Canbe crossed the space and took Maria’s pistol from her hip. She moved calmly and deliberately. Once she had control of all the firearms, Canbe let Maria put down her grocery bags and put things away.
“Please, tell me what this is about,” Maria pleaded.
“Tomorrow morning, I am going to steal your truck.”
Maria burst out laughing. “Yeah, good luck with that. It’s a four-body crew. I’m still in my probation period, so there’s an A-driver. And I don’t have the keys. You’ll have to draw them from motor pool.”
“And if we do this correctly, no one will ever know the truck was stolen,” Canbe offered. “They’ll even think you showed up for work.”
Maria inferred a menacing danger from Canbe’s statement. “What do you mean?”
“You’re going to be busy.”
“Doing what?”
“That depends on you,” Canbe informed her. “But first, we need to take a little trip.”
***
Canbe’s holding room was actually an efficiency apartment. It was in a sub-basement so there were no windows. She had replaced the cheap door with a reinforced one, which had a strong mechanical deadbolt lock. The door required a key to open from either side.
Being underground, cellular reception was bad enough. Just in case, Canbe had installed a cellular scrambler in the ceiling. While it was active, no one could make a call out of that room. She had carried a smaller, less powerful version of the device when she abducted Maria.
Canbe guided Maria into a chair and strapped her to it. Then, Canbe removed Maria’s blindfold.
“Relax, I’m not going to leave you tied up,” Canbe assured her. “We’re just going to have a little talk. Then, I’m going to leave you here. There’s food in the kitchenette and movies and a basic entertainment package on the television. Sorry, no internets.”
“This prison is all very pleasant, but what makes you think I’m going to tell you anything?” Maria was compliant for her own safety, but her abductor had already revealed she had a time limit. If Maria could hold out until morning, she would ruin Canbe’s plan.
“I just want to know your duress word.”
“My duress…” Maria trailed off.
“Yes, when you report to work, or communicate with base, you have a word or phrase that you can say, which tells them you are in trouble,” Canbe explained. “I want to know what it is.”
“I don’t know,” Maria confessed. If the abductor’s plan needed that word, it would fail.
“Why don’t you know?”
The question took Maria off guard. The hostage training Brinkloom gave her did not cover being interrogated. Her frame of reference was action movies. She expected her captor would punch her and scream the question again. She did not expect Canbe to believe her.
“Because it changes every day. They write it on a board where you sign out the keys.”
“Thank you.”
“Dammit!” Maria thought she had given up the information her captor wanted.
Canbe smiled pleasantly. She was not asking questions to learn about Brinkloom proceedures. She asked questions to record samples of Maria's voice under different stresses. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you any more questions.” Canbe pulled a long Standard Bus Interface cable from her pocket. “But you are going to give me a lot more information.”
“What are you doing?” Maria asked plaintively.
Canbe walked around behind Maria and lifted her hair. As she expected, Maria had an SBI port behind her left ear. Most people were right handed, so they had their cell phones installed in the left side of their heads. It helped keep the cables out of their way. Synaptically plastic synthetic neurons connected cell phones directly to brains. Apps on those phones enabled people to control all sorts of devices on the other end of SBI cables. Computer terminals, entertainment consoles, even automobiles could be operated by thought, but people still used their strong hands to carry food and drink to their mouths. Pica sufferers aside, people tried not to eat wire.
Canbe held Maria’s head still and pushed one end of the cable into her SBI port. Canbe plugged the other end into her own port. Canbe had apps on her phone for cracking and reading the data from other phones. If Maria had shut her phone off, Canbe could have used their connection to force it to power on.
Canbe had another set of apps on her phone for encrypting and decrypting communications. She used them to talk privately to other people, but if Maria had encrypted her data, Canbe would copy the whole phone and its encryption keys and use those apps to read it.
