by James Kent
Silva had agonized over what to do with Eddie. Kill him or keep him? Difficult decision even for someone as decisive as himself. He wasn’t keen on the risks of keeping him on the payroll, knowing he would be upset for a while and probably want revenge. That’s understandable. To be respected. But, after thinking it through, he decided - against the advice of his guys - that Eddie was just too talented, too useful, and probably too hard to replace at short notice. People with those sorts of hacking skills don’t grow on trees. So ok, Eddie would be given a second chance. It was time, thought Silva, to bury the hatchet and forgive him for his girlfriend’s unfortunate indiscretions. He felt good about that. A load off his mind, his conscience cleared. After all, he was a civilized man. But Silva would watch him like a hawk, never let him out of his sight. And just to make sure he behaved, Eddie the Ferret would be given a gentle reminder of what might happen to him should he take the law into his own hands and throw his toys out of the cot. In the meantime, thought Silva, it would be prudent to look for a replacement for the Ferret on the sly, nice and quiet, and then when he had found someone good enough to take over the hacking reins from Eddie . . . well it would be time for another beating wouldn’t it? Or the sack-in-the-river trick he’d always wanted to try. Golden opportunity right there.
Silva therefore had two of his heavies, Pedro Torres and Buck Dolan, take Eddie for a nice drive into the country, back to the dilapidated old warehouse in Chloride. He liked Chloride precisely because it was a nowhere kind of place. It had a rustic, dilapidated charm all its own, along with its few craggy inhabitants . . . gnarly sons of bitches! You could do anything to anybody in Chloride and no one would give a damn. And besides, Silva preferred to keep the mess “off-site”, so to speak.
Silva’s other guys stood around watching and smiling as Pedro and Buck manhandled Eddie into the back of a Jeep Cherokee, his hands tied behind his back and his ankles taped together with duct tape. He was clearly petrified. Then Pedro threw in a portable stereo and slammed the door shut.
As they drove south, down the old Stockton Hill Road, Pedro and Buck were laughing. Pedro thumped the steering wheel with his fist, enjoying the scene taking place in the back seat. ‘Damn, he’s cryin’ like a bitch all the way to Chloride!’ he said, laughing even more. Buck turned to look at Eddie all tied up there, squirming and straining against his restraints, ‘Yeah, we got a real nice surprise waitin’ for you boy!’ he said nodding at Eddie. Then he laughed again and punched Pedro in the shoulder. Eddie thought his worst fears were about to be realized with these two out-of-control kooks.
When they got to the old warehouse in Chloride, Pedro gagged him with a filthy rag and strung him up, upside-down with his hands still tied behind his back, hanging by his feet from a crossbeam. Eddie worried that Pedro was about to pull his knife, the one he kept hidden in his boot, and start waving it around like he tended to do when wound up. Buck went out to the car and brought in the stereo. He set it on the floor and turned it on, up loud with a CD playing Rammstein’s Amerika. They set him swinging and laid into him with rubber hoses, front and back. Then Buck dragged an empty barrel over, dragging it slowly and noisily across the old, stained concrete floor as though to make some kind of sick statement, and placed it underneath him. Eddie knew what was coming and started screaming and writhing. Pedro grabbed the long rubber hosepipe attached to the storage sump in the corner and started filling the barrel with rank, black oil, the same they’d used to pickle his girlfriend. He held the hose end up high so that some of the liquid spilled onto Eddie, splashing his face and neck and torso. Eddie’s screams were stifled by the gag and drowned out by Rammstein’s heavy metal music filling the void in the warehouse. He struggled to get his breath, breathing noisily through his nose as oil bubbled around his nostrils. He writhed, trying to avoid the foul, splashing filth and he twisted trying to avoid ending up in the barrel just like his girlfriend had.
