The Housewife Assassin's Killer App (29 page)

When we get to the doorway, Jack runs his hands around it, looking for wires that may indicate that we’re walking into a powder keg. “Let me go in first,” he murmurs.
 

We hear laughter coming from the inside, then a male’s deep voice: “Not to worry, Mr. Craig. I didn’t send for you in order to kill you in the middle of nowhere. Besides, I could have done that anywhere.”

He’s got a point. We both know it.
 

Jack opens the door and enters slowly. When he gives me the high sign, I follow him in.

The Mad Hacker is a woman.

She can’t be more than twenty-four, maybe twenty-five years old. Her hair, cropped short, is a florescent shade of red. She wears large-framed black glasses, and she has several nose rings. She wears ripped jeans and an oversized boat-neck sweatshirt.

Still, I recognize her.

It is Nymphette—the receptionist from Shazaaaam.

We hold up our arms in case she wants to search us, but she shrugs. “I already know you’re not carrying.”

“How?” I ask.

“I’ve been tracking you via satellite for some time now.” A faint smile rises on her lips. “It’s why I chose to work with you.”

Jack frowns. “You chose
us
?”

“Yes. Mainly because of your long and contentious relationship with our current IC director.” Nymphette gives me a pitying look.
 

Tell me about it, sistah.

“The largest file on Carl Stone’s computer is one that documents everything that has happened to you since he faked his death,” she adds. “He has always watched you, some way—if not in person, it’s been via satellite. His comments beside his surveillance notes and photos were love letters—at first, anyway. Not so much since Jack entered the picture. Still, Acme was smart to embed Jack with you.” She shrugs. “Next time, shoot to kill. Think about how many lives would have been saved if you had.”

“I’ll bring it up at the next visit with my shrink,” I promise her and myself.

“In our line of work, it’s best that we wait for government clearance on a target. But trust me, regarding Carl, we are so there,” Jack assures her.
 

“By the way, I apologize for having breached your cell phone, and for reaching out to you through Jeff’s game subscription, but I had to play it safe after your OS system was changed.”

So she’s the one who texted me as if she was Jack, to make the chocolate cake. Shaking my head, I laugh. “Yes, well, now it’s got a beta-version of iOS. But I’ve turned it off until Arnie runs a security clearance.”

“Good idea. Those suckers can be downright possessive—and jealous.” She chuckles. I dumped mine after it started scanning and measuring my dates’, um, fifth appendage.”

“Oh, really?” By the time Jack’s eyes have shifted to me, his brow is an inch higher on his forehead.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” I murmur. “Hal thinks you’re hung—I mean, that you’ve hung the moon.”

He smirks at my poor attempt at a joke.

That’s okay. He and Hal can go at it later.

“Breaking into the IC database is a pretty serious offense. Why did you do it?” Jack asks.

Nymphette blushes. “I had to erase a file.”
 

“Project Clark Kent,” I guess.

“Yes. The NSA gave it this stupid name. Like, duh, talk about obvious.” Susan rolls her eyes. “It is the IC’s surveillance file on all the journalists around the world who report on human rights violations. But it’s much more far-reaching than the reporters in totalitarian dictatorships like China or Russia or Iran—many who are beaten, or imprisoned, or even killed for what they write. You’d be blind if you hadn’t noticed the number of prosecutions going on in our own country against those who choose to be whistleblowers on corruption within our own government. Carl Stone is widening the net to include US-based human rights journalists—yet another justification for the large-scale surveillance system he’s put into place.”

I murmur, “Count on Carl to stifle the First Amendment—freedom of speech.” Twenty-six more to go.
 

“I know this, first hand.” She hands us a picture of a young man—around her age, curly blond hair. He sits at laptop, typing away. “Mike Willoughby. He is—was, a freelance journalist, working for
Mother Jones
. An anonymous lead told him about the IC database vulnerabilities. The source claimed it was an inside job and had proof. To verify it, I had to hack in.” She looks away so that we don’t see the tears in her eyes. “The night before his story was to be submitted to the Clark Kent League, he was taken from his apartment. His body was found beaten and shot in the forehead, just a few blocks from it.”

