

### THE FORSETI SOLUTION

### A Novel by

### J. D. German

### Copyright 2016 by J. D. German

SmashWords Edition

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Any resemblance to the lives of any persons, real or fictional, living or dead is coincidental.
E-Books by J. D. German

Fiction

_The Hermetrius Conspiracy_ – Lynn and Jack Preston Series #1

_The Forsetti Solution_ – Lynn and Jack Preston Series #2

_Revenge, Inc._ – Lynn and Jack Preston Series #3

The Malthus Strategy

Hostile Takeover

Peacekeeper

The Priceless Linen: A Fictional History of Christ's Burial Cloth

Non-Fiction

Christian Principles – Food for Thought

Random Thoughts of an A.D.D. Mind

The above books can be downloaded free from _smashwords . com / profile / view / jdeegerman_ (no spaces). They are available in formats that can be read on a PC, tablet computers, and E-readers.

Forward

### The Forseti Solution

In this sequel to _The Hermetrius Conspiracy_ , retired Federal Agent Jack Preston and his new wife, Lynn, have settled into her Rocky Mountain home after uncovering a conspiracy by a wealthy financier to control the outcome of the next Presidential election. Their attempts to expose the plot failed, and now they have to find a way to reveal the illegal activities of the soon-to-be President before he can destroy democracy in America. Using his superb skills as a hacker, Jack assembles a team of ex-agents to uncover hidden files and facts that will send the conspirators to prison. But the conspirators are out to stop them – for good. Can Jack's Agency training in escape, evasion, and firearms keep them alive long enough to stop the impending political tragedy? The shocking ending will leave you shaken.

If you haven't read _The Hermetrius Conspiracy_ yet, I suggest you download and read it first to enhance your reading enjoyment of this sequel.

List of Major Characters

**From the Current Novel and Its Prequel,** _The Hermetrius Conspiracy_

**THE FORSETIANS** – A group named for Forseti, the Norse God of Justice. The group's mission is to keep an ultra-conservative, Charles Winston, from becoming President and destroying the economy and Government of America.

**Jack Preston** – _56 years old, 6'3" tall, 200 pounds, rugged good-looks_. – A former agent of the Federal Remediation Agency (FRA) who retired several months ago, after his wife died. With a PhD in computer programming and his genius I.Q., he is one of the best hackers in the computer world. Created several inventions that show up in the stories. Jack has a cabin on a mountain lake in eastern West Virginia. (THC) Now he is part of a group that call themselves the Forsetians after Forseti, the Norse God of Justice. The group's mission is to keep an ultra-conservative, Charles Winston, from becoming President.

**Lynn Martin Preston** – _56 years old, 5'9" tall, 125 pounds, very attractive with natural red hair._ A divorced woman with a home outside of Telluride, Colorado. She and Jack went to school together in Coal Creek, West Virginia. They lost touch for almost forty years until she looked him up on the internet and they started exchanging Emails. (THC) She and Jack are now married and living in her Colorado home. Jack has trained her as a hacker and, because she joins Jack on missions, he has also trained her in martial arts and marksmanship.

**Harriet Goodman** – _42 years old, 5'6" tall, 120 pounds, pleasant looks._ Former FRA agent who Jack enlisted to help stop Winston's plans. Was injured in an attempted murder by Winston's thugs (THC), but is now fully recovered. She and her husband moved into a Virginia farm house that was a hideout for the group (THC). Works with the Forsetians in mission planning, computer searches, and ??

**Rick Goodman** – _44 years old, 5'10" tall, 230 pounds, typical salesman personality, Harriet Goodman's husband._ Owns a real estate business in suburban Washington D.C. Connections in the financial and banking industries. Works with the Forsetians in mission planning and financial activities.

**Tom Gutierrez** – _38 years old, 5'5" tall, 160 pounds, wiry build, dark good looks._ Another former FRA agent who came into the group reluctantly (THC). After his daughter is kidnapped and recovered, his wife take the kids and files for divorce. Works with the Forsetians in mission planning and execution.

**Dave Cramer** – _48 years old, 6'1" tall, 210 pounds, well-built, good looking._ An old friend of Jack's who owns a private detective and security business. Jack turns to him for help occasionally because of his connections and expertise.

THE OPPOSITION

**Charles Winston** – _57 years old, hard-driving, used to getting his way, no scruples_. A powerful financial billionaire who plans to take America further to the right than they have ever been. Through bribes, blackmail, and money, he has Congress stacked with ultra-conservatives who will do his bidding. His Presidential choice, Senator Matthew Roberts, is exposed by the Preston's group for the murder of his wife (THC). Winston steps in and runs for President himself.

**Jim Norton** – _49 years old, 6'2" tall, 174 pounds, womanizer._ Runs a private detective and security business. Winston's security chief and confidant who leaves and joins the Forseti group (THC). Moves to Barbados with a new identity to escape Borsilov's men.

**Alexei Borsilov** – _5'4" tall, 190 pounds, stocky, well muscled, evil._ A former Russian agent who becomes Winston's head of security after he kills Norton. Enjoys torture and killing. Does whatever Winston asks him to. Leads a team of former Russian thugs in several attacks against the Forsetians.

**Feliks Borin** – _22 years old, skinny, cocky know-it-all_. A Russian computer genius brought over by Alexei to combat Jack Preston's attack's on Winston's computer system. Obsessed with taking Preston's position as the best hacker in the computer world.

**Zarah Savvin** – _5'8" tall, 130 pounds, blonde temptress with a knockout figure._ Former Russian agent who works for Alexei. Skilled assassin with several weapons. Works on her own as the Praying Mantis Killer.

**Congressman Marcus Tyler** – _6'2" tall, 195 pounds, good looking professional politician._ Winston's Vice President selection. Moderately conservative record but moves right because Winston has career-ending evidence against him.

OTHER CHARACTERS

**Clint Hill** – The democrat candidate for president. More of a socialist than the current President.

**Bao Cheong** – Finance Minister for The People's Republic of China. Fears that Winston's election will upset China's economy and will do whatever is needed to stop that from happening.

**Ted Lee** – A Chinese sleeper agent living in the U.S.

**Selena** – Lynn Martin's granddaughter who lives in Telluride with Lynn's sister Betsy and husband Don.

**O'Malley** – Lynn's Irish setter. Usually a calm, friendly dog, but when someone calls her by the code name 'Jasper' she turns into an aggressive attack dog.

**Prologue**

**(The closing scene from** _The Hermetrius Conspiracy_ **)**

Jack and Lynn, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson Preston for all of the last ten hours, woke up midmorning, entangled in each other and the sheets. Jack looked down at Lynn's face and felt his heart swell with love. Lynn gave him a quick kiss. "What a night! Definitely worth the wait. I'm going to shower, and I expect a cup of coffee waiting for me when I come out."

"So now that we're married you're going to boss me around?"

Lynn replied in a sugar sweet voice "Honey, do you suppose you could get me a cup of coffee while I'm in the shower?"

"That's more like it, sweetheart."

Jack slipped into his clothes and headed for the front office to get some coffee and Danish. When he got back Lynn was already dressed, sitting on the bed. "Come over here and hold me, so I know I'm not dreaming."

Jack set the coffee and rolls down on the bedside table, eased into bed, and leaned back against the headboard. He put his arms around her, pulled her back next to him, and wrapped his arms around her. He held her awhile, then reached for the coffee cups. "Let's check out the news and see what happened while we were in dreamland." He picked up the TV remote and turned on Fox News. The talking heads were stuck on the upcoming primary elections, and Jack was about to turn it off when he heard what they were discussing.

The latest twist in the Republican race is the announcement by wealthy financier Charles Winston has entered the race for the Presidency. Here is his announcement:

" _I have been watching the economy of this country go downhill for the past eight years, and if it doesn't stop, we are headed for an economic Armageddon within a year. That's not a prediction. That's a fact. As CEO of Winston Securities I understand the banking system and the Federal attempts to control it into self destruction. This is the single most important issue in this campaign and I am the only candidate with the knowledge and experience to see what needs to be done and make it happen. All of our other problems – the budget deficit, the national debt, the under-funding of our military, and the overspending on Government mandated health care – they all hinge on the economy. If we don't fix this . . . our country will collapse . . . and China will own us. I'm the only candidate who can stop this and save America."_

Lynn turned to Jack. "Oh my God, Jack! What are we going to do!"
Chapter 1

As Jack and Lynn drove up to road to her house in Telluride, Colorado Lynn felt relief wash over her. She and Jack had left her home in this mountain ski resort over two months ago, barely in time to escape the men that Charles Winston had sent to capture them. Lynn half expected to see the place ravaged or burned down in retaliation for what she and the rest of Jack's team had done to eliminate Winston's hand-picked candidate, Senator Matthew Roberts of Idaho, from winning the primary election for President of the United States. With Winston's unscrupulous, and illegal behind-the-scenes work, Roberts was sure to have won the November election, now just eight months away. And with the members of the House and Senate that Winston had put in place over the past six years, his plan for bringing America back from the brink of socialism into an ultra-conservative nightmare would finally be realized. Jack and the others on his team celebrated when Roberts withdrew his candidacy, but when Winston himself stepped into the Republican primary race to replace his chosen candidate, they were dismayed.

Lynn leaned over and put her head on Jack's shoulder. "Thank you, sweetheart, for bringing us back here to live. It's so great to see it just like we left it. I guess Winston's people didn't come back after they gave up chasing us through the snowstorm."

"I need to sweep the place for bugs, just in case. They may have left some surprises behind."

Jack pulled up to her double garage and pressed the remote to open the door. He was glad they had remembered to bring the remote. It was the middle of winter in the Rocky Mountains and he didn't want to go out in the minus fifteen degree weather.

As soon as the door closed behind them Lynn hopped out of Jack's specially equipped Ford Sport Trac and opened the back door to let, her Irish setter, out. She sniffed the air then Lynn could swear he smiled. He knew he was home.

She punched in her door lock code, then stepped inside to turn off the alarm. As Jack walked in the door, she put her arms around his neck and jumped up to wrap her legs around his waist. Lynn thought ' _I hope he can hold my weight. He may still be weak from that bullet wound in his butt.'_ But he wrapped his arms around her in return and kissed her as he carried her into the living room and laid her on the couch. She pulled him down and said "Let's make out." He gave her a long kiss, then pulled away.

"Later, sweetheart. I need to get our bags inside then get my equipment out to scan the house for bugs. Have you got anything in the freezer to fix for supper?"

"I have some homemade lasagna and a good bottle of Chianti to go with it?"

"That sounds great. It will take me about thirty minutes to clear the house of electronic bugs – spy cameras and microphones that could have been planted by Winston's men while they were gone. I'll do the garage and property tomorrow, after it warms up."

"Don't expect much. You'll be lucky if the temperature gets up to zero. But my ex-husband left his ski stuff behind, so you can use that. He's as tall as you are, six foot three, but instead of your broad shoulders, he has a broad belly. His cold weather gear should fit you just fine."

By the time Jack finished going through the house with his electronic bug detector, Lynn had dinner on the table and a large glass of wine poured for both of them. Jack sat down and held up his glass. "A toast to overcoming all obstacles to finally get you in bed as my new wife."

Lynn laughed, "Who got who into bed?"

"I think it was a mutual effort. . . . Lynn, thank you for keeping our relationship in check until we could get married."

"I wanted that too, Jack, in spite of the hard time I gave you with my teasing. It was worth the wait."

After dinner Lynn lit the log fire in the main fireplace and they relaxed on the couch in front of it. They just sat there. No conversation . . . and no urge to fill the silence with words. . . .

Lynn looked over at Jack and said, "Do you know how much I love you, darling?"

"Yes I do, because I know how much I love you. My heart was locked up when my wife, Helen, died. I never thought I could let my emotions out of the box I nailed them into, but you opened that box, in spite of my reluctance to get in touch with my feelings again. Thank you for that."

Lynn slid back against his chest and enjoyed the physical closeness. She felt so protected with his arms around her, so safe. It wasn't just that he was a trained Federal Agent who had proven his ability to keep her alive and unharmed; it was the confidence and calmness he showed in every circumstance. He always knew exactly what to do when they were in danger without even thinking about it. It was like he was programmed to respond with the right moves no matter what happened. But what surprised her was how gentle he could be, how much he respected her ideas, and how loving he was.

Jack let his mind drift back to when he first saw her, standing on the front porch of her mountain home, her red hair blowing in the wind, a big smile on her attractive face. They didn't get off to a good start, but after they got to understand each other's territory – what was important to them – they settled into a comfortable relationship. He thought back through the past couple of months as they grew closer and finally realized they were in love. His thought train stopped at the time three nights ago he had first seen her in her natural state. She was beautiful. Jack couldn't believe she was his age – fifty six. And not only was her body that of a much younger woman, but so was her personality. She had the laughing, joking, uninhibited persona that most people her age had let get away from them, to be replaced with a sadness that their fun years were over.

"Are you ready to carried over the threshold of your bedroom?"

"I thought you would never ask. And it's not my bedroom, it's our bedroom – now and forever."

Jack slipped one arm under her knees, the other behind her neck, and lifted her off the couch. As they crossed into the bedroom Jack saw that Lynn had lit a fire in the small fireplace and turned the bed down. She wiggled out of his grasp and said I'll shower here while you use the upstairs bath. We'll meet back here in twenty minutes.

When Jack left, Lynn went to the back of her closet and found the negligee from her first honeymoon. Her first husband wouldn't mind, and she still looked spectacular in it.

Jack got back to the bedroom first and slid between the sheets. Lynn stepped into the bedroom and stood at the foot of the bed. Jack just stared. Then he threw the covers back, patted her side of the bed, and said "I've saved a place for you."
Chapter 2

Lynn was already up and fixing breakfast, humming to herself, when Jack came into the kitchen. He put his arms around her from behind and said "Good morning, Mrs. Preston." She turned her head for a quick kiss and went back to the scrambled eggs.

"What are you fixing?"

"I how about scrambled eggs, sausages, biscuits, and sausage gravy. Does that sound O.K.?"

"Pile up the green chilies on my eggs."

"Let's see, I have Hatch green chilies, jalapenos, and habaneras. What's your favorite?"

"The New Mexico Hatch chilies are as hot as I'll eat. People eat the hotter ones just to show how tough they are."

As they finished up their breakfast Jack took the dishes to the sink.

"No you don't, Jack. I'm the woman of the house and I wash the dishes."

Jack turned his head and replied "Let's get this straight. You cook, I wash. I cook, you wash. Got it?"

"You mean you can cook, too? I'm getting more than I bargained for."

"Not only can I cook, I like to cook and expect to do it often. Got that?"

"Yes sir!" Lynn said with a smile.

As Jack was finishing the dishes Lynn poured two more coffees and took them to the great room. When Jack joined her Lynn asked "What's on the calendar for today?"

"Well, I'm afraid the honeymoon is over. . . . for today anyway. It's time to get to work. While I explore the perimeter to make sure there are no surveillance devices why don't you send secure emails to the Forsetian team and arrange an online meeting for this afternoon. We need to discuss how we can head off Winston's nomination for President."

Before they had split up last week the team decided to call themselves the Forsetians after Forseti, the Norse God of Justice. Their mission is to bring Charles Winston and his hired thugs – the ones who had killed three Federal Remediation Agency investigators – to justice. Jack himself had retired from the FRA early last year but discovered an inconsistency in the records from one of his missions. That's what led Jack, and the others who joined him later, to discover Winston's conspiracy to put the country under conservative rule. Jack had set up a secure network so they could interact with each other from their widely spread locations.

Jack bundled up in the cold weather gear and went down to the garage. When he worked for the FRA he had developed some electronic devices that could locate cameras and microphones even when they were inactive. He got those out of the bed of his truck and scanned the garage. It came up clean so he stepped out into the frigid morning and began his trek through the trees that surrounded Lynn's place with O'Malley close behind. Lynn had done a good job training the dog to be a good watch dog. If she or Jack called her 'Jasper', she turns into an aggressive attack dog.

When he got back inside he said "The good news is that I didn't find any surveillance equipment. The bad news is that I can't feel my toes."

"Get your cold weather stuff off and come put your feet on my lap. I'll warm them up for you."

Jack quickly complied and Lynn lifted up her sweater and held his feet against her skin.

"Now that's a foot warmer I've never experienced before. And it's working pretty fast. But don't my feet freeze your skin?"

"I'll suffer anything to care for my man."

"What did you find out from the team? Are they available?"

"Harriet Goodman and her husband, Rick, are still vacationing in Florida, but she was online and answered my email right away. They can join us online anytime this afternoon. Tom Gutierrez hasn't responded yet . . . Oh, there's his email now. . . . He can meet anytime. I haven't heard from Jim Norton, Winston's former head of security who came over to our side. He's still hiding in the Caribbean somewhere under a new identity to protect himself from Winston's men. He's probably laying on the beach with a woman he's made friends with. He'll see my email when he gets back to his room."

"Well, that's five out of six. We can fill Jim in later if he doesn't answer before the meeting. So when should we do this"

"It's two hours later in everyone else's time zone so I'll set it up for noon our time."

#

"Have we got everyone online? Harriet and Rick, you look like you're enjoying the Florida sun. How's that leg healing, Harriet?"

"It's almost all better. Rick and I have been walking a couple of miles on the beach every day and I can feel the strength coming back. I won't be happy until I can run those two miles, though."

Harriet had been a fellow FRA agent before Winston's men had smashed into her car. She survived that, but they sent someone into her hospital room to finish the job. She and Rick made him wish he had stayed home.

"Tom, how's the family? Are you still staying at your sister's place in Wisconsin?"

"No, I contacted your friend, Dave Cramer at his detective agency and he gave me a job – one that pays a lot better than the FRA job I had before. He's found a house for us to rent in Philadelphia a couple of blocks away from the office, so we'll be moving there next week."

Lynn said "That's great, Tom! I'd like to meet your wife and family sometime."

". . . Maybe we can arrange that."

Jack put on his officious voice: "I now call the second meeting of the Forsetians to order."

He turned to Lynn in a mock whisper they all could hear "We've got to get me a gavel so I can maintain order." After the laughter passed Jack got serious.

"I'm sure you all know why we're meeting. We thought we had finished the job when Winston's presidential candidate was arrested for the murder of his wife. Jim Norton knew most of Winston's plan and assured us that there wasn't a backup candidate ready to step in, and that Winston's people had convinced him he didn't have the charisma to run himself. But as we saw on the news last week, that's exactly what he has done. He's probably hired some image consultants who are working on who he will pretend to be to get elected."

Harriet spoke up. "How can we keep him from winning the primaries, Jack? He's got all the money he needs and then some, and the three February primaries are just days away. There's no time to dig up anything on him that will turn the voters against him, and if he manages to win all the primaries on Super Tuesday, he'll have the nomination for sure."

Tom added his thoughts about that. "Other than posting a lot of lies on the internet, I can't see any way to slow him down. But that's exactly what his people did to get their candidates elected, and if we do that we're no better than he is."

Lynn replied, "Good point, Tom. We have to maintain the moral high ground, but that really handicaps us."

"Yeah, sometimes being honest sucks." Rick added.

Jack thought for a minute. "Even if we did manage to get the voters to reject him in the primaries he probably has other tricks up his sleeve. With enough money passed around he could even hijack the Republican National Convention and get nominated anyway."

"I don't think we can act fast enough to stop his nomination, so we have to focus on ways to discredit him before the November election. If you recall I was digging into Winston's financial dealings before we split up. I need to continue that to see what turns up."

"That's a good start, Rick. You have talent and connections in the financial world, so why don't you continue exploring that angle. Maybe you can find something that will get the attention of the IRS."

"Will do, Jack. But if we're going to get the IRS involved we have to do it before Winston gets elected President or he'll have the IRS under his control, just like the current President does."

Harriet spoke up. "Now Rick, don't start talking about when he gets elected. Think more like 'on the off-chance he manages to get into the White House.' Think positive."

"But we can't ignore the possibility. We have to have a contingency plan in case we can't stop him."

Jack added, "Another good point, Lynn. But for now we should focus on how we can keep him from winning the general election. Rick is covering the financial possibilities. What other areas can we use to attack him? Harriet, what do you have?

"Earlier I started looking for evidence of how his people managed to get a majority of ultra-conservatives elected to the House and Senate over the past several years. I discovered that many of their opponents were publicly exposed for various unsavory activities, but it looked like some of those charges were fabricated and brought out in the open just before the elections. Afterward, the accusers and witnesses couldn't be found. And the campaign spending of these conservative Republican candidates was huge – most likely funded by Winston himself. The Democrat candidates couldn't begin to match the advertising blitz of Winston's candidates."

"That's a great direction to go, Harriet, but it may take awhile to get some results that will stand up in court. Go after that with a vengeance to speed up the process. Tom, do you have a particular area you could explore to go after Winston?"

"I do, Jack. We haven't had the time to investigate the deaths that were probably ordered by Winston. We believe his hired guns killed the three FSA agents who planted false information to incriminate potential political opponents. They tried to take out Harriet, you, and me, but we were too smart – or lucky – to get caught. And then there's the death of the newspaper reporter who was after Winston, and the apparent suicide of his hand-picked presidential candidate. That's five possible murders that we might be able to tie to Winston. Now that I'm going to be working for CSIC – Cramer Security and Investigations Company – I can get access to those cases and look for evidence that Winston was involved."

"That's good stuff, guys. I'm not sure what Lynn and I will do at this point, but I'll come up with something."

"You two newlyweds need to spend some time together to get acquainted, not jump into work right away."

Lynn answered, "We've been together almost 24/7 for the past three months, so I think we're well acquainted." She added with a smile, "In fact, I'm tired of him already" as she gave him a hug.

"Actually I just figured out what our role will be. For you all to do your jobs, you'll need same heavy duty hacking into government and corporate computers. Lynn is pretty good with a computer already, so I'll turn her into a first-class hacker to help me hunt down the information we need."

"Well, that beats a honeymoon any day," Lynn added with a laugh.

Jack closed the meeting with the comment "We make a great team. We have just the variety of skills and experience that can take Charles Winston and his bunch down. Let's meet online again at the end of the week to exchange more thoughts and talk about our progress. Rick, would you stay connected. There's something I want to run by you."

Jack was about to close the meeting when Harriet got his attention. "There's something we're missing here. If we take Winston down before the general election, the Democrat candidate will win the Presidency. Everyone expects Clinton Hill, the former Secretary of State, to get the nomination, and he is as far left as Winston is right. Hill is clearly a socialist, even though he says he isn't, who will take the country further in the direction started by our current President. It could be the end of personal freedom and capitalism in this country.

"So here's the problem. We're caught between a rock and a hard place. If we get rid of Winston before the election, Hill destroys the country with socialism, but if we allow Winston to win, then we get destroyed by ultra-conservatism. I can't see a way out of this."

Everyone was shocked by the thought. Tom said what all of them were thinking. "Then we might as well quit wasting our time and get ready for the coming apocalypse." That brought another silence.

Jack thought for a couple of minutes. " But there's a wild card in this deck. . . . who will be Winston's Vice President. If Winston chooses someone less over the edge than he is, someone a little more moderate, then that person would be President if we wait until Winston's is sworn in to reveal what we hope we can find out about him. He might not go to prison for it, but there's a chance he would be impeached and kicked out of office. So until we know who Winston's running mate is, we should continue to gather evidence."

Everyone agreed, so Jack ended the meeting.
Chapter 3

Jack and Lynn had finished supper and were sitting in the great room watching snowflakes fall gently through the deck light illumination. Lynn snuggled her back up to his chest and Jack wrapped his arms around her in what had become their favorite position. "I'm so happy here, back in my home with you by my side. I hope nothing happens to force us to run from here again."

"As a matter of fact, that's what I talked to Rick about this afternoon. Through his real estate business, he's going to sell your house."

Lynn quickly turned to face him. "What! You can't do that! I won't ever give this place up."

"Cool down, dear. We're going to sell it to ourselves, but under a different name. Rick will set up a real estate holding company to buy your house. The holding company will be owned by two anonymous investors – that would be you and me. Your name will no longer appear on any records related to the property, so if Winston's gang tries to find you again, they'll hit a dead end.

"Oooh, I like that. You're so damn smart, sweetheart. But what about mail that comes to this address, and your mail too once you send the post office a change of address."

"Rick will rent a post office box near their new place in Leesburg, Virginia that all of our mail will be sent to. Harriet will forward the bundle to us once a week, minus the junk mail of course, addressed to our new names. If You'll take face photos of us, I'll get some solid false identity documents made that we'll use to get a P. O. box down in Telluride. Rick and Harriet are going to do the same thing at their farm outside of Leesburg."

"So they bought the farm we all used as a hideout that first month after we got together. That's a beautiful place. They'll love it there. If I didn't have this place, that would be my second choice for a home. . . . No, your cabin in West Virginia would be my second choice. The farm would be third. What are you going to do with your old place, Jack?"

"For now I think I'll do the same thing with that – sell it to myself through a holding company. I thought about selling it – I built that right after Helen died and it holds a lot of memories I don't want to face again. Especially the depression I went into for awhile. Did I tell you I thought about suicide a lot during that time?"

"That must have been very painful for you to consider suicide. I just can't imagine someone with your inner strength thinking about killing himself."

"Depression screws with your mind and interferes with your ability to think rationally. It was like a black whirlpool trying to suck me down into . . . into . . . I don't know what. Non-existence?"

They sat without speaking for awhile, then Lynn turned around, put her hands on either side of his face, and looked into his eyes. "Jack, promise you'll tell me if you ever feel yourself sinking back there. I know you're still taking anti-depressants, and they seem to work for you, but don't let the darkness keep you from telling me."

Tears formed in Jack's eyes. "Lynn, thinking about that time in my life chokes me up. After I started getting better I had a constant fear that I would fall back into depression. I still wake up with nightmares about it. But after being with you I can see now that my isolation was part of what drove the depression. I've always been afraid to share my emotions with anyone. But with you, I feel safe telling you my feelings . . . and getting choked up in front of you. In my 32 years of marriage to Helen, I couldn't let my feeling show. I thought real men didn't do that. I didn't see that until after she died."

Lynn was crying herself by this time. She wrapped her arms around his neck. "Oh Jack, I can see how much you were hurting. I wish I could have been there to comfort you and hold you and share your pain. I won't ever let you go back into a depression."

"And I promise to tell you if I feel that whirlpool sneaking up on me again. I learned a lot during that time. I turned to God for help, asking Him to ease my emotional pain, and He did. But it took awhile for me to let Him into my closed-up heart.

"Depression is a strange condition. People tell you to just snap out of it, as if you are there by choice. Depression is almost a living entity. It feeds on itself and pulls you back whenever it sees you trying to climb out. . . . But enough of the morbid stuff. How about a glass of wine?"

As Jack was getting the wine Lynn thought ' _This isn't over yet. There are still pieces of that monster hidden inside of him. I hope he will talk about it some more and bring the monster out into the light._ '

#

Mary Gutierrez was packing for the move to Philadelphia while Tom was making his first inquiries into the deaths of Alan Richardson, James Foreman, and Michael Nelson – the three FRA agents who had died under questionable circumstances. He wanted to start with the coroners who had examined the bodies. Three coroners in three states, so there wasn't likely collusion among them. Jack had provided him with hacking links into the coroner's files and the sheriff department records. Tom decided to start with Alan Richardson, who was shot six month's ago in a car jacking. His car was found abandoned in Rock Creek Park with his body in the trunk.

Tom entered the internet link to the Bethesda Medical Examiner's data storage site. Finding the records was just a matter of typing in Richardson's full name and hitting enter. There it was. He died of a fatal gunshot wound to the head that probably killed him immediately. ' _That's the way I want to go,_ ' thought Tom. ' _A quick head shot that shuts down the brain before it can even register the pain._ ' The records showed nothing else remarkable except bruises and contusions, presumably from his struggle with the car jackers. Tom thought, _'If they were car jackers, and that was the conclusion of the Bethesda investigators, why would they abandon the car. Why not dump the body, take the car straight to a chop shop, get their cash, and get away.'_

Tom downloaded the news article from the Bethesda paper:

"August 9, 2015: Mr. Alan Edward Richardson was killed last night during a car jacking incident at the East Mall. Witnesses say that, as Mr. Richardson was getting into his car, two men forced him into the back seat and drove off. It happened so quickly that none of the witnesses could describe the attackers. One of them called 911 to report the incident and police arrived within 5 minutes. An APB was issued for Richardson's car but the carjackers escaped. At 3:45 pm today his car was discovered abandoned in Rock Creek Park. Mr. Richardson's body was found locked in the trunk with a fatal bullet wound to the head. Police are searching the car for clues. He is survived by his wife, Amanda Richardson,, and their two children, Alan Jr. and Becky."

Nothing helpful there. He could call the wife and see if she knows anything about why someone would want her husband dead, but he had other paths he wanted to follow first. He started with the Bethesda Police Department records. Jack's link got him in immediately. He worried about their computers noticing the hack and identifying him as the culprit, but Jack assured him that his link to the site was routed through six different countries, including Russia, so tracing it would be impossible for all but the elite of the hacking world, and the Bethesda Police wouldn't have access to one of those. Most hackers worked on the dark side and never sold their services to a government entity. Three minutes later Tom was printing out the complete investigator's report of the shooting. Tom looked it over and thought, ' _Not much to it. Three pages, and most of that about the forensics on the car. I'll have to wait until we get to our new home in Philly before I read it,_ ' as he put the paper in a new file jacket and added it to the box of other files destined for his new office. Dave Cramer had called and told him that an office was already set up in their rental house, ready for him to get to work. Jack lifted the box of files and headed downstairs to add it to the stack for the movers.

"It that everything from upstairs?" Mary asked.

"Except for my laptop, and I'll take that in the car."

"Then go upstairs and make sure the girls have completed their packing. They'll be home from school any minute and I want them to finish their last homework assignments so they can turn them in on out way out of town." As if on cue Tom heard the school bus pull up and disgorge the half dozen kids from the neighborhood. When the girls came in front door Claudia, the youngest at 11, dropped her books on the floor and ran up to give Tom a big hug, which he returned with a spark of warmth in his heart. Their other daughter, Lorena, was like that when she was that age, but now at 14 she followed the pattern of most teenagers and had withdrawn from her parents.

All Lorena had for him now was a brief smile, then she gave her mother a peck on the cheek and headed upstairs to her room.

"Claudia, pick up those books and go do your homework."

She picked her books up off the floor and replied stiffly, "Yes Mother," then quickly followed her sister upstairs.

"Tom, we need all those boxes labeled with a complete list of what's inside. I don't want to go digging around in them at our new place trying to find something you forgot to put on the label."

Tom said silently in his mind ' _Yes Mother_ ' and started his assigned task. As he worked his mind went back to the same thought he's had so many times before. ' _I wish Mary was a little warmer with the girls. Maybe hug them now and them. I know she's not a hugger, not even in bed, but she could make an effort to give them the illusion that she loves them. She's so abrupt, demanding, and in charge all the time. There's no warmth there, none at all. Well, what can I expect. She's treated me that way ever since we got married. She didn't seem to be like that when we were dating, but before she wiped the wedding cake frosting from her mouth she turned into another person. Sometimes I wish we weren't Catholic._ '

#

Rick and Harriet had just finished their morning walk on the beach in Panama City, Florida and were back in their rented condo. After all they had been through the past three months they needed some R & R; rest and relaxation. When Winston's thugs had T-boned her car from both sides in an attempt to kill her, Harriet was badly injured – a broken left leg, several cracked ribs, a right shoulder pulled out of joint, and severe internal bleeding. Rick had stayed by her side day and night, even fighting off another murder attempt in her hospital room.

To protect her from further attempts, Rick moved her, still in her hospital traction frame bed, to a vacant modern farm house near Leesburg, Virginia. The other members of Jack's team later joined them at the farm, where they searched for ways to overturn Winston's conspiracy. When Winston's security chief found out where they were and planned to capture them, they all had to flee the farm and hide out in a double-wide mobile home deep in the West Virginia mountains. When they finally got Winston's presidential candidate out of the picture they all went their separate ways, vowing to keep after Winston and his men until they were in prison.

Harriet brought him back to the present. "Rick, I've had enough R&R. I'm ready to get busy on the new assignments that Jack gave us yesterday."

"I was hoping you would say that, but I didn't want to push you back into the battle until you were ready. Let's pack up and leave for our new home at the farm. If we can get out of here in the next hour we can be there by nine tonight."

"Is that with me driving or you driving?" Harriet asked with a smile. As part of her FRA agent training she had been taught high-speed driving techniques that she routinely applied to their highway trips – weaving in and out of traffic, running stop lights, and making quick turns. Rick was a cautious driver, so it was an issue between them. Several times she had been stopped by the police, but she always got off by flashing her FRA badge at them. Now that she had given that job up she would have to be more careful.

"Why don't you let me drive, Rick. It's been so long since I was behind the wheel that I'm afraid I've forgotten how."

"Your leg still hurts when you sit too long, so I'll drive. Start packing so we can get out of here."
Chapter 4

Alexei Brusilov leaned back in his expensive office chair and surveyed his new office at Winston Financial Holdings Corporation in Atlanta, Georgia. He had never been given a luxury office before. When he started out in the Moscow police department, he had a four by six foot piece of real estate in a room full of desks and workers. When he got to America and started his own security agency his offices were in abandoned businesses and warehouses. The things he did for his shady clients were usually illegal, so he had to keep on the move to avoid the law and unhappy customers. But this . . . this was real living. The view from the 40th floor of the corporate office building was spectacular. He couldn't believe his good fortune at getting the job as Charles Winston's new head of security. He performed the assignments Winston had given him over the past three months well enough to get him hired. Winston particularly liked the fact that Alexei had no scruples whatsoever, and didn't let breaking the law get in his way of finishing a job.

The first thing Alexei did after being hired was to look for the best computer hacker he could find. Jack Preston, the leader of the group that defeated Winston's plan to get his man into the White House, was a legendary hacker who used his skills to uncover the conspiracy. Alexei knew he needed someone just as good to track everything Preston and his gang were doing to interfere with Winston's election. Alexei's contacts in Moscow had come up with just the computer whiz he was looking for. Feliks Borin was a 22 year-old genius who earned his doctorate in computers at the age of 20, after which he immediately turned to the dark side and started selling his formidable hacking skills to the highest bidder. When Alexei contacted him and explained what he needed, Feliks told him that it would take $100,000 just to get him to Atlanta and $50,000 a month to keep him there. Winston balked at the expense but when Alexei explained how Jack Preston had almost destroyed his plans, he relented.

Feliks had been here for only a month, holed up in his basement office with the fastest computer hardware available. He already had a system of software sentries set up in the internet sites Preston's gang might hack looking for something to put Winston away. As soon as an intrusion into any of these sites was detected, Feliks' high-speed computer would attach a worm to the documents the hacker was uploading. The worm, as Feliks described it to Alexei, would stay attached to the document as it went back to the hacker's computer. Once inside it would install itself in the computer as a fragment of code that would send a beacon over the internet every time the hacker went online. The beacon, a millisecond long string of digital bits that identified the IP address of the hacker's computer, would be picked up by Feliks' computer system.

#

Winston was in his office going over what Feliks had explained to him, trying to understand it when Feliks burst through his office door. "My sentry system just picked up the first hacks by Preston's team! One of them got into some files about one of the deceased FRA agents, Alan Richardson."

"Great! What were they looking for?"

"The reports from the coroner and the sheriff containing details of the autopsy and the murder."

"So you can tell me who the hacker is, right?"

"Not yet. All I have is an IP address, a unique identifier assigned to every online computer. But now that the worm is installed in his computer, we can monitor every email he sends and the address of who he sent it to. Once we accumulate enough information we can zero in on the hackers identity."

"Will it tell us where the computer is located so we can grab the guy if we decide to?"

"No, it won't do that. But the worm will let me into his computer to download all the data on his hard drive whenever you give the word."

"Don't take any action yet. The longer we can keep them from finding us out the more we will learn. If Jack Preston realizes what we're doing he will take some defensive measures to lock us out."

"Did you say Jack Preston? THE Jack Preston? The best known hacker in the world? Why didn't you tell me that before?"

"Would you have taken the job if you knew?"

"Hell yes! And I would have done it for half the money. A chance to go up against the Hackmeister and beat him is priceless. I'm going back to my computers. Can you have a bed set up in my office? I want to stay on this thing 24/7."

#

Feliks was excited. He loved challenges, and this was the biggest he had ever faced. If he could beat Jack Preston he would be the new Hackmeister, the unofficial title conferred on the best of the best in the hacking community. ' _I'll need some innovative techniques for this. I've written some of the best subroutines in the business to get into other computers and databases. And once I'm in I can do whatever I choose – plant incriminating data, change documents to say whatever the client wants, plant pornographic photos._ ' Feliks chuckled as he remembered the dirty photos he planted in a senator's computer. He not only planted them, he had the computer upload them to the senator's Facebook page.

Feliks made some notes to himself about new ideas for this project. His sentries detected the intrusions, but he doubted his worms would make it past Preston's defenses without alerting him. And even if they did get into the intruder's computer, the IP address would be worthless. Preston would have his computers creating different false address every time they went on line. ' _This is going to be the most fun I've ever had_ ' he thought.
Chapter 5

Tom Gutierrez put the last of his books on the shelves of his new home office and dropped into the well-padded desk chair to catch his breath. He and the family had been distributing their belongings into various rooms of the spacious house, and he was tired of carrying boxes up and down the stairs. He was anxious to continue investigating the police records from Richardson's death, but Mary insisted that everything else in the house had to be unpacked and put away before she would allow him to go down to his office to work. After spending three hours putting everything in order – precisely where Mary specified – he was finally ready to work in his office. He turned his chair to look at the computer Cramer provided. It was a top of the line Dell Precision Tower desktop model, rated one of the top ten desktop computers in the world. Tom went through the initial setup checklist and was rewarded with the familiar Windows screen. His first action was to install Jacks custom software package, which would encrypt all of the data he exchanged with the rest of the team, and put up impenetrable fire walls against any attempted intrusion. He didn't want to bring the new computer online until he had all of Jack's stuff installed.

He pulled out the laptop that Jack bought for everyone when they were at the farm. It was almost as good as the new Dell, but there was just so much they could pack into a laptop and keep it portable. He signed in to the encrypted internet site that Jack set up for the team and queried Jack.

"Are you there, Jack?"

In ten seconds Jack came back at him.

"I'm here Tom. What's happening?"

Tom thought ' _Isn't it amazing that when we got our first home computers, waiting several minutes for an email to get through was fantastic. That 512 k telephone modem was the best thing every invented. Now if we have to wait 5 seconds for a connection we get annoyed_.' He answered Jack:

"I start my job with Dave Cramer's security firm tomorrow. He picked out a great home for us to rent and equipped my office with a Dell Precision Tower 5810, a printer, and a satellite server modem. I haven't gone online with it yet because I knew you would want some of your custom software installed first. Send me a step-by-step of how to get your stuff integrated with my new system."

"That's a good machine, Tom. I'll send you a link to my custom software package that will bring the Dell up to the level of security we need. How is Mary liking the new home?"

Tom thought a bit before he answered that last question. They had never met his wife and he didn't want to negatively impact their opinion of her. She would take care of that herself the first time they met.

"She's delighted with the house, and she's very pleased that I'll be desk-bound in this new job. She never trusted me not to play around on my business trips, but I never let that keep me from doing my job as best I could."

"You're a good man, Tom. Have you had time to investigate any of the murders yet?"

"Before we left our last place I hacked into the Bethesda coroner's files and the sheriff's office records to see what I could find out about Richardson's murder. I had to set it aside until after the move, but I'll get back to it tomorrow."

"Keep me posted on your progress, Tom."

Tom shut down his laptop and went upstairs for supper. May had prepared a tortilla chip casserole, one of the girls' favorites. When they were all seated Mary nodded at Tom and he blessed the food and thanked God for the blessings in their lives. He added "Thank you Lord for providing this home for us. I ask that you help us all develop relationships with our friends, neighbors, and fellow students." When he looked up his oldest daughter, Lorena, scowled at him. She didn't want to leave her close friends at her last school, and was not looking forward to trying to earn her way into the social structure at the new school. Claudia, on the other hand, was a carefree creature who looked forward to making new friends here in the suburbs of Philly. Jack thought about his two angels and how they were so different. Lorena was filling out quickly and he would soon have to start worrying about the boys she would be dating. Claudia was still a couple of years away from puberty, but when she did blossom, she would be as much of a beauty as Lorena was now.

Mary interrupted his reverie. "Are you girls ready for school tomorrow? We're fortunate that the Catholic school is only a few blocks away. You can walk to school unless the weather is bad. Your Dad will drive you when that happens."

Lorena asked "Mom, what are we going to do about school uniforms. Our old ones won't match what everybody else is wearing. Can we stay home Monday until we can get the right clothes?"

"No you will not stay home Monday, young woman. You will wear what you have until I can go out shopping for new uniforms."

"But mom, everybody will laugh at us."

"Let them laugh. You need to toughen up and not let what other people think bother you."

Tom thought ' _Easy to say Mary, but to a teenager things like that are mortifying. They'll get off on the wrong foot with the local cliques and be shunned for days or weeks. I wish you would be more sensitive to their worries and fears._ '

Tom knew he didn't dare express that opinion. It would turn into one of their epic arguments that would end with him apologizing and Mary not changing her position one bit. Even when she got her way he would be in the doghouse for days.

After dinner he sat with Mary in front of the TV watching game shows, which Tom hated. Sitting here every evening after dinner had become a ritual with them, and any attempt by Tom to get out of their "together time" as Mary called it was met with the silent treatment for a week or more. Ten p.m. finally came and Mary retired to her bedroom. Tom went up to tell the girls goodnight and then went down to his new office. As he closed the door he breathed a sigh of relief. He couldn't wait for the solitude after a very tension-filled evening. He poured himself a bourbon and water from the stash he kept hidden from Mary and fired up his laptop. ' _There's an email from Preston with instructions about how to get my new computer up and running with Jack's protective software. That looks pretty easy._ '

Thirty minutes later everything was complete and he took the new computer online for the first time. He clicked on his previous back-door hack into the Bethesda sheriffs office and was rewarded with a file search screen. He typed in "Richardson, Alan" like he did the last time and pulled up the file. He opened it and studied the details he hadn't had time to go over before.

The forensics investigators found an empty 9mm cartridge casing that, based on the firing pin pattern, was fired from a Glock 17. No weapon was found, either in the car or at the kidnapping site, so they had nothing to match the bullet to. A complete search of the car revealed no evidence from anyone except Alan Richardson. Richardson had been knocked out with a blow to the head, put into the trunk, and shot point blank in the forehead. The police investigators concluded that it was a car jacking gone bad. Tom didn't agree. Alan's car was a five-year-old Toyota sedan – not at the top of car jackers top ten list. And if they were car jackers, why wait until Richardson got back to the car. If they were any good they could have popped the ignition lock and been gone in three minutes. No, it definitely didn't look like a car jacking.

Tom paged back to a transcript between the first officer on the scene where they found the car and the police dispatcher:

Dispatch, this is Unit 14 reporting a vehicle abandoned on Horse Stable Road. Description and license matches vehicle taken at gun point from the East Mall parking lot two hours ago. On opening the trunk we found a body matching the description of driver taken at gun point during the theft. Awaiting team from coroner's office, but first impression is that victim was shot execution style with a bullet to the forehead.

Roger that, Unit 14. Coroner is on route.

'Whoa. Where was that in the final report? It made no mention of even the possibility of an execution-style murder. Someone got to the sheriff between the initial call and the final report to downplay the execution angle. Who would want that theory covered up? If indeed the murder of the three FRA agents was part of Winston's attempt to erase any evidence that he had doctored the corporate files to show kickbacks to political opponents, then the execution-style murder of Richardson fits right in. ' _I need to get into the death reports of the other two agents to see if there's more evidence of murder and, if possible, put some pressure on the Bethesda sheriff to find out who bought him off._ ' Tom turned off he computer and went upstairs to his bedroom. He had to report for his first day of work at CSIC in the morning and he wanted to be rested so he could make a good first impression.

#

Rick drove his new Escalade up the winding driveway to the farm house.

"Lots of memories from this place, huh Rick."

