The Hack

by Will Patching

  ‘The one thing we do have is a lead. In Thailand. It’s not much of a lead and the local police don’t seem to think the death of an American citizen, albeit someone they believe, and we believe, to be a sex tourist, warrants a thorough investigation. I do. I want the boy found. The one they say was Simm’s victim, and I want his eyewitness evidence. I want to present that to the President before midday Saturday.’

  The Director could not read the discontent in his agents’ eyes, but their body language was enough. He had to force them to believe in their mission.

  ‘If we fail in this, if the President makes the announcement he plans to make, and I believe he will despite my advice to the contrary, when the President tells the world he is a friend, a man who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with George Simm, he is exposed, gentlemen.

  ‘He is exposed because some evidence of this man’s past will eventually come to light. I think you all understand why we need hard evidence now, and the eyewitness account, before the President makes a fool of the office he holds, of himself and of us all.

  ‘Go to it.’

  After dismissing the team the Director and the head of GUSSET discussed progress on the hunt for the hacker.

  ‘Jack, we don’t know if the target for that hack was the information on Simm, or if it was just a test of our systems security, but we’re setting traps in case the bastard comes back for more.’

  ‘You know, I really need some good news. The briefing didn’t go well, the guys looked really pissed. And that’s unusual, I normally don’t get to see how they feel. They’re usually too professional. Y’know I’m right out on a limb with this one?’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ Teague could not reassure his friend, he had seen it too. He pushed on. ‘What Cody and the boys have done is set up several dummy files as bait.’

  ‘Whoa there, Mike. If you’re softening me up for some illegal fabrication of evidence on Simm you can put that thought right out of sight.’

  Teague shrugged at his boss. ‘I can’t pretend I haven’t considered it, Jack. Trouble is I know the stakes are real high, but to risk that? No chance. One way or another, the boys need to get evidence on Simm. I’m not planning to manufacture it.’

  ‘Good. Because that really is a no-can-do. No cover up. No Watergate waiting to bite what’s left of my ass!’

  They chuckled at that, Mike having sat through a blow-by-blow account of how his friend, had taken the problem to the President and protected his staff. Even offered to resign. A good friend. A great boss.

  ‘Don’t worry, Jack. What I’m talking about is setting up empty file flags. Create some confusion so if the guy comes looking he’s in for a hunt that keeps him in long enough to maybe find that pinprick, the point of entry.’

  ‘How likely is that, after what Cody said?’

  ‘Not very likely, we’ll have to catch him in the act and we’re talking nanoseconds, but he thinks it’s worth a try.’

  ‘Okay, is that it?’ The Director hoped not.

  ‘No, but if he comes back for more on Simm we will spike him. We’ve dropped some Trojans into the dummy files. If he takes a peek at any of those, that’s all we need.’

  ‘Trojans – that mean what I think it means?’

  ‘Yup. When he leaves our network, he’s got a gift. That little gift then idents his location, transmitting to us like an emergency beacon. We’ll have fifty agents up his ass so fast he won’t even have time to read through the information he hasn’t got!’

  ‘Is this foolproof, Mike?’

  ‘Jack, we both know nuthin’s one hundred percent in this game. What I can say is this; if the guy comes back, if he accesses the Simm files, if he’s not as bright as Cody thinks he is, then we’ve got him.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope he’s in the US. If the son-of-a-bitch is in Afghanistan, Syria or some other godforsaken shit-pit then we don’t stand a chance, do we?’

  ‘It’s possible, but Cody thinks our intruder is either in the US or was trained in the US. Claims he can tell from the guy’s way of working, like a language thing. Don’t ask me what he’s talking about, I just hope to God he’s right.’

  ***

  Chief Lee had left his office the previous evening after a frustrating day, thinking Thursday would be better for him.

  He was wrong.

