Grave Mistakes (The Grave Diggers Book 3)

by Chris Fritschi

  His second choice wasn’t less worrisome than the first, but the combination of risk and matching his wits against them was strongly appealing. He could continue to do jobs for The Ring, and at the same time use his hacking skills against them. It would demand patience and cunning to slip into their systems, discover the head of the snake and little by little undermine The Ring until it collapsed from within. But, it only took one misstep, any reason to mistrust, or doubt his loyalty and he’d be a dead man.

  He accepted the challenge. Lets see how smart you guys really are. And so he stayed, spied and hunted for the head of the snake.

  One of his first jobs for The Ring was to create a secure communications system. After extensive research, Nathan suggested hacking into a near-obsolete NSA communications satellite. You couldn’t get more secure than the NSA. The Ring agreed and gave him the go-ahead. Vulcan 4 was the perfect fit and now, almost a year later, someone had kicked a wasp’s nest by bringing down Vulcan 4, but that didn’t compare to the full blown panic rippling through The Ring’s leadership.

  The previous week Nathan had been sneaking though one of the many systems The Ring used and discovered an email that set off near hysteria through the upper ranks of The Ring.

  The person who sent the email said they’d just discovered a classified detail about Vulcan 4. It carried an onboard database of key codes which it assigned to every email, voice, or video transmission that passed through it. Digging into this unusual feature revealed something catastrophic. Vulcan 4 was sending a copy of every transmission to the NSA. In other words, the NSA was unknowingly archiving every transmission sent and received by The Ring.

  The Ring's one saving grace was that the NSA was bloated with multiple huge data storage farms and had neither the people or processing power to review every transmission that went into their facilities.

  As good as he was, even Nathan didn’t know Vulcan 4 secret archiving system.

  The person explained in their email added that they didn’t have sufficient clearance to access and delete The Ring’s transmissions. That sent up a big, red flag in Nathan’s mind. Whoever wrote this email meant The Ring had someone inside the NSA. Not only that, but his new revelation about Vulcan 4’s archiving system wasn’t exclusive to The Ring because someone just knocked it out of orbit.

  The Ring didn’t know who sabotaged the satellite’s orbit, but Nathan knew they’d start their witch hunt with him. He was the one who recommended Vulcan 4. He hacked it and he programed their communications gateway.

  The Ring’s first order of business would be damage control. Nathan knew he had a small window of safety while they were focused on that. The hunt for the saboteur would come later.

  Knowing The Ring’s heightened paranoia over being breached, Nathan believed they would err on the side of better safe than sorry. Reasonable doubt was a death sentence.

  Even though Nathan wasn’t involved, he knew he’d have to act fast if he needed to disappear, but staying in The Ring’s good graces was critical to his plans of crippling them. Making them trust me is going to take more than saying I’m innocent. I’ll need to prove it otherwise I’ll be facing the inevitable interrogation at the hands of a psychopath.

  Nathan considered his handler, Walter. He was incompetent, a bully and a narcissist; qualities Nathan could manipulate if everything went according to plan.

  “Somebody accessed Vulcan 4 and changed its trajectory,” said Nathan. “I don’t know who, or why.” Walter frowned, unhappy with the lack of information. “I ran a rough plot,” continued Nathan, “and baring any changes it’ll come down near the eastern border of Algeria.”

  “Algeria?” said Walter. “Who the hell’s in Algeria? Why there?”

  “Your people hired me to piggy-back your comms onto the satellite,” said Nathan. “What you do with it, I don’t want to know.”

  Walter waved his hand sharply at Nathan and started pacing. “Doesn’t matter. Someone must have learned we’re using it.”

  “If they wanted to shut down your network why not ditch the satellite in the sea?” asked Nathan as he casually watched Walter out of the corner of his eye. “Why dump it in the middle of a desert where anyone could pick it up?”

  Walter stopped pacing as his face paled. “They’re after the files,” muttered Walter.

  “After what?” said Nathan.

  “Never mind. You need to save it” commanded Walter.

  “Save it,” repeated Nathan flatly.