"You got that right, sweetie. Most of them I'd rather forget. Being bedridden in that traction contraption for the first couple of weeks was hard to take, especially since you couldn't sleep beside me. I was so happy that first night we had in the big king bed."

"Me too, Harriet. That first night was like we were on our honeymoon again."

Harriet smiled and leaned over to kiss Rick on the cheek. "We have been blessed with such a close, loving relationship for the past 21 years, honey. I'm so glad we didn't fall into the pattern so many of our married friends did – both of them working, kids in day care, living in a home they can't afford. That's not what a marriage should be. No matter how busy you were with starting the real estate business, you always were home by six for a glass of wine and dinner together. You don't know how much I appreciated that, Rick. To me that was a daily reminder of how much you loved me."

"Now those days of struggling to start a business are over, dear. We are as rich as we need to be, I have someone I trust to run the business, and I can stay involved from my home office. And this place, built by a 'gentleman farmer', is just perfect for us. There's even a barn where you can keep a horse or two."

"If things with Winston's bunch get scary again will we be safe here?"

"I need to talk to Jack about that. Maybe he can set up a security perimeter around the house and property and fortify the house a bit. I hope we don't need to worry about it though."

Rick pulled up to the front door and the two of them walked up the steps. After he unlocked he door he turned, picked Harriet up, and carried her across the threshold."

"You're crazy Rick, and I love it. But if you throw your back out, you'll be sorry."

He set her back on her feet and the two of them strolled through the house holding hands. When they came to the master bedroom, Harriet stopped when she saw that the traction bed from the hospital was still set up. "Can we get rid of that, Rick? It brings back memories of the pain I went through."

"Maybe we should keep it in case I throw my back out."

Harriet laughed, and knew he would have it gone by noon tomorrow.

"The moving truck with our stuff from the old house will be here in a couple of hours. It won't take them long to unload since we left most of our furniture behind. I'm glad this place came furnished. The style of our old furniture wouldn't fit in with this country modern motif."

"I'll get the car unpacked and start setting up the computers. I'm anxious to get started on Winston's financial records. The sooner I uncover evidence of illegal dealings the better."

"Me too. It's exciting to get back to work on something meaningful."

#

By nine o'clock the next morning they were both in the study at their computers installing the new software Jack provided. He had reminded Rick of the importance of staying offline until the installation was complete. If they gave themselves away before Jack's new firewalls were in place Winston might renew his attempts to take them out.

' _I think I did this right. Damn! It says I need administrator permission. I though I was an administrator on this computer_.' Rick went back to the Windows Control Panel and clicked on User Accounts. There he was, with full administrator privileges. Why won't it load!

After the third try, Rick gave up. Until he figured out how to get the software installed, both of their computers were unprotected. ' _Harriet is banging away on her keyboard. Did she get it to install?_ '

"How's it going, honey? Did you get Jack's software installed?"

"Yeah. I finished that thirty minutes ago. I'm deep into the Virginia election records looking for who Winston forced out to get that creep Braxton elected. How about you?"

"I'm good. I'll start by getting a list of all the companies he has bought out and reincorporated, then see if I can uncover the network of holding companies he uses to hide the illegal money transfers. My goal is to see where the large deposits he put into offshore Caribbean banks went."

Winston had made the deposits look like payoffs to political opponents. The money disappeared after a reporter exposed the scheme, which had cost him his life. If Rick could find out where it went he might be able to get the investigation reopened.

He sent Jack an email an hour ago but was still waiting for an answer. ' _Come on Jack. Check your email. . . . Oh, I forgot. Colorado is on mountain time, two hours earlier than here in Virginia. I sent him the message at 6 a.m. his time, so he's still asleep. I'll start my search now and wait until he gets back to me to install the firewall software_.'

During the next hour Rick made good progress. He tried to hack into the Winston Securities corporate records but couldn't get past their firewall. He went into the SEC records next. The Securities and Exchange Commission required all public companies to file an annual report listing details of ownership, connections to other corporate entities, financial and real estate assets, and other information that investors need to know. What he found was a confusing list of corporate entanglements, name changes, one subsidiary buying out another, and holding companies with no real assets. He decided to dig into some of the small subsidiary corporate records hoping they weren't as well protected as Winston Securities, and he hit pay dirt. He found some of the interconnections among these smaller companies that provided him with connection to the next level of larger corporations above. He could start at the bottom of Winston's tangled web of financial shenanigans and come into Winston Securities from below. Kind of like sneaking in the back door.

His work was interrupted by Jack's email answer. He opened it and saw a digital file with a patch – what computer geeks call a short piece of code that corrects a problem with the main computer software. He sent a reply to Jack thanking him and clicked on the patch. Ten minutes later he had all of Jack's protective layers installed and hacked back into Daystar Holdings records to resume his investigations.
Chapter 6

Feliks couldn't believe his luck. His sentries flashed up two hits – one from someone digging back into the Bethesda Sheriff records and another from someone trying to hack into Winston Securities records. That attempt didn't get past the first level of security, but they were there long enough for the sentry to attach a worm that would lead him to the IP address of the hacker.

The one who hacked into the Sheriff's Department was probably the same one that got in last week, since more information about the Richardson killing was uploaded this time. Feliks would have to wait for a ping back from his worm to get closer to the hackers computer. He went into the Sheriff's records himself to get copies of what the hacker had looked at. He saw that the dispatch call reporting the body in the trunk was part of the intruder's upload and wondered if there was some way he could use it. He was thinking about that when his computer alarm pinged indicating the Sheriff's Department hacker was back online sending an email. This outgoing traffic should get Feliks closer to the hacker's computer hard drive and everything on it, but something wasn't right. The computer IP address he got from the first intrusion had been changed, and the routing through an international network of servers was different.

He thought ' _Either the hacker is using a different computer, or the computer is changing it's identity every time it is online. That doesn't make sense unless . . . that's it! Jack Preston has written software to disguise the computer from detection. Chasing the IP address every time one of my sentries gets a hit will be a waste of time, because they are all counterfeit addresses. I'll have to think of another way to follow the hackers back to the source computer_.'

Feliks put that in the back of his mind to cook a little while and turned to the other intrusion. This hacker used some pretty sophisticated techniques to try to penetrate the Winston Securities mainframe computer, but the new firewalls Feliks had installed just last week kept him out and sent a worm back to the hacker's computer. He retrieved the IP address and examined the signal path back to the intruder's computer. . . . Wait a minute! The worm went straight back to the source computer without bouncing around half the servers in the world. This intruder was operating with no firewall protection. Was this guy an idiot? This must not be one of Jack's gang or there would be firewalls in place.

Feliks watched as the source computer hacked into other sites for some small companies. While the hacker was doing this Feliks was getting set up to download the hacker's entire hard drive. If this guy was working with Preston his hard drive data would give up the custom firewall algorithms Jack wrote. With that information Feliks could break into any computer in Jack's network. As the hard drive data started streaming into Feliks' computer memory he shouted "Yes. I beat the great Hackmeister!"

Thirty seconds later the hacker's computer went off line. ' _Damn. I only got a small piece of his hard drive. But when he comes online again my worm will start retrieving data from where it left off and I'll have the entire contents within five minutes_.' Feliks waited anxiously for the computer to connect online again and ten minutes later he saw it reappear. ' _Something's wrong. This data is encrypted now. It wasn't before. There's no way I can download the rest of the hard drive data if it's encrypted_.' He sent a couple of queries to probe the other computer and saw what happened. In the ten minute space between connections the guy had installed some defensive software. Feliks probed for a few more minutes before he was certain. The hacker had installed a custom software program to encrypt all outgoing data and block any attempt at a break in. ' _That could only be the work of Jack Preston. No one else writes code like that. Well, at least I confirmed this hacker is working with Preston_.'

Feliks thought about his other options now that he had lost his best lead, and decided to go over the 30 seconds of hard drive data that he captured piece by piece. He might find some clues to the location of Preston's team. Alexei had provided him with their names, but now they all had false identities and couldn't be found. Their residences had been sold so they must have relocated after they almost broke up Winston's great plan, whatever that was. Winston didn't know what they were up to, but whatever it was he wanted to know about it.
Chapter 7

Jack had been giving Lynn a crash course in computer hacking for the past three days. She had a real knack for it so she was ready to put it to use. "O.K. Jack, that now I'm trained I want to get into the fight. Where should I start?"

"How about the gang Winston will use to run the country with him? We can't take just Winston down; we have to get rid of the right-wing radicals he picked to put his plan into action. Jim Norton told us about some of them, but we need a complete list so you can explore their past activities for something that will get them out of the political picture. We don't want them choosing a new leader to replace Winston and moving ahead with the conspiracy. I'll send Jim another email and see if he will respond."

"You don't think Winston's men found him do you? He could be at the bottom of the sea in a cement barrel if they did."

"I gave him a special phone when he left that will send me a distress call when he pushes a specific button combination. He would have let me know if he thought they were about to grab him. Why don't you make us some lunch while I send the email to Jim."

It was one of those rare winter days in Telluride when they could sit out on the deck in a sweater and jeans. They sat side-by-side enjoying the sandwiches and the closeness. Jack couldn't remember when he had been so happy and content. He said a silent prayer thanking God again for bringing them together. As if she heard him, Lynn snuggled closer and turned her face to his for a kiss. After that kiss they put their lips together for another – this one lasting a bit longer. Lynn bit his lip gently and pulled back.

"Don't get us started, dear. We have work to do. We can resume this tonight."

"Promise?"

"Have I ever lied to you about that?"

"No, but I just wanted to be sure you wouldn't forget."

She laughed and said, "You would never let me forget," as she took their plates back into the kitchen.

When Jack sat back down at his computer he saw an email reply from Jim.

Hi Jack,

How's married life treating you two?

I'm sorry I missed the online meeting earlier in the week but I was indisposed. This attractive woman in the condo next door invited me over and I didn't see your message until the meeting was over. I'll join the one tomorrow. . . . unless she invites me over again.

In answer to your request I've attached a list of Winston's team and what details I know about their plans. Things could have changed since I defected over to your team last month, but this list has most of the people who will help him take over the country for the ultra-conservatives. If you have any questions we can talk about them at tomorrow's online meeting.

Jim Norton

When Jack's team split up after believing they had stopped Winston's conspiracy plans, Jim didn't want to stay with them. Winston had a price on his head and they all agreed he should leave the country with a new identity for protection. But he did offer to help them learn more about what Winston had in mind. Jack looked over Norton's list, added a couple of notes, and filed it with the topics for tomorrow's meeting.

#

Jack announced to the others connected to the video meeting network, "It's nine a.m. Time for the second meeting of the Forsetians to begin. Jim, it's good to have you join us. The women and weather in Barbados have given you a healthy glow."

"I kind of missed the old excitement, though. I needed a fix."

They all laughed. "This life does kind of grow on you doesn't it." Lynn added.

"Let's do a quick round robin to see where everyone is with their new assignments, then I'll share something Jim provided. Harriet, what's going on with your search for election fraud?"

"There's a long list of members of Congress who we suspect Winston helped get elected. I've started with the simple ones – the ones where the campaign spending was way out of line with donations. In three cases, I reviewed the ads that were run against their opponents, both in the primaries and general election. These were clearly attack ads claiming that their opponent was taking payoffs from someone – the mob, the gambling casinos, Government contractors – the scenario changes but the patterns are identical. These charges were never proved, but with the ads coming out just before the election there was no time for the opponents to counter them. If there are laws being broken in these cases, it will be in hiding the contributions. The declarations of spending and donation amounts submitted by the candidates clearly couldn't have included these high quality spot commercials. These were top notch productions with good actors and graphics."

Jim spoke up. "I heard a little about how these were done. You need to find the connections with advertising production companies and get a look at their books. I think you will find sky-high production costs that were billed to the candidates for pennies on the dollar. If you can get into their financial records, you might find out who really paid for them. It will probably be one of Winston's low-level subsidiary financial firms."

Rick stepped in. "That's what I have been looking into, Jim – the records of low-level firms with ties to Winston. With your idea of looking for money going to production firms, I might find something quicker than I thought. I'll get on that this afternoon."

Tom gave them a review of what he found in the coroner and sheriff department records, and asked for their thoughts about the dispatcher transcript.

"It seems like someone wanted to keep the possibility of an execution murder under wraps. It could just be the local government trying not to alarm the public, but it's just as likely that someone paid off the sheriff or one of his superiors to kill the story. Rick, could you try to get into the bank records of the sheriff's department staff to look for some unusual deposits?"

"Good idea, Jack. I'll add that to my list."

"Lynn, tell them about your idea."

"Now that Jack has taken me through hacking school, I want to see what we can find out about Winston's staff – those who will be helping him run the country if he gets elected. I might find some dirt that will ruin their political careers."

"I think you're on to something there, Lynn. We don't want to have Winston's team go ahead with his plans after we put him in prison."

"That was my thinking, Tom. Now that I have the list, I'll get started on that right away."

"Before I close the meeting, I want you all to see Jim's list highlighting the radical provisions of Winston's plan. Some of them look like good ideas on the surface, but the unintended consequences could be devastating. Others violate the principles America stands for. We must stop Winston!"

Highlights of Winston's Plan

Illegal Immigration Provisions

  * Any business employing illegal immigrants will be fined $1,000 per day per employee.

  * Landlords will be fined $100/day for renting to illegals.

  * High voltage electrified fences will be installed along the entire Mexican Border.

  * Periodic use of bunker-buster bombs will collapse underground tunnels.

Military Provisions

  * Military assistance to other countries will cease. We are not the world's police force.

  * Countries suspected of developing nuclear weapons must agree to have their nuclear facilities inspected at random, or they will be bombed.

Economic Provisions

  * Eliminate financial aid to all nations.

  * Install a flat rate tax structure of 18% for individuals and corporations. Eliminate loopholes.

  * There will be no minimum wage. Everyone will be paid what the job market dictates.

  * Imports from U.S. factories that have moved abroad will be taxed at 30% of their retail value.

  * Welfare will be quickly phased out and replaced by workfare. Everyone must work to receive a Government supplement to their income.

Court System Provisions

  * Revise Supreme Court appointment policies – At the beginning of a President's four-year term, four of the Supreme Court justices can be replaced with his own selections.

  * Torte reform – The maximum amount of a lawsuit will be $25,000 plus legal fees.

  * Presiding judge determines legal fees based on performance.

"I'm glad you all are moving quickly on your assignments. I sent you my latest software package that will protect our computers from eavesdropping or intrusions from outside by a hacker. It will also encrypt everything that goes to each other on our private network. Has everyone got that installed and running? I know Rick had a little trouble, but we fixed that. We can't be too careful on this issue. I don't believe Winston and his thugs have forgotten about us. Our new identities will be hard for them to crack, but they may be watching some of the internet locations they expect us to be looking at and try to find us that way. I have a new piece of software that I'll email you later this morning. I call it Snoopy. It will do a scan of your entire computer the first thing each morning looking for anything that shouldn't be there."

Harriet chipped in with a smile, "Jim, you better not be looking at pictures of almost naked women on your computer. Jack will find out."

"I don't need to look online for that. I just go down to the beach at my Caribbean condo and watch them go by."

After the laughter stopped Jack continued, "After the daily scan, the program will email me a report of what it discovered. I'll let you know if there's anything on your computers that we need to deal with. If no one has anything else, we're done."

Norton spoke up. "I have one more thing that might be worth something. Winston has a laptop that he keeps his personal files on. I think he keeps his big secrets on it because he takes it wherever he goes and never connects it to the company computer network. If we could get our hands on those files we're sure to find something to take him down with."

"Thanks, Jim. I'll keep that in mind."

#

With the sentries set up and working Feliks turned his attention to Alexei's highest priority assignment – find a man named Jim Norton. They knew he had created a new identity but Alexei's men hadn't been able to pick up his trail. He started listing the possible ways he might locate Norton using his computer. He turned to the old standby for finding just about anything about anybody, the Darknet – the underground version of the public internet. It was filled with hackers, information brokers, classified data sources, and the latest secrets that will hit the news tomorrow. The Darknet search engine was called Giggle – someone had a sense of humor – so he went there and entered James Edward Norton. He got too many hits to work with so he added the search term Winston Securities . . . and there he was. When Feliks clicked on his name a complete record of Jim Norton's digital life came up – his Social Security Number, employment history, medical records, investment and bank accounts, and even his arrest record. Feliks laughed when he saw Norton's single arrest a year ago for picking up a prostitute that was really a police woman. ' _So the man has a taste for women, I see. Well, he's not married so at least he wasn't cheating on his wife_.'

Next he opened up Norton's medical records. Maybe he was taking some unusual medication that he would need wherever he went. . . . ' _Nope, nothing there. Except Cialis – that figures. He wants to impress the ladies. Let's look at his car registration and driving record. . . . A BMW M6 convertible. At over 100 grand it's just what you would expect for someone out rolling for babes. And three speeding tickets to go with it. At least all that power wasn't going to waste. . . . There's nothing here I can use._ '

Feliks opened his investment accounts and saw something he could get his teeth into. Up until a month ago Norton had over $600,000 in stocks, bonds, and cash in his account. But the week before he ran out on Winston everything was transferred to a numbered offshore account in a Caribbean bank. It took Feliks all of ten minutes to find the account in the Caribbean Bank of Barbados, and the name associated with it – Ethan Albert Bennett. ' _I've got you now, Mr. Norton. Score one for the new Hackmeister. Lets see where he lives.'_

Another five minutes searching the Barbados real estate records and he had it. A nice beach condo was purchased less than a month ago by Mr. Ethan Bennett. Feliks clicked on the listing and saw a beautiful building with multiple condos side by side. _'Let's see what Winston says about this. He and Alexei will be amazed at how fast I found him.'_ Anticipating Winston's next move, he looked for available condos near by and couldn't believe his luck. There was one right next door to Norton's place. Feliks checked with Winston's secretary and was told he could meet in five minutes.

"Come in Feliks. What good news do you have for me today?"

"I've located James Norton for you, sir." Feliks hated calling anyone sir – he was better than them and he knew it. But he also knew where his paycheck was coming from so he played the game.

Winston immediately picked up the phone. "Elaine, get Mr. Brusilov up here right away."

Three minutes later Alexei entered the room. "Tell him what you found, Feliks."

"Jim Norton is living in a beach condo in Barbados under the name Ethan Bennett."

"Great work, son." Feliks hated people calling him son even worse than having to use sir.

"What do you want me to do with this information, Mr. Winston?"

"You can leave now, Felix, while Alexei and I talk business. And close the door behind you."
Chapter 8

Jim Norton, a.k.a. Ethan Bennett, shut down his computer after the Forsetian meeting and took it into the bathroom. He knelt down on the floor and slid a tool he had made from a fork under the baseboard of the vanity. As he wiggled it gently the baseboard popped out, giving him access to a two foot by four foot, four-inch-high space left when the vanity was installed. He slid the computer into the space, and put the back-up hard drive on top. He found the space and made the front panel removable shortly after he moved into the condo. He knew he would be spending a lot of time at the beach and wanted to be certain that his computer was safe. If someone got their hands on it, Jack could erase the drive remotely, but Jim didn't want to risk losing the files he had stored on it. If some of the information on it was made public, there would be problems.

He changed into his swim shorts, grabbed a towel, and headed down to the beach. He had a rented cabana with two lounge chairs and a big sun shade – the perfect place for watching the women on the beach. He had a theory that there must be some prize for the woman who had the least square inches of fabric covering her body. Maybe he could get a job as the one who measured the coverage.

"Knock, knock. Is anybody home?"

"Hi Zarah. You're early today. I saved a chair for you."

"You save that chair for me every day."

"That's because I enjoy your company."

"And my body, yes?"

"Of course."

Zarah moved into the condo next door to his two weeks ago. Jim ran into her as she was walking to the beach the next day and introduced himself. She told him her name was Zarah and hurried on to the beach. Jim figured she wasn't interested in male company so he let it go. A few days later she intercepted him as he was headed for his cabana. "I want to apologize for my rudeness the other day, Ethan. I am sorry. I had just found out my boyfriend was leaving me for a newer model, a younger, prettier woman – well, a girl actually – and I was upset. I shouldn't have taken it out on a gentleman trying to be friendly."

"Apology accepted, Zarah."

"You remembered my name! Most people remember it as Sarah."

"What is the ethnic origin of your name – and your accent?"

"I have been working on my English and hope that one day the accent won't be noticeable. Is . . . is it offensive to you?"

"Of course not, Zarah. Forget I asked. Come, share my cabana with me."

"This belongs to you?"

"No, no. I only rent it by the month."

"You're leaving at the end of the month?"

"No, I'm here indefinitely. But they only rent these by the month. Here, sit down in the shade."

"This is so nice. And it has such a view of the beautiful people. All these people are rich . . . yes?"

"Not really. Most of them are here pretending to be rich while they're three months overdue on their Visa bill."

"So . . . is that what you are, Ethan? Pretending to be rich?"

Jim didn't want to let her know he was pretty well off. If she was attracted to him he didn't want it to be about money. "You caught me. I've gone in debt up to my ears to spend my last month or two here."

"Last month or two?"

"I don't like to talk about it, but I have inoperable brain cancer. But when I die with all that credit card debt, the joke will be on them." Jim was spinning the tale as he went, but he was good at it. When he was an FBI agent in his early years, his talent for talking his way out of trouble was well known and admired.

Zarah laughed – a pleasant laugh. Not a tee hee or a guffaw, but one that made you want to laugh along with her, and he did.

"You have a lovely laugh, Zarah. . . . Can I order you something, a coke or other beverage. What would you prefer?"

"A vodka and tonic?"

Jim phoned the beach bar behind them and asked for two vodka and tonics.

They sat there in silence until the waiter brought the drinks.

Jim held up his drink. "Cheers, Zarah." "Cheers to you, Ethan."

That's how their friendship started. Now almost two weeks later they had grown much closer. They visited each other in one condo or the other almost every day. She wasn't much of a cook so they ate out often, paying for their own meals at her insistence. She said she didn't want him to think she liked him for his money. He laughed and reminded her it wasn't his money, it was the bank's money. For the past few evenings she had invited him up to her condo where they shared a drink or two on the balcony, which led to some kissing. Last night the kiss became passionate as they lay together on the couch. Jim hoped that maybe tonight he would 'get lucky' as the saying goes.

"You are quiet this morning."

Her comment drew him out of his reverie and brought him back to the present. "I was just thinking about how our friendship has grown so quickly. I really enjoy being with you, Zarah."

"And I especially enjoyed last evening, Ethan. I hope that tonight we can continue where we left off."

"That gives me something exciting to look forward to. What time should I come over?"

"Why don't I come over to your place. How about 7:30? I'll bring a special bottle of wine I have chilling."

#

Lynn was excited about finally getting to put her new skills to the test. As she looked at the list of Winston's staff she saw they were all important people who had been in the public spotlight earlier in their careers. Now they were retired and plotting to take the country deeper into conservatism than it had ever been. If these people had anything in their records that could be used against them they would not have risen to the high-level government positions they did – someone would have brought them down with their own mistakes. That thought was discouraging to Lynn. If they had been vetted already how could she expect to find any dirt on them.

Lynn thought _'I guess I'll start with the men. They're likely to have had an affair or two along the way although, with the ho hum response to Bill Clinton's sexual escapades, I'm not sure how that kind of problem would be detrimental to them.'_ What surprised her was that three of Winston's staff had worked for previous Democrat administrations. What would make them take a hard right turn and become ultra-conservatives? Maybe working for liberals did that to them. They saw the real reason the liberals wanted power. It wasn't about food for the poor or income equality, it was about feeling the power, getting the American people to believe the ideology so they could stay in power – and get rich. Maybe there was a left wing conspiracy now in power that was similar to the right wing one Winston was trying to create.

She looked over the list and picked Senator Eugene Hughes as her first subject. He was going to redesign Congress and make big changes in the election process. Since he had kept his seat in the Senate for 42 years – seven terms – he must have made some deals for campaign cash in exchange for favors. Lynn started in the Senate voting record archives and pulled up a list of bills Hughes had proposed or supported. If she could figure out which businesses and companies benefited the most from the bills that Hughes got passed she could hack into their corporate financial records looking for payoffs or illegal campaign contributions to Hughes. There was a long list of Hughes-sponsored bills to go through, but she wouldn't let that scare her off. She hadn't realized hacking would involve such tedious, boring work.

Six hours later she got her first hit. Hughes got a law passed that provided a seventy five million dollar grant to a company to make revolutionary solar panels that would produce four times more electrical energy than the current technology. That seemed way too high to Lynn – almost 90% efficient. A year after getting the grant, the company claimed it was unsuccessful at getting the expected output and went out of business. When the Government auditors totaled up the company's expenditures twenty million was unaccounted for. To get a grant that big for such an obviously impossible project, Hughes, and maybe some other members of Congress, must have been paid off. But how could she find evidence of that?

Jack interrupted her thoughts. "Lynn, come in to the great room. The news channel is about to make an announcement you'll want to hear. As she entered the room she saw Charles Winston and another man, who looked vaguely familiar, in front of several microphones at a press conference.

Good evening. I would like to announce that I have chosen the man who will be my Vice President when I am elected - Congressman Marcus Tyler. I know it is customary for the Vice Presidential selection to be made at the party nominating convention and not before the primary elections are over. But I believe the American people should know both members of the Presidential team before they vote in the primary elections and caucuses. They need to be certain that, in the unfortunate event that the President is incapacitated, even temporarily, the country will be in capable hands; that the Vice President can carry on with the plans and programs set in motion by the President; that the governing of this great nation will continue smoothly without interruption.

Marc Tyler has served in Congress for the past 26 years. His record of accomplishments during that time speaks for itself. He has stood against the liberalism that threatens to destroy what our founding fathers fought so hard to create – a nation of individuals living without unnecessary rules and regulations that limit their freedom, without a Government that dictates what their children will be taught and how much they will pay for health care. This man will join me in taking back America, in removing Government controls that stifle our economy. I promise you that, unlike many past Vice Presidents, Marc will have an active role in the day-to-day decisions that will save the United States of America.

_I will give the platform to Congressman Tyler now so he can tell you himself why he will be the best Vice President this country has ever seen. . ._ .

Lynn and Jack sat in silence for a few moments thinking about the impact this would have on their approach to destroying Winston, both politically and personally. Lynn spoke first.

"I don't know much about Tyler, do you Jack?"

"No but we need to find out everything we can about him; his voting record in congress, what bills he's sponsored, what lobbyists and special interest groups he has made deals with, his personal life, and who owns him. Most important is where he would take the country if we destroy Winston after he's elected President. We don't want to go from the frying pan into the fire with a replacement that may be worse than Winston."

"Who do you think owns him, Jack? Who is telling him how to vote in Congress? I would bet it's Winston. If we can uncover that connection there will probably be something illegal going on."

"O.K. Lynn. Here's our mission for the next couple of days. We find out everything we can about Marcus Tyler. Then we'll meet online with the others and discuss how this changes things. Why don't you go after his performance in Congress while I find out who controls him and what his personal life is like."
Chapter 9

Tom stepped through the doors of Cramer Security and Investigations to start his first day on the job. Tom was surprised at the quality of everything. He thought ' _I don't know what I expected but the image I had was of an old, dusty office with a marbled glass window in the door, like in the black and white detective movies._ '

A very polite receptionist smiled and said "Welcome to the CSIC team, Mr. Gutierrez. Let me show you to your office."

"Nice place Miss . . .?

"Call me Jennifer. Everyone is on a first name basis here. Mr. Cramer will stop by shortly to welcome you personally."

Tom looked out the large window first. The view was terrific – a small park surrounded with five and six story modern office buildings, with shops and restaurants at street level. Nothing like what he had back at his FRA Government job. He sat down at the desk and was about to turn on the computer – the same model Cramer provided for him at home – when David Cramer came through the open door.

"Hi Tom! I'm so glad you accepted our offer. You came highly recommended by Jack, and I trust anything he says. We have been close friends since college. I've been trying to get him to work for me but so far he has resisted. When I talked to him a couple months ago, he had a special request related to some hush-hush project he was working on."

"He's still working on it Dave, and so am I along with some others. But I won't let it interfere with my job here."

"I have no concerns about that. Jack told me that you will give me a lot more hours than you get paid for. . . . Can you tell me about what you, Jack and the others are working on?"

"Yes I can. Jack said I should tell you everything in case you can help us some more. It started when Jack discovered some irregularities in some FRA assignments he and five other agents had worked on a couple of years ago. . . ." Tom went on to summarize their efforts to stop George Winston from putting an ultra-conservative government in place. After telling him some of the changes Winston had planned Tom asked "Do you believe any of this?"

"That's a straight question that deserves a straight answer. With all that Jack's group has uncovered, there's no doubt in my mind that's true. But with Winston himself stepping in as the presidential candidate it's going to be very hard to stop him. I wish you luck."

"Are you interested in getting involved in our crusade, Dave?"

"I applaud your efforts and objectives, Tom, but I can't risk the company's reputation by being part of it. I get a lot of business from the Government – both the liberals and conservatives – and if word got out I was helping to keep Winston out of the White House a big chunk of our income would be lost. I've learned from experience that when you get involved with politics it usually comes back to bite you in the butt."

"I'll relay that to Jack." Jack was hoping for something more than a good luck wish – he wanted to bring Dave onto the team. Maybe later.

#

Jim was back in his condo getting ready for his date with Zarah. That's a funny word for how he expected the evening to turn out, but he couldn't think of a better term. It wasn't really an affair, especially since this would be the first time in bed with her. In the old days he might call it shacking up, but that went out decades ago. Maybe it was a tryst. . . Yes, that was a good word. He was getting ready for his tryst with Zarah, at least that's what he hoped would happen. The beginning of a long tryst. Her innuendos at the beach this morning seemed pretty plain to him, but with her marginal command of the English language, she could have meant she just wants to make out some more. There's another word from the sixties – making out. I wonder what the young generation calls it now? Maybe they don't make out anymore. Maybe they go straight from hello to jumping in bed together. If they do that, they're missing out on the joys of kissing as a prelude to a closer relationship.

Jim took inventory to make certain he was prepared. Close shave – check. Softly scented after shave – check. Deodorant – check. Teeth brushed, followed by mouthwash – check. Red bikini jockey shorts – check. That should do it. As he was taking a last look in the mirror Zarah rang the doorbell. Jim opened the door and invited her in. "I've never seen you with your hair down, Zarah. It looks good that way."

"There are a lot of things about me you haven't seen . . . yet. But the evening is still young."

"What would you like to drink?"

"I'll start with a vodka and tonic. But I brought a bottle of wine for later."

Jim mixed the drinks, handed one to Zarah, and sat down on the couch. She sat down close to him; very close. Jim knew some conversation would have to precede the later activities so he asked her about her childhood. Maybe he would find out what country she grew up in.

"My father was a factory worker and my mother sewed clothes . . . a seamstress. We lived in large apartment building with a playground out back. I spent a lot of time there, especially after father got home from work. He and my mother would fight always."

She went on to tell him about her school years, her first kiss, and her first dance. Nothing that gave him clues about what country it was. It was just an ordinary childhood that could have happened in a city anywhere. She asked Jim about where he grew up, so he spun another interesting tale that made her laugh. When he was finished she said, "I have some wine for us to share. I like it because it has an unusual flavor that I think you will like. Let me get us a glass."

She come back to the couch with two large wine glasses half full of a golden liquid. She handed one to him, raised her glass and said "Cheers, to a man who knows how to kiss." Jim lightly clinked his glass to hers and took a sip. "This is really good. Where is it from?" Maybe it was from her home country.

"Actually it is from the state of Washington here in America. A friend gave me a bottle as a gift and I've been buying it ever since. Jack took another drink, a bigger one this time. "It grows on you, doesn't it. It makes you thirst for more."

Ten minutes later Jim was out cold. Zarah picked up her cell phone and pressed a speed dial code. "The rohypnol and thirst stimulant I added to his drink have done their job, Alexei. He will be unconscious until morning."

"Good work. I'll send my men in to search his apartment. I need to get my hands on his computer and copy the hard drive for Feliks."

#

Jim was having a really bad dream, but as he started waking up he couldn't remember what it was about. The splitting headache made him want to keep his eyes closed. He could tell there was light in the room and that always made his headaches worse. As his hearing came back he heard someone talking. It sounded like Zarah, but she was speaking Russian! Jack tried not to smile as he thought ' _She doesn't know the FBI taught me Russian when I worked for them. What's she saying_?'

". . . The drugs should be wearing off enough for him to wake up soon. He'll need a few minutes to clear his mind, but then you can start questioning him." Someone answered her in Russian. _'That voice is familiar . . . Alexei Brusilov, Winston's security chief! Zarah works for Alexei. That means I'm in big trouble. Winston wants me to die – slowly and painfully._ '

Jim opened his eyes just far enough to see that he was in a warehouse of some sort. He was on a chair with his hands bound behind him. Then Zarah's smiling face blocked his view. "Lover boy is awake. Hello Ethan . . . or is it Jim. I'm sorry yesterday evening didn't meet your expectations, but we have something much more interesting planned. She held his chin up and pointed it towards Alexei and two of his thugs. While you were sleeping Alexei and his men went through your apartment with . . . how you say . . . a fine tooth comb, looking for your computer. But they didn't find it. Where is it?"

Jim shook his head as if trying to clear his mind while he thought up his next tale.

"I was having problems with it – some of the software Jack Preston installed on it – so I sent it back to him to get it fixed. He's supposed to send it back next week."

Alexei nodded to one of his men. "Sergei, show Mr. Norton what happens when he lies to me."

Jim looked up at Sergei, a six-five 250 pound muscle man who could have played for the NFL. A gloved fist hit him in the face and sent his mind was spinning to the edge of unconsciousness for several seconds before his eyes could focus again.

"Sergei is an expert at causing maximum damage without allowing you the luxury of unconsciousness. Now let me ask you again. Where is your computer?"

"I told you. Jack Preston has it."

"He's not persuaded yet, Sergei."

The second blow came to the other side of his face. He could feel his mouth filling with blood.

"Now, shall we begin again Jim?" It was Zarah talking this time. "I don't enjoy watching this sort of thing, and I'm missing my beauty sleep, so would you please cooperate? Tell me where you hid the computer, my sweet lover boy."

"I told you, Preston has it. If you don't believe me, call him. He'll tell you."

Sergei was about to hit him again when Alexei stopped him. "I would like to talk to Mr. Preston. If I explain what we're doing to his friend Jim here, maybe he will make a deal of some kind. What is Preston's number?"

"I don't know the number. Jack programmed my cell phone to reach him on speed dial number one five nine."

"Zarah, where is his cell phone?"

Alexei took the phone, punched in the three numbers, and put it to his ear. It rang once and then the line went dead. "That number doesn't appear to be working, Jim."

"That's the number he gave me. Maybe his battery is dead."

"Now you are making me mad Mr. Norton. Sergei will keep working on you until you tell me what I want to know."

The next blow hit him in the middle of the chest. Jim thought he felt his heart stop before the pain overwhelmed him. He tried to suck in some air, but the blow had paralyzed his diaphragm temporarily. He was just about to black out when it started working again.

Jim was thinking fast. The phone call had gone to Jack's emergency alert line in his computer. Even as they continued to beat him, Jack will have sent out a signal to erase the computer's hard drive under the vanity, then short circuit the lithium battery, causing it to burst into flames. The computer and the back-up drive on top of it would be burned beyond recognition.

As for his own future, Jim knew he wouldn't live through the day. Sergei would provide the slow, painful death that Winston vowed Norton would suffer for betraying him. And Jim knew that no one could hold back information once the torture got to a certain point. If he didn't end this soon, they would know everything about his friends and their plans for Winston. As he pretended he was still gasping for air he came up with a plan. He could feel the duct tape around his wrists and realized their mistake. He turned his ring around on his finger until the sharp edge of the diamond was facing inward and started sawing at the edge of the duct tape. Once he started a tear in it, a twist of his wrists would free him.

Jim recovered from his gasping and said "I can't take any more. I'll tell you where the computer is. It's hidden in the base of the vanity in my apartment bathroom." Jim smiled inwardly as he thought of Alexei's face when he pulled the burned computer out of its hiding place. He thought ' _at least I'll get the last laugh, even though I'll be dead when they find it_.' He bent his head and coughed to distract them while he twisted his wrists free. Before they could react, Jim was out of his chair and has his fingers dug deeply into Alexei's fleshy neck. He enjoyed the feel of that for a few seconds before he heard two gunshots, and darkness closed in on him.
Chapter 10

Jack and Lynn were working side by side on their computers searching for something useful about Marcus Tyler. They had found a few things, but nothing big yet. As Jack was about to hack into another site his computer alarm went off shrilly. Lynn jumped at the unexpected noise, but Jack went immediately into action. He typed in some commands then hit send.

"What is it, Jack. What's going on?"

"Jim Norton just sent me the emergency alarm I set up on his phone. That means he is about to be captured by Winston's men. As we agreed, I just sent a signal to his computer commanding it to erase the hard drive. When that's done it will send me a 'completed' message, then catch fire. This is really serious, Lynn. Jim may be dead in minutes."

"What can we do! We can't just let them kill him?"

"There's nothing we can do from here. But Jim is an ex-FBI agent so there's a chance he can escape from them. If he does he'll find a way to let us know, but we can't help him from here. We need to get a flight to Barbados as soon as we can, but we'll have to go to Grand Junction to catch a connecting flight to Denver. I'll get us plane reservations. You start packing a bag."

"When are you going to pack?"

"Honey, a guy can pack in three minutes flat. But a woman – well that's another story."

"Now that's a politically incorrect sexist remark. True, but sexist."

#

Their plane arrived in Barbados just as the sun broke above the ocean. It had taken them 14 hours to get here from Telluride, but Jack bought first class seats so they were able to sleep on the way. Thirty minutes later they were leaving the airport in a rented SUV headed for the address Jim had given Jack. They stopped briefly to buy some disguises – straw hats and sunglasses – in case Alexei's men were watching Jim's place. Jack parked in a public lot half a mile down the beach from the condo and they strolled up the beach toward Jim's place. They would blend in with all the other vacationers as they walked by to get a look at where Jim was living.

"Do you think they killed him in his apartment, Jack? If they did, maybe we should call the police."

"I don't want to get them involved yet. Maybe I'll call them once we're back in the states."

"Won't they be able to trace the phone back to you?"

"I'll use one of my prepaid burner phones, then throw it away."

"What if Winston's men figure out we're here and come after us? You couldn't bring your gun on the plane, so we're defenseless."

"Once we case Jim's place we'll go buy some nice cutlery for our condo kitchen."

"What condo . . . Oh, I see."

As they were just outside Jim's condo Jack bent down to shake sand out of his shoe. He could see into the living room, and there was no sign of anybody. "Let's go down by the water, sit in the sand, and watch the surf. I'll find a way to look back now and then to see if anyone comes into the room."

After they got comfortable Lynn asked "How are you going to turn around without looking suspicious?"

Jack leaned over and gave her a long kiss while he looked through the windows again.

Lynn said with her impish smile "I suppose you'll have to do that pretty often, huh."

After a couple of hours Jack got to his feet and pulled her up beside him. "We can't do anymore of this without some sunscreen. Let's go back to the car and drive past the front of the place.

As they neared the condo Jack said "Take out you phone and snap some pictures as I drive by. Look like a tourist shopping for a condo. Snap a few of other condos on the street."

#

Jack and Lynn did some shopping and then checked into a small hotel nearby. Jack dumped the results of their shopping on the bed and spread it out to take inventory. "That carving knife you picked out is great, Lynn. Heavy blade that won't bend, a large handle that I can grip well. You have a knack for choosing murder weapons."

"You're not going to kill anyone, are you?"

"Not unless I have to."

"I get the latex gloves, but what are the black elastic support socks for? Are you getting varicose veins?"

"I'm not that old yet, dear. With these on I can slide the knife in beside my ankle to hide it."

"That leaves the rotary tool, the plastic goggles, and the hacksaw blade."

Jack sat down at the kitchen table with the Dremel and saw blade and said "Pull up a chair and watch the master." Jack put on the goggles and started grinding down the hacksaw blade. When he was finished he held up a thin piece of metal with a small triangle on the end.

"Fascinating. I didn't know you were into arts and crafts. But what is it."

"That, my dear, is a lock pick – my key to Jim's front door."

"You're so smart."

"It's hard to stay humble when you keep saying that."

Next they looked at the photos Lynn had taken of the front door. Jack pointed out the shrubbery around the porch. "As long as I stay low and don't stand up, no one will see me entering. And there's nothing but a wall across the street, so I don't have to worry about nosey neighbors."

"Well, you can't be a cat burglar on an empty stomach. Let's dig into that bucket of chicken we brought back."

After they ate their fill Lynn said "It won't be dark for a couple more hours. How about we lay down on the bed and snuggle."

"A man can't turn down an offer like that, especially with the prettiest woman in the room."

"I'm the only woman in the room."

"You're still the prettiest."

Jack put some pillows against the headboard to lean against and pulled Lynn back against his chest. After enjoying the closeness for several minutes, Lynn said "This won't work. I can't kiss you with my back to you," so they stretched out on the bed face-to-face and kissed. . . .

Jack woke with a start three hours later. "Come on, let's get moving. I've got some breaking and entering to do."

Jack came out of the bathroom dressed in black bicycle shorts, a black stretch T shirt, his elastic knee socks, and black jogging shoes. He slid the knife into place at his right ankle and put the lock pick on the other ankle.

Lynn wrapped her arms around his neck. "You come back to me, O.K.? And all in one piece."

"Sure thing, love."

They got in the SUV and drove to the beach parking lot.

#

Getting the front door unlocked was easy. Now he pushed down on the latch slowly so it wouldn't make noise and, from a crouching position, opened it enough to see inside. _'No lights, so it's probably empty. But someone might be asleep or hiding.'_ He shuffled on in and shut the door quietly behind him. As he stood up slowly he smelled the odor of burned plastic. He followed along as it got stronger and ended up in the bathroom. The baseboard of the vanity was thrown aside and inside the space was Jim's burned up computer. Jack saw that Jim had placed the back-up drive on top of the computer so the fire would consume them both.

After a brief look around the bathroom he went into the bedroom. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he would know it if he saw it. He looked through Jim's drawers and under the bed and mattress, then went through the closet. Finding no hidden compartments or wall safes he continued on to the kitchen.

Everything looked normal. There were two wine glasses in the drying rack, and a bottle of vodka on the counter. He open and closed the drawers, looked in the cabinets, and checked the refrigerator. Nothing out of the ordinary. He looked in the trash can and saw food scraps, wadded up paper towels, and two small plastic bottles with the remains of liquid in them. He got a plastic sandwich bag from under the sink, carefully put the bottles in it, and put it in his pocket. Maybe he could get some prints from them.

He went into the living room and looked around. No sign of a struggle – no overturned furniture or blood stains. As his gaze swept around the room he froze. He could see into the lighted living room of the apartment next door. An attractive woman was looking back at him. _'She can't see me. I kept the flashlight turned to the floor and there are no lights in here._ ' When she picked up the phone he knew he was in trouble. He looked up and glanced around – there it was. A wireless mini security camera in the ceiling corner. He quickly turned to go out the front door when a huge man burst through it, followed by two others. They each had silenced pistols pointed at him.

The shortest of the three looked at his face. "Ah, Mr. Preston. We finally meet. I am Alexei Brusilov. I have been chasing you for the past three months, and now we finally meet, in the apartment of your friend, Jim Norton. I'm sorry, he's not home."

"Where is he?"

"I'm sure the fish have cleaned his bones already. But since he didn't tell us what we wanted, I suppose we will have to get it out of you. Now please get down on the floor."

Jacked moved slowly while he choreographed his moves in his mind. He bent his knees like he was going to lay face down to distract them. His hand wrapped around the handle of the knife and he slashed upwards through Alexei's wrist, knocking the gun out of his hand. Jack caught it in the air and whirled to face the other two. One was already raising his gun to shoot until Jack put a bullet in his knee. As he screamed and collapsed Jack turned to the other man, the giant who had broken the door down. The man froze, then dropped his gun and raised his hands.

