Car Wars

by Mike Brogan

  He paused. Would the police see him leave? Would they recognize him even with the blond wig and full beard?

  Maybe he should hide out in his panic rooms twelve feet beneath his basement. They’d never find its tiny entrance. He’d stocked the rooms with everything he’d need for more than two-months.

  He reviewed his options and made his decision.

  * * *

  Agent Shaw checked his GPS map - Bruner’s house was one block away.

  Shaw signaled the Considine Great Lakes Cruises van driver to park behind a corner house, four doors from Bruner’s house. From this angle, Bruner could not see them approach, unless he had hidden cameras like his CCTV network at his Upper Peninsula cabin.

  The SWAT teams hurried toward Bruner’s house. Shaw checked his SIG and signaled his SWAT team to split up and proceed to Bruner’s front and side doors.

  Then Shaw saw something and whispered “FREEZE!” in his headset mic.

  Everyone halted.

  Twenty feet ahead, three small kids played kickball in the yard next to Bruner’s house. An elderly woman watched the toddlers. She turned, saw their FBI windbreakers and weapons, and grew terrified.

  Shaw flashed his badge, signaled her to remain quiet and rush the children inside fast. The woman nodded and tried to hustle the kids inside, but a two-year-old boy started screaming in protest. She scooped him up and carried the crying kid inside.

  Did the screamer alert Bruner?

  Shaw checked Bruner’s window curtains. They did not move.

  But they’d lost another minute.

  He led the team up to Bruner’s front door. A team member positioned his Blackhorn battering ram to bust open the door, but Shaw signaled he’d try the door handle first. He turned the handle and the door opened.

  Is this a trap?

  Step inside and trigger the explosive? No time for a bomb-disposal unit.

  “Four minutes!” Agent Hayden whispered.

  Shaw stepped inside. No bomb. No alarm. No one in sight.

  He heard the side door open and a team member whisper “Clear” in his headset.

  Soon after, he heard “Clear!” “Clear!” “Clear!” as they checked the kitchen, bathroom and dining room.

  Bruner was not on the first floor.

  On his headset, Shaw heard a team member say, “Basement clear.”

  Which left the second floor.

  Shaw’s team moved upstairs and quickly cleared two small bedrooms and a bathroom.

  He turned toward the only other room at the end of the hall. Door closed. The FBI team approached it, slid a skinny snakelike LongPole camera under the door and extended it fifteen feet into the room. The camera revealed several large-screen Mac computers – all running. They saw no one in the room. But the camera couldn’t reveal the back corner. Was Bruner hiding back there?

  Would entering trigger an explosion?

  How much time?

  He checked and felt his throat close up.

  “Three minutes!”

  On Shaw’s count, the SWAT team burst in. Empty. Bruner not there. Just his computers . . . all running.

  “Turn them off!” Shaw shouted.

  The IT team hurried to the five computers and started trying to stop the programs.

  “Pull the plugs from the backs of the computers.”

  Shaw waited . . .

  “We pulled them but they’re still running!”

  “Delete the programs!”

  “They won’t delete!”

  “Cut power to the house!”

  Team members ran into the other rooms, looking for the fuse box, while others again tried to delete the running programs, but still couldn’t.

  Seconds later, someone shouted, “I just cut outside power to the house!”

  “The computers are still running!”

  “He’s got a back up generator or alternative power source somewhere!” Shaw shouted. “Listen for the whirring and turn it off!”

  “If it’s a gas-generator, have Romulus try to turn off gas in this area if possible!”

  Hayden nodded and grabbed his phone.

  “Look!” an agent shouted. “Thick steel computer cables disappear beneath this concrete tile floor!”

  A SWAT team man grabbed a sledgehammer and began hitting the concrete floor tiles, cracking them. Another man crowbarred up two large broken tiles. They tossed the tiles aside, and ripped through the wood flooring beneath. An agent leaned down between the wood slats and looked beneath.

  “I see the plugs!”

  “Pull them!”

  “I can’t! They feed into a steel floor five feet beneath the next level down! It looks impenetrable!”

  “NINETY SECONDS!” someone shouted.

