Fall On Your Knees

by Mary C. Findley

  "I have seen twenty people cross-country skiing through these woods today," Gerald replied. "Several of them even had dogs." Murali heard the rubbing and contented grunt-whines that meant Gerald had reached down to pat Bruno. The dog’s thick tan and black coat had been dyed muddy variegated shades and he wore a red and green argyle doggie sweater with white snowflakes.

  "So the scent on the car held up?"

  "That, and Bruno’s nose. Another page from Sherlock Holmes." Gerald made sounds indicating a switch from skis to snowshoes. Mushing ensued, probably several yards worth, no doubt to a higher elevation.

  Murali heard scraping against the bluetooth headset. Gerald had lifted his binoculars to the opening in his balaklava.

  "Karin’s car is stopping. I need to move."

  "Keep her safe, Gerald," Murali said.

  "I now have conflicting orders," Gerald grumbled. Sounds told Murali he had snapped on his skis, shouldered his snowshoes, and begun to ski down the hill with Bruno bounding after him.

  "Karin told you to protect me?"

  "Sealed with a kiss."

  Murali chuckled. "Don’t try to make me jealous. You know who to obey, right?"

  "Not a question of obedience. I can only be in one place at a time. Unless you discard the plan and approach too close, I’ll do what we both prefer."

  "Thank you. I’ll try to stick to the plan. After all, it was my plan." Murali started his motor and moved to close the distance to the point where Karin had stopped, still staying about two miles away, and on a well-traveled path cluttered with ATVers passing him with shouts and waves to their companions.

  ***

  "Ted and Karin have gotten out of the car," Gerald reported a few minutes later. "Ted is leaning on Karin, hopping. Karin is holding the phone since he has the gun in his other hand."

  Murali closed his eyes at the thought of that man holding a gun on his wife. It’s part of the plan. They had been able to listen in on the conversation at the rest area, when the public wifi would make detection difficult. But trying to spy afterwards was too risky.

  Ted seemed to have kept his part of the bargain. There was still time for a double-cross, though. This was so risky. Murali hated the huge number of uncertainties, unlike his meticulous former ops.

  "They are just standing there," Gerald said, "apparently waiting. I don’t see any buildings nearby. But there’s a lot of tree cover here. Could be some sort of a bunker that wasn’t on the park map."

  Murali could hear that Gerald had switched back to snowshoes again. Bruno panted in the background. Mushing sounds continued and Gerald started to breathe just a little heavier. Murali looked at the four-foot drifts where he was and knew Gerald was having difficulty even in snowshoes. Nothing I can do about that. I have to stay here and let this play out.

  "I see someone approaching on foot," Gerald said between breaths. The crunching stopped. "Purple snowsuit. White and pink hat with a pom-pom. Gail seems to be trying to look innocent. Also seems to be alone at the moment. Strange."

  "Gerald, she vetted the bit of recording Ted played herself. Have you considered the possibility that she’s soloing here? That she is the only enemy?"

  "There has to be someone bankrolling this," Gerald argued. "Uh-oh. Two more – men – just popped up out of nowhere. One in a blue bubble coat, one in a silver parka. One is armed. I’m going closer."

  Murali started his motor. He moved toward the rise, over which he would be able to see what was happening, not just rely on Gerald’s play-by-play. He heard something over the engine noise that sent his heart into his throat and he topped the hill and cut the engine. The sound of Bruno’s tentative growl morphed into a full-throated bay and a shot rang out ahead.

  Gerald grunted just once. Murali called his name, Called it again. No answer. Just a crunch of something heavy falling in the snow. And Bruno howling for all the world to hear as heavier, repeated crashing sounds got fainter. Murali gunned his engine and tore over the hill.

  He stopped at the sight of Ted shoving Karin down onto her knees. He took aim with his rifle but realized that the man had only lost his balance and fallen, not deliberately taken Karin down.

  Gerald lay in a heap halfway down the slope. Bruno lunged across the snow toward the man who was still aiming a high-powered rifle at his master. The gun’s aim shifted toward the dog.

