No Woman Left Behind: A Lexi Carmichael Mystery, Book Six Read online

  “Apparently so. These coordinates put him squarely in Kenya.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  My mind raced, trying to determine the significance of the location. “Kenya? We have a lock on his location? That’s way too easy.”

  Slash shrugged. I could see he wasn’t convinced either, but Mark was running with it.

  “That’s not to say there isn’t a problem with the coordinates. We entered them into our system. While the location is definitely in Kenya, a closer examination via Google Earth indicates there is no city, town, village or permanent structure within thirty miles. It’s the middle of nowhere. However, we have a satellite passing over in exactly thirty-one minutes, so we intend to get a closer, real-time view of the area.”

  I considered the information. “Clearly, the video was either shot from a temporary location that was set up and taken down, or Broodryk spoofed the GPS system somehow. But why? What would be the purpose?”

  The FBI cybercrimes agent who had briefed me after my first encounter with Broodryk spoke up. “It’s got to be a clue if he didn’t leave it on by accident. It seems unlikely someone of his ability would forget something like that.”

  I was in full agreement. “I don’t buy that he left the GPS on by accident. It was for a reason. But why, I’m not sure yet.”

  I glanced down at my notes. “So, we’ve got forty-eight hours and a plethora of clues—an obscure German painting, a geographically desolate location in Africa, and four minutes and thirty-two seconds of a video conversation that might hold more information than is readily observable. That’s a lot of ground to cover. He wants me to fail, yet I think he’s genuinely excited by the prospect I might succeed.”

  Slash growled and I glanced sideways at him.

  “Well, what do you suggest we do next, Ms. Carmichael?” Woodward asked. “Since no one knows him like you do.”

  I drew a line between several of the little boxes I had drawn on my paper. “First, I think the forensics team should continue to focus on the audio. Run the gamut of techniques, both forward and backward, and see if there are any abnormalities. Isolate any unusual sounds. Not sure if we’ll find anything, but we have to check.”

  Several people scribbled notes as I continued. “Next, we need a closer look at those GPS coordinates. Get your best crypt heads on it. If the location ends up a dead end, we have to consider the possibility it’s a code. Broodryk likely knows I have a background in cryptology, so we need to play that angle.”

  I rubbed my temples, wishing the tension away. “We also need a dedicated team of analysts on the painting. Where does the painting hang now? What is culturally or artistically significant about it? Who the hell is Hans Holbein?”

  Woodward made notes of his own. “Okay, what else?”

  “Well, we could use an update on Abri Pentz and his current whereabouts. What do we know about his relationship with Broodryk? Have they worked together before? How does Broodryk pay him? In bitcoins or some other currency? Can we follow the money trail? How long have they known each other?”

  I thought of something else. “I also need to see everything you’ve got on Broodryk. What’s his background, his likes and dislikes, his favorite food? No detail is unimportant.”

  I glanced down at my paper and saw I had circled the word me several times. I was the center of this entire operation in both terms of what Broodryk wanted and where the team looked for guidance. Leadership was not my forte, but I would step up for Elvis.

  “Finally, I’m going to need a secure laptop, more paper, a place to spread out my notes and a quiet location to review the video again. I’d also like the assistance of a forensics expert as I’m not overly familiar with the software and have no time to bring myself up to speed.”

  Mark held up a hand. “I’ll be your guy. I’ll have my assistant get the rest of the team started on the other tasks you mentioned.”

  I nodded. “Thank you. Slash, I want your take on the satellite feed from those coordinates if possible.”

  “Done. I have some ideas of my own to pursue, as well.”

  “Excellent. I’m going to need all the help I can get. Also if anyone has a couple of ibuprofen, I’d appreciate it.”

  Woodward stood. “Okay, team, you heard the woman. Let’s get to work.”

  Everyone filed out of the conference room except for Slash and Mark.

  Mark walked over, handing me his laptop. “Take this. It’s all set up, has a copy of the video and is wired for access to all the internal resources you will need. I’ll get you some painkillers, grab another laptop for myself, and be back shortly.”

  “Thanks. Where can we work?”

  Mark looked around. “I think we can work right here. There’s lots of room and access to the SMART board, so we can have an oversized view of the video as needed. Does that work for you?”

  “Okay. I just need it to be quiet.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem.” He walked out of the room, leaving Slash and me alone.

  Slash put his hands on my shoulders. “Are you okay, cara?”

  “Not really, but I’m holding it together the best I can.”

  “You’re magnificent.” He kissed my cheek. “My girl.” He murmured something else in Italian and then left the room.

  I sat down at the conference table, pulling out the notes I’d compiled on Broodryk and his methods. I had to think like him, get in his head. In order to beat him, I had to be him if I wanted to understand and anticipate his actions.

  What did he want?

  To humiliate me—his ego is bruised, his operations disrupted. Payback is sweet.

  To outwit me—to show he cannot be fooled twice.

  To hurt me—I’ve hurt him badly both in terms of money and professional pride. He wants to hurt me back and make me look like a fool in front of my peers. I can’t rule out physical harm, perhaps even torture and/or sexual assault, because he’s a sociopath.

