by Alec Peche
“No problem, I have a spare or two here. I can’t get off the island today, but I can use my drone to drop it at the marina and then have Uber pick it up and deliver it to you. Do you want it delivered to your home or office?”
“Home, and thanks.”
“As for your thug, give me half an hour and I’ll see what I can find. Is that O’Brian with an ‘A’ or O’Brien with an ‘E’.”
“It’s an ‘E’, he was Caucasian, about 5’9” tall, tattoos all over his face and body and somewhere between twenty and thirty years of age, and quite creepy looking.”
“Got it! Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, we fired at each other, and his shot went wide. He laughed when he saw the lime green plastic gun, but he isn’t laughing now. Last I saw him, he was moaning and crying over that pepper juice recipe that you advised me to use. You know I’ve carried that gun around since you gave it to me over two years ago and never had occasion to use it. My former co-workers were having a hard time not laughing at the water gun, but I wonder how many of them will go home and arm their spouses with your ingenious weapon.”
“So they can’t accuse you of aggravated assault, right?”
“Nope, the thug’s actions were caught on the security video and it’s clear he stalked me, ignored my order ‘to freeze’, and then fired first. Until they saw the security footage my fellow officers had laughed about my silly bright green water gun, now I’m free and clear of any part of this drama. I just don’t recognize this guy or the name, but he must be connected to me somehow.”
The moment they hung up, Damian called Mike and fortunately he was at the marina and could collect the package. Then he went down to his workshop to collect a water pistol. This one would be princess pink, which should make Natalie laugh. He purchased a variety of kid’s water guns and then ran them through a series of tests to determine which was the strongest gun. Once he settled on a brand, he modified the gun in a variety of ways. He’d covered it with a light, but strong polymer that made the gun stronger; allowing it not to be damaged by the pepper spray juice, and allowed him to form a better nozzle for more precise aim and power in the spray. The water gun was like putting a Ferrari engine in a Ford Pinto; it looked ugly and frail on the outside but it could do just fine in the heat of battle as Natalie just proved. He went outside with his package and the drone. Perhaps once a year he tried to fly something over to Mike. It was always something small and the camera on the bottom of the drone did a fairly good job of directing the drone so it didn’t run into a boat if it was too low or a small plane/helicopter if it was too high. Twenty minutes later he managed to drop it on the deck of Mike’s boat. The driver would pick it up within the hour.
Natalie next made the call to her husband to tell him about the day. He was grateful to Damian for creating Natalie’s weapon and even more glad to know that she was getting a new weapon the same day. He would have laughed at the thought of her pointing a bright green water gun at someone except it was his wife who’d been shot at. He laughed at it the first time he saw it and laughed again when he watched her put it into a holster. He’d laugh no more and would instead check that she always had it with her. Natalie got a text from Damian telling her the new weapon was on its way. She’d have to make a new recipe of pepper juice for it and find some time to practice aiming and shooting, but otherwise she was good to go.
Damian went to work on finding out who Michael O’Brien was. The last name was Irish and it was spelled with an ‘e’ usually. He’d already served time in prison and had been released about a month ago after time served. He was twenty-four and served time for burglary and narcotics. His arrest was made after Natalie left the force. What was the kid’s connection to Natalie? It was time to look at his family; maybe there was a brother or sister that Natalie arrested.
Then Damian leaned back and put his hands over his eyes.
Chapter Thirteen
Michael O’Brien had kept his mother’s name, his father was Ryan Murphy, the man that Natalie had killed and who had killed his family. It was a second generation of poor quality men in that family. After he got his emotions under control, he picked up the phone and called Natalie.
“What’d you find on my suspect?”
“His father is Ryan Murphy.”
Natalie responded with a hiss and then said “Fuck”. Ryan Murphy was the only man that she’d killed in her twenty-five years with the SJPD; she would remember that name forever.
Damian had to agree with that reaction. Ryan Murphy had so wronged his family, he never thought of any of them coming after Natalie for his death.
“There’s more….” Damian said waiting for Natalie to be ready to listen.
After a moment, Natalie said, “Go ahead.”
“He belonged to the Aryan Brotherhood while in prison. He might have belonged to it before he went to prison as they do recruit outside the prison walls. His father also belonged to that gang, so Natalie you may have been targeted for quite some time if you read the history of their creed and behavior.”
“You think I was a marked woman seven years ago?”
“You can talk to your gang specialists there, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a job they were saving for the son. Patience is one of their qualities; you have to have patience to survive prison.”
Natalie hadn’t thought of that but knew he was probably right, then another thought crossed her mind. “Do you think they’ll come after you, Damian?”
