Darknet (9 page)

He sat in the back of an old barn. From the outside, it looked like it should have been demolished years ago, and there’s a chance the owner of the property would have agreed, but it wasn’t just the barn that was run-down. The entire 100 acre farm hadn’t been used for more than ten years. The fields that once grew soy beans were now just overgrown masses of weeds and wild grass.

The main farm house had partially burned down and had never been repaired. Today, anybody who walked nearby could still smell the rotten timbers that lay in a big scrap heap. The frame and part of the house still stood but it wasn’t safe, nor livable.

The farmer who owned the property was an old man who watched his life burning away all those years ago. Silent tears fell down his cheeks. Since he lived many miles from the closest fire station, he didn’t bother calling it in. His home was engulfed far faster than the time it would have taken anybody to respond to the emergency call. Instead, he’d watched from his car, safely parked on the county road that he had used for the past 60 years of his life.

The farmer had inherited the land from his father, but now there were no further heirs. His wife died in childbirth, and their daughter died with her, all those lost decades ago. The fire burned his memories along with his home, and even though he would never rebuild, he also couldn’t allow the land to be sold. As long as he owned the property, he could still feel a bit of himself and Ellie as they were when they were young and full of life.

These days, the farmer lived in a retirement home in Seattle and hadn’t been back to reminisce with his property in more than five years, but he lived the end of his slow life with the knowledge that he
could
go back if he ever wanted.

It was the perfect operating base for the man who called himself the Manipulator.

He’d moved his equipment into the barn a week earlier. He brought everything he needed with four trips in a rented van: two state-of-the-art desktop computers; a laptop; a printer; a portable (but powerful) generator; a bar fridge loaded with beer and bottles of water and a bit of food; two office chairs; and a few odds and ends he thought he might need.

He didn’t expect to spend a lot of time in the barn; this was his planning center, and most of the actual work would be done in the vicinity of his target. This was his planning center, but the actual work would be mostly done in the vicinity of his target.

The Manipulator stared at the monitor of his primary computer. He was logged into his Assassins, Inc., site, waiting for his client to show up. She was late.

“Come on, you dumb bitch. You think I enjoy just sitting waiting for you to show?”

He uncapped a beer and took a sip while he was waiting and he set some background music playing, a set of 90s music that he’d grabbed off the web.

“Hello? Are you there?” The chat window popped up to show him her words.

He smiled, almost able to hear the desperation in her voice. Good.

He didn’t answer right away. One song merged into another through his speakers and he drifted away to his youth as a song by Madonna bled into another by Train.

After enough time passed, he typed, “Hi again. I’m glad you made it. Sorry I kept you waiting. I was talking to another client.”

“You have a lot of clients?”

“It varies. Summertime is particularly busy.”

There was a long pause. “I might want to change our arrangement.”

The Manipulator stared at the message. He didn’t like surprises.

“What kind of change?”

“If you faked me and my daughter’s deaths, you’d have to kill some other people, right? To get the bodies?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“That’s understandable. People feel different levels of guilt. You’d have your freedom, though.”

“But, would I?”

The Manipulator drank some more of his beer.
What the fuck are you doing, lady?
He felt anger rush through him, wanting to reach through the Internet and tell her how stupid she was being.

“What would you like to do differently? Are you saying you want to call everything off?”

Now it was her turn to hesitate.

“No. I just want one person killed, the man who’s causing all the trouble. My husband.”

The Manipulator laughed out loud. Hell, he didn’t care who got whacked.

“That’s no problem,” he typed.

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“Still $20,000?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“You’re sure? Once we have a firm agreement, there’s no backing out.”

“I’m sure. I’ve thought a lot about it.”

I bet you have.

Somewhere in the distance, he could hear a bull frog calling. There were other nighttime sounds, but the sound that rang in his ears was the sound of money.

He raised his beer in a mock salute.

“I need to see you,” he typed.

“No. I can’t meet you. This is hard enough.”

“I want to be sure you’re not a cop. Activate the camera on your computer.”

There was a long pause. The Manipulator pressed an icon on his desktop and launched a program he’d found on DarkNet. As soon as the woman switched her web cam on, the program took control of it, immediately scanning the video into a hundred still frames, each a slightly different angle as she shifted slightly in her chair.

He looked at her long blonde hair and the frown lines that covered her face. Part of him knew she was a beautiful woman, but right now all he cared about was getting enough still photos. The program he was running automatically cropped the pictures to ensure she was completely centered in each.

Before she was even sure the camera was working, he had everything he needed.

Her image lowered her head as she typed, “Can you see me?”

“Yes. It’s okay. I can tell by your face that you’re not a cop. No cop can act that well.”

When he hit enter, her image didn’t react for a little over a second. Then she smiled.

When they were just typing to each other, the delay wasn’t noticeable, and the client would still not notice it, since she couldn’t see him. It took time for people to type a sentence or two and an extra tick of the clock went by without a thought. Seeing the person react, though, was like talking on a long distance call over a satellite. The delay was irritating and obvious.

The Manipulator had found all the secrets of his operation on DarkNet, of course. He had become a master of secrecy, not even trusting the multiple encryptions that were built into the Tor software. He didn’t want any government body even to be aware of the possibility of him working out of the abandoned barn, even if there was no way to know exactly what he was up to.

He didn’t trust any American Internet Service Provider to keep quiet. Fortunately, DarkNet pointed him to a Chinese ISP that was way ahead of any American counterpart. He was connected via satellite to the ‘Net at 1.2 gigabytes per second, way faster than any local telco could offer. The satellite was in geosynchronous orbit around the Earth, along with a half dozen companion satellites. The Dynasty Internet Service Company buried their customers’ secrets in a dozen server farms scattered across China, and there was no way to subpoena any of their records.

