Signalz

by F. Paul Wilson

“Okay. The worst he’d do was arrange for free long distance, which was a big thing before cellular took over. His problem came when he graduated to banks.”

  “Uh-oh,” Hari said. “Ran afoul of Treasury’s FinCEN unit?”

  “Exactly. His hack arranged for the banks’ computers to round off a fraction of a cent on each international transaction and transfer it to his Swiss account. He was collecting in the high six figures a year until someone got wise. Did two years inside but came out with a twenty-five-year ban on going online.”

  “Plus he was saddled with the ‘felon’ label.”

  “Right. No one wanted a felon near their computers, and computers were all he knew.”

  “Let me guess: He kept on hacking via the dark web.”

  “What choice did he have? Anyway, somewhere around the first of the year, NRO sought him out and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

  Hari held up a hand. “NRA I know. But NRO?”

  “National Reconnaissance Office—one of the Big Five intelligence agencies. They run all the satellites and, as a result, their computers are under constant attack by the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, Iranians, you name it. They were putting together teams of white hats and black hats to shore up their firewalls. Russ loved the work. And not only was he getting a steady check, but they promised to deep six his felony record.”

  “They can do that?”

  Now Donny gave her an are-you-kidding? look. “The federal agencies have been totally off the hook for years. You wouldn’t believe what I hear in the dark-web chat rooms. It’s the wild west out there. But the thing is, the felony was never deep-sixed because Russ was suddenly dead. Coincidentally, another hacker from my chat room, who dropped the news that he was doing something similar but wouldn’t say who for, has stopped saying anything. We haven’t heard from him since early February, which was when Russ drowned.”

  “And you think he and Russ suffered a similar fate?”

  “Let me lay out what I’ve put together: Russ told me their job was to take the most virulent worms and trojans the Russians and Chinese had used against the NRO’s computers and make them even worse. Then they were to develop defenses against them. Once they’d done that, they were to find ways to breach those defenses. And then build a firewall to block that attack. Russ said NRO referred to their group only as ‘the Operation.”

  “Banal as can be.”

  “Russ called me a few hours before his supposedly accidental death, all psyched because the Project was closing down and he was going to meet with some NRO people that night about making his felony go away. Coincidentally, I found regular ‘grants’ in the Septimus Foundation’s books to ‘the Operation.’ I don’t know when they started—I only went back to the first of the year—but they stopped right around the time Russ drowned.”

  Donny was building a very thin circumstantial case. Normally Hari would delight in shooting something like this down in flames, but the pain in his eyes stopped her. He was hurting for his brother.

  But he seemed to have left out one major point that she couldn’t let pass.

  “Motive?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Not to me.”

  “Okay. Follow my logic: Shorting the Internet stocks shows that Septimus knew the crash was coming; most likely they were intimately involved in making it happen since in all Art’s research he couldn’t find anyone else making similar bets. In order to wreck the Net, they posed as the NRO and hired a bunch of hackers from the dark web to perfect intrusion software. When the work was done, they had to eliminate them because they’d recognize their own work in the worms and trojans that helped bring down the Net.”

  It made a queer sort of sense, but…

  “Again: motive? You’ve given a motive for killing your brother, but not for bringing down the Net. I can’t buy that they’d go all through that just to clean up on the crash.”

  “We may never know the real reason, but the fact remains that they did clean up. And instead of reinvesting that money, they’re cashing out. So Art’s big question remains: What else do they know?”

  Hari tapped her fingers on the counter top as she stared at the two dark monitors.

  Finally, she said, “We’ve got work to do.”

  “Damn right. How do we divide it up?”

  “I’ve got an idea…”

  2

  Hari worked out a system whereby she would ferret out the dates of large expenditures and Donny would match them with emails—both the deleted and undeleted kind—in and around the same date.

  The deleted emails turned out to be the key. The foundation obviously didn’t want to leave a record of its cash investments, so it used deposits to and from intermediary banks to hide the transactions. But the deleted emails gave it all away when they mentioned the purchase target by name.