  He won’t be satisfied unless I play the game. If I refuse, he will kill Elvis and then kidnap and kill again.

  Opening my eyes, I quickly jotted those ideas down and folded the paper in half so it stood to the side of my laptop. As repugnant as those motives were, they’d be good reminders for me.

  Mark came back in the room, a laptop under one arm and a cup of water in the other hand. He offered me the water and then deposited two pills in my palm.

  “Ibuprofen.”

  “Thanks.” As I washed them down with the water, he took the chair two spots down from me and set up. When he was ready, he looked over expectantly.

  “What do you want to do first?”

  “I want to listen to the audio. No visual, just audio.”

  “Got it.”

  He ran the video without picture and I listened to it three times in a row. I had Mark isolate sounds in certain spots and made notes. I was getting ready to listen a fourth time when Slash came in, carrying a steaming mug of coffee and what looked like a bagel.

  “Did you discover anything from the satellite footage?” I asked hopefully.

  “Unfortunately, no. There was no evidence that anyone had been there recently. No roads, no tire tracks, no crushed brush, no evidence of life whatsoever. It’s bogus. He manipulated the GPS data.”

  I sighed, trying not to be too disappointed. I hadn’t believed it could be that easy, but a part of me had hoped Broodryk would be arrogant enough to slip up.

  “Okay, well, now we know what it’s not. Doesn’t mean we still can’t guess what his true purpose was in giving it to us.”

  “Si. I have some ideas of my own. I have to go, but I’ll be back.” He set the coffee and bagel in front of me. “Eat. You need to keep up your energy, okay?”

  As he set down the food, he noticed my notes about Broodryk’s goals. He read them and th
en raised his gaze to meet mine. I could see by the hardness in his eyes he didn’t like what I’d written, even though he might have agreed with it.

  I didn’t know what I could say to assuage his concern, so I picked up the coffee and took a sip. He fixed it just the way I liked it—weak with lots of milk and sugar. He knew me well.

  “Thanks for the food.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll be back soon.”

  After he left, Mark and I reviewed the tape about thirty times more. I compared the transcript to the audio. I made notes of inflections and pauses, considered patterns, rhythm, emphasis, word choice and intonation. Nothing stood out. After I had taken all the notes I could, we moved on.

  Next I watched the video without the sound. Watching the video was significantly harder than listening to it, so I had to pause several times and take an emotional break. I wanted to watch it at least a dozen more times, but I decided to give myself a breather and come back later for a fresh look. I wanted to turn my attention to the GPS coordinates and what they might represent other than a geographical location.

  Focusing on the numbers helped. They were simple, devoid of emotion and logical. Right up my alley.

  Five hours passed. Mark bought us a couple of sandwiches and more coffee at the small café in the lobby of the building. I forced myself to eat some of it. Woodward stopped by to check on our progress, or lack thereof, a couple of times. On his last visit, he’d told me that we’d reconvene in the conference room in one hour to report on our findings.

  At some point, Mark removed his tie. His blue dress shirt was now open at the throat, revealing a white undershirt. His hair was rumpled because he’d been running his fingers through it repeatedly, and his eyes looked bloodshot. I’d avoided the mirror the last time I’d been to the bathroom.

  “Do you want to watch the video again?” he asked.

  I’d spent the last two hours crunching the GPS numbers six ways to Sunday, but was having no success. Frustration bubbled in my throat. I wasn’t able to look at the evidence dispassionately and it seemed to be adversely affecting my judgment and thought processes.

  I sighed, pushing away the paper. I had filled several pages with equations and code. Nothing was working for me.

  I took a big slug of water. “No, I don’t want to watch it again, but I should. You come up with anything?”

  “Not much. I’ve run a pretty exhaustive aural analysis of the background noises. I identified a sound compatible with a window air-conditioner, which likely means he was in a warm location when he shot the video. Seeing as how it’s February, that does give us some geographical exclusion, unless he was keeping the room specifically cold on purpose. You know, for special computer equipment or to keep the prisoner cold for torture purposes or something.” He must have seen something in my expression, because he backtracked, clearing his throat. “Uh, the torture thing is a stretch, of course. Sorry.”

  It wasn’t a stretch and we both knew it. “Anything else?”

  “There’s the hum of a refrigerator—it’s low-grade, given the grinds and groans—and a soft purr, likely from nearby electronic equipment, probably a computer. The place had electricity, which rules out the coordinates we got from Kenya unless he used a portable generator. Except, I can’t isolate any noises a generator would make, so I think we stay with electricity. Maybe my team will have discovered something else I missed.” He didn’t look hopeful, which scared me.

  I had zip. Nada. Hours were slipping by and I had absolutely freaking nothing to go on.

  I glanced up at the clock on the wall. “We’ve got about fifty minutes until the team convenes. I’ll take another look at the video.”

  “You want audio, too?”

  The thought of hearing the whip strike Elvis’s face again made my stomach turn. “No. Just visual.”

  “Got it.”

