Andy was sitting calmly with his laptop on his lap, on the desk he’d arranged pencils in such a way as to stop the tea spreading, a corral of Hbs.
‘Kerpluck!.’ He didn’t seem to hear me, he was absorbed.
‘Bingo,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘I’ve cracked it, I’ve found an old login – might be out of date – but it may be enough to blag me in,’ he looked up at me as I tried to suck up the tea. It looked like it wasn’t as serious as I had feared. ‘I reckon ten minutes and then we’re in.’ He held my gaze, knowing that he had me over a barrel. I dropped the, now sopping, toilet paper onto the tea tray.
‘This doesn’t leave this room,’ I said and sat down.
‘Okay.’
‘He’s got an admin password to the bank’s computer system.’ Andy sucked his bottom lip.
‘Well, it’s a good start, if you have the admin login that’s like the skeleton key, a key to the whole system.’
‘He did mention something about keys and locks in the email, I didn’t really understand it. Oh, and backdoors.’
‘Where?’ he said.
‘On some emails that I found in here.’
‘Show me,’ I didn’t move, ‘I’ll understand them more that you will.’
‘Okay, I’ll find them.’ I tapped through the hierarchy on his computer and entered saint72, gaining access to the folders I’d seen earlier. ‘Here they are, enjoy.’ He took the mouse and started going through the emails. ‘I’m going to make some more tea and have a fag.’
‘You better grab some more towels, there’s still tea around here.’
‘You want another cuppa?’ He was already engrossed in the emails, feeling the same fascination that I had of reading something that you knew you were definitely not supposed to read, so I left the room.
I waited outside for a moment wondering if I should ask for his mobile, so that he couldn’t tell Barney all the information that I had, but decided that he’d tell him anyway if he was going to tell him at all.
Nah, I thought, he’s a geek, stuck under Barney’s shadow going nowhere. He’ll not want to blow a chance to earn enough to get laid.
CHAPTER 4
Andy came into the kitchen, I was deep in papers reading the latest revelations of some or other z-list celeb who’d done drugs / come out / shagged some other z-list celeb or all three at the same time.
He clicked the kettle on and sat down at the table.
‘So what do you think?’
‘Well, it’s a big, bad system that he’s built for this bank, but a backdoor password is…I’ve never seen one on a real system.’
‘Would it unlock, you know, the juicy bits, the bits with the money.’
‘Yeah, but you’d have to actually be in the bank, at a mainframe wired into the main system – not just a PC in the bank, but one of the daddy computers.’
‘How would we know what they looked like?’
‘You’d know, don’t worry.’
‘How? Does it have bells and whistles on it? A big flashing fucking light? What?’ Andy flushed a bit, surprised by my anger. I was too, but mainly because this little secret fantasy of mine to rob a bank and live on a beach in Brazil was starting to get a bit notorious. I was also a bit sick of being treated like I was a choirboy by the gimp of Bad Barney. But I decided that until I knew more about Bad Barney that I’d better not try and wind meek Andy up too much.
‘It’ll be a server or something. Something really powerful, nothing shit like a laptop or even a desktop.’
‘Okay, sorry, that’s was all I needed to know,’ he nodded. ‘So, let’s say we actually get in the bank, do we just sit at the server, tap in this password and bob’s your uncle?’
‘Well, no, it’s a bit more complicated than that.’
‘Complicated how?’
‘Firstly, they are going to make sure that these machines – ‘
‘-What, there’s more than one?’
‘Yeah, two, maybe three. If one goes down then you’ll know you’ll have a backup.’
‘Oh right,’ I said.
‘Anyway,’ continued Andy, ‘they’re going to make sure that these machines are secure– ‘
‘- like in a safe? Shit.’
‘Don’t worry, just under lock and key, they still need to administrate the system.’ He looked at me for a moment, I didn’t respond so he continued. ‘So we’re going to have to locate where that is.’
‘I don’t like all this we business.’ I pointed out. He shrugged.
