No Test for the Wicked: A Lexi Carmichael Mystery, Book Five (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I had started watching the security camera very carefully, hoping for a signal of some kind. I’m not sure how many cycles had passed before I saw it again. A double blip on the red light. It was so quick I thought I might have missed it. But I didn’t. I had definitely seen it.

I whispered to Wally. “Distract the guard for a few seconds.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Tell him you have to go to the bathroom or something. Just keep his eyes off the security camera for as long as you can. Every second will count.”

“Okay. Here goes.” Wally stood up. “Um, excuse me. I have to pee. Can we have a bathroom break?”

Leaving my hands in my lap but in view of the camera, I started to spell out words in sign language letter by letter. I couldn’t be sure Elvis was watching or if he were even alive, but it was the best I could do on short notice.

Wally talked fast behind me. “Whoa, hey. Peace, love and tranquility. Lower the gun. I just got to go, that’s all. I haven’t gone for hours. I don’t want to make a mess in here.”

I’d only spelled two words and part of the third when the guard barked at Wally to sit down and hold it or he’d shoot him.

Wally sat down and the guard resumed his spot in front of the laptop. “Did that help?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“What were you doing?”

“Sending a message.”

“How?”

“Sign language.”

“I guess I shouldn’t ask how and to whom you sent this message, right?”

“Right.” The computer dinged and I leaned forward. “Crap.”

It was an email from the personal account of Naomi Walters.

Wally leaned over so far he practically fell in my lap. “Oh, God. Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”

Ice Eyes must have been waiting for the message because he immediately clicked it open. I scanned the message along with him. It was detailed information on U.S. involvement—which had been publicly denied—in the Pakistani peace process with members of the warring factions in their country.

Wally’s eyes were so wide they almost popped out of his head. “Oh, my freaking goodness. This isn’t good, right?”

I didn’t have time to answer because Ice Eye’s face appeared on the screen. “Lara, send the following message from your account. Thank Senator Walters for her cooperation and tell her we are reviewing her information. Then upload the subsequent message to the FBI website that Senator Walter’s daughter, Jennifer, will be released via the gymnasium door in five minutes at exactly twenty-two twelve.”

I did as I was told. My hands trembled as I pushed the send button.

Ice Eyes verified I had sent it and then nodded. “Good. Now access Excalibur Academy’s parent emergency email list from Willem’s account.”

I clicked on the address book and found the list.

“I’ve got it.”

“Excellent. I just sent you something else. You should be receiving it momentarily.”

The computer dinged and I saw a message sent from another account, this one from Brazil. I opened and read it silently.

You will receive this message only once.
The first parent to respond to this request and wires
$
500,000 in bitcoins to any of the following websites will have their child released.
After that
,
the price goes up.
It will be
$
600,000 for the second child
, $
700,000 for the third child and so on.
Only ten children will be released through this system
,
so if you want your child to be one of the lucky few
,
we suggest you act quickly.
Your window of opportunity closes in ninety minutes.

He listed more than a dozen websites at the end.

“Lara, copy the message exactly as it is and paste it into an new email. Then send it to the parent list. I’ll be back in a minute.”

He disappeared from the screen.

Wally whistled. “Why does he keep insisting on using the school account to send his messages? And what the heck is a bitcoin?”

“He keeps using the school system because he’s spent a hell of a lot of time protecting it and making it virtually impenetrable. It’s a freaking fortress.” I clenched my fists in my lap. “But the bitcoin news is bad. I knew it had to be money. I just didn’t expect this.”

“Why? What is a bitcoin?”

“Money. It’s all about money. Bitcoins are a digital currency. Some people call it crypto-currency because the creation and transfer of bitcoins uses cryptology. They can be bought and sold electronically for many different currencies and are near impossible to trace.”

“Whoa. I’m a geek and even I can’t understand that. What are you talking about?”

“Don’t bother me right now, Wally. I’ll explain it better to you later. We can’t send this message. It stops here.”

