Blackout - John Milton #10 (John Milton Thrillers)

by Mark Dawson

  Josie recited her number and waited as he finished jotting it down.

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll speak to the warden. Someone will call you tomorrow.”

  56

  JOSIE WAITED for the gate to be opened. It was all she could do not to run back to the car as soon as she was beyond it.

  She saw a faint green wash across the interior as she drew closer and, as she opened the rear door and slid back onto the seat, she saw that Ziggy had opened his laptop and was scrolling through a page of incomprehensible data.

  He didn’t look away from the screen as she closed the door behind her.

  “Did it work?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Did it work?”

  “Ziggy,” Hicks said when he didn’t reply.

  He rested the laptop on the dashboard. “Sorry,” he said. “Yes. It worked. You did well.” He paused. “But that doesn’t mean this is going to be easy.”

  Hicks frowned. “Meaning?”

  “I thought that the network security would be basic. It’s not. I used the phone to sniff the Wi-Fi. They’re using WPA2 encryption. That’s the standard level, and it’s very secure.”

  “You can’t hack it?”

  “I could, but getting a handshake could take weeks. And it doesn’t sound as if we have weeks.”

  “We don’t,” Hicks agreed. “He’s bought himself time in solitary. As soon as they take him out, he’s going to be beaten again.”

  “So we have to get in another way,” Ziggy said.

  Hicks encouraged him to go on. “And you’ve thought of that?”

  Ziggy grinned. “I have. As Officer Hernandez waited in the security building, the phone picked up another signal. A Bluetooth connection. It’s for a keyboard or a mouse—probably a keyboard. Every Bluetooth device has a unique hardware identification number. If I can learn the number for the keyboard, I can spoof it to my own keyboard dongle. Then I can transmit from my device to the computer in the security building. If I do it right, the computer will think the keystrokes are coming from the keyboard it’s been paired with, only they’re not. They’re coming from me. And chances are that the computer is networked into the prison’s system with a static, always-on connection. Which all means that if I can get into the laptop by spoofing the keyboard, I can get into the prison network. If I can do that, I might be able to start causing trouble. You know, opening doors, setting off fire alarms, that kind of thing.”

  “I’ve said I’ll go back tomorrow.”

  “Can you get it ready in time?” Hicks asked.

  “It’s not easy,” Ziggy said. “I’ll have to rig up just the right kind of payload. But…” He shrugged. “If I work overnight, it should be possible.”

  “You’re sure it’ll work?”

  “I can’t say for sure until I’m inside. I’m assuming that the control network for the internal prison security—the doors, the CCTV, their alarms, that kind of stuff—is on the same network as the standard systems.”

  “Is that likely?”

  “Maybe. If we were in America, there would probably be separation with air gaps, firewalls or VLANs. But even there, I’ve seen cases where everything is on a flat network, completely open. Shit like this goes down all the time. And those kinds of places are given decent systems funding. The network guys here aren’t going to be playing in the same sandbox. I’m guessing they didn’t have the time or the funds to set up anything funky.”

  Hicks waved his hand impatiently. “What do I need to do? Practically.”

  “It’s not you,” Ziggy said. “I think it has to be Officer Hernandez.”

  “Go on,” she said.

  “You need to get close enough to the computer in the security building so that I can access the Bluetooth.”

  “How?”

  “The phone. Same again. This time, it’ll connect with the computer and make it think it’s the keyboard. And then I’ll be in.”

  “As simple as that?”

  “You need to stay close enough so that I can access the connection.”

  Josie shook her head. “If I go through security, they’ll take the phone and put it in the storage cupboard.”

  “That might not work. Is it near the keyboard?”

  “No.”

  “And you need to be close to it.”

  “For how long?”

  “Hard to say. A minute. Maybe a couple of minutes.”

  “So you want me to small-talk the guards?”

  “Whatever you need to do.”

  “It’s going to look weird if I have to stay there for long. They get people in and out as quickly as they can.”

  “I’ll be as fast as I can.”

  Josie took a breath. “Fuck,” she said.

  “You did good just now,” Hicks said. “And this is similar. Right, Ziggy?”

  “Exactly the same.”

  Josie was thinking about what would happen if the plan they were seemingly concocting on the fly went wrong.

  She let that thought play out a little more: what would happen if it all went right?

  “I need to get home,” she said. “I want to see my son.”

  57

  JOSIE SLEPT in Angelo’s bed, clutching her son close to her. Her rest had been fitful and when she woke she had bleary eyes and a fatigued ache in her bones. Her mother noticed that something was bothering her, and Josie dismissed her concern with a brusqueness that she was unable to avoid, but one that she had immediately regretted.

  “What are you doing today?”

  “Work, Mother,” she lied.

  “When will we be able to go back home?”