Buck turned the stereo off as the barrel reached just over half full. Pedro turned the hose end-tap off and threw it aside, onto the filthy floor. It clattered across the concrete. There was silence for a few moments as Pedro and Buck stood there grinning at Eddie like clowns at the circus. Their ears were still ringing from the loud heavy metal. Eddie, still swinging slightly, stared back at them with eyes like saucers, the whites contrasting with his blackened, oily face making him look demonic. A shiver ran down Buck’s spine as he studied Eddie staring back at him with the eyes of a ghoul. Pedro and Buck looked at each other and shrugged. Then Pedro broke the silence because, in his mind, it was getting awkward; one of those “awkward silences” when no one knows what to say. Embarrassing, he thought. You’d think Eddie would have plenty to say, even with a gag in place! But Eddie just hung there, swinging slightly and staring back at the pair of them, not even trying to mumble something. What’s with that? they both wondered. Then Pedro gave the barrel a kick, ‘That’s where you’re headed pal!’ he yelled at Eddie. ‘You’re heading to Mexico for “recycling”!’ Then they laughed. Pedro and Buck laughed till their eyes watered. Tears ran down their sweaty cheeks as Eddie writhed and twisted as much as he could. He started crying.
‘We just playin’ with ya!’ laughed Pedro, ‘Jeez, you need to chill out man!’ he said, still laughing his head off.
After their laughter subsided, Buck moved the barrel aside, now heavy with black oil, while Pedro let go of the rope, its long end tied off onto a steel hook, and lowered Eddie back to the ground. He bent to avoid cracking his head on the hard floor as he came down. His face, head, neck and chest were dripping with the black slick. Pedro untied his hands and ankles as Buck threw him a bunch of old rags and told him to clean himself up. Told him he looked disgusting and what the hell did he think this was, some kind of a joke? ‘Have some self-respect, you disgusting pig!’ Then they laughed again and slapped each other on the back. Better than a movie, they thought.
*
On the road back to Kingman, they stopped at Grasshopper Junction, back on Route 93. Pedro and Buck had been under the strictest orders not to harm Eddie, just frighten him a little. Or a lot. Give him a friendly reminder with a few bruises, sure, but don’t kill him. Well not yet anyway. And buy him a coffee and a steak sandwich at Fat Tony’s, there at the junction. Or get him a goddam ice-cream if they liked. Whatever. Silva didn’t give a shit. But get him something on their way back to cheer him up.
After teaching the Ferret a lesson, Silva decided he needed to keep him sweet, at least for now. The carrot and stick approach. It always worked. But in Eddie’s case, the stick comes first and then he gets the carrot. ‘We’ll fetch him a nice new girlfriend to show some goodwill,’ said Silva to Pedro when they returned to the ranch outside Kingman. ‘You know, like when your cat gets run over, you buy a new one to help you get over it. No harm, no foul,’ he said. ‘A new cat puts everyone in a good mood!’ He had a jauntiness in his step. ‘A damn fine idea, if I say so myself!’ he added with a smile. Pedro nodded in agreement, but stayed quiet.
Silva decided to make a few enquiries with some old buddies of his in the kidnapping business, old acquaintances who might still have access to nice girls. Maybe a leftover no one wanted. Someone with warts. Or sores. That’ll keep Eddie on side, he thought. But this time, I’ll keep tabs on both their asses! And then I can resell the bitch after Eddie’s done what I want him to do! he thought. Or pickle her ass and send her to Mexico like the last one! He smiled inwardly, feeling impressed with his own devious cunning. People underestimate me!
Eddie of course knew which way the wind blew, so he said nothing. He acted as though he had learned a valuable lesson about who he worked for and who he could bring into the “family”, so to speak. He decided then and there that he would run, maybe turn himself over to the Feds just to get back at Silva. He’d hand over everything he had. But not yet. He needed to prepare and plan first. Just taking off was risky because he would then be wanted by both ends of the law, and Silva would certainly put the word out; he
would put a nice price on his head while Eddie would be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his miserable life. And besides, before he did anything, he would need to make sure he had copies of everything saved somewhere safe and untouchable; he would then need to secure as much of his computer gear as possible, all his backup files, his discs and hard drives, then disinfect what’s left of any trace of his own identity and activity so that Silva couldn’t use it against him some time in the future, or use it to track him down.
He would run, but not yet because he had also come up with a devious plan to keep Silva off his back.
8
Diablo’s ranch. Near Kingman, Arizona. A few months later.
A few months after the beating in the warehouse, Eddie was sitting at his computer terminals, testing an advanced version of the Gauss and Stuxnet Trojans, one he’d devised himself, when Silva suddenly appeared at his door. ‘Time for a lovely chat,’ he said and walked away without waiting for an acknowledgement.