“
What?
” Wally hissed. “Are you out of your mind? Stop him? Have you forgotten the guy with the gun over there?”

I ignored him. The time had come for me to act. My mind raced on overdrive.

I had to prevent this email from going out. I’d just seen the end game for Ice Eyes, so now I knew for certain
what
he wanted and
how
he intended to get it. Bitcoins was an ingenious method. Once the email went out, he could vanish and monitor his bitcoin websites from whatever spot he wanted. When he got all the money he wanted, he could alert the terrorists to either release the kids whose parents had paid or instruct them to blow us all to pieces in a final grandiose act of publicity for their cause. He’d have no more use for Wally or me. From this point forward, we’d be disposable. We were actually vulnerable now, but because we were in place and had been conveniently pliant until this point, he’d probably decided to use us for one last task.

I felt sick.

But how could I stop a cyber madman watching my every keystroke and a whacko with a gun mere steps behind me monitoring my physical movements? If I refused to send the message, Wally and I would be executed on the spot. Then the guard would send the email. If I did something more complicated like openly sabotaging the system, I’d be shot and Ice Eyes would use another system to send out the email. It was a bit riskier for him, but not impossible at this stage of the game. So how to stop him now, without him knowing how or what I’d done?

Think
,
Carmichael
,
think.

Ninety minutes.

I had ninety minutes and then game over.

Then, just like that, I had it. A plan. It was breathtakingly simple, and far from guaranteed to work, but it was worth a shot. I was out of time for anything else.

I brushed my hand across the desk and knocked a pencil on the floor. I leaned over to get it, taking a quick look at all the wires and cables underneath.

The guard barked at me and I retrieved the pencil and held it up. “Sorry. Dropped this.”

He glared at me and then went back to monitoring the security laptop.

“What are you doing?” Wally whispered as I shifted around in my chair.

“Saving our necks. I hope.”

After a minute, I copied Ice Eyes’s message into a new email and then pushed send. I immediately got an error message.

Wally looked at me. “What the hell just happened?”

“The network is down.”

“At the exact moment you sent the email?”

“Actually a little before.”

His eyes widened. “You did that?”

I touched his arm. “Keep your voice down.

Wally wiggled agitatedly in his chair. “Oh, God. He’s going to be royally pissed. He’ll know you did it.”

“He won’t be able to prove it.”

“But what the heck does it solve? He can just send it himself from a bogus account.”

“Sure, he can. He could have done that at any time during this operation. But it’s risky. He’s spent considerable time and effort preparing and protecting this network. Creating a new, bogus account will take time he doesn’t have. He has to be really, really careful, even from a bogus account. I guarantee you that every decent mind in the cybersecurity field is all over this one. Wizards can be traced by other wizards and caught, trust me. It’s a big risk. Plus he can’t be sure how many parents will open an unfamiliar email and click on an embedded link. This way he’s more assured of a timely parental response.”

The phone on the desk rang. The sound was so jarring and unexpected I jumped.

The guard seemed surprised, too. After a moment, he picked up the receiver. He listened and then handed the phone to me.

“What did you do, Lara?” It was Ice Eyes.

“Nothing. I just tried to send the message like you requested but it bounced back.” I tried to sound innocent, if that were even possible.

“No one tampered from the system on the outside. So whatever just happened, happened internally. You did something.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Get up from the chair, Lara.”

I stood and the guard sat. Ice Eyes gave him some instructions to troubleshoot the network problem.

It didn’t work.

“Check to make sure she didn’t disconnect the network cable.” Ice Eyes sounded irritated.

The guard leaned over the desk and looked at the wall plugs. He unplugged the network cable and then plugged it back in. “The network cable is plugged in.”

He checked the connection, but no luck. “The network is still down.”

“I’ll ask you again, what did you do, Lara?”

“Me? Nothing. How could I? You can see my every keystroke.”

Ice Eyes fell silent and the guard grunted and returned to his desk. I sat down, my legs shaky.

