Jack Be Nimble: Gargoyle

by English, Ben

  Having a plan B had gotten their family out of Tiananmen Square. Most of their family.

  Brad slipped soundlessly down the side of the cavernous hallway towards the building’s center, stopping underneath an open exhaust port for the ventilation system, some thirty feet from the gray double doors leading to the guardroom.

  Eyes on the small rectangle of wired glass, Brad withdrew two small boxes and affixed them to the wall above an exit sign–another American affectation that provided an ample enough base to aim each at the door. Thank the heavens for small favors.

  The first container was actually a minuscule camera and transmitter, barely the size of a sugar cube. Guess the Japanese were good for something, Brad thought for the thousandth time in his career. Gan’s voice was a clear whisper in his ear. “I have the picture. Link the camera to the launcher.”

  The next box, about the size of a pack of cigarettes, went just above the camera. Brad carefully directed the battery-powered mini-launcher towards the door, and extended the six exhaust barrels. Now, in the event of a security alert, his brother had the ability to ensure that the guards dashing out the door would be met by half-a-dozen screaming, exploding rockets.

  Brad retraced his steps to the stairwell door. The anti-theft measures outside the factory walls were adequate; par for the course, at least–but the security within was ludicrous. Good thing Mmar was in charge. He almost wished he could send the man a thank-you note.

  The fusebox and backup battery were under the stairs, exactly where the blueprints called for them. Underneath each Brad pressed a strip of Semtex, then gingerly attached two radio-controlled detonators between them. One should be enough, but even plan B called for a contingency. He paused for a moment to blot the perspiration from above his eyes. Ironic somehow that an American factory on Czech soil was in danger from a Chinese national using the Czech version of American C-4 plastic explosive.

  And the French version of the FBI’s electronic pick gun, he thought a minute later as he pressed the tip of the narrow, undersized pistol against the keyhole on the second floor. He pulled the trigger, and thin, narrow needles licked from the gun into the inner lock at over a dozen times a second. The door was open by the time Brad’s companions joined him.

  Quickly they fanned out into the carpeted space beyond, removing their flat backpacks as they did so. Wide windows on one side of the dim room admitted a tinted version of the gathering night, while identical panes on the other side looked down on the dim manufacturing floor. Besides the dozen monitors scattered around the room in various cubicles, the only real light came from a hallway opposite the stairs they’d just made use of.

  This was the first job the three brothers had undertaken together in Europe, and they’d orchestrated it well. “Down to the last wave of the conductor’s hand on the last train out of town,” as a certain erstwhile music professor would have said. Brad loved American musicals, and The Music Man was his favorite by far.

  “We are in,” Brad said to Gan over his lip-mounted microphone, then clenched his jaw at the sound of movement in a corner of the room.

  Each of the men jerked involuntarily into a crouch, then froze. “Wait,” Brad whispered over the line to his brother. No one moved, though Brad was itching toward the rubber grip of his weapon. He had a narrow, many-barreled concussion gun in a sheath on his pack, loaded to fire dozens of packets of mini-explosives designed to stun and disable.

  Instead, Brad drew out a narrow aerosol canister and removed the safety pin, then went motionless again at the unmistakable sound movement.

  Thirty seconds ticked by. It seemed like nearly an hour to Brad, and he wondered if the other men felt the same. No one moved. They could have been mannequins, he decided, in some spy-fetish shop.

  If whoever it was had been lying in wait for them, or were alerted somehow, they certainly would have made themselves known by now. Patience. Brad allowed another minute to ooze by, then crept toward irregular noise. He worked his way around several workstations, each monitor projecting a different, mindless screensaver. Good, they left their computers up and running all the time; that would make things easier, assuming the men could deal decisively with whatever was making the noise that was grating across his nerves like sandpaper on Swiss cheese.

  Squeak, pop-pop-pop. Squeak.

