4.03.01

[virtualda]

EPISODE 4.03 DOUBLE TAKE Written by Dark NTernal, MrAndyPuppy, Shywr1ter and Zanna

ACT I

Hotel Vandermeer, Merchandise Display Room – 7:30 PM

The bidders wandered around the room, looking over the merchandise displayed on long tables set up along the walls and in rows down the middle of the room. The items included a variety of data storage devices, such as DVDs, CDs, diskettes and memory cards, as well as several hard drives and laptops. Logan was leaning over a table, examining the back of one of the hard drives. After a surreptitious glance at a scrap of paper in his hand, he looked up and caught sight of Max several yards away from him. Several monitors had been set up around the room for the bidders to peruse the contents of the data storage devices, and she was standing in front of one of them, scanning the menu of a memory card. As she looked up and gazed in his direction, he casually ran his hand along the hard drive’s casing. She zoomed her vision on the hard drive, making note of its make and model, and then looked back at Logan, giving him a barely perceptible nod of the head before looking away.

After several minutes, the auctioneer came in and cleared his throat to catch their attention.

“Ladies and gentlemen, refreshments are being served in the next room whenever you are ready.”

Everyone gradually made their way into the other room. As they arrived, servers began circulating among them with trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres. Many of the bidders were talking on cell phones.

Logan snagged a glass of champagne from a passing server and began to mingle with the crowd. As he scanned the room, looking for Max, a voice spoke behind him. “So, Mr. Jupkin, you’re representing the Russians.”

Logan turned around to face a man wearing an Armani suit. He had dark hair, a goatee, and the slick look of a very successful businessman. “That’s right. And you would be…?”

“Shawn Morgan. I represent certain South African interests. I wasn’t aware that you people were interested in classified information and technology,” he said in an accented voice.

“Well, we’re expanding our interests,” Logan replied cautiously.

“The people I represent are also very much interested in acquiring already-developed technology. I couldn’t help noticing that you’re wearing a piece of technology I haven’t seen before.” He looked down meaningfully.

Logan followed the gaze down to his own shoes, encased in the straps of the exoskeleton. “Ah yes, it’s called an exoskeleton. I acquired it from someone who, shall we say, no longer needs it.” He lifted his left foot slightly for the man to have a closer look. “It enhances speed and strength in the legs.”

The man looked impressed. “Really? I’d be very interested in knowing more. Would you be interested in sell – ”

Suddenly, Logan’s cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pants pocket, opened it and looked at the display. “Excuse me. I have to take this,” he said to Morgan. “Perhaps we can continue our discussion another time.” As Morgan moved away, Logan spoke into his phone. “Hey.”

“Right back at you.” It was Max. “Was I interrupting something important?”

Logan looked around and spotted Max across the room giving him a sidelong look as she spoke into her cell phone. “Are you kidding? Your timing was impeccable. Another minute and I probably would have had to sell that guy the exoskeleton.”

Max looked appreciatively at the ring on her right hand. “Not that I don’t enjoy dressing up as much as the next girl – your mom had classy taste in jewelry, by the way – but these shoes are killing me. I take it the hard drive we’re after is the one that you were getting all touchy-feely with.”

“Yes,” Logan answered, “the serial number matches the one Sam Carr gave us.”

Max glanced over at a server bearing a tray of champagne several feet away from her and caught his attention. As he started walking toward her, she continued in a low voice over the phone. “Okay, so your intel checks out, but you still haven’t told me why we have to take care of this ourselves.” The server paused in front of her, and she selected a glass and took a sip, waiting until he moved on before resuming her conversation with Logan. “Why couldn’t we just let Matt handle this for us? He’s going to be raiding this joint anyway.”

“Because,” Logan answered, “every time Matt has conducted a major investigation into the black market in the past few months, the Feds have swooped in and taken over, and it’s at that point that the crooks somehow get tipped off. He thinks there’s a leak in the FBI. He’s managed to keep this investigation off the federal radar so far by just involving his most trusted men, but there’s no telling where the evidence could end up after the raid goes down. I don’t think I need to remind you how this one particular piece of evidence could affect you. I think we’ll both breathe easier once it’s in our own hands. Besides, I want to find out who’s behind these black-market auctions.” He watched as the auctioneer walked past him and exited the room. “Listen, I’m going to follow the auctioneer and see what I can find out.”