  Lee stood in the back alley, surrounded by rotting garbage, the overflowing bins throwing the stench in all directions. At his feet was a pool of congealed blood and the dehydrated husk of the bulky Thai male whose vital fluids had pumped and splashed on to the walls and tarmac. The man’s head was at an impossible angle, as if his neck had been snapped and the head slapped to one side. The throat was gaping.

  Cut cleanly.

  The detective did not need his Medical Examiner to tell him this was the work of the same man who killed Simm. He also knew the victim’s name. Vajiralongkorn Pongcharoen.

  A man more commonly known as ‘Moo’.

  Moo was, the Chief thought, a double victim. The Thai tradition is to give each newborn a nickname to confuse the spirits who might otherwise find the child and harm him. Many Thai’s chose English words and names, such as Apple, Jeep or Joe, but in this case Moo was not from the sound a cow makes, but the Thai word for Pig.

  Moo was a low-level criminal, and a regular informant for the police. He was also a known acquaintance of Fan. Lee would ordinarily assume Moo had been unlucky and discovered as a police source, but he was not a man who believed in coincidence.

  Fan. Moo. The American. The trio was linked in Lee’s mind as if handcuffed to each other.

  Three more conclusions came to Lee.

  Fan, who had not been seen, who remained elusive, was probably dead with a similar knife wound to the one Lee was now looking at.

  Secondly, Moo was known to have been involved in the sex for sale business, pimping. His role as police informant was his part of the deal, the arrangement made when Lee had agreed to suspend a charge for grievous bodily harm.

  Moo had a reputation. He was a brute. His Thai name suited his weight, his manners and his eyes – a true pig of a man. Also like pigs, he was not too discerning about what he ate.

  Especially when angry with one of his prostitutes or in a fight with another pimp. Moo’s tally to date included ears, cheeks, eyebrows, fingers, nipples and, the item for which he was finally charged by the police – one clitoris.

  And now? No doubt his men would discover Moo had been involved in the child sex business.

  The Chief shook his head sadly as he looked at the corpse. Many times in the past Lee had lamented the state of his country, his city, the sleaze and the sex that people associated with his nation. His Buddhist nation. Often he had thought he would, if only he could, clear up the sex industry in his area. He did his best but it was a mammoth task.

  The third conclusion Lee came to, as he stood there surrounded by the reek of waste and death, was that someone else felt the same way. Four other men had died last night in similar circumstances, all of them displaying this trademark knife wound. Although Lee knew little about the victims yet, he was certain they too would turn out to be somehow involved in the Simm murder case.

  Someone was single-handedly trying to clean up his city.

  Lee had a serial killer on his hands.

  ***

  Chapter Four

  Doug Brown sat in his hotel room thinking about Johnny and Kate. Mostly, it has to be said, about Kate.

  With the hum of the air conditioning in the background and the cool air soothing his troubled mind, he tried to meditate, but his thoughts kept returning to the girl he had met by the pool.

  There was not much doubt she was attracted to him. In another life, in another place, he would have wanted to know her, be with her, make love to her. But for Doug, life was not a matter of choice.

  He was a creation of his past, a victim of that past.

  He had tried to get away from the man he was. Fate had intervened, dictated that he would not escape
his history.

  But Doug also believed it was fate that placed Kate by the pool. Fate that they met. Fate that led him to Johnny.

  On Doug’s lap was the leather-bound document binder he had taken from Simm’s hotel room in the hope of finding something to help him track down the paedophile tour operation he had heard Simm discuss with Fan.

  Doug had been trained by the CIA as a field agent, a wetwork artist they called him, the euphemism for government sponsored killer. In his own area of speciality he was at the top of his class.

  What Doug was not, was a computer operator.

  The moment he opened the document binder and discovered it was perhaps the slimmest, lightest, most unusual portable computer in the world, he was stunned. He had expected some documents, some plane tickets, some contact details, a diary perhaps. Anything he could use to track, to trace, and then annihilate the perverts that Simm would call clients.

  Fate had placed him at that table next to Fan, Simm and the boy. Fate had briefed his mission as clearly as if the Director himself had spoken to him. Fate had plucked the Hunter from retirement.