"I'll bet Alexei had you work Jim over before he killed him." The man smiled and nodded. Jack shot him in both knees. As he stood up he sensed motion over by the beach door and turned with his gun raised. The attractive woman from next door stopped, looked at Alexei's men, and backed out the door all the way through the door of her own apartment.

Jack looked out the door and saw a black Mercedes parked in front with no one in it and the engine running. He calmly walked out, got in the car, and drove off. As he turned onto the main boulevard he called Lynn. "Jack! Are you O.K.?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Meet me at the airport. I'll be the one driving the black Mercedes."

#

Jack parked the Mercedes in long term parking and left the gun in the trunk. It had Alexei's fingerprints on it, so when the police eventually came to open up the car it might cause him some trouble. Jack hoped it would. He was waiting for Lynn at the car rental return. While they were waiting for the plane Jack told her what happened in Jim's apartment and Alexei's confirmation that Jim was dead.

"How bad did you hurt him with my knife?"

"I didn't have time to look but it felt like I hit a tendon or two. It was his right hand so he won't be using that any time soon."

"I wouldn't have blamed you if you had killed that goon who beat Jim up."

"I think blowing both knees out while he stood with his hands up made my point. Even with knee replacement surgery I don't think he will be of much use to Alexei as a thug any more."

Lynn got tears in her eyes, that soon started running down her cheeks. "I get so afraid for you when you have to do dangerous stuff like that, but then I'm so happy when I get you back unharmed." Jack kissed her on the forehead.
Chapter 11

Everyone was online the next afternoon when Jack told them the news about Jim. They sat in silence for a few minutes before Lynn spoke up. "Jack made them pay for it, though. He wounded Alexei and two of his men. Not that it was much of an exchange for Jim's life, but Jim would have liked it."

Jack moved on. "Now the next subject. As you have all heard, Winston announced who his Vice President will be if he is elected – Congressman Marcus Tyler. Lynn and I have been researching his political and personal background and found no surprises. On a scale of -10 to + 10, flaming liberal to ultra conservative, his voting record indicates that he is a +7, but not the +10 that Winston is. The question is why did Winston choose him for a running mate. If he gets the active role in Government that Winston spoke of, I don't see how Winston would settle for a +7 to move his plan forward. What are some of your thoughts on this?"

Rick spoke up first. "One explanation is that Winston knows he's a little too far right for some of the voters, so he put Tyler on the ticket before the primary election to gather some more moderate votes he would lose otherwise. What do you think, Harriet?"

"If it's just about getting votes, how will Winston keep him in line once they are elected?"

Tom added his thoughts next. "We need to examine this with respect to our plan to take Winston down after he's elected – if he's elected. With Winston in prison, Tyler will become president. How do we know he won't just continue with Winston's plans?"

"Based on his history I don't think that will happen, at least not to the extreme that Winston has in mind. The real key to this will be to get rid of Winston after he is elected, but before he has time to implement his radical programs. Then Tyler could just dial back Winston's plans, hopefully to a level that is best for the country. Without Winston I think Tyler would be a great Presidential candidate, but he wouldn't have the resources to beat the expected Democrat socialist nominee, Clint Hill. And we all know what could happen if Hill gets elected."

"You have some good points, Jack, but I believe Winston must have something he's holding over Tyler's head to keep him in line. We need to explore Tyler's private life more deeply to see if we can find what that is."

"I agree with you, Lynn. Why don't you see what you can find that I may have missed. I have a more pressing issue to deal with. When we got back from our Caribbean trip I found two messages from Snoopy, the bug detector I put in your computers. Tom and Rick, it seems that some unexpected code has infected your computers. I downloaded a copy then erased it from your drives. I'll try to figure out just what it is and how it got there so we can block it from our other computers. Basically I'll have to develop a software vaccine against this virus."

Rick spoke up. "I have a confession to make, Jack. When I couldn't get your protective software to load I went ahead and did some probing into Winston Securities financial records. I was only online for about an hour before you got back to me and got the firewall up. Could it somehow gotten in during that hour?"

Tom cleared his throat. "I guess I screwed up too, Jack. Just before we moved to Philly I took a quick look at the Bethesda sheriff and coroner files on Alan Richardson's death. As soon as I got set up in my new home I installed your firewall code."

"How long were you online?"

"Well, Mary kept pulling me away from the computer to do moving stuff, and I didn't disconnect, so it could have been three or four hours."

"This is more serious than it looks, I afraid. The fact that your computers were infected after being online for such a short time means that someone is monitoring the locations where they expect us to hack into. This virus was lying in wait – waiting for one of us to hack those specific databases looking for information. Until I can dissect the code to see how it works and come up with a vaccine patch, you should all stay off line. With a little luck I'll have it figured out before the day is over."

"One more thing, Tom. I found two small bottles with a few drops of liquid in them at Jim Norton's place that I'll send you. Ask Dave Cramer if he would send them to a lab for analysis and fingerprinting. I don't know if that information will be helpful, but we might learn something."

"O.K. Jack. I'll watch for the package."

#

Jack had the infectious code displayed on his screen, but saw nothing he could identify. Most malware – viruses, worms, bots – that hackers use to infect computers are based on a handful of techniques using almost identical strings of code. He could see none of those structures here. It was apparently a new creation written by someone new to the hacker world. Without a recognizable structure it was difficult to figure out how it worked and what it was doing inside the computer. Most viruses attach themselves to some program already on the computer, like the operating system, and force it to do something destructive. But there was no evidence of changes to existing software. This virus included all the programming needed to execute some function, but he couldn't tell what that function was. It was like an instruction manual written in a foreign language known only to it's author.

As he compared the infections from the two computers, he saw something else surprising – the two strings of code were different. The one from Tom's laptop was much larger than what he found on Rick's. Since Tom's was infected first, it must be growing, evolving with time. If it was a human infection he could put a sample in a Petri dish and watch it evolve, but that won't work for digital infections. . . . Or would it?

Jack rummaged through his electronics collection and found an old laptop he didn't use any more. After writing a short program to monitor the virus – sort of a digital microscope – he infected the computer with the virus from Rick's computer. As he watched the screen for changes, he let the virus run. His display showed the data pattern from the original infection overlaid with pattern from the evolving infection. When he typed in a command the old was subtracted from the new and only the differences showed on the screen. He watched for an hour, but nothing was happening. Three hours later there were still no changes, so he took a break for lunch with Lynn.

"How's your search through Tyler's private life coming, honey?"

"Slowly. Other than the political stuff that gets media attention, there's very little information about his life. His daughter's wedding, a golf tournament he won, and lots of smiling photos with people who want their friends to think they're best buddies with a well-known congressman. Nothing negative."

"Can you identify the other men in the photos? If they're important in the financial world, maybe you can find some illegal campaign contributions. Examine Tyler's financial records for the past ten years to see if any large sums of money have been transferred."

"Good. I'll do that. How is your work on the virus coming?"

"It's some very cleverly written code using none of the existing formats. I'm not even sure what it does, other than it evolves over time. I infected an old laptop with it to get a look at how it evolves, but it's just sitting there doing nothing."

"Is the computer connected to the internet?"

"No, I don't want to risk it spreading to other computers. . . . But you have a good point."

"Don't I always? Seriously, is there any way you can get the virus to think it's online?"

"No, I don't think so. . . . Wait. I can program another old computer to act like the internet. I can exchange emails and data between the two computers just as if they were connected to the web. You're a genius, dear."

Two hours later Jack had the two computers talking to each other while he watched the monitor for evidence of changes in the virus, but still nothing was happening to the planted virus. He was about to give up when he saw it. The code just added a few hundred bits to itself. What stimulated it to do that? _'The growth is so slow that it will take me days to see what it's doing. I can't sit here – I need the answer right away. Maybe if I speed up the internet traffic rate it will evolve faster. . . . That did it. It's adding to itself every few seconds now. Now I need to correlate it's growth with what's coming in and going out over the fake internet.'_

It was the middle of the night by the time Jack had it figured out. Whenever an email is sent from the infected computer the virus – actually a worm, that's what this kind of infection is called – transmitted a short burst of information to the internet. When he decoded it, he found it was the IP address of the computer. Whoever created this worm was trying to find out the IP address of all their computers. As he let it evolve further it became capable of stealing information from the hard drive and sending it to the hacker. That sent Jack's mind into overdrive. _'If Winston's hacker got enough information from Tom or Rick's drive he could figure out how to sneak through my firewalls and monitor everything we're doing. He could even sit in on our online meetings. Nothing would be secure. The hacker could even modify Snoopy so it can't detect the infections he plants. I'll call Tom and Rick first thing in the morning to get to access their computers. I need to find out if any data has been stolen.'_

#

Feliks finally hit the jackpot. After two days of going through the 30 seconds of hard drive data and assembling the jigsaw puzzle of information he took from one of Preston's team, he found the key to breaking through the firewall. Preston had created some incredibly complex firewalls and encryption techniques to protect his computers, but Feliks was smart enough to figure them out. Now he was putting the finishing touches on an attack worm that could sneak through all that Preston had created. By morning he would have it ready to attack the first computer that triggered one of the sentries watching web sites of interest. Once it gets into one computer it will spread through Jack's network to all the computers used by his team and give Feliks access to all their hard drives. Felix thought _'I'll be like a tourist wandering through their gardens of information, picking the ones I can use against them.'_

#

Lynn was up before Jack. Jack had been up half the night working and was still sleeping like a rock. Lynn was anxious to get back to her investigation of Tyler. Jack told them he would have the problem fixed by the end of the day yesterday, so she went online and started her search for Tyler's business connections. One of the photos showed Tyler and Charles Winston together shaking hands, so she started looking for any information with both of their names included. What she found explained why Winston picked Tyler as his running mate – what leverage he had over Tyler to control him. Tyler had a big gambling problem. Over the past two years he had lost over three million dollars to the syndicate, and they were threatening to harm his family if he didn't pay. Winston heard about it and saw a chance to buy another congressman, so he stepped in and paid the debt. If Tyler didn't do Winston's bidding he would call in the debt and bankrupt him, which would destroy his political career.

Lynn was happy. When she told Jack he would be proud of her hacking skills.

#

Feliks couldn't believe his luck. One of Preston's team was already online digging through Tyler's financial records. He turned his attack worm loose to follow the link back to the computer. He watched as everything on the hard drive streamed into his own system. Soon he would know everything they were doing and could eavesdrop on all their communications. As soon as the others on the network connected for a meeting, all of their computers would be infected.

#

"Good morning, Jack. It's about time you got up. Grab a cup of coffee and join me. I've got something to show you."

"O.K., what have you got."

"I got into Tyler's financial records this morning and found out he has a serious gambling problem."

"You were online? I haven't installed the worm protection yet!"

"You said you would have it installed yesterday so I assumed it was O.K. to get back to my search."

"That's my fault. I should have told you to hold off for another day. Let me have your computer so I can run some diagnostics on it. Call the others and make sure that they stay offline until further notice."

It didn't take Jack long to realized that Lynn's computer had been attacked. It looked like some new version of the worm installed itself and gave the hacker access to everything on Lynn's hard drive. Losing the data was bad enough, but the hacker now had all of the protection software he had installed. With that, he could follow everything that were doing.

"What did you find, Jack?"

"The worst possible scenario. This hacker, whoever he is, copied your entire hard drive. Luckily your computer didn't have many of the details about our work, but if he had gotten into my hard drive data he would know everything. It won't take him more than a day to figure out how to break through my firewall and encryption software."

"What can you do about it?"

"Well, for now everyone needs to remove the hard drive from their computers. Then I'll have to create new protection software that he can't penetrate – if that's possible. This guy is really good; maybe the best I have ever encountered. Call them all on the phone now and set up a conference call in an hour."
Chapter 12

Alexei Brusilov, back in his office at Winston Securities headquarters, was seething. Preston's knife attack had damaged his wrist and cost him his two best men. The surgeon said he would have full use of his hand once it healed, but it would always be stiff. Alexei wanted to ask "Too stiff to hold a gun?" but he kept it to himself. He would have to go to a gun range and learn to shoot left handed.

He thought back to the night it happened. As soon as Preston drove away from Norton's apartment Zarah ran into the room. When she looked at his wrist she immediately pulled his belt off and made a tourniquet above the wound. Then she led him into the kitchen, cut off his sleeve, and ran cold water over the wound. The wrist was bleeding badly but there was no pulsing arterial blood, so she wrapped a towel around it.

"We have to get you to a doctor, Alexei. I'll help you into my car."

"Finish those two off first so they won't talk to police."

Zarah picked up one of the pistols from the floor and calmly shot the two unconscious men in the head. She ran next door to get her keys, then helped Alex down the stairs to the carport. She drove to a small hospital she remembered seeing and took him to the emergency room.

After cleaning the wound the doctor looked at her. "What happened to this man's arm. It looks like a knife wound."

Zarah had already thought about her response. "His wife caught him in bed with me and attacked him with a knife. I chased her off and tried to stop the bleeding."

"You did well to put the tourniquet on. That stopped the worst of the bleeding. I can repair the blood vessels and close the wound temporarily, but there's some damage to the tendons that will require a skilled surgeon. We have no such doctor here on the island, but he will be able to fly back to Florida without any problems. Miami has several surgeons capable of repairing the damage, but he may not regain full use of his hand."

Now he sat in his office, unable to use his right hand because of the heavy bandage around it. He was learning to type on his computer with his left hand, but he was very slow at it. He had just started a list of what could be done to find Preston so he could get even. He thought _'Rather than have him killed, maybe I'll have his right hand chopped off. . . . No, he has to die a painful death – with his wife watching.'_ The first thing was to find him. He picked up the phone and called Feliks. "Get up to my office right away. I have a new assignment for you."

Feliks was in the middle of decrypting the hard drive data he downloaded from one of Preston's computers. So far he had gotten into three of their computers. One of them could be Jack Preston himself, but their hacking style was pretty simplistic, not what he expected from the Hackmeister. He was interrupted by the call from Alexei. _'Damn. I'm right in the middle of this and I don't want to be interrupted. I'll get to him later.'_

A few minutes later the door to his computer lab burst open as an angry Alexei stormed in.

"When I tell you I want to see right away, I mean immediately. Don't ignore me like that or I'll send you back to Russia."

Feliks looked up with a smirk on his face. "You can't do that. You need me to stop Preston and his gang. And I just scored a copy of a hard drive from one of his minions that I'm in the middle of decoding. I need to stick with this for another day or two to find out what they have planned for Winston."

"No, drop that for now. I have to find out where Preston is and that's what I want you doing." Alexei raised his bandaged hand. "He did this to me and I want to show him that it doesn't pay to piss off Alexei Brusilov. This is your top priority until I have him."

Feliks gave him a mock salute and said "Yes Sir."

After he left, Feliks kept at his task of getting the drive data decrypted. _'This is what's important to me – beating Jack Preston. Your revenge will have to wait. . . . sir.'_ Two hours later he got another call. "Have you found him yet!"

"I have to set up the search parameters, sir. It will be a day or two before I find what you want."

"That's not soon enough. Work faster – 24/7 until you get him."

"Yes sir."

Feliks looked at his hard drive work, then decided Alexei wouldn't get off his back until he found Preston. He turned to another computer and set it up to hack public records for Jackson J. Preston and the names of his other team members. He started with the IRS tax records and found Preston right away. His mailing address was P.O. box in a small town in eastern West Virginia. That was easy. He emailed the information to Alexei and went back to the hard drive work. A minute later Alexei called. "You idiot! We chased him off that property three months ago. I don't want to know where he was. I want to know where he is."

Feliks thought a bit. _'That was his tax address for last year. He hasn't filed his taxes this year yet, so they don't have his current address. If he's moved he might have bought a home. I'll look at real estate records.'_

After an hour he had found no record of Preston buying a house anywhere in the country, and there were no records of rentals in his name. If he has moved out of the country finding him will be much more of a challenge, but Feliks loved challenges. _'If he has left the country he most likely flew, so I search airline records next.'_ Another dead end. He thought about other options. _'His bank account! I should have gone after that first.'_ This search took much longer but, when he was finished, all he found was an account in West Virginia that was closed three months ago. Before he closed it there was a lot of money in it, so he was probably living on the cash from that and didn't open a new account. Feliks was getting frustrated.

'Wherever Preston moved to he probably registered his car so I'll search the DMV records of every state. There it was again – a dead end in West Virginia. But he got the plate number. He emailed Alexei with that information. It took longer than the last time but the phone rang again.

"How stupid are you! He won't be using those plates. While we were chasing him around the country he changed license plates every time he stopped. He seems to have a collection of plates from several states with legitimate numbers. Don't forget, you're dealing with someone who is extremely smart and sneaky. Maybe even smarter than you, Feliks."

That last remark angered Feliks. "I'm smarter than Jack Preston and I will find him!"

"Time is running out for you. I want an answer in the morning."

Feliks had run out of ideas. . . . _'I've been focused on Preston. The rest of his team is certain to have taken the same precautions, but it won't hurt to search the same databases for each of the names. I'll start with his wife, Lynn Martin.'_

By six a.m. Felix was down to the last name on name on the list, Juan Tomas Gutierrez. When he started searching for that name in the databases he was flooded with results – more than 400 men with that name in the country. When he weeded them out with the likely age bracket that his subject was in, he was still left with over 100. He had his Social Security Number from the IRS records, but that wasn't any help. _'Maybe if I searched employment records to see where he is working I could whittle the list down some more._ ' As he scanned down the list he saw several possibilities, but one stuck in his mind for some reason – the one who worked for the Federal Government last year. _'What did the background material Alexei gave me say about that?. . . Yes! The Federal Remediation Agency, the FRA. Jack and two other team members had worked there. And here was a Juan Tomas Gutierrez who was employed by the FRA until October of last year. That's it! If I can give Alex one of the team, he can grab him and get him to tell him where Jack is. . . . But he doesn't work for the FRA anymore. . . . He's the only one with a family. Maybe he has a new job._ '

Using Gutierrez' SSAN he searched the IRS records and found Gutierrez had recently been hired by a private security company outside Philadelphia. _'Now I've got you.'_
Chapter 13

Everyone was logged on for the conference call. Jack briefly told them about the attack on Lynn's computer. "Right now I can't see a way for us to get back online without risking more cyber attacks. If I knew something about who this hacker is I might be able find out more about his programming tricks and techniques, then build some new protection software, but for now it looks like we'll have to stop our online investigations. And if we don't find out something to nail Winston with after he's elected, he'll be in full control of the country and start making the changes outlined in the plan Jim gave us. So we have to find a way to get back online and get the incriminating evidence against him."

"What about if you set a trap for the hacker? Go back online as if you don't know about his worm and go to one of the sites he's monitoring. But in this case let him steal some fake data from a hard drive you set up just for that purpose, something that will fool Winston into thinking we're doing something crazy – send him and his hacker off on a wild goose chase."

"That's a terrific idea, Tom! And while they are off chasing the wrong clues I can dissect the new worm he sends back to learn more about his programming techniques."

Lynn had a thought. "Couldn't you make your own virus or worm that will go back into his computer?"

"That's an even better idea. I'll write my own worm and attach it to the data he steals from us with his worm. His firewalls won't be programmed to stop information from his own worms – it will go straight through to his hard drive. Once I get inside I can plant all kinds of evil-ware on his system. I can fix it so it won't recognize the alerts from his sentries that monitor the sites we want access to – and I can modify his worms so they can't get through my new firewall. I can plant false information and, when the time comes, I can crash his entire computer system. I can't wait to get started on this. It's payback time!"

"Well let us get off the phone so you can get started, Jack. Bye."

#

Jack worked straight through the afternoon and into the night to create his masterpiece. He was so absorbed that he didn't hear Lynn come in until she whispered in his ear "Can a lonely girl get a kiss?"

Jack turned his head around and gave her a quick kiss, then turned back to his computer.

"Is that all I get? I was hoping for something a little . . . well a little more passionate. Hugging your pillow in a half empty bed doesn't do much for me, darling. I need a warm body to cuddle up to."

That got Jack's attention. "I'm sorry, but I got so wrapped up in this project I lost track of time. What time is it?"

"Half-past cuddling time. Can I lure you up to bed?"

"No luring required, honey." Jack closed the laptop and led her into the bedroom.

#

Jack woke up early in the morning, refreshed and ready to tackle the last of the project. Lynn was sitting in front of the fire with a cup of coffee, humming to herself. Jack got himself a cup and sat down next to her.

"Good morning, my love. Did you sleep well?"

"As well as possible with you snoring next to me."

"Do I snore? I've never heard myself snore."

Lynn answered with a smile, "Of course not, you idiot. How can you hear it when you're asleep? But seriously, you seldom snore. Only when you're really tired."

"I guess I'll have to get to bed earlier."

"You won't hear an argument from me, sweetheart. What's the plan for today?"

"I'm about finished programming my counter-worm."

"Counter-worm? What's that?

"It's like that spy vs. counter-spy comic Mad Magazine used to run. The one dressed in white thinks up something sneaky to do to the one in black, then the black one thinks up something to make it backfire on the first one."

"I remember that. Which one are you, the one in white of the one in black?"

"Since he's the bad guy, he has to be the black one, and me, the good guy, has to be white."

"Are you ready to get back to work?"

"I wanted to get some ideas from you first. What false information can I put on my drive to mislead the hacker when he steals it?"

"You could make them believe we've all moved to Canada to avoid the economic collapse Winston is about to cause. . . . Or how about this. Plant some evidence showing that one or two of Winston's prospective cabinet members are secretly working for Clinton Hill. . . . . . . No, no. Here's what you do. Make him believe that, after analyzing the alternatives – Winston or Hill –we decided to stop what we're doing because we would rather have him as President than Hill. If you can keep the hacker's monitors from detecting our ongoing probing into ways to stop Winston, he won't know we're still at work."

"As usual, you came up with the perfect answer. I'll set the hard drive information up to look like we have quit hunting so he and his hacker will give up looking for us. Time to get back to work."

#

Feliks was headed up to Winston's office. He wanted to tell him the news about finding Gutierrez in person so he could bask in Winston's praise. Apparently Feliks didn't know Winston very well.

His assistant, Monica, buzzed his office. "Mr. Borin would like to see you, sir."

"What the hell does he want! Tell him I'm busy."

"He's pretty insistent, sir."

"Insistent! People who work for me aren't allowed to be insistent! But send him in anyway."

"Good morning, Mr. Winston."

"Who the hell do you think you are, boy. No one insists on seeing me. They see me when I'm good and ready."

"I'm sorry sir. I . . . I thought you would like some good news."

"What? You found where Preston is?"

"No sir. . . . at least not quite."

"Get out of here, then. Come back when you can tell me where he is!"

Feliks turned to leave with his head down. Then he stopped and turned back. "You don't get to push me around, because I'm indispensable. Without me you got nothing – no way to know what they are planning. What I came to tell you is that Preston and his group have all gone underground with false identities. All but one, Juan Tomas Gutierrez. I found out he just started a new job with a security and investigation company in Pennsylvania. Maybe you can get him to tell you where Preston is." With that Feliks left and slammed the door behind him.

Winston sat with his mouth hanging open. _'No one talks to me that way! When this is over I'll have that arrogant jerk taken care of! But his information might be useful.'_ He pressed the intercom button. "Monica, get Alexei up here, right away."

While he was waiting he thought about how best to use Feliks' information. He could just have Gutierrez kidnapped and tortured until he gave up Preston's location, but with his special agent training he might be too tough to break. It had to be something that would scare him into talking. Maybe kidnap one of his family – if he has one. That would certainly get the information he was after. Preston might even give himself up voluntarily to save them.

When Alexei got there he explained his plan to him. Alexei must have liked it because he laughed – something he seldom did. "I'll find out everything I can about his family, sir. Then we can decide what to do."
Chapter 14

Bao Cheong, the finance minister of the People's Republic of China, was deeply concerned over the future of the PRC's economic relationship with the United States. The source of his concern was the outcome of the November Presidential election. The U.S. was in debt to China for almost 1.3 trillion dollars, making China America's largest banker. The interest on this debt is a significant source of income for his Government but, more importantly, it gives China political leverage over the U.S. If China were to sell some of the dollars it holds, the interest rates in America would rise and slow their economic growth. If enough dollars were dumped it would trigger economic collapse in the U.S. and drive them into a depression.

But if the U.S. starts paying back what they owe China, his country's power over America's economy would drop. The threat of China's financial "bomb" has been steadily growing over the past several years because the U.S. Congress can't stop spending more than is collected from taxes, and it's continued growth was a major part of Cheong's financial plan for his country's economic growth. If his expectations couldn't be met for some reason, then his plan would collapse and so would his position within the State Council. The shame of this would be unbearable to him and his family. They would be outcasts in their community of government officials and would be forced to leave the city.

The problem was the entry of Charles Winston into the race. If he should win the Presidency he might actually balance the budget and have no need to increase their debt to China. Even worse, if Winston reduces the size of the Government and institutes the severe spending cuts he is talking about, he could start paying off their debt and allow them to regain the upper hand in this economic war. Added to that is Winston's plan to impose high taxes on all foreign imports to create more U.S. jobs. That would cripple much of China's manufacturing industry.

On the other hand if the Democrat candidate, Clinton Hill, wins the election, things will be business as usual – increased spending, more borrowing, and more interest income for the PRC. When Winston first stepped into the race a month ago Cheong didn't pay much attention. He was a buffoon and a clown, almost comical in his promises of what he would do if elected. But Cheong underestimated the power of telling people what they want to hear. Now Winston was ahead in the polls, and that's why Cheong was worried.

He took out a pad and pen and thought about what could be done to make certain that Winston did not win. Whatever Cheong's Government did to stop Winston, China's role had to be absolutely hidden. The first thing Cheong thought of was using China's team of computer hackers. They had been very successful at snooping on the U.S. Government, their defense industry, and financial institutions. He wrote that on his list, but couldn't think of a way to use them to defeat Winston.

The next item on his list was the most obvious - fund a negative advertising campaign against Winston. After he wins the primary elections and begins his campaign for the general election, Cheong could flood the media with so many different lies that the voters wouldn't know what to believe about him. He could hire several U.S. marketing firms to turn out the videos and run them on all the major TV, satellite, and cable networks in the U.S. Some embarrassing videos could be posted on Youtube to further discredit him.

A third option was, of course, to have him assassinated. Winston will have to make frequent public appearances to get elected. If Cheong gave the word, one of China's spies living in America could kill him within a week or two – a car accident, poison his food as it is being prepared in the kitchen by a Chinese cook, or as a last resort, have a sniper shoot him from a distance. The negative side of that idea is what would happen if the assassin was caught and linked to China. No, the advertising attack was the best approach. Cheong picked up the phone to set the plan in motion.

#

Jack had his trap – actually Lynn's trap – ready to spring on Winston's hacker. He had prepared a hard drive with the false information about giving up on their mission to stop Winston, along with his special creation, the counter-worm, that would give him control over the hacker's computer. With the drive in his laptop, Jack started his hack into the Winston Securities database – the one Rick was unsuccessful at penetrating. Jack was able get past the first firewall and explore some of the company's financial data. He stayed long enough for the sentry to detect his digital presence, then uploaded some of the data onto his hard drive. After he broke the connection he checked to see if the hacker's worm had attached itself to the uploaded file, and just as he expected, there it was. He left it in place but transferred a copy of it to the old laptop so he could inspect it.

It was the same version that infected Lynn's computer and stole her hard drive data. He dissected the code and found a place to insert his counter-worm. He replaced the hacker's worm with his modified version then went back to searching Winston's corporate finances briefly. As he watched the data flow he saw the infected hacker's worm send a brief message back to the hacker's computer to begin infecting it with Jack's counter-worm. Jack felt a surge of elation – the same feeling he got from winning at chess or catching the biggest fish. Sort of like Rocky Balboa standing atop the steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art with his arms raised.

He waited an hour, then went back into the Winston Securities financial records and wandered around them for awhile to give the hacker time to steal Jack's phony hard drive data. Then he went into the kitchen where Lynn was fixing breakfast to brag about his accomplishment. That left his mind when he saw her working in an old nightgown that showed off her curves. He was reminded of the old Conway Twitty song about seeing his wife " _standing in the kitchen in a faded cotton gown, with your hair all up in curlers, I still love to lay you down._ " He was still humming the tune when she brought breakfast to the table.

#

Feliks was looking through the choices of women at Matchmaker.com, not for a potential wife – he had no plans to get married – but for a young, attractive woman who would go out with him. He started out focusing the search on Russian women and saw nothing of interest. But when he switched to American women he was surprised at how attractive they were compared to their Russian counterparts. He had narrowed his choices down to three buxom blondes living nearby when his computer gave the alarm that someone from Preston's group was active again.

' _This is the same guy who was digging into the corporate financial records earlier. It looks like he's back for more information. Now if he'll just stay on long enough for me to grab his hard drive data. . . .'_

Jack watched the data streaming out to the hacker. _'Yes! He took the bait. I've got you now.'_ Two minutes later the data transfer was complete and the hacker broke the connection. Jack had encrypted the hard drive data so the hacker wouldn't be suspicious, but it was a simple enough encryption for him to break. He wanted Winston to get the message that they have given up. And with the counter-worm now active, the hacker won't be able to detect intrusions as Jack's team continued their research. Time to send everyone an email telling them to get back to work.
Chapter 15

Three weeks later, the day after Super Tuesday

"Let's stop the chatter and get our online meeting underway, folks. We have all seen yesterday's voting results and, as we expected, Winston has won all the primaries and caucuses so far, and he's highly favored the Ohio and Florida primaries, which would give him an unbeatable lead. Hill's wins in the Democrat primaries guarantees his nomination also, so both of them can begin campaigning for the Presidency at any time."

"Will that change what you want each of us to be working on, Jack?"

"No Harriet, our objective is still the same. Put together enough solid evidence to get him impeached shortly after he takes office"

"What's our time frame here?"

"The November election is eight months away, so we have plenty of time. But at some point we will have to hire some lawyers to bring our impeachment case to congress. So I think realistically we need to have the evidence collected by late July so the lawyers have time to put it together."

"Speaking of lawyers, have you thought about how are we going to pay for them? None of us has those kinds of resources."

"Good question, Rick, and one I haven't given enough thought to. I'm taking a wild guess that we may need half a million dollars or more. Any ideas where we get it?"

Everyone sat quietly for a few minutes, going over alternatives in their minds.

Rick broke the silence. "I might have an idea. Do you all remember the money Winston had deposited in the six offshore bank accounts under the names of the candidates he wanted to pin false bribery charges on? Well, when that investigative reporter threatened to expose the scheme the money disappeared from all six accounts overnight. The total amount was close to six million dollars. What if Winston had all the money moved to a new account to hide it from any investigations. Since Jack has already uncovered the six account numbers in the Caribbean banks, I wonder if he could start from those accounts and follow the money to the new account number. It might be possible to transfer that money to an account we set up for ourselves?"

"Hacking into those banks was a tough challenge for me, Rick. I almost got caught, so I would have to take a different approach. Back then I didn't have the time to create the best hacking code for those attacks, but since I have plenty of time now let me see what I can do."

Lynn laughed. "Wouldn't that be the ultimate irony? Using Winston's own money to hire lawyers to get him impeached."

#

When Bao Cheong saw the Super Tuesday results he reached the same conclusion as the Forsetians – the campaigning between Winston and Hill would start shortly. He picked up the phone and called the man he put in charge of the attack ad project, Zhang Kai. "I presume you saw the American election results. I want you in my office right after lunch to brief me about your plans."

"Certainly, Minister Cheong."

Kai had been expecting the call and was fully prepared, but one always feared an angry response from Cheong. His reputation for destroying careers because someone ignored his instructions and thought for themselves was well known. Kai hoped that his plans for the advertising attack met Cheong's expectations.

#

Kai bowed as he entered the Minister's office. "Good afternoon Minister Cheong. I have the briefing you ordered."

"Well, get on with it."

"I have agreements in place with nine American firms to produce a series of twenty-four commercials attacking Mr. Winston from several directions. The first category is his personal life, more specifically his sexual proclivities. We have not been able to uncover any misconduct in this area, so the writers created alleged dalliances and filmed bedroom scenes with actors to support the claims.

"The second category is child pornography. We have created videos of a Winston look-alike molesting young girls and boys, and fictional reports of an FBI investigation into these supposed crimes"

"Question Mr. Kai: How did you find firms that would agree to make these videos."

"None of the well-known firms would take on such an assignment. But there are many smaller firms that will do anything for money, especially in the decadent American pornography business."

"Good. Continue."

"The next advertising category will attack his unscrupulous and illegal financial dealings. We'll show video interviews with actors pretending to be people whom Winston has financially ruined by illegal foreclosures, eminent domain land seizures through bribery, and investment manipulation.

"The final group of attack ads goes after Winston's manipulation of the election process to elect legislators who will support his agenda. We have found evidence that he has been doing this for the past few years. If Winston should be elected President in spite of our attacks, he will have the majority support for his plan in both the House of Representatives and the Senate."

"I do not need to be reminded of the consequences if Winston should survive our attack and become President. I have a Plan B in case that happens. You are dismissed."

Kai bowed and walked backward toward the door. "Thank you for listening to my humble efforts, Prime Minister Cheong."
Chapter 16

Mary Gutierrez signed off and closed her laptop. Her girls would be home soon and she didn't want to get caught on this web site – a singles-only chat room. She and Ramon B. had been involved in an on-line flirtation for almost a month now. She enjoyed their confidential chats, but things were getting a little too deep. He invited her to meet him at a hotel in town, but she had no intention of going that far – with anybody. Ramon was her fourth on-line suitor. Mary liked to start out in friendly conversation then, when the men began dropping not-so-subtle hints that they wanted more, she would lead them on with innuendos and suggestive comments. When it got to the point where they wanted to get together to cash in on her veiled promises, she would slam the door in their face – tell them what she really thought of men who tried to pick up women, both online and in bars. One of them had even been stupid enough to use his real name. She searched online and found that he was married with three kids, so she printed out all their chats and mailed them to his wife.

Mary went into the kitchen to prepare an after-school snack for the girls when she heard the front door open. "Is that you, girls?"

Claudia, her 11-year old, answered. "It's just me, ma'am."

"Where's Lorena?"

"She walked to her piano lesson. It's Wednesday, remember?"

"Of course I remember." she said as she realized she hadn't.

"Come eat your snack, then get upstairs to do your homework."

Mary sat down to watch a movie on TV – she only liked the old black and white movies. She could imagine herself as the lead actress and get lost in them. Color movies didn't work like that. As the movie credits rolled by at the end she realized that Lorena wasn't home yet. _'She should have been home 30 minutes ago. What's wrong with that girl. . . . It must be a boy! She's probably flirting with him right now, maybe even kissing if it's gone that far. Just wait until she gets home. I'll teach her a painful lesson about what happens when she flirts with boys.'_

After another ten minutes she called the piano teacher. "Hello Mrs. Schmidt. This is Lorena's mother. Is she still there by any chance?"

"No, she's not here."

"What time did she leave for home after her lesson?"

"She didn't show up for her lesson today, Mrs. Gutierrez. I assumed she was sick or something. You know how I insist on being notified in advance when a student will not be here on time."

"So you haven't seen her at all?"

"Not since last week's lesson. Is everything alright?"

"She's probably found herself a boyfriend and wanted me to think she was at piano. She's at that age when boys start to notice her, especially with her mature figure. Thank you, Mrs. Schmidt. I'll go driving around to see if I can find her."

Mary called Claudia to come downstairs. "So where is Lorena, Claudia? I know you two share secrets, so she must have told you about her new boyfriend."

"She didn't tell me anything, ma'am."

Mary reached out and smacked her across the face. "Don't lie to me, missy. I know she must have a boyfriend. And she's out with him somewhere right now. What's his name?"

Claudia cringed as she replied "I don't know anything about a boyfriend, ma'am. If I did I would tell you."

Mary drew back to slap her again but was interrupted by the telephone ringing.

She picked it up and said, "Lorena, you get yourself home right now. You are in big trouble young lady."

A deep male voice said "Hello Mary. Is Juan home yet?"

"Who is this?"

"A friend of Juan's."

"That's a lie. His friends call him Tom. Who are you and what do you want with him?"

"Have him call me when he gets home. My number is 555-249-1739." Click.

Mary stood there with the dead telephone receiver in her hand. . . . _'First Lorena goes off with some boy and now Tom has some dealings with a rude man. Just wait until he gets home.'_

As she stood there, letting her anger boil over, she heard Tom's car in the driveway. As soon as he was in the door she pounced on him.

"That daughter of yours is out running around with some boy . . . and a very rude man called and wanted to talk to you. Call him back and tell him I do not like being lied to!"

Tom said "Calm down, Mary," a phrase he used frequently, even though it had no effect on her anger. "First things first. Tell me about Lorena."

Mary just glared at him, but he noticed Claudia peeking around the corner. "Hi, honey. Come on in, I won't bite you."

She looked over at her mother, then ran to Tom's open arms.

"Can you tell me about Lorena, Claudia?"

""She was supposed to go to her piano lesson after school, but she didn't come home. Mother called the piano teacher and Lorena never showed up for the lesson."

Mary broke in. "That slut is with a boy somewhere; I know it!"

Tom looked at Claudia, "Do you know if she has a boyfriend, sweetie?"

Claudia looked at her mother but kept her mouth closed. Tom looked between them and knew something had happened to scare her. He leaned down and whispered in her ear, "It's O.K. I'm here now. Whisper in my ear and tell me if she has a boyfriend."

"She never hangs around boys like the other girls in her class do. She mostly keeps to herself."

Tom gave her a kiss and a hug. "Run along upstairs and finish your homework. I'll let you know when we hear something."

When she was gone he turned back to Mary. "She's lying, Tom. I know Lorena told her about the boys she flirts with."

Tom tried to contain his own anger, but this was too much. "What's wrong with you! Don't you realize that something serious could have happened to Lorena. She could have been hit by a car, or even kidnapped, for God's sake. But all you can think about is that she must be with a boy. She's three hours late. If it was something simple like a boy she would have called long ago. Something serious has happened, Mary. You should have called the police an hour ago."

"Don't you talk to me in that tone of voice, mister. I know how boys are at that age and how attractive Lorena is. One of the older boys at school has probably taken her home with him and is raping her as we speak."

Tom turned away in disgust and reached for the phone just as it rang. "This is Tom Gutierrez speaking."

"I called your wife earlier and was expecting you to call back. I have some very bad news for you. . . ."

Tom's heart sank. It must be the police or the hospital. His mouth suddenly went dry. "Yes?"

"We have your daughter. She is unharmed, and comfortable. But she won't eat. She has to keep her strength up, because this situation might last awhile. . . . Oh, and don't think about bringing the police in on this or you will never see Lorena again. I know some rich people in the middle east who would pay a large sum for an attractive young girl like your daughter."

"Who are you? Why have you taken my daughter? I want to talk to her!" Tom heard the click as the line went dead.

#

Alexei was impatiently waiting for a phone call from one of his men – Mikhail Lebedev. He was in charge of the mission to grab Gutierrez' daughter, and Alexei couldn't wait to hear if it was successful. As he waited he reviewed the information that Feliks had taken from one of Preston's hard drives. He decided to start at the beginning and read the documents chronologically. There were lots of emails exchanged among the group. He made a list of the names of everyone in the group based on the email traffic and was very surprised to learn that Preston had more than twenty people in his group. He also found that they called their group _The Forsetians_ , whatever that meant. Among the members of Preston's group he found FBI and NSA agents, the state Attorney General of Georgia, two federal judges, a member of a Homeland Security anti-terrorist group, and two former governors. This was bigger and more widespread that he possibly could have imagined. This team might have enough clout to take Winston down. _'I'll have to keep a close watch on this. If Winston falls, I want to separate myself from him quickly. I may even have to go back to Russia for a time.'_

As Alexei scanned down further he saw an exchange of emails from the day before. Someone, probably Preston, sent an email to the rest of the team telling them he had made the decision for the Forsetians to cease what they were doing – looking for evidence that they could use to remove Winston from the race. He told them that if they took down Winston, Clinton Hill would be an even worse alternative. Alexei thought, ' _This is too good to be true! I don't believe they would just quit after all the effort they put in. I need more evidence than this one email.'_

As he studied additional data from the hard drive he found the confirmation he was looking for. It was another email from Rick Goodman, Harriet's husband. He was apparently the finance guru of the group, and he showed his calculations of how much cash they would need for a lawyer to make their charges against Winston stick. Rick told them there's no way they could raise the two million dollars it would take, so they were wasting their time pursuing this. _'I need to give Feliks a call. If his sentries are no longer seeing hacking attacks against the web sites Preston and his gang were interested in, that would confirm that they have actually given up.'_

Alexei was about to pick up the phone when the call from Mickey came it. "Alexei here. Give me a report, Mickey."

"The snatch and grab went off without any problems. We took her to the rental house here and locked her in a room. She's a fighter. She bit my hand twice before I could get her restrained."

"Watch her closely. The ones who fight never give up looking for a way to escape. Did you call her father?"

"Yes sir. I told him just what you said and left him hanging without talking to her."

"Good. I want his anxiety to grow to the point that he will do anything to get her back. Here's what I want you to say in your next phone call. . . . "

#

Jack and Lynn were out on the deck with their morning coffee. It was really too cold to be out here, but the view of the snow-covered mountains and ski area was too spectacular to miss. They were both bundled up in multiple layers of warm clothes as they sat side-by-side with a heavy wool blanket over their legs.

"Look, Jack, over there. There's a herd of elk. When the snow gets too deep in the highlands they come down to the valley to eat what grass they can scrape their way down to. Would you do me a favor later?"

"When you look up at me and bat your eyelashes like that, I'll do anything."

"I have a dozen or so bales of hay out behind the shed. Would you haul a couple of those down to the low end of the lot and break them open? It will help get the elk and deer through the winter."

They sat there for awhile, enjoying God's beauty, then decided that God's winter cold was getting the best of them, so they went back inside. Lynn heard Jack's throw-away cell phone ringing so she answered it. "Hello, this is Lynn.." She heard a panicked voice, "Lynn, it's Tom. I need to talk to Jack!"

She gave the phone to Jack as he entered the kitchen. "It's Tom. Something's wrong."

"Yeah, Tom. What's going on?"

"Jack, they've kidnapped my daughter, Lorena! They-grabbed-her-on-the-way-to-her-piano-lesson-She-didn't-show-up-after-school-then-Mary-got-a-phone-call-and-they-called-back-after-I-got-home-and-told-me-they-had-her-They-wouldn't-even-let-me-talk-to-her."

"Slow down, Tom, slow down. Breathe deeply. Give your rational mind a chance to get control again."

Jack waited almost a minute. "Are you still there, Tom?"

Jack heard him get his sobbing under control. "O.K. I'm back in control, Jack."

Tom repeated what he had said and added a few more details. "It has to be them, Jack, doesn't it? Winston and Alexei?"

"Did they identify themselves, or talk about a ransom?"

"No, nothing about that."

"Then they will call back. Have you got some audio equipment to record the call?"

"Let me think . . . Yes, I have a microphone to hook up to my computer and capture it."

"Get that ready to go, then I'll link my computer to yours so we can hear it. Call me back when you have it all connected."

Jack took the few intervening minutes to bring Lynn up to speed. When Tom verified that everything was set up, the three of them sat down and waited for the next call. Jack and Lynn could hear Tom's wife ranting and raving about Lorena being raped by some hormone-crazed boy from school, so he turned the volume down. They didn't have to wait long before the call came.

"Hello, this is Tom. Can I talk to my daughter?"

"In time, Mr. Gutierrez, in time. But first we have to talk about what it will cost you to get Lorena back. Yes, we know her name, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at her attractiveness. The school records we hacked didn't mention that. . . . Yes, she is nicely filled out."

Tom came unhinged. "You leave her alone, you pervert! If you touch her, you're a dead man.!"

"My, my, Tom. You are in no position to make demands. You have no idea who we are, where we are holding her, or what we will demand for her return."

"What! What do you want? I'll give you as much as you want, Mr. . . . Mr. . . . What's your name? Who am I talking to?"

"You can call me Mr. Pervert, Tom."

"How much do you want? I don't have a lot of money, but it's all yours. Just give her back to me."

"I know how much money you have, Mr. Gutierrez. Your accounts are wide open to a hacker of the caliber we have hired. So I know your financial limitations. On the other hand, Jack Preston is much better off. He might be able to provide what we're after."