Eddie got up from his desk and followed Silva out to the huge sun-drenched lounge that looked out towards the Cerbat mountains to the west. Silva’s grand whiskey cabinet stood against the eastern wall, its doors open as though it had seen some action already. Clear blue skies outside gave the place the look and feel of a desert resort. But it was not that kind of a place. Silva sat down on the couch facing the plate-glass windows, the afternoon sun shone on his round, Oliver Hardy face. A drink-stained coffee table sat in front of him, parked on a fake polar bear skin; its long, curled, black claws reached out as though it was trying to crawl away but for the coffee table pinning it to the floor; or perhaps it wished to impale an unwary toe that wandered too near. An incongruous polar bear in the desert. Diablo had confiscated it from someone he’d murdered for failing to pay back a loan on time. The defaulter had ended up with an ice-pick in his ear, and his rug taken. And Silva now used it to hide his floor-safe which contained all his cash and secrets and to which only he had the combination.
Silva’s two minders, Pedro and Buck stood off to one side watching Eddie as he walked into the room and sat down opposite. Clyde Decker sat on an armchair on the other side of the room. He was scrolling something on his phone, paying no attention to Eddie who looked from one guy to the next and then he settled his gaze back on Silva.
Silva was wearing his ill-fitting light blue trousers and suit coat, sitting with his short legs crossed and his pudgy hands resting limply in his lap. The weight from the nine-millimeter Glock in his pocket pulled the coat askew. A half-smoked stogie cigar sat precariously on the edge of the armrest looking lonely and forgotten after dropping an inch of ash onto the carpet beside the bear rug. He looked like an under-achieving vacuum cleaner salesman who had just given up on the day’s sales plan and had decided to try something new, like leaf-blowers or snow shovels for people living in Arizona and Nevada.
‘What’s up?’ asked Eddie, looking down at the polar bear; its enigmatic grin like the Mona Lisa’s giving nothing away. It stared up at him with vacant eyes. Eddie subconsciously shifted his foot away from the bear’s black claws.
‘I’ve got a new plan,’ replied Silva. Eddie said nothing. ‘Even more exciting than simply stealing government secrets!’ he added with an imperious grin. Eddie sat there looking at him, waiting for him to elaborate. Silva continued, ‘Fun as it is busting in on government and military sites and databases and just taking off with their shit to sell to our foreign friends,’ he said, ‘I thought we could mix things up a little by destroying what’s left . . . that is, rendering their entire networks and everything connected to them completely useless. Know what I mean? Up till now, we’ve been satisfied with stealing their dirty little secrets and then leaving like a thief in the night, without breaking anything,’ he continued, ‘Now I want to break it as well!’
Eddie didn’t bat an eye or look surprised because he’d thought about doing exactly that, not only on government servers and email accounts, but against Silva himself, when the time was right. He smiled inwardly.
‘So what do you have in mind?’ he asked, raising his eyes as though he knew what was coming.
‘I’ve been thinking about getting in touch with our North Korean friend, whatever the fat geezer’s name is, and sounding him out about joining forces . . . you know, like sticking a major one up Uncle Sam, as in screwing things big time, like a nationwide hack.’ Silva had a beaming smile on his face as though he had just won the jackpot and was trying to decide what to buy himself for Christmas, or Hanukkah, or whatever was politically correct these days.
Eddie looked at him as though he was retarded, and started laughing. He continued laughing until the tears ran down his cheeks. Pedro and Buck looked back and forth from Eddie to Silva to Eddie like they were watching a tennis match at Wimbledon.
‘So, you’re talking cyber warfare against the United States? Is that what you’re saying?’ asked Eddie, still laughing.
‘Who gives a shit what it’s called?’ replied Silva, ‘But yes, I guess. Call it what you like. But I’ve been thinking about what we’ve achieved over the past year and it’s great, don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved every minute of it. It’s been a hoot!’ he paused as Pedro and Buck looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders, ‘. . . but I have to say, and correct me if I’m wrong,’ continued Silva, ‘but I’m bored. Sure, we make lots of money selling political and military secrets, a lot of money, but it’s no fun. I mean . . . I don’t know . . . how can I put it?’
