The Back Door Man

by Dave Buschi

  32

  THE man was doing something in the other room. Sue heard what sounded like a zipper being zipped. He was by the duffel bag.

  Sue listened; afraid to breathe. There was a pause where she heard nothing. Maybe he’d taken it and gone upstairs?

  She stole a glance towards the kitchen’s back door. She could unlock it and run for it. She could get help. Her girls were hidden; it would take some time for the men to find them. But leaving her girls? There was no way she could bring herself to do that, even if it might be their best chance of surviving this.

  She gripped the wrench and listened.

  She still didn’t hear anything. Had he left the room? The silence was too much. It was as if she could hear her own heart thumping… so loud, if he was in there, she was almost afraid he’d hear it. She readied herself. It was time to look into the room.

  “Da!”

  He was still there!

  “Understood, I’ll make sure I get their blood on the man’s clothes, but we have problem. No, no. We fix. Yes... Don’t worry. It will be made clean.” There was another pause. “What? Our fault? Enough! We did our side of deal. We downloaded marker. Now we clean up… leave. No more waiting for you with husband—you finish. Okay? Da!

  “Vasily! Artem!”

  Sue heard yelling and the man’s voice receded. He seemed to be leaving the room? Now was her chance! She peered in and didn’t see him. She moved quickly, going through the living room. She could hear shouting upstairs.

  As she reached the hallway, she caught a glimpse of someone coming down the stairwell. He was coming fast! She hurried towards the garage door. Her flats smacked on the wooden floors.

  She reached the door and fumbled with the key. Just as she got it in, she heard a shout. She turned. It was the man named Artem and he was coming towards her.

  33

  JAMES surveyed the screen and felt a sinking sensation. It was as if the floor beneath him had just opened. Data files had been altered on Enrique’s computer, as well as the rest of the team’s. The person responsible had erased their tracks. For the most part they’d been successful, but the one rule James knew, you could never fully erase anything in the virtual world. An imprint always remained—no matter how faint.

  Scramble code and malware had originated from his own computer. His signature had been erased, but James was able to detect its ghost. By what he’d gathered, he’d commandeered his team’s computers, as well as several hundred others within the network. He’d created slaves—a botnet—a zombie army of computers to fire off an assault.

  Whoever had orchestrated this had made it look like he was responsible. They’d completed the charade by going to considerable lengths to erase the implicating evidence.

  It showed a cunning mind at work, both in the sophistication of the operation and extent of the cover-up. Not dissimilar to perpetrating a crime using someone else’s gun and tossing the gun in the river, but instead of tossing it into the deep current, it was tossed into the shallow area where it would indubitably get dredged up. After effort, of course, so the finders wouldn’t suspect they were meant to find it all along.

  Someone had set him up.

  A cipher program masked the operation’s true objective. James bypassed false authentication codes that were intended to throw off the scent. The attempts at media sanitization were sophisticated, but James was able to use back channels and determine what his doppelganger had been up to.

  It wasn’t pretty.

  James retraced his signature’s movements. At 23:03:45 yesterday, he’d sent a series of executable commands. Minutes later, at 23:09:10 a second wave of missives had been unleashed, followed by another at 23:09:12, 23:09:15, 23:09:18…

  They continued every three seconds for three hours. Contained within each outgoing message was an attached file. The file name of the first was GreedKills.jwtLive. The name on the second was GreedKills.jwtRedux; on the third it was GreedKills.jwtRepeat. It was a new variant each time.

  James realized what he was looking at was a blended attack, and judging by the evidence, he was the man responsible.

  “Shit, hombre.” Enrique had an ashen look on his face.

  James took a deep breath. This explained things. Once unleashed this would impact every system it came in contact with. Not just the addressees, but also anything in their networks.

  Everything going on, all the mess that was happening out there, the crisis in the banking community, credit cards not working… even the plane collision near his house might be attributed to this.

  From the way this was done, some of the addressees he was seeing here… this could ripple everywhere. Infect entire networks. If it spread to networks, such as ATC, it conceivably could cause air traffic control towers to not be able to communicate with their planes. Anything linked to a grid, connected to the Web would be vulnerable. And it all originated with what was on the screen—these files, cheekily named ‘GreedKills’, had caused the chaos.

  And James’s fingerprints were all over it.

  He stared at the screen.

  “James?” His own name sounded strange. “James?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Someone’s coming.”

  James snapped out of it and looked to his left. A light on the panel was blinking. It was the passive alarm system that blinked anytime a vehicle approached the front gates. He looked at the surveillance screens above them.

  A white van with another one behind it had stopped at the barricade.

  “Looks like Security. What do you want to do?”

  James took another breath. What he’d uncovered was overwhelming. He fought off the paralysis that was taking over his body.

  A dozen thoughts sprouted—variables and probabilities—each of them kept coming back to one thing.

  Someone had set him up.

  “I need time.”

  “Got it. I’ll let Security know we’re here; put them at ease.”

  James turned to Enrique. “You know this isn’t me, right?”