  An agent shouted - “The President ordered a three-hour curfew for all GV vehicles!”

  Exasperated and angry, Agent Shaw stared at the ancient Apple 1 in front of him. Numbers and letters scrolled down its tiny screen. Why the old Apple 1? What could it possibly have to do with this highly sophisticated attack? He hit the power button to turn it off – but the Apple 1 kept on running.

  “FORTY-FIVE SECONDS!”

  Shaw couldn’t stop staring at the forty-year-old Apple computer.

  Why use an outdated Apple 1?

  Why use the old Mickey Mouse alarm clock?

  Only one answer - the clock and Apple are very important to Bruner’s program.

  And why run a wire from the Mickey Mouse clock to the old Apple 1? Are the clock and Apple linked to a bomb in this room? Will it explode seconds after Road Rage launches? To eliminate all evidence?

  And all of us?

  “TWENTY-FIVE SECONDS!”

  Shaw stared at the wire attached to the old Apple computer. He sensed the clock and Apple were critical to the Road Rage attack.

  Very critical!

  He gripped the wire from the clock to the Apple. If he pulled it . . . it would either do nothing . . . or blow this room and him and his team to pieces . . . or maybe stop Road Rage!

  “FIFTEEN SECONDS!”

  “Everybody out of the room! Now!” Shaw shouted.

  The agents stared at him.

  “RUN OUT OF THE HOUSE! THAT’S AN ORDER!”

  The agents bolted from the room.

  Shaw grabbed the alarm clock wire and yanked it from the back of the old Apple computer.

  SIXTY SEVEN

  Silence . . .

  Still . . . sweet . . . silence . . .

  Shaw checked his watch. Twelve seconds of silence . . . twenty seconds . . .

  Thirty seconds past 5:36!

  . . . a minute past!

  Nothing . . .

  Air drained from his lungs.

  The FBI SWAT team ran back in the computer room and stared at Shaw still holding the yanked-out wire from Mickey Mouse clock.

  He was afraid to let go of it.

  “What happened up there?” a SWAT man shouted from basement.

  “I pulled off the Mickey Mouse clock wire!” Shaw said.

  “Did it stop Road Rage?”

  “I have no idea . . .”

  SIXTY EIGHT

  Two hundred yards down his back alley, Bruner rolled his Harley Davidson out of his rented garage. He powered up the big bike with its Red Cross Organ Transplant box on back and drove off down the alley. The Harley was registered to an alias, Tom Johnson.

  Between two houses, he glimpsed a Considine Great Lakes Cruises van heading toward his house . . . but riding heavy and low to the street – low enough to carry FBI teams and weapons.

  Bruner drove slowly down narrow back alleys and small streets until he was a mile away from his house, carefully avoiding the police cars he glimpsed at main intersections.

  Once free of the police dragnet, he drove onto I-94 and sped up to seventy miles per hour.

  He wasn’t worried. No matter what the FBI team did at the house, his Road Rage program would begin the initial launch sequence automatically.

  When the old
wind-up Mickey Mouse alarm clock struck 5:36, it would send a wireless, and a wired signal to the old Apple computer. That signal initiated the process of launching the full-blown Road Rage program. The process would require several minutes to load the targeted VIN numbers and several more minutes to send the signals to the OBD II portals and take over driving those vehicles.

  Soon authorities would search for him around Romulus and nearby Detroit Metro Airport, checking flights, wasting time – while he was heading where they’d least expect – the center of Detroit. And he’d be in disguise . . . invisible in the throngs of people leaving work, walking to their cars, driving off.

  He might actually watch some people lose control of their XCars . . . have a curbside seat to his own show! But he’d have to make sure an XCar didn’t swerve and nail his beautiful Harley! How unjust would that be?

  Then he’d drive to Cleveland International Airport, where his leased Gulfstream jet waited to fly him to Miami. From there he’d fly to a non-extradition Middle-East country.

  Awaiting him there was his luxurious villa filled with all the creature comforts . . . including the comfort of his twelve-year-old virgins.

