2022 (4 page)

“How long do I have to make up my mind?”

“Two, maybe three, weeks tops.”

“I’ll let you know in a week.” She still
wasn’t sure what to make of Mikhail and couldn’t help wondering if
he was testing her to judge her reaction.

Other than being with Gwen and helping with
funeral arrangements, Diane had not done too much in the days
following her brother’s death. She contacted the detectives
assigned to her brother’s case, and although they were working
hard, they stood at a dead end with no leads to follow. The only
thing they were certain about was that it wasn’t a random
stabbing.

Gwen had invited her to stay with her, but
she preferred her own bed in the RV. She had parked in the same
place beside her brother’s house where he had customarily left his
boat in winter. After he had sold the boat, she remembered his
talking about getting her to help him convert the space into lawn
the next summer. This memory along with many more helped to make up
her mind that within the week she would leave the city and go
somewhere far away. Gwen showed her concern at the news.

“Are you sure you want to do this? You’ve
been living here your entire life, and all your friends are
here.”

“I’ll keep in touch with them, but I need to
get away for a while. Everything around here reminds me of my
brother, and it’s too painful right now.”

“Are you going to keep living under the radar
like you’ve been doing for the last few years?”

“Yes—I can’t stand the thought of being
monitored and controlled by the government, or for that matter,
society in general. I’ll keep my two identities going—one for
things that I need, like vehicle registration and driver’s license,
the other for day-to-day activities.”

“What about work?”

“I don’t think I’ll have much trouble.
There’s always someone looking for a mechanic, or a welder, or a
general laborer for odd jobs, and before you ask, yes, I can take
care of myself. I have a few guns in the RV, and my brother taught
me years ago how to hold my own in a brawl.”

“But you’ll keep in touch, won’t you?”

“Absolutely. I’m not sure if I’ll keep the
same phone number though as I usually try to get local area codes
with my burn phone. The best way will be via e-mail, which I
promise to check every day.”

The moving plan gave her something other than
her brother’s death to focus on. She would first clean her RV,
which she had neglected during the past few weeks. When she had
nearly finished, she discovered it—the laptop her brother had
dropped off a few days before he was killed. He had complained that
some virus had infected it and asked if she could get rid of it.
She knew that she should turn it over to the police but decided to
examine it first and see if there were any pictures of her brother
that she could save.

She turned off the switch that controlled the
wireless Internet access. The last thing she wanted was to turn on
the computer and have any number of people see her brother appear
online in his social media feeds. She felt uncomfortable snooping
through his personal folders but soon was engrossed in the
pictures. She was very pleased to find several recent ones of them
together that Gwen had taken. Saving them to a thumb drive, she was
about to turn off the computer when she decided to look at recent
files, emails, and websites to see if she could find a clue to his
murder.

She accessed his email account, which,
fortunately, had been set to automatically log in. She went through
a few weeks of entries, as well as recent files, and other than
messages from friends and advertisements, there was nothing of
significance. However, she did find something curious in his
Internet history. Her brother hadn’t used his laptop frequently and
was very predictable when he did. Almost every day, he visited the
same websites for news and banking and sports scores, but one entry
stood out. He had searched for “Virtuesh,” found an unusual link,
and then spent considerable time going through the site.

She didn’t possess a personal data passport
RFID. She wanted no part of what she felt was another way for the
government to track the population. She reached into her purse and
pulled out a temporary burn RFID then turned on her own computer
and used an Internet search engine to look up Virtuesh. She was
surprised when only a single relevant link came up. Clicking on it
produced a website that described a new research project and many
job positions that needed to be filled. She scanned the list and
saw a few positions she was sure she qualified for.

********************

Mikhail’s computer produced a “hooray” sound,
and a small icon began to flash on his screen.

“Looks like I’ve hooked another fish.”

He clicked on the flashing icon and an image
of a girl he recognized appeared, but one that he could not place.
The trap was a fake website he had put up that could be found only
by typing “Virtuesh” into a search engine then clicking on the only
website associated with the word. When the site appeared, it fired
up a script that activated the user’s camera, took a picture, and
then sent it with the IP address and other information directly to
him. This was part of his plan to keep the research division work
under strict secrecy and to learn if anyone from outside had
discovered information about the virus.

There was no usable information in the RFID
information sent so he did a quick location search of the IP
address, and despite being unable to get an exact address, he found
it to be in the same town as the professor he had just contracted
the hit on.

Of course!
This was the man’s sister.
He had seen a picture of her taken at the funeral. It made perfect
sense. He had ordered Hope to get all the evidence the professor
had on Virtuesh, but something must have been missed.

He put the picture and a few details into an
encrypted message and sent it to Hope, asking if she could take
care of the problem and to find out how the girl had learned about
Virtuesh. He had enough to worry about without having to chase
after people who would derail Richard’s project or his own
agenda.

********************

Diane saw that the Virtuesh website was
sponsored by The Pleasant Belief Foundation. She printed several of
the pages then spent another few hours looking through her
brother’s computer but found nothing more out of the ordinary.

Packing up the computer and making sure that
everything was secure in the RV, she drove to the police station to
drop off the laptop. As she suspected, there were no new leads, and
given the shortage of detectives, she knew that unless there was
something solid to follow up, her brother’s case would be filed as
a cold case. At her request, they gave her a copy of the suspect’s
photo taken from the bus’s surveillance camera. She knew it was up
to her to find the killer or at least give police a solid lead to
follow.

