You Will Know Vengeance, page 18
“Just the dogs I was looking for.”
Chapter fifty
A Back Door
I let go of Barca and cast my eyes toward the floor. I’m sure the warden thinks I am doing this out of respect for or fear of him, but it is to end this conflict as quickly as possible. With any luck the giant will snap and swing at me. I’ll duck it, and he’ll clock Cyfib, thus getting him a first-class ticket to the Bay.
Of course, that scenario will take some Three Stooges level of fortune and timing to pull off.
“With me,” says Cyfib.
The warden’s version of the command “heel” feels like an escape, but the command is for both of us. Staring at the back of Cyfib’s boots as he cha-chings toward his office, I take a moment to breathe. Barca’s hot, rabid breath moistens the back of my neck. There is no telling what would’ve happened if Cyfib had not accosted us when he did.
When we arrive at the Cube of Death, Cyfib points at Barca. “Stay.”
I enter Cyfib’s office and drop my guard a bit. After all, whatever this is cannot possibly be worse than getting a beat down by an ogre.
Right?
Wrong.
Across all the interior walls of the Cube are page after page of my code for Gakunodo. Cyfib reaches into his vest pocket, withdraws his white pipe, and points it at three lines that should never have graced his eyes.
“What the hell is this?”
Ah, well, shitty-shit-shit. With a deadline approaching, I thought for sure that Cyfib would not bother returning to areas of the code he had already run through, so that was where I hid the Randomizer.
The Randomizer is a bit of code that does three things: accesses a target’s personal information; scrambles it through several free online generators; and then trades out the mash-up information with the correct info.
I am as caught as Pooh Bear with his head stuck in the honeypot. When someone catches you in prison, you can do one of two things. Confess and throw yourself down and beg for mercy or: and this is the one I’d already planned on: cover your ass.
“Sir, this code appears to be a Randomizer . . .”
“I am not blind, dog. I want to know why it is in my program.”
My program. His ownership of the project both turns my stomach and gives me an avenue to pursue.
“Sir, this code should not be in this program.” I commit to the role of idiot the way a drummer commits to a solo: hard and without mercy. “I’m personally insulted that anyone would work on this project without informing you . . . is there a way to see whose terminal accessed this build?”
There will be no hackers-attacking alarm saving me this time. Cyfib puts his pipe under my chin. The sharp, boney end scratches just above my Adam’s apple, sending a jab of pain into my skin. Tilting my head in pain, I notice that instead of tobacco in the pipe, there’s a tiny piece of paper stuffed into the bowl.
I meet his solemn gaze, two dark gray eyes boring holes into my skull.
“I’ve already looked into that, dog.”
Of course, you have. That’s why he brought Barca with us and had him wait outside. You see, when I made improvements to the actual code, such as reinforcing the parameters of variables or running script that Gakunodo needed to capture fools on the Internet, I used my log in credentials. When I made these changes, such as this compiler and few others that would get me deported, I used Barca’s.
I am not sure whether Cyfib thinks my bluff is passable. His poker face is emotionless. No brows crease. No eyes break their beady lock on me, his target.
“Dismissed.”
I do not take a breath until I am down the stairs and in the War Room. The Cube’s door closes. Barca and Cyfib are alone.
In a perfect world, some computer in that office will malfunction and blow them both up in that box.
But we don’t live in a perfect world, so maybe Barca will just get deported. That is a wonderful second place option.
Now that I am out of the danger zone, the juices that are keeping my body running in overdrive run out. Sleep crawls behind my eyes and attaches anchors to my eyelids. I crash into my bunk, fully clothed, shoes and all.
Right before I fade off into sleep, I think about how lucky I am that Cyfib only looked until he saw the first flaw in Gakunodo. I certainly made it a big enough one to catch the brunt of any prying eyes, something full of mischief and counterproductive to the source code’s mission.
I’m just glad Cyfib took the bait and stopped his search there. Had Cyfib looked any deeper, he’d have discovered the real secret I was hiding in that code: a back door.
Chapter fifty-one
A Little Exploration
After that meeting, we didn’t see Barca that next day in the War Room. Or the next.
My plan worked. Sure, I had another person take a fall for my crime. But according to the Bushido Code, difficult times merit harsh tactics, especially when dealing with the greater good. The warriors of ancient Japan who followed this creed made a living by protecting people. And that sometimes required them to do things that were less than kind, such as burning homes and killing their enemies.
One cannot build a fire without first killing a tree. It is often much better if you are not said tree.
I sit alone on the rooftop, taking a minute to think about how easy it was to get rid of the monster without drawing blood. Not all Bushido warriors killed, or at least used violence as the first measure. Even though he was a master swordsman, Yamaoka Tesshū brokered peace, preventing many lives from sacrifice. And while it was his diplomacy that led Japan into the modern age, it also killed the Bushido class. He sacrificed all he believed in to save lives. I hope what I have done to Barca is one-millionth as helpful.
I don’t even notice the rook next to me until the pop from his opening a can of sparkling water startles me.
