Like Grownups Do (30 page)

One month after graduation, Drew was on a plane to London. He was met at the airport by a humorless young man who accompanied him on a short flight to Oslo, Norway. There, Drew was shuttled to a semi-depressed row of small houses. He was let in and given a key to the very modest and sparsely furnished house, and told that he would be contacted within the next twenty-four hours.

The next morning, Drew was visited by two serious looking men. They introduced themselves by tags that Drew was already familiar with. Both had been members of Anarkey, but had been absent for the last year.

They handed Drew a modest amount of euros and told him to buy some clothing from local shops and dispose of his American clothes. They advised him to fit in and not draw attention to himself. Drew was apprehensive but excited.

The two men walked with Drew to the nearby market and showed him how to shop without looking like a tourist. They looked on discretely as Drew made his first European purchase—a computer flash drive.

The next day, the men took Drew to a house a few blocks from where he now lived. Inside, a dozen young men worked side by side on computers. Drew was assigned a station and introduced to the man in charge.

After introductions were made, Dante Vlada handed Drew two sheets of paper. There was a list of International companies—their addresses, the banks they used, and names of officers and employees with access to corporate accounts.

Drew stammered the beginnings of an objection, but was silenced with a single finger.

“Did you think that we were selling Girl Scout cookies? We are not stealing from
grandmothers—
these are criminal corporate
fucks
that steal all day long in their five-thousand-dollar suits. If you cannot steal more than your salary, we have no need of you.”

Drew quickly grew accustomed to his role and became a star. He was rewarded handsomely by his new associates, and he reveled in the knowledge that he would never be the whining hack that his father was.

Five months after arriving in Oslo, Drew was relocated. Two weeks later he was up and running again, in Amsterdam.

Drew began to relax. He settled into his European identity and he was hitting on all cylinders, swiping tens of thousands of dollars every day from faceless, obscenely wealthy corporations.

One night he made his way into a local bar, got extremely wasted, and stumbled into a nearby tattoo parlor. He staggered out an hour later with the letters ‘A-N-A-R’ printed across a picture of a skeleton key on the inside of his left forearm, a design he had sketched during one of his failed courses back in high school. He was pulled aside from his workstation the following day.

Dante Vlada looked at the tattoo, squinted, and looked Drew in the eye.

“Lose it. I need you clean.”

Drew was taken off of his computer station three days later. He began intense training with three different men from the organization over the next fifteen months. This new training took place seven days a week, and sometimes ran from dawn until late at night. He received the equivalent of a graduate course in cyber-criminal activity in an extremely condensed format; offensive operations, detection and evasion. His questions were either ignored or answered with the promise that he was going to the next level.

Drew was called in late one evening. He was introduced to two older men—dark and intimidating types in expensively tailored suits. The men explained Drew’s new mission in a humorless, clinical presentation.

He was returning to the United States. His “legal” name was now Patrick Andrew London. He would receive documentation depicting a stellar educational background, from fictional beginnings in Virginia, continuing through a graduate degree from the University of Virginia. All necessary documents had been placed into his employment file.

His new assignment—

Cyber Division analyst with the Boston field office of the FBI.

Drew London looked nervously out of every window of his Ford Explorer. It was almost noon and he was in a crowded parking garage. He was sweating slightly though he had no reason to. He couldn’t think of how he could possibly be more in charge of the day, which was a lot more than he could say about the last few days—especially yesterday.

He received a coded message telling him to burn everything. That could only mean one thing. The FBI had them. And if they had them that meant that every damned resource that the FBI possessed was going to come right down on Drew London’s head.

He was probably looking at the death penalty. He didn’t know if he could or would be executed. Which name or address would they use? Which state had the jurisdiction? It didn’t matter. He couldn’t do life in prison, either.

Wasn’t there a famous saying, about the simple things bringing you down?
Drew thought
.
If there wasn’t, there should be.

The organization was prepared for this situation. Hell,
Drew
was prepared for this situation. One of the first things a hacker learns is how to set bombs—cyber bombs; bombs to blow up the evidence if everything turns to shit. And
everything
always turns to shit. You know you’re going to have to torch everything
eventually
when you’re fucking over the
FB fucking I.

So
, yeah,
there were bombs. Bombs in the office. Bombs in the internal servers. Bombs in the intranet system. Bombs in every computer that Drew had touched since he had come back to the states. And Drew lit them all off within an hour of receiving word that he was burned. If only—

If only he could find his flash drive. His lucky thirty-two gigabyte flash drive—the very first thing he had purchased on European soil, the very first thing he had paid for in Euros, the first thing bought with money received from the international crime ring that had become his family.

The drive that he used to transfer data between the FBI office and his home computer.

Drew was virtually insane the previous afternoon as he madly searched through everything in his office. Ten times, twenty times. Sweat poured from his face and piss leaked down his leg until it gushed due to his inability to care. Desperation clouded any ability to worry about his being watched.

He was still in this frame of mind as he approached his apartment building that night. Approach is as close as he got before he spotted at least eight Bureau cars. Lights were on in his apartment and he watched multiple shadows pass in front of his windows.

Drew was calm about this now, unlike the sleepless night of terror he had just endured. He scratched the faded scar on his forearm. The tattoo removal still itched. That itch reminded him that he had not belonged to himself for a long time.

