Hidden Allegiance: A Jackson Quick Adventure Page 23

  “Back doors?” I ask. I’ve heard of them, but don’t really know what they are.

  “When programmers create a system they create alternate entry points during testing. That way, when they’re coding, or checking for bugs, they have a faster way in and out. A lot of times they leave the back doors open after the system, or program, is completed.”

  Bella looks at me again. “So now what?”

  “Well,” Corkscrew puts her hands on her hips again, this time giving Bella the onceover, “if you two are finished with remedial hacking, we can get to what’s next.”

  “We need help getting into Brookhaven,” I tell her flat out. “We know you’ve accessed their systems already. We need control of the security system so that we can get into a particular building there. It’s a very secure building.”

  Corkscrew purses her lips, maybe considering what I’m asking. “I’ve been working at this for months, you know.” She tugs on her hoodie, pulling it down farther across her forehead. “Hacking isn’t like the movies. You can’t just push a few buttons and ‘Bang!’ you’re hacking the CIA. It doesn’t work like that.”

  “So you can’t help us?” Bella challenges her.

  “I didn’t say that.” Corkscrew tugs on the strings at the sides of the hoodie. She looks like a fifteen-year-old emo kid trying hard to not fit in with “regular” kids. “I said I’d been working at this for months. Planning an attack takes time. First you have to figure out what you want. Then you have to determine how you’ll get the information you want. You’re reverse engineering a system, essentially. What software will you need? What are the system’s vulnerabilities, if any?”

  “Enough with the remedial hacking,” I interrupt. “We’re standing here in a restaurant parking lot in the middle of the night, a good distance from where we need to be.”

  “Whatever. Yes. I can do it. But I need help.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “The way their system is designed is top notch. There are different layers to it. I can access certain parts of it remotely. That’s how I got a lot of the data you apparently possess. But there are certain layers that need a physical connection to the system. The attack has to be internal.”

  “Meaning what?” Bella asks.

  “I was able to get what I got by finding out the names and email addresses for a few key people at the facility. I researched them, figured out passwords and security questions to access certain data files using their information. I was in and out, and nobody knew I’d ever been there. The security layer is deeper. I can’t hack it from the outside. I need to have a physical terminal inside their servers to alter the protocols.”

  “We think we know what building we need to access. So you’ll be able to control the security to that building, if we can get you physical control of the security.”

  “Yep,” Corkscrew nods, hands back on her hips. “I will.”

  “Doesn’t that mean we’ll have to break into Brookhaven twice?” Bella asks.

  “Yep,” says the hacker. “It does.”

  ***

  492C Cedar Lane in Teaneck, New Jersey is one of a trio of businesses in a building that looks like it’s a half-century overdue for a facelift. Sharing space is an “international” beauty supply store, a “fine” art gallery that also does custom framing, and a UPS Store.

  Atop the building runs unfinished, vertical planks of wood which boast the placards for the businesses. Each has a recessed, narrow glass door flanked by picture windows displaying their wares. We’re parked in the short-term space against the curb in front of the building.

  “This is the place?” Bella appears as unimpressed as I am. “You couldn’t have done better?”

  “Given the time constraints, probably not,” I reply. “As long as we get what we need, does it matter?”

  “No,” she says, fiddling with the steering wheel. She’s been driving since we left the Golden Corral parking lot and our new friend, Corkscrew. “As long as it’s there, we’re good.”

  “It opens in five minutes.” The digital clock on the dash reads 8:25 am. We’ve already seen DHL and FedEx make deliveries. “Have you heard from Mack?”

  “Not in a few hours.” Bella rubs the back of her neck. “He should be in place by now. He dropped off Blogis in Baltimore and last I heard from him he was making good time.”

  “When was he supposed to check in with you?”

  “Not for another half hour,” she says, eyeing the clock before looking over at me. Her eyes are glassy and bloodshot. Dark circles are spreading underneath her eyes from either side of her nose. She smiles weakly, as if it’s taking every bit of effort she can muster. She glances past me through the front passenger window. “Hey, the guy’s opening up the shop.”

  He is his late twenties to early thirties. He’s got a shaggy mop of jet-black hair that makes his pale skin even more sallow. There are gauges in both floppy earlobes. He looks a little like Corkscrew, unlocking the door with a key attached to a chrome-colored chain hooked into his belt loop.

  A bell clangs to announce my arrival at exactly 8:30. Edward Scissorhands is the only one in the store. He’s behind the counter, leaning on his elbows and scrolling through his phone. He looks up at me as I approach and his earlobes wiggle from the weight of the gauges. His nametag reads Will E. It’s written in Sharpie.

  “Can I help you?” he asks in a tone suggesting he’d rather not.

  I smile. “Yes, Will E. I have a package awaiting pick up.”

  He frowns before the light bulb goes off and he looks down at the nametag. “And you would be?”

  “Here to pick up the package.”

  “What’s your name?” He puts his phone on the counter and slinks over to a computer at the cash register.

  “Abraham Zapruder,” I tell him, using the name of the man who captured President Kennedy’s assassination on film. “With a Z.”

  “Did it come FedEx?”

