Geek Mafia: Mile Zero (8 page)

Inside he found Winston and Isaiah, still sitting and engaged in deep conversation. They'd been joined by a woman in her mid-40s, with light brown skin and striking features that Paul had a hard time ascribing to any particular ethnicity. She sat next to Isaiah and had a small laptop open in front of her, its screen hidden from Winston's line of sight. All three of them looked up expectantly at Paul.

"You have news," Isaiah intoned.

"Not good news," said Paul. He looked directly at the new woman, stepping forward to offer his hand. "Hi.

I'm Paul."

The woman stood up to shake hands, introducing herself, "Amelia." Her voice had a slight accent to it.

Possibly Caribbean, maybe African.

Apparently tired of common courtesy, Isaiah interrupted. "What do you know?"

"Raquel's dead," said Paul.

None of them looked surprised at the news, but Paul chalked this up to years of living the dissembling life.

Isaiah and Winston certainly weren't the kind of people to show any emotion they didn't want the world to see, and apparently neither was Amelia.

"Go on," said Isaiah.

Paul glanced to Winston for some guidance and he gave a slight nod. "We found where she was staying, got into her room and found her lying dead in bed."

"Do you know how she died? Are you even sure she's dead?" asked Winston.

"She's definitely dead," he said. Paul shuddered inside as he remembered the staring dead eyes and the cold skin. "As for how, I have no idea. There wasn't any blood, but her face was covered in bruises. We didn't stay around to figure out more than that."

"How did you find her?" asked Isaiah.

"It doesn't matter," said Paul. "What's important is that she's dead, right?"

"Exactly," agreed Winston. "We have to assume she suffered a violent death, and furthermore, we need to assume that whoever killed her did so because of something to do with this meeting of ours."

"That's a lot to assume," said Amelia. "Raquel had many enemies in this world. And she liked to take a lot of risks. We have no idea what happened to her. And until we do, we can't make an informed decision on what to Chapter 06

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do next, so finding out what happened to her must be our top priority."

"I agree," said Isaiah, surprising Paul by showing a bit of tenderness for the first time as he gave Amelia a supportive pat on the knee. Paul had assumed Amelia was the other missing attendee besides Raquel. But now, looking at their body language and the way she sat with her computer screen exposed to Isaiah, he suspected they were partners, if not more.

"Which hotel was she at?" Isaiah asked.

Paul paused before answering. Her location was their one ace, and he didn't want to reveal it yet. "Excuse me," said Paul, looking at Winston. "But I'm still a little in the dark over here. Why would you suspect that someone would kill Raquel because of this meeting? What the hell are we meeting about that would get a woman murdered?"

Amelia and Isaiah exchanged a look. Although Paul couldn't read its meaning, he was now sure they part of the same Crew. He'd had equally communicative glances with Chloe often enough to recognize them in others. But it was Winston who spoke next.

"Do you want to explain, Isaiah. If you don't tell him, I will," the old veteran said. "They're in it now."

"I suppose so," said Isaiah. "I can at least give you a broad overview of what we've got planned, and knowing the background could prove vital in discovering what happened to Raquel."

"Great," said Paul, taking a seat at their table and resting his hand on his pocket. Under the table, out of sight, he snuck his cell phone out and thumbed a switch on the side, activating a special digital audio recorder Bee had installed. If they were going to reveal big secrets, Paul wanted to catch every word.

"First of all, a little history on Raquel," Isaiah began. "No reason you shouldn't have all the background data the rest of us have."

Amelia, who'd been looking at her laptop screen, interrupted him before he could continue. "Could you turn off any phones or electronic devices you have operating right now?" she asked.

Isaiah looked expectantly at Paul and he tried to hide his surprise as he took out his phone and plopped it down on the table. Amelia looked up from her screen. The laptop probably had some sort of RF detection built into, and the whole room might've been wired to detect electronics for all Paul knew. These people definitely came prepared. "Thank you," she said in her lilting voice.

