Bitcoin Bandits

by Chris Kale

  But Thomas noticed something else, not a pair of sheers, but a light clicking sound coming from his left. He looked back to Freyja; whose cool stare had turned to one of slight frustration.

  “Come on,” she said, looking up at the ceiling then. Thomas’ eyes shot to her hands behind her. The lockpick. You clever genius!

  “Freyja,” he said, “are you getting it?”

  “I’m trying,” she said. “It's hard with only one hand.”

  “Well,” Thomas said, looking back at the bomb, “I hate to remind you, but time is ticking away. . .”

  She gave him an exhaustive glare and groan. “You think I don’t know that?”

  The bomb dropped to below the fifteen-minute mark and continued trickling down second by second.

  “All that wealth,” Li said, “all my dreams are going to go away. . .”

  Freyja turned to him quickly, and with fiery eyes said, “Will you shut the fuck up for one minute?”

  He looked up at her with a surprised look, his face covered in blood.

  “Thank you,” she said sarcastically. Her eyebrows furrowed as she struggled with the cuffs behind her.

  Come on, Freyja, you can do it. . .

  Then he heard it, the click and release of a handcuff. He then saw her arm with the cast on it come over to her lap, and she stood up quickly.

  She knelt before Thomas. “I’ll get your cuffs off next,” she said, scanning his eyes for an answer. “Or is there a way to diffuse the bomb?”

  “You should go,” Thomas said. “Run. That bomb is going to take out the entire top of this building. Get as far away as you can. You can survive. There’s not time for all three of us to get out of here alive.”

  “Well, I’m getting you out of here,” Freyja said, going and kneeling behind Thomas, driving the lockpick into one of his cuffs.

  “I have no idea how to diffuse a bomb,” Thomas said. “You’ve got to get out of here, save yourself! Freyja, listen to me please.”

  “Shut up for one second, and let me concentrate,” she said, trying to get his cuffs off.

  Twelve minutes left.

  “Son of a jiz-flavored waffle ass,” she said from behind Thomas.

  “Where do you come off with. . .” he began, but then heard the click, and felt his hands release. He pulled them in front of him, standing up quickly, wrapping his arms around Freyja.

  “We don’t have time for Li, and to make it out of here,” she said. “We have to go.”

  Li looked up at both of them with wide eyes. “No! You can’t leave me here. You can’t leave me!”

  “Ugh,” Thomas sighed. He knew she was right, but he couldn’t leave a man to die. And for all purposes Li was innocent, except for being a royal idiot.

  What do I do? Think Thomas. . . What do I do?

  Then a thought occurred to him, and he looked around the room again. He had a slight spark of inspiration, as he pictured himself sitting back at his desk at home in Kansas City. Sitting there, with the warm light flowing in from the window onto the long, wooden desk. The smell of freshly baked bread and sweet Vietnamese food creeping in through the open window. He could smell the coffee being brewed from the coffee shop right down the street, and he could see the parts of the rocket laid out before him on the desk.

  His eyes shot over to the other side of the room, and to the immaculately clean glass table with the spidery-metal object placed upon it with the twelve mini-helicopter blades spun in a circle around the top of it. It’s eight legs were perched beneath it, with a god-knows how expensive of a camera fixed underneath it like the thorax of a spider.

  Freyja saw him gaze at it and walked over to it quickly.

  “That thing have power?” Thomas asked Li, who seemed to have trouble focusing on it through the blood in his eyes. “What, the drone? I don’t know, I’ve never flown it. It's just a model.”

  “Well,” Freyja said, “we’re about to find out.”

  Thomas went over to it, standing next to Freyja.

  Six minutes left.

  He saw the remote was placed neatly next to, it reminded him of the old remote-controlled cars from when Sarah was young, but much, much sleeker. He grabbed it and powered it on—blue lights switched on. “Power here,” he said.

  Freyja found the power button on the underside of the drone, nothing happened. Thomas’ heart sank.

  “Oh no,” Freyja said, with her hand over her mouth.

  “What?” Li asked on the other side of the room.

