by P. A. Brown
On the ground the abandoned phone lit up and Chris barely heard the trill. He spun away and dialed Martinez.
Martinez’s impatient voice answered on the fi fth ring. As soon as he recognized Chris, the voice changed. “You fi nd something?”
“He was here,” Chris shouted. He told Martinez about the cell phone and the dead body. “They got a Caltran’s guy who saw it.”
“What was the offi cer’s name?”
“Ridley.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“I’m heading back to Los Angeles Street,” Chris said. “Those maps suggest that’s his target, right?”
“Chris, stay out of this—”
Chris broke the connection. He looked back the way he had come; no cops were paying him any attention. He hurried down Temple, passing the Ahmanson Theater and the Mark Taper Forum, pausing at Grand for the lights to change. An orange Metro Local bus roared through the intersection. He stopped behind a woman in a severe Donna Karan and a corporate hairdo—the look ruined by a slutty pair of Jimmy Choos. He ignored the temptation to tap her on the shoulder and tell her L.A. BYTES 295
that Sex and the City was so last decade. Instead he joined the surge of lawyers and clerks as they obeyed the walk sign and hurried to the other side.
At the opposite curb he nearly ran up the woman in the Choos, stumbling to a stop in front of an impatient cab driver who was trying to inch around the corner. Choos had her cell in hand, viciously stabbing the keypad, then holding the misbehaving device to her elegant, diamond-studded ear.
A cab driver found an opening and sped out into traffi c, eliciting a barrage of horns as he cut off several vehicles.
Chris sped around Choos, only to have the way blocked a few minutes later by a trio of corporate drones who had stopped to argue about something. He was about to shove his way through them when he caught the gist of their conversation.
“—well that’s weird, mine doesn’t work either.” Drone One tapped his Nokia angrily.
“What the hell—” Drone Two was staring down at his cell with a puzzled frown. “I was talking to Denny and it just cut out.
Damn, we were right in the middle of those contract changes we wanted.”
“Signal’s gone—”
Chris pulled out his own Blackberry and sure enough the search bar was blinking as it tried to pick up an active signal. He looked up, scanning the tops of the nearest buildings. He didn’t know where it was, but he knew damned well there was a cell tower nearby. There were probably several. There was no way anyone should be dropping signals here.
Someone slammed into him, nearly pushing him into Drone One. He sidestepped, managing to avoid hitting anyone. Drone One gave him a dirty look, but before Chris could snap back a response a car horn blared, followed almost immediately by a second one. Tires screeched and metal crunched and Chris jerked around to fi nd a heavy black SUV had plowed through the intersection into a Saturn, which folded nearly in half. A second vehicle following the SUV swerved to avoid both vehicles and 296 P.A. Brown
ended up in the oncoming lane in front of a city bus. The Metro bus slewed out of control and blew through a crowd waiting at the bus stop. Everyone scattered. Chris saw a woman, clipped by the lurching behemoth, go fl ying into the base of a light pole, where she lay unmoving. If anyone else noticed no one approached her.
More tires squealed as desperate drivers tried to avoid the cars ahead of them, only to add to the growing tangle of metal and fi berglass as they failed to stop in time or were bumped by the driver behind.
People yelled, drivers were pinned in crumpled shells, pedestrians broke up in panicked knots. More horns joined the cacophony.
Only then did Chris notice that in every direction the traffi c lights were green. Up and down Temple and Hill and Grand, they had all changed at once. A Caltran’s truck jumped the curb and slammed through the courtyard of the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration. A plume of black smoke boiled out of the battered engine cowl. The truck sheared off a water hydrant.
Water spewed skyward.
Panic fl uttered at the back of Chris’s mind. He stared blankly at the useless phone in his hand. Adnan! It wasn’t the Court House he was after—he had fooled them into thinking that was his target. He was launching a cyber attack instead. Break lights!
“Idiot,” Chris muttered. “You goddamned idiot. You should have known...”
