Page 5

Four

With Jessy and the kids safe—and knowing they would need to be very careful and within the law at every turn—Vicky and Jude made the decision to return to their dedicated headquarters to see if their cyber sleuths had any new directions in which to go. Although Vicky knew Jude was determined they needed to get in the water.

She thought it was more of a hunch than anything else because salt water could quickly destroy whatever evidence might have existed. But sometimes hunches were the backbone of what they did. He was, she thought, probably an excellent diver as well. Beyond a doubt, he was a man who kept himself in shape. And while she remained skeptical, he was proving to be a decent enough partner, though she understood he often worked solo and had been doing so most recently. He probably did well enough; he was an imposing enough figure, at least six-three, she reckoned. But he was also capable of looking like the handsome young fellow next door with his sandy brown hair and green eyes, a man who could quickly turn on something like college-boy charm when necessary.

She had to admit, the cyber skills required to find the truth behind this situation were beyond her expertise as well, which was, of course, why Aidan and Cary might be the most important people assigned to nothing else but the case at hand.

But unless the two of them had something else for them to be doing now…

They would be getting into the water.

It was possible something had been missed by the police when the Lucky Sun had crashed and, according to reports, exploded into pieces with a fire erupting at the scene. But due to the watery state of the “accident,” the fire had not lasted long.

“Anything on the law firm or anything else yet?” Vicky asked.

“Nothing that we’ve been able to find,” Aidan said, “but—”

He turned to Vicky and Jude and solemnly added, “Cary is one of the best technical analysts I’ve ever met, so…”

Vicky nodded, smiling. She was becoming well aware they were very lucky in having Cary and Aidan for their tech team.

“Hey!” Cary said. She was seated in their workroom at her computer. “Don’t let Aidan fool you—he’s a top dog. The point being, between us, we’ll get what we need. But I will be the one working when Aidan needs to be working forensic magic in the field.”

“What have we got so far?” Jude asked. “Anything that will take us anywhere? Have you found any connections between the judge, the receptionist, and the crew on the boat?”

“Nothing yet, but we have information on all the players,” Aidan told him. “Oh, and we’ve sent you an email, Jude. Just some terminology so that you—”

Jude groaned. “Hey, guys, come on! I do use a computer every day. I admit—I haven’t tried to hack into any sites, so no… I’m not great at hacking!”

“Well, it’s a good thing our Cary is on the side of law and order and justice,” Aidan said lightly.

Jude laughed. “And you, too, Aidan, I imagine,” he told the man.

Aidan shrugged. “I’m gainfully employed. I think. I don’t need to hack my local grocery store. Anyway, we’ve found a few instances where something could tie in. Our judge wasn’t called the Hanging Judge for nothing. The death penalty is supposedly set by jury in the state, but the judge certainly has the ability to sway it and approve it. Three men are now on death row from cases he presided over, and a fellow named Gilbert Miller was executed about a month ago for the murder of a couple in their home when a robbery went bad. Miller claimed his innocence until the very end. I’m doing more research into him now. The three sitting on death row are Marcus Suarez who was convicted of an execution-style killing and suspected of being in the Arroyo cartel out of Colombia. Benjamin Morton was convicted in the murders of two off-duty police officers. And Lawrence Jennings was convicted of killing his wife and mother-in-law. Many people side with the judge, feeling that those who commit such murders are not worthy of any mercy, but many people don’t believe in the death penalty, period. We’re looking into all known associates of these men, but so far we can find no connection.”

“Cartels are pretty powerful,” Jude commented.

“And weren’t a few of those on the boat involved with drugs? That could be a cartel connection,” Vicky said.

