by PT Reade
PROLOGUE
The truth buried under a landslide of lies.
I sat in the Bridge Café, scowling at the cup in my hand, wondering if I’d ever had coffee this bad before. It tasted like motor oil and was barely strong enough to wake up a canary, let alone shake off the fuzzy head I was nursing.
No wonder everybody drinks tea in this country, I thought.
The state of the hot beverages and crappy atmosphere in this North London pit stop wasn’t my main concern though. Nor was the freezing grey rain blanketing the capital for the sixth day in a row.
I glanced away from the windows to the print in front of me.
It was easy to overlook real news amidst the celebrity gossip, character slurs, and outright lies littering the newspapers, especially in Britain, the home of tabloid sensationalism. As I thumbed through the pages and sipped the lackluster brew, I finally came cross the page I needed. A small article buried in the columns of daily news and miscellaneous interest. Next to a picture of a smiling man with gray hair and round face, the story was tucked into the corner of page 12.
Home Secretary Jonathan Ashburn, prolific Member of Parliament and popular figure in Whitehall, is facing a challenge to his position thanks to allegedly leaked photos that appeared online late last night. While the source of the images is unclear, Ashburn now has to deal with the potential damage that could emerge from video stills that appear to show the individual featured using cocaine. Several fellow party members, including Undersecretary Gordon Hyde, are calling for his immediate resignation pending an investigation.
It should be noted that media outlets have only received a preview of these pictures and their authenticity has yet to be proven.
A statement released by Victoria Hargrave, Ashburn’s assistant stated that: “Jonathan Ashburn was devastated by these claims and will be working with authorities to discover the origin of the images.”
While an intensive search is being conducted by the police, there have been no reported leads into the hackers or why Ashburn was pinpointed as the primary target of this attack. As yet, no suspects have been found, and no groups have claimed responsibility.
Like most stories of its kind, it started like this, just a blip; an insignificant dot on the media landscape that most people would skip on their way to the Sports section or crossword puzzle.
But I knew different.
To me it was clear that this would become something much more substantial very soon, whatever the outcome. Something that could shake the very foundation of this dank little country.
I placed the cup down, glanced at my watch, and eyed the building across the street.
It was time to catch a hacker.
SNOW BURN
A Thomas Blume Book
P.T. Reade
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ONE
Digital winds.
Winter was a cruel bruise over the city, a threat and a promise rolled into one. The lowering skies heralded sour events on the horizon.
It’s odd, I thought as I stepped from the greasy-spoon café and slogged my way through the icy London drizzle, how life changes, but our demons stay the same. I punctuated this thought by deftly removing the flask from my interior coat pocket and taking a quick nip from it.
The comfortable glow was familiar. The swirling warmth briefly pushed the weather away.
Before the haphazard success of the Ellington case, I figured I’d used the alcohol as a coping mechanism — a way to deaden the pain of losing my family. But now that I was more well-known, a detective that had to turn down calls every day because of the popularity I had garnered, life was different. I had purpose. I had drive. I had incredibly well-paying case offers.
But I also still had a dead wife and child.
So I still needed the booze. Now, rather than a self-medicating vice, it was a prop, a means to an end. It kept me distracted from the shadows inside, kept the smoke at bay long enough for me to focus on finding the killers. Why should I remove one of the few things that helped when I had so much to do? After all, I knew my limits. I could stop anytime.
Spoken like a true alcoholic. I grimly realized.
All of this was running through my head as I came to the apartment building that I had tracked down in my search the night before. I stood before it, not as a penniless man desperate to crack a case as I had been several weeks before. Now I was more confident as an investigator, and for the first time in months, I had a little cash to spare. But some demons couldn’t be chased away by money.
No longer broke, but still broken.
I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the entrance and realized that I needed to buy some winter clothes. I was dressed in a faded brown leather jacket, my Columbia University hooded sweatshirt, jeans, and a red scarf. I hated scarves, but it was a tribute of sorts to Sarah. She’d always tried to get me to wear one, claiming that I’d look handsome in one. I had never budged, stating that it was a frivolous and pointless accessory. But I wore one now to stay warm in the freezing temperatures and as a reminder of my family and why I was here in London in the first place — to get to the bottom of their murder.
Suddenly very aware of the cloth around my neck, I pushed through the fogged glass door of the entrance and immediately spotted a large red sign hanging over the elevator: OUT OF ORDER
Perfect.
I trudged up the only flight of stairs in the squat apartment complex. I was on the heels of a hacker that was the focal point of my most recent job…a case that was paying more than I had ever made for a single job before.
Was I being blinded by greed?
The cryptic email briefing and anonymous down payment I’d received up front had been very close to matching the entire yearly salary I had made as a cop back in The States. I still couldn’t understand why, but I had also been paid extra to get results quickly and quietly, so I’d had to rely on my own, low-profile “methods” of research. Those methods had finally led me here after a long week of endless research, phone calls, bribes, threats, and drinking.
