Cutting Edge: A Novel of Suspense Read online

  She looked at her watch. About seventy minutes, then another thirty from the airport. He’d be arriving within the next half hour.

  “I’ll call him,” Pete said.

  Nora wanted to talk to Butcher without Payne’s loyal research assistant around. She also needed to follow up with the Lake Tahoe office about Jonah Payne’s house, have her team pull his credit card records and bank information to determine if he ever arrived and if so, when he left.

  And she had to ask Duke Rogan to explain the security system. There could even be hidden data that would identify the culprits. Nora dreaded the thought of spending time with Duke, knowing it could weaken her resolve to stay far away from him.

  “How about ten-thirty?” Nora asked Duncan. “Does that give you enough time to pull yourself together?”

  “I can do it now.”

  “Ten-thirty is better. The arson investigator isn’t going to let anyone walk the scene until she’s done with her preliminary walk-through, which takes several hours.”

  “Was there anything left?”

  “It’s hard to say. There’s of course fire and smoke damage, as well as water damage.”

  “When can I get in and see what we have left?”

  “You mean go through everything? It’ll be at least two days, maybe longer. It’s a crime scene, we need to keep it intact until the investigators are done with evidence collection.”

  Pete touched her arm and Nora looked over. He held up his BlackBerry. It was a message from their ASAC, Dean Hooper.

  BLF posted a letter online about the Butcher-Payne arson. When can you be at HQ?

  She shook her head. She didn’t want to talk in front of Duncan, so said cryptically, “There’re a half-dozen things we need to check on before memories fade.”

  “If you want to drop me off at headquarters,” Pete said, “I can take care of that situation.”

  “Thanks. I need some background work done, so I’ll go with you for a few minutes.”

  They stood and thanked Melanie Duncan for her time. Nora’s phone vibrated and she glanced down at the message. It was from Quin.

  No birds, no ducks, no furry, finned, or feathered creatures at all. The room was empty. The fire did not reach that area of the lab, only smoke and water damage, so if they were there, they’d be slow-roasted, not extra crispy.

  Only Quin could make Nora smile at the macabre. She squeezed her lips closed, because this wasn’t the time or place. She said to Duncan, “There were no animals at all in the lab.”

  Melanie shook her head. “All our work. Years. Years. Turned to ash. I don’t know enough about DNA to see if we can get something from the ash, I really wanted blood, but maybe—”

  “I should have clarified. There are no remains. The room you described wasn’t damaged by fire. There were no birds, dead or alive.”

  Melanie paled.

  Nora knew exactly what happened to them. “Animal-rights groups usually release captive animals into the wild or take them to sympathetic rescue facilities.”

  “Oh no. No. Oh, God, we have to find them.”

  Nora froze. “Why?”

  “The avian flu! Half the birds were infected. We were using gene therapy on them to find a genetic cure to prevent virus carriers. But we’re still in the testing phase. They’ll infect any bird they come in contact with.

  “Worse,” she continued, “there’s no vaccine, no cure. The virus they have has been genetically altered to be particularly virulent. We were so successful with the weaker viruses, we needed to find a therapy that could attack any mutation of the virus.”

  “What are the chances the virus will spread to human populations?”

  “I don’t know. Whenever you’re dealing with viruses there is always the risk of mutation. There would need to be prolonged physical contact with the ducks, but the far greater risk is spreading the disease to other waterfowl. It’s the end of September. They’ll begin to migrate. We have to find them now.”

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  At his desk, Duke Rogan stared at the computer logs. What the hell was this? He examined the logs every which way he could, including evidence of earlier hacking attempts, but again and again he came to the same conclusion: Jonah had disabled the security system.

  It didn’t make sense. There were strict protocols set up in the security plan. The system was set 24/7 to record the exterior of the building, the lobby, the elevators, and inside every entrance, except when in test mode. But Jonah had put the security on test mode, which would have converted automatically to the armed mode in two hours even if he didn’t manually reset the codes … if there hadn’t been a fire.

