Deadly Odds

by Allen Wyler

  Politicians and governments might like to believe they could police the internet, but the difficulty of actually enforcing online legislation was close to impossible, partly because well-defined sovereign borders simply don’t exist. The good news was that some people are not willing to wait and watch cyber-based crime go unchallenged. A few years ago, the infamous hacker group Anonymous took matters into its own hands by shutting down several child pornography websites, including Lolita City, as part of Operation Darknet.

  The FBI strongly suspected the Jahandars were communicating via the Deep Net and now Arnold possessed the proof of that. He had discovered this from their first contact this evening. But things weren’t that simple. Never were, Arnold thought, staring at the monitor.

  He picked up the one remaining slice of cold pizza, nibbled off the limp apex, dropped it back into the box, and slumped back into the chair. Think! This is important.

  Okay, as of a few minutes ago, he knew how they communicated. That part of the puzzle was solved. But Fisher wanted more. He wanted the ability to intercept all their messages and not just the ones to Arnold. Meaning he had to discover a route into the mother computer. That would be a total bitch!

  If he had a single Tor address to connect to, the solution would be mind-numbingly straightforward: pass that information on to Fisher and let the FBI geeks work through the massive headache of trying to track the originating computer back to the country, city, and physical address—if there was one—of residence. Then again, who’s to say the computer wasn’t a laptop in the front seat of a car roaming the streets of Mogadishu and connecting to the Internet via a satellite-phone uplink?

  Apparently whoever was in charge of the terrorists’ computers had anticipated this risk and had taken the precaution of constantly varying their Darknet address. Meaning when they wanted information from Arnold he was given a dot-onion site that remained active for maybe only ten minutes. If he hadn’t logged on within that period of time, the site went dead and the terrorists moved onto the next, completely new, address. Had to hand it to Nawzer: he—or she, he had no idea which—was very canny when it came to being elusive.

  He decided his only hope would be to write a Trojan horse, a tiny bit of software to upload to their computer next time they linked up. It, in turn, would send back a simple intermittent message—a digital beacon, of sorts—that would allow him, or the Homeland Security geeks, to track back to its origin. Simple in concept, difficult to pull off. For if Nawzer was as clever as Arnold suspected, he would have anticipated this tactic and would be screening any incoming bits for an attached code each time they linked up. Meaning Arnold had to be better at disguising his Trojan horse than Nawzer would be at detecting it. This was the problem he now faced, and time was running out.

  He glanced at his watch, realized how late it had become. Plus he was dog-tired, having slept only a handful of hours these past few days. Worse yet, he found himself slipping into fantasies about Rachael, about how intimately she had hugged him at the funeral. He shook his head, trying to focus on the task at hand. But he also needed sleep. Otherwise fatigue would cause him to start making stupid errors. What are my most important chores tonight?

  Well, one was to transmit this new information—that the terrorists were using the internet—to Davidson to pass on to the FBI. Easy enough. He sent an email to Davidson to meet mid-morning.

  Last thing before hitting the sack was to start his security scans running. Those bastards knew the only way to obtain his system would be to steal it. Meaning, they would try to upload a similarly stealthy Trojan horse to his network. This was no longer a hypothetical mental exercise, it was a given. So, on top of his usual antivirus/spyware routines, he initiated another scan to scour his system in minute detail for any bits of code that were new to his system since his contact with Nawzer. The scan would take hours to complete and would run while he slept. The last precaution he took before heading off to bed was to disconnect from the Internet.

  For a moment Arnold sat listening for Karim’s snoring. Yes, still there. The tough thing was knowing the smelly bastard would remain in the house until Firouz gave him permission him to kill him, a task he suspected would please Karim no end. But, he assured himself, that would not happen unless they had his pirated system working for them.

  Moving over to the kitchen cabinet, he opened the blue plastic Maalox bottle and chugged a slug, waited for the first swallow to work its way down to the ache before taking a second hit, then wiped chalky residue from his lips with the back of his hand and capped the bottle.

