Mark of the Beast (6 page)

“I don't think that will be a problem,” Dickerson said. “My medical staff will draw the blood and take all the necessary precautions. We'll come with all the required containers to transport the blood samples.”

“So you will have someone to pick up the blood?” the superintendent asked.

“Yes, we will,” Dickerson said. “I, or one of my staff members, will come and pick it up.”

“We will have to issue you and one or two of your staff members a medical security pass so that, as soon as each arrives, a detail officer can escort that person to the medical unit of the building,” the superintendent said.

“No problem.”

Superintendent Strickland then took Dickerson to the medical facility. As they approached the heavy, steel, guarded entrance, Dickerson nervously reached into her purse to light a cigarette.

The superintendent admonished her: “Please, no smoking in here, Doc.”

“Sorry,” Dickerson apologized, then, putting the cigarette away, she murmured, “Darn it.”

“What was that?” Mr. Strickland asked with a faint smile over his partially turned face.

“Nothing,” Dickerson said rather quickly.

Entering the medical complex, the entire staff was on its best behavior at the sight of the superintendent.

“Hi, everyone,” the superintendent said. “This is Dr. Dickerson from the university in La Jolla. She is the one I talked to you all about in the memo I sent. We will be starting our project, I hope, on Monday, if that's okay with you, Doc.” He turned to look at Dickerson.

“Monday is fine,” Dickerson replied. She was surprised how quickly this whole thing was moving along, as if by some divine intervention.

“You all have her phone number, so as soon as each blood sample is drawn from the inmates I designated on the list, call her and she will come and pick it up. Does anyone have any questions?”

After a little hesitation, the penitentiary nurse asked, “What are the tests for?”

Before Dickerson could answer, Superintendent Strickland said, “The state of California has authorized the university to conduct a test, and it is not the policy of the state to divulge any information until the appropriate time.”

How diplomatic, thought Dickerson, driving back to the campus on crowded Interstate 5.

She decided that whenever the time came to get state approval for a statewide test, that might be the line to use with reporters.

“How did the visit go?” Pinkett said after she returned.

“Great—that man must have been a general at one time. He commands respect,” Dickerson replied.

“He's a good man, and he runs that facility well,” Pinkett said. “He has one of the best-run facilities in the entire state.”

“Well, he promised to have all my blood tests done in about three to six months,” Dickerson said.

“Trust me, if Strickland promised to have all your blood work done in that time, you will get all your blood work in three to six months,” Pinkett stated.

*   *   *

The last blood sample arrived days prior to the allotted date for the conclusion of the blood draws. Dickerson prepared each sample for analysis—categorized, labeled, and stored each in the nitrogen freezer. She wanted to run the tests in sequences, so as to minimize sampling errors.

The last sample arrived on Thursday morning at 10:17
A.M.
By Saturday noon, she had finished running all one hundred samples.

“I don't believe this,” Dickerson exclaimed.

She called Detective Pinkett, but the detective was out on a crime call. The department promised that she would call her back as soon as she got back to the station.

Dickerson went straight to the dean of the medical school and spent almost an hour and a half going through the details of her anecdotal study and arguing for some funding to expand it. Having obtained full support and cooperation from the dean, Dickerson was just entering her office when the phone call came from Detective Pinkett.

“You're looking for me?” Detective Pinkett said.

“Yes, I was,” Dickerson responded with high excitement in her voice, “I have very good news about the blood samples from Lemon Grove.”

“Forty of them were positive,” Pinkett joked.

“Much better,” Dickerson said, oblivious to the joke. “Ninety-two of the one hundred blood samples tested positive for HLA B66.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Pinkett said. “Ninety-two? That's pretty good. Are you sure about the testing?”

“Yes,” Dickerson said, “because I ran each test four times, just to be sure of what I was looking at, and when all the numbers were recounted, we had a ninety-two-percent success rate.”