Oddly enough, it had all come down to a single order of takeout Thai food. The hacker had gotten carless. According to the delivery driver I’d paid off, the guy had been drunk out of his mind and called for late-night Prawn Noodles. When he’d paid, he’d used the same credit card that he had made some very questionable purchases on. All of that had been linked back to one man, a twenty-two-year-old that was known to the hacking world as “Gremlin.” His real name, Chester Greely Yorke, was really not much better, as far as I was concerned. So I had opted to think of the young man by his hacker tag.
Number 407, Gremlin’s door. I raised my hand and knocked firmly. Somewhere else in the building, a baby was crying. Along the same hallway, muffled cries. A couple were either fighting or having sex. After getting no answer, I knocked again.
I waited for exactly thirty seconds which I counted off in my head, and then knocked once more. When I got no answer this time, I tried the door and found it locked. I shrugged. I could have picked the lock. It would have been the smart thing to do, but I was short on time and pissed off with this asshole for making me walk up all the stairs.
I took a step back, preparing.
Despite what you see in the movies, shoulder-barging a door is usually the worst way to gain a fast entry, and I knew it. Striking an entrance this way would just spread the impact across your shoulder and chest, usually resulting in an embarrassingly locked door and an aching back. A rookie mis
take I’d learned years ago on the beat.
If you didn’t have an “Enforcer,” the police battering ram, you used a foot, a foot applied hard and fast near the lock.
I lifted my leg and booted the door near the handle. The cheap wood splintered before dropping the lock lethargically to the floor.
“Knock, knock,” I said sarcastically as the door creaked open, revealing Gremlin’s shabby apartment.
I reached to my waist and felt the solid grip of my recent eBay purchase attached to my belt. I wasn’t expecting to find trouble, but trouble often found me. The billy club gave me some sense of security that I missed, after spending my former Police career carrying a firearm.
I took in the sight around me without much surprise.
The place was sparsely furnished and smelled of fast-food and damp. A small wastebasket sat by what looked to be the central hub of operations, a large desk littered with three laptops and various chunks of computer hardware that went far beyond my comprehension.
I carefully moved further into the place, clearing the corners out of habit and found that there was also a single bedroom and a small kitchenette. Like the living area, they were overtaken by computer parts, but both were unoccupied. I’d picked the best time of day possible to catch the kid off-guard but unfortunately Gremlin was not at home.
Damn.
After checking the musty space I decided there was no immediate danger. I clipped the baton back in place and brought my camera up from under my jacket. It needed adjusting for the poor lighting.
The Canon felt natural in my hand as I framed and snapped a couple of shots of the techno-carnage around me.
I was no fool. All modern cops had a basic understanding of computers. I’d been a detective working in a major city, but the stacks of motherboards, wiring, and stripped-out cases of electronics made the apartment look more like a garage sale in The Matrix. Meanwhile the trash can and shelves were filled with crushed cans of empty energy drinks and crumpled paper.
I eyed the table with the spare computer parts and saw various Post-It notes scattered here and there. Mentions of “Linux,” “Python,” and scrawled ideas for lines of computer jargon I only vaguely understood.
This guy was no casual geek. He’d clearly dedicated his entire life to weaving between the gaps in the digital world most of us never saw. Now he was working the big league, prying open the dirty secrets that celebrities and politicians thought they had buried online.
So where would he keep the files?
Most of the notes were unintelligible code, none of which provided any clues. They could have held the meaning of life or a recipe for the perfect meatloaf as far as I was concerned. Others had phone numbers and addresses. Any of them could have meant anything, and figuring out if some of them were worth looking into would take at least a day.
A day I didn’t have.
Jonathan Ashburn’s people had arranged a press conference in two days’ time. I had a feeling that I didn’t have long to get to the bottom of this case before it all went south.
Then I saw a note that seemed to call out to me. There was a bit more information on this one. I picked up the small yellow piece of paper and read it. Gremlin’s handwriting was neat and precise when required, something I had not expected from a guy who sat behind computers day and night. The Post-It read:
Lumika / Weds / 10:30 / VIP Room
It might mean nothing, but from a guy who lived in the digital world, a carefully hand-written note seemed to stand out as oddly old-school. I decided it was something important, and it at least provided a place and time where Gremlin was likely to show up. I scrounged around on the table and also found an expensive looking, thin metallic slab, what appeared to be a recently accessed hard drive. I only knew a little about computers, but I was fairly certain of what I was seeing. I withdrew a flash drive from my pocket and connected it, quickly copying the contents of the drive. When the gadget blinked green, I slid it back into my interior pocket where it clinked contentedly against my flask. At that point, I took my exit.
