barrel, the lean girl from Oklahoma with raven-black hair, big brown eyes, and a western drawl that flowed out of her mouth as smoothly as the Red River was the very definition of petite. But it was the way they went about dissecting and analyzing the black box Tommy had found that left Andy realizing they were two peas in a pod.

“Where did you find her?” Andy asked Susan as he watched from across the room as Tommy and Jenny went about their work like a pair of kids who’d stumbled upon a shiny stone.

“She was my driver in Iraq,” Susan replied quietly as she watched the girl, who had become as precious to her as her own daughter, examine the black box.

“Really? I didn’t know you made that one. Were you, ah…”

Looking away from Jenny and over to him, Susan gave Andy one of her signature “get real” looks. “This isn’t the UK, old boy.”

“Whatever happened to once a marine, always a marine?”

Susan’s face clouded as anger over the American military policy concerning someone like her welled up. “Despite what some people think, I’m still a marine.”

“If you say so.”

“Semper fi. Now, come on, cowboy,” she muttered in an effort to change the subject as quickly as possible even as she was making her way into her office. “Let’s go see what the copy of the official report Kevin slipped us has to say about the demise of your man.”

“He’s not my man,” Andy replied as he followed Susan and took a seat across from her at a small conference table she had there.

“He’s a Brit, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, in my book, that makes him your man.”

Andy bit back a sigh. “If you say so.”

In addition to a copy of the police report concerning the investigation into Mullins’s death, Susan had found a second, seemingly unrelated one in the overstuffed envelope O’Banyon had given her. The first one was by far the longest and most detailed. It was the other one, however, that caught their attention and on which Andy focused since the Mullins report was pretty much in line with what the mayor’s office and the FBI had made public.

Despite being a sparse one-pager, there were several tantalizing little tidbits in the second report that piqued his attention. It concerned a taxi that had been abandoned on Broadway on the same night Mullins had died. That, in and of itself, was of little importance since a fair number of drivers had bailed out of their vehicles and fled as soon as the police had opened fire on the Town Car farther down on Broadway. What did make the report relevant were three facts, none of which it seemed anyone had bothered to link, let alone associate with the Mullins incident.

The first concerned the cab’s driver. He had been found with his throat slit, floating facedown in the East River two days after the Mullins incident. It was the dearth of any hint of serious follow-up into his homicide that made this point stand out. The second was an attached complaint made to the cab company where the driver had worked, which had been turned over to the police. A man from New Jersey had gone out of his way to report a rude exchange that had taken place immediately before the Mullins incident and across from the theater where Mullins had been just prior to his death. What made this so important was a description of a man in the front passenger seat of the cab. In addition to holding a device that looked like a game station, according to the complainant, this passenger spoke with a Jamaican accent.

Easing back in his seat, Andy sighed. He now not only knew the two incidents were linked but also why people back in the UK were concerned about Mullins’s death. The police report concerning the cabbie’s death ended with the statement by the detective investigating it that he was awaiting a report from the FBI on several sets of fingerprints lifted from the front passenger side of the cab, which had been forwarded to the FBI before pursuing the case any further.

Looking across the table at Susan, Andy drew her attention away from the report on the Mullins incident she had been poring over in an effort to see if there were any hidden nuggets of information someone at the department had overlooked or discounted. “Any chance of finding out from the FBI who those prints belong to?”

Making a face, Susan thought for a moment before answering. “The bureau and I are not on the best of terms at the moment.”

“What did you do to piss them off?”

Susan snickered. “You don’t want to know.” Then, after drawing in a deep breath, she frowned. “Just how important is it that you find out?”

Had the part about the passenger in the cab not made mention that he was Jamaican, Andy wouldn’t have pressed the matter. But the point had been raised, which led Andy to wonder if this was what had the people who’d put Telford on the case worried. “Very,” he finally replied evenly.

Coming to her feet, Susan took a moment to look down at Andy. His deadpan, no-nonsense expression told her all she needed to know. “I’ll do my best.”

Andy nodded. “I couldn’t ask for more from you.”

No sooner had those words left his mouth than he regretted having said them. As if to drive this point home, Susan raised an eyebrow and gave him one of her lopsided smiles before heading over to her desk and picking up the phone.