“Quidlee, you ’bout scared the shit out of me. About the other day—”
“Penny got word to me.”
This little bastard’s interruptions, while annoying, have power behind them. He never interrupts with a comment about the weather or to ask if I ever saw this or that movie. Quidlee, whether or not he knows it, is purposeful at the most random of times. Maybe he just needs someone to break the ice first and speak, to give him the courage to say what is eating up his brain space.
I don’t ask how. Message board, cryptic obituary, who knows? We all need to keep a few secrets to ourselves.
“And?”
“And . . . she’s getting more threats.”
I do not need to ask further. From what I know about gangs, threats are merely upcoming promises.
I look across the skyline of buildings just north of the West Pasadena Freeway. Our part of Houston, east of the big city but close enough that you can still smell the exhaust and someone smoking a brisket, is in the area called the Watershed. It’s where the rain and runoff from the city flows and it makes this area mighty hard to get to when the skies open up.
Ships run through this area, about a quarter of a mile or so to the east. The buildings here mainly house industrial and petrochemical activity from refining fossil fuels.
In short, this would be the last place to find random foot traffic or a Starbucks.
In that moment, with Barca gone and the wind in our faces, I ask, “How about we clear our minds with a little exploration of ways out of here?”
Chapter fifty-two
Cannot Help but Smile
Just like before, I move the cable that attaches to the hallway camera enough that the camera’s signal shorts so that it cannot record us exiting the hall past the gate.
Unlike before, when we boldly walked in front of the incorruptible camera at the top of the side wall, each of us slides chest first along the wall so that we avoid any record of our exit. Quidlee goes first and makes the sliding look easy, chewing bubble gum and humming some rap song about rap things. Me, on the other hand, I wind up jamming the notepad and pen I have hidden under my shirt into my stomach as I slide into a light switch and almost recoil off the wall in pain. Luckily, common sense kicks in, and I ease over the switch and meet Quidlee at the gate.
Standing side by side with my right facing away from the gate and his right facing toward, we nod at each other.
“Mark.”
Two synchronized steps later, our touching microchips enter the sensor area. The gate opens.
Five steps after that, we are walking side by side down the hallway.
I whip out the notepad and write down every detail I notice.
Ten steps from the gate until the turn in the hallway.
Thirty-two until the end of the hallway and the door out.
Total = forty-two.
We walk through each classroom together and check all the windows. Each window is dark because it has a metal sheet across it. It would be a problem to break through one since we have limited access to tools.
Quidlee steps onto one of the school desks. I hoist him up onto my shoulders. He moves one of the many stucco ceiling tiles to the side and pulls himself into the ceiling area.
In less than a minute, he’s back out and shaking off like a dog straight out of the rain and sending dust and probably asbestos all over me.
“It’s no use up there.” Quidlee runs his hands through his bushy hair and flicks out chunks of cobwebs and gunk. “The cement walls go all the way up.”
“Lone door, it is.”
Both Quidlee and I take turns looking over the lock. The numeric lock on the door is a four-coder: four digits. It’s probably only two attempts before the door hard locks shut until an administrator’s code is inputted. I am familiar with this concept, but not this particular brand or model.
It is a standard, one-unit, gunmetal-gray handle and cover with white buttons that feature black numbers from 0 to 9. There is no number sign button or enter button, so it’s a more recent model. Confusingly, someone has scraped away the name of the keypad’s manufacturer on the bottom of the unit.
“You think someone did it on purpose?” Quidlee asks.
I extend my hand and Quidlee grabs me by the wrist and hoists me to my feet. “I think someone just got frustrated installing the lock and an electric screwdriver slipped out of its groove and shredded the section we need.”
We still need to get a workable code.
An idea starts in the back of my skull in the area reserved for mischief and random, useless facts. The scratches are there, but underneath the scratches is something we could possibly use.
“T, can we unscrew it?”
“Negative. The boilerplate is sealed by the door code as well.”
I look at Quidlee as he blows a gum bubble in my face until it pops.
“Give me your gum.”
“Look, I won’t blow another bubble on you, okay?”
“Give me your gum.”
“I just started this piece.”
“Start another.”
Quidlee gets another two chews in on his existing piece before he spits the gum into my open hand and reaches into his pocket to grab another foil-wrapped chew. A spearmint smell hits my nostrils as I roll the gum around between both of my palms. Then I flatten it to about the size and thickness of a half dollar.
“Do you have the wrapper?”
“Man, you are one needy old man . . .”
Quidlee hands me the silver foil gum wrapper. I fold it end over end until it is the about twice as long and wide as the gum. Then I secure it under the half-dollar gum and place the two under the lock, rolling my index finger along the adhesion, applying some pressure, but not too much.
As PoBones says, You gotta take time and care to butter the Turducken by hand slowly, otherwise you break its home, and don’t nobody need a broken home.
I do not want to break the home of this gum.
After a few seconds, I pull on the gum wrapper. The gum is a little more stuck to the metal than I like, but everything comes off smoothly enough to work.
