by Kris Calvert
“So, you’re doing pretty well for a juvenile delinquent. The girlfriend slash pet finder thing and all.”
“I get by.”
With a fingerprint recognition and the sound of his own name, the heavy metal door opened into a dark, garage-like space filled with twenty or so people. All sitting quietly at their desks, they stared into screens filled with code, their ears covered with headphones or stuffed with earbuds.
“Wanna tell me what you’re doing?”
“Nope. Wanna tell me why you called?”
“Not until you tell me what you’re up to. Don’t think I won’t call the Feds on you,” I said, tightening my tone. “Are you hacking?”
“Yes and no.”
“Wanna explain the yes part of that answer in a little more detail?”
“This is the deep and dark abyss, Agent Callahan. Welcome to the world of hacktivism.”
It really did look like one level below hell.
“Before I get any more involved with you, tell me what you’re up to. Tell me now.”
“It’s white hat—mostly for private corporations, but sometimes for your brothers and sisters at the CIA and NSA.”
“You’re hacking code looking for what?”
“Criminals, assholes, zero-days.”
Zero day exploits were hackers who found cyber security problems in large corporations with sensitive information. Finding intrusion techniques for which no software patch exists, the hacker would sell the method by which they hacked the site and the remedy for it. It all came at a hefty price, but with millions of customers’ information stored by banks, hospitals and even the clouds of billion-dollar hardware empires’ operating systems, it was a small price to pay.
“There’s a group—human traffickers. I think they’ve abducted one of the FBI’s own,” I said.
“An agent?” Elias asked with a scoff.
“No, the younger sister of an employee—my assistant. Have you tracked any child pornography sites or sex-for-sale places lately?”
“Lately?” he asked, taking a seat at his own desk in the bullpen. I looked around the room at the young faces, working hard. They honestly looked like kids who lived on the street in their dark clothes, ripped jeans and hoodie sweatshirts. One guy had a Mohawk, the girl next to him, bright pink hair and a nose ring.
“Listen kid,” I began. “I don’t have time to sit around and watch you scratch your balls. Can you help me or not?”
“Rory?” he shouted over his shoulder. “Any new hits on the dark net or Hidden Wiki in the T and A or kiddie sector?”
“Hidden Wiki?” I asked.
“It’s a black market operation in cyberspace. It’s pretty much completely anonymous. Like us, they use Tor to stay out of sight.”
Tor. There it was, the same software Lars referred to. “Tell me about Tor.”
“It’s free. Anyone can download it. Ironically, it was invented by the US government.”
“How does it stay anonymous?”
“It bounces internet traffic around a global network of computers that obscure its true source.” Elias said.
“Just think of Hidden Wiki as the sewer that runs under your house, man,” the kid named Rory added as he joined us. “All the shit that everyone knows happens, but no one wants to talk about floating downstream—right underneath your feet.”
Rory, wearing a Star Trek shirt, ran a rubber band round and round between his index fingers, as he sat on the edge of the desk staring at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Did you really bust Elias when he was fifteen?”
I looked to Eli who showed no emotion and back to Rory. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Dude,” Rory whined. “It’s cool. He told me. You made sure he only got a couple months in juvie.”
“And now,” Elias said with an edge to his voice. “I’m repaying the favor and from that point forward, we’re square, Agent Callahan.”
I pursed my lips and looked at both of the young men. They couldn’t have been over twenty-one and still had the kind of cockiness that life hadn’t beaten out of them yet. “We’ll see about that,” I said, leaning into Elias’s desk. “Time’s wasting. What can you do to help me?”
“I’d need her phone or computer. Something.”
“My buddy at the NSA was able to get into her cloud just by using her credit card information and matching that with the serial number on her laptop.”
“Well, lah-dee-da. Do you have her credit cards handy?” he asked.
“No.”
“I’ll hack into NSA and see what he’s got. What’s your buddy’s name?” Rory asked as if he was making a guest list.
“What?”
“Seriously, Callahan,” Elias said. “You’re the one who said we didn’t have much time. Do you want to know or not?”
“Shit,” Rory said, holding my phone in his hand. “He was with the Lars.”
“Hey,” I said, reaching for my phone. “How’d you know that?”
Rory held the phone in the air. “Because he’s one of the last numbers you dialed and it says, Lars Iverson, NSA in the contact information.”
Tossing the phone back to me, he smiled. “Also, you might wanna rethink leaving those photos in the cloud. Although I have to say, your wife is hot as balls.”
“Nice,” I said, looking back to Elias who merely shrugged his shoulders.
“I can let you take a look at anything that’s come through in the last twenty-four hours. See if any photos or names ring a bell,” Eli said.
“Let’s do it.”
Furiously typing on his keyboard, rows and rows of code rolled along the screen.
There’s a couple of listings here, but these assholes encrypt. I can try. I mean, what’s her name again?” Elias asked. “Frances?”
“Yes. Frankie.”
“Well, Frankie’s name isn’t going to show up anywhere and if they post a photo, you might not be able to recognize her, but let’s see what we have.”
