Dead Man's Switch (12 page)

Blake smiled grimly. “The way I'd play it is find a way to get me off the island and then threaten to kill me if anything was released. But if that's the case, I can't trust them not to just get rid of me after they feel safe. If I tell them about the dead man's switch, they'll make me put in the code every 24 hours until they find a way to hack into my site and block everything. No, King, it's got to be someone from the outside who puts together everything I put together and goes to them and tells them to release me if they want all the information. That's going to be you.”

Blake leaned back. “Yes, King. I'm guessing there's a small chance I'm still alive. So here's the million-dollar question. Was there a body at my funeral? Because if there wasn't, I promise you, they are holding me somewhere. And the clock is ticking. For you to save me and to save your father. Because half of your deal with them is for my life. And the other half of the deal is that they are going to protect your dad too from all that he's done. So get ready to hack into your dad's computer.”

CHAPTER 23

“Close the top browser window,” the virtual Blake said. “I don't need to remind you, do I? The clock is ticking. I've got everything programmed and timed. You have 60 seconds to go to the next step, or everything starts melting here.”

King blinked a few times. He was on a roller coaster and feeling so overwhelmed that he couldn't process it all. So it was easier to just do as directed.

“First,” Blake said, “under Applications, look for the program called Terminal. Open it now.”

Back to being a zombie again, King did it.

“Type this.”

Blake held up a piece of paper.

ssh user@[216.180.38.184]

“If you care to know,” Blake said with the paper still in view, “I've already tapped into your dad's computer and opened up System Preferences. From there, I enabled Remote Login and established the authenticity of the host. To get your dad's password, I just ran a program that rips about a thousand passwords a second until it finds a hit.”

A second piece of paper came up. Blake's voice said, “Here's the password.”

awsumday0810

Blake didn't state the obvious, and it was a good thing, because
quick tears flooded King's eyes. King was born on October 8. Awsumday October 8. His dad's password was a phrase of love for King. And now King was using it against his dad.

King forced himself to type in the password.

And suddenly he was looking at the screen that was so familiar to King whenever he saw his dad at the computer.

“You're on,” Blake's voice said. “What's cool is that there is no way he can tell on his end. Even if he was on his computer right now, you can roam around like the computer is yours. I've set up a mirror on this end.”

King heard a flush of joy in Blake's voice. The kid was a hacker. This was what he lived for.

“Now, open a finder window,” Blake continued. “You'll see all his folders. Double-click on the folder marked Vacations.”

King groaned. Why did every step have to remind him of how bad it was to betray his own father? Vacations had felt like wonderful cocoons—times for just him and his dad and his mom in a special world that exactly fit the three of them. Why did every step have to remind him that he couldn't trust any of those great memories if all along his father had been someone other than the person he appeared to be?

“All the way down inside that folder is one called Mount Rushmore. Open it.”

King did. He expected to find folders.

Instead, there were electronic bank statements.

“Open the top statement,” Blake's voice said.

There it was. At the top. His father's name. The date showing a 30-day period for the previous month. And a figure at the bottom of the statement showing how much money was in the account.

King had to look three times to believe what was in front of him. The amount was for $253,893.42.

CHAPTER 24

Back outside the abandoned prison, King let out a deep breath beneath the moonlight. He had felt claustrophobic inside, and his calf muscles felt strained from tiptoeing through the empty dark corridors.

When he reached the path that would take him home, a tall figure detached itself from the shadows, blocking the path.

King reacted without thinking. Flight, not fight. He spun and dashed back toward the road that led to the old prison building. Openness and speed seemed safer than trying to run through the trees and thick underbrush.

“King!” came a shout from behind him. King knew that voice. “Don't!”

That's when King knew who had been waiting to ambush him on the path.

His dad. Mack King.

King glanced back and saw that his dad wasn't chasing him.

So King stopped. Forty yards separated them. At that distance, King had a good head start if Mack made a move toward him.

“We need to talk,” Mack said.

“You mean you need to lie to me?” King said.

“You were in the abandoned prison,” Mack answered. “Why?”

King was slowly moving away from his dad. He didn't know whether he had enough distance to get away if his dad made a move for him. But really, where was King going to go? He was on an island.

“Something crazy and insane bad is happening at night. Trust no one. They will hunt you too.”

“No,” King answered. “Tell me why you followed me.”

“It's night,” Mack said. He took a step toward King, out of some shadows, and his face became visible in the moonlight. “You snuck out of the house. Of course I would follow you.”

“Stay where you are,” King said. “Or we stop talking.”

King backed away two more steps.

“What has gotten into you?” Mack said. He took another step. “I'm asking why you snuck out and why you went into the old prison. Whatever is happening, I want to help you.”

“We are not going to have this conversation,” King said. His brain was working frantically. Where on the island was safe? He might be able to get to the road and run fast enough to find a place to hide. But then what?

The decision was taken away from King by a sudden beam of light from behind him that threw a long shadow down the path toward his father.

At the same time, another sharp circle of painfully bright light threw Mack into a silhouette, casting a shadow down the path toward King.

“Both of you,” a loud voice commanded. “Hands up and then freeze. Immediately. Or shots will be fired.”