Jack thinks for a minute. “I’ve never heard of the Clark Kent League.”
 

Nymphette smiles. “Not many people have, by design. It’s a nonprofit organization made up of a motley crew of cypherpunks—cryptographers like me, who believe in upholding free speech at all costs, even if it’s our lives. We’ve made it our mission to safeguard the privacy of human rights journalists and their sources. To do so, we create anonymity software and build and maintain firewalls on their storage clouds and accounts.”

“It’s got to be a pretty expensive endeavor,” I say.

“It is, and we thank God we’re fully and generously funded. We have the best kind of benefactor—one who asks no questions, is timely with the checks, and best of all, anonymous.” Her smile fades. “At the same time, we’ve got a big task ahead of us if the IC database vulnerabilities are proof. Before Acme got involved, the IC’s internal investigation was nonexistent. But that was to be expected, considering who’s behind it.”
 

“You mean Carl,” I murmur.

She nods.

“If so, he’s done a good job making it look as if Susan was the culprit,” Jack counters.

 
“In fact, Susan was the source of the malware—unwittingly, as it turns out,” Nymphette insists. “She and Carl became an item. As you can imagine, for a small town girl—from Bell Buckle, Tennessee—the DI was quite a catch. She knew an interoffice affair could get her fired, but he wooed her heavily. He complimented her in front of all the top brass, flirted with her constantly, kept her late at the office, and then invited her out to dinner—just two colleagues sharing a meal after a long day at work. Then, one day, after she knocks it out of the ballpark with some project, he invites her back to his place, to make her dinner. ‘My way of thanking you,’ he said.” Nymphette shrugs. “You’ve seen his palace and tasted his chocolate soufflé. Well, you can imagine what Susan from the Sticks was thinking.”

“Yes, that she finally met Mister Right.” Jack shakes his head in anger.

“Exactly. One thing leads to another…” Nymphette shakes her head sadly. “The love story goes on for another month or two. Then suddenly, he grows distant. She can’t understand why, and she’ll do anything to keep him happy—even when he asks her to make love to another man. Carl told her the guy knew of their affair and was jealous. He promised if she went to bed with him, the man could never make trouble for her or get her fired, because he’d be in the same position. She’s mortified, but she goes through with it. Mr. Hyde goes away, and Dr. Jekyll is back. One day, Carl leaves a tiny Tiffany ring box on her desk. Her heart goes pitter-patter. She opens it, only to find it contains a thumb drive, not the ring she’d hoped for. She puts it in her computer—”

“And it releases the malware,” I murmur.

“Go to the head of the class. To add insult to injury, it’s a video of her, favoring the favor. Talk about insubordination! Not only is she viewing porn on an IC computer, she’s starring in it!” Nymphette shrugs. “Carl had Susan right where he wanted her—under his thumb. A month later, an analyst drops a file on her desk regarding Operation Clark Kent. She thinks the name is cute, so she reads it, realizes we may be the people who can help her, so she reaches out. I vet her and her story, find my way into the system, and delete the file. Lo and behold, I find Roger’s footprints. I leave enough clues that enough people are pointing fingers, and I wait for the white hats to show up.” She grins. “That’s you, by the way.”

“We’re glad you think so,” Jack smiles back. “You could have gotten in, deleted the file, and gone back out of the database, and no one would have been the wiser.”
 

She smiles. “The hacker Carl used—Roger White, from Shazaaaam—left a cyber-footprint that was so big, it could have been left by Sasquatch. Like you, I infiltrated Shazaaaam just so I could access his computer and monitor his activities with Carl.”

“Why did Carl use Roger?” Jack asks.