Eddie stared at him like he was watching a horror show unfold, with some half-baked dolt trying to form a sentence.
‘Ok,’ said Silva finally, ‘I’ll just come out with it . . . I feel the urge to screw the entire United States! The government, the military, the Feds, the intelligence agencies, the banks, Wall Street, Hollywood, Disneyland, Starbucks . . . all of it. The whole nine yards! There! Happy now?’
Eddie said nothing for a while, just stared at Silva again like he had finally lost it. ‘First of all,’ said Eddie composing himself and looking him squarely in the eyes, ‘Kim Jong-un’s cyber warfare unit, called “Bureau 121” by the way, is at least five years behind the eight-ball. They’d be eaten for breakfast!’ Eddie paused, then said, ‘You’re a goddam lunatic!’
‘And secondly?’ asked Silva with menacing calmness, his beady little black eyes boring into Eddie’s.
‘And secondly, I don’t want anything to do with it because it would harm us as much as it damages them! You’re like the burglar who not only robs a joint and makes off with all the kitchen silver, but sets fire to the place as he leaves!’’
Silva said nothing. He stared at Eddie, his small eyes blinking as though he’d just witnessed something he couldn’t quite comprehend. His lips moved, his mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. Another few seconds passed with no one saying anything.
‘Fine! I’ll find someone else who’s got balls!’ he spat, as he folded his short arms across his chest.
‘That’s it? You’ll just “find someone else”? Good luck!’
A faint smile passed Silva’s lips as he stared at Eddie. ‘You can clear out your locker!’ he said. Then he turned and looked up at both Pedro and Buck, both of whom nodded almost imperceptibly. But Eddie caught it and a white-hot shaft of fear ran through him like an electric shock. His skin crawled as he realised what it meant. He looked again at the three headbangers watching him, and realized it was time to act.
Unknown to Eddie, Silva had indeed already found a replacement, someone he believed was equally as smart as Eddie the Ferret. Months earlier, he had made a few suggestions and put out feelers to his underground acquaintances, part of his old network, who put out more feelers. Two months later, a likely candidate surfaced; someone keen to make some money in the hacking business rather than festering in his own stink behind a hot monitor in a run-down flat where he had to keep his head down and his movements hidden and eat yesterday’s pizza and half-finished energy drink while his emaciated, drugged
-up girlfriend, with the lizard and spider tattoos, lay comatose on the ancient busted sofa.
Of course, he too was wanted by the law for so-called “computer crimes”. He was known to his friends as “Cricket”, but he went by the online alias “Mordor”. He created havoc all over the world. Eddie knew of his existence and admired his abilities, sometimes mentioning his alias to Silva who remembered it and decided to investigate to see if he could be tempted to step out from behind his stench mountain and come work for him in better conditions: today’s pizza and a brand new hot-off-the-press girlfriend from . . . wherever. Well that was the plan at least. The only potential downside was that this guy might be a lone wolf without a network of anonymous hackers like Eddie had. But he would burn that bridge when he came to it. Diablo would encourage him to ‘reach out to others of like mind.’ But the promise of good money and permanent employment did the trick; well that and the belief that working for a professional like Diablo would help shield him from the long arm of the law. There was merit in that idea.
Silva, of course, was pleased with himself because now he could dump Eddie overboard. He no longer trusted him and he sometimes wondered if Eddie was deliberately sabotaging his business or hacking into his own off-shore bank accounts and stealing his hard-earned cash. Silva had been worrying for some time that Eddie might do something to him for having murdered his girlfriend. It was time then for another trip to Mexico on the back of a rusted old clunker.
But before sending Eddie on that delightful trip, thought Silva, he would pretend that he would allow him plenty of time to sort his shit out. ‘You can bugger off and find somewhere else to set up!’ he said aggressively. ‘But would you mind terribly giving Buck here all your passwords and computer gear, you know, the discs, memory sticks and wot not?’ After all, thought Silva, he had paid for it all out of his own pocket, so none of it belonged to Eddie anyway. ‘You know, it’s been real nice working with you Eddie, and I mean that, but maybe it’s time you moved on?’ Wink wink. he thought to himself. Silva still had to play nice until he was satisfied that he had everything secured and then he would set Pedro and Buck on his ass.
