Gary Ponzo - A Touch of Deceit

The man desperately rummaged through his jacket. Looking down over his shoulder, she saw him pull a gun from his inside pocket. She could feel the car slowing.

The man tried to get a shot off without hitting himself. Julie felt the bullet whiz by her head and heard the blast of glass shatter behind her. A second bullet immediately followed. This time she felt it burn into her shoulder. She let go of her grip to see and feel the gravity of the wound. She touched the opening with her finger and felt the warm moisture escaping the site. Her blouse absorbed the oozing fluid like a tissue soaking up spilled tomato juice. She turned away, unable to deal with the reality of the hole in her body.

The man gasped a critical breath of air. He snatched the belt from his head and leaned back against the headrest, rubbing his neck.

The car had stopped in the middle of the road and Julie found herself crouched in the back seat, an easy target. When she looked up, she noticed the broken back window behind her. Jagged triangles of glass framed the opening like a menacing jack-o-lantern. She didn’t hesitate. She flung her body through the aperture, scraping her torso with razor-like tears as she shimmied her way out of the car.

She slid across the trunk, hit the slick asphalt with open palms and rolled onto her back with a thud. In her peripheral vision, she could sense the brightness of headlights approaching. She turned and crawled for a couple of yards until she could get to her feet. She ran toward the light. Her legs felt weighted down as she waved her arms. She was only upright for a couple of wobbly steps when she heard the shot and felt the bullet hit her in the back of her head. Then the lights disappeared, and so did Julie Bracco’s world.

Don Silkari, Jimmy “Fingers” Ferraro, Tony “the Butcher” Florio, and Sal Demenci, sat on a bench in the back of the FBI’s high tech van in amazement. Across from the awe-struck Italians was a wall of flat screen video monitors, radar screens, dials, and blinking lights. So many that even Nick Bracco had to strain his memory to recall the purpose of all of them.

Three FBI Agents sat on bolted stools in front of the screens wearing headphones and playing with knobs and switches. Nick and Matt sat in the front portion of the van familiarizing themselves with a detailed map of the surrounding streets. Nick looked up from the diagram and watched as Don Silkari stretched his neck to see the young FBI technicians at work. They were the new breed of agent. In the old days they would have been analysts, looked down upon as nerds who didn’t have the nerve to make it in the field. Nowadays, they were revered as sophisticated agents. The ones who used technology in the field to outmaneuver the enemy, making it safer for field agents to go places where they had previously avoided. In the past, the FBI went in heavy with SWAT teams and snipers. Now they surprised their opponents with small groups of prepared agents who were already informed about the obstacles they would face. Preserving evidence, and saving lives.

Silk pointed to a blue screen with four straight lines flowing across it. “What’s that one for?” he asked.

Paul Hartwick pulled his headphones down around his neck and tapped the screen. “These are the lines that represent the voices inside of the house.” He looked over at Nick tentatively and Nick gave him a reassuring nod.

“Well,” Hartwick continued, “we have an acoustic laser pointed at a window of the home and it gives us readings on the noises inside. These lines indicate vocal tones. There are four flat lines, representing four different human voices detected inside the house at one time or another.” One of the lines began to wiggle. “See, right now this voice is talking. When the lines move it represents vocal changes. If a new voice should speak, the computer recognizes the different inflection and adds a new line to the screen. So far it looks like there are only four men inside of the house.”

Silk shook his head in amazement. He was like a kid watching Santa land reindeer on his rooftop. “You can hear what they’re saying?” Silk asked.

“Every word,” Hartwick assured him.

Nick leaned over and grabbed an available headset. He stuck one earpiece over his right ear.

Hartwick looked at him. “You know Kurdish?”

“Somewhat.”

After a few minutes Nick said, “What’s that word mean?”

Hartwick was listening to the same conversation on his headset. “Which one?”

“Sarock.”

“It’s a very respectful term, usually reserved for patriarchs of a family.”

“Could it mean. . leader?”

Hartwick thought for a moment. “It could.”

Nick pulled his headset off. “Who’s in charge of Satellite Patrol?”

Hartwick was adjusting a dial on the panel in front of him. “I think it’s still Stevie Gilpin.”

“Can you get him on line for me?”

Before Nick could finish his thought, Hartwick was handing him a smaller, thinner headset and dialing a number into a keypad to his left. “He usually answers on the first ring, twenty-four hours a day.”

Nick heard half of a ring, then, “Gilpin.”

“Stevie?”

“That’s me.”

“Listen, this is Nick Bracco. Could you add a key word to our scavenger hunt?”

Gilpin laughed. “One word, Nick. You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not. I just need the word Sarock added to the list.”

“Do you know which language so I can route it to the proper interpreter?”

“Kurdish.”

“Nick, for you, it will be done inside of thirty seconds. That fast enough?”

“You’re beautiful, Stevie.”

“That’s what everyone tells me.”

Nick hung up with a smile. Between the NSA, CIA, and FBI, there were twenty-two satellites circling the earth. Half of them were video surveillance recorders, the other half audio. The audio satellites were listening to every conversation sent through the airwaves around the world, and were programmed to record every conversation in every language that included any one of hundreds of key words: kill, bomb, nuclear, destroy, murder, etc. Once they were recorded, they were sent directly to FBI headquarters, where a translator would determine whether the conversation warranted any further investigation. Most of the time it was housewives talking about killing time, but every now and then something good happened. Adding Sarock to the list of words probably added a boatload of work for the Kurdish translator and nothing more. But it was worth a shot.

Sal Demenci looked over at the FBI crew with an expression of amazement, “If you guys can hear all of our conversations through windows and doors, then how come we’re all walking around freely?”

Paul again deferred to Nick with raised eyebrows.

Nick shrugged. “Because a lot of this stuff is illegal and inadmissible in a court of law. Believe it or not, Sal, even you guys have rights.”

“How did you guys find out about this house anyway?” Sal asked.

Matt didn’t look up as he responded to Sal’s inquiry. “The INS picked up a young Kurd and brought him in for questioning. His visa was in order, so they let him go. Fortunately, we’ve got a team working over there undercover. They tagged his coat with a tracking device and we followed the signal to this house.”

Sal looked at Nick. “Is that legal?”

“Not always,” Nick said. “This time, however, we had the proper paperwork in place.” The lines of legality were getting blurrier every minute. It was ironic that Nick wound up explaining the law to one of the most lawless men he knew. They were using lions to track down a wild bear running loose in the neighborhood. Not only that, but they were training the lions how to kill a predator more efficiently. This could not turn out well.