“What about the eight that were not positive?” Pinkett asked.

“I don't know,” answered Dickerson. “I called the superintendent, and all he could tell me was that they were interesting characters.”

“Very interesting indeed. What are you going to do next?”

“I'm going to incorporate that in the detailed report that I plan to present to the American College of Immunology in Orlando next month.”

“Don't you think that might be premature?”

“No. Not really.” Dickerson was blunt. “I heard that Dr. Abramhoff in Chicago, another immunologist, may be performing the same test even as we speak.”

“Then, go for it. But how can you widen the testing without provoking public outrage or government sanctions?”

“That's the six-million-dollar question,” Dickerson said. “I think if I can talk to Dr. Abramhoff at the meeting, we might find a way to collaborate, and in the process we'll be able to formulate something.”

“Keep me posted, please; this is becoming more intriguing than I thought.”

“You aren't kidding,” Dickerson agreed, thinking about all the possible scenarios concerning the use of such data.

While on one hand, she did not want to infringe on inmates' civil rights and jeopardize Detective Pinkett's and Superintendent Strickland's positions, on the other hand, this information had the potential for explosive scientific advancements, and to conceal it would be an injustice to the entire scientific community, and the criminal justice system in particular.

She decided to hold off all further pronouncements until the meeting in Orlando, Florida.

 

3

T
APPING HIS LEFT INDEX
finger against his two lower incisor teeth in a melodic, pensive fashion while, in the interim, constantly sucking and chewing on Brach's Hi-C Fruit Snacks, Bill was trying to create a nonsense circuit overpass against the newly designed security-code password being developed by Uwani Microsystems. “I can do this,” Bill said aloud.

A systems analyst for Uwani Corporation, Bill Stockton's job was to check and visualize every imaginable hacker plan against any new security system developed by Uwani.

“I can do this,” Bill repeated, not realizing that his voice carried.

“I know you can, Bill,” a perturbed voice answered from the next cubicle.

Bill was working on the new software system, Uwani-10. The new system was supposed to be hacker-proof, and Uwani had invested nearly two million on its research and development.

“Are you going to lunch, Bill?” the same voice said some time later.

“No, go ahead. I have my Brach's here, I'm okay.”

At about 4:30
P.M.
, Bill finally thought he had something.

419naWAYO was the latest of 241 nonsense codes Bill had tried. Suddenly a message appeared on the screen. “Heck, yes,” Bill shouted, pounding a clenched right hand on the palm of his left hand. “Who is the king of spades, now?”

“Are you talking to yourself again, Bill?” the same perturbed voice asked.

“Yes,” Bill smiled. “At least I don't answer.”

He had cracked the super-sensitive code that was supposed to be impenetrable.

He entered the code in his iPad and shredded the notepad with the 240 other different computations he had tried.

“Any luck?” George, the supervisor, asked as he entered Bill's cubicle.

“Not yet,” Bill said. “I have about ten codes that came close, but so far, the system appears tamper-proof.”

If Bill is unable to crack the security system working from the inside, no one can, thought George.

“I know you've been working hard at this, so why don't you go home. Tomorrow is another day,” George said.

“I'll do that,” Bill replied.

“See you tomorrow,” George said.

“Thanks Mr. Dobbs, see you tomorrow.”

Bill left the Uwani building, located at the corner of Piedmont Avenue and Ellis Street, overlooking busy Interstate 75/85 in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. Driving home, he thought of what could be accomplished if only one person could crack the security of Uwani-10.

It would be virtually impossible to track the source of the intruder without having to recall the entire Uwani-10 system.

*   *   *

When Uwani-10 launched, it was very successful.

George Dobbs was very pleased, and Bill received a $27,000 bonus with another 100 shares in the company's common stock.

Bill knew that with the 419naWAYO code he could roam around Uwani-10 at will, totally undetected, because the code overrode all security checkpoints.

