fifty-two
The van was perfect. Besides tinting its windows, someone had put curtains over the side and back windows. Curtains also separated the front seats from the rear of the van, but were now pushed to the sides. A foot-wide board could be placed on supports so that it spanned the width of the van directly in front of the rear captain's chairs, or stowed under the seats. A mattress on a plywood board took up the last four feet of the interior. Julia could have done without the stench of cigar smoke, but by the time they reached the parking lot of the Hungry Farmer, she had the table cluttered with computer gear and had forgotten all about the repugnant odor.
"Drop me off and park across the street," she told Stephen. She took a table by a window looking out on the parking lot and ordered coffee.
Halfway through her second cup, a red Camaro pulled in, its beige canvas top up. She was out of the restaurant before the car came to a complete stop. An obese man behind the wheel eyed her suspiciously. She squatted by the window and tossed a wad of cash onto his bulbous stomach. He counted it and handed her a plastic grocery bag. She looked inside and nodded, and the car pulled out faster than it had pulled in. Thirty seconds later, Stephen picked her up in the van.
"I wish everything went that smoothly," she said, slamming the van's sliding door. She moved into the captain's chair behind the driver's seat and laid a phone down on the table beside the computer. She dumped the rest of the bag's contents into the chair next to her: three more cell phones and another bag of items from Radio Shack.
"Where to?" Stephen asked.
"Take us to an east-west interstate."
"Which direction?"
"Doesn't matter. Find a rest area or truck stop."
He thought about it. "We're not too far from I-40."
"What's east?"
"Next big city, Charlotte."
"What's west?"
"Nashville."
"I-40, James."
Stephen got the van moving.
Allen turned around in his seat. "What's with the phones?"
"Each one has been reprogrammed with a cell phone number that someone retrieved by monitoring the calls in a congested area, like rush-hour traffic."
Allen nodded. "The people looking for us don't know to monitor the airwaves for these particular numbers. We can use them without the bad guys tracing the signals back to us."
"Except that I want them to find these two." She held up a phone in each hand.
"I don't get it."
"You will. But first, here . . ." She handed him a minicassette recorder still in a Radio Shack box, two AA batteries, and a cassette tape. She began pulling a second recorder out of its box. When both recorders were ready, she said, "Pretend it's a phone. Hit the record button when I hit mine and chat with me."
"What do I say?"
"Follow my lead."
fifty-three
"Play it again."
Kendrick Reynolds sat in his wheelchair next to a computer workstation, a pair of noise-eliminating headphones clamped over his ears.
The technician used a trackball to manipulate controls on the monitor. Voices came over the headphones.
". . . killed Goody." A female voice.
"Who?" Male.
"My partner, Goodwin Donnelley. The guy who died on your operating table yesterday."
"Right. Who killed him?"
"I don't know, but Despesorio Vero died too." She sounded exasperated. "He was the guy who was trying to get into the Center for Disease Control. They were in some bar in Chattanooga. Goody went to your ER. Vero's body disappeared."
Behind Kendrick, Captain Landon held a single headphone cup to his right ear. He said, "The key-phrase trigger was Karl Litt. When the monitors recognized the phrase, the recorder kicked in."
Kendrick moved a cup off one ear. "But we can't hear it in context?"
"Key-phrasing entire geographical areas means monitoring every conversation, millions of them. It's not like monitoring a handful of lines or even every line in an office building. We can't use record-and-erase technology on geo-keys. Our systems are already taxed—"
"Just say no, Mike." Kendrick looked up at him. He was sure what the captain saw when he looked back was a tired old man. He hated that.
"No, sir. No context on the key phrase Karl Litt."
He hated that too: not knowing how much these people knew, how much Vero had told them. He had to find them, interrogate them, and confiscate whatever evidence Vero had passed on to them. There were two issues now: finding Karl and keeping a lid on projects that were never meant for public scrutiny. He hoped catching up with these three would solve both problems.
The technician at the controls spoke up. "They're still talking."
"What? How long have they kept this connection open?"
"Twenty-three minutes. I'm streaming it live now. Should I bring the audio current?"
"Go ahead."
". . . but that's impossible. If Despesorio Vero did have information, he would have told Goody."
"Donnelley?"
"Yes."
"What about this Karl Litt guy?"
"I don't know . . ."
Kendrick closed his eyes slowly. He pulled the headphones off and laid them on the workstation. "They're moving?" he asked with a quiet sigh.
"Yes," said the technician. "They're both on I-40. The woman's heading west out of Knoxville, toward Nashville. The man's heading east, between Thorngrove and Danridge."
Kendrick shook his head. It wasn't them. As a federal agent, Matheson would know about key-phrasing. But she wouldn't know how much more advanced military technology was over what the Justice Department had access to. She would be accustomed to systems that missed more key phrases than they caught. That's why she repeated the names—Karl Litt, Despesorio Vero, Goodwin Donnelley. Decoys only worked if people went after them.
"Send one team each to intercept them," he ordered. He could not risk being wrong. "Tell them to tread lightly; I don't think it's them. And, ruling out anything along I-40, try to get a handle on where they're really heading."
"That was fun," Allen said flatly.
They had recorded their conversation, duct-taped the recorders to the phones, had one phone call the other, and sent them in different directions—one under the tarp of a ski boat attached to a Suburban and one in the open bed of a pickup truck. Julia had no doubt their pursuers would key in on the signal. Their ability to intercept the SATD and find them in Knoxville told her they had the technology and were actively seeking them. She only hoped it would take them a long time to track down the cell phones. On the recordings, she hadn't mentioned any possible key phrases for fifteen minutes. That would give them time to distance themselves from the phones. The mini-cassette tapes were thirty minutes long. After that, the dead air would cause the phones to disconnect. If their pursuers had yet to find the phones, they would not be able to pinpoint the signals—because there would be no signals—and would have to search everywhere along I-40.
Except, she thought with dismay, if they used an infinity transmitter to call the cell phones and force the lines to stay open until they found them.
She'd forgotten about that. If it wasn't one thing, it was twenty.
"So you think they're off our tail now?" Allen wanted to know.
"For a while . . . I hope."
"Now what?"
"We find out what Vero gave his life to bring to us."