  Metal coils–a chair? Brad leaned his head around a corner and saw the source. One of the guards leaned back in an office chair, his feet propped up on a desk, balanced by his head, resting against a file cabinet. As he watched, the man began to snore lightly, then shifted, eliciting another muted squeal from the chair’s base.

  The guard had fallen asleep despite the screensaver he’d sat to watch, which depicted several thong-clad women frolicking on a beach.

  A less professional man would have been tempted to laugh. Instead, Brad crept closer, closer, until he was positioned right above the man’s open mouth. As the guard inhaled, Brad leaned away and sprayed a tiny portion of the aerosol can’s contents into his face.

  The man tensed under the cold mist, one hand going to the baton at his belt, then immediately relaxed, sagging further into the chair’s ample padding.

  Brad stood up then, squeezing the tension out of the back of his neck with one hand. “Let’s go, everyone.”

  One of the hired hands from Prague took up his position as lookout near the door and eyed the guard. “He is dead?” he asked in his thick English.

  “No,” Brad replied. “Just napping.” He pantomimed sleep. According to his security badge the guard’s name was Glevanik. Brad checked the list he’d brought, then nodded in satisfaction. The guard in question had begun his shift a short time ago; they had over an hour before he was scheduled to relieve another post. Plenty of time for the job, and just about enough time for the chemical to wear off and the man’s sleep to return to normal. Brad replaced the safety pin on the aerosol can and returned it to the proper pocket. Nice to see the stuff really worked.

  The guard was under the effects of a specialized version of ether. It was amazing the things one could synthesize out of common automotive chemicals.

  As the other men were setting up, positioning themselves behind workstations in certain cubicles and removing their tools, Brad took a moment to look over Glevanik’s equipment. Interesting that the guards outside carried guns, while the ones inside were armed with . . . 17-inch stun batons. Hmm. Take away their two 9-volt batteries and you’d even the playing field somewhat.

  Brad sat behind a PC and spoke into his mike. “Gan, we are all set up and ready to go. Steve? You there?”

  “Yeah, but I still don’t know what I’m doing here.” The voice in Brad’s ear sounded thready and indistinct despite the digital connection. “You’ve got Jack’s software in there with you. Is it working?”

  “Shaking hands with the security system now.”

  “CastleBreaker should get you in and find whatever you’re digging for,” Steve said, around a mouthful of something. “I’m an unwilling accomplice here, remember.”

  Brad allowed himself a smirk as he inserted a flash drive and introduced it to the computer. For all his love of techno-gadgets, Steve Fisbeck would never trust his own digital encryption systems. Wouldn’t implicate himself over a safe line. “You’re here because you wrote the program, Steve; Jack just came up with the ideas.” A command box came up on the screen, and Brad clicked on an option. “Besides, who knows if he will ever use this stuff again? Nobody’s heard from Jack in months.” It was as though their friend had fallen off the face of the earth. If something went wrong; if the program couldn’t withdraw the proper files, Steve was just as good.

  “Even so,” the other man replied. “You know how mad Jack’ll be if he ever finds out what we’re doing with his program.”

  Brad drummed his gloved fingers lightly on the desk. That couldn’t be helped. In the cubicle next to his someone dropped a screw. Brad grimaced and suppressed an expletive. He supposed that also couldn’t be helped
. Even though the men had practiced this one task to distraction over the past few months, they were operating under tremendous pressure and working in near-total darkness. Couldn’t be easy for anyone.

  And when all was said and done, Brad’s was the easier task. He grinned as a list of files appeared on the screen. CastleBreaker was an amazing program; rather, a cluster of programs. Brad didn’t understand much of how the baroque software worked; it was far too elephantine for him.

  But he would trust its creators with his life, and more, if it came to that.

  “Ah, jackpot, Mr. Mmar.” The computer Brad accessed contained a directory of all the projects the plant was working on–the actual information was broken up, encrypted, and spread throughout the other computers in the Research and Development office, for that is where the burglars were and whose computers they were cracking.

