Arch Enemy (9 page)

A
lex pored over a book of John Donne's poetry, spacing out as she tried to concentrate on the words . . .

 

 

They held no meaning to her. She couldn't bring herself to pay enough attention for the words to connect to any ideas. But on that day she didn't care. Excitement surged through her body like it hadn't for a long time. She wouldn't dampen it for anything, least of all freshman English.

She walked out of the library and hobbled with purpose out of Pendergrass Hall back to Prather House, up the elevator and then down the hall to the door to Simon's room and knocked.

“Just a minute!” came the response from inside. She pushed the door open anyway—they had long ago disabled the automatic locks since they were in and out of each other's rooms so often. Simon, nude and wet-haired from a shower, scrambled to wrap a ratty blue towel around his waist. His face went a deep crimson. “Jesus, didn't you hear me?”

“Couldn't wait,” she said, pushing her way inside.

He looked down at her feet. “You're tracking snow into—”

“Do not pretend to care about wet floors now,” she said. “Sit down. Sit.”

“I think you'd better sit down yourself,” he said, indicating the chair as he sat on the bed, careful that his towel would cover everything. “You're practically jumping up and down. It can't be good for your leg.”

She nearly fell over as she situated herself on the wooden dorm chair, which leaned back against her weight. Finally, she steadied herself.

“Burczyk,” she said, leaning forward like an insurance salesman. “I have a proposition for you.”

“Is it indecent?”

“Har har.” She shook off his joke with a wave of her hand. “No. Listen. Those people. The Panagopoulos thing.”

“Crazy, right?”

“Crazy
awesome
, I'm sure you mean,” said Alex.

Simon raised an eyebrow.

“You seriously don't think so?”

“I always knew you had a screw loose, Morgan, but—”

“No, listen,” she said. “It's an opportunity to take justice into our own hands. Out into the streets.”

“Okay, Batman.”

“I've been looking into the Ekklesia. It's not just here. They're doing this kind of stuff all over the country.” She pointed at his computer. “Check it out.”

Simon pulled the laptop over onto his towel and searched
ekklesia
.

“It started in the past couple of months,” she said. “They've been involved in all kinds of guerilla hacking. They exposed a dogfighting ring in Florida by sniffing out their identities from their online message boards. They also got a child porn producer in Ohio.”

“I see here,” said Simon. “They have a dirty cop under investigation in New York, based on suppressed surveillance videos. And look, it looks like they've been sabotaging ISIS media and recruitment web pages.”

“Isn't that amazing?” said Alex. “They're taking action! Guerilla hacking, doing justice where justice isn't being done.”

“I guess it is pretty cool.”

“Cool? Simon, we
have
to get in on this.”

Simon closed his laptop and stood up, holding his towel at his hip. “That's where I get off the crazy train.”

“We need to find out who they are and
join
them.”

“I can't count the levels on which that is a terrible idea.” She continued to stare at him. “No. There's no way.” He turned away from her and made a point to search his drawer for underwear as if he were looking for a particular pair.

“Please,” she said, extending the single syllable into three. “This is one of the most incredible opportunities that will ever present itself to us. This is a turning point, Simon. For both of us. This is how we escape suburban drudgery. This is how we avoid selling out to the Man.”

“There's a reason people sell out, Alex,” Simon said. “Because it's either selling out or poverty. Although I guess you've added a fun new category of crazy as a third option.”

“Come on, man. Be a pal.”

“Why do you even need me anyway?” He slipped on his underwear under his towel. Alex didn't stop herself from taking a peek to see whether he might flash some skin, but no luck. “You could just as easily do it by yourself.”

“I'm crippled, you asshole!” she cried out, laughing. “Well, that and I tried Googling and it failed, so I'm basically out of ideas.”

“Maybe that should tell you something. Maybe it's a sign from the universe for you to give up.”

“I'm not giving up. Next step is start calling attention to myself in very stupid ways.”

“I'm not your keeper, Morgan.” Simon pulled denim pants on over his boxers and then shook the towel from his hip. “The stupid things you do are entirely on you.” He grabbed a T-shirt from the hamper of clean clothes.

