The Brummie Con (Sunken City Capers Book 4)

by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  Seven minutes until the train leaves.

  “Miss?” the ticket taker woman prompts me. I’m next in line.

  I’ve just been standing there. My heart beating in my chest, staring at Ham and wondering if it’s all about to go hell.

  “Sorry,” I say and heft my bag and step up to the gate. I flash my pocket tablet displaying my ticket to the reader. The woman smiles a tired smile and the reader flashes green, the gates swinging open.

  Ham is still waiting to be waived through.

  “We got a problem,” Puo says.

  Ham stiffens.

  I lock eyes with Winn. I can get out by any of the station entrances behind me. But Winn will have to get past the cops stationed before the glass doors—he’s trapped behind there otherwise. He can’t ditch his bag—Christina’s squeegee is in there. Ham, I’ll use Ham to distract the cops to give Winn an opening.

  Puo continues, “The owners of the sedan have discovered it’s not where they parked it. They’ve called the cops. The cops are going to connect the dots soon and backtrace the sedan’s movements.”

  “Delay them,” I bite off as quietly as I can surrounded by people. I’m going to flay Puo when I see him. He did not need to tell us this while Ham was on the comm-link and literally standing right in front of the cops.

  Puo’s silent, which I’m hoping means he’s working. We only need to delay them long enough to get away.

  The cop checking Ham’s CitID waves him through.

  I exhale. Now it’s just the clock ticking. Five minutes until the train leaves. How many minutes before they trace the sedan to this station?

  The queue for the identification check seems to slow to a crawl. My heart thunders in my chest. It’s the last obstacle before we finally understand what the hell is going on. One more checkpoint.

  Ham walks past Winn without acknowledgment. Winn pretends to give up searching for the person he’s looking for and turns around back to the train, hefting his duffle bag on his shoulder and trailing Ham.

  I get my heart rate under control with steady deep breaths. I am in control. I am a tourist on vacation. Nothing more. Jackknives don’t belong to a tourist.

  The line bifurcates and I get in the line opposite the cop that Ham went through. Inching forward slowly.

  It’s the teenage girl’s turn in front of me.

  The male cop keeps flicking his gaze at me over the head of the teenage girl. He’s older, scruffy, with white creeping into his beard and a chin dimple.

  He waves the teenage girl through. “Mornin’,” he says to me, holding out the scanner to scan my CitID.

  I reply “Good morning,” and put my hand under the scanner which he promptly scans. A rotating circle pops up on his display.

  “What’s with the checkpoint and all the cops?” I ask, glancing behind me and slipping my hand back into my pocket.

  “Routine disruption,” he lies, avoiding eye contact.

  “Routine disruption?” I ask.

  That circle is still rotating. Chug, chug, chug.

  I hate this modified citizen chip. It took longer in customs as well. When all this shit settles, we are revisiting that Citizen Maker and renegotiating.

  The cop straightens his back and looks at me. “Planned disruptions around holidays and events keep criminals from planning effectively—”

  “Walsh,” the other cop warns.

  Walsh head bobs at the other cop and gives me an apologetic smile, fussing with his hair around his ears under his hat. “Where you headed?” he asks me.

  He didn’t question the teenage girl or anyone else in front of me. “Paris.”

  Still rotating. What is taking so freaking long?

  The person at the other cop that started after me moves on through the glass doors.

  “J’aime Paris. Avez-vous ete avant?” he asks.

  “Parlez vous anglais?” I say, that’s all I know in French, to ask if they speak English. “Oh! And I also know: Toilettes?” Always important to know how to get to a bathroom.

  He laughs with a twinkle in his eye—oh, I get it now. I shift my stance to be closer to him and make more shy eye contact.

  “Yeah,” he says with a smile, “that’s all you need to know.”

  The other cop looks over my cop’s screen, “What’s taking so long?” He’s older with a much more serious face that he directs at me with full dour suspicion.

  “Don’t know,” Walsh says.

  “I’m American,” I say helpfully. “Could that make it take longer?”