‘You need someone with a bit of computer knowledge…’ he let this dangle for a bit. He dumped a tea bag in the bin and sat down again. ‘Apart from a bit a luck, I don’t really see what skills you bring to the problem.’ He didn’t smile when he said this, but my guess was that he was smiling inside. Geeky little bastard.
‘Planning, finance and hardware,’ he nodded in a way that suggested that he thought I was bullshitting – which I was.
‘Oh yeah? so what’s your plan then?’ he smirked.
‘Crew of ten, twelve maybe,’ he nodded sagely, a small grin on his face, ‘I reckon a hundred k to set it up, for motors, reconnaissance. Hardware wise,’ I reached behind me and pulled Rich’s gun out of my jacket pocket.
Stupid, I know, but when I was pissed I slipped it into pocket when Rich went for a piss thinking that I may need protection against the mad, pickaxe handle wielding lunatic that was going to turn up today. I thought that I would replace it later…somehow. Rich was going to go nuts, but for now I felt satisfaction and power oozing from every pore.
I placed it on the table and Andy’s eyes widened to almost comical effect. ‘I thought we’d go with these, they take 12 in the mag and one in the hole – I think it gives us options. What do you think?’
Andy didn’t say anything just yet, he was transfixed by the gun. It was the fact that it was still in cellophane that really freaked him out, because it just looked brand new, rather than a relic that I’d dug out from some dark cupboard.
‘I thought we’d get some autos for crowd control, but use these for the close stuff. These barrys,’ where do I get this shit from? ‘have pretty good stopping power.’
Andy’s voice cracked a bit, but he managed a ‘yeah.’
‘So, do you want in?’ Oh the power! This is why so many men have a fascination with guns. It makes men with no power, hicks and rednecks, get empowered fast. Andy didn’t say anything for a bit, he just kept looking at the gun, like he was hypnotized by it.
‘Well?’ I said. I had him in a corner now and the feeling was just great.
‘I dunno, it’s a big…commitment to make,’ he finally prized his gaze from the gun on the table. ’I think I’ll have to clear it with Barney.’
‘Why? A minute ago you were all in for helping me out with the technical side. Do you phone him when you want to stay out past eleven?’ Andy reddened at this, to a point where I thought that his head might explode.
‘No, course not,’ he looked around a bit, as if trying to impart his response with a dramatic pause. ‘I’m in, definitely.’ He held my gaze and extended his hand, which I thought was rather old fashioned but it still seemed to mean something here. We shook and he asked: ‘what’s the score then?”
‘Carry on hacking that thing upstairs.’
‘No not that, the score.’
‘Oh yeah, we’re looking at fifty mil and change.’ Andy double taked, and almost dropping his mug.
‘Fuck me.’
‘We do this and we retire.’
Andy nodded, staring into space, he suddenly looked at his hands and turned them over, ‘we better start being serious then, my prints are everywhere – yours are okay, you’re supposed to be here – but I’m not.’
‘Good point,’ it was, ‘I’ll stick everything that you’ve touched in here into the dishwasher and I’ll wipe everything else while you’re upstairs.’ Andy took this as an order, which I supposed it was, and stood up and made hi
s way to the stairs.
‘I’ll shout when I’m in.’ I nodded and he carried on up the stairs.
Fuck, now what? Another person implicated, another person who wants to get down and dirty. Shit, how am I going to call this whole charade off now? What if he tells Barney? Okay, let’s assume he does, will Barney want a cut? Will he want involvement?
Let’s say he doesn’t tell Barney, he just goes it alone, and keeps it to himself. If I pull the rug out on this one then Rich will be a bit annoyed, but he’ll come around. Andy would probably be alright, but then he may tell Barney about what might have happened, would that have any implications? I couldn’t figure out whether it did or not. Maybe, maybe not, I just didn’t know. Would it have a knock on effect for Rich? I didn’t know that either. Oh shit, this was getting out of control.
I got up and starting delving around for a duster to go around the place and get rid of Andy’s prints. I eventually found one and a can of Pledge. I eyed the Pledge, wondering if it would seal the prints instead of erasing them, some kind of weird chemical reaction that only a forensic scientist would understand when he shook his head sagely at the stupidity of criminals. I put it back and started loading the dishwasher and then took a sponge to all the work surfaces and the table. This finished I started off towards the hallway.
