The Agent's Daughter

by Ron Corriveau

  Angela gave him a puzzled look. “Hacker club?”

  “Well … It’s not a real club. We do not have a secret handshake or anything. