In Search of Ghosts
Race and Jonny
took none of the Quest vehicles. The
idea was to disappear. And they
couldn't do that utilizing Quest equipment. They would be traceable as far as New York. From there on they would cease to exist. They traveled in silence, each absorbed in
their own thoughts. It wasn't a
comfortable silence . . . not like the way it used to be. Once this type of silence would have been
companionable. But that had disappeared
seven or so months ago. Race supported
both of them . . . and after learning what Surd had done he never had another
harsh word for Jonny. But for all of
that Jonny sensed the older man's reserve. Jonny had hurt his daughter in the most vile way possible. Whatever else happened, from that day
forward Race Bannon would never again fully trust him. Jonny understood this clearly. And he didn't blame him. He would never trust himself again, either.
They arrived
in New York around 2:00 a.m. They had
come by train. When they disembarked
Race went straight for a taxi. The only
thing he said to Jonny was, "We're going to be doing a fast shuffle. Move when I tell you and don't ask
questions." Jonny had nodded once and
said nothing. And for the next three
hours they hopped from one cab to another moving throughout the city. Twice, they stopped and did fast changes of
clothes, altering their appearance just enough so the trail they left became
more and more confused. The last cab
they took left them off at a rundown dockside in the shadows of the Verrazano
Narrows Bridge. Race moved quickly and
silently in the early morning dark toward a series of dilapidated
warehouses. Jonny followed closely
trying hard to imitate his stealth and silence. Race waved Jonny back against the wall of one of the warehouses
and then tapped softly on a shadowed door. They stood briefly and then Race tapped again. This time Jonny could discern a pattern, although he didn't think
it was the same as the first time. In
absolute silence the door opened partially and a voice muttered words too low
for Jonny to hear. He heard Race
breathed response of "Bannon". The door
opened silently. Race grabbed his
jacket and shoved Jonny through the door, following him closely. The door closed behind them.
Race's voice
came softly in his ear. "Follow me and
stay close. Not one word. Understand?" Jonny reached out and gave his arm a quick squeeze to acknowledge
the instructions and, grabbing his jacket for guidance, followed him through
the inky blackness. Finally, he sensed
a change in his surroundings. No longer
did he smell the odor of decaying wood and salt air. Gone, too, was the still air of an abandoned building and the dim
sounds of river and harbor traffic. He
could feel a steady current of air moving against his face, but it had a
slightly metallic tang to it. And he
could feel the low vibration of mechanical equipment coming through the soles
of his feet. The occasional scuff of a
shoe or the unwary footstep seemed to echo a little, as though they were in a
corridor of some kind rather than in the large open space of a warehouse. He also sensed that they were moving
downward somehow, although he wasn't sure how that was possible considering how
close they were to water.
With a sudden
loud clang, a door opened in front of them, spilling bright light into the
darkness. Jonny was momentarily
blinded. As his eyes adjusted, he found
himself drawn into a large room the like of which he had only seen in
movies. This was a covert operations
room. There was no doubt. Computer and video monitors lined walls
almost everywhere he looked, each with a different image. A large, Plexiglas operations board stood in
the middle of the room with a clear overlay of New York, Staten Island and
parts of New Jersey. There were also
computer workstations with sophisticated computer setups. Many of them were in use, displaying a
variety of data. Jonny looked away
pointedly. He thought he'd be better
off not knowing what information they were accessing. About a dozen people moved purposefully throughout the room,
going about their business without so much as a backward glance at the two
newcomers. Jonny had no idea what this
place was or why it was here. And he
also thought that the less he knew the better off he would probably be in the
long run.
Four men
surrounded Race and Jonny. All were
armed and held their weapons at ready, although they were not trained on either
one of them at the moment.
"What do you
want, Bannon?" A fifth man approached
them. He had dark hair, dark eyes and
wore black pants and pullover sweater. Race stared at him, unintimidated.
"Information,
an identify change and 'invisible' passage out of the country for the boy and
myself."
The black man
laughed harshly. "And what makes you
think I'll give you any of that? You're
not with the agency any more, Bannon. You've made that clear enough. We have no reason to help you." He jerked his head. "Get them
out of here." The man turned to walk
away.
Race Bannon's
voice was soft and deadly. "Halfaya
Pass, 1983. Shall we talk about it,
Leeds?" The man froze and turned
slowly. The expression on his face was
ugly. "I want information, an identity
change and safe, untraceable passage out of the country for the two of us. Are you going to get it for me or not?"
The man
breathed heavily. "What kind of
information?" Race reached into his
pocket carefully and pulled out a picture. He flicked it at the man named Leeds.
"I want to
locate her. And I want any information
you may have or can get on her current activities."
"Who is she?"
There was a
long silence before Race finally said, "One of Jeremiah Surd's
associates." A sudden hush descended
over the already quiet room.