She woke up the next morning after a terrible
sleep. She reread the printout from the Virtuesh website and
noticed the contact information on the bottom. Believing she had
nothing to lose, she called the number and was greeted by a
pleasant woman with a strong southern accent.

The woman explained that they had filled most
of the positions, but they were still looking for a variety of
skills. She went on to explain that not only was the pay quite
competitive, but it was work for a good cause as well in support of
The Pleasant Belief Foundation. The only drawback was that the
interviews were held at foundation headquarters, which was on the
coast of Washington. She thanked the woman for the information and
contemplated whether she wanted to make the fifteen hundred mile
trip to the northwest state.

********************

Hope hung up from a call, although hers was
no ordinary cell phone. It was one she had recently purchased from
an underground electronics store. Many of its features, while
useful, were also illegal. A dozen numbers could be assigned to it,
each able to have the owner’s voice disguised with a different
accent such as the southern one she used for the life insurance
company or the British accent that she had assigned to Mikhail’s
number. The additional abilities of being able to record calls,
read nearby IIPA RFID chips, and intercept text messages from any
phone within a one-mile radius rendered the device tailor-made for
Hope’s profession.

Hope had received the message from Mikhail
only the day before and was delighted that her new target had
called her. Since Mikhail’s message, she had worked hard at trying
to get information on Diane but had come away frustrated. She was
used to people trying to hide from her but never had been asked to
hunt for someone hiding from everyone. With no recorded employer,
phone number, address, or credit card transactions, she was running
out of options.

To be this well-hidden, Hope was sure that
Diane must have a fake ID for things like car registration and her
driver’s license.
That would be the sensible thing to do
.
She herself held more than one passport and driver’s license.

Using the phone call as a new lead, she took
the number that Diane had called from and was able to trace it to
an area very close to the house of the last person she had a
contract on. It matched the location that Mikhail had given her.
At least I know she’s not moving and must be staying with her
sister-in-law.
She was not sure from the call if Diane would
actually make the trip to the foundation headquarters, so decided
to book a flight to Diane’s location and then contact Gwen, Diane’s
sister-in-law to see if she could provide information on Diane’s
whereabouts.

Following her flight, she spent a few hours
donning the disguise of a much older woman and booked a rental car.
As she approached Gwen’s home, she parked behind an RV so that the
car would stay hidden from the outdoor security camera in the
house. Then she walked up to the front door and rang the
doorbell.

“Hi,” Gwen said, pulling the door open. “Can
I help you?”

“Yes.” She handed Gwen her business card. “My
name is Catherine, and I work for the EC Rusk Insurance Company.
I’m handling a life-insurance policy your husband held that lists
his sister as the beneficiary.”

“I didn’t know anything about this.”

“Well, it’s an old policy.” Hope looked at
the clipboard she was carrying. “Do you know where I can find
Diane?”

“No. She was here but then left a few days
ago. She keeps to herself, and I don’t know where she went.”

Hope hid her disappointment, “That’s too bad.
If she does contact you, or whenever you see her again, could you
please tell her to call me? My number is on that card.”

“Of course I will,” Gwen said. “Sorry I
couldn’t be of more help.”

Hope smiled and waved as she walked back to
her car. She backed up carefully, staying out of security camera
view.
I hope Diane decides to try for a job at the foundation,
or else I’m going to have a very hard time finding her.
She
headed back to the airport.

Inside her RV, Diane had heard the
conversation at the front door. When she saw the woman pull away,
she went over to the house.

“Sales person?” she asked Gwen.

“No, she was looking for you. Something about
a life-insurance policy your brother had with your name on it. He
and I were pretty open about all our finances, and he never once
mentioned this to me, so I’m suspicious. I know you like to keep a
low profile so I told her that I didn’t know where you were.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

“She gave me this business card for you to
contact her.”

An intense feeling of fear came over Diane
when she touched the card. Cold shivers rolled through her body and
she felt the hairs rise on her arms and the back of her neck. She
knew she had to get away as quickly as she could. “I think it's
best that I accelerate my plans a bit and leave soon, Gwen. I’m
thinking of heading down south.”

“I understand. When?”

“No time like the present.” She carefully put
the business card in her hip pocket, gave Gwen a hug, promising she
would stay in touch, and within the hour pulled her RV out of the
driveway.

She drove to a nearby gas station and took a
few minutes to plot a course into her GPS for the trip to the
northwest coast. Then she bought some food and a new burn
phone.

Still holding her old phone, she thought
about calling the life-insurance company but decided she would do
so later and threw her phone into the garbage.

********************

“Impossible!” Spencer thought as he made his
way to his cubicle. Quiet time in the office without Sue around had
so far eluded him. He had tried staying late but gave up after she
continued to work past dinner time. He thought he would outdo her
by showing up at six-thirty in the morning, but there she was, a
half cup of coffee already consumed and working away.

Others around the office had warned him to
not feel discouraged. Sue was considered the best and the toughest
among them. They had tried to place partners with her and the
longest one lasted only a month before asking to be transferred to
a remote location if only to get away from her.

It was neither the grueling hours nor the
constant pointing to his mistakes that irritated Spencer, but that
it seemed everything he was asked to do was a test, and over the
past few weeks, he was sure he hadn’t passed many of them.

“Good morning,” he said, pulling out his
chair.

Sue looked up at him, shifted her gaze
intentionally to the clock on the wall, and returned to her work
after a final, disapproving glimpse in his direction.

He settled into the work day and finally
finished the Asia factory report to Sue’s satisfaction. Today’s
assignment was to review the first paper that the DIR published on
the 2018 crisis, which had been the event that triggered the
creation of the department.