The Hunting Command (Grey Areas Triptych Book 1) Read online

  All of his working life Calhoun had been exposed to corruption. He’d seen cops take bribes, he’d pursued hard-core career criminals, he’d investigated sharp-suited captains of industry, and he’d protected charismatic sleaze-bags. Corruption was everywhere. Corruption lurked within everyone. It lay dormant, waiting for the individual’s price to be reached. Calhoun forced himself to take some comfort from the fact his price had been high.

  8. FUNDING

  2 years, 1 month ago

  ‘I’ve got bad news, and bad news. First, she didn’t do it,’ the young man said. ‘And second, your own IT people could have told you this. I’ll carry out the full computer forensics you hired me for, but just a quick look at this machine tells me right now, she didn’t do it.’ He pointed at the monitor. ‘Look at the subject line.’

  The suits looked at the copy of one of the whistleblower emails. The subject line read:

  Emailing: JFY-7R-0909

  ‘So?’ asked the boss suit.

  The young man sighed. ‘Why would anyone type the word emailing in the subject line of an email?’

  The suits looked at each other, micro-tugs around their eyes and foreheads betraying their not-getting-it-ness.

  Duh! ‘They wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘Why? Because that would be ...?’ His wide eyes beamed expectantly at each of the befuddled executives … Retards.

  ‘Redundant is the word you’re looking for,’ said the tall suit leaning against the door, arms folded, amused creasing around his eyes.

  ‘Thank you,’ chirped the young man.

  Again, the boss suit said, ‘So.’ This time more an irritated bark than a question.

  The young man nodded at the monitor. ‘So watch this.’ His hand slid to the mouse. He selected a random folder, then a file labelled Standard Query Letter 004. A few clicks and Outlook opened with a new email ready to send. The file Standard Query Letter 004 was attached and the subject line read: Emailing: Standard Query Letter 004.

  ‘Tah-daaahhh.’ The young man shook jazz-hands at the monitor. ‘So ...’ he turned to address the boss suit, ‘this means, your theory is wrong.’

  The boss suit’s eyes narrowed. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Yes, the embarrassing documents emailed to the Los Angeles Times were sent using Daniella Finkel’s email account, but not, as your investigators suggest, by Miss Finkel accessing her account from the Vancouver hotel she was staying at when the email was sent. Someone else sat right here at Miss Finkel’s computer and emailed the files by clicking on them the way I’ve just shown you. And because Miss Finkel was in Canada at the time, as verified by your investigators, she can’t be your whistleblower. Miss Finkel has been framed.’

  The suits looked at each other, frowning.

  The young man grinned. He’d enjoyed that; he felt like Nathan Fillion (as the writer-slash-detective not the space cowboy) or one of the CSI guys (not the ginger one in Miami though).

  ‘She accessed her computer remotely,’ pitched in one of the underling suits.

  ‘Nope,’ said the young man. ‘For a start your IT security is impressively robust. I’m not saying your security can’t be breached, but it would take, you know, me. Or someone like me. That’s not Miss Finkel. If she could do what I do, she wouldn’t be an Insurance Claims Adjuster. No offence.

  ‘And secondly, for Miss Finkel to access her computer remotely there would have to be software loaded onto it to allow the access, but there isn’t any, and there’s no trace of there ever having been any. Your own IT people will be competent enough to confirm this.’

  The young man’s face scrunched into an artificially apologetic expression. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but whoever blabbed to the press, they’re still at large.’

  The boss suit spun on his Cesare Paciotti heels and stomped towards the door. The tall suit straightened, pulled open the door and stood to the side as the other suits filed out. The young man had presumed the tall suit would follow them, but he didn’t. In one fluid motion the tall suit pushed the door closed, swivelled round and lobbed a small red and black flash drive into the air.

  As the red/black blur arced through the space between them, the tall suit said, ‘Remote access software timed to self destruct and remove all traces of its existence.’

  The flash drive dropped into the young man’s lap. He looked down. He looked up.