  Enrique nodded, earnestly. “Of course. Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

  Enrique left and James closed his eyes. He took several deep breaths and rubbed his temples. He opened his eyes and looked at the glowing screen.

  Alright.

  James felt something tingling in his belly. He realized what it was.

  It was anger.

  34

  SUE slammed the door behind her. Before she could lock the deadbolt, the handle twisted in her grip. The door was pushed in with such force that she was sent backwards reeling. She caught herself on James’s workbench. Pain shot up her forearm and tools clattered to the floor.

  She looked up and there in the doorway was Artem. His face had a look of wry amusement. He wasn’t a large man, but there was a compactness to him that hinted of considerable strength.

  His eyes surveyed the garage. “So this is where you are hiding.”

  The wrench had fallen from Sue’s hand and lay on the ground. Artem glanced at it indifferently and stepped forward. Sue steadied herself on the table behind her.

  “There now.” He put his hands out, extending his palms. His heavily-accented voice was placating. It was a tone a person might use with a child.

  “I hate we have to do this. Believe me, I get no pleasure. I ask you think of your girls. It doesn’t have to hurt.”

  Sue’s heart dropped with those words and her head followed suit. A snide smile formed on the man’s thin lips. “There. I’m glad you understand.”

  Sue didn’t make a move and he approached without concern.

  “I promise…” He reached out calmly.

  In a whirl, she jammed a screwdriver into the side of his neck. Artem screamed. She yanked it out and Artem stumbled back.

  His hands groped for his neck as blood spurted.

  He fell backwards.

  Sue turned and looked frantically around the garage.

  “Hannah! Katie!”

  They both cam
e from behind the minivan and looked at her with wide-open eyes. Sue ran to them and herded them to the side door. She opened the minivan and shoved them inside. She got in the driver’s seat and automatically locked the doors. She clicked the garage door opener and fumbled with the keys.

  Katie screamed.

  There was a muffled sound of something hitting the minivan’s side window. Sue turned to see Artem, blood smeared on his face and neck. His face was contorted into a maniacal snarl. He smashed a bloody palm against the window.

  The window held. Sue turned the key in the ignition and the minivan started. The garage door, behind her, wasn’t moving. She clicked the opener again.

  Artem grabbed the door handle. Blood was oozing voluminously from his neck. His shirt was drenched. He banged the window again and looked around.

  The garage door still wasn’t moving. In horror and dismay she realized she’d disengaged the motor when she tried to manually open it.

  Artem retrieved a shovel from the wall. He gripped the shovel with both hands. He began to wobble as if he was going to fall.

  Something hit the other side window—the one on the passenger side. Sue turned and saw Vasily. The man rapped the glass. He was holding a gun in his other hand.

  He leveled the gun towards her. “Out!”

  Artem swung the shovel. It hit the windshield with a crash and the glass burst into a million spidery cracks. Somehow it held. Artem wobbled, then pulled back to swing again.

  “Artem!” yelled Vasily.

  Sue punched the accelerator and the back of the minivan smashed into the heavy garage door. The force of the impact threw her and the girls back into their seats.

  “Mommy!”

  Sue put her foot to the accelerator again.

  Nothing happened.

  The minivan had stalled. The garage door behind them was broken outwards and light was flooding in. Sue turned the key in the ignition and heard a tremendous noise. The passenger window blew out. Her girls screamed.

  Glass was all over the dash. Sue turned and saw Vasily. He had the pistol leveled towards her. Its long silencer was smoking.

  “Out! Now!”

  Sue took her hands from the wheel.

  Blaammm!!!!

  The noise was deafening. Another shot rang out almost immediately.

  Sue blinked, opened her eyes. Vasily was gone. So was Artem. She turned and saw someone coming through what was left of the garage door. Light was behind him and he was framed in silhouette.

  The man approached. He was holding a shotgun. It took her second to realize who it was.

  Dad?

  35

  ENRIQUE went through the airlocks and DECON chamber and headed towards the front entry. What he’d just seen James do on the computer was beyond amazing. He knew his boss was skilled, but he’d never seen anyone move with such speed when hunting down a security breach. The way he had taken apart such an intricate multi-layered infiltration was textbook, but it wasn’t like any textbook he’d ever read at school.

  Yeah, the man had skills.

  Enrique moved quickly. He didn’t know how much time they had. He paused briefly to look back at one of the security cameras and waved. He knew James would be watching.

  The men were getting out of the first van. There were seven of them.

  “We don’t have much time,” Enrique said. “He’s picked apart what happened. I didn’t like leaving him. We need to hurry.”

  The men nodded and followed Enrique inside.

  36

  SOMETHING wasn’t right. James glanced at the surveillance screens. Enrique had spoken briefly to Security and now they were heading his way.

  That wasn’t exactly buying him time.

  What was Enrique doing?

  The men had gone through the DECON chamber without getting suited and had proceeded through the airlocks. They were walking with purpose, not pausing. No more friendly waves from Enrique.

  This wasn’t good.

  James closed down the computer. He went to work quickly. They would be here in less than three minutes.

