by Vince Milam
“Okay.”
“Elliot Krupp’s latest venture is rumored to be embedded with those in power. A venture both shadowed and active.”
“Stretch that out for me, Jules.”
“Unlike those of my ilk, who focus on individuals and, I might add, personal encounters, Alaton landscapes a larger picture.”
“Okay.”
“Collective mindsets, cultural trends, and societal tendencies represent his current milieu.”
“Alright.”
“Which presents two rather large questions. For what purpose? And, as a commercial venture, who might his client base be?”
“Large corporations, I suppose. For targeted advertising and such.”
“No, dear. No. The shadow murmurs suggest something much more Orwellian.”
She balanced the cigar back on the desktop edge and reached for the licorice tin.
“A weakness long established,” she said. “And one I cannot resist. Your tin box is a thing of beauty and a joy to behold.”
She popped home another licorice. I considered the Orwellian statement. Big tech, big data, had long ago crossed the boundary into societal overreach. A known, and in my case, avoided. But Jules hinted at a darker world, one with tendrils into centers of power.
“You’re implying governments. Government clients,” I said.
She paused her chewing.
“Indeed.”
“Which ties back to the interest in Alaton’s client base. Which cracks open the door to a world I’ve left behind. I’m living in a no-espionage workspace now, Jules. A spook-free zone.”
“Hmm.”
Couldn’t tell if her response addressed the candy or my statement or both.
“It’s a cut-and-dried contract. I’ll gather intel from Hoolie, then meet with Krupp and his wife. Figure out what I can and file my report back to Switzerland.”
She chewed, swallowed, and plucked the smoldering cigar from its resting spot.
“No shadow games, no spookville, no heading down a path where life sits on a razor’s edge,” I added.
She gave me a wry smile and said, “And I hold against my aged bosom hopes for a grand success. May you return from Hawaii with the Swiss version of huzzah ringing in your ears.”
“Just so we’re clear,” I said, “you’re talking about the one big thing.”
The one big thing—nothing was ever as it seemed. A Clubhouse cardinal rule. She shrugged.
“Time will tell. Your perception of the engagement may well be spot on. Now, allow us to move on to a more important subject. Exposure.”
“Okay.”
She leaned forward, hunched over the desk.
“Six degrees of separation. You are familiar with the theory?”
“Yeah.”
I was, at a cursory level. The theory claimed any person could be connected to any other person through a chain of acquaintances with no more than five intermediaries. An interesting concept but one I’d given little thought toward.
“The object of your contract has accumulated vast amounts of personal data. In and of itself, a potent tool,” she said. “But consider. What if he has also mapped the glue that binds? Mapped those intermediaries as well. A treasure map, which might reveal connectivity to events from the past.”
“Okay.”
“You and I have been assiduous in hiding such connectivity. We hope.”
“Where you going with this, Jules?”
Her eagle-eye squinted.
“Do you intend sojourning west using your real name?”
“Yeah. I considered an alias, but this cat won’t see me unless there’s an air of legitimacy. And I get that he’ll dig, do background on me prior to the meeting.”
“You see no issue with such excavation?”
“Birth record in Savannah. Maybe military service records. Not a helluva lot more for him to find. Since Delta Force days, I’ve been buried deep. Traveled on false passports, used Cayman bank credit cards with fake names. He won’t find much. Enough to know I’m legit, as in a real person. Enough for an air of mystery. Enough that, maybe, I can get a meeting with him.”
“Let us postulate he finds a bit more. Sufficient to reveal bright spots of connectivity.”
“You mean our relationship. The potential for Clubhouse exposure.”
“In part. Perhaps in large part, if I am to be honest. But other connectivity as well. Insight into your past.”
The killing. Dead bodies strewn across the Case Lee landscape. Hitters, spies, bounty hunters. Both domestic and foreign. Activities and specific actions shoved into the world’s dark corners. And shoved into the cobwebbed recesses of my head, seldom dwelled upon. Ugly business best left undisturbed.
