Antisocial Media (Gray Spear Society Book 11)

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Antisocial Media (Gray Spear Society Book 11) Page 21

by Alex Siegel


  "I don't know," Greenfield said. "I just got a message on my phone. Untie me. These ropes are making my hands numb."

  "I can guess why you were chosen. Ice Crusher needed unethical men willing to do anything for money."

  "Don't give me a morality lesson. We told you everything. You have to let us go."

  "I don't have to do anything," she said.

  The red speedboat was parked on the water channel in the boathouse. Marina walked over and retrieved the captives' phones from the cabinet where she had stored them earlier. She turned on one of the phones. She was taking a risk, but it seemed worth it.

  "I want to see the messages from Ice Crusher," she said. "Tell me how to find them."

  It turned out she was holding Mr. Greenfield's phone. After some painful encouragement from Ipo and his pipe wrench, Greenfield told Marina how to unlock the phone and log into the Soulfriends Network.

  She was taking another risk. If an enemy of God was involved, she was exposing herself to possible corruption. She had seen other members of the Society succumb to unholy trickery, and she knew she wasn't immune. She could only hope she was experienced and wary enough to avoid getting into trouble.

  Marina found Greenfield's inbox and paged through the messages. She was appalled.

  "Are sleazy sex and dirty money the only things you think about?" she asked.

  "I'm a guy," he said.

  "That's no excuse."

  * * *

  Peter's computer chirped, and an alert popped up. A phone belonging to one of the men that he had sent to the Alameda Marina had just turned on.

  Peter checked the location and found it wasn't at the marina now. Using the Soulfriends Network app as a back door, he activated the front camera on the phone. It would covertly show him who was holding it.

  He saw a beautiful woman with short, red hair. The green color of her eyes was unusual. She had girlish freckles on her pale skin, but she seemed to be in her late thirties.

  Who is that? Peter wondered. Clearly, the phone had fallen into enemy hands.

  The Soulfriends app reported that she was looking at the message inbox, and he had an idea. Perhaps he could salvage a victory after all. His mistake before had been using amateurs to do his dirty work, but this time, he would call in the professionals.

  He typed quickly.

  * * *

  "Ah!" Marina said. "I found the messages from Ice Crusher."

  Ipo read over her shoulder as she went through the messages one at a time. They described the planned ambush at the Alameda Marina just as it had happened. She felt embarrassed again for having fallen for it. As a long-time veteran, she should've known better. Her eagerness to make progress on this investigation had made her sloppy.

  Marina found the most recent message from Ice Crusher, and it read, "Bring captives to San Jose. I will meet you there." There was a link to a helpful map with a specific address.

  With a smile, she called Min Ho again.

  "Ma'am?" the hacker said.

  "Tell me about this address." Marina read the address off the other phone.

  "An employee of Soulfriends lives there. Max Poulsen. Hold on." There was a pause. "I located his phone, and it's at the house. He's probably home now."

  "Does he have a family?"

  "No, ma'am," Min Ho said.

  "Thanks." She hung up. "You heard?" she asked Ipo.

  He nodded. "I expect that's our next destination."

  Marina reviewed all the messages from Ice Crusher again but found no additional information. When she was done, she tossed Anderson's and Greenfield's phones into the water to make sure they wouldn't be tracked.

  She faced her captives. "What am I going to do with you two slime balls?"

  "Let us go!" Anderson said. "We don't know anything else."

  "You shot at me and tried to kidnap me at gunpoint. I take that sort of thing personally."

  "I'm sorry. I never wanted anybody to get hurt. If I had known you were so pretty and nice, I wouldn't have done it."

  Marina snorted. "You never stop lying. My problem is I don't know whether to classify you as civilians or enemies. Maybe the Lord should decide your fates."

  "You're going to flip a coin?" Anderson said.

  "No." She laughed.

  She went to the shelf of tools and selected a hammer and two long screwdrivers. She went back to Anderson, positioned a screwdriver over a specific spot in his back, and drove it in with the hammer. He screamed in pain and thrashed around. She pounded the screwdriver again to push it all the way in.

