Chapter 9 #2
A proud smirk appeared on his face. He lifted the beer can and finished the rest of the brew. Tilting it toward Julie, he asked, “Oh, I missed you, Julie-girl. Do you want one?”
“Absolutely.” Her palms were soaked with perspiration. “You said you needed my help. What can I do, Dad?”
“I’m still working covert ops for Uzkapostan.” He puffed his chest as he spoke. “Been living there since I left the states. Once the Navy fucked me, I figured there’s no place like home, right?”
Julie tried to keep up with his quick change of mood.
“So anyways, they’ve been getting weapons from the Navy for years. They had a backstage all-access pass to the U.S. Navy supply arsenal, via their own invisible account on the network.”
The technology maven in Julie was horrified. “That’s awesome.”
“It was, it truly was, until somebody shut it down six months ago. I need you to get us back into that database.”
Only a handful of people in the world could do that, and Julie knew she wasn’t one of them. “Anything for you, Dad.”
“I would do anything for you, too. Do you know that?”
I’d sink a whole ship full of sailors for you, baby.
“Yes, Dad.”
He smiled like a child who couldn’t keep a secret. “That boyfriend of yours, Greg?”
The hair on the back of Julie’s neck went up. “Yes?”
“He was sent to bring you back to do this.”
“What?”
He waved off her excitement. “I have always been so proud of you. I told everyone who would listen how my girl was a natural-born code breaker. They thought it would be too dangerous if I came back here myself, so they sent Greg to come get you.”
Dizziness crept into the back of Julie’s brain, her father’s words beginning to ring like church bells in her mind. “They sent Greg?”
“Yeah.” His expression turned dark and ominous. “Fucking hotshot thought he could do this without me. Bring you back himself and take me out of the loop.” His laugh was too loud, his happiness pronounced. “I took care of that dumb ass son of a bitch.”
“The motel,” she whispered.
The body in the bathtub was Greg.
“You know about that?”
Julie battled the sick fear that made her want to double over. “Of course. The code in the safe deposit box. That’s how they found me.”
“Oh, right. Yeah, right. He wasn’t good enough for you, Julie. We’ll find you somebody real good when we get home. A nice Uzkapostan boy like your old man.”
“We’re going to Uzkapostan?”
“Tomorrow morning. The same flight Greg was going to take you on.”
“I don’t have my passport.”
He flashed her a cocky smile. “Oh, yes, you do. I got it from your apartment.”
With an eerie sense of déjà vu, Hank ducked under the yellow police tape and approached the smoldering building. A guttural scream rose in his chest and begged to be freed as he walked closer to the brownstone and the familiar smell of waterlogged timber.
No. No. No.
“Sir, you need to step behind the barrier.”
He flashed his badge. “Who’s in charge?”
The fireman nodded to a woman standing beside a large red SUV. He identified himself, his hands shaking as he flashed his badge and asked, “What do we have here?”
“Explosion. Appears to have been deliberately set, probably natural gas. One confirmed dead.”
He could feel his chin trembling. “Male or female?”
“Male. From the neighbor’s description, it appears to be the owner, Leo Basinski.”
Hank pressed his palms to his eyes and nearly wept with gratitude.
“You okay, mister?”
“Yes. I thought it was a friend.” He took a big breath. “Was there anyone else in the building?”
“Negative. Neighbor says he lived alone.”
Hank’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He fished it out and saw an unfamiliar number with an 802 area code.
Vermont.
He stepped away from the SUV. “Hank Jared.”
“It’s Gwen.”
“Thank God. Where are you guys?”
“Julie’s not with me.”
“Where is she? I’m sitting outside Leo Basinski’s house, watching them carry him out in a plastic bag, Gwen. What the hell’s going on?”
“Oh, my God. We were just there!”
“Where’s Julie?”
“She’s with her father. I’m following them, Hank. Ninety-five north. I think Julie wanted me to call you.”
“You think?”
“Yes.”
“I’m getting in the car now. You can fill me in while I drive.”
It hadn’t been easy to convince him to come to Boston.
She told her father the computers at Systex Corporation had superior processors to the ones in Uzkapostan, which would enable her to hack into the Navy procurement database in half the time. That was a lie, but in Boston she had a fighting chance to save her own ass.
She was driving Leo’s late model sedan down the interstate, the smell of old cigar smoke thick in her nostrils. Her father was in the passenger seat, a beer and a gun in his lap. The gun was for protection, he said, but Julie didn’t believe him.
She’d watched that gun kill Leo, and it had probably killed Greg, too.
“Slow down. We don’t want to get pulled over,” he said.
That’s what she was hoping for, which is why she was speeding.
Easing her foot off the accelerator, she glanced in her rear view mirror to check for the minivan that had been following them since they left the house.
Her father hadn’t known Gwen was waiting outside for Julie, having shot Leo before the other man had a chance to tell him.
Call Hank. Tell him to come to Boston.
Julie was concentrating hard, and her head was beginning to pulsate in tempo with her own heartbeat. She was trying to send telepathic messages to her aunt for the last hour, feeling like an idiot trying to bend a spoon with her mind at a slumber party.
She didn’t even believe in this stuff.
His business card’s in my purse under the seat. Gwen, call Hank. We’re going to my office in Boston.
Her father belched in the seat beside her. “I need to take a piss.”
“I’ll get off at the next rest stop.”
“I gotta piss now. Pull over.”
Julie knew she’d lose Gwen if she did that, and her grip tightened on the wheel. “It’s the interstate, Dad. A cop might stop if we pull off the road.”
He leaned in close to her, the stink of beer and unbrushed teeth permeating the air. “Just. Fucking. Pull. Over.”
Julie put on her turn signal and felt Gwen’s question as soon as she touched the brake.
Keep going, Gwen. Keep going.
As if in answer, the minivan swung around them, continuing down the road. Julie watched it disappear in the distance, leaving her completely alone with her drunken crazed murderer of a father, and a gun.