Chapter 11: Damage Report

Rebecca

This was bad with a capital B.

"You didn't see this," I told Paul, "You don't know what's inside." I put everything back in the envelope and handed it to him, "Hold onto this, and if anyone, anyone, tries to take it, destroy it immediately. I'll get clearance to take it out without further tests. Wait until you hear from me. It won't take long." I walked back over to the tech on duty. "That envelope does not exist, you are not to log it in or mention it to anyone, you are to remain in this room until cleared to leave, do you understand?"

He stared at me with wide eyes, gulped once and croaked, "Yes ma'am."

I opened the door and looked back before stepping out into the hall. "Lock the door behind me, no one in or out until you are cleared by the director personally."

Rod was in his office on the phone again. He saw me coming and I made sure I caught his eye. He was off the phone by the time I opened his door. Most people would have locked the door behind them and pulled the blinds but I was doing my best to attract a certain level, and type, of attention. I left the door open behind me and whispered, "Yell at me," as I moved toward one of the chairs.

"Close the god damn door!" he bellowed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw several heads turn our way but Rod quickly stood up and stared out at the faces, several of which were turned our way. Just as quickly as they had turned at Rod's outburst they all found something incredibly interesting somewhere else that demanded their immediate attention. Without hesitation Rod stalked to the door and slammed it, then rounded on me. "What the hell do you think you are doing barging in to my office in the middle of a conversation?" He hesitated just long enough to give the illusion that I had started to answer then went on, "I don't care if I was ordering lunch from the corner deli, you will knock and wait for me to tell you when you can come in, do you understand me, Agent Hampton?" He stalked back to the desk and sat down.

By now I'm sure ears were burning all over the office. I rolled my eyes at Rod and gave a couple of silent claps with my hands in front where no one would see. He winked and bellowed, "Well don't just stand there, what's so damn important?" Again he waited just a second, and said, "Sit down, you're going to give me stiff neck, and this better be good."

I sat down and said quietly, "We have a problem..."

Five minutes later we were in the lab and I was showing him the note and the pictures. Rod repeated my instructions to the tech on duty: The envelope, as well as anything inside it, was classified. The logs would show that it had been received, inspected, and passed on to him directly to handle. No mention of Paul's presence was to be recorded anywhere. He then excused the tech so we could talk without attracting the kind of attention we would if we had gone back into his office.

"Obviously he's still stalking you. Do you recognize where the shot of you and Bob was taken?"

"No, too generic, it could be any of several places; I can't even tell if it's inside or out. The background is too blurred. There's no detail to pick out." I looked at the photo again and pointed. "There's not even anything on the table that stands out."

"He chose his shot well. So he knows who Bob is, and he knows you're involved. By the way, I guess congratulations appear to be in order. Try to look surprised when he pops the question." He flipped to the next picture. "Freeman, can you excuse us please? Don't go far."

Paul nodded and headed for the door without comment, but he caught my eye and gave me a questioning look as he went by. I gave him a carefully neutral expression as he passed. I didn't want him to think I was committing to share information with him later, especially since I had no intention of doing so.

Rod waited for the door to close before continuing, "There's a whole lot about all of this that bothers me. For starters, that's not Jimmy. Jimmy is supposed to be sixteen; this guy is in his forties. So if it's not your boy, then who is he? And why does your killer think it's him? And how the hell did he get the name in the first place?"

"I don't know. We're getting into dangerous territory here Rod. You're right, that's not Jimmy, that's his father."

"Shit, and this is his mother?" He asked, holding up the other photo. I nodded. He put the pictures down and began pacing the room.

"Who's Allison, his sister? Girlfriend?"

"Sister. You know her as a golden retriever."

He stopped and reached up to massage his temples with both hands, then stepped to the door and motioned for Paul to come back in. He pointed to me, then to Paul and then motioned us both to be silent. Moving to the desk he took a notepad and started writing.

I want Hampton's phone checked out, can you do it without turning it off? He glanced at Paul who nodded affirmatively. Rod turned back to the pad and wrote, Do it now, I want to know if anything is even a little bit wrong, my first concern is whether or not it has an active bug on it; whether or not anyone can hear what we are saying. If there is, leave it alone. If you find anything else, leave it alone; just tell me what you find and we'll go from there. Rebecca, give him your phone and say something that sounds official and case related.

I handed Paul my phone and he moved quickly to a workbench and started carefully taking it apart. "I think we may have to look into protective custody for all of them. They could be in danger."