  Marina went over to Greenfield with the second screwdriver.

  He tried to squirm away on his belly. "Don't!" he yelled. "I'll pay you whatever you want! I'm rich! I have connections!"

  Ipo held Greenfield still as Marina hammered the screwdriver into his back. The blade of the screwdriver plugged the wound, so there wasn't much bleeding.

  She stood up. "That should do it. I punctured your lower intestines. The name for this injury is gastrointestinal perforation, by the way. Right now, bacteria are leaking out of your intestines and into your abdominal cavities. This is a very dangerous condition. Without aggressive medical treatment, you'll die. I'm just going to leave you here like this. God will decide whether anybody finds you and calls an ambulance before it's too late. I wouldn't move around too much. You'll just leak more."

  Marina went over to the speedboat and climbed onboard. The small vessel rocked under her weight. Ipo joined her, and his much greater weight tipped the boat even more.

  "Why are you doing this?" Greenfield cried.

  "If you haven't figured that out by now," she said, "I can't help you, and neither will the Lord."

  Ipo started the engine and drove out of the boathouse.

  We'll have to steal a car, Marina thought.

  * * *

  Ipo parked the car across the street from a small, white house in San Jose. Marina looked out the window and examined her target with an expert eye.

  A cracked driveway led to a garage big enough for just one car. A short, narrow walkway went from the driveway to the front door. Sheets of red material covered the nearly flat roof. The dry, scruffy lawn had a few patches of bare dirt.

  Marina didn't see any sign of security measures. The windows had no bars and looked easy to break. There wasn't even a gate to stop her from walking around to the back.

  "Let's quietly look around," she said.

  "Yes, ma'am," Ipo said.

  She checked for witnesses and then got out of the car. One thing she had noticed about California was a lack of pedestrian traffic. In all the suburbs she had visited, she hardly ever saw anybody on the sidewalks. This fact struck her as ironic in a place where the weather was so perfect.

  Ipo joined her, and both of them were still wearing long jackets over basic combat gear. They hadn't changed since their adventure at the marina.

  Marina dashed across the road and the front lawn of the white house. She crouched down in a shadow on the side. It was the middle of the day, a terrible time for covert activity, but she didn't have much choice. Ipo stayed with her step for step.

  She craned her neck to peek through a window. She saw an empty bedroom with rumpled sheets on a queen-size bed. There was only one pillow, an encouraging sign. It was more likely Max Poulsen was alone.

  Marina crept around to the back of the house. She looked through another window at a living room. It had a green, fabric couch and a large television. A man was sitting at a computer desk in the corner, typing rapidly. He was bald with pale, smooth skin, and big glasses were perched on his nose. He was wearing an old flannel bathrobe.

  "Must be him," Marina whispered.

  Ipo nodded. "I don't see any security."

  "Neither do I, and he doesn't look like he's expecting guests."

  She checked again to be sure, but she saw nothing that would prevent her from breaking into the house. It seemed too easy, and that fact bothered her. In her experience, criminal mast
erminds took precautions. This was the right address though, and the man inside was using a computer.

  "We have to talk to him," Marina whispered, "even if the situation smells fishy. Unless you have another suggestion."

  Ipo shrugged. "No, ma'am. We obviously can't just walk away."

  She listened carefully. The only sounds were cars on the street and a few dogs barking in the distance.

  She went around to the back door of the house. It was locked, but some quick work with her lock picks opened it. The cheap, worn out lock gave her little trouble.

  She silently entered a kitchen. It was small and needed a good sweeping, but at least there weren't a lot of dirty dishes on the counter. She had seen much worse in the homes of bachelor men. There was a pot of steaming soup on the stove, and she gave it a sniff. Chicken soup, she thought. Is he sick?

  Marina drew her gun and walked into the living room. Ipo was by her side.