The list Susan handed Andy an hour later confirmed Andy’s and, he expected, Telford’s worst fears. The passenger had not been Jamaican but Belizean. Even worse, the man was a former member of that country’s police special branch. If the FBI knew this, Andy had no doubt in his mind that his own security service and the Foreign Office did, as well.

Before he allowed his mind to run riot, playing out all sorts of Machiavellian plots that had been hatched between the United States and the UK designed to put a lid on the Mullins incident and make it go away when the identity of the cab’s passenger had been established, Andy turned to Susan. She’d already read the fax sent by someone she was unwilling to identify. Based on her expression, he could tell she had managed to reach the same conclusion he had.

Andy sat there going over everything they’d seen thus far as he took to rubbing his eyes due to the jet lag that was finally starting to catch up with him. No wonder people wanted this closed down tight. The conspiracy theorists would have a field day if it got into the open, and — for once, perhaps — they could very well be right. A tentative knock intruded on Andy’s thoughts. Looking up, he caught sight of Tommy staring at him from the door.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve just finished an initial look-see with Oklahoma. We need to talk.”

Andy looked up at Susan G. “Can I borrow your office for a moment? I need to have a private chat with Tommy.”

Knowing just how sensitive this whole affair was beginning to turn out to be and wishing to have a private word of her own with Jenny, Susan nodded and pulled herself to her feet. “Mi casa es su casa.”

She had no sooner than closed the door behind her when Tommy took to overwhelming Andy with details about the black box he’d plucked from the wrecked Town Car, details he really didn’t care to know.

“You’re going to love this, boss. It’s a Raspberry Pi running a bespoke flavor of Linux,” Tommy proclaimed happily as he waved a scratched and dented black metal case wrapped with masking tape under Andy’s nose. “Once they had this little puppy properly wired into the back of the target vehicle’s diagnostic port, the gits who did this had themselves a full-scale RC car. I have four of the little beauties myself,” Tommy added brightly as he stared lovingly at the battered piece of hardware. “I also imaged the SD memory card for Spence to have a look when we get back, but if you’d like, I can show you how easy it is to hook it up to someone’s car and give you the ride of your life.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Andy replied dryly. “What can you tell me about its origin? Were there any markings on it that can be used to trace it to its source and possibly help in tracking it from manufacturer to end user?”

Tommy barked out a sharp laugh. “It’s a Raspberry Pi, boss,” he exclaimed as if what he’d just said was supposed to mean something to Andy. When Tommy saw the look on his face that told him it didn’t, he took to explaining. “It’s only been around for a couple of years, and already there are millions of the little buggers out there. Whoever modified this one spent a lot of time and effort to erase any serial numbers on the motherboard. However, guess where the majority of these are sold?”

“Hmm, that’s a real toughie. My guess would be China.”

“Nah, the UK,” Tommy continued. “But it’s the case that really takes the biscuit. It isn’t an off-the-shelf protective shell; it’s been handcrafted in aluminum with just enough space inside for this stuff.” With a flourish, Tommy pulled what at first sight appeared to be a thin reddish slab the size of a small Hershey bar wrapped in food wrap from his other pocket.

Andy had to stop himself from jerking back at the sight, trying to tell himself not even Tommy was that stupid. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yep,” Tommy grinned as he casually slapped the packet down on Susan G.’s desk whilst his eyes never left his boss’s face. “A nice bit of thermite. The lad who built this really didn’t want anyone to track it back to him by analyzing his techniques and signature, the kind everyone who puts together something like this leaves behind. Pity for him the igniter didn’t work.”

Andy pulled his eyes up from the innocuous-looking sachet of powder. “And you brought it in here?” he asked disbelievingly.

“Hey, it was in my bloody pocket!” Tommy grinned evilly as he picked his prize back up and casually returned it to the aforesaid pocket. “But you should have seen the look on Oklahoma’s face when I cracked open the case. Did you know that cute little thing was a marine?”

“Is a marine,” Andy muttered as he slowly shook his head and rubbed his eyes, which were beginning to feel like they’d been sandblasted. “Telford’s going to love this.”

