“What happened?” asked Gordon.
“Someone has been following me,” said Jim blurted out. “And your driver tried to lose him.”
“Mon Dieu,” said Desjardins.
“Well, you’re here now,” said Gordon. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a badge, showing it to Jim. “Here you go,” he said, clipping it to Jim’s shirt. “This badge will get you in and out of the building any time of the day or night. You also have to wear it whenever you’re in the building.”
Jim nodded and followed the inspectors who led him up to a locked office door on the fifth floor. On the door was a blue plaque with the words “Systems/Systèmes” in white capital letters. To the right of the door was a badge reader which Gordon asked Jim to swipe his badge through. The door unlocked with a click and they all stepped into a large room, not unlike Jim’s server room at his apartment.
“This is our systems centre,” said Desjardins, waving his arm in front of him.
Jim looked around the room. Although it was set up similar to his server room, there was much more equipment here. There were ten full racks of servers and the same number again of racks holding disk drives and network switch cards. Instead of desks, there were half a dozen tables scattered all around the edges of the room with chairs, keyboards, and monitors. Despite all of the equipment, tables and chairs, there was no one in the room when they entered.
“Where is everyone?” asked Jim.
“Oh,” said Desjardins casually. “They come and go. They’re a strange lot and they keep strange hours.”
Jim scratched his head. “I thought that catching the terrorists was your top priority,” he said.
“Yes,” said Gordon, nodding. “And in an ideal world this room would be full of people 24 hours a day.”
“But this is not an ideal world,” said Desjardins. “And our systems people seem to prefer to start their day in the late afternoon.”
“That’s probably smart,” commented Jim. “They can be far more efficient at night. The networks are hardly loaded so everything works faster.”
“That’s right,” said a voice from behind them. Standing in the doorway was a very short Chinese man with his hands on his hips and a big smile on his face. “And you must be White Cell,” said the man to Jim.
Jim did not answer. Desjardin moved out of the way so the man could enter the room. The man held out his hand to Jim. “My name is Jung Xiao,” he said, in a very friendly tone with a strong Chinese accent. “But you can call me Gary. Everyone else does.”
Jim took his hand. “Pleased to meet you,” said Jim warily.
“Gary is our Head of Systems,” said Gordon.
“If you need anything you just have to ask,” said Gary, quite excited and talking very fast. “It is a real honour meeting you,” he said. Then, as if he finally remembered Jim’s real name, he added, “Jim.”
“Gary, why don’t you brief Jim on the systems while Roger and I attend to some other things?” asked Gordon.
“No problem,” said Gary.
The inspectors left Jim with Gary. When they returned an hour later they found Jim already settled in at one of the tables, with Gary looking over his shoulder.
“Amazing!” said Gary. “Can I get a look at the code?” he asked.
“I don’t know about that,” said Jim. “I’ll have to ask Desjardins and Gordon.”
“Ask us what?” asked Gordon, standing in the doorway.
“I was just showing Gary one of my White Cell programs,” said Jim. “He wants to see the source code.”
Gordon went ballistic. “Are you connected to your home computer?” he asked
“Sure,” said Jim.
“Disconnect now!” said Gordon.
“What?” asked Jim.
“Disconnect now!” repeated Gordon.
“It’s a secure link,” said Jim.
“I don’t care if people see what you are doing but I don’t think you want someone to be able to trace a connection to your home computer back to RCMP headquarters, do you?”
Jim quickly typed some commands and the window on the monitor disappeared. “Gee,” said Jim. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“But, Jim,” said Desjardins. “You’re a great hacker. How can you forget basic security?”
“I guest because I have never been the target of someone else’s hacking,” said Jim.
“That you know of,” added Gary. Jim nodded.
Desjardins looked at Gordon. “I think he should move his stuff in here.”
“You’re right,” said Gordon. Then, turning to Jim, he said, “Jim, you should bring anything you need from home here. Gary will set you up. We can get some people to move whatever you need.”