"I agree," he said out loud. He pointed to the pad where he had written, I need you to pick a place where you and Bob can go where Paul can meet you and check his phone. I don't really think yours is bugged, I think it's his. Yours would be too hard to get access to, and it's a secure phone so it's almost impossible to tap. "But it may be too soon to jump that particular hurdle, let's see how it plays out. Do you think they are in any immediate danger?"

"Only because he seems to think they are involved. He's reaching here, hoping I'll show him if there's a connection or if he's guessed wrong. Once he figures out they're just acquaintances of Bob's he'll leave them alone. I'm just concerned that he'll jump to the wrong conclusion and innocents will get hurt." I took the pencil and wrote, I'll talk to him privately tonight and we'll figure something out.

Paul was already walking back towards us; the phone was in a couple pieces on the table behind him with wires attached to it. He took the pencil from me and wrote: It's been messed with for sure. The SIM card is wrong, I can't tell you what all it's doing but it's definitely not our card.

Rod nodded and took the pad back. See what you can find out, then put it back together and figure out what kind of tests we can run without alerting whoever messed with it. She'll need a new phone, I'll call Dillon and get one, I don't want anything that anyone here may have had access to. I want a team in my office, as well as hers tonight. I want someone at her apartment and my house no later than tomorrow." He tapped my arm and started writing again. Talk to Bob about taking you out of town this weekend, nothing special, but just far enough away and public enough that the killer will want to see what you're up to, I want Paul to sweep Bob's house.

Out loud he said, "Okay, we'll just play this by the book for now. I hate to use civilians as bait but maybe we can get him to do something stupid. Put someone on them and see what happens. Keep me posted on the details."

Paul nodded and left, I took the pad from Rod and wrote; You know we can't put anyone on the kids.

He took the pad back: Nothing here points to the kids. We'll have someone watch the parents. That will allow us to keep an eye on the kids without attracting too much attention. I understand your concern here, but as it stands he is looking at the wrong people. My biggest fear at the moment is that sooner or later he's going to figure that out. Once he realizes who Jimmy and Allison really are he's going to be even more curious about how they are involved. I think you need to stop using them unless you absolutely have to. On the surface you need to cut all ties. You can still meet in dreams, but no more mention of them on the phone. Your phone being compromised tells us how he found out about them. I'm sure you talked about them with Bob at some point and that made him curious. Setting up one of your middle of the day meetings would have been all he needed to get the names. You need to steer clear of them from now on, publicly at least. I'll have your new phone here this afternoon. Let Paul know where you are meeting Bob and he can meet you there to check out Bob's phone. I don't know how he got to your phone...

I stopped him from going on, his handwriting gets progressively worse the more he writes so it was getting hard to decipher. I took the pad and wrote, we need to talk, someplace random. I waved at Paul to get his attention. How long before you can tell me whether it's got a passive listener, or if it's only on when I'm on the phone?

He looked around the lab for a few seconds and then motioned me to wait. Crossing to a work bench he started playing with a few gadgets and whatsits, then motioned us over. He punched up a notepad on the computer and typed, "Talk about something."

"So, Rod, what does Selena have planned for the weekend? Can I bring something for dinner?"

"Hampton, you know better than to ask questions like that. My job is to show up on time, that's about it, if you want information; you're just going to have to ask her."

"Come on, Rod. Give me a break. If I call her she'll be planning my wedding inside of two minutes."

"No she won't," Rod said, shaking his head.

"Bullshit. You know as well as I do that woman has been out to get me down the aisle since Michael's funeral. Why should she stop now?"

"Oh, she's not stopping. It's just that she's done with the wedding, she's working on the reception."

"Oh that's just great. I'm going to have to sit that girl down and have a serious talk with her. You think she'd let me off the hook if I promised to let her do Amy's wedding?"

"No, she's been working on that one for years." Paul began typing again so he ended it, "All I'm saying is that if you want details for the weekend you have to talk the person in charge and that ain't me."

Paul had bad news: Some kind of short range listener that records and then burst transmits the data somewhere else. I can't do a lot more without powering it down and running some tests. But chances are whoever did this will know if the phone is tampered with. I'll bet your battery life has gone down.

As soon as he said it I realized it was true. I wrote back: Now that you mention it, it does seem that I'm having to charge it more often.

He nodded his head: Do you remember when that started?

I thought for a few seconds before answering: No. Can you give me something that I can use to block it out temporarily? If I kill it all the time whoever did it will know that I'm on to them; just something that I can use to sort of mask it out when I need to. Have you got something like that?