“And we are looking into it,” Aidan promised. “The crash and explosion of the Lucky Sun have us digging all over. Every man on it might have been wanted dead by someone. Captain Ronald Quincy, drugs. His mate, Jeremy Hart, just out of federal prison. And the chef, Gene Walters—nothing on that man at all, not even parking tickets. He was single, an only child, and his parents died in an automobile accident six years ago. It appears that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but at this point… Anyway, then there were the passengers—three attorneys. Ansel Thornton, Walter Roderick, and Claude Hathaway. They’ve won and lost cases. They’ve sent a few bad guys to prison. We’re looking for any connection between any of these people. The weird thing is…”

“That we have evildoers, those who go after evildoers, a most likely innocent chef, and Marci Warden, a receptionist,” Vicky murmured.

“But,” Jude reminded her, “she worked for a law firm.”

“True. So, someone is after someone…”

“Or several someones are out there working their trade. There could be several hackers out there, right?” Jude asked.

“Not ruling anything out, but…to get this good? I don’t know just how many someones there could be,” Aidan said. “The car… Well, perhaps that was the easiest hack. And I’m sorry as hell, but this takes time and…” He paused, frowning. “Oh, something I discovered this morning. Reading files the public most likely doesn’t have access to—”

“In the interest of justice and saving lives?” Vicky suggested.

Aidan shrugged. “I believe we will be given access to everything, anyway. Arnold had a brief discussion with Mr. Wharton. We have his blessing to find out what’s going on. The agencies here are working together. So, they found enough body parts to put together the corpses of the captain, the mate, the chef, and two of the attorneys. But for the third fellow, they found all kinds of ripped up and bloody clothing, but not his body. Now, mind you, this happened in Matanzas Bay—”

“Slaughter Bay,” Jude said dryly.

Aidan shrugged and continued, “Precisely. But the body of Claude Hathaway hasn’t been found, in whole or in pieces, though there is blood on the clothing. And while forensics had a hell of a time discovering anything from bits and pieces collected out of the bay, what forensics they have suggests that the blood is Hathaway’s.”

“And the thing is, there are enough predators in the bay to see that a body was completely…destroyed. However…” Jude murmured thoughtfully.

“You think he might be alive?” Vicky asked.

He looked over at her. “I did want to go diving. The police thought it was an accident. They wouldn’t have been looking for evidence of a crime when it happened.”

“You’ve been to the law firm. You’ve seen to it Jessy Hutchins and her kids are safe and just in the nick of time. Samuel Hutchins is still being maintained in the induced coma,” Aidan said. “Every agency is sharing in extreme protection for the man just in case. Okay, so, on another front. Who knows? Maybe you can find something, anything, in the wreckage of the Lucky Sun .”

Jude looked at Vicky. She shrugged. “I can dive. I just prefer the Florida Keys, Grand Cayman, the Bahamas…”

“But Slaughter Bay it is!” Aidan said cheerfully. “Don’t worry. We’re tirelessly working away here and will give you anything and everything the minute we have it!”

“And,” Cary said sweetly, “we are very, very good. It’s probably a good thing we’re not criminals!”

Jude looked at Vicky. “Let’s use the daylight, shall we?”

“Oh! I didn’t bring my scuba equipment!” she told him. “Maybe—”

“Maybe you have nothing at all to worry about,” he assured her. “Trust me. Every agency in Florida plans for water investigations, so not to worry! We’ll get you set up with some great stuff. I helped with several buys for the equipment out of our offices here. You’re going to be just fine.”

“Great. Okay…”

They said their goodbyes and left headquarters.

They stopped by a facility where diving equipment was kept.

In minutes she was ready to go, and Jude was right—vests, regulators, masks—all were of the highest quality but she wished…

She wished she were diving in the Keys or the Bahamas instead of looking for…

The proverbial needle in a haystack.

Except this was like looking for a wet needle in a wet haystack!

* * *

An officer showed Jude and Vicky to the location where the Lucky Sun had gone down. Down not far from where they found themselves was a beautiful beach.

However, this point of entry was tricky.

“You okay with this?” he asked Vicky.

She nodded. “I’m actually more coordinated than I look, I guess.”