He looked around in desperation. He had to warn someone.
How many services had Adnan disrupted? He watched in horror as a Tracker climbed onto the sidewalk, trying to maneuver around a crashed SUV, nearly running down a couple with a baby carriage. All around him voices rose in confusion and incipient panic.
Spotting a pay phone near the east side of the Kenneth Hahn building, he shoved through the mob, dodging a bicyclist weaving in and out of stalled cars and bewildered pedestrians. He snatched L.A. BYTES 297
the phone up and hit 911. His mouth went dry when he heard the rapid pulse of a busy signal. What was it? The Denial of Service attack Brad had spotted? Or had Adnan managed to get an actual worm into the telecommunications system? A DoS could be shut down pretty quickly, but a worm could take hours to clean up, days if it was really effi cient. Whatever it was, no one was going to be communicating with the outside in the immediate future.
Behind him he heard a car backfi re. At least he hoped it was a backfi re. If some Neanderthal had brought his gun along to the party, things were going to disintegrate fast.
Further away a man started yelling. Chris heard someone shouting “Terrorists” and “Madrassa” and his heart sank. It wouldn’t take too much of that kind of talk to incite a full-blown riot as people tried to fl ee an imagined terrorist attack.
Chris thought of the cops and paramedics he had left back at the on-ramp. Were they still there? How much time had passed since he left Ridley? Maybe thirty minutes? He knew cops, they wouldn’t be done by now.
The streets had grown more crowded as the government and legal offi ces emptied out. A black-frocked priest shepherded a group of weeping school children back to the Cathedral. Some life lesson: come out for a day and watch a city collapse into chaos. Chris felt an insane urge to giggle. He knew it was hysteria and pressed his mouth shut to contain the impulse. Too many people around him were succumbing, and it wouldn’t take much to blow them all over the edge.
He was glad for the hours of gym work he had put in over the years. It gave him the physical strength to push his way through the milling crowd back toward Fremont. When pushing didn’t work he cajoled and cursed, but always he moved west.
As he passed Figueroa the crowds grew sparse. Everyone was moving east, drawn by the crowds and the specter of an entertaining sideshow. Most of the traffi c that couldn’t get down Temple turned north onto Figueroa or tried to get on the 101.
Chris started to run.
298 P.A. Brown
A black and white careened around the corner of Fremont and slammed on its brakes as it hit a stream of barely moving traffi c. Ridley was riding shotgun and he leaped out, hands on his utility belt, as he surveyed the pandemonium in open-mouthed astonishment.
The look changed, his dark face hardened when he caught sight of Chris.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Chris skidded to a stop a couple of yards from the young cop.
Holding a stitch in his side, he took several deep breaths before answering.
“It’s a computer attack on the city’s infrastructure,” Chris gasped. “The phones are down, 911’s inaccessible. Can you radio out?”
“What do you mean, an attack?” Ridley looked up in alarm at the nearest tall structures.
“Not that kind of attack,” Chris said. “He’s using computers.”
“He?” Ridley snapped around, his brown eyes drilling into Chris. He stepped closer, his right hand closing over his baton.
“You know who’s doing this?”
“My husband was investigatin
g it. Like I told you earlier, if you want to know more, talk to Detective Martinez.”
An LAPD helicopter roared by overhead, the thunder of its passing drowning out Chris’s words. He repeated the last invective.
“Martinez again? Who is this Martinez and what’s he to you?”
“He’s my husband’s partner.”
Ridley stared into Chris’s eyes, then slowly he dropped his gaze and raked Chris up and down. Finally he raised his head.
“Your husband’s a cop?”
“Detective from the Northeast.” Chris jutted out his chin.
“Detective David Eric Laine.”
L.A. BYTES 299
“Laine?”
Chris could tell by the look on Ridley’s face that he had heard the name somewhere. As usual, David’s infamy preceded him.
