This tough kid exchanged a glance with the other tough kid: This one’s got some attitude. Which means it’ll be even more fun when we smash him into a thousand little pieces.
‘Let’s have a squiz at that phone,’ said the other tough kid, holding out his hand.
I knew that if I handed him my iPhone I would never see it again.
‘That’s probably not a good idea,’ I said.
Before The Debt I probably would’ve done as they’d asked: handed them my iPhone.
And then I would’ve gone home, told my parents what had happened and they would’ve told me that I’d done exactly the right thing – why risking getting hurt? – and bought me a new one.
But that was before The Debt.
Again the tough kids exchanged tough-kid looks.
It was time to go onto the attack.
‘If you two don’t get out of my face right now, your miserable lives are going to get a whole lot more miserable,’ I said.
Again the exchange of looks, but I could see a tiny flicker of doubt on the face of the tough kid.
Only tiny, but tiny was enough.
I shifted my gaze to him.
‘You’ve got exactly one minute,’ I said, checking my watch. ‘Starting from now.’
‘He’s full of crap,’ said the other tough kid to his mate.
For a second his mate was lost: which story to believe: mine or the other tough kid’s?
I said nothing, just let a sort of half-smile play upon my lips.
The tough kid shifted his weight and I knew I had him.
‘This is stupid,’ he said, getting out of his seat.
The other tough kid glared at me.
‘You’ll keep,’ he said, before he, too, got up.
Next stop I got off.
The shop was situated in a dodgy arcade that housed a pawn shop and a hydroponics shop and a couple of ‘adult’ shops and a shop that didn’t really seem to sell anything.
In this setting the brand-new Surfers Spy Shop looked a bit incongruous and I wondered why they hadn’t put it somewhere more up-market.
As soon as I walked in, a neat-looking man with a ponytail said, his accent one hundred per cent Kiwi, ‘By all means take a look around but no touching anything, okay?’
‘Sure, bru,’ I replied.
‘One more thing,’ said the man.
‘Yes?’
‘Can you go easy with the “bru” thing?’
‘Okay,’ I said.
I did exactly as he requested, taking a good look around but not touching anything.
Will Goodes and Matt Robertson were right: it was totally awesome.
I’d seen a lot of this hardware online but it was very different seeing it in the flesh.
There was nothing that resembled an IMSI-catcher, though. And I wondered how I could possibly broach the subject with the owner, who was now on the phone.
‘Yes, we currently do have the MorphVoc Three in stock,’ he said, but I didn’t really hear what else he said because my mind was now in whirl mode.
It had to be the same voice modulator that I’d done some research on during the first instalment.
Now what did I know about it? Something, anything, as a conversation starter.
‘Is that the Bluetooth model?’ I asked after he’d hung up.
‘No, there is no Bluetooth model,’ he said, and I felt about the same size as one of those figures you get in a McDonald’s Happy Meal.
‘No, wait, I tell a lie,’ he said. ‘They did release a Bluetooth, didn’t they? It wasn’t up to scratch, so I decided not to stock it.’ He flashed me a smile and said, ‘You know your stuff, eh?’
I shrugged, but the conversation was well and truly started.
We talked some more about hardware, but as we did I made sure I kept in role – I was just this nerdy kid who was into spy stuff.
Not this unnerdy kid who actually used the it.
The Kiwi – whose name was Hanley – told me a bit about himself.
He’d been one of those kids who needed to know how a Walkman worked. So he’d take it apart and put it back together again. And again. And again.
He’d come to Australia to do electrical engineering at university but then had dropped out. Bummed around for a while before he’d seen an ad for the spy shop franchise. He’d persuaded his parents to put up the money. And business, so far, had been pretty good.
As the conversation burbled along, Hanley doing most of the talking, I kept waiting for the right opportunity.
And then it came.
‘Of course, not everything’s on the shelves,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘Got some stuff that’s not strictly kosher, if you get my drift?’
I totally got his drift, but I still wasn’t sure of a subtle way to bring up the IMSI-catcher.
‘You wouldn’t have an IMSI-catcher, would you?’ I blurted.
Which was about as un as subtle can get, but it worked.
‘Funny you should say that,’ he said, lowering his voice even further.
He walked over to the entrance, locked the door and flipped the card to CLOSED.
And then he told me about the IMSI-catcher, the one that he had built!
‘Seriously, you built it?’ I said.
‘Why not?’ he said. ‘I read on the net about this guy in the States who’d built one, so I thought if he can, then why can’t I? Just because I don’t have a uni degree doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.’
‘So it’s finished?’
‘All ready to go,’ he said and I could hear the pride in his voice.
‘You want somebody to test it for you?’
It had been going so well, I’d made the mistake of thinking that it would continue to go well.
He hit me with the obvious question: ‘What do you want an IMSI-catcher for?’
‘Um,’ I said. ‘Ah,’ I said.
And then it came to me.
‘There’s this kid, right, by the name of Guzman, and he put some spyware on my phone, so I thought I’d show him a thing or two.’
Hanley thought about this for a while, before he said, ‘You got it for tonight, but that’s all.’