“And I’ll snoop around and see if I can’t find out where they’re keeping the merchandise before it goes up on the block.”

“Be careful,” he cautioned her.

“Considering how many times I’ve had to save your ass, I could say the same to you,” she said tartly before snapping her phone shut.

Hotel Hallway

Max walked over to the doorway that led to the room where the merchandise was being displayed, in the hope that it was still there. When she glanced in casually, her enhanced eyesight quickly took in all the details of the darkened room, noticing instantly that the tables were now all bare. She quietly closed the door and continued down the hallway.

A discreet search of the remaining conference rooms on the floor also turned up nothing. She opened a door across the hall from the last conference room and found a corridor of private suites. Further exploration revealed even more corridors; all interconnected like a maze. After wandering down several of them, she turned a corner and almost bumped into a very large and unmoving man, dressed in an ill-fitting suit with a telltale bulge on one side.

“Sorry, miss, you can’t come down here,” the guard said firmly in an accent that implied tough on-the-street living.

“Oh, but I need to use the ladies’ room. One of the other guests told me that it was down this way,” Max responded innocently.

“Well, miss, they must have been mistaken, because there ain’t no ladies’ room down here. You’ll have to go back the other way.”

Max considered fast-talking her way past him, but then noticed several other guards, stationed at regular intervals along the hallway behind him. She shrugged and turned to go.

As she turned the corner out of sight of the guard, she murmured into the tiny microphone hidden in the lapel of her jacket, “Logan, I think I know where the merchandise is being kept, but there are several guards in the hallway. There’s no way that I can get past them this way. I’ll have to figure out another way of getting in.”

His voice came to her through the equally tiny wireless receiver concealed in her right ear. “Just try not to get caught,” he teased her. “The last thing we need is a repeat of the Pierpont Lemkin heist.”

“Hey, that was on Diamond, not me,” she answered defensively. “As long as her ghost isn’t hanging around, I think I can handle not getting caught. Listen, I’m going to head outside to do some recon. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

Another Hallway

Logan followed the auctioneer at a discreet distance as he walked down a series of corridors. The auctioneer finally stopped in front of an unmarked door and glanced around. Logan quickly ducked behind a corner to avoid being seen and listened while the man unlocked the door, entered through it and closed it behind him. After a moment’s hesitation, Logan quietly walked up to the door and carefully put his ear as close to it as he could without making any noise. He could clearly hear the auctioneer’s voice, seemingly talking to someone on the phone, and the faint sound of fingers tapping on a keyboard.

“Yeah,” the auctioneer was saying, “everything’s going fine. All of our ‘guests’ have arrived. They’re enjoying champagne and hors d’oeuvres as we speak. I’ll give them another fifteen minutes or so and then I’ll start the auction…uh huh…yeah…trust me, I’ve done this before. By the way, we got a few last-minute items…I’m sending the specs to you right now...You got it?...Good. Listen, I gotta go check on a few things before I start the show. I’ll call you when it’s all over and we’ll go over the numbers…Bye.”

Logan quickly and quietly backed away from the door, looking around for a place to hide. A little farther down the hallway, he found a door marked with a sign that said “STAIRS” and quickly ducked inside. Concrete stairs led up to the floors above and down to the floors below, but he gave them only a cursory glance as he listened at the door, opening it a tiny crack so that he could a see a sliver of the hallway. A few seconds later, the auctioneer came back out into the hallway, closed the door behind him, and disappeared around a corner.

Logan listened until he could no longer hear the man’s footsteps, then spoke into a microphone identical to Max’s, similarly hidden in his jacket. “Max, I just overheard the auctioneer talking to someone over the phone. It sounded like he was talking to some kind of business associate. I think he was also sending an e-mail.”

He heard her voice in his ear. “Don’t tell me. You’re going to do some snooping.”

He smiled as he left the stairwell and walked back to the door from which the auctioneer had exited. “Let’s just say that you can learn a lot about a man from his e-mails.”