  “This is good, this is good.” He couldn’t help rubbing his palms together as he began copying the directories and addresses for the information he sought. There were half-a-dozen good projects in the works at DynaSynth, but Brad only needed a quick look at each. He was taking them all, anyway.

  R&D had recently developed a way to grow diamonds using laser technology–the focused light could map out and speed up the progress of crystal formation. With the information he was at that very moment (what a rush!) stealing, a similar company could build a machine that would manufacture jewel-quality diamonds for about five cents a karat. In a few years the prices for diamond applications would fall rather dramatically. Industry leaders like DeBeers and G.E. would feel it, though not before three brothers from China had a chance to cash in. Big.

  Brad copied a few more files, pulling the designs for the nanotransistors used in the instrument that would fine-tune the direction of the laser. Amazing idea (he’d read about it in a Popular Science magazine), but still fairly crude. It was just too hard to engineer something measured in billionths of meters.

  His friends from Prague were about halfway through their assignments, Brad judged. They worked fast, but still took time to double check the fittings on each of the computer casings when they were done. Brad had a few more minutes to himself. He took a sip from his water bottle and wondered which of the files before him he should partake of next.

  Then he noticed that Castlebreaker was still running, still decoding. “Hey, Steve,”

  “Yeah. You got it yet?”

  Brad frowned. “I believe so, but the program is still working. How long does it usually take?”

  Steve cleared his throat. This time he was chewing on something wet. “Well, Jack and I tested it on some NSA stuff at Fort Meade and it chomped through their light-to-medium security material in just over thirty seconds.” He laughed. “You should have seen the look on their--”

  Brad licked his lips before interrupting. “Has it ever taken more than five minutes?”

  He waited.

  When Steve spoke again, it was with his mouth empty. “What are you talking about? It gave you the files we’re after, didn’t it?”

  “Yes, but it is still trying to decipher something. Could there be a problem?” Brad moved the mouse, and the pointer on the screen hovered over the command to cancel.

  The response was immediate. “If it says it’s still digging for something, then there’s something buried under another encryption layer. Let it dig.” Brad noted the odd note in the creator’s voice. Steve had always been the nervous type, but had seemed fine earlier in the van, huddled over his laptop and bag of candy bars in the middle of the Bohemian forest.

  While the other men worked feverishly away around him, Brad deliberated. It was an unusual activity for him in the middle of a job--usually he tried to clear his mind, practicing a meditation trick he’d learned as a child that kept his thoughts orderly, his pulse slow.

  It wasn’t working at the moment.

  DynaSynth’s R&D department had a state-of-the-art security system on a stand-alone network. They’d split up their sensitive files, probably assigning different files to engineers according to their individual specialty and contributions to the projects. All the files were physically present, so to speak, on the various hard drives in the room. Yet Castlebreaker had found something else, a file cached and coded so that its pieces were located within pieces of each of the other files.

  Like a jigsaw puzzle made from fragments of the scattered pieces of a dozen other jigsaw puzzles.

  Brad could feel a headache building behind his right eye.

  The men were almost done with their tasks, maybe he should just–and then the screen before him changed, and Brad found himself staring at a single folder, headlined by a Czech word he was unfamiliar with. “Hey, Karel,” he whispered to the guard near the door. “In your language what does ‘hradek’ mean?”

  The other man never took his eyes from the hallway. “It is a small castle.”

  “Castle?” Brad tapped a few keys, connected a spare flash drive he’d brought along for this very contingency, and copied the entire file, more than a gigabyte’s worth of space. While it was copying, he clicked open the first file and found himself looking at the detailed schematics for—some kind of building. Architectural blueprints, for something big and sophisticated.

  After that came a shock: more notes on nanotransistors, but from what Brad could glean from the plans, these microscopic circuits were far more elegant and efficient that those he’d copied a few minutes before. At least a generation ahead of the other R&D material.

  Brad wished he could have brought some kind of nano-electrician in with him, or even Steve. Fisbeck probably could have translated some of what he was seeing into terms that Brad could have understood–at least in terms of dollar value.