Tom paused while he thought. "Who is Jack Preston. I don't know anyone by that name."

"Come, come, Tom. We know you belong to a group, headed by Preston, who call themselves the Forsetians. You all are planning ways to discredit Charles Winston to keep him from becoming President, but it will never work. Winston has more power than you can imagine."

"So how much money do you want to bring my daughter back to me?"

"It's quite simple, Mr. Gutierrez. We want Jack Preston." Click!

#

Jack and Lynn had Tom on a video conference on their computers. Jack spoke up first. "Tom, I'm willing to give myself up to get your daughter back. When Alexei calls back tell him I'll meet him wherever he wants. Once he has me, he should release Lorena."

"Do you really believe that, Jack. You've had the course at FRA. You know the statistics on how often kidnappers release their victims after they get what they want. It's close to zero. The person they kidnapped knows too much – what they look like, where they were held, the kidnapper's voices. If we can't find her and get her out, her chances of surviving are next to nothing."

"I know that, Tom, but I want you to know that I will give my life for her if that's what it takes."

"I appreciate that, Jack, but we're wasting time. How can we find where she is being held?"

"Have you got the tracking app on her phone working?"

"Yes, I do. It shows she is at GPS coordinates just west of Philly. I looked it up and it's the parking lot of an Albertson's supermarket in Camden, just across the river from Philly. It's most likely where they dumped her cell phone. But they might be in the neighborhood."

"Or not. If Alexei is behind this, he's clever enough to send someone into Camden to toss her backpack in a dumpster. I don't want to get your hopes up Tom."

"I'm going to call Dave Cramer, Jack. Maybe he'll help us."

#

Lorena was terrified. She was walking to her piano lesson when a van pulled up beside her to ask directions. Before she could respond two men jumped out of the side door and pulled her in. She was about to scream when they slapped some duct tape over her mouth and pulled a hood over her head. She lay on the floor with her hands taped behind her, whimpering in fear for a few minutes before her mind regained control.

' _Daddy taught me and Claudia what to do if this ever happened. Remember everything I see. If they're talking, remember everything they say and how they say it – accents, pitch, unusual pronunciations. Listen for outside sounds to see if I can identify landmarks as we drive. Always be alert for a chance to escape. Cooperate with them because they might not guard me so closely. Memorize their faces and any unusual identifiers, like tattoos or scars. . . . Well, I'm blindfolded and they aren't talking, so there's not much I can do right now.'_

Lorena started counting the seconds and minutes so her dad could figure out how far they drove. . . . if she lived to tell anyone. That thought triggered her fear again and she panicked. _'They're going to kill me! Daddy will give them the ransom money and then they'll kill me so I can't identify them. I won't ever see mother or daddy or Claudia again.'_ That brought the tears as she cried and sobbed for several minutes, until the van stopped, and backed up. She heard the sound of a garage door closing, then she was pulled out onto a concrete floor.

"Stand up and walk, we're not going to carry you."

Her daddy's word cooperate came to mind, so she did as she was told. They took the hood off and pulled the tape from her mouth. She looked around and saw that she was in a residential garage with no windows. _'Screaming won't help me here – nobody would hear me.'_ As they turned her toward the door into the house she got a quick look at the van license plate number – OAP 3321. As they led her through the door she repeated the plate number over and over in her mind so she wouldn't forget it.

They led her through the kitchen _'There's a knife holder on the counter with some long knives in it. Maybe I'll get a chance . . .'_

They took her up the stairs to the third floor and through a door. She was in a bedroom with a king-sized bed and it's own bathroom – and a large window that immediately started her thinking about escaping through it.

One of the men pulled up a chair and sat down facing her. "Lorena, that is your name isn't it?"

"Ye . . . Yes, sir."

"Well, at least your daddy taught you some manners. So here's what's going on. We need to get some information from your father, and we thought you could provide the leverage to make him do that. All he has to do is give us what we want, and then we'll tell him where he can come and get you. Do you think he loves you enough to answer my question?"

"Yes sir! I know he will. . . . But what if he doesn't have the information?"

"Well then, he will have to go find it. Because you're staying here with us until I get it."
Chapter 17

"Cramer Security and Investigations. How may I help you?"

"This is Tom, Jennifer. I need to talk to Mr. Cramer right away."

"He's in a meeting. Can I have him call you back when he's finished?"

"This is urgent. You have to get him out of that meeting so we can talk."

"I'll tell him what you said, but it's a pretty important meeting so he may not get back to you for a bit."

"Look, my daughter has been kidnapped. I have to speak to Dave right away!"

"Of course Mr. Gutierrez. Hold on while I get him."

The two minutes it took Dave to get to his phone seemed like two hours to Tom.

"Tom, this is Dave. Time is critical in kidnapping cases, so tell me everything you know."

Tom told him what he knew, finishing up with the phone calls from the kidnappers.

"When is this guy going to call again?"

"He didn't tell me. What do I say when he does? Jack is willing to turn himself over to them, but I told him no. Now I'm having second thoughts about my answer. If I had to pick between Lorena or Jack, Lorena would win."

"Actually that may not be a bad idea, Tom. It would be better to have Jack their captive because he at least has a chance of escaping. But not just yet. Let's look at other options first. Give me Lorena's cell phone number and I'll send someone to the Camden supermarket lot to retrieve it. Also, send me a Google map showing the route she takes from school to the piano lesson. I'll get several of my top investigators together and come up with a plan. We've been through a couple of other cases like this, so we know what we're doing. Call me back in 30 minutes."

Tom gave him Lorena's cell phone number, then called Jack to fill him in on what Dave said.

"That's great news about Cramer helping out. He knows what he is doing. If anyone can find where Lorena is it's Dave. What did he tell you?"

"He's meeting with his best guys to come up with a plan. He wants me to call him back in half an hour."

"Can I get in on that conversation?"

"I'm sure he won't mind. I'll call the receptionist and have her set it up as a conference call."

"While we're waiting I'll send him an email with the audio file of the last conversation with the kidnappers. Maybe he can learn something from it. Now we have to wait for Dave to call back to work out the details."

#

Alexei picked up his phone on the third ring. _'It better be Mikhail with a report'_ he thought. It wasn't. It was Winston.

"Give me an update on you latest mission, Alexei. Do you have the Gutierrez girl?"

"Yes sir. The snatch went off without a problem. One of my men, Mikhail, is holding her at his house. He talked to her father and told him what we wanted, then hung up. I instructed Mikhail to wait until tomorrow to call back to increase Tom's anxiety. After no word from us until then, Gutierrez will tell us whatever we ask."

"Good work, Alexei. What has your pet hacker, Feliks, been up to?"

"He hit the jackpot. He invaded Preston's hard drive and downloaded everything on it. And he found some good news for us, sir. Preston and his gang – they call themselves the Forsetians, by the way – have called off their hunt for ways to keep you out of the White House. It seems they realized that you are better for the country than Clinton Hill."

"That's great news, Alexei! I'll have something extra added to your next paycheck."

"Thank you , sir. You're very generous."

"No I'm not, and you know it. No one deserves anything they didn't work for."

Winston thought about this news for a minute or two. "Even though it seems that Preston has given up, I still want him taken care of. Do you understand me?"

"Yes Mr. Winston, I certainly do – and I don't think it will be long before we find him."

#

"This is Dave, here. Are you two ready for the conference?"

"We're here, Dave."

"Here's the plan we came up with. The first thing we do – and I already have my men out there doing it – is to stop at every house along Lorena's route and ask if someone remembers seeing a strange vehicle in the neighborhood. We don't know this for sure, but side door vans are the most common vehicles used for a grab, so we will emphasize that in our questioning. Maybe some busybody or dog walker saw something. If so, we might get the vehicle color, make, and maybe all or part of the license plate. That will give us something to look for."

"Next is her cell phone. I sent one of my men, Craig Palmer, out looking and he found it just where the GPS pointed us to – in a dumpster in the parking lot. All he had to do is get near it and dial her number. Well, that wasn't all he had to do. I owe him some new clothes after he went dumpster diving to find the phone. He transferred the list of calls she made and received to our computer here, and we're already developing a list of the phone owners. Tom, I'll send that to you to look over and identify any calls that weren't from friends or family. We'll focus our background checks on those."

"What about her friends on the list. Maybe one of them saw something. It could be the kidnap vehicle followed her from school."

"Yes we should do that, but if we question her friends or school staff it's likely to get the police involved, and we don't want that. What we will do is get access to the traffic camera video from all intersections within several blocks of the school and the piano teacher's residence. By the way, if the piano teacher calls you asking about Lorena, tell her that she came home shortly after you called yesterday. We don't want her calling the police either."

"Item number three in our action plan is to drive through all the streets surrounding the supermarket where the phone was found. I have two teams headed out there now. They'll divide up the neighborhood between their two cars and, starting at the supermarket, work their way out for a few miles. They don't know what they're looking for, but a parked van would get their attention. They'll call in with the license number of any suspicious vehicles they see, and we will run them through the state vehicle records to see who they belong to so we can do background checks on them."
Chapter 18

Lorena wasn't as afraid as when they brought her into the house. They had untaped her hands and she was free to walk around in the bedroom, but when she tried the door it was locked. Next she looked out the window trying to find an escape route, but she was three stories above the asphalt driveway, and there was no drainpipe or climbing vine that was always available in the movies. The only thing she had left was to figure out a way to communicate the van's license number to her dad – if they even let her talk to him.

She found a small note pad and a pen in the bedside table drawer and sat down to figure out how she could tell her dad the van license number she had memorized. She ran some ideas through her head, but she couldn't come up with anything clever enough so her captors wouldn't know what she was doing, but not so clever that her dad couldn't figure it out. Ten minutes later she hit on an idea – at least part of one. The plate had three letters followed by four numbers. She would compose her message using the three letters to begin words with, then she would emphasize those words when she spoke to her dad. But she was still stumped by the numbers. _'How can I pass on the numbers without saying them? Trying to talk about an address, like 2231 Elm street, would be too obvious. Let me get the message written then I'll come back to the numbers. Let's see, what would I be expected to say to Daddy that would include words beginning with the letters O, A, and P.'_ She started writing.

"Hi Daddy. I'm OK They haven't hurt me or anything. I'm not tied up and I have a bedroom all to myself. I'm not afraid – at least not anymore. Please get me out of here, Daddy. I love you."

'That looks good. But what if they only let me talk for a few seconds? It has to be shorter.'

"I'm OK daddy. They haven't done anything to me. Please get me back home."

' _That's it. I'll stress the words ok, anything, and please. O A P. . . . But I left out the word bedroom – to tell him I'm in a home and not some warehouse. I'll work that phrase into the second message, but I still need to keep the three emphasized words near the front in case they cut me off.'_

I'm OK daddy. I'm alright. Please get me home. I'm not tied up and have a bedroom all to myself.

Lorena circled that last one and started memorizing it, even whispering it to herself to get the emphasis right. When she was finished she raised a corner of the mattress and hid the note."

#

"Who is going to go get us some carryout for dinner?"

Ilya spoke up, "I will . . . if I get to choose what we're having."

"Yeah, go ahead. What's your choice for tonight, pizza again? Get an extra one for her, but make it vegetarian. She probably doesn't like it fully loaded, hot peppers and all."

"Peppers are vegetables."

As Ilya entered the garage he saw something serious. He shouted back into the house. "Mikhail. . . . we forgot to put the stolen license plate on the van before we grabbed the girl."

"If someone saw our license plate the police would be here at the house by now. Go ahead and put it on now. There's no sense in making the same mistake twice."

Ilya switched license plates and headed for the nearest pizzeria. It was a twenty-minute drive one way, so he would have to drive fast on the return trip to get back before it got cold. He had made this pizza run several times, so he knew all the shortcuts. He usually took a different one each time to decide which was the fastest. The last route he took got him back in 12 minutes, so he would use that one again. Wouldn't want the little miss upstairs to get cold pizza.

As he pulled out of the Pizza Papa parking lot he saw one of the passing cars slow down. They were looking at the van – at least that's what it seemed like. But maybe they were just checking out the restaurant specials in the window. A few seconds later they sped back up into the traffic and moved on. They must have decided on Pizza Hut instead.

He turned toward home while running the shortcut route through his mind to see if he could shave a second or two off his personal best time. He didn't worry about the cops stopping him for speeding because all of the routes were through gang territory where the police didn't go unless called. He took main street for two blocks then hung a hard right while speeding up. He started his stop watch. He checked the rear view mirror just in case a main street cop saw him. _'Ah, s**t. That's the car that slowed down to check me out. It doesn't matter though. There's no one who can catch me in this neighborhood.'_

He continued to watch them as they quickly closed the distance. He let them get close just before his next turn came up. He yanked a hard right and watched the car blow past the turn with brakes screeching. He took his next turn before they could see him again and right after that he turned into his favorite part of the run – the empty K-Mart mega shipping warehouse. Once he got around back there was a two-mile-long paved lot where he could get the van up to 95 mph. He floored it and enjoyed the ride. His next turn took him back into the gang neighborhood. It was risky here – they might be hanging out on street corners and decide to have some fun with him. As soon as he got back into civilized territory he pulled behind a convenience store and called Mikhail.

"I picked up a tail at the pizza place – two guys in a very fast car. But I took my usual route through the projects and lost them. Should I wait here for awhile? The pizza will get cold."

"Idiot! It's not the pizza I'm worried about. . . . No, come on back and get the van off the street as quickly as you can. Was it the cops after you?"

"I didn't see any flashing lights, so probably not. Where I took them they definitely would have used lights and sirens."

"Whoever it was might have some more cars trolling the neighborhood so let's get the van out of sight as soon as we can."

"Who was it that put the stolen license plates on, boss? Oh, that's right. It was me. I'm so smart."

"Yeah, yeah. Get yourself back here."

"I'm two minutes out. Have the garage open and I'll back in."

#

Ilya took some pizza up to Lorena. As he unlocked the door she was standing there with a lamp in her hand ready to hit him. He backed up a step. "If you hit me with that you'll ruin a perfectly good pizza dinner. If you do that, you'll go to bed hungry. But just in case you still want to try something, I have this."

She looked at the large knife in his hand and put the lamp back on the bedside table.

"That's better. Now here's a tray with three big pieces of every teenagers favorite food – pizza. We got you a vegetarian style – figured you couldn't handle a man's pizza."

"Just put it there on the bed . . . . and get out."

As he put the pizza down he looked her up and down slowly.

"I said get out of here, or I'll scream and get your boss up here."

"Go ahead. He would love to get another look at you."

Ilya smiled at her and backed out of the room.

When he was gone, she said out loud, "Oooo, that man gives me the creeps. I feel dirty just because he looked at me that way."

As she sat down to eat her pizza, she could hear the three men laughing and murmuring to each other. She thought _'They're talking about me, I bet. Making smutty remarks. I'll kill myself before I'll let one of them touch me. . . . Could I really do that? . . . Yes, I could if what they were going to do was inevitable. . . . But how? What kind of weapon do I have in here? Nothing.'_

She took the first bite of her pizza while she was thinking and almost choked. _'He ordered green chilies on this. I can hardly breathe.'_ That's when the coughing fit started – and triggered a thought in her mind. _'I can cough out the numbers! Space them out to match the license plate numbers. Yes!'_

She practiced the cough sequence.

"hack, hack . . . hack, hack . . . hack, hack, hack . . . hack, . . . - 2 2 3 1"

' _Good thing there wasn't an 8 or 9 in the number. Back to my supper. If I scrape off most of the chilies I should be able to get it down.'_

#

Dave had already arrived at Tom's house and was halfway through setting up the phone tap equipment when his cell phone rang. He looked at the display. "It's one of the search teams Tom. I'll put it on speaker phone."

"Dave, I think we just got a possible hit. We saw a van at a pizza place and turned around to get a better look. The driver drove sensibly for two blocks then turned right and floored it. We followed and got close enough to get a license number before he lost us in the middle of a gang neighborhood. I brought the other car over here to help us search the neighborhood but so far we've seen nothing. We got a snapshot of the driver's face. I sent the photo and plate number back to the office to see what they can do with it."

"Good work, guys. The driver might be just someone the police are looking for, but there's a chance it's the one we're looking for. We'll know more about him if we can get the face recognition database to ID him. Keep cruising the neighborhood and I'll let you know what we find out."

It took the experts back in the Philly office almost an hour to find something before they called Dave.

"The first thing we learned was just what we expected – the license plate was stolen in a Philadelphia suburb. The good news is that we identified the driver as Ilya Golub, a former agent for the Russian Federal Security Service – the successor to the infamous KGB. When he got caught embezzling funds, he came to the U.S. on a work visa, then disappeared – probably because the Russians have a price on his head."

"That information doesn't help us find him, but he's just the kind of person Alexei would hire. Keep digging into Golub's background. See if you can find a connection between him and Alexei."
Chapter 19

Last night Jack and Tom had come up with the story for Tom to tell the kidnappers that would delay them to provide more time for one of Dave's search strategies to locate her. Their best lead was the van, but without the correct license number that did them no good at all. Dave's team was going through everything they could find about the driver, but hadn't come up with anything helpful yet.

The call from the kidnappers came just after noon. Tom looked at Dave and waited for his nod to let him know the recording and tracing equipment were running.

"This is Tom Gutierrez. Who is this?"

"You know who it is Mr. Gutierrez. Is Preston ready to surrender to us?"

"Yes, but it will take him a few hours to get here."

"We don't have a few hours. Who knows what could happen to your lovely Lorena in that time. I'll hang up now."

"No, no! Wait!"

"Yes?"

"Jack lives in a cabin in the mountains of West Virginia. I couldn't get ahold of him until this morning. He's driving up here now."

"I'll call back at 2 p.m. – that will be the last call. If I don't speak with Jack Preston, you will never see Lorena again."

"Wait. I want to talk to my daughter. I have to know she's alright! . . . Hello? . . . Are you still there? . . ."

"He hung up, Tom. And he was on a cell phone, so tracing it wouldn't have worked, even if he did stay on the phone long enough."

"So we have nothing?"

"Well, a little something. I was able to track it back to a cell tower in Camden. But that covers an area for 30 miles around, so all we know is that she is in Camden, where we found her cell phone."

"But there has to be some way to – Wait! That's my cell phone. . . . Hello?"

"Hi Daddy, it's me. They will only let me talk for 15 seconds, so you just listen. I'm O.K. daddy. I'm alright. Please get me home. I'm not tied up and have a bedroom all to myself. Hack, hack . . . hack, hack . . . hack, hack, hack . . . hack . . . Sorry about the coughing. I love you Daddy. Bye."

"Did you get that Dave?"

"Yeah. Now let's figure out what we can learn from it. She told us she in a bedroom, so we know it's a home some where. She's a clever girl for working that into the 15 seconds. Did you hear any other messages she might be trying to tell us?"

"Her voice sounded normal except for that cough. I hope she's not sick."

"Yes, those coughs didn't sound good, Tom . . . . Hold on. They may have a pattern to them. It could be the numbers 2 2 3 and 1. Could that be an address? Where they are holding her maybe?"

"Maybe, but without a street name to go with it we'll never find it in time. There must be dozens of house numbers like that in Camden. We can't check them all."

"Let's listen to it again." The third time through Dave thought he had it. "Maybe if we take the first letter from every word it might spell the street name."

Tom wrote them all on a sheet of paper. "There are 36 first letters in all – way too long for a street name. And I can't see any useful words even if we split the letters up. It could be like a word scramble puzzle, but the number of combinations would be huge, and she wouldn't do anything that complicated. She may want us to only use certain letters, but which ones? Play it again Dave. . . ."

"Did you hear the way she emphasized the words OK, alright, and please. Maybe that's it. But what does O A P spell?"

"We have three letters followed by four numbers. What if we put them together? What does it look like?"

"I don't know. Maybe a license plate?"

"That's a good idea. Give me a few minutes to go through the car registration records for Pennsylvania and the surrounding states to see if I can get a match. . . ."

"I found it! It's a van that belongs to Mikhail Lebedev who lives on a street named Washington Place in Camden. I'll send the two cars already in Camden to check it out."

After he called the two teams he heard from his research group back in the office. They found a short list of known associates of Ilya Golub and read them off to Dave.

"Stop on that one. Did you say Mikhail Lebedev?"

"Yes sir."

"That's him! We have his address from the van license and my men are on the way now."

Tom couldn't hide his excitement. "Yessss! Let's go! Tell your men to hold off until we get there."

#

They had a total of six men – two from each surveillance team plus Dave and Tom. Dave printed out a street map of the neighborhood before they left; Tom was studying it now. "They have an alley running behind the houses on that street. Why don't we send two of your men in through the back yard to keep them from escaping out the back, have two others hidden beside the front door, and you go up and knock on the door."

"Don't you want to join me?"

"No, wherever they found my address, there were probably photos of me there. If they see me, they might start shooting. I'll stay here in the car until you give me the all clear."

"Sounds like a plan, Tom."

They met the other four men in a parking lot a block from Lebedev's home and went over Tom's plan, then broke up to take their places. Dave had a clipboard in the back seat and decided to pretend he was canvassing the neighborhood with questions about their preferences in political candidates. That might get him into the house before they sprang the trap.

#

"Mikhail, someone is ringing the door bell."

"Get it yourself. I'm upstairs."

"I can't, I'm making us some lunch."

"I'll get it then."

As soon as the door opened Dave said with a smiling face, "Hello. I'm from the Winston for President Committee. A group of us are going through the neighborhood with a questionaire about your preferences in a Presidential candidate. Do you have a few minutes to speak with me?"

"No, I don't. You're interrupting a hockey game on TV."

"It won't take more than five minutes and the survey will be completely anonymous."

"I said No. Now go away."

Dave got more insistent. "Please, sir. I get paid for every interview I get, and I only have fourteen so far. I was fired from my job last month and this is my only income."

Mikhail glanced at the television and saw that it was a commercial break between periods. "O.K., but make it quick. I want you out of here when the second period starts."

Dave said "Thank you, sir." As he stepped through the door he looked around to find the stairs to the other floors. Tom got on the radio to the others. "Dave's inside the house. Go, go, go!"

Dave appeared to be admiring the house as he walked around behind Mikhail. As soon as he heard the back door crash open he grabbed him around the neck in a choke hold, but Mikhail twisted out of it and came up with gun in his hand. The other two men came in the front door and shot Mikhail as he was raising his gun to shoot. Dave turned and headed up the stairs to check the bedrooms. There was no one on the second floor, so he headed up to the third. Just as he got to the landing a door opened. Ilya had Lorena in his grip and a gun pointed at Dave. "Back off. Drop your gun or I will kill the girl."

"You don't want to that, Ilya, because if you shoot her, my men kill you – very slowly and painfully."

Ilya's answer was a bullet next to Dave's foot. "I mean it. Tell your men to throw their weapons on the floor and leave by the back door."

Dave yelled the instructions to his men and then backed down the stairs. Ilya held Lorena in front of him as a shield, so there was nothing they could do. He pulled Lorena through the door to the garage and slammed and locked the door.

"Get in the car, now!"

Lorena answered defiantly, "No, I won't," but when Ilya pistol whipped her across the cheek she changed her mind. He jumped into the driver's seat, started the van, and burst through the garage door with his foot on the gas. As soon as he reached the street he turned right and accelerated down the street.

When Tom saw the van emerge from the garage he slid behind the driver's seat and took off after it. The van had the advantage of a head start but with the powerful engine in Dave's Mercedes, the gap was closing quickly. When the van tried to make the next turn Ilya was going too fast and it slid sideways into a light pole. Tom stopped and got out of his car with his gun drawn. He saw Ilya standing behind Lorena with a gun to her head. As Tom raised his gun Ilya shouted "Drop your gun or I'll kill your daughter."

Tom kept his gun aimed at Ilya's head. Ilya said "You know that even if you shoot me my finger reflex will twitch and kill her. So drop it."

Tom let out his breath, held it, and pulled the trigger. Ilya dropped like a rock with a bullet between the eyes.

Lorena stood in shock for a few seconds, then ran to Tom's arms. She was crying and laughing at the same time, her mind full of confused emotions. Tom just hugged her to him until she stopped trembling. By that time Dave and the others reached them.

"What happened here, Tom?"

Lorena answered, full of excitement. "That man had a gun to my head and said if Daddy shot him his finger would twitch and shoot me. I heard Daddy's gun go off and thought I was dead. I could have been killed! . . . Why did you do that, daddy?"

"Because I knew something he didn't. If you shoot someone between the eyes there is no muscle reflex."

Dave cut in, "We need to get out of here before someone drives by. We sanitized the house so there was no evidence of Lorena's presence, and we called the police with Mikhail's phone to report shots fired. When they ID his body maybe they will connect him with Alexei. Tom, give me your gun. We have an acid bath back at the office that will dissolve a gun in 30 minutes. You and Lorena go home. I'll take their cell phones for my electronics geek to examine. Maybe there will be some useful information in them.

#

As they drove back to the house Tom called Mary and told her it was all over and that Lorena was safe and unharmed. She was waiting in the driveway when they drove up and held her arms out to Lorena, who gave her a brief hug and went up to her room. "What's gotten in to her, Tom."

"She's had a rough couple of days and just needs some time alone to sort through it. Give her some time."

"I will not! I'm going up there right now and find out what those awful men did to her."

Jack knew better than to try to stop her. "Look, I have to go back to the office for a couple of hours to finish things up. We'll talk when I get back."

It took Tom longer than he expected at work. When he pulled up in the driveway he saw that Mary's car was gone. He hurried into the house calling for her and the girls, but no one was home. As he came back into the kitchen he saw a note on the table.

I have had all I can take, Tom. You go on dangerous missions to God knows where while I stay at home wondering if you're still alive. Now this kidnapping, where you almost killed Lorena. I have taken the girls and gone to my brother's place in Harrisburg to live. I will be filing for divorce as soon as I can get the papers drawn up. If you try to stop me I will tell the police that you were behind the kidnapping to try to get her away from me.

Tom was shocked. Mary was a real burden to be married to, but he never thought she would leave. And the girls – they were the only thing that made living with Mary bearable. Tom thought it over. _'What about her threat? Could she make the police believe that I had Lorena kidnapped? We hadn't reported it to the police, and that will look suspicious to them. I can't tell them what really happened, and if they start questioning Lorena she'll have to tell them about how I killed Ilya. That could send me to prison! So Mary has me in a position where I can't fight the divorce. I'll give her a few days to calm down then give her a call.'_
Chapter 20

Alexei was getting worried. Mikhail should have wrapped thing up hours ago and taken care of Preston. He tried calling both Alexei and Ilya but they weren't answering their phones. _'I have to report to Winston in the morning about this, and if I don't have answers he'll ream me a new one. I'll try calling Mikhail again. . . . Ah, he answered.'_

"Tell me what's going on Mikhail. You should have contacted me hours ago."

After several seconds of silence someone spoke. It wasn't Mikhail; it was an electronically disguised voice. "The game is over. Check the Camden Herald online news and you will see what happens when you try to hurt our people."

"Who is this!"

"Your worst enemy, Alexei. Goodbye."

Alexei turned to his laptop and Googled the Philadelphia News. The top story was about two shooting victims. One was shot in a house and the other in the street a few blocks away. He watched as an on-the-scene reporter gave some details.

" _. . . the second body was found inside a home at 1634 Liberty Street. Neither of the shooting victims have been identified yet, according to a police spokesman. When asked if any suspects have been identified he said he couldn't comment on that this early in the case. The house is in the Brentwood neighborhood, adjacent to C_ _amden's Whitman Park area, one of the highest crime areas of the city."_

Alexei wrote down the street address, turned to his file drawer, and hurriedly dug through the receipts Mikhail had submitted for reimbursement. When he pulled out the house rental bill he let his held breath out. That was the house Mikhail rented for the kidnapping. Somehow Preston's team had killed both of them. Alexei vowed to get even somehow. And not just with Preston himself but with Gutierrez too. He had a hand in the shootings for sure. He picked up the phone and dialed one of the few operatives he had left. He needed someone to help him come up with plan.

Twenty minutes later there was a knock at his door. "Come in! I am glad you made it here so quickly. One of Preston's men, probably Tom Gutierrez, killed two of my men in Philadelphia this afternoon."

"No! Who?"

"Mikhail and Ilya."

"I was close to Mikhail, but that Ilya was a creep. What happened?"

Alexei summarized their kidnapping mission and what little he knew about the shootings.

"I hope you're planning to go after Preston for this. Tell me where he is and I'll go take care of him for you."

"There is a problem with that. We don't know where Preston is. He and his team are totally off the grid – all except Gutierrez. He just started a new Job in a detective agency, which is how Feliks located him. He's the only one we can get to right now."

"I think I have a way to Preston through Gutierrez. Here's what I have in mind . . ."

After they were finished talking Alexei handed over $10,000 in cash and said, "Don't fail me on this one."

"Have I ever failed you, Alexei?"

#

Tom was back at work in a staff meeting with Dave and his group, but he couldn't focus. Dave was briefing the group on the kidnapping mission outcome.

". . . so when this Alexei called, I turned on the voice scrambler and told him to check the news from Camden. I wish I could have seen his face when he found out that the two kidnappers had paid for their crime. How does that make you feel Tom? . . . Tom? Are you with us."

"Oh, I'm sorry Dave my mind was somewhere else. What were you saying?"

"Nothing important. We're done here everyone. Tom, you stay."

"You've been really distracted for the past few days. Is anything going on?"

Tom wrestled with his thoughts for a few minutes, but Dave was patient.

"I guess I need to talk to someone about it. Mary took the kids and left town. She's filing for divorce."

"Oh no. I'm sorry to hear that. Was it the kidnapping, or has this been brewing for awhile."

"The kidnapping was the final straw, I guess. We have both been unhappy with our relationship for a long time. If it wasn't for the girls, we would have split up long ago."

"Have you talked to her since she left?"

"I called a couple times but she won't answer. I called the girls' cell phones but Mary had them disconnected. I get the 'no longer in service' message when I call."

"Are you going to fight the divorce? Or fight for joint custody?"

"I can't do that. She said she would go to the police about the kidnapping and tell them I was behind it. That would bring out the shootings last week and get us all in deep legal trouble."

"I see what you mean. Look Tom, why don't you take a couple of weeks off – with pay – to sort through all that you have been through. You're not very productive in the state you're in now."

"I appreciate that, Dave. I'll take some files home to work on."

"No, I won't let you do that. Go home now and get some rest."

"Thanks Dave."

#

Jack and Lynn were enjoying a quiet evening when Dave called. "Hi Dave. I want to congratulate you and your men for the way you took care of the kidnapping. Tom and Mary must be glad to have Lorena back safe and sound."

"That's what I wanted to talk about. Mary left with the kids and wants a divorce. Tom is devastated of course. I gave him a couple weeks off to work through his emotions. I'm afraid he will go into a depression. I'll check up on him now and then to see how he's doing."

Lynn could tell it was something serious. "What is it Jack?"

"It's Dave. Tom's wife took the kids and left him."

"Oh no. That's so sad."

"Thanks for letting us know, Dave. If things get too bad for Tom let me know and we'll fly out there to be with him."

"Sure thing, Jack. How is the hunt for something to nail Winston with coming?"

"Slowly, but we're making progress. We can find lots of shady deals he's been involved in but none of them bad enough to get him impeached."

"Well, keep me posted."

"One more thing, Dave. Remember the two plastic bottles I found in Norton's apartment?"

"Yes, I remember. You sent them to me for . . . . Ooops. Sorry Jack. With everything that has been going on I forgot to get back to you on that. Here's what we found. One bottle contained rohypnol, the date rape drug, and was probably used to knock Jim out. We couldn't identify the other drug. But we lifted finger prints from both of the bottles and found they belonged to Zarah Savvin, a former Russian agent. She must be the one who walked in on you just before you left Jim's apartment."

"Lynn and I will do some research on her background."

#

Jack and Lynn sat with their own thoughts for a bit. "I guess having her daughter kidnapped was just too much for her, Jack. I was thinking how I would react to that – in my case having my granddaughter taken – and I can't imagine how I would react."

"You would grab some guns and go after them, and Lord help them if you found them."

"I think you're right about that. Just thinking about it makes me angry. I would do unspeakable things to them. Make them beg for me to kill them."

"Remind me never to get on your bad side, dear."

"There's no way that could happen, Jack. I love you so much that I can't imagine life without you."

"Just how much do you love me. And none of that 'to the moon and back' stuff."

"I . . . I just can't describe it to you. . . . But I can show you. Meet me under the covers in 15 minutes," she said with a mischievous grin.
Chapter 21

Winston was relaxing in his penthouse apartment with a brandy snifter in his hand. He hadn't had many moments like this since he started campaigning. He hated campaigning – all the sweaty people crowding around him, reaching out to touch him like he was Jesus or something, waving signs in his face. If he wasn't so set on getting into the White House he would stay up here in the Winston Securities tower forever. Right now he was contemplating a problem his campaign manager brought up – his lack of a first lady. He had never been married and didn't want to start now, but he might not get elected without at least a fiancee on his arm. The prospective first lady was important to the voters, especially the women. So he was going over a mental list of all the women socialites he knew well. It was only a handful, and he couldn't picture any of them in the White House. His campaign manager, Peter Drake, had a team working on a new list. Maybe they could come up with someone.

He had the TV on in the background but wasn't paying attention – until he heard his name. He turned up the volume and watched wide eyed as a commercial attacked him for sexual misconduct. A young woman whose face was blanked out told a tale of how Winston raped her in his office last year. She included details that painted a picture of violent sex and humiliation. The ad ended with the words _Don't Let George Winston Rape America!_

Winston flew into a rage, kicking furniture, throwing anything he within reach against the wall. He had settled down somewhat 15 minutes later when his campaign manager called. "Charles, are you watching Channel 15 news? They just ran the worst attack ad I've ever seen."

"I know. I watched it. Whose behind this?"

"I have my people working on it now. The ad was credited to a group that calls themselves The Committee to Overthrow Winston. I should have something on them tomorrow morning."

"Is Channel 15 going to keep running it?"

"We'll have to wait and see."

"Call the station. Tell them if they run it again I'll buy the station and fire everybody."

"Yes sir. I'll see what I can do."

#

Winston came into the office the next morning and found several phone messages and emails about the ad – none of them favorable. One was from a major customer of Winston Securities who was canceling their account. His anger boiled over again. He wanted to attack whoever was behind the commercial – if he knew who it was. He called Peter Drake.

"Peter, I want you over here ASAP to talk about the attack ad Channel 15 ran."

"I'm in the middle of a meeting with my staff discussing strategies to minimize the damage to your run for President."

"Channel 15 only covers the Atlanta area, so the damage will be localized as long as the networks don't make it a news story. Have they gotten wind of it yet?"

"Not yet, sir, but they will soon. The ad ran on local stations in several major cities, not just the Atlanta station. We're still trying to find out how many stations were involved, but a lot of potential voters saw it."

"I want a court injunction preventing any of them from running it again."

"That process will take a few days, especially since we're dealing with local judges all over the country, but I'll get started on that."

"You stay with that for now. Let's meet first thing in the morning to come up with a strategy for dealing with this slander."

"Yes sir. I'll know a lot more by then."

Winston kept his eye on the network news all day to see if they were running the story yet. He switched back to Channel 15 to catch the noon news, but there was no mention of it. Peter must have threatened them with a lawsuit if they reported it. He was about to switch back to the networks when he saw the next attack ad. This one was even worse than the first in terms of impact on voters. It claimed that Winston himself had helped fund the 9/11 attack that took the two world trade center towers down. It showed video of him meeting with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind who planned the attacks for Osama Bin Laden. Winston spoke to himself, "This is preposterous. I have never met that man. The video must be staged to make it look like me shaking hands with Sheikh Mohammed. I hope this ad hasn't been run all over the country."

He called Drake again. "Peter. Did you see the ad that just ran on Channel 15?"

"No, I wasn't watching. But one of my staff caught it on a DVR and replayed it for me. This is terrible, Charles. . . . It's not true is it?"

"Of course not you idiot! Who is doing this to me?"

"We still don't know. The political action committee shown in the ad apparently doesn't exist, so we have nowhere to go on that. If we follow the money – how these ads were paid for – we might turn up something. An insider at Channel 15 told me that they received the ad on a computer disc along with a cashier's check for $5,000 – enough to fund five 30-second time slots. We checked with the bank that issued the check and found that it was paid for out of a new account registered to someone with a Chinese name I can't pronounce. He opened the account with cash, so unless we can locate the Chinaman, that path is a dead end. My team checked with several of the other stations and the story was the same, except there was a different Chinese name for each account. Clearly there is some kind of conspiracy behind this involving Chinese surnamed men to open the accounts. I have a list of the names used for each account, so I'll have my team try to locate them."

"Have an answer for me when we meet tomorrow morning, Peter."

Winston stayed in his office to watch the 6 p.m. Channel 15 news to see if they would run one the ads again. This time they ran a new attack ad that interviewed several widows and poor people about how Winston's bank foreclosed on their mortgages and had them evicted. Winston slammed his fist on the desk and yelled a series of unprintable curses.

#

Charles Winston, Peter Drake, and two of Peter's campaign staff were meeting in Winston's conference room. Drake's team had investigated the men who opened the bank accounts and found nothing. It was like they didn't even exist.

"These men are clearly fictitious – created identities with enough credentials to open a bank account. As for who is behind them, none of the ads are connected with any of your opposing candidates. It's not likely to be a Republican because you have already beaten them and have the nomination sewed up. The most obvious person at this point would be the Democrat candidate, Clint Hill. Using Chinese people to open the accounts could just be a smokescreen."

Winston changed the subject. "What do the polling numbers look like, Peter?"

"In all the cities that ran the ads your popularity is dropping fast. If we don't devise a counter strategy very soon you won't have the votes to beat Hill in the general election."

"O.K. Let's talk about strategy. What are the possible courses of action can we take?"

"We see only two. The first move, and we have to do that today in time to make the 6 p.m. news programs, is to have a press conference in which you deny everything the ads are claiming. And you have to do that convincingly. The second approach that we can start working on today is to run our own ads blaming the attacks on Hill. We will paint him as a dirty rotten scoundrel who knows he is beaten and set up the attack ads in desperation. Other than that, I don't know what we can do.'

"How about the network news. Surely they have picked up on this by now."

"They have and all of them are putting together their coverage as we speak. I expect to see the story on all the networks within the hour."

#

Bao Cheong was editing a document to the People's Banking Authority when there was a knock at his door. "Yes?"

"It is Zhang Kai. Sorry to interrupt Minister Cheong, but there is something on the television networks in America that you will want to see."

Bao turned on the big screen TV in his office and turned it to the Fox News Network. They were just introducing the breaking news story about Presidential candidate Charles Winston.

"The attack ads against Winston have been running on local television channels throughout the nation. Here is what they are showing."

A five second excerpt from each of the ads appeared on the screen.

"The ads were placed on dozens of local stations, but none have appeared on the national networks so far. The apparent source of the vicious attack ads is the Committee to Overthrow Winston. Fox News will have more information on that organization in the next hour. Back to you, Megan."

Cheong didn't smile often, especially in the presence of others, but he couldn't help smiling at this news.

"Kai, your plan to run these ads only on local television stations has worked out better than we planned. The networks would have been hesitant to run the ads, but the local stations have no problem accepting our money. Now we are getting better network coverage than we could have purchased at no cost. Well done, Kai."

"Thank you for your kind words, Minister Cheong."

"When will the other ads be televised?"

"Another new ad will be run tonight during the evening news. The current three ads will continue to run for two more days. Then we will be silent for two weeks to let the news coverage subside. At that time we will release five new ads, each one portraying Winston in increasingly bad activities. As the November election draws near we will run another set of new ones – if he hasn't dropped out of the race by then."

"Very well. You may leave now."

Kai replied "Yes, Minister Cheong" as he backed out of the room with his head bowed.

#

After Lynn and Jack had seen the first ad on Denver's Channel 8 noon news, he set the DVR to record the morning, noon, and evening news so they wouldn't miss it if another Winston attack ad ran. He and Lynn had replayed them several times looking for signs that the video images had been tampered with, but they found nothing. Now they were watching the Fox Evening News coverage.

Lynn asked "Who is the Committee to Overthrow Winston? That spells COW, by the way. I wonder if that's significant?"

"I spent the afternoon trying to find out about them, but there is nothing online. I even hacked into the Federal Election Commission records, where all PACs are required to register, and they're not listed. I might be able to find them in a couple of days of serious hacking, but for now they're a mystery. I'll let the Fox News researchers do the work for me."

"Look. The DVR light is on for the local news. Switch over to that to see if the ads will run again."

They watched the new attack ad as it showed an interview with a peroxide-blonde woman in too-tight clothes telling how she got pregnant after a wild night in Winston's penthouse. After the baby was born Winston refused to pay support. As the woman bounced a chubby baby on her lap the correspondent asked the question that was on everyone's mind:

"Are you certain that Winston is the father of your child?"

"Yes, sir. I even paid to have a paternity test done and showed him the results, but he had me thrown out of his office."

"So how do you support yourself and the child?"

"I don't have no one to look after Chucky, so I can't work. All I get is welfare and food stamps. I can't even go to college to study up on something to improve myself."

The ad ended with a large script across the screen:

DO YOU WANT A MAN LIKE GEORGE WINSTON RUNNING THIS COUNTRY?

Jack commented, "Each ad seems worse that the one before. I wonder when they'll show one of Winston burying his mother alive?"

"So you think these ads are fake? With fabricated lies?"

"Yes, I do. Between us and Rick and Harriet we have found almost every record there is of Winston's past, and we've seen none of this. These are well-produced commercials using actors to make Winston look like a terrible person – not that he isn't – but not in the ways shown in the ads. These are about actions the American voters will find shocking and vile – things that will keep them from the polls, or turn to Clint Hill as the least worse for the country."
Chapter 22

Tom didn't care – about anything. He didn't care if he got out of bed in the morning. He didn't care what he ate, or even if he ate. He had no interest in going back to work again, or talking to Dave or Jack when his phone rang. He knew he was depressed, but he didn't care about that either. He had no motivation to do anything, except going down to the neighborhood bar and drinking. He had been doing that for several days now. He thought he might be turning into an alcoholic, but he didn't care. The liquor helped keep the thoughts of his family out of his head. When he wasn't drunk he felt unbearable emotional pain.

Before it got this bad he had planned to visit the girls. Mary wouldn't let him in, but maybe he could wait for them where the school bus let them off a block from where they were living. But then someone came to the door and served him with a restraining order denying him access to Lorena and Claudia. Once, he parked down the block from the bus stop just to get a glimpse of them, but it left him even more depressed.

Tonight nothing changed. He was sitting at the bar working on his second scotch on the rocks, watching the news to see if any more of the anti-Winston ads had appeared. He barely noticed the woman who just sat down at the bar two stools down. Tom glanced at her as the bartender set a bottle of Perrier and a glass with ice in front of her, then he turned back to his glass. "Fix me another one, Scotty."

"Sure thing Mr. Gutierrez."

Tom and the woman sat silently for a few minutes before she looked at him. "You look like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders."

Jacks looked her up and down then looked back at his drink. When he didn't respond she went back to sipping her Perrier.

As he sat there he thought about what he saw _. 'Attractive, but very little makeup. Casually dressed in slacks, and a sweater that was too loose to reveal her shape. A wedding ring, but no other jewelry. Nice auburn hair held loosely behind her neck with a black ribbon. Maybe a lonely housewife? Should I talk to her? There's no harm in that.'_

"It feels like that sometimes."

"Feels like what?"

"Like there's a vampire inside of me sucking out all my motivation and energy."

"What is it that has you so down?"

"Life."

"So you come here to drink your troubles away? Is it working?"

"Not really. But since my wife left it gets really lonely in the big house. I come down here to get away, and to pay so much for my liquor that I can't afford to get too drunk."

"Did she have an affair, run off with another man? You are still wearing a wedding ring, so you're either carrying a torch for her or hoping that maybe . . ."

"I'm certainly not carrying a torch for her, but part of me hopes she will come back – she has the kids with her – but the other part that remembers how miserable I've been for the past 15 years kind of wishes she won't."

"Will she divorce you?"

"She shouldn't because we're Catholic, but she's talking to a lawyer."