“Apparently, Carl had worked with him before. Roger—a.k.a. Dimitri Pogodov—was embedded here in the U.S. during Putin’s first presidency. His gaming industry gig is a wonderful cover, since his job entails international travel to countries where much of Shazaaaam’s cheap tech labor is jobbed out—including Russia.”

I shrug. “Makes sense. Carl needed someone with the technical expertise to access the IC database, and the person had to be from the outside.”

“Shazaaaam’s large subscriber base was an added bonus,” Nymphette adds. “When necessary, he encoded encrypted messages right into the games, which were then accessed by Quorum assets and operatives all over the world.”

“How do the IC files fit in?”

“The VIP game keys went to Quorum members who will now act as middlemen between Carl and the countries, and terrorist organizations with the deepest pockets—Russia, say, or China, North Korea, the Arab Emirates. They need to know what the US has on them, as well as the intel on U.S. operatives, assets, surveillance capabilities, weaponry and missile defense plans to be used against in their countries.”

“So, what you’re saying is that he’s parceling out the intel into sellable batches?” Jack asks.

“That won’t get him nearly as much as a winner-take-all scenario,” I murmur.

Nymphette nods. “You hit it right on the head. The highest bidder walks away with, quite literally, our country’s ‘killer app.’”

Awed, Jack shakes his head. “Why did you leave the cryptic
Wonderland
clues?”

“Would anyone have believed me—or for that matter, you—if I’d just sent around an email that said, ‘Hey, everybody, it’s that guy, over there, who oversees your intelligence agencies’? Besides, I knew a system-wide vulnerability would make Carl look bad—particularly if the trail led back to his private office. Susan was fine with it because she knew it was the only way to take Carl down.”
 

I sigh. “Brave girl.”
 

Nymphette nods. “We helped her disappear into thin air, and prayed the clues would be solved before he found her.” She wipes away a tear. “I didn’t count on Carl finding her before Acme broke my Vigenèr cipher. But now you’re here, I can give you the proof you need.”

“Good, because we’ll certainly need it,” Jack declares. “As for Carl, do we still have time to stop him from selling the intel to the highest bidder?”
 

“Yes, but barely! You’ll have to move fast. In fact, I—” She pauses. Something on one of the many monitors has caught her eye.
 

She moves toward it, and swipes it with her hand to enlarge it.

We can all see it, even in dusk: a drone.

“It’s a switchblade drone,” she explains. “It’s got both facial recognition capability, and carries laser-guided bombs.” She stares at us. “Your son’s Shazaaaam subscription—did he access it through his iPad?”

I shake my head. “He has a new MacBook Air—”

Oh, hell.

Carl.

Nymphette crouches down. The next thing I know, she’s clawing at the floor, flinging open a three-foot-square door. “Down the ladder. You’ll be some twenty feet underground. The tunnel is about two miles long. It’ll take you back to the road, about a quarter-mile from where you left your car. Go
now!”

We’ve crawled down the steps before we realize she hasn’t followed us. “What about you?” Jack asks.

“From the looks of things, I’ve got another four minutes before this place blows sky high. I’ve got to grab a few things first. Get going!” She slams down the hatch. Case closed.

The tunnel is dimly lit.
A
s we run through it, I pray I will hear her footsteps behind us.
 

But no, I don’t.

We emerge from the tunnel just as the drone’s missile hits its target. The explosion propels a fireball into the starry night sky.

The Mad Hacker has been annihilated.

The lack of rain makes tinder of the tall pines. We stumble out of the forest, through the smoke and flames, and somehow find our way back to the car.

Sparks shower down upon us as we floor it back to Acme headquarters.
 

Nymphette was right to chide us for letting Carl slip through our fingers, based on the technicality that the world never seems to see him the way we do.

To make this point, she is now another who has paid with her life.

Our proof that he’s behind the IC database breach just went up in smoke.

“Something appears to be wrong with your GPS system,” I inform Jack just as we’re emerging from the western edge of the San Bernardino Forest.