  Then, the slow glow of a small red dot illuminated on the backside of the drone. A single dot of light, then the drone began to buzz, and the red glow flowed out through the joints and separated cracks of metal.

  “Yes!” He pressed two buttons on the controller and the twelve blades started spinning quickly.

  “Yes!” Freyja yelled.

  Four minutes left.

  “Tape,” Thomas yelled past the buzzing sound filling the air and the winds coming off the massive drone that was easily three feet in circumference. “Li, where’s the tape?”

  “Top left drawer,” Li yelled. “Back of it.”

  “Freyja, get the window!” Thomas said, leaping over the desk, opening the drawer and pulling out a roll of black duct tape. Perfect!

  Freyja ran over and opened the window, a large four-foot section that slid up into the ceiling with the flick of a switch.

  Three minutes. . .

  He grabbed the bomb, delicately, but he knew they were running out of time. Freyja ran over to join him. Beads of sweat were running down his forehead, and he could feel them resting in his eyebrows. He could taste the salt forming at the corners of his lips, and his armpits were soaked.

  Holding the black-cylindered bomb beneath the camera, he wrapped it wildly and sloppily. But once the tape was there, it seemed enough to hold it up. He did a couple of more wraps tighter just to be sure.

  That’s got to be good enough.

  He grabbed the remote and slowly pulled one of the switches up, and he watched as the drone lifted off the table with a loud buzz. It hung evenly in the air.

  Wow. This is nice technology.

  “Hurry!” Freyja motioned for the window.

  Less than two minutes left.

  With the other dial, he propelled the drone forward, then turned it to face the window, which he’d turned a little too far, so he had to turn it back to the left to get it to square off against the window. Then he eased it forward, and it buzzed forward.

  One minute left. . .

  “Hurry!” Freyja yelled out.

  “Come on,” Thomas said, sweat now dropping over his eyebrows.

  The drone heaved itself forward, and as it got to the window its right propeller knocked against the windowsill, causing it to wobble. Freyja was holding her breath now.

  As it wobbled in the air, Thomas gritted his teeth. “Fuck it,” he said, pressing the drone forward switch all the way forward. The drone’s buzzing doubled, and it tried to burst through the window, and it did so, but flew off to the right, moving quickly. Thomas shifted the switch to the left and its trajectory corrected.

  Thomas was aiming it up as high and far away as it could go, in between the middle of the three buildings.

  “Yes, yes,” Freyja said, with her hands in front of her, and her fist clenched.

  Thomas poured sweat now, and his fingers felt slippery on the controls.

  In a burst of light, the bomb exploded. It was a blinding, white flash that drove Thomas to drop the controller and cover his eyes. Then the ripples of the explosion shot into the building like being hit in the stomach, having the wind knocked out of you, but all over your body. A hot wave shattered the glass, and Thomas ducked just in time to find the safety of the desk to protect him. His ears were humming almost instantly, and for a moment, he felt like he had somehow stumbled into a war zone.

  The impact died down after the thunderous explosion, and Thomas’ mind went first to Freyja. He stood quickly, scanning the ar
ea, but didn’t see her immediately. He thought he called out her name, but he couldn’t really tell because his ears were buzzing so badly. He tried to call out her name again, but then saw a hand in a cast wave from the corner of the room, as she’d apparently made her way to the corner, where no window was.

  He ran to her, and as he did, she sat up with her back to the wall. Her face was drained and pale, but she held a wide smile on her face, breathing heavily. She had no marks on her skin, and she looked as innocent and eager as the time he first met her. He tried asking if she was OK, and he finally started to hear his own words again.

  She nodded, motioning for him to help her stand up.

  “No.” Freyja shook her head. He could tell no from the way she was moving her lips. She said something else that came out like a muted sentence he couldn’t make out. He thought he heard her say the word ‘computer,’ but either way she was adamant about her getting up. Then she stood up, and she ran out of the room, Thomas looked over to check on Li, who was still a bloody mess, and dazed, but looked up at them well enough that he thought Li could wait. Freyja was running as fast as she could, with a slight limp.

