Brain Jack (6 page)

9 | THE LIBRARY

The library was old and, if it was possible, even more wooden than the long hallways and bedrooms of the dormitory block.

The tables were scrawled over with graffiti, most of it obscene. There was shelf after shelf of books, but Sam didn’t stop to investigate just yet. First stop was the computer table.

There were four computers in all, separated by wooden partitions. Only the first one was in use. The user was a rat-faced boy with the word “BadAss” tattooed, not professionally, on the back of his neck.

Sam chose the farthest computer.

He sent a quick e-mail to his mom, assuring her that he was okay and not to worry; then he browsed around the computer, seeing what was available to the inmates.

It was a standard HP computer, running a Microsoft operating system. But it was locked down tighter than any computer he had ever seen. Net Nanny, WebMarshal—the list went on—all bound into a managed environment so the user couldn’t reconfigure the machine in any way.

Internet Explorer was available, but only a restricted list of sites was accessible. Solitaire and Minesweeper were the only games, although one of the allowed Web sites was a chess site where you could play against people from all over the world.

One way of passing the time.

The prison e-mail program was allowed, as were a few utilities like calculators and spreadsheets.

Other than that, there was nothing.

Nor was there any way of loading software onto the computer. The keyboard, mouse, and screen were the only accessible parts. Everything else was locked away in a solid-looking cupboard below the table.

A sign affixed to the top of each computer warned that any attempt to interfere with the computers would result in their being removed.

That would be one way to get yourself noticed, Sam thought, and become highly unpopular with the other inmates. Still …

Sam played solitaire until BadAss left, and he kept a careful eye on the door to make sure nobody else came in.

He didn’t know where he was, and he didn’t know how long he would be staying, but he did know that he was sitting in front of a computer. And that computer was connected to the prison network.

And despite the warning sign on the top of the screen, he couldn’t resist the temptation.

To have a go.

Just once, to see if it could be done.

Control+Alt+Delete: the basic reset keys did nothing. That was no surprise.

The spreadsheet program was the key. He was surprised that they allowed it, but that had to be plain ignorance.

Most people just used spreadsheets for basic calculations, but the cells allowed functions, and functions were really tiny programs in their own right.

It was an old trick but a good one. He opened a spreadsheet and created a function that caused an endless loop. A complex mathematical calculation with no end, just whizzing around and around inside itself, going nowhere.

He opened a second spreadsheet page and copied in the same function. Already, the machine was performing like an arthritic snail.

He opened a third page and a fourth. By the tenth, the overloaded computer was taking over a minute just to bring up a page, the hourglass spinning frantically as the processor ground its teeth to nothing.

One more page tipped it. The computer froze. It stayed that way for a couple of minutes until the Managed Environment Controller decided that the machine had died (which it had) and started a reboot.

Too easy, Sam thought.

He caught the machine on the reboot and flicked it into Safe Mode, disabling all the software, including Managed Environment. When it had finished restarting, in the subdued colors and low resolution of Safe Mode, he opened the registry file and disabled the Managed Environment completely before restarting the machine again.

This time it booted up normally, and when it started, everything worked. The restrictions imposed by the security software were gone. The computer was his.

Quickly, keeping one eye on the door, he wrote a trapdoor, deep in the operating system, so that a certain combination of keys would automatically kill the Managed Environment and give him full control. That way he could return the machine to its normal state but still use it whenever he felt like it.

So, he thought, let’s have a look around.

He accessed one of his drones in Mexico, where he permanently stored a copy of Ghillie, and released it into the prison network.

The SAM database was easy, and the SysAdmin rights were his within seconds. He strode through the prison network security without breaking his stride.

Everything was there. Menus for the meals, weekly supply orders, guard rosters (along with their personal and income details).

Even the codes for the electronic doors.

10 | THE WRECK

Recton Hall Juvenile Detention Center is in Brookmont, Maryland, on the shores of the Dalecarlia Reservoir, to the northwest of the nation’s capital and just over the Potomac River from the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It caters to juvenile offenders up to the age of seventeen.

Like many other juvenile halls, or juvies, Recton takes pride in providing a secure environment that does not feel like a prison.

The high-security fence that surrounds the facility is softened, completely hidden in some places, by the tall red maples and river birches planted on both sides of the razor wire.

