Kill Switch

by James Phelan

  He looked up at the camera in the corner above the woman.

  “No problema,” she said, standing and putting the bills into her coat pocket. “It is not pointed at those who come in—the boss has it pointed at the register, in the corner there, in case, you know, the staff . . .”

  Walker saw the register. There was a fridge too. Drinks and some snacks, cheap booze. He took an armful, left twenty dollars behind and headed to the car.

  He knew by the time he was halfway across the car park that things had changed. The car was empty. Monica was gone.

  30

  Walker put the armful of food and drinks on top of the Cuda’s trunk and looked around. The car park was dark, the only light coming from an old yellowed vapor light above reception and the neon motel sign with VACANCY illuminated under it; the streetlights were too far away to illuminate anything.

  No sign of Monica.

  There were three cars and a white van. All had enough miles on them to show they were road reps. All the lights in the rooms were off. It was nearing 2:30am. Zero dark thirty in military parlance, that unspecific time in the dead of night good for hunting. There were twenty-four rooms in a double-story block. Concrete brick construction, painted some kind of salmon or peach color; it was hard to tell for sure in the dark, when it appeared a warm shade of gray. There was a wide set of concrete stairs in the middle of the rectangle, and another at each end of the block. Steel balustrades. The center stairs had the dull glow of a vending machine tucked under the landing, maybe even a laundry room tucked behind.

  2:29am.

  The road behind him, where they had entered, was a distant off-shoot of what was once a highway but had been superseded thirty years ago by a new branch of the interstate. A truck rumbled by with a blast of air brakes before making a turn. There were some stores and mechanics and fenced-up lots. No lights, no action, no movement.

  She could have hitched a ride. But why?

  Walker opened the car door. The keys were still in the ignition, the radio still on.

  Chatter on the news.

  Federal employees were going ape because of all the details leaked. The news reporters and radio host were saying that the attack’s brilliance was clear.

  The two data breaches and leaks had got the population talking. Complaining. Bitching. First the gen-pop, then federal government employees. And they were loud about it. It had woken America up. Maybe not here in this downtown cul-de-sac of early-morning no-where, but in the places that mattered, there were people right now logging into their accounts and deleting all those emails and messages that they didn’t want out there—all too late, because either Jasper had put them on multiple massive databanks or they were already there, stored by the NSA or whoever, and anyone could read them via dozens of URL addresses.

  The Director of Homeland Security was on the radio: “Major breaches like these will continue unless the government adopts a psychology of deterrence. What we must do in the meantime is pay more attention to defense.”

  The reporter asked: “What are you doing about locating Jasper Brokaw and those who have him captive?”

  “What we can.”

  “Which is?”

  “It’s an ongoing operation. I’ll leave it at that.”

  Walker smelled cigarette smoke on the breeze.

  “Crazy, huh?” a voice said. Monica emerged from behind the landing of the stairs at the middle of the building, the glow of a cigarette in her mouth. “Habit I kicked five years ago.”

  “I don’t remember you smoking.”

  “I didn’t. I was all about sport back then. I took it up after spending a few years straight out of college doing counseling for DoD vets returning from tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

  Walker knew that kind of counseling; he’d had a few mandated sessions after missions that he’d been out on had either lost team members or seen atrocities.

  He asked, “Ever do work for OPM?”

  “Not directly, but I’ve done some contracts that touched them. And I’m sure a lot of people that I’ve placed elsewhere are in their system.”

  “So, your details will be out there too. Leaked.”

  She blew smoke. “Annoying. I’ll change my phone number and email if I get swamped by crazies. It’s not the end of the world.”

  “Your home address will be leaked too.”

  Monica shrugged and pulled on her cigarette. “Did you get rooms?”

  “One,” Walker said, taking the keys and locking the car. He gave Monica the room key and pointed upstairs. She led the way. He was two paces behind her, the food and drinks in his arms. “I thought you’d split.”

  “Why would I do that? I mean, where would I go?” Monica paused at the landing and waved an arm around. “I’ve never been within twenty miles of this neighborhood. It’s practically all industry. You think I’d go hang out at some closed factory?”

  Walker took the stairs two at a time. He saw over the landing the glow of the vending machines, outside a small room housing a washer-dryer and a pay phone.

  “Walker?”

  He stopped at their room and turned to face Monica.

  She said, “One room? I mean, really?”

  “We’re laying low for a few hours, tops,” Walker said, shifting the food and bottles in his arms, taking the key from her and opening the door. Two single beds, updated some time in the past decade. He entered and dumped the stuff on a battered timber table with two chairs set around it. “With two beds. If you want to sleep, sleep. Or watch the news. I’m going to get some sleep, because it’s going to be a long day. But before I do, we’re going to talk and figure out what we can. We keep off the streets for a bit. We’ll get back out there in the morning, when it’s busier, and we’ll head to Jasper’s apartment. Okay?”

  Monica sat on the end of her bed, turned on the television and flicked through the channels to find news.