"Are you good Catholics, with a large family?"

"No we just have two girls in their teens. After the second one was born, she changed her method of birth control . . . to abstinence."

"Oh, that must be hard on you. Do you have a mistress? Someone that you love perhaps?"

"No. I made a vow to her before we were married that I would never be unfaithful, and I've kept it spite of a few temptations. . . . But enough about me. Why are you sitting alone at a bar and why are you drinking soda water – expensive soda water – but it still, just soda water?"

"I . . . I have a drinking problem. Six months ago I joined AA and haven't had a drink since."

"You must have a lot of inner strength to sit in a bar with drinkers all around and not give in to the urge."

"Actually it strengthens my resolve. To come here and not drink is a confidence builder."

"So that's why you come here then?"

"That, and for conversation. My husband was killed in a car accident last year and, like you, I can't stay in that empty house every night."

Tom thought, _'Now I can see where she's going – she's trying to pick me up._ '

"So you come to talk to the men?"

"Men, women, the bartender. He's a great talker. Lots of old war stories. And that's all I'm looking for. Good conversation."

Tom smiled at her, downed his drink, and got up from his bar stool.

He asked, "Will you be here tomorrow night?"

"No, I limit it to Wednesdays and Saturdays."

"Maybe I'll see you next time."

"Maybe"

#

Both Lynn and Jack spent the day digging up all they could about Zarah Savvin, and it was scary. She was one of Russia's best assassins until she disappeared. Experts speculate she may have been sent to the U.S. as a sleeper agent – keeping a low profile and waiting for her Russian handler to give her another mission. The FBI and CIA both have a file on her, but have no idea of her whereabouts. The FBI linked her to four murders, and has named her the Praying Mantis Killer. She meets men in bars, dates them for a couple of weeks, makes love to them, then kills them immediately afterward. They found her DNA on all four victims.

"Jack, I've been looking at the police files on the four victims trying to find some common thread. Maybe she doesn't pick them at random – maybe the victims were men she was ordered to assassinate, and chose this method to kill them. If that's true she might have been abused in the past and she's getting even every time she kills."

"So if they were selected for assassination there must be some reason – a connection among them. What do you have on the victims so far?"

"Nothing political. They were businessmen; top-level executives in the finance world. They all worked for different companies – I have a list here. But other than that I can't find a connection."

"Send the list of companies to Rick and see what he can make of it. Maybe the companies are connected. Are you ready for a glass of wine and some snuggling on the couch?"

"You pour the wine and I'll get this email off to Rick"

As they sat spoon fashion on the couch watching a late-season snowstorm through the great room window Jack sighed and said, "There is nothing more peaceful and relaxing than this time we spend together before dinner. I keep wondering when I'll wake up from this dream."

Lynn reached over and pinched him on the arm. "Did you feel that?"

"Yeah, and it hurt."

"That proves you're not dreaming. Let me know anytime that kind of thinking returns and I give you a refresher lesson."

"What's for dinner?"

"How about something delicious out of the freezer? I'll check to see what's in there."

As Jack sat on the couch Lynn's cell phone rang. "I'll get it for you. Hello?"

"Jack. Rick here. These companies on Lynn's list are all connected with Winston Securities. One is a direct subsidiary and the other three are indirectly held by one of Winston's holding companies. I found all of these companies when I was doing the financial analysis of Winston's empire. Where did you get your list?"

"They were the employers of four murder victims we found out about. We've been looking for some kind of connection between them, and it looks like you found it for us. This points to involvement by Winston. If we can get some solid evidence connecting him with the murders we will have what we need to get him impeached, or at least arrested."

"Wow, what luck. Send me the victims names and I'll see what they were involved in at their companies."

"You'll have it in five minutes, Rick. Tell Harriet we send our love."

#

Rick called back the next morning to report that the four victims had something else in common. They each were responsible for major business failures that cost their companies million of dollars. In each case, they were murdered within two to three months after their financial losses were discovered.

"That's very interesting, Rick. It could be just a coincidence, but I would bet a ton of money that Winston ordered their deaths, just like he did for Jim Norton. That woman living next door to Jim could be this Zarah woman sent by Winston to kill him. She might even be part of Alexei Borsilov's crew, which would definitely link her and her murder victims to Winston."

"So how can we use this to get rid of Winston?" Lynn asked.

Rick answered, "I don't know. Like so much we have on him, there's very little hard evidence. But if Zarah should get arrested, she might exchange what she knows about Winston for a lighter sentence"

"Yeah. Like they could give her only three life sentences instead of the four she deserves. That's not enough to get her to flip on Winston. I don't see how the legal system could be any help. . . . Any thoughts, Jack?"

"Well, maybe. If she has a laptop maybe there's some incriminating evidence on it. So if we could get her computer, we might have something solid to go on."

"We don't know where she is, so how can we get her computer?"

"As usual, Lynn shoots me down with an obvious truth that I didn't think of. Give me a break, dear. With my A.D.D. a lot of half-baked ideas come out of my mouth before my forebrain has a chance to review it."

Harriet, who was on the speaker phone with Rick, spoke up. "We may not know where Zarah is, but we do know where Winston is. Why don't we steal the information from his personal computer? That should be a bonanza of incriminating information on the hard drive. Can you get to his computer by hacking the Winston Securities network?"

"That's a good thought, Harriet, except Jim Norton told me that Winston never connects his laptop to the network, and never lets it out of his sight. So the only way we could get his hard drive data is to get our hands on his laptop for a few minutes. Any thoughts about how we could do that? . . . Let's think about it until tomorrow. I'll set up a video conference first thing in the morning and bring Dave and Tom in on it. Good work, as usual, Rick. We'll meet online at 9 a.m."
Chapter 23

Tom slept all day and woke up with a terrible hangover headache. He hadn't slept the previous three days, so last night he brought home a bottle of Johnnie Walker and drank until he passed out. After popping four Motrin he dragged himself into the shower and ran cold water over his head. It didn't help the headache but it did wash away his grogginess. He dried off and stood in front of his closet trying to make the momentous decision of what to put on. With depression even the smallest decision was difficult to make. A thought was nagging him – something about what he should wear – but he couldn't bring it out. Why would it affect what he should wear? Was he going somewhere tonight? That's it. It was Wednesday night and he was hoping to meet the woman at the bar – what was her name? He struggled to remember. Nope, nothing there. But he did remember that he wanted to dress a little nicer, so he chose a light navy sweater and tan Dockers.

He got to the bar a little early so she could choose to sit beside him – or not – when she came – if she came. He ordered his usual from Scotty and watched the TV above the bar. The big story was the anti-Winston commercials. There hadn't been any new ones, but the original three were still being run on local stations. There was still no information about the PAC that apparently financed the ads, other than the fact that they weren't registered, which meant that it wasn't a legitimate PAC. Tom's mind drifted to what Jack and the others were trying to do, and he wondered if they were behind the ads. But this approach was underhanded and he didn't think Jack would go there. As he thought, a pleasant smell reached his nose – perfume. He turned around and there she was standing right behind him. "I wondered when you would come out of your reverie and notice me. May I sit beside you?"

"Yes, go ahead." ' _What a stupid thing to say. Not very smooth. Why do I care if I'm smooth? Am I trying to impress her? Why do I want to impress her?'_

"You're looking a little more . . . fresh today. Did you have a good day with your depression?"

He answered with a line from an old John Denver song. "Some days are diamonds, some days are stones."

"Is that true?"

"Not really. They're pretty much all stones. Actually I spent the day sleeping off last night's drinking binge. But at least I got some sleep for a change. How are things with you?"

"I spent today shopping for clothes. I needed some new things – jeans, a nice blouse, some new silk pajamas, and some feminine intimates. It's been a long time since I've done that. New clothes lift my mood. I'm wearing the new jeans and blouse – do you like them?"

"Yes, you look very nice in them. But you would look nice in anything you wore." ' _I wonder if she's wearing her new intimates underneath?'_

"You're just trying to flatter me."

"Is it working?"

"Yes, it is. A woman likes to be admired. . . . Have you heard from your wife?"

"Not a word. But that's probably a good thing."

"It must be hard for you – living alone after all those years together. Sleeping alone with no one snuggling up to you."

"It's hard to snuggle when you're sleeping in separate bedrooms. That was her way of enforcing the abstinence rule."

"Oh, that's a terrible way to treat a husband. My husband and I snuggled every night, sometimes spoon fashion and some times face to face. . . . Oh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be talking like that. It might cause you painful thoughts."

"No, but it does stir my imagination."

She laughed. "And just what are you imagining?"

"Things I haven't imagined since I was a teenager."

"That sounds naughty. Are you having naughty thoughts about me?"

"I plead the fifth amendment on that."

That brought a big smile to her. She paused, then went on with the conversation. It was going exactly where she wanted it to go.

"Since my husband died my bed has been empty – except for me of course. I thought about starting a relationship to ease my . . . frustration. But I haven't met any men that light my fire as they say."

Tom didn't know what to say. _'She's trying her best to light my fire, and it's working. If she asked would I go to bed with her, could I? I know it would be wrong, but I'm tempted. Maybe to get back at Mary?'_

She looked in his eyes and blushed. "What I'm trying to say here is . . . I would like to have you in my bed tonight, Tom."

"Why me?"

"Because you are lighting my fire. My apartment is just a few blocks from here. Would you like to come there with me?"

Tom just sat there, wrestling with his conscience while his own fire heated up. In the end, the fire won. "Yes, I'd like that. But if I'm going to sleep with you, I should at least know your name."

"I'm Zarah, like Sarah with a Z."

"Pleased to meet you Zarah with a Z."

#

As Zarah opened the door to her apartment, Tom's conscience tried to regain control. But his libido beat it back. _'There's nothing wrong with what I'm doing. Mary and I are all but divorced, and she never took care of my needs anyway. And it's only this once. I won't let it turn into a relationship. Just one and done.'_

"Have a seat on the couch, Tom. I'll fix you a drink then slip into something more comfortable. "

She handed him a scotch over ice and disappeared into the bedroom.

As he sat with his drink he realized that something was tugging at his mind – some thought trying to surface. But he couldn't bring it out. _'Something isn't right here but I can't see what it is. Maybe it will come to me later.'_ He lifted the glass to take his first sip and froze. _'She said she quit drinking, so why does she have liquor in the house? . . . And why is it scotch? Few people have his taste for scotch, but she just happens to have some on hand. She must have just bought it hoping I would come tonight.'_ He raised the glass again, but the itching in his mind was still there. _'There must be something more than this that's bothering me. What is it? . . . Come on, Tom, think. . . . My name! I never told her my name, but she called me Tom. This whole thing is a set up. But for what?'_ This time he had the glass to his lips before he stopped himself. _'Jim Norton! Jack said that Jim brought a woman to his apartment and she put something in his drink that knocked him out! She's trying the same thing on me.'_

"I'll be there in a minute. I think you will like what I'm wearing."

' _Think quick. What should I do? Leave? But then I won't find out who is behind this. If she isn't carrying a weapon I can run out of here if I need to._ ' Tom quietly got up and poured half of his drink down the kitchen drain. Just as he settled back on the couch Zarah came out of the bedroom, wearing an almost see-through negligee. _'She definitely doesn't have a weapon hidden in that gown,'_ he thought.

"What do you think of my outfit?"

"Is that one of the feminine intimates you bought today?"

"Of course. I don't keep this sort of thing hanging in my closet. I bought this especially for you."

"You were sure I would come home with you then?"

"Well, I was hoping you would. If not tonight then maybe another time."

"I noticed you have a bottle of scotch. Did you buy that just for me too?

"Yes, I did. Did I get the right kind? I don't know much about scotch."

"You bought Glenlivet single malt, one of the best there is. It's pretty high-priced stuff."

"I asked the liquor store clerk for the best he had on the shelf, and that's what I got."

"Have you ever tried scotch?"

"No, gin was my drug of choice."

Tom said as he held out his glass, "Then you have got to try this. It's really smooth."

"No. I don't want to start drinking again."

"Try just one little sip. I won't let you have any more. Here . . ."

"I said no! I don't want to taste it." ' _He knows. Somehow he knows that I drugged his drink. But he drank half of it. Why isn't he passing out?'_

"Is this the same kind of drink that you gave Jim Norton before you killed him, Zarah?"

' _Time to change tactics.'_ Zarah slid her hand down between the cushions of the couch and brought it up with a small pistol aimed at Tom's head. "When did you figure it out? Have you known all along?"

Tom thought about how to play this. "Of course. Jack Preston knew you would be coming for me so we set up a trap, sort of a reverse 'honey trap' as we say in the spy business. Jack followed us back here and is waiting in the parking lot with some or his men. He has me wired and hears everything we say. He's waiting for the word from me to bust in your front door."

"You're lying! I checked to make sure that no one was tailing us."

Tom was spinning the tale as he went. He was very good at that. "He didn't have to follow closely. He put a GPS bug on your car while you were seducing me in the bar. Now give me the gun and Jack and I will decide what to do with you. We will let you live, although in what physical condition we haven't decided."

Tom watched her closely as he said into a pretend microphone, "Come on in, Jack. She's ready to give up." She turned her head toward the door – just what Tom was hoping for. He lunged toward her and grabbed her gun arm as he twisted his body. Her arm twisted with him. She screamed and dropped the gun. Tom kept twisting until he heard her forearm bones crack, then picked up the gun and stepped away from her. She was still screaming until he judo-chopped her larynx. Then all she could do was gurgle and croak.

Tom moved quickly before Zarah could recover. He yanked the rope from the living room drapes, pushed her back on the couch, and tied her arms and legs. She had tears in her eyes from the pain, but he could see hatred behind those tears. He thought _'If I let her go she will keep after me until I'm dead. What can I do with her? I need to question her but she can't talk. Maybe there is something useful here in the apartment.'_

Tom picked her up and sat her on a kitchen chair. He wanted to tie her to the chair but he was out of rope. He started opening kitchen cabinets and drawers and found just the thing – a jumbo roll of plastic wrap. He tied the end to the chair and walked around her several times, wrapping her tight in the transparent film. When he was sure she couldn't get loose he started exploring the apartment. The kitchen, living room, and master bedroom had nothing helpful, but when he went into the back bedroom he hit the jackpot. She was using explosives to make bombs! There were four timers and four 20 gallon propane tanks with the valves removed. With the several gallon jugs of what smelled like fuel oil and two bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in the closet, these bombs would devastate their targets. But what were her targets?

He looked through the pile of papers on the desk and found something that made his heart stop – floor plans and photographs of his own home. She had drawn red circles next to all four exterior walls in places where the shrubbery would hide them. She was going to bomb his house if her honey trap didn't work. And she couldn't know for sure that Mary and the girls were gone. She was going to kill them all!

Tom's anger exploded. He stormed into the kitchen, grabbed the biggest knife in the drawer and was standing behind her ready to slit her throat. . . . but he couldn't do it. He couldn't kill a defenseless person, not matter how evil she was. He put the knife back and sat on the couch to think. How could he put her out of commission so he and his family would be safe? It took a few minutes – it's hard to think clearly when your anger has control. But it finally came to him.

He went around the house wiping his fingerprints from everything he had touched. Then he gathered up the floor plans and photos of his house so she couldn't be connected to him, and picked up her laptop. He found Zarah's cell phone and called the Philadelphia office of the FBI. In a disguised voice he said, "I think there's a terrorist living in my neighborhood, and it looks like she might be making bombs. I saw her carrying bags of fertilizer and plastic jugs of some dark liquid into her apartment, and she has what looks like middle-eastern men visiting at all hours. She lives in an apartment at 1498 Franklin avenue – apartment 256." Then he hung up, left her phone on the kitchen table, and headed for the door. He paused and looked back at her. Even with the plastic wrap she was almost naked. He pulled a heavy winter coat from the closet and draped it over her before he left.
Chapter 24

Jack and Lynn were going over ideas for ways to get Winston's laptop data when Fox News broke into their usual political dribble with a special report. "It looks like Winston is having a press conference, Jack. It's probably about the attack ads. What can he do but deny them. I don't know if that will help him regain lost ground, though. Turn the volume up."

I'm Charles Winston and I'm going to be your next President. You have given me overwhelming support throughout the primary elections and I thank you for that. But there are people who don't want me to be President, people who are afraid that I will shut down the money train that provides their wealth, that I will stop the corruption they feed on. They're right – that's exactly what I will do. To protect their own self interests these people have created a series of commercials attacking my character – commercials that are completely untrue. They believe if they tell outrageous lies about me you, the voters, will believe them. These people think that you voters are stupid – gullible enough to be fooled by the trash they are peddling. I know better. I know you voters won't be taken in by their smear campaign against me – you're too smart for that.

I have asked the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate whoever is behind these commercials, and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. I have done some investigating of my own, and what I have uncovered points directly to my Democratic opponent. Clint Hill knows he will be overwhelmingly defeated in November, so he is trying to ruin my character in the hope that he might somehow fool enough voters to vote against me. But I have full confidence that the American public will not be swayed by these vicious attacks.

"Do you think Clint Hill would stoop low enough to run ads like these, especially if they are fabricated? The FBI will certainly trace the connection back to him if he's involved. And with what Winston just said it will probably turn voters against Hill rather than help him out."

"I agree, Lynn. Someone else must be running the ads, but who would stand to gain from them except Hill? There's something we're missing here."

#

In the weeks that followed, the polls showed Clinton Hill's popularity plunging while Winston's approval rating soared. With the Republican nominating convention only three weeks away Winston had more than enough votes to clinch the nomination on the first ballot.

In China, Bao Cheong and his assistant, Zhang Kai, were discussing this terrible turn of events.

"We cannot let Winston become President, Kai. He will ruin our economy by repaying America's debt to China. The decadent American people don't seem to care how evil we have made him look."

"Should we continue to run the other attack ads we produced, Minister Cheong?"

"No, I don't see any point. He might win by an even larger majority if we do that. We must find some other way to keep him from being elected. Is there anything he has done that will get him arrested and thrown in prison?"

"We have researched that thoroughly, but can find nothing he has done that is against the law in America. He has been involved in many questionable financial dealings, but even if we exposed them it wouldn't affect the American voters."

Bao thought for a bit, wondering if he should reveal this next information to his assistant, but decided to go ahead. "There is a second alternative I have put in place, Kai. Someone who is close to Mr. Winston has agreed to provide us with information about his plans. A communiqué I received last month alerted me that Mr. Winston keeps all of his plans on a laptop that he never connects to the internet or lets out of his sight. If we could somehow acquire that device, we might learn what he has in mind regarding America's financial relationship with our country. I will contact the Minister of State Security and request one of their elite units be assigned to explore this possibility."

And if we cannot get Winston's computer, what other backup plans could we devise, Minister Cheong?"

"I see only one other possibility, Kai – have Winston assassinated. Get me a list of our sleeper agents living in America with assassination experience."

"Yes Minister, but will that be too much risk to undertake if the agent is caught?"

"Possibly, but I want to explore that possibility and have our agent ready to execute a plan as a last resort."

"Yes Minister Cheong."

#

Ted Lee sat at his home computer doing what he did every night – playing online video games. One of his favorites was Hitman, where he played as Agent 47, an assassin-for-hire whose flawless record makes him sought after among the wealthy and elite in need of his services. He liked it because he was the best player in the U.S., and because of the excitement he felt when stalking his next victim. And, of course, he was the only player with actual experience as a hit man.

By day Ted was a repair technician for Bizcomp, a company that specialized in computer networks for small businesses. The job kept him traveling around the country installing and repairing the Bizcomp systems, which suited him fine. He had no family to worry about and could use the travel as a cover for his other job – an espionage agent for the People's Republic of China. His four years of training in Beijing equipped him to serve as, among other things, a hit man for his government. He had a perfect record, just like Agent 47 in the Hitman game – three assignments with three perfect kills. Although he was an expert marksman out to 2,000 yards with the right gun, his three kill missions didn't require a gun. He was equally well trained in a dozen ways to kill someone in a more subtle fashion, including hard-to-detect poisons, 'accidental' falls, and car collisions.

On this night his Hitman game was interrupted by an incoming email from Digital Wings, a computer manufacturer that didn't exist. The email made him a job offer and asked him to come to their headquarters for an interview tomorrow morning. _'They have another mission for me. I hope it's more challenging than the last one.'_ The more difficult and challenging the mission was, the more exciting he found it.

Lee arrived at the offices of Digital Wings Corporation precisely at the appointed time. They were located in a modest six-story office building in Palo Alto, an hours drive from his day job with Bizcomp. He had been here before to receive previous assignments, and nothing ever changed. The same polite receptionist, the same potted plants, the same coffee table with fictional corporate reports of the company's products and services, and the same empty reception area that never saw any visitors – except for agents like him. He was led to the same soundproofed room and asked to wait for the director, who showed up a few minutes later. "I have a new assignment for you Mr. Lin." No hello, no handshake – just get right down to business.

"This will be the most difficult mission you have ever undertaken – one you may loose your life completing. Are you prepared for that possibility?"

"Of course, Director Chung. It is what I was trained for."

"You have an exemplary record, Mr. Lee. Successful completion of this mission will assure you of a place among the People's greatest agents."

"I am honored, Director."

"The Minister of Security has provided four paths to success, depending on the access to the target you can create. Let me go over the details with you . . . ."

After reviewing the plans Lee spoke up about his preferences. "The option of last resort, a sniper assassination, would be my preference. There is no one in the security service as proficient with a long-range sniper rifle than I am, so I believe it has the greatest chance for success. The other methods carry a relatively high risk of failure."

"The sniper approach has significant political issues, Mr. Lee, while the others can be made to look accidental. The order for this mission has come directly from the Minister and should not be questioned."

"Yes, Director. I will follow the instructions."
Chapter 25

One Month Later

Both the Republican and the Democrat nominating conventions were over and, as everyone expected, it would be Charles Winston versus Clint Hill in the general election. Jack and his team had been unsuccessful at finding something in Winston's past they could use to get him impeached. They decided to meet at Rick and Harriet's home – the farm in Virginia – to spend a week or two trying to find another way to get to Winston after he is elected President. They were enjoying some light after-dinner conversation before they got down to business.

"The time we spent here hiding from Winston's men made many memories for us. And that last night, when we get out of here just ahead of Alexei's team, gave me enough excitement to last a lifetime. Why is it that when you're running for your life you feel more alive and thrilled?"

"It's probably just the huge jolt of adrenalin we get from fear, Harriet. But I'll have to admit, things have seemed really dull since we settled down in Colorado. Jack, can we get them to chase us again just for the excitement?"

After the laughter died down Jack replied, "I got a bullet in my rear end the last time. I don't intend to get another just for the fun of it."

Harriet added, "We never got to see your wound, Jack. Show it to us."

"Lynn saw it when she dressed the wound for me. You'll have to ask her what it looked like."

"I could kick myself for not getting a photo on my cell phone. It would look lovely enlarged to three by four feet and hanging over our fireplace."

"Should I get shot again, Lynn, so you can get your picture?"

"I hope not, sweetheart. One scare like that is enough for me. On the more serious side, how are you doing, Tom. It's great to have you back with us."

"Oh, I'm doing O.K.. Mary has filed the divorce papers asking for the house and half of everything else. I'm holding out for joint custody of the girls before I agree to that. It's really getting me down, but I'm seeing someone."

Lynn's eyes got wide. "You're seeing someone before the divorce is even final? What were you thinking?"

"Not that kind of somebody. I'm seeing a shrink. That whole episode with Zarah taught me how vulnerable I am in my present state of mind. I will definitely stay away from women for a long time."

"Speaking of Zarah, did you learn anything that might be useful to us?"

"No, I was focused on . . . other things. Oh, wait! With everything that's been going on in my life I forgot to tell you. I took her computer when I left her tied to a chair and hid it in my car. I'll run outside and get it for you, Jack. Maybe you can find something worthwhile on it."

When Tom returned Jack called their attention to the big screen TV duplicating what was on his computer screen. "O.K. The fun's over. Time to get serious. You'll see on the screen that I made a list of where we are on our action items.

"Lynn searched for something Winston is using to force Congressman Tyler to be his running mate, in spite of Tyler's more moderate position on the things Winston wants to do when he's elected. Lynn found Tyler had a big gambling debt that Winston paid off.

"Next, Rick was exploring the off-shore bank accounts that were zeroed out after we tipped off that reporter, Jeb Collins, about the conspiracy to pin false kick-back charges against Winston's potential election opponents. When Collins published a story about the alleged scheme, we believe Winston's men staged his suicide. Rick, where are you with locating the missing six million dollars?"

"I have some good news on that issue. Last week I traced the money to a numbered account in the Caribbean International Bank of Bermuda. I couldn't get past their inner security levels, so I couldn't check to see if the full amount is still in the account. It will take your hacking skills, Jack, to get into the account and transfer the money."

"Where should we open an account to stash the money in?"

"Not in the same bank because it would be too easy for someone to follow the money to us. We can open an account in a Swiss bank I picked out, then transfer the money into it. All Jack has to do is hack into the Caribbean bank account and authorize the transfer."

"It may sound easy to you, Rick, but I'll need the pass code before I can pretend to be the owner of the account, and finding the code by hacking the bank is nearly impossible, even for me. If Winston is the owner, he will have a record of it somewhere, but we can't get access to his penthouse in Atlanta to look for it."

"He might have it on his laptop. Could you hack into that?"

"A great idea, Tom, but Lynn and I haven't been able to come up with a way to hack into a computer that's never connected to the internet or the corporate network."

"Well, how about stealing his laptop, hard drive and all? With the stuff he's probably got on it we would get the account code plus other stuff to hang him with."

"Same problem I just brought up. The Winston Securities building has a state of the art security that we could never get past. Any other ideas?"

Lynn thought for a minute. "If Winston keeps it with him all the time, he must have it with him when he's traveling? With all his campaigning he's on the road more than he is at home." Looking over at Jack, she said "Maybe we could break into his campaign bus while he's up on a stage giving a speech."

"What do you mean we, paleface? Sorry. An old joke about the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Seriously, this could be the most dangerous thing we have done, and I don't want to be worrying about you. This mission will take training you don't have yet."

"That's' easy to fix. You and Harriet can give the training I'll need. If you remember, you promised not to leave me behind on any more missions."

"But that was when I thought there wouldn't be any more missions."

"Either you train me and take me along or you'll sleep on the couch for a month!"

"You know you couldn't stand to keep me out of your bed that long. . . . But alright, I give up. You can come."

"We'll need to do some surveillance on the bus and Winston's habits before we can come up with a plan. Tom, do you think Dave Cramer would assign a couple of his people to go undercover on this? We'll pay him his usual rate."

"I'll check with him in the morning."

"Good. That's settled. The last thing on our list is trying to tie Winston to the murders of Jim Norton and the other four Winston employees. Rick hasn't found anything solid enough to link Winston directly to the murders, but maybe Zarah's laptop will give us something. I'll work on that today. Harriet, why don't you start Lynn's hand-to-hand combat training. If she's going with me I want her capable of disabling someone my size."

#

When Jack opened Zarah's laptop he saw only a blank red screen with no place to enter a username and password. ' _Had it already erased itself somehow? Maybe she set the security up to erase everything if she didn't log in periodically. But unless she had a backup drive she could easily lose all her data if she couldn't get to her laptop. No, there has to be some way around this. Maybe I could just type a username and password into the blank screen – if I knew them. She was sure to be using the three strikes and you're out rule – enter three wrong choices and you're locked out permanently. She might be using Zarah as a username and maybe Alexei as the password, but that was a long shot. Someone with her training would know better that that. No, typing anything in was a risk._ _I guess I'll have to remove her hard drive and work on it separately. Maybe I can find what need there.'_

It was midnight before Jack found what he was looking for – a separate cache on the drive that stored all of her security information. He found not only what he needed to eliminate the red screen mask and unlock the computer, but several other passwords as well, including her email password. Jack put the drive back into her laptop and logged in. Jack thought the most logical place to find the information he wanted was in her emails, so he signed it to her email server at KerioConnect.com. This site was popular with government agencies and businesses because everything was encrypted with an algorithm that was very difficult to break. But Jack had figured out how to decrypt the algorithm years ago. He transferred all of her emails to his old laptop and ran them through his decryption routine.

Jack spent the next hour going through Zarah's emails before he found an exchange between Zarah and someone with the user name Medved – the Russian word for bear. That might be a name that Alexei would choose, but it could be anyone. The text of the email is what excited Jack:

Z

You are authorized to move ahead with your mission against JN. When you have him set up call me and I will come there for the capture and interrogation. Use the drugs in your kit to render him unconscious so there will be no resistance.

Affectionately,

AB

"Lynn, come look at this!"

"What have you got?"

"It's an email received by Zarah a week before Jim Norton was killed, probably from Alexei Borsilov."

Lynn read it quickly. "This is the order for her to move in on Jim! Everything fits what we know about the murder. And look how Alexei signed it – 'Affectionately.' Do you think they had something going between them?"

"Good eye. I didn't catch that."

"That's understandable, you're a guy. What else did you find?"

"I'm still going through all the emails. You want to help?"

"Well, I was planning to lure you up to bed for some serious cuddling, but this spy stuff is more fun."

Jack gave her a surprised look.

"That's not what I meant, Jack. Nothing is more fun that making out with you. But I love this spy stuff."

By the time Jack and Lynn had finished reading all of Zarah's emails they found authorizations for Zarah to kill the four Winston employees, along with several other more intimate emails between Zarah and Alexei, verifying their suspicions that the two were romantically linked. But there was another pair of email exchanges between Zarah and someone with the user name Bob Young that puzzled Jack. Young offered to pay her half a million dollars if she could deliver Winston's personal computer to him – the laptop that he guarded so closely. Who would want that computer as much as Jack did? It was a good thing that Zarah wouldn't be able to carry out the theft, since the FBI arrested her after Tom's tip about her bomb-making hobby. Jack gave Lynn the details and asked what her thoughts were.

"To figure out who else wants Winston's laptop, we should start with a list of things that Winston might have on his laptop, and then make a list of who would benefit from knowing those things."

"That's a good analytical approach, Lynn, but there are hundreds of things Winston might have stored on the laptop – financial dealings, campaign plans, things he will do once he's elected, names of his supporters and opponents, his attempts to find who is behind the attack ads, orders to Alexei and his other staff members. I can't see a logical way to approach such a complicated problem. I was hoping for some of your woman's intuition."

"Well, the email exchanges with Bob Young were dated last week, and he told Zarah he needed the laptop before the end of the month, so I'm guessing it will be about the most current issue with Winston – his run for the presidency. Why don't we focus on that first and see where it gets us."

"Clearly his Democrat opponent, Clint Hill, would love to know Winston's plans for his campaign so he could be prepared for the upcoming debates. He would be at the top of my list of those who want to get their hands on the laptop."

"Then we need to look for a connection between Hill and someone named Bob Young. Do an internet search on the two names and see what comes up."

Jack typed in the names and got no hits connecting them. "Let me try just Bob Young's name and see what the results are. Look at that – over 4,000 hits. Everything from Bob Young's Pizza Take Out in Wichita, to Bob Young's Church of Divine Empowerment – 'Send money and you too will be financially blessed beyond what you could imagine.' It would take us the rest of the night to go through all these web sites."

"What if we assume that this Bob Young character has some connection to politics or the government. That should limit the number of hits to a manageable number."

Jack typed in 'Bob Young' + 'politics' + 'government', then hit enter. This time less than a hundred hits showed up. Scanning the list, Jack found two Bob Youngs who were state legislators, one who was mayor of Chillicothe, Ohio, thirty-six who were government employees at some level, and four who were community organizers, whatever that was. There was even one who was a government official in the People's Republic of China. "I don't see anyone here who is important enough to have any use for Winston's laptop, much less be able to come up with half a million dollars. I think we've hit a dead end here, Lynn. I'll package up Zarah's laptop and send it to the FBI tomorrow so they can use it to prosecute Zarah as the 'Praying Mantis Killer.' Let's go do some of that cuddling you were talking about."
Chapter 26

For this first time in his hacking career, Feliks felt beaten. He had tried every possible hacking route to discover who was behind the attack ads against Winston and had come up with nothing but dead ends. He was able to find out how much each station was paid to run the commercials, but the cashier's checks used for payment ended with someone with a phony name depositing cash into a new account, then using it to purchase the commercials. He was even able to hack into the bank security cameras to get video of the account holders – it was a different person opening each account – but the image quality was usually too poor for identification. When he hacked into the FBI and CIA image recognition software, none of the men were in the databases.

He thought he might find something in the files of the video production companies that made the ads, but again all the producers were paid with cashier's checks that arrived in envelopes along with a script and screenplay for the ads. The included instructions outlined the video scenes the buyer wanted and left it up to the producer to create the ad. When a video was complete it was mailed to a P.O. Box in Los Angeles. If the client liked it, a second check arrived with the rest of the payment. Feliks had spent most of the past month trying to break through these security measures without any luck. If he didn't get a breakthrough soon Winston would have him shipped back to Russia without the bonuses he had promised. Feliks needed an answer – soon.

His mind came back to the finances. He had looked for money transfers in the amounts used to open the bank accounts, hoping he would find a common source for the funds, but that was another dead end. But he was convinced that, somewhere back down the financial path, the money came from a single source. The total amount paid for the television commercial time and the production of them was a large sum – over eight million dollars – $8,362,730 to be exact. So whoever was paying for the ads had lot's of money. He looked into the funding for Clint Hill's campaign, and saw nowhere near that amount unaccounted for. He did find out from two of the production companies that they had been asked to make more commercials, but the client cancelled them. So if they planned to make some more of the ads there must have been even more money available, say ten or twelve million dollars. He thought about that for awhile. _'That's a huge amount of money to transfer. What if it started out as a transfer of the total amount, and then was broken down to separate accounts later? If I look at all the money transfers between eight and twelve million dollars for the past three months maybe this one would show up.'_

Once Feliks got an idea, he worked like a madman to make it work. He spent the first day and night writing some specialized computer code that would do the hacking and searching for him. If he tried to do it all himself it would take a couple of weeks to complete. He was rewarded on the third day when his program identified a ten million dollar transfer form the Peoples Bank of China to the J.P. Morgan Chase Bank in the U.S. From J.P. Morgan the money was transferred to a dozen smaller banks throughout the country. Could this be it? Why would China want to keep Winston from being elected? Still, it was the best lead he had so far, so maybe he should tell Alexei. Or better yet, take it directly to Winston. If Winston can see the connection to China maybe Feliks would get another bonus. He checked Winston's campaign calendar and saw he was back in his office for a couple of days, so he decided to take a chance. He called Winston's secretary and told her he had some information about who was paying for the attack ads. The line went dead for several seconds, then she said that Mr. Winston was on his way down to Feliks' lab to speak to him.

Feliks panicked for a second. The lab was a mess, with empty food wrappers, spilled drinks, and naked woman magazines scattered around. He made a move to clean up just as Winston burst through the door. Winston looked around in disgust, then looked at Feliks. "You better have something real this time Mr. Borin, or I'll have my men put you on a cargo ship back to Russia."

"I . . . I think I might have something of interest to you Mr. Winston."

"You think . . . you might . . . have something? I don't like uncertainty, I want facts!"

"Yes sir. It's just that I can't see a connection, but it might make sense to you."

"Well, what is it."

"I found what may be the original source of the funding for the ads, but I can't see why they would want to keep you from being elected. I traced the money back to the Peoples' Bank of China."

"You were right the first time. They have no reason to ruin the election for me." Winston turned stormed out the door, slamming it behind him. He was waiting for the elevator to take him back to his office when it hit him. He turned around and headed back to Feliks' lab. "You may have stumbled onto something, boy. Show me the data." As he looked over Feliks' research results he started nodding his head. "Yes, Yes. That's it! When I get elected I plan to pay off the U.S. debt to China as quickly as possible, which will hurt their economy badly. But if they can ensure Clint Hill is elected, nothing will change, except that the debt would probably grow even larger. Thank you Mr. Borin. There will be a big bonus in your account for this."

Winston headed back to his office and called his soon-to-be-cabinet members to schedule a meeting for first thing in the morning. He would deal China an economic blow they will never recover from. He told his cabinet selectees the next morning, "I'll put huge taxes on imported goods from China and tax the American companies that have moved there to get cheap labor so heavily that they will go out of business if the don't move back here where they belong. I'll teach them not to meddle in American politics."

#

Feliks was still congratulating himself on his brilliance for finding the Chinese connection to the attack commercials as he bragged about it to fellow hackers on the Darknet. Feliks couldn't claim victory over the Chinese directly because Winston wanted that kept secret, so he used the phrase 'an undisclosed country' instead. One of the hackers bragged, in turn, about a new computer antivirus program he just released that used a unique hard-drive search approach that could find computer infections that were invisible to conventional anti-virus programs. Feliks asked how much it would cost him to get a copy. The answer was more than he expected – $25,000 – but Feliks, like most men, couldn't resist the urge to acquire a new toy. He transferred the money in bitcoins, a form of internet digital currency used for transactions outside the tracking and snooping capability of bank-based currencies.

The first thing Feliks did was examine a copy of the software to make sure it wouldn't inject a virus of its own into his computer. Then he took it apart line by line to see how it worked. The algorithms the creator invented were creative and brilliant, but not as brilliant as Feliks' creations. It took him only two hours to figure it out, and another three hours to add some custom enhancements. When he was satisfied with it he ran it on his laptop hard drive. The biggest drawback is that it ran slowly – and Feliks was an impatient man. While he waited for the results he created another enhancement so it would run at triple its current speed. Then he sat back and thought of the money he was going to make by selling his enhancements on the Darknet.

Two hours later the report printed out. A few common viruses showed up, but he had walled them off weeks ago. But it was the final line that shook him. Someone had planted a worm virus on his hard drive! He quickly extracted it from his drive and started unraveling the code. Several minutes later he had it taken apart. _'This code is ingenious. It made my computer deaf to alerts from my sentries, and it modified my worm so it can't penetrate Jack Preston's firewalls . . . and that's who wrote it and sneaked it into my computer. I thought I had beaten Preston, but he was one up on me all the time! This means everything I hijacked from the Forsetian hard drives was doctored to tell me what I wanted to hear. . . . You think you're smarter than me, Preston, but I'm not through yet.'_

Feliks spent the next several days developing the software for his next attack on Preston's computers. His new creation, which he called Armageddon, would sneak through the firewalls in hundreds of small pieces that couldn't be detected. Once on the Forseti hard drives it would reassemble itself and evolve into a mega-virus – one that could destroy not only all data on the computers, but would physically attack and destroy the memory and processing chips inside the computers. And it would happen so fast that nothing could stop it. Before he installed Armageddon on his laptop Feliks ran the new antivirus program one more time to make sure all of Preston's worms were erased. When the report came back clean Feliks installed Armageddon and let it loose to invade Preston's computers. _'Now who's the smart one, Mr. Hackmeister!"_

#

Lynn and the others were listening to Jack outline a plan to steal Winston's computer from his campaign bus or, to be more precise, campaign coach. Jack was showing a picture of it now in the TV screen – a forty-foot customized luxury motor coach painted with Winston's campaign slogan 'We Will Take Back America for Americans.' Jack turned back to the team with some detail. "We don't know what the inside arrangement looks like because it was heavily modified to meet Winston's requirements. Now I hate going in blind, so I came up with a way to get some photos of the interior. Rick and Harriet will join Winston's local campaign movement in Cincinnati, Ohio . . .

Lynn pointed to the TV screen and said, "Jack. Look. What's that?"

Jack turned around and saw a red banner flashing across the screen that read VIRUS ATTACK UNDERWAY. A few seconds later the banner turned green and another line of text appeared. VIRUS SUCCESSFULLY REFLECTED BACK TO SOURCE COMPUTER.

"What just happened, Jack?"

"Last week I developed a whole new concept in firewalls. I call it mirroring. When the firewall detects anything suspicious coming in it turns into a digital mirror and reflects it back into the computer that sent it. As soon as it gets there it does its nasty work on that computer. It looks like the hacker who's been after us just got paid back."

"As I was saying before the interruption, Winston has a two day campaign stop in Cincinnati early next week. Rick and Harriet will show up tomorrow at campaign headquarters as enthusiastic supporters who want to get involved. By the time Winston arrives for his speech, they will just be part of the group. When the crowd gathers for his speech Rick and Harriet will arrive early and park somewhere near the bus. They will pull some special campaign signs out of the trunk and raise them in the air as they walk past the bus. The signs will have built-in video cameras to record what they see through the coach windows as the signs are carried slowly past the bus. As soon as you're done, get back to your hotel, download the video from the cameras, and email the video files to me so we can start finalizing our plans. The next stop on his campaign is Columbus, Ohio the following Saturday. That's when we'll steal the laptop."

Tom interrupted. "I don't want to burst your bubble, Jack, but I've seen pictures of the coach and the windows are all darkly tinted. The cameras won't be able to see inside."

"Fortunately I have an answer that which I developed back when I was working for the Air Force Research Laboratory. The window films block most visible light, but they're almost completely transparent to infrared light. The infrared video cameras will have a ring of infrared laser diodes surrounding the lens to provide the illumination for the cameras. I ordered all the components and will have the signs finished by Friday so Rick and Harriet can use them next week in Cincinnati."

"But how can you hide the cameras on a flat cardboard sign?"

"The signs will be like thin cardboard boxes, with a poster on the front and back and a narrow border connecting them. The cameras and illuminators will be mounted inside the box peeking out through a small hole in the side."

"I love this spy stuff!" Lynn added.

#

Feliks broke out a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka to celebrate his victory over the reigning Hackmeister. _'It's terrible that I don't have a woman to share my triumph with. The computer is my mistress. But I could use a bedmate now and then. I'll talk to Alexei and see what he might be able to provide.'_

Feliks was on his third shot of Stoli when his computer shut down on its own. He thought _'It must be a power glitch,'_ as he restarted his computer. Nothing happened. He shut off the power to reset the laptop and started it again – still nothing. That's when he smelled the distinctive odor of burning computer chips and realized his computer was fried. He pulled the hard drive and installed it on another laptop but got the same result – nothing but a blank screen . . . and the fresh smell of burning chips from the second computer. As he realized he hadn't backed up his computer files for the past two weeks he got a terrible sinking feeling in his stomach. It was all lost – the code for his Armageddon virus, the data linking the Chinese to the attack ads, the antivirus software enhancements that could make him rich. When Winston found out, he would be in real trouble. . . . Feliks downed three more shots of Stoli and laid down on his couch to wait for the blessed oblivion that came with too much alcohol.
Chapter 27

As soon as Rick and Harriet left for Cincinnati on Friday morning, Jack called his detective friend, Dave Cramer, to see what his surveillance team had learned. They had been traveling with the Winston for the past week looking for weak points in the protection of his laptop. Jack learned that whenever Winston was out of the campaign coach he left the computer, and an armed guard, behind. The Bus was usually parked some distance from the rally crowd, which would give Jack and Lynn the isolation they needed to break in, but it also gave the guard an unobstructed view in all directions.

"It doesn't sound encouraging, Dave. Somehow I need to get inside the bus, overpower the guard, find the computer, then get away without being seen. Do you have any good news for me?"

"A little. The guard leaves the bus every thirty minutes or so to smoke a cigarette. He leaves the door open and stands behind the bus until he's finished, then gets back on and locks the door. Maybe you could grab him while he's smoking."

"That's the kind of opening I'm looking for. Do you have any ideas on how to incapacitate him? We can't allow him to warn the security detail by shouting or firing a shot. How about an injection or something?"

"In spite of what you see in the movies, any kind of knock-out injection would take 30 seconds or more to make someone fully unconscious. The quickest way is to hold a cloth soaked with ether over his mouth and nose. And there's always the old movie standby – hit him over the head with a black jack, but there's a risk of permanent injury with that. And then there's the problem of getting close enough to him for any of these methods. He would see you long before you got that close. But if you could somehow sneak up on him, the ether would be the best bet because it will knock him out faster than any other drug."

"I think I have an idea for getting close to him unobserved. There's a low hanging mud flap across the entire back of Winston's coach. If I could somehow get underneath the coach, the mud flap would keep me from being seen. Then I could lie in wait for the guard to come to the back of the bus for a smoke and jump him."