He reached under the desk.
I was expecting something like I’d seen on the net, a neat black box with lights and meters.
But all he had in his hand was a cheap-looking flashdrive. And an even cheaper-looking antenna.
‘That’s it?’ I said.
‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Load this software onto your laptop, plug this antenna into your USB and away you go.’
SATURDAY
LEND OF ME
All the way home I kept changing my mind: Hanley’s having a lend of me, Hanley’s not having a lend of me, Hanley’s having a lend of me, Hanley’s not having a lend of me.
And when I plugged the antenna in and stuck the flashdrive into my laptop and nothing happened, not even the usual drivers being installed, I told myself that Hanley had been having a lend of me.
That he was probably telling somebody right now about this great joke he’d played on this kid. Bru.
But then I noticed it, on the side of the flashdrive, a little switch thing – the flashdrive was locked.
I flicked that and a message appeared on my computer: drivers being installed.
That went for a while and when it stopped a black screen appeared and a script ran. Then another one. And another.
It was all very low-level, all very technical, and I didn’t really have much idea what it was doing.
This stopped and I thought, Is that it? But where’s my IMSI-catcher?
Again that thought: Hanley’s had a big old lend of me. Bru.
A box popped up on my computer.
Enter target phone number
I entered the last of Guzman’s numbers that Hound had given me.
More black boxes appeared, in which more low-level technical-looking scripts ran.
And then another box appeared: Number successfully captu
red, phone currently being monitored.
As if, I thought.
Because all I could hear was silence.
But then again, Guzman was a pretty unattractive unit and I doubted he’d have chicks ringing him left, right and centre.
He had to be communicating with somebody, though. A mother, an accountant, somebody.
Maybe it was a time thing. Maybe he was one of those stay-up-all-night-and-sleep-all-day nerds.
Or maybe Hanley was still having a lend of me, sitting in his shop having a huge Kiwi chuckle at my expense.
But then my laptop beeped and a box appeared on the screen.
Guzman was getting some communication, an incoming text!
It was from his very good friend Telstra offering Guzman a deal on some great new plans that were going to save him $$$.
Great, I thought.
But then another box appeared that said, Target phone making outgoing call to following number: 31157550.
A man with a Chinese accent answered Guzman’s call with, ‘Yes.’
Then Guzman’s voice over my laptop’s speaker: ‘Let’s switch to IM.’
Man with Chinese accent: ‘Network down.’
Guzman: ‘Hell!’
Man with Chinese accent: ‘You too paranoid, Freddy Boy. Just talk. No problem.’
Guzman hesitated before he said: ‘I need you to put some hardware together.’
Man with Chinese accent: ‘What sort of hardware?’
Guzman: ‘You’ll find out.’
Man with Chinese accent: ‘No, I need to know now, or no work.’
Again Guzman hesitated before he said, ‘Cerberus.’
The Man with the Chinese accent emitted a low whistle before he said, ‘A hundred k.’
Guzman: ‘That’s ridiculous!’
Man with Chinese accent: ‘Ten k for the work and ninety k for my no talk.’
Yet again Guzman hesitated, and for an excruciating second I thought he was going to hang up, but eventually he said, ‘Okay, it’s a deal. I’ll be there in half an hour.’
Then he hung up.
Suddenly, with one tapped phone call, two worlds, the world of the Cerberus and the world of Guzman, had become one. Guzman was LoverOfLinux, and even though I’d had a hunch about it I still just couldn’t get my head around that.
How had it happened?
Was it some sort of crazy, improbable coincidence?
But again I recalled that on the day we nabbed Nitmick I had the sense that he and Guzman knew each other well.
And I knew that Guzman frequented Cozzi’s, so there was the Snake connection.
But how did it happen that something I just happened to find out when I was working for Hound later became the third instalment of The Debt?
Could Hound be part of The Debt?
I didn’t have time to think all this through right then, though, because I had to find out where they were meeting. And that clock was still ticking loudly.
I did the obvious thing: I rang the same number that Guzman had rung.
The same person with the Chinese accent answered. ‘Yes.’
Thinking quickly, I said, ‘I’d like to get some work done, please.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Dominic,’ I said, but ‘Dominic’ obviously wasn’t good enough, because the phone immediately went dead.
I tried the number again but it didn’t even ring – obviously my number was now blocked.
So how in the hell was I going to find the address?
No sooner had I asked myself that question than myself came up with the answer: reverse phone book.
I wasn’t sure where I’d heard about them but I had.
And a quick google revealed that I hadn’t been mistaken: there were quite a few sites offering reverse phone lookups in Australia.
I entered the number into one of them, hit enter, and got the following: an address has been found for this number, please enter credit card details to unlock.
Jesus – did everything today have to be difficult?
I’d used Dad’s credit card many times before, always with his permission, but I didn’t have time for such niceties today. So I just entered the details of his card, consented to a debit amount of $5.95 being made, and finally an address appeared on my screen: Shop 4K, Electric Bazaar, Chinatown.
I hit ‘print screen’, shoved the resultant printout into my pocket.