Now he paused and thought, and then he replied, “Yes. They probably see it as my fault that I was unhappy with the murder of my family and brought the police in on the case. Certainly I was quoted at the time as being grateful to the SJPD for hunting him down and killing him. Not in those exact words but you get my meaning. If I hadn’t recently read about the Brotherhood for the John Avery case, I wouldn’t have made that connection. They’ll have a very hard time finding me though.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. This guy was really bold going after me so close to police headquarters. I wonder how he knew I’d be there today? It’s not a logical location for someone that retired three years ago.”
“Good question Natalie! The gang is generally not known for computer skills, but I suppose that since they support credit card and internet fraud that some members of the gang must be very computer literate. With no other explanation, I would offer two theories for why the guy knew you’d be there today. First, it could have been sheer luck and impulse that had you two cross paths; or someone is high tech in the gang and knew you’d received this assignment and who your contact person was. Then it was only a matter of hacking into his computer to see your name on his appointment calendar or in his emails.”
“You’re scaring me by painting a picture of a prison gang being tech savvy,” Natalie sighed. “I think I’ll ask for increased patrols in my neighborhood to hopefully avoid getting killed on my front doorstep. I am very curious to see what comes out of the interview with him. Attempted murder will get him five to nine years at a State prison, but I doubt if the DA will do a bargain for information. Let me talk to the detectives that are interviewing him and see if I can get in on the process. I’m heading back there now and I’ll have Eddie bring my new water gun when it arrives at our home.”
“Keep me posted,” Damian urged as they ended the call.
He leaned back after the call and thought about what an unsettling day it had been. He hadn’t enjoyed reading about the Aryan Brotherhood; hated that someone had shot at Natalie, but was thrilled that in a true test, his technology did what it was supposed to do; allowed Natalie to defend herself but didn’t get her in trouble over firearms. Now to find out that her assailant was related to his family’s murder and that they had somehow known that she would be in a particular place at a certain time was sickening. Time to go to work to figure out how all of these loose ends connected, because instinct was telling him they were.
On Red Rock Island he felt safe given
his security set-up and it had recently been tested by Ariana. If this gang arrived by helicopter, he would have some problems defending himself, but he’d planned for that and had slingshots armed with nets that should disrupt any helicopter rotors. He’d not heard of a gang owning a helicopter, but he supposed that anyone could hire one for such an assault on his home. His top level of the house was bulletproof, but wouldn't survive bombs or rockets, but the lower level would. Of course that was all speculation on his part. He’d never actually tested it, but rather his contractor had used certain materials that contained those qualities.
First, they had to find him.
He would proactively log into the systems at the various California prisons and see how far any of them had gotten in researching him, but first he had to figure out how they found Natalie. To do that, he’d need to decipher the code the gang communicated in. He obtained three different samples of their language then spent some time studying the repetition of the letters. Within a few hours he had the code figured out. He should have been a decipherer for the military, he thought grimly amused. With their language decoded, he set about hacking into their communications. He was an expert hacker and it took him just under a minute to access any account.
While he could hack into each email account quickly, with over ten thousand members in and out of prison, he’d spend a lot of time reading worthless emails. Instead he wrote a program that would hack into all emails that used the gang language and a second program that searched for Natalie’s name after he translated it back to the gang’s language. He let his console run and decided it was time for a change of scenery. He’d built a small storage room at the base of one of the rocky cliffs. It was well hidden and you had to be able to slide your fingers over the rock to see the door. Inside he kept his water toys - a kayak, a dinghy with a tiny motor, and a jet ski.
He could reach the room from the lower level of his house or from the exterior. He had a ramp that he could use to launch any of the water crafts and then using an app on his phone, the ramp would fold up and return to the storage room and the door would close. It was a hidden escape route if his island was ever attacked by criminals. It was a nice day, sunny and not too windy. He debated which water craft to use and settled on the jet ski as he was going to try and visit Ariana’s house. If he ever visited a second time, he’d try one of the slower methods. He wore long pants and a jacket that dried quickly as he was likely to get wet on his ride. Once he reached her dock, he’d call to see if she was home, that way if he changed his mind on the way, he wasn’t committed to meeting or talking to her. Yes, he was still set in his ways, generally avoiding other humans.
Chapter Fourteen
Ariana was on her private beach playing fetch with Miguel. Since she mastered the drone, she’d been using it to drop toys into the water for the dog. He seemed to enjoy that more than when she threw them; probably because the drone went out farther.
She looked into the distance when she heard the noise of a jet ski and frowned when it seemed to be coming her way.
Miguel returned to her side ready to defend her as no one had the nerve to drive up to her private beach. She squinted into the sun but couldn’t identify the rider. There was something familiar about the white blond hair and then it clicked as he approached her dock.
Then she smiled and said to the dog, “It’s okay, Miguel, it’s Damian and he’s a friend.”
