Blood Line (A Tom Rollins Thriller Book 1) by Paul Heatley (book recommendations based on other books .txt) 📗

“Her phone’s in there, too,” Ben says. “Can you do anything with that?”

“Maybe. But if she’s as deep in this as you think, you really think she’s going to have been communicating on her phone?”

“It’s worth looking.”

Gerry pops his fingers, then gets to work. Ben steps to one side, takes a seat, leaves him to it. Chews his cheek while he waits, keeps one eye on the door, fearful that there should come a knock, that someone will try the handle, try to get inside. Ben is confident he can play it cool, but can Gerry?

“Shit,” Gerry says.

Ben looks up. He isn’t sure how much time has passed; he hasn’t been keeping track. “What is it?”

“Whoever she’s been talking to, it’s encrypted. And it’s real sophisticated.”

“Can you break it?”

Gerry’s fingers have never stopped typing. “I’m trying.”

“Can you tell how many people, at least?”

Gerry shakes his head without looking up.

Ben lets him work, knows that the only way he can help him is by remaining silent.

Minutes pass. Gerry never stops working. His eyes never stray from the screen; he barely blinks. He’s engrossed in his work, determined to get through.

“I’m in,” Gerry says.

Ben jumps to his feet, comes around the desk.

It’s there.

It’s all there.

They read it together. They read in silence for ten minutes, every piece of communication. Ben feels his stomach sinking. A quick glance at Gerry, and he knows he’s feeling the same thing.

“Who is this?” Ben says. “Who’s she talking to?”

“I don’t know,” Gerry says. He starts tapping at the keys again.

“What’re you doing?”

“I’m trying to see if I can find where these messages came from, and from who.”

Ben waits, watches him work. What he’s doing isn’t clear to him; it doesn’t make sense. Nothing seems to be happening. “Well?”

Gerry shakes his head. “I can’t get it. There’s a deeper encryption.”

“So we don’t know who’s helping her,” Ben says.

Gerry raises his eyebrows, points at the screen. “But we know all this.”

Ben nods, solemn, thinking. “Get the phone open,” he says. “The answers might be there.”

Gerry takes the phone from the bag. He plugs it in, connects it to his laptop. He taps at his keys, taps at the phone’s screen. It’s open. He hands it to Ben.

Ben looks through, reads the messages, looks at her calls. His own name pops up. He ignores it. Can’t find anything out of the ordinary.

“Well?” Gerry says.

“There’s nothing here,” Ben says. “Like you suspected.”

“But there’s a lot here,” Gerry says, pointing at the laptop. “This is huge. We can’t let this happen. We have to share this information.”

Ben looks down at him. He notices Gerry has started sweating. He’s breathing hard. He’s gone pale. “We can’t,” Ben says.

“What? Are you insane? How can we not? Do you realize how many lives are on the line here? We can’t just allow this to happen.”

“We’re not going to,” Ben says. “I’m not going to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll stop it,” Ben says, his mind made up. “I’ll do it. I know it all now. I know their plan, their target; I know what they’re going to do. But we don’t know who else is involved.”

“You can’t do this on your own,” Gerry says.

“I have no choice. We don’t know how high this thing goes – what if we tell the wrong person, or they find out? That won’t stop it. It’ll just change the plan, or else we get silenced and it still goes ahead.”

“Silenced?”

“You know exactly what I mean,” Ben says. “We’ll be dead. We can’t do anything to stop this if we’re dead.”

“We should tell Jake,” Gerry says, a hint of panic in his voice.

“We can’t tell anyone.”

“You don’t trust Jake?”

“I don’t trust anyone, not right now. Only you. Do you understand that? Only you. And I need to know that I can trust you, and that you’ll trust me that I know what I’m doing. That I’ll stop this.”

Gerry is trembling.

“Gerry, look at me. Calm down. We’re the only two who know. No one knows we know. It’s happening tomorrow. Right now, we have the element of surprise. This works in our favor.”

“I’m just a computer analyst, Ben,” Gerry says. “I can’t, I mean, this is beyond me. I’m not an agent. I don’t know what to do. This is the kind of thing, I find out, I pass it on. Someone else deals with it.”

“And someone else will,” Ben says. “Me. I’m going to deal with it.”

“You’re just one man. You can’t do it alone.”

Ben thinks about Tom. “I won’t be alone. I’ll have help. Someone from outside the bureau.”

Gerry narrows his eyes at this. “Who?”

“He’s a friend. Let’s just leave it at that.”

Gerry looks doubtful still.

“Gerry, it’s one night. Keep your mouth shut for one night. I’ll stop this, you’ll see. And after that, we’ll find everyone else involved. All right? We’ll flush them all out. You’ll see. Everything will be all right. Everything will be how it should.”

Gerry’s lips are pinched tight. He looks like he’s going to be sick. “Carly’s dead, isn’t she?”

“No,” Ben says. “She’s not.” He can’t tell him the truth. He needs him on his side. The truth of what happened might scare him too much, more than he already is. It might scare him off, send him running. Send him talking. “She’s alive, and after tomorrow, she’s going to give us the names of all of her friends, too.”

Gerry runs a hand down his face, covers his eyes.

“Gerry, come on, get up.” Ben takes him by an elbow, pulls him to his feet. “We’re going to leave. Right now, together, understand? We’re going to leave, and I’m going to go home and get ready, and I want you to go home and keep your head down. Lock the doors; stay inside. Don’t call anyone; don’t talk to anyone. Keep the lights off; pretend you’re not in. That clear? Look at me, Gerry. I need to know that you understand what I’m saying.”

Gerry gives a feeble nod.

Ben packs the laptop back into the