Death of Secrets

by Bowen Greenwood

  He sighed. Colleen was about to ask him if he had any booze in the room when her cell phone rang. Michael listened to the side of the conversation he could hear.

  "Hello?"

  "Kathy! Are you OK?"

  CHAPTER 7

  Michael fidgeted and whined, itching to grab Colleen's cell phone. "Let me talk to her!" He held his hand out and hopped from foot to foot.

  Colleen laughed, the relief evident in her voice as she yielded the phone to Michael. "Some random guy wants to talk to you," she finished, with a wink at the Congressman.

  He grabbed the phone. "Kathy?"

  "Hey, Mike. I’m fine, I got away, calm down."

  A huge sigh came through the phone to Kathy’s ears. She couldn’t even understand most of what Mike said, the words came out so jumbled and confused.

  "Calm down, calm down, I’m fine. I’m on my way back there.

  Mike brought his voice under control. "Do you want us to come get you?"

  "No need, I’ve lost them, obviously, or I wouldn’t be free to make a call, so I should be safe just catching a cab and coming over."

  Mike promised to wait in the lobby, clicked off the phone, and impulsively hugged Colleen. She laughed and hugged him back. "That’s my roommate," she said. "She’s good at taking care of herself."

  ***

  When they saw her walking in, Mike and Colleen ran across the lobby and wrapped Kathy up in twin bear hugs. She squeezed back until breathing got tough, then slipped out of their grasp. "You guys are not going to believe how I got away!"

  As pleasant as it had been to share the room with Kathy, Colleen's presence made Mike feel like he should get a second one. They went to the front desk and made the arrangements, using Kathy’s fake ID again, and then headed back to the room where they’d spent last night.

  As they rode the elevator, Kathy poured out the story of her great escape, stretching out the part about the slide down the drainpipe. Once in their room, she came back to it again, assuring her friends they’d never believe how cool it was.

  Colleen laughed and hugged her friend. "Oh, I believe it alright. I just can’t believe you had the guts to do that."

  "I couldn’t either!"

  The three slowly settled down, and traded information about what they had learned so far. Kathy mentioned remembering where the murder victim had told her to take the thumb drive.

  She said, "There's got to be some way to get out of this short of flying to Jakarta, though."

  Then she trailed off, and raised an eyebrow at her roommate. Colleen was staring at her, mouth open, eyes wide.

  Michael leaned over the table and asked, "What is it, Colleen?"

  "Guys, Jakarta isn’t just a city in Indonesia. Jakarta’s a hacker."

  In unison Michael and Kathy asked, "What?"

  "Jakarta is like, a legend on the Net," Colleen explained. "I have no idea what his real name is. No one does. But do you remember when the NSA itself got hacked last spring? That was him."

  Michael nodded, but Kathy’s face looked blank. "I get what the NSA is, but what’s this about them being hacked?"

  "Well, you know, everyone’s been up in arms about the NSA spying on everything right? We computer people are very hyper about privacy – mostly because we know how poorly it mixes with computers. So the famous Jakarta managed to hack into their computers – which is huge, by the way, it’s about as hard as data theft ever gets – and released a list of the names of several thousand American citizens who the NSA was actively spying on."

  Colleen grinned as she told the story. Mike added, "It was a huge deal. There were Congressional hearings and everything. I was involved a little bit."

  Kathy blinked. "And you think this is who I’m supposed to give the flash drive to? Some hacker who calls himself Jakarta, rather than Jakarta Indonesia?"

  Colleen shrugged. "Well, I mean, either one is a possibility, but it is a computer flash drive, after all, and Jakarta the hacker has a lot more to do with computers than Jakarta the city. What’s more, that name you told me, Eric Harrison? He was known for working with Jakarta. Besides, how much sense does it make to just fly to Indonesia and hope for the best? He didn’t give you any more instruction than just ‘Jakarta?’ Then it seems more likely it’s a person."