Maria’s phone was on, unlocked, and even had passwords saved. Canbe didn’t want to take anything she didn’t need, but she needed her phone to appear to be Maria’s. An app easily copied the phone’s network identity and stored Maria as a separate profile. When Canbe activated the copy, she would intercept any telephone traffic intended for Maria. If Canbe made a call using that profile, the recipient would see it as coming from Maria. There was a danger in telephone impersonation. All of the telephone service carriers were sovereign nations. They all declared that impersonating a phone’s profile constituted theft of service. It was illegal, and the nation-status corporations had the authority to enforce the law and punish those who broke it.
The phone cops were a real thing.
If Canbe and Maria both activated their phones with the same profile, Maria’s carrier could find both women within seconds. Both would be arrested as soon as a service truck could get to each of them. The jammer in the holding cell ensured that Maria’s phone would be out of commission for as long as Canbe intended to use the profile.
Canbe didn’t just want Maria’s service profile. She also copied her contact list. Like most women Canbe knew, Maria had a photograph for everyone in her phone. It was a custom-made identification guide to everyone she was likely to meet the next day.
Wednesday
“Pigeon gave you up,” Dr. Matthew Redds explained to Ægis.
“I find that hard to believe.” It was not that Pigeon was terribly loyal. It was that Ægis was sure Pigeon had not been in a condition to talk.
“You’re right. He didn’t say your name.” Dr. Redds needed to impress on Ægis the hopelessness of his legal situation. “But his phone did. He was talking to you during the gig. His contact book had your home address, and …”
“My legal name,” Ægis muttered.
“That’s right. Solid evidence of your involvement. You might say we have you dead to rights.”
Ægis smirked. “I’m licensed. If you have actual law-enforcement credentials, you can just look me up. Are you saying you needed to crack a dead guy’s cell phone to find me?”
Dr. Redds had pushed too quickly and accidentally emboldened Ægis. He had options, though. Ægis’s accusation revealed that he did not know where he was. Dr. Redds could play the interview as if he was working for a quasi-legal organization, or he could prove his official status.
“The phone tells me he was talking to you.” Dr. Redds set a different sort of trap, instead. “Why would he call you while he’s breaking into a mail truck?”
“That was no truck.”
“So you saw it? You were on the roof providing cover?” Matthew Redds broke his professional bearing and shook his head dejectedly. “Man, that sucks. I was kinda hoping you just did the mission planning.”
“What?” Ægis was confused by the interrogator’s sudden change in tone.
“Well, information’s legal. You can provide mission planning all you want.” Matthew turned his palm up, dismissively. “But on the roof, with a rifle – at best you’re an accomplice.”
“Cannon.”
“Excuse me?”
“Betsy’s 20 millimeter. Technically she’s a cannon,” Ægis explained. He was admitting to a lot more than simply being an accomplice, but he knew what evidence he had left at the scene.
“See, that’s what I’m talking about.” Matthew put an edge of fandom in his voice. �
�You’re this cool, badass sniper. I was rooting for you.” He turned his voice grim and continued, “Now, I gotta tell you that you’re in big trouble and threaten you with all kinds of prison time.”
“Pretty sure discharging a firearm in the city is still a misdemeanor.”
“It is,” Dr. Redds allowed. “Unless you fire it at a mail truck. See, interfering with Parcel Service is a violation of the federal anti-terrorism statutes.”
The shipping wars had lasting effects on corporate and government legal systems. The war had been so damaging to the economy that politicians were easily convinced that any attack on a mail truck was high treason. Parcel Service wasn’t the only nation-status corporation with special protections in federal law, but they were one of two that didn’t write those protections for themselves.
“I hear that in those tribunals you don’t even get a defense. The whole trial is just a state’s attorney convincing a judge that it’s legal to imprison you.” Dr. Redds laid it on thick, but he was sure Ægis had heard a story or two on his own.
Ægis pulled at his restraints, reminding himself that he was already imprisoned. “Let me guess, I can help myself by confessing?”
“God no.” Dr. Redds’s redirection tactic had been working so far, so he used it again. “I told you, I like you. I don’t want to turn you over to those guys.”