  “So they bought Sirocco Trucking in Albany,” Hari said. “That was the last thing I would have expected.”

  “Yeah.” Donny swiveled his chair back and forth. “Why a trucking company of all things?”

  “Obviously they’re planning on shipping something—lots of something.”

  “But what?”

  “The ‘what’ will probably answer Art’s question. Keep looking.”

  Hours later they’d determined only that the foundation had bought a distributor, but a distributor of what remained a mystery. Without a name, or address they remained in the dark.

  “At least we know the trucking company,” Hari said finally. Her eyes burned from staring at the screen. “I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that whatever they’re shipping, its source will be their distributor.”

  Donny gave her a frustrated look. “Big help.”

  “After all this research, we’re left with two nagging questions: What are they shipping and to where are they shipping it? I can think of only one way to find out.”

  “What? We’ve gone through all the emails and spreadsheets. What’s left?”

  Hari rose and gave a single clap. “Road trip!”

  “What? To Albany? That’s, like, a hundred-fifty miles.”

  “It’s an hour flight, non-stop. I’ve done it countless times—United’s nine-thirty out of Newark. You’ve got the credit card. Get us seats for tomorrow morning. We’ll have Sirocco Trucking under surveillance by noon.”

  MONDAY—MAY 15

  ERNST

  Belgiovene stepped into Ernst Drexler’s office at precisely 9 a.m. Ernst appreciated punctuality.

  “You have work for me?” he said in a surprisingly deep voice for such a slim man.

  He stood five-ten, wafer thin, with a small, blue-black mole in the center of his chin. No one seemed to know or remember his first name, or if he had one. Or if Belgiovene was even his real name. He was simply “Belgiovene,” though he insisted on everyone pronouncing the terminal vowel.

  “It would seem so,” Ernst said. “Someone is threatening to do great damage to the Order. We would like to prevent that.”

  No need for more specificity than that. Belgiovene would know exactly how Ernst meant for him to prevent that damage. His skill was in making murder look like an accident or suicide.

  His smile was as thin as the rest of him. “Only one?”

  His last assignment had involved eliminating a group of hackers the Order had assembled to provide unwitting help with the assault on the Internet.

  “Only one.” Ernst slid a slip of paper across the desk. “He’s a writer and here’s his address.”

  The smile broadened as he read it. “Alphabet City. Practically a neighbor.”

  “Your preventative measures should involve confiscation of whatever computers he might possess—for practical reasons, since they hold the damaging materials, but also to make robbery appear the motive.”

  Belgiovene gave a little bow. “Consider it done. Any timetable?”

  “ASAP. Before he can publish his drek.”

  “I’m get right on it.”


  The door had barely closed behind Belgiovene when Slootjes entered.

  “I saw Belgiovene,” the loremaster said. “Is he…?”

  “He’s on his way.”

  Slootjes sighed with relief. “Good. I’ve been watching Winslow’s website and he’s made no announcement.”

  “Perhaps it was all bluster,” Ernst said. “I hope I didn’t send Belgiovene out for nothing.”

  Not that it really mattered. Belgiovene enjoyed the work. As a member of the Septimus order’s security and enforcement wing, he followed orders. But Ernst was aware that he freelanced on the side.

  Slootjes said, “Winslow sounded genuinely angry when he stormed out last night. I wouldn’t put self-publishing past him. He—”

  A knock on the door and then the acolyte acting as the Lodge’s receptionist stuck his head inside.

  “Sorry to interrupt, sir, but there’s a woman out here insists on seeing you.”

  Well, she obviously wasn’t a member—Septimus didn’t accept females—and Ernst had a busy morning ahead of him.

  “Put her off.”

  “I’ve already tried that but she won’t go.”

  “Then have her bodily removed.”

  “She says she has a memoir written by her grandfather in which the Order in general, and your grandfather in particular, play a very large part.” He gave a shy smile. “That’s pretty much a quote.”

