“Never mind him,” Haylie said. “Let’s get on with it. Did you get what I asked for?”
“Two fresh identities,” Vector said. “Nabbed ’em off the SpiceCoast marketplace. Only going for four dollars apiece these days, oddly enough.”
“What about the paperwork?”
“Yeah, that was a little more expensive, but still pretty easy to get, passports are right here,” he said, padding the side of his backpack. “And two drivers’ licenses, those are easy.”
He dug into his pocket and presented a pair of off-white cards, fumbling with them for a moment and handing them over to Haylie.
“Jennifer Mack and David Lightman,” she muttered as she flipped the cards over each other, checking the quality. She thought for a moment and glared back up at him. “Are you serious with these names? The two characters from WarGames?”
His face falling, Vector raised his hands in defeat. “I panicked. It’s the first thing that came to mind.”
She handed Vector’s card back to him. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll need new ones once we get where we’re going, anyway.”
“Where is that, if I might ask?” Vector said.
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “We need to get out of here and get online. I know how to get into the Endling’s system—that’s our best bet of tracking down Caesar.”
“You can do that?” Vector asked. “How?”
“I saw something on the video screen while I was in the van—his login credentials to his online workspace. He cut and pasted them from a Notepad file. They were just sitting there in plain text.”
“You’re kidding,” Vector said.
“I told you he wasn’t very good,” Haylie said. “The NSA has the video, but at the speed they move, it could take them weeks to review it. That gives us some time. I just need to get online, and hopefully we can find something inside.”
“Fair enough,” Vector said. “Right, here’s what I’m thinking.” Vector placed his backpack in his lap, unzipping the main pocket and sliding out something roughly the size of a textbook. It was a bag made out of a shiny material, almost metallic. Vector smoothed it out flat across his backpack. “This should do the trick.”
“Is that a…”
“It’s a Faraday cage,” he said. “I’ve had this lying around for the past few months, wondering when we might get a chance to use it. Always best to be prepared—that’s what my pop always said. Something like that, anyway.”
“I’ve never seen one in person,” Haylie gasped. “I thought it would actually be, you know, a cage. A box or wire or something.”
“The bigger ones are,” Vector said. “But when you’re trying to shield something the size of, say, an ankle bracelet, there’s no need for all that. A bag will do the trick.”
Haylie ran her fingers over the surface, feeling the crinkle and bend of the material move with her touch. “How does it work?”
“It’s going to keep signals inside from getting out,” Vector said. “Pretty simple, really. Shoplifters use these to place expensive items with RFID tags inside—the signals don’t escape the enclosure. We’ll do the same thing, but with your ankle bracelet.”
Haylie nodded. “If I remove the tracker, the transmitter will send out an emergency signal saying something is wrong. But if it’s in the cage, then the signal just bounces around inside the bag, never gets out?”
“That’s the idea,” Vector said with a smile. “Piece of cake, right?”
>>>>>
Agent Hernandez breathed a loud sigh and tossed his keys on the desk from across the room, watching them slide off the top and next to the trash can in the corner. Nice shot, dude. You’ve just won another night in this dump. He was tired of everything: being away from his family, this whole damn assignment, the tiny dorm room, everything and anything about his life. The thought of another year here—well, he had tried his best not to think about it.
He looked across the room at the makeshift kitchen in the corner. His stomach turned at the thought of eating anything from a box again tonight, and the lack of home cooking wasn’t doing any favors to his waistline. He opened the small fridge in the corner and scanned the remaining frozen meals with a scowl.
Better get used to it, agent. You’re not going anywhere any time soon.
He ignored the hunger in his belly and cracked his laptop open, logging in. The machine’s fan kicked on, churning and straining for power as the screen came to life. The laptop was a brick of a machine—with dinged black edges and an ancient government ID tag, it must have weighed eight pounds. Eight pounds of slow. Hernandez wondered how old it was, fully knowing that he wasn’t due for an upgrade any time soon.
He double-clicked on the desktop folder reading “Case File: Black, Haylie.” Reviewing the list of documents—court records, scene reports, monthly diaries of activity—he wondered where the last eight months had gone, all wasted babysitting a girl that had done nothing wrong.
All she did was save all of our asses.
I need a new job.
He ran his hands through his hair, loosening the knot of his tie and scrolling the mouse, a dull sheen covering his eyes. As he dragged the cursor to shut down the machine, he saw an alert pop up in the top right corner. It was an email from “Wilcox, Andrea” with the subject line: “Black, H.: Additional paperwork requires signature tonight…”
Crap.
The dialog box disappeared before he could click on it. With a quick curse, he searched for his email application, hitting the “sync all mail” button at the top of the window. As the list refreshed, the message appeared in bold text at the top. He clicked through and leaned close to read the full message.
Wonderful. Just what I needed tonight.
>>>>>
“You ready?” Vector asked.