It’s a little like that old Detective Columbo trick of rubbing on a blank piece of paper with a pencil so you can see what someone wrote earlier. Now we have enough information to make the effort worth playing with Quidlee’s saliva-drenched gum.
I take the gum in both hands, holding it by the wrapper, and then flip the gum upside down and run it along the floor.
“What’re you doing?”
“Fingerprinting the suspect.”
After two swipes, I lift the gum to my lips and blow. Large chunks of dust and debris fly off, but the smaller particles hold firm to the gum.
Quidlee leans over the gum. “Okay, it’s backward, but once we get a mirror, we can figure out who the manufacturer is.”
When we look at our work, I state the obvious. “It’s not a name.”
“What is it?”
“It’s even better.” I can’t help but smile. “It’s the model number.”
Chapter fifty-three
Best You Can Hope for Is Vengeance
That next day, I make a jaunt to a great little sector of the dark web that deals with one of my favorite childhood pastimes: lock picking.
I first picked up the hobby when a buddy and I got a hold of a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook. This little jewel of a download was like the dark web before the dark web. In this zipped file, you could learn how to create explosives, make LSD, craft booby traps, and pick a lock with a paper clip and a bobby pin. For years, I always had those two items in the inside flap of my wallet.
While the Boy Scouts of America taught many a trooper how to be prepared, this digital masterpiece of illegal tips taught me, and many others, to be ready in case shit happens.
Lock picking has changed over the years, from analog to digital, and the forum I choose only takes a few minutes of perusing before I find not only the administrative code for the Model F0-FOX90 keypad but also the engineering code. The first code gives me access to open the door. The second one, the engineer’s code, allows us to disassemble the lock and reassemble it the way we want.
That means that, once Quidlee is out that door, I can seal it. No one in or out unless someone has a blowtorch in their back pocket.
Over the decades, The Anarchist Cookbook became more of a Wiki or online collection of illegal tips and tricks. That is why I am on the dark web perusing something I never thought I’d ever need to know: how to procure a dead body.
Apparently, the key to getting a corpse is to search not the obituaries or funeral homes for someone who fits an escapee’s description, such as rook Quidlee’s, but the police reports over the last month for an unidentified Code Ten-Fifty-Four.
An unidentified dead body.
I know police codes pretty well. I often listened to a scanner in my childhood bedroom, just to figure out where the dangerous parts of town were. Then I would time with a stopwatch how fast police made it to a potential crime scene. At around eight years old, I might have been trying out my earliest form of hacking: tracking police patterns.
For our plan to work, not just any John or Jane Doe would fit for the rook. We needed one twenty-ish young male close enough in height and weight to fit Quidlee’s description.
Most police databases run on solo systems, ones that only work within the precinct when the perp or body doesn’t deal with prosecutable crimes, such as murder. Those are on a greater network, like the FBI’s database. So, if you’re arrested for breaking and entering, that system connects across the entire country. However, if you die of natural causes in Kansas City, Missouri, no one next door in Kansas City, Kansas, will know about it.
There is no law requiring a coroner or medical examiner to preserve unidentified bodies not associated with a crime, so disposing of a corpse is a drain on the county and up to the discretion of the county’s elected coroner. Burying bodies is expensive, so they cremate most all unclaimed bodies within two weeks of arrival in a morgue.
However, there’s more work in cremation than just cranking up a furnace and chucking in a corpse.
You strip the clothes off. You prep the incinerator and the body. It takes over two hours of high intensity, natural gas flowing through the incinerator to properly reduce a human being to ash. Even then, you have to gather up around seven pounds of bone matter in a plastic bag.
Factoring all that together with the coroner’s time and the city’s other expenses can ring up a hefty bill for a random, dead body.
Yet, just like Beanie Babies and used underwear, there is a market for these bodies.
I started this search last week with quick hidden jaunts through my backdoor access to the dark web through that little piece of code Lance-a-Little left me. Through my contacts, I started procuring fake identification for Quidlee, a phone, cash, and even a vehicle. Those sprints ultimately found us not only a workable corpse, but a coroner’s assistant with a gambling problem. Those two variables go together for our little escape plan, like Jägermeister and hangovers.
Once Quidlee gets out, I have a rough idea of how he’ll make sure the corpse fits enough of his description so that no one will bother questioning his “death.”
The last piece of the puzzle is finding someone to meet up with Quidlee and get everything—including the corpse and some odds and ends—to him within five blocks of here.
A heated three-on-three game of basketball occurs in front of us. I am sure I could pick up the basics of this sporty game if I tried, but asking Quidlee my questions directly is a great way to pass the time.
“Quidlee, if I ask you a question, do you promise not to make fun of me?”
“If you ask me where babies come from, I’m going to lie.”
“What is a free throw?”
The rook kicks his head back and chuckles, like he is about to say something, probably derogatory, but instead he takes a beat and a breath.
“Sometimes when a player fouls another player, like hits him with an elbow or pushes him out of bounds,” Quidlee begins, pointing at the top of the smaller arch we’ve just drawn, “the wronged player gets to stand right here and take one or two uninterrupted shots to score.”
