by Alec Peche
“We all deal with the devastating hits to our lives in different ways,” Damian replied. “When my family was murdered, I decided there was no God that could allow the taking of two young lives and my wife. Rather than devoting myself to God, I devoted myself to making sure the mistake was never made again; to each his own way of dealing with tragedy. Let’s move on to the happier topic of how do we take the leadership of the Aryan Brotherhood down?”
“With the intent of causing so much internal disorganization that when new leadership takes over, Damian and I are no longer targets,” Natalie added.
“You obviously have a plan, so what is it?” Angus asked.
“I’ve been able to access the AB’s email systems and to decode the coded language through all of its iterations,” Damian replied.
“I don’t know whether to say ‘wow’ or ‘cool’,” Angus said.
“It’s how I got the emails to send to the Black Guerillas, but that didn’t do us any good. It just brought the gang in a unified manner after me and to a lesser degree Natalie. This time I thought I would decode the emails and share it in a blast to all the members of the AB. That way anytime a leader spoke derogatorily of another member, it would now get circulated. Do you think that would cause the leadership to be toppled?”
“Do you have an example of some of the emails?” Angus asked.
Damian soon had an example of a few emails explaining his reasoning for selecting them and his data strategy with all of them.
Angus leaned back in his chair and appeared to be thinking. Natalie and Damian looked each other in the eye for a moment and then waited patiently for his thoughts.
“You have done research on the gang and so you know there’s a council at each prison that operates the gang. There’s communication with leaders at Pelican Bay. So basically you can’t do anything just to target the guys at San Quentin, you’ve got to go at all of the prisons at once. You need to create so much chaos that the leaders can’t respond to all of it in time. They have stolen cellphones in parts of the system, but often communication is slow because it’s done via small writing on toilet paper or by moving materials down a cell block with a fishing line. So slow communication will hamper the leaders’ responses across the prison system.”
“If we take on the entire system, then it might result in the death of innocent prison guards from rioting,” Natalie said with deep concern.
“First off, there are no innocent prison guards. They move cellphones, narcotics, and messages. Second we’re not talking about whole prison riots, we’re talking about just one of five major prison gangs involved in a civil war,” replied Angus. “The gangs like to handle their dirty laundry internally so it might be a quiet coup d’état.”
Natalie contemplated his statement and while she was former law enforcement herself, she knew that drugs were rife in prison. She hadn’t known much about that topic until the state made a move a few years back to early release some prisoners and send others back to the county jail they came from. There were many addicts among those two groups of prisoners and how else could they get the drugs unless they were smuggled in by the guards? She would like to think that it was a just few bad guards, but she acknowledged that it was more than a few.
“So do I have agreement that we’re going to do the entire system? Do we need to worry about other states as part of this coup or is the Brotherhood managed as an empire in California?”
“There is some tie to other states, but the leaders are selected from their own state membership, not a national organization. Members targeted to be killed or harassed are decided upon at the local level. Your problem seems to cover two prisons, San Quentin and Soledad. I think you could start with overturning the leadership in those locations and see if that ends your problem.”
“Did you ever see names removed from the kill list, yet they were still killed?”
“Very rarely. That goes against the leaders of the gang and there would be consequences for making your own rules.”
“How did other people get their name off of the kill or harass list?” Natalie asked.
“The only way I know to get your name off the list is to pay your debt,” Angus replied.
“But we don’t have a debt here,” Natalie protested.
“Yes you do; you killed one of the Brotherhood. So you have a debt that can’t be erased except by erasing you,” Angus said. Looking over at Damian he added, “You also have a debt. You’re Natalie’s family and since you aided her, then you’re on the list. Likely they would have also put you on the list for calling the cops when they ‘visited’ your island. If you topple the leadership, the new leaders may be grateful to you for allowing them the opportunity to run the gang. I think they’ll more likely feel that way than seek revenge for causing the civil war.”
Natalie and Damian just stared at Angus dismayed at the gang’s logic laid out for them; knowing there was no logic they could counter with. All they could do was to topple the leadership.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Okay I’m ready to do a release. I’ll need a little time to write the algorithm for all of the guys at Soledad and San Quentin, but the email strike will go out at perhaps one in the morning. That way the guys with the illegal cellphones will have all night to stew if they’re checking their in-box.”
“I can take a list of the names and tell you if you left anyone out or if you included anyone from a rival gang. I’m eighteen months out of date, but I’ll mostly be accurate.”
“Have you thought of inciting the gang?” asked Natalie.
“Isn’t just sending the email prodding the gang into action?” replied Damian.
“You could be more brutal by adding a standard line to all of the email distributed,” she suggested.