Jim nodded. “It’s a pretty good setup here,” he said. “But I’ll need Parrot and Beaver for sure.” He paused. “No,” he continued. “I’ll need Hound Dog and Elephant too. I’ll need all the servers.”
“What is he talking about?” Gordon asked Gary.
Gary was looking at Jim, his mouth open. “I have no idea,” he said.
Jim explained how he had named his servers and what they meant.
“Cute,” said Desjardins. He looked to Gary. “Ok?”
“No problem,” said Gary. “We can have everything installed here in a few hours.”
Jim turned to Gordon. “Can I use my home computer for a couple of hours while I’m waiting?”
“Not directly,” said Gordon. He turned to Gary. “Can you cloak him for a couple of hours?”
“No problem,” said Gary.
“Cloak?” asked Jim.
“Sure,” said Gary. “We do it all the time during our investigations. We will use a half dozen relays around the world to disguise the true origin of the packets. It’s not foolproof but it’s pretty good. It should work for a few hours.”
Jim worked through the day and into the evening. By mid afternoon Jim’s servers had been transferred to the systems room and installed. Between about 3:00pm and 4:30pm the other members of Gary’s team arrived and, as they did, Gary introduced each of them to Jim. They were all very excited to meet White Cell in the flesh but, once they had met him, they set about their own work. At about 6:00pm Gary said he had to leave and asked if Jim had had anything to eat.
“Not yet,” said Jim. “But I can’t leave now.”
“No problem,” said Gary. “Lately I have been ordering sandwiches for everyone. I’ll make sure I order extra for you.”
“Thanks,” said Jim. After Gary left but before the sandwiches arrived something occurred to Jim. He spent another twenty minutes checking a few things. “Oh my God!” said Jim out loud to himself. “It can’t be!”
Jim’s concentration was briefly disturbed when there was a knock on the door. Jim ignored it until he heard the knock again. He looked around and saw that no one else was going to answer the door, everyone hard at work at their consoles. Irritated, he got up and opened the door, finding a delivery boy with a plate of sandwiches. Jim grabbed the plate and closed the door in the face of the delivery boy, incredulity visible on the boy’s face as the door slammed shut. Jim put the plate on one of the tables and returned to his console.
As he worked, Jim reached over to the plate to grab a sandwich. He subconsciously opened his mouth and was about to bite down he froze. He took the sandwich out of his mouth and removed the top piece of bread. A grey-pink piece of meat stared up at him. Ham! That was close, thought Jim as he returned the ham sandwich to the plate and carefully looked through the rest of the sandwiches. In addition to ham, there were a few tuna sandwiches, more than enough to sustain him as he continued to work, cross checking and verifying the information he had uncovered earlier.
***
“Mintz,” announced Sheldon Mintz into the phone. He had just picked up the receiver, Madeleine having told him he had a phone call from a Mr. Smith.
“We lost him,” said a gruff voice at the other end of the line.
“What!?” y
elled Mintz so loudly that Madeleine opened the door to his office, poking her head in.
“Everything alright, Mr. Mintz?” she asked quietly. Mintz waved her away with his free hand. She closed the door behind her.
“We lost him, sir,” repeated the voice on the telephone.
“After I warned you not to lose him? After I warned you to protect him?” Mintz continued to yell into the phone.
“We’ve staked out his home and his office, sir,” said the voice. “We’ll pick him up tonight.”
“You had better,” said Mintz. “Or I will personally see to it that you don’t have a single client left in this province!” And with that Mintz slammed the receiver down so hard that it bounced off its cradle.
***
It was not until 9:30pm that night that Desjardins and Gordon finally returned to the systems room. The addition of Jim’s server racks was obvious in the far corner of the room. Jim was sitting at a desk, typing feverishly on the keyboard, engrossed in his current task. The rest of the team was working at other keyboards. Gary was nowhere to be seen.