  She jumped behind the receptionist’s desk, and the fingers on her one exposed hand began to fly.

  “What are you doing?” Thomas asked, now able to hear his own words.

  She didn’t respond, only stared into the screen as the light reflected off her moist skin. Her one hand bounced around the computer quickly and using the mouse a handful of times.

  “Freyja, what—?”

  “Thomas, stop,” she said. “I’m moving the Bitcoin. I need to focus.”

  What? How?

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “Wait, what did you just say?” Thomas asked, leaning over her shoulder to watch her enter the seed phrase over and over.

  She stopped typing and let out a deep sigh and glared heavily at him. “Thomas, shut up. I’m going to punch you in the nose if you don’t stop distracting me.” Her gaze went back to the screen and typing in the words with one hand. “Do something useful and go call your cop buddy or something.”

  He smiled. “You’re amazing.”

  Thomas ran over to the desk next to the receptionist’s and picked up the phone. He quickly realized he didn’t know Ron’s number. He then realized he didn’t know anyone’s number without his cell. But then he remembered that Ron had given him a card when they’d first met. He pulled out his billfold and grabbed the white card with simple black letters.

  He called the number.

  Ron picked up after several rings. “This is Ronald Jones. Who is this?”

  “Ron!” Thomas said, “We’re at BitX, you’ve got to get over here.”

  “What the hell are you doing at BitX?” Ron asked. “I’m on my way over there right now. You stay right there!”

  “I will,” Thomas said, but then asked a dumb question he knew the answer to before he was done asking. “Why are you coming here?”

  “The whole city saw that explosion in the sky,” Ron said. “Why is it Seoul seems peaceful whenever you’re not around. And now I’m definitely not surprised to hear from you after that blast. You stay right there.” But then Ron let out a laugh. “You are one helluva son of a bitch, Thomas. I like you. You went from a gun to a bomb. I’m glad to hear you’re alive.”

  Thomas felt a tug on his sleeve then. He looked over to see a very content Norwegian woman leaning back in her chair with her hands behind her head. A wide smile crossed her face, and she gave a blatant wink to him.

  “Ron, I’ve got to go,” Thomas said, hanging up the phone immediately.

  “Is someone going to get me out of these cuffs?” Li called from the other room. “Hello?”

  Thomas grinned in amazement at the young woman. “What. . . how? How did you know how to do that without the drive?”

  “Can you guess?” she said smirking still.

  “Well, the only thing I can think of is that you had the forethought to bring a second drive and switch them out when he wasn’t looking? Was that it?”

  She shook her head. “The information wasn’t in the drive that we needed. . .”

  It took Thomas a minute to think about that. . . If it wasn’t in it, it must have been. . .

  “The word was on the drive?”

  She nodded and grinned, white teeth showing.

  “Joon,” Thomas said nodding. “He kept the crypto safe until we could get it. Freyja, how’d you find the word?”

  “I lifted the metal hinge that covered the micro USB port, and very tinily laser engraved there was the word ‘Love.’”

  “Love was the missing word, then.” He stroked his chin.

  “So—” she said, “Love, Uncertainty, Freedom, Choice, Melancholy, Algorithm, Instinct, Thought, Mercy, Wisdom, Pain, Love again.”

  She put a hand with the palm faced outward, ready for a high-five, which he eagerly gave her.

  “So where is the Bitcoin?” he asked.

  “On one wallet, one I created,” she said. “It's safe. There’s no way they can get to it now.”

  “What will we tell Ron when he gets here?” he asked.

  “We’ll tell him whatever we want,” she said, pointing to the computer screen. “I made myself hidden as soon as I got on this computer. No one has any idea who got control of the hacked funds. Well. . . I should clarify. . . I did just tweet that CryptoCunt got the funds and is holding it safe until it’s properly restored. I think my brand just got a big boost. . .”

  “I can honestly say I’ve never met anyone like you before,” he said, “I’m glad we were able to do this together.”

  “That drone thing was quick thinking,” she said.