Only when Andy had weaned everything of value out of Tommy and Susan’s assistant about the black box that had been pulled from the wrecked Town Car did Andy send him and Oklahoma off to find a quiet spot, a place where they could get rid of all the evidence that they had ever seen the damn device. Though Andy didn’t ask, as he was stifling a yawn, he could tell from the look in Tommy’s eye that the little bag of thermite was probably going to be involved in whatever it was he had in mind.

With that taken care of, he turned to Susan G. “I didn’t realize what I was dragging you into. I’m sorry.”

“So it’s just like the good old days, say what?” Again the half smile accompanied by a slight lift of eyebrow reminded him that Susan G. hadn’t really changed.

“As much as I’d love to call it a night and go back to the hotel, I need to send something to the UK pronto. The trouble is,” Andy quickly added as he looked back at the table where the two police reports sat, “given what we’ve just seen, I really don’t trust any of the gear I came with. Any chance I can lay my hands on a clean, preloaded data SIM card and a GSM dongle at this time of night?”

Susan G.’s smile grew broader as she dropped her chin a smidge and gave him one of her “get real” looks. “You do realize you’re in New York?”

“Yeah?”

“The city that never sleeps?” Only when she saw the cogs turning painfully slowly and remembering Andy was probably suffering from jet lag did she finally take pity on him. “Grab your coat, old bean. We’re going shopping.”

By the time Tommy and Oklahoma got back, both grinning like schoolkids and smelling faintly like a bonfire, Andy was pecking away at a battered secondhand laptop with a brand-new GSM dongle plugged in.

“Telford?” Tommy asked as soon as he had managed to persuade Oklahoma that what he really needed was a cup of tea that she was more than happy to go off and fetch.

“Yep,” Andy muttered without bothering to look up from his typing.

“Unencrypted?”

“Not a cat in hell’s chance. I had Spence make a bootable USB preloaded with GnuPG and a set of one-time public and private keys before we left.” With a grunt, he hit the Send button and leaned back to review his last instructions, hoping he had struck just the right balance between instilling caution and not scaring the hell out of the girl.

Tommy flopped down in the chair opposite as Andy dropped the lid of the laptop. “So what now?”

“We wait,” Andy muttered dryly.

“For what?”

“If we’re lucky, a thanks from Ed for a job well done and a strongly worded suggestion that we hurry home.”

“Or?” Tommy ventured when he saw the worried expression Andy wasn’t able to keep in check.

Having no wish to go into that, Andy drew himself up. “I daresay we owe Susan and Oklahoma dinner. If you’re up to it, I say we wrap things up here, head on out, and pay up.”

Realizing he wasn’t about to get a straight answer from Andy, Tommy nodded. “Sounds good to me, provided you’re paying.”

“I’m not paying. Some nameless bureaucrat back in London is.”

“All the better,” Tommy beamed.

5

Having followed Andy’s instructions to the letter and having received no questions or comments from Telford that she needed to encrypt and send back, Spence sent a quick text from her mobile to let Andy know the package had been delivered. Then, having faithfully followed her instructions to destroy the original and trash the old laptop she had set up for communications, and knowing there wasn’t anything to eat back at her flat that struck her fancy, she treated herself the way she often did when she wished to take a break from her usual routine. While dinner at a decent little pizzeria she frequented followed by a film might not have struck most young women her age as a big night on the town, for Spence, it was as close to lavish indulgence as she ever went.

The serenity of a stress-free evening spent out and about on her own was shattered the second she opened the door of her flat and discovered it had been ransacked. Pausing in the open doorway, she hesitated but a second as she wondered if it would be best if she backed out and called the police or ventured in to see if things were as bad as they appeared to be. Ordinarily, she would have done what most sane and rational women would have and gone with the first option. It was what she’d done earlier and the nature of the message she had carried to Telford that caused her to appreciate straight off she just might be dealing with something that was anything but ordinary.