“How’s it going?” asked Desjardins.
Jim jumped out of his seat. “Holy shit! Did you ever scare me!” said Jim.
“Well?” asked Gordon, ignoring Jim’s response. “Are you making any progress?”
“Where were you all day?” asked Jim, in turn ignoring Gordon’s question.
“We had to brief MI-5,” said Desjardins. “But they have no idea that you’re here or what you are doing.”
“Do they know about this room?” asked Jim.
“They shouldn’t,” said Gordon. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you asked if I made any progress,” said Jim excitedly. “You did say progress?” he repeated and then, hopping out of his chair excitedly, he continued. “Well, you have no idea. It’s awesome! I would never have guessed.” Jim was very excited and was talking very fast. “I don’t even know where to start,” he said.
“Calm down,” said Desjardins. “Start from the beginning but, before you do, you’ve raised a good point. We have to do something to hide this room.”
“I had an idea,” said Jim. He reached underneath one of the tables and pulled out a blue plaque with white letters. It looked exactly like the “Systems/Systèmes” sign outside the systems room but it read instead “Janitor/Portier.” “How about it?” he asked.
“Should work,” said Desjardin, walking to the door with the plaque, and swapping it with the one on the door. “That should do it,” he said.
“Why don’t we all sit down?” offered Gordon.
Steering clear of the others working in the room, the three men pulled up chairs until they were sitting in a circle. Desjardins and Gordon were staring at Jim, waiting.
“From the beginning,” Gordon reminded Jim.
Jim took a deep breath. “Okay,” he began. “They are related,” he said. “They are both related. It’s amazing.” Jim was starting to talk faster again. “I’m the common thread. Somehow I’m involved in both!”
“Hold on a minute,” said Gordon. “You aren’t making any sense. What two things are related? What are you talking about?”
Desjardins interrupted. “Take a deep breath Jim,” he said. “And start again. From the beginning.”
“Sorry,” said Jim. He paused to collect his thoughts. He took another big breath. “Verde, the Mafioso who is making my life miserable is the same guy who arranged for the kidnapping of the Transport Minister.”
The inspectors looked at one another. “What makes you say that?” asked Gordon.
“The first clue occurred a while ago,” said Jim. “Verde said to me that there was something familiar about me when we met. I also thought he looked familiar and I have now discovered the reason. We had seen one another at the Ottawa airport on the day of the kidnapping. Verde was there, supervising the kidnapping.”
“How do you know that?” asked Desjardins.
“Wait, there’s more,” said Jim. “I told you the other day that I found evidence that some of the terrorists e-mails were coming from Transports Québec. Well, I hacked into the computer at Transports Québec and found that it had also been used to send encrypted e-mails. I retrieved the encryption keys and then looked through all of the encrypted e-mails. In those e-mails there is a lot of traffic between Transports Québec and Verde. The e-mails were used to arrange for the kidnapping and they are very explicit. There’s no doubt.”
“Transports Québec is linked to Verde as well?” asked Desjardins. “Incroyable!”
“Go on,” said Gordon.
“The e-mails from Transports Québec were anonymous but Verde’s e-mails were signed ‘GV’”, ‘Giuseppe Verde!’ It looks like the terrorists know who Verde is but he doesn’t know who they are. It also appears that the terrorists had spoofed their e-mail address when communicating with Verde so he doesn’t even know that Transport Québec is involved.”
“Good work Jim,” said Desjardins. He then turned to Gordon. “What do we do now?”
“Fuck MI-5 for a start,” said Gordon. “They know enough to bumble along. I think we stick with Jim.”
“But what’s the next step?” asked Desjardins.
“I’ll be damned if I know,” said Gordon.
Jim cleared his throat and the two inspectors looked at him. “I may have an idea,” he said.