Drew acquired a few guns after he arrived in Boston—all illegal. If he ever had to use them he was screwed, anyway. He had no experience with them. The one that lay beside him in the seat he knew only as a sniper rifle. He knew that the scope worked. Well, it made far away shit look close up. He put as many rounds into the clip as it would hold but he wasn’t counting.

What do I have to lose? The bunch of hacker criminals that I’m here for are the closest thing to family that I have. This was only days away from going down, anyway. But, of course, by someone else that knows what they’re doing—someone that hoped to stay alive in the aftermath. Maybe they’ll speak well of me— the ones that survive…

At ten minutes before noon, Drew exited the parking garage, drove around the block and pulled to the curb. He lowered the tinted window slightly. He knew the schedule, and after a few men made their way out of the building, he began firing.

He got off six shots before agents moved to within seconds of taking him down. Drew lowered the gun and reached into his pocket.

In the movies, the bad guy bites down on one cyanide capsule. But Drew ‘Taylor’ London was taking no more chances. He bit down on two and brought down the curtain on his one-act play.

At the sound of gunfire and the ensuing commotion, Russell Eckhart moved from his desk to a fifth story window. He walked back to his desk where he opened a drawer and removed a brand new pair of surgical gloves. He removed them from the package, folded them into his jacket pocket, and walked to the empty offices of Cyber Division. He pulled on the gloves and pulled out a computer tower on its rolling shelf, exposing the rear panel.

From his other pocket he took a thirty-two gigabyte flash drive.

Thirty

“
W
ell, that wasn’t exactly smooth, but that does it, Gabriel. I’ll have everything forwarded to the Bureau by Monday or Tuesday. Someone will be in touch,” Babe said. He extended his hand across his desk.

“I’m sorry for the trouble I have caused you,” Gabriel said, “I hope we can remain friends.”

“I give you a fair amount of latitude for the stress of your military experience. You have a good heart, Gabriel, and I hope your head is allowed to catch up,” Babe said.

“And I want to thank you. I’ve spoken with my mother a few times over the last couple of weeks. I believe we’re going to be okay.”

“This is excellent news. If you think you might—” Gabriel suddenly broke eye contact, blinked several times and looked down at the floor.

“I’m sorry. I have to get going. Got to go. Goodbye.”

Babe stared as Gabriel bolted from the room. He had been gone for only seconds when MG crashed through the door with a look of terror on her face.

“It’s Jack! He’s…he’s been shot.”

Babe and MG threaded their way through the wall of law enforcement officers that layered the entrances to the ER. MG had Babe’s sleeve in one hand and held her ID in front of her with the other. Officers parted like the Red Sea. Babe had his fists clenched in case they did not. They were met in the waiting room by FBI personnel. MG and two large special agents quickly cornered a passing doctor for an update. Jack was in surgery.

“The older gentleman was hit in the lower left shoulder. They took him straight into surgery. That’s all I know,” the doctor told them. He leaned away from the agents, trying to get out of the waiting area. A large agent who lifted heavy things for fun held the doctor’s arm.

“Who else is back there, from the scene?” MG asked him.

“There are two others. One is just an upper arm flesh wound. The other one—he’s in bad shape; Two in the chest. Please, I can’t tell you any more. I...I have to go,” the young doctor said. The agent loosened his grip and the doctor scrambled through the double doors to ICU. These doors were attended by two Boston police officers.

MG turned to Babe.

“Try Jordan again.”

A nearby senior agent was directing traffic in the waiting area. He gave some instructions via walkie-talkie and then stepped between MG and Babe.

“Jordan Blackledge has been notified, ma’am. He’s on-board a Navy bird. ETA sixty-five minutes.”

“Thank you, Dan. Babe, I’ll be right outside. I have to call Rebecca,” MG said.

Babe nodded.

Tom slipped through the door and passed quickly through the maze of agents and officers. He reached Babe and rested one hand on his knee as he gasped for breath.

“Haaaaaahh, how is he?” Tom asked.

“In surgery. He took at least one, that’s all we’ve heard so far,” Babe said, “Shoulder. Left shoulder, that’s what the doc said.”

“How many—” Tom swallowed hard.

“How many others?”

“Two, they said.”

Tom continued to catch his breath. An ID badge on a piece of purple string circled his neck and spun in the air. Babe reached out and caught the badge.

“Comic Con 2010, and,” Babe turned the badge around.

“World of Warcraft Official Beta Tester. This actually works?”

“I got in here, didn’t I?” Tom answered. “I have to step out for a sec. I don’t think Christie has her phone with her, or she forgot to turn it on, or it’s dead. She was going to the mall and I was supposed to meet her for dinner, but I can’t remember where. I know where it is but I don’t remember the name.”

“Okay, Tom. I’ll be right here.”

Babe left the room and made his way to the nurse’s station. The nurse’s station was also overrun by FBI and local police. Other serious government types were arriving by the minute. Babe took the elevator up two floors. He wanted to find out if Marshall Gates would be on duty later that night. He was thinking that having a friend on duty might prove helpful.

Babe inquired at the nurses desk on the third floor and was told that Dr. Marshall Gates would be on staff at ten that evening.

Babe returned to the ER waiting room to find MG pacing in a corner. Babe seldom saw MG in the agitated state she was in right now. It was like watching Magneto, of the X-Men—MG looked to be generating her own electric field. Babe looked down at the tile floor, thinking that if it was carpet, MG’s hair would probably be standing straight up.