“No, rocks are tricky for anyone.”

“Hey, come on. We are entering Matanzas Bay. Slaughter Bay, Massacre Bay—I understand you can translate it either way. And either way, it’s sad,” she said, shaking her head. “In the year 1565, King Philip of Spain was incensed that the French were creating a settlement at Fort Caroline. There were two incidents…he had Pedro Menéndez de Avilés attack Fort Caroline and kill all the men but did allow the women and children to go to Havana—and he was then ordered to attack survivors. The Spanish were Catholic, the French were Huguenot, but a few were spared because they professed to be Catholic. As I understand, a few Britons had been pressed into service and they were spared. But hundreds died and thus…”

“Massacres and slaughters,” Jude said, frowning as he looked at her. “I admit, I don’t know that much about you, but you know some Florida history?”

She grinned, finding a good rock to sit on so she could slip into her flippers.

“You’ve been working out of Jacksonville, and I surmise you’ve spent a lot of time in St. Augustine. But I was born just down the beach in, hmm, a tiny place called Crescent Beach. I spent a lot—a lot—of time here in the nearest big city, and I always loved it. Besides slaughters, some good things happened here, too. Technically, the first Thanksgiving took place here in 1565—that magic year of bloodshed. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés again. Thanksgiving in celebration for the founding of the place, and he set up a major feast for the Savoy, the Native American people in the area at the time.”

He nodded. “Things every school kid knows, right?”

She shook her head, laughing. “Hey, I don’t know what is going on. Some is good, I imagine, some very, very bad. History is history. We cannot change the past. And it has alarmed me several times when people my age and younger believe they need passports to travel to Alaska and Hawaii!”

Again, he grinned, shaking his head and pulling his mask and regulator into place.

“Well, maybe they’re going through Canada on their way to Alaska? Now, Hawaii…you never know. A few foreign islands could pop up on the way!”

She laughed, too, following suit and preparing to enter the water.

And he thought as he slid down into the shallows first, it definitely wasn’t like diving in the Florida Keys or the Bahamas. Rocks and murk were right here by the jetty. The proximity of the shore caused a stir of dirt that hampered visibility.

He flicked on the light accessory that, thankfully, they’d obtained through the office for special underwater situations. He saw Vicky was competently moving along the collection of rocks and debris at the base of the jetty. They were in approximately fifteen feet of water, but the debris field stretched out at least thirty feet into the bay. While she worked the close area, he was determined to get down deeper.

Bits and pieces of wreckage were everywhere, making it difficult to decide if anything was useful to explain what had happened. A yacht like the Lucky Sun would have had a “black box,” or a voyage data recorder, sometimes simply called a maritime black box. And if they could find it…

Something swam close by him. Instinctively, he tensed, but he quickly realized he was being observed by one of the bay’s curious bottle-nosed dolphins.

He wished they were diving for fun. Sometimes, the animals warily kept away from people; this one had evidently had good experiences with human beings in the water. It seemed the creature wanted to play. Maybe it liked the show of light coming from his mask attachment, like how a cat loved to chase a laser beam.

He allowed himself a second to run a hand along the animal’s sleek topside, but even as he did so, he saw Vicky was coming his way and beckoning to him.

She had found something.

He followed her and saw what she was pointing to. Something metal and partially cylindrical was wedged between rocks toward the bottom of the jetty. Bits and pieces of red paint had survived the blast, but the item showed signs of blackening by fire.

Damage to the object was probably extensive, but he thought it might be the yacht’s VDR, or voyage data recorder.

And like an airplane’s black box, this one might tell them quite a story—if it had survived enough to do so. But…

Like an airplane’s black box, its function was to record; for that reason, they were usually strong enough to survive quite a bit.

It was wedged deep in the rocks. He pulled out his diving knife and began to chip away at the rock that was holding it in. Vicky was by his side, ready to grab the object as it broke free.

