Driving Heat by Richard Castle
“You could offer me a lap dance right now, and I wouldn’t tell you the color of my shit this morning.”
Heat had witnessed such posturing many times before. Sometimes they meant it, sometimes it was a pose to keep the upper hand in the negotiation. She proceeded, assuming the latter. “I am willing to call the DA and ask for their best deal. But first I want to know who told you to kidnap Mr. Rook.” When he had settled down and folded his hands in his lap, she gave a little nudge. “Think about it, George. You’re stacking a lot of years.” He gave his chin a ruminating stroke. She could hear the rasp of his stubble six feet away. “It’s as easy as answering a few questions. Who is this Black Knight?”
She waited while he considered. Then his shoulders began to shake. Nikki wondered if he was starting to weep—but no, he was giggling. A raspy, gotcha giggle. “Wanna know how I’m going to cut a deal?” He picked up his manacles and bit at the chain. “With my teeth.” His laughter came harder, in hoarse bursts. He dropped the restraints and the laugh. “You can save your shit to feed some fool. Which I am not.” Gallatin leaned forward, speaking casually. “You know who I liked? I liked the FBI dude. He seemed like a nice man. Think I’ll take my chances with him instead of whatever bone you and your DA decide to throw me.” Then he leaned back in his chair again. “Changed my mind. I’ll take that lap dance now.”
Special Agent Delaney was on hold in the Observation Room when Heat came out. He was not too pleased with Nikki for dragging her feet but surprised her by not coming at her too hard. “Look, Captain, I’ve played Hide the Hood plenty of times myself over my career. So I get it. I know you think you can get something before we can. But you’ve had your fun. Tag, I’m it.”
Heat agreed to deliver George Gallatin personally to Federal Plaza within the half hour, but asked if, in exchange, she could take part in the interrogation. The agent sighed and said, “I’m going to agree. But I want something from you then.”
“Name it.”
“I want to know how the hell you managed to locate that hideout using the damn public library.”
While they prepped Gallatin for transport downtown, Heat made a stop in the homicide bull pen for the latest. Detective Feller reported the results of his preliminary inquiries with the Coast Guard and the Port Authority about the barge company. “Channel Maritime, LLC, has a history of safety and immigration violations—all of which just sorta went away.”
“Translation:” said Rook, “a friend in government.”
Made sense to Heat, and, of course, she thought of Congressman Duer. But she had a hard time imagining a man of his stature bothering with low-level graft in a rusting business. “Let’s keep our minds open,” she said.
To make sure George Gallatin didn’t get any heroic notions, three strapping patrolmen led him in cuffs from the precinct to Heat’s unmarked car, which she had left double-parked along with a half-dozen other police cars on West 82nd. One of them palmed the prisoner’s head so he wouldn’t whack it when they assisted him into the backseat and belted him in. “Comfy?” asked Heat, who was standing in the road with Rook.
Gallatin’s only response was to flick his tongue at her in mock cunnilingus. One of the uniforms handed Nikki a transfer voucher to sign. “All yours,” he said, and closed the back door.
The window was fogging from Gallatin’s taunting breath as Nikki got out her keys and said to Rook, “You sure you want to go?”
But before he could answer, the ignition cranked and her car started. She turned, bending to see who was at the wheel, but there was nobody in the front seat. “How’d you do that?” asked Rook.
“I didn’t.” Nikki was reaching for the driver’s-side door handle when she heard the thunk! of the locks engaging. She tugged at the door. “It won’t open. Try your side.”
Rook jogged around the trunk to the passenger door and gave it a yank. “Locked.” They both tried the rear doors. Same. Then the engine started to rev, a few quick vrooms at first, followed by repeated gunnings loud enough to bring the heads of the three officers back out the glass doors of the precinct lobby to see what gave. Heat looked around for something to break the driver’s side window when her car roared off up the street—on its own, driverless—burning rubber at very high speed. As it raced off, George Gallatin twisted around in his seat as far as his handcuffs would let him. He made eye contact with Nikki as the police car roared onward. His expression was anything but cocky.