  Then he had opened the binder and hit a brick wall.

  He could not even see how to turn the damn thing on.

  Perhaps Johnny would know.

  ***

  Things were amiss at the orphanage this morning. The Episcopal Church of Christ’s Suffering was responsible for the operation of the children’s home, and in this predominantly Buddhist land, they spread the word of the one true Lord to the children lucky enough to be in their care.

  Every morning, at 8.00am, the children and staff assembled on the manicured lawns and thanked the Lord for their good fortune and for being in the caring hands of Pop, their Principal. Pop, who could recite pretty much any section of the Bible by heart, and who always presided over these meetings before the children dispersed to their classes or nursery.

  Only rarely was he unable to attend.

  This morning no one knew why Pop was not in his office. Nor was there any sign of Lek, the poor lad who had wandered in the previous day in some form of trance.

  The Assistant Principal telephoned Pop’s home, but got no answer. Joy, as the little Thai administrator was known, decided he would try again later that morning if Pop failed to show. If there were still no answer, Joy would go to the Principal’s home. He thought there must be a simple explanation, but could not think of one. If there was no trace of the great man, Joy was determined to call the police and report both Lek and Pop as missing.

  ***

  ‘Jesus Christ, Johnny! You bloody idiot!’ Kate was slapping her brother with the rolled-up newspaper, the precious copy of her article disintegrating on his soggy sun-oiled skin.

  Johnny tried to fend off her blows as best he could, and in all innocence was squealing, ‘What did I do? Jesus, what did I do?’

  Kate flopped back on her sun lounger and gave him a disbelieving look. ‘You really don’t know?’ She sat up again, whacked him a few more times.

  ‘Ow! Sis, I swear, I don’t know!’

  Kate eventually calmed down and said, ‘You and I really do need to talk about the birds and the bees, kiddo. You are hopeless!’

  His hangdog look, the ‘what did I do?’ expression finally got to her and she lay back again. After a minute or so she giggled at what he had said. What he did.

  ‘I do not believe you! Bloody ping-pong balls!’

  ‘But we talked yesterday. You said I should go. I just thought it’d be really neat if I could, like, be mates with your new boyfriend.’

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend. And yes, he is cute. And before you ask, yes I do fancy him! But there’s not much chance for me now after your little performance. I see you’ve pulled!’ She mimicked him, now laughing at his crass idiocy.

  Johnny laughed with her. ‘Yeah, not too cool I s’pose, huh?’

  ‘No.’ She visualised his pantomime, giving her own stomach muscles a work out, the chuckling taking over so she could barely speak. ‘You were definitely, definitely not cool!’

  ‘So d’you think he’ll come out with me then?’

  ‘Johnny’, Kate held her stomach, her abdomen aching as she struggled to speak through the laughter. ‘How could he refuse the invitation after your performance! Pow! Pow!’ They both doubled up again.

  When they finally got control, Johnny said, ‘He seems a nice guy. You could do worse.’

  ‘He’s a babe. A total babe.’

  Kate, who had spent much of the flight in fantasy sex with Mark the lawyer – now history – was getting very hot thinking about Doug Brown.

  It wasn’t just Johnny who needed to get laid.

  ***

  Lee stood deep in thought at the door of the room George Simm had occupied three days earlier. The words were displayed in waspish, angry yellow and black on the tape: Police Crime Scene – Keep Out. It prompted the detective’s mind.

  Keep out.

  How did the killer get in?

  One of Lee’s officers knew a maid at the hotel, knew that for the right money a room pass was available. Until now Chief Lee had been convinced the killer obtained such a pass, sneaked in unseen, to kill the American from behind.

  He cut the tape, walked into the familiar room. He took in the bloodstains, remembered how the body looked, strolled to the balcony deep in thought.

  His team had been working on the assumption this killing was premeditated, well thought through, before execution.

  His mind ticked over, got into gear.

  What if it wasn’t? What if the killer was spurred into action, was just saving the child? A fellow American, a man disgusted by his countryman.

