Kill Code (20 page)

Jeff glanced at list. There must have been three
hundred names there. Nothing stood out. Registered to a coin store
out of Albuquerque, New Mexico. That was where the man found in the
trunk of the car had been found. It was a thin and fragile thread,
but some days, you just had to run with what stuck out with your
guts hoping for a break.

Circling the plate number, he said, “Run the
particulars on this plate and anyone from out of state. I want this
information ten minutes ago and don't care who the hell you have to
kill to make this a priority.

The agent nodded and slipped out of the room.

His phone buzzed. He picked it up and said, “What?”
It was a senator from Colorado and what that man had to say didn't
improve Jeff's day at all.

Leo and Jackie, after their tasteless fast food
meal, headed back towards Nathan's office. Jackie was amazed that
you could have so many calories, plug up your arteries and still be
eating cardboard. Naturally, Leo had only eaten a salad without
dressing and had bottled water with his meal. How the man could
survive on so little solid food was beyond her. He seemed to suck
energy and strength from the surroundings. She was going to have to
ask him how he could continue to function after all that they had
done today—starting just before dawn and it now looking like it was
going to be a very late night.

“So, what are we looking for?” she asked, taking a
sip of her extra large Coke. She needed the caffeine to keep
functioning.

“Anything that links Nathan to Alamut besides
something that shows up on a computer. I don't trust them, try and
use them as little as possible, and know how easy they can be
fiddled with without anyone knowing the difference.”

The way he put it should have insulted her, as she
had spent her entire life writing software to ensure the integrity
of computer systems. If you couldn't trust the banking system, who
could you trust?

“I suppose you don't have a checking account, credit
cards, e-mail, PDA, cell phone or anything like that?”

“You’re right. Everything you do that provides any
convenience opens a hole into your life. I don't want people to
know any more about me than I'm willing to tell them face to face.
Let's get back to the matter at hand.”

“Okay. So, you want some paper documentation to the
effect that Nathan was directing an assassination company?”

“Yes. More importantly, who’s now running it.”

“I don't think that it's anything Nathan would have
written down. The man hated paper and did all he could
electronically. Besides, he had an eidetic memory—all he needed to
do was read something once and could quote it back at you two years
later.”

Leo went quiet for a while. Then he said, “I think
we’re just going to have to look anyway, unless you have any other
ideas.”

“How about following the money? That was the
original plan anyway, wasn't it?”

“Yes. But that was to find out who was the owner of
the Alamut Enterprises. We know Nathan owns that. Though it might
be a smokescreen, it proves that whoever does own it can cover
their tracks quite easily, including bank transactions ...”

“That can't be right. There are
all sorts of tracks and controls involved in banking. And they are
the highest level of security. We've been down this track
before—b
anks have defense in depth, multiple redundant
security layers, network sniffers, firewalls. The only real
successful attacks on internal bank computers have been from the
inside, not the outside.”

“Can we get someone from the outside?”

“I still don't know what information we’re going to
get.”

“That's it. We are walking around with bulls-eyes on
our backs, and we aren't one inch closer to finding out who has put
them there or why. So I'm asking for suggestions. I sure as hell
don't want to be killed. All I want to do is find out who’s after
us, figure out a way to make them stop and then go back to my old
life.”

She thought about everything they’d done and
realized that he was right.

“I need access to a computer. Find an Internet Cafe,
hopefully one without security cameras.”

“Can't they track you when you’re using their
computers?”

She smiled. “They won't be able to because I won't
be using their computers, just their wireless network.”

They drove around for a while and, after examining
and rejecting several, they found one that seemed to fit the bill
in a strip mall close to a community college. This time at night it
was busy, but not overly so. Even more convenient, it was about
three blocks from Jackie's old office. She didn't believe that they
could find anything else out about what Nathan had been up to, but
would go along to appease Leo.

She flipped open her laptop and booted it up. First
off, she concealed that she was accessing the store's wireless
connection and sniffed out a packet from their wireless and ran
that through some software she’d written that found the password.
Typing that in, she accessed a Black Hat BBS system.

There were generally considered two types of
hackers—white hat and black hack and a bastard mix of the two, gray
hats.

Black hat hackers were often the authors of computer
viruses, broke into secured networks and destroyed data among other
things. Some black hatters were hired guns of criminal enterprises,
stealing personal data, engaging in industrial espionage and
anything else that paid very well in dirty cash.

The white hat hackers worked with companies to
improve their security, without malice or damage, and were often
hired by IT firms to find vulnerabilities in their network and
computer security. Many of these people were reformed black hatters
who had a very close brush with law enforcement, if not actually
having served jail time, for illegal computer activities. The
bigger your rep in the black hat community, the more you could
charge for your services in the white hat world.

Gray hat hackers sometimes act illegally, sometimes
in good will, and sometimes not. Jackie tended to place herself in
the camp being a hybrid between black hat and white hat hackers.
She usually didn't hack for personal gain or with malicious
intentions, but didn't have much of a problem occasionally
committing crimes during her technological exploits.

All the camps kept close watch on the others and
there was often a seemingly friendly rivalry. As an example, one of
the largest black hat conferences was sponsored by Microsoft and
was attended by people from the FBI and other three letter
government agencies. White and gray hatters often showed up to
check out new technology. It was security free for all and the
hotel sponsoring the conference one time had their lobby ATM hacked
and their corporate network knocked out by over caffeinated
geniuses with too much free time on their hands and a reputation to
build or uphold.