  * * *

  Madison watched Agent Shaw and Agent Hayden hurry into the FBI conference room.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  Hayden said, “We couldn’t turn the computers off until Shaw pulled a wire from an old Apple computer. That turned everything off. But it was past 5:36! We listened, expecting to hear cars crashing into each other on nearby I-94 – for three minutes. But we heard only the normal hum of traffic.”

  “We also listened for police and ambulance sirens, but heard none,” Shaw said.

  Pete Naismith nodded, “Nor did we. And none of our GV offices around the country are reporting obvious surge incidents.”

  Hayden said, “In our chopper flying back here we saw no Road Rage surging on I-94 or other main roads!”

  Madison prayed all this was true.

  Shaw said, “But I’m worried Road Rage’s launch has a sequential startup that takes time.”

  “But Bruner said he’d start the surge at the exact time – 5:36!”

  “Maybe it did start at that time,” Shaw said, “but maybe it takes several minutes, a series of stages to initiate the full program and make it operational.”

  Hayden nodded.

  Madison felt her fear creep back.

  Shaw said. “See if the Big Three - Ford, GM, or Chrysler vehicles are surging.”

  The tech guy called a number, listened a minute, hung up, and faced Shaw and Hayden.

  “As far as they can tell, no Ford, GM or Chrysler models have surged in the twelve largest US cities. Based on what they see, only normal accidents.”

  “What about Asian brands? Toyota, Honda, Lexus, Kia and the others in those cities?” Madison asked.

  The tech guy tapped a number on his phone and asked for the Asian brands update. Moments later, he faced Agent Shaw.

  “It appears there’ve been no Asian brand surges reported so far.”

  “And the European brands?”

  “Same. No Mercedes, BMW, Range Rover, Fiat, Volvo surges in our major cities.”

  “What about our top twenty mid-size cities?” Shaw said.

  “We’re checking. It’s taking longer. We should have something in minutes.”

  Madison exhaled and leaned against the table. She was almost afraid to believe they’d lucked out. Tears filled her eyes.

  She ran over and hugged Agents Shaw and Hayden.

  “Congratulations, guys . . .”

  “You stopped the bastard!” Pete Naismith said.

  “Let’s hope,” Shaw said. “But he’s still out there. And our tech guys say his home computers have programs running. Who the hell knows what they might unleash.”

  “And we still have his original surge attack,” Hayden said. “His XCar surge program for the first two hundred early-release XCars is still running! These early-release XCars run on a completely separate surge program. We can’t stop it. And incredibly, some XCar owners absolutely still refuse to return the cars to the dealers. So they’re vulnerable to surge.”

  Agent Shaw said, “Is it possible to turn off the Wi-Fi in these early-release XCars?”

  “Maybe,” Pete said, “but turning off the Wi-Fi, will probably prevent the cars from being driven!”

  “Better parked than dead!” Shaw said.

  Pete nodded.

  Madison agreed.

  Shaw said, “Start working on turning off Wi-Fi to those XCars! They’re a danger to themselves and other people.”

  Madison saw the exhaustion drain Shaw’s face.

  “Any hint on where Bruner went?” she asked.

  “No. But the Harley Davidson delivered to his Landerman address was kept in a garage down the alley. The bike’s gone. Also, FedEx delivered a large Red Cross medical Organ Transplant box that attaches to a motorcycle. We’ve BOLO’ed the Harley with a Red Cross box. Can’t be many!”

  “Where would he go?” Madison asked.

  “Probably as far away as possible,” Pete said.

  “Or maybe close by,” Hayden said. “Hiding in a crowded city like Detroit . . .”

  “Or a mile away - in not-so-crowded Canada.”

  SIXTY NINE

  Through the taxi windshield, Nester Van Horn saw Port Huron’s impressive snow-white lighthouse poking into a blue sky where the St. Clair River meets Lake Huron, a stunning freshwater Great Lake stretching two hundred miles long and one hundred eighty miles wide.

  He looked up at the massive Blue Water Bridge spanning the river from Port Huron to Sarnia, Canada. On that bridge, he knew, customs officers, police, and cameras watched for him.

  He looked over at Sarnia’s row of attractive high-rise apartments . . . and down river at some less attractive smokestacks belching gray smoke out over the dark-blue water.

