Not a wasted trip after all. Too bad about Mykonos. The mental image of Frosty Winston in nothing more than a string bikini and suntan oil would have to remain in his imagination.
Rafe scowled. Suntan lotion and frostbite. Boggled the mind.
THREE
Dresden
Germany
H
oney stuffed her fists into the side pockets of her down coat, hunched her shoulders, and shivered just looking at Lewis Slavin. The chilly breeze carried with it an oily stench coupled unpleasantly with a sharp chemical tang.
Their local operative handed them each a filtering mask before they approached the bombsite. The dust in the air was thick enough to require masks hours after impact. The masks would prevent them breathing contaminated air, and Honey pulled it on, adjusting the straps as she walked. One could see the particles of dust still swirling with snowflakes in the crisp breeze.
“As yet, analysis hadn’t ascertained chemical or biological hazards.” Slavin adjusted his mask. ”You don’t want to suck in any of this dust either way. We’ve already gathered evidence. Not a whole hell of a lot though,” he spoke into his lip mic, not competing with the
whop-whop-whop
of helicopters overhead. The choppers were using thermography cameras as they flew over and around the area. T-FLAC’s spy satellites, too, would be taking high-res pictures, both here in Dresden and in Athens.
“But some,” Slavin told them, pointing where he wanted them to walk. “We’re still searching. We’ll find more as the day goes on and we can see better. Everything is waiting for you at Bäcker’s place when you’re ready, knew you’d want to see this before you headed over there.”
Ground zero’s smoking rubble offered no warmth to counter the freezing early morning weather, but the middle-aged operative didn’t seem to notice. Slavin absently brushed falling snowflakes away from his mask. “Nobody’s claimed this. Yet.”
“They will,” Navarro responded, bending to pick up something, examine it, then tossing it away. He dusted off his hands. “They always do.”
He wore a thick, black coat over jeans and a cream-colored, fisherman’s, cable-knit sweater. The clothes looked good on him, not that it mattered to her. Even behind the protective mask, those dense, black eyes took in everything in a slow sweeping look, missing nothing. This was his thing. If he were a dog right now, his ears would be prick and his nose quivering.
Fleetingly she wondered how it would feel to have a man like Navarro study her with that focused, intense scrutiny. The wind snuck down the neck of her coat, making her shiver. Used to scrutiny, masking her thoughts was second nature. She wasn’t an open book to anyone, least of all to Navarro, and she intended to keep it that way.
The older man indicated the deep hole in the center of the devastation. “Blast destroyed or seriously damaged hundreds of buildings within a six-block radius. Too early for workers, but it took out hundreds of parked cars and shattered glass in nearby buildings. We’ve pulled in operatives from all over, and the locals are happy to cooperate fully. They’ve never seen anything of this magnitude, which is why the local folks asked us to take the lead on the investigation.”
“I’ve got everyone I can get my hands on interviewing any eye wits. There doesn’t appear to be many of those,” he muttered dryly, sounding a little like Darth Vader. “The blast was heard twenty miles away. People are coming forward, but we aren’t learning anything new.
Somebody
saw something. We’ll have more once all the usable video feeds are processed.”
Honey knew ninety percent of good bomb disposal was experience and analysis. Navarro told her on the plane that they had access to a lab with diagnostic tools and X-ray capabilities. But with no bomb, how did they analyze anything unless they found pieces of the device? And looking around, that hardly seemed likely.
The air filters in her protective mask protected her from what she knew was a horrific stench. It would reek of burnt rubber from the still-smoldering tires of cars tossed like toys along the street behind them. Smoke mixed with the snow flurries created a grayish paste on every surface. She didn’t want to think about what breathing that air would do to her lungs without the respirator.
Even though it was almost noon, the sun hid behind thick, dark clouds, but floodlights brightly illuminated the area of devastation. Honey realized she was still looking at Navarro when she noticed how the artificial lights made his black hair look as glossy as a raven’s wing. He’d scraped it back, securing the stubby tail at his nape with a rubber band, leaving the strong planes and angles of his features in sharp relief inside the glass fronted mask.
She looked away. He’d get split ends from the rubber band, but that wasn’t her problem. She paused for a moment, amazed that such a trivial thought had come to mind in the midst of this devastation, then she recognized it for the diversion it had been. For just a moment, she escaped dealing with violence, here or what they’d left behind at Jack’s house. She sighed and returned her attention to the scene around her.
The site was frenetic with people, dogs, and vehicles. Police, firefighters, and hundreds of volunteers busy with their assigned tasks. Still, other than the choppers, it was eerily quiet. Just the occasional yell for more light or a cry when discovering something in the rubble. Every now and then, one of the cadaver dogs sat down to alert its handler to the presence of a body. There were dozens of rescue dogs, but they walked slowly and silently beside their handlers.
Smack in the middle of the rubble was a deep hole where the four-story PLJ Savings Bank had stood for a hundred years. Now the historic building was nothing more than wreckage in a twelve-foot-deep crater.
The blast wave had traveled the path of least resistance, causing the most damage to the sides of the buildings facing the bank and lesser but significant damage to buildings within a six-block radius. Driven by the breeze, loose paper and bits of ash fluttered along the ground, sneaking under the hem of her coat.
“What were the pre-attack indicators?” Navarro addressed Slavin as they picked their way closer to the center of the devastation.
Hunching his shoulders, Slavin stuffed his hands in his front pockets. “Someone is always threatening to blow shit to hell, but we’ve crossed off the usual suspects.”
“You don’t detail a bombing like this without wanting to brag,” Navarro stated in his matter-of-fact tone, a tone that made Honey want to argue just for the sake of arguing. He pulled out his comm then glanced over her to ask Slavin, “Did you send the info to the First Responders app?”