Since Jackie worked with both camps, she maintained
a working relationship with notable names from both sides. There
were many aspects of computer security and you couldn't begin to be
an expert in all of them. Her area of expertise was narrow and
involved cryptography specific to the banking industry. Yes, there
were some other aspects of security that she had more than a
passing familiarity with, like wireless, but she didn't know much
about cell phone security or systems, so she kept a list of
contacts like Ryan Reese handy to help fill in the gaps. Though, if
she was confronted by say RFID—Radio Frequency IDs—she wouldn't
know who the hell to call and would do the best she could with the
tools she had, including an innate curiosity and belief that locked
systems were meant to be broken into to see what made them
work.

She found the e-mail address she was looking for and
sent off a quick query. This guy would either help or he wouldn't.
She didn't even know his real name, but knew of him by reputation
as being a superior hacker in a business full of people with MENSA
level IQs. Rumor had it that he had hacked into NSA’s and the FBI's
computers just to see if it could be done. And then had the balls
enough to walk into the offices of the government agencies and
score a big contract as a 'consultant.' Hacking places like the NSA
would normally earn you a firing squad, but he had pulled it off,
adding to his rep. Besides, having such agencies owing you a favor
or two was also handy.

While waiting for a reply, she pulled up the latest
copy of the online edition of the Denver Sentinel and couldn't
believe what she saw. Not a regular subscriber to any formal media
outlet, it was nice to pop in once in a while and see what had been
happening in the world. Nathan had subscribed to a number of
web-based news sources, but she rarely had the time or the
inclination to read the tasteless prattle that qualified as news
any more.

“Look here,” she said, tilting the computer screen
in Leo's direction. He had been sitting as still as a statue and
the only way that she knew he was still alive was that his eyes
were constantly moving, looking, watching, observing and probably
calculating bullet trajectories.

He glanced at the screen. “Shit. We're in the middle
of a firestorm.”

Together they both read through the article. Most of
the Denver City Council was either dead or dying, as a result of
poison someone put in their coffee at a meeting. The doctors were
closed lipped about the poison or the prognosis of their patients,
but it didn't sound good. Someone had blown up several IRS and BATF
agents in their cars. A member of the US House of Representatives
had dropped off the face of the earth, and other members of the
government, state, local and federal level, were missing, dying or
already dead.

Denver, Colorado, seemed to be the center of either
a terrorist attack or the victim of a lot of very bad luck.

They both finished the article at the same time.

Jackie leaned back and said, “What do you think this
means?”

“I can see the Black Hand at work here. There are
five fingers, each specializing in a certain way of killing, from
accidents of various sorts, car bombs, poisons, sniping and fire.
If we broke all of the recent kills down to the way the victims
died, we can find the finger behind it. The only one that I don't
see in having a victim is the sniper, and he’s been busy after
us.”

“What do you think happened to him?”

“He’s probably hiding someplace close.”

Leaning back, he closed his eyes. “We need to look
at the overall picture here. Up until now, we've been focused too
close on what was happening to us.”

“Big picture?”

“Yes. When I worked, it was only outside the
country. From my reading, I think that most of the assassins in the
Black Hand did the same. We can verify it by looking at the data
you pulled from the Blackberry. Anyway, something big is happening
that they’re all working in this country, and specifically this
local area. These are high profile targets and they are hitting a
lot of them quickly—making all concerned very vulnerable. So, what
are they after? Yes, they are stacking up bodies, but is there a
common thread between the victims?”

Then it hit her. “I think I might have
something.”

She pulled up the news story about Brian Case, the
building inspector who was burnt to death in his car. Case had
driven Nathan into a white hot rage when he had inspected the
construction of the expansion of their office, promising heavy
fines if they continued. The delay had cost them tens of thousands
of dollars in idle construction workers standing around fiddling
their hammers until Nathan had met what she considered venal and
arbitrarily interpreted building codes. Nathan had complained to
everyone in city government who would listen, but they had all
stood behind Case. Now, the city government was headless. 

She just wished that she had access to Nathan's
computer as he had sent hundreds, if not thousands, of letters to
his elected representatives, senators and anyone in power that he
could find an address for. He rarely received even a form letter
response and was probably labeled as a nut job with his rants being
quietly ignored in the hopes that they would go away.

“Well?” Leo asked, pulling her back to the
present.

She showed him the story about Brian Case. “They all
are people that pissed off Nathan in one form or another.”

Leo read the article and said, “Anybody in power
that he didn't piss off?”

“No, and that might be the thread we are looking
for. What to do now, I have no idea.”

###

Jim Fox, the Second Finger of the Black Hand, had
his work cut out for him. His next target was Fredrick Linn III,
the head of the Department of Homeland Security in Denver. The guy
was protected very well, and somewhat difficult to find, but for
the money he was getting for this gig, Fox would make an extra
effort. Besides, he had no loss of love for the DHS. They probably
had a four-inch thick file folder on him, but couldn't prove a damn
thing. He'd heard from some of his ex-army buddies that the feds
had been around asking questions about him, his politics,
performance and other snoopy things. Whoever the agency was, he
didn't want to be snagged in its net.

There was a little bit of worry about this job. He'd
done a lot of work in the Denver area, unusual in two respects
because he had only worked outside the country up until that time,
and he had only done a single job at each place before
disappearing. Spending this amount of time in one area made him a
bit concerned. Yes, he had such a low profile that even if they
were looking for him, they would have to practically walk on him to
find him and most likely not even know that they'd been in contact
with him. But the government has unlimited resources and even in
randomness, there are patterns that can be discerned.