Chapter 13: Thumb Drive

On the United flight to LA — mileage! — I recapped my last few days.

I’d crept Dr. Samantha Rowley twice. Jersey again, then Chelsea on Sunday night. I’d couriered the photos to Carmen Ortega. They’d found something — I’d learn what later this morning.

Monday — Jakub Nowak. Nic. Nada.

Tuesday — Mr. Drake Fowler I was hand-carrying the ... um, research. Would turn it over to the Gloria Allen team. None of whom would inquire about the provenance of the material. I wouldn’t mention that the Sullivans had already spent three hours on the Weekly Planner. Were still working on a copy of the external drive. And that I’d instructed them to keep digging. Deeper and deeper.

It wasn’t that I wanted to show up Team Allen. Although that wouldn’t break my heart. But the Sullivans were a known quantity. Sneaky. And would use methods that LA probably wouldn’t.

It had felt good to be out there. In the field doing something. Maybe not accomplishing anything, but doing something. At the same time, it felt appropriate, felt right, to slow down, catch my breath. Find out what the adults had been up to.

I’m not usually introspective. I mean, I’m not a brainless gadfly. But I usually consider a course of action and take it. Move on.

But lately, this Macklin case ... I don’t know; I was feeling uneasy about flaunting the law. I had the usual greater-good rationalizations. And the fuckers could have given me a fatal injection. But still.

I do, usually, mean to do the right thing. I make promises to myself. But, truth is, I don’t always mean it. Can an internal misstatement of motive — a lie to myself — be, on some level, aspirational? Understandable?

Out there somewhere is someone I would like to be ... intend to be. Yet, I can’t pretend to be outside of my own moral concerns. Can’t ignore the salience of my own behavior. The lawlessness.

On the other hand, I can’t live my life like I’m in a ... an austere Presbyterian church. Hard pews and upright angles. I can’t listen only to the sermon with Protestant rectitude in a room with clean lines and unadorned surfaces.

Fuck.

Mitchum, and his still-silent wife, had a new look. Green eyeliner on the right, blue on the left.

We took surface streets again to Wilshire. Turned right off La Cienega and cruised to Gloria’s office building. Carmen was waiting for me, coffee service already laid out. Bowl of mini Snickers bars. It was fifteen minutes before nine.

She smiled that glorious smile, “Shorthand update. Rowley has been copying Roberts on more and more reports.”

Eric Roberts, head of security. Drake Fowler’s boss.

“Interesting.”

“Very.”

I pulled last night’s burner from my shoulder bag, “Here. Fowler research.” I gave her the external drive too.

Carmen stood, “Be right back.” She’d deliver the booty to the Allen team. Researchers and digital investigators.

I unwrapped a Snickers. And reflected on the Macklin case. I now understood why Gloria had had me spend so much time learning the pharmaceutical business. Opioids, including Macklin’s marketing and distribution plans. The tedious process of naming a drug. Details that weren’t really germane to my narrow assignment. Gloria had wanted to immerse me in the culture, the patois, the ... life. To understand the people, the ethos, from the inside out.

Carmen returned with Sistine and Gloria. Smiles all around.

Gloria took both my hands in hers, “How are you doing, Winter? Really?”

Matt Striker.

I said, “The champagne is flat and the caviar has run out — will it never end?”

Gloria threw back her head and laughed, “Mike Nichols! I loved him. My first truly bi-coastal man.”

Of course she would have known him.

Sistine said, “Carmen told you about Roberts.”

I nodded.

Sistine gave me an update from the West Coast perspective. Primarily, that Gathers and Gates had increased our funding for this year by almost 20%. Again, I reminded myself to pay more attention to financing. Think beyond my daily rates. And what to have for dinner.

I gave them a recap of my last few days. Minus the extralegal parts. Okay, illegal.

“Dr. Samantha Rowley has set up weekend housekeeping with Drake Fowler.” Sounded more businesslike than boning. I’m all about businesslike.

I said, “I don’t know what the latest Rowley research means to your experts, but my ... intuition tells me she’s involved. With below-the-radar experiments.”

Gloria said, “Which means that Fowler is.”

“That’s my gut instinct.” Mr. November. Bleak and gray on the surface.

Gloria smiled, “Trust your gut. I rely on mine.”

I nodded. Said, “As you know, I thought that Fowler’s driver — Jakub Nowak — might be involved too. They spend so many hours together in that car. But I don’t think he’s any more than just a driver.”

Sistine said, “Fowler reports to Roberts.”

I nodded.

Gloria looked at me sharply, “What?”

I sighed. Here I went, trotting off to Speculation Land again. “Roberts doesn’t feel right. His background, his ... white collar life. It doesn’t scan.”

Sistine said, “But he’s being read in on the details. ZB8687. I mean Rowley really drilled down. And copied him on all of it.”

I nodded.

Gloria said, “Winter.”

I sighed again. Sometimes I prefer working solo. I looked at Sistine, “Did your people look at the Roberts timeline? I wonder if he started getting copied on everything after the raid.”

Silence. Carmen excused herself.

Gloria was musing, “Roberts was copied on two items before the raid.”

Sistine’s turn to sigh, “Winter’s right. The blizzard of paperwork started after the raid.”

Walker said, “Winter was planning on naming me Strut.”

Pilar, adoringly, “Because of the way you stride the earth?”

Walker nodded modestly.