“Oh, my God,” Wally whispered heatedly. “He sounded really pissed.”

I lowered my voice. “Ice Eyes is blackmailing the parents for money in bitcoins. It’s a legitimate electronic currency, but next to impossible to trace. Merchants and businesses around the world who want to exchange in bitcoins join the system by providing their information the same as they would to process a credit card transaction. The transactions are public—that’s required by international law—but bitcoins have a significantly lower transaction fee. The U.S. is widely considered to be one of the most bitcoin-friendly countries in the world, and the system is growing rapidly.”

“So, this is about money?”

“In part. Ice Eyes is charging the parents for a service, so to say. In this case, they pay him via a website of his choosing and he releases their children for a scalable cash payment. The first parent to pay the fee pays the least, and the last pays the most. While the transactions will be initially traceable, I guarantee you, he’ll be long gone with the bitcoins, cashed in for a currency of his choosing long before the authorities can find him.”

Wally’s mouth opened. “Wow. That totally sucks.”

“Yes, it does.”

He shook his head. “I still don’t get it though. If the exchange takes place via a website, why can’t the police just shut down all the websites?”

“Come on, Wally. You already know the answer to that. First of all, it takes a court order to do that. The government can’t just run around shutting down websites willy-nilly. There’s an actual process involved. Secondly, look at the URLs he chose for the websites. They are in twelve different countries. There is no way the U.S. government, even on a good day, could shut down
one
of those, let alone
twelve
in ninety minutes.”

He rubbed his eyes. “So, we are royally screwed? He’ll take the money and run while the terrorists make their statement by blowing this school sky-high?”

“We’re not screwed yet. I did what I could. I think there’s someone else out there who has my back and also knows what’s going on. I just hope he takes it from here.”

“You
think
there is someone else out there? You aren’t certain?”

I wasn’t going to lie to him. Not at this stage of the game. “No, I’m not certain.”

“Oh, my God. We’re going to die. We’re going to die.”

I put a hand on his arm. “Calm down, Wally. It won’t help to completely lose it right now.”

I glanced up at the security camera, willing the red light to come on. I’d missed the last round as I’d been busy with Ice Eyes, but I wanted to check it this time around. If I saw the double blink, I would try to send to another message about the garage door remote.

I briefly entertained the possibility that I’d become completely delusional. Seeing double blips on a security camera might just be wishful thinking. Elvis might be dead, captured and/or incapacitated. But I couldn’t operate like that. I just couldn’t.

It was far easier and more comforting to imagine that Elvis was monitoring both the security camera and Jouret’s account. If so, he’d already know about the bitcoins and that I’d somehow sabotaged the network. He’d also know the end game and understand what I’d done, though I didn’t know what he’d do next. I didn’t even know what
I’d
do next.

Whatever happened next was a mystery even to me, despite the high probability that it involved my death.

Ice Eyes came on the monitor. He was smiling.

“Ah, there you are. I just wanted to inform you your services are no longer needed, Lexi Carmichael. You are hereby terminated.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I froze. He knew my name. How long had he known? How had he found out?

Wally gave me a puzzled look, but I stayed motionless. My mind raced with a dozen thoughts and none of them made any sense.

Wally frowned. “Lexi Carmichael? Who’s that? What’s he talking about? What exactly does he mean by
terminated
?”

Ice Eyes seemed amused at my lack of a response. “Don’t look so shocked, my dear. You are good, but I am better. I must admit I am quite curious as to what you are doing undercover at a high school. Ah, the plots we weave.”

I still couldn’t answer.
Wouldn’t
answer.

When he saw I wasn’t going to respond, he shrugged, clearly disappointed. “Well, I’m afraid all of your plotting has come to naught.”

I finally found my voice. “I wouldn’t get too cocky, Broodryk.”

I saw the flash of surprise in his eyes. It felt good.

“Ah, so you know my name, too.”