  “That or DHL.”

  “I’m not seeing it in FedEx’s system,” he says and looks up at me. “It’s not here.”

  “Did you check DHL?”

  “No,” he shakes his head, rattling his earlobes. “Should I?”

  “Please.”

  He pecks at the keys for another thirty seconds and then runs his finger down the side of the monitor. “Here it is,” he says. “Prepaid delivery. Let me go get it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Will trudges to the other end of the counter and through an entryway into a back room. A minute later he emerges with a yellow envelope and slaps it on the counter.

  “You’re good to go,” he says. “No signature needed.”

  I grab the envelope and coolly saunter back through the door to the Suburban. Bella’s thumping the steering wheel impatiently.

  “You get it?” she asks. “Everything there?” She pulls away from the curb.

  I tear open the strip at the top of the envelope and reach inside to pull out a stack of documents bound together with a rubber band. There’s a note scribbled on a coffee stained piece of yellow paper at the top of the stack. The writing is barely legible, and calling it chicken scratch would be offensive to the birds.

  These should be good for you. You have couple choices. I think they pass. No problems. If you need more tell me. I work quick for you. Please you be careful with Corkscrew. You cannot trust —Wolodymyr

  “What’s it say?” Bella asks, trying to catch a glimpse of the scrawl while navigating her way back to the highway. I shuffle through the various forgeries our friend has supplied. A third of them have my photograph on them, a third have Bella’s, and the remainder are for Mack. Everything seems to be here, and they’re likely flawless reproductions to the untrained eye.

  “It looks like it.” I hold up one of the false identification badges with her image on it. “They look g
ood too.”

  “What’s the name on that one?” She squints to read the small print above the photograph. “Olivia?”

  I turn the card to read it. “Olivia Jacobs.”

  “Do I look like an Olivia?” She pouts her lips, probably deciding she doesn’t look like an Olivia.

  “Does it matter?” I ask. “It’s the name of someone who works in the facility at another location. It’ll get us in if Corkscrew does her job.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Alex. Do I look like an Alex?”

  “Not really. You look more like an Olivia.”

  “Funny.”

  “C’mon,” she punches my leg, “you’ve gotta laugh now. Things are about to get real.”

  I wrap the rubber band around the bundle and stuff it back in the envelope, “Where did that phrase come from?”

  “Just trying to lighten the mood. Do I head north on I-95?’

  “Yes. Everything is north and east to get to Long Island. It becomes 495. You’ll take that all the way to the rendezvous point.”

  “The rendezvous point?” She giggles mockingly.

  “Yes. You know what that means in French, right? You speak French.”

  “It means appointment,” she says, rolling her eyes.

  “No it doesn’t.”

  “Yes it does,” she argues. “Did you take French?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then what’s it mean, Jackson?”

  “Place where it gets real.”

  We both laugh. A good laugh. The kind we haven’t shared in a while. It’s not even over something that funny but it doesn’t matter. We’re blowing off the stress building under the surface, allowing ourselves to feel something positive, because she’s right.

  It is about to get real.

  CHAPTER 13

  Taco Bell may be the cheapest fast food meal on the face of the planet. It’s also a good place to organize ahead of phase one. It’s only a couple of miles from the main entrance to Brookhaven.

  Bella and I are on one side of a plastic-molded booth, our backs to the counter. Corkscrew is on the other. We’ve already devoured our bean burritos and chicken soft tacos when the hacker lays it out for us. She hands us the envelope containing some of the IDs Wolodymyr prepared for us. She says she tweaked them. Then she reaches into a messenger bag and pulls out a sleek black laptop.

  “I need this netbook hooked into their system,” She slides the laptop across the booth. I’ll be waiting. I’ll know when it’s live. If you have a problem drop me an email. I’ll find you.” She pulls on the strings of her hoodie, slides out of the booth, and disappears through the exit without saying anything else.

  “That was weird,” says Bella, slurping the last of a Diet Pepsi through her straw.

  “You want more?” I ask her, grabbing my empty cup to refill it with caffeine, sugar, and chemicals.

  She hands me her cup, minus the lid and straw, “Sure, thanks.” Her eyes are on a television mounted near the back of the restaurant. It’s on cable news and despite our mugs flashing on the screen a half-dozen times, the teenagers behind the counter haven’t recognized us.

  Still, I walk to the drink counter with my head down. No need to make it easy for the kids folding tortillas and microwaving cheese. I’m walking back to Bella with two full cups when the news breaks on the screen.

  The volume is off, but between the large graphics on the screen and the closed captioning scrolling across the lower half, I know what’s happened. So does Bella. She spins around, her face as ashen as Corkscrew’s natural complexion.

  I slide into the booth, hand her the drink, and try to keep up with the captioning. My heart’s pounding.

  “What have we done?” Bella whispers. “What have we unleashed?”

  I don’t respond except for a reflexive head shake. I can’t take my eyes off the words in the news ticker scrolling across the screen.

