Vigilante Investigator Series Box Set

by Eden Sharp

  I headed straight for the wooded trail along the upper side. A sponge carpet of sodden dirt absorbed the sounds of my footsteps and I made sure to keep an equal distance away from man and dog as they walked out in the open. The trees provided good cover.

  Once Rawlings had relaxed and the dog was off exploring, I crouched down, picked up a handful of leaf litter and rustled it between my fingers. It was too quiet to give away my presence to Rawlings but the puppy got it. It pricked up its ears and bounded over to the tree line.

  As it approached the shadows it came to a halt, cocking its head to one side. I could see its tail wagging with enthusiasm, so I rustled some more. It gave the ground a cursory sniff then trotted into my general proximity. I sat down slowly and held out a small strip of beef jerky. The tiny Labrador stopped and sniffed, took a step deeper in then stopped again. I threw the piece onto the ground just in front of it. The puppy crept forward, found the dried meat and swallowed it down. I held out my hand again offering more.

  Rawlings called out to it in a high-pitched tone. “Calvin” twitched his tail and turned his head back towards his owner. I wondered if the dog had been named after the French theologian and advocate of predestination, or a cartoon boy with a tiger.

  I patted my leg and the puppy snapped its attention back to my hand with the reward. I threw the bait on the ground again, making it walk a yard nearer. Calvin moved in, ate the jerky and sniffed around looking for another piece. It was now only five feet away from where I sat.

  I patted my leg again and held out another piece. Bolder now, greed overcame it and it trotted up and licked at my outstretched hand.

  When I grabbed it with my spare it jumped and let out a little squeal. I pulled a leash from my front pocket and snapped it on. Time to get out before it made more noise and sent Rawlings over, though I was tempted to jump him and leave him to take himself to ER.

  The puppy strained away from me whimpering and twisting so I rubbed its ear and it began to calm down. I jumped up and jogged down through the trees and back to the street where I was parked. It came along easy enough.

  Back in the car I pulled down my hood and shook out my hair. The puppy looked forlorn and unsure but it settled down on the passenger seat.

  Inside the Stockton Street tunnel the lighting changed the car's interior alternately orange then green. After crossing Sacramento, Chinese restaurants lined either side of the street. Past the junction with Clay, I pulled up outside Ho Lee Liquors. It had always amused me that the store sat two doors down from the Presbyterian Church.

  I coaxed the puppy through the door at the side of the store and led it up the stairs to the apartment above. Lucy Chan met me at the doorway wearing a short fuchsia pink robe. Her hair was almost the same length as its hem.

  I followed on inside into the living area. Snow Patrol emanated from the stereo. Scented candles and votives flickered and formed a circle on a paisley-patterned tray. I sat down on the large red leather couch I had always admired and let the puppy off the leash to sniff and explore its new surroundings.

  'It's cute. I promise to find it a good home,' Lucy said.

  'I appreciate it.'

  ‘What's the story anyhow?'

  'Its owner will be going away and won't be able to take it with him. I'm pretty sure it's good with kids,' I said.

  'You want a drink?'

  'That would be nice.'

  She went off to the kitchen and called the puppy. I heard the sound of water from the faucet and the sound of something being placed on the floor.

  Lucy reappeared with a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses and poured some out. We clinked each other's glasses and knocked back the shots.

  'Ollie will be back in around an hour.'

  I would have liked to have hung out but I had too much to do.

  I shrugged. 'Sorry I can't stay.'

  The puppy bounded into the room, its nose into everything.

  'You're no fun,' Lucy said.

  FOURTEEN

  Back at home I fixed myself a drink then raided my closet for warmer clothes and got comfortable. I ran through my usual check list on my computers. All were secure. Utilizing slave machines, I made some modifications to a virtual network I had originally created to use as a testing platform for various exploit scenarios. Once I'd done that I logged in to a site and scanned down the list. The first few forums were mainly frequented by college kids.

  Carding Tutorials: Cool Programs and Scripts for newbies. This is a big opportunity to learn fast.

  Public Credit Cards: Freebie Section where you can get some working ccv.

  Freebies: Working bank accounts, hacked shop admin logins, RDP, SMTP, Roots, Shells.

  Hackers Lounge: Tutorials, Tools, Scripts, Software, 0day Exploits for web, email etc.

  I stopped and clicked when I reached the link for the Blacklist. I was aware of its existence even before the owner of the PC store mentioned it. It was how I had known his was the best store to hit. I entered my account details when prompted to do so. Entry was strictly by invitation only via the moderators.

  Real-time conversation poured across my monitor from online participants posting in a forum. I read for a while, backtracking through previous topic threads searching for the name the store owner had given me. When I found some of the posts I was looking for, I read through the threads then began my own post using an alias.

  T0rrent42: Been having fun with VNC 4.1.1. exploit. Scanned for vulnerable IPs on LAN range then used Bl4ck VNC Viewer. Check out. 192.168.1.2.5900. Was looking for something really easy. Bypassed authentication and been digging around. Corporate plastic here. Lots of potential for someone with better skillz. If anyone can go deep, let me know! ; -)

  Almost immediately, I got a reply.