Isaiah didn't seem mad, continuing as if the interruption hadn't happened. "Unlike the rest of us here, Raquel is not part of any Crew. She is - sorry, was - a strictly solo operator. She'd been in this game for fifteen years and she was very good at it. In this particular case, I'd approached her about consulting for us on some law enforcement issues..."

Winston interjected at this point, "What you have to know about Raquel is that she was a bon vivant. She loved to party, have a good time and to scam her way through life. And she was amazingly good at it. She didn't work for Crews. Crews worked for her, but only when she allowed it or when the score was too big for her to handle alone. She was like the James Bond of grifters - all charm and confidence and chutzpah."

"What Winston says is true," said Isaiah. "But what made her so effective is that she had the smarts and did the homework necessary to back her brashness up. She was particularly adept at infiltrating, manipulating, and taking advantage of bureaucracies of any kind. Particularly law enforcement agencies."

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"Most of us, wisely I think, keep as much distance between ourselves and the police as possible. Not Raquel,"

Isaiah continued, admiration and respect creeping into his voice. "She cultivated cops and special agents as contacts. While the rest of us ducked for cover in the post 9-11 security crackdown, Raquel rode the institutional paranoia and limitless homeland security spending like a wave."

Paul listened in wonder and creeping panic as Isaiah praised Raquel's skills. All this was way, way, way beyond his league. Cultivating cops? Homeland Security money? What the fuck was Isaiah drawing them into?

"Raquel had invited my Crew to work with her on several occasions," Isaiah said. "And I believe you had worked with her too, right Winston?"

"Indeed," he said. "It was always interesting."

"So I asked Raquel to use some of her contacts..."

"Her law enforcement contacts," Winston interjected.

"Yes," said Isaiah. "Her law enforcement contacts. I asked her to do some background checking and look into a few things for us."

"What kind of things?" asked Paul.

Isaiah paused, searching for words. "It's complicated," he said. "Let's just say that..."

"Ok, hold on," said Paul. He'd had enough of this cryptic bullshit. He just wanted to know what the fuck was going on. "Can you please, dear God, please, just tell me what the fuck is going on?" he asked Isaiah.

"That's what I was trying to do," Isaiah replied, his voice cold.

"I know, I know. I'm sorry," said Paul. "But can you give me the onesentence synopsis, just so I can get my bearings."

Isaiah stared at Paul for a long, uncomfortable moment. Paul met his gaze at first, but then broke eye contact, looking down at the table, then over to Winston for support. The old man just nodded, which could've meant anything.

Paul started to say something, but Isaiah held up a hand. "Give me a second," he said.

It took more than a few more seconds, but finally Isaiah started to explain himself. When he did, Paul could scarcely believe what he was hearing.

"As the man said, I have a dream," Isaiah began. "It started out as a very personal dream - just a bunch of things I wanted for me and my family. This was when I was in my teens, hacking with the school computers and on a cobbled-together machine my uncle had in the back of his shop. I grew up. So did the damn dream.

After, it was just me; it was just me and a few friends. Kids who didn't like playing the street gang game any more than I did. We were made our own gang - The Kobra Kommandos, if you can believe that G.I.

Joe-inspired shit. Just a bunch of black and latino hackers trying to stay out of the drug life but still wanting a taste of the thug life. We wanted cash to buy shit. We wanted to see cool shows and wear expensive clothes and drive fast cars just like everyone else we knew, but we didn't want to have to fuck with gangbangers or cops or any of that bullshit.

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"But really there was always just one dream - to be left the hell alone by everyone else. The cops. The gangs.

The school teachers. Our parents. Why the hell wouldn't they just let us do our thing? That's what we were always asking ourselves. Now I'll be the first to admit I've never had a real job. I grew up in this life, and I've never known anything else. And I love this life. When I was18, I disappeared. Whoever I was before then vanished - dead or never existed, depending on who you asked. And ever since, I've lived without leaving a trace, even as I live a great life."