“Of course I’m not ready,” she said, snatching her leg back towards her and pulling at her shin with both hands, cradling herself in a semi-fetal position. “What happens after you take it off?”
“Well, it’s going to try to send a signal back to the main servers. If we’re fast enough, the bag will stop it. But that’s just half the trouble.” He reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a tiny electronic wafer. “We’re going to need this.”
“A SIM card?” Haylie asked. “Good lord, what’s that for?”
Vector grabbed a phone—a new one she hadn’t seen before—from his backpack, pushing the tiny door on the side that held its SIM card slot. He switched out the cards and pushed the enclosure shut.
“There’s a failsafe on the bracelet, quite a clever device. The FBI will be alerted if it loses contact with your skin,” he said. “But the device also sets off an alarm if the pings aren’t being received back at headquarters. This SIM card will replace those pings. I’ve already analyzed the information coming from the device, and I’ll use an app on this burner phone, which will look and sound like the bracelet.”
“You’ve already…” Haylie looked at Vector with a shake of her head. “You’ve been waiting a while to break me out of here, haven’t you?”
“I’ve been bored,” he said. “And I figured you’d be asking to do this at some point. You’re not the most patient person, you know. Now—are you ready?”
>>>>>
Hernandez hovered over his keyboard as he squinted through the screen’s bright, electric glow.
Agent Hernandez — Additional paperwork for Haylie Black attached, it needs to be filed tonight. She needs to review, sign, and fax back copies here and to headquarters.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Hernandez checked the clock and shook his head.
There’s a week-long break coming up for the clerk, so if this isn’t done tonight, we’re going to hear about it.
Hernandez scrolled down to the bottom of the email and double-clicked the PDF attached. The old laptop continued to whirl its fan, trying its best to open up the PDF reader software.
>>>>>
Haylie closed her eyes and too
k a breath. Get ready to run.
“Right,” Vector said, thumbing at his phone screen. “Bringing up the app now. I’ve got the coordinates, the IP address we need to ping, and the right JSON data structure. In just a minute, we’ll have that ugly thing off your ankle and the government servers won’t know the difference.” Selecting a few options, he watched the app go to work, and then back up to Haylie. “It’s all set, once we toss the device in the bag, we’ll be in business.”
She nodded, taking a few deep breaths—like she was about to jump into the deep end of a pool—and reached down. She pulled up the leg of her jeans, showing the ankle bracelet.
“Let’s go.”
>>>>>
Hernandez drummed his fingers, clicking his fingernails across the laptop’s keys as he waited for the document to download. He watched the progress bar.
We have got to get new computers. Or what does Haylie call them—machines? Machines. Yeah, I like that. That sounds way cooler.
The progress bar finally filled to a full blue rectangle, and Hernandez paged through the document to make sure everything was in order. He hit the “print” button and looked over to the corner where his printer sat. A single red light blinked back at him.
What now?
He fell down to the floor, crawling on his knees and brought his eye to the printer’s front panel. He read the tiny, dark gray text etched under the red light.
TRAY 1 EMPTY
Oh, come on.
He rose to his feet, scrambled back to the desk and rattled through the drawers, searching for a ream of paper. I’m out? I can’t be out. He cobbled together a few loose sheets—just enough for what he needed tonight—straightening them into a stack, and slid them into the paper tray.
I hate this job.
>>>>>
“Now!”
With a slash of his pocketknife, Vector cut the ankle bracelet’s band in two. Haylie, holding the Faraday bag open directly next to her foot, slid the bag over the device.
“Hit the SIM emulator,” Haylie whispered, tossing the bag to the side, treating like it was toxic waste.
Vector grabbed his phone with both hands, activating the app. As a slight pinging sound rang from the phone’s speaker, he smiled, extending the phone in Haylie’s direction with the screen facing her.
She saw a crude app with a few status indicators, but one reading “SIM signal verified” and another green block of text reading “ACTIVE.” A timer in the corner counted down towards zero, now at a minute and a half. She watched the seconds count down as she rubbed her ankle with relief.
“Nothing to see here, FBI people,” Vector said, obviously proud of his work. “Haylie Black is safe in her dorm room and will be staying in tonight, thank you very much.”
>>>>>
The printer whirled to attention as Hernandez heard the grumbling of gears and the sound of paper being sucked in through the bottom tray.
The first page of the printout rolled out onto the top, still warm to the touch. Hernandez sat huddled on the floor next to the machine, pulling each sheet towards him, fresh off the press.
Three more to go.
On the desk, far away across the room, his phone buzzed a notification, masked by the churning of the printer’s work.
A56 Notification: Haylie Black.
Location alert. Device breech.
>>>>>
“So where are we going?” Vector said, admiring his app as it pinged.
“Not sure. I just want to get moving somewhere, anywhere.” Pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, she slid her field jacket over one arm at a time and double-checked the contents of her backpack.
This should be enough for a few days. We can always buy things on the road as we—
“Wait a minute,” Vector said.
