Jury of Peers (28 page)

             
“I also,” he finally wiped at the tears.  “I also want to make it clear that while far from perfect, the United States has held together for a long time despite all of our differences.  I look at what I’m doing like an Amendment.  Sometimes we find something needs to be fixed.”  He looked toward Saul.  The camera zoomed.  "How old are you?”

             
Saul’s eyes came up.  "Thirteen.”

             
“And what’s your full name and address?”

             
He glanced at Ray.  “Saul Raymond Brown.  610 Carter Court.”

             
“And you?” Seth asked Bolo.

             
He didn’t look up, but followed Saul’s lead.  Quietly.  “Derek Siclo.  I live in Manor Court. 230.”

             
“And how old are you?  Look over here.”

             
Bolo looked up, eyes hard.  “Seventeen.”

             
Meek looked back at the camera.  "So you can understand the dilemma that I face.  Given over to our system, these two may very well have been tried for these murders, perhaps as adults… but more likely as juveniles.  In which case, they may have faced little or no real punishment whatsoever.”

             
“I recognize that at this point you’ve seen no evidence and thus are unable to make an informed decision.  I’ll bring up the video tape now, and then open the grand jury’s discussion and voting area within an hour at the…” Seth worked at his keyboard, “The web address is at the
top
of the screen now.  The URL appeared, http://juryofpeers.us.  This will remain open until tomorrow morning at 10:00am eastern time.  I’ll read the indictment at 10:30am and we’ll go from there.”

             
“Please,” Seth concluded.  "Remember that these are… these were my wife, my daughter… my unborn baby.  Please, when you look at them remember that.  Remember that they were...”

             
The screen went grey, then returned.  Seth’s face had been replaced by a still image of a hallway… a door.  The split screen of the accused remained.  Seth turned off his lights and opened the overhead door.  The wash of cool air splashed down upon them all and settled around their feet.  Meek moved past Ray and slid a monitor into position in front of Saul and Derek.  They were forced to look past the camera to see it. 

Chapter Forty–Eight

Tympan

              The networks were in a quandary.  Even with the delay, the tape was an unknown, a potential quagmire whose cons could easily outweigh the pros.  Still, the numbers were great, and just like a good mid–morning car chase down the 101, said numbers were growing exponentially as people called and forwarded and yelled across the street.  They decided to let it run and use the delay as a buffer.

             
A little girl appeared, clutching a stuffed rabbit… obviously terrified, and CNN producers hovered over panic buttons.  They let it play in the newsrooms until they saw the black kid point the gun… then cut the feed and went back to stunned anchors who did their best to fill air.  FOX cut the video, but left the audio running, shrieks and gunshots for the anchorwoman to explain – she said nothing, just looked about the studio, ignoring her On–Air light.

             
Appetite whetted, people began searching for an alternative to the television feed and as always, the Internet was there for them.  A handful were able to recall the live feed URL from memory, and others were able to rewind their DVR, but inevitably, the process slowed.  The searching intensified.

             
And then the BBC ran a photograph of Seth Meek on their Americas section.  It was a capture from his broadcast showing him neatly propped up in his suit and tie, facing into the camera.  He looked sincere–but it was not sincerity that made the picture worth a thousand words.  At the bottom of the screen capture was, in bold white, the web address of Meek’s live broadcast.

             
The film was found by those who searched the URL and found the links, and it surged into the lives of thousands, raw and merciless in its intensity.

*                *              *

“Come on outta there,” a voice cooed.  "Ima gonna make you watch.”

             
A white hand snaked out into view and twisted the knob.  The door angled open.  A little girl sat on her bed, her rabbit held as a shield.  She quivered.  This was Seth Meek's daughter.

“She looks like you Saul,” the voice said.  “Fuckin’ little bitch just like you, shakin’ and shit.”  The hand took the little girl’s wrist, drug her off of the bed and back out into the hall. 

