Stratagems Read online

  “They found my dad this time,” Drew said.

  Chris hesitated before answering. “You’re right, they did. But we know why they did, and that mistake won’t happen again.”

  “Mistake,” Drew said, standing. “What mistake?”

  “I can’t tell you, but it wasn’t the FBI. It was outside.”

  “What do you mean?” Drew insisted.

  “I’m not going into details, especially at three in the morning. Make that nearly four. The bottom line is that each of you will be given a new life, so take advantage of it. Live it. You’ll finally be free from running.”

  “Without a father,” Drew said, his voice almost a whisper, but everyone heard.

  Mark stood and moved closer to Drew, looking over at Chris. “Why don’t you get the rest of the family loaded up and I’ll get something for Drew’s – Kyle’s – face.”

  Chris nodded.

  Drew stood and followed Mark out of the conference room and through another maze of halls to a small kitchenette. Mark went to the counter, opened a drawer, pulled out a small dishtowel and filled it with ice.

  “Here you go,” Mark said. “This will help with the swelling.”

  Drew pressed the towel against his cheek and winced. “Why did you believe me back there?” Drew asked.

  Mark grinned, leaning against the counter. “I know Roger. I pissed him off pretty bad, and he has a hot temper.”

  “Why are you being so nice to me?”

  Mark thought for a second, taking a hard, long look at Drew. “I have a daughter about your age. I suddenly realized how she might feel if I died and she was being given a new identity. I imagine it’s a bit overwhelming.”

  Drew smiled, wincing against the pain. “Just a bit.”

  “Come on,” Mark said, “I’ll walk you out.”

  Drew followed Mark through the halls and into the elevator, wishing he still had the Coke. It wouldn’t help much with the headache, but would feel wonderful going down. He didn’t see any other agents as they walked through the building, finally reaching the lobby doors. The cold air greeted their faces as they stepped outside, heading for the SUVs where his mother and sisters were already waiting.

  Drew got in the cab, once again sitting next to Jenny, now Jacqueline, then looked back at Mark.

  “Thanks.”

  Mark nodded. “Sure. Don’t worry, Kyle, you’ll get through this. Everything’s going to work out. You’ll see.”

  Kyle. The name echoed in his throbbing head. It would take a while to get used to a new name, especially seven new names.

  Mark closed the door as the SUV started to pull away. Drew rolled down the window, glancing once at the front seat to see if Gary was still riding shotgun. This time it was only the driver, Perry Sims. Kyle looked out the window across the FBI compound. He could see the Virginia tree line off in the distance and tried to imagine how life would be in two days. Albuquerque was way out in the New Mexican desert, so there would likely be no tree lines, no ocean or beaches or trips to the big city or magnificent Indian summers or Yankee Stadium. Worst of all, there would no longer be a father in their lives.

  CHAPTER TWO

  December 2004

  Charlie Duncan fumbled the cell phone for the third time before he was able to dial his wife's number correctly. He cupped the receiver close to his ear with his right hand while managing to weave his way through rush hour traffic with his left, his eyes darting one way then the next to see if a cop, parked off to the side, would pounce on him. Of course, he figured the police would be at his home soon enough, so ushering them to his doorstep at this point would only be a formality, or possibly good fortune. He didn't know for certain. He even toyed with the idea of deliberately trying to catch one's attention. That was not the pressing issue, the one causing his hands to shake uncontrollably. The lone thought that occupied his mind while he managed to keep a steady forty-five during the heaviest of traffic was to reach Beth on her cell phone before she got home. It was a quarter past five and he knew she would be leaving the daycare center.

  His thoughts turned to his children. Suzie with her light brown curls, holding tightly to her security blanket that had become such a part of her, even though she had recently turned five and should have shed it over a year ago. And Johnny. Dear, sweet little John. Blond hair like his mother's which always seemed in need of cutting. He was only three but his hair grew faster than Bermuda grass in the summer time as Beth’s mother would often say when he was overdue for a cut.