Sitting at home, at the newly constructed and sprawling community of Whispering Oaks, in East Point, Bill logged on to Uwani-10, entered his code, and with DSL speed he was roaming the entire Internet.

He immediately went to his favorite site and headed straight to the chat room. There were 120 people in the “hurt-me” site. Bill followed the various conversations, his face already in a half smile. He then singled out and tracked Silva2782 for a while.

“I need a real man to bite a real hard job,” Silva2782 typed.

“Hey, Silva2782, try me,” typed in three responders.

Bill saw what he wanted.

“Silva2782, bet I can bite you and you'll explode.”

“Bet y'can't,” Silva2782 said after a few other messages.

“How much y'wanna bet?” typed Bill.

“One thousand.”

“Y'on. D'ya wanna try me?”

“I don't even know ya.”

“Would you like to?”

“Why? You might be a freak.”

“You are mine for 1k.”

There was a brief rapid flurry of other entries.

Bill could have lost a response.

“Silva2782, do you want a private chat room?” Bill typed.

“Okay,” Silva2782 said.

Once in the private chat room, the exchange turned personal.

“What do you do?” Silva2782 asked.

“I work for a reputable computer company in Atlanta,” Bill said. “How about you?”

“I'm a cocktail waitress in East Chicago, Indiana.”

“Are you married?”

“No, are you?”

“Me? No. How old are you?” asked Bill.

“I'm thirty-three. And you?”

“Thirty.”

“Atlanta must be a beautiful city.”

“Would you like to visit?”

“I don't know. I have to work, and I don't have the money for traveling.”

“I can send you a ticket.”

“Y'owe me $1,000 already.”

“Oh, yeah, you'll get that.”

“I have never been to Atlanta before.”

“Atlanta is a beautiful place; I'll show you around.”

“I have three days off next week.”

“That's fine.”

“Okay.”

“What name shall I put for the ticket?”

“Silvia Loopier. What's yours?”

“Bill Stockton.”

“Okay, I have Thursday, Friday, and Saturday off.

“That's good; the ticket will be for Thursday night, to return on Saturday night. Is that okay?”

“That would be perfect.”

“What city in Indiana you fly from?”

“No, we fly from Chicago.”

“That's easy, O'Hare then.”

“You aren't freakish, are you?”

“I have a very reputable job with Uwani in Atlanta.”

“You sound cute.”

“I think I am; you'll see.”

“I'll start packing.”

“You will not regret it,” concluded Bill.

 

4

B
ILL PICKED UP
S
ILVIA
at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. She had been booked with American Airlines, leaving Chicago at 7:39
P.M.
and arriving at 11:45
P.M.
She's not a bad-looking gal, thought Bill, when Silvia arrived. He recognized her quickly; she was wearing a red blouse and light blue short pants, and holding a red umbrella in her left hand, as she had told him ahead of time.

A visible butterfly tattoo could be seen on her left leg; she had four earrings in each earlobe. A brunette, about five feet seven inches tall, slim upper body with slightly heavy thighs and legs; she carries herself well, Bill observed.

Bill was not expecting an educated girl but was surprised at her intellect, especially since she worked as a cocktail waitress.

“I called Uwani,” Silvia said after formal introductions.

“Why?” Bill was visibly surprised.

“Just to see if you really work there,” Silva replied.

“What did they tell you?” Bill asked.

“Ah, don't worry, I just asked if Bill Stockton works there,” Silvia said.

“They didn't tell me you called,” Bill said.

“No, because when she said, ‘May I ask who is calling,' I told her it was nothing and hung up,” Silva replied.

Smart girl, Bill thought. She left no trace.

After picking up her two small lightweight suitcases from the baggage claim area, Bill pointed out his car in the short-stay parking area. “Here we are.”

“That's your car?” Silvia said in admiration of the maroon Lexus ES 300.

“Yeah, that's my car. You like it?” Bill asked, noticing the admiration.