Laynie Portland, Retired Spy

by Vikki Kestell

  The trash can liners around her workspace were filled with crumpled wrappers and spattered with chewed wads of the grayish-black licorice-flavored gum—a brand she special ordered by the case from a friend who worked for Pfizer, the makers of Black Jack. Anyone wishing a special favor from Vyper entered her area bearing an unopened box of the blue five-stick packs—always Black Jack, never a cheap knockoff.

  Vyper had earned her perks. Since the day Thérèse Benoit had come to work for them two years before, the RCMP had suffered not a single breach of their computer systems. She had not only defeated every attempt to hack their system and data, but she had also successfully tracked fifteen bona fide intrusion attempts back to their sources, crashed the hackers’ systems, and directed RCMP officers to their lairs.

  Because of her success, when she demanded hardware and software upgrades, she got them, and then employed those very upgrades and many of her work hours—she loved to multitask—to reach out into the world, stretching her fingers across continents and oceans, sneaking into protected systems, taking what she wanted, leaving nary a trace.

  Vyper was an inquisitive woman, curious about the “side jobs” she took, that is, non-RCMP assignments she accepted under contract. She often probed deeper than a client requested, searching out their hidden motives and agendas. Yes, she did work for the Russians. They were clients long before she joined the RCMP. Why? Because they paid well and because she mined their systems, too. However, they were far from her only extracurricular clients or her only source of supplemental income. She took work from legitimate financial entities needing improved security—but also from various criminal organizations and from those seeking the kind of financial or reputational vengeance Vyper could inflict upon their enemies.

  In truth, Vyper was an equal-opportunity consultant and thief, fattening her bank accounts by stealing from Patron 1 and selling to Patron 2. She was also something of a social engineer, having on occasion dipped her oar into the affairs of business or state when it suited her purposes . . . or just because it made her laugh to see “movers and shakers” chasing their tails.

  It was a satisfying life—and would remain so as long as she kept her patrons in the dark.

  After she hung up on her newest client, she attacked the cyber infrastructure of Dave’s Blue Label Buys. Their firewall was so mediocre, she felt as much compunction for tunneling inside as she would have for swatting a gnat. She found the sale of a Dell laptop to Elaine Granger in less than five minutes.

  “Really,” she whispered to Dave’s corporate owners, “I could rob you blind, if I were so inclined,” but Dave’s Blue Label Buys was chicken feed compared to her loftier endeavors.

  She had hacked into Dave’s Blue Label Buys to obtain the specific, detailed build of the Granger woman’s laptop. The build would tell her how to customize her code to seek that specific build when it connected to the Internet. The laptop’s build would also tell her how to customize the Trojan horse she would plant on the machine once she’d found it.

  Finding the laptop online was her first big challenge. Once she found it and installed her Trojan horse on the laptop, the Trojan horse would, thereafter, alert her whenever the device connected to the Internet. In other words, once Vyper planted her program in the woman’s laptop, she would be able to follow the woman from IP address to IP address.

  First things first. Find the laptop online. To accomplish that initial challenge, Vyper would follow the woman’s bread crumb trail, the bread crumbs being Elaine Granger’s motor home, mobile phone, and credit card.

  While Vyper folded a fresh stick of Black Jack into her mouth, she copied boilerplate code from the online stash where she kept her “tools” and pasted it to a new file. She modified the code to create a tracking program and an app unique to Elaine Granger.

  While the program sent its foraging queries into the ether, she pulled an unused laptop from the RCMP inventory, modified the inventory file to designate the laptop as “motherboard failure. Returned to mfr for replacement,” and set to work customizing it for Dimitri’s use.

  LESS THAN AN HOUR LATER, her program pinged her. She switched to the window where it was running and studied the result, a single phone call to another mobile number at 10:37 a.m. Vyper pulled up a map and triangulated the cell towers closest to the call.

  On the outskirts of Gatineau, west of Ottawa but north of 148.