  "Turn around slowly, Mr. Poulsen," she said. "Hands in the air. If you twitch, you're dead."

  * * *

  Peter Hastings loved webcams. They could be turned on remotely and used as spy cameras without the victim ever knowing. In this case, Peter was looking into Max Poulsen's living room using a tiny camera mounted on his computer monitor.

  Poulsen was a Soulfriends employee who had called in sick for the day. He was the perfect bait for this trap. The enemy would assume he was Ice Crusher when the real one was safely miles away.

  Peter perked up when he saw the mysterious woman with red hair enter. She was with a very large man who looked Polynesian or Hawaiian, and Peter recognized his face from the Chinese food incident. Both intruders had guns in their hands, and they were moving very cautiously.

  Peter clenched his fist. It worked! he thought. I'm so smart.

  He began to type.

  * * *

  Poulsen turned slowly with his hands up. His eyes were wide with fear.

  "Is this a robbery?" he gibbered.

  Marina shook her head. "No. We just have some questions for you."

  "Why? Are you the police? I haven't done anything wrong."

  "Does the name 'Ice Crusher' mean anything to you?"

  "No." Poulsen swallowed.

  "We saw a note saying he was at this address."

  "You made a mistake. I'm the only person who lives here." He kept glancing at the guns that Marina and Ipo held.

  "There was no mistake," she said.

  She went over to the computer. It appeared Poulsen had been playing a game involving wizards and dragons.

  "The only ice crusher I know about is a vending machine," he said with a nervous smile.

  Ipo kept his gun on Poulsen while Marina checked the living room. She found a shelf full of books, and many had technical titles like Software Design Elements and Fundamentals of Object Oriented Programming. There was also plenty of science fiction.

  "What do you do for a living?" she asked.

  "I'm a software developer," Poulsen said.

  "For Soulfriends?"

  "Yes."

  "Why aren't you at work?" she said.

  "I have the flu."

  Marina went back and put her hand on his forehead. He felt very warm.

  "If you're not Ice Crusher," she said, "why would he send us to this address?"

  "I don't know." He shook his head.

  She frowned. "Tell us about Soulfriends. Do you like working there?"

  "Not really. There are a lot of crazy rules. The management treats us like robots, and if we complain, we get fired."

  "Why don't you quit?"

  "It pays well," he said.

  Marina couldn't imagine staying with a job she hated just for the money. It was a problem only ordinary people had.

  "We believe Ice Crusher works at Soulfriends," she said, "and he seems to have outstanding software skills. Perhaps you know him?"

  "There are a lot of software developers working at Soulfriends," Poulsen said.

  She was starting to believe he was innocent. The guns clearly terrified him, and frightened people had a hard time lying effectively. Everything she had seen since her arrival was consistent with his story. Any criminal with the power to create lucrative 'bank errors' wouldn't be living in such a shabby, little home.

  "This is the police!" a male voice boomed from outside the house. "You're surrounded. Come out with your hands up."

  Marina looked at Ipo. "I just figured out why we were sent here."

  "Another trap." His shoulders sagged, and he sighed.

  "Ice Crusher is making us look pretty stupid. We got to get out of here."

  She ran to a back window and looked out. San Jose police officers were streaming into the small yard from both sides, and they had their hands on the handles of their guns. The neighbor's house was close by, and it gave her an idea.

  "How do I get onto the roof?" Marina said.

  "I don't think you can," Poulsen said. "There is a ceiling panel in the hallway, but it just goes to a small attic."

  "Close enough."

  She gave Poulsen a small dose of venom just to be safe. She ran to a hallway which went through the middle of the house, and she spotted a panel in the white ceiling.

  "Up there," Marina told Ipo.

  He hopped up and shoved the panel out of the way. Then he jumped again, grabbed the edge of the hole, and pulled himself up effortlessly. She remembered he could use his gift to make his mass much lighter. He reached down and helped her up even though she didn't really need the help.

  The attic was so low, they couldn't stand up. They had to crouch on wooden joists because there was no real floor. Only a little light leaked in through the hole where the panel had been.