Looking around furtively, he pulled a set of lock picks from his pocket and inserted two of the slender pieces of metal into the lock, delicately jiggling the tumblers inside. A few minutes later he had the door open, and after a quick glance down the corridor to make sure he wasn’t being watched, he ducked into the room. Not surprisingly, it was an office, well appointed with lush carpets, rich draperies, and a heavy wooden desk. An antique, glass desk lamp illuminated the desk, but there was no computer in sight.

He walked over to the desk, sat down in the chair and tried opening the desk drawers. They were all locked. Muttering to himself, he pulled the lock picks out of his pocket again and began picking the lock of the topmost drawer on the right. Within moments, he had the drawer open and found a laptop inside. He let out a quiet “Aha!” and pulled it out. Another few moments and he had it up and running on the desk.

“Damn,” he said under his breath, after he tried to open several of the files and applications, and realized that everything was encrypted. He took a portable storage device out of his pocket, plugged it into the appropriate port, loaded up several hacking utilities, and quickly began typing. “Time to earn your money, Logan.”

Outside Wall of Hotel

With one last shove, Max pushed the window open all the way and poked her head out to look outside. There was a ledge just below the window that wrapped around the entire building. She hoisted herself up onto the windowsill, eased her legs out until her feet found the ledge, and then ducked through outside. She began edging forward on the ledge, skillfully positioning her back to the wall. She looked down for a moment at the street far below and muttered to herself, “Now is not the time to be thinking of the Steinlitz.”

Leaning toward her right side, Max peered inside the first room for any sign of the hard drive, but the room was unoccupied and there was no sign of the merchandise. She continued to move along the ledge, her back firmly against the wall. The second and third rooms were identical to the first. There was only one room left to check before she reached the corner, and she finally hit paydirt in this last room. A smile spread across her face as she peered into the window. The drapes were closed, but not entirely. A gap in them revealed the merchandise spread out on several tables inside the room. She craned her head around and spotted the hard drive they were after on a table next to the wall on the right.

She heard Logan’s voice in her ear. “Max, how’s it coming with the hard drive?”

Tucking her chin toward her lapel, she said, “I found it.”

“Good. Is there a way in?”

“There’s always a way in for your favorite cat burglar.”

A faint laugh came back as a reaction to Max’s last comment. “Listen, I found the auctioneer’s laptop and I’m working on breaking the encryption on it. It shouldn’t be too long now.”

“Ditto for me and the hard drive,” Max said, as she began examining the window frame.

Hotel Office

“Bingo,” Logan said.

“What’s up?” Max asked.

“I’m in,” Logan told her as he began opening up folders, files and e-mail. “Looks like he kept a record of everything that he’s bought and sold, but he’s used code names for all the buyers and sellers.” He looked at the e-mail program’s inbox. “Most of his e-mail is from one address.” He opened the last incoming e-mail and quickly scanned the text. “The last message received has instructions on where to send the proceeds of the auction,” he reported. A look into the outbox yielded the last outgoing e-mail. “Last message sent has a list of CDs and memory cards, and detailed descriptions of what’s on them. It was sent to the same address as he received the instructions from. It sounds like he’s just a middleman orchestrating this event for someone else.”

“Any mention of who this someone else is?” Max asked.

“Just another code name, but I’ve got the e-mail address, and that should give me a start on tracking down who it belongs to. I’m going to try to copy as much as I can for later study,” he said, as he initiated the command to copy the files onto his storage device.

Outside Wall of Hotel

Looking in through the window, Max could see the hard drive only a few feet away. She had cut a small hole into the glass of the window with a glasscutter, just large enough for her hand to pass through. It was positioned close to the window’s lock, and in the shadow of the partially drawn drapes on the other side. As she reached in through the hole, she saw movement inside the room and quickly withdrew her hand, ducking out of sight in the shadows. Someone was entering the room.

Max waited a moment and then slowly moved back toward the light, taking a careful look inside. It was the auctioneer who had entered the room, and he was walking toward a table on the left side of the room. After examining one of the items on it, he went back to the door, but instead of leaving, he called out to one of the guards in the hallway. When the guard came in, the auctioneer told him to stay in the room, and then left, leaving the guard behind.

Max quietly took several steps along the wall, away from the window. “Logan, we have a problem,” she whispered.