“Don’t think this guy is capable of sorting through such mess. No literal or figurative fingerprints were left behind.”
“Perhaps. But do exhibit extreme caution during your near-term endeavors. Exposure has multiple consequences, most of which are of the negative variety. Tread softly. For your sake. And for the sake of the Clubhouse.”
“Will do, Jules.”
She straightened and cast an eye toward the abacus.
“Six thousand, dear.”
I unrolled sufficient Benjamins and handed them over. Gifts exchanged, promises made. The electronic clang, triggered by an unseen button, unlocked the Clubhouse door and signaled the meeting’s end. I stood and headed for the door.
“Off to see the wizard, Jules. Take a peek behind the curtain. And maybe do a little surfing. Wish me luck.”
“I always do.” She cocked her head. “But proceed with care. You joust with a very different creature this time.”
Chapter 3
I began making definitive plans after the Clubhouse meeting and prickly phone conversation with Krupp. I’d leave the Ace of Spades in its current tie-up after sliding the crotchety dock manager a few Benjamins to ensure its safekeeping.
The Ace. An old wooden cruiser, rough around the edges, that sang a comforting blue-collar diesel tune while underway. She always got me from A to Z. Sleeping quarters belowdecks, a small wheelhouse centerline. A wheelhouse with bulletproof windows. The foredeck sported a plastic tarp—protection from the weather—and underneath it an old La-Z-Boy, repeatedly patched with duct tape. The throne. I’d spend the year cruising the Intracoastal Canal, affectionately known as the Ditch. From Virginia to Florida, the Ditch consisted of manmade canals lined with moss-laden oak trees, natural rivers, and cuts across bays and sounds. The Ace of Spades and the Ditch. Home.
Winter had arrived, and after the Hawaii contract I’d cruise south. Leave the cutting wind and bitter mornings behind. Plus my mom and younger sister resided in Charleston, South Carolina, and I was due for a drop-in. Meanwhile the warmth of Hawaii had considerable allure, along with the opportunity to stretch my legs within a different contractual framework. I shook off the irritation of Krupp snapping his verbal fingers toward a lackey and focused on my next steps.
Booked a Hawaii flight, with a half-day layover in Topeka, Kansas. Enough time to visit the home of Hoolie Newhouse. A computer geek/guru for hire. After I retired from Delta Force, and at the start of my contracting career, Jules turned me on to him. My first face-to-face meeting with Hoolie reaffirmed the old it-takes-all-types adage. But he’d been more than helpful, and I’d contracted his services a time or three over the years.
“Johnson Plumbing,” he answered after three rings.
Subterfuge and paranoia from the get-go. I braced for Hoolie-world.
“Hoolie. Case Lee.”
“Are you using the phone I set up for you?”
“Yes.”
Silence. A conversational silence fully capable of stretching for minutes unless I plowed ahead.
“I’d like to drop in on you tomorrow. Got a contract I could use your help on.”
Another silence, followed with, “I’ll unlock it. Morning or afternoon?”
“Noon.”
He hung up. The
object of his unlocking was the entrance to a farmhouse Hoolie had built years before. Built on top of the command center for an old ICBM Atlas missile silo, dug from the fertile Kansas soil. He’d leave the farmhouse door unlocked.
I packed light except for the necessary Kansas stopover clothing. Checked the weather. Topeka, twenty-seven degrees, overcast, howling winds. Just great. On the other hand, Kona, on the Big Island, was eighty degrees and sunshine. The Case Lee Inc. business model was taking an upturn.