  “You’re making assumptions, Duke,” he muttered to himself. Just because Jonah’s codes were used didn’t mean that Jonah himself had disabled the system. But why would Jonah give the codes to anyone? There was a fail-safe; if Jonah was threatened, he could put in false codes that would appear to disable the system, but alert both Duke and the sheriff’s department. Duke had successfully used such protocols with high-risk businesses where having a “panic” code worked exceptionally well. Several smaller banks used it as the last resort for their secure areas. There was also a panic button in the lab, in the lobby, in Jonah’s office, and in Jim’s office.

  But the system had been put in test mode at 12:48 a.m.

  Sheriff Sanger had told him the 911 call came in from a passing driver at 1:57 a.m., more than an hour later.

  There were no video files. They just weren’t there. All cameras fed into the main database, and it was replicated every hour to an external server. If the replication failed, the system administrator would be alerted.

  The digital files had to be here! Somewhere … he would re-create them if he had to.

  “Dammit.” He’d already left two messages for Russ Larkin, the I.T director for Butcher-Payne.

  Duke scanned the log, making notes on the pad beside him.

  Jonah—or someone with his personal codes—had entered the building at 12:15 a.m. He had turned off internal security, but the doors were still locked, cameras on, and to enter someone would need an employee card and a key to the building—and the entry code. It was a backup system—if the card, or the key, were lost or stolen, neither could be used alone to enter the building. It was Jonah all the way. Jonah’s pass, Jonah’s code.

  “Jonah, what were you doing last night?”

  He buzzed Jayne Morgan, the in-house computer database manager for Rogan-Caruso, and asked her to come to his office. Duke had worked closely with the young, socially inept genius to code computer security systems for many of their clients. Duke’s job was on-site, Jayne handled most of the programming.

  Though Duke had a corner office with a view on two sides—one looking down the K Street Mall, the other overlooking Cesar Chavez Park—he grew antsy when he had to spend more than an hour at his desk. His strength was field security, not sitting around analyzing computer data. His favorite assignments were when he was hired to physically break in to facilities and analyze their security systems. Jayne’s strength was cyberhacking.

  “Is this for Dr. Payne?” Jayne asked.

  “Yes. The video backups are missing. They seem to be completely gone.”

  “Not possible,” she said with confidence.

  He slid over a notepad listing the details he knew. “Why would he put the system in test mode in the middle of the night?”

  “Because you can’t turn off the system without alerting us.”

  “Shit, I knew that.” He rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay, someone threatened him. Someone manipulated him. But why would he do it? How would they even know about the test mode? That the system can’t be turned off?” Any interruption would send an alert to the Rogan-Caruso on-call security supervisor. The logs said no such interruption happened until 1:45 a.m. Which would have been about the time the fire had damaged the electrical system. The disruption prevented the Rogan-Caruso servers from talking to th
e Butcher-Payne system, which triggered the automatic alert.

  “An inside job?”

  “Maybe.” He frowned. He’d already printed out background reports on all Butcher-Payne employees, past and present. “Maybe he was meeting someone at the lab, but why so late?” And that still didn’t explain putting the system in test mode.

  His cell phone rang. He would have ignored it, except it was Jim Butcher.

  “Jim,” he answered.

  “Is Jonah dead?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “God fucking dammit.” Jim sounded tough, but his voice was strained. “What happened?”

  “We don’t know everything, but I’m consulting with the FBI on this one.” Nora had seemed amicable to the suggestion earlier, but he had to play the situation carefully or she might pull him off. Duke didn’t want to go over her head, but he would if it meant staying on the case. “I’m not going to stop until I find out who did this.”

  “Trevor—”

  “I called him.” Talking to Jonah’s nineteen-year-old son had been just about the hardest thing Duke had ever done, even more difficult than seeing Jonah’s body. “The press was all over the place. I didn’t want him to hear about it thirdhand.”

