by Nathan Roden
Waving to the two girls in the rain gear. Waving them down to the lower level.
The girls walked to the aisle and started down, dancing down the steps. Babe looked at Gabriel again in disbelief.
Gabriel jumped up on the top of the dugout and held out his hand to one of the girls. She took his hand and climbed up.
“Come on up,” Gabriel said to Babe.
“They will not allow us up here for long.”
“What? Gabriel. Have you lost your freaking mind?”
Obviously you have, Babe thought.
Because Gabriel and the girl were dancing on top of the dugout.
The other girl pushed Babe in the back.
“Come on, man. Let’s go.”
Babe fell forward and caught Gabriel’s outstretched hand. He found himself on top of the dugout and the only one of the four not dancing to the music. He looked up at the nearest two security guards. The criminal trespass dancers had yet to be detected. He looked at Gabriel, who stopped in the middle of his version of a Steve Martin/Dan Aykroyd dance.
“Come on, Babe. Pleeeaase?”
Babe closed his eyes and swayed a little. The girls squealed in delight.
“Go Babe. Go Babe. It’s your birthday.”
The rain began to fall again. All four lifted their faces upward and laughed—and danced. Badly.
They heard the voices of the approaching security guards. They jumped down and ran for the exit, waving to each other as they split up.
Standing at the entrance gate, Babe began to laugh as he shook the rain from his hair.
“What the hell,” he said to Gabriel, “Was that?”
Gabriel smiled.
“Random acts of silliness and frivolity are merely the spirit rising up and demanding to make a statement.”
“A statement. What statement?” Babe asked, peeling off his poncho.
“Life is short,” Gabriel said. He stepped from underneath the awning, closed his eyes, and lifted his face to the rain.
“But tonight— we live.”
Twenty-Eight
At ten o’clock Thursday morning, Babe went over the layout for the first of the two remaining tests that he hoped for Gabriel to complete by the end of the day. At eleven, Gabriel put down his pen and said that he needed to get something to eat.
Babe was disappointed because he knew that testing was now behind schedule. Gabriel did not return until two o’clock.
Gabriel had only been back to work for ten minutes when Babe looked up to see him standing in front of his desk.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Babelton. I’m afraid I will have to finish at a later time. I need to go now. I’m sorry,” he turned and started toward the door.
“Gabriel, what’s the matter? Are you sick?”
“No. I just— I have to go. I’m sorry.”
Babe sat down hard. He rubbed his temples with his thumbs for a little while.
What is wrong with that guy?
Babe felt sick at the thought of not being able to give Gabriel a glowing review. But he may have no choice. Gabriel had as gifted a mind as he had ever encountered. His military recommendations were surely based on superior performance. But these psychological tests and interviews—as well as his opinions and analysis—this was his job— but it would not be his job for long if he ignored obvious red flags, and that’s what Gabriel Athas was quickly becoming.
One big, giant red flag.
Might as well check with MG and see if he rescheduled.
Babe opened his office door and found Jack speaking to MG. Jack was still in his overcoat. Jack and MG turned toward Babe with concern on their faces.
“Hi, Jack. Is something—?” Babe said.
Jack looked at MG and motioned toward the front door with his head. MG locked the door.
“What is it? Not Millie, no—” Babe said.
“No, Babe. Millie is fine,” MG said.
She led Babe to a chair and sat next to him.
“The investigation we’ve been involved with—there will be an arrest tomorrow.” Jack said.
He ran his hand through his hair.
“I’m breaking the law to tell you this. An international cyber-crime group has been accessing our systems and several other federal databases. They’ve been monitoring our entire division. They put a man inside.”
“Inside? In your office?” Babe asked.
“Yes. Do you remember Andrew London?”
“No. Should I?” Babe asked.
“Patrick Andrew London? You don’t remember him?” Jack asked.
“No, Jack. I’ve never heard of him. Is he the one?”
“Yes. He’s been in our office for two and a half years. Cyber Division analyst,” Jack said.
“Why would I know him?” Babe asked. Jack looked at MG and then back to Babe.
“You processed him.”
Babe sat staring at the floor. His thoughts were racing.
Not again. I’m finished. Eckhart will have us shut down. Or if I’m lucky they will just fire me. I’ve let Jack down. Shit. I have to quit, before he tries to stick his neck out for me.
Jack pulled a photo from his jacket and held it in front of Babe.
“You don’t remember him?”
“No, Jack. I don’t.”
“Let’s go for a ride,” Jack said.
“A ride?” Babe asked.
“We’re going to the Bureau to look at that file.”
Babe sat in a chair in front of Jack’s desk, exhausted. Jack returned to the room carrying a folder. Without a word, he sat behind his desk and scanned the folder’s contents. He fanned the papers out across his desk.
“Come around to this side, Babe,” he said.
Jack pointed to the standard individual sign-off forms that accompanied all submissions made by RCI.
“These are all your signatures. You’re positive that you don’t remember him?”