  Perhaps the hippy was a false lead. Or maybe not.

  Lee glanced up. The room above had a terrace overhanging the one he was on, but set back to allow the sun to reach the balcony below. The top two floors of the hotel were raked back like this, these upper levels, including the one he stood on, contained the most expensive suites the hotel offered with unhindered views.

  He looked out over the bay. The teeming tourist beach, the high-rise hotels, the desecration of his homeland, all saddened him. The resort had sprung up in the last ten years, leapfrogging Pattaya and Phuket to be Thailand’s number one resort. He shook his head at the ugly urban sprawl that attracted farang like a magnet.

  Lee forced his mind back to the task in hand.

  He looked to the sides. A gap of some fifteen feet separated him from a balcony to his right. Simm’s room was the last on the corridor, and to his left was the corner of the hotel building about another fifteen feet away.

  Nothing.

  Could someone have scrambled across from the adjacent balcony? Or dropped down from the one above? He flipped open his phone and called his office – he wanted the railings fingerprinted. Right away.

  Lee was back at the door, looking along the corridor, left and right. He walked to the window at the end, pushed it open and peered out.

  Again – nothing. The bare wall stretched some twenty feet to the corner he had seen from the balcony. He stepped away to go, but finely tuned instincts turned him back.

  There was something here.

  The Chief glanced at the hotel opposite. A couple were on their terrace in the throes of passion, flagrant and unconcerned that they could be seen. Lee, distracted, focused his mind again.

  What?

  Once, in a training session many years before, when he was a new recruit in Hong Kong, the senior officer in charge spoke about gut feeling and instinct. Lee remembered the words now.

  ‘Gut feel is the sum of all your experience, the conscious and unconscious mind working together, all being brought to bear on the problem at hand by the supercomputer that is your brain. Ignore it at your peril.’

  Supersense they had called it.

  Lee traced his steps to the suite. Looked from the balcony to the corner again.

  There!

  He jogged back to the window and his heart jumped as h
e leaned out, looking down.

  There too!

  Lee hurried to reception, found the concierge.

  The man started shaking within seconds, began blabbering. ‘Police Chief Lee, I know no more – I beg – ’

  ‘Quiet, man! The American, the hippy. His shoes. What make were they?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  Lee shouted, ‘What type of shoes – boots, trainers? What, man?’

  ‘I... I think, training shoes... Yes.’

  Lee waited for the elevator, frustrated, impatient. The doors opened and the man inside hesitated, confronted by the highly charged uniformed Police Chief.

  Lee stood aside to let the man out. For a beat his supersense, his gut feel, told him the man reacted with a flash of guilt before recovering and walking out. Then Lee caught sight of his own reflection in the mirrored rear of the elevator, his face angry and excited, his imposing uniform with its medals and braid.

  Anyone suddenly confronted by that sight would react similarly, he thought, as the doors closed.

  For the first time since that valuable lesson in Hong Kong, Chief Lee chose to ignore his gut feel.

  ***

  Doug Brown handed the concierge his room key. The Thai was sweating and flustered.

  ‘Who’s the policeman?’ Doug made idle, polite conversation as he leafed through a tourist brochure on the reception desk.

  ‘Chief Lee. He’s a formidable man, sir. I am afraid we have seen rather too much of him this week. Too much for me.’ The concierge was normally more circumspect, discreet, but his relief at the Chief leaving loosened his tongue. ‘The man lives for his work. His wife and baby died so he has no home life. It’s like he wants to punish everyone for the fact they died.’ His bitterness slid out with the unguarded comments.

  ‘What does he want here?’

  ‘More stupid questions! We had a man who came to the reception at the same time as the American, just before he was murdered. Chief Lee wants to know what the man was wearing on his feet!’ He shook his head, exasperated. ‘He was just a hippy traveller. Not even a guest, sir.’ The concierge wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and, recovering, said, ‘Is there something else I can do for you, sir?’