However, in truth, that wasn’t quite the plan.
“And so,” she said, “give me a timeline.”
He glanced at the computer screen. “I’ll need several hours to hash the encryption and get past the authentication protocols, but I’ll need data from the station.”
“You’ll have it.”
“How?”
“Don’t worry, you’ll have it. You have a simple job: monitor the frequencies, access the deactivation codes, send the signal. And if we don’t get what we need, Ardis and Lizzie will die. I am not a woman who makes idle threats. Do you understand?”
For a moment he looked like he might challenge her, then said, “Yes.”
“No one needs to get hurt.”
He didn’t reply.
Mentally, she reviewed her schedule for tomorrow: after briefing her team at 11:30, three of her people would travel to the eastern entrance to the national forest to take out the telephone lines, then she and the rest of the team would head to the maintenance building that had been left at the site of the now-leveled ELF base.
And from there they would access the facility.
When she left the room, she found Becker waiting for her in the hall. “Well?” he said. “How long?”
“After he gets the data from the station, a couple hours.”
“But we have to have the uplink before 9:00-”
“I know. We will.”
Becker looked at his watch again.
“We’ll be in the base by 6:00,” she reassured him. “It’ll give us enough time. Don’t worry.”
“What did you tell him about his wife and daughter?”
She was tired of hearing about this. “You’re still upset about that.”
He was quiet.
“It was only two lives. There’ll likely be-”
“I know, Dana, but-”
“Don’t interrupt me, Becker.” He’d used the name he knew her by: Dana Murkowski. One of her aliases. “We needed the videos of them to make our threat credible when the time comes.”
“But you killed a little girl. Shot her mother in the-”
“It was necessary. Just like with Clifton.”
“Necessary? Couldn’t you have-”
“It was necessary.” She let each word fall like a stone: We are not going to discuss this anymore.
He didn’t reply, and she turned to leave but then felt his hand on her arm, gentle. An invitation. She paused.
“I’m sorry. I know you had to do it. Your conviction, your fearlessness, that’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you.” Well, his remorse over the death of the Pickrons must not have been as deep as he’d been letting on.
She faced him and said with a smile, “That’s two reasons.”
“Two reasons, then.” He seemed to have already put the Pickron slayings out of his mind. “Twenty minutes ago I had a conversation with Valkyrie. Everything is in place.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“Alexei has the rest of the money. Picked it up from the dead drop.”
“That shouldn’t matter now.”
He was caressing her with his eyes and she didn’t discourage him.
He’d been an easy man to seduce.
One of her gifts was getting men to fall in love with her. And so, to solidify his loyalty, she had made sure that he was smitten; that he would do anything for her. She couldn’t help but think of him as a gullible little puppet. After all, he still believed they were going to be disarming the weapons on the sub to make a statement to the world.
She let him take her in his arms.
Oh yes, they were going to make a statement.
She said nothing as he bent toward her.
And when he kissed her she did not close her eyes.
Sean led Tessa into his living room and she froze. The tragic remains of two deer heads and a four-foot-long muskie hung on the wall.
All right, that was just plain troubling. She turned away. “Is Amber here?”
“Last I heard, she was at the hospital with Pat. She’s probably on her way home.”
Although Tessa didn’t know the details, from a few uncharacteristic moments of self-revelation from Patrick over the last year, she did know that before Patrick met her mom, he and Amber had had some sort of thing together.
Probably before she met Sean.
All ancient history.
Sean didn’t seem to give a second thought to Amber visiting with Patrick tonight.
As he was walking toward the kitchen, the house lights flickered briefly and he made a comment about how, this far in the country, the electricity goes out all the time. Now that she thought about it, she realized that on the way to the house she hadn’t seen neighbors anywhere close.
Sean motioned toward a pile of wood by the living room fireplace. “I’ll get a fire going just in case.” Then he caught himself. “Are you hungry?”
“I’m all right.”
“You want some juice or something?”
No sense fighting it. You’re not gonna fall asleep anyway.
“How about some coffee?”
“At this time of night?”
“I expect to be up for a while,” she said simply.
41
Alternating ice baths-fifteen minutes in ice-cube-filled water, then a soak in the other bucket for ten, in water as hot as I could stand.
Repeat.
Again.
The chilled water takes the swelling down, the heat rushes blood flow to the area, helping circulation.
It’s one of the best ways I’ve found to treat a sprain, but admittedly it isn’t exactly nirvana in the moment you switch your foot from the steaming water to the ice bath.
I’d been at it for nearly an hour, my computer on my lap, working on the case as I soaked my ankle.
We knew Donnie drove his Jeep to work on Thursday, left at noon with the sawmill’s truck, but where was it now? If he’d returned to the house and then left on the snowmobile, what did he do with the truck?
Obviously, if he was abducted, his captors could have hidden it somewhere, but I was a bit surprised it was still missing.
It hadn’t been overcast yesterday afternoon or this morning, so now I checked the Defense Department’s Routine Orbital Satellite Database, or ROSD, to see if I could get a glimpse of anyone driving to or from the Pickron home around the time of the crimes.
Since this is a remote, sparsely populated region, I wasn’t surprised to find gaps in the footage between satellite passes, but it was informative to note that one of those coincided exactly with the time someone would have needed to access the house immediately preceding the crime, then again ten minutes later when they might have exited the scene.
The killers knew the precise times the Defense Department’s satellites would and would not be passing overhead.
I had footage from 1:54 to 1:58, could even see the cracks appear in the glass from the gunshots.
Shots fired through the living room window. Why?
I considered the time: 1:54 p.m… the date: January 8… the orientation of the window to the sun… the longitude and latitu Hang on.
Going back to the satellite images, I saw that Yes.
Oh yes.
At that time of day, with the position of the house, the sun, the satellite, there was no glare on the house’s northern exposure living room window.
The interior house lights were on when the police arrived, remember? Only the study’s lights were off.
I don’t believe in coincidences.
No, I don’t.
The cracks in the glass obscured the view of the house’s interior; however, it wasn’t a person outside in the marsh that might have peered in and seen the killers at work, it was a satellite.
I zoomed in on the image of the window. Looking at the house, first without the cracks in the glass, then with them, I realized that with the carefully placed shots causing the networked pattern of cracks, I could not see clearly inside the house.
Then there was the phone call, then the final shot Was someone watching a live feed through the ROSD? Is that the reason for the call, to let the killer know another shot was needed? A status report on the satellites? A warning? A signal?