Binary: An Encrypted to Cipher Bridge Short Story

by Carolyn McCray

  “No way, no how. We’ve got a couple dozen armed guards from two of the most vicious organized crime organizations. They skin people alive for fun.”

  “We need that money,” Ronnie said. “So which way?”

  Quirk sighed. There was no reasoning with Ronnie when she was in this mood. The girl seriously liked her hundreds of millions.

  “Fine. Take another right. It is one story above you.”

  As the helicopter flew over the island, Quirk watched the dots on the screen that represented the hacker and the FBI agent. They moved steadily forward. The guards were all over the building. More guarding against an escape attempt than Ronnie going ahead with the hack. Maybe she was onto something.

  “I am going to try to set up a distraction,” Quirk said. “Get ready to brace yourself.”

  No answer came. They seemed always ready to brace themselves.

  He turned to the pilot. “We need to get over there.”

  The man grunted and chewed down hard on his cigar, veering the chopper back toward the industrial section of the city.

  Quirk identified the propane tanks used to fuel the machinery. A single missile into those would definitely create a distraction. They arrived at the factory a good two minutes faster than Quirk expected. He sent the coordinates to the pilot.

  “Hang on,” Quirk warned as his pilot pressed the firing button.

  A missile shot out of the chopper and slammed into the propane tank. The thing blew in a glorious explosion of yellow and orange.

  * * *

  Zach helped Ronnie up from the floor.

  “Quirk, you really need to qualify exactly how much we should brace in the future,” Ronnie said as she dusted herself off.

  “Yes, well, you wanted a distraction. Do I ever do anything less than spectacular?”

  Ronnie just shook her head. “Did it work?”

  “Yes, the workers are fleeing the factory. It’s pandemonium out there. They are assuming you are using the explosion as cover for your escape. All the men are redirected toward the factory.”

  Actually, using the explosion as a cover to get the hell out of here did sound like a good idea. “Ronnie, are you sure about this? We could get out of here.”

  “A girl’s gotta have goals,” Ronnie said. “But you don’t need to come with me. As a matter of fact,” she said as she pulled a gun and aimed it at him, “You should get going.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Creating reasonable doubt that you helped me steal the money,” Ronnie said before she shot at his feet. Zach danced back.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this,” Zach pleaded.

  “Go, Zach. I’ll fire to make it believable,” Ronnie said, then made good on her word.

  Zach set off down the hallway, hating to run off from her. However, she was firing a bit close for comfort.

  Would their meetings ever end in anything but tears?

  CHAPTER 2

  Ronnie watched as Zach turned the corner. Quirk was giving him the directions to get out of the warehouse by avoiding the remaining guards. She shot one last time just for good measure as tears streaked down her cheeks.

  How many times would they have to part? What future could their lives hold with him as an FBI agent and her as one of the FBI’s most wanted?

  While it pained her to see him go, she had something to do. Make that hundreds of millions of things to do. She sprinted down the hallway to the large thick metal door that marked the server room. The pass card that Quirk had made worked like a charm. The door swung open effortlessly.

  The room was awash in blue. Server lights blinked, beaconing Ronnie into their midst. She felt like their goddess. They would open their secrets to her, she was sure of it. She’d spent weeks seducing them, convincing them she meant no harm.

  While she was not nearly as melded with the computers as Quirk or Warp were, she did feel certain that these servers did not want to hide their ill-gotten gains. There were times during a hack that a system just seemed to give itself over to you. She was hoping that today would be such a day.

  Ronnie entered in a few args to ping the system, see what kind of mood it was in today. The prompts all ran smoothly.

  “You need to AOS things up,” Quirk commented. “I can keep them busy, but not forever.”

  Per usual, her assistant wanted her fingers to work faster than her flesh would allow.

  “Did you upload the dragon?” Quirk asked.

  Unlike a worm or virus, a dragon was a program that kept track of all function of a computer. It let her know if anyone else was accessing the system and what exactly they were doing, including each and every key stroke.