“What’s wrong?”

“A guard has just been stationed inside the room. I can’t just sneak into the room – he’ll see me.”

“Isn’t there any way you can get in without getting spotted?”

“No, I need some sort of a diversion to draw him out of the room.”

Hotel Office

“Max, there’s no time for that now. We need to get back to the reception. The auction will be starting soon, and it’s going to look suspicious if we’re not there,” Logan said as the laptop indicated that it was finished copying the files he wanted onto his storage device.

“Logan, we’re so close.”

“I know, but we need time to come up with a diversion, anyway. We’ll try again later,” Logan reassured her. He quickly disconnected the device and slipped it back into his pocket.

“Okay, I’m heading back to the reception room. By the way, what did you do with the real Jupkin and Lionne?”

“My people grabbed them just as they arrived at the airport,” he answered, as he shut down the laptop and put it back in the desk, gently closing the drawer. “They’re safely sedated and under lock and key at one of my safe houses. I have some of my people guarding them.” He stood up from the chair and quickly glanced around to make sure that everything was as he had found it. “They’re not going anywhere until we need to switch places with them again.” With that, he quietly exited the room.

Safe House

Three men were sitting around a table in a corner of a room, playing cards. One of them looked at his cards and threw a twenty-dollar bill on top of a pile of cash in the middle of the table. Grinning to the man sitting opposite him, he said, “I’ll see your ten, Marc, and I’ll raise you another twenty.”

The third man looked at his cards for a moment. In exasperation, he threw the cards in front of him. “Man, this just ain’t my day. Gary has all the luck and I ain’t in a mood for losing more.”

Seeing him fold his hand, Gary smiled. “Well, since you’re taking a break, Chris, why don’t you go check up on those two?”

Chris only nodded in agreement and got up, pushing his creaking chair behind him. He walked toward a door on the other side of the room. The door had a small window set in it, which allowed him to look into the small, sparsely furnished room on the other side. Through the wire-enforced glass, he could see a man and a woman lying on two cots. They appeared to be heavily sedated and showed no signs of waking any time soon.

He walked back to the table, sat down and grabbed the bottle next to him to fill up his glass. “Looks like they’ll be out cold for a while longer.”

Marc nodded, looking at his cards. “Good. That oughtta give us time for a few more hands.” He smiled at Gary. “Looks like I’m going to call your bluff.”

Gary didn’t respond, keeping his face blank.

Marc glanced at the cash on the table, and then looked confidently down at his cards. “Ready to show your cards?”

Chris looked through his glass as he drank, barely noticing the liquid touch his lips as he watched what was going on.

Gary looked calm, but hesitated as he nodded.

With a big smile Marc brought his cards down to the table. “Full house. Read ’em and weep.” He started reaching for the cash, a grin covering his face.

Both Chris and Gary looked at Marc’s cards; he had three queens and two sixes. Chris rubbed his stubble and looked enviously at the cards. “Nice ha – ” Chris began to say to congratulate Marc.

“Hang on a sec, Marc…” Gary said, as he blocked Marc’s hands with an arm.

“What?” Marc asked with puzzlement.

Gary grinned and threw down his cards, his blue eyes bright.

“I don’t believe it,” Marc said as he saw the cards, running a hand through his black hair. “He got a royal flush?”

“What?” Chris asked in surprise, nearly choking on his drink. He looked in disbelief at Gary’s cards, and saw that he had the ten, jack, queen, king and ace of spades. “Lucky son of a bitch. How often does that happen?”

Gary had managed to get the remaining queen from the deck to form his royal flush. He dragged all the cash from the table to his side, the corners of his mouth turned slightly upward, and started collecting the cards. “Ready for another hand?” he asked, shuffling the cards.

“You’re on. I want my money back,” Marc exclaimed, pulling his chair closer to the table and straightening up. “Chris, you in?”

“Sure, man…yeah…whatever.” Chris said and sighed.

Both men laughed at Chris. Gary patted Chris’s shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t worry, man, you’ll beat me this time.”

Chris smiled hopefully, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, you won’t see it coming.”

Gary started dealing the cards with practiced ease.

In the locked room, the man who was supposedly lying heavily sedated began to stir.

END OF ACT I

Act II