“So what do you want?”
Tuesday Morning
“I just want to go over the details,” Pigeon insisted.
Pigeon’s plan was aggressive and risky. Canbe did not like it, and it showed in her voice. “We’re ambushing a Parcel Service truck, right here.” She pointed at a specific block on a map of the city.
The map itself was from Parcel Service’s web site, displayed on a tablet Pigeon had laid out on a workbench in his garage. The street was marked by a yellow line indicating a delivery truck’s route. By looking up the tracking number on the package, Parcel Service told the mercenaries everything about the package’s location. They knew which sorting facility the entertainment console was in, and they knew when it was placed on a truck for delivery. They knew the address where the package was going. They knew what route the truck would take from the sorting facility to the destination.
“I’ll be on this roof, providing over watch.” Ægis pointed to a specific building on the map. “If the mailmen try to run, I’ll destroy their tires.”
“Are you sure you can do that?” Pigeon asked. “Parcel Service trucks use run-flats. Regular bullets can’t…”
“I’ll have enough firepower to knock the wheels off the axels if I have to,” Ægis boasted.
“Alright.” Pigeon was not convinced, but he knew that Ægis knew a lot more about weapons than he did. “But that’s only if they try to back out.” He looked at Canbe. “How are you stopping them?”
“I park one of Brinkloom’s armored cars sideways.” She touched her finger to the map, “here.”
“Where’s the Brinkloom truck, now?” Pigeon asked.
“Excuse me?”
“I didn’t see it around back of the shop.” Pigeon had checked before walking into the meeting. “So, where’s it stashed?”
“Their motor pool.”
“What?” Pigeon was incensed.
“I haven’t picked it up, yet.”
“The whole plan hinges on you getting that truck, and you haven’t done it, yet?”
“It was too risky to do early,” Canbe explained. “It would have put every armored car in the city on alert.”
“So, how, exactly, are you going to get it?”
“None of your business.” Canbe was being stubborn. “Consider it a trade secret.”
“I’m paying you a hundred thousand dollars to steal a truck,” Pigeon tried to justify his position. “I have more than that riding on…”
Canbe interrupted him. “Yeah, about that. Microsoft is paying five hundred thousand. A three way split is one sixty six.” She added, “six hundred sixty six.”
Ægis moved to explain, but Pigeon was engaged in the argument.
Canbe continued, “and sixty six cents.”
“It’s a hijacking. We’re playing by pirate rules, here.” Pigeon detailed the pay breakdown, “one share to the ship, two shares to the captain, and one share to each of the crew. That makes it a five way split.”
“Who’s the ship?”
“The garage,” Pigeon almost spit at her. “And they want assurances they’re going to get paid.”
“If I fail, nobody gets paid.” Canbe leaned against the workbench and crossed her arms. “We’ll play the job your way, but I’m doing my part my way.”
“It’s my family’s ship, and I’m the captain.” Pigeon sounded like he was pouting. “That entitles me to…”
“No it doesn’t. You don’t like it? Too bad.” Canbe pointed at the door. “I don’t need to do this job. You can go get your own armored car.”
Pigeon gritted his teeth. “How can I trust you if you won’t tell me how you’re going to do your part?”
Canbe looked at her wrist. She wasn’t wearing a watch. The gesture was a reflex that told her cell phone to display the current time on her optic nerve. “You have ninety seconds to figure that out. Then, I’m either driving to Brinkloom’s motor pool, or I’m going straight home. Up to you which.”
Canbe and Pigeon stood opposite each other. Canbe was wearing one of the garage’s coveralls to conceal Maria’s uniform. The more Pigeon wanted to know, the more Canbe wanted to keep secret. Ægis never asked anything, and Canbe had told him almost everything.
They both had secret identities. When she was not working, Canbe posed as a suburban housewife named Laura Ryan. Ægis lived in an apartment and taught marksmanship under the name Zeus Athepolis. Canbe had taken classes from him, but she possessed more skill than most of his male students. She wouldn’t call it "dating," but they had seen each other socially. Ægis had been to Laura Ryan’s house. Canbe had spent a night at Zeus Athepolis’s apartment.