  Van Horn checked his phone’s navigation system and told the taxi driver, a young, mustached guy named Kareem, to drive south along the river for a few miles. They drove past the new Morton-Kearns Salt Plant and later several luxury residences and some older wood frame houses.

  Minutes later, he told the taxi driver to pull over to a small house with pealed-gray paint, a rusted satellite dish on the roof, and corroded boat parts on the weedy grass. Behind the house, the St. Clair River flowed south toward the Detroit River.

  The taxi driver pulled up to the house and stopped. Van Horn paid him the $170 fare on the meter, plus a $40 tip.

  The driver smiled and nodded thanks.

  “One last thing,” Van Horn said.

  “What?”

  “This.”

  Van Horn handed Kareem five crisp one hundred-dollar bills. “You never saw me, okay?”

  Kareem’s mouth shot open. “I never seen you or anyone who even looks like you in my whole damn life. Not never!”

  Van Horn nodded and got out.

  He heard Kareem shout “Allahu Akbar!” as he drove off.

  Van Horn walked up to the small house and grabbed the door knocker: a large-breasted nude female. He knocked her knockers against the door. The door opened and a short, gap-toothed Hispanic-looking guy with a red eye patch and shiny slicked-back hair held down by a hairnet, squinted at him with his good eye.

  “Right on time, Señor,” Paco Ramirez said, ushering him inside.

  Van Horn knew Ramirez was an illegal immigrant who discovered moving people over to Canada paid much better than moving pickle bushels around Michigan farms.

  “First,” Ramirez said, holding out his hand, palm up.

  Van Horn handed Ramirez two thousand dollars.

  Ramirez counted the hundreds closely.

  “When do we leave?” Van Horn asked.

  “When ees dark.”

  “Why not now?”

  “Ees too many eyes on water.”

  “Drones?”

  “Si. Cameras too.”

  Van Horn shrugged, deciding
the river crossing was still far less risky than trying to sneak past a battalion of TSA inspectors and police at Detroit Metro Airport, or crossing the Detroit-Windsor tunnel, or Detroit’s Ambassador Bridge.

  “Scotch?” Ramirez lifted his half-full bottle of Johnny Walker.

  Van Horn nodded.

  Ramirez poured three fingers of scotch in each glass. Van Horn sipped some. Ramirez drained his and lifted his red eye patch back a bit, revealing what looked like a deep dark empty hole.

  Van Horn blinked. “Where do you take me?”

  Ramirez spread open a large tattered map. “We here. I take you there.” He pointed where they’d cross the river and come ashore in what looked like a tree-lined farming area on the Canadian side.”

  Van Horn studied the area and thought it looked like a good drop-off escape spot.

  He was good at escaping. He’d learned when he escaped enemy positions in Desert Storm. Now, he was fleeing again. And no one, except Paco, knew how, or to where.

  Not even Kurt Krugere.

  After another round of whiskey, Paco scanned the river and sky with his binoculars.

  “Ees now we go!”

  Wearing black coats and hoodies, Benny and Van Horn boarded a small black Zodiac. Van Horn pointed at the fishing tackle boxes beside him. “We going fishing?”

  “Si! If cops stop us, we fish yellow perch.”

  Van Horn nodded.

  As the whisper-quiet raft glided over the calm St. Clair River, Ramirez constantly scanned the river with his binoculars. They slowly crossed the river and minutes later, drifted under enormous overhanging willow trees on the Canadian shore. Ramirez tied up at a rotted, weed-choked dock that a strong wave could flatten.

  He pointed on shore to a black Dodge Minivan near the trees. “That’s your ride, amigo. Adios!”

  Van Horn nodded, got out, and walked toward the Minivan. He turned and saw Paco’s small raft already sneaking back toward the US shore.

  Van Horn suddenly wondered if Paco double-crossed him. Is he delivering me to the Canadian authorities in the minivan who’ll deliver me to US Customs officers?

  Van Horn walked over and nodded at the van driver, a fat, triple-chinned blond guy wearing a Maple Leafs T-shirt, a Royal Canadian Navy tattoo on his hand, and purple ear studs. Van Horn got into the passenger seat.