The camera panned and there was the black kid.  A gun was thrust into his hand, and blow delivered to his head as is to snap him out of a trance.

“Okay little fuck, here’s your chance to prove you got balls.”

Saul took the gun, holding it the way it seemed safe, which was ridiculous and savage all at once just as the camera jerked around again, showing the floor.  There was breathing in the background, breath drawn through the mouth, short pants – each carried its own peculiar squeak.

“Shoot her,” the voice said.  "Grow some balls.”  The camera was redirected to Saul, then at a groveling woman, her hair matted to her face, belly bare and cradled in one arm. Seth Meek's wife. 

“There ya go,” said the voice from behind the camera.  “Shoot her right there,” he tapped her distended belly with his toe.  “So she hasta watch what we do to her,” the camera came around to show the little girl sitting in a puddle of her own urine.

The world watched as the camera bobbed in excited hands; the black kid lifted the gun, and pointed it.

“Do it, fuckin’ do it…
do it Saul
!” the voice almost giggled.

The boy called Saul closed his eyes but did not fire.

“Jesus Christ,” the voice said just before snatching the gun out of Saul’s hands.

Siclo's shot sent a wave of pressure through the room that jolted the camera out of focus and left the audio blank for nearly a second.  When the terror came back into view the woman was clutching her stomach with both hands, mouth opening and closing, no blood, the little girl on her side – tears and urine and raw terror all spilling from her like a fountain.

“
Scared little bitch
, I told ya you weren’t nothin’,” the voice behind the camera nearly screamed.  “You're gonna waste ‘em or I’ll cap your ass, understand?  Here, hold this, don’t miss
anything
!” the phone was transferred into Saul's hands and there, tilted in the frame, was Derek Siclo… grinning.

The rape was violent and drawn out and minutes ticked by; sporadic screams weakened until they were little more than the rasp of labored breath. 

              When it was finished, the little girl and mother lay sprawled at Siclo's feet.  "They ain't nothin'," he said to the camera.  He produced a can, wrested the top off, and began to sloppily spray a circle in the hallway…  his penis still hanging from his pants.  He finished painting the wall and then emptied the can on the two at his feet, tossing the empty at the woman.  She wailed, one last drawn out breath of agony as Siclo fired a round into the little girl's face – then the camera was wrenched around and the carnage went out of view. 

             
Meek was there when the scene steadied.  He was stunned, having just entered his home.  He was clean, neatly dressed, his face unbroken… and then he too slid out of view and the audio was all that remained as the world was forced to imagine while looking at Meek's fine wooden floors.

             
"What the
fuck
?" came Bolo's voice. “
Kill him,
”
he shouted.  “You dumb fuck, cap his ass!”  He snatched the camera, and Meek came back into the picture… kneeling, crawling toward his wife, his strength torn from him by the sight of his family, broken in the hall, just out of reach.

“Look at this little bitch will ya?” Bolo said from behind the camera.

Meek's lips moved as tried to speak… nothing came out.  Then, “No…”

“Beg bitch,” Bolo said again.  The barrel of the pistol came into the frame, side by side with the camera.  "Beg."

A siren.  Two.  “Fuck,” Bolo jammed the gun up under Seth’s chin. 

“Night night bitch,” he said and visibly yanked the trigger.

The world watched Meek screaming and saw the surprise on the kid's pale face when the pistol didn’t fire.  He yanked at the slide, the metallic clack unmistakable, as he tried to re–chamber a round.  The sirens wailed. Bolo snarled in frustration, reared back from above, and with one savage thrust, smashed the pistol down into Seth’s face.  Blood speckled the lens, and then Seth Meek could be seen on the rug below… hands gripping, releasing… gripping.

The film played out with a wild shuffle as the boys ran out of the home, Derek pealing in his maniacal high pitch giggle.  It ended abruptly as they entered a car and ground the engine to life.  Silence.  Blackness.

Viewers leaned forward, wondering if there was more.

It was over.

Chapter Forty–Nine

Tech

"I don't get it."

