The Assassin's Trail by J.C. Fields Page B

you're done, come on up to the second floor. I'll be in the computer room.”
    Kruger smiled, took the coffee and said, “Hi, JR, nice to see you again. Yes, I had a nice drive. I'm doing well, and you?”
    JR stared at Kruger, then chuckled and shrugged. Without a word, he turned and headed for the stairs.
    When Kruger got to the second floor, he saw JR sitting at a work station on the far wall of the room. The room itself was the entire second floor. Support columns were used for the load bearing areas, but otherwise there were no walls. Waist-high cubicles, each one a computer terminal or Wi-Fi access station, formed a maze on the floor. After navigating the labyrinth, he joined JR at the work station.
    Without turning from the two side-by-side monitors, JR said, “Joseph told me to tell you hello, and if you have time, stop by.”
    “I was planning on it, as long as you don't screw around and take all day.”
    JR turned around and stared at Kruger. Once he saw the smile on Kruger’s face, he nodded and said, “I deserved that, didn't I?”
    Nodding, Kruger grinned, “Let's get busy.”
    “Okay, what’ve you got?”
    Taking the laptop out of his backpack, Kruger opened it. After the computer booted, he opened the file on Thomas Cooper, showing his photo to JR.
    “I need to find this guy. I have a hunch he's responsible for the KC explosion on Monday.”
    JR studied the picture. “How do you know?”
    “Because I saw this man stalking one of the victims at a reception on Sunday. I acquired his fingerprints from a drinking glass he touched. He's ex-military and specialized in disarming IEDs. If he knows how to disarm explosives, I bet he can build them. The blast in KC used C4, Washington confirmed it this morning. I need to talk to him.”
    “Good enough for me.” He handed Kruger a thumb drive and continued, “Copy the file to this and I'll see what we can find.”
    As JR worked, Kruger wandered around the room. Four years earlier, using his computer skills, JR had changed his identity. Now, still living under his new identity, JR had built a successful business providing computer security to financial and commercial enterprises.
    Ten minutes later, as Kruger wandered back to JR’s work station, he heard, “Okay. Here's what we’re going to do. First I’ll input his picture into a new facial recognition program I've been working on for the last few years. It's more advanced than the one you guys use in Washington. If he was photographed by a security camera somewhere, we’ll find him.”
    Kruger pulled a legal pad from his computer bag. “Let's assume he left the KC area, probably flew out of a local or an airport within driving range. I would start with KC, Omaha, Wichita, Springfield and St. Louis. All are within a few hours’ drive of The Plaza.”
    JR nodded as he typed on the keyboard. “Makes sense. I'll tap into the TSA system and run a routine comparing departing passengers at all five airports starting Monday at ten-thirty.”
    Kruger looked concerned.
    JR smiled, “Don't worry, it sounds complicated, but it’s not.”
    “How long will it take? I don’t have all week.”
    “Not long. There's a group of us like-minded individuals who have tethered our computers into a secure bot-net system. It allows us to tap unused processing power among the group.”
    Exactly two minutes later, a series of files popped up on the left monitor. JR pointed to it and said, “Let's take a look at this one.” He opened the file and saw the smiling face of Thomas Cooper handing his ID to a TSA agent. “Well, well, look at what we have here,” JR mumbled to himself. He checked the file. “You nailed it, Sean. This is St. Louis, time stamp three-thirty-two p.m. Monday.”
    Kruger smiled, glad his hunch was right. “Can we determine his destination?”
    Shaking his head, JR started typing again. “No way of telling his departing flight from this picture, but let’s look at a few more files.”
    Many of