Elias began to pull up posting after posting of young girls and boys—all of them for sale. The listings showed how old they were, what country they were coming from into the United States and how much they weighed. The kids and women for sale were more expensive if they spoke English and were submissive.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Page after page of people on the black market. This was the United States, for God’s sake. It wasn’t like I was looking at ads in a third world country. Scrolling through photo after photo, I felt sick to my stomach.
“That’s the end of the photos that came through in the past twenty-four hours. There’s a few postings. Wanna see them?” Elias asked.
I nodded, knowing this wasn’t going to help. I needed Elias’s hands on her laptop.
I scanned the pages as he quickly went through them, until something caught my eye.
“Back up,” I shouted.
“What?” Elias asked. “Did you see something?”
“The page with the names.”
“Those aren’t names.”
“What are they?”
Rory walked past, leaning into the screen. “They’re descriptions, man.”
“What do you mean?”
“They don’t use names, just descriptions. Blonde hair, blue eyes gets old and can be picked up in a search. They use something less noticeable. See?” Rory pointed to the screen. “Ken doll. They’re selling a kid that looks like a Ken doll. 90210? They’re saying the person looks like they’re from Cali—you know, blonde.”
“What’s Tony Wiener? Does that mean what I think it does?”
“That’s gonna be a guy with a big dick,” Rory said.
“Or they’re making an Anthony Weiner comparison.” Elias added.
He continued to scroll forward quickly.
“Wait!” I shouted. “That one.”
“Which one?”
“Four, seven, seven, eight, zero, zero.”
“What about
it?”
“Four hundred seventy-seven thousand, eight hundred miles,” I mumbled to myself. “That’s gotta be her.”
“To the moon and back?” Elias asked.
I fell back in the chair, taking a deep breath. “That’s her.”
122.236.46.151
proceed w. elim plan
juliet
8
MAC
I couldn’t believe it had happened just like that. In the sea of pornography and people for sale, we’d stumbled upon Frankie via the tattoo that matched her sister’s.
“Look, it might be her, and it might not be,” Eli said, pulling his chair closer to the screen. “The only way to know is to post an inquiry and ask for more info on her. Are you willing to do that?”
“Of course I am. How do I bid on her? How do I—you know—buy her?”
“Hold up, bro,” Rory said, tossing the long ponytail he wore over his shoulder. “If you go in there with a brand new name and handle in the dark web, it’s gonna stink to high heaven. They’re gonna look you up to see what else you’ve bought.”
“You mean drugs?”
“Or other…things,” Rory said rolling his arms in a circle. “Are you smellin’ what I’m cooking here? They’ll know it’s a sting.”
“Then how?” I asked. “Wait.” Turning to look at Eli, I could see the look in his eyes and he knew what I was thinking.
“No way in hell,” he said.
“Why not. You surely have a sales record in places like Satin Road or some underground hackers’ exchange. Your handle would be trusted.”
“No. Way.”
“This is fucking slavery we’re talking about here!” I shouted.
“Believe me, I get it. We find these guys and then pass along information to insiders at the CIA and FBI, anonymously. But this one—this particular group—these people aren’t the kind of folks you want pissed at you. They’ll come find you and cut your heart out without giving it a second thought.”
“Look,” I began. “I know the type. Believe me I do.”
Rory shook his head. “Not this type you don’t.”
Rory looked at Elias and then back to me. Elias gave him a single nod. It was as if I was being given Elias’s blessing.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Mac,” Rory began. “Do you mind if I call you Mac?”
I shook my head no.
“We’ve seen this group of traders before. They work in waves and the set up for their people is long and detailed. Two years ago, I stumbled onto these guys and I sent off some information to our inside person at the FBI. Wanna know what we got back?”
“What?”
“We got a visit from the NSA,” Elias replied, joining in the story. “We were ratted out and investigated, even though we were conducting only white hat hacking for legitimate companies—including the US government. Do you know what that means, Mac?”
I sighed. “Someone on the inside didn’t want that group of traders exposed.”
“Bingo,” Rory said.
“I want to help you, Mac. I do. But I’ve already had to relocate twice in the past two years to stay one step ahead of the government. If someone has enough power to call off a human trafficking sting to save their own ass, they have the kind of power to squash us like bugs. We’re not the enemy here. They need to look at their own people and figure it out. But instead, they try to bust up legit operations like ours to justify their war on cybercrime.”
“C’mon, Elias. You and I both know there’s a shit-ton of cybercrime out there.”
“Yes, sir,” Rory interjected. “And we’re fighting every goddamn day against it. Honestly, when the Chinese hack our security systems, do you think it’s only the NSA who sees it? They fucking need us and they know it. But in order to please the old white men on Capitol Hill, they give us a hard time. Try to regulate and shut us down. The funny part is, without people like us? Our country would be in grave danger.”
I stood to pace the room. “What’s our next option? Because I can promise you, I’m not walking away from this and I’ll take down anyone I have to in the process.”
