Blur

by Orlando A. Sanchez

  “Morning John,” he said, through a yawn.

  “Good morning Jerry. How is everything in the virtual world?”

  “On a kick ass task force that is making me reconsider online gaming. Six hours and we just finished. These pugs are killing me.” said Jerry.

  John nodded as if he understood half of what Jerry was saying.

  “I need a computer, one in the back, please.” said John.

  “Sure thing, you can have that one over there” Jerry said, as he pointed to a computer in the back corner. “Number seven, it’s kind of private.”

  John paid for an hour and thanked Jerry. He sat in front of the machine; the flat screen took up little space. John remembered when monitors were huge affairs, boxes that took up all of the desk space. He took out the glasses case he carried. In it was a pair of non-prescription glasses that looked like reading glasses, in a compartment behind the glasses were the devices Mole made for him. They looked like the remote receivers for a wireless mouse. He plugged them both in to the USB ports provided and waited. One was an ISP scrambler that allowed John to access sensitive material from any computer without it being traced back to the computer he was on. The other was a hard disk bypass, effectively erasing the presence of John every five seconds.

  John called Mole from his throwaway cell, punching in the sequence of numbers that would let Mole know he was at the computer. The ISP scrambler also allowed Mole the ability to track John and speak with him via computer, a much faster and smoother version of Skype. An avatar appeared on the screen. Justice blindfolded. In her hands instead of scales, she held an AK47. John smiled.

  “Hello John.” the words flashed in the text box.

  “Hello Mole, are you ready? I think the disc probably has some tracing program so find ED.”

  ED wasn’t a person but meant extremely dangerous and potentially life threatening.

  “ED is close by. I will keep him on standby in case he needs to step in.” said Mole.

  “Inserting disc.” said John as he placed the CD in the reader.

  “More than just a trace program, but not an issue for ED.”

  There was a brief pause then the text flew on to the screen.

  “Oh shit, you need to see this then get out of there, fast.” said Mole.

  John pulled the keyboard closer and his fingers sped over the keys of their own accord.

  “OK I bought myself a little time, Mole. What’s up?” said John.

  There was a pause. “Elegant grandpa, but it won’t fake them out long.” said Mole.

  John had launched a program that would send burst transmissions from different network hubs every ten seconds. It was a virtual goose chase.

  “Long enough, what’s on the disc?” said John.

  A window opened and then enlarged to fill the screen. The screen was black for a moment then showed the perspective of a street corner.

  “Mole find out where this was taken.” said John.

  “Already on it, looks like Upper west side, 96th St. and Columbus.”

  “I didn’t realize there were cameras on that corner.” said John.

  “Oh this isn’t your regular run of the mill NYPD camera install. This is more along the lines of Hello 1984, welcome home George Orwell type of tech. These cameras are installed in the lights.”

  “Which lights?”

  “You know, red means stop, green means go.” said Mole.

  “In the lights?” said John.

  The screen suddenly came to life; John could tell it was early evening. Mole was right; the picture quality surpassed everything he had seen out there except maybe Eclipse or Consortium level tech.

  “Can you tell who made the tech, it’s too good to be military or even black ops.”

  “Give me a day or two and I will find out who the little bugger is that made this.” said Mole.

  The image panned left then right. John looked at the counter on the computer screen next to the image. He had fifteen minutes before he had to disconnect. Fortunately there were only eight minutes left on the disc. It was going to be close with a seven minute window. The image panned right and stopped. John was impressed as the image zoomed in on a face and showed the telltale signs of face recognition software.

  “Face recog?” John asked Mole.

  “Down to the last pimple, this blows away anything overseas. Whoever this is, they are heavily funded. This isn’t supposed to be available at this level for another five years,” said Mole.

  John didn’t recognize the face even though the software did. The name came up as Adam Brown. John knew it was an alias. Adam had that everyman type of face, non-descript, average, average height, average build. The perfect type of asset was the one that could blend into a crowd easily and be forgotten.

  Suddenly a figure appeared next to Adam much to his surprise, which was considerable given that it registered on his face and he was a trained asset. The figure’s face was covered by a baseball cap as if he or she knew of the camera’s existence.

  “Male or female, Mole?” said John.

  “I can’t tell I’m going for very thin male or very strong female.” said Mole.

  The figure stood next to Adam and said something into his ear.

  “Mole.” said John.

  “On it, the mystery figure is saying… This is not personal.”

  “What isn’t personal?” thought John.

  Adam turned to strike the figure when it seemed for a brief moment the disc skipped some seconds. John looked at the counter, nothing had skipped. He moved the cursor back a few seconds just to make sure.

  “John, what the hell was that? Did I just not see what I saw?”

  A few seconds later, Adam fell crumpled to the ground. He was dead before he hit the floor. John knew what had happened. He just couldn’t believe it.

  “Mole, it’s time to go. I will contact you later for the manufacturer of the camera.” said John.