  “Thank you. I need to talk to him. This is—shit, it’s not right, Duke.”

  It wasn’t, but there was nothing Duke could say to alleviate Jim’s pain. All he could do was act. Action he was good at.

  “I’m going through the security records now, but someone definitely tampered with the digital camera files. And someone—maybe Jonah—used his personal codes to put the system in test mode.”

  “Jonah is—was—a brilliant scientist,” Jim said, “and a genius on many levels. But he set off the alarms more than anyone. I don’t think he even understood what the test mode was.”

  Jim was right. “Nevertheless, his codes were used.”

  “What did Russ say?”

  “I haven’t been able to reach him.”

  “I swear, if he’s off fucking around I’ll—” Jim stopped. “You don’t think he’s in danger? Or involved—”

  Duke knew what Jim was thinking. Had their I.T. manager been involved with the arson? Had Russ Larkin killed Jonah?

  It didn’t make sense. Duke didn’t know Russ well, but he had interviewed him, hired him, trained him. Russ didn’t seem the type to care about any political cause. His background check had come up squeaky clean. He performed well. And he’d been there for five years, ever since Rogan-Caruso was first hired to develop a security plan for Butcher-Payne. Five years was a long time to wait to kill someone.

  But Duke couldn’t rule it out until he talked to Russ himself.

  “I’ll swing by his apartment,” he said.

  “I just landed. My flight was delayed nearly an hour. I’m driving now to Butcher-Payne to meet with the FBI and God knows who else. I don’t know what to expect—”

  “I’ll meet you there.” Duke hung up, gathered his laptop, and packed everything into his satchel. To Jayne he said, “Do everything you can to find those video files. Anything you need to make that happen, it’s yours. If you need my office, use it.”

  “I’m on it, Duke. I won’t let you down.”

  “You never have.”

  Jayne left and Duke started to follow, then stopped. Slowly, he walked back around his desk and opened the bottom right-hand drawer. Only one thing was stored in that drawer.

  The Colt .45 mocked him, lying there with only a box of fifty rounds for company.

  He didn’t want the Colt.

  He didn’t need the gun.

  He didn’t want to touch it.

  He’d been a marksman in the Marines, a sharpshooter with any long or short gun the military handed him. He’d killed with a gun, and while it had greatly disturbed him, it had been necessary in battle. Emotions he could put into a box and seal. Something he couldn’t forget, but could understand. War wasn’t pretty, even undeclared wars the politicians liked to call “conflicts” because that sounded less scary on the six o’clock news.

  After his three-year tour of duty was over, he followed in his brother Kane’s footsteps—Marines turned mercenary.

  Duke closed his eyes and was transported thirteen years into the past, to when he and Kane had worked together. Before their parents were killed, before the twins ran away to Europe, before Duke became the de facto father of his youngest brother.

  Duke was pumped. His makeshift tracking system had worked, and he’d earned the rare praise of his big brother in one word: “Good.”

  Kane called for his team, who were spread across the cocaine field, lying low.

  They worked for no one, it seemed. Duke didn’t know how Kane got his money, or how he paid his team, but the men were dedicated, and Duke had money deposited in his bank account on the first of every month for the eight months he’d been part of Kane’s mercenary squad. When Duke left the Marines, at the age of twenty-four, after his tour in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban before they were publicly declared the enemy, Kane had called him. “I have a position for you.”

  Of course Duke took it. He’d joined the Marines to follow in both his father’s and Kane’s giant footsteps, thinking he knew where those footsteps led.

  Kane was only two years older than him, but he seemed far more worldly, more scarred … decades wiser.

  “Kodiak.” Kane’s command meant something to his team, but Duke didn’t know what the hell he meant.

  Kane motioned for Duke to follow him. “Stick with me.”

  “You didn’t tell me the plan.”

  “You aren’t ready.”