  Beth's voice came to life in his ear, a sigh of relief escaping him. Charlie gathered his emotions before he spoke, hoping his voice wouldn’t crack.

  "Sweetie, where are you?" he asked.

  Her tone was soft on the other end. "On Comanche almost to Tramway."

  His heart was racing as he sped past three more cars in the right lane. "I want you to take the kids to your parents and stay there until I call."

  There was a pause. He knew Beth would want an explanation, and he had none to give.

  “What’s the matter, Charlie?”

  He thought for a second, finally offering the only excuse that made any sense, and the only idea to pop into his mind at that moment. “Our alarm went off a while ago and I received a call from the monitoring station. Probably the cat again, but let me check it out anyway, just to be on the safe side.”

  The alarm had gone off before with no explanation, and he could sense Beth’s relief.

  “Just be careful,” she said.

  “I will. And Beth?”

  “Yeah?”

  “The kids. How are they?”

  “A little rowdy, but nothing I can’t handle. Suzie skinned her knee at daycare, and I’m sure she’ll show and tell you about it later.”

  Charlie smiled. “Yeah. I love you.”

  Beth’s final words – “I love you, too” – lingered in his thoughts as he made the tail end of a yellow arrow. He sped on toward his house that was now only a couple of miles away. Still no sign of the police. More than that, no sign of them. The men driving blue Chevy Blazers who had been following him off and on for the past couple of weeks, and even more so in the last few days. At first, they had been more careful, changing cars once in a while to avoid detection. Charlie had seen them, had even been expecting them, otherwise he might have missed their surveillance efforts altogether. He still was not sure who they were, or if they were good-guys or bad-guys, or perhaps some hybrid of the two. Sometimes they parked far away, other times he spotted them sitting across the road behind the wheel reading a paper, as if it were a perfectly natural thing to do.

  A traffic light, about a quarter of a block ahead, had been green for a while and was threatening to turn yellow. He pushed on the gas, darting into the right lane to avoid hitting a beat-up Monza sputtering a cloud of smoke, then immediately back to the left almost grazing a red pickup truck traveling at a snail’s pace. The light ahead finally went yellow and he pressed the gas pedal to the floor, feeling the V8 lurch forward as it geared into overdrive. He looked ahead and to the left, seeing a couple of cars sitting in the middle of the street for the light to turn red before cutting off his clear path across the intersection. To the right, a line of cars was waiting for the light to change. He was not going to make it. The cars eager to turn were inching their way forward, their driver’s seeing him coming, but possibly not believing it. He laid on the horn with his right hand. The procession of cars stopped and he was close enough to see the driver in the first car. It was a young woman, her mouth gaping and her head turning from Charlie to the passenger seat of her car. A small tuft of hair protruded inches above the seat, probably a child of no more than four or five years. He thought, What the heck is a young child doing in the front seat?

  Charlie didn’t flinch, but ran the red light, veering a bit to avoid the panicked woman. He glanced once in his rearview mirror to make sure he hadn’t left a mess behind in his wake. A few of the cars were still frozen in the middle of the intersec
tion before they started moving again, slow and deliberate. He continued until his street came up, making a sharp left, then slowing as he crossed the threshold of his neighborhood.

  The transition was almost comical. He had sped from work to home in under ten minutes, a trek that would normally take more than 20, and now he was traveling along at a gentle, steady pace. He looked in the rearview mirror once again to see if anyone had somehow followed him, or had been waiting for him on some side street. Nothing unusual.

  He continued, slowly. When he reached the second street, his street, he made a right. He could see a couple of his neighbors had just come home. Gary Parker, a lawyer for a small accounting firm, stepped out of his Oldsmobile Regency 98, spotted Charlie and offered a casual wave. Charlie felt obliged to return the wave. Sylvia Stern, the neighbor who lived across the street from his house, was on her knees in the front yard working in her flowerbed, all the peonies, daffodils, crocus, and hyacinths long since withered as it was early December. She looked up from her work and gave him a passing glance, then quietly returned to digging in the dirt. She would spend much of the summer tending to her gardens, but it struck him funny that she was doing anything this late in the season.