Isaiah turned to Amelia at this point, smiling as he put a hand on her shoulder. "I found a beautiful wife. I've got two great kids." This last revelation shocked Paul. The idea that someone could raise children living the way he and Chloe did astonished him. "But it's getting harder," Isaiah continued. "Even with a Crew that's like family and that, in all modesty, is as kick-ass a group of Net-thugs you're ever gonna meet, it's getting harder.

And this world of ours? It's sure as hell getting meaner.

"I've come to realize that, in these days when every flavor of organized crime is getting into our cyber-business and when paranoid government bastards are letting loose their own viruses to get in everyone else's shit, that a small Crew like mine - or like any of yours - we can't survive. We'll get swallowed up. That's why we have to evolve. Evolve or die." Isaiah paused for a moment to catch his breath. He'd been talking fast toward the end there, excited by his own rhetoric.

Paul was intrigued to be sure, swept up in Isaiah's story. But so far it was just words and concerns, not a plan.

"Evolve into what?" Paul asked.

Isaiah looked at him and for the first time since Paul met him, he smiled a broad, wolfish grin. "Into something that's too big and tough for anyone to swallow."

"You want to organize the Crews?" asked Paul. "Form one big Crew?"

"In a way..." Isaiah began.

"That's just asking for trouble, isn't it?" Paul asked. "They have a name for that kind of thing - organized crime. And organized crime has FBI task forces assigned to fight it and gets involved in mob wars with other outfits. Not the best way to be left alone if you ask me."

"You're absolutely right," agreed Isaiah. "And that's not what I'm talking about. Besides, ain't none of us the kind of folk who like to take orders from others, right?" Paul nodded in absolute agreement. Out of the corner of his eye Paul saw that Winston was watching him closely. What did Winston think of this plan, he wondered.

"Capos and mob bosses and all that Sicilian bullshit is most definitely not the way to go," said Isaiah.

"Evolving into something like them would be like evolving into dinosaurs - a big step backwards. We're already smaller, and smarter, and freer than the Mafia. I don't want to give that up any more than the rest of you.

"But for all our freedom, we're not the freest people in the world. We still operate in one country or another.

We still have to play by their rules to a certain extent. But the nation-state is dying, my friends. It feels power and control slipping from its grasp, and in its death throes it's tightening its grip. Rather than get crushed in that grip, I propose joining the ranks of those that are killing it. I'm talking, of course, about the rise of the stateless transnational corporation."

"You want to incorporate?" asked Paul, somewhat disappointed. Winston had said something about revolution. What was revolutionary about a corporation?

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"To start with," said Isaiah. "But that's only the beginning."

"What good does that do us?" asked Paul. "Other than create a paper trail that could lead some IRS

investigator right to our front door."

"Well to start with, the company won't be anywhere that the IRS can investigate it. The company won't be anywhere at all but in a series of post-office boxes in the Caymans or Belize and secure servers hidden away in secret data havens. Look at Enron..."

"Here we go," Winston interrupted. Paul got the impression that Isaiah and Winston had already debated this example a fair amount. "Why not model ourselves after the paragon of right-wing capitalist greed and exploitation?"

"Why not, indeed?" Isaiah countered.

"Because they got caught?" Paul suggested.

"They got caught because they were tied into real world enterprises and stock markets. Because there were people, the SEC could make arrests and parade them in front of the TV cameras. But if you look at what they were doing - which is the same thing a thousand other corporations are still doing today - they had hundreds of fronts and holding companies and shell corporations, each nothing more than an account number and a file somewhere. They moved money and assets and God knows what else without anyone ever noticing what was going on. Sound familiar? It should. It's what all of us do all the time.

"I'm not talking about going public and selling stock. I'm talking about a privately held, foreign-based holding corporation that can let us pool our resources, launder money, provide ready-made cover, establish untraceable lines of credit, even buy and sell real estate and big ticket property. Hell, even provide health insurance. All without any of it being traceable past the corporate façade."

"You're asking us to give up and join the enemy," said Winston. "To become part of the establishment that we devote our time to subverting."

"What better way to subvert than from within?" asked Isaiah. "I use the best, I use the rest. I use the enemy."