  Murali raised his own rifle. The piff barely preceded the man’s body jerking and falling.

  "Nobody move. Guns on the ground now!" Murali shouted. The other ten agents who had been right behind him on various snow machines and skis surged around him with their guns out. Gail and her remaining companion obeyed. Finally Murali had time to attend to the rasping sound in his ear breaking through the chatter of the other agents as they moved in. The sound of ragged breathing from Gerald’s headset.

  Murali saw someone help Karin up, so he chose to drive his machine to where Gerald lay. Bruno had returned to the crumpled form. Murali joined him and started tearing open Gerald’s layers of outerwear. He felt rather than saw Karin kneel beside him and make a pillow of her coat under Gerald’s head.

  "Vest. He was wearing a bulletproof vest," Karin gasped, relief palpable in her voice.

  "Cop-killer bullet," Gerald wheezed.

  Murali ripped away the Velcro fastening the vest. Blood seeped into the snow. A medic knelt with them and Murali and Karin backed up to give him room.

  "Gerald, I’m so sorry," Murali whispered.

  "What did he mean, a cop-killer bullet?" Karin demanded.

  "A round that can penetrate a bulletproof vest," Murali said. "That’s why we don’t call them that anymore. It’s a joke. One that’s not at all funny."

  "Take care of Bruno," Gerald called out. He groaned.

  "No!" Karin screamed. "You’ll be all right. They’ll take care of you."

  Men came with a stretcher basket. A helicopter rose over the trees as they strapped Gerald in and attached a cable with loud clicks. Karin jumped every time the clasps snapped. Bruno circled and whined as the basket started to rise. Murali grabbed his collar but it took both him and Karin to calm the dog down.

  Murali saw Karin staring down at the blood in the snow. There was too much. Too much. Karin started to cry and Bruno lifted his head and howled. The helicopter vanished from sight.

  ***

  "I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know anything about spies or codes or computer worms. Karin called me! I just tried to help her!"

  Gail had repeated more or less the same thing for hours. Murali crashed a fist down on the desk.

  "We know you were deeply involved in this. A federal agent is dead and you are complicit. Your only chance is to tell me who else was involved."

  "I’m not involved in anything! I’m a librarian. I worked at that community college for five years! If I were a computer hacker or some other kind of criminal mastermind, why would I stick around that stupid library and put up with those idiot students?

  "Karin told me a man had a gun to her head. I told them to come because I had friends who had guns and could maybe save her life! You shot one of them. How much time will you spend in jail for that?"

  "I wasn’t the one who fired the first shot," Murali said quietly. "And what kind of friends use copkiller bullets?"

  "I don’t know what kind of bullets he used. I don’t know anything about guns. He was spooked when he saw that man and that huge dog. He panicked. You’re crazy if you think you can prove anything else."

  "We have the testimony of the man you hired to attack me."

  "Good luck with getting anyone to believe a man like that. A jury will see me, see him, and make the right decision."

  Murali left the room in frustration. He joined Karin in the observation room. She sat on the floor with Bruno’s head in her lap.

  "I was so sure we had her," Karin murmured into Bruno’s fur. "How can she keep denying everything? I feel like Gerald died for nothing."

  "They’re talking
to the surviving man who was with her," Murali sighed, seating himself in a chair and raking his fingers through his hair. "She makes us sound like idiots for even suspecting her. ‘Pictures of me cleaning a mirror. That’s your evidence that I’ve been spying on Karin? It’s nonsense!’ Trouble is, she makes it sound like nonsense. She’s quite right about her credibility with a jury compared to our convicted felon."

  "Has the other man told you anything?" Karin shifted her position and rested a hand on Murali’s knees.

  "He says he has a cabin near the one we searched. He and the other man were up there hunting when Gail called them. She told them a friend had been kidnapped. He said they got their guns and went with her but they thought it as a joke until they saw you and Ted. He backs up Gail’s story that the man I shot just accidentally fired at Gerald when he saw him coming toward them."