  He pulled into the driveway, pushed the button to the garage door opener and waited until it was all the way up before driving inside. He stepped out quickly and went to the garage door, scanning the neighborhood. With the exception of Sylvia, no one else was in sight. He hadn't been followed after all. Better still, no one was waiting for him.

  He had some time.

  Sylvia rose to her knees, adjusted her heavy jacket that had risen up above her waist, stretched out her back and glanced up. “Hi, Charlie.”

  He looked over to her as he started back into the garage. “Hey.”

  She dropped to her knees again, picking up the spade, and tore into the earth once more. Charlie took one last look around and closed the garage. He entered the house, immediately disabling the alarm, recalling the lie he told Beth. The house was exceptionally quiet, which was unusual. Normally when he walked in Suzie would be bouncing up and down, wrapping her arms tightly around his legs with Johnny following behind her yelling “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” Only the steady hum of the refrigerator cut through the silence now.

  Charlie hurried across the kitchen into the living room, glancing around to make sure no one was hiding in the shadows. He started to feel foolish for being so paranoid, then dismissed it, thinking of the old adage better safe than sorry, or was it better alive than dead? He figured either would do, seeing no one else was in the house but him and Suzie’s cat, now rubbing herself against his leg. He looked down for an instant, gave the cat a brief scratch on the head and made his way up the stairs to his loft office. He quickly took a seat at his computer, reached over his keyboard and pressed the master switch to his Power-Comm center. The sound of his hard disk drive spinning to life filled the room, the monitor flickering on with the pre-boot sequence as he waited for the CMOS password to appear on the screen.

  He felt something on his leg once more and looked down. Suzie’s cat, Sneakers, had followed him up to the loft and was now engaged in a frantic rubbing exercise on his pant leg. He smiled, reached down and gently placed Sneakers on his lap. Finally, the prompt appeared, asking for his password – DIETCOKE.

  The computer started humming to life.

  Charlie rose, still holding Sneakers. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

  He walked back down the stairs to the sliding glass door in the den, retrieved the key from atop the fireplace mantel and slid it open. “Go on, girl.”

  Sneakers looked up, meowed, and ran to the backyard. Charlie smiled as he closed the door and locked it once again. He trotted through the den and kitchen to the door that led into the garage, securing the double-dead bolt. He flipped open the cover to the alarm keypad and re-entered the code. The ARMED light came on and the normal one-minute beep sequence started.

  He ran back upstairs and sat in front of his terminal, double-clicked the MODEM icon and waited for a dial tone. The company wouldn’t pay the price for a broadband connection, and he couldn’t yet afford the expense, so he was stuck with his old 28.8k modem, although he had been tempted to upgrade to a 56k. It screeched out the dial tones as it tried to connect to the office modems. Instead of a clear connection he got a droning beep of a busy signal. He clicked cancel and tried once more. This time a live dial tone squealed from inside the computer. With a sigh of relief, he shot up, ran back downstairs to the master bedroom and turned on the light to their walk-in closet. Beth’s clothes and countless shoes occupied the bulk of space, with a small quarter belonging to Charlie. He hurried back into the bedroom and pulled the vanity chair into the closet, carefully stepping on top, securing his balance. He fumbled his hands across the upper shelf, barely able to see for all the junk they collected over the years. Shoe boxes full of odds and ends lined every square inch. He was looking for one box in particular, finding it after a few anxious moments shoved toward the back. It was a small, red Nike box. The shoes were long since gone, now being worn by Suzie, and in their place rested a black, .45 caliber Smith & Wesson. He removed the gun and its clip. It had a full complement of seven rounds. He took a deep breath as he pushed in the magazine, set the safety and tucked the weapon in the front of his pants.