***
An unmarked police car dropped Jim back at his apartment very late. It was after 3:00am when he managed to check his voice mail. There were four messages, one each from Ben, Penny, Jim’s mother and Verde. Ben and Jim’s mother were just calling to check up on him. Verde was looking for a status report. Jim could not call them back in the middle of the night but the message from Penny had said to call her no matter what time it was. Jim picked up the phone and dialled.
“Hello?” said a sleepy voice.
“Hi,” said Jim. “You said to call any time.”
“Jim?”
“Yeah.”
“Where have you been?”
Jim filled her in on his day, including the crazy car race and the rest of the day at RCMP headquarters.
“Wow!” she said, although still drowsy. “So you’re really done at CCRA?
“Done.”
“Will you let me know what’s going on?”
“It might be better if I don’t call you for a few days.”
“You’d better!”
“Alright,” said Jim. “I just can’t promise when.”
“Okay,” she said. “But you will keep in touch?” She was talking slowly, still half asleep.
“I will, don’t worry. Good night.”
“Good night,” she said. She was just about to hang up the telephone when something occurred to her. “Jim?” she asked.
“Yes?”
“If you’re being watched at your apartment, should you be staying there?”
That was a good point, thought Jim. He had been so busy today he had not thought about the risk. And, he thought to himself, what if Verde’s man had discovered that a police car had picked him up?
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” said Jim.
“Maybe you should talk to the RCMP. Maybe they can have someone watch you.”
“Maybe,” agreed Jim. “I’ll talk to them about it in the morning.”
“Okay,” said Penny. “Don’t forget.”
“I won’t,” said Jim. “Good night.”
Chapter 24 - The plan
Wed May 19th
Jim had not set his alarm when he had gone to bed at 4:00am so it was garbage truck workers clanging steel cans on the street below that finally woke him just after 9:00am. He showered, dressed, and retrieved a diskette from his bedside table, placing it in his shirt pocket. He had brought it home with him the night before. At 9:35am he entered his server room feeling that, with racks of computers missing, the room looked awfully sparse. About all he could do without the missing equipment was to check his e-mail. This he did a
nd then he decided to return the telephone calls from the night before.
“Hi,” said Jim when Ben picked up the phone. “Sorry I didn’t get back to you last night but it’s been pretty hectic.”
“What have you been doing?” asked Ben.
“I was at RCMP headquarters all day yesterday,” said Jim, sounding proud to be working in law enforcement. “Believe it or not, I think they’re almost as well fitted out as I am.”
“Really,” said Ben, not sure whether or not he was impressed. “Things are moving fast.”
“Yeah,” said Jim. “I’ve moved my server racks over to the headquarters.”
“Really,” repeated Ben. “How long do you think you will be playing cop?”
“Don’t know,” said Jim. “But I think things are starting to break. I’ll try to keep you posted.”
Ben was clearly not satisfied with this offer. “How about we meet for dinner?” asked Ben.
“Don’t know about that,” said Jim. “I’ll have to see how it goes today. Can I call you later?”
“Sure,” said Ben. “I’d really like to know what’s going on.”
“So would I,” said Jim, laughing.
After finishing with Ben he immediately dialled his mother. “Mom?” he asked. “I can’t talk long. I just wanted to quickly tell you that I got your message.”
“You alright Jimmy?” asked his mother.
“Oh sure,” said Jim. “Everything’s fine. You okay?”
“That car keeps looking at the house,” she said, sounding angrily.
“What are the police doing?”
“Oh, the police come when I call, but he’s gone when they get here.”
“Okay Mom. Just make sure the police keep coming around.”
“I will. How’s the girlfriend?”
Jim smiled. “Who said I had a girlfriend?”
“A hopeful mother.”
“Well, I’ll fill you in on that next time Mom,” said Jim. “But for now, I have to go.”
“Okay Jimmy,” said his mother. “Call soon.”
“I will,” said Jim. He hung up the phone and stared at it for a minute. He then picked it up and dialled another number.
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