  “Yes!” said Walter. “The satellite, uh, Vulcan 4. Put it back where it was.”

  Nathan stopped the impulse to laugh at the ridiculousness of Walter’s ignorance, keeping his expression a blank page. “That’s impossible.”

  “Nothing’s impossible. We pay you to do the impossible,” said Walter, nearly pleading. Walter took a breath and tugged on his jacket, removing the rumples. His hand went to his head, about to smooth his combover, but he detoured it to the back of his neck, pretending to ease his building tension. He glanced around to see if anyone had noticed.

  “So, you want me to report back that you won’t fix it?” said Walter.

  “Walt,” began Nathan, but the balding man’s flush of red told Nathan this wasn’t the right time to play with the little man. “…ter, I’m being honest with you. It’s not just me. Nobody could do it. This is our Humpty Dumpty.”

  “You think my boss wants to hear nursery rhymes at, uh…” Walter snapped his fingers several times until the bodyguard took the hint and looked at his watch.

  “Two, forty,” grunted the guard.

  “Two forty.” continued Walter. “There’s got to be something you can do.”

  Nathan had been waiting for Walter to finally ask this. Now was his opportunity to demonstrate he was part of the team, and just maybe gain deeper access to The Ring.

  “I don’t have the computing power, but maybe if I had access to a serious mainframe I might be able to change where it lands, but,” paused Nathan as Walter hung on his words, “I don’t.”

  Walter’s security man tensed as Nathan stepped towards the kitchen. “I’m getting coffee,” said Nathan, unimpressed. “You want some Walter?”

  “A mainframe,” muttered Walter to himself. “The ranch’s got big computers. Could be mainframes.”

  “Did you say something?” called Nathan from the kitchen.

  “Yes,” said Walter loudly then realized Nathan wasn’t in the room. “You have coffee?”

  “Yes,” said Nathan.

  Walter momentarily lost his scowl, but quickly remembered why he was there. “Mainframe,” said Walter under his breath. “You,” said Walter pointing to his guard, “I want a three man team, and uh, tell them to meet us at the ranch.”

  “What’s the job, sir?” asked the guard.

  “The job is, uh, to do what I tell them to do.” Snapped Walter.

  “No, sir,” said the guard carefully. “I mean…”

  “I know what you mean,” said Walter just now understanding what the guard was asking. “Keep an eye on this glib prick,” said Walter.

  “Protect, or confine?”

  “Both,” said Walter impatiently. He quickly crossed to the kitchen door as Nathan was taking cups out of a cupboard.

  “Put mine in a travel mug,” ordered Walter. “Lots of cream.”

  Nathan paused with the coffee pot in his hand and looked over his shoulder, arching his eyebrow at Walter.

  “Travel mug?”

  “I’m taking you to a mainframe.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE RANCH

  The black sedan kicked up plumes of dust as it raced along the dirt road followed closely by a large SUV. Early morning light painted the barren, rolling landscape in hues of pink, purple and gold. There was nothing but desert as far as the eye could see.

  Heat waves shimmered in the distance giving the illusion of motion to scrub and cactus. The cars crunched over the bleached remains of two bodies laying halfway in the road without no
tice, or slowing.

  Several minutes later the road rose to a crest before dropping into a tiny canyon. Tucked against the shallow canyon walls was a long, squat ranch house. The windows were shuttered, but intact and a deep porch overhung the front of the ranch’s dusty siding and brickwork keeping it in constant shade.

  The cars swung into the empty yard and stopped. Before the dust could settle a woman and two men immediately got out of the SUV. Their dark suits and sun glasses sharply contrasted with the dull tan and faded reds of the desert surroundings.

  Their shoes rapped sharply as they walked across weathered planks of the porch to the front door.

  The woman flipped up a small cover on the wall next to the front door exposing a keypad. She punched in a series of numbers as Nathan, Walter and his guard got out of the sedan.

  Nathan stretched his legs while taking in his surroundings. He had no idea where he was, but he was sure nobody would hear him yell for help. Walter’s guard grumbled something and herded towards the ranch house.