  FORMER GOVERNOR OF TEXAS FOUND DEAD IN PRISON CELL. NO FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED. INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY SAYS TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE. GOVERNOR SERVING 55 YEAR SENTENCE FOR CONSPIRACY, FRAUD AND OTHER CHARGES. FORMER AIDE, WANTED MURDER SUSPECT JACKSON QUICK CONNECTED TO GOVERNOR’S CONVICTION.

  The closed captioning reads like a conspiracy theorist’s dream, “Incredible coincidence or is something more sinister at play here?”

  The news anchor’s lips are moving to too fast to read as he highlights the series of events unfolding in the last twenty-four hours. “First, George Townsend, the reporter whose work on the governor’s transgressions helped put the crook behind bars, is murdered in a bizarre shootout in his home. Then, Jackson Quick is connected to the killing. Quick is a former aide to the governor, and most suspect he’s the one who provided key evidence in secret Grand Jury proceedings prior to the groundbreaking indictments against the Lone Star State’s former favorite son.”

  Bella reaches for my hand and pulls it into her lap, rubbing her thumb across mine. She leans into me but says nothing.

  “Then, we learn he may have an accomplice in Bella Buell. She’s the former CEO of Nanergetix, a Fortune 20 company, and the daughter of the late Don Carlos Buell. He was assassinated while running for governor. But it doesn’t stop there.”

  The screen fills with the orange and yellow images of the fire at Ripley’s place. “Roswell Ripley, who was charged and later exonerated in a separate assassination attempt on Buell, is seen with Quick and later dies in a fire at his self-storage facility in Houston, Texas.”

  “Let’s bring back Dillinger Holt,” reads the captioning. “He’s been leading the way on the unbelievable developments of the connect-the-dots crime spree. He writes for the popular website Plausible Deniability, also known as PDInfo.”

  Dillinger’s face appears on the screen. He’s sitting in a newsroom. People are frantically working the phones and working at their desks behind him. He adjusts an earpiece and starts talking.

  “Here’s what we’re learning about the former governor’s death,” reads the captioning. “The governor was found in his cell, face down on the floor. The last person to see him alive was another prisoner assigned to the motor pool. The governor’s job while in prison was maintaining buses in the prison system’s fleet. That prisoner, we’re told by a well-placed source, says the governor was drinking coffee and reading the bible during a break. He told a supervisor he didn’t feel good, vomited at least once, and was told to go to the infirmary. He never showed. Then, an hour later, he was found dead in his cell.”

  “Do they suspect a heart attack?” the anchor asks, appearing on a split screen.

  “No speculation right now,” says Holt, shaking his head. “They’re saying they do not suspect foul play. But that’s a difficult conclusion to accept given the other events of this week.”

  My phone, on the table in front of me, buzzes. The number’s blocked.

  “Blogis?” Bella whispers.

  I nod, squeeze her hand, and answer the phone. “How did you do it?” I ask.

  “Anti-freeze,” says Blogis matter-of-factly.

  “What?”

  “The addict drank ten cups of coffee a day,” he explains. “Anti-freeze is sweet. Well, really it’s the ethylene glycol in the anti-freeze that’s sweet. It’s toxic, colorless, and odorless. It’s also readily available in auto shops.”

  “You poisoned him?”

  “I didn’t poison him any more than you did,” snaps Blogis. “A well-placed friend took care of the barista duties. They’ll think he had a heart attack. They’ll never test for anti-freeze poisoning in a prison morgue.

  “I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head, “the timing is bad. There are already conspiracy theories running rampant.”

  “Let them run,” he says dismissively. “It’s the least of your worries.”

  “So what now?”
/>
  “How about a thank you?” he sneers. “I held up my end of the deal. Your Pickle problems are over. The governor is gone. Now live up to your part.”

  “Thank you,” I say in the most convincing tone I can affect.

  “Now go get it done,” he commands. “Let me know when we’re even and you’re prepared to deliver.” The line clicks and falls silent.

  “So?” Bella asks, her elbows on the table, hands grabbing at the sides of her head.

  “He had him poisoned with anti-freeze. Put it in his coffee.”

  “That’s like the doctor in Houston,” she says. “The cancer doctor who tried to poison her lover with anti-freeze by putting it in his coffee.”

  “Did she kill him?”

  She exhales. “No, but she’s in prison for it. She probably thought she had the perfect murder. But she was too smart for her own good. The scheme failed.”

  The best laid plans...

  ***

  After my parents’ deaths, and I worked my way through the legal system, I went home only once. My cousin picked me up from foster care and drove me to the house I’d shared with Mom and Dad. In just a few short weeks, it had lost its warmth and charm. It wasn’t home anymore.

  “Go ahead and grab whatever you want,” my cousin told me. “The stuff you don’t want will get auctioned off. Then we’ll put the money in your bank account. The movers have already taken some of the things of value to the auction house.”

  She said it like I was browsing a garage sale. She’d never been here before. She didn’t understand the significance of the ivory tchotchkes my mother kept on a hutch near the fireplace or the cubist painting that hung above the bed in my parents’ bedroom.

  It wasn’t her fault. My cousin was a good person tossed into a maelstrom. Keeping her head above water was plenty to ask. But she was an accountant by trade and everything had an assigned value. There was nothing more to it and nothing less.