"I don't like it, Jack. There's too much room for mistakes. He's a big muscle guy who could probably overpower you before you could do any thing to him. He would have time to shout for help even if you got him to the ground quickly. And how would you get out from under the bus without him sensing your presence?"

"You're right. I'd need a distraction of some kind. Let me talk this over with Lynn and the others and see what we can come up with. Thanks for your help, Dave."

#

Rick and Harriet waited outside the Winston for President headquarters in Cincinnati until they saw a crowd of supporters gathering on the sidewalk, then they eased their way into the outskirts of the gathering. They put on their friendly personas, introduced themselves as Roger and Henrietta Miller, and started chatting with those around them. Their cover story, other than being outspoken supporters for Charles Winston and all he stands for, was that they had tried to join the campaign at the last stop in Wheeling but got delayed. Now that they were part of it they planned to stay through the next few stops on Winston's schedule. They couldn't think of a better use of their vacation time.

Most of the people around them were a lot younger – strong supporters of the new America Winston was selling – so they asked Rick and Harriet what had drawn them to Winston's plan. Rick thought for a minute before he answered.

"Henrietta and I have lived through the effects of a government drifting deeper into socialism day by day – a government that takes away our personal freedom with rules and regulations, tells us what to teach our children, makes gun ownership a crime, and transfers most of our wealth to those who would rather live on welfare than work. Socialism is the crime here, and the Government is the criminal. If we don't turn this around with this election, it may be too late."

That got a round of applause, so he continued. "History has shown that any form of Government, taken to the extreme, quickly deteriorates into anarchy and rebellion. That could even happen with Winston's approach if he took it too far. Our job as citizens is to recognize these extremes and nudge the pendulum back towards the center when needed." That brought only a smattering of applause.

Harriet knew what Rick was doing – planting some thoughts that might keep Winston-ism in check – but maybe he went too far. She got Rick's attention and shook he head ever so slightly.

"Now don't get me wrong. Every part of Winston's plan is exactly what this country needs, and we need it now. Winston is probably the only politician – well, non-politician, actually – that isn't telling you lies to get elected. Only an outsider like him can see the corruption and self-interest that our Government runs on, and can make the changes needed to eliminate them." That brought an even bigger applause than his first statement.

People were coming up to ask him questions when a young man stood on a chair just outside the door to the building. "May I have your attention please. Quiet please. . . . I'm glad you all could make it this afternoon. Many of you probably think being part of a crowd of supporters is all about clapping and cheering whenever you hear something you like. But that's not what we want at Monday's rally. The actions of a crowd of political supporters is actually a well-choreographed performance, with cues for when to clap, when to cheer, when to boo at the opposing party, and when to chant a particular phrase. What I want to do today is to hand out a script for each of you, and then go through a few rehearsals just to make sure we get it right. . . ."

Harriet and Rick went through the rehearsals like good little Winston supporters until they were dismissed. As they started to walk back to their car one of he campaign staff overtook them. "Excuse me. May I talk to you a minute? I'm Jesse Stewart, one of the campaign organizers."

"I'm Roger . . . Roger Miller, and this is my wife, Henrietta."

"I heard what you were saying earlier and the way those around you responded. You have a real gift for reducing ideas to their bare essence. You explained Winston's position clearly and succinctly."

"He's not one to waste words," Harriet added.

"We have a televised town hall meeting scheduled for Monday evening, and I would like for you two to be there on the front row as part of the crowd. I'll give you a script for some leading questions to Winston that he will already have answers for. Would you do that?"

"So I'll be a plant in the group? Like the comedy team straight man who sets up the jokes for the funny man. I'll be Dean Martin to Jerry Lewis' clown act."

"I . . . I wouldn't put it like that. You'll be sort of a guide to steer the conversation in the right direction."

"Isn't that what I said?"

"So, I guess you're not interested, Mr. Miller."

"Call me Roger, and of course I'm interested. People need to know exactly what a vote for Winston means."

Jesse smiled. "That's terrific, Mr. Mil . . . Roger! Where do you live? I'll have a car come and take you to the television studio."

"No need for that, Jesse. Just save me a parking space on the curb out front. Henrietta and I want to leave right afterward for dinner with friends."

"I'll have a large space marked off with orange cones. If you could be there at six p.m. that will give us time to go over the questions I want you to ask."

"We'll see you then, or maybe at the rally Monday morning."

As Rick drove away toward their hotel Harriet gave him a light punch in the shoulder. "Your real estate experience has made you one fine purveyor of bull crap. He actually thinks you'll be there Monday night."

"Oh, I fully intend to keep that appearance. A fine orator like me can ask questions in just the right tone of voice to back Winston into a corner before he knows what hit him."

"No, Rick. I won't let you do that. As soon as the rally is over we're heading back to the farm house."

"Aw, come on, Harriet. Let me have a little fun at Winston's expense."

"Only if I stay with the car out front, ready to whisk you away from the mob you're going to create."

"That's a deal."

#

Saturday afternoon Jack called a meeting of the group to discuss how they could take out the bus guard. Rick and Harriet joined in on computer video as Jack spelled out what he had learned. "The fundamental problem is how to disable the guard quickly. Dave and I have kicked around some ideas and ruled out Tasers because most people scream in pain when they're hit, and tranquilizer darts or injections because they take too long to act. If we can somehow get him temporarily immobilized and silenced, I can hold an ether mask over his face to keep him out for half an hour while I steal the computer. So how can I quiet him long enough to get the mask over his face? Oh, and we ruled out clubbing him over the head because of the risk of brain injury."

Jack could sense the wheels turning in everyone's heads as he waited for a brilliant idea to surface. . . . "No answers? O.K., let's do this brainstorming style. Throw out any wild idea that comes to your mind and we'll critique them later."

Tom was the first to speak. "If we could hit him in the solar plexus with a bean bag round from a shotgun, that would knock the wind out of him so he couldn't yell."

"There's our first idea. Keep them coming,"

Tom took his idea a little further. "Or if you could get close enough to him, you could deliver the blow with your fist."

"If I can get that close a karate chop to the throat would be easier to land on target. It might damage his voice box, but that can be surgically repaired. I have a thought about how to get close to him, but I'll save that until we get some more ideas on the table."

Harriet added her idea. "We could use the proven method of distracting him with bikini-clad sexy woman walking by. . . . That rules me out, by the way."

"How old is this guard?" Lynn asked.

"Dave's men estimated that he's around forty. Why?"

"Well, at my age I probably wouldn't qualify as a sexual distraction, but what about a damsel in distress? Maybe my car dies as I'm passing by. Or I could fake a heart attack and fall at his feet."

"That's a good possibility, but we would have to work on a more believable reason for distress, as well as a way for you to get close to him so I could overpower him. I'll add it to the list. Who's next . . . Rick?"

"My favorite hobby has always been model airplanes. But lately I have been building and flying the quad helicopter drones, you know, like the one that landed on the White House Lawn. Maybe I could fly one low overhead to make him look up. While he's focused on that you could give him a chop to the throat."

"I like that one. It doesn't put anyone at risk but me. We're on a roll here. What else have you got for me?"

Rick tossed out another idea. "If we could plant a small explosive charge somewhere near the speaker's platform that would really get his attention."

"That's got some problems but I'll add it. We have some good possibilities here. My idea for getting close to him is to hide under the bus, behind the mud flap. I could go in early, even before daylight, and wait for whatever distraction we settle on. Then I could pop up and disable him using one of the techniques we talked about. So let's start at the bottom of our list and discuss the pros and cons of each idea."

Tom gave his objection to the distracting explosion idea. "In that situation, any well-trained security team would surround Winston and hustle him back to the bus for immediate extraction. Even if we took the guard out there wouldn't be time to get the computer before the others got back to the bus."

Harriet added, "I was thinking the same thing, Tom. That was part of our training at the FRA."

"O.K., scratch that one. How about the drone idea?"

"What if he glances at it and ignores it? It may not be a good enough distraction."

"I have a good answer to that, Lynn. I could just fly the drone into him at high speed and hit him around his knees. While he's bent over trying to untangle it from his legs, Jack can jump him. What do you think of that Jack?"

"That's a solid idea that has a good chance of success. I'll move that to the top of the list for now. Now some comments on Lynn's damsel in distress idea. I have two of my own thoughts on that. The first is that I would rather not put Lynn in danger, but she will overrule me on that. The second is that there would be two of us to handle him. If Lynn fakes a sprained ankle and gets him to pick her up from the ground, she can trap his arms while I choke him . . . or something. We're still stuck on how to disable him. But I like this plan best, so let's give it some more thought. We'll meet again on Monday after I have the video images of the bus from Rick and Harriet. In the meantime, I'll run it by Dave and see what he thinks."

#

Late Monday morning Rick and Harriet drove to the Riverbend Music Center, an outdoor concert venue where Winston would be speaking in a couple of hours. As Rick circled the streets around the city park Lynn took some still photos with her cell phone. The bus was parked near the back of the parking lot, but there were parking spaces behind it. As the start time approached, Harriet watched the lot fill up until everything but the last two rows were filled. Rick joined the last of the incoming traffic and beat out an elderly gentleman for the spot they had picked out. They quickly got their custom-made signs out and joined the crowd moving toward the stage where Winston would soon appear. After they walked past the bus they hung back from the rest of the crowd, waiting for an opportunity to get back to their car unnoticed, but that wasn't going to happen. Jesse Stewart spotted them and hollered "Come on up front! Clear the way for two special guests. Let them through. Hey, Great to see you two again. Come on up front here. . . . I like those 3-D signs. Did you make them yourselves?"

"Uh . . . no, a friend made them.

"What would he charge to make me 300 of those?"

"You're kidding, right?"

"Sort of. But I really like them. They stand out so well."

"I'll ask him."

Harriet leaned over and whispered in Rick's ear, "I hope you got that on camera. Maybe we found a new career for Jack and Lynn."

Rick whispered back, "Funny, dear. But while we're stuck here on the front row, Jack's waiting for the video."

They listened to Winston's speech, and cheered along with the crowd at the appointed times. As soon as the final applause died down, they lowered their signs and turned to go.

"Hey, you two aren't going to run off are you?" Jesse called out. "It's only three hours until I need you at the TV studio."

Rick answered, "Yeah, us old folks can't keep up with you youngsters. We're going back to the hotel to rest up for tonight."

"Hotel? I thought you lived here in town?"

Harriet caught Rick's slip and covered it for him. "We are local, but we live way out in the Mount Washington area, so we got a hotel room nearby so we wouldn't have to do so much driving. We'll see you at six."

As they were walking to their car Rick leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"What's that for?"

"Saving my ass back there."

#

Jack's computer let him know an email had arrived with the video from Rick and Harriet, so he called Tom and Lynn into the living room to watch it on the big TV. First he ran both the left and right side of the coach videos in real time. Then he stepped through each video one frame at a time as they studied the frames and discussed what they were seeing. When they got to the part where Rick's camera was looking into Winston's office, they studied it carefully, looking for the laptop, but the surface of the desk was bare.

"What kind of an obsessive-compulsive neat freak keeps his desk cleaned off. I used to have a poster in my office that said _A clean desk is a sign of a sick mind_." Tom commented.

"Given his need to be in complete control of everyone and every thing, I could have predicted this. I don't see anywhere else from this angle where he might hide his computer. He probably locks it in a desk drawer. The view from Harriet's camera looked in through the office door, which Winston fortunately left open. The small desk only had one drawer large enough for the laptop, and it didn't appear to have a lock on it.

Jack studied it for a minute. "There's no way someone who guards his computer with his life is not going to lock it up. It can't be in the drawer. It looks like our plan is busted!"

Lynn grabbed their attention when she said, "Wait a sec. Look underneath the right end of the desk. It's a very dark image, but could it be a small safe?"

Jack's hands flew over his keyboard. "Hang on, I can enhance the image – increase the brightness and contrast. . . . There! It's definitely a small safe with an electronic keypad lock. See the keypad here, and the handle to the left? If I could find the manufacturer's label I might to able to figure a way to break in."

"What's that fuzzy rectangle thing in the upper right? Is that a label?"

"If it is, I can't enhance it any more with just brightness and contrast. Let me try a pixel sharpening routine."

A few minutes later Jack had it clear enough for them to read 'Digital Armor Safe Company.' "With this I can go online and find the model that matches our video image. I'll order one this afternoon for delivery tomorrow so I can take it apart and investigate ways to get into it."

"Will you be able to put it back together in working order when you're done with it?" Lynn asked. "I could use it to store my valuable jewels in."

"What valuable jewels? You don't have any."

"The ones you're going to buy me when all this is over, Jack. I don't even have a decent engagement ring? And of course I'll need some earrings, and a necklace to go with it . . . . Maybe in diamond, sapphire, and emerald."

Jack took her hands and looked into her eyes. "I will buy you all that and more, Lynn darling."

"It's getting a little too sentimental in here for me, guys. I'm going for a walk." Tom complained.

When he was out the door Lynn turned to Jack. "It must be painful to see a deep love like ours compared to the cold relationship he and Mary had before she left. We need to be more sensitive to that around him."

Jack whispered in her ear, "O.K. We'll make love very quietly from now on, dear."

Lynn laughed. "You know neither of us is capable of that, honey. . . . But, while he is out on his walk, maybe we could sneak upstairs for a few minutes." She took him by the hand and led him up to the guest bedroom they shared.
Chapter 28

As Harriet pulled the car up to the TV station she saw Jesse Stewart waving her into a parking place near the front door. She reminded Rick, "Don't forget. Your wearing a microphone linked to my walkie talkie. Talk to me if you get in a bind." Rick got out of the car and followed Jesse into the building.

"Isn't your wife coming with you?"

"No, she's having a bad hair day and refuses to be seen on TV. She'll just wait in the car."

"It would look better if the questions were coming from a couple, but I'll make it work. Let's go over the questions and the answers Winston will respond with. . . ."

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Winston Town Hall Meeting on WWCN Television. I'm Wilson Adler, the moderator for tonight's meeting. We have gathered over a hundred local residents in our TV studio who want to find out, first hand, about Charles Winston's plans for America's future. Mr. Winston, welcome to Cincinnati."

"Thank you, Wilson. It's my pleasure to be here."

"Do you have an opening statement to get things rolling?"

"Yes, I do, Wilson, and I'll start with some questions of my own."

Winston's facial expression turned from a car salesman's grin to stone-faced seriousness as he faced the audience and the camera. "Aren't you tired of your Government – No, not your Government. Their Government – telling you what you can and can't do in this country? A government that drifts deeper into socialism with every passing day. A government that takes away our personal freedom with rules and regulations, tells you what to teach your children, makes gun ownership a crime, and transfers most of your wealth to those who would rather live on welfare than work. Socialism is the crime here, and the Government is the criminal."

Rick thought _'Damn! Those are my words to the crowd last week. Jesse put them into Winston's speech. I'll have to add plagiarism to Winston's list of crimes.'_

Winston continued. "Many of you own or work for small businesses, but struggle under the increasing burden of taxes and regulations that make no sense at all. A lot of you have farms, and earn your living by providing the food that is the lifeblood of this great country. But this government tells you what you can and can't do on your own land. They charge you to graze your cattle on land the Government stole from your grandfathers – land that had been in the family for two or three centuries! One of the first things I will do as President is strip the Bureau of Land Management, the Corps of Engineers, and the Department of Natural Resources of their power over your land. It will be yours again, to do whatever you want with it."

Winston droned on for several minutes before he turned it over to the moderator to pick who would get to ask their questions. The audience included a select group of people with planted questions, just like those Rick was supposed to ask. Rick went over in his head what he really intended to ask, and how he would fend off their attempts to cut him off. Wilson Adler took questions from two other people before he selected Rick for the next question. Rick thought about the question Jesse wanted him to ask – 'How will your economic plan get America back on the road to prosperity?', and started out like that was his question.

"Thank you for the opportunity to ask my question. America has been in an economic recession for the past eight years. How will you get us back on the road to prosperity . . . given the immense cost of all the programs you plan to put in place. It has been reported that all the changes you have proposed will increase the country's deficit from the current six-hundred billion dollars to over a trillion dollars – in the first year. How do you plan to pay for this without huge tax increases?"

Rick glanced at the horror struck look on Jesse's face, while Winston stuttered a meaningless answer that amounted to a parent's common final refrain, "because I told you so." Rick saw the camera red light go out, which meant they probably just cut to a commercial, as Jesse and two security guards pushed their way towards him. Another guard already had the front door blocked, so Rick turned to his right looking for another escape route. There were no doors on that side of the hall so Rick headed behind the studio stage as fast as he could move. He saw an emergency exit at the rear and ran to it. When he pushed the bar it wouldn't open. He thought _'It's an emergency exit – it can't be locked.'_ He backed up, kicked the bar as hard as he could and almost fell through it face down on the asphalt when it suddenly gave way. When he looked up he was in a narrow alley. He yelled into his mike "Rear alley, Harriet. I'll meet you at the South end of the block."

Rick ran down the alley hoping Harriet would get there soon. He slowed down as he got to the end of the alley and peeked around the corner. "Come on. Where are you?"

He looked back up the alley and saw some men coming out of the exit just as a car roared into the alley from the other end. As the men jumped back inside to let the car pass, Rick told shouted into his mike "They have me trapped. A car is headed straight for me."

The car slammed on it's brakes just before it hit Rick. Harriet leaned out the car window and shouted, "It's me, idiot. Get in!"

Rick climbed in and Harriet sped forward and turned left at the end of the alley. She took a series of left and right turns to be sure no one was following, then headed for their hotel.

Rick turned to her. "I said to meet me at the south end of the alley!"

"Then why were you at the north end. You always get your directions mixed up.

#

FedEx delivered the Digital Armor safe before noon Tuesday. Jack immediately took it to the kitchen table, where he already had his tools laid out like a surgeon's tray, and began to dismantle the keypad from inside the door. He removed the circuit board and made a note of all the electronic component values, then opened his printed circuit design program and entered the circuit pattern from the keypad board. Before long he had a working computer model of the board and began exploring ways to fool it into thinking the correct combination had been entered. It took him most of the night, but he discovered that if he exposed the circuit to a short burst of microwaves, it would open with any combination. So if he could get into the bus and flash a microwave pulse at the keypad, he could open the safe door. But there was a problem – a laboratory microwave generator was the size of a breadbox and needed 120 volts from a wall socket to operate. He needed to make a miniature, battery-operated version to take on the bus with him.

He tried a couple of circuit designs, but the pulses were too long. Then he remembered a project he worked on years ago to build a microwave pulse warhead for a cruise missile. The pulse was created by an explosion, and would destroy all integrated circuit chips within a 500 yards. For what he needed here he would have to build a miniature version of the warhead – something he could hold against the digital lock and fire the microwave pulse into it. He could order the electronic parts he needed, but the explosive was a problem. Only a small amount was required, but the explosion had to happen very quickly, so gunpowder from fireworks or shotgun shells wouldn't work. What he needed was some C4 – the stuff terrorists made bombs out of – but that was hard to get. He picked up the phone and dialed Dave Cramer's number. After several rings a very sleepy voice asked "What do you want Jack. It's the middle of the night."

"I'm sorry, Dave. I got so wrapped up in this project I forgot what time it is. I'll call back in the morning."

"No, go ahead and tell what is so important. I'm already awake now."

"I need a small amount of C4 – maybe a pound – and some miniature igniters for it. It's part of our plan to steal Winston's computer from his campaign bus. Is there any chance you can help me out on this?"

"You're in luck. I keep a couple of bricks of it in my secret arms storage room. I have the igniters, too. I'll send someone over tomorrow with it. . . . Don't tell me the details of how you're going to use it. If you get caught, I want to be able to say with a straight face that I didn't know what you wanted it for."

"Oh, wait. I have another question for you on how to disable the bus guard. If one of us gets very close to him, how can we keep him quiet while we get an ether cloth on his mouth? We thought about a Taser, but most people scream while they're convulsing."

"If you use a small hand-held Taser pressed against his neck, it paralyzes the vocal cords and he can't make a sound. I'll send one over with the C4"

"Thanks, Dave. I owe you."

"Like I told you a couple of times before, just come to work for me when this is all over. Good night, Jack."

#

Jack and Lynn left the farm in his truck and drove to Charleston, West Virginia. After their earlier attempt to ruin Winston's plans by exposing his hand-picked presidential candidate as a murderer, they left Lynn's Jeep Wrangler at a storage unit there, and Jack wanted to use it for the laptop mission. They loaded what they needed into the Jeep and left Jack's truck in the storage unit.

Just after dawn on Saturday morning, Jack and Lynn watched Winston's motor coach pull into the parking lot of the LC Pavilion, a large outdoor concert venue near downtown Columbus. They were parked on Brodbelt Lane with a view through the trees of the lot. The coach drove to the far rear of the lot and backed into a parking place, with the rear end just feet from the trees bordering the lot.

Jacked checked to make sure they had everything they needed – the Taser for Lynn and for him, a knife and a plastic bag with the ether-soaked cloth in it. Lynn put on a dark wig to hide her red hair.

"Look at that Jack. They couldn't have picked a better spot for us. You can hide in the trees and easily sneak under the bus to wait for the grab."

"That's good. We'll just wait here until Winston and his security crew leave the bus, then execute the plan. Are you totally sure of what to do?"

"Of course I am. Have I ever let you down, sweetheart?"

"Well, there was that time when I was making amorous advances to you in bed and you fell asleep."

"Yeah, but I made up for it the next night."

"Yes, you did, dear."
Chapter 29

At 9:30 a.m., Winston headed for the Pavilion with Alexei and two of his security team on his heels. As soon as they were in the building Jack and Lynn eased out of the truck to start the mission. Jack was dressed in a black jogging suit that covered most of his white skin, while Lynn was in bright yellow running clothes that exposed as much skin as possible. Lynn walked away through the trees as Jack bent down low and approached the bus. He heard someone talking and froze. Was someone watching him? He stayed in that position for a full minute before he realized it was a pair of late arrivers who had pulled into a parking space thirty feet away. They didn't look his way as they hurried to hear Winston's speech. Jack quickly slid under the bus and hid behind the rear wheels.

Thirty-five minutes later he heard the coach door open. The guard left it open as he walked toward the back of the bus shaking a cigarette out of the pack. When he lit up that was Lynn's cue to go into action. She started jogging along a dirt trail heading toward the bus guard. Just before she got even with him she cried out in pain, fell to the ground, and lay there whimpering. She tried to get back on her feet, but fell back to the ground. The guard froze at first, then looked left and right as he tossed his cigarette and went to help her.

"Are you alright, ma'am."

She wailed "No. I turned my ankle and I can't get up."

The guard bent down, put his arms under her, and picked her up. Lynn put one arm around his neck and pulled him closer as she pushed the Taser against his neck and pushed the button. The only sound he made was a quiet "ahhg" as he let go of her. She landed on her feet just as Jack clamped the cloth over his mouth and nose. Thirty seconds later the guard was unconscious in Jack's arms. He carried him onto the bus as Lynn stayed outside the door as a lookout. Jack wrapped the guard's hands and feet with duct tape and tied a gag around his mouth.

Satisfied that the guard couldn't cause any problems, Jack took the microwave pulser from his belt pack and headed for the office.

"All clear, Lynn?" he called softly.

"No one in sight out here."

Jack took a pillow from the bed to muffle the explosion and fired the device at the keypad. It was louder than he thought it would be but it did the job. Jack opened the safe, pulled out Winston's computer, and hurried out to where Lynn was waiting. "I got it. Let's go."

"Yeah, I heard it go off. Did you bring your microwave gizmo?"

"Damn, I left it. You take the laptop and head for the car while I go back to get it."

As Lynn threaded her way back through the trees to where Jack parked the truck she sensed something and froze. It's the feeling she got when someone was watching her. _'Someone is here in the trees with me,'_ she thought. She scanned the trees ahead of her – there! A figure hiding behind a tree. It moved closer, to the next tree. He was dressed in black, like what Jack was wearing, except with a tight hood covering the head with nothing but the eyes showing. As she focused on the black stalker someone wrapped his arms around her from behind. Before she could scream his hand covered her mouth. She thought through her options in a flash. _'Harriet showed me how to get out of this hold, but I would have to drop the computer and that might damage it. Does he have a weapon? Maybe, so as a last resort I have to be ready to drop the computer and twist out of his hold. Jack will be here any second to take care of this guy so I should just wait. I'll make the rag doll move.'_

Lynn let her body go totally limp, like she had just fainted. Now she was dead weight so the man had to struggle to hold her up. She felt herself slipping out of his grasp when the stalker from the trees showed up. He grabbed her chin and forced her head up as he held a silenced pistol to her forehead. "She's just faking. Stand up woman." he said in heavily accented English. "If you scream I will kill you." He said something in a foreign language to other man, who took his hand from her mouth and moved around beside the stalker.

"Give me the laptop computer you are carrying. You have saved me great trouble by stealing it for me. Now I want it."

"Why do want it? It has nothing of interest on it."

"Oh? Then why have you stolen it? Give it here."

' _Time to make a move.'_ Lynn held out Winston's laptop to the other man. As he reached for it she let it slip to the ground and, as he stooped down to pick it up the stalker looked down to see if it was broken. _'Just what I was waiting for, sucker.'_ She moved in, grabbed the gun with her left hand, and brought the heel of her right hand upward as hard as she could. It struck the man just below the nose with the satisfying crunch of breaking cartilage followed by a gush of blood. As he howled in pain, Lynn's right hand joined her left around the gun, She bent his wrist back until it cracked, then took his gun.

As she stepped back to cover them both she felt a blow to the side of her head. The other man had picked up the computer and hit her with it. Lynn staggered backward as her mind blanked out. She couldn't think what to do next. When her senses started coming back she raised her gun hand to aim it at him but it wasn't there – she dropped it while she was dazed. Her vision cleared up just in time to see the computer swinging toward her head again. Fortunately her automatic reflexes took over and her right arm raised itself to deflect the blow. _'I don't have any strength to fight him off, or to turn and run. . . . he's got me. . . . Wait! The Taser! It's in my pocket!'_ She struggled to get it out as the attacker moved in to finish her off. She backpedaled until she had the Taser ready, then stepped in toward him and stuck the crackling device into the side of his neck. His body went rigid as he fell to the ground. She looked around for the stalker to zap him but he had gotten away.

That's when Jack came crashing through the trees. "Lynn! Are you alright? Your head is bleeding!"

"It's about time you showed up. I took out two attackers while you were gone. They wanted the computer. That's what the guy on the ground hit me with., but I stopped him with the Taser."

Jack pulled the bag with the ether soaked cloth out and put the man to sleep for longer than the Taser would last. He went through the guy's pockets looking for some kind of identification, but they were empty. "He has oriental features, but maybe that's just coincidence."

"No, the other guy spoke to him in some weird sounding language, so they must be from another country."

Jack thought for a minute, then rolled him over and turned down the waistband of his under shorts. "It's a Chinese label. I can't read it but I recognize the type of characters. Why would the Chinese want Winston's computer?"

"We'll figure that out later. Let's get out of here."

Jack said, "Just a minute," as he used the silenced pistol to shoot the sleeping man in the knee.

"Why did you do that, Jack!"

"Because I don't let anyone who tries to hurt you or me walk away from it."

As they came out of the trees in front of Lynn's Jeep she stopped. "Look! There's a car parked down the street . . . it's got three men in it."

"Quick, get in the Jeep. I'll drive."

As the engine started he saw the car pull away from the curb and come toward them. Jack floored the gas pedal as they peeled out and left dual tracks of rubber behind. Jack's mind skimmed through the memorized map in his head looking for the best escape route. _'I have to get away from the downtown area . . . and I can't use the interstate because of the traffic. The river! There's a limited access road that runs along the Scioto River.'_

Fortunately Winston was still speaking, so there was no traffic coming out of the Pavilion yet. Jack turned right on Neil Avenue then sped south to get on U.S. 33, where he immediately took the Jeep up to 90 mph. The big engine in the Jeep was good for a high-speed chase, but the high center of gravity slowed him down on curves. Jack was focused on the road and dodging the light traffic while Lynn watched for their pursuers.

"There they are, about half a mile back. But they're gaining on us. Go faster Jack!"

Jack sped north up Riverside Drive past the Scioto Country Club. The thinning traffic allowed him to go a little faster, but it was clear their pursuers would catch them within the next few miles.

"Lynn. Turn Winston's laptop over and remove the hard drive. Move the two plastic sliders on the outside of the cover."

"O.K. I got the cover off."

"Good. Now ease the hard drive out and disconnect the wires to it. Put it in your purse and put the cover back in place."

Jack saw a sign for a cross street up ahead – Fishsinger Road – and decided to use it. He slowed down a bit before he got there to let them catch up, and then floored it as he made the quick turn to the right. Lynn turned and watched them shoot past the turn as she felt the Jeep start to tip. "Jack!"

"I took the turn too fast! Hang on! We're going to hit the guard rail."

As they slid sideways into the guard rail the high center of gravity of the Jeep rolled them over the top of the rail. Once they cleared that, the Jeep kept on rolling over as it went down an embankment and crashed into a tree. Jack was dazed for a few seconds, then he shook it off. He turned to Lynn and looked her over. "Are you O.K.?"

She wheezed out her answer. "Not so much. It hurts to breathe, Jack."

He unbuckled his seat belt and moved over for a closer look. A large branch had broken off with the end sticking through the window into Lynn's left side. Jack didn't see much bleeding so he unbuckled her, put his arms around her, and eased her out of his side of the car.

Lynn managed an "Ow, ow, ow . . . that hurts!" before she passed out from the pain. Jack looked uphill toward the road and saw the three Chinese agents stop at the guard rail and look down at the Jeep. They ran to the end of the guard rail and started down the steep embankment.

Jack grabbed Lynn's purse with the hard drive and carried her into the nearby trees. When the men reached the Jeep and saw it was empty, they looked around for their prey. One of them, the leader, motioned for the others to stay with the Jeep as he set out to follow the trail of trampled brush that Jack left behind him. Jack put Lynn over his shoulder and moved deeper into the trees, where it was clear of brush. He laid Lynn on the ground, moved behind a tree that wasn't wide enough to conceal his entire body, and stood absolutely still. Like most animals, the human eye is finely tuned to look for motion, but has trouble picking out stationary objects. The man stopped and scanned the trees in front of him slowly, trying to pick out a shape that didn't belong. When he turned back toward the Jeep Jack thought they were safe . . . until Lynn moaned. The pursuer spun around to look for the source. When Lynn moaned again he looked right at them and fired several shots in their direction. Realizing that the shots were meant to flush them out of hiding, Jack resisted the urge to flee. The man finally turned around and went back to the Jeep.

Jack eased his way through the trees to the adjacent river bridge and slipped underneath. He moved up into the shadows and laid Lynn on the ground. He risked a peek around the corner of the bridge abutment and saw the leader holding up Winston's laptop in triumph as they headed up to their car. Jack thought _'Aren't they in for a surprise when they find the hard drive is missing.'_

Several minutes after they drove away Jack took Lynn back to the Jeep and laid her on the ground. He inspected her wound from the tree branch and saw that the external bleeding had stopped, but there could be internal bleeding. He leaned into the Jeep and dug around in the mess until he found his cell phone and called 911.
Chapter 30

Hui Ming, the leader of the team sent to steal Winston's laptop, was celebrating his successful mission with a glass of wine. It was unfortunate that he had to leave two of his men behind at the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C., but they would require medical care for several days before they would be able to travel. If he had his way he would have stayed in the U.S. long enough to repay the American team for injuring them. As the embassy jet flew him back to his homeland to deliver the laptop to Minister Cheong, he occupied his mind with what he would do to the Americans if he had the chance. Killing would be too quick – hours of torture would be needed to get even with them. He thought through his mental catalog of torture techniques he had learned in his training as an elite member of China's military force – the best of the best as the Americans would say. He would start by shooting the man in the knee . . . no, both knees. Then he would break the woman's wrists while the man watched, and move on to other ways he knew to make a woman suffer. He thought _'If I get sent to America on another mission, I'll deal with those two. But first I need to find out who they are and where they live. Perhaps Cheong will help me with that.'_ Ming put his seat in the reclined position and vividly imagined the details of the planned torture until he drifted off to sleep.

#

Bao Cheong's secretary knocked on his office door. "Captain Ming is here to see you, Minister." Bao replied "Send him in," as he rose from his chair and positioned himself in front of his desk. He wanted to honor this man with a warm handshake for his victory in snatching the computer from under the nose of Winston's security guard. Ming entered and bowed his head as custom required.

"Ah, Captain Ming, or shall I say Senior Captain Ming. As of now I have promoted you to the next rank. Welcome back from your successful mission."

"I am honored to serve you, Minister Cheong."

"I see you have the computer with you. My personal computer technician will be here shortly to access the information stored on it. Sit, have some tea and tell me about the mission."

Ming didn't want to admit that an American team beat them to it, so he told the story he put together on the plane. "Mr. Winston went to Columbus, Ohio to speak to a crowd of supporters. I knew he would leave the laptop on his campaign bus while he was away from it. I had to overpower a security guard, but with my superior skills I defeated him in a short time. I searched the bus for the laptop and found it hidden in a secret compartment beneath the bed. As I left the bus with it, a second guard approached me with his gun drawn, but two of my men grabbed him from behind and wrestled the gun from him. They were both injured in the struggle, but they managed to subdue him."

"Where are those two men now, Ming? I would like to honor them also."

"I left them at our embassy in Washington for medical treatment. They will return when they are able to travel."

Their conversation was interrupted when the computer technician entered the room. He looked at the laptop, noted the make and model, and sat down to begin his work. Bao and Hui stood behind him and watched as he pushed the power button . . . but the screen stayed dark.

The technician turned to Hui and asked, "Did you attempt to turn it on after you captured it?"

"Absolutely not," Hui replied, although he had been severely tempted to do just that. "Minister Cheong's orders were to leave the laptop closed and bring it directly to him, and that is what I have done."

"The battery must be dead, then." The technician rummaged around in his leather bag and came up with a power supply that would work. He plugged it in and waited for the computer to wake up.

A light on the computer came on indicating that it was getting power, but still the screen was blank. "This is unusual. It must have some special security program that is doing this. If I remove the hard drive and connect it to my own computer I will be able to access the information."

He turned the computer over, slid back the latches, and removed the drive cover."

He thought _'There is no hard drive! Someone must have taken it out. But if I tell the minister this, he might take his anger out on me.'_ Hui Ming solved this dilemma as he too looked inside. "There is no hard drive! It must have been removed before I took the computer."

Cheong was silent for a few seconds before the outburst came. "You fool! You should have checked to see if the drive was there. He might have hidden it somewhere else on that bus where you could have found it. But instead you bring back this worthless piece of garbage."

"But you told me not to open anything on the computer. I was only following your orders."

"Now you are blaming me for the failure of your mission? Such a simple mission and you could not carry it out. And you got two of your men hurt in the process. Leave my sight, Senior Captain . . . no Lieutenant Ming. Report to your commander for disciplinary action." When Ming left Bao turned to the technician, "Maybe it was Hui Ming who removed the hard drive. Take the device to the forensic laboratory to see if they if they can find any evidence that might be helpful."

#

The next morning the head of the forensic laboratory brought Cheong the results of their investigation. "We found no useful evidence other than three sets of fingerprints, along with Lieutenant Ming's. We hacked into the American FBI fingerprint data bank and were able to identify two of them. The fingerprints of Mr. George Winston were the most numerous, so I would surmise he was the owner of the laptop. The second set of prints belonged to a Mr. Jackson Preston. Further research showed us that he is a retired employee of the Federal Remediation Agency, and is also a highly regarded software engineer. We found nothing on the internet about him, but when we searched the Darknet, we found his name listed once. A hacker bragged about outwitting Jack Preston, whom he called the Hackmeister. That means . . .

Yes, yes – I know what a meister is, a master at something. So this man Preston is well known to the community of hackers?"

"It would seem so, sir."

"Who was bragging about defeating Preston?"

"One Feliks Borin of Russian origin. He is a boastful man so his name showed up on the Darknet many times."

"Do you know who he works for?"

"It is a company named Winston Securities, sir, in Atlanta, Georgia."

"Are you sure? Because that company belongs to George Winston – the one who wants to be the next American president."

"Yes sir. And when we traced the purchase of the laptop we found that it was sold to Winston Securities 15 months ago."

"Yes! That ties it all together. Borin works for Winston and outsmarted Jackson Preston about something. Then Preston's prints show up on the laptop, which means that Preston held it at sometime. Who did you say the third set of prints belonged to?"

"An unidentified person, but from the size and shape of the prints it was probably a woman."

"Thank you. You have been most helpful."

Bao picked up the intercom receiver and ordered his secretary to send for Lieutenant Ming and the computer technician immediately. When they arrived he turned first to Ming.

"There seems to be an inconsistency in the facts surrounding your mission. There may have been two Americans involved in the theft of the laptop. I want to know what really happened . . . and no more of your self-serving hero stuff."

Ming sat there stunned. How had the truth been found out? He assumed that Minister Cheong knew all the facts at this point, so he cleared his throat and told him the entire story. Cheong turned to his computer expert and asked if he could find a photo of Jackson Preston. When it popped up on the screen he asked Ming, "Is this the man?"

"Yes! Yes it is, honorable minister."

"So he must have the hard drive then."

A few minutes later the technician spoke up, "While you and the lieutenant were talking I found out more about this man. He was recently married to a woman named Lynn Martin. Three months ago she sold her home in the Colorado town of Telluride to a real estate holding company, but I have no record of their location now. I was able to get this photograph of her from driver's license files, but that is all I have."

"That is the woman who was with Preston when he stole the laptop." Ming interjected.

"Good work! Keep looking for more information about them. Lieutenant Ming, you have been promoted to serve as an assistant to my computer technician. Help him undo this mess you created."
Chapter 31

Jack was pacing the floor outside the emergency room of Riverside Hospital waiting to hear how bad Lynn's injuries were. He rode with her in the ambulance, hoping she would regain consciousness and talk to him, but all he heard was an occasional moan. Now he imagined the worst. _'What if I made the injury worse when I lifted her out of the car, or when I carried her into the trees. She's was probably bleeding badly inside and I just made it worse.'_ Jack sat down and bowed his head.

" _Lord, I love this woman so much, and I thank you for bringing us together. She needs your healing touch now. I ask you to guide the doctors' thoughts and hands as they repair whatever damage has been done. I know you can do these things if it's your will, and I trust you with her life and health. . . . Amen."_

It was another 30 minutes before a doctor came out to talk to him. "How is she, doctor?"

"It's much better than it could have been. Two of her right ribs are broken, and one of them punctured her right lung. That's what's causing the intense pain and breathing difficulty, as well as some internal bleeding. There also appears to be a minor concussion, which explains her unconsciousness. We inserted a suction tube into her chest cavity to draw out the air escaping from the lung. There's not much we can do at this point except medicate her for the pain and watch her closely to make sure the lung puncture healing progresses."

"How long will it be until I can take her home?"

"We're doing the paperwork now to get her into a hospital room. It will be at least three or four days before she is ready to leave."

"Can I see her now? Is she conscious?"

"She is conscious, but the pain meds have made her sleepy, so she may not be too talkative. Go on in to see her and we will let you know when the hospital room is ready."

Jack walked quietly up to her ER bed. Her face looked so peaceful and relaxed it was almost like she was dead. Jack had to reach out and touch her face to convince himself she was alive. Lynn's eyes slowly opened at his touch and she managed a weak smile. Jack pulled up a chair and spoke to her quietly, filling her in on what the doctor had told him. She got a concerned look on her face and said "Three or four days? I don't want to stay here. I want to go home – well, at least back to the farm house."

"As soon as the doctor clears you to travel we'll leave."

"What about my Jeep. Will it be fixed by then?"

"I think your Jeep is totaled, dear. The sheriff's office is going to get a wrecker to pull it out and take it to the junkyard. They will bring our belongings over here to the hospital."

"My purse! The hard drive! Where are they?"

"I held on to your purse when I pulled you out of the wreck. The hard drive doesn't appear to be damaged, but I won't know for sure until I get a look at it with my computer. I called Harriet back at the farm and asked her to bring my computer. She and Rick will stay here until you're ready to be taken home. On the way back Rick can drop me off at the Charleston storage unit to get my truck."

#

When Winston returned to the bus to find the guard taped and gagged he immediately ran to his office to check on his laptop. When he found it gone he screamed for Alexei. "How could you let this happen! The computer drive was full of personal and incriminating evidence! Why didn't you have more men stationed back at the bus?"

"Because the others were protecting you, sir. When I explained my security plan you thought it was a good plan and signed off on it. How could we anticipate that someone knew where the computer was and would come after it."

"Don't blame me for your idiotic incompetence. Get out of here! You're fired!"

As Alexei left the bus he thought that maybe Winston meant it for good this time. He had been fired two – or was it three – times before, and Winston always rescinded his order. He knew Alexei had too much damaging information to be turned loose. Assuming that Winston would bring him back to recover the laptop, Alexei started thinking of how he could find out who was behind the theft. Number one on his suspect list was Jack Preston and his gang. They seemed to have stopped their attacks on Winston, but maybe they were just laying low. As he thought about this he remembered the man who had given Winston a hard time with his question at the Cincinnati rally last week. . . . ' _Why did he look familiar? . . . Wait a minute! That guy was Rick Goodman, one of Preston's team who exposed Winston's presidential candidate as a murderer. And the woman with him was his wife, Harriet, another one of the FRA people who had come after Winston. Preston's group hadn't disbanded, they're still actively working to keep Winston out of the White House. It must have been them who took the laptop.'_

Alexei hung around until the bus guard was alone and pulled him aside. "What can you tell me about your attackers?"

"Not much, sir. I went outside for a smoke. A woman who was jogging past turned her ankle so I went over to help her. The next thing I knew I woke up on the couch with you slapping me on the face."

"Describe her to me."

"She was middle aged, medium height, nice figure, and she had on yellow jogging clothes."

"Did she have red hair?"

"No, it was dark brown."

'It still could be Preston and his wife. I'll get some photos for you. . . . Wait. I have a photo of her and Preston here on my smart phone . . . there. Does that look like the woman you helped?"

"Yeah, that's her alright. Should I tell Mr. Winston?"

"No! . . . No, I'll take care of it."

Alexei walked to his car and got in. But he didn't start it – he sat there deep in thought. _'If I tell Winston it was them, he'll still be pissed at me unless I can deliver the laptop back to him. I need to find Preston on my own, get the laptop back, then go to Winston. That will get me my job back.'_

' _So how do I find Preston and the woman? She sold her place in Colorado right after they got married. And the same with Jack's cabin in West Virginia. Both were sold to real estate companies, probably as rental properties. But, since I'm out of work, I may as well go check them out just in case they moved back.'_

#

Three days later they were all back in the living room at the farm house. Lynn told them all about their big adventure, to a chorus of "oos" and "ahs' and laughter. Her ribs were taped up to keep them from shifting, but otherwise she was healing quickly. Dave Cramer drove down from Philadelphia to hear about it first hand, and talk to Jack about his microwave pulse safe buster design.

"So how does that thing work, Jack. I would like to buy a few from you for my business."

"In the hands of criminals, this device would create havoc. I won't share my design with anyone, Dave. I've destroyed the design notes – it exists only in my mind now and that's where it will stay."

"I thought you would say that, but I had to try. So why did you want me to join your Forsetti meeting?"

"Because I finished downloading the information from Winston's hard drive, and we have some heavy duty stuff to deal with. I've made a list of my key findings for us to talk over.

"I'll start with some good news. I found the pass code that will give us access to the six million dollars Winston hid in a Caribbean bank account. I'm not certain how much the lawyers will cost to handle our planned impeachment of Winston, but I suggest we transfer one million of it to our own account to fund the effort. What are your thoughts?"

Tom, with his usual bluntness, said, "Let's just transfer the entire six million. He was using it for illegal purposes. I'm sure we can find plenty of things to use it for. Maybe we can set up a foundation to crusade against lying Government officials – try to get them defeated by supporting some good guys for their congressional seats."

Rick added, "I like that idea. We could use it to get rid of all the ultra-conservatives that Winston helped get elected."

"Maybe we could just move a million of it now and go back for more if we need it."

