The Housewife Assassin's Killer App (14 page)

Jack shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine. In any event, we should pass along this and all the other missives to Ryan, as well as to Emma and her cryptography team.” Jack takes a picture of the screen with his cell phone.

Even an Irish whiskey won’t help at this point. I close my eyes in order to force myself to get some sleep, but it’s no use. When I do, I envision the White Rabbit looking at his watch, and I realize the clock is ticking against us too.

It’s approaching noon when we touch down at LAX, leaving us three-and-a-half hours before we have to pick up the kids. We’ll spend them at Acme headquarters, going over the Mad Hacker’s clues with Emma, while Arnie puts together a postmortem on the virus attack, and Dominic hunts down Susan.
 

Was she working with the Mad Hacker? If so, maybe she can be coerced into revealing his mission.

I’d left my car with Aunt Phyllis, so that she could carpool the kids to and from school, as opposed to cramming them into her Volkswagen Beetle, so I’ll ride back with Jack in his Lamborghini.
 

Or as Mary likes to call it, “the car I inherit when I can finally drive.”

Um…
no.

When the time comes, I’ll break the news that she’ll earn her used set of wheels: perhaps my nice, safe mommy-mobile.

Neither of us says much as we hike through the airport garage toward the car. In just the few days he’s been in DC, a fine scrim of dust has accumulated on its usually spotless body. I wait until we’ve stowed our gear and are buckled in before broaching the topic heaviest on my heart. “I think we should both sit down with the children when I explain the situation to them—that is, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course.” He squeezes my hand. “I was hoping you’d ask.”

I shrug. “Be careful what you wish for. I’m afraid they’ll lash out at you as well as at me. And heaven knows, this assignment wasn’t your choice.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but changes his mind. Instead, he forces a smile on his lips. “We’ll never know why Carl flipped to the Quorum. But all we can do is explain to Mary, Jeff, and Trisha that you did your best with the knowledge you had at the time.”

I know he’s right. Still, it doesn’t make this new reality any easier for me.

The car crawls through the garage until we reach the cashier booth. The sky is clear and the sun is hot and US 1 going north to Marina del Rey is unusually empty—in other words, a beautiful day to push the speed limit in a car aerodynamically designed to go from zero to one hundred in only three seconds.

By the time we cross the bridge over Ballona Creek, the dust is all but gone with the wind.
 

If only all my troubles disappeared so easily.

“Let’s go over everything we know to date,” I say to Jack and Ryan; Arnie, Dominic, Emma and Abu have joined me. “Emma, go ahead and hand out our clue list.”

“The Mad Hacker’s airplane menu clues are still being analyzed,” Emma continues, “as are the clues he gave Donna in the elevator.”
 

She hands out copies of a list of the quotes:

WHO CLUES: CARL, SUSAN, SHAZAAAAM, AND ???

It's HIM.
 

Speak roughly to your little boy and beat him when he sneezes! He only does it to annoy, because he knows it teases. [Elevator]

Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality. [Elevator]

A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red. Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she went nearer to watch them. [Elevator]

HOW CLUES:

The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when they arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them—all sorts of little birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards: the Knave was standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on each side to guard him; and near the King was the White Rabbit, with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other. In the very middle of the court was a table, with a large dish of tarts upon it: they looked so good, that it made Alice quite hungry to look at them—'I wish they'd get the trial done,' she thought, 'and hand round the refreshments!' But there seemed to be no chance of this, so she began looking at everything about her, to pass away the time. [Airplane]

WHEN CLUES:

If you knew Time as well as I do, you wouldn't talk about wasting IT. [Elevator]

Why, you won’t have a wink of sleep these three weeks. [Elevator]

What a funny watch! It tells the day of the month, and doesn't tell what o'clock it is! [IC vulnerability]

WHAT CLUES:

It is better to be feared than loved. [IC vulnerability]

It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards. [Susan’s Computer]

If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does. [IC vulnerability]

She who saves a single soul, saves the universe. [IC vulnerability]

WHERE CLUES:

 
????

No clues at all for most important question of all: where does it go down?
 

After everyone has reviewed the sheet, I say, “The only question with no clues is WHERE, so let’s start with the categories that contain clues.” On the conference room’s white board, I write the word WHO. “If we’re to believe the Hacker’s contention that Carl is the source, despite his attempts to plead innocent and point the finger solely at Susan, the fact that she ran away strongly indicates that she was a knowing accomplice.”
 

“If Susan is in fact a WHO, she’s never had a record prior to now,” Dominic offers. “Frustratingly, even her IC employee facial recognition file has disappeared from its database, along with any employee photos. “

“You seem to have gotten a very good look at her,” I remind him. “And we also have access to the Dulles Airport security feed of her parking her car and walking through the garage. Put it through our facial recognition software, then run a comparison with anyone, male or female, walking through security.”
 

He nods as he clicks onto the keys of his laptop.

I shift my gaze to Arnie. “Was her computer also the point of entry for the Mad Hacker? If not, it will go a long way in proving your theory—that the Mad Hacker had nothing to do with the release of the virus.”