  She ran the app she’d created. It returned a list of motor home parks and campgrounds within the triangle formed by the three strongest cell tower pings. Smack in the middle of the triangle was Wind-in-the-Trees Campground.

  “There you are,” she muttered with glee. “Let’s see if you’re staying on another night.”

  She called the campground. A man answered.

  “Good afternoon,” Vyper said in her most official voice. “This is Anya Probst of the RCMP. I wish to inquire if a motor home bearing the Ontario plate Ontario Alpha Mike Lima Lima Five Zero Eight is presently registered in your campground or has checked out this morning.”

  The man looked and came back. “That plate checked out this morning.”

  “Did the party pay for an electric or nonelectric camp spot?”

  “Electric.”

  “Thank you for your time. Oh. One more thing? Does your campground have Internet access?”

  “We sure do.”

  Vyper hung up, put her fingers together and bowed her forehead onto them, thinking over what she’d learned. So, you’ve checked out, but you’ve shown a propensity for campgrounds with electric and broadband service.

  Another bread crumb.

  While Canada boasted many campgrounds, the nation had perhaps only twenty-five commercial Internet service providers—and she had previously built a back door into every one of them. She created a program and sent it out to return a list of broadband customer accounts whose business name included one or more of the keywords: “camp,” “camping,” “campground,” “RV,” “motor home,” “KOA,” “travel,” “cabins,” “recreational,” or “park.” She would then worm her way into those accounts and monitor them, waiting for Elaine Granger to log in.

  She ended her day by setting up a Yahoo email account for Dimitri on the laptop. She left a “READ ME” text file on the laptop’s desktop with instructions for Dimitri to access his email account.

  I think you are probably smart enough to know I will be reading all of your emails, Dmitri.

  What he wouldn’t know was that she had also installed her specialized Trojan horse on his laptop. Whenever he connected to the Internet, she would know where he was. Soon enough, she would drill down into his phone, credit card, and computer records to uncover his actual identity—and with it, all the fun-filled and lucrative opportunities his identity and connections would produce for her.

  She packed the laptop and its case into a box and called a courier service to deliver the box to Dimitri’s hotel.

  LAYNIE RODE DAISY HARD, putting distance between herself and Wind-in-the-Trees. She was more confident of her driving now, less tentative when changing lanes and maneuvering through traffic. When she reached North Bay, she followed Shaw’s proposed route, turning north onto 11 to cross the breadth of Ontario and eventually head toward Winnipeg—but not actually into Winnipeg. That was where her journey would diverge from Shaw and Bessie’s.

  As she traveled down the highway, her mind was frequently preoccupied with how to hide from Zakhar. She knew how tenacious, how dogged the man was. Moreover, she feared what he might do to her out of his own depraved lusts should he catch up to her. Her dread of him drove her to push ahead harder, faster. Her dread of Zakhar also turned her mind onto Bessie’s words regarding repentance.

  “I’m not saying God is a giant vending machine, that you simply ask him for what you want, and he gives it to you. God isn’t a machine, and his blessings belong to those who belong to him.

  “We’re praying that you will come to a point of repentance in your life. No one can be sav
ed without repentance, Elaine. Repentance is where we—every one of us—acknowledge and confess our sinful, needy state before God and ask for forgiveness through the blood of Jesus. A place where we surrender fully to the Lordship of Christ, where he becomes our king, and we become his children—where we become the family of God.”

  Bessie’s admonitions tore at Laynie’s heart.

  “Acknowledge my sinful, needy state? I fully acknowledge that I’ve lived the life of a whore. A slut,” she whispered aloud, “not to mention professional liar and thief. There’s no coming back from that. Besides . . . it’s what I was destined for. I do the dirty, sinful work others won’t. God certainly doesn’t want someone like me in his family.”

  She uttered a rueful laugh. “I’d be a bad example to the other kids.”