  For a moment he stood, bottle in hand, butt propped against the edge of the kitchen counter, reflecting on the battle taking place between himself and Nawzer, the terrorist computer jockey: the race had begun. Who’d win?

  The pain smoldering in the pit of his stomach wasn’t helped by the chalky liquid, so he grabbed a handful of Tums from the bathroom to stash on the bedside stand. That’s when he noticed the still untouched amber prescription bottle on the cabinet shelf, exactly as it had remained for the past year. Ambien. He shook it, feeling the weight and listening to the rattle. Almost full. Enough to kill myself? Hmmm…. Interesting…

  Death would certainly solve the immediate issues and relieve the stress tearing him in half, as if the FBI and Jahandars each were tugging an arm and leg like a medieval torture device.

  In retrospect, life had been going along perfectly until he decided to visit Vegas. Well, except for his overwhelming desire to overcome his awkwardness around women. And if he hadn’t flown there he’d still be grappling with that issue, so it had resulted in a few positives. But now, with the aid of hindsight, he knew the trip hadn’t been worth it. Had he known… well, that wasn’t exactly true either. He really had wanted to experience sex. Hell, had even dreamed about it frequently. Yet had he selected another escort, who knew what his life would now be like? Less complicated, for sure. Then again, who’s to say that would be the case? He’d never know.

  With a resigned sigh, he shook the bottle again, listening to the rattle of pills. Yeah, upend the bottle and wash them all down with a glass of water or, better yet, a slug of vodka, slip into bed, feel the pleasure of sleep settle over him and never wake up. Easy enough.

  He tried to imagine what it would feel like to actually go through with it, to experience the sensation of the pills slipping down his throat to his stomach, where they would slowly begin dissolving, first crumbling into paste and then on into fluid, at which point the drug would begin to be absorbed. Soon as that happened, his fate would be cast. Unless he chickened out and got himself to an ER to get his stomach pumped. But was death the only way of extricating himself from this bind? No. Not yet. At least he hadn’t reached that point of despair. Yet. Besides, he had a morbid curiosity to learn how this chapter would end, to see if he was really good enough to beat Nawzer and Chang. By now, helping the FBI wasn’t the overriding motivator to see this little game to the finish. At this point, the game itself, the challenge of putting his life on the line, was the ultimate gamble. It had become an adrenaline rush of sorts, like bungee jumping or sky diving. For the first time the reality of gambling for the ultimate stakes really sank in. He could win only if he could devise a foolproof way to stop the Jahandars and then disappear forever, leaving everyone, including the FBI, to believe he was dead. Interesting problem. Replacing the Ambien on the shelf, again pondering his situation, he wandered back to the kitchen.

  A new kernel of an idea popped to mind. A possibility. He stood at the stove inspecting the six burners, absent-mindedly massaging his front teeth with the tip of his tongue. Could it possibly work? He mentally began searching for flaws in the plan. Yes, it might.

  No longer exhausted—and in fact feeling strangely excited—he microwaved a mug of water for hot chocolate. Back at the table he began critically analyzing the idea, forging it into a solid plan, a simultaneous solution to several problems at once, a way to reconstruct his life and free himself. Howie would
never come back to life. He felt terrible about that. But vengeance for his senseless murder would go a hell of a long way to alleviate his guilt.

  Patience would be the key, and patience wasn’t one of his strong points. But for the first time he glimpsed a possible way out.

  26.

  Arnold set the parking brake and climbed out of the Jetta, Karim doing likewise from the passenger side, sticking to him like a booger on the tip of his finger. Once again, he’d been lucky to be a half-block down from another car as it started to pull out, free spaces at a premium along this stretch of Alki Beach. The sun warmed the salt air, heightening the pungent shore smells of beached seaweed and decomposing barnacles.

