Knocked Down Read online

  “No, he hasn’t.” And that was one of the missing pieces of information that had been bugging her, wasn’t it? She’d searched for hours for a terroristic connection and had found nothing that connected any of the targets anywhere. “Hang on. Let’s wake up Al and get her in on this.”

  “No, she’s sleeping…”

  “Already awake.” The other woman sat up. “I’m having trouble sleeping, too. So…what’s bothering you, Carrie?”

  “The why. I don’t understand motivation sometimes, unless it’s written out in front of me and very clear. But there has to be a reason why someone would do this. And how? Add in the escalating severity of risk for each target and none of it makes sense to me. Hacking, for a lot of people, it’s a puzzle. A game to see if you can do better than the time before. I almost get that from this. But then there is the targeted nature of it. Paige, if you were going to pick a target to hit—a transportation hub of some sort—which would you pick? A railway that only hauls manufacturing equipment and product out of Portland and to California or something much bigger? And would you pick the smallest, most private, and least active airway in the city? Or would you go for something bigger? Something with more of a challenge? This guy stole a very exact amount. Four hundred thousand. Why that amount? What was he going to do with that money? And who received it? Transactions over ten thousand are reported. So if this guy used some of that money, did he do it in small payments? Did he transfer it somewhere? Any other bank is going to have a record of it. And if he is carrying it around in cash, that’s going to be four hundred one hundred dollar bills. Doable, but risky. And why hack that high school after the bank? That’s such a small school, why? And why erase every student’s record for the past ten years? That’s going to be very difficult to replace.”

  “Unless that’s what this guy was counting on?” Al changed out of her pajamas and into a pair of jeans and sweatshirt. She grabbed her brush before she said anything else. “You two might want to get dressed. I don’t think we’ll be sleeping much tonight.”

  “Why would the UNSUB care? Unless his record was one of the ones erased.” Paige whipped her night shirt over her head and dressed in her own sweatshirt. “Let’s cross reference.”

  “I’m already working on it.” She’d entered every search parameter she could before going to bed. She hadn’t been able to stop herself.

  Al looked at Carrie. “Be very clear. What are you thinking? Every little detail running through your head, what are they?”

  “Why? A series of smaller targets, followed by larger in scale. More risk, always growing risk, and growing sophistication of code. Repeated patterns. What if…” Carrie hated this; she’d long struggled with articulating what her thoughts were. Especially when it was this important. When her mind was working faster than her words.

  “Go on. Don’t censure yourself. Let us know what you’re thinking.” Paige patted her on the shoulder, the one most familiar with how Carrie’s mind worked.

  Carrie looked at her sister, focusing on her face, rather than the ‘what-ifs’ that were floating around in her head. “What if each event was a test run, a learning experience, for a much larger plot? If we can speak with Collingsworth, find out where the rumor of terrorism comes from, we can put it with what we do know. Maybe this is all part of a much larger plan.”

  “That would make a whole lot of sense, wouldn’t it? You don’t pull off something big without some trial runs. We’ve speculated on that before, experienced it before. Even Lorcan has mentioned it.”

  Al had her phone in her hand. “We need to go backwards, don’t we?”

  “It’s very likely there were smaller events, and we just haven’t found all of them yet,” Paige said. “Probably in the weeks leading up to now.”

  Carrie grabbed the laptop that was currently booted up. “Yes.”

  “Hang on, we need to dial Lorcan in on whatever we’re about to do. Anyone object to giving him a quick call? It’s only four-thirty, after all.”

  Paige laughed. “Hot guy in our hotel room at four a.m.? You know I’m all for it.”

  “Not that you’d know what to do with him…” Al said.

  “I’d figure it out. If guys like him were my kind of thing. You know your brother is more my type.”

  “Don’t forget I have two.”

  “Yeah, you know who I mean. Mick’s enough to turn me off men forever. Care, it’s your call. You think he needs dialed in?”

  Carrie pulled in a deep breath. She didn’t want Agent Lorcan in her space, but it was necessary, wasn’t it? “Faster we stop this UNSUB, the better. Call him.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  He was greeted by three beautiful women. Every man’s fantasy. But the serious expressions concerned him. “What’s this about?”

  Agent Brockman was the first to answer. She looked quite a bit different in jeans and sweatshirt than she had that afternoon in a suit. Her partner and Agent Sparks were dressed in similar attire. They were up and ready and he could feel a sense of energy running through the three of them. They knew something, didn’t they? “We were missing the trees for the forest.”

  “Ok, can you explain that please?”

  “Carrie said it best, and it’s really her theory.”

  He turned to Agent Sparks. The green sweatshirt made her look a bit like a Christmas tree but still oh-so alluring. “What?”

  “Something of this magnitude, there has to be more to the story out there. And I think Collingsworth is holding back some of that story. Unless he’s spoken with you about it.”

  “And what do you think he’s not telling us?”