After calling a taxi, I was about to exit when I thought of something: it’s always good to have an alibi.
I picked up my broken iPhone 5 and put it in my pocket.
There was nobody downstairs except the chess pieces, arranged on the board, all ready to go.
But as I stood outside, swearing at the taxi for not being here, Tristan appeared again.
‘Hey, where you going?’ he said.
‘Out,’ I said.
‘Out where?’
‘The Electric Bazaar,’ I said. ‘I need to get my iPhone repaired.’
‘That place is mad,’ said Tristan.
The taxi appeared and I raised my arm so he would know I was the fare.
‘Okay if I tag along?’ said Tristan.
Not okay, I thought. Not okay, I was about to say. But then I thought, what the hell? It would make my alibi stronger – But Officer, I was off to get my iPhone fixed with my mate. And I couldn’t imagine Guzman, with his sparrow bones, being dangerous, that Tristan would be in any danger, at all.
‘I guess so,’ I said. ‘If your olds are okay with it.’
‘They’re okay with it,’ he said. ‘Why wouldn’t they be?’
Why wouldn’t they? Well, maybe because the last time we went out together you got shot at, which caused something to short circuit in your brain, which caused you to steal, and then crash a Maserati, thereby putting you in a coma.
‘Get in,’ I said, opening the taxi’s passenger door for him.
SATURDAY
BIZARRE ELECTRIC
The Electric Bazaar was a six-storey building right in the middle of Chinatown, a rambling rabbit warren of a place, full of escalators and corridors and hole-in-the-wall shops.
The sort of place you’d go to buy a dongle for your laptop, some counterfeit software, or to get a Cerberus assembled.
‘You sure you don’t want to go back?’ I asked Tristan as we entered.
‘No way,’ he said. ‘This is mega-exciting!’
The Debt was sort of the reason Tristan had ended up in a coma, so I was starting to feel guilty – mega-guilty – involving him in it again.
But I figured I might also need him around and not just for an alibi.
Because now that I was here I realised that I had absolutely no plan, no idea how I was going to get the Cerberus from Guzman.
I wasn’t even sure I’d come to the right place.
As the scam with the couriers proved, Guzman was clever, very clever, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d fed me a whole lot of false clues, if I hadn’t been eating a lot of red herrings lately.
The first thing I had do was ascertain whether this address actually existed.
I assumed that shop 4K would be on the fourth storey, so we took a series of clunking escalators to that level.
But none of the shops – if you could call them that – seemed to be numbered 4K, so I decided to ask around.
The first person I approached didn’t know where it was.
‘You want to buy DVDs?’ he said. ‘Best quality.’
Neither did the second person.
‘You want to buy software?’ he said. ‘Special price for you.’
I was starting to think that Guzman had indeed sent me on a wild-goose chase, but the third person I asked said, ‘I can do better price.’
‘Better price than what?’ I said.
‘Better price than 4K.’
So it did exist.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll get a quote from 4K and then I’ll come and see you.’
‘I do better price,�
� said the man.
‘Just one thing,’ I said. ‘Where exactly is 4K?’
‘In basement,’ said the man. ‘Dirty place, many cockroach.’
We left the man and his better price and got in the crowded lift.
It whirred and it groaned but eventually it started moving downwards.
Past Level 3. Past Level 2. But at Ground Level it stopped. The doors clanked open and Guzman was standing there.
Guzman and his muscle-for-rent, the man with the red bandana, who was holding a black attaché case.
Guzman looked at me and I looked at Guzman.
And my mind immediately went into who-knows-what? mode.
I knew that Guzman was here to get the Cerberus assembled.
But he didn’t necessarily know that I knew that.
I knew that Guzman had arranged the courier scam.
But he didn’t necessarily know that I knew that.
So it seemed to me that somehow I was in a position of power here, because I knew more stuff than he knew.
And my intuition told me that I had to keep it that way, bring it down to his non-knowing level.
No saying, ‘Ah ha, I know why you’re here, Guzman!’ or ‘You swiped my stuff, you scumbag!’ – none of that.
Instead I brought my alibi, my broken iPhone, out of my pocket and said, ‘You wouldn’t know where I could get this bad boy fixed, would you, Guzman?’
As he stepped into the lift, Red Bandana following, Guzman looked at me, then at the phone, an ‘ouch!’ look appearing on his face.
‘This level,’ he said. ‘Right at the back. Ask for Nguyen.’
‘Okay, thanks,’ I said, taking Tristan by the elbow and guiding him out of the lift.
‘Who was that?’ said Tristan as the doors jerked shut and the lift continued on its way.
‘That’s the guy who pulled the stunt with the courier,’ I said.
‘And you just let him go?’ said Tristan, clenching his fists.
I imagined a UFC match, Tristan and Guzman in the Octagon. A knee in the Guzman’s knurries, over and over. A punch deep in his guts, over and over.
It was a nice thought, but it wasn’t going to happen, and it wasn’t going to work.
Violence, not even the UFC-sanctioned type, wasn’t going to get the Cerberus, wasn’t going to pay this instalment.
Bring Back Cerberus Page 14