Suddenly a wave of dizziness washed over Chris. He lurched forward and Ridley’s hard grip on his arm was the only thing that kept him from tipping over.
Chris thought he heard the clunk of a car door and a second set of hands guided him forward. Hands maneuvered him until he was in the back of the black and white. Shit, they were arresting him.
“What’s wrong with him?” a strangely musical voice asked.
“Crazy if you ask me,” Ridley muttered. His grip on Chris’s shoulder tightened. “Said it’s some kind of computer attack. And get this: his partner’s a cop. Name of Laine.”
“Laine?” the musical voice said. “Never heard of her.”
“Him,” Ridley corrected acidly. “Northeast. Partnered with some dick called Martinez. Don’t tell me, you never heard of him either.”
Chris heard a click and a musical voice said, “Code thirty, Delta Charlie Three, this is One Adam Sixteen, ten-twenty 101
on-ramp at Temple following up on a one eighty-seven report.
There appears to be a serious traffi c tie-up around Temple between Hope and Grand. Please advise, Delta Charlie Three.
Out.”
Chris strained to listen for a response. Another wave of dizziness rolled over him and he lowered his head between his knees to keep from passing out. Through the roaring in his ears he heard the harsh crackle of a broken voice come back over the two-way.
All he caught was “Civic Center traffi c grid” and “widespread telecommunications breakdown...” Then he heard Lewis mutter,
“Shit.”
“What?” Ridley snapped.
300 P.A. Brown
“All hell’s breaking loose out there. Dispatch is being inundated with 911 calls. A dozen 211s, armed assaults, drive-bys, fi res, explosions... Jesus. What the hell is going on?”
“Where?” Ridley asked. “Central?”
“Everywhere. Central, Hollenbeck, Hollywood, Northeast...
the boards are lit up everywhere. Traffi c lights are out all the way over to Alameda and down to 5th. Total traffi c tie-up. Even with the birds up no one can count how many accidents there are.”
Lewis’s voice was tinged with growing unease. “Fire, ambulance, they’re all tied up...”
Horror seeped through Chris’s numbness. He looked up and met Ridley’s gaze. “You’re being swatted.”
“What?”
“He’s swatting you. Triggering an attack on all 911 lines, overloading them. Tying up your emergency services while he does whatever he has planned.”
“He was right,” Ridley whispered. “The fucking hump was right.”
Two fi sts wrapped around the thin material of Chris’s T-shirt and hauled him out of the back of the cruiser, shoving him against the open door. His head spun and shards of light shot through his vision. Ridley’s sour breath was hot on his face.
“You better start telling us what’s going on before I bust your ass.”
Chris didn’t try to resist. He told them what he knew about Adnan. After a while they let him sit back down in the rear of the squad car. He sagged in the seat and tipped his head back against the rigid seat rest. His voice grew hoarse with the recitation.
“Let me get this straight,” Ridley said. “You think this guy is driving around down here with a van full of explosives and a hostage cop?”
“Yes.” What could he say, they either believed him or not.
“Except he’s probably not driving anymore. He would have parked before he launched his attack.”
L.A. BYTES 301
“I’ve got a call in to this Detective Martinez. You better hope he corroborates your story.”
It was obvious Ridley’s heart wasn’t in the threat. Chris glanced at him. His face was gray. His partner was on his two-way. When he got off he looked almost as sick as Ridley.
“We’re supposed to take up position at the nearest intersection and start working crowd control,” Lewis said. “They’re sending more units down as they become available. If they become available,” he said darkly.
“What about this scrote?” Ridley asked.
“Detective Martinez wants us to bring him along. He’ll meet up with us at the secure site. Homeland Security has set up a command post and they want him there.”
The only street not clogged with traffi c yet was Figueroa.
They turned on their lights and sirens and edged down the street and turned left onto 6th Street. The traffi c lights were still active there.
“Now you can tell me one thing,” Chris said.
“And what would that be?” Ridley asked.