He nodded again: Yes, but you won't need it, it's not that strong a pickup, just leave it in a desk or in your purse. It's using the standard microphone and it's not designed for any kind of range. Whoever it is is probably having to run it through some serious noise filters as it is. If you had it in the back pocket of your jeans they probably wouldn't hear a thing. You tend to carry it in a front pocket or on a belt clip, when you're in the office it's in the drawer; they wouldn't hear anything then. When you're in the boss's office you set it on the desk or on the table: a nice, hard, reflective surface. They probably couldn't have asked for a better resonator.

This just kept getting better and better. I glanced at Rod. He nodded and stepped up to the keyboard. I need to make a call if we're going to have a phone here for you by day's end. No one should know you have this. Keep it someplace you can get to it if you need it and try not to let anyone see you using it. Freeman, forget the team, I want you to handle this personally. No one else is to know about it. Hampton, Bob is taking you to dinner and a movie tonight, at the Mills. I'll have your new phone in a couple of hours, I'm sure Dillon has something I can get on short notice. Get Freeman the theater number. Get him Bob's phone so he can check it out. As soon as he is done with that I want him to come back and do the office. Tomorrow he's doing your apartment, tomorrow night, Bob's place.

I glanced at him and he gave me a look as he kept typing. Don't look at me like that. You said it yourself, lives are at stake, we have to determine how badly we've been compromised and then we have to decide what to do about it. He glanced at his watch. Damn, I'm never going to make it and get you out of here on time.

Paul tapped him on the arm and he relinquished control of the keyboard. Working quickly he brought up what was playing at the Mills and had me pick a movie and time. I'll wait here for the director to get back, then meet you there and bring your new phone. By the time you have dinner it should be just about right. Better to do Bob's place tonight while I'm so close, I'll still have plenty of time to do the office.

It was a start. Cobbled together as it may have been it was the best plan we had on short notice. Now all I had to do was figure out what to tell Bob, and how. One way or the other I was still going to be carrying my phone. If I suddenly switched phones or stopped carrying mine, it would be obvious. I couldn't risk calling him or the kids. There was too much at stake already. How long before the killer figured out he was watching the wrong two people? For that matter, why hadn't he already? Based on the times most of the calls would have been made it should be quickly apparent that the parents would be at work. That left little doubt about who the calls were actually being made to. The real question was whether or not I could tell them, or even if I should.

I wasn't really that hungry when I finally got to Bob's. He could tell by looking at me that something was up. I had pre-printed a note which simply said, "Trouble. It's going to be a weird night. Don't ask questions until dreamtime, just go along with whatever I say or do. Destroy this note."

I slipped him the note as I kissed him and said, "Mmm, missed you, traffic was terrible and I have to go. Be right back." I left him to read it as I headed off to the little girl's room. I really did have to go. I finished the necessities and returned as he was running the note through his shredder. "Did you decide on dinner? I'm not really that hungry so I'll be happy with popcorn."

"I'm not that hungry either," he answered. "But I think I'll grab a sandwich before we go. Are you sure you don't want one? I picked up some pastrami from that deli we found last time."

"Ooh, really! Okay, you talked me into it. Do you want a whole one or can we share."

"I like sharing; it's one of those critical skills they taught me in kindergarten. Lately..." he grabbed my butt through my jeans, "I like it a lot!"

"Hey now, don't start that or we'll miss the movie. Not that that would be horrible or anything but I'd kind of like to see this one on the big screen and I don't know when I'll get another chance."

We made the movie with plenty of time to spare. Considering the prices we decided we could split a medium popcorn and a bottle of water. As the lights went down Paul went past us for a seat farther down the row. As he passed he dropped my new phone in my lap. About thirty minutes into the movie he went back by, stumbling as he tripped over my feet. As I helped him back up I slipped Bob's phone into his hand and he headed off down the row and out of the theater. About a half hour later Bob had an urgent need to use the restroom, where he recovered his phone and a note from Paul. Paul never actually made it back into the theater. Bob had traded his house keys for the phone and Paul was on his way to see just how bad it might actually be. I read the note on the way back to the house.

"The phone is actually clean. Nothing I can find to say that it's been tampered with. Based on some signal testing I did I think it's likely there is a clone out there and someone is listening in on the calls; probably it's fed to a recorder and checked periodically rather than someone sitting around waiting for him to get a call. I didn't get to the car. Have to do that some other time. I'll be gone by the time you get to the house. Notes will be in the freezer in a pint of Ben & Jerry's. What can I say, I was hungry, I didn't even get popcorn. Call or text me later and we'll go over questions. P"