Landed in Topeka, Kansas, rented a car, and headed forty miles west through miles of frozen and windblown wheat fields. A simple gate spanned the entrance to Hoolie’s fallow sixty-acre plot. Although unlocked, it did require my exiting the vehicle and freezing my ass off opening it… while allowing the hidden cameras ample opportunity for visitor inspection. The small farmhouse matched the style and condition of those I’d traveled past. I parked on a large snow-and-ice-covered circular concrete pad, fifty yards from the farmhouse. Below me, underneath the concrete and steel cap, an empty missile silo extended one hundred fifty feet straight down. Back in the sixties, at the height of the Cold War saber-rattling, a massive Atlas rocket carrying a thermonuclear warhead could be launched from there in ten minutes. The US Air Force replaced the fixed-launch missiles as the Soviet Union fell and new technology became available—nuclear submarines, cruise missiles, stealth bombers. The Air Force sold off the abandoned launch sites. Most remained part of the ground-level terrain as farmers plowed around the silo cap and nearby entrance to the launch control center. Wheat fields were reclaimed, although a few silos were picked up by, well, people like Hoolie.
While hustling toward the farmhouse as an icy wind whipped, I croaked out a version of “Those Were the Days.” A weird and spooky act, I know. But I found the old missile site weird and spooky in itself and was about to enter a world which, if not full-on spooky, damn sure made the weird list.
The clapboard farmhouse was heated, a welcome relief. The decor, Craigslist specials. A pantry door off the kitchen opened to another steel-lined shaft, sixty feet down. At the bottom, it widened into the former launch control area. A circular steel stairway wrapped around a central pipe leading down. I’d descended a few steps, my lower torso exposed, when he called out.
“Stop there.”
I did. Somewhere below, Hoolie aimed a fully automatic high-powered weapon at me.
“Hoolie. It’s me. Case.”
“Alone?”
“Alone.”
“Was that a rental car?”
“Yep.”
My voice echoed in the steel-cased space.
“Did you disable the GPS on it?”
“Did indeed. A couple of miles from the airport. Froze my rear off doing it.”
“Is the GPS on your phone disabled like I showed you?”
“It is.”
“Turn the phone off before you come any farther down.”
I did.
“Done, Hoolie.”
“Come down.”
As I descended, the large space below was revealed. Desks, computers, stacks of servers as lights blinked and fans hummed. Hoolie lowered his weapon and smiled.
“It’s been a while.”
“It has. I appreciate you seeing me.”
“Coffee?”
“Sure.”
We didn’t shake hands. Hoolie was a germophobe, and small hand-sanitizer bottles littered his multiple desktops. He wore jeans and a flannel shirt, face and head and eyebrows and heaven-knows-what-else shaved.
“I’m gonna buy you new glasses, bud,” I said, also smiling.
His thick black frames were held together above his nose with white adhesive tape. Classic nerd fashion.
“No, dude, no. It’s my one bit of flair.”
I might have suggested being hairless as a mole rat could be added to the flair mix, but didn’t. He laid his weapon against a desk and padded across the vast room toward a pristine kitchen area. Coffee preparation began.
“This is the real deal,” he said and displayed a large water bottle. “Most of the stuff you buy is tap water. Full of chemicals. Not this.”
“Okay.”
“So you’ve got a contract you need help with. Good, good. Are you paying with crypto currency?”
“Nope. Cash.”
Bad answer; too late, I remembered going through this the last time we met. Cash had been handled multiple times by multiple people. Germs galore. He paused the coffee prep.
“How about a credit card?” he asked.
“I can do that.”
Less than desirable, but flow and forward momentum were important when dealing with Hoolie. I had a card tied to a Cayman account with me. It handed him the keys to a segment of my personal financial kingdom, but options were limited. Satisfied, he continued coffee prep.
“So tell me about the contract. I’m working a few now that make my eyes cross. Boring, boring.”
“This one probably will as well. Alaton Corporation. An overview of their business model including, if possible, their client base. So I’d appreciate you sharing what you know and do a little digging for me.”
He paused, rubbing his hands with hand sanitizer as the coffee brewed.
“Dude! I can tell you what I know but more importantly what I suspect.” He began rubbing in sanitizer again, the hand movement much quicker. “And I’ve tried the big dig, believe me. Krupp has his systems locked down so tight even I can’t get in.”