  “Not my first hack, Quirk.”

  “No, but it could be your last if you don’t hurry your butt up.”

  Ronnie continued on. “I’ve got DWIM.” Which meant that the computer was doing what she wanted. She was in. Now, just to navigate to the accounts and point the funds in the right direction.

  “FROTZ!” Quirk cursed.

  “What?”

  “You’ve set off some kind of alarm. They’re sending men your way.”

  Well, that wasn’t part of the plan. But when was it?

  Ronnie kept up. The money was flowing. Could she abandon the station and trust the computer to complete the chore?

  “Ronnie, seriously, they’re coming from four different directions.”

  She stroked the side of the CPU. “Keep it up, baby.”

  With one last command, to start the Gabriel routine as soon as the money was fully transferred. The program would not only wipe the memory of her hack, but make the computer extremely slow to run and put whoever came next through a series of menial tasks to do even the most basic functions.

  Ronnie grabbed her pack and took off. “Which way?”

  “Pilot wants you to go up, which means heading to the north stairwell.”

  “Seriously, Quirk, I don’t know right from left and you expect me to know north?”

  “It’s the direction that moss grows on trees.”

  “Quirk,” Ronnie groaned.

  “Fine. Take a right at the corner. You know, the hand that doesn’t do the pledge of allegiance.”

  Ronnie would take task with Quirk’s condescending manner, except he just saved her a wrong turn. Damn him.

  “Run,” Quirk said. “And I mean, run!”

  She could hear the panic in his voice. Plus no barb about how she might want to increase her time on the Stairmaster, so Ronnie knew this was serious, not just Quirk being Quirk.

  “They’re jumping out the windows…” Quirk said, clearly not sure the strategy for the guards.

  Then the window near her shattered as men swung in on ropes. They landed and recovered quickly, each of them with a weapon in his hand.

  “Um, I think they’re armed with bokkens,” Quirk stated.

  Yes, yes, they were armed with bokkens. Obviously, they had eschewed any metal weapons that could be turned against them. The bokken was an ancient Asian martial arts weapon. Bokken meant “wooden sword,” and, in the right hands, could inflict as much damage as an actual sword. Each of the men snapped theirs up, tucking them under their armpit in the pre-attack position. And these bokkens seemed in the best possible hands, the Yakusa.

  Ronnie could duke it out with Zach, knowing he would never truly hurt her, her split lip to the contrary. These men? They would kill here where she stood.

  She lifted up her hands in surrender. One of the men jerked her pack from her back. Another came from the rear of the group and pulled a gun out, which he pressed to her throat, seeming mightily pleased with himself.

  He rattled off a question in Japanese. Unfortunately, she didn’t speak Japanese.

  This sucked. How did she get in this situation in the first place? Oh yeah, she was stealing their money, not knowing a major gangster accord was being held here. And where was Zach? Did he really leave her?

  The man became even more agitated, digging
the metal into her skin.

  “I’ve got your money, and if you want it back, take me to your leader.”

  She’d always wanted to say those words—of course, under drastically different circumstances. And she had to hope that someone in the group spoke enough English to understand her.

  The man removed the weapon from under her chin and shoved it into her back, urging her down the hallway.

  “Ronnie?” Quirk said in her ear. “What is going on?”

  “We are going to go talk to the nice Yakusa and negotiate my release,” she said in a singsong voice.

  “You’re captured?” Quirk asked the question he already knew the answer to.

  “Hai,” she answered, since it was only one of the few Japanese words she knew. And even that came from watching Godzilla movies. She was so screwed.

  * * *

  Ronnie was so screwed. The men were taking her to a large meeting room. A meeting room filled with dozens of armed men. She’d better have one hell of a plan to get of this one.

  Quirk had tried to anticipate what she might need. so he’d hacked into the building’s energy grid. Whatever she wanted to do, it was going to require a ton of electricity. That’s just how she rolled, and every toy in her bag was a power hog.