  “I can’t see us making much difference . . .” Monica trailed off.

  Walker sat on the end of the bed opposite. “We’ll try our best though, right? To find your brother and stop whatever is coming.”

  She looked him dead on, and said, “What if your best isn’t good enough?”

  •

  “I’ve got nothing on Walker’s father,” Somerville said.

  “Then forget him.” McCorkell leaned against the wall. “Focus on finding Walker.”

  “He’ll make contact soon enough,” Zoe said.

  “Until then, try and locate him,” McCorkell said. “Reach out to contacts, and get the images of those fake TSA guys out there. Someone knows them, or knew them. Take shifts, get some rest at some point—it’s going to be a busy day ahead. I’ll be in my office, on the couch—call me any time.”

  Zoe nodded.

  Somerville said, “We may have to assume that Walker’s not going to be around for this one.”

  “Until we hear from him, we’re in the dark,” McCorkell said. “But if, or when we do hear, we need to be ready to move mountains. If he’s had contact with his father, he may already be moving on this.”

  31

  Monica turned up the television.

  NBC news was playing, and a live cross to Washington had taken place: “The true number of federal employees past and present affected could be as high as forty million,” the director of the FBI’s cyber division said. “The FBI, working with OPM officials, can confirm that the cyber attack was two separate breaches, occurring within the past hour: one of the theft of all personnel files, and one of all the security-clearance forms. Much of that data is classified and anyone who is tracked looking at it—and we are tracking all ISPs that view and share these documents—will face prosecution. To this end we suspect that those who are holding NSA employee Jasper Brokaw are bringing this unlawful cyber attack against the United States government, and we are doing all that we can to rescue Brokaw and bring to justice those who are forcing his hand.”

  “Can’t they track the hacks back to a point
of origin?” Monica said. “They keep tracking cyber attacks back to Russia and China and Iran, right? How hard can it be?”

  Walker remained silent as he took off his boots, then checked the sight lines out the curtained window. There was nothing to notice out there but the cars parked in the darkness, the lit-up reception, the dim overhead streetlight and the empty road. Then he put the chain on the door, and a chair back tilted and propped under the handle.

  “That won’t stop anyone,” Monica said.

  “It’ll buy time.”

  “For what?”

  “Retaliation. Close-in, in a space like this, if something goes down it’s all about kinetic energy flying about and how fast you can act and react.”

  He took out the Colt M1911 and put it on the table.

  Monica’s eyes were drawn to it. “That’s my father’s.”

  “He leaned it to me.” Walker watched her watching the weapon. “You know how to shoot?”

  “A little. Dad taught us.”

  “The safety is here.” Walker showed her the little lever, which he flicked with his thumb. “It’s a .45 so it has a kick. If you have to shoot, pull the trigger two or three times. Just in case.”

  Monica fell silent. She looked from the pistol to the television. Walker did too.

  The ramifications of the social-media hack were reverberating, consequences playing out. Employees were reading what their bosses really thought and said about them to others. Rivals got the inside scoop on their opposition. Diplomatic missions fell apart. Spouses were arguing over who sent what kind of messages to whom.

  By the morning news cycle it would only grow louder. Tens of millions of people whose lives crashed apart overnight would be demanding the government do something about this hacker threat. This was real, to them. This wasn’t some distant thing about celebrities having their phones and emails hacked and spread over the news. This wasn’t millions of intelligence and diplomatic cables being cherry-picked and published by investigative journalists at the Guardian and New Yorker.

  This was happening to mums and pops, kids and teachers and bosses and spouses, and it was all compounded when, at the seeming flick of a switch between 8pm yesterday and 2am today, there were no more secrets among anyone who had ever written them on a computer.

  The OPM hack was still being fully realized, but caches of the data were spreading around the Internet and the FBI and NSA were failing in their attempts to play catch-up in trying to hide it.

  “Whoever has Jasper planned this well,” Walker said. He went to the window and looked outside. The scene was as before: a few cars and trucks parked out on the street; the cars and van in the car park; the woman on reception watching her stories behind the counter. He looked at the door. It was hollow, thin plywood on a light frame, good for keeping the wind and rising sun out and nothing more. His bed was closest to it, and if someone came in they’d go out the way they came even faster.

  “All federal employees of America are now listening . . .” the news anchor said. He had a panel of commentators in for a through-the-night special. “And the pressure on the White House will amplify with every passing minute. Think of the forty million social-security numbers out there now, along with all the other personal details for identity theft. All the notes from the security clearances, the background stuff—the identities of all the people close to them. You want to get to the President, well, you now know where White House staffers live, details of their family and loved ones, what their potential is for blackmail and leverage with their psychological weaknesses and flaws . . .”

  “Well,” Monica said, sitting on the end of her bed and pulling off her boots. “Maybe this, these cyber attacks, will turn out better than expected. Or rather, not as bad as expected. I mean, we’re not talking loss of life.”