  “Who told him it was terror related? How did they first put the two cases together? The two teams working the cases were from different departments. How did someone see the code and recognize it for what it was? This is a mostly sophisticated bit of code—it wouldn’t be readily apparent that the two cases were related. How did they figure it out? I haven’t found anything to connect. Anything. Where did Collingsworth get his information? Why was he so certain it was related, and terroristic in nature? There is nothing in either of these two cases that shouts connection to me, or to terrorism. In fact, neither of these cases truly meet the parameters of a CCU case when taken alone. So…why did Agent Collingsworth bring us here?”

  He’d never heard her speak so quickly, but it was obvious she meant what she had to say. And her words echoed the thoughts he’d had earlier. “Go on.”

  “Something of this magnitude—this can’t be the first time they’ve done this.”

  “You think more than one.” It wasn’t a question. As he said it, it made sense to him. He’d considered early on that there may have been others involved, but they’d focused so closely on the hacking angle that maybe Agent Brockman had been correct? Maybe they had missed the trees for the forest.

  Maybe they shouldn’t have focused so closely on the how and focused on the who instead? Maybe he’d used Sparks’ obvious hacking skills as a blinder? Maybe the case’s hacking aspect was just a byproduct? Maybe he should have considered that when you had more than one person involved, there would be more than one way to track them?

  Agent Sparks was staring at him out of eyes not hidden behind dark glasses for once. She had the most captivating eyes he’d ever seen. This woman was lethal, wasn’t she? “Yes…Yes. I think there would have to be more than one person. One could have done the hacking, but not at so large a scale. Someone would have to learn the basics about the targets just to get started. You don’t just sit down and think ‘I’m going to hack a bank today.’ Not with the type of technology out there today. Security has increased so much in the last fifteen years. And the hacker—it’s obvious to me he’s a student of some sort. He’s still learning, polishing his skills. And when you have a student, most times you’ll have…”

  “A teacher.” He’d taken a few rookies under his wing in his years with the Bureau. It was the way a lot of worlds worked. Was it the same in this cas
e?

  “Exactly. No one person could do this. At least not easily enough to have some attacks only a week apart. That would be too sloppy. And sloppiness leads to failure.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  They worked through the night, the four of them, in the conference room of the hotel. He’d contemplated returning to the field office, but with them suspecting Collingsworth hadn’t been so forthright with them, he wanted to keep it has quiet as possible until they knew more.

  Sparks had set up both her laptops to run different programs. The two machines were on desks in opposite corners of the small room the hotel staff had allowed them to use so early in the morning.

  Daviess and Brockman were pouring over their current files by hand looking for connections between all the players.

  He looked at Sparks. She’d pulled her hair up and out of her face. Her dark glasses were gone, leaving the eyes that had slipped into his dreams visible. “Sparks, what are you running here?”

  She looked up from the notebook she was working in. “On the laptop on the left I’m searching known parameters of what we have. On the right, I’m searching for patterns in our files. Names, occupations and connections of all the victims, and I’m cross referencing with local colleges and places those who like to code will hang out. And the high school that was wiped. And…then I’m running connections of Collingsworth’s.”

  “Connections?”

  “Yes. I was thinking…Stephenson.”

  “Go on.” He tensed. Stephenson would definitely be a touchy subject for her, especially with the bruises so visible on her skin.

  “His team, one of his agents, didn’t he tell Hell that Stephenson was slipping. Slipping. When Georgia was missing. But they were reasonably close as a team. Not as close as the CCU, but…What if…what if it’s not Collingsworth? He’s too nice-which I know doesn’t mean anything, and other than not telling us everything…I know I don’t always understand people…But…I do understand computers. And I’ve been poking around in Collingsworth’s.” There was definite guilt on her face as she admitted to it. “His security is good, but I still got in without detection. I don’t think—or see—where he’s involved in the coding. And in this type of crime, I think he would have to if he was involved.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of control. And because…Every student learns from his teacher. Or hers. I know I did. And that teacher will almost always make a mark on the student’s work.”

  He understood her reasoning, if not always her speech pattern. “So how do we find if Collingsworth influenced the hacker?”

  “By comparing their work. That’s what I’m doing here. Laptop on the left. Collingsworth has a background in computer sciences. And he’s enhanced several programs the Bureau uses, so uninfluenced examples of his work exist for analysis. He’s good, but he’s not the greatest. And no one on his current team is quite this good either. At least not good enough to make such an influential mark. And they all show polished work, training. Our hacker doesn’t. Doesn’t. He knows the basics, but he’s learning the rest. I think. I can’t be certain”

  “So basically what you’re doing is comparing numbers to see who wrote them?”

  “Almost. It’s more complicated than that. The math is more complex than that. But…I don’t think Collingsworth has had anything to do with the hacker. Now he did influence a few people here on his team, including Agent Nugent. You can see it here and here, but not the hacker. He wasn’t the teacher. I’m almost certain of it. Almost.”

  “What would you need to be completely certain?”

  Daviess laughed. “Carrie doesn’t do ‘completely certain’ anything. Unless it’s written in stone in front of her.”

  “Then let’s rule him out as being directly involved. But he knows something. And that’s the information we need.”