  Crack3r: Will do, great! Thanks for sharing.

  I sat back and waited. Over the next fifteen minutes my machine pinged with the odd dribble of responses. Twenty three minutes in and somewhere the person I was looking for fired fingers across a keyboard.

  GriftHawk: Re: VNC exploit post earlier by T0rrent42 - Yeah access on this one is easy. And there's interesting stuff there. I was able to elevate privileges to the max no problem.

  T0rrent42: Wow that's so cool. What's there? Howdya do it?

  GriftHawk: Did you check out my previous posts re: MealWorm? I wrote that.

  T0rrent42: I'd love to be able to write something awesome like that.

  GriftHawk: What's your age btw, I'm 24.

  T0rrent42: I'm 16. Still at school. Been trying to learn as much as I can. Lot of clever stuff here. Blacklist's so cool.

  GriftHawk: I'll check you out again next time I'm around and post some tips.

  T0rrent42: Want to write all my own tools. Don't want to be a script kiddie for ever!

  GriftHawk: Ha ha, show a n00b the ropes? Look out for some more cool stuff from me soon.

  T0rrent42: Awesome thanks. Do you have FB btw?

  GriftHawk: Here is best.

  T0rrent42: OK.

  Human beings have built-in responses and perform exactly like computers do, according to their programming. Provide something valuable and allow someone the ability to demonstrate their perceived superiority and they'll willingly perform. Best of all, the act is executed unconsciously. Just like the invisible little program which had back-hacked and traced a clear route through to my attack target, and which had circumvented a security system which should have raised all kinds of hell via intrusion alerts. All it had taken was a virtual set up pretending to be an office network of some bogus firm.

  I now had full access. The first task was to set the webcam to record which it did with no indication of any kind. The camera would send back data even if the machine was powered down, which it probably never was.

  The second job was just to dig around. Grifthawk's mails proved very interesting. Some contained little more than bragging: Cops came and took away my hard drives, came up empty, ha ha.

  But others? You could take
those all the way to the bank.

  I was pretty tired but I needed to stay awake for just a little bit longer. I crawled into bed, propped herself up, logged on to my regular laptop and typed Mykola Zlenko into a search. A list of hits appeared. I scrolled down reviewing the results then copied and pasted relevant paragraphs into a blank document. I read through what I'd noted down.

  Mykola Zlenko, born 1966 in Kiev, Ukraine. Known by police since his early years for torturing animals, robbery and grievous assault.

  As an adult, did three years in prison for selling currencies on the black market and another term of four years in prison for extortion offenses.

  Became a U.S. citizen by marriage in 1998 and made deals with struggling businesses which he then bought up cheap. Made several millions from these and is suspected of using them as fronts for illegal activities such as weapons smuggling, prostitution, gambling, drugs and black market items.

  In 2001 he was acquitted of murdering his then wife, Maria Castenada. He later married Jackie Anderson, whereabouts currently unknown.

  He is suspected of ordering, if not participating in directly, the death of Akim Tselkov, a rival gang leader who was buried up to his neck in woodland and tortured over several hours before being killed. Puncture marks in the skull suggested the multiple weapons used were screwdrivers.

  The F.B.I. has set up a joint task force with the Ukrainian Police in an attempt to combat organized crime emanating from Eastern Europe. A spokesperson said, "Russian-speaking mafia's traditional emphasis on crimes such as drug and arms trafficking has shifted to cybercrimes."

  I must have dozed off because I felt myself jolt and then realized my back was stiff from sleeping propped up against cushions. I checked the time and was disappointed to find I had only been asleep for a couple of hours.

  I put away the laptop, threw the cushions off the bed and tried to get comfortable but my mind wouldn't shut down which was often the case. Probably because the artificial light hitting my brain at unnatural hours had upset my internal equilibrium.

  I gave up and went to check on my computer. It revealed an alert for incoming data. I reviewed the download. The initial stuff was boring, but then someone had gotten hungry last night. Had wanted a pizza with six different toppings. I listened as Grifthawk's whiny voice relayed his location to the order taker on the phone.

  John Knox

  Knox woke himself up shouting, his body jerking, and fell off the side of the bed. He shuffled backwards, the sheet bunched inside his fist, until he was up against the wall where he pressed himself into the corner, sweat dripping from his body.

  When he had first come home, he had dreamed of snipers or the outpost being breached, or felt the hand of a colleague grabbing his ankle to wake him for a shift.

  Initially the dislocate of the place in his head not matching where he found himself when he woke caused him very real but momentary panic.

  For a couple of months he'd taken to making a bed on the floor, tight into the corner against the wall, trying to recreate an environment he was used to. He hoped it would stop the transition from the world in his head to his new reality being such a shock to his system.

  Now he just dreamed about dust. Big suffocating clouds of it. Dust that made your chest hurt and your eyes and nose drip. Over and over he saw a child's body crumpling into the dust, then a cloud of red mist and dust where a kid should be. Dust and blood and remnants all mixing together in the dirt.

  FIFTEEN

  Knox shifted in his seat, waiting to be called. He wasn't sure how Dan had talked him into it. He anticipated another long hour of awkward silences where he refused to spill his guts to a stranger. At least he wasn't paying for it.