  Michael was nodding. "That makes a lot of sense, but I’m not sure if it makes our lives any easier. How is finding some hacker who hides behind a screen name any easier than flying across the world?"

  "Well," Colleen replied, "He’s supposed to live here in D.C., that’s a start…"

  "Not much of one," Michael replied. "This is a pretty big city to just start knocking on random doors asking if they’ve seen him."

  Colleen nodded. "Well, it’s a good thing you brought that laptop along. I’ve got some research to do."

  "You think you can find him?" Kathy asked.

  Colleen shrugged. "I’m not sure, but I have better odds than a house-to-house survey in Washington D.C."

  ***

  They returned to their room, hoping Colleen could get in touch with this Jakarta fellow before too long. Although they’d paid for a separate room for him, Michael spent the majority of the evening in with the two girls. After everyone took the time to shower and clean up, they got together in Kathy and Colleen's room for the evening’s work. While Mike and Kathy summoned room service for strawberry daiquiris, Colleen got to work on the Congressman’s computer.

  The hotel provided a wifi connection, so Colleen fired up the laptop. Once it was fully booted, she grimaced at the web browser that Mike used. But it was the only one on the machine, so she had to start it to download the software she’d be working on.

  As the browser opened up, Mike’s e-mail and social media accounts popped up in separate tabs. Colleen closed both right away. She didn’t like looking at other people’s mail.

  As the tabs closed, she never noticed the text box for a new post on the social media page. There was a location tag on it, ready to let the world know where Mike was posting from. It read, "McLean, VA."

  It took a while for Colleen to get all the software she wanted installed. Once that was done, she hunched over the small keyboard and screen, trying to disappear from the room. The more Mike and Kathy talked, the more attractive Michael’s room looked. Kat’s reservations were apparently on their way out the window. Each little whisper from the other side of the room made her try even harder to disappear.

  Finally, though, she had everything she needed. Logging onto her instant messaging service, she fired off notes to four of her Internet friends to start the search.

  KH12> Glad I caught up with you, dude. I need your help.

  Freshy> Wassup? Need a swift whuppin’ at COD again?

  KH12> Dude, you know I’d beat you down like I did last time. But tonight I want help finding someone. I want to meet Jakarta.

  The reply was a long time coming. When it did, it was hardly hopeful.

  Freshy> LOL, first of all how am I supposed to know where to find him, and second, what makes you think he’d want to talk to you?

  KH12> Come on, dude. You’re like, the most connected webhead I know. If anyone’s going to have met him, it’d be you.

  Freshy> No such luck. You know I’d help you if I could, but I just don’t even know where to start."

  Colleen's other four conversations went largely the same. People LOL’ed at her every time she said she wanted to talk to Jakarta. Dejected, she sighed and stared at the screen for a while, wondering who she could ask next. Before she could think of another angle of approach, though, she got another message from a friend she hadn’t talked to yet.

  N00k> Yo KH! Freshy say’s you’re trying to meet Jakarta.

  KH12> Hey, cool, I am. Whacha got for me?

  N00k> What’ll you give me for help?

  Colleen sighed. N00k – the name was derived from Nuke, misspelling it with a double O instead of a U, and then using zeroes in place of the letter O – was one of her least favorite
Internet people. She knew him from the occasional Call of Duty deathmatch, but she didn’t like the guy much. He was also an inefficient hacker, or he wouldn’t need to ask her for things.

  KH12> Ah, come on, N00k.

  N00k> Hey, ya gotta look after number 1 in this business.

  KH12> OK, OK, fine. But I’ll take it out of your hide the next time I play you in Call of Duty. I got a few hacked passwords you can use.

  Stealing passwords to sites that charged users to create accounts was a favorite hacker hobby. In Colleen's online social life, few people believed in paying for things. She visited an illicit web site she knew about, stole a few passwords to pay sites for music and movies, and sent them winging off to N00k.