With a flourish, he pulled off his ski mask. “Well, in that case, no need for this if we are to be truly acquainted.” The pale skin, white hair and eyebrows and complete lack of skin pigment confirmed his albinism. “It appears I
have
underestimated you.”

“Don’t feel bad. It happens a lot.”

Wally leapt to his feet, covering his eyes. “Wait. Oh, my God, no. He showed us his face. Do you know what this means? In the movies when the bad guy shows his face, it’s doomsday for those who see it. We can identify him. We even know his name even if I don’t know how. He’s definitely going to kill us now.”

“He was going to kill us anyway. Sit down, Wally. It’s okay. Please.”

To my relief, Wally promptly collapsed down in his chair without another word. He kept breathing really fast, however, and I hoped he wouldn’t hyperventilate himself into unconsciousness. Or maybe that would be better. Who knew?

I returned my focus to Ice Eyes.

He was grinning, full of himself. “I must say you’ve been an able substitute, my dear.
Too
able, which inspired some digging. I was able to unmask you relatively easily, Lexi, if I may call you that.”

“No, you may not. Also, in my defense, the cover was supposed to fool some creative high school students, not a deranged cyber mercenary.”

He chuckled. “Ah, I have so many questions for you. I might have even enjoyed your company. Unfortunately, I regret time constraints force me to conclude our business arrangement. A pity, really.”

“I’m in no arrangement with you.”

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around in my chair. It was the guard. He motioned with his gun for Wally and me to stand up. His eyes were cold, distant. I knew what was coming next.

Wally did, too. While I stayed seated, he leapt to his feet agitated, raising his hands. “No, no, no. Oh, God, no. You can’t kill us. You just can’t. We helped you.
She
helped you. She took down Phantomonics. Who is Lexi Carmichael? Why isn’t anyone telling me anything?” He began to wail and wave his arms around.

While the guard’s attention was on Wally, I unhooked the keyboard. I gripped it in both hands as I stood and turned, bringing the keyboard with me. Using all my strength, I swung it as hard as I could, hitting the guard’s gun arm. He yelped as the gun flew out of his hand and skidded with a bounce under the desk.

To my utter astonishment, Wally launched himself at the guard with a primal scream, flailing his fists and biting the guard like a rabid dog. The guard raised his fists and began fighting back. I snatched a loose cord and came in behind the guard as he grappled with Wally. I flipped the cord over his head and pulled it tight around his neck.

I’m five-foot-eleven and he was about an inch shorter than me, which gave me a bit of an advantage. But he was also a male, physically stronger and most likely trained in paramilitary skills. Plus, he definitely outweighed a skinny girl like me. So, I just pulled the cord as tight as I could and held on for dear life.

It seems strange, but it didn’t occur to me that I was deliberately trying to end the life of a person. The world of ethics and intellectual debate had ended. Life at this moment had been reduced to a primal state. Kill or be killed. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want Wally to die either. So, at this point, it was either him or us.

Ice Eyes shouted something from the monitor, but I couldn’t make out the words. The world around me seemed to decelerate, as if every movement I made was happening in some weird slow motion.

As soon as I had started choking him, the guard stopped hitting Wally and reached up to try and pull the cord from his neck. When I pulled tighter, he staggered backward, leveraging the full weight of his body into me and smashing us back into the wall. My head and back banged hard against it, but I held on to the cord for dear life, trying to stay behind him and keep my body safe from his sharp elbows. Wally resumed his attack, although I had my doubts as to the effectiveness of his punches.

I had no idea how long it took for a choking person to lose consciousness, but it seemed never ending. I pulled the cord so tight I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore, but I was tiring and I think the guard knew it. In a last movement of desperation, he managed to score a kick to Wally’s face, sending him flying backward and crashing into the desk. Wally’s head hit the corner of the desk and he lay on the floor clutching his hair and moaning.