  He started the video and I stood up and turned off the light. This time I stood next to the screen, eyeball-to-eyeball with my nightmare.

  For the previous viewings, I’d concentrated on everything in the room except Elvis. This time I prepared myself and focused exclusively on him.

  My heart felt like it was being shredded to tiny pieces as the video played. I clenched my fists to keep steady and observant. He was injured, possibly badly. There was blood spatter on his T-shirt, but at least I didn’t see any area that indicated saturation or a significant wound beneath his shirt. Of course, I couldn’t rule out internal bleeding, but I didn’t dare go down that road now.

  I took a breath and kept watching. He’d been hit particularly hard on the left side of his face. There were smears of blood across his cheek, chin and neck, possibly the result of a broken or bloody nose. Bruises bloomed across his left cheek. His left eye was swollen shut.

  Nonetheless, he sat defiant, calm and angry. He wasn’t broken, he was angry. I could see it clearly in his one good eye and the set of the jaw I knew so well.

  Not realizing I was doing it, I reached up to touch his face. That’s when I saw it.

  “Stop,” I shouted.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mark must have been dozing, because he started so violently he nearly knocked the laptop off the table.

  “What?” He hit the pause button. “What is it?”

  “Here.” I pointed to the screen. “Back it up a little.”

  Mark backed it up.

  “A little more, then push Play.”

  Mark played the video and I stared at the space. “There. Did you see it?”

  “See what?”

  I pointed to a blank spot on the wall about two centimeters above Elvis’s left shoulder. “Enlarge this space by two-hundred twenty-five percent. Back it up and play it again. Slow it down if possible.”

  Mark saw it at the same time I did. “A light. A barely perceptible flash of light. Damn, I didn’t see it.”

  I tapped the screen. “I never noticed it before either. Keep playing and watch this spot exclusively.

  He played it to the end and we counted twenty-nine flashes, with the last flash occurring seconds before Broodryk walked into the video.

  “Start it over,” I said excitedly. “He may have been doing it from the beginning, but I didn’t catch it.”

  Sure enough, the pattern of lights started exactly eighteen seconds into the video.

  We played it all the way through, taking notes to make sure we didn’t miss anything, then I turned on the light switch, jumped into my chair and woke up my laptop.

  “Now we’re talking. Okay, Mark, give me those light sequences. Note the time in the video, whether they are long or short flashes, and the elapsed time between the flashes. You know the drill.”

  “Already ahead of you. Wow, this is good. We needed a break.”

  My fingers flew over the keyboard as he recited the data. My spirits soared. Numbers in, numbers out. Now I was in my element.

  “What are you thinking?” Mark asked as he finished giving me the sequences. “Flashes of light conjure up images of World War II sailors flashing SOS messages. Do you think he’s using Morse code?”

  “That’s where I’m going first. It’s the most logical. I’m running the analysis right now. Give me a moment. I’m in the zone.” My fingers ached from the typing.

  After a few minutes, I sat back in my chair. My spirits, which moments before had been in the stratosphere, crashed and burned. “It’s not Morse code.”

  Mark slumped. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It would have been too easy for a nutcase like him.”

  I swept my notes onto the floor in frustration. “Damn it. He’s playing me. He knows I’m never going to find it in time. I thought we had it.”

  “Hey, don’t beat yourself up. He probably altered or switched it up. He wants to keep you on your toes.”

 
Pushing my hands through my hair, I kneaded my scalp. “I know. You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m tired and scared, not to mention way too emotionally invested in this situation. I just thought I had it.” I knelt to pick up the sheets of paper.

  Mark joined me on the floor, helping me. “Look, I don’t know if it will make you feel better, but if I were in your shoes, I’d be a complete basket case by now. I’m surprised you’re still able to hold a coherent thought.”

  I sighed as he handed me some papers. “I’m a freaking mess.”

  “Well, you don’t show it. Hang in there. We’re going to figure it out and save your friend. We have to. At least we have something to work with now.”

  “I know. It’s just everything takes time. It’s the one thing we don’t have in abundance. Come on, let’s take another crack at it.”

  We sat back at our respective laptops and got to work. Mark was typing something while I sorted through the next best approach to tackling the coding sequence. I was leaning toward working up a Caesar Shift Cipher when Mark spoke.

  “Did you know the world doesn’t even use Morse code anymore? It was officially retired in 1999 when the Global Maritime Distress Safety System globally replaced it on a whim. I tried the GMDSS with what we’ve got, but nothing panned out either. I thought it was worth a shot.”

  “That was good thinking,” I said and then froze. “Wait, that gave me an idea.” I started typing.

  Mark peered around his screen. “What idea?”

  “Global. You said globally. That reminded me I used the global or international Morse code key, the ITU. But I forgot. There’s another key. A historical key exclusive to America.”

  “Hey, now that you mention it, I think I actually knew that.” He started typing, but I was way ahead of him. After a moment, I pushed back my chair.

  “Holy crap. I think we’ve got it.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mark leaped from his chair and stared at the screen over my shoulder, reading my translation.