by Dave Buschi
The man suddenly looked up.
Shit. Slow to react, James pulled his head back.
Had he been seen? The man had definitely looked up. Even if he’d been looking elsewhere, his peripheral vision might have caught the movement. Darn it.
Why did he have to look? Because he was an idiot. Once again he was his own worst enemy. He needed to be smarter. There were other ways to look.
James opened the duffel bag and drew out the laptop. He tapped a key to take it out of sleep mode. He brought up the FLIR. The screen was already showing this space.
It didn’t seem so large on the screen. It was a bird’s-eye view. The tanks just small masses of blue.
He zoomed in. The tanks grew larger. He adjusted the settings, tweaking three sets of coordinates. The software was pretty amazing. It was almost like seeing things in three dimensions.
Massive amounts of blue. The tanks were heavily insulated. Their outer casings were made of double-walled steel. Sprayed-in insulation gave them a high R-value. But still, as a collective, they registered as an end sum of blue.
Blue. Cold.
James became conscious of it. The tank was cold. His disposable scrubs, made of paper-thin Tyvek®, gave little to no protection at all. The steel on top of the tank seemed to radiate a chill.
He placed his hand against the steel surface, and just as quickly drew it away. It was more than cold. It was freezing.
James started to feel the chill coming through the bottom of his soles. He ignored it and fiddled with the view on his screen. He saw heat signatures. There he was on top of the tank. And there was Security just one tank away, forty feet below. The man was in the same spot. He hadn’t moved.
James toggled, looking for the others. He spotted them. Five of them. They were in other areas, spread out, combing the remains of the floor.
James looked back at the man at the base of the tank. Maybe the man hadn’t seen him. If he had, he’d be moving. Heading up the ladder James just went up.
With baited breath, James watched the man. What was he doing? He was still in the same spot.
He brought up several views simultaneously. They were just vignettes. Too small to see details, but enough to see the movements of the others.
The other five were all moving. The man James had glimpsed still wasn’t. It was like watching a video game. White/red dots moving in random ways. Two of those dots not moving. One of those dots was James. The other was Security, who might have seen him.
James started to get a bad feeling. The dots seemed to be moving in concert. It took him a second, and then he realized it. They were all heading to the man who wasn’t moving.
Not good.
That meant the man had seen him. He’d called the others. Probably after James pulled his head back. He’d seen the man touch his ear. The man had a communicating device. One of those earplug things, Bluetooth, or something similar.
Shit.
They were definitely all heading to the man not moving. Several of them jumped views, moving to the next frame. James closed the other views—one by one. He just needed one view now. All six were near the tanks.
Near his tank.
Their heat signatures were amorphous blobs, but zoomed in close, James could see vague body outlines. Make out arms, legs. They were standing together.
The man who hadn’t moved was in the middle. He suddenly raised his arm.
WMMMMM…
The noise. The coldness of his soles. James was suddenly attuned to it all.
He watched as the man put down his arm. He stayed there while the others—all five—split up. What were they doing?
He soon had his answer.
There were five Cryogel tanks. Five men. They each were going to a ladder.
51
THE mind is a resourceful creature. It can surprise you when least expected. Even as Security was walking towards the ladders, James’s mind leapt ahead, flipping through his options.
One.
The duffel bag next to him held various tools. Tools that could be thrown to create a distraction. The reverberant din of the space, however, eliminated that option from being successful. Any noise it would have made landing would have been cancelled out. No clanging sound would register loud enough, and even if it was heard it would only make the men more determined to thoroughly search this area.
Two.
The top of the tank was a small contained space. Its diameter was about twelve feet. No cover at all. Once one man reached the top of his tank, he’d have a clear view across the tops of the other tanks. No hiding place there.
Three.
Above James was the ceiling. A steel girder was just within reach. He could jump and grab it; pull himself up. What then, though? He’d still fully be in view—dangling, exposed. His eyes tracked where the girder led. Even if he fought off his fear of heights and was able to monkey bar it (a physical act, he wasn’t even sure he could do), that girder led nowhere. He’d have to go over two of the Cryogel tanks to get to its end. No option there…
On his laptop the FLIR was showing the men at the ladders. They were starting to climb up.
Four.
James could crawl to the lip of his tank and hang off. He would have to hang from the opposite side of the men. The coldness of the tank would freeze his hands in moments. He might be able to hold on for thirty seconds at best, before his hands just became numb. And there wasn’t any side of the tank where he’d be completely hidden. Once one of the men reached the top of his tank they’d be able to see him hanging off. That wouldn’t work. Good too… because that option sucked.
Five.
James’s eyes rapidly flicked to his laptop. His mind was ahead of him, already synapsing another option. He started typing quickly and pulled up the back-of-house software that was tied into the IMDS systems, which monitored all emergency exits.
With a few clicks he accessed the ‘controller interface’. He flipped through the modules and found the zones that regulated this floor. All emergency exits were tied into the grid. There was an override function that enabled diagnostics to be run. That feature was used to verify systems were working correctly.