She left the sand and walked on to her dock as he was scaling a ladder up to the dock deck.
“Hi,” Damian said. “I needed a break from work and thought I’d journey over here. Lucky for me you’re home.”
“Hi back and this is Miguel, my protector.”
Damian held out his hand for the dog to sniff and then scratched the dog’s head. He observed the drone and remote in Ariana’s hands and said, “Ah, I see it serves a dual purpose, tea delivery and dog toy launching.”
“Are you out of tea?” Ariana asked.
“No, you gave me a supply that will last for at least another month. I have few visitors to my island and I can only drink so much tea each day.”
“Would you like to come in for a drink? You must be thirsty after your ride across the bay.”
Damian looked down at his pants, wet from the spray and said, “I wouldn’t want to drag bay water into your house. How about if I play with Miquel while you grab drinks and anything will do - water, tea, whatever. He’s a Portuguese water dog, right? So I don’t have to worry about him going out too far.”
“Miguel drags bay water into the house all the time so don’t let that deter you, but it’s a nice day and we can sit outside and amuse ourselves. Be back in a few minutes.”
She handed the drone and remote to Damian and made her way up to the house. She was prettier up close than her picture or her scuba gear framed face had let on. He looked at the dog holding his toy clearly expecting Damian to drop it in the bay for him to fetch and got to work. He soon had Miguel acting like a dock dog. He’d suspend the toy below the drone and Miguel would have to jump off the dock to grab it which he clearly found a great experience. Ariana returned with a drinks tray containing two pitchers of liquid and two glasses. She set the tray down on a table located on another part of the dock deck and invited Damian to sit down.
“I brought lemonade and ice tea so pour whichever one you want,” and then looking over at the dog said, “Miguel, I’m going to have to learn this new trick with the drone that Damian has been entertaining you with.”
Ariana put a bowl down on the dock and poured water into it for the dog, who was clearly winded from his play. He then sat at her side ready to protect her from any other strangers.
“What made you come over to my beach?” Ariana asked.
“I needed some fresh air and felt the siren’s call of a mermaid.”
“That sounds nicely poetic, and considering I nearly marooned myself in the bay, I’m sure the mermaid race would be horrified of my underwater skills.”
“I wasn’t sure how far a ride this was or what the qualities of the water would be so I brought the jet ski. I also have a rowboat with a tiny motor and a kayak, but was afraid it would take me more than an hour to reach your beach and of course there’s the danger of the ferries. It was less than fifteen minutes on the jet ski and I was fortunate to not only find you home but outside on your beach.”
“Yes, you were lucky, but then at this time of day you can usually find me here. If I’m working from home, Miguel pesters me to play outside with him about the same time every day. What were you working on that you needed a break from?”
Damian hesitated, sorting through what to tell her, “I designed a program to search for certain pieces of information in a large database and I assume the search would take several hours and the day looked promising outside, so here I am.”
“I bet you did a background search on me and so you know I invest in Silicon Valley startups, many of them related to the use of data in one way or another. What kind of data search were you doing?”
For some reason, Damian felt relaxed in this woman’s company. It was a weird feeling this companionship. It was an emotion he hadn’t felt in a long time, and it felt strange to feel it now. He decided he would try shocking her with the news of what he was actually doing and see if the companionship disappeared. He doubted she had any connection to the Aryan Brotherhood and so there was no risk to him if she knew the truth of what he was doing. About the only person that would be concerned with someone related to the brotherhood would be a civil rights attorney and she appeared to have neither attribute.
“I’m searching through the email communications of men both in and out of prison that belonged to the Aryan Brotherhood.” He just let that sentence rest between the two of them. He was curious to see where her mind would go next. His research had told him that she was an intelligent woman and so he knew she wouldn’t ignore his statement. The question was would her reaction be one of curiosity or perhaps disgust?
He soon got his answer.
“That sounds like a long and complicated story and it says a few things about you. You apparently know how to write programs for data and you know how to hack into other people’s email accounts, both skills point to perhaps a near genius level of computer language. What I don’t know is what your connection is to the Aryan Brotherhood or to prisoners. Are you in some secret government homeland security thing?”
He laughed at her usage of the word ‘thing’, and said “No I work for no one but myself, however, in this particular instance, I’m helping a retired detective from the south bay on some cold cases.”
“Ah,” was all Ariana said.
What did ‘ah’ mean coming from Ariana? Damian knew he was overthinking her every word, so perhaps it was time to go.
“My computer program should be done running, so I’d better get going,” Damian said as he stood up. “Thanks for the lemonade, Ariana.” He then leaned down to give the dog one more pat on the head. Straightening up he asked, “Miguel won’t follow me out into the bay will he?”