It was a split second after she caught and held the VDR that he felt something whizz by their heads. Through the feel and sound of it, he instantly realized they were being shot at from the surface. He looked at Vicky; there was no panic in her eyes. She gave him a slight nod and dived deeper toward the heart of Matanzas Bay.

Slaughter Bay, Massacre Bay!

He instantly dove deeper himself, checking his gages. They still had plenty of air.

But how long might someone be willing to wait to see them rise from the depths?

He could see the bullets strike and whizz through the water as he turned to look back. Whoever was doing the shooting must have been concentrating on the area directly by the jetty. Naturally, perhaps? That was the area where something might have lodged after the explosion right there on the rocks?

He carried a P-11 underwater pistol, but he needed the correct range for its use—and a sense of his target. He was angry with himself; he’d carried the weapon naturally for underwater defense against animal predators since he’d had a few cases in the area that involved underwater discoveries, but he hadn’t expected anyone to come after them from above. He chastised himself, knowing he should have been better prepared.

He looked at Vicky, somewhat surprised to see she didn’t seem to be distressed. She was grim and aware of their danger but looked at him as she waited for his determination on a way out of their situation. He showed her the pistol that had been attached to his belt and she nodded; she had known he carried it.

He motioned to her, telling her to remain where she was while he went around the other side of the jetty. Keeping extremely low, he almost crept along the bottom. The bullets kept coming—but around the other side. Almost flat against the rocks, he moved upward toward the surface and lifted his mask and spat out his regulator.

He was able to see the shooter at last—at least the form of the shooter. He—or she—was wearing an encompassing dark jacket with a hood.

It was a lone shooter. They were concentrating on that one area of the water, assuming he and Vicky would be searching on the side of the rocks where the boat had hit and then exploded into an inferno. The shooter had likely decided they would need to surface eventually.

On the road, not far from the shooter’s position, was a nondescript dark sedan.

The range wasn’t good; his position wasn’t good. But Jude knew he had to take a chance. They had an air supply. But it would run out.

He fired.

The shooter let out a grunt of pain. They didn’t go down, but Jude could see they’d been clipped good in the upper arm—their right upper arm.

The person’s weapon fell; they stooped to retrieve it awkwardly with their left hand.

Jude swore inwardly. Damn! If the gun had been left…

It had probably been stolen, anyway. Criminals didn’t tend to use registered firearms.

And whoever it was doing the shooting, they were smart enough to duck low, almost flat to the ground, and move like a bat out of hell to the sedan waiting on the road. There was no way in hell Jude could get in another shot.

With a roar of the motor, the sedan was gone.

And by then Vicky—cradling the discovery that might at least send them in the right direction on the case—emerged by his side and removed her regulator and mask.

“A better shot and we’d have someone,” he muttered, still angry with himself.

“Hey, we’re alive. I’m opting for that at the moment,” Vicky told him. “Do not beat yourself up! We found this. Maybe, through the magic of Aidan and Cary, we’ll get something. And we weren’t dealing with a pro here—no automatic weapon. Whoever it was fled at the first response.”

“Injured,” Jude murmured. “If we had a suspect… But I think that these ‘lesser’ would-be assassins may all be like Samuel Hutchins. Bribed and threatened.”

“And Samuel Hutchins may be able to speak soon. If so, we’ll have more leads if nothing else,” Vicky said.

Jude turned to her, nodding grimly. Even soaked, he realized, she was a beautiful woman. Or maybe it was because she was soaked that he could finally see the sculpted perfection of her face.

And body.

“I did get the first three numbers on the license plate of that car,” he told her. “The rocks were obscuring the rest.”

“Brilliant!”

He pulled his phone from his belt, and she stared at him.

“Your phone works in the water,” she murmured.

“It’s one of those durable things. As the mission progresses, we should get earpieces and make sure Cary and Aidan can hear us if we get into any trouble.”

“You are full of surprises. But let’s get out of here and get this black box thingy to the right tech people!”