She looked over to see him standing above the Faraday Cage bag, gazing down inside. From her angle, she could see a flashing light reflecting off the sides. But it wasn’t green anymore—it was red. His eyes shot back to her with a look of terror.
“You were supposed to … You didn’t close the bag.”
“You never said anything about closing the bag.”
He stepped back a few steps, eyes still locked on the Faraday Cage. “It doesn’t work if you don’t close the bag. You have to close the bag.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that I had to—”
“I figured that you were smart and all that and could figure out that leaving a bag open wouldn’t keep anything inside from sending out signals.”
Haylie’s heart raced. She stared down at the metallic fabric, and the reflection of the red light from inside.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Vector said, running for the door.
“Should we … close it now?” Haylie asked, slinging her duffel bag over her shoulder.
“It’s too late for that, come on!”
>>>>>
Everything looks like it’s in order.
Shuffling the papers, he cracked his door open, reflexively checking his pocket for his keys with a pat-pat of his palm. Empty. Looking back to the desk, he saw the shine of metal lying on the floor by the trash can. He walked back over, swiped them off the carpet, and headed out into the hallway.
As the door closed behind him, he made his way two doors down to Haylie’s room, pressing his ear gently against the wood, trying to make out any kind of sound that he could. He couldn’t hear a thing.
“Haylie,” he said, rapping at the door with light knuckles. “Agent Hernandez. I know it’s late but I need one more signature from you tonight. It’s important.”
Still nothing. Hernandez reached into his pocket to shoot her a quick note, but found an empty pocket where his phone belonged. Must have left it in the room. He brought out his keys, cycling through them and finally finding himself holding the one reading “Black, H.” on the fat part of the metal.
“I’m coming in,” he said. “I wouldn’t normally do this, but like I said, this is a big deal.”
He pressed the key into the lock, past all the scuffed brass—a victim of Haylie’s lock-picking lessons—and turned the knob.
The papers fell from his hand, scattering across the floor. He turned and ran.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Frankfurt, Germany
November 1st, 9:03AM
Caesar basked in the morning light, feeling the warmth on his shoulders as the sunlight covered the back of his shirt. He flipped his sunglasses on and took a sip of tea, wincing at the taste but welcoming the warmth. It wasn’t the coffee he was used to, but he figured he’d mix it up a bit today. Maybe the switch would calm his nerves.
“Everything all right over there?” Sean asked.
Caesar wrung his hands together as he scanned the crowd. The old-style German buildings framing the courtyard looked down from their peaked roofs, reaching into the sky with jagged edges, like giant, magnified pixels struggling to form a diagonal line. It would have been a perfect, crisp fall morning if it hadn’t been for the enormous weight hanging over his head, pushing down, heavier as each hour, each minute, passed.
“Too many distractions out here,” Caesar said. “I feel exposed.”
“Yeah, you keep saying that,” Sean said. “I like it out here. Being cooped up, hiding in hotels all day—we might as well be in prison.” He took a sip from his water bottle. “And I don’t want to be in prison. Chill out, man. No one’s looking for fugitives around here, especially this early.”
The bell tower rang, causing Caesar to flinch out of his seat. Pigeons scattered under their table as the flow of tourists grew with each passing minute, carving around the table like rising water finding its way down a riverbank.
“Maybe we should get out of Frankfurt,” Caesar said, his eyes flicking back and forth, pulling at his collar, feeling it tighten. “Head south. Stay mobile.”
If I was doing surveillance, how would I do it? Maybe from one of those windows?
He craned his neck to look past t
he edge of the umbrella shading them from the sun, trying to check for anything suspicious on the upper floors of the building across the way. All he could see were empty windows, some half-open, others with flower pots perched outside. No people.
“We’re fine,” Sean asked, absorbed in his screen. “Enjoy the morning.”
“Enjoy the morning?” Caesar said. “The election is in five days and I have to code voting patterns for seventy-four more precincts. They all need to be varied, the timing modules all need different algorithms in place. If anyone notices that one area’s votes look off, they’ll tie it to something bigger.”
“No one’s going to know,” Sean said. “You’re giving them way too much credit. Think about what you’re saying—you interned for the government back in college, right?”
“Yeah,” Caesar said. “Sure.”
“Great,” Sean said. “And how many genius-level computer scientists did you work with that summer?” Sean stared at Caesar across the table, waiting for his answer. “Ten? Twenty?”
“None,” Caesar said. “It was pretty dead there.”
“That’s what I thought,” Sean said. “And when you graduated from college and could pretty much pick any job you wanted, you went straight to the government, right?”
“I went to Brux,” Caesar said, getting the point. “Hell, I was working for three startups before I even graduated.”
“Right,” Sean said. “Because that’s what smart people do. They go places where other smart people are. And these days, none of them go to work for the NSA or FBI or certainly not the Federal Election Committee to catch hackers. None.”
Crash Into Pieces (The Haylie Black Series Book 2) Page 19