  Ernst froze. “Did she now?” He glanced at Slootjes who gave a quick nod. “Very well, send her in.” When the acolyte had disappeared, Ernst turned to the loremaster and saw the same question in his eyes. “Yet another manuscript?”

  “Let’s hope it’s not as damaging as last night’s.”

  “It had better not be.” He jabbed a finger at Slootjes. “You stay right where you are. This might concern you as well.”

  “A memoir about your grandfather, the famous and mysterious Rudolph Drexler?” The loremaster smiled. “Oh, you couldn’t get me out of here with a pry bar.”

  The acolyte admitted a rather plump woman who looked to be about sixty or so. Her gray hair was wound up in a bun at the back of her head. She wore a simple dress with long sleeves. She might have been Amish except for that fact that she was bareheaded. She had a large shoulder bag from which a fat manila envelope protruded.

  “Grace Novak,” she said, striding in and extending her hand. “You must be Mister Drexler. I was told you wear a white suit year-round.”

  “Oh, and who told you that?”

  “I made enquiries about you. That’s how I traced you here.”

  Ernst made a quick introduction of Slootjes, then…

  “What is this about a memoir, Mrs. Novak?”

  “You can call me Grace. I’ll make this quick. My mother died recently—”

  “My condolences,” Slootjes said. Ernst didn’t bother.

  “She was the only daughter of a man named Charles Atkinson who left this memoir of his years working with Nikola Tesla in the early nineteen hundreds. She in turn left it to me.”

  She placed the envelope on Ernst’s desk. As she rattled on, Slootjes picked it up and removed a thick sheaf of papers from within.

  “In it he talks about Tesla’s wireless experiments with his tower at Wardenclyffe out on Long Island and how your Septimus order funded him after J.P. Morgan backed out. He also says the funding was overseen by a Septimus member named Rudolph Drexler who, I gather, was your grandfather.”

  “You gather correctly, Mrs. Novak. But what—?”

  “This is heavily redacted in certain sections,” said Slootjes who’d been flipping through the pages as the woman was speaking.

  “Yes. My mother took a black marker to areas she said were ‘too personal.’”

  Too personal…interesting.

  Ernst’s grandfather had disappeared in 1906 and was never seen again. The archives contained photos of Rudolph Drexler taken just across the hall from Ernst’s office, posing with the remains of the chew wasps he had killed at Wardenclyffe in the spring of 1904. A dashing figure, grinning as he casually cradled the broomhandle Mauser he’d used to shoot them out of the air. The chew wasps eventually had rotted to dust, but the photos remained. Ernst was sure Slootjes could locate them on a moment’s notice.

  Two years later his grandfather vanished without a trace. His car and his silver-headed cane—the very same cane Ernst carried every day—had been found parked in the alley behind this building. His fate had long been one of the Order’s great ongoing mysteries.

  “What do you want for this?” Slootjes said.

  She blinked in surprise. “Want for what? The memoir? I’m not—”

  “Well, you came here to sell it, didn’t you?”

  She looked offended. “Not at all. I just thought Mister Drexler would want to learn a piece of his family history that he could not possibly obtain from any other source.” She smiled. “My grandfather talking about your grandfather…it seems only right that you should have a copy, don’t you think?”

  The loremaster’s expression and posture radiated skepticism. “You’re giving it to us?”

  “Of course. As I said, it’s a copy. The original’s back in Schaumburg. I’m here sightseeing with my husband and thought I’d use the opportunity to drop it off.”

  Ernst pointed to the manuscript. “Does it reveal my grandfather’s fate?”

  Her expression became uncertain. “I’m not…I’m not sure.”

  “Oh? I’d assumed you’ve read it.”

  “I have, but I’m not sure I believe it.”