It was the presence of her flat-screen television and the absence of a trio of computers that clued her in this had not been a job committed by a run-of-the-mill thug. Whoever had been through the place, she concluded, had either been the world’s most discriminating thieves or had been very selective in what they took. With that thought in mind, Spence laughed slightly manically at her own joke. If it was the latter, going to the police might be almost as dumb as going back to Telford and demanding to know what in the hell was going on. Dealing with that arrogant prick was something she decided was best left to Andy.

Having settled on what she hoped was the wisest course of action, she made her way into her flat, closed the door, and took to assessing the situation even as she was pulling out her mobile and calling the number to a second mobile Andy always kept close at hand that only she and Tommy had the number to.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you, boss?” Tommy asked as he watched Andy stuff his clothing into his carry-on with more vigor than the task called for.

Andy didn’t bother looking over to where Tommy sat perched on the edge of his hotel room bed. “No, definitely not. The last thing I need is an irate taffy at my side when I meet with Telford.”

“I’d have thought that would be the first thing you’d want, given what he’s done to Tinker Bell.”

Looking up, Andy paused as his eyes met Tommy’s. “We don’t know Telford was the one who ordered the brute squad to toss Spence’s flat.”

“Give me a break, will ya?” Tommy muttered dismissively. “Even if he didn’t give the order himself, just by passing on what we’ve found to whoever it was that set this show in motion makes the bastard as guilty as the nasty little shites who tossed Spence’s flat. You know that as well as I do.”

In no mood to argue, Andy sighed. “Just do me a favor and don’t follow me, not until I give you an all clear.”

“And what exactly am I supposed to do?”

“You’re always talking about trying to beat the house with that system you’ve been working on these past few months,” Andy suggested as he went back to packing. “Why don’t you go out to Vegas and give it a whirl?”

In the twinkling of an eye, Tommy’s face lit up. “Yeah,” he murmured as he took to considering Andy’s proposal. “Yeah. I think I’ll do that.”

Pleased he’d managed to set Tommy charging off on a tangent, Andy checked his watch. Knowing Susan G. would be waiting to take him to the airport out on the street, double parked as usual, he zipped up his carry-on, took a quick look about to make sure he hadn’t left anything, and headed for the door. “Just you take care,” he warned Tommy as he was leaving. “Casino owners in Vegas don’t take kindly to people who set out to cheat them of their ill-gotten gains.”

Before Tommy was able to reply, Andy was gone, leaving him wondering who had more to worry about: himself and any possible run-ins he might have with casino security or Edward Telford once Andy had the bastard in his sights. Telford, Tommy finally concluded with a happy smile. A man didn’t survive back-to-back tours in Northern Ireland doing what Andy had done there without becoming something of a heartless bastard himself when he needed to be.

With nothing else to do for the balance of the evening other than make reservations on the first available flight to Vegas and book a room there, Tommy decided this was as good a time as any to find out what was so special about Susan G. O’Conner. Firing up his laptop, he browsed the Web, using all the usual search tools he relied on in order to find out about a person’s past. When he came up with nothing he already didn’t know, he tried a search that included only the terms O’Conner and NYPD. The only thing that came close was a series of old newspaper articles that spoke of an NYPD detective named O’Conner who had been wounded in the line of duty.

What convinced him he had found what he was looking for were the photos of the two detectives. Easing back away from the screen as he gazed at the photo of detective first grade O’Banyon and detective second grade O’Conner, Tommy snickered. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

When he spotted Andy from behind, sitting on a bench in Battersea Park right where he said he would be, Edward Telford hesitated. The idea of turning around and slinking away, while inviting, would have only made the tirade he had no hope of avoiding worse. With this thought in mind, the former Guards officer drew himself up and headed over to the bench where he took a seat.

“Listen, Andy, I’m terribly sorry things were as badly mismanaged as they were,” Telford began when his friend didn’t open the conversation as he had expected. “Had I known someone was going to go after your girl as they did, I never would have involved you in this whole sordid affair.”

For the longest time, Andy said nothing. When he did finally break his silence, his voice was very calm, as if he were discussing the weather. “I expect you heard all the rumors that went about at the time regarding how that Provo who set off a bomb next to the Londonderry school playground that claimed the lives of all those children met his end?”

Glancing over at Andy out of the corner of his eye, Telford nodded. “I did.”