  Walsh says, “Could be” at the same time Dour-face cop says, “No.”

  Dour-face cop also straightens up and is about to say something which will definitely not be flirtatious.

  “Maybe it’s the rain,” I blurt out to cut him off.

  The rotating circle stops and disappears. A little green check mark appears at the top of the screen.

  “Ah,” Chin-dimple cop says. “There we go! Have a nice trip.”

  “Thanks,” I say and try not to run out of there. I am going to kill that Citizen Maker.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THE WHUMP, whump, whump of speeding by concrete tunnel braces smooth out into a steady whoosh as we enter the long underwater tunnel to France. Winn sits next to me in a private cabin for six, his presence is comforting, his new cologne is crisp and inviting. Soft classical music, once again, pipes into our comm-links.

  Ham sits directly across from me, closest to the door. He sits with his back straight against the lightly padded plastic seat, his forearms resting on his thighs. Soft fluorescent lighting illuminates the cabin and casts reflections in the large tinted window.

  Ham tilts his head to catch my eye and raise an eyebrow, silently asking, Now?

  I check the time on my pocket tablet and set the tablet on my lap resting my hands over it. I nod at Ham. It’s not only okay to start talking, it’s critical. I had shushed him when we first got on to delay the conversation until now.

  “Where are we going?” Ham immediately blurts out.

  Winn reaches down and slides the larger duffle bag he’s been carrying out from under the seat. The heavy bag scraps and scuffs against the floor as it slides. Winn unzips a side compartment, roots around, and hands me Christina’s squeegee.

  Ham’s mouth falls open as he stares at the squeegee.

  “What do you know about this?” I ask.

  Ham’s eyes narrow. He leans back as his mask of connivance falls into place. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” I ask, not believing him for a second. “You recognized it.”

  Ham’s lips stay compressed in a thin line.

  “You’re smart, right?” I say, sitting forward. “A college professor and all.” Ham doesn’t respond, just stares at me, so I continue, “Let’s see if you can solve a little math problem for me. The trick is to follow the train of events.” As soon as I realize the unintended pun, I plow on before Puo can start making train puns every five seconds.

  “Okay, here we go.” I hold up two fingers. “Two cops are pepper-sprayed in full view of several other spotters to break a prisoner free. This leads to a merry hovercar chase through the sky for fifteen minutes, where, to get away, our little crew reveals they have a backdoor into the cop’s system. Knowing our crew has only bought themselves about ten to twenty minutes, they attempt to pull over a pedestrian hovercar to make a switch. But in a bizarre twist, that hovercar takes off, which, on the positive side, distracts the cops away momentarily, but on the negative, leaves yet another loose thread for the cops to pull on. So instead, our now intrepid crew steals a parked hovercar—which the cops will soon learn about. Meanwhile, our daring crew is now strolling through a train station crawling with more cops by the second. Now here comes the important part. Are you paying attention?”

  Ham hasn’t moved a muscle.

  “The cops set up a checkpoint. They have the prisoner’s CitID, which they scanned when they picked him up. Our little crew is stymied. Unti
l our industrious, light-fingered prisoner copies someone else’s identification off their citizen chip. Do you see it yet? Do you see where this is going?” I ask.

  Ham clenches his jaw.

  “No? Not yet?” I smile without mirth at him. “Our prisoner friend then uses the copied CitID to get through the checkpoint, where the cops dutifully log it into their system. So now—are you paying attention?—here comes the math problem: how long do you think our little crew has before the cops figure out which train they’re on when the original CitID owner tries to step through the security checkpoint and their system flags him?”

  The lights in the cabin flicker. The train perceptibly slows down only to resume speed again.

  Ham jerks his head up at the lights and then back at me.

  Mmm, that might have been a little too on the nose. Puo’s listening in and manipulating the power grid that runs the trains.

  Winn takes that as his cue to unpack the large duffle bag on the floor between the three of us. He unzips the main compartment, easing the strain on the bag which spills open with thunks and clinks as the scuba equipment settles. He kneels down and starts sorting the scuba equipment in full view of Ham.