“Come
on
, Simon. I can't do it without you.”

He sat down cross from her. “Then you won't do it at all, which suits me fine.”

“Aw, Simon.” She lowered her voice and pulling her chair closer to him. “I thought it might be a way for us to, you know, do something together. You don't have to be just my tutor, you know.”

They made eye contact, full of meaning.

“Alex?” he said.

“Yes?”

“I'm not an idiot.”

He stood up, pulled on a hoodie and a parka, and slung his backpack over his shoulder. “I'm off to the library. Lock the door when you leave. And try not to join any suicide cults while I'm away.”

L
isa Frieze had to elbow past reporters in the hospital lobby who had gotten wind of the story and flocked to try for a snippet of an interview with Panagopoulos. One frizzy-haired woman was insisting with the deputy.

“What's his current status? Sir! Is Mr. Panagopoulos under arrest?”

The deputy, a moon-faced boy fresh on the force, was flustered by all the attention and didn't quite know how to rebuff the entreaties.

Frieze took charge. “Lisa Frieze, FBI!” she shouted, for the whole coterie to hear loud and clear. They fell into silence. “Police have no comment yet on the situation of Mr. Panagopoulos. A press release will be issued in due time. Meanwhile, you can all stay put. I will make a point to
personally
arrest anyone who trespasses into restricted areas of this hospital.”

That just sent them into a whole new frenzy of questions.

“Ma'am, is the FBI getting involved?”

“Will Panagopoulos be charged with a federal crime?”

She gestured for the deputy to lead the way. He was all too happy to leave the din behind.

“You new on the force?” she asked as they walked the halls. The smell of hospital disinfectant made her queasy. Her mind rumbled with bad associations, a distant storm of past trauma that she hoped wouldn't be carried toward her.

“Just passed the exam late last year. This is the most exciting thing to happen since then.”

“I hope for your sake it remains that way. I find that excitement can get old real fast,” Lisa replied.

“This is the room.”

She caught the name on the chart at the door. So it was. A private room in the private wing. Didn't come cheap. The deputy opened the door and stood aside for her to come in.

Panagopoulos, whom she recognized from his picture, lay on the bed. She was going to greet him, but was intercepted by a man in a standard-issue graphite suit with an outstretched hand.

“Ramsay Pitman, from the firm of Coleman, Colby, and Splain.” He was just at that age where he was on the cusp of making partner, an impression buttressed by his nervous energy. This one was going to be overzealous—in other words, a pain in her ass. “I'm representing Mr. Panagopoulos.”

“So I gathered. Lisa Frieze, FBI Boston, Counterterrorism Division.”

Panagopoulos sat up, alert, doing a bad job of pretending to look pathetic. The lawyer would be coaching him already for the media blitz.

“I'm very glad the FBI took an interest in this heinous crime perpetrated against Mr. Panagopoulos.”

“I assure you we are taking this very seriously.”

“And Mr. Panagopoulos offers his full cooperation in finding the criminals who abducted him.”

“It's much appreciated,” said Frieze. “What can you tell me about the abduction?”

“I was jumped when I was getting out of my car,” he said. “I was coming home with a takeout bag.”

“You live alone?” He nodded, yes. “How many attackers?”

“At least three,” he said. “They stuck me with a needle, uh—” He turned his body and pulled his hospital gown to show a small purple welt near his shoulder. “Right there.”

“Did you get a look at them?”

“They wore hoodies and something was covering their faces. All I saw were flashes before they made me turn away, and then I lost consciousness.”

“They spoke?”

“One. A man. I couldn't tell you anything else. And then I blacked out. I have flashes of hanging on that . . . thing. I really only woke up here.”

“I see,” she said. “Can you remember anything at all? Every detail helps.”

“That's it.”

“I'd also like to try to establish some motive.”

“This was a completely unprovoked attack,” Pitman broke in.

“Nonetheless, I'd like to ask Mr. Panagopoulos some questions,” she said. Then she turned toward the man on the bed: “Do you know anyone who might have a grudge against you? Anyone who might benefit from seeing your reputation tarnished in the media?”

“A man in Mr. Panagopoulos's position naturally attracts the envy of many.”