  The pilot kept them circling the building. In just about any other nation, a police or air force helicopter would have intercepted them. However, on this island, they were the only chopper besides a sightseeing one. The island didn’t even have a standing army. They only had volunteer reservists.

  And, not surprisingly, not a single one of them felt the urge to come and intervene in this little war they had going on. They more than likely thought the Chinese Triad and Japanese Yakusa were going at it.

  Quirk wasn’t doing anything to dissuade that belief. Not if it kept the locals out of the way. One less worry, and Lord knew he had enough to worry about.

  His laptop dinged. Someone was attempting an unauthorized communication with them. Quirk made sure that his response was being pinged off of half a dozen satellites before he answered.

  “Rockford Private Investigation Agency,” he answered the call.

  “Quirk?” A familiar voice answered. “It’s us. Warp.”

  “Warp, what the hell are you doing calling me?”

  “Are you watching this?” he asked.

  “Of course. Do you have any backup in the area?”

  “No,” Warp said. “It was supposed to be a snatch-and-grab.”

  Of Ronnie, of course. “Do the authorities even know you’ve got an operation on the island?”

  There was a pause.

  “Warp?”

  “No,” the IT tech finally sighed. So there would be no backup from Zach’s end.

  Like Quirk said. Ronnie was so screwed.

  * * *

  Ronnie stumbled into the room. Two men sat behind a large desk. The rest of the men all looked like guards, armed to the teeth. The room was poorly lit, so it took Ronnie’s eyes a second to adjust enough to realize that someone was kneeling in front of them.

  “Zach!”

  The FBI agent turned to face her. Since he’d left her, he’d acquired a black eye and multiple bruises up and down his neck. Apparently, he’d tried to fight back against the bokken.

  “You were supposed to go.”

  Zach snorted. “Like I’d leave you.”

  Oh, but how she wished he had.

  “Enough. My money,” the Chinese Triad leader said.

  “I can get it for you,” Ronnie said, trying to keep the both of them alive.

  The man spit, though. “We are not simpletons. We know the Robin Hood Hacker immediately distributes the money as soon as she steals it. My hundreds of millions are already gone.”

  Ronnie could feel the muzzle of a gun digging into the base of her cervical spine. “True, but I have the money in my own accounts. I can transfer it back to you.”

  “You have two hundred million?” Zach asked.

  “Yes,” the triad leader said. “You have that much? The rumor is you are broke after the plague.”

  “That is broke to me,” Ronnie explained.

  “Prove it,” the leader of the Yakusa said.

  “I just need a bank account number.”

  The Triad boss nodded sharply to one of his men, who handed her a scrap of paper with a long string of numbers.

  “I just have to let my assistant know so that he can execute the transfer.”

  The man nodded. Ronnie read off the numbers.

  “Got them,” Quirk said. “Give me a sec.”

  “It’ll just be a moment,” Ronnie relayed to them.

  “You have one minute,” The Triad leader barked.

  * * *

  Zach wanted to punch the guy out for threatening Ronnie like that, but there were at least two dozen guns trained on them, plus another dozen bokkens. Which had proved extremely effective deterrents that last time Zach went up against them.

  “Won’t even need that much time,” Ronnie said. “Quirk, are you ready?’

  She cocked her head, clearly getting his answer.

  “Alright, Quirk, give them everything we’ve got.”

  Zach could tell by her tone that money was not what she was talking about. Just in time, Zach closed his eyes as every light in the room exploded, plunging them into darkness. The only illumination came from the electrical outlets sparking.

  Zach brought his elbow up into the sternum of the guard behind him. The man, already dazed, reeled back. Zach jumped to his feet, continuing the attack, grabbing the guy’s gun and spraying the guards with automatic fire.

  Then he hit the floor as they returned fire.

  “Zach!” Ronnie yelled as she threw something at him. Night vision goggles. He donned them, gaining a distinct advantage. He took out another four or five guards. Swinging around, he found Ronnie diving for an electrical outlet. Despite the sparking, she plugged a small hand-held device into the socket. It looked like a gas dispensing nozzle.