  It was past mid-September, and the nights this far north were already cold. She ran into sporadic showers before long, but slogged along, grateful that she could pull off anywhere and wait out the storm if need be.

  When the day was fully dark, she left the highway and drove through a little town. She found their local bar before long. As she had anticipated, the bar’s dirt lot, pocked with rain-and-mud-slimed potholes, was full—but it was also unsecured and unguarded. She parked Daisy up the block, then walked back to the bar with a few tools and the stolen plate tucked into her jacket.

  She lifted a plate from a mud-spattered pickup truck and replaced it with the stolen plate. For good measure, she grabbed a handful of fresh mud and smeared it on the stolen plate. When she finished, it looked like it belonged.

  Laynie returned to the highway, but she estimated she had another thirteen hours before she crossed into Manitoba. As the night grew late, she needed sleep. She pushed herself for another hour before she grew too groggy to drive any further. She chose yet another little berg off the highway and crawled through its main street, looking a spot to hide Daisy for the night. When she came upon the town’s lone grocery store, she felt she’d found that place.

  Behind the store, shielded from public view, was an alley leading to a loading dock. Laynie steered Daisy past the raised dock and parked against the building. Making certain Daisy’s doors were locked, Laynie unfolded the windshield screen and tucked it between the dash and the sun visors to close herself in. Then she heated a can of soup on the stove, shoveled it down, and tumbled into bed. Already feeling comfortable and fairly secure within Daisy’s accommodations, she fell straight off to sleep.

  SHE WOKE, COLD AND shivering, to the sounds of heavy beating on Daisy’s door and someone shouting, “Hey! You inside the motor home!”

  Pulling the HK from under her pillow, Laynie stumbled to the door and spoke through it.

  “I’m awake. What do you want?”

  “What do I want? I want you to get your *bleeping* rig out of my loading area, lady. This is not a public campground and you’re blocking our supplier’s *bleeping* truck!”

  “Sorry. Yes, I’ll move. Right away.”

  She shivered again as she started the engine. When she pulled the windshield screen down, a soft, frosty film covered Daisy’s windshield.

  “Huh. Guess it got cold last night.”

  She ran the wipers to clear the windshield and drove out of the alley behind the grocery store, looking for somewhere to get coffee. Just before she reached the on-ramp to the highway, she spotted a gas station. After filling her tank and purchasing two cups of coffee to go, she rejoined the highway traffic headed west.

  She drove on, stopping for a late breakfast and skipping lunch, until she reached the far suburbs of northern Winnipeg. Before it grew dark, she found a busy diner and ordered her dinner to go. Then she hunted down another alley behind a strip mall and bedded down for the night.

  SHE ROSE EARLY THE following morning, gassed up, got her coffee, and pointed Daisy north. This part of Canada was generally low in elevation, so runoff from higher elevations had created hundreds of lakes. All that water meant many places to camp. This late in the season, when the weather was too cold for general camping, people were gearing up for the coming freeze and a favorite pastime, ice fishing. Until a deep freeze hit, she might have the pick of locations to hide out.

  Laynie’s plan was to drive north through lake country and seek out a remote, sheltered location to hole up for a few weeks. If she picked the right spot, she might be able to stay “off the grid” entirely.

  LAYNIE READ A SIGN that indicated the lakeshore and boat ramp were not far ahead. Hopefully, she’d find a campground, too. She’d already passed through the little village with its combo bait shop and grocery store touting the upcoming ice fishing season. When she spotted the boat ramp, but no accompanying campground appeared, she decided to turn around. She had just passed a muddy road, a driveway onto private property. She backed up into the drive, then cut her wheels to turn in the direction from which she’d come. Across the road from her was another private drive—and that’s when she spotted a house up the graveled drive and through the trees . . . and something that snagged her interest.

  Instead of heading back the way she’d come, Laynie pointed Daisy across the road and up the short, graveled drive into a wide turnabout in front of the house and its detached double garage.