Maybe it was their similar personalities. It might have been that he slept on the floor when she was in his bed, but she trusted him.
Ægis broke up the spat. “I’ve never known her to fail.”
Pigeon looked at the veteran sniper.
“Canbe’s right. This plan of yours is risky. A lot of things have to go exactly right for it to work.” Ægis put on a parental tone. “I called her because one of those things is putting an armored car in the way of another one. You’re not going to tell me where to put Betsy; you’re not going to tell her how to steal a truck.”
“But…” Pigeon protested.
“Canbe, go,” Ægis directed.
Canbe pulled open the coveralls and dropped them onto the floor of the garage, revealing the Brinkloom uniform underneath. “See you at the ambush.”
Pigeon felt foolish. Canbe’s plan was obvious.
***
Pigeon couldn’t know all of Canbe’s plan because he did not know all of her capabilities. He didn’t know that Maria Lynch was locked in Canbe’s “person storage” apartment. He didn’t know that, as soon as she pulled away from the garage, Canbe transformed herself to look exactly like Officer Lynch.
Pigeon assumed Canbe had used the information he provided to steal the uniform and a set of keys. She would walk into Brinkloom’s motor pool during the confusion of the morning roll out and drive off with a truck. That might put Brinkloom Internal Security on high alert, but if she was as careful as Ægis said, she could dodge them for a few hours until the ambush.
Disguised as Maria Lynch, Canbe walked up to the sign-out desk and asked for her keys. Canbe’s synthetic vocal chords perfectly mimicked Maria’s voice. The recordings she had made ranged from low and determined to high and confused. Canbe might not sound exactly like Maria if she had to sing, but in any normal conversation, they were indistinguishable.
Canbe had prepared the synthetic skin on her hands with a special dust. It bound to her and transformed her smoo
th, featureless palms into copies of Maria’s. Canbe had to take tape-lifts of Maria’s hands to get it right, but that was easy to do with Maria strapped to a chair.
Canbe walked to the truck, key in hand. She greeted the two men who would be spending the day locked in the back and climbed into the driver’s seat. Once her door closed, the truck was sealed. She controlled which doors would open and when.
To avoid suspicion, Canbe drove the truck on its normal route. She let the men-in-back, called hoppers, out at their route’s designated stops. She let them back in the truck with the materials they picked up. She did make one, noticeable, error, though.
“Why aren’t you on the comms?” the assistant driver, Ted, asked her aloud. Everyone else in the truck used his imbedded cell phone to connect to the truck’s wireless network.
As a sovereign state, Brinkloom Sovereign Security Services could require their staff to have certain synthetic organs. All armored car officers had implanted cell phones with “Silent Talk Technology.” Their phones were clipped to their cochlear and laryngeal nerves. Instead of speaking, they thought their messages.
When a crew got into an armored car, they connected to its network. The whole team would be in constant communication. If she needed to communicate with Dispatch, Maria would hit a button to “uplink” the truck’s network. If Dispatch needed to reach the truck, they could initiate the uplink though their telemetry connection. Everything about what an armored car did was watched and tracked for the officers’ safety.
Canbe hadn’t connected to the truck network. She knew police officers used their cell phones to call into giant conference bridges. Maria did not have a conference bridge number in her contact list, so Canbe thought Brinkloom did not use one.
“Sorry,” Canbe apologized as an excuse, “I had to make a call.” It was not a complete lie. When she started the route, Canbe had called Ægis to let him know she had the truck and to give him Maria’s phone address. Since then, she was waiting for him to call. They had planned to use Silent Talk to coordinate their actions during the ambush. By connecting to Brinkloom’s network, Canbe would not be able to receive Ægis’s call undetetected. She sent him a hasty text only message, “Don’t call, text only.”
The Armor Heist Page 2