He nodded, hefting himself onto the rocks and turning back to help her. Their tanks and equipment were heavy. Getting into the water was easier than getting out of it.

But Vicky was out, turning to him for help in removing her tank, and ready to give assistance in return.

“Hey, for someone who didn’t want to go diving, you’re not a bad diving buddy,” he told her.

She grinned. “Dad was a navy SEAL. No way I wasn’t going to know my way around water.”

“Gotcha. All right, then…”

As they packed up their equipment, Jude put through the calls necessary to get their team, the FDLE, and the local police on the hunt for the sedan with what little information he could give them. Aidan was going to start calling up the local hospitals to find out if anyone had come in with a gunshot wound in the right arm.

Jude paused for a minute then, shaking his head. Looking across the bay, he could see that bathers were out on the beaches. It was just another beautiful sunny day.

And that’s what the world should be , he thought. People getting to appreciate the natural wonders to be discovered across the planet.

“Back to the ranch,” Jude murmured.

“Ranch?” Vicky queried.

He groaned. “Headquarters. Shower. Delivery of our black box. Shower. Check on Samuel Hutchins. Find out what the hell is going on.”

“Oh, yeah, shower, shower! But! Do you think they will be able to get something out of this device?” Vicky asked.

“I do. The thing is, that’s the function—to indicate where there’s trouble, to show location, navigate. So like an airplane’s black box, they should be hardy things. The biggest trouble with them—which confirms our suspicions that something’s going on—is that they are susceptible to hacking.”

Vicky nodded thoughtfully.

“Cars, too,” she murmured. “Remember? You mentioned it to me. There’s that ad…the guy at a game who can’t remember where he parked his car so his ‘clicker’ shows him and starts the car. Hack the little clicker, or even get a hold of a little clicker, and the car shows you where it is and starts up for easy stealing. Well, they do try to install fail-safes,” Vicky said.

“Arnie.”

“What?” she asked, confused.

“Arnie. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Terminator . The day that the machines take over,” Jude said.

“The rise of the machines,” Vicky murmured. “But!”

“But?”

“Artificial intelligence has someone behind it. A human being. Someone is manipulating all this.”

“And how far can it go? Will the machines take over?” he asked.

She turned to him. “For this case? No! Jude—”

“I know. We are chasing a human—or humans. Someone with power and money. And yet…what is the motive for all this?”

“Murder for hire,” Vicky said.

He glanced her way. “I hope it’s that simple,” he told her.

She turned to him, frowning.

“I admit, I don’t know how to hack any kind of site. But I worked a case as a field agent where we traced it back through a high school and a man pretending to be a high school student. He was really twenty-four, and he’d been raised a die-hard jihadist. He easily managed to make a brilliant young tech fall in love with him and hack into access military codes. We were incredibly lucky to arrest him before he got the codes to those who could have used them.”

“And hopefully, they have since changed the codes,” Vicky said.

Jude nodded. “But you must first know that you’ve been hacked before you change anything.” He shook his head. “For some people, it seems so incredibly easy. And then, those we know who are also brilliant still have trouble tracing them!”

“Okay, there are dozens of servers and kinds of servers as hardware in computers and even as software. And…”

“And?” he asked her.

“Then you have malware and viruses. Now if you want to really mess someone up, you can easily email them, be so intriguing that they open the email, and voila, there’s a virus in their computer. That’s also a way to dig into someone’s information such as their email and—as in the case you’re talking about—delve into information that only they are supposed to have. Malware, now…” She paused, looking straight ahead, and letting out a long breath. “Malware. While all viruses are malware, malware is specifically designed to attack a certain system. Malware is a specific threat category. It’s all… Well, it can all be deadly. It’s the terrorism of the future.”

He nodded. “Who knew?”

“Pardon?”

“Computers. Great things. Smart phones—wow! Hey, my grandmother lived in the south of the state and used to travel across Tamiami Trail and what was then Alligator Alley—”

“Now I-75,” she said.