DarkNet had taught the Manipulator to be paranoid, but it gave him the safety he needed.

His client was still smiling. “Can I see you?”

“Not a chance. That’s the last thing you ever want to have happen.”

“Okay. I think I understand.”

“I hope so.”

“So, what do you need to know?”

“Nothing.”

After the normal delay, she frowned. “How can you do your job without more information?”

“I have everything I need. Trust me on that. Just go about your normal business, and come back to me on Friday. Until then, hunt down a broker who will convert your cash into bitcoins.”

It was Wednesday, and he watched as she checked the date on her watch and thought about it.

“I can do that. Same time?”

“Yes.”

She nodded and then reached to turn off her camera and then the window they’d been chatting in disappeared from his screen.

He laughed and closed down his own Tor program. It was just past 7:30 p.m.

* * *

Two hours later, the Manipulator was standing in Cindy McKay’s backyard. He could see the shadows of her and the girl as they walked occasionally past windows.

He knew her name. He knew the daughter’s name. He already knew more about Cindy and Avril than they could possibly imagine. All without Cindy ever giving a clue to her name.

Thank you, DarkNet!

He walked toward the house, knowing he’d be practically invisible against the bushes that lined the sides of the property.

A cat was sitting outside the back door. There were no lights outside and it was hard to see, but the cat saw the Manipulator quite well. It walked over to him and rubbed his leg.

He picked the cat up and patted it. In the moonlight, he could see dark brown stripes mixed through the otherwise black fur. The cat was purring and he smiled as he played with it.

“Nice kitty,” he whispered.

From inside the house, he heard a tiny voice whining. “Aww, Mom, do I have to?”

He couldn’t hear Cindy’s reply and neither did he hear any further protests from Avril. A light went on in her room and then disappeared shortly thereafter. He knew Cindy would soon find her way to her own bed.

The cat licked one of his fingers. He smiled and held its head with one hand and then snapped its neck. The cat didn’t have time to meow, dying instantly. It went limp in his hands.

He patted it one last time and then walked to the front of the house, which was also quite dark. The house was set back from the street to keep strangers from knocking on their door.

The cat was like a wet rag. He placed it on a rattan chair on the front porch as if it were sleeping. He wondered how long it would take anybody to find it.

It’d been a week since Tony McKay had been to Guitars First. Now he walked back in, at the same time of day as that first time. As he’d expected, the same girl was there, staffing the empty store.

“Hi, Deb.”

She looked up with wide eyes. He wanted to laugh, knowing she was terrified of customers and wondering again what the fuck she was doing in this job in the first place.

He just smiled at her, letting her know it was okay and hoping she’d remember the time they’d talked earlier.

After a few seconds, her eyes lit up. He liked that. Her full lips curled up into a relaxed smile. It was a closed-mouth smile, not the open and wild smile he’d left her with, but he knew she’d get that back.

“Hi,” she said. “You’re the singer.”

“You got it. Just wanted to come back and see how you’re doing.”

Deb Stewart was 21 and had few friends. He’d checked her out using Google and Facebook, and he already knew she was exactly who he was looking for.

Unconsciously, his hand slipped into his pocket and touched his wallet. Deb was the only person who knew about the winning lottery ticket hidden there. He wondered if that had been a smart move, but he quickly tossed that thought away. Tony McKay was never wrong. It was all the idiots who surrounded him that made mistakes.

“Really?”

He smiled wider when he saw her face turn a shade of pink.

“I like you,” he said.

She looked down at the counter. He’d scared her again.

That’s okay. Easier to control.

“What time do you get off work?”

Deb hesitated and then walked over to where Tony was standing.

“I don’t know if I should—”

He interrupted her. “Of course you should. You know that.”

Then he shocked her by leaning over and slowly moving his mouth to hers. He was ready to pull back if she got too scared but she didn’t move. His lips touched hers and gently pressed. He liked how she felt and how she smelled. He put one hand on the back of her head and pulled her to him, kissing her harder and pushing his tongue inside her mouth.

Deb kissed him back and tentatively put her arm around his back.

Gotcha.

He broke the kiss and then moved to her neck, kissing her there. She made a soft sigh, and he reached behind her with both hands, pulling her ass toward him. He knew she could feel his erection as he grinded into her.

“I don’t know anything about you,” she whispered.

“That’s exciting, isn’t it?”

He kissed her neck some more, moving his mouth up to her ear. He then whispered, “You want to fuck me. We both know that. Nothing else matters.”

He felt her shudder in his arms and felt her body pressing against his. He’d known from the moment he first laid eyes on her and knew exactly how to harvest her.

“Close the store now.” Although he whispered it, it was clearly an order. She nodded and he let her free to go turn off the lights and flip the “Please Come In!” sign around so that it said, “Sorry We Missed You!”

* * *

Deb could feel her heart beating as she followed Tony into the hotel room. She knew his name only because she’d Googled
Summer Drive
after he sang it in the store that other time he came in. She knew he was almost twice her age, he didn’t wear a wedding ring, and . . . well, pretty much nothing else. It wasn’t like she expected to ever see him again. She’d just been a little curious about the stranger who had come into her life and then left just as suddenly.

But now he was back. And they were going into a strange hotel room. She’d never done anything like that in her life.

They’d driven in Tony’s car and barely said a word on the way. It was a good thing the hotel was close to the store, because she knew she’d lose her nerve if she had too much time to think about things.