I started furiously rubbing the banister, end rails and the front door and it’s latches. I retraced what steps I thought Andy may have taken, and rubbed the radiators and light switches, trying to think of every eventuality. Would he have picked up a vase, used the sugar bowl, examined a saucepan for it’s culinary suitability? I was being overly paranoid. After all, I was going to be here for the next week or so, so I would cover everything with my prints wouldn’t I?
Wouldn’t I?
‘Dan?’ It was Andy, I could hear him loudly from upstairs.
I climbed the stairs, rubbing the hand rail as I went.
“Dan!’
‘Alright, no need to shout, I’m not deaf.’ I entered the study, Andy was sitting at his laptop, his face shiny, his eyes bright behind his glasses. I rubbed the door handle, the door itself, the radiator. ‘You cracked it? What have we got.’ I tried to emphasize the we so that he felt part of…whatever it was that I was doing. It seemed to have the desired effect and he almost visibly seemed to straighten his back.
‘What haven’t we got, more like.’ He turned to face me, his face a picture of unconcealed excitement. ‘He’s got everything.’
I sat down on the spare swivel chair and looked at the screen. There were lot’s of windows open with diagrams, text documents, emails. ‘What is all this?‘ I pointed to the diagrams.
‘Schematics, the layout of the computer system. There’s plans, there’s codes, backdoors, updates, patches, personnel files, invoices, internet logs – we have hit the jackpot, it’s almost as if he were planning the same thing we are.’ I raised my eyebrows, now that would be a turn up for the books, wouldn’t it?
I quickly dismissed the idea. As far as I could tell Pat was properly wedged. The next step for him would be depraved wealth: wag mansion with more rooms than you could sleep in each night in a month, security guards with vicious attack dogs and a big Caddy with his name written in diamonds along the side. Not very Pat.
I think if Pat got fifty million, he’d probably invest it. Dull.
What was I going to do with fifty million? The thought hadn’t really commuted on my thought trains that much, but it was something I going to have to consider. Carry on setting up a bistro? Where? on the moon?
‘I seriously doubt it.’
‘Right,’ said Andy, I’m going to copy all this to my hard drive and wipe everywhere you’ve been.’
‘Won’t he be able to do what you’ve been doing? Getting old files and stuff, recovering things?’
‘Oh yeah, but I’m not going to leave anything to recover. I’ll reconstruct the activity monitor to before when you started tinkering with his machine and write over everything else.’
‘With what?’
‘Zeros and ones, the digital equivalent of white noise. Then I’ll re glow the keys and we’re back to square one.’
I set about tidying up the remains of the tea disaster, picking slimy bits of congealed toilet paper off of Pat’s desk.
‘Shouldn’t we just clean all the prints off of the keys, re glow it and then I’ll start using it again,’ I had just thought about this, ‘fill up the activity monitor again, but with innocuous stuff, like porn sites and Amazon and stuff that he’s expecting me to do?’
‘No,’ Andy sighed, ‘because you’d have needed to crack the password to get in’
‘I guess.’
He started copying files across to his machine, ‘what I’ll do is I’ll print all this lot out and then send you a hard copy, so you can study it.’
‘That’s be handy considering that I know about as much about all this stuff as I do about playing the ukulele.’
‘Whatever. ‘ Andy continued his work on the computer and I finished cleaning up the spilt tea around the desk. I went downstairs leaving Andy to finish up with the computer so that I could start the dishwasher off.
All that we had been doing felt a bit innocent so far, no one had been hurt, no crime had been committed, but I’m sure that this wouldn’t last very long. I stacked the dishwasher, thinking about how this situation had come about and what the hell I was going to do about it. We’d picked one lock and now we had the key to the city, is this the point where I should hand this over to my brother and, well, bottle out? Put my tail between my legs and head back to the civilized life I was slowly leaving behind, or continue towards the sound of the drums in the jungle?