“Wow, Natalie. You’re all in to this operation; so much that you want me to stir the pot further,” Damian stated amazed.
“Yeah, well we only have once chance to get this right. So perhaps it’s in our best interests to fan the flames in the direction we want them to go.”
“Not a bad idea, Natalie. I’m trying to think if using the gang’s creed on them will do that,” Angus said rubbing his chin in thought.
After pausing in thought for a while, he decided it wouldn’t work.
“I don’t like the creed for this; instead, how about mentioning family? One of the ideas that the gang preaches is that the Brotherhood is your family now inside of prison. They’ll take care of you inside and outside of prison. I think if there are disrespectful emails circulated, then that takes away the illusion of family.”
“Okay let’s work on that language,” Damian said. “Also, I was just targeting in-prison members, but it sounds like I need to add Brotherhood members on the outside as well.”
Angus and Natalie agreed with that strategy.
“That’s going to require several more hours of computer work to figure out who those people are. We better finish up here so I can get working.”
“You know tomorrow is a national holiday so I’m off work. I don’t know how to hack but I’m pretty quick with data,” Angus said. “Can I help you get it done faster?”
“Ditto for me, Damian; can I help even without the technical skills?”
Damian’s mind moved at lightning speed considering and discarding thoughts. His gut reaction was not to invite Angus to his home. Ever since Ariana washed up on his shore, he’d had an endless round of visitors on his island, so he was inclined to say “no” to both of them. But he was back to Natalie’s comment that they had only one shot to get this right, so if he wanted the attacks on his island to stop, he might need to enlist the help of these unlikely partners.
“Okay. I don’t like strangers on my island. Up to a month ago, Natalie was my only visitor across the years that I lived there; so Angus understand it’s not you personally when I say I don’t want you there. However, I need to get it right and the more eyes the better. I’ll leave right now and the two of you can park you
r cars at the Richmond marina and I’ll come for you there.”
“I don’t have a car, I walked to the bar, so I’ll have to ride over with Natalie.”
“I thought you two met in the parking lot,” Damian said.
“We did. I walked down the street and through the parking lot to the door.”
“Okay, I’ll see if anyone can give you the boat ride at this time of night, otherwise I’ll move you myself out to the island.”
They broke up their meeting and departed. It was close to ten at night and he knew Mike was normally an ‘early to bed early to rise’ kind of guy. Perhaps the harbormaster knew of someone. Natalie hadn’t seen his dock and for some reason, he wanted to keep a part of his island a secret, even from his closest friend. He would feel better about letting them on his island if they had to come by boat and zip line. A ride was arranged and he relayed the information to Natalie. A short time later he was watching a boat approach in the dark with lights on the bow and stern. The guy said he would return for Natalie and Angus even if it was three in the morning.
The zip line had them on top in short order and they entered Damian’s house. He paused in his kitchen to make them all a cup of tea and they went down to his lab. Several hours later, Damian was ready to hit the send button. He checked in with Natalie and Angus one more time before hitting the send key. With their nods, soon there thousands of emails being sent out to Aryan Brotherhood members both inside and out of Soledad and San Quentin.
“When do you think conversations will start? You said communication was slow, do you think this civil war will begin today or some other day in the future?” Damian asked.
“I would guess tomorrow because guys on the inside will be slow to receive email if they don’t have an illegal phone. They’ll have to pay to use a kiosk. Guys on the outside will know just as soon as they open their email,” Angus replied.
“Let’s hope this works. Meanwhile I’ll arrange transport back to the marina for you guys,” Damian said.
Within half an hour, Damian had his privacy back. He didn’t know how else he would have finished the night’s work without the two of them there, but he hoped that within forty-eight hours he would have his life back. He yawned and headed to his bed to sleep hoping for a vastly different world upon awakening.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Damian and Natalie did an across the telephone high five and he sent Angus a gift certificate that gave him the next year’s tab at Pete’s free, Damian would pick it up. In three days of upheaval for the Aryan Brotherhood, new leadership was elected and the slate was wiped clean for all names on both the kill and harass list according to Angus’ inside contact to the gang.
Natalie came back from Phoenix with a confession in hand from Mr. Watson regarding his ex-wife’s death. She texted Damian before she left Phoenix, with Detective Shimoda and Greg Watson. She followed up with an email later that read,
The blood at the crime scene had been too much for him to ignore and he cracked when he saw the pictures of the master bathroom blood stains; the memories of the murder were too vivid in his head. The couple had been having arguments off and on for a year and she’d been unfaithful to their marriage. He thought to threaten her with a knife during an argument they were having in the kitchen. She said she was in love with the other man, he’d been chopping vegetables for a dinner salad. She walked away from the argument by stating that she was going upstairs to take a shower. Without realizing it, he followed her upstairs with the knife in his hand.