"Surd's dead."
"I know."
"Rumor has it he
was murdered, regardless of what the papers say." Race didn't respond. "Rumor also has it that all of his former associates are being
systematically eliminated." Still no
response. "What'd he do to you, Bannon,
that's set you, of all people, on this kind of vendetta. You always liked to put 'em in jail, not
kill 'em."
Race stared
challengingly at Leeds for a long time. Finally, he said softly, "He hurt my daughter." In the face of his stare, Leeds eyes fell. Then they rose again and stared at Jonny.
"And who are
you, kid?" Jonny just stared back at
him without a word.
"Tell him,"
Race commanded.
Lifting his
chin slightly in defiance, he said flatly, "Jonny Quest."
Leeds stared
at Race in astonishment. "The Quest
kid? You brought him here? Why?"
Before anyone
else could respond, Jonny said coldly, "Let's just say I have a vested interest
in the outcome of the search for the 'lady' in question."
"What kind of
outcome are you interested in, kid?"
"I want her
dead," he spat.
"What'd Surd do?"
Leeds finally asked.
"That," Race
responded coldly, "is none of your business. Suffice it to say, it was bad enough for me to swear that I would end
Surd and his organization for good. There is only one left . . . her. And I want her. Now, are you
going to get me what I want, or do I go elsewhere?"
Leeds finally
sighed. "All right. You've got it. But are you really planning to take the kid?
"He's earned
the right. And how he earned it is also
none of your business."
"Getting this set
up is going to take some time."
"Time is fine
. . . just see to it doesn't take too long."
"Two to three
days . . . five at most."
"Fair enough."
"You planning
on staying here?"
"Your call . .
. I just want to be out of sight. We
have effectively disappeared now. I
want to stay that way."
Leeds suddenly
grinned . . . an almost friendly grin. "Mind games, huh? Okay. Jones . . . " One of the men surrounding them looked at him. " . . . take 'em to the safe room here in
the complex. Give 'em food and a place
to sleep. You'll wait in the room we
provide, you understand. No wandering
around and no questions."
"Agreed." Jones jerked his head and the two of them
followed him out of the control room.
Three days had
passed and they were still waiting. Jonny thought he would go stir crazy, but he was careful to try and hide
it from Race. He knew that his being
here was tenuous. Race could change his
mind and send him home at any time. Bringing him into an agency facility was risky. They didn't like outsiders. And when it was clear that Race himself was
considered an outsider . . . Jonny
wondered about Halfaya Pass. But there
was no asking that question. And so he
cultivated patience. There were some
magazines and books lying around which he had read from cover to cover within
the first two days. At least they kept
his mind off Jessie . . . sort of. He
wondered how she was. He worried about
her constantly. And the longer he was
away the more he worried. If only he
could . . .
"Sit down,
Jonny. You're wearing a hole in the
floor." Jonny focused on Race who was
sitting across the room at a small table and realized he had been pacing.
"Sorry." He sat on the edge of the bed. But before long he was thinking about Jess
again and that started him pacing again.
Race watched
the boy as he idly shuffled a deck of cards. He was trying very hard to be patient but it just wasn't in his
makeup. Sometimes Race really wondered
if Jonny was actually Benton Quest's son. They seemed so different. But
then something would happen and Jonny would make that intuitive leap that was
so distinctive of the good Doctor and Race would realize again that there was
no doubt . . . Jonny was his son, all right. Privately, Benton had always expressed concern about the boy. He didn't seem to have the dedication or the
interest to stick with anything for very long. But Race knew better. He was
just young. Or at least he used to
be. He wasn't so young any more. And neither was Jessie.
Race had sat back
and watched those two struggle with what had happened to them. In a way he was glad he had never seen
Jessie's journal. If it was as bad as
he suspected, it would probably never have been possible for Race to forgive
the boy for what he did, no matter how it happened. Sometimes, even now, he found it difficult. But over the last several months he had
watched Jonny with his daughter. That
he cared for her was clear. That he was
desperately trying to do what he thought was right . . . and what he thought
both he and Benton expected of him . . . was also clear. Race knew that he had tried very hard to get
her to marry him from the beginning. The fact that it hadn't happened was not Jonny's fault . . . that was
Jessie's decision. Race never got an explanation
from his daughter on her reasons, but whatever they were, once she explained
them to Jonny he seemed to accept them. No, more than accept them. He
defended them. More and more, they
moved away from explaining reasons to their parents. They faced a situation, discussed it between them, came to a
mutual decision, implemented it and then faced whatever consequences
resulted. That was maturity . . .
acquired the hard way, it was true . . . but maturity all the same.
Race wondered
what was eating at him right now. For
the first day or so he had been okay. But today his restlessness had been pronounced. He was worrying about something . . .
"What's wrong,
Jonny?"