  "What reason did they have to think Gerald was coming toward them?" Karin sobbed. "He was just out there with Bruno. He didn’t even have a gun out! It doesn’t make any sense. There was Ted, gun in hand, pushing me around, and he shot Gerald?"

  "It doesn’t make sense to me either. I wish I knew how to get these two to confess."

  "Why didn’t you ask Gail why she didn’t call the police if she really wanted to help me? She told us where to go – out in the woods, away from other people. She brought two men with guns. She demanded to listen to the recording. Ow! My leg went to sleep." She shifted again and Murali helped her into the chair. Bruno moved just enough to find her lap with his jaw again.

  "I’m so sorry, Bruno," Karin whispered. She dropped her head on Bruno’s. "So sorry."

  Murali watched her tears fall into the dog’s fur and punched an intercom button. "Transfer the recording of Karin’s cell phone conversation with Gail here to the observation room, he said, over the muffled din of Gail shouting, "I know my rights! You have to charge me with something or let me go!"

  The recording began to play. Karin picked up her head and they both listened.

  "She called him Ted," Karin exclaimed. "How could she know his name if she isn’t guilty?"

  Murali held up his hand. When the recording finished, he said, "You’re right. She also mentioned the recording of me giving the codes before he did. But this isn’t enough evidence to convict her. It could be disallowed because she was recorded without her permission."

  ""I didn’t think of that. So it was all wasted. Gerald gave his life for me and she’ll walk out of there free. Agents will keep dying, and soon that worm will start stealing your data."

  "Not necessarily," Murali said. "Maybe the worm is what will save us."

  He bolted out of the room and back into Gail’s interrogation room.

  "I apologize, Ms. Norcross. We were all on edge over Ms. Arthur’s kidnapping, and over the agent we lost. Things got out of hand. They’re processing paperwork to release you."

  "About time!" Gail snapped. "You’ll do more than apologize. And you’ll pay for what you did to my poor friend."

  "There is just one more thing, ma’am," Murali said, head lowered, the picture of contrite submission. "Ms. Arthur asked me to convey her thanks to you for your efforts to help her get free from that man. We have him in custody in part because of you.

  "Ms. Arthur also called something to our attention that you may want help with. It seems there was a computer virus that got spread around about the time her Laptop Project was shut down. She said you received one of the emails that may have been infected. We’d like to try to partly make amends by wiping that from your computer and ensuring you don’t have any problems from it."

  "I have excellent protections on my computer," Gail said with a huff. "You are not touching it."

  "But you do admit you received an email about the Laptop Project?" Murali asked.

  "Of course I did. Well, it went into my spam. I thought I should let Karin know about it, in case hers went into her spam and she didn’t see it. I was just trying to help, so she didn’t exceed her regular hours with us and find herself in more financial difficulty that you people already put her in by firing her without any notice."

  Murali winced. "Yes, again, things weren’t handled correctly. Our superiors will be conducting a full review. But, ma’am, I need to insist that you let us examine your computer. This is a very dangerous and persistent type of infection. Our best tech people have failed to clean it from our computers. Yours might present us with a special opportunity to examine the effects of the infection from a different direction."

  "I don’t understand," Gail faltered. "I just got an email, the same as Karin did. I assumed it went into my spam because it wasn’t usual for me to receive emails on that project."

  "What I don’t understand," Murali said, "is why you felt the compulsion to call Karin and expose yourself that way. Was it just arrogance? You were so full of yourself, getting her project shut down, that you couldn’t resist bragging to her and making sure she knew?

  "Or did you have to check to make sure things worked correctly, that your test succeeded? I suppose she was the only one you had direct access to. Only other thing I can think of is that calling her was that your first attempt to extract information from her. To see if she knew anything useful to your project?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I’m talking about the Spamalot Worm. That’s what we called it, anyway. I don’t know what you call it. One thing we know is that it doesn’t make mistakes. The email with the worm disseminated into our system. Our techs caught it and removed the copies that would have infected everyone on the project.