  After a few minutes for him to test it out she got a message back. It turned out N00k had probably gotten the better end of the bargain. All he had was the name of an IRC channel and a rumor that Jakarta occasionally hung out there.

  Sighing, she went to work. IRC stood for Internet Relay Chat. It was like a chat room. It was a dated technology in most ways, but among a certain segment of Internet users, using IRC was a kind of fashion statement. It was a way of keeping out the less-well-informed.

  Colleen logged on and found the right place. For a while she just watched the text scroll by on the screen. This was a hacking channel, and people were talking about the finer points of breaking into other people’s computers. She smiled at the vast array of misspellings, profanities, and bizarre acronyms that people used as nicknames online.

  Finally, she felt ready to speak up. When one of the other people logged into the channel made a claim about a supposed security hole in a popular Web Browser that would allow a hacker to gain unauthorized access to whatever computer used that browser, Colleen sent her own message.

  KH12> I heard they closed that hole.

  J3rK> Who’re you and how do you know?

  5w33+> Don’t be such a jerk, J3rK. Hi, KH12, glad you could join us.

  KH12> I was at DefCon last Spring, and that’s enough about who I am and how I know for you to take it seriously. And Hi, 5w33+.

  DefCon was the annual "hackers’ convention." It was held every year in Las Vegas, and spending the cash to attend was considered a sign of being pretty serious in the hacking community.

  Kewlio> Cool, I was at DefCon too. Don’t remember your name.

  KH12> I remember yours. You were on that panel about the ethics of bringing real life international relations to the Net.

  Colleen remembered the name Kewlio as one of the presenters, although she couldn’t remember what he’d said. It didn’t matter. It was only necessary to prove she really knew what she was talking about. That done, the conversation moved on.

  The conversation now drifted off to reminiscences about the last convention, including a tale from one guy about how he’d met the love of his life there. That took the conversation away to the subject of Internet romances, with most people on the channel taking the position that it was pretty much a waste of time. Finally there came a brief lull in the conversation, and Colleen took advantage of it.

  KH12> Listen, guys, I need something.

  Kewlio> Most newbies to the channel do when they come here.

  5w33+> What’s that?

  J3rK> Whaddaya need?

  KH12> I want to meet Jakarta.

  J3rK> LOL, right!

  5w33+> So do I!

  Kewlio> Why are you asking us?

  KH12> I heard he sometimes hung out here.

  Kewlio> I wish, that’d be sweet!

  5w33+> No lie, dude.

  KH12> You guys have never seen him in here?

  J3rK> LOL, dude, even if we had we wouldn’t tell you.

  KH12> Well, if he happens to tune in, ask him to e-mail me. I imagine he’ll have no trouble tracking me down.

  ***

  Donning a leather jacket the same shade as night itself, John stepped outside the Neon Nightclub. He lit a cigarette and stared at the stars, enjoying a brief break. His ears savored the escape from the music inside. The wind fluttered the collar of his jacket, and he zipped it up a little tighter. Fall was here in force.

  When his ears had adapted to the peaceful absence of dance music, John heard voices around the corner. He sucked in on his cigarette and listened.

  "They’re in The Holiday Inn in McLean," said one voice.

  "Cell phone location data again?"

  "No, his laptop logged in to a social media site and sent its location data."

  There was a pause. John strained to hear more. His heartbeat had suddenly accelerated. He only knew one person associated with the Neon who was in the Holiday Inn in McLean right now.

  "Good enough. I’ll send people."

  "There’s a complication."

  Again a pause, and John’s mind furiously weighed the pros and cons of peeking around the corner. He imagined all kinds of nonverbal communication going on when the voices were silent, and he felt pretty sure he needed to know the content of this conversation. But looking around the corner could mean getting caught, and that would ruin his utility to Kathy. John wasn’t a paranoid man, but he did know for a fact that these people had tried to kill him twice already, so he assumed they were quite capable of trying again and getting it done right this time.