  “So let’s…ask him. Bring him here, on our turf, and confront him.” Agent Brockman said after taking another sip from her fourth cup of coffee. He had to admire the three women—once they got going, they worked unceasingly, and uncomplaining. And very, very well together. As long as they had coffee.

  If he had a choice, he’d filch Sparks from Team One and put her on his own team. But that would never happen. He was starting to understand her—a bit.

  He looked at Agent Brockman. “Go. Meet him in his office and tell him that I want to speak with him in a secure location of our choosing. Don’t let him know we suspect him. Daviess, you’re backup.”

  Before they could leave, the computer on the right beeped. Agent Sparks spun in her seat, and used the momentum to send the office chair rolling toward where she needed to go. The cast wasn’t inconveniencing her in the least—when she was focused on something.

  “What have you found?”

  “Give me a minute. Despite what people say, I’m not that fast at it.”

  Irritation. Apparently she didn’t appreciate him rushing her.

  He gave her five minutes, then he stepped over behind her and read over her shoulder. He ran down the list of potentials. None stood out. “We’ll need to get our people on each of these names.”

  “How are you going to do that without alerting Agent Collingsworth’s people?”

  Sebastian thought for a moment. “By calling in Chalmers, Therez and Hernandez. The three of them can help.”

  “What about Gerth and the others?”

  “Have them assist you here. At least one of them. We’ll wait until after we speak with Collingsworth.” No sense in rushing out and confronting six people, if Collingsworth could point them at one.

  “In the meantime…”

  “In the meantime, I speak with the rest of the team, get them ready. They’ve slept long enough. And you, find what you can on these guys. I’ll plug that information into my profile. And then…”

  “We compare with what we know. I understand.”

  “I’m sure you do. And Sparks? Good work.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Brockman and Daviess brought Collingsworth in twenty minutes later. He had obviously been sleeping as he was dressed in jeans and an FBI issue polo. “What’s this about?”

  “You. And what you know that you haven’t been telling us.” Sebastian would never suffer fools, and if this man thought he’d be able to keep hiding things from him than that was exactly what Collingsworth was. “Tell us…We’ve found nothing to say terrorism. Why did you go that way?”

  He stared at Sebastian for a long while. Then looked at the three women surrounding them. Brockman and Daviess both stood; body language unwelcoming. Collingsworth wasn’t stupid. He knew they knew. Collingsworth hanged his head, then settled into a chair near Sparks. “I…don’t know if it is terroristic or not. That much is true, at least.”

  “How did you get to terrorism in the first place?” Agent Brockman asked in a soft tone, after a telling look at Sebastian. She’d play conciliatory. He’d play hardball. Daviess would stand back and observe, making sure the others didn’t miss anything. Sparks, too.

  “I recognized some of the work. A former member of my team. I had him removed from duty after I found some anomalies in his case files.”

  “What kind?”

  “He started displaying erratic behaviors on cases that had terroristic implications. That’s something I couldn’t have happening. You understand that, right?”

  “Of course. But why didn’t you mention it?” Sebastian demanded. “At the beginning.”

  “Because I never could prove Lowenstern was involved in terrorism. And believe me I tried. Hard. I was hoping one of Ed’s teams could do it. Without my prejudices influencing your work.” Collingsworth looked at Sebastian. He seemed sincere, but Sebastian wasn’t counting on the man’s integrity anymore. “The guy loves patterns, so when Sparks said there was a clear pattern…I should have told you then.”

  “Yes, you should have.” He wasn’t sure that he understood it. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Lowenstern started here, and sp
ent over a decade working with me. I counted on him. And I should have seen him devolving. That last year, his wife left him and took his daughter with her when she returned to her family. In India. She refused to let him have much contact with the little girl. After that I heard she’d remarried. A wealthy Middle Easterner. Lowenstern started talking about terrorism and what the Bureau could be doing that we weren’t to prevent it. He started seeing terroristic threats everywhere. And then all of a sudden he stopped. And cases that were terroristic in nature, he couldn’t handle. He started either going too far, trampling over protocols, or not going far enough. I had to let him go. I recommended psychiatric treatment. Last I’d heard, he was following up with that. And had hired an attorney to help with the custody issues. I had hoped he’d turned things around.”

  “Until this case,” Sebastian said. “What made you call us in?”

  “I needed an objective eye. I thought you could be it.” He propped his elbows on the table and leaned his head down until his face was covered. When he looked back up at Sebastian his eyes were red. “I couldn’t trust myself to judge this case correctly. And when I first looked for him after realizing he was probably involved, I couldn’t find him. And I couldn’t use Bureau resources because then it would be on record, and I might be wrong. I didn’t want to ruin the man’s life even further. Why kick him when he was already down? That was my reasoning.”

  “I see.” Sebastian looked at Agent Sparks, who had already started entering information into her computer. “Sparks?”

  “I’m comparing the names now.”

  Five minutes later and she had the connection. “Final victim in the hacking case. Lowenstern’s brother.”

  “Head of Portland’s Air Transit?” Sebastian had interviewed the man himself. Hadn’t he mentioned his brother was former FBI?