Wolfe checked on Seline… she seemed dazed as she fumbled at her seat belts, but not much injured. He got his own seatbelt unlocked; she got herself free, and pressed the red emergency handle. The door popped out of the way and started gushing in at their feet.
Seline jumped out, splashed out of the way; Wolfe put his phone in the plastic sack with the laptop, got out on the other side, and found they were in water only up to their chests. They rushed to get away from the helicopter blades, and sloshed toward shore.
“Cops’ll be here pretty soon!” she said.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I think so. Maybe a little whiplash in the neck.”
“Me too. Feel like I was worked over by a drunk chiropractor.”
They climbed up on the shore, where they shivered, wet and cold—and she pointed at a sign. “Look at the name of this lake!”
He looked. It was Wolf Lake. “If I had time, I’d add an e to the end. I know where Wolf Lake is… out below Calumet. I think we’re in Indiana… Come on, we gotta get some transportation… Need to get back to Chicago.”
By the time they found a car that responded to his PearcePhone, a Mercedes parked about two blocks away from the lake, police helicopters were starting to arrive over Wolf Lake.
But Wolfe and Seline were far enough away they weren’t spotted as, teeth chattering with cold, they drove away in the Mercedes…
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Her wet hair wrapped in a towel, Seline walked over to him from the kitchenette. She had a cup of tea in her hand. “You want some tea?”
“Tea’s not my cup of tea.”
“Funny guy. It didn’t even occur to me to ask if the laptop got wet when we had to slog through that lake…”
Wolfe shook his head. “It was in plastic. Double wrapped. It should be okay…” He was sitting at the desk, with the PC shoved aside for the laptop.
They’d both showered—her first. He’d given her plenty of privacy. He was wearing his only other outfit, jeans and an old Army t-shirt, and a pair of sneakers. She’d put on some extra men’s clothing Pearce had left here, trousers and a button up Arrow shirt. It didn’t fit very well—the trousers were rolled up over her bare feet. Wolfe glanced at Seline.
She actually looks kind of cute dressed that way…
Don’t start thinking about that. Focus.
“What’d you find on the laptop?” she asked.
“It’s just now booted up… oh, here’s the password form. What’s the password?”
She knew the password. Remember GlowWorm.
The laptop accepted the password, and the screen showed a block of text:
Problem: Someone at Blume is using ctOS related wifi to block uploading of files from wifi. If anything relating to Roger Verrick is attempted to be uploaded, the upload is blocked both at 2.4GHz and 5GHz. The blockage is accomplished with wifi signals that immediately overload the band. Other bands are also being searched and blocked.
Cable blocking of any upload relating to Verrick is accomplished via a NSA-quality ctOS search spider constantly checking all uploads in the area.
Solution: Leave town.
Drawback: They’re looking for you to leave town and watching airports, stations, freeways, boats. And if you leave town you will not have the advantage of using the transmitter being prepared for you.
Preferred solution: We have located an area where the wifi blockage is not effective. It is southeast of your location, in the Washington Park area. by tomorrow morning, a powerful transmission device will be installed at that location, by sympathetic local hackers working with SystemsLeak. The device will transmit directly to a satellite. The file upload will go out worldwide. Blockage will then be impractical. The address of the transmitter, available at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow, is—
Wolfe memorized the address. “That’s one of the toughest neighborhoods in Chicago…”
“Let’s make sure the file’s there…”
He opened the text and graphics file on the desktop—the only file on the laptop. He had to use the second password for that: Remember Ruth.
CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN
Ruth Medina Case File 237.
In summary: 1. There are strong indications that Major Roger Verrick, U.S. Army, was planner and key in executing the cash theft from the Road 23B Incident, Somalia Case File 2289…
2. There are further indications that the testimony given by Master Sergeant Mick Jeremiah Wolfe, was in fact substantially accurate.
Verrick appears to have laundered money through a casino in Chicago know as the Four Clubs…
It went on for page after page. “She knew…” Wolfe said, after he’d scanned the extensive file. “Medina knew I was right. She knew what Verrick did…”
“She knew,” Seline agreed. “But she didn’t have enough evidence to convince her superiors. She needed more to have Verrick and Van Ness arrested. The money vanished, sure. They know millions of dollars were laundered through the casino—and that a payment was made to Roger Verrick from ‘Iceberg Investments’. He later ‘reinvested’ a lot of it in Iceberg. But the connection is mostly circumstantial. And the footage you put on disk just isn’t there anymore. So, she was gathering evidence… she spent more than a year doing it.”
“The year I was in prison! Christ. She could have told me.”
“She wasn’t free to do that, Wolfe. She was allowed to investigate but she wasn’t allowed to tell anyone what she knew… except whoever this file was to go to. When she was about to make a move with this data… they killed her.” Seline shrugged, sighing. “She got it to me because she suspected they were moving in on her.”
Wolfe opened a desk drawer, took out the Scotch and two glasses. “Why didn’t she just email the damned thing to her superiors?”
“It could be she didn’t trust them enough. Maybe she was planning to go over their heads. Right to the Pentagon. Defense Intelligence Agency. She was gathering information and she had some pretty damning stuff… Don’t pour any whiskey for me, thanks… And then…”
Wolfe sipped Scotch from the small tumbler. “And then someone killed her.” He looked at Seline. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Yeah. They didn’t know I had the file—not until after I got here. I had a friend in the area with some connections with the local chapter of DedSec and I knew they have been working with SystemLeaks so…”
“You sure you don’t want a drink? You don’t really have to worry that I’m trying to get you drunk. I’ll keep an eye on you to make sure you don’t put roofies in my drink.”
“Okay, wise guy. Just one.” She put her tea cup on the desk.
He poured her a drink. “Looks like when we go to that address in the morning, there’ll be someone there ready to help up us do the satellite upload…”
“Uh huh.” She looked around.
“The sofabed,” he said, guessing at her thoughts. “You take that. I’ll be on the cot in the bedroom. Sofabed’s more comfortable.”
Wolfe sipped some Scotch, then got out the PearcePhone and sent a text.
Don’t be throwing your face up on the system here unless you want it to be seen by my guest… We’re doing the upload tomorrow. Crashed a chopper in a lake. Yes that was us… Hope this is secure. Yeah I know: always secure.
He sent the text.
“Who’re you texting?” she asked, going to sit on the sofabed.