  ‘We found your laptop,’ the tall suit said. ‘The one you keep in the hollowed out DVD player, next to the Gerry Anderson box sets.’

  Fuck.

  ‘We also took some nice photographs of you and Daniella Finkel in the park where the two of you worked out how to expose the questionable activities of her bosses.’

  Fuuuuck!

  ‘Don’t look so worried,’ said the tall suit, ‘despite my dapper appearance, I’m not one of them.’ He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘As far as they’re concerned, I’m a freelance security consultant. Like you. But I’m more concerned with firepower than firewalls.’ He pulled his jacket open to reveal a handgun holstered at his side. He smiled. ‘I’ve had my eye on you for a while. A black hat hacker masquerading as a white hat. Very clever.’

  ‘You here to arrest me?’

  ‘No, Mister Amberson, I’m here to recruit you.’

  Kai Degen made his pitch.

  Tommy Amberson sat blinking at him.

  Degen waited.

  ‘Okay,’ the young black hat said, ‘I’ll take the red pill. I’m interested.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  Amberson held up the flash drive. ‘Did you make other copies of my software?’

  ‘We couldn’t break your encryption. That’s blank.’

  Amberson’s jaw slackened. ‘You were bluffing?’

  Degen shrugged.

  ‘Did you lie about there being photos too?’

  ‘The photos exist,’ Degen said. ‘And I didn’t lie. I merely said enough to let you create your own narrative. Now, how about we get you fitted for a grey hat.’

  1 year, 11 months ago

  Each man had a stab at guessing the answer.

  ‘Four.’

  ‘Eh, eight?’

  ‘Ten.’

  ‘Not even close,’ Tommy Amberson said. ‘In the USA, on average, twenty banks are robbed every day. Most of the time firearms are involved. But guns aren’t necessary to rob a bank, a fire department uniform will do.’

  ‘Sorry folks.’ Degen stood in the Buffalo bank making an apologetic wave of his clipboard as he cut the volume of his squawking walkie-talkie to an acceptable background babble; Tommy Amberson was in a vehicle parked nearby sending pre-recorded radio-chatter.

  ‘Sounds counterintuitive, I know,’ Amberson had said, ‘but making a big noisy entrance will get you where you want to be quicker. Nothing shouts authority like a disregard for etiquette, and management won’t want you disturbing the customers.’

  A professional smile appeared in front of Degen; the smiler was—Degen checked the name tag—Edward. The skinny young man followed up with, ‘Good morning sir. How may I help you?’

  Degen’s return smile was thin. He flashed ID. ‘Fire Inspection.’ He’d practised mimicking the Buffalo accent, and he believed he would pass for a local, or at worst a Canadian.

  ‘Certainly. If you’d like to wait over here …’ Edward gestured to a cluster of semi-comfortable looking chairs impersonating a three-star hotel lobby. ‘I’ll arrange for a colleague to show you round.’

  A few minutes later, another smile presented itself. This one was less rehearsed and more genuine than Edward’s. Degen glanced at the name badge pinned to the side of munificent cleavage, and he speculated Rosalyn was glad of the break from her routine. The fact Degen was dressed as a fireman (by far the most popular costume requested by bachelorette parties booking male strippers in New York State) no doubt gave Rosalyn’s affability a boost.

  As Degen and Rosalyn toured the offices that customers never saw, he interspersed tugging at computer cables behind and beneath desks with fli
rty banter. Rosalyn nodded as Degen gave some vaguely plausible safety advice while he jotted notes on the mocked-up official form on his clipboard, and she coyly avoided eye contact whenever he gave her a stubbly-chinned grin. She didn’t notice Degen slipping dongles and thumb drives into USB slots at the back of the computers.

  After half an hour, Degen dropped a step behind Rosalyn, depressed the talk button on his walkie-talkie and said, ‘Say, could I use a restroom?’ That was the signal to Tommy Amberson. Fifteen seconds later, the pre-recorded chatter was interrupted by a message for Degen’s fireman persona.

