Chapter 6 - The Bait
I arranged for David to be released from the local police precinct on his own recognizance. He was exhausted, hungry, and terrified. He walked the five miles back to our dark, sweltering house, finding his mother sitting on the couch in the heat, waiting for military police that had never arrived.
"They didn't come," Barbara whispered, looking older and frailer than she ever had. "She blocked us everywhere."
"I need to get to my computer," David muttered, a frantic edge to his voice. "I have... I have emergency funds. Hidden."
He ran up to the master bedroom. It had been meticulously stripped of my presence, save for one thing. Sitting perfectly centered on my old mahogany writing desk was a sleek, black USB flash drive. It had a piece of red tape on it, with my handwriting: EYES ONLY - Task Force Deployment Schedules - DO NOT LEAVE IN HOUSE.
David stared at it, his heart pounding against his ribs. I had "forgotten" it in my haste to leave. He didn't know that the drive was loaded with an NCIS tracking beacon and completely fabricated, harmless data designed to look highly classified.
He snatched the drive. This was it. This was his golden ticket. If he sold this to his contact, the payout would be easily in the six figures. He could flee the country, leave his mother behind to deal with the fallout, and start over in a place where I could never reach him.
He grabbed his laptop, its battery hovering at a precarious 15%, and plugged the drive in.
"What is that?" Barbara asked from the doorway, watching her son's frantic movements.
"Our way out, Mom," David breathed, copying the files onto an encrypted cloud server he used to communicate with his handlers. He hit 'Send.'
The progress bar moved agonizingly slow. 10%... 40%... 80%... 100%.
Transmission Complete.
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David let out a hysterical laugh. "I got it! The money will be in the account by midnight."
Outside, heavy black SUVs were already rolling silently down the suburban street, their headlights extinguished.