They argued some more upstairs and he said he waved the knife back and forth as an extension of his hand. He wasn’t threatening her with the knife rather he moved his hands a lot when he talked. While his hands were in motion she charged him with her hands in front as though to shove him backwards out of the bathroom. She tripped on a rug on the floor and fell onto the knife and died instantly. He thought it went straight through her heart. He didn’t know what to do, he just knew if he called the police that they wouldn’t believe him that it was an accident. We likely wouldn’t have believed him. So rather than take his chances with the police, he waited until it was dark and then took her body out to the dump site in a garbage bag. He went back home and cleaned up the mess, then called the police and filed a missing person report. He then backed his car into a post at a high speed crushing the trunk and causing the car to be totaled. He thought there might be blood evidence that leaked out from the bag. He replaced the bathroom floor linoleum with tile that apparently another owner replaced with laminate wood flooring which was what we pulled up to see the stained plywood. So we were lucky. If the tile was still down we wouldn’t have found the stain.
He waited for the discovery of his actions or her body for years and it didn’t come until the utility workers discovered her remains so many years later. He’ll serve some time for this mostly for the cover-up, but I would guess the DA will have a hard time getting twelve jurors to agree on a guilty verdict. The department is very pleased with this first case and they know I have a second one that’s close to being solved. I’d love to share the spotlight with you Damian, are you sure you don’t want to be recognized? I’m sure there’s a way we can cover up your computer hacking.
No, Damian thought, I absolutely don’t want recognition that I had anything to do with these cases. It was bad enough that the Brotherhood had entered his life without also having a police department and the media there too. He replied,
I don’t want recognition and if you let my name slip out, I’ll never lend you a hand again. I’m very sure I don’t want any recognition. Do you need me to stop by your house and dismantle the booby traps? I can send Eddie instructions on how to do that as well?
Natalie indicated that Eddie would make an attempt to dismantle the stuff, which was great in Damian’s mind as the commute to San Jose could be brutal. When he had time, he’d look at commuting in his zippy new two seater boat to the Redwood City Marina. That had to be a faster commute than driving, but for the time being he had no need to journey south.
He now had one cold case solved and the Brotherhood off his island. The second cold case was waiting DNA analysis which Natalie might get the following week. It was time to return to his everyday life and a list of things he’d been ignoring. He made an appointment with his friend to get Hermione certified in scuba diving. He booked a house in Cozumel, located on a beach that they could walk out in their scuba gear to dive. He arranged a charter jet to get them there a week after school ended. Which was two weeks away. They had one more swim meet and then if Hermione did well, she would also go onto the regional swim meet. He sent the details to Ariana and they agreed to tell Hermione of the planned vacation after her swim meet that night.
Finally, he got back to his work on the wave technology. He was stuck on how to store the energy efficiently, safely and cheaply. He was still convinced that the answer would be found in salt or hydrogen; he just hadn’t figured it out yet. After another couple of hours, he wasn’t any closer to an answer. So then he moved on to DNA analysis. It would take two to three years of work to get federal and law enforcement approval for anything he invented in this area. That was a depressing thought, but maybe if he figured out something that worked, it would serve to prioritize certain specimens for the police; move them ahead in the official DNA lab until he got approval and a patent for this invention. He started by using a dry-erase board to describe his needs. It would need to process a wide variety of surfaces from clothing to wood to metal. He continued to detail his needs lost in thought about the perfect analyzer. He was startled by his phone alarm and looked at the time. He was due at Hermione’s swim meet soon. He’d have to leave the island in the next ten minutes to make it to Ariana’s house in time for the two of them to commute together to the meet. He’d skipped lunch, so he grabbed a few snacks on his way out of the house and was soon speeding across the bay.
Ariana waved to him from the house when he arrived. He tied up his boat and walked over to where she
was standing.
“I thought for a minute that you were going to be late; let’s go,” and she turned to head toward her garage.
“Can I grab some bottled water before we go? I was lost in an invention most of the day, missed lunch, and ate a few snacks on the way over here, but now I’m parched.”
Ariana grabbed a bottle for each of them as she often found herself thirsty cheering on Hermione.
“So what were you working on?”
“DNA testing.”
“Don’t they have that already?” asked Ariana puzzled.
“They do, but it’s a pretty screwed up system. At a minimum, it takes fifty-six hours to process each piece of trace evidence. It’s why rape kits are backlogged as long as two years in some states, which I find unconscionable.”
“So what’s the bottle neck? What’s your plan to fix it?” she asked while driving.