  "But the secondary effect was always that the next email, from the real source that the worm emulated, would go into the spam folder. Don’t know if it was a glitch in your program or what, but there is one thing I do know. There’s no reason on earth that you would have tried to infect yourself, so you wouldn’t have received the first email.

  "Therefore, there’s no reason you would randomly receive the email shutting down the project in your spam folder. So you either lied about receiving that email, or else there is something on your computer – a signature, a code – that would alert you to check the results of your test infection. I suppose maybe you had to call Karin to be sure of its effects on Karin’s computer."

  "You are crazy! All of this is nonsense. I don’t have to listen to any of this, and you have no legal right to search my computer!" Gail started around him to the door.

  Murali moved to block her. "We do, though. Part of our government mandate is to protect people from computer infections related to our projects. You’ve admitted to being a victim of the Spamalot Worm. We are obligated to inspect your computer for your own protection, and to prevent any spread of the infection you might innocently commit through ignorance."

  "This is outrageous! I’m telling you there’s no infection in my computer."

  "We have to be sure. I’ve already requested a warrant, and our people are on their way to search for the computer and any evidence of the Spamalot infection. Especially evidence of its origins. You might as well relax and make yourself at home. I think that paperwork for your release might take a long time."

  Ten

  "You found it?" Karin ran to meet Murali when he returned to their tiny apartment. Bruno picked up his head and trotted over too.

  ""Yes," Murali sighed as they embraced. "All the evidence was there in her computers. She had banks of them in her basement. Gail was the one who created the Spamalot Worm years ago. She worked with a group of anarchists as a hacker. But her group was arrested and broken up right about the time she made her first inroads into our security. We wondered why the attack just stopped and we couldn’t trace the source.

  "Her whole operation was destroyed at that time and she spent five years in jail. But they never made the connection between her and Spamalot. When she got out, she had learned to be more cautious and solitary. She exercised extraordinary patience, rebuilding her computer skills and hardware.

  "She hid hersel
f and her work much better this time around. And she realized, intentionally or unintentionally, that her Spamalot Worm was still sitting out there ready to become a backdoor, if she could find the right place to worm her way in and obtain information that would be of value to someone.

  "That place turned out to be the Laptop Project. By studying her work, our techs are confident they can eradicate it once and for all. In the meantime, since she played it so close to the vest, no one else can exploit it.

  "Her partner, the man who killed Gerald, has been identified as one of the agents we thought was killed the first time the Spamalot Worm surfaced. Gail turned him before she went to prison and they reunited afterwards. He recognized Gerald, knew Gerald would recognize him, and thought he could protect himself by killing him. They honestly did not know about the rest of us."

  "I’m so glad it’s over," Karin said. "I’m so sorry about Gerald. He was your friend, wasn’t he?"

  "Gerald was everyone’s friend, at different times," Murali said. "Each security detail he was part of was an opportunity for him to be more than just a guard. We started out by thinking he just stood and stared a the wall. But things changed when he was around. Always for the better."

  "Is that what they’ll do for the memorial tomorrow? Share those stories? Can we share ours too?"

  "That is an excellent idea. We will surely do that, and pass the word so people can participate if they wish."

  ***

  Bruno attended the memorial service too, and Karin was proud of his gentlemanly behavior. Afterwards veryone wanted to pet him and he accepted it all graciously but kept close to Karin.

  "Looks like you’re stuck with him," a woman agent said as they stood around talking after the service. "Where in the world are you going to live with a dog that big? Certainly not in Murali’s little apartment here."

  Karin buried her fingers self-consciously in Bruno’s fur. Murali had heard the exchange from across the room and quickly approached.

  "I just heard some good news along that line," he said, putting an arm around Karin. "I had to contact the people who own the house I rented to inform them about the home invasion there. They deserved to know the truth, about the shootings and the fatality, because some people are very sensitive about such things.