  Pressing the last button, the woman heard the subtle hum of a motor followed by a crisp CLICK. Opening the door, she and the two men walked inside, holding the door for Walter and his party.

  Dingy light filtered through the cracks in the boarded up windows revealing a living room that smelled of old fabric and dust. They walked past the worn and dated furniture into a narrow hallway. Little light leaked into the hallway for Nathan to catch much detail except for a framed paint-by-numbers painting of a clown.

  The hallway ended with another door where the woman revealed another keypad. Nathan heard the door unlock and was ushered into a dark room. The air was surprisingly fresh and cool. Blips of different colored lights winked at him from the walls in every direction. Someone pressed a switch and the room lights blazed to life making Nathan momentarily squint. His eyes quickly adjusted and saw several tall cabinets of computer equipment lining the walls. Across from where he came in was another door, but nobody was moving to open it. Against the left wall was a desk, several blank monitors, keyboards and a chair.

  “You need a mainframe,” said Walter, “you got a mainframe. Now, get to work.”

  Nathan crossed the room and sat in the chair taking a moment to get his bearings. He tapped one of the keyboards and the monitors came to life. “It’s going to take a minute to tie into Vulcan 4’s navigation system,” explained Nathan.

  “I don’t need the, uh, play by play,” said Walter. “Just let me know when you’re…”

  “I’m in,” said Nathan with a satisfied smile. “This is an impressive system.” A moment later each monitor was filled with Vulcan 4’s status data. “I found it,” he said as he brought up a graphic of thin, multicolored Ring's on a large monitor. Dotted among the Ring's were small diamond symbols with a six character label next to each one. “That’s Vulcan 4,” said Nathan pointing to an orange colored diamond. Vulcan 4 was moving, very slowly, along a line of dashes. “These dashes are Vulcan 4’s current path,” said Nathan. It’s just passing into medium earth orbit.”

  “Do you have control of it?” asked Walter.

  Nathan’s fingers moved quickly over the keyboard as he leaned forward looking expectantly at one of the closer monitors. “Just a second,” said Nathan.

  Streams of meaningless characters began filling the monitor, but Walter understood that Nathan was somehow communicating with it.

  The characters stopped and was replaced by an incomprehensible grid of acronyms and numbers. Nathan sat back in his chair with a sigh. “Yes, I’ve got control.”

  “Great,” smiled Walter as he nodded to the blank expressions of the security guards. “Good. Okay, now fix it.”

  “You mean put it back in its original orbit?” said Nathan.

  “Yes,” confirmed Walter. “That’s why you’re here. That’s why we pay you. You’re the guy everyone says is a, uh, techno genie.” Walter pointed at Vulcan 4’s symbol on the screen. “This is where it is,” he said then moved his finger to the ring, now above the orange diamond. “And this is where I want you to put it.”

  Walter’s next words were interrupted by the buzz of his phone. He flashed his palm at Nathan as he answered the phone with his free hand. “Hello?”

  Walter straightened up and glanced briefly at Nathan before turning his back on him. Walter tried to keep his conversation private, but the size of the room didn’t allow it. “Yes, we’re here,” said Walter. “I told him to fix it, but uh, he says he can’t.”

  “Can’t, or won’t?” demanded the caller.

  Nathan stared at Walter's back making him hunch his shoulders as if to further mask his words. “He says someone hacked the satellite and took it off course. No, he doesn’t know who.”

  Nathan didn’t reflect the concern that was beginning to grow inside him with every glance Walter gave him. He only heard Walter’s side of the conversation, but the mans posture said he was getting ready to throw Nathan under the bus.

  “If that damn thing falls into the wrong hands all of us will be hanging from trees!” said the caller. “What if Nathan learned about the satellite database? He’s not one of us. I warned you not to hire him. He could be selling our info to anyone.”

  “That information is compartmentalized,” said Walter. “He wouldn’t know that and if he does, then damn it, it wasn’t me. Somebody over there screwed up big time.” Walter began shaking his head in silent disagreement. “I can point fingers too.”

  “We’re past that,” said the caller. “We have to clean house of every suspect. Kill him. Now. We’ll talk about your decision to hire him later.”