“No,” Babe said softly, shaking his head in a dense fog.
Those are my signatures. But, I don’t…remember. I don’t remember the name or the face. When did this happen? How many days— how many times did I do shit like this while I was worried about Jill? On freaking autopilot.
*…and there goes a single up the middle, scoring the runner from third…*
Am I losing my mind? Or is it already gone? God, I’m sorry, Jack.
*… a single up the middle…*
Babe squeezed his eyes shut. He shook his head and tried to force his memory to cooperate.
Where is that voice coming from?
I’m sorry, Jack. Let me go…
“Can I see the evaluations?” Babe asked.
Jack leafed through the file and pulled out some pages. Babe began to read and he became even more depressed. These were his words. No doubt about it.
So, it was true, after all. He had given a pass—a clean bill of health—to a criminal. And worse than that, he didn’t even remember doing it.
I can’t do this anymore. He’ll keep covering for me until it ruins him...
*…single up the middle, scoring the runner from third. That’s going to end the night for Barry Zito…*
What now? Why am I hearing this fucking baseball commentary? Come and get me, Nurse Ratched, it’s time for my meds…
I give up—
*…single……the night for Barry…*
“Jack…” Babe whispered.
*…single…….Barry…….*
“What is it, Babe?” Jack asked.
“…Single…..berry?”
“Hello? You still with me?” Jack whispered.
“Single…terry,” Babe whispered.
“Babe, you feeling all right? You look kind of green,” Jack said.
“Single…terry. Single…tary,” Babe said, louder.
He jumped to his feet.
“SINGLE- FUCKING- TARY!”
“Jack. That file. James MotherFUCKING Singletary! That’s his file. That file does not belong to any goddamned London. That was over two—that was t
hree years ago. I’m sure of it. What the fuck is going on?”
Jack was on his feet.
“James Singletary. Be right back.”
Jack returned after five minutes.
Jack rifled through the files, comparing them. He grew more excited by the second.
“Holy shit,” Jack said, breathing hard.
He picked up his phone.
“Clay? Jack. Drop what you’re doing. Get up here, now. And Clay, do not log this call. Don’t talk to anyone. Get up here.”
Jack looked up at Babe.
“That’s our forgery expert. Babe, can you—”
“Yeah, yeah, Jack. I’ll be in the cafeteria—or around, somewhere. I have my cell.”
“Great. Thanks.” Jack fell back into his chair.
“I’ve just about ground the teeth off of all my brain gears, but we’ve got this by the balls, son. I guarantee it.”
Babe nodded and left the office.
Twenty-Nine
Patrick Andrew London was a dead man, and he knew it. How could he not? He was the one that was going to make it happen.
He was born Andrew Patrick Taylor. By sheer force of will, at age eight, he began answering only to “Drew”. His parents objected to this version of his name. They attempted to prove that they could be just as stubborn as he and refused to provide “Drew” with food.
This went on until Drew passed out in the hallway at school after a twelve day fast. Students and faculty members panicked; this included the school nurse, who called for an ambulance.
The fact that his self-chosen name resulted in Drew’s parents’ being interrogated by local police and child protective services made it that much sweeter for him.
Drew scowled and ground his teeth through several names during his childhood. It seemed to him that everyone felt they had the right to determine the way in which he would be referred: Patrick, Pat, Patty, Patty-cake, Patricia, Patsy, and even the goddamn abomination of “Andy“.
“Drew” dug in his heels and determined to die before he responded to any name other than “Drew”.
During a lunch break in his eight grade year, he walked unnoticed behind a group on classmates. He overheard a boy saying that “Drew“ was a “goddamn faggot vampire wannabe name“.
Drew sent that boy to the emergency room and he smiled at the thought that the boy would wear those scars on his face for the rest of his life. Drew was suspended for thirty days.
So fucking what.
Thirty days without that lame-ass excuse for a school—more like a training ground for fuckers to perfect the art of looking down their noses at the kids that weren’t going to be on Mommy’s tit until they were forty years old.
Drew Taylor’s father was a third level manager with a technical support company. He taught computer science two nights a week at the community college. But to Drew, his father was little more than a professional whiner.
If only he had this break, or someone would recognize his potential, blah, blah, blah, he could have been this, or that, big, successful…whatever.
His main usefulness to Drew was his supply of computer science books that Drew devoured for years, behind his father’s back. Drew spent every possible hour of his life online. He eventually became a member of a hacker group known as “Anarkey“.
Drew’s parents forced him to participate in Little League baseball, and later on, soccer. His mother was especially insistent on his participation. Drew found this odd because she paid little or no attention when she attended the games or practices. Drew had no interest in either game, and for years he cried, pouted, even begged to be allowed to quit. His mother would not hear of it.
One night Drew sneaked into his mother’s room with the intent of stealing a few dollars. Instead, he found a stash of pill bottles—prescriptions issued to different women; women with the same last names as kids on his baseball and soccer teams. Drew researched the drug names; Mood drugs. Psychiatric drugs. Muscle relaxers. Pain pills.