James triggered two faults. That would send an instant relay back to the grid. According to the monitors one of the emergency exits on this floor had just opened. There was no noise and no flashing lights that would result in that act. But there was a small audible alarm that would register two floors away in the Fishbowl.
The Fishbowl.
Enrique was in the Fishbowl.
James pulled up the FLIR. He could only wait now. He figured he had about twenty seconds before the first man reached the top of his tank.
52
SUE read the journal entry again. The last lines were as strange and disturbing as the rest of the letter:
…this will be my last entry. Tomorrow the world will see. The son of an immigrant’s son, a man given scraps and told to like it, says “No more!” Tomorrow I make you greedy bilious bastards bleed green! JK
She knew this wasn’t James. While its full meaning eluded her, she had no doubt that the journal entry was meant to be seen as a confession of sorts. Those men had intended to kill them and make it look like James was responsible.
She recalled what she’d overheard one of their captors say:
We did our side of deal. We downloaded marker. Now we clean up…
They had planted that evidence on the computer.
Now we clean up…
Not much fuzziness with what that meant.
The propane tank that those men had taken from the grill outside, which was now halfway up the steps. The plastic sheeting that the men had begun to tape on the door. The other grisly items Sue and Bob had discovered, the hacksaws, the knife…
The man had said, I’ll make sure I get their blood on the man’s clothes…
Their blood. Which probably meant hers and the girls’. It would have been on James’s clothes. One more piece of evidence, maki
ng this horror show look like something else. The men hadn’t had time to finish. Sue had gotten the girls away just in time.
A chill went up her spine thinking what almost happened. But why? Why would they do this to them? What possibly could be their motive? Such a heinous act… to kill a mommy and her girls?
“Are you ready?” Bob said.
Sue picked up the bags she’d packed. She’d thrown in clothes, toiletries and other essential items. She didn’t know when they’d be back. A few moments ago she’d called James, but hadn’t been able to reach him or even leave a message. She didn’t like leaving like this, but she knew it wasn’t safe here. Those men hadn’t finished their job and they didn’t seem to be working alone.
“C’mon girls.”
They went towards the door.
“Hold on,” Bob said.
“What is it?”
Outside, a black Suburban was pulling into the driveway.
Sue looked at her father, fearfully. They’d waited too long.
“The back door,” Sue said. “Hurry!”
53
DIRECTING things from the Fishbowl, Enrique cursed under his breath. The passive alarm had gone off. Two floors away, the men had triangulated the area and searched, but hadn’t found any trace of James.
Enrique looked at the monitor and the alarm matrix clearly indicated a door on one of the lower levels had opened just two minutes ago. “That can’t be right,” he said adjusting his Bluetooth headset. “He should be right there.”
“You said you’d have the cameras working!” Savic said.
Above them the surveillance cameras were showing only blue screen. They couldn’t use the cameras to locate James.
“I need more time,” Enrique said. He couldn’t figure out what the hell James had done. He’d tried everything he could think of to get Phalanx back online. It had been working when he left. James would have had only seconds to sabotage it—it had to be something simple.
Another small audible alarm sounded. Enrique’s concentration was interrupted. The alarm matrix was indicating that a door on one of the upper levels had just opened.
“He’s up a level from you, near the stacks, quadrant three!” As soon as he said it, he realized that couldn’t be right. That was clear on the other side of the building. James couldn’t have opened both those doors within two minutes apart?
Enrique put his hands to his temples. His head was throbbing from a massive headache. This was not how this was supposed to be going down. He’d been tasked with getting James here. He’d done his job and now it was time to wrap this up and…
Enrique froze. The monitor in front of him had gone dark. What?
“Fuck!” he screamed.
54
THE four of them ran to the kitchen. Sue opened the door. The backyard led to woods. There was a stretch of grass that now looked endless. They’d never make it to the tree cover in time.
“We can hide under the house,” Sue said.
They went down the steps and into the flower bed area. The house was slightly raised and wood lattice skirted the perimeter. A spot behind the bushes was accessible. Sue peeled back the lattice, which was not fully connected to its post. “Girls.”
The girls didn’t balk, but crawled through the opening.
“I’ll head to the woods, draw them off,” Bob said.
Sue shook her head. “No, get in, you can fit.” Her voice was firm. Her dad looked at her and a grim smile creased his face. He nodded. He got on the ground and squeezed through the opening. He barely made it; the crawlspace was tight. He moved to where the girls where, crawling on his belly. Sue followed, briefly stopping to arrange the lattice back as it was.
“Mommy, I see a spider,” Katie said.
“It’s okay, it’s not going to hurt you. We have to be quiet,” Sue whispered.
There was about two feet of clearance to the bottom of the joists that supported the house. In some areas the dirt wasn’t level and it got tighter. They were all on their bellies. The place had a smell like that of a dead animal that had been decomposing for a long time.