Leaving, I did my best to pull the door closed, but I had done too much damage to the frame. Oh well, I thought. If this creep gets away with selling Ashburn’s video, he can afford a new door. Hell, he could afford a new apartment.
With that, I walked back out into the freezing rain, now bordering on sleet. That, at least, seemed to be the one constant about my life in London both before and after my recent misadventures.
To acknowledge this, I took another hit from the flask, raised it to the troubled skies and silently toasted whoever created Post-Its.
TWO
My mind was restless.
I stopped by the restaurant below my apartment before turning in for the day for no other reason than to keep myself away from the case notes. If I headed upstairs right away, I’d be working all night, and I didn’t want to put myself through that. Even so, I was thinking hard about the information I had seen on the Post-It at Gremlin’s.
Tomorrow was Wednesday, which meant I might be about 24 hours from the biggest lead yet on Ashburn’s hacking case. I was on the road to breaking this in record time and could only imagine how many calls I’d be turning down after that. If, that is, the contact decided to go public. I had my suspicions, but so far my employer had remained strangely elusive.
I sat at the bar across from Amir, the owner of the restaurant and my landlord, as I sipped from a beer. He worked behind the counter, wiping it down, preparing Wine bottles and getting ready for the dinner rush. Other staff bustled about busily.
One of the young waiters walked past carrying a huge box of mineral water toward the kitchen like it was nothing. I wondered how old he was, how much the water weighed, and if I could’ve carried it so easily.
I’m not as young as I used to be.
“I like the scarf,” Amir said, bringing me back to the moment. The man’s dark features and serious eyes belied his friendly demeanor. Only those who knew Amir Mazra understood that behind the intense appearance was a considerate and utterly devoted family man.
“I don’t. But it’s sentimental.”
“A sentimental scarf?” He said, laughing.
“Long story.”
“I’m sure.”
“So I was wondering,” I said. “What do you know about a place called The Lumika?”
Amir rolled his eyes.
“Lumika” he said.
“Huh?” I replied, baffled.
“No ‘the’. It’s just called Lumika”
“Oh, so you do know of it.”
“Sort of. It’s a place over on Charterhouse Street, near Barbican. It’s really popular with the early-20s crowd. It’s one of those ritzy-looking bars that is nothing more than a vague sort of rave club in disguise. Fancy lighting, pretentious DJs, and overpriced drinks.”
“So,” I said. “Why would anyone want to go there?”
“Ask my daughter, Aisha,” Amir said with a frown, as he battled with a stubborn wine bottle cork.
“She a regular?” I asked, joking.
“No. But she got busted trying to get in a few weeks back. She got her ID checked, and they tossed her. She’s almost old enough to drink, and I can’t stop that, but the drugs in places like that….” Amir tailed off as he looked distant. “They aren’t good places, Thomas.”
“Ah, the perils of youth,” I said.
“Tell me about it,” he replied. “Anyway, why are you asking about that rat hole?”
“It came up in this new case I’m working on.”
“I see. Phone still ringing off the hook?”
“Yeah,” I said, followed by a large sip of beer. “I have you to thank for that, you know.”
“How do you figure?”
“I know you put that ad in the paper. You also hooked me up with that website. You really want me to take this P.I. crap seriously.”
“Yes” he said. “It’s good for you and the least I
can do for you after what you did for my sister in New York.”
We both went silent there, awkwardly letting the memories of his sister’s near death hang in the air around us. I still had nightmares about that night sometimes.
The tunnel, the darkness, that voice.
If I had have arrived on that scene one minute later, Amir’s sister would have died, and I would be speaking to an entirely different man. Perhaps a man just like me.
Hell, I probably wouldn’t even be in London.
“How goes the case with your family?” Amir asked this question quietly, as if he knew he was treading on sacred ground.
“Stalled. There are files that I need that I can’t get electronically. I’m working on some way to get copies of them from the Police, but they are stonewalling.”
“I know you want to find out what happened, Thomas, but be careful. Sometimes knowing the truth hurts more than living in ignorance. There is always a choice.”
“Yeah,” I said.”
Always a choice. But not for me.
I thought it was strange that Amir seemed to be easing me away from investigating my family when he had been so enthusiastic a few weeks ago. I supposed he was trying to stop me from getting hurt. And trying to stop me drinking – though he hadn’t mentioned that part yet.
Truth was, it was too late for both. How could he know that there was no way I would stop until my family’s killers were found? Ever.
“And the drinking? How’s that going?” He raised an eyebrow.
And there it is.
“Much better,” I lied. The weight of the flask in my coat was an anchor to my guilt.
Amir smiled and nodded. “I’m glad,” he said. “You deserve a break. You solve this new case, and you’ll be set for a while.”
“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves,” I said.