  “Sure thing.” said Mole subdued. “John this is not good. I know that isn’t you, but –”

  “Later.” said John. He packed his things, removed the bypass and ISP scrambler. He looked around making sure he was alone.

  John knew where Mole was going, he had just witnessed someone use a technique that was known only to him. He replayed the few seconds once again, conscious of the timer counting down.

  There was no doubt, the mystery figure could blur.

  John had about three minutes to exit the Fedex Kinkos. It gave him enough time to thank Jerry and walk out the door. As he made his way to the sidewalk, two cars pulled up silently. John now far enough away to watch, saw the three men and one woman get out in a measured pace. He could tell from the way the men waited for the woman that she was running this group.

  John managed to take her picture with the phone and send it to Mole. Then he broke the phone into its component pieces making sure to remove any type of SIM card and throwing the pieces of the phone down the sewer grating.

  The group entered the Fedex Kinkos with practiced ease, this was a federal or anti cyber terrorist squad. They were highly trained, which concerned John.

  Who would mobilize that fast?

  More importantly who had the technical muscle to track him, despite his precautions? This didn’t feel like Trevor. He needed to make some calls after he found out who the woman was.

  Chapter Four

  Mikaela Petrovich entered the Fedex Kinkos with her team. She stood at the counter with measured poise while her team fanned out beside her. She waited patiently for an entire minute, before indicating to Gustav, with a nod that she wanted to speak to someone. Gustav had been with her the longest. They understood each other and she rarely had to give him verbal instructions. Gustav stood six foot two inches, and tipped the scale at two hundred and forty pounds. He was a giant compared to Mikaela’s five foot stature. In moments a startled Jerry appeared from the back office with Gustav trailing behind. Mikaela had the gift of a photographic memory. She scanned her memory
for a moment to see if Jerry was somehow relevant to her, and decided he wasn’t.

  “Hello, Jerry is it?” she said as she read the name tag.

  “Yeah, how can I help you?” he answered looking warily at the two men beside Mikaela.

  “There was a person using a terminal in this location exactly,” she looked at her watch, “ten minutes ago.” Jerry looked around to terminal seven where John no longer was. He decided it was in his best interest to cooperate.

  “Yeah, there’s a guy who comes every so often. He was on terminal seven.”

  Mikaela motioned to the two men beside her and they made their way to the terminal. Once there, they began to dismantle and remove the terminal.

  “Hey! You guys can’t do that! I’m responsible for it if something happens!” yelled Jerry.

  Mikaela stood quietly observing her team.

  “I understand and I don’t want to cause you unnecessary problems. Have your supervisor call me when he gets in.” she said.

  She handed Jerry a business card. Embossed on it was her name, M. Petrovich and a direct number. The two men walked out with the terminal. Gustav stepped around the counter to stand beside Mikaela.

  “This is a matter of national security, Jerry. We appreciate your cooperation,” said Mikaela.

  “Yeah sure,” he said as he looked down at the card Mikaela had given him. Mikaela turned with Gustav behind her. When she stepped outside the Fedex Kinkos, she paused and scanned the street and adjacent sidewalk. Across the street was a figure whose face was obscured by the brim of a baseball cap looking her way. For a brief moment the figure turned and Mikaela was able to see part of the face clearly. She filed that away in her memory in case it was relevant.

  Chapter Five

  John made his way to another mobile phone outlet a few blocks away. They were cropping up all over these days. He bought two pay as you go cell phones and activated one. He put in a SIM card that created a scrambled signal. It was another one of Mole’s devices. He punched in a sequence of numbers that connected him to Mole.

  “Hey there John, using the scrambler, excellent.” said Mole.

  “Remember, old not stupid, at least not yet.” said John.

  “Got it, the photo you sent over with your craptastic camera phone took a while.”

  “Were you able to find out who she is?”

  “I said your phone was craptastic. My stuff on the other hand is phenomenal.” said Mole.

  “Congratulations. Do we have a name?”

  “Thank you. Her name is Mikaela Petrovich.”

  “Who does she work for, who has that kind of response time?”

  “That’s the interesting part; she doesn’t exist, at least not officially.” said Mole.

  John expected that, so her official black status didn’t surprise him.

  “Is she part of the alphabet soup?” said John.

  John was referring to the numerous three letter government agencies that contained covert operatives.

  “Doesn’t look like it. Plus Uncle Sam is probably still trying to unscramble the signal. These people were there inside fifteen minutes, scary fast.” said Mole.

  John thought for a moment.

  “If this isn’t government maybe it’s a private contractor, could it be Eclipse?” said John.

  “Not their M.O. Plus why would they be interested in you?” said Mole.

  “Find out who she is and who she works for. I don’t like the fact that they got here so fast.” said John.

  “I’ll get on it.” said Mole.

  It was a good point, John had never done any work officially for Eclipse International, the contract he violated was through a third party broker and was untraceable back to him, he made sure of that. It was also unlikely they knew what was on the disc.

  “I found something hold on a sec.” said Mole.

  John could hear the keystrokes that meant Mole was processing information.