She just kept her eyes on Panagopoulos. He shrugged. “I don't know. I really don't. My ex-wife, I guess. But I don't think she'd be capable of something like this.”

“What about these allegations of illegal activities?” she asked. “Has anyone made them before? Does anyone stand out as being particularly . . . ?”

“My client's statement has been submitted to the police,” Pitman interrupted. “Now, he is tired and in need of rest to recover from this harrowing experience. Any further questions can be routed through my firm. Good day, Ms. Frieze.”

A
lex Morgan lay on her stomach, elbows on the bed, reading everything she could find about Ekklesia. She studied every single news article available, most of which had been copied off the same handful of news agency sources. She then read about the history of the word. It was the ancient Greek council of citizens in the Athenian democracy. Then she went on to the Internet forums to see what people were saying about it.

The Internet went deep. Most of it was complete nonsense. Speculation went all over the place. Her eyes were glazed over by this time, and she was running on caffeine fumes from a large bottle of Diet Pepsi she had polished off. But she hung on, always looking for the next scrap of information. Katie came in after dinner, said hello, and getting no answer, put on her headphones and nestled in bed with a textbook.

Simon came around that evening and found her on her bed—right where he had left her.

“What the hell are you doing?” said Simon.

“Researching.”

“Did you leave your room today?”

“Of course I did.”

Simon reached over and held Katie's headphones away from her ear. “Katie, did she leave the room today?”

“Not while I was here.”

He crossed his arms in judgment. “Are you really this obsessed with the Ekklesia thing?”

“You being chicken won't stop me,” she said.

“Ugh,” he said, sitting on the bed next to her. “Fine. I guess there's no harm in sending out some feelers. Not like it's going to
work
or anything.”

“Really?” said Alex, looking up at him with bright, grateful eyes. She leaned forward and gave his torso a hug. “You're the best! So you know how we can do it?”

“I have an idea of where to start. Move into my room?” He looked at Katie, engrossed in her reading. “Might be a good idea to get some privacy.”

Katie sent them off with “Wear a condom!” and they walked down the hall to Simon's room.

“I've been looking at this e-mail they sent,” he said. “I had a hunch.” He brought up a page of code. “This is the HTML code for the e-mail. Basically what it looks like under the hood.”

“I recognize some of this stuff from what you taught me.”

“Look, here,” he said, pointing to a series of numbers, about four lines of seemingly random digits. “That's not supposed to be there. It's not doing anything on the page, I mean.”

“What is it? Some kind of cipher?”

“Would be my guess.” He cut it and pasted into a text document.

“What are you doing?”

“Testing it against a couple of decoders,” he said. He opened two different programs and pasted the text into each.

“You mean you have those on your computer already?”

“I told you that cryptography was a hobby of mine. Let's see.” He chewed on the end of a pencil. “What we need is a key,” said Simon. “To decrypt this text.”

“It's not there by mistake. They want people to be able to find them, right? Isn't that the point?”

“So it won't be impossible.” Simon ran his hand through his hair. “We can try the obvious. Panagopoulos. Justice.” He typed as he spoke. “Ekklesia. No, not any of these.”

“I was looking into the meaning of ‘Ekklesia' earlier,” she said. “It has roots in common with the word for ‘church,' but it was the council of citizens of Athenian democracy. That's the reference, I'm pretty sure,” she said.

“Let's try those,” he said. “Athens, a few variations . . . Democracy. . . None of those.”

“Hold on,” she said. “I think I remember something about the etymology. It originally came from . . . Here it is:
ekkalein
, ‘to call out.' This is a call out, right? Try that.”

She spelled it out for him. He entered the word. The gibberish resolved itself into comprehensible English.

“That's it!” he said. “How did you get that?”

“Lucky guess.” She read the message on his screen.

What followed were a series of random characters.

“What? How does that work?”

“It's a public key,” he said. “Used for encryption. So they're the only ones who will be able to read the message if we send it to them.”

He typed a message out on a program Alex had never seen before.

 

Would like to join the cause. Awaiting instructions.

 

Simon then ran it through the encryption and hit Send. “It's out there now,” he said. “Ball's in their court.”