  An uneasy feeling began seeping through Ernst. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s rather fantastic. But before you read it, I want you to understand something very important: My grandfather was an electrical engineer—a logical man, a practical man, and an honorable one. He was brutally honest about himself in that memoir—the redacted parts—so I cannot conceive of him fabricating other parts. If he wrote it, then he believed it to be the truth.”

  “Then what is the problem?” Ernst said.

  “As I said, I’m sure he believed what he wrote, but some of it is simply not believable to me…not believable in a sense that I don’t see how it can be true. But if it is true…” Her expression turned bleak. “Then this world is not what we think it is.”

  No one spoke for a few heartbeats until Slootjes said, “This is very generous of you, Grace. We will study it and store it safely in our archives.”

  Ernst found his voice. “What…what happened to my grandfather?”

  “It’s not clear, exactly,” she said, shaking her head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, so I think it’s best you read it yourself. Good day, gentlemen.”

  Without another word or a backward glance, she turned and scooted from the office.

  After a long pause, Slootjes said, “Do you want me to review it first?”

  Ernst could tell that the loremaster wanted nothing more in the world than just that. And Ernst had to admit that he wanted to grab the manuscript himself, shove Slootjes out the door, and pore over it. But his schedule was packed—so much going on all over the region—and he knew he wouldn’t be able to bestow the kind of attention it deserved.

  “Yes. Do that. And while you’re at it, do some vetting of whatever facts you find. See if it’s worth my time or just the fever dream of some demented old Kauz.”

  “Yes-yes!” Slootjes said as he hurried out. “Absolutely!”

  Alone finally, Ernst stepped to the window and stared out at the busy street, full of people going about their everyday lives, completely unaware that the Change was imminent. And yet now, on the verge of the apocalypse, was he about to learn his grandfather’s fate? Were they somehow linked?

  Mrs. Novak’s words echoed through his brain: You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, so I think it’s best you read it yourself…

  Her ominous tone and bleak expression as she’d spoken those words had left Ernst with an unsettled feeling.

 
BARBARA

  “Whoa!” Bess said when she saw what Ellie had been building. “Looks like we’ve got a budding Gaudi here.”

  I have to confess I didn’t know what she was talking about. I knew she’d been taking artsy courses so I assumed he was a sculptor of weirdly shaped objects, because Ellie’s construction was very weird. Disturbingly so.

  I’d called Bess last night and told her not to go to the hospital because Ellie was already gone. So she’d arrived at the apartment where we watched Ellie begin her “shelter.” She’d barely spoken while she worked at attaching her found objects to the wall, so Bess finally returned to her dorm.

  Normally I wouldn’t let one of my daughters get away with that sort of rude behavior, but Ellie was not herself. Nor was I, not really. She’d been through a horrible ordeal and I wasn’t about to start an argument. For the time being she had carte blanche.

  On the way home from the hospital we’d made a couple of stops to pick up the hammer, nails, screws, drill, glue, soldering iron, and protractor she claimed she needed. I’d been too happy to see her up and about to argue or question, I just paid for it all.

  As soon as we reached the apartment she went to work, attaching her junk to the wall. I could see the wall was going to need a lot of repairs to bring it back to its original state but, again, I didn’t argue or protest. Anyway, she seemed so driven, I didn’t think I’d have any influence.

  When she ran out of junk, she’d go out searching for more. I’d trail along because I was afraid of letting her out alone at night. Midtown was pretty safe, but she was a distracted teenage girl, not exactly tuned in to her surroundings. My presence worked out to her advantage though, because she used me as a pack mule.

  Wood, metal, plastic straws, Styrofoam, flattened aluminum cans, paper towel tubes, doweling, wire coat hangers, pens, pencils, the broken neck of an old guitar, anything that caught her eye. Then back to the apartment again to affix it to her construction.

  We did this all night, back and forth, in and out. At times she had me help her—hold something just so while she glued or screwed or soldered it in place. I’d started off thinking this was just some hodgepodge conglomeration of junk—one of those “street art” constructions that found their way into museums now and then.