Arnie purses his lips. “Good question! I hadn’t thought of that. Right now, I’m running another diagnostic analysis on her computer. Soon we’ll have a footprint that will allow us to compare it to the Mad Hacker’s messages.”
 

“Even if the footprints differ, and it proves he wasn’t the originator of the virus, the fact that he let himself be known is proof he somehow breached the system too,” Ryan points out. “That alone is enough for a lifetime pass to Club Fed.”

I nod. “But Ryan, he didn’t have to expose the earlier vulnerability to us. Doesn’t that earn him a brownie point or two?”

Ryan shrugs. “It isn’t for us to decide. Our job is to find the culprit—or culprits, as the case may be. To that extent, Emma’s team has some answers as to how the Mad Hacker’s clues may prove helpful in how we proceed.”

Emma nods. “That moves us to the rest of the clues, and the process in which we might solve them. As some of us already know, Carroll was into logic games and word play. Throughout the book, Alice misconstrues many of the answers to her questions because she’ll use a figurative expression, only to have the characters take what she says quite literally. For example, when she uses the term, ‘beating time with music,’ the Mad Hatter responds, ‘He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you like with the clock.’ On the other hand, sometimes they respond with words having dual meanings, or even with puns.”

“As way of example, when the Mock Turtle explains, ‘we called him Tortoise because he taught us
,
’” I point out.

“Correct,” Emma says. “In any regard, the responses given to Alice are never simple. Nor are they meant to be. In fact, it was Carroll’s contention that, if you’re quickly and easily provided the answer, all conversation ceases. His goal with his readers, who he presumed to be children, was to provoke thought.”

“Which is what the Mad Hacker wants to do with us,” Jack reasons. “He won’t come out and tell us what is about to happen, but how to discover it for ourselves.”

“And to think about the repercussions, if we should fail to do so,” I chime in. One remark he made to me in the elevator stands out most vividly in my mind:
Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.
 

“There are three WHAT clues,” Jack points out. “The first one—‘It is better to be feared than loved’—obviously refers to some kind of terrorist act. The second one, about business, must in some way refer to Shazaaaam, and possibly the other companies involved. Perhaps all of them have something to do with the Internet, since it mentions the world going a great deal faster.”

“It also touches on ‘minding one’s own business. Could that be an allusion to cyberespionage?” Dominic asks.

Ryan nods. “Unfortunately, your suggestion matches that of Acme’s cryptography team. As for the last WHEN clue, the fact that the Hacker dropped it on Donna indicates he sees her as the answer.” He points to it on the white board:

She who saves a single soul, saves the universe.
 

Lucky, lucky me.

“My team and I have analyzed the WHERE phrases chosen by Mad Hacker,” Emma explains. “For example, the trial scene involving the King and Queen of Hearts also references birds and beasts, the White Rabbit, a trumpet, a parchment, a dish of tarts, and a pack of playing cards, which are the court’s soldiers.” She projects the screen of her iPad onto the wall. “In searching through Shazaaaam’s database, we’ve cross-referenced some of these words. Case in point, the word ‘soldiers’ may represent the fact that Shazaaaam supplies MMOGs—that is, massively multiplayer online games—to the U.S. Armed Forces as training simulations called AWE.”
 

“Short for ‘asymmetrical warfare environments,’” Jack chimes in. “It’s one of the ways in which they train soldiers for urban warfare.”
 

“Exactly,” Emma agrees. “And on the consumer side, one of its top-secret projects just so happens to be a new game called ‘Queen of Hearts.’ We’re doing what we can to find out exactly what’s involved, but Shazaaaam has done a great job of keeping it under wraps, as it’s just now moving into beta trials. However, we do know that they’re unveiling it at the next comics convention—Comic Con’s Wonder-Con, which takes place two weekends from now, in fact, in Anaheim. Our cryptography team thinks this event is represented by the trial, trumpet, parchment, and where the crazy animals come into play.”

“They aren’t animals,” Arnie mutters under his breath. “They’re super heroes, super villains, and comic book creatures.”

“Not to mention super heroines and super villainesses,” Emma mutters pointedly. “We do know, however, that they’re still hiring for it. Donna, that’s where you come in. We’ve already placed you as a new hire, assigned specifically on this new project.”

“But I’m not a game programmer, let alone a coder or a designer!”

“As it turns out, Shazaaaam is specifically looking for a woman for the role of game tester. And, as rare as it is in this business, the fact that you’re over the age of thirty is seen as a plus in this case.”

“Otherwise, we could have used Emma on this one—not that they’d hire someone who’s pregnant,” Arnie interjects.

This earns him yet another scowl from Emma.

I shake my head, confused. “Why is my gender and age an advantage?”

Ryan smiles. “My guess is that they want to tap into one of the biggest consumers of tablet devices—women in that specific age group.”

“As if we have time to play games,” I mutter under my breath.

“Those of you who do are just as likely to become obsessed with them, if the games
Angry Birds, Farmville, Bejeweled, The Sims,
and
Candy Crush
are any indication. With the discretionary income of this demographic, even one percent of that market would be a gold mine in the gaming industry,” Ryan explains.