“What do you want Bennings for?” asked Chan.
“He’s AWOL, sir.”
“Really? Let’s see, he’s a defense attaché in Russia, he flies from Moscow to L.A., arriving here about three-thirty this afternoon. He’s on leave because of a death in the family, and nine hours after he arrives he’s AWOL?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“You boys flew all the way from Quantico to pick up a soldier who is obviously on leave, who you now say is AWOL? Why didn’t a CID team just drive in from Fort Irwin? That’s only ninety minutes from here.”
Flood and Bates looked at each other but stayed silent.
“Sounds to me like something secret is afoot, Detective Franklin.”
“Sounds that way,” said Franklin.
“Want to explain to me what’s really going on?” asked Chan to the army investigators.
“Sir, it’s classified.”
“Got it,” said Franklin looking at his computer screen. He started to read, “Field Investigative Unit conducts investigations involving sensitive matters and other investigations of interest to senior army leadership requiring exceptional levels of discretion.” Franklin looked to Chan.
“You two are just like the FBI guys that are investigating the kidnapping of Staci Bennings. It’s all one way. You don’t answer any of my questions, you don’t tell me squat, you just want me to hand everything over to you. You two grunts want me to give you a person of interest in a murder investigation so you can bundle him onto some base where I don’t have any access to him. Well, heck, yes, that sounds like a great deal to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Unit, San Bernardino, California.”
“Detective Chan, it would behoove you to—”
“Behoove your sorry asses out of my crime scene! Franklin! Escort these two no-neck imbeciles out of here and pass the word that nobody is to give them so much as directions to a slit trench.”
Franklin stepped forward. Flood and Bates hesitated, then walked to their vehicle. Bobby Chan watched them go, then looked again at the photo of Kit Bennings that he held in his hand.
“Curiouser and curiouser.”
CHAPTER 21
Dennis Kedrov’s laptop alarm beeped. He’d been dozing in the backseat of the black Yukon parked under camo netting about one hundred yards from the bomb site. His laptop screen provided the only light in the vehicle, and the USGS, United States Geological Survey live earthquake Web site showed a readout of a real-time earthquake in the vicinity measuring 1.5. Not much of a quake, but big enough, so Dennis flicked on a flashlight and spotted the detonator. The unit was connected to an ultrathin wire that ran out the window and off into the darkness. He carefully picked up the detonator and pressed the button.
The earth rumbled and shook. It was too dark for him to see it, but dust shot several feet into the air all around the blast site. A depression in the soil of about six inches suddenly formed in a jagged, seventy-five-foot-diameter circle, with the bomb’s location as the epicenter.
Under a partly cloudy sky with starlight filtering through in soft dollops of illumination, Dennis smiled as he retrieved as much of the detonation wire as he could. He quickly collapsed, folded, and stored the camouflage netting into the back of the Yukon, then drove away into the darkness.
The AT&T Global Network Operations Center in Bedminster, New Jersey, does exactly what its name suggests: it manages all aspects of the communications giant’s global network. Over 140 large video screens comprise a massive, curved wall giving network managers 24/7 monitoring of all networks, including broadband, Internet, data, and telephony.
One of those wall-mounted screens suddenly depicted a flashing red light on a network route. The location was southwestern Wyoming.
A chiming alarm sounded at Georgia Anderson’s workstation, snapping her out of a daydream that had something to do with a tall red-haired man she’d seen working out at her gym.
“Damn!” she said out loud, sitting up straighter in her chair and brushing hair away from her eyes.
Anderson quickly brought up multiple screens on the large flat-panel monitor at her sleek oak computer console. Her slim fingers flew over the keyboard, pausing only to place a headset boom mike on her head. She brought up pages showing color-coded graphed readouts of data traffic flow.
“What?” Georgia said aloud, to herself. She couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. She keyed in GPS coordinates and brought up the latest satellite imagery of the problem area. She saw nothing out of the ordinary but quickly checked a few other Web sites.
Georgia nervously pushed a telephone button to call an immediate supervisor, a man who had less time on the job than she did and who knew less than she did. “Ben, it’s Georgia. I know you’re seeing what I’m seeing, but I can confirm it’s a complete break.”
Georgia tried to rein in the anxiety in her voice but couldn’t. This was big. No, huge. The biggest problem she’d ever handled and maybe the biggest she had heard of since she’d been working for AT&T. “The entire cable bundle must be severed….” She paused to listen to a question she couldn’t answer. “I don’t know how, but there was a small earthquake in the vicinity just before we lost all signal. I suggest you run this up the chain, quick, and contact Langley, the White House, Fort Meade, DHS, and any other three-letter agency on your emergency-call-sheet list. Any affected agencies will probably want to divert their traffic onto our southern cable.”
Almost breathless, Georgia nodded and pushed a button ending the call. She then went to work sending “STATUS RED” e-mail alerts out to supervisors of emergency repair crews and other technicians, with the exact GPS coordinates of the break. They would bust their butts to get on scene, ASAP. As she sent the e-mails, Georgia doubted that she’d have time to hit the gym and look for the red-haired guy anytime soon.
CHAPTER 22
Yulana Petkova slept soundly on a cot that had been placed in Interrogation Room #1 along with a few other items to make her “quarters” more comfortable. The lone surviving Russian thug pulled from the wrecked sedan by Buzz and Angel also slept soundly—on the floor of Interrogation Room #2.
At three-forty-five in the morning, Kit, Buzz, Angel, and Jen were all tired, but no one mentioned that as they fortified themselves with snacks in the conference room.
“The bad news is that our Russian friend in the other room has no idea where Staci is being held,” said Angel.
“But he admitted he was part of the raid on your mom’s house. He claims he’s never met Popov but that he met Popov’s nephew, Mikhail Travkin,” said Buzz.
“I’ve already hacked into law enforcement databases. Travkin is clean. I’ll have to dig deeper to see if there’s something on the guy,” said Jen, eating a chocolate donut with one hand as she swabbed down her keyboards with a cleaning wipe in her other hand. “But we already know his address, so that’s good.”
“How’d you get that?” asked Kit, perking up.
“The Russian we grabbed in the parking lot,” said Angel, “has a hooker girlfriend who used to service Travkin at his condo on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood while the wife and kids were out shopping.”
“Good work,” said Kit, rubbing his eyes from exhaustion. If only he could have slept on the flight in from Moscow. “We move on Travkin tomorrow to get to Popov.”
“We’ve already sketched out a plan,” said Buzz, opening a folder.
“Before we get to that, I need to fill you in about Yulana.” Kit recounted to them events at the coffeehouse and some of the other discussions he had with her, emphasizing that she was being blackmailed due to a kidnapped family member, the same as him.