  Walter could barely suppress the whine in his voice. “I’m saying my guy’s solid, okay? We can work on those answers after I fix this satellite thing. I gotta go.”

  “The moment he says it’s fixed,” said the caller, “kill him.”

  “Okay,” said Walter and hung up. He folded his arms across his chest, staring expressionless at Nathan. The longer it went on the more awkward Nathan felt. He couldn’t tell if Walter was trying to psych him out, or lost in his own thoughts.

  “Did they decide what they want to do about Vulcan 4?” said Nathan, hoping he touched the right nerve.

  “I’m the one with boots on the ground,” snapped Walter. “I make the decisions and I want you to put it back.”

  “I can’t,” said Nathan with a sigh.

  “Can’t, or won’t?” growled Walter.

  “Vulcan 4 is descending through hundreds of miles of junk filled space. Pieces of other satellites, booster rockets, fragments the size of softballs to objects the size of a car and they’re circling the planet up to seventeen thousand miles an hour,” said Nathan moving his hands around an invisible globe. “Calculating a safe corridor through that flying demolition derby takes way more computer power than we have here, and even if we could it could be months before those bits of junk aline for a clear path.” Nathan pointed to Vulcan 4's symbol on the monitor. “And while all of that is happening Vulcan 4 will drop lower and lower. The lower it gets, the stronger Earth’s gravity pulls and that means you’ll need a lot of thrust to break free. You’re going to need a lot of fuel, and that’s the one thing Vulcan 4 has little of.”

  Walter glared at the computer monitor while chewing the inside of his lip. Nathan had just dumped a heaping pile of ‘no win’ in Walter's lap.

  “Then making us bring you out here was a waste of time,” said Walter. He put his hands on his hips, under his jacket and turned away from Nathan to conceal his right hand edging towards his holstered gun. “I thought you were part of the team, but you’ve just been stalling us this whole time.”

  “I knew we couldn’t save Vulcan 4,” said Nathan calmly even as Walter glanced meaningfully at his security team. They took notice and straightened in anticipation of Walter's next orders.

  “But I had you bring me here to confirm that we can protect The Ring from whoever did this,” said Nathan, “and we can.” Typing a few commands i
nto the computer brought up Vulcan 4's projected target area.

  Walter stroked his combover with his empty hand as he turned back to Nathan with renewed interest.

  “Whoever brought Vulcan 4 out of orbit specifically chose this crash site,” said Nathan. “I don’t know why,” lied Nathan, “and I don’t want to know, but someone thinks there’s something on that satellite worth having.”

  Walter looked dubious, but cautiously optimistic. “Let’s say, for the moment, that’s what it looks like to me, too,” said Walter. “What can we do about it?”

  “Vulcan 4 doesn’t have enough fuel to return to its original orbit, but its got enough to change where it comes down,” smiled Nathan.

  Walter stared blankly at Nathan. “That’s it? That’s your big save?”

  “I change its course and lock out its systems so nobody can take control of it,” explained Nathan. “We’ll be the only ones who can track it.”

  “Great,” quipped Walter. “We can all sit around and watch our satellite crash.”

  “We’ll also be the only ones who know where it is,” added Nathan.

  Walter’s eyebrows rose as finally put the pieces together. “We’ll be the only ones who know where to pick it up,” grinned Walter as he excitedly paced back and forth. The security team’s posture subtly relaxed and they stopped staring at Nathan.

  “Its orbital path limits our options of touch-down,” said Nathan as he began quickly typing a string of commands into the computer. Then turned back to Walter. “We can put it down in the ocean, or somewhere in the north of South America.”

  “Yeah, ditch it in the ocean,” said Walter, but then shook his head, changing his mind. “No! Not the ocean. South America. Yeah, there.”

  Nathan turned back to the keyboard and began typing. “I’m giving Vulcan 4 a shallow trajectory which will delay its reentry by several days,” said Nathan. “That should make it easier to predict its target area.” A nearby monitor scrolled a list longitude and latitudes. “All right,” said Nathan getting out of his chair and stretching his back.