That police car had plenty of horses under the hood, and it gained speed rapidly, roaring directly toward the back of a parked box truck half a block away. Rook hunched his shoulders and half turned away but still peeked. At the last second, though, a hair’s breadth before head-on impact, the front wheels turned hard and the car lurched to the left, its side doors making a piercing screech as they were raked by the edge of the truck’s steel motorized lift. Astonished, but far from frozen, Heat shouted to the uniforms, “Call it in and get some keys! Go, go, go!” One of the officers was already getting in the blue-and-white behind her.
While he cranked up his engine, Heat’s commandeered unmarked busted the red light up at Columbus. Taking the hard right turn at too much speed, its tires squealed and its momentum whip-cracked the rear of the car into a one-eighty slide-spin, smacking sideways into the potted trees that marked the bike path divider three lanes across the avenue.
Heat started sprinting toward the intersection, just in case the car had stalled. She’d shoot the tires if she got there in time. But the thick rumble of the engine vibrated the air again as it revved, then fishtailed off down Columbus, disappearing in a streak of blue smoke. The patrol car sped past her, but in the wake of the driverless car, confusion and alarm had caused a gridlock, and all the officer could do was slam on his brakes and keep burping his siren.
When she reached the corner, Heat stood on a planter to get some height, craning her neck for a view of the car. Rook arrived, and she shook her head, indicating that it was long gone. When she hopped down, he put his arms on her shoulders, stared at her and said, “This never happened.”
But it had. And—since it was a first—she had to write the rules as she went along on how to deal with it. Naturally, the APB went right out, although Detective Raley had to repeat himself to the dispatcher who insisted on a description of the driver. Heat requested two helicopters and got them. Another effect of the cyber attack was that the signal from the transponder in her car couldn’t be located, so she needed one chopper to fly a grid, hoping for a sighting. The second one she had make an aerial survey of rooftops around the precinct. Assuming that her car was being controlled remotely, whoever was doing it would need to have some sort of visual capability to work the turns, sloppy though they were. To cover possible window vantage points, a squad of uniforms and detectives was walking 82nd, knocking on doors of likely apartment buildings.
It never took long for dark humor to take root in a police station. On the hallway bulletin board, someone had already posted the cover of that month’s Car and Driver magazine, but defaced with a Sharpie to read, Car and No Driver. To a cop’s mind, there was no such thing as “too soon.”
By the end of a very uncomfortable call from Heat to Special Agent Jordan Delaney—who first voiced concern that Heat had invented this story as a smokescreen to delay George Gallatin’s handover to the FBI—he had become convinced, saying he found the account too bizarre to be anything but plausible. “Plus, you’re not known for playing games.” Then he added, “Just be careful this isn’t the start of your new legacy,” and hung up.
Of course, Heat’s suspicions, along with everyone else’s, went to Tangier Swift as the man behind all this. “Thinking it’s one thing, proving it is another,” said Rook after Nikki had red-circled Gallatin’s name on the Murder Board and drawn an arc to the automotive software tycoon.
“What the hell is this?” said Ochoa. “When those kidnappers put that hood over your head, did they cut off your oxygen?”
“Really,??
“Why, because I know we have to make sure we have what we need before you go arresting him? Do you think I’ve learned nothing hanging out with you these past few years?”
“All the time,” said Raley, who looked at Ochoa for appreciation of his jab. But the other half of Roach turned away. Nikki caught that and realized that while they may have agreed to work together, playing together was not happening.
“So how does something like this happen?” asked Detective Aguinaldo. “I mean technically happen?”
“It just can,” said Feller. “Because it did.”
“That’s not an answer, that’s a stance,” said Rook.
“Hey, some Syrians can hack our whole city, how hard it is to hack a car?”
Heat didn’t know. But she knew who might be able to tell her.