A fucking junkie. That bitch is using me—making me play these idiot games so that she can swap drugs with these other fucking junkie soccer moms.
Drew went on strike. He would walk to home plate and never move the bat from his shoulder. In the field, if the ball was hit near him he would stand in place and stare at the ball. During a tied game one evening, a ball was hit through the infield and rolled to a stop beside him. He sat down on top of the ball as his teammates, coaches, and other parents screamed at him.
Drew’s coach pulled him from the game and told his mother that he was off the team. His mother drove him home without a word.
At home, she beat him with a belt until she collapsed in a slobbering heap. Drew had a black eye and whelps covered his arms and legs.
His mother kept him at home for two weeks.
It would be pretty hard to get your fucking drugs in prison, wouldn’t it, Queen Bitch?
Drew started first grade a year late while his parents moved around the east coast in search of “opportunity”. Later, he flunked out of his freshman year of high school because his obsession with the nether regions of the internet left him void of any ability to concentrate on his other subjects.
By this time, Drew had no real-life friends. To the other seniors he was “that dumbass geek”. To Drew, his classmates were all brain-dead children.
During January of Drew’s senior year of high school, a member of Anarkey made him a proposal. He was in a vulnerable, pliable position, because though he excelled in computer technology related courses, he didn’t have the grades to attend college. His parents had no means or intention of financing his further education.
Drew was offered the chance to receive high level computer training, the offer coming via an encrypted chat session. Not only was he thrilled with the prospect, but the fact that the training would take place in Europe sealed the deal for him.
His contact informed him that his overseas fare and lodging was taken care of. He was responsible for making sure that no one, his parents or anyone else, knew of his whereabouts. He was also responsible for making sure that no one would report him missing or try to locate him.
He concocted the story that two of his online gaming friends, who also graduated this year, were inviting Drew to join them on a European hitchhiking adventure. The former “hippie” parents of his fictitious friends were upper middle-class families and were generously inviting Drew to join their boys in “finding themselves”—thus beginning their adult lives with a “great adventure”.
This was not a hard sell for Drew’s parents, who thought this was a better alternative than having Drew living in their home on a “burger-flipping” adventure.
One month after graduation, Drew was on a plane to London. He was met at the airport by a humorless young man who accompanied him on a short flight to Oslo, Norway. There, Drew was shuttled to a semi-depressed row of small houses. He was let in and given a key to the very modest and sparsely furnished house, and told that he would be contacted within the next twenty-four hours.
The next morning, Drew was visited by two serious looking men. They introduced themselves by tags that Drew was already familiar with. Both had been members of Anarkey, but had been absent for the last year.
They handed Drew a modest amount of euros and told him to buy some clothing from local shops and dispose of his American clothes. They advised him to fit in and not draw attention to himself. Drew was apprehensive but excited.
The two men walked with Drew to the nearby market and showed him how to shop without looking like a tourist. They looked on discretely as Drew made his first European purchase—a computer flash drive.
The next day, the men took Drew to a house a few blocks from where he now lived. Inside, a dozen young men worked side by side on computers. Drew was assigned a station and introduced to the man in charge.
After introductions were made, Dante Vlada handed Drew two sheets of paper. There was a list of International companies—their addresses, the banks th
ey used, and names of officers and employees with access to corporate accounts.
Drew stammered the beginnings of an objection, but was silenced with a single finger.
“Did you think that we were selling Girl Scout cookies? We are not stealing from grandmothers— these are criminal corporate fucks that steal all day long in their five-thousand-dollar suits. If you cannot steal more than your salary, we have no need of you.”
Drew quickly grew accustomed to his role and became a star. He was rewarded handsomely by his new associates, and he reveled in the knowledge that he would never be the whining hack that his father was.
Five months after arriving in Oslo, Drew was relocated. Two weeks later he was up and running again, in Amsterdam.
Drew began to relax. He settled into his European identity and he was hitting on all cylinders, swiping tens of thousands of dollars every day from faceless, obscenely wealthy corporations.
One night he made his way into a local bar, got extremely wasted, and stumbled into a nearby tattoo parlor. He staggered out an hour later with the letters ‘A-N-A-R’ printed across a picture of a skeleton key on the inside of his left forearm, a design he had sketched during one of his failed courses back in high school. He was pulled aside from his workstation the following day.
Dante Vlada looked at the tattoo, squinted, and looked Drew in the eye.
“Lose it. I need you clean.”
Drew was taken off of his computer station three days later. He began intense training with three different men from the organization over the next fifteen months. This new training took place seven days a week, and sometimes ran from dawn until late at night. He received the equivalent of a graduate course in cyber-criminal activity in an extremely condensed format; offensive operations, detection and evasion. His questions were either ignored or answered with the promise that he was going to the next level.