  37

  BOB Pulaski, who had used up his last shell, surveyed the rest of the damage. The men he’d shot were crumpled heaps on the garage’s concrete floor. They weren’t moving and by the look of it they appeared to be dead.

  He could see Sue through the broken windshield. There was blood all over the minivan.

  His heart dropped. Bob went to her. She moved when he reached in to open the door. “Suzy?”

  “Dad?”

  He touched her arm and she started to cry. “My girls.”

  “Where?”

  “In back. Get them first.”

  Bob opened the sliding door and picked Katie and Hannah tenderly out. They weren’t hurt, but look frightened.

  “Are you going to hurt us?” Hannah said in a trembling voice.

  Bob shook his head. “No, of course not.”

  Sue grabbed Bob’s arm. “How many?”

  He looked at her, puzzled.

  “How many did you shoot?”

  “Two.”

  Sue’s eyes opened wide.

  “What is it?” Bob said. As he uttered the question, he spied a man’s reflection in the minivan’s window.

  38

  “WHERE is he?”

  “He’s here,” Enrique said. He looked up at the surveillance cameras. “He can’t hide. We’ve got this entire place covered.”

  “I don’t see him.” The man that spoke was named Savic. His face had a feral quality to it: longish hair, hooked nose, and cords on his neck, as if ropes were buried just beneath his skin. Right now he wasn’t happy.

  “Hold on,” Enrique said. “Let me pull up some other views.” Enrique tried moving the mouse, but the monitor stayed dark. Puzzled, it took him a second until he realized the station was turned off.

  He pushed the button to boot up the system. Nothing happened.

  Enrique frowned and made sure the cords were still connected. There was nothing wrong there. He followed the wires, bending to look under the molded counter.

  Enrique smirked, seeing what James had done. One of the main power cords was unplugged. Nice try, James. He knelt and plugged in the cord.

  He sat back in the chair and pushed the button to fire up the box. The LED light blinked and the slim capsule-looking box whirred to life. A blue screen appeared on the monitor and stayed there unchanged.

  “Shit.”

  “What is it?” Savic leaned in.

  “Nothing. Give me a second,” Enrique said. He rolled back his chair and looked under the counter again. As he did so, he noticed something on his pants and flicked it off. It was a piece of clear plastic. His foot crunched on another piece. What the…?

  There were bits of clear plastic all over the floor. He then noticed, off to the side, some wires that weren’t plugged into their data ports. He pulled one of the Ethernet cables out and saw its end was smashed.

  “Fuck!” Enrique knew what had happened. James had pulled all the data cables out and stepped on their ends!

  Enrique’s jaw set. “This’ll take me a few minutes. I need to restore connectivity.”

  Savic looked at his men. “Fan out and find him.”

  “Wait, hold on!” Enrique said. “I’ll get it working.”

  Savic frowned and pulled out his gun.

  Enrique looked at the gun in surprise. “What’s that for?”

  Savic glanced at his watch. “Did you send the video?”

  “The second I got here. What’s the gun for?”

  “You’re wasting time. Get the cameras fixed.”

  Not happy, Enrique went to get more cable.

  39

  JAMES moved deeper into The Vault. He was in one of the air shafts that distributed ductwork and miles of conduit throughout the facility. High voltage signs were on banks of equipment. He’d barely left the Fishbowl in time. He couldn’t run with his ankle. The best he could do was move in a fast shuffle.


  It felt like the earth was crumbling under his feet.

  Enrique was in on it.

  James was in a state of disbelief. What he’d uncovered, the breadth of the security breach; the fact that he was being set up to be the fall guy.

  Enrique was in on it.

  Of that he was certain. He’d taken those men right to him. As he got past the disbelief part, it began to make sense. His coming here was because of Enrique.

  Enrique had wrapped things up neatly. He’d brought him to the scene of the crime. Instead of being home with his family as rioting was done in the streets, which any sane family man would be doing, James had come to a closed, locked facility. It only looked incriminating. If Security found him, they’d take him in and the way the evidence was stacked against him, he wouldn’t stand a chance of defending himself.

  Enrique and whoever he was working with (his boss?) had done their worst. By all accounts, James had orchestrated the attacks and commandeered his team’s computers. They’d spliced in just the right details: the performance reviews, his surfing of pornographic sites at work, his web chatting of underage girls. It was character assassination.

  Sublime in its smart-bomb precision.

  It destroyed his credibility and called into question everything about him. Forget about being seen as a wholesome family man—what else was a lie, people would wonder?

  He’d never have a chance to counter the charges that would be leveled against him. They’d effectively buried him. And now they wanted to take him in. At this very moment Security was searching for him. To buy himself time, he’d disabled Phalanx, the 360 security shield that controlled the surveillance cameras. Enrique might figure out how to get the system back online. However, he was in for a surprise or two once he got the computers working.

  Without the cameras they would have to systematically comb each floor. That would take a while. There were multiple places to hide. He thought quickly; knowing decisions now—left or right, up or down—were like the last death throes of a chess match. Depending on which way he went now would dictate how quickly this game ended.