  ‘Roger that. On my way. Out.’ Degen shrugged and smiled. ‘Guess I’ll have to cross my legs. I’ll come back and finish up in a couple of days.’

  ‘I hope you mean the inspection. You’ll do yourself some damage if you try to hold it in that long.’

  Degen chuckled. And Rosalyn blushed.

  Three days later, Degen and Rosalyn were retracing their steps—his original report form had been misplaced. Along the way the dongles were retrieved from their USB slots. They had done their job: reading keyboard strokes; dropping in a remote-access programme and other malware; accessing and hi-jacking the bank’s wireless network and intranet.

  In the days between Degen’s visits to the bank, he had pointed Tommy Amberson at a number of business accounts—each company owned and/or controlled by Bazhunaishvili International—and, with nothing more violent than the triumphant stabbing of an enter key, the required millions of dollars were skimmed, placed, layered and integrated. In other words, stolen and laundered: nice white money for Degen’s grey purposes.

  The money was a nice addition to Degen’s war chest, but more importantly the bank job had been a proof of concept; Degen had a list of targets he intended to aim Tommy Amberson at.

  9. BETRAYAL

  The second time Rikki De Witte had gathered his team in the same room they had been two days from the Vice President’s abduction. The weeks since their beer tasting session in Enschede had been spent training. For Kolinkar Øster that meant familiarising himself with the Dan-Inject IM Injection Rifle, a dart gun normally used to tranquillise large animals.

  Disabling the vehicles in the Vice President’s motorcade was the responsibility of a different team. De Witte hadn’t said how they would do it—need-to-know security—but Øster had whistled in admiration when he’d witnessed the other crew in action. Denied motor transport, the Secret Service agents had been forced to move the Vice President to safety on foot. Sniper fire from Alojzy Zawadzki and Werner Fuchs herded the agents into a side street and into range of Øster’s dart rifle.

  The darts Øster had used contained a fentanyl derivative, which had incapacitated the Secret Service detail sufficiently to allow De Witte and Leif Vikström to relieve the agents of their Vice President. Many substances used to tranquillise animals could be deadly to humans, some could kill a man within minutes, and fentanyl was not without risk, but the doses had been matched to the average weight of the agents on duty. Some would have suffered some unpleasant side effects—if they were lucky just headaches, nausea or mild diarrhoea—but nothing fatal. De Witte had stressed there were to be zero casualties.

  Øster gaped at the television, not quite believing the irony. But that was De Witte’s photo behind the newscaster’s shoulder. And the stark one-word caption left little scope for ambiguity: Mord. Whether translated as murder or assassination, the meaning was clear: Øster was not safe; he could be next.

  The original plan had Øster waiting two days before taking a train to Prague, sightseeing in the Czech Republic capital for two days, then catching another train to Copenhagen. There, he would continue to watch his second-hand bookshop lose money. After a few months, he would wind up the business and find work in Sweden. It wouldn’t suit him and he would try Iceland. By then he would have lost contact with everyone he’d ever called friend, colleague, or neighbour. And then he would start his new life.

  De Witte’s death called for a radical revision. Øster’s new plan would see him never returning to Denmark. A third of his fee had already been paid—secure in an off-shore account—and a third was more than enough. The full fee would have bankrolled a couple of lifetimes of surrey-with-a-fringe-on-top hedonism, but now Øster’s ambitions stretched little further than a quiet life with a steady supply of books. The money he already had would be more than ample for that.

  Øster would get out of Austria, probably drop down to Italy, transfer his money to another account, then leave Europe and disappear.

  But first Øster had to quit his hotel.

  His few belongings were stuffed into his rucksack. He wiped door handles and other surfaces he must have touched. He checked sink and bath plugholes for hairs; he would have liked to have poured bleach over the sink and bath, but he couldn’t spare the time to find a supermarket. He pulled the sheets and pillow cases from the bed and crammed them into laundry bags he’d found in a drawer: he was confident he would pass a maid’s trolley or a laundry chute in the corridor. Satisfied he’d taken reasonable precautions, Øster pulled his room door open a crack. And it smashed into his face.