King saw his father raise his hands. His father's shadow looked like the outline of an elongated alien. King slowly did the same and formed a similar elongated alien back down the path toward his father.

The shadows at the ends of their arms touched as if their hands had been reaching each for the other.

When King saw that, he felt a moment of revulsion to be unified, even by a trick of light and shadow, with the man who had betrayed all that he pretended to be.

King dropped his hands. He didn't care if he was shot for it. He wasn't going to let that shadow mock him and his bitterness toward his father.

CHAPTER 25

“This is a serious breach,” Murdoch told Mack. “There will be some repercussions.”

Murdoch was at the steering wheel. He'd just turned off the engine. Three of them sat in Murdoch's open Jeep TJ. They were parked outside King's house. No lights were on inside the hulking black object that no longer represented home to King.

“It was a lark,” Mack said. “Kids do stupid things. Ask King. He'll tell you it was just a prank.”

“It's not that simple,” Murdoch said. “Once you knew he was out after curfew, your responsibility was to call security, not follow him and break curfew yourself.”

“Tell him, son.” Mack was in the front passenger seat. He turned sideways to look back at King. “You were goofing around, breaking into the old prison.”

“Goofing around?” Murdoch said. He held up the closed Macbook Air. “I think it's a little more than that. We'll need to know why King had this with him.”

When the prison guards had frisked both of them, they'd discovered the Macbook Air that King had tucked into his belt at his back, hiding it beneath his shirt as he left the old prison building.

Murdoch also twisted sideways to look in the backseat. “We'll need a little help from you on this, King. It's got a password. How do we access the computer?”

King said nothing from the backseat of the Jeep. Even now, much as he felt bitterness against his father, King couldn't quite take that last step to let the warden know what King had discovered.

“I wish I could tell you,” King said. “I tried a few passwords. And then something came up on the screen that said if the next attempt was wrong, a computer program would kick in and erase everything on the computer.”

There. That had just purchased some time. The warden was going to be very, very careful with that computer and would probably need to bring in some experts to see what to do next.

“Then tell me,” Murdoch said. “Whose computer?”

King didn't answer.

“How did you know it was there?” Murdoch asked.

King didn't answer.

“The kid was there on a lark,” Mack said. “Just discovered it by accident.”

Silence still seemed like the best option, so King maintained it.

“Here's what we're going to do,” Murdoch said as if he were tired and sad about everything. “Mack, I'm going to leave you here. I'm going to take King up to the SCC, and he and I are going to have a long discussion. I'll bring him back in a few hours, and we'll go from there.”

SCC. Special Commitment Center. The five high-security buildings inside the forbidden zone.

“Not a chance,” Mack said. “You will not separate me from my son.”

“You don't have much choice.”

Mack spoke to King. “You need to trust me on this. We have to stay together.”

Trust
, King thought.
What a joke
.

“Enough, Mack,” Murdoch said. “Out of the Jeep.”

“No,” Mack answered. He spoke again to King. “I don't know what's happening, but you need to choose me, not Murdoch.”

King thought of what it would be like. Getting out of the Jeep with Mack. Watching the Jeep drive away. Spending the night alone. In the dark house. With a man who let violent prisoners out of their cells late
at night and who had a secret bank account with more than a quarter of a million dollars.

It nearly killed King to say it, but it came out anyway.

“No,” King said to Mack. “I want to go with Murdoch.”

Mack made a slight anguished cry.

“Out,” Murdoch told Mack. “I'll see you when I get back with King.”

“The same way Blake returned? You're going to have to kill me before you take away my son.” Mack threw a punch without warning.

Murdoch's head snapped against the glass of the driver's window. It was a solid thud. Murdoch was motionless.

“Run,” Mack hissed at King. “You've got to get away. You can't end up like your mother. I'll stay and deal with him.”

Mack fumbled with his seat belt to pop it loose.

That's when King heard a sizzling zap. Mack began to convulse. It took King a moment to realize what was happening.

The official name for the weapon is Electronic Immobilization Device. EID. It's shaped like a pistol. It isn't a Tazer stun gun. Tazers fire a dart and send voltage down the wire connected to the dart.

EIDs are different. They need to be pressed and held against the target to deliver current. They shoot voltage about 450 times the strength of a household current. The longer they are held in place, the longer they incapacitate the target.

Which right now was Mack.

Murdoch hadn't been knocked out by the punch. He'd pulled a stealth move, pretending to be out and then slipping out the EID to press it against Mack and pull the trigger.

“Stop!” King screamed. Mack had already taken at least ten seconds of voltage. “Stop!”

He reached through the gap between the seats to claw at Murdoch's arm. Murdoch pulled back.

Mack sagged against the passenger door. His arms made jerking motions, and his head flopped uselessly.

“King,” Murdoch said. “I'm so sorry. But what choice did I have?”

Murdoch started the engine. “And I'm sorry about this too. But
we're going to have to put your father in an SCC cell until we bring in some authorities from off the island. What he just did was far more than breach curfew. Your father just moved into felony territory.”

“Wait,” King said. “I know the password to the computer. And there's something on it you need to see. It's from Blake.”