Nikki’s call to Wilton Backhouse went straight to voice mail, but he called back within three minutes, just as she had left the ladies’ room and stopped at the bulletin board to check out the latest addition. Someone had pasted George Gallatin’s mug shot over Nic Cage’s face on a screen printout of Ghost Rider. “Sorry, you caught me in a lecture. I keep my phone off.” She could hear his sandals flipping on the linoleum floor on his way to his office. “Is there anything about Nathan?”
“No, not as of yet. In fact, part of the reason I called was to find out if he had made any contact with you.”
“Uh-uh, I even tried his cell a few times. Nothing. He must have totally freaked when he heard about Abigail. Fuck me, I freaked. And he’s not one to sit on his emotions, if you know what I mean.”
Heat slipped behind her desk and sat down. “Yes, I do. He seemed pretty tightly wound the time I met him.”
“Who wouldn’t be?” Backhouse paused and sounded grim. And, for the first time with her, vulnerable. “Can’t you stop all this?”
“We’re working on it, believe me.” In a moment of empathy, she almost shared the ordeal she had just been through with Rook, but stopped herself, figuring it wasn’t the best time to introduce kidnapping and a shootout into the conversation. Instead she said, “In fact, you can help us, if you have a moment.”
“I’ll create one,” he said.
She heard him settling in at his own desk. “I want to know if it’s possible to hack a car.”
Wilton Backhouse’s breath rustled against the mouthpiece as he chuckled. She pictured him on his bouncy ball, grinning. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Do I sound like I am?”
“Gotcha.” In his brief pause, Nikki heard him suddenly become Professor Backhouse. “The fundamental principles apply to all wired devices. Which is to say that, basically, you can hack anything that has a computer in it.”
“And a car…?”
“Is more computer than ever these days. Cars have systems that not only tell them how to function—power steering, traction control, stability control—as in the defective system fucking SwiftRageous is covering up; there are air bags, climate control, they also have GPS, heads-up displays, blindside driver alerts. You get the idea. Cars have computers systems. Systems are made to be hacked.”
“How?”
“Lots of ways. There’s a receptacle called an OBD-II port under the dashboard. Basically all you need now is a laptop and a cheap USB cable to plug into that and run any program ya got. There’s also some new open-source software out there that, once you tap into the CAN bus—that’s Controller Area Network—you can have total access to the vehicle the same way auto mechanics run Unified Diagnostic Services software to give your car a checkup. From there you can access or control just about anything you like, depending on your software. Locks, Bluetooth, GPS, phones, headlights, wipers…”
“What about the operation of the car itself?”
He laughed again. “Why not?” At least he didn’t call her an idiot. “Savvy dudes have been putting performance chips in their own cars for years to increase torque. With new codes, you can pretty much do anything. Brakes, ignition…”
“What about acceleration and steering?”
“What do you think?” he said. “Why do you want to know all this?”
Once again, Heat held her panic cards close. She didn’t acknowledge his question but instead asked a key one of her own. “And to do all this, could your run-of-the-mill hacker do it, or would it have to be someone who had a strong, sophisticated background in this?”
“Either. But those higher functions would point me to the latter. Is this about Swift?”
Heat said, “Just gathering facts.”
“Pure research, it’s called. A study without thoughts of an end goal.”
“Sounds good.”
“But I don’t believe you,” said the professor.
After Heat had shared Backhouse’s information with the squad, Ochoa said, “This guy knows his stuff. And all this expertise about cars came right off the top of his head?”
“It is a rather brilliant head,” Rook observed.
“Geek power!” said Heat. Even as she laughed along with them, Nikki found herself fixating on a tiny speck of grit in the back of her brain. Just for the sake of covering all possible scenarios, however unlikely, she turned to Detective Rhymer. “Opie, would you discreetly find out during what hours Professor Backhouse had his lab at Hudson University today? And if he was present for it?”
“You want to alibi him for the car hacking?”
“I want to be thorough, that’s all.”
“And after you do that,” said Feller, “find out if he can help me rig some sick subwoofers in my Bel Air for Cruise Night in East Rockaway.”
At the end of the day, with nothing solved but everything being done that could be, Heat rested a hand on Rook’s shoulder and said, “You look like hell.”