  Someone had once told him that you rarely see yourself in dreams, only others. That if you do, it's significant. You can practice though. The trick is to concentrate on seeing your hands.

  Last night, between bouts of insomnia, when sinking in and out of blackness, he'd dreamed he was watching a video tape of himself killing the kid. It had played on a continual loop until he'd screamed at it to stop.

  He saw her face, the eyes filled with confusion, saw her body crumple, the neat black hole he'd made in her forehead, then watched her flesh dissipate into a red mist of bloody remnants, mixing in with the desert dust.

  The image had morphed into a photograph. Now her bloodied torso filled the bottom left-hand corner, her head out of shot. His attention fixed on shafts of slim light and shadows lining the empty two thirds. They were somehow more significant.

  He held the picture at arm’s length to force an even greater distance, maybe to remove himself from his guilt. His reticence to look was becoming more apparent because all the time his attention was zooming out until he only noticed his own thumb and forefinger and outstretched arm. The image retreated until he was no longer sure what it portrayed.

  He found he was the one taking the photograph with an old Polaroid camera. Shaking it. Waiting for the picture to emerge. Peering at the gray shapes beginning to form into some semblance of meaning.

  Now he discovered himself standing in a makeshift morgue, breathing in a smell he was uncomfortably familiar with. Yet somehow it seemed muted, as though somewhere in the timespan between a living human being and a bloody corpse it had lost its potency. The blood and flesh was now so cold it was hard to imagine the life before extinction, the distance was too great.

  Her body lay covered by a white sheet. He lifted its edge carefully out of reverence for her dignity. She looked at him accusingly.

  It wasn't as if anyone had ordered him to do it. She knew that, her face told him so. It was bloated and off-color, smoke still rising from the gaping hole, the death mark he'd put on her.

  He imagined her how she had been in life, walking towards him in all innocence, yet the image slipped away rapidly giving way to the grotesque mask. He replaced the sheet and closed his eyes. A stifled breath caught in his throat. He felt guilty when no tears came even as his chest and throat were tightening, as though somehow she might be disappointed in him. He turned away and headed for the door.

  Something made him stop. A realization he was no longer alone.

  Angela McGlynn sat up on the stainless steel table. Her legs slid delicately off the side as if she'd been a debutante. He turned round, a mild panic rising in his throat as he forced himself to look.

  The sheet was now wrapped seductively around a marble-smooth body, off-the-shoulder, the face made-up model slick.

  He'd felt as if he were suffocating, his nose and mouth filling up with dust, his lungs collapsing in on themselves. Paralyzed, there was nothing he could do to save himself. He'd made a last ditch attempt at breathing and then found himself on his bedroom floor retching, back peddling for the feel of something solid to his back. The sweat had poured from his body and made him shiver.

  Desire. Life. Death. They were all the same thing in the dark.

  Susan Loomis opened her office door, smiled and invited him in. Today she was wearing a brightly patterned dress rather than the somber suit from last time. Maybe trying a softer approach.

  'So how have you been?'

  Here we go then. Last night I dreamed my new boss was a corpse. You see doc, I'm being haunted by this kid I shot.

  'Good,' he said.

  'Any troubling thoughts, anything causing you to feel anxiety about. . .'

  'I don't really know why I'm here again, what else I'm meant to say.'

  'Whatever you choose to. Whatever helps.'

  'I'm not sure this is going to help.'

  'I understand you must be feeling...'

  'You think you know how I feel?'

  'I understand you must be feeling some anxiety otherwise you wouldn't be here. And that it can be hard to voice those anxieties. But people often find that once they make a start it gets easier to talk about them which often goes some way to reducing the intensity of those feelings.'

  'I don't know where to start.'

  'Y
ou were diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder on discharge from military service.'

  'Yeah.'

  'The usual symptoms include upsetting memories, flashbacks, even nightmares. Are you experiencing any of these?'

  'I have nightmares sometimes yes.'

  'What do you dream about?'

  'Events.'

  'From your time in Afghanistan.'

  'Yes.'

  'Does your anxiety ever manifest physically?'

  'Like?'

  'Palpitations, hyperventilation, panic attacks?'

  'Only when I wake up from a nightmare.'

  'Not going about your everyday business.'

  'No.'

  'What is your current line of work?'

  'Bodyguard.'

  'Does any of it bring back traumatic events from the war?'

  Knox felt like laughing.

  'The trauma mainly involves listening to rich kids with an overwhelming sense of entitlement bitch about their overly paranoid parents or whine about their fake problems. I find it hard sometimes watching the rest of the world carrying on normally when I know what human beings are capable of.'

  'So you don't enjoy it?'

  'No.'

  'Maybe you could find some other line of work, or go back to college, maybe find a new focus?'

  'The only thing I know how to do is kill people. The future seems a little limited.'

  'Have you considered taking some medication to help you sleep?'

  'I don't need doping.'

  'Tell me how you feel after one of your nightmares.'

  'All right. Last night I woke up and felt like heavy weights were caving in my chest. Like my skin had been stripped away.'