The boy looked
at him from across the room. His eyes
were intensely blue and a slight frown clouded his face. It suddenly occurred to Race that thinking
about him as "the boy" was going to have to stop. He had stopped being a boy about seven months ago.
Jonny shook
his head and sighed. "Nothing. Just restless, I guess. I never did take waiting real well."
Race
snorted. "You got that right. But there's no point in wearing yourself
out. Come over here and sit down. We'll play some poker."
Jonny crossed
the room and sat down opposite Race. "What'll we bet with?"
"Oh, we'll
come up with something. I'll give you
the opportunity to gamble away your inheritance."
"Yeah, right .
. . " Race just laughed and dealt the
cards.
Late that
afternoon the waiting finally ended. Leeds entered the room without so much as a knock. Race and Jonny had been playing cards all
afternoon and Race was up by about $750,000. They both ignored him.
"I'll see your
$50,000 and raise you $100,000," Jonny said.
Race raised an
eyebrow. "Death wish, huh? Okay. I'll see you. Cards?"
"Two." He slid two cards across the table, face
down and accepted the two new ones. He
looked at them for an instant and then laid all of them face down on the table.
"Dealer takes
one. Your bet."
Jonny looked
at him for an instant, trying to read his face. Then he said, "All of it. $600,000."
Race looked at
him, astonished. They had both agreed
at the onset that whoever lost would eventually have to pay up. And that was a lot of money he just
bet. Was he bluffing?
Jonny looked
at him blandly. "Your bet."
"Call." Race laid his cards on the table. "Full house . . . aces over threes."
Jonny flipped
his cards over and using one hand, spread them across the table. "Four of a kind . . . kings."
Race stared at
the cards, disgusted. "I don't believe
it."
"Read 'em and
weep," was Jonny's grinning reply. "Where does that leave us?"
Race did a
quick calculation and started to laugh. "I just broke even."
"Oh,
well. You'll have to try for my
inheritance some other time." Both men
turned their attention to Leeds who had stood watching the exchange with
interest.
"So?" was
Race's only comment.
"We've gotten
a lead on your little bird. She seems
flighty . . . bouncing all over Europe. She was sighted early this afternoon in Amsterdam."
"Any
indication of what she's up to?" was
Race's response.
Leeds just
shook his head. "No. But I would say something is up. There are digital transactions flying across
the computer net but we can't get them decoded."
"Can we take a
look?"
Leeds shrugged
his shoulders. "Sure. Why not." He led them back to the main operations room and up to one of the
computer terminals. Looking at the
young man sitting at the system, he said, "Run a summary of those transaction
again." They all stared as the screen
scrolled down through page after page of groups of six digit numbers.
Race finally
sighed. "Makes no sense
whatsoever." But Jonny kept staring at
them in concentration. A pattern . . .
there was a pattern there. Where had he
seen that pattern before? He could
almost see it . . .
"Jonny?" Race looked at him closely. He could almost see him standing on the
precipice of that intuitive leap.
Jonny looked
at Leeds. "Can I . . . ?" he asked, waving at the computer
setup. After an instant's hesitation,
he gestured for the agency man to move and Jonny slid into the chair. He started working at the keyboard inputting
commands faster than any of them could follow. The monitor flashed and flickered trying to keep up with the information
being fed into it. A crowd gathered,
watching the young man work. Race had
seen this before . . . from all of the Quests and from his daughter . . . it
was sometimes as though their minds were somehow linked directly to the
computer itself, processing data in sync with the flow of electronic
information. All of a sudden, Jonny
stopped and the monitor, catching up with him, steadied.
"Money
transfers. Lots of them. For very large dollar amounts."
"Can you tell
from where?"
"From all
over. She's consolidating. It's all funneling into a single Swiss bank
account."
Race sighed in
frustration. "That's it then. There's no more information to get there."
"Maybe. And maybe not." Jonny set to work at the computer again. Command, enter , ACCESS DENIED . . . . Command, enter. ACCESS DENIED" .
. . . Command, enter ACCESS DENIED. . .
. Command, enter. ACCESS DENIED. . . . Command, enter. ACCESS DENIED" . . .
"What are you
doing?"
"Getting into
the bank's transaction and data computer."
"You're trying
to hack the Swiss government's banking system!!!??"
"Just looking
for a back door."
Leeds stared
at Race Bannon incredulously. "That's
not possible! We've had experts trying
to get in there for years."
"Where's IRIS
when I need her?" Jonny muttered to
himself.
Command,
enter. ACCESS APPROVED. PLEASE ENTER NEXT TASK CODE.
"Yessss!" Everyone stared at the computer screen,
dumbfounded. Race smiled to
himself. This was why the government
always considered the Quests a threat. And why, ultimately, Race had washed his hands of the lot of them and
their politics.