The guard then collapsed to his knees, using the weight of his body to fall forward and bring me with him. I struggled to keep my grip on the cord, but I slipped. He rolled sideways, freeing himself. He sprang to a crouch, glaring at me with a bloody nose and mouth. I guessed Wally had scored a couple of good hits after all.

He muttered something in a foreign language. I was pretty sure it wasn’t affectionate. His fingers curled into fists as he launched at me with a yell. I stepped sideways, but in the small room he easily grabbed a fistful of my polo, throwing me to the floor with him. In less than a second he was sitting on top of me, his hands around my neck, squeezing. Now it was my turn to choke. I bucked, squirmed and struggled, but he had me in a tight vise. A strange black crowded my vision and my lungs screamed for air. I could feel the wetness of tears leaking from my eyes as my strength ebbed.

Suddenly I heard a loud crack. The pressure around my neck loosened. I rolled sideways, gasping for air. I couldn’t see straight and wheezed a few times. I gulped in breaths trying not to throw up as the tears rolled down my cheeks. I felt someone kneel beside me and gently push the hair from my face, tucking it behind my ear.

“Lexi. Are you...okay?”

I blinked and looked up. Elvis knelt next to me, holding my hand. “Oh, God. I...I didn’t know if I’d make it in time. But you’re alive. You’re okay.”

My brain didn’t seem to be functioning. I couldn’t figure out why and how he’d gotten here. “Elvis?”

He pulled me up and into his arms, squeezing me hard. I held on to him for dear life, resting my head on his shoulder, tears sliding down my cheeks. He touched my back, shoulders and hair as if he couldn’t believe I was actually alive.

“I thought I was too late. It happened so fast. But you’re alive. Oh, God, I made it in time.”

“Elvis?” I couldn’t seem to think straight. “What...how did you get here?”

“I ran. Just ran. I saw what was happening on the security monitor. I shot him in the head. I used a makeshift silencer—Piper’s jacket—so no one would hear the shot. I worried about accuracy, shooting through it, but I was more worried someone would hear.” He took a breath. “I’m babbling. You’re alive, but we have to go. Even with the jacket, someone still might have heard the shot. They’re coming.”

He tried to pull me to the door. My legs wouldn’t hold and I swayed, almost falling down again. Elvis held me firmly.

Oh, God. Elvis was alive and he had been monitoring the security camera. I’d
known
it. But how had he gotten here from Jouret’s office? Had he simply dashed down the stairwell and through the hallway without a thought to his own safety, just to save me? Nothing made sense. Why couldn’t I think properly?

My throat hurt. I touched the tender skin on my neck.

“Hurry, Lexi,” Elvis urged. “We’ve got to go. Eight minutes to breach time.”

My mind struggled to keep up. “Breach?”

He pulled me toward the door, but I resisted. “No. Wait. Wally. We can’t go without him.”

I glanced over and saw Wally still lying on the floor, moaning and holding his head. He must have hit it hard. Blood was all over his hands and matted in his hair. I pulled away from Elvis, staggering toward him. “Wally, are you okay?”

Elvis got behind Wally. “Help me pull him up.”

We lifted him to a standing position and I grabbed an arm and steadied him although I was barely standing myself.

“He’s still got an explosive vest on.” Elvis frowned.

“He’s got to come with us.”

Thankfully, Elvis didn’t argue. Somehow we began half-carrying, half-dragging Wally into the hallway.

“Where are we going?” My breath was coming in huffs. My ribs hurt, my head felt ready to split open and my neck throbbed.

“Two doors down. It’s show time.”

I could hear pounding footsteps. Ice Eyes had likely contacted Zogby by now. Elvis opened the door to the classroom and we staggered inside. It looked like an English lab—most likely some sort of Middle Ages Literature—with book covers and quotes hanging all over the wall.

A poster of William Shakespeare hung next to the door, with the caption, “
It is not in the stars to hold our destiny
,
but in ourselves.
”

Elvis began pushing a heavy file cabinet in front of the door. “Both of you, get to the back of the room and make yourself as small targets as possible.”