  Øster staggered back. He registered two large dark shapes powering through the door. His legs gave way and he was staring at the ceiling, tasting blood. He was rolled, his face pressed into the carpet. He felt the pain then, as though that had been the moment he’d been hit in the face. His arms were pulled back and he heard the familiar snick of handcuffs. A relieved sigh escaped as Øster relaxed his tensed muscles; they were only law enforcement.

  The American said, ‘That’s not much of a poker face.’

  Øster’s scowl shifted to the US Secret Service agent (he was East Asian, maybe Korean descent). The agent lifted a clear plastic evidence bag from the table Øster was cuffed to. The bag contained what looked like two .300 Winchester Magnum shell casings. The agent studied the casings for a moment, then turned to the Bundespolizei investigator next to him. ‘Hard to believe he was that dumb.’

  Øster buttoned down the urge to tell the American to fuck off. Of course he wouldn’t have left casings behind. And if he had, there wouldn’t be fingerprints on them. Besides, he couldn’t possibly have fired the shots. But, as Øster’s alibi involved being in a different building waiting to fire tranquilliser darts into the arses of the American’s fellow Secret Service agents, he kept quiet.

  He knew he hadn’t handled any .300 rounds. Were they lying about the prints? Øster considered the possibility. He looked into the American’s eyes. That wasn’t fake confidence. The artless poise was too relaxed, entirely unmanufactured. That meant someone had added his fingerprints to the shell casings. It was easy to do: just needed his prints—probably from beer glasses—plus some superglue, a laser printer, a transparency sheet and wood glue.

  But why go to the trouble? They had killed De Witte. Why not just kill him too? Øster figured he would find out soon enough. In the meantime, all Øster could do was deny everything and stick to his I’m-just-a-tourist story.

  10. CONNECTIONS

  He pushed his spectacles onto his forehead and massaged his temples with the thumb and middle finger of one hand, which provided enough cover for him to be comfortable closing his eyes. He knew he was being overly circumspect; with Mrs Joosten as his gatekeeper, no one would get through his door unannounced. He also knew taking a quick nap would be a wise investment of time—the increased efficiency he would gain from thirty minutes of shut-down would more than justify the lost half-hour—but he’d resisted the temptation of stretching out on the huge black leather sofa that his wife had been adamant be part of the office redecoration when he’d been appointed Executive Assistant Director for the FBI’s Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch.

  ‘Xavier Porter,’ Laila had said, ‘we both know there’ll be times when you’ll be in this office when you should be in bed, and I want you to have the option of resting comfortably.’

  He’d acknowledged the logic. He’d also unde
rstood that, with their boys at college, Laila needed someone to mother. But he had tried to fight the addition of the ivory cushions.

  ‘And what else would you use for a pillow?’ Laila had demanded. He would have just rolled up his jacket, but he’d kept that to himself. He’d also not mentioned how in three years he’d never taken advantage of the sofa’s undoubted comfort.

  Like most of the agents and analysts under his command, Porter had been asleep when the Vice President’s motorcade had been attacked. He’d answered his phone quickly enough for Laila not to have been woken—a knack he’d honed during his years with the Bureau—and he’d slipped out of bed and taken the call in the bathroom. But moments later he’d burst back into the bedroom and scrambled for the TV remote.

  ‘Xavier! What the fricking ...’ Laila’s minced oath had morphed into dockworker-class profanity when she’d noticed the news coverage. But she’d watched less than a minute before heading for the kitchen.

  A car had been waiting outside the Porter home before he’d finished the coffee Laila had brought him. He’d spent the ride into the J Edgar Hoover Building on the phone: orders had been issued, tasks delegated, investigations organised. At FBI headquarters, he had gone straight into a meeting, followed by a briefing, followed by a video conference. His brain had been like a decathlete, moving from one discipline to the next with seamless effortlessness. But the inescapable sedentary stage of every crisis—report reading—was now draining his adrenaline-charged oomph. It was good to rest his eyes for a moment …