  “You’re going to flood the tunnels?” Ham asks, mentally tracking each piece of equipment Winn handles.

  No. Although, if that’s what he wants to believe— I pick up a scuba mask and dangle it in front of him. “We’re going to escape.” I jiggle the scuba mask, making the straps dance around my arm.

  “Jesus,” he breathes.

  He really thinks we’d drown a whole train? What a pig.

  “Do you know how to scuba dive?” I ask. His rising and falling chest tells me: no, he in fact doesn’t. Based on this reaction alone: he’s ours—even before we bring in the convincer.

  Winn starts to slowly, methodically, assemble one of the scuba rigs.

  “Have you ever scuba-dived, Porkchop?” I ask, a small smile playing on my lips. Ham is staring at the scuba equipment with wide eyes, breathing shallowly. “Have you ever felt the cold water envelope you? Feel it leech your body heat away? And it will be cold this far north in December—”

  “Very cold,” Winn plays right in.

  I continue as Ham pales, “Have you ever felt the weight of the ocean push down on your ears? The sensation of not being able to equalize them fast enough as the heavy water overhead tries to crush you? Well ... you will. But that’s not what gets most people. There’s one very important thing to remember if you want to survive, Porkchop. Absolutely essential,” I say. Ham tears his eyes off the scuba equipment to look at me. I’ve swapped out holding the scuba mask for Christina’s squeegee. “And that’s to tell me the absolute fucking truth.”

  I ask, “Why are the Cleaners so desperately after us?”

  Ham doesn’t respond right away, clearly assessing his limited options.

  “Take off your jacket,” Winn orders Ham. Winn is attaching the tank to a scuba vest.

  The ploy breaks Ham’s internal debate. He blinks several times and alternates looking between us. “Uh ... don’t I need—”

  “Ham,” I say. “Focus. Why are the Cleaners after us?”

  “You stole their code,” Ham says matter-of-factly, but still watching Winn.

  “No, we didn’t,” I say. Yes, we did, but they don’t know that.

  He looks back at me. “Yes. You did. They know.”

  Ham and I stare at each other, each unwilling to budge.

  “Comm-link,” Winn says, holding out his hand at Ham. When Ham doesn’t immediately comply, Winn adds, “The scuba helmets have their own built it.” Winn gestures toward Ham to hand it over. “Comm-link.”

  Ham complies.

  “Thanks,” Winn says for Puo’s benefit listening in. “How much do you weigh?”

  Ham tells him.

  “How would they know?” I ask Ham about them knowing we stole their code. “Hypothetically, of course.”

  Ham debates with himself, flicking his gaze between me and the slowly assembling scuba rig.

  “Honesty, Ham,” I say. “That’s the only way I’m bringing you with us.”

  He swallows. “Do you know what a blockchain is?”

  Puo hisses in my ear over the low classical music, “Yes.” I nod at Ham. I have a vague understanding of it: it’s a decentralized public registry that records transactions.

  “The code you stole has an embedded blockchain system hidden in the root—”

  “Oh, God,” Puo whispers, causing my heart to thunder.

  Ham continues, “—Every time the code is used, or copied, it’s registered to a private group registry, so they know—”

  “I know what this is about,” Puo rushes over Ham. “It’s the blockchain. I bypassed it. It’s the fact that we can fake it, hide transactions. They have to know—”

  “Stop,” I say to Puo specifically, but I hold up my hand at Ham. Both of them cut off their jabbering. Puo immediately starts clacking on his keyboard loud enough to punctuate through the music piping in through the comm-link. Blood is pounding in my ears. I work to control visible signs of the jolt Puo just gave me.

  Winn picks up the rig and drops it on the seat next to Ham, ignoring the growing drama in his ear. “Let’s get you suited up first.”

  The distraction gives me time to think—it doesn’t make sense. We stole that code back at the start of July, but it wasn’t until December in Vancouver when they made a move on us. Why wait so long? And Puo says he bypassed it. And then there was that whole business with Christina in the middle—that can’t be unrelated. Can it?