I ignored him and started helping him push the file cabinet. Elvis knew better than to try and argue with me when I was determined, so he didn’t waste his breath.

Wally stood watching us, swaying unsteadily on his feet.

I pointed to the teacher’s desk in the corner. “Wally, sit on the floor before you fall down. Just stay away from the windows and door, okay?”

He looked dazed. I figured he’d suffered a bad concussion if not something worse. All the blood from his head troubled me, but I had no time for an inspection now. Thankfully, he tottered toward the desk, sliding down it and into a mostly sitting position. Once there, he cradled the back of his head in his hands and moaned.

I tried not to panic when I heard shouting in the hallway.

“So, what’s the plan?” I asked Elvis as we gave a final push to the cabinet. “What breach are you talking about? Is that good or bad news? Where are Piper and Brandon? Did you get my sign language message? What do the police know? Did you see that Ice Eyes is blackmailing the student’s parents for bitcoins?”

Elvis leaned back against the cabinet, panting. “That’s a lot of questions, and I don’t have any time to answer a single one of them.”

I heard more loud noises in the hallway.

Elvis rubbed his eyes. He looked exhausted. “The guards must have discovered what happened. They’ll be here any moment, checking in the nearby classrooms for you. They’ve got us pinned down. Go check on the kid, Lexi. Please.”

He was using that as an excuse to get me away from the door, but I staggered forward several steps anyway and knelt beside Wally. Every muscle in my body hurt and my ribs were throbbing so hard, I was pretty sure at least one was fractured or broken.

Something banged hard against our classroom door. The file cabinet shook from the effort.

Wally began to moan louder. “They’re coming to get us. We’re going to die.”

“No, we’re not. Hold on, bud.”

I straightened and returned to Elvis, standing next to him.

“I’ve got this,” he snapped. “Get away from the door, damn it.”

“No.
We’ve
got this. I’m your partner, remember?”

“Except you almost got killed a minute ago. That exempts you from all partnership responsibilities.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not like you to be illogical, especially since the odds of us dying in the next five minutes are statistically significant. I’m
not
cowering in a corner. If I’m going to go down, I’m going to do it next to you, Elvis. Okay?”

He took a moment to give me a smile and then reached over to squeeze my hand. “It’s not illogical. I’m actually taking a cue from you. We need to split up, give them more than one target. We’ve got to stall for time to stay alive. Here, take the gun.” He held it out. “Get over there by the teacher’s desk next to the kid and hide. Shoot only if someone attacks you. There are only three bullets, so choose wisely.”

“You’ve had two lessons. You do it.”

“No, take it, please, and use it to protect yourself.”

There was something in his eyes I couldn’t define. Swallowing hard, I took the gun. “Fine. Where will you be?”

“Over there.” He pointed to the back of the room.

I heard gunfire and jumped. “Oh, God. We’re about to be Swiss cheese.”

“They’re firing at the door handle. I locked it. We just need to hang on a bit longer, Lexi. Stall as much as you can. Help is on the way, okay?”

I had no idea what help he was talking about, but I limped across the room and crouched beside the teacher’s desk. Wally still sat braced there, his eyes closed.

“You still alive, Wally?” I whispered.

He cracked an eye. “Barely. I’m just bummed I’m going to die a virgin. It’s a cold, cruel world.”

“Sex? That’s all you can think of at a time like this? What’s with men? Look, no dying just yet. Stay tough, okay?”

I checked to make sure the safety on the gun was off and held my hand out, bracing my elbow with my other hand. My arms were shaking so badly I didn’t think I’d be able to shoot straight.

Three shots.

That’s all I got, if I wasn’t killed first.

The door opened and people began pushing at the filing cabinet. Elvis ducked behind one of the cabinets at the back of the classroom and crouched down.

I forgot all about my firing stance when someone sprayed five shots across the classroom, the bullets thudding into the walls. I fell on top of Wally, pushing him to the floor as plaster and wooden chunks of the desk fell on us.