Inside the perimeter, a white picket fence adds a rustic touch and hides a proximity-and-thermal sensor. An observer with an eye for detail would also notice that the tops of the pickets are white painted metal, not wood, and are sharper than you would usually expect for a picket fence. Also, the fence, at four feet high, is a little taller than usual, just high enough, in fact, to prevent anyone from casually stepping over it. It has to be climbed. The same innocent-looking fence delineates the area in which the inmates, referred to as guests, are allowed to roam.

Every inch of the ground between the picket fence and the wire-mesh security fence on the outside is covered by cameras and monitored by motion sensors. There are plenty of blind spots among the trees, but none at all in the four-yard clear space on either side of the fence.

There is only one way in or out of Recton, and that is through the “cage,” part of the administration block. Large metal gates on the outside and reinforced doors on the inside create a kind of holding area in which all prisoners, visitors, staff, and supply vans must be cleared before proceeding in or out of the facility.

The cage is on the first floor of the administration block, along with the inmate-processing center, the loading dock, and the school office. The second floor contains administrative offices, storerooms, and the armory, plus the guards’ rest area and washroom.

The third floor is the watchhouse: the control room that runs Recton, monitoring comings and goings and the activities of the guests.

Dormitories and classrooms are housed in separate buildings spread throughout the spacious grounds.

Recton Hall, known to guests as Wrecking Ball, Rectum, or just the Wreck, does not house gang members, drug addicts, game addicts, or murderers. In the overall scheme of juvenile detention centers, Recton is at the top end. It is the place where white-collar juvenile criminals get sent for crimes like fraud, embezzlement, cybercrime, and espionage.

It surprises most people to learn that the biggest category of offenders at Recton is not fraud but espionage. Industrial espionage mostly, plus a limited amount of military or governmental espionage. Generally, the culprits have parents in high-level positions in strategic organizations and are targeted by unscrupulous agents of corporations or foreign countries.

There are a few “common” criminals at the facility, usually because their parents were powerful or wealthy enough to pull the political strings necessary to get them transferred to a “safe” institution like Recton, away from the gangbangers and addicts that fill the halls of the other juvies.

Guests have limited access to a telephone, one per dormitory, although all phone calls are recorded. Cell phones are not allowed, and a powerful network jammer ensures that even smuggled-in phones are useless.

All of this Sam found out simply by typing “Recton” into Google.

Kiwi was sitting at the end of a long table by himself and waved Sam over.

Sam had chosen a couple of salad sandwiches with some kind of unidentifiable sliced meat filling and an apple. Kiwi was biting into a grilled cheese sandwich and flicked some long stringy cheese bands with his finger as Sam sat down.

“You can toast any of the sandwiches,” Kiwi said. “There’re a couple of toasting machines over by the coffeepot. Tastes better that way. Probably kills some of the bacteria as well.”

Sam looked at the flat slices of meat in his sandwich and felt less hungry, but he took a bite anyway.

“When’s pizza night?” he asked.

“That’s Thursday,” Kiwi said. “Right after barbecued fillet steak Wednesday and before pigs-might-fly Friday.”

Sam nodded. “I figured as much. I’m gonna miss pizza, I think.”

“Pancakes,” Kiwi said. “I miss pancakes.”

“Yeah, with maple syrup and whipped butter,” Sam agreed.

“Nah, drizzled with lemon juice and a light sprinkle of sugar,” Kiwi said.

“Lemon juice?”

“That’s the way we do it back home.”

“Sounds disgusting.” Sam screwed up his face.

“Well, your way just sounds like fat and sugar with extra fat and sugar,” Kiwi said.

“Mmmm.” Sam licked his lips. “Fat and sugar!” Kiwi laughed.

Sam toyed with his sandwich for a moment, then said, “Kiwi, I’m going to need your help.”

“No worries,” Kiwi said. “What do you need?”

“You’re not going to like it,” Sam said.

The trees shivered a little in a late-afternoon breeze, and a few loose leaves twirled like butterflies down over the razor-wire fence. One leaf caught for a moment on a spike before a stronger gust dislodged it.

A trio of Asian inmates were playing some complicated card game, sitting on the grass near the boundary, just a few yards away. Sam tried to figure out the rules without staring. It involved a lot of picture cards, and the queens seemed especially important, and every few moments one of them would reach over and slap one of the others hard across the face; then they would all fall about laughing.

It made no sense to Sam at all.