  The next screen showed him the plans for a kind of fiber optic line, using–what?–some sort of synthetic diamond filament to conduct signals. Brad shook his head. Was that possible? Mentally he went down the list of possible buyers for this odd tidbit of technology, then found himself wondering. Brad certainly was no engineer, but what on earth did high-density fiber optics have to do with plans for . . . a castle?

  Time to go. Brad backed CastleBreaker out of the system, allowing the pirating program to clean up after itself and remove all the evidence of its incursion. By the time he pocketed his flash drives, the monitor had already returned to its screenshots of mountain lakes and wildlife.

  His companions made a quick sweep of the room, returning chairs to their original angles and running the heads of small, silent vacuums across seats and carpets they’d touched. The breath of the guard bore no trace of the foul-smelling residue usually left by the ether.

  Brad was the last to exit the room, re-engaging the lock as he did so. Swiftly the men backtracked through the plant, retrieving the plastic explosives and other gadgets they’d positioned earlier.

  Across from the guardroom, Brad pulled his gadgets from the wall, frowning at the slight, pale smudge left by the resin he’d used to affix the mini-launcher. Have to remember to fix that, he thought.

  The door at the terminus of the hallway opened suddenly, and Brad leaped straight up into the shadowy maw of the air shaft, gritting his teeth as he dragged himself upward with his arms. Bracing himself upside-down with his feet, the young man locked his elbows and arched his back until he was looking overhead at the ground below.

  Two uniformed watchmen strode by below, their hard soles tap-tapping against the cold concrete. Given a spare hand, Brad could have reached down and snatched a hat as they passed. Instead, he worked his neck and flexed his legs to offset the rush of blood that was threatening to make him pass out.

  When the footsteps had fully faded, Brad took a deep breath and pushed off with his feet, turning and twisting as he fell, then cursing the noisy slap his feet made on the smooth floor. Too close.

  The evening shift was starting up at the plant, and twice Brad had to conceal himself, fitting into unlikely wedges of shadow while precious seconds ticked past. By the time he reached
the filter inlet, the other men had all gone but for Paulos, who snapped the grill back into place as soon as his employer passed. Brad slapped the larger man on the back before jogging up the tunnel towards the river, where the other men waited.

  They lingered on the bank for another three minutes, hunkering in the mouth of the moat shaft while a guard wandered by not five meters above them.

  Finally, Gan’s voice sounded the all-clear in each of their ears, and they retreated back over the crumbling wall. Each of the Czechs wore a broad smile as they ran through the trees, their backs to the factory. It wasn’t until they reached a dirt road on the other side of the hill and piled into the dark, unmarked van that Brad allowed himself to relax.

  Hradek, whatever it was, stood to be electrical somehow. He’d have to talk to Gan about consulting an engineer before deciding if they could salvage anything from the plans. A fiber optic line made from flexible, synthesized diamond? It sounded too bizarre. The nanotechnology involved in making high-density cabling on the diagrams he’d seen was light years beyond anything that DynaSynth could do, judging from the other projects they’d stolen.

  The van grumbled to life and began moving down the dirt road. At the rear of the open van, Brad’s youngest brother Li turned the valve on a fifty-gallon tank, then directed a high-pressure stream of water and air back and forth onto the ground behind them. The tracks of the van were obliterated under the heavy stream.

  No chances. No trace.

  One by one the men removed their gear and handed their backpacks over to Steve. The portly American took each in turn, gently slotting them in a foam rubber storage bin. As the lock clicked on the trunk, each man breathed an individual sigh of relief. Someone laughed, and Paulos flipped open a small cooler filled with Becherovka beer. Later, there would be plum brandy.

  As the men began to unwind and recount their adventure, comparing the theft with some of their other exploits, real or otherwise, Brad leaned back against the cool metal wall and forced himself to relax. “Who’s got my hat?” Someone handed him his Stetson. They still had a considerable amount of work before them, and hours before he could truly rest.