  “So far,” countered Walker. “There’ll be ramifications from these data breaches.”

  “You know what I mean—it’s not like he’s shut down hospitals or turned off the nine-one-one network.” She looked up at Walker as she leaned back on the bed. “Who do you think thought of the actual attacks? Do you think they got Jasper to cook them up as some kind of gun-to-head, what’s-the-best-you-can-do type of thing? Or is it them—whoever they are?”

  Walker contemplated opening up to her about his father, but decided against it, for now.

  “No telling,” he said, making sure to meet her eye as he spoke. He then checked out the window next to the door, a peek through the blind, a final look. Nothing had changed.

  2:43am.

  32

  Walker took off his jacket and hung it over a chair, then his shirt. He lay on his bed, still in his T-shirt and jeans. He caught Monica looking at him. At the scars on his arms from being battered and blown every which way in two wars. At his forearm near the elbow where a bullet had passed clear through.

  Monica said, “You’ve lived.”

  “We both have.”

  “But you’ve been to war.”

  “A couple of them. That’s the official number.”

  “And unofficially?”

  Walker was silent.

  She was still watching him as she made her way to the mini-bar and opened a tiny bottle of whisky. Walker shook his head as she held it up to him in question, and she took the bottle and a glass with her to sit again on her bed. Her voice softened now a little in the quiet of the room. “Why did you leave the CIA?”

  “We parted ways,” he said simply.

  “For your wife?”

  “In a sense.”

  “Do you still love her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No pause. Just like that.”

  “Just like that,” he repeated.

  “But you’re separated.”

  Walker looked up at the ceiling, said, “It’s complicated.”

  Monica sipped her whisky. “Does she know what you did for the Agency?”

  “No one knows what I did for my country.”

  “Not even her?”

  “Not even her.”

  “Why don’t you have a whisky?” Monica said. “Or are you one of those who doesn’t drink anymore?”

  “I want to stay sober.”

  “So, you’re one of those.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Twelve steps.”

  “AA? No. Why?”

  “America’s great gift to the world of religion.”

  “I’m just trying to stay clear, so I’m ready for anything.”

  “You’re not a cop. And I seem to remember us drinking a lot back in the day.”

  “That was a holiday weekend.”

  “Oh, that’s all it was?”

  Walker looked over to Monica after a few seconds of silence between them.

  Monica said, “Have you thought about me, over the years?”

  “I have.”

  Monica let her eyes flick toward the television, but then she looked back at him. “You’re . . . different.”

  “Near-on twenty years will do that,” he said.

  “Is it really that long?”

  “We were kids.”

  “You were, what, a year younger than me?”

  “I was twenty.”

  “Twenty. Gosh.”

  “Yep. A couple of kids.” He paused, said, “Tell me about Jasper’s friend.”

  “They fell out years ago. It won’t help.”

  Monica fell silent. She stared at the television but he could tell that she didn’t see it. Her gaze could have reflected anything: was she thinking about her brother, recalling being young, wondering about what could have been had she and Walker kept in touch after that long weekend?

  Walker stood up, went to the table and passed her a wrapped sandwich, but she declined. Instead he ate it and then microwaved a hot pocket. The packet said it was a mixture of ham and cheese wrapped in pastry but it tasted like it could have been made out of old Chinese newspapers.

  He said, “This thing makes MREs taste good.”
/>   “MREs—ration packs?”

  Walker nodded. He tossed the balled, empty cardboard packaging across the room into the bin.

  “Meals, Ready to Eat. Fuel, really.”

  “But you ate them.”

  “The military teaches you a couple of things that you never really forget,” Walker said. “Top of the list is that you eat and sleep what and when you can.”

  “They can’t have been that bad, those MREs.”

  “They had tiny bottles of Tabasco in them, so that helped.”

  “Tabasco makes everything better.”

  “I know, right?”

  “Right.”

  Monica smiled. “So, you’ve eaten, now you’re going to sleep?”

  “That’s the plan. The kettle’s boiled, if you want a coffee.”

  They each sat on the end of their respective beds, and watched the news. It was MSNBC.

  The Assistant Director for the FBI’s cyber division was doing a live cross from their situation control center in DC. “It’s the biggest US security breach ever and we’re doing all that we can to protect those who have had their privacy compromised at this time . . .”

  Monica poured another whisky. She sipped it neat and watched and listened. Walker lay back on his bed. Tomorrow would be a long day, and he knew he needed rest, however short. Monica did too, but he knew better than to tell her so. He closed his eyes, still listening to the news.

  “You sleeping?” Monica asked.

  “For a bit.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Hopefully.”

  “Like, right now?”

  “Sometime between now and a few hours’ time.”

  “Because we’re better off waiting here than being out there, trying to get to Jasper’s?”

  Walker exhaled, hearing her tone. “Those guys are out there, looking for us.”

  “Those guys in what, two or three cars?” she countered.

  “They have reach.”