  He recognized Davidson sitting on a large piece of driftwood about three hundred yards west on the beach, tossing rocks he picked up at his feet. Arnold waved, and Davidson returned the acknowledgment but made no effort to stand, seemingly content to sit on the large weathered log and watch them approach. As they neared the lawyer, Arnold said to Karim, “That place across the street, Spuds?” nodding to a cubic, single-level building of glass, white-painted wood, and a blue, weathered canopy.

  “Uh.”

  Which Arnold interpreted as an affirmative. “Great fish and chips. I strongly recommend them.”

  Karim glanced from the stand to the beach and back again, his pace slowing as he considered whether to feed his face or stand around ogling the women on the beach. “That bench?” Karim had started taking to asking questions similar to the way Arnold did. He was referring to a park bench bolted to the concrete sidewalk, facing the harbor. “You sit there.”

  Too much! “Oh for Chrissake, you think I’m going to run out on you? Here, take the fucking car keys if that’ll make you happy.” He was getting fed up with his evil twin constantly at his side.

  It was a stupid question to ask because the answer was obviously yes. Everywhere they went it was always the same, as if Karim were accompanying the transfer of a notorious prisoner from one prison to the other instead of simply making sure Arnold didn’t take a powder. Shaking his head in a show of obvious disgust, Arnold dropped down onto the bench, wrist to his side so Karim could handcuff him to the round iron leg. Davidson was standing next to them by now, watching with obvious bemusement.

  Soon as the cuff was secure and Karim satisfied, Davidson plunked down next to him but continued looking straight across the blue harbor to the Magnolia neighborhood. A white and green Washington State ferry was slicing across the panorama toward the downtown terminal. Neither man spoke until Karim began dodging traffic on his way across the street.

  Davidson gave a sarcastic snort. “Doesn’t cut you any slack, does he.”

  Arnold turned from watching his guard to his lawyer. “Figured the idea of food—especially fish and chips—would give us a chance to talk in private a few minutes. They’re busy this time of day, so that should allow a few extra minutes.”

  “How you doing?” Davidson asked sympathetically.

  Arnold sat back, trying to enjoy the sun on his face and view as much as possible with his hand shackled to the bench. “You asking about me personally or are you asking about the information I’m supposed to get for our federal friends?”

  Davidson crossed his legs, right ankle on left knee and shot the cuff of his suit pants. “Don’t be so cynical. Both. Start with you.”

  He wanted to open up and tell him how tired and frightened he felt every second of the day, how he wished to hell he’d never selected Breeze, how he’d picked up his mother’s amber bottle of Ambien and actually toyed with the idea of swallowing the whole lot of them with a vodka chaser. But that would be whining, and he hated that. Instead, he stole another reassuring glance over his shoulder at Karim, saw him queuing up at the order window. Quickly, he pulled a slip of folded yellow notepaper from his jeans and handed it to Davidson. “Here.” Soon as Davidson had it, Arnold put his hand back to his side. All he needed was for Karim to catch him passing notes. For a second he felt as if he were back in grade school, dodging the teacher’s all-knowing eyes.

  “What is it?” Davidson asked.

  Arnold checked on Karim again. Still in line.

  “Two things. The most important is the number of two of Firouz’s offshore accounts. A good way for the feds to finger him is to work back through those. I got them off the initial payment Firouz sent me. Have them follow the money, although I suspect the accounts might’ve been changed by now. But at least it gives them something to play with.”

  Davidson nodded. “Good work. I’ll pass it along. You said two things. What else?”

  Arnold blew out a breath and wiped his palms on his jeans, his heart pounding faster and harder than normal. Yeah, I’d be a shitty spy.

  “Fisher said he suspected they were using the Darknet. Last night was my first contact with Firouz’s controller. They gave me an assignment. But I suspect it’s total bullshit, a nothing job, just something to test what I’ll do and how I’ll react. The important point to tell Fisher is he’s right, that’s one way they communicate.” He thought about that a moment and added, “At least with me it is. I have no idea how they pass information between each other.”

  Davidson gave a quick nod of acknowledgment. “Got it.”

  Arnold saw something in his lawyer’s face, and it wasn’t good. “What?”