Andy skipped down the stairs, zipping his rucksack as he did so. ‘Right, I’ll get cracking on this right –‘
The doorbell rang.
Andy was standing on the last riser of the stairs, one foot hovering above the floor like he was in a Bruce Lee film. He looked at me, startled and mouthed: who is it? I mouthed back: how the hell should I know?
I guessed it would be a neighbor, or a friend checking to see if I was alright. But I couldn’t be sure. What if it was Pat? What if he had to rush back for an emergency? It wouldn’t be Pat, he’d use his keys – doh! The doorbell chimed again. I thought about leaving it and then the flap to the letterbox opened and I saw two eyes fix on me. They couldn’t see Andy, he was obscured by the wall of the stairway. The flap flipped down again and the bell chimed again. I motioned for Andy to go upstairs.
‘All right, I’m coming.’ I waited until Andy had made it to the top of the stairs and heard a door shut and then opened the door. It was Steve. A mutual friend.
‘Hey, Steve, this is a surprise.’ I tried to keep my face neutral, but not too neutral. I tried to think quickly: wasn’t a good time, got a lady round, just about to take a bath, not well – something. I didn’t get a chance.
‘Thank God! I am dying for a piss, I’ve just walked from the pub, and I’m bursting.’ He pushed past me and opened the door to the downstairs loo. Big houses always had a loo on every floor, like it was so big that if you didn’t use a toilet now you wouldn’t make the Himalayan journey upstairs without pissing in a flowerpot.
Steve was an old friend from way back when Rich and I were kids. He wasn’t exactly Mr Excitement, but he was steady…which makes him sound like the human equivalent of a hardwearing carpet. There’s something about him that makes our other friends (Pat included) pack up the conversational stall and move on, he’s just a bit dull.
He really shouldn’t be dull. He’s a lighting engineer and works on film shoots all over the world, working on big budget Hollywood films. I’d go to lunch every day of the week on what he does every day, but Steve just turns the tales into suede monologues.
Shutting the door I heard a mobile start some beeping rendition of a tune that I couldn’t place. I gently climbed the stairs, the ringing had stopped by now and I opened the door to Pat’s study. Andy wa
s crouched behind the desk whispering into the mouthpiece.
‘Will you turn that fucking thing off?’ I whispered. Andy pulled the phone down to his chest.
‘Who is it?’ He whispered back.
‘A mate.’
‘Shit…’
‘I know, just keep fucking quiet, I’ll get rid of –‘
‘Jesus!’ We both turned as we heard the shout from downstairs. Now what? I motioned Andy to stay where he was and I went downstairs. I found Steve in the Kitchen; he was staring at the kitchen table. He turned to me as I came in.
‘What the hell is that?’ He said pointing. I followed his finger to the table and saw the gun lying there, pointing towards me. Oh shit, today was getting better and better.
‘It’s a replica. Cool huh? Looks exactly like the real thing,’ I chuckled, my mouth was dry and it came out as more of a dull croak, ‘had you fooled.’
He stood there for a bit, and didn’t say anything; he was a little bit pissed. He moved to pick up the gun, I moved as well but then stopped. If I got all twitchy he was going to freak out and I didn’t want that.
He picked it up by the handle and placed his finger round the trigger. ‘Heavy isn’t it?’
I nodded, watching him carefully. He took his other hand and pulled off the cellophane and then started playing with the action of the gun. ‘Why the hell have you got a replica?’ He said this as he waved the gun about, I felt like screaming ‘it’s fucking loaded, dipshit!’, but merely moved out of target so that I could make some teas.
‘Oh, I need it for fancy dress – I’m going as Bruce Willis out of Die Hard.’ I said. I picked a couple of mugs out of the cupboard, they clinked together; my hands were shaking. I juddered them down onto the table, talking as I did so to cover the sound. ‘I looked at plastic guns, but they just looked so plastic, like plastic toys…like plasticky, plastic toys.’
‘You should have asked me, I can get these from a prop house for nothing.’ He aimed the gun at me and then around the walls of the kitchen, he aimed it at a picture of Pat’s and Erica and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, the safety was on. I breathed out.
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