  Laynie climbed down from Daisy’s driver’s seat and looked around, liking what she saw, thinking she may have found the perfect place to disappear for a while.

  A man, perhaps in his late forties, thin, average height, left the open garage and approached her. Wiping grease-covered hands on an equally grease-stained towel, he coughed then asked, “Can I help you? Are you lost?”

  Laynie smiled in her artful, transparent manner. “No, not lost. Actually, I’m looking for a quiet place to camp so I can write in peace.”

  “You’re a writer, then, eh?”

  Laynie nodded. “I hope you don’t mind me barging in. I saw your place from the road and came on up. You see, I have a deadline looming ahead of me, and I need a few weeks to focus on it.”

  More lies. See, Bessie? This is who I am.

  The man kept wiping his hands, as though the motion helped him think. “Well, it’s goin’ on October now. The nights are pretty chilly, and we can get snow early here. I suppose you might rent a cabin in the village.”

  Laynie pointed with her chin. “Actually, that pole barn is what caught my eye. Will you be storing anything else in it over the winter?”

  The structure she indicated was nothing more than a long, peaked, metal roof over a bed of gravel, designed to keep rain and snow off stacked, baled hay. At present, the graveled bed under its roof was void except for a rusted tractor and some farm implements at the far end, piled against the barn’s single wall.

  He shook his head, coughed again. “Nope. This was my folk’s place. They grew hay for their stock, but I sold off the stock when they passed. Don’t store hay any longer.”

  “Well, I was wondering . . . could I back in under your roof and camp here for a couple weeks? Maybe run a cord from your house for electricity?”

  He snorted. “Do you know how much electricity it would take to heat that flimsy thing you’re living in, eh?”

  Laynie met his gaze and worked her persuasive wiles on him. “You know, if I were staying in a nice hotel with all the amenities—and all the distractions—I’d likely be paying a hundred dollars a night or more.”

  The rag in his hands slowed. Laynie noted a few bruises under the grime.

  Well, I suppose working with your hands on a car engine would result in some bangs and bruises.

  The man said, “Are you saying you’d be willing to pay me a hundred dollars a night to park under my hay barn and use my electricity?”

  “That’s what I’m saying. I can pay for the first five nights in cash. After that, I would need a means to pay you by credit card.”

  He frowned and shook his head more vigorously. “Do I look like a merchant with a credit card reader?”

  “Well, what about that bait shop down the road? You k
now the owners? What if I ran my credit card there and they paid you? I would add a bit to the hundred a night to cover the merchant’s card service fee and to give the owner an incentive for agreeing to the arrangement. Plus, I’d be buying groceries from them.”

  Laynie wanted to put off using her card as long as possible, but she didn’t have enough cash to go on indefinitely.

  His expression turned speculative. “Bart’s a friend. He might go for that . . . if you make it worth his while. It’s pretty slow around here this time of year until the lake freezes over. And just so you know? We don’t have anything fancy up here like the Internet or mobile phone service.”

  “Fine by me. What do you say? Shall we ask Bart? I can stock up on food while we’re there.”

  “A hundred a night for five nights?”

  She grinned, knowing she’d sealed the deal. “Yup. We can start with that. After five days and nights, I’ll know if I can get my work done here. My name’s Elaine, by the way.”

  “Roger. You can call me Rog, eh? Everybody does.”

  “Thanks, Rog. Shall we visit Bart and ask him if he’s willing?” Laynie nodded at his dirty hands. “You need a ride?”

  “Oh, this grease? From my backup jenny—generator. My Jeep’s fine.”

  Laynie turned Daisy in a wide circle, the gravel crunching under the tires, and waited for Rog to drive his Jeep out of the garage. She followed him back to the village.

  The owners of the bait shop and little grocery store, Bart and his wife, Liz, agreed to the arrangement—with a user’s fee tacked on.

  “Cost of doing business.” He was apologetic, but firm.

  “That’s understandable,” Laynie answered. “I’m okay with your terms.”