  “It’s encrypted to hell but it could be worth checking out.” said Mole.

  “What is it?” said John.

  “It’s a company name and address. Double Helix, the address is 65 Crescent Street, near the Queensboro Bridge in Long Island City. I don’t think it’s related to your guests. This came over in a transmission while you were on the computer. This is some badass work John.” said Mole.

  John knew the area. It was an industrial park located in West Queens, when some large corporations saw the edge of Queens as a promising location to place some of their facilities. In its heyday, about twenty five years earlier, it was a thriving area. Now it was mostly deserted, especially at night.

  “This smells like a trap John, at the very least a dangerous clue. The encryption was weird, specific yet vague, like a test. I don’t like it. That transmission probably caused the visit.” said Mole.

  John had learned early on to trust Mole on matters such as these. He still had to go.

  “Duly noted, I will be extra careful Mole.”

  “Well, don’t go jumping through hoops for me.”

  John smiled. He knew it was Mole’s way of showing concern.

  “I will connect when I get there.”

  “Ok, don’t get dead,” answered Mole and hung up.

  Chapter Six

  Long Island City had changed considerably since John last visited. What used to be primordially an industrial area, factories and offices was trying its hardest to transform into an up and coming residential neighborhood. Getting there was easy, John took the 7 train headed to Manhattan and got off at Queensboro Plaza. He was careful to change his route enough to lose any obvious tail, knowing that the possibility of surveillance still existed. He wasn’t really concerned about it. Trevor would be watching, he proceeded as if this were the default state and acted accordingly.

  Crescent Street was one of those key streets that intersected into the plaza. During the day it was congested with traffic heading into Manhattan via the 59th Street Bridge. Now however at 7pm, it was mostly deserted, with traffic heading into Queens mostly.

  65 Crescent Street was a new addition to the neighborhood. As far as the area went, it was small and nondescript. Standing four stories, it seemed like a displaced brownstone from the Upper East Side of Manhattan and looked out of place in this neighborhood. The only feature that set it apart from its neighbors was the smoked glass façade.

  That façade didn’t come cheap. He walked up to the entrance, figuring the direct approach was best. The door was plain with no distinguishing features. It was also heavy and secure. John could tell the owners took their privacy seriously. Above the door was a camera, it angled to take in the entire doorway and some of the street. To the right of the doorway sat a small glass panel roughly eight inches by eight inches. John’s internal alarms, while not fully set off were on edge. Something was off about this whole situation. If he were honest he could trace this feeling of unease to the moment he viewed the footage on the disc.

  He knew rationally that what he saw should not have been possible. Nakamura Sensei was a stern and unforgiving teacher. The fact that he accepted John as a student was a matter of John’s potential and some other hidden reason he never shared. Nakamura Sensei, even with his abrasive manner, had no lack of people waiting to train under him. He would interview prospective students, one or two a year, and was unrelentingly brutal. Many failed his grueling training in the first month. Tall for an Asian, standing at five foot eleven, he was thin and wiry. He moved with an easy grace that belied his amazing speed and incredible strength. His hair was always cut short and he was always dressed impeccably and more often than not in traditional garments. His features were typically Asian, and his eyes held an intensity that burned into you. His English, like his Japanese, French, Spanish and Italian were flawless.

  John always wondered about the languages Nakamura Sensei knew. He asked him once, the answer, given tersely, was to focus on his training not languages.

  Given Sensei’s disposition would he have traine
d another in the okuden – the hidden techniques of his family’s art? John couldn’t see it. The problem with that scenario is that it left John as the only one with the ability to erase assets. Even though he didn’t have motive, he had plenty of opportunity. Trevor’s warning was clear: find who was doing the killing or become the one implicated. He took out his phone and called Mole.

  “Hello John, how does it look?” said Mole.

  “It doesn’t. This place is pretty secure. Take a look.”

  John took a picture of the front of the building with his phone and sent it to Mole.

  “Seriously John, do you even plan on investing in a real phone with a semi decent camera?”

  “It’s on my to do list Mole. What do you think?” said John.

  “Well that doesn’t look inviting. Are you sure it’s the right address? I know how you senior citizens get things mixed up. You aren’t at 56 Crescent, right?” said Mole.

  John let that one go, knowing his silence would answer.

  “Ok, ok. Let me see here. You see that panel on the right? It’s a handprint reader. That’s the lock. The door is on a pneumatic release. If you have the right print, you have access.” said Mole.

  “Isn’t this a bit sophisticated; I mean we’re in Queens, not Langley.” said John.

  “Not anymore it isn’t but it does say something about whomever these people are, they like their privacy.” John agreed.

  “What’s the plan? No way can I hack that interface even if I were there next to you.” said Mole.

  “I know, only one thing to try.” said John.

  John placed his right hand on the glass panel. An imprint of his hand remained on the panel in a blue fluorescent after image. It was quickly followed by the image of a DNA strand. The symbolism was not lost on John, a double helix.

  There was a shifting of mechanisms on the other side of the door followed by a low hiss. The door swung inward.