  "Are we just going to hide up here?" Ipo said.

  Marina shook her head. "Do you think you can bust through this roof?"

  She ran her fingers across the roof. It was made of cheap plywood and looked easy to break.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Wait a moment. Do you have a flash-bang? I used mine."

  He unclipped a flash-bang grenade from a belt under his jacket, and he gave it to her. She pulled the pin and tossed the grenade down the hallway below. A few seconds later, there was an explosion which vibrated the whole house.

  "That should bring the cops inside," she said.

  Marina waited. After half a minute, she heard doors slam open on the front and back of the house.

  "Now break the roof," she ordered.

  Ipo braced his back against the roof and solidified his stance on the joists. He clenched his jaw, grunted, and pushed. The plywood roof cracked and split open. He used his massive arms to widen the crack until he could get through.

  "You're a strong guy," Marina said.

  "Thanks."

  They climbed onto the red roof of the house. Fresh air and sunlight came as a relief after the dark, dusty, and cramped attic.

  She heard the police searching the house below their feet. It sounded like most of them were inside.

  "Now we run," she said.

  Marina sprinted across the roof, jumped, and landed on the neighbor's roof. She heard Ipo's light footsteps right behind her. His gift enabled him to be supernaturally quick and agile. He would have no trouble keeping up with her.

  A police officer on the street spotted them and began yelling.

  She jumped onto the next house and then decided to change direction. She hopped down into a backyard. A dog was there, but she scrambled over a fence before the animal could react.

  Marina and Ipo continued through the neighborhood at a run. She took random turns and went between houses to throw off any pursuit, but she was already confident the police wouldn't catch her. The exercise was invigorating, so she kept going anyway. Being chased was fun.

  * * *

  Peter Hastings watched the video again. The webcam on Poulsen's computer had recorded the woman with red hair jabbing her black fingernails into Poulsen's neck. She seemed to be injecting him as if her fingers w
ere hypodermic needles. After a few seconds, he collapsed, and she eased him to the floor. Peter couldn't believe his eyes.

  He was monitoring the police dispatch channels, and it sounded like the authorities were still searching for the woman and her companion. Somehow, they had escaped the house and had vanished into the surrounding neighborhood. Peter didn't understand how that was possible, either. He had sent a lot of cops to catch them.

  Who are these people? he wondered.

  Peter had tried to trap his enemies twice and had failed both times. Now he was frightened. They were still out there, hunting him, and he seemed powerless to stop them.

  He typed a message to Rebecca which read, "Help! I'm in trouble!"

  After several seconds, he received a response. "What's wrong?"

  "My plan failed. My enemies escaped."

  "Tell me the details."

  Peter typed a summary of recent events.

  "That's not good," Rebecca sent, "but there is no reason to panic. You're one of the smartest guys in the world. You can come up with a new plan, a better one. These strangers will come back to Soulfriends eventually. Be ready for them. Make sure they don't get away next time."

  He took a deep breath to steady himself. "You're right. I'm a genius. I can figure this out."

  "Of course. And if you can't, be prepared to run away, but I'm sure that won't be necessary."

  He looked at a black backpack sitting in a corner which he called his "emergency pack." It contained cash, credit cards, fake passports, and other false identification he would need to survive anonymously on the road. There was also a laptop computer stuffed full of valuable software and data including a large number of stolen identities. He could live for years without spending a dime of his own money.

  A big, red button was mounted on the wall. If he slapped it, every computer in the building would immediately erase its own disk drives and destroy all incriminating digital evidence. He liked to plan for contingencies.

  "I'll start working on a new plan right now," Peter sent.

  "Great," Rebecca responded. "Tell me about it afterwards."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Marina and Ipo walked into a hospital room. Katie was lying in a narrow bed with blue sheets. She was wearing a hospital gown, but it had been pulled back to expose her injured shoulder. Thick bandages were wrapped around her shoulder, and they looked like a big football pad.

 

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