  “Hello?” Li yelled from the other room.

  “Oh, will you shut it?” Freyja yelled back. “The cops are on their way.”

  Then they heard the sirens down below. Not a few, there were a lot of sirens. . .

  “What are we going to do about you?” Thomas asked. “There’s no way to keep you hidden now, especially if Soo-Jin gets arrested, which I doubt he will.”

  “Maybe this is a good time for my hacker alias to retire,” she said. “I could easily make a fake death for her online. Make some fake story about who she really was and show pictures of some sorry other girl. . . I don’t know. It sounds kind of fun if you ask me. We’ll just tell them that I’m a coder that you hired to help you with the investigation, and Niklas kidnapped me because he wanted me to help him crack the code. That’s not that far from the truth, and I’m just in South Korea because I love Asian food. That’s also not far from the truth. I’ll just put up a post-dated ad for crypto blah blah service that you found of mine online.”

  “Why would I hire someone off the internet for an international criminal investigation?” he asked, with his hands out. The sirens were getting more in number, and louder now.

  “Because I’m good, and you needed an outside opinion, or say you were completely dumbfounded by crypto, so you went to a specialist. . . I don’t know—make something up. There are literally no traces of my alias back to me. There have been plenty of false accusations, and they are mostly men, or just the hacker group Anonymous.”

  From the stairwell, the door burst open, and Thomas walked out into the hallway with his hands up. He saw Ron’s face with four men behind him, he had a bulletproof vest on over his suit.

  “Out of the way Thomas,” Ron said as Thomas put his back against the hallway wall. “Who else is here?”

  “There’s Li Wei over there cuffed to a beam in his office pretty badly beaten up, and my friend Freyja over here.” Ron looked over at her, and she gave a polite wave. “Why’s she in a cast?”

  “Bad kitchen accident,” Thomas said, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Really Thomas? Really?” he sighed. “You look like shit, man. When was the last time you slept?”

  I don’t know.

  The men moved in and found Li bound to the beam, and the office looked like a
bomb had erupted in that room; shattered glass was everywhere. Thomas’ ears still slightly rung. Ron holstered his gun while the other men in full S.W.A.T. gear roamed the remaining rooms.

  “What really happened here?” Ron asked, with his hands on his hips. His eyes were a dark brown like Tiger’s Eye stone. “No more mysteries, no more bullshit. Give me the truth. You owe me that much.”

  “I do, I really do,” Thomas said scratching his head, “but you’re really not going to like it. . .”

  “Go on,” he said, “lay it on me.”

  Thomas took a deep breath, wiping the drying sweat from his forehead and brushing his hair to some form of decent look. “Look, Li and Freyja here can attest to this, but I don’t think it's going to get far here, but I’ll tell you and you can do whatever you want with it. . . Someone bound us all here, and they were going to blow up the floor to make it look like a terrorist attack, or a protester attack. But they were really trying to cover up that he stole from us the last puzzle to the mystery. He wanted it for himself. And then he wanted to get rid of the evidence. He wanted to get rid of some of the only people who had figured out how to get the stolen Bitcoin back. . . us. . .”

  Ron’s eyes widened. “Did you?”

  “No,” Freyja intervened, pointing to the computer. “I wanted to, to send it to whoever you and Thomas wanted to. The SEC, the FBI, whoever, but someone moved it seconds before I tried. We were too late.”

  “Who?” Ron asked.

  Li walked out of his office rubbing his wrists, with a towel over his shoulder ready to wash the blood from his face and nose. “Special Agent Soo-Jin Park. The government sent him to recover the money that they tried to steal, but Joon Chang-Min moved it to keep it out of their hands.”

  “Is this true?” Ron asked Thomas, who nodded. “You’ve got to be kidding me. So, we have three witnesses to this? And he tried to kill you with a bomb? That was no ordinary idiot-built bomb, that was huge. How’d you get it out of here? If you tell me you threw it, I’m going to slap you.” He was looking at Thomas.

  “Li’s drone here in his office carried it out, saved our lives, but left a hell of a ringing in my ears.”