"That's an option, Harriet, but we don't know how long the money will stay there, especially after I hack into the account to get the first million out. I think we should just clean out the account now. If we have money left over, we can decide what to do with it later. How does that sound to everyone?" They all nodded in agreement.

"The next thing I found was a list of the people Winston will appoint as advisors and cabinet members. We examined these a few months ago when Jim Norton first provided them to us, and the ways Winston plans to use them is shocking. But the list from his hard drive has two new cabinet positions we should be concerned about.

The first is a Secretary of Communications, who will initiate a plan to require all cell phones to be registered with the Federal Government. The intent of this is to eliminate the throw-away cell phones that terrorists and criminals use, and make any cell call traceable back to the caller. They plan to do the same thing with internet connections, so all email accounts and web sites can be associated with a name and address. Winston wants this to get rid of internet pornography and identity theft. These registrations must be done in person at a Federal facility using a photo I.D."

"You can't be serious, Jack! He says the current Government has way too much control over our lives, but he wants to add even more. And it will be just like gun control – the Government will have the capability to access every phone call and internet connection. It will be like Huxley's book 1984 – Big Brother is watching you."

"I'm afraid so, Lynn. If there's an upside to this, it will make hackers like me rich figuring out how to bypass the Government controls."

"What's the second new cabinet position?"

"The Federal Prisons Secretary. Winston wants to federalize all state prisons and release all non-violent inmates within six months. I don't need to tell you what that will do to America. Unemployment and crime will skyrocket as these people try to come up with the money to live on."

"That sounds like an apocalypse is about to happen. Let's take that six million dollars and buy ourselves a resort island where we can relax in peace and watch Winston's America self destruct."

"That's tempting, Lynn, but these plans are just another reason why we have to impeach him and get him out of office as soon as we can."

They all contemplated what would happen to America because of the unintended consequences of Winston's plans. Rick broke the silence. "I think I'll start searching the real estate world for island resorts up for sale. What else did you find on the hard drive, Jack?"

"Remember the evidence we found on Zarah's computer tying her to the praying mantis murders of Winston's executives? Well, I found some personal notes showing that those killings were indeed ordered by Winston. That's the solid evidence we need to impeach him, and maybe even have him criminally indicted for murder.

"But that's not all, folks. Winston had a large set of files about Alexei Borsilov, his chief of security. If you recall when our adventure first began, it was the murder of three FRA agents that started my investigation into Winston. The files have proof that Alexei and his gang of thugs committed those killings under orders from Winston. I would love to get even with Alexei for all he's done to us. Is this evidence something we can use to get him arrested?"

Dave stepped into the conversation. "Without physical evidence tying him and his men to the crimes, probably not. Is there anything else we could use against him?"

Tom's anger rose as he thought of what Alexei did to his family. "I want to send him to prison for life for kidnapping my daughter. I'd like to see him executed, but kidnapping isn't serious enough for that."

Dave put a damper on that. "The problem is that we never reported it to the police, so there's no record that it ever happened."

"Well, I guess I'll have to take care on that on my own, then. What else have you got, Jack?"

"Maybe something to help us figure out why those Chinese guys came after Lynn and me. I found some notes from one of Alexei's men named Feliks Borin to Winston. From what I see he's probably the hacker who was trying to get into our computers. He was tasked with finding out who's behind the attack ads against Winston, and what he found was surprising. The funding came from the Peoples Bank of China. The Chinese Government is trying their best to keep Winston from being elected. That's why the Chinese agents wanted Winston's laptop so badly. China hoped to find the same kind of information we were looking for – something to use against him."

Lynn got an excited look on her face. "I see another possible connection to the Chinese. Jack, do you remember when you were going over the information from Zarah's computer and found a message from someone named Bob Young, who wanted to pay her to get a copy Winston's hard drive? And when you did an internet search on the name, one of the hits was a government official from China? Well, maybe that was the Bob Young who contacted Zarah."

"Great thinking, Lynn. Would you follow up on that to see where it leads?"

"O.K. Are we done here?"

"Not quite. I found one more blockbuster on the hard drive. Are any of you wondering how Winston plans to pay for all of his ideas?"

"By selling Girl Scout Cookies?" Harriet asked.

"No, it's more outrageous than that. He's going to tax imported goods from China so heavily that their stuff will cost more than products made in the U.S., and he is going to tax American companies that have moved there for the cheap labor so heavily that they will go out of business if they don't move back here where they belong. If this happens, the American economy will recover and provide added taxes."

"No wonder China is involved in this. Those moves would ruin their economy. You don't suppose they know who we are, Jack. As badly as they want the hard drive, they would do anything to get their hands on it."

"They got a good look at both of us, Lynn, but I doubt they took time to snap photos.

Tom added a thought to the discussion. "What if we posted your photos with false names and addresses to send them on a wild goose chase. Would that keep them from finding you?"

"Maybe, but only for a short time. My guess is that they are searching for you right now.

"What would happen if we leaked Winston's plans for China to the press? Would the response of the American public force him to withdraw?"

"No, Rick. I believe most Americans would say that China had it coming to them."

"So what do we do with this knowledge to help our cause? Could we anonymously inform the Chinese?"

"I think their reaction to is too unpredictable. They might go to war over this."
Chapter 32

Lynn, Jack, Harriet, and Rick were sitting around the breakfast table at the farm talking over the incriminating evidence they found on Winston's hard drive. Jack had copied all the files onto a memory stick for the legal case they were putting together against Winston.

Lynn waved her hand to get everyone's attention. "I have some new information about the Chinese connection, Jack. The 'Bob Young' you found on Zarah's computer turns out to be the Finance Minister of the Peoples Republic of China. His name translates to Chinese as 'Bao Cheong."

"Wow! That's top-level stuff. If he wants the hard drive from Winston's computer they must really be worried. I hope they don't know we have it. I made a couple of copies for safe keeping – one is in my computer and the other in Rick's hidden safe, along with the original."

Jack moved on to the next thing on his mental agenda. "I think it's time we chose a law firm to handle this for us. Are there any suggestions on who we should hire? Rick, what have you got."

"I think you and I need to make sure we can get Winston's six million dollars into our own account first. Any decent legal firm will want a large retainer up front for something big like this."

"You're right. I'm putting the cart before the horse here. Why don't you and I spend the morning stealing Winston's money while the rest of you get online and search for some lawyers. We want a firm that has dealt with corruption and fraud of Government officials before. We will give them the evidence from the hard drive and let them put a case together to bring to the U.S. Attorney General. Let's get together after lunch to see where we are. Rick, show me the Caribbean Bank account number that has the six mil in it."

#

It took Jack and Rick most of the day to transfer the money because of some new security locks in the bank's computer, but eventually Jack's hacking software broke through. Once he got in, it only took a couple of minutes to transfer the six million to the numbered bank account Rick had opened in Switzerland. As soon as the transfer was confirmed Jack broke the connection with the Caribbean bank and waited to see some digital bloodhound tried to follow his trail. . . . "It looks like we got away clean, Rick. Now let's find a lawyer to nail Winston."

They went into the living room where the girls were enjoying a glass of wine. Jack called Tom in Philly to bring him into the conversation. Lynn asked, "So, did you guys have any luck? Are the Forsetians multi-millionaires?"

"Jack nailed it. He moved the money and ran. What did you two come up with for law firms qualified to take Winston down."

"It took us awhile, but I think we found just the right one – the Goldmann, Caplan, & Hirsch law firm. They're home office is in Washington D.C., not far from the White House. They have a history of winning cases similar to ours, and they're flaming liberals – the firm contributed huge amounts to the current President's election, and they have given the Clint Hill's campaign over a million dollars so far. They would never turn down a chance to take out an ultra-conservative like Winston."

"How much do you think it will cost to get them started on our case?"

"Lynn already talked to them. Based on her short summary of our evidence, their lead counsel said it would take half a million. But that doesn't assure us that they will take the case – the money will pay for their assessment of our evidence. If they don't think we have a case, they keep the up-front money."

Rick shook his head. "That's not fair. How can they get away with it?"

Harriet answered. "When you're one of the top ten law firms in the country, you can run your business any way you want to, honey."

"Maybe I should try that with my real estate business. Charge $100,000 up front just to start looking for a property."

"When you become one of the top ten real estate firms in the country, you might be able to try it. But we're retired Rick. You should sell the company forget about the headaches."

"You know, I just might do that. It's worth almost three million dollars – we could live comfortably off just the interest. And no matter who gets elected President, the economy is going to suffer and real estate sales will plunge. I need to get out of the business before that happens."

Jack got everyone's attention. "O.K. It's decision time. Should we hire G, C, & H to build a case against Charles Winston?" Everyone agreed.

"Rick, you're the business man in the group. Will you open a dialog with them to get things started? Keep us all posted on their progress."

"O.K. But there's one thing we should settle first. Who will authorize withdrawals from our Swiss account? Right now, Jack, you and I are the only ones who have the account number and pass code. Should we all have access to the account?"

Harriet thought about it, then said "All of us are still targets for Winston's men, and maybe the Chinese. If one or both of you get killed or incapacitated, the rest of us wouldn't be able to get the cash we might need for your medical care or to escape bad guys. I think we all should have some kind of limited access."

"Good point, Harriet. All of us should be able to get into the account. Any ideas about how to provide access? None of us can write checks or withdraw funds directly from the Swiss account. All we can do is transfer it."

Lynn spoke up. "I have an idea, Jack. What if we each open a new bank account in the U.S. and have Rick transfer a small amount, say $25,000, into each account as emergency money."

"That would work. Tom, you've been quiet this afternoon. What are your thoughts?"

"I like the idea Jack, but I have two issues with it. First, I think the amount should be raised to $100,000. If we have to go on the run again, it will take more than twenty-five k. Second, I propose we establish some ground rules for how the money can be used – just to provide accountability. It's not that I don't trust any of you – but I'm not certain I can trust myself. Given the cost of the divorce from Mary, I don't have much left over at the end of the month. If I needed some money for a personal emergency, I would be tempted to 'borrow' from my Forsetian account."

"I agree that we should $100,000 in each of our accounts, and that it should be replenished from the Swiss account as we use it. As far as ground rules, I believe we should be able to use it for anything related to our mission to stop Winston – travel, computer equipment, hardware, weapons. How does that sound?"

"Does that include replacing my Jeep, Jack?"

"Definitely. I wrecked it in the 'line of duty' trying to escape the Chinese agents. Rick, are you willing to be our accountant on this?"

"No problem. I'll set up a bank account for everyone with me as an alternate account holder. That way I can easily deposit the money and have the bank statements sent to me electronically. When any of you make a withdrawal, let me know the amount and I'll replace it from the Swiss account."

"Does everyone agree with what Rick proposed? . . . Good. Then it's settled."

Lynn asked "Can we go back home now Jack?"

"Actually that was the last thing on my list of things to discuss. Now that we have the six million and are ready to turn the hard drive information over to the lawyers, I think we can go back to Colorado."

"The election is a couple of days away. Why don't you stay here to watch the outcome with us, then head west. We know who's going to win the Presidency, but congressional seats critical to Winston's plan are up for grabs."

"What do you think, Lynn? Can we wait a couple more days?"

"O.K. But I sure miss O'Malley. She's been staying with Selena in Telluride since we left and I don't want him to forget me."

"Dogs don't forget the one who raised them, especially smart breeds like Irish setters."

"As long as we leave first thing Wednesday morning and drive straight through."

"That's a two thousand mile drive that takes 30 hours. We'll have to stop for one night."

#

Selena hooked the leash to O'Malley's collar. "Come on, girl. Let's go for a walk." She walked him through town and decided to take him up to Lynn's place to run free for awhile. As she approached the front gate she saw two men standing there. One had a pair of binoculars looking up at the house. She hesitated . . . they hadn't seen her yet. She started to turn back down the road when O'Malley growled. Both men spun around to face her. Lynn had taught her to take the offensive in situations like this, so she said sharply, "Who are you! What are you doing! This is my grandmother's house and you are trespassing." She pulled out her cell phone and held it up. "Leave – right now, or I'm calling the sheriff."

One of the men said in what sounded like an oriental accent, "So sorry, miss. . . . We are tourists and saw this beautiful home, so we stopped to admire it. We are leaving now. So sorry."

Selena watched them walk down to the main road, get in their car, and drive off. _'That was weird . . . Those men were strange. And a little scary. I'll email Grandma to see if she knows anything about it. Good thing they left. I was about to call for Jasper, O'Malley's Mr. Hyde persona.'_

#

Bao Cheong needed Winston's hard drive – badly. The American election concluded last night and, as everyone expected, George Winston would be sworn in as the next president in January. His computer expert had tried everything he could to find out where Preston was located, but came up with nothing. He had two leads, both of them very weak, but Bao decided to explore them anyway.

The first was Winston's computer whiz, Feliks Borin. Bao sent a team to Atlanta to see what they could learn from him. They reported this morning that they found where he was living and put the place under surveillance. As soon as they finished interrogating him, they would let Cheong know. If Borin didn't have a copy of the hard drive data he might at least be able to tell them where to find Preston.

He sent a second team to Lynn Martin's Colorado home to see if anyone knew where she was, but they reported an empty home with no evidence of recent habitation. Bao called in some favors from people who feared him and arranged for satellite camera coverage of Lynn Martin's home as they flew over. The PRC had two surveillance satellites in orbit that would pass over the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado Springs several times each day. This underground facility is the control center for nuclear weapon strikes that America would launch if attacked by another nuclear power, so it was a high-value surveillance target. Fortunately, Telluride Colorado was directly west of that facility, so satellites watching it would pass over Telluride along the way. He gave orders that, if any signs of activity were detected at Lynn Martin's property, it must be reported to him immediately.

#

After Jack Preston had destroyed Feliks' computer system at Winston's headquarters Winston fired him. He said Feliks was of no use anymore and had him escorted out of the building. With the salary and bonuses he had gotten from Winston he could stay in the U.S. for a year, maybe two, without work. But at some point he would have to find a source of income. When he put his mind to it, the answer was simple – Winston had lots of money and Feliks wanted to get even over his firing – so he would hack his way into Winston's Securities' financial management system and steal some money. He had spent the past two weeks probing their computer security software and was ready to make his move tonight. Winston's firm had almost one hundred thousand clients, and Feliks' plan was to skim a thousand or two from every account. It would be weeks before clients would notice the shortfall and complain. In the meantime Feliks would have millions of dollars tucked away in a dozen different accounts. That should last him a few years with careful budgeting . . . but who wanted to be careful. He already had his eye on a Porsche 911 Turbo and a condo on the beach in Florida. Once he got settled in there, he would figure out a way to get back at Jack Preston.

Feliks was returning home from a nice steak dinner at Bones Restaurant north of downtown Atlanta. As he opened the door to his apartment he sensed something was wrong. There was a strange odor – body odor – from someone who didn't believe in deodorant. Somebody was in his apartment! As he reached for the light switch he was grabbed from behind in a choke hold. He struggled to get free but the man was too strong. He tried to scream but all he could get past the choke hold was a weak croak. In less than a minute he used up all the oxygen in his lungs and passed out.

When he woke up he was taped to his desk chair. His hands, arms, and legs had several layers of duct tape wrapped around them and the chair. It was so tight that he could hardly breathe. He opened his eyes and saw he was in front of the floor-to-ceiling window of his apartment. An accented voice behind him said "Nice view, Mr. Borin. How many stories up is it? I believe it is ten stories – maybe thirty or forty meters – certainly more than 100 feet. I wonder how long it would take a body to hit the ground?"

The response came out of Feliks' genius brain before he could stop it. "2.49 seconds . . . neglecting air resistance."

"Oh, we have a smart fellow here. That should help him realize the futility of his situation." the man said as he spun the chair around to face him.

Feliks was facing two Asian men with body odor. "What do you want. I have some money in my billfold. Just take it and leave."

"What we want is much more valuable than your money, Mr. Borin . . . May I call you Felix? Of course I can. You're in no position to take offense. What we want is a copy of the data from George Winston's personal computer."

Feliks thought back to his last conversation with Alexei. "His computer was stolen from his campaign bus. I don't know who has it."

"But certainly Mr. Winston has a back-up copy, and since you are his – how do you say it here – his I.T. guy, you must have your own copy."

"No, no I don't have a copy."

"How about at work. Do you have a copy there?"

"Winston fired me last week. I can't even get into my office to get my own stuff."

Feliks was wheeled around to face the window again. "Well then, you are not of any use to us." He pushed the chair toward the window, then yanked it to a stop.

"There is one other possibility, Felix. We know who has it, but we don't know how to locate him. We know you have had contact with him over the internet. If you could tell us where to find him, maybe we can reach an agreement of some kind."

"Who is it?"

"Jack Preston. He and a woman stole the laptop and removed the hard drive. Where can we find him?"

"I don't know. Honest, I don't know! I only interacted with him online. I have no idea where he lives."

"That's unfortunate Mr. Borin . . . for you."

The other man brandished a baseball bat in his hand. As he drew it back to swing, Feliks tried to duck his head, but the tape had him bound too tight. The swing passed over Feliks' head – and shattered the window. His questioner pushed the chair through the opening as he said "Be sure to count the seconds to see if you were right."
Chapter 33

It was late when they got to Telluride, but Lynn made him stop to pick up O'Malley on the way up to the house. The dog was so excited they could hardly get him into the back seat of Jack's truck. "If you pee on my seat, I'll throw you off a cliff."

"Oooohhh. Don't worry puppy. He's all bark and no bite."

As soon as they pulled into the driveway she let him out to run. He stopped at the gate and sniffed around, then bounded up to the house.

As they went into the great room – what else could you call a living room this big – Lynn plopped down on the couch. "God I love being home, Jack. When I die, strap me to this couch and bury it out in the woods."

"I know what you mean, sweetheart. It's become home to me too. I'll go get the bags from the car."

Lynn grabbed his wrist and pulled him down next to her and said "Leave them until morning, dear. Come here and get me warm."

Jack protested, "But we don't have anything to sleep in. Our pajamas are in the luggage."

Lynn gave him a mischievous smile. "Oh, I'm sure we'll figure out something."

They slept, wrapped in each other's arms, until almost noon the next day. When they were both awake Lynn got up and headed for the bathroom before she realized she had nothing on. She turned back to the bed to grab a sheet for cover when she saw Jack was staring at her. She blushed and reached for the sheet, but Jack pulled it away.

"I love to see you 'au naturale.' You should walk around like that more often."

She stood up straight to show him she wasn't bashful and said with a laugh "I will if you will."

He replied, as always, "I will if you will."

She threw herself on top of him and, as they started to kiss, she grabbed the sheet and ran for the bathroom laughing. "Maybe next time."

#

After breakfast they took O'Malley and went outside for a long walk. Two days cramped up in the truck left them stiff and eager to stretch their legs. Even in early afternoon the air had a crispness to it that signaled winter was just around the corner. Jack looked up at the blue sky. "When do you think we'll get the first snow, Lynn?"

"At this altitude it's usually early November, sometimes even late October. There may have already been some light snow we missed."

"I'll have to get busy winterizing the place – stocking up on firewood, checking the heating system, getting snow tires on the truck and the Jeep . . . oops. I forgot. No more Jeep. Let's go down to the local dealer tomorrow and see what they have as a replacement."

"Local dealer? This is Telluride, population just over two thousand. The nearest Jeep dealer is almost 100 miles from here."

"Well, then we'll find just what you want online and have it delivered to your front door."

"Won't that cost a lot?"

"Not with Winston paying for it."

As they started in the front door Lynn stopped. "Aren't you going to get the bags, dear?"

"Oh, I don't know. Last night was enjoyable."

"Nice try buster. I need some fresh clothes."

#

Minister Cheong was trying to fight off a migraine without much success. Chinese folk medicine may be time tested, but nothing was better than western remedies. What Bao wouldn't give for a handful of Excedrin right now. The cause of his misery was the news that Feliks Borin was a dead end. No back-up hard drive and no location for Jack Preston. His only hope was if Preston and his wife returned to Colorado, but that was a long shot. If he couldn't find out what Winston was planning for China it would catch them by surprise. He had to have a response ready for whatever was coming. His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his office door. He shouted "I do not want to be interrupted. Come back later!"

He heard Ming's voice through the door. "Minister Cheong. I have great news."

"It better be really good. Enter."

"I have photographs from our satellite, Minister. Someone is occupying the Telluride home."

He jerked the photos from Ming's hand. "Let me see them."

What he was looking at was a clear, color photograph of the Martin house and property with a man and woman walking together across the grass in front of the house. "Are we certain it is them?"

"Yes Minister. In this second picture the man is looking up at the sky to give us a good face shot. When we compared it to the photo we have, it was a 92% match."

His migraine forgotten Cheong looked Ming in the eye. "Would you like a chance to redeem your self, Lieutenant Ming?"

"Yes, Minister, I would very much like another chance."

"Fail this time and you will be working in the rice fields and wading through excrement."

"Yes, Minister. What are your orders?"

"Take your two best men and get to Telluride as quickly as you can. Do whatever is needed to bring that hard drive back."

"Yes, Minister. I will have it on your desk within the week."

#

Jack was making breakfast when Lynn came up from behind and wrapped her arms around him. "Good morning, Chef Preston. What's on the menu this morning?"

"A breakfast burrito with eggs, bacon, and cheese covered with my special gourmet green chili sauce, and refried beans on the side."

"Mmmm. I love that. When we're through with this hectic life, maybe you could open a Mexican restaurant in Telluride?"

"The only thing on the menu would be my burrito plate. I don't know any other special Mexican recipes."

"What about your sour cream chicken burritos. They would bring lots of customers back every week for their green chili fix. Those things are addictive."

"Then you would have to wait tables – a fate worse than death. Have a seat; the burritos are ready."

As they were finishing their final cup of coffee, Lynn asked, "So what have you got planned for today?"

"Remember my idea for a super drone – a quad-helicopter on steroids? This morning I'll put the finishing touches on it and take it out in the front lawn for the first test flight. After a few adjustments, I'll have a high speed drone with both visible and infrared video cameras that can transmit real-time images to the two screens in the hand controller."

"What will you use it for?"

"I don't have anything in mind right now, but I want to have it ready to fly whenever the need comes up."

"What makes it so fast?"

"Instead of electric motors and a battery, it's powered with a single Wankel model airplane engine running on nitro and alcohol. It can carry enough fuel to run for two hours, has a payload capacity of twelve pounds, and automatically comes back to the launching location if it loses contact with the controller."

"I'll bet Dave Cramer would like a couple of those."

"I'll give him a demonstration once I'm sure it's working right."

#

Jack was as excited as a kid when the drone lifted off the grass. He flew a couple of circles over the trees, then turned off the control transmitter to test the automatic return feature. It hovered for a few seconds, like it was trying to make up it's mind what to do, then shot off over the house into the back yard. _'Definitely need some adjustments on that feature,'_ he thought as he rounded the rear corner of the house – and found himself confronted by two men.

Before Jack could react one of them stepped up and aimed a silenced pistol at his chest. _'Big mistake standing that close to me . . .'_ Jack thought. With lightning-quick reflexes Jack pushed the gun aside and struck him with a stiffened hand in the solar plexus, paralyzing his diaphragm. As Jack reached to take the gun from him, he felt something cold loop tightly around his neck. He reached back to push a thumb into the man's eye socket but froze when the wire tightened.

"This is a garrote, Mr. Preston. One hard pull and it will sever your windpipe, and probably your carotid arteries. Now put you hands out in front of you and stay still." Jack saw no other option but to do what he said. The first man had his breath back and bound his hands together with thick tape. "My name is Ming. Let us go inside and talk, shall we?"

"I recognize you from our encounter in Columbus. What do you want?" Jack said.

"I want the computer drive you removed from Mr. Winston's laptop. If you give me that we'll leave peacefully. Otherwise . . ."

"Is that all. It's in my study – I'll get it for you."

"No. You stay where you are and tell me where I can find it."

"It's in the top left drawer of the desk. If you bring the laptop, I'll put the hard drive in so you can see that it's genuine."

A few minutes later Jack had installed the drive and pulled up the list of files stored on it. Ming looked through several files, but still wasn't certain it was Winston's hard drive. "How do I know it is from Winston's laptop?"

"Click on the main folder labeled 'Foreign Relations. . . . Now open up the subfolder labeled PRC. That's good. Now find the document titled 'Plans for China.' There it is. It's several pages long, but there is an executive summary on the first page. Scan through it and tell me if it alarms you."

Ming read through the summary. First his eyes opened wide in surprise at what he was seeing, then his growing anger started to show on his face. "I must get this back to our government immediately," he said as he removed the drive and slipped it into his pocket.

He stood back and looked at Jack. "Why are you giving this up so easily? Why didn't you go to your authorities with it?"

"Because most of our government is as corrupt as yours. We plan to take legal action against Winston and put him in prison, but he has so many supporters that we have to be cautious."

"A satisfactory answer, Mr. Preston. Now we shall depart." As Ming turned toward the front door, he stopped and looked back at Jack. "I almost forgot."

"Forgot what?"

"The payback part of our visit. You shot one of my agents in the knee while he was laying on the ground helpless, so of course I must extract retribution. That's how we do it in China. 'An eye for an eye' is what you Americans call it." As he raised his pistol he asked, "Which knee would you prefer Mr. Preston?"

#

Lynn was enjoying an afternoon nap. She was dreaming that Jack was licking her fingers when she realized it was O'Malley. He gently tugged on her hand, trying to get her out of bed. She sat up and wrapped her arms around his neck in a hug, but he pulled away. _'She never does that? What's the matter with her?'_ He went over to the bedroom door, as if coaxing her along. "What is it, boy?" As she opened the door she froze. She heard voices downstairs in the great room. They never had visitors out here, so it must be something serious. She signaled for O'Malley to stay at her heel and peaked through the door opening. There were two men standing in front of Jack, and one was holding a gun on him.

Lynn quietly pulled her pistol from the bedside table drawer as her mind went into high gear _. 'I'll have a side view of them from the balcony, so they won't see me. I don't have a line of sight to hit him between the eyes, so the best option is to shoot his gun hand – even if he pulls the trigger the gun will be pushed off target by the bullet. But if I miss, Jack and I might end up dead._ She laid on the floor and crawled up to the balcony railing, rested the gun on her left arm, carefully sighted in on her target, and slowly squeezed the trigger.

Her shot was perfect. The man's gun went flying as he grabbed his hand and screamed. His partner froze for a couple of seconds, then looked up at her and he started to draw his gun. _'It's like everything is moving in slow motion,'_ Lynn thought. Her next words were "Sick him, Jasper" to put the Irish setter in the full attack mode. O'Malley leaped over the balcony railing and came down on the man from above. Before he could recover O'Malley was straddling his body with his jaws clamped lightly around the man's throat. He started to reach for the gun he dropped, but froze when Lynn said "One word from me and he'll rip your throat out."

Jack stepped in and kicked the gun out of reach. "Grab your friend here and get out of my house. If you ever come back you won't leave alive." The two men slowly backed out the front door, then turned and ran down the driveway to where their car was hidden in the trees.

Lynn ran downstairs and wrapped her arms tightly around Jack's neck. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as a flood of question poured from her mouth. "Are you alright? Did they hurt you? Are you shot? How did they get in the house?" and "Whose blood is that on the floor? Is it O'Malley's?"

"Slow down, dear, I'm fine, although I wouldn't have been if you were a few seconds later in joining the party. And the blood came from the hand you shot. Now get this tape off of me."

She let out a sigh as she looked down at the blood on the floor. "It's a good thing he was standing on the hallway tiles. We would never get the blood out of the carpet."

Jack laughed. "And who has to clean this mess up? You caused it."

"But I was defending you, so it's your responsibility."

"O.K., we'll both clean it up. If he had shot me in the knee it would have been a much bigger mess."
Chapter 34

_Fast forward to January 15_ th

Five days before his swearing in as President, Winston was working on his inaugural speech. He knew what he wanted to say, but he was struggling with the precise words he needed to demonstrate to America – and the rest of the world – that he was in charge. With both houses of Congress behind him, he could make things happen. He silently thanked the current President for making Executive Action a new and powerful tool for getting what he wanted; what he thought was best for the country. No waiting for Congress to vote on it, no legal reviews, just declare it one day and the next day it's the law of the land.

He read the previous paragraph aloud to get the emphasis and voice inflections just right. As he made some notes to himself and started on the next paragraph, his secretary rang to tell him he had an important phone call. _'When you're going to be the next president everyone has something important to bother you with,'_ he thought. "Tell them I am unavailable and take a message."

"Sir, the person was very insistent that he talk to you. He says he is Bao Cheong, the Financial Minister of the Peoples Republic of China."

"Alright, put him through." _'He probably wants to congratulate me.'_

"Minister Chung. Charles Winston here. What can I help you with?"

"It is Cheong, Mr. Winston, not Chung. I have acquired the hard drive from the laptop that was stolen from you. I am very disturbed with . . ."

Winston interrupted. "What! You people stole my laptop from the campaign bus? How dare you!"

"No Mr. Winston. We did not steal it. We acquired it from the person who did steal it. But back to what I was saying. . . ."

Winston interrupted again. "Who was the bastard? Tell me now or I'll hang up."

"It was a man named Jackson Preston. We persuaded him it would be best if he turned it over to us."

"That snake has been after me for months, trying to ruin my great plan for America. He will pay for this. I'll have my men . . . Is he still alive? You people didn't kill him, did you?"

"No Mr. Winston, Preston is still very much alive and healthy. We are not barbarians who go around torturing and killing."

"Of course, and Elvis is still alive . . . O.K. Go on."

"I am greatly disturbed about your plans regarding my country. If you go ahead with the measures described in the hard drive file, it will have an enormous economic impact on us. You will be declaring economic war against the Peoples Republic. We may have no choice but to respond with all the military might we possess."

"Wait a minute. Are you talking nuclear weapons here?"

"If necessary, yes."

"Now you listen to me, you slant-eyed weasel. I will not allow my country to be pushed around by your precious Peoples Republic. If you mess with me, we'll bomb you back to the stone age."

"I was hoping to come to an agreement of some kind, Mr. Winston, but you are making that impossible."

"Damn right I am. America doesn't need China for anything."

"I can see no reason to carry this conversation further, Mr. Winston."

"It's President Winston!"

"Not yet, Mr. Winston, not yet."

#

It took George Winston thirty minutes to finish ranting and raving about what Cheong told him. When he could think rationally again, he called for his soon-to-be Treasury Secretary, Patrick Henry O'Neil. After he outlined his conversation with Minister Cheong, leaving out much of his end of the conversation, he looked at O'Neil.

"P.H., I need something even stronger that what I had planned to do to China. Something so terrible that Cheong will have to back down on his threat and bow to our supremacy."

O'Neil said jokingly, "Why don't we cancel our debt to China. Wipe it out. Stop paying the interest and declare the balance due to be erased. That would get their attention."

Winston mulled it over for a minute, then responded "That's it, P.H. That's just what I'll do. I'll reveal it during my inaugural speech! The people will go wild over this. I'll start writing it this afternoon."

"Sir, you can't be serious. A move like that will destroy the world's economy."

"Oh, you're overreacting, imagining the absolute worst. Messing with just one country can't have that big of an impact. And think of all the money that will stay in this country rather than going to China. Wall street will have a boom like they've never dreamed of."

"No, Charles! You have it all wrong. You don't understand economics at all."

"No one understands economics, P.H. When have the economic forecasters ever been right? Everything they predict is based on wild assumptions selected to make their models come up with their own opinions. An analyst can get you any answer you want by selecting the proper assumptions."

"If you intend to go through with this insane action, I can no longer be considered for the position of Treasury Secretary."

"No problem, Mr. O'Neil. There are plenty of other candidates who would love to have the job. You are dismissed – and fired."

With that problem out of the way, Winston focused on the other thing he learned from Bao Cheong – Jack Preston's role in stealing his laptop. He picked up his phone and called Alexei Borsilov's cell phone number.

Alexei had been watching Jack Preston's cabin in West Virginia for three days, hoping he would show up, but it was still vacant. He drove up here from his flea-bag motel in Mill Creek twice a day to check, but it was time to move on to Telluride to see if he and his wife had gone back there. As he was climbing into his car his cell phone rang. The screen said it was George Winston. _'What would he want with me. I'm already fired.'_

"Alexei here."

"Ah yes, Alexei. I may have been too hasty when I asked you to leave."

"So you want me be back on the job?"

"Not quite. I will have the Secret Service to protect me from now on. But I have something I want you to do for me. A one-time job for which I will pay you one-hundred thousand dollars."

"Now you have me interested. What is it you want me to do?"

"Find and kill Jack Preston. Send me photos of his body full of bleeding bullet holes and I will wire the money to your bank account."

"Why the renewed interest in taking Preston out?"

"Because he is the one who stole my laptop computer from the bus."

"I knew it! I knew he had to be involved! As we speak I am staking out his home in West Virginia. There's nothing here, so I'm moving on to his wife's place in Colorado next. How did you find out, Mr. Winston?"

"He apparently sold it to the Chinese. I received a call this morning from their Finance Minister who is really pissed off about my plans to break their hold on our economy."

"That couldn't be good."

"No, Alexei, it wasn't. But watch my inaugural address next week and see what I have planned for them."

"I will, Mr. Winston. I'll head for Colorado just as soon as I verify that you have deposited half of the fee into my account. It's the same account my paycheck used to go to."

"You will get the entire fee when you have completed the assignment."

"Well then, I guess you will have to find someone else. Goodbye Mr. Winston."

Alexei didn't hang up immediately. He knew he had Winston by the . . ."

"Wait! Are you still there, Alexei?

"For the next five seconds, sir."

"The fifty thousand will be in your account within the hour. Goodbye."

Winston picked up the phone to call accounting and have them transfer the money, but then he remembered he didn't control his company any more. Once he won the election he transferred management of Winston Securities to a trust to avoid conflict of interest problems. He was allowed to maintain an office and staff at the company, but he had no control over financial issues. He mentally explored options for getting the money but in the end was left with only his personal bank account. The amount was no problem – he had over three million dollars in the account – but he would prefer to transfer it from an account that wasn't connected to him. He couldn't think of any other way so he called his account manager and authorized the transfer.
Chapter 35

P.H O'Neil was fighting with his inner self – the part of him that knew what was right and wrong. Bringing his country back from the brink of socialism was the right thing to do. But risking nuclear war with China was as wrong as it could get. How could he support Winston's plan with the knowledge that the People Republic of China might respond with a nuclear attack on America? The problem was that he didn't know if the PRC was really willing to go to war over this. As he thought through the economic devastation that China would suffer he could only conclude that they were serious.

With that point conceded in his self debate, he wondered what he could do about it. Winston was not going to be moved on this issue, so there was no point in trying to convince him. Winston had a Congress that would support anything he proposed, even this madness. What if he leaked it to the press? Would there be an uprising of the American public on the issue? No, because Winston had also wooed the television newscasters to believe in his plan. The only solution O'Neil could see was to let China know what Winston was about to announce. They would take the problem to the United Nations, to the court of public opinion.

With that decision made, O'Neil had one more problem – how to let Finance Minister Cheong in on Winston's plan without revealing himself. If it came as an anonymous email or message, Cheong might dismiss it as the work of an anarchist. It would have to come from a some high-ranking Government source, but who? . . . Clinton Hill! If he could convince Senator Hill to contact Minister Cheong, he might believe it. Clinton just lost the election for the highest office in the land, so he has nothing to loose. His political career was finished.

O'Neil was acquainted with Hill and had worked with him on several congressional committees, but he was not a close friend. He might be suspicious that O'Neil was trying to involve him in some political intrigue, but he had to try. He called Hill and asked to meet tomorrow evening in a noisy bar in Bethesda, outside Washington. He wanted the background noise to prevent their conversation from being recorded. The Washington city council passed an anti noise law last year, so most of the night life had moved to the suburbs.

#

After the waiter brought their drink orders to the table and took their dinner order Hill looked at O'Neil. "It's your show, P.H. Why are we meeting like this when you could have just scheduled an appointment at my office? It must be the noise here. You were afraid I'd be wearing a wire . . . or I would suspect that you were wired. This must be something really important."

"You're right on both counts, Clint. If this gets out, there will be rioting in the streets. Before I tell you, I need know that you will tell no one – except the one you need to pass it on to. That's what I need you for, to be the middle man."

Hill raised his left hand and said with a mock solemn face, "I am hereby sworn to secrecy on this matter."

"First let me make sure you are the right person for this. How well do you know Bao Cheong. He's the . . ."

"I know who he is. I spent some time with him and his family when the foreign relations subcommittee visited the PRC. He even invited me to dinner at his home. We've remained on speaking terms ever since. But where does Cheong fit into this – whatever 'this' is?"

"Charles Winston is planning something idiotic with regard to the Chinese. As soon as he is President, Winston will announce that the U.S. will cancel our debt to China, zero it out, refuse to make any more 'mortgage' payments. Because that's what it is– China holds the mortgage on America."

Clint was silent for a few seconds, then he burst out laughing. "You almost got me on that one P.H. The only thing that made it halfway believable was that Winston is crazy enough to do it." O'Neil looked Hill in the eye with a stone face, but didn't say a thing.

It took Hill several seconds before he said, "Oh my God, P.H. You're serious! Winston is actually planning to do this! How did you find out? Is this just a rumor?"

"He told me himself yesterday, just before I resigned as his future Treasury Secretary."

"So you want me to pass this on to Bao Cheong!"

"That's the only way I see that we can stop this. If China announces what Winston has in mind before he gets into office, and spells out how China will respond to it, the American public will want Winston's blood. The most likely outcome is that Congress will quickly impeach him and get him out of office. Then the Vice President will step in, reverse Winston's policy, and apologize to China."

Hill sat deep in thought for several minutes, which seemed like half an hour to O'Neil. Hill was one of those people who carried on conversations with himself as he reasoned through a problem, but O'Neil only heard mumbling. Finally Hill looked up and said, "You're right. This is the only way to handle this. I'll do it."

Relief washed over O'Neil's face. "Thank you, Clint. How will you contact Cheong?"

"The only way he will believe me is if I see him in person. So I'll leave tomorrow morning. I still have access to the private jet that George Soros provided for my campaign. I'll call Cheong and set up a meeting as soon as I get home this evening."

#

Cheong had just finished a meeting with Clinton Hill. He could hardly believe what he was told. Winston was a mad man. His actions would leave the Peoples Republic no other option but to launch a nuclear attack. This problem had gone beyond his level of authority. He must contact the Prime Minister and pass the issue to him. . . . But if he did that, he would be blamed for letting things get this far. He thought earlier that, if he failed, he would be sent to the farms as punishment, but now he saw an even worse future. He would certainly be put on public trial, found guilty, and sentenced to death. He didn't fear death, but the humiliation to his ancestors and family would be more than he could bear. He must stop this immediately, and he had only one option left. He picked up the phone and made the call.
Chapter 36

Lynn was cleaning up after breakfast when she got a call from Harriet. "Hi Harriet. I was just thinking about you two. Wondering what you were up to now that we're coasting toward the final act in our soap opera 'The Secret Life of Charles Winston.'"

"Right now we're just trying to get back to the boring everyday life we love. But I can already see that we'll miss the excitement of what we've been doing for the past year. Maybe we can get together for a car chase or paintball shootout now and then.

"That could be fun."

"Tell Jack thanks for letting us know about the recent encounter with the Chinese version of James Bond. Rick called in a professional alarm company to strengthen the security around here. And I've had Rick out on the shooting range to improve his skills with a sidearm. I told him he had to keep at it until he could shoot the gun out of a dummy's hand at twenty paces. I hear that was quite a shot you took."

"Well, he was about to shoot Jack, so I had to do something to keep Jack out of the hospital and in my bed."

"I swear, you two are just like newlyweds."

"We'll be acting like newlyweds until the day one of us dies. Are you two planning to watch Winston's swearing in today?"

"We're almost afraid to hear what he will say. But I guess we already know the worst of it. Rick is set on watching it, so I guess I will too."

"I want to see the crowd's reaction when he reveals his new relationship with China. The crowd will probably give him applause until they take time to understand China's reaction to the higher import taxes, and the exodus of companies heading back home to America. We know China is aware of it, because they have a copy of the hard drive, and I'm surprised they haven't responded yet. Whatever happens, Vice President Tyler is sure to undo it after we get Winston impeached."

"I'll rest easier when that happens. Tell that hunk of yours I said hello."

"Give Rick a hug for me."

Lynn finished up the kitchen and went down to Jack's workshop to see what he was up to. He was intently working on some electronics, so he didn't hear her come up behind him. She blew on the back of his neck and had to jump back when he reach back and slapped his neck. "Damn insects,"

"We're in the dead of winter, dear. The insects are all hibernating."

"Oh, that was you tickling my neck. Almost got you with a swat."

"What'cha working on there, Mr. Mad Scientist?"

"I got the auto-return bug in my drone working, and now I'm trying to mount an infrared search light on it. It will light up even the darkest scenes for the IR camera."

"That's a scary thought if the Government gets hold of it. They can watch us at night and we'll never know it. What if we're in the yard making out on a blanket?"

"I'll program it to shut its eyes when it sees something inappropriate."

"Yeah, right. It can't tell what's inappropriate. You're just putting me on again. If you want to watch the hoopla in Washington you'd better quit soon."

"O.K. I'll be up in a minute."

#

With the swearing in over Winston moved up to the podium to deliver his inaugural address. He looked out over the huge crowd that came to hear him and smiled.

"People of the United States of America, I thank you for agreeing with my great plan by electing me your President. I made many promises before I was elected, but . . . I know what you're thinking. Here comes the part where he says he can't possibly deliver on all of them, the part where you tell yourselves it was all lies. . . . Well, this is not that part, because I am not the kind of President you are used to grumbling about. I not only will do everything I promised, I will take them beyond what I promised. I will take this country back to its former greatness, and I will demand respect for my country from all other nations. Before I am through, the Middle East, North Korea, and China will not only respect America, they will fear it. Let me outline some of what I will accomplish during my first year in office.

I will overhaul our military to make it stronger than it has ever been. But I will not allow us to be the world's police force any longer. I will withdraw our forces from around the world and bring them back home to become part of a home-based strike force that can reach any location in the world within 24 hours, and be ready to destroy any threat to our security. We will carpet bomb the aggressors, clean up what's left with superior ground forces, and return home within weeks to await the next outbreak. Yes, this approach will result in the deaths of non-combatants, but the enemy has been hiding behind their skirts for too long. Collateral damage is a fact of war, and our enemies will have to live with it.

The next thing I will deal with is the huge immigration problem. Effective immediately, all U.S. borders will be sealed, and anyone trying to enter this country illegally will be sent to confinement camps to help produce this country's products at a competitive price. These people will provide the immigrant labor needed to work the fields, and do the jobs Americans find too demeaning . . . but they will live in the camps, and their wage will be food and a roof over their heads.

I will also immediately begin the process of reforming our legal system, from top to bottom. I will start by restructuring the Supreme Court of the United States. During the upcoming Congress, legislation will be passed that provides for Presidential appointment of four justices of his choosing at the beginning of each four-year term. No longer will a President and Congress be able to stack the court in their favor for the life of the appointee.

I will also correct the great injustice of huge lawsuits. The maximum amount of any lawsuit brought before the courts will be actual damages plus twenty-five thousand dollars. And the presiding judge will determine the lawyers' fees based on their performance in court, with the maximum of ten percent of the settlement amount.

Finally, I will make serious changes in the American economy. I will eliminate economic aid to all foreign nations except for humanitarian reasons. I will install a flat-rate tax system for individuals and corporations of 18% on all earnings. No exceptions, no special cases, no loopholes.

I will also phase out the Government mandated minimum wage. Everyone will be paid what the job market allows. This will restore competition for jobs and reward performance at all levels. No longer will someone be able to sit back and collect a paycheck that a union has mandated simply based on their seniority. People shouldn't be promoted because of how long they have held the job, it should only be about their performance.

I will stop unfair price competition on products manufactured outside the United States. Imports from U.S. businesses that have moved abroad to find cheap labor will be taxed at a rate of thirty percent. They will have to move back home or go out of business.

The biggest unproductive drain on our economy is welfare – paying people to sit at home and live comfortably on money the Government has stolen from people who have the intelligence and drive to build their own wealth. Over the next year, our welfare programs will be replaced by workfare programs. There are over a million vacancies for jobs that welfare recipients consider beneath them. Well, that will change. They will work . . . or starve.