"What don't you get?" he asked, hiding his frustration at the whole situation as best as he could.

She was shaking her head, still looking at her screen.  "I've been doing this a long time.  I've worn all of the hats – that's why you guys hired me right?"

The SAC came over and sat down.  He knew a little about the hacker subculture, but much less about what exactly this young lady with the long black hair could do about his problem.  He had issues with bringing in people from the outside, even if she'd done some good stuff for them before.

And she had issues with working for the FBI.  It certainly wasn't for the money.  Nor was it to promote peace and justice in cyberspace.  It was for moments like this… she was watching code that she was pretty sure wasn't
ever
going to see the light of day.  Tech after tech had looked at this route, and they were still looking at it – the room around buzzed with quiet clicks and chatter – but it hadn't taken long for them to understand that this was something beyond
training
that lapsed into
experience.

"We hired you because you know what's down the rabbit hole," he said, smiling.

She looked up at him, rubbing tired eyes under her glasses – the frames remained slightly askew when she was done, but she didn't try to readjust.  "So here's the deal.  He's got a domain name that the whole world can hit, and they are… I mean it's a huge amount of bandwidth all converging on one teeny point…somewhere.  This is like shining a flashlight in a big dark field.  I should be able to see his where he's standing… and I mean,
easily
.  He's broadcasting and people are zerging him hardcore, just smashing his IP, but I can't see it… I can't trace it, I can't do anything."

The SAC sighed, his smile faltering a bit.  He gestured to the room around them with dozens of highly trained and severely dedicated techs saying the exact same thing, "That part I know and really…"

She cut him off, "I can't see where he's hiding, but I know
how
he's hiding."

He stopped mid–gesture. 

"All of this, it's the code that he's been developing."

"You know this guy?" the SAC asked, dropping his arms finally.

"Not personally.  But yeah.  He's a White hat now.  I was a… kind of a Grey hat."  She shrugged.

His smile finally vanished entirely.  "Look, we're speaking different languages here – zerg and hats and flashlights."

"No, we're not.  It all boils down to this:  Seth Meek is
the
White hat.  That's a guy who works to
test
security systems.  But he wasn't always.  He's been creating systems and experimenting with new stuff… I mean really beautiful, amazing, ebullient, wonderful," she leaned back in her chair, "stuff… since I was a skiddie."

An exasperated eye roll forced a definition.

"I used to use Seth Meek's scripts to hack all sorts of stuff when I was growing up.  We all did.  He wasn't a hacker, but we all used his ideas to create our own.  In our world, he's like… I mean… I dunno.  But now he's gone beyond all of us, and just kind of dropped off of the grid since he started building code for the NSA.

"So we now understand that you have a crush on this guy, tell me how this gets us anywhere?"

"You aren't listening Special Agent in Charge…"

"Moore," he said with a sigh.

"I know how he's hiding.  I can't prove it, but I'd bet my fingers on it."

"Do tell."

"You won't like it."

"I
already
don't like it."

"This isn't a case for the FBI.  Look…" she scrolled her screen.  "All of this… right here.  It's a big black hole.  He's managing to hide a super highway at rush hour and there's just no way to do that without help."

"So who's helping him?"

"No one, not on purpose… but he has access to
NSA's
computers.  He built their encryption, again, that's a guess, but it fits everything that makes sense.  It's like all of the German rocket guys who came over from Germany after World War II… a few years later we're going to the moon, right?  Same same.  Meek disappears from the boards and goes to NSA, and suddenly we're hearing all of this cool new stuff about atmospherically random encryption that cannot be defeated, blah, blah, blah… then this all happens and he has a way to hide it.  It can't be done.  But he's doing it."  She paused, taking a breath.  "
He's using their system.
  NSA is the ultimate black hole.  No one, not one person has ever gotten in… never.  If you're going to hide something…"

"Wonderful."

"Yep."  She turned back to the code on the screen, admiring it one last time.