Rory took a deep breath. “Are you sure about this?”
I nodded. “I have to get that girl out. And now that I’ve seen the others, we have to get them out too. I don’t know about y’all, but where I come from, you don’t sit idly by and watch someone suffer or die if you can save them. Listen, I’m all in—with or without you.”
The three of us stared at each other in the darkness. I needed them, but I wouldn’t stop without them.
Rory swallowed hard. “I have a few alias accounts I use to buy L.A. Confidential and Skippy.”
When I didn’t respond, Elias chimed in. “Weed and Adderall.”
“Don’t wanna know. Don’t care,” I replied. “How do we get to Frankie?”
Elias uncrossed his arms and sat at his computer again. Rolling code filled the dark screen and he typed furiously, as if he was pissed at the keyboard.
“First we have to inquire about her. We can’t just go in balls out asking to buy her. It’s too suspicious.”
“We don’t have time, guys!” I shouted.
“Chill dude,” Rory replied. “If we do this, we do it our way. You’re only along for the ride. Once you have her, you can do whatever you want, but we don’t know you and we’ve never known you. My alias identity will fucking cease to exist. I’m a ghost man—an apparition.”
Eli turned in his chair and looked at me. “I’ve sent the inquiry. Asked for a photo of 477800. We need to make sure it’s her.”
“It’s her. I know it.”
“Well, we don’t, and you’re working with us now,” Elias said, staring intently into the screen.
“What can I do on my end to help? To speed things along?”
“Who’s making it hard for you to work this case?” Elias asked. “Anyone who’s slowing you down, or making it difficult should be on your list of assholes.”
I nodded. “I’ll close ranks.”
“Dude, you’re not closing ranks—there are no ranks. Tell no one what we’re doing here. You’re on your own. Like us,” Rory said. “And if it all goes sideways, I can guarantee you will be attached to this alias online profile, not me. That means they will have a record of you buying drugs illegally for the past four years, Agent Callahan.”
I paused. If I could truly trust no one, then I needed to devise a plan to root out any insiders. I didn’t know who had something to hide or gain, but it was Washington, D.C., the gravy train with biscuit wheels, and it was as ugly on the inside as anyone could imagine. Now, with a fake online identity attached to me, I was as foul as the rest of them.
“What else?” I asked, as if I wanted to know more—I didn’t.
“Get the girl’s computer,” Elias said. “I’ll know who she’s been talking to and what about. If you really want to take this all the way to the top, we’ll help you. But if it goes down, you’re on your own.”
I scoffed. “Sounds like government work to me. Now give me back my phone so I can call a cab and go back to the office. I need to see who’s throwing up roadblocks.”
9
SAMANTHA
I woke with a start. The phone rang out in my bed—I’d slept with it on my pillow in case Mac tried to call me back. But it wasn’t my cell phone that was ringing. It was the house phone.
“Yes?” I asked looking to the clock on the wall, realizing at once I’d overslept. It was eight.
“Samantha honey,” Celia said softly but with conviction. “You’ve got some people here that are ready to work in the tent and—” she paused and I could hear her cup her hand around the phone to whisper. “That Senator is back. And this time he’s brought his suitcase.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” I said, tripping over my own feet in my haste to get out of bed and dressed. “Celia, put Senator Henry in the big guest room on the first floor.”
“You mean Miss Nancy’s old room?”
“I’ll take care of it. The babies are fed and are playing in the back yard with the babysitter.”
“Great,” I said, pulling my hair into a ponytail. “I’ll be down directly, Miss Celia and thank you. Really. Thank you. I can’t do any of this without you.”
“I know. Now, stop jawing with me and get a move on, girl.”
In less than three minutes, I had on a tank top, matching sweater, skirt, and flats. Teeth brushed and face washed, I pinched some color into my cheeks as I hustled down the stairs.
Blowing into the kitchen, I found Celia and Boone drinking coffee. They turned simultaneously to stare at me and I suddenly wondered if I even looked halfway presentable.
Boone in jeans, a white t-shirt and a dark grey blazer, looked like he’d been ripped from the pages of a ‘How to Dress for Leisure’ in Men’s Fitness magazine.
“Sorry,” I uttered, slightly out of breath.
“Not at all,” Boone said, flashing a smile in my direction and then offering it up to Celia. “Miss Celia was just telling me how you and your husband met. I’m sorry I won’t be seeing him today for lunch. My people called his earlier this morning.”
My eyes shifted from Boone to Celia, who raised one eyebrow at me while Boone stared me down.
“Well, it’s quite a story indeed.”
“Sounds to me like you and Mac were made for each other,” Boone replied. “I’m anxious to meet him. I hope he won’t think my presence at Lone Oak an intrusion.”
“Never,” I replied, nervously pouring myself some coffee. “Mac loves entertaining company.”
I turned to find Celia’s back to Boone and her lips pressed together in disapproval at my comment. Celia knew as I did, Mac Callahan didn’t love company, he loved walking around naked—something he couldn’t do with a house full of people.