  Puo is pounding on his keyboard so hard it sounds like he’s sitting next to me.

  “Who are they?” I ask Ham with a supreme effort of self-control—I can’t break off and start questioning Puo, no matter how much I want to. It’s time to blow off Ham.

  Ham is threading his left arm through the scuba rig, his eyes wide as he takes in all the valves and buttons.

  “Ham!” I say, letting my anxiousness about Puo bleed through. “Who are they?”

  Ham stops his fidgeting and looks up at me. “The National Syndicate.”

  Even Winn stops moving. The low whoosh of the train fills the silence, babbling around Puo’s striking key-clacks and a brooding cello concerto.

  The National Syndicate. “The Cleaners are organized nationally.” I state it as a fact but want Ham to confirm it anyway. The jackknives sense weakness and stir.

  Ham nods at first, but then thinks about it for second and makes figure eights with his head backtracking.

  “Zip up,” Winn tells Ham, “then do the clips across your chest.”

  “What was that about?” I ask Ham about his wishy-washy figure eights.

  Ham zips up the scuba jacket. “They’re a shadow organization. Only the Guild Masters and a few other high-ranking Cleaners know about them.”

  “So they’re not organized over here?”

  Ham shakes his head no.

  “That’s why you hid here.”

  “Yeah.”

  But then how did the British Cleaners find you so fast? Ham is many things, but not incompetent.

  I think about asking Ham directly about that when Puo’s typing picks up speed and intensity.

  I turn to Winn and ask Puo loudly, “Are you paying attention?”

  Winn stops what he’s doing and makes a show of apologizing.

  Puo plows over me, oblivious to my admonishment, “It’s quants, Queen Bee. It’s all about freaking quants. The blockchain. We can fake the blockchain. We can essentially copy quants.”

  It’s only by a lifetime of running cons that my mouth doesn’t drop open. Copy a digital currency. The electronic version of a printing press in the basement. It’s supposed to be impossible.

  Ham trails off suddenly studying me. “What?”

  How did the National Syndicate learn we could fake the blockchain—if we really can? I take a breath and lock eyes with Ham. “Things are falling into place,�
�� I answer cryptically to cover any slip up. “So the rest of what you have to say better line up with what we already know.”

  “Ask him about the blockchain,” Puo goes back to whispering.

  “Tell me about the blockchain,” I say. Does Ham know we can fake it?

  Ham answers, “It’s not a traditional blockchain, but a hybridization of one. Instead of it being public and distributed across many systems, it was only distributed across select squeegees—”

  “That’s why ...” Puo whispers.

  Puo really needs to shut up. Both conversations are dividing my attention. I struggle to follow Ham, while trying to think of a way to tell Puo to keep quiet so I can focus on blowing off Ham.

  Ham continues: “They were biding their time, getting things in place. That’s what the blockchain was about—a measure of open control for all members. Everyone can see what everyone else is up to. And,” Ham adds, “how they know you stole their code.”

  We stole that code off of Ham. “Are you a member of the National Syndicate?” I ask dangerously. They still have my father.

  Fifty minutes left in the countdown. The jackknives awaken fully, sending waves of adrenaline across my chest, the hairs on my arms standing up. If the quant thing is true.... Oh, God. It’s not a bluff.

  “What’s not a bluff?” Ham asks. He’s looking up at me in shock.

  When did I stand up? I can’t seem to catch my breath.

  Digital currency only works because people have faith in it. If news leaked that quants could be copied, the currency would collapse in seconds as people dumped it. If the Cleaners learned how we did it then they would want to make sure we didn’t let the cat out of the bag, and the best way to do that is to put us in body bags.

  They’re never going to stop coming after us.

  Ham repeats his question. It snaps me back to the present. We need to get out of here. That’s the first step. Focus on getting out of here.

  I hate this small, repugnant, selfish little man. “Are you one of them?” I ask forcefully, looming over him.

  “No,” Ham says, his hands hovering over his chest ready to connect the topmost clips.