“Doing it now.” The other man did an oops, shoulda-done-it-already shrug. He took his own comm unit from his front jeans pocket and tapped in the required information.
Honey wished she’d invented the First Responders application. Brilliant technology and groundbreaking programming provided rough damage and injury contours, standoff distances, and points of interest query capabilities.
Hooked to T-FLAC’s equivalent of Google maps, the imagery supported all platforms, ensuring all team members displayed the same map and user functionality. It had never been easier to keep everyone on the same page. She felt the vibrating buzz of her comm in her pocket. Just like that, they linked to all intel on the bank bombing site. Efficient and timesaving. Two things she admired.
Rafe read the information then glanced at Honey. “Let’s listen for chatter online, see what the word is on the street.”
Since she presumed he didn’t mean right this second, with the wind whipping their hair and rubble underfoot, she said mildly, “Monitors established just after our reroute. Are we thinking anarchists? Private sector? Bomb for hire? I’ll need to review current data and adjust the parameters before updates are sent via the First Responder app.”
Studying the smoldering embers, all that was left of a thriving city block, she itched to get her computer set up. While the bank had been the focus, the bombers were responsible for tremendous collateral damage, destroying lives and properties for who knew what reason.
“Nationalists, left wing, right wing, militia resistance…” Slavin listed the known local bad guys.
“We’ll know more once I get a closer look at what we find here.” Navarro tucked his comm back in his coat pocket. “Bombs are like angry snowflakes, no two alike-they all have their strengths and weaknesses depending on the imagination of the bomb maker. They all kick ass.”
Navarro was looking for intel on the bombing, but to Honey, the bombing was an outward display of terror; she’d bet there was cyber terrorism involved. “Because the target was a bank, my first thought would normally be cyber terrorism, but that wouldn’t explain the bombing. Unless the bomb is a cover-up.”
“Politics?” Navarro flipped his collar against the biting wind.
“If they were trying to make a political point, they would’ve chosen the government offices a few miles over.” Part of solving a puzzle meant establishing the meaning of the pieces they already had. She shook her head. “Point: This is not a single issue.”
“Yeah. Maybe. Probably. We haven’t ascertained an Athens connection.” Navarro shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Yet.”
It was fascinating to watch him. Watch as he thought the situation through. She felt an unwanted thrill of appreciation, then quickly put the feeling down to hunger. They hadn’t stopped for breakfast.
“I’ll look at the bank records see if we’re dealing with a cyber attack as well. The estimated cost of cybercrime is around a trillion dollars. Much of that from financial institutions.” She chewed the corner of her lip as she considered the ramifications.
“DoS?” he asked.
A denial-of-serviceattackwas an attempt to make a business or government website unavailable to its intended users. But utilizing thousands of high-powered application servers, pointing them at targeted banks to make websites crash- while complex, was pretty unsophisticated. “This is more than a DoS. It’s total and mindless obliteration of a physical infrastructure. A mere nick in the cyber backbone of the bank. Still, I’ll check to see if the bank’s servers were compromised and linked together into a botnet.”
Clearly pissed off and frustrated, and not understanding the technology, Lewis Slavin waved an expansive hand, encompassing the giant hole where the bank once stood. They walked toward the pit, their boots crunching on broken glass. “This came out of left field.”
In Honey’s experience,
nothing
came out of left field. There were always clues along the way. They just had to be diligent enough to find them. All the answers were waiting discovery. Surveillance cameras, a computer trail, hell, maybe something as simple as a speeding ticket. Ferreting out the smallest clue was her superpower. The more nitpicky and detailed the better. She’d leave no stone unturned. No bit of information was too small or too obscure. One clue was all she needed. She practically rubbed her hands with glee at the prospect.
Interpersonal issues left her cold, but give her a computer and a problem to solve? Pure heaven.
Honey stepped over a headless doll half buried in gray snow. The image of a child without her doll made her think of the whereabouts of the child, which made her stomach cramp.
Her normal base of operation was somewhere behind a keyboard and computer screen, not up close and personal to the aftereffects of a bomb. It was frightening how quickly people’s lives could change at the whim of some madman.
Navarro surveyed the chaos for a moment. “Winston, my guess is you need a place to work. Slavin, I presume our safe house is rubble?”
“Still standing but definitely not habitable.” The other man’s teeth gleamed white in the emergency lights, but he was far from laughing. “Fortunately, Whelehan was—ah—with a lady friend, and the house was empty at the time of the explosion.”
“What’s
your
hypothesis?” Navarro asked.
Slavin shrugged. “Don’t see a connection with the safe house.
Yet,
” he tacked on when Navarro raised a brow. “Time will tell.”
Honey’s comm vibrated and she took it out of her pocket, seeing her and Navarro’s names,
EYES ONLY,
and a string of numbers. The bank’s access codes. She was in business.
Navarro crouched to run a hand lightly over what looked like a melted computer tower. He was hard to read, but Honey bet he already had theories of his own. People in the know claimed Navarro was a savant with bombs. It should prove interesting to observe how he processed information and what he came up with. She liked to learn, even if it was from someone whose methods weren’t by the book.
Impatient, Honey wanted to leave and get to work, but Navarro had the look of a man digging in his heels. “We passed a coffeehouse a mile or so away, off Unter den Linden—”
He raised a supercilious brow. “
Public
Wi-Fi, Winston?”
“Prototype air card with secure protocols,” she said in what she thought were even tones. None of them used public WiFi. Ever. He was just jerking her chain again.
“By the time you finish here, I should have an idea of what we’re dealing with.” Her hair blew across her mask, and she brushed the strands aside with a gloved hand. Holy crap it was cold. She was used to Montana winters, but this wind flayed every bit of exposed skin.