One final issue that my political opponents have attacked me on is where the money will come from to pay for the reforms I will enact. The answer is surprisingly simple. . . . I will declare our debt to the Peoples Republic of China to be null and void. I will cancel that huge debt and the billions of dollars in interest that we pay them each year. This one move alone will free up trillions of dollars to fund the economic growth of this great country.

Yes, I ran on promises that many of you considered radical, but you elected me to carry them out. And that's exactly what I will do.

Jack and Lynn were stunned, frozen in place over what they just heard. They didn't know what to say to each other. Winston will make it impossible for China to continue as an economic presence in the world. And what about the debt to other countries – they will be screaming for full repayment immediately. Jack put his head in his hands. "We've failed, Lynn. China will react to this so quickly that there will be no time to begin the impeachment process. And if their reaction is a nuclear attack, then the world as we know it is doomed."

Their thoughts were interrupted by a phone call from Rick and Harriet. "Did I just hear what I thought I did? He must have misspoken. He'll be on TV before the day is out recanting his statement. . . . Won't he?"

Jack replied, "I don't think so, Rick. All we can hope for is that China will react rationally and solve this through negotiations."

Rick gave a short laugh. "Last week I went online looking for homes available on an island paradise somewhere. I was only dong it as a joke. I was going to send you a picture and say we just bought it for five million – Winston's five million. But I did actually find a place that's up for sale – we could get it for two and a half million. Our team should all move there and watch the world come apart at the seams."

Lynn commented, "I was surprised at how the crowd reacted. Most of them clapped and cheered. They don't have a clue about what this will mean – they just want bigger paychecks. Hang on. Winston is starting his walk down Pennsylvania avenue to the White House. Let's see how the parade crowd treats him. I'll call you back later."
Chapter 37

He poured over the maps of Washington D.C. looking for the perfect spot. The Secret Service would be protecting the President closely all along the inaugural parade route, so he had to find a spot where he could remain invisible until the exact moment. What happened after that was of no concern. He expected to be caught before he could escape. That's what the cyanide pill in his pocket was for. He couldn't be taken alive.

He had looked over several sites along Pennsylvania Avenue and settled on one of two locations. If he could hide on the second floor of the EPA offices at Federal Triangle, he would have a clear shot from the balcony up twelfth street to where the President would walk past. But if something blocked his shot while the President was within that narrow window, he wouldn't get another. The tower of the Old Post Office Building gave him a clear line of fire from several angles, but they would be guarding that high ground closely. The building was closed to the public while it was being renovated by Donald Trump to develop the property into the Trump International Hotel. The police would be sure to clear the building of all workmen, probably the afternoon before the parade. But as he examined photos and architectural plans an idea started forming.

The night before the inauguration, he would climb up the outside of the building and hide in one of the many crevices in the steepled roof's architecture. If he was well enough camouflaged, even aerial surveillance wouldn't see him. And with the specially designed rifle he was provided, the kill was a sure thing.

He removed the weapon from its case and laid it on the hotel bed. He inspected each part then added it to the assembly. He couldn't help but marvel at this amazing weapon developed by the PRC firearms laboratory. It fired small caliber, high velocity bullets with flexible fins on the rear and an infrared sensor in the nose. The rifle had four barrels that fired all four bullets a tenth of a second apart when he pulled the trigger. The infrared laser aligned with the sighting scope and gun barrels would put a pinpoint laser spot on the target wherever he placed the scope cross hairs. When he fired, the four bullets would steer themselves straight at the laser spot. The best part was that the bullets were powered by super high pressure compressed air instead of gunpowder. They made little more than a popping sound as the bullets left the gun. The gunstock held the air tank, and the ultra-light barrels and firing mechanism were made from ceramic that would disintegrate as the bullets left the gun. He had in his hands one of the very few perfect sniper rifles ever made. He checked it one more time. The bullets were preloaded in the barrels so he didn't have to worry about inserting cartridges. He shortened the narrow sling and hung it from his shoulder. A long top coat concealed it from view. He smiled as he locked the hotel room door for the last time and thought, _'I'm on my way to make history.'_

#

Ted Lee knew it would be cold up here, but even with thermal underwear he was shivering as the Presidential party came into view. He had to leave the top coat hidden in the bushes so his climb wasn't impeded. When he found his perch late last night he attached adhesive anchors for a safety belt that would hold him in place and free up his arms for the shot. The spot he chose was still deep in the shadows, so he wasn't worried about being detected. When Winston and his Secret Service gang reached the ninth street crossing of Pennsylvania avenue Lee slowly brought the rifle to firing position. As he looked through the rifle scope he saw a TV camera not 15 feet from the President and thought _'Some network is going to get the TV shot of the century.'_

He put the scope cross hairs on the left side of Winston's forehead and squeezed the trigger. One-third of a second later Winston's head exploded. Lee watched the pandemonium that erupted below. The Secret Service agents collected around him, looking outward with their guns drawn. Without the sound of a rifle shot to focus on, they had no idea where the threat was coming from. A car hurried up to the Vice President and he was pushed unceremoniously into the rear seat before it sped off.

"Mission accomplished" Ted said to himself as he unfastened the safety belt and bit down on the cyanide capsule.

#

Jack wasn't interested in watching the new President strut down the avenue from the capitol to his new home. He was so angry at Winston's China announcement that he told Lynn "If I had him in my gun sights right now I would pull the trigger – several times. We may as well forget our impeachment plans because he won't live long enough. China will wipe out Washington with a nuclear weapon. They'll get some fanatic to drive a FedEx truck carrying a nuclear bomb past the White House and set it off. I'm going out for a run to burn off this anger. Come on, O'Malley."

Jack took his usual path from the back door, up the mountain into the trees, along the ridge line, then back down to the house. It was a grueling run over five miles of rugged terrain, but it cleared his mind to think about what they should do next. Rick's isolated island was sounding awfully inviting at this point. When he got to the top of the ridge he stopped and sat on a log to catch his breath. He looked toward the sky and prayed.

"Lord, please give us the strength to withstand what lies ahead. You know what's going on down here – and you know how it will turn out. But I ask you to intervene with these two governments to lead them to a peaceful solution. I don't know to what degree you control things down here – whether you are in charge of every detail, or whether you just nudge things now and then toward the outcome you have planned. But I know it's in your power to stop this madness, and I trust that, whatever happens, you will use it to achieve your ends. I ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

The prayer gave him a sense of peace and relieved his guilt feelings over failing to keep Winston out of office. _'It's in God's hands now. If he wants me to do something about it, he'll let me know.'_ As he neared the house on his return run he saw Lynn standing on the deck waving frantically. He changed direction and sprinted straight toward the house. When he reached the deck Lynn leaned over the railing. "Jack. You won't believe what just happened. Somebody shot Winston. He's dead!"

Jack was out of breath from the run so he couldn't shout it out, but he whispered to himself "Thank you, Lord."

"Come inside and watch what happened. They're replaying it over and over."

As they sat on the couch watching the news they saw a close up view of Winston smiling . . . and then his head burst open like a watermelon. The news reporter described the incident.

"It was a lovely, peaceful day as the new President walked along Pennsylvania Avenue, smiling and waving at the crowd. And then it was over. In a split second George Winston's term as President was over – just 45 minutes after he was sworn in. No one heard the gunshot, or knew where it came from. There was no assassin fleeing the scene. Police officers and Secret Service personnel have sealed off the surrounding area and are going through nearby buildings room by room seeking the killer, but so far, nothing has turned up.

As you can see from this next footage, the Vice President Marcus Taylor was hustled into a Secret Service vehicle and taken to an undisclosed location. We just received word from the White House that he will be sworn in as President within the hour. So the torch passes on to a new leader. It remains to be seen where he will take this country. Will he follow the plan laid out by President Winston this morning, or will have other ideas?

"Who do you think did it, Jack? China?"

"No, it happened too soon after Winston announced what he planned to do to China. This had to take some planning. It's more likely some extreme liberal group who see themselves as the saviors of socialism in this country."

Before Lynn could respond the phone rang. It was Rick and Harriet again. "I hate to see the man killed, but this is the best solution to the problem. We would have been at war with China by next week. Isn't this what Tom proposed when we started our crusade? You don't think he did it, do you Jack?"

"That thought hadn't entered my mind, Rick. But I think it could be an outside possibility. Especially since he hasn't called yet. Hang up and I'll call him to see if he's at home."

Tom's cell phone rang several times, and Jack's anxiety increased with each ring. Finally he heard "Hi Jack. I was just getting ready to call you. It took awhile for the shock to wear off."

"Hang on Tom. Let me get Rick and Harriet on a conference call. . . ."

"O.K. We're all here. Tom, what are your thoughts?"

"Tyler better reverse Winston's China policy immediately, or there will be an apocalypse. But we're right where we wanted to be at this point – Winston is out of the picture and Tyler is in charge. Let's hope our analysis about him being moderate enough to stop some of Winston's wild ideas is correct. So what are we going to do? Is our work finished?"

"For now, I believe it is. What do you think Rick?"

"I agree, Jack. Our mission now is to wait and see if something else comes up that needs our attention. Otherwise, we can all relax."

"Tom, Lynn, Harriet – are you in agreement?"

They all said "Yes" at the same time.

"O.K. It's official then. The Forsetians have gone into hibernation."

#

It was late afternoon by the time the helicopters joined the search. Major Carl Peterson and his crew were assigned to fly their UH-1N Huey helicopter above the buildings surrounding the shooting site looking for evidence that the sniper might have hidden on a roof or balcony. This was his third orbit around the area with no sightings. He spoke into the intercom microphone, "Pilot to Crew. It's getting pretty dark out there. Time to turn on the spotlights." When he looked down again the spotlight was moving from roof to roof, pausing long enough for the crew and the on-board camera to examine the scene below. He passed over the Old Post Office Building and headed toward One Federal Center across 12th street.

"Hold on Carl. Swing back over the Post Office. I may have seen something. Focus on the back side of the steeple, down where it joins the roof. Take her down a bit, Carl. . . . There! See that shape wedged in between roof and the bottom of the tower? What is that?"

"I'll zoom the camera for a close up . . . It looks like a person! And there's some blood! Call this in Carl."

"Roger that. I'll hover here until we're told otherwise."

Fifteen minutes later, just as darkness closed in, he received new orders over the encrypted radio channel. "A special forces chopper is coming up on your six o'clock, Major. You are to depart the area and head back to Andrews for debriefing."

"I copy, control. Heading home."

Thirty seconds after the Huey left, an Army Blackhawk helicopter took its place above the Old Post Office. The pilot held it steady while four special forces troops descended on ropes to the roof. They approached the body slowly with guns ready. The leader approached the body and looked for signs of life. He saw no apparent breathing so he reached out and pressed his fingers against the carotid artery. No pulse. He looked back at the others and signaled them forward. One of them, a forensics expert, double checked the pulse and began taking photos from every angle. When he was finished, he collected blood samples from the roof surface and the wounds, then nodded to the team leader. No words had been spoken and none would be – they maintained the vocal and radio silence a mission like this required.

They put the lifeless form in a body bag, attached it to one of the lines so it looked like one of them ascending back up to the Blackhawk, and signaled the crew to turn on the hoist. Two minutes later the four men were back aboard the chopper as it headed for a classified facility where the autopsy would be performed. The mission went as planned. Under the cover of darkness the body had been retrieved without detection. To those on the ground, the Blackhawk was just one of half a dozen helicopters patrolling the area.

#

President Tyler was in the underground bunker with the staff of the outgoing President. None of the people Winston chose for the positions were in the room. They had not been appointed yet, and Tyler had no intention of including them in his government. Tyler stood and addressed the group.

"As you all know we have a crisis – no, two crises – to consider. Because of the urgency of these crises, I have asked the former staff members not to hand in their resignations, as is the custom, but to remain in their positions until the crises has passed. At that time I will accept any requests to resign, but I may not grant them.

"The most immediate crises is to correct the error President Winston announced in his inaugural address. I will not follow Winston's plan on this point, or several other points. China must be contacted immediately and told that Winston misspoke, and that our relationship with China will remain just as it has been, for now. We will take no action that will affect their economy. I have tasked the Secretary of State with this and he has informed me that he has spoken with the Premier of the PRC to reassure him. The two will meet in two days in Beijing as a public display of our apology and their acceptance.

"The next issue is the assassination of President Winston. You don't know this because I just found out myself – a body has been recovered from the roof of the Old Post Office Building, along with pieces of an unusual sniper rifle. We know very little about this person, and until we do, nothing will be released to the public. Breathe a word of this to anyone and I will require your immediate resignation, to be possibly followed with charges of treason. Are you clear on this point." He looked around the table and saw only nodding heads. "That's all for now. We will all remain in this bunker until it is certain that China will not react militarily and that the assassin was simply a lone gunman."

#

At noon the following day Jack and Lynn were watching the continuous news coverage with a video link to Rick and Harriet. They were chatting with each other as the continuous repetitions of yesterday's event flowed across the screen. The only thing that changed was the identity of the talking heads with their own opinions and analysis of what happened and who was behind it. When an occasional "Breaking News" announcement appeared, they stopped talking to see what it was about. They were discussing what vehicle Lynn should buy to replace her destroyed Jeep when more breaking news got their attention. It was an announcement by the Director of the FBI.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I would like to announce that the individual who shot and killed Former President Charles Winston yesterday has been identified. He is Abu Haji Waziri, a sniper trained by ISIS specifically for this mission. After shooting the former President with a silenced sniper rifle from the back of a van, the individual drove away. A traffic camera in the area recorded the license number and, forty-five minutes after the man fled, a S.W.A.T. team arrived at the address listed on the vehicle's registration to find the van parked in the driveway. As they approached the house, there was an explosion inside. Upon entering the home they found that Mr. Waziri had blown himself up with an improvised explosive device. The assassin was identified using forensic evidence from the scene. Further details are not available at this time.

With that, the Director turned and left the podium, with the press shouting questions in his wake.

President Tyler turned the TV off and looked at the Secretary of State. "I hate it that we have to invent such tales to cover up unacceptable realities, but if the American people knew that the actual assassin was identified as a sleeper agent for the People's Republic of China, they would be screaming for war. If it take lies like this to maintain order, so be it."

"Yes sir. There are things the American public can't handle, and when those things occur, we have to create a believable fiction. Since ISIS is the current boogeyman feared by the population, they are the best scapegoat for this."

#

Jack said, "I was wondering how the Government would spin this. I originally rejected China as the culprit because there was no way for them to know what Winston would say yesterday. The only way I see it happening is if the PRC somehow learned of Winston's new policy before he made it public yesterday. We don't know when Winston changed his policy from what was on his hard drive, but it had to have been in the past week or so. That timeline would mean China had a sleeper agent in place who they could activate on short notice."

Rick responded, "That makes a lot more sense than that crap about ISIS. Whatever the truth is, this will join the list of conspiracy theories right up there with the JFK killing."

Lynn added, "I don't see much reason to watch the news. All we'll get is what the Government wants us to hear. I'm going to put a pizza in the oven."

Harriet joked, "Why don't you call the corner pizzeria and order one?"

"I'll have you know that, in spite of its double-digit population, Telluride has two pizza restaurants. . . . Unfortunately, neither of them know how to make a decent pizza."

"Good talking with you guys. We'll try to come out for a visit soon."
Chapter 38

Two weeks later Lynn and Jack are sitting on the deck admiring the snow covered meadow in front of the house. "I can't wait for winter to be over, when the grass springs up." Lynn got a serious look on her face and turned to him. "Jack, can I have a horse?"

"I think that would be a great idea. It would give O'Malley someone to play with. . . . If you promise not to love the horse more than me."

Lynn replied with a smile, "That could never happen, silly . . . I can't snuggle up to a horse in bed."

Lynn's granddaughter, Selena, joined them on the deck. "What are you two laughing about?" She took a deep breathe of the cold mountain air. "Thanks for letting me stay with you for awhile. I just love it up here. And I miss O'Malley when I'm living down in town. . . . Jack, do you want to play some chess?"

"If you promise not to beat me again."

"It's not my fault I'm smarter than you. I'll get the board and pieces out. See you upstairs."

Jack went up to the sunroom for the chess game. A few minutes later, Lynn shouted up the stairs, "Jack, I'm going to run to town for some groceries. Anything you want to me to pick up for you?"

Jack smiled at Selena across the chess board. "Yeah. How about a couple more adorable granddaughters like Selena."

"Sorry. They're all out of those. The factory has quit making them. I'll be back in awhile. Would you let O'Malley out for a run after I'm gone?"

"O.K. Sweetheart. See you in a bit."

Lynn went into the basement garage and got into Jack's Sport Trac pickup. As she backed out she remembered all the military equipment Jack had hidden under a false bottom in the bed. He brought most of his personal arsenal from his West Virginia cabin just in case they were attacked again by Winston's thugs. But so far they hadn't needed them.

Jack watched Selena as she appeared to study the board, contemplating her next move. Then she looked up and met his eyes. "I'm so glad you came into Grandma's life, Jack. She is so alive around you. And the love I see you two sharing – the looks, the sneaky kisses, . . . and the occasional pat on her tush when you think I'm not looking. When I find a man and settle down I want a relationship just like you two have."

"Whoa there. You have quite a few years before you need to be thinking about that. . . . You don't have a secret boyfriend you're planning to elope with, do you."

"Oh, don't be silly, Jack. I'm going to take my time and wait for a guy like you. Mom married her first husband too soon and we know how that turned out."

"They stayed together long enough for your mother to have you – and that's all that matters. Your move."

Jack had been teaching her to play chess for only a couple of days, but she was a fast learner. Jack never took the time to learn to play it well, and Selena was almost to his level of expertise. If she wanted to keep this up he would have to find a chess tutor for her.

Selena made her move and Jack quickly countered with his own. As he looked at the board more carefully he thought ' _Maybe I rushed that move. She can have me checkmated in two moves if she sees how I've left myself open.'_

"I'm going to go downstairs and let O'Malley out. Don't you cheat."

"It looks like I won't have to."

Jack whistled for their Irish setter as he opened the front door. He pushed his way past Jack and bounded towards the trees at the far end of the meadow. _'I wonder what he's after?'_ he asked himself. _'I must be getting old, talking to myself like this._ ' That's when something slammed into his shoulder, knocking him backward. He heard the rifle shot as he was falling. He tried to yell for Selena to run and hide in the woods, but all he could get out was a croak.

Selena heard a loud crack, followed by a thump. She jumped up and ran downstairs. Jack was laying on the floor in the foyer with a puddle of blood spreading quickly from his shoulder. She looked up as a shadow crossed the doorway.

"Hello, Jack. I've been waiting a long time for this. You screwed up my wrist with a knife attack a few months back, but I can still shoot a sniper rifle."

Jack got his voice working well enough to say, "Alexei! You bastard! Your shot has crippled me, so we're even. Now so get out of here."

Alexei replied, "Even? We're not even close," as he pulled out a pistol and shot Selena in the forehead.

"Noooooo! Selena, Selena."

"Oh, she's dead Jack. I wanted you to watch me do it, so when I finish you off, your heart will be filled with hatred. Goodbye, Jack."

Jack was helpless as he watched Alexei aim at his forehead and pull the trigger.

#

The bagging boy was helping Lynn put the last of the groceries into the back of the truck. As she dug into her purse for a tip she heard him say "I wonder what's going on up there on the hill. It looks like a big fire."

Lynn turned her head to where he was pointing. "Oh my God. That's my place!" She yelled "Call the fire department," as she jumped behind the steering wheel. Her hand was shaking so much she couldn't get the key into the ignition. "Damn it! Come on!"

She used her left had to steady the right and managed to get the key inserted. She started the truck and tore backward out of her parking place, slamming into the back of the car across from her. She shifted into low gear and peeled out of the parking lot and onto the street. "Oh my god, oh my god. Jack. Selena. No, Lord. No. Please let them get out safely."

As Lynn sped up the driveway she saw her house entirely engulfed in flames. _'When the fire department gets here there won't be anything to put out,'_ she thought. _'Where are you, Jack? I know you got Selena out. Where did you run to?'_

Lynn drove around the house but couldn't see Jack or Selena. _'I know they're here somewhere. Where are you?'_ "Jaaack. Selena. Where are you?"

By the time she got back around to the front the fire department had arrived. The chief ran up to her car. "Was there anyone inside ma'am?"

"I . . . I don't know. My husband and granddaughter were in there when I left for town. But I'm sure Jack would have gotten them out at the first sign of fire."

"I'll send some men in with fire suits and air packs to check."

#

Lynn was sitting in the snow beside her car crying when the Sheriff approached. "I'm so sorry for your loss, ma'am. But I need to ask you some questions."

Lynn sniffled and nodded.

"The fire department found two bodies in the house . . . or what's left of it. The fire seems to have been started in multiple places in the house, which is why it burned so quickly. We won't know until the coroner finishes her examination of the bodies, but they appear to be a middle-aged man and a very young woman."

A new wave of crying overtook Lynn, but the Sheriff waited patiently. He had been through this several times before and knew it took time.

"Based on what you told the fire chief, the two are probably your husband and your granddaughter. The initial opinion of the coroner is that the two died from gunshot wounds to the forehead from close range. They died instantly before the fire was set. Do you know who would want to kill them in this way?"

Lynn continued to cry as she thought this through. _'It must have been Alexei Borsilov. He's the only one I can think of with that kind of grudge against Jack. But there's no way the law could tie him to this.'_

"No Sheriff, I have no idea who could have done this. We were just living here happily, with no threats against us. Everyone liked Jack. No one would do this to him. And to kill Selena like that – these people had to be crazy. We didn't keep much cash laying around and had nothing of any real value. Jack had his laptop computer that he used for his consulting business. It was the latest laptop technology, so it may have had some value. Were the remains of his laptop found?"

"Not so far, ma'am. But we're still combing through the wreckage. We'll let you know if we find anything. Was there anything from his past that might have caught up with him?"

"Well . . . before we met, he was working for the Government in the Federal Remediation Agency. He had lots of assignments overseas, so it's possible someone was trying to get even for something."

"I'll talk to them to see if they have any idea who could have been after Mr. Preston. If it involves them, it will become a Federal case and I'll have to drop my investigation."

Lynn thought, _'That's what I'm after. I know who did this and I'm going to make them pay. I don't want you or the Feds getting in my way.'_

"A deputy approached . . . . Uh . . . there was a fourth body in there ma'am. It was a dog; a good-sized one. There was also a bullet in the dogs head."

#

Lynn and her sister, Betsy, stood beside the grave in the historic Lone Tree Cemetery as Jack's body was finally laid to rest. Selena was buried two graves down from Jack in the family plot. Betsy's husband's family history goes way back to the early mining days in the Colorado Rockies, where more people died of sickness and mining accidents than of old age. Betsy's husband had welcomed having Jack Preston and their adopted daughter, Selena, buried alongside his relatives.

As they walked back to the car Betsy asked "What now, Lynn. What will you do? Rebuild?"

"Jack left me a lot of money in a joint account. I also have access to more funds if I need them. With that, added to what I put away for retirement, I have enough money to do whatever I want to."

"What do you want to do?"

"Get even."
Chapter 39

Lynn drove Jack's truck across the country to his mountain cabin in eastern West Virginia. They hadn't gone back there since they were chased out by Alexei's gang, but Jack held onto it. They both grew up in these mountains and hoped one day to be able to come back, even if for a short vacation every year. A sob caught in Lynn's throat as she realized that would never happen. She got even more emotional as she drove up the driveway to his cabin. She stopped the car in front where she had a full view, as she recounted the many happy moments they had there. She wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and hardened herself against all emotions. They would do nothing but interfere with her determination to get even.

Lynn pulled the truck into the garage and opened the locked cover over the bed. As the pneumatic cylinders pushed it open she reached in and pulled out the boxes of things she salvaged from her Telluride home, along with some clothes she bought along the way. After putting some frozen dinners away in the freezer and one in the oven for supper, she stripped off her clothes and took a shower. She had to fight to keep back memories of the times she and Jack had showered together here.

When she finished eating, Lynn started laying out her 'get even' plan. The first thing on the list was to find Alexei. With Winston dead she doubted he would hang around the Atlanta headquarters. She talked her way through the problem. "The Feds will be going through Winston's papers and computer files, and it's likely they will find some incriminating evidence about Alexei. If I were in that situation I would run – hide out somewhere until things cooled off, so that's probably what Alexei has done. Maybe he has a place he goes to when he needs to get away. . . . Would Winston know it? Even if Alexei never told him, Winston kept secret files on everyone close to him. Where would Winston keep his secret stash of information? . . . His personal computer! That's why he was so protective of it."

Jack had given her a copy of the hard drive for safekeeping before . . . before Alexei took him away from her. She retrieved it from her laptop case and installed it in an external hard drive adapter. As she scrolled through the contents she thought _'There's so much here! It will take me days to go through it all. I'm sure there's some really interesting stuff here – things the FBI might be interested in – but I have to focus on my payback plan for now.'_ She moved up to the top-level file and did a search on his name – Alexei. Nothing showed up under that heading. How about his last name? Maybe Winston referred to him by that – but what is it? I don't know it! She searched her brain for memories where Jack might have mentioned it, but she couldn't remember him ever using it. I just have to give my brain time to dredge it up. Time for a break.

Lynn went downstairs and poured a glass of wine . . . and sobbed. _'This was Jack's favorite wine. It's what we took out on the deck in the evening.'_ She willed her rational left brain to wrest control from her emotional right brain. _'There's time to reminisce and cry later, right now I have one goal – to get Alexei.'_ She started thinking her way through their entire adventure – everything from when she first met Jack in Telluride to Winston's assassination. Each incident that involved Alexei or his goons received close scrutiny. When she got to Jack's confrontation with Alexei in Jim Norton's Caribbean condo she stopped. _'Jack wrote a memo for the record about that. Maybe I can find it on his computer. . . . No, his computer burned up with her home in Telluride, so the memo was gone. Maybe Rick or Harriet will remember his last name. I didn't want to involve them in this, but I can't do it without them.'_ Harriet and Rick had come out for the funeral, but she hadn't talked to them since. She was glad they were giving her some time by herself. But it was time to break the silence. She dialed Harriet's cell number and got a warm welcome. "Lynn! I'm so happy to hear from you. Rick, it's Lynn! . . . Let me put you on speaker phone. Where are you?"

"I'm back at Jack's West Virginia cabin enjoying the solitude while I plan how to get even with Alexei."

"There's only one way to get even, dear. You have to kill him, and as painfully as possible."

"That may be easy for you secret agents, but hurting and killing him goes against my upbringing. On the other hand, whenever I think of Jack and Selena, I get so angry that I could cut him open and rip his heart out while it's still beating."

"Don't forget about O'Malley. You need to get even for him too."

"Yeah, I was as close to him as I was to Jack. But before I can do something to him, I need to find him."

"Can we help you out on that? Maybe Rick can find his bank account with a home address linked to it."

"That would be great, but Alexei tried to stay off the grid as much as possible, so it's probably listed under another name."

"Don't discount Rick's super powers when it comes to banking stuff. Rick, what do you think?"

"I would start with Winston Securities payroll office and see if I can find him listed as an employee. They had to be sending his paycheck somewhere, unless Winston was paying him in cash under the table. I could also hack into the IRS records to see if he's been paying taxes on his salary."

"Great, Rick. Thanks. But the real reason I called is because I'm trying to find details about Alexei on Winston's hard drive, and I need his last name. I think Jack revealed it in his after-action memo about the Barbados encounter at Jim Norton's condo. Do you have a copy of that?"

"Rick doesn't, but I do. Jack asked me to be the unofficial librarian for the group, so he sent me copies of his reports. Give me a minute to look it up. . . . It's Borsilov. Alexei Borsilov."

"Thanks, Harriet. I want to get back to searching the hard drive now. I'll call you in a couple of days. Rick, let me know if you find anything from the banking world."

"Bye, Lynn."

Lynn turned back to her computer immediately to search for Borsilov, and hit the jackpot. There was an entire subfolder labeled with his last name – background on his Russian connection from the past, a list of women Winston had provided for him, an itemized accounting of payments to him for Winston's special assignments. _'There's some good stuff here. I could send him to prison for life, but that's too good for him.'_ Lynn went through several other documents until she found what she was looking for. Alexei Borsilov owned a place in northern Wisconsin – a comfortable cabin from the photos Winston included. It apparently had no street address, just GPS coordinates. Lynn opened up Google Earth and entered the location. There it was! A small, isolated cabin on a frozen lake near Rhinelander. Lynn zoomed out a step at a time to see what the surrounding area looked like. The narrow access road to the cabin looked to be about five miles long as it wound through the northern pine forest, with no other roads shown on the map. If that's where Alexei was holed up, the isolation would make it easy for Lynn to approach and do whatever she finally decided to do to him.

#

Lynn was finishing up a list of what she would need. The weapons in Jack's truck were more than sufficient, so she wouldn't have to find a source for those. Her list was mostly things she would need to get close to the cabin – the quietest snowmobile available, some white cold weather gear, and some cross country skis. She wondered if Alexei would have some of his men there for protection, and what she would do if she encountered them. She thought, _'If one of those guards gets in my way, I'll have no problem shooting him . . . or her. . . . Really?. . . could I kill a female security guard? Well, maybe I'll just wound them. But then they might call for help. This is more complicated than I thought. I wish I had Jack here. He was really good at planning missions. . . . Stop it, Lynn! Focus on your objectives. Don't let the emotions out.'_

She managed to catch a few hours of sleep and was ready to inventory Jack's military hardware when she got up. She found the key to the false floor in the pickup bed and raised the cover. _'Wow. I didn't know he had all this in here. Sniper rifles, handguns, smoke grenades, explosives, combat knives, Kevlar vests – everything I need for my mission.'_ She pulled out a sniper rifle, a handgun, some smoke grenades, and several ammunition clips. She wanted to get familiar with them so she wouldn't have to think if she had to use them.

She brought an M-4A carbine rifle and a Glock pistol with a 15-round magazine into the house, laid a towel on the kitchen table, and disassembled and cleaned them one by one. She put a light coat of gun oil on all the moving parts. After she had put them back together she cocked dry fired each of them to be sure everything was working right.

Lynn spoke out loud – she did that a lot since she lost Jack. "I'm coming to get you, Alexei, and make you regret what you did to my family."

#

Lynn had just passed through Antigo, Wisconsin heading east to the Nicolet National Forest, where Alexei's cabin was located. She had spent the night before going over a large folding map showing all the trails and forest roads in the area, and had her route laid out in yellow marker. She stopped in Milwaukee to pick up the snowmobile she had ordered ahead of time – a single-seat electric model made by Sierra Snow. The electric motor was super quiet compared to the gas powered models, so she could drive it to within a couple hundred feet of the cabin without being heard. She also picked up a pair of Altai Hok Ski-shoes, which were very short and wide cross- country skis that acted as much like snow shoes as skis. She would be able to close the distance up to the cabin quickly and quietly, and step out of them when she was ready for action.

As the highway entered the National Forest she found the forest road she was looking for and drove into the woods for several miles. She was now within four miles of Alexei's hideaway, so she pulled the truck up into a thicket and turned the engine off. As soon as darkness set in she would push the snowmobile off the trailer, strap on the equipment bag and skis, and then set off on her mission. She had a GPS display attached to the snowmobile dash with the cabin's exact location programmed into it. Lynn leaned back, closed her eyes, and slept. It's amazing how fast you can get to sleep when you're absolutely calm.

#

Alexei added another log to the fire to combat the dropping temperature. The thermometer outside the window read -10 degrees already, and the night was still young. The weatherman on the radio said that a snowstorm would hit them first thing in the morning, but he wasn't concerned. He had this place custom designed and built seventeen years ago, and he included everything he might want for a long stay. In his business you had to be able to disappear for weeks or months at a time. It had a 4-G link to the internet and a generator that would run for several hundred hours on a tank of diesel fuel. The huge freezer in the basement had enough food for at least three more months and the bar along the back wall had over 50 bottles of his favorite vodka in it. Tonight he was drinking cognac in celebration of the highlight of his career – killing Jack Preston and his granddaughter. When he heard Jack wail as he watched the bullet go through the girl's head, chills ran up his spine. He had always enjoyed watching people die, especially a slow death, but this was the first time he saw the pain when a loved one was his victim. If only Preston's wife had been there. He could have had double the pleasure – more than that if he wanted to really punish Preston. Nothing angers a man more than watching his wife being ravaged in front of him.

As Alexei settled into his custom-built recliner and took his first sip of Courvoisier Initiale 30-year-old cognac, he thought he heard something. He paused to listen . . . there it was again. It sounded like scratching . . . something scratching at the door. It was probably some wild animal that smelled the warm fire. Scratch, scratch, scratch – there it was again. It almost sounded like a dog, but no one lived anywhere near him. His mind went back to his boyhood in Siberia, when a wolf puppy who had been deserted by his mother came scratching at their door. His mother let him take it in until it started eating too much, then he to get rid of it. He tried to take it deep into the woods, but it always came back. So his father had to shoot it. As young Alexei started to dig a grave to bury it, his father told him not to waste such a fine young wolf fur, and tossed him a knife to skin it with.

Scratch, scratch, scratch. Maybe this was an abandoned wolf at the door. He got out of the chair, went to the door, and opened it. A rifle butt slammed against his nose, followed by a hard kick to the groin. He fell back and doubled up on the floor in pain. A woman in a white parka stood over him. "It's all in the flick of the ankle – a good groin kick. And of course the rifle butt – well, there's no elegant way to deliver that blow."

The woman yanked his arms behind him and slapped on handcuffs. "There's an art to that, too. If you flick the wrist just as the handcuff hits the wrist, it will close and lock by itself. I'm sure you've seen that in movies." Next she put leg irons on him with a short chain so he couldn't run.

By this time Alexei could fight through the pain with a question. "Who are you? Did Moscow send you to bring me back for the crimes I committed?"

She answered, "No, your geography is way off there, Alexei," as she pushed the hood of her parka back. "Remember me?" Alexei's eyes were still filled with tears for the nose injury. He blinked . . . You!! You're Preston's wife! I should have waited for you to come back up to your house from town and killed you all."

"Yeah, well, you didn't. And you can count that as the biggest mistake of your life."

"I suppose you're going to shoot me to get even."

"Oh, no. That's way too easy. . . . I've decided to turn you in to authorities for the murders. Let the American justice system deal with you. With all the evidence I have on you, you will be lucky not to be executed."

Alexei smiled inside. This was great. He could afford lawyers that would get him off with only a few months in jail. And when he got out, he would hunt this woman down and . . . "What did you say your name was?"

"You can call me Mrs. Preston, scumbag. Now get on your feet and go out to your car."

"The cold. Without a parka I'll freeze."

"I'll put some blankets in the back with you. They'll keep you alive until I get to the Rhinelander police station." Lynn went into the bedroom, pulled two comforters from the bed, and took his car keys from the dresser.

She pushed him through the doorway and led him up to his Hummer H3 – the civilian version of the military HumVee. "Great car for up here in the northern woods, Alexei. It's a shame they quit making them in 2010." Lynn opened the tailgate and pushed him in. When he struggled some she held the rifle stock up like she would strike him again and he settled down. Lynn produced two more sets of leg irons and fastened each ankle to the seat frame. She threw the comforters over him and closed the tailgate. Lynn made sure he couldn't see out from his position in the back.

After putting her ski-shoes back on and retrieving the snowmobile, she went out onto the frozen lake. When she was a hundred feet or so from shore she said "This should do it." The ice was two feet thick at this time of winter so it would easily support the snowmobile and the Hummer, and the forest map showed the lake was at least fifty feet deep here. She got an auger out of her bag and hand-drilled a small hole in the ice to a depth of a foot. Then she wedged a quarter-stick of dynamite into the hole and added a ten-foot, slow burning fuse stretched out on the ice. When she had everything set up, she went back to shore, drove Alexei's Hummer out on the ice, and parked it above the dynamite. Alexei laughed and said, "Are we there yet, are we there yet?"

"Yes, I believe we are. You know the nice thing about these Hummers is that they're well sealed to keep the rain out. It should keep the lake water out for quite awhile." Alexei's laughter died. "What are you going to do to me! I want to be arrested."

"In a few of minutes, this massively heavy vehicle will plunge through the cracked ice to the bottom of the lake. It will be a question of whether you freeze to death or drown first. Since the Hummer is pretty water-tight, you might get the benefit of freezing to death. I hear that's a peaceful way to go. Your body shuts down a little at a time and you just drift off to death. But with those comforters I put over you, I would put my money on drowning from the small leaks around the windows and doors. You can keep you mind busy contemplating which it will be. Either way, no one will ever find you or the Hummer. Goodbye, Alexei. Payback's a bitch."

Lynn got out and closed the door. She walked over to the end of the fuse, lit it, and climbed aboard the snowmobile. She was halfway back to her truck when she heard the dull thump of the explosive, followed by the sound of big chunks of ice breaking up.

###

Excerpt from J. D. German's Latest Book

The Priceless Linen: A Fictional History of Christ's Burial Cloth

Forward

Although this book is about an existing historical artifact known as the Shroud of Turin, which some believe is the burial cloth that wrapped Christ's body in the tomb and is mentioned in the gospel accounts of Christ's resurrection, it is nonetheless a work of fiction. It is, however, loosely based on the work of Shroud historian Ian Wilson in his book _The Turin Shroud: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?_ This book lays out a reasonably credible history of an object that has disappeared for hundreds of years at a time. The history of the cloth from the time when it was first exhibited publicly at a church in Chambery, France is well documented. The history prior to that is what's in question.

I have chosen to use Wilson's chronology as the framework for this novel simply because I am very familiar with it. As a member of the U. S. team of scientists who traveled to Turin, Italy in 1978 to conduct a scientific examination of the Shroud and its incredible image, I have first-hand knowledge of its characteristics, many of which are supported by Wilson's postulated history. Wilson admits that it is difficult to separate legend from historical fact during the early years of the Shroud's history regarding what happened, when it happened, and who was involved,.

But these details are irrelevant to the story I tell. I present a fictional account of the way things might have happened, of the relationships among key figures in the story, and of how their lives were affected by the Shroud. The only certain facts in what I offer are the origin of the burial cloth, from the Gospel account in Matthew 27:59-60 and Mark 15:46, and the contiguous history from the public displays of the cloth by the widow of Phillipe de Charney in 1353.

Finally, I don't try to make the spoken dialogs fit the language of the periods I write about. They are, for the most part, written in everyday modern English to help the reader be drawn into the story.

The important thing to remember is that this story is fiction, so don't get upset if parts of it disagree with what you know, or think you know, about the Bible, history, or the Shroud of Turin.

If the Shroud of Turin interests you go to the website **Shroud. com** for a wealth of information and a large library of photographs.

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Prologue

April, 30 A.D. – Jerusalem

After the unbelievable events of the past few days everyone was exhausted as they huddled together in the upper room, fearful that the soldiers would come to take them to prison or worse. Most had dozed only an hour or two at a time. But after today, after they had actually seen and touched Him when He appeared to them in a resurrected body, they could at last rest in peace. Everyone except Joanna. She was one of the few in the room who had actually seen Him die on the cross; who heard those last words "It is finished."

Now she lay awake wondering what He meant by those words. Her thoughts kept going over and over them, searching for all the meanings such a phrase could include _. Since He died right after He said them the most likely meaning is that his life was finished. He was saying He would become a lifeless body to be buried in a pit with all the other corpses the Romans executed. But if that's what He meant, how could He appear to us today? Not a spirit, but a real body with substance? He must have meant something different . . . but what!_

Joanna thought back to when she first encountered Him _. I was a servant to Simon, the Pharisee, when this man was invited to dine at his house. I was living a terrible life back then, disobeying the commandments and the law God gave us through Moses. I didn't care about God. But when I heard that this man, who claimed to be the Son of God, something happened inside me. It was like my heart broke open and all the bad things I had ever done came flooding out. I had to see this man. I thought if I brought him a gift, maybe He would tell me how to be a different person, one who could follow God. I didn't think I had anything He would want as a gift. But then I remembered something my mother gave me when I left home. I took the alabaster bottle of perfumed oil out of my trunk and hurried to the dining room._

That's when I first saw Him. I started crying and couldn't stop. I fell to my knees and the tears dripped on his feet. Oh how awful I felt. I pulled my hair free and quickly dried them off with it , hoping He hadn't noticed. Then I took the flask of oil and massaged his feet with it, hoping to undo the rude act I had just done. Afterwards I backed away as quickly as I could. But the man criticized Simon for his lack of hospitality, while I had shown more hospitality and love than was expected when a guest entered another's home. And then the man said the words to me I'll never forget. "Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace." [Luke 7:36-50]

Joanna wanted to go with this man, to follow him and learn all He had to say, but she was indentured to the Pharisee for another half year. When that time was up and she finally could leave she immediately searched for those who followed the man – the Master they called him. She traveled non-stop, always seeming to be one town behind Him. But when she finally caught up with them in Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee she was so worn out from her quest that she collapsed from exhaustion. She took herself back there in her mind. _I was really sick, had been for days. Some said I was going to die, others were sure I was possessed by evil spirits. But Mary Magdalene brought Him to me; to heal me just like He did for her. I still remember the feeling when He touched my forehead. My whole body felt strange, like the worst fever I ever had. But when He lifted his hand the heat disappeared and I felt an incredible peace in my heart. From that moment I was healed – the sickness or evil spirits, whichever it was, fled at His command. From then on I followed Mary Magdalene and the other women wherever He went. [Luke 8:1-3] And then I watched Him die in pain and suffering._

That thought brought her back to her original train of thought – What did He mean by "It is finished?" And how did He escape from Joseph of Arimathea's burial cave. _He somehow disappeared from the tomb and left the linen sheet we covered Him with behind – along with the kerchief we tied under his chin to keep his mouth closed. Peter and John saw them lying on the on the stone bed. . . . I wonder if the they're still there? I have to see them for myself. I'm going to the tomb. It's the middle of the night, so no one will see me._

Joanna got up and quietly left. The light of the half moon was enough to find her way but not bright enough to make her stand out in her dark cloak. The tomb was a few blocks away but with trying to stay in the shadows it took her almost half an hour. She was worried that there might still be guards, but when she arrived the place was deserted. Like most people she was fearful of things having to do with death, but tonight she overcame it with her resolve.

After a last look left and right she stepped into the tomb – and realized her mistake. She didn't think to bring a candle. The opening was so small – barely large enough to stoop down and enter – to let much moonlight through. She thought about returning to the upper room to get a candle but she might get caught. Instead she got on her knees and began feeling her way around the cave.

A few minutes later she bumped into a stone bed and struggled to keep from uttering some words that would anger God. When she felt around on top of the table she found what she was looking for – the priceless linen that had covered Jesus' body. As she gathered it up under her cloak she thought about trying to find the chin kerchief also, but decided those in the upper room might wake up and find her gone. If they came out searching for her they would be putting themselves in danger for her sake. She couldn't have that happen so she retraced her steps back to where the others were.

As she opened the door it creaked, causing her to freeze for a minute or two. When she heard nothing she continued in and went to lay down on her bed mat. She was elated and felt a rush of adrenalin at her success. It didn't last long because she realized she hadn't thought ahead about what to do with it. She wanted desperately to open it in the light of day and examine it closely, looking for clues about how He had escaped, but dawn was still a few hours away. And she couldn't open it in front of the others. They would be horrified that she had handled the burial cloth. According to Mosaic Law that made her unclean – she would have to cleanse herself and remain alone for a week. Realizing what she had done she quickly folded it up and slipped it under her sleeping mat.
Other E-Books by J. D. German

Fiction

_The Hermetrius Conspiracy_ – Lynn and Jack Preston Series #1

_The Forsetti Solution_ – Lynn and Jack Preston Series #2

_Revenge, Inc._ – Lynn and Jack Preston Series #3

The Malthus Strategy

Hostile Takeover

Peacekeeper

The Priceless Linen

Non-Fiction

Christian Principles – Food for Thought

Random Thoughts of an A.D.D. Mind

The above books can be downloaded free from **www . smashwords . com** under the author's name, J. D. German. They are available in formats that can be read on a PC, tablet computers, and E-readers.