“Thank you. Words I dreamed of hearing during the dark and wretched hours of my captivity.”
“I’m serious. Gold star in your crown for extra effort, but let’s get you out of here.” He didn’t object, so she shut off her office lights and grabbed her walkie-talkie, Nikki’s bulky new accessory since the cyber attack had instantly turned her department-issue BlackBerry into a sleek dust catcher. Out of habit, she also reached for her car keys, then scoffed and tossed them back on her desk.
“Motor pool’s going to issue you a loyalty reward card if you keep this up,” said Rook, hauling himself out of the guest chair with an audible “Oof.” On their way out, they passed the bulletin board, and she noticed that a picture of KITT, the artificially intelligent Trans Am from Knight Rider had been added to the lampooners’ collage along with the cover someone had cut off a paperback copy of Stephen King’s Christine.
Rook had used his Hitch! app to summon a car service to Tribeca, and the black town car with the ridiculous 3-D thumb on its roof was waiting when they stepped out. “At least it doesn’t light up,” she said.
“Give them time. This town will be crazy with luminous thumbs.”
They were starving, but with both of them longing simply to shut the world out and fold into each other for the night, they did what all good New Yorkers do—ordered delivery without a second thought. Nikki called Hamachi from the backseat, but when she turned to ask Rook what he wanted, he was already dozing against her shoulder, so she ordered for him.
Wordlessly, Heat and Rook drew themselves into each other’s arms in his foyer as soon as he had latched the door behind them—a spontaneous magnetic event fueled by their aching need to affirm something as basic and celebrated as their togetherness. They stood there a long time in the dark, silent, clinging, adhering. Chests rising and falling against each other, bodies feeling warmth and pressing closer to get more. It felt like there would never be enough, not after the past two days.
It took the delivery man’s ringing the buzzer to break them apart, which they only did because they liked ordering from that restaurant and didn’t want to get on its flake list by ignoring the poor guy. “Wha
“I got you all eel and various roe.”
“I hate eel and roe, you know that.”
“Next time stay awake.” The small things, laughter in the kitchen, takeout sushi, a kiss after the clink of glasses—they both knew how un-small they really were.
While they sat at the counter and he spread wasabi with his chopsticks on his favorite—o-toro—Heat told him the details of her search. And how frantic she had got. And how low. And she confessed about the night before last, when she had got herself drunk and nearly given up hope. He didn’t answer, but got up from his barstool and enveloped her from behind. The hug was more profound than anything he could have said.
When he sat back down, Nikki said, “Is it an understatement to call this heaven?”
“Let’s compare. I woke up sixteen hours ago with my hands cuffed behind me on the wet floor in the smelly hold of a scow. By the way, I’m making a unilateral decision: no cruise for our honeymoon.”
She set down her glass and took his hand. He turned to her and felt her eyes painting him. “What?” he said, toying with her.
“You know what.”
“I do know.” He swiveled to face her. “And it goes for me, too. Absence makes the loins grow hotter.”
She put down her napkin and stood, still gripping his hand. “Prove it,” she said.
Rook’s kiss took her by surprise because he met Nikki’s mouth with tenderness instead of the abandon she expected. His adolescent swagger had stripped away and exposed the unguarded man who kissed her softly as if he needed to revisit the hushed magic of their interrupted moment in the foyer—an urgent attempt to finish some profoundly inexpressible thought. The words that would not find his writer’s tongue found another way to reach her. Tasting him again, feeling his warmth and strength and vulnerability, sensing how he knew to slow the moment and create their own unique time and place, tapped a well of warmth inside Nikki that made her pulse race and urged her to want all of him, all at once. As if energized by her will, and helpless before it at the same time, she rose on her feet and pressed her body to his, backing him against the counter. His breath caught. He let out a faint moan and thrust himself closer. Then closer still. Nikki pulled her mouth from his, gulping for air. He whispered her name against her ear once, then twice, and she found his mouth again, kissing him hungrily.