He looked back at the fence. So thin, so delicate, yet so vicious with its shark’s teeth of jagged metal.

The idea had been in his mind from the moment he had found the codes for the electronic doors, but actually making the decision to escape was another thing.

On one hand, there was an unspecified amount of time in jail. (They’d throw away the key, according to Kiwi.) On the other hand was a life of running and hiding, constantly looking over his shoulder. An outlaw, an outcast, a fugitive.

Would he ever be able to see his mother again? Or Fargas? Would he have to leave the country, sneak over the border into Canada or Mexico and live the rest of his life in some foreign land?

But then he looked around at the razor-topped fences and tried to imagine spending month after month of his life in this one small patch of land, constantly under watch by armed guards.

And worse. In a few months’ time, on his eighteenth birthday, the transfer to an adult prison. What kind of horrors would that hold, amidst the burglars, murderers, and gangsters?

Recton was scary enough. The thought of some unknown adult prison “upstate” was simply terrifying.

Sam saw Kiwi walking toward him and stood up.

Together they strolled along the exercise track that ran around the circumference of Recton, a yard or two inside the white picket fence.

He counted his paces, although he was careful not to look like someone who was counting his paces.

It had been two weeks now since he had arrived. Two weeks of limp, flavorless food, communal showers (which he hated), and a horrible claustrophobic feeling every night as the electronic door beeped and locked itself at nine o’clock.

He had put that time to good use, though. Noting the routines of the guards. Where their rounds were. Who was scrupulous, who was punctual, who was lazy and did the barest minimum to fulfill their duties.

He had drawn a map of the fences and sketched in the sensors and other hidden alarms that he located on the security system on the admin computer. He had measured distances on the ground and compared those with the information online, working out times and distances.

He had full run of the computer network, and there was nothing he couldn’t find out if he wanted to.

Two weeks of researching, planning, and finally he was ready to go.

11 | PRISON BREAK

Sam was ready at ten to ten, standing just inside the door of his bedroom, waiting for the fire alarm.

He had accessed the fire-control system and scheduled a fire drill for ten o’clock, then disabled the line of code in the program that knew it was only a drill.

As far as the computer was concerned, the fire would be real, and it would react accordingly.

His few belongings were shoved into the pockets of his warm jacket.

Everything now relied on Kiwi. He had agreed, a little reluctantly, to Sam’s request. If caught, he could wave goodbye to his hopes of serving out his sentence in New Zealand. But he’d agreed anyway.

Seconds ticked away on his watch, and the minutes slowly dripped away as well.

Was he prepared for this? he wondered. A life of constantly hiding. A life without his family and friends. A life underground.

The fire alarm sounded just outside the door to his room. A long bell that went on and on.

When a fire alarm went off at Recton, the computers that controlled the facility would automatically unlock all the cell doors to make sure no inmates were trapped inside.

The door in front of him unlocked itself with a beep and the clunk of the electronic latch. Sam was through it and running down the hallway the moment the handle came free in his hand.

He had counted every step between the dormitory and the admin block and knew exactly how much time he had.

He’d make it, as long as he didn’t stumble or trip over something.

He was already flying out of the hallway door into the courtyard as other doors were opening into the corridor behind him. Frightened, confused voices followed him out of the door.

He made it to the admin block just in time, flattening himself against the sidewall as the door opened and three guards came out at a trot.

Three?
The roster had said four.

He waited a moment longer to be safe, but no one else emerged.

He keyed in the security code and yanked on the door handle. The door opened without question and pulled itself shut behind him.

The guards would have fun trying to get back in. As of right now, the codes had all changed, and only Sam knew the new ones.

He had never been in this part of the admin block before but knew his way around as if he worked there, from the floor plans he had found on the central server.

He raced up two flights of stairs, past the guards’ showers and changing rooms and down a short corridor with doors to the armory and records room, and then keyed the code for the door at the far end: the storeroom.

In here were all the belongings of the guests, in numbered cardboard boxes. His number was 5143, and he scanned along the shelves until he found it.

His wallet and cell phone went into his jacket pockets along with a few other odds and ends that he had been carrying when he’d been arrested.

He left the storeroom door open and ran up another flight of stairs to the watchhouse.

The first thing he had learned from studying the security plans for Recton was that the main gates that formed the outside wall of the cage were not under any kind of computer control. Nor could they be opened manually from within the cage. They could only be opened from the watchhouse.