“We need to move in,” Sue whispered.
“Mommy I don’t like this,” Hannah whimpered. “There are bugs here. It smells.”
They could see through the latticework in some areas. In other areas there was stacked cinderblock and concrete piers. Sue caught a glimpse of movement near the perimeter. Bob motioned to her and pointed.
The men who’d been in the Suburban were walking around the house!
55
JAMES tucked himself behind two structural columns. His adrenaline was just coming down. That had been way too close, on so many levels.
The fact he’d made it down from the Cryogel tank in one piece was accomplishment enough. Add in all the other stuff, and he was surprised his ticker had held up. His heart had been beating so fast when those men were climbing the ladders. Any second he expected one of the men to reach the top.
When they didn’t, when it became obvious they were going down, James’s heart had skipped two beats, at least. James sucked in some much needed breaths. He’d made it.
Good.
Now back to work.
He was in a good spot. The men had already searched this section. They wouldn’t be coming back to this area anytime soon. The closest heat signature to his was one level away, and completely on the other side of The Vault.
He was good for now. Seemed like he’d said that before.
He went back to the cyber trail. Jimmied open the back door. Now let’s see what you little beasties are up to…
It didn’t take long to get back on track. Like flipping a light switch in his head. Going back to where he was, laying plain the tertiary code, figuring out what it was doing.
Some people were all thumbs when it came to using their hands. James always said he was all tongue when it came to languages. Partly true.
He’d taken six years of Spanish, four in high school and two in college. He could barely speak it, even in his sixth year, when he was supposed to be at the fluency stage. All tongue. No ear for language.
Seeing was something else, though. James could read Spanish, well enough. Write it passably too. Still could, twenty years later, if he was hard pressed.
He had an eye for language. It was just something he was good at. Hard to explain. The best analogy might be the same mystifying condition that made an idiot savant brilliant in math.
Numbers, words, symbols…
On screen or on paper, all of those characters just sort of gelled for James. The languages he knew, however, weren’t your run of the mill ones.
Pascal, BASIC, Psuedocode, HyperTalk, JavaFX Script…
He knew over thirty of them. Programming languages. Down cold.
If robots ever invaded the earth, he’d make a crack interpreter. Just set him up with a keyboard interface and let him go.
He let his fingers do the talking. He used an
All gobbledygook. But it held meaning for James. He continued to type.
sha1( signature = viewld + “,” + formClientld, salt = clientUid )
He was using unique identifiers…
Making sure that what he did couldn’t be traced back to him. That was one of the secrets. When you messed with back doors you needed to make sure you were quiet. Didn’t want your footsteps giving you away. Not when you planned to take the keys away. Lock that door up.
Make it yours.
I own you.
James paused. He knew what the tertiary code was doing.
Whoa.
James ran an algorithm to confirm it.
Yep.
Wow.
Holy fucking shit.
56
THE estate, nestled in an enclave of five and ten million dollar homes, was ringed by a high brick wall. La
rge wrought-iron gates opened for a black sedan and it drove up the curving drive.
“They’re here,” Nick Paulson said.
Rex Portino nodded. He was a fit man with dark olive skin and aquiline features. His hair, preternaturally white, gave him a distinctive flair. When his eyes narrowed, his crow’s feet were like dark crevices.
“Alanna, make them comfortable.”
The girl, an attractive brunette, nodded and left the room.
Portino finished up his call. “—two hours from now. Yes. We’ll do it then. I’ll keep you posted.” He set down the phone.
Paulson looked over, smugly. “How are our New York friends?”
Portino gave him a dismissive glance. “Aren’t you supposed to be taking care of something?”
Paulson shrugged. “It’s done… nothing more to do.”
Portino raised an eyebrow.
“Not to worry,” Paulson said. “When this gets investigated, they’re going to see his face front and center. The van rental is in his name. Enrique did his part, just as we wanted.”
“I don’t like when things get off track.”
Paulson shrugged again. “Well, he didn’t exactly do what we thought he’d do. Guy was a creature of habit. He was supposed to just go home.”
“He seems to have done several things we didn’t anticipate.”
Paulson shook his head. “We’re good.”
“See to it that we are. My associates have expectations and we don’t want to disappoint them.”
“No, we wouldn’t want to do that,” Paulson said with a smirk.
Portino’s eyes narrowed.
“I said we’re good.” Paulson flashed his pearly whites. “They’re waiting. You ready?”
57
THE men who emptied from the black Suburban were armed with Uzis, slung around their necks. Two entered through the garage. The other three circled the house to secure the perimeter.
They moved as one unit and kept a close look on their watches as they made their way through the house and scoured the yard. The two that entered the house came out with the wounded Russian. They placed him in the Suburban and went back to retrieve the two dead bodies. The men were short in stature, but had no problem hoisting the vinyl body bags which weighed close to two hundred pounds each.