Ever so slowly, Andy twisted about until he was facing Telford. “Well, let me tell you, mate,” he muttered in a tone that sent a chill down Telford’s spine, “if I find out who did that to one of mine, what happened to him will pale by comparison.”

Telford knew better than to shrug off such a threat, not when it was made by a man with Andy Webb’s reputation. The urge to ask him if he had found anything else concerning the Mullins incident was forgotten as he watched Andy come to his feet and walk away without another word. In this case, Telford decided self-preservation firmly trumped his obligation to queen and country.

Besides, Telford concluded as he also came to his feet and retreated in the opposite direction Andy had taken, he’d got all he imagined he could reasonably expect Andy to be able to find, and then some. If the people he’d been tasked to look into the matter needed more information, they had other, more capable resources they could draw on.

Well, Telford reminded himself as he left the park. Maybe not as capable, but from my standpoint, a damned sight safer to employ.

BUM STEER: THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY

While watching Fox News one morning as I ate breakfast, I saw a story about a study conducted by a pair of University of Pittsburgh professors on how easy it was to hack into a car’s computer system and take control of all the key functions away from the driver. An article in the August 2011 edition of Car and Driver entitled “Can Your Car Be Hacked” as well as a 3 September 2013 AP story by Tom Krisher entitled “Hackers Find a Weakness in Car Computer Systems” served to confirm that this was not only possible but actually quite easy.

It was a chance observation that set the creative storytelling wheels turning. One night, while waiting for my sister to come out of a Broadway show, I saw a pair of black Lincoln Town Cars parked between a pair of NYPD patrol cars. It was the gaggle of plainclothes security types who were not doing such a great job of being inconspicuous, as well as the presence of so many world leaders attending a general session at the UN that led me to conclude there were some high-speed VIPs watching the same show my sister was.

The final element that brought this together is the way conspiracy theorists continue to find new and inventive ways of blaming the death of Princess Diana on the British government. Whether or not this is an efficient way of doing someone in can be debated. That it is possible is all that matters.

HAROLD COYLE

BUM STEER: THE TECHNOLOGY BEHIND THE STORY

In 2013, Dr. Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek presented a paper at the DEF CON event on hacking cars. It had taken them nine months of hard work to achieve it, but their results were staggering. “We could control steering, braking, acceleration to a certain extent, seat belts, lights, horn, speedometer, gas gauge,” said Valasek. And whilst some observers may consider the chance of assassination by remote control car extremely unlikely, others think it has already been done and point to the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of journalist Michael Hastings the same year.

One of the hardest problems any would-be cyberassassin would face is finding suitable hardware to plug in to the target vehicle’s data bus, the network that links all the computers inside a car together. It must be small enough to conceal, easily programmable, readily and cheaply available, and, of course, almost impossible to trace. Enter the Raspberry Pi. Initially designed as a cheap and easily configurable computer to reintroduce young people to the joys of programming in the UK, it has quickly gained an almost cult status among hobbyists globally. On sale for about fifty dollars, by the end of 2013, over two million units have been shipped worldwide to accommodate a vast range of programming projects that have come to rely on it, some of which are educational and fun, others not quite so innocent.

I imagine there are readers who might consider Andy’s methods to protect his transatlantic communications somewhat paranoid, but that probably depends on whether you read the UK’s Guardian newspaper. The use of a disposable pay-as-you-go data SIM card — purchased with cash, of course — is a good start. But it also helps to ensure your GSM device’s built-in International Mobile Station Equipment Identity, or IMEI, is also “clean” and has not been linked to you previously. An old laptop that you can later trash is also a good thought, but Andy goes one step further and has a bootable USB flash drive that Spence had prebuilt for him with an operating system, e-mail, and encryption software, all of which are readily available as open-source utilities, such as Thunderbird and GnuPG. Even then, a final bit of paranoia kicks in. Why did he insist on his letter being printed out on an ancient dot matrix printer? Simple. Almost all modern printers have both memory and computers inside. If you look, you’d be amazed at what you can find in a printer’s memory. Like elephants and creditors, they never forget.

JENNIFER ELLIS