  By the time he returned to his computer it had successfully connected to the Allied Professional Computer Consultants company modem bank. He launched his e-mail program and selected one name, Kyle Randall, from his personal address book. In the subject box he simply typed three letters, ‘HSI.’ It was much faster than always typing out Homeland Security Initiatives, and would often be followed by other tags, such as ‘HSI budget’ or ‘HSI code changes’ or ‘HSI whatever.’ Virtually every e-mail in the past year had been marked with nothing more than those three letters. Kyle would know the meaning, but this particular e-mail would top any he had received before.

  Charlie stopped for a second, knowing he had little time but not sure how to form the words. If he were to write anything obvious, the network sniffers would likely intercept any part or all of the message, then Kyle would have blue Chevy’s following him all over town. It had to be something simple.

  Charlie decided to skip typing a message, instead hitting the command key to attach files. He navigated to the folder titled ‘compressed files’ and selected HSI.ZIP. It was large and would take a couple of minutes to upload, but it contained dozens of programs and documents compressed inside it. Kyle would be the only one who would even know what to do with it. He had been working from home so much lately he kicked himself for not sending a copy to work. Then again, work was the problem. More than that, someone at work was the problem, but he didn’t know whom, and until he did home was the safest place.

  The computer beeped. The file was successfully attached. He went back to the message box and was once again prompted to type. Some explanation or instructions. Perhaps a clue.

  Charlie froze, listening. The buzzer from the alarm pad downstairs drifted upward. Someone had opened a door. Had it been a window, the alarm would have gone off instantly, taken over the phone line and automatically dialed the monitoring station. Then again, if whoever entered the house did not enter the code, the alarm would trip and his connection to the Internet would die.

  He stood up and half-walked, half-stumbled down the stairs. The buzzer was still shrieking, ten seconds into the trigger cycle, and someone was definitely at the garage door. He could hear them, hear noises. He lifted the gun as he stepped into the kitchen.

  It was Suzie who screamed. “Daddy!”

  Beth stepped in, one arm loaded with a diaper bag, two stuffed animals, her purse and Suzie’s blanket. The other free hand was on the pad, disarming the system. Beth turned just in time to see Charlie with the gun clutched in his hand and pointed at the floor.

  “Charlie! What are you doing?”

  “I thought I told you to go to your parents,�
�� Charlie said, reaching down and picking Suzie up with his free arm while shoving the gun behind his back with the other.

  Beth’s eyes were wide. “What’s going on?”

  Charlie ignored her question. “Where’s John?”

  “Still in his car seat. Why do you have the gun?”

  “Why didn’t you go to your parents?”

  Beth was silent for a second. “The kids were restless, and I figured this was a false alarm and you would’ve already have checked it out. Is there someone in the house?”

  Charlie shook his head.

  “Why do you have your gun out?”

  Charlie again ignored her. He put Suzie down and headed for the garage door. “I’m going to get Johnny. Wait here.”

  “Charlie!” Beth yelled.

  He turned toward her once more before heading into the garage. “Please, Beth, wait here.”

  The overhead light was still on and he could see Johnny strapped in his car seat, happily playing with a plastic F15 fighter jet. He went to the car door, opened it and leaned inside. “Hi sport.”

  Johnny smiled and let out one last swish as his toy jet took off from an imaginary aircraft carrier. “Hi daddy.”

  Charlie reached in, unbuckled the straps of the car seat and carefully lifted his son. He suddenly stopped, holding Johnny next to the car, listening. It was another vehicle, just outside of their double-car garage. It had pulled into his driveway. He was certain of that. He turned slowly, looking toward the large, metal door. He could hear a car on the other side pulling forward. The garage door shook on its rollers as the vehicle nudged it, the rattle of metal echoing in his ears. Johnny looked at the door and then to his dad, holding his arms around daddy’s neck even tighter.

  Charlie stepped away from his car, still looking in the direction of the car on the other side. It was idling, but Charlie could now hear other noises. Not of a car door opening like he expected, but muffled banging sounds, metal against metal. He slowly inched his way backward, Johnny in his arms, toward the ray of light escaping from the kitchen.