“The van those Caltran’s guys saw. Did they see inside it?”
“One guy did.” Ridley shrugged. “Why?”
Eagerly Chris leaned forward. “How many people did he see?”
“How many—two, he said he saw two males.”
“Oh God.” Chris sagged back against the seat and closed his eyes. “David.”
“You think that was the missing cop?”
“It was him. It had to be. What did the van look like?
Please—”
At fi rst he thought Ridley was going to refuse to tell him any more, then he shrugged again. “Blue, with some kind of fl ower design on the side panels. We’ve got a BOLO out on it.”
302 P.A. Brown
Lewis pulled the black and white to a stop south of 6th on Grand. The twelve story limestone and terra cotta Art Deco offi ce building stood out among the sleeker towers around it.
Ridley and Lewis led him through the ballroom-sized lobby with its 40-foot high pressed tin ceiling and gaudy crystal chandeliers. Their shoes echoed on the marble fl oor. A suit met them at the front desk where Chris was signed in and handed a temporary pass.
The two beat cops conferred with the suit; Chris fi gured him for a federal agent. Martinez was noticeable by his absence.
Ridley gestured him over toward the elevators, dark oak paneled and from another era altogether. He approached reluctantly. The fed stood ramrod straight, a grim look of disapproval on his pale, narrow face. Washed out blue eyes slid over Chris and clearly found him wanting.
“We’ve been instructed to leave you with Special Agent Booker,” Ridley said. “Detective Martinez should be along shortly.”
Ridley and Lewis hurried out, as though afraid they would be called back if they lingered. Chris watched them go with longing. Ridley was a jerk, but at least he was a jerk Chris could understand.
He breathed an audible sigh of relief when Martinez lumbered into the lobby fi ve minutes later.
Martinez nodded at Chris then turned his attention to the other man. He fl ashed his ID. “You Booker?”
“Right.” Booker showed his blue government ID. “We’ve got a command post set up on the fi fth fl oor.” He looked at Chris again. “This the braniac who’s going to fi x everything?”
Chris passed over his own ID, which Booker studied closely.
“Let’s get upstairs,” Martinez said. “I hope your crew has things in place.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Wednesday, 2:05 pm, Grand Avenue, Los Angeles They rode the elevator in silence, which suited Chris just fi n
e.
All he wanted to do was concentrate on fi nding David.
On the fi fth fl oor Booker led them to a locked offi ce. He opened the door with a passkey. Half a dozen men who looked like Booker clones glanced up at their entrance.
Chris stared at the bank of computers set up on two steel tables laid end to end. Cables ran everywhere. The screens were full of images. Several were maps of the Civic Center, including what looked like blueprints of the city’s pipes and sewer conduits.
Chris sat down at the nearest machine and began running a string of commands on it. He was impressed. On such short notice they’d come up with some pretty decent equipment. Linux, no less. That would help.
“Can you get me into the telecommunications grid?” he asked the nearest agent who looked like he knew his way around a computer.
The fuzzy cheeked kid nodded. “What level?”
“Just get me root access. I’ll fi nd what I need.” Being logged in as root gave him absolute power over every aspect of the system. Only root could launch commands that could access the system kernel. Adnan would have had to gain the same access to run his programs.
A couple of phone calls and Chris was logged in as a super-user on the grid that controlled the local cell towers.
He ran through another series of commands, scanning fi les as they came up then grepped through to the next level. He glanced at the young agent. He had a lopsided name tag that said “Troy Schneider.”
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“Keep your eyes open, Troy. Let me know if you see anything odd.”
“Yes, sir,” Troy said.
“I’m guessing our cracker replaced a common program with something that would do what he wanted. It’ll look like it’s supposed to be there, but the time stamp or a bogus signature will give it away. If he tried to tamper with it, I’ll fi nd some sign of his activity.” Chris stroked the keyboard, calling up yet more lists of fi les. “Once I fi gure out which one he’s using I can see what it’s actually doing.”