  When the conversation resumed, the first voice spoke again. "She’s still with the Congressman. He sits on the House Judiciary Committee. If he disappears suddenly there’s a lot more attention on this than we want."

  Another pause. John’s breath froze in his throat, and he contemplated running back inside and calling Kathy immediately.

  "True, but if he decides to make waves he has the ability to make a lot bigger waves than some cocktail waitress."

  "We can’t kill him, he’s one of our staunchest allies on the Hill. We need him."

  "I’ve never heard of a vote so vital you couldn’t buy a replacement."

  "Why kill them at all if we can get the flash drive without it?"

  "What if they’ve read the contents? What if they talk?"

  "Don’t be dense, that file was so encrypted it’d take even the NSA days to crack it."

  "It’s you who’s being dense – she’s already got a computer person working on decrypting it. They’ll figure it out."

  There was one more long pause. John was nearly hyperventilating now, taking shallow, short breaths. Kathy was in real trouble, he knew, and he was the only one who could tell her.

  He couldn’t resist any longer. Ever so slowly, he eased his head out from behind the corner to peek.

  A streetlight illuminated the area gently, and the two men stood just outside the circle of light it created. One wore a long topcoat, the other a jacket like John’s. Both had their collars turned up. The angle wasn’t right to see their faces, though, both were looking away. It didn’t matter. He recognized both voices.

  One of the men turned around.

  John yanked his head back around the corner so hard he almost hurt himself. For a moment, his breath wouldn’t come at all. Had he been seen? He thought he ducked out of sight fast enough, but he couldn’t be sure…

  The conversation started up again. First the voice of Carlos, and then the other. John breathed a sigh of relief. If they’d seen him, they’d be coming after him right now, not talking.

  The speaker went on at great length about the importance of whatever it was they were working on, and the necessity of recovering the flash drive. He talked and talked and talked, more like a sermon than a conversation. John was just beginning to get curious about that – Carlos had never struck him as the type to sit there and listen to a haranguing – when he had time to feel a sharp blow to his head, and a wet rag over his nose. The rag smelled funny, and John didn’t have any doubts at all that he’d be late coming back from his break. Maybe someone at the Neon would be able to help him when they found out he was missing. His last thought before fading to unconsciousness was that no, Carlos wasn’t the type to listen to a harangue. But h
e wasn’t above using one as a diversion.

  ***

  Dejected, Colleen wished for Call of Duty, so she could at least have a little fun. But it had taken long enough just to download the programs she actually needed. Downloading a whole game would take forever on the hotel’s network.

  At a loss for where to go from here, she looked over to see what Kathy and Mike were talking about. That was a mistake. The two had moved their chairs closer together, their faces only inches apart.

  Colleen pouted, and exhaled noisily over her lower lip, causing her bangs to fly up. She closed her messaging and IRC programs. "I’m gonna go get a breath of fresh air," she said.

  A bright shade of red crept up Kathy’s face as she looked up at her roommate. "Oh, um, Colleen… no luck with this Jakarta guy?"

  Colleen shook her head on her way to the door and left.

  Kathy sighed. "I totally forgot she was there."

  Mike nodded, blushing almost as much as Kathy. "Me too. I hope she’s not mad."

  "Oh, she’ll get over it. I’ve been through more than a few awkward moments between her and her boyfriend in our dorm room. Besides, last I heard talking wasn’t considered a social faux pas."

  Michael grinned and rested his arm around Kathy’s shoulders. He leaned his head over and closer to Kathy’s.

  Kathy felt his proximity as warmth on her cheek. Part of her wanted to turn her face to meet him. But…

  The computer emitted a loud, long beep.

  Mike’s hands froze, and both of them looked over at the laptop.

  Kathy went over to the computer and sat down. She bit her lower lip as she looked at the screen. "Um, Michael, I think you better come here."