  “Quirk. Do it. Reverse polarity! Zach, close your eyes!”

  Zach did as ordered. A loud crack and then a sustained sizzle filled the air. He couldn’t help but push up the goggles and take a peek.

  A huge electrical arc sprouted from her nozzle and landed at the outlet on the other side of the room. Men screamed as they were caught in the electricity’s path. It was as if Ronnie commanded lightning itself. Then she flicked her wrist as a fly fisherman might.

  The arc jumped from one socket to another, mowing down the guards on that side of the room. Soon, the smell of burning clothing and flesh clogged the air. But Ronnie wasn’t done. She flicked her wrist again, and the arc leapt to the far side of the room. Men scattered, running and screaming as the electricity sliced through the air.

  “Quirk, that’s enough.”

  As suddenly as it had appeared, the huge arc vanished, plunging the room into absolute darkness. Zach pushed his goggles down again. The room was littered with bodies. Those not dead were crawling to the exits.

  “Well, that’s one way to clear a room,” Zach commented as he rose.

  “Yeah, guys, they’ve got guards to burn, pun intended. And those reinforcements are hauling their ass your way.”

  Ronnie packed the device back up. “Come on.”

  They took off, following Quirk’s relayed instructions. He only had to correct Ronnie twice. A record.

  Zach pushed through the rooftop door. They rushed onto the flat-topped building’s roof. But there was no helicopter.

  “Quirk,” Ronnie snapped. “Where are you?”

  “Yeah, we were taking some heavy fire. They’ve got AK-47s.”

  “No kidding,” Zach said. His ears still rang from the firefight back in the office.

  “Pilot can’t risk getting too close. He wants you to head south. Get at least a block and a half away.”

  “What exactly is the point in having a getaway vehicle if it doesn’t help you get away?” Ronnie asked, but then
a spat of gunfire shot up at the circling chopper, convinced both of them that they needed to get on the move.

  Zach looked out over the retaining wall. “That next building isn’t far.” Luckily, the streets of the island were narrow and curving. They could do this.

  Ronnie sighed. “I really do need to do more squats.”

  He took her hand and they ran full out, then launched off the retaining wall. They soared through the air, then crashed down on the neighboring building’s roof. This one was more sloped. He had to lash out and grab a pipe to keep from slipping off.

  Ronnie was already up, scrambling up the tile roof to the peak. She then ran along the narrow board. From there, she launched to the next building. Zach hurried to catch up.

  “Agent Hunt!” a voice called out in his ear. Warp.

  “Yes, I’m in pursuit.”

  “Interpol is losing its mind right now. You disrupted a major meeting between the Triad and Yakusa.”

  “Tell me about it,” Zach grunted as he shoved off the roof to the next building.

  “They had planned a raid,” Warp informed him.

  “Well, then how about they get their asses in here, then?”

  Another spat of gunfire came from down the street. This time, though, they must have hit a rotor on the chopper, as the vehicle careened sideways, wobbling on its axis. The chopper disappeared behind two buildings. So much for their getaway vehicle.

  Still, they headed south. The pilot would find a way to get back to them.

  Hopefully.

  They kept heading south until they ran out of buildings. They were at the ocean’s edge.

  “Interpol staged their attack from a French frigate just across the twelve-mile international waters line. If you can get to that ship, you’ll be safe.”

  Looking down at the dingy docks, there were plenty of small boats down there. Good to have a backup plan to the helicopter.

  “Can you hotwire a boat?” he asked the hacker.

  “Please,” Ronnie said, rolling her eyes.

  She pointed to a large yacht. “I think we should nab the Zeus. It’s got some serious power under the hood.”

  Zach raised an eyebrow. Where did Ronnie get this extensive knowledge of yachts?

  Ronnie shrugged. “The Zeus was built with pirates in mind. Even the uber-rich have to be worried about being boarded. It was built for luxury, but also speed, so they could outrun their attackers.”