The button for the gates was clearly marked. It was large and black and fitted with a plastic cover so it couldn’t be pressed accidentally.

The plastic cover was locked, but three quick blows from a fire extinguisher smashed the hinges into plastic slivers.

He watched on one of the security monitors as the gates began to grind their way open.

He marked his watch. Plenty of time, but he had better not hang around. The gates would automatically shut after two minutes if left open.

He ran back along the short corridor and headed for the cage.

The gates were wide open by the time he got there. Heavy, metal, and open like a 7-Eleven.

Sam burst through the inner door to the cage and made at least five or six yards toward the gates before he heard a click from behind him.

He faltered, then stopped dead as the low tones of Warden Brewer came from near the door.

“Goin’ somewheres?”

Sam stood motionless, breathing heavily, before turning to face Brewer.

The warden’s cap was pulled low, casting his face in shadow, but his eyes caught the glare of the incandescent bulbs at the end of the cage and glinted like cat’s eyes from under the peak. His fleshy jowls pulled up into a menacing smile, his teeth bared like a wild animal.

Brewer had a gun in his hand. Some kind of pistol. Sleek, black, and deadly, and aimed right at Sam’s chest. At this range, he couldn’t miss.

Sam took a step backward. A step closer to the gates.

“That’s about as far’s you get,” Brewer said, rising off a wooden seat by the delivery dock. “Fire alarm at this time of night seemed just a mite convenient to me. And all the phone lines going dead? Very suspicious.”

Sam glanced at his watch. Over a minute was gone already.

Brewer saw the movement. “About a minute left,” he said, “before them gates close. After that it won’t matter what kind of trickery you got up to in the watchhouse. They won’t be opening again.”

Sam didn’t doubt it.

“I guess you ’n’ me’ll just wait it out,” Brewer said. “Seeing as you don’t seem to feel much like talking.”

Sam remained silent, and Brewer continued, “Police’ll be here in a minute or two. I dunno how you cut off the phones, but you forgot about the emergency radio.”

He must have seen the expression on Sam’s face, because he whistled softly and said, “You didn’t forget about the radio, did you? What’d you do to it? Don’t matter, I guess.”

All Sam had done to the computerized radio system was to change the frequency. As simple as that. No doubt someone somewhere would have picked up the transmission, but not the police or anyone else who would understand what it was.

“Don’t matter,” Brewer said. “ ’Cause the fire department gonna be here in a coupla minutes anyways. They’ll have their own radios in their trucks, and I don’t s’pose you figured out a way to screw up their radios, now, did you?”

Sam took another step backward, a couple of feet closer to the gates. His eye caught the security camera above Brewer’s head, and a plan started to form in his mind.

“Don’t you move,” Brewer said, raising the gun, but Sam did move. He raised his hands high in the air and slowly turned around.

“Better,” Brewer said. “Now you’re getting the idea.”

In front of Sam the gates began to close.

He took a step toward them.

“Next step is your last, boy,” Brewer said.

“I don’t think so.” Sam found his voice. “You won’t do it.”

“I don’t think you wanna find out,” Brewer said.

“See the camera?” Sam said, nodding toward the camera to the left above the gates. “CNN. Live feed. I wired it right into their network.” It wasn’t true, but how would Brewer know? He gestured toward the one on the right. “Fox News, and the two at the back are BBC. You want to be seen all over the world shooting an unarmed teenager in the back?”

He took another step and there was no shot. He took one more. The gates were a quarter closed now. The gap was narrowing rapidly.

He sensed rather than saw Brewer holster the pistol, but he heard the heavy, hasty footsteps behind him.

Sam dropped his head and sprinted toward the gates.

Brewer was older, fatter, and slower than Sam. Sam would have easily beaten him if he hadn’t caught his left shoe behind his right ankle and gone sprawling across the tarmac four or five yards from the gates.

He was up quickly, though, and actually through the gates when a meaty hand latched on to the collar of his jacket. Sam was stopped dead in his tracks. He turned around to see the sweating, scowling face of Brewer just an arm’s length away.

“Gotcha!” Brewer said triumphantly.

“Not unless you want to lose that arm,” Sam noted.

It was true. Sam had slipped through the slenderest of gaps, and Brewer was too large to get through behind him. The gap had already narrowed even more, and there was no way Brewer would be able to pull Sam back inside.