“So Alaton shows on your radar.”
And therefore on the radar of every Hoolie-like critter out there.
“On my radar? Dude, get real. Don’t you know what he’s up to?”
The door cracked open to conspiracy central. I’d endeavor to keep it halfway shut.
“Nope. Alaton doesn’t advertise their services.”
“You know about China, right?”
“Hate to tell you the truth. You’ll be disappointed in me.”
I smiled, kept things light, and kept a foot against the figurative door. Hoolie leaned forward and shook his head.
“China. C’mon. Really?”
“Really.”
He launched into great detail how China has developed a “social credit score.” For all its billion-plus citizens. A personal score derived through not just what you said and did on the internet but what your social media friends said and did as well. Your social credit score dictated whether you could buy a house, travel on an airplane, or get a loan. Big Brother personified.
“Alaton is building the system for them,” Hoolie said.
“You sure about that?”
“Get a grip, dude. We’re staring into the abyss. And that bastard Krupp leads the charge.”
“So China is a client. Got it. What else?”
He snorted in disgust and poured us both coffees. A wall of server lights blinked. Disinfectant’s acrid smell filled the air. At least he hadn’t insisted we go shooting like my first visit. A tunnel with an open blast door connected his work area to the missile silo. He’d grabbed an assembly of weapons and led me along the dim tunnel to stand at the edge of the massive empty chute. He’d insisted we each wear disposable surgeon masks. No earplugs. For the next ten minutes he’d blasted away down the cavernous hole. “Helps clear my mind,” he’d said. My ears had rung for half a day.
Hoolie pointed toward a chair while he sat back against a steel desk, coffee in hand.
“I can’t believe I have to lay this out for you,” he said.
“I’m a simple creature.”
“So here’s the deal. Data. Big data. I don’t mean simple stuff like personal information or purchasing history. It includes that, but so, so much more.”
He delivered a long lesson on the current state of data collection around the world. Every email or IM you sent, keywords plucked and digested. Your movement 24-7 through cell phone GPS. Your medical records. Comments you made on social media, who you associate with, their proclivities and connections—you name it.
A vast social web that tied us all together. The whole six degrees of separation not only mapped with connection points but behaviors and attitudes and predictive proclivities as well. Jules was behind the times—we’d already entered the world she’d warned of.
“Krupp’s other companies assembled data silos. There was no connectivity, no pipelines between the silos,” Hoolie said. “Until Alaton. He pulled together those vertical mountains of big data and nested them in one place. Alaton. That includes facial recognition and remotely identified heart rhythms, dude. Do you still have your cameras covered?”
At our first visit he’d warned me to cover my cell phone and laptop cameras. Simple black electrician’s tape did the trick.
“Yeah. I’ll admit that one spooked me a bit.”
“As it should. So picture this. You drive to the mall. They know you did because your cell phone GPS tracked you. You enter, and facial or heart rhythm recognition software tracks your movement. You want some fried chicken, so you walk into a fast-food joint. You may intend to pay cash, but it doesn’t matter. They know you’re in there. Your medical records indicate you shouldn’t eat fried chicken. Your social credit score goes down. You receive an IM telling you not to eat fried chicken. Your friends, who care about you, receive an IM asking them to contact you. Go eat a salad, is the government line. Being good citizens who don’t want their social credit score dinged, your friends IM you while you’re in line for some chicken: Go eat salad. Don’t eat chicken.”
“Seems far-fetched, Hoolie.”
It was also discomforting as hell. A part of me refused to accept it. Too invasive, too much of a violation of privacy. Of free will.
“Dude! It’s happening right now! China is the first country headed down that path. But don’t think for a minute the red, white, and blue protects you. Banks and credit card companies, right now and right here, assess your ‘character and capacity’ as they call it when it comes to loans and credit card interest rates. Have rich friends on social media? That’s good. Know some deadbeats, not so much.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“No, I’m not shitting you. Have you been living on another planet, dude?”