DISPLAY
TRANSACTION RECORD, ACCOUNT 1279364552897
The screen
scrolled showing large sums of money being deposited into the account. Occasional transfers out of small amounts
could be seen but nothing amounted to much until they reached the end of the
account. There was a request for an, as
yet undisbursed, two million dollars to be transferred to another Swiss bank
account.
DISPLAY
ACCOUNT DATA, enter.
UNKNOWN
COMMAND OR FILE NAME
Jonny uttered
a rude comment. "Syntax, syntax, syntax
. . . " he chanted to himself.
DISPLAY
ACCOUNT HOLDER DATA, enter.
UNKNOWN
COMMAND OR FILE NAME
"God, I hate
antiquated computer systems!"
Antiquated! Leeds and his team exchanged stunned
glances. The Swiss updated their entire
system at least once every three months! Race chuckled to himself.
DISPLAY
ACCOUNT HOLDER DATA, ACCOUNT 277936555427, enter.
Again the
computer screen began to scroll. Finally, the screen came to rest with the cursor flashing on the vital
field.
ACCOUNT HOLDER
NAME Byron Nelson Cain
Leeds stood up
and uttered a particularly nasty word.
Race also
straightened and stared at him. "Who is
he?"
Leeds ran a
hand through his hair in agitation. "Assassin. Killer for hire to the
highest bidder." Race swore. "Who's he after, Bannon? Who would this woman be hiring him to kill?"
"My daughter!"
"Why?!? What does your daughter have that this woman
wants that bad?"
"Nothing! It's not Jessie she wants. She wants revenge . . . revenge against ME. And she's using Jessie as an instrument for
that revenge. I've got to stop
this . . . "
Jonny cut
across both of them. "How does this
Cain guy operate? What's his pattern
for payment?"
Leeds looked
at him. "Half up front . . . half when
the job is complete."
"Payable to
his personal Swiss bank account." Jonny
thought for a second, and a nasty smile formed slowly. Race watched the young man and a sudden
shiver ran down his back. Whatever he
was thinking, it didn't bode well for someone. "What do you suppose Mr. Cain would do if he was paid his down payment
and then the transfer was bounced for lack of funds in the originating
account?"
Leeds stared
at the boy. "Mr. Cain would be very
unhappy. How do you propose to accomplish
that?"
Jonny turned
back to the computer. After working for
a few more minutes, he entered a final command and broke the connection. One of the agency men uttered an incoherent
sound and reached past him trying to bring it back. Jonny just grinned at him as he stood up. "Sorry."
Race looked at
him. "What did you do?"
"I created a
new account in a US bank and set it up so that when the fund transfer executes
all of the funds in the account will be transferred to the US bank
account. There's always a brief delay
in transactions of that kind. The
transfer is made and it credits to the new account. Then the debit logs to the old account. And then an electronic cross check is done between the two
accounts to verify the transaction. This entire process generally only takes a couple of seconds. But I've built in a delay. Am I right in suspecting that Cain will
check the arrival of the funds before moving on the contract?"
Leeds
nodded. "A good bet."
"Well, what
will happen is this. The system will
transfer the money to Cain's account. But the delay command will kick in and the transaction will
suspend. The bank shouldn't catch it
because it is only affecting this single type of transaction between only these
two accounts. The delay command will
also trigger the transfer of funds from the Swiss account to the US account and
the closure of the Swiss account. When
Cain calls in to check the account balance and transfer, the keying in of his
account number will cause the delay code to dissolve and the system will
attempt to complete the transaction. When it finds no funds it will abort the transaction and will report to
Cain both the attempted transfer and the lack of funds. Now, Julia is known as a computer
expert. If you were Cain what would you
figure . . . that someone broke into the inviolate Swiss banking system and set
him up or that he'd been double crossed?"
Race started
to laugh. "Pretty. Oh, very pretty! I like it."
Jonny grinned
back at him. "You said you wanted to put
pressure on her . . . "
"Oh, my . . .
" Still laughing, Race looked at
Leeds. The man was staring at Jonny
Quest like he was a God-given gift to an ambitious man. Race's laughter died. He needed to get the boy out of here . . .
now. The man was suddenly realizing
what he had in his hands. "Where is
she, Leeds? Or if not her, where is
Cain and we'll follow him to Julia." Leeds looked at Race speculatively. Race replied softly, "Don't even think about it. It will never happen. I won't allow it."
Jonny looked
from one man to the other in confusion as they stared at each other. Finally, Leeds sighed. "You're gonna owe me, Bannon. Big time."
"If my
daughter lives through this and I get Julia, I'll let you collect. Now where is she?"
"She registered
at the Falcon Plaza in the center of Amsterdam this morning."
"Now how do we
get out of the country?"
"Follow
Jones. He'll get your new identities
set up. There's an agency flight out of
Kennedy in three hours. If you want our
help out of the country you'll be on it." Race and Jonny left at a run.