Only his arm was through the gates now, and the heavy metal edges were closing in fast.

Brewer swore violently and snatched his arm back inside, just as the gates slammed shut.

Sam didn’t wait around for any clever repartee. He just ran. He had allowed himself ten minutes to get to the intersection of MacArthur Boulevard and Little Falls Road. He had already used three.

Sam ran. A strong, gusty breeze buffeted him, alternately pushing him backward and helping him along. He stayed off the boulevard with its inconstant stream of headlights and ran on the grass of the reservoir park alongside, staying in the darkness by the high safety fence.

Sweat streamed from his face. His chest ached, his knee also. He must have hurt it when he had tripped inside the cage. He ignored it and ran.

Kiwi would have sent the “false alarm” message by now. The one thing Sam had needed him to do. It would take only a minute for the fire controller to relay that to the fire trucks, and they would turn around at the first place they could—the MacArthur Boulevard and Little Falls Road intersection.

He had to get there first.

Sam ran.

He wondered what kind of confusion he had left behind him at Recton. The codes no longer worked. The phones and radios were inoperable. The cell-phone jammer was still operating, though; he had made sure of that.

The guards were captives in their own prison and unable to tell anyone about it.

He would have laughed out loud if he had had the breath. But he didn’t.

He ran.

The flashing red lights of a fire truck appeared along the boulevard in front of him, partly obscured by the trees in the narrow strip of parkland. Even as he watched, the truck slowed and the lights ceased.

It was only a few hundred yards away now, but the truck slowed further, signaled, and turned left, not right as he had thought, heading down the other side of MacArthur Boulevard rather than taking the shortcut back through Little Falls. No matter. As long as he got there in time.

Eighty yards to go, that was all, and the second truck, a large pumper unit, clearly visible in the glare of the intersection streetlights, turned and moved away in the stream of traffic heading south down the boulevard.

A third fire truck turned and was gone, and then the fourth and last truck signaled and turned while he was still twenty yards away.

The last truck stopped in the through road, giving way to an eighteen-wheeler and a succession of sedans before making the turn.

Sam caught the truck as it was just starting to move, grabbing a chrome bar with one hand and swinging himself up onto the back running board, hanging on, barely, as it accelerated away.

Wind whipped at his hair and threatened to knock him off his perch, but he clung tightly to the round metal bar and pulled himself as close as possible to the body of the truck.

There was no traffic behind him, for which he was grateful, as it might be a bit hard to explain what he was doing there if an alert motorist noticed him.

The traffic was light heading back along Dalecarlia Parkway to Friendship Village, and the trip passed without incident.

He stepped off the back of the truck at the first intersection they came to in the town center, seeing the lights of a taxi stand at the end of the street.

He heard sirens now, not fire but police sirens, only a few blocks away, without doubt sounding for him. Brewer must have found a way to raise the alarm.

Sam strolled casually along to the taxi stand, opening the door and sliding into the backseat of the first cab at the stand.

“Where to, guv’nor?” the driver asked, sounding just like a London cabbie, or at least what Sam’s impression of a London cabbie was like from TV shows and movies. He had a passing feeling that he had seen this driver before, but that was surely impossible.

“The train station,” Sam said calmly. He didn’t want to sound like a prisoner on the run, even if he was one.

“Bethesda or Silver Spring?” the driver asked. “Bethesda is closer, but the express goes through Silver Spring.”

“Bethesda,” Sam answered. He’d checked that out too. The express didn’t run this late at night, but Bethesda was on the red line, and he could catch a train to Union Station. From there he could disappear anywhere he wanted.

“Rightio, Bethesda it is, then, guv,” the driver said, turning around to face him.

He was surprisingly young for a cabdriver, Sam thought. No more than eighteen and completely bald under a peaked cap. His face was long and thin, but there was a glint of a chuckle in his eyes. Sam had never seen him before in his life, and yet …

Then he got it. It was the voice. The accent, it was unmistakable.

The driver grinned, a slightly macabre, almost demonic, smile, even without the face paint. He tilted back his cap, revealing the tattoo of a biohazard symbol on his forehead.

“Skullface!” Sam cried out, and the driver laughed.

“Took your bleedin’ time gettin’ out, ya muppet,” he said. “Another day an’ we’d have had to send you home.”