  “Bad news.” Davidson was staring into the distance now, making it apparent this wasn’t going to be easy for him. “They want you to do more than only provide a link to their cell.” Davidson stopped, as if undecided how to deliver an unpleasant message.

  Arnold shook his head in disgust. Why am I not surprised? “Go on. What?”

  Davidson cleared his throat. “They want you to tell Firouz to let his handler know the FBI asked you to spy for them. Then—”

  “You fucking out of your mind? They’ll kill me, they find out.”

  Davidson raised a hand. “Hold on and listen to me. I didn’t say I agree with them, I’m just telling you what they instructed me to pass on. Do with it what you please. You listening?”

  “Yes.” His head felt ready to explode and he realized he was grinding his molars, making the angle of his jaw ache on up to his temples.

  “They figure that not only can you obtain more information this way, but you can also feed them disinformation. See the logic?”

  The pressure in Arnold’s temples spiked, throbbing, producing a migraine-like headache. He started to make a bitingly sarcastic remark, but caught himself. Fuck it, I just need to get out of this.

  When he didn’t answer, Davidson added, “Perhaps it’s time we consider plan B. If you can figure out a way to slip away from Karim I can hide you for a few days until we decide on a way to make you vanish for good. What do you think? We can do it right now, today, if you want.”

  He’d considered this option already. It had, in fact, been a recurrent rumination since the beginning. But he couldn’t do that. Not yet. Not as long as he still owed Howie revenge, some payback for being murdered. He was also torn by the specter of a possible connection with Rachael. As long as that remained a possibility, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  He shook his head. “Can’t do that. Not right now. Soon maybe.”

  “Your call. I’m just saying, consider it. We can do it anytime, just give the nod.”

  Arnold turned to glimpse the fish and chips place again. Karim was now standing to the left of the order counter, sprinkling vinegar over a double order of golden fish and chips. Arnold turned back to the beach view. “If I don’t settle this for good, I’ll be on the run the rest of my life. If the FBI isn’t hunting me, Firouz will be. And if he doesn’t find me, you can pretty much count on Firouz coming after you. You prepared to deal with that?”

  “Well, since you put it in those terms, no. But I still think we should consider getting you out of the action before something bad happens. I have a real uneasy feeling that nothing good is going to come of this.”

  Arnold kept facing t
he water with his voice lowered. “I’m working on a plan.”

  Davidson repositioned himself on the bench at an angle, left arm draped over the back, legs crossed, partially facing Arnold. “What?”

  Arnold leaned forward, elbows on knees, and spoke toward the water. “You’re better off not knowing.”

  Davidson mimicked Arnold’s position, so both were speaking away from Karim’s approach. “No, tell me.”

  Arnold shook his head. “You’re not hearing me. No. How can I make that any clearer?”

  Davidson didn’t answer.

  Arnold felt guilty for the cutting tone of his last remark, so he added, “I think I’m making some progress in finding them, but you’re better off not knowing any details.”

  Davidson scratched his chin and frowned. “Fisher’s getting antsy. Says upper management is demanding some traction on this case. It’s been two weeks with nothing to show for it. He doesn’t want to sit around with his thumb up his ass while these guys put the finishing touches on an attack next week. Their chatter says that’s when it’s happening.”

  Arnold shifted positions, bent his right knee enough to prop his right heel on the edge of the bench so he could awkwardly retie his Nikes, the task painfully difficult with his right hand tethered by the handcuff. Big orange and silver shoes with air-cushioned heels. “You tell him I’m paying quarterly taxes now? Least that should put a smile on his face.”

  Davidson shifted positions too and raised his hand to shield his eyes from the glare. “I know you’re frustrated with this. I am, too, but there’s no need to shoot the messenger.”

  “Do me a favor.”

  “Sure, what?”

  “Howard has a sister, Rachael. Can you contact her and have her use Howard’s computer? Tell her to use Tor to access this email account. She’ll know what I’m talking about.” Arnold passed another slip of paper. “Will you do that, please?”