He nodded. “Yep. And they had their AAA cards and a pack of dimes at the time, but phones were miles and miles apart. So back then, if you wound up stuck in the Everglades, well you were stuck until a Good Samaritan came by.”

Vicky laughed. “Now you just need to hope you get a signal. And trust me—you can’t get a signal everywhere in our great River of Grass!”

“Don’t I know it!” he murmured. “Anyway…”

“Jacksonville. The offices there. They’ll be best equipped to find whatever might be found from this black box.”

“Jacksonville it is,” he said. “But… Well, we are soaking wet, and…”

“That’s okay. I wasn’t expecting us to stop by a five-star restaurant. We’ll do drive-through, get that there, get back…and see what’s happened. And maybe, hopefully, get some sleep!”

He smiled. She’d leaned back. Relaxed. Confident. Not caring who drove.

He kept quiet.

Maybe having a partner wasn’t going to be so terrible.

Their phones rang at the same time as he drove. He glanced her way, and she picked up quickly. He could see that it was Assistant Director Arnold calling them.

“We’re both here, on speaker, sir,” Vicky said quickly.

“Good,” Arnold said simply. “Just so you know the car with your shooter has already been discovered. No shock here—it was found abandoned.”

“But the owner—” Jude began.

“No shock again,” Arnold told him. “It was reported stolen early this morning when the Vero Beach owner discovered it was missing. But we have a forensic crew going over it with an old fine-tooth comb as they say. If there’s anything, we’ll find it.”

“We know that the owner—”

“A twenty-year old girl, college student who lives with her parents. Their security cam has her home last night about ten and out this morning at about seven,” Arnold said.

“Security cam? Did it pick up—”

“Oh, yeah. No possible facial recognition, the person who took it is estimated to be about five-ten, and we know little else. Their coat or jacket or whatever the garment was had a hood. But they did estimate five-ten.”

“Right,” Jude murmured, shaking his head. “Of course. But I know that I winged the man—or woman. We’re still—”

“Checking doctors and hospitals across the area, yes. We’re on this. You guys did good, though—get the box to the lab. I think I may send you up to Nashville, just to take a look at the crime scene there, get a feel for those who might have has a grudge against the judge—”

“Sir—” Jude began.

“Don’t worry about any other assignments at this time, Special Agent Mackenzie. You two are on nothing but this until it’s solved!”

“I was just going to say I think someone at that law firm knows something,” Jude said. “And now we do have the navigation box for—”

“Yes, but our tech people will continue the online investigation. You’re in the field. I’d be happy if you saw the entire field.”

“Right. All right, sir. Just tell us when we’re doing what,” Vicky said, casting a quick glance his way.

Jude smiled.

She was watching out for them both.

“As you say, sir,” Jude agreed.

“Tonight—sleep,” Arnold ordered. “Overtired agents are worthless.”

“Yes, sir,” Jude said.

He glanced at Vicky. They could both agree to that.

“We’ll all be back with anything that anyone finds,” Arnold promised.

“Thank you,” Jude said.

“Copy that,” Vicky murmured.

“Good a good evening,” Arnold said, and then was gone.

“Well, that’s not so bad. We’ve been ordered to sleep,” Vicky said.

“I just don’t think we need to be leaving.”

“He’ll get us one of the Bureau’s private jets. We can go and come back in a flash,” Vicky said. “Tonight, sleep. Tomorrow—”

“We need to hope to hell we start to figure out what’s going on before someone else dies,” he said grimly.

“Jude, we will. We will get to the bottom of this. We have the best help in the world. No matter how brilliant AI may be, there’s a human mind behind it all.”

“A killer,” he said quietly. “A killer who seems to reach across time and space. But…”

“But?” she asked.

“Gut feeling. That killer—the mind behind the AI—is right here. We’re going to find him—or her—right here.”