  Her mother’s concern was entirely appropriate, but Josie did not want to get into a prolonged discussion about why a bullet had been pushed underneath the door and why they had had to leave. To do so would have forced her to confront the threat and then to explain what she was doing to make it go away. Her mother would have been even more frightened than she already was, and, more than that, Josie knew that if she thought for too long about the plan that she had allowed herself to be drawn into, her doubts would get the better of her.

  What am I doing to keep my family safe? Well, Mama, I’m colluding with two men I don’t know to spring a man accused of murder from the most secure prison in the country.

  She insisted that she would get Angelo up herself, and read two of his favourite books with him before she glanced at her watch and saw that it was seven. She looked out through the window and saw Hicks and Ziggy in the car on the street, waiting for her as they had arranged the previous night.

  Her mother watched her as she strapped on her gun belt.

  “Be careful,” she said.

  “I will. I’ll be back later.”

  She kissed her son and her mother and made her way out to the car.

  * * *

  HICKS HAD rolled down his window.

  “Morning,” he said as she approached.

  “Good morning.”

  Ziggy was in the back of the car today, so she went around to the passenger side and got in next to Hicks.

  “You get some sleep?” he asked her.

  “Some,” she said.

  “You ready for this?”

  “I think so.”

  “You don’t have too much to do,” Hicks reminded her. “Just get the phone near to the computer.”

  “I know,” she said. “I remember.”

  Josie turned around and looked into the back of the car. Ziggy was in the middle of the bench seat, with an open laptop on either side of him. The phone that she had taken from him yesterday was hooked up to one of the laptops. He was wearing a pair of headphones through which she could hear the thump-thump-thump of bass. He didn’t look up.

  “Don’t expect anything from him until we get there,” Hicks apologised. “He’s been working on this all night.”

  “But he’s ready?”

  “He says he will be.”

  “Best we get going, then.”
<
br />   Josie turned around and looked up at the window of their hotel room. She saw Angelo’s face between the curtains as Hicks put the car into drive and pulled away.

  58

  JOSIE WALKED through the open gate and made her way across the lawn and into the faux castle that, in turn, led into the main prison building. She walked with as much confidence as she could muster, doing her best to mask the fear that was churning in her gut.

  Ziggy had worked on whatever it was that he was doing for the duration of the drive south, and his regular curses of irritation, rendered louder than they might have been by the fact that he was listening to music and couldn’t hear himself speaking, did nothing for her confidence. He had had all night to finish whatever it was he was working on, and he was still finalising it. The clatter of his fingers on the keyboard became faster and faster the nearer they got to Bilibid, and he only handed the phone over to her as Hicks pulled up in the same place that he had parked yesterday, outside the prison complex. Ziggy’s summation of his work as he folded up one of the laptops was that he had done the best that he could do; his dissatisfaction didn’t do much for her confidence.

  She went through the main door and made her way through the lobby. It was busier again, with the same bustle of staff and visitors as she had seen during previous daytime visits. There was a queue of men and women waiting to pass through the scanner in the security lodge and, as she made her way across the hall to the Plexiglas window, she noticed that there were two people already waiting ahead of her.

  That, at least, was good. It would grant her a little added time for Ziggy to do whatever it was that he was proposing to do.

  But her good luck did not hold. A second clerk sat down behind the counter and beckoned her to step up.

  “How can I help you?” the man said. It was the same clerk as last night. He looked up and recognised her, adding, “You again.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Smith. Has a visit been arranged? I wasn’t called.”

  “Hold on.”

  The man turned to his computer and scrolled through the information on the screen. Josie reached into her pocket and took out the cellphone that Ziggy had given her. She looked down at the screen, pretending to use it. There was no indication that the phone was anything other than normal, no tell-tale information on the display that might betray the alchemy that Ziggy had promised.

  There was a narrow sill on her side of the window, and she placed the phone on it, sliding it so that it was obscured by the computer on the other side of the glass and, she hoped, out of the clerk’s sight.

  “Go through to the visiting block. They’ll bring him out when you get there.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  She turned away and started for the security lodge.

  “Excuse me!”

  She stopped and turned back.

  “Your phone.”

  The woman who had been standing behind her in the queue was proffering the cellphone that she had left behind.

  Josie managed a bashful smile, thanked her, and took the device. Her stomach dropped. She had only been at the desk for a minute. Ziggy had said that it might take him longer than that. Had she given him the time that he needed? There was no way of knowing and now she was committed. She had to follow through with the rest of the plan.

  She felt sick as she put the phone back into her pocket and made her way to the lodge and the line of people waiting to be searched.

  * * *

  JOSIE WASN’T taken to the communal visiting room.

  Instead, the guard led her farther down the corridor to a private room. She waited for the door to be opened and then followed the guard inside. There was a table and two chairs, one of which was positioned over an iron bracket that had been fitted directly into the concrete floor.

  “Take a seat,” the guard said. “He’s on his way.”

  Josie did as she was told, sitting down and lacing her fingers together on the table. They had taken her gun and the hacked phone when she passed through the security lodge. She had felt uneasy handing it over, relying on Ziggy’s assurance that his homebrew alterations were undetectable and the assumption that it would just be dropped into a box until she returned to collect it, but still fearful that it would give her away. She felt exposed and vulnerable.