  That irritated Duke. After three years in the Marines, he had the stamina and readiness of anyone on Kane’s team. He was as good a shot, as strong as any of them, and he was committed. They were actively battling the drug dealers, the smugglers, the bastards growing deadly and addictive crops that were distributed throughout America, killing the innocent and the stupid. Tearing apart families, destroying minds and bodies and futures.

  Like Molly, their sister.

  “Kane—”

  “Follow me. Be alert.”

  Duke had no choice, but this wasn’t the first time Kane had treated him like a child since he’d relocated to Central America to be part of this team. This wasn’t what he’d signed on for, and he’d just as soon reenlist or go home to Sacramento and become a cop. He followed Kane through the field. It was full dark, hours before the sunrise; humidity had fallen but the ground retained the warmth of the previous summer day.

  All he knew was that they were going to burn the fields. The coca plants would go up in flames, costing the drug lords millions of dollars in raw material. The tracking device Duke had made with their limited supplies was to better monitor the perimeter guards.

  The plan—even without Duke’s firsthand knowledge—seemed to go off without a hitch. Kane and Duke set charges, and when they reached the opposite end of the field, the six other team members met them within seconds. Perfectly executed.

  Duke had never seen his brother looking so intense. Kane was wholly focused on the job, as if his body had become his mind, every movement with specific purpose, every command with power.

  “Ignite,” Kane ordered.

  Webs lit the four fuses. Each burned virtually smokeless down the rows at regular intervals. Overkill, based on the explosives they’d tamped into each charge, but when Duke questioned the plan, Kane had simply said, “Insurance.”

  The men dispersed in pairs without comment, and Duke followed Kane. The only thing he’d been told was if they separated to meet at a specific longitude and latitude outside Lancetilla. And not to move north.

  Within two minutes, the first charge exploded. Duke was knocked to the ground—he knew they’d put too much black powder in the charge. “Move,” Kane said, pulling him up.

  Shouts. Voices. Pitch black. How Kane knew where they were going, Duke didn’t know. He couldn’t see the others, couldn’t hear them,
but he sensed them … they weren’t far. Just beyond sight, and trained enough not to make a sound.

  Gunfire rang out.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  “Webs,” Kane whispered, and crossed himself.

  Duke never had figured out how Kane knew Webs was dead, but he’d never rendezvoused with them six hours later, and Kane never spoke of it.

  The explosions continued, and Duke’s ears rang. Kane kept a hard pace, and Duke followed without breaking stride. This he could do. This was being a Marine.

  The click of a rifle had Duke falling flat to the ground, a second before Kane. Somehow, that pleased him, that his instincts were just as good as his brother’s.

  They lay there. Duke focused on the sounds. The fire in the field. The distant shouts—barely audible. The beating of his heart. Slower. Slower. Slower.

  The call of a bird.

  The scratching of a cricket.

  The footfall of a man.

  The glint of a rifle aimed at Kane’s position only feet away caught Duke’s eye. He fired at the threat. One shot, hitting between the eyes exactly as Duke pictured, though he couldn’t see more than a hint of shadow and light. The flash of his muzzle lit the enemy before him.

  A child.

  A child with a gun.

  Duke stared at the young body as it collapsed into the dirt. Kane jumped up, grabbed the gun from the dead boy’s hands without glancing at the face, and said, “Move.”

  The boy wasn’t any older than their little brother Sean. A boy. A child sent into the woods to pursue the best soldiers America had trained. Who would send a child to war? Who would send a boy out alone to die?

  Duke didn’t move; he couldn’t. Intellectually, he knew he’d killed an enemy, an enemy who would have shot Kane in the back without thought. But the enemy was a child, and Duke had killed him without hesitation.

  Kane pulled Duke up from the earth. Duke was a full inch taller than his brother, but he felt a foot smaller.

  “Soldier!”

  Duke closed his eyes.

  Kane slapped him.

  Duke responded with violence, but Kane caught Duke’s fist with his palm, twisted, and brought Duke to his knees.