Pilar, “Why’d she change her mind?”

“Hospital. Demerol.”

Vanessa glanced at me. I wasn’t reaching for weaponry. Not yet. Not quite yet.

I was repaying the three hours I’d borrowed flying west. But I still landed in Newark a little before nine in the morning. Red eye. It wasn’t all hardship. First class for one. Plus, I’d brought along a chicken pot pie from the Grill on the Alley.

I hadn’t had to check into the Beverly Wilshire; they let me shower and change clothes in a vacant room. Classy. And smart — Gloria sends a lot of business their way

Fresh, and freshly attired, I walked across Wilshire to Dayton and sweet-talked the bartender into sweet-talking the kitchen into fixing me a lunch-only pie.

Being egalitarian, I allowed United to provide dessert. Then, using my own mini-pillow, I slept. Airline pillows had gone the way of hotel bathrobes, public swimming pools.

As we started our descent, I brushed my teeth, my hair. And deplaned into a bustling Newark terminal to meet Daddy and Bear.

Jessie Sullivan had called me. Burner-of-the-day at my end. “Winter...”

“Yes?”

“Things look creepy. Fowler things. He’s a real sicko.”

“Talk to me.”

“Here. Jesse will.”

When I hung up, I wanted another shower. And a three-hour bath. To unsee some of the Fowler images that my mind projected across the screen.

The Sullivans had found three deranged video clips on Fowler’s laptop. From his time in Iraq. Example:

Shaky camera, dimly lit, dusty room. Terrified mother and father, one son, one daughter. Civilians. A voice behind the camera boomed, “ES is in the house!”

Fowler, in uniform, six-inch shears clicking rapidly in his right hand, strolled casually to each of the cowering family members. Severed eight thumbs. The screams stopped, one by one, as four evenly spaced bullets rang out. Fowler watched the murders as impassively as the camera recorded them.

I said, “How’d you dig them out?”

Some of his explanation may have been in English... “We infected ... a virus that changed the password ... entered LS-New dash New / hit Return. Saw the numbers 0502. Found a red icon — end-to-end encrypted message app. No backdoors, no zero-day vulnerabilities. Open TOR browser ... tracked it down on the darknet.”

One full day of meetings had been enough. More than enough. Back to the streets, back to the action. Although things wouldn’t really start until Drake Fowler left work to return to Fowler Crescent. Eight or nine or later tonight.

In the meantime, two things were going on anent Macklin.

I was waiting for LA to get back to me on the Fowler material I’d given them yesterday. I’d proceed without their input, but it would be business-professional to have a second-party confirmation on what the Sullivans had discovered.

In addition, Daddy, Bear, and I would finalize what I insisted on calling our Manhattan Project. My plan was one of those simple ones where 1,364 things could go wrong. Three country mice loose in the City.

The Sullivans cross-referenced names and nicknames found in the Fowler videos with the entries in his Weekly Planner. Over the past six months, he had had four appointments with the two other soldiers from the snuff videos. They weren’t employees, but I had the sense that I’d met them that first night in Nowak’s garage. With a syringe.

Carter ‘Red’ Ryder.

Vincent Mologna. Rhymes with bologna.

I’ll be seeing you boys soon.

It had been so long since I’d seen Bear — Chicago Lyric Opera — that I might not have recognized him. Except. Six feet, eight inches. Bright platinum shoulder-length hair, his fuck-you to the straight world.

Daddy, I would know anywhere. Even Jersey.

Hugs, a shuttle to the short-term parking lot where they’d left their Hertz Malibu. Bear was driving so the seat was all the way back. I backseat-navigated them to the Sheraton on Seventh. We had three adjoining rooms.

Unpack, shower again, lobby coffee.

I looked at retired Homicide Detective Dave Jennings, “Vehicle?”

He grinned at one of his favorite daughters, “All set. Emile came through. Asset Forfeiture Hummer. He doesn’t need it back if...”

If ... we had problems. Emile Perkins. Sergeant Emile Perkins, one of NYC’s finest. He and Daddy had met a few times over the years. Police conferences, an FBI refresher course. Stayed in touch.

I smiled up at Bear, “You ready?”

“Always.”

Neither of us mentioned the Massachusetts misadventure the last time Bear helped me. Got shot in the chest for his troubles.

“Barry okay with this?”

“Mostly.”

Which meant, no. Bear loves Barry, but ... he loves me too. And lives his own life.

After Jessie Sullivan had described the Iraqi video, she paused.

I said, “What? What else?”

“These are deranged people, Winter.”

“Talk to me.”

“There’s like a ... before and after video of you. You had on that red wig, then someone took it off.”

The night of the garage inoculation.

“Okay.”

“It’s a weird ... scene. You’re sitting in this chair, obviously drugged.”

“Go on.”

“Then it’s like a holographic animation. Three dimensional. Except it’s you in the video. Then ... you sure you want me to... ?”

No, I was not. My stomach was queasy.

“Tell me.”

“You’re beheaded. One guy says, ‘Here you go, ES,’ and tosses him your...”

“Was Fowler in the video?”

“Yes. And no. I mean the image was really him. But that animation ... that holography ... it’s hard to tell where reality starts and ends.”

Both Daddy and Bear had visited me in college, but neither had spent much time in New York. I was hostess, tour guide, planner, gang leader. But I was also smart enough to listen. To adjust the game plan.