  The door opened and she heard the jangle of metal. A guard came through first, stepping aside so that Milton and a second guard could follow him inside. Milton’s wrists were shackled together; the metal chain rattled as he moved. The guard pulled back the chair for him so that he could sit, and then knelt down and attached a tether to his chain and fastened that to the bracket.

  The guard turned to Josie. “Ten minutes,” he said. “Then he goes back again.”

  “Thank you.”

  The guards retreated to the edge of the room, but made no move to leave.

  “Alone, please,” she said sternly.

  The guards paused.

  She nodded down to the loop of chain that connected the cuffs around Milton’s wrists. “What’s he going to do? If I need you, I’ll shout.”

  The guards exchanged a glance. The first guard shrugged, repeated that she had ten minutes, and led the second one outside. The door was closed. She could see the silhouette of one of them through the smoked glass.

  “Talk quietly,” Milton said in a low voice.

  “Bugged?” she mouthed silently.

  “Probably,” Milton said.

  She shifted in her seat. She was aware of a prickling sensation between her shoulder blades, as if someone was behind her, watching.

  “I’ve met your friend,” she said.

  “He came?”

  She nodded. “Is he usually so strange?”

  “He has a way about him,” Milton said.

  “They said you killed someone.”

  “One of the inmates who was working for the man responsible for this. I wouldn’t waste any sleep over him.”

  You sound just like the president, she thought. She started to allow herself to think about the moral equivalence between the two of them, both prepared to be the arbiter of whether someone should live or die. She quickly stopped herself. She didn’t want thoughts like that in her head. She had committed herself to Milton and his friends. They were the only way she could see to untangle herself from the problems that, paradoxically, had been caused by her refusal to ignore the obvious injustice of Milton’s plight. The last thing she needed now was to start second-guessing herself, and him.

  She lowered her voice again. “They wanted me to tell you that you’ll need to be ready.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Ziggy says you’ll know when it happens.”

  “Nothing more specific?”

  “He says he’s working it out. I think he’s the sort of man who favours big gestures.”

  “About as vague as I’d expect,” Milton said with a grimace.

  “He gave me a phone number. He said when it all starts, you should get to a phone and call it. He’ll guide you out. He said you need to remember it.”

  “Go on.”

  She recited the number. Milton closed his eyes, made her repeat it, and then nodded.

  “You’ve got it?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked up at the door; she could see the silhouette of the second man now, too. They were both close to the door.

  “Thank you, Josie. I know you’ve taken a risk to help me.”

  “You’ll help me? Once you get out? Me and my boy?”

  “You have my word.”

  “Good luck.”

  She got up and looked down at him. He had been battered, his face marked with bruises that ran through blues and purples and blacks, but there was a certainty of purpose about him that was impossible to mistake. He reminded her of her father. He had been a promising catchweight fighter before an accident at work had ripped up his knee. He had died when she was a teenager, but she still remembered the fights that her mother had tak
en them to watch, and the iron determination in his eyes as he stepped through the ropes to face opponents who were often bigger than he was.

  Milton had the same dauntless certitude.

  They exchanged a glance.

  The door opened.

  She walked out on him without turning back.

  59

  THE GUARD unclipped the tether from the bracket and told Milton to get up. He did as he was told. The cuffs were tight, cutting into the flesh on his wrists, but he didn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing that he was sore. That was just the latest of his inconveniences: his muscles were still tender from the beatings that he had taken, one of his teeth had worked its way loose, and his neck and shoulders ached from being forced to sleep on the cold stone floor.

  The guards took their places again, one in front and the other behind. “Move,” the guard behind him said, jabbing him in the back with the point of his baton.

  They escorted him out of the visitors’ block and back toward the main building. He recognised the entrance to the isolation wing, but they passed by it.

  “Where are we going?”

  The guard jabbed him in the kidneys. “Quiet. Walk.”

  They made their way to Building No. 1 and went inside through the main door. They followed the corridor until they reached the stairs, then climbed up to the second floor.

  The door to Milton’s old cell was open.

  Two guards emerged from the cell. They were bearing a stretcher between them. There was a body on the stretcher. Milton looked down at it as the guards negotiated their way around him.

  Isko.

  The man’s eyes were closed and one arm hung limply over the edge of the stretcher.

  He was dead.

  The guard behind Milton put his hand on his shoulder and pushed.

  Milton took another step. He turned and looked into the cell.

  There was a man inside. He was big—much bigger than Milton—and wearing an evil grin.

  Tiny.

  * * *

  HICKS LOOKED at his watch.

  It was ten. Josie had been inside the building for an hour. He had a good view of the prison forecourt from their spot outside the gates. He could see the parking lot and the lawn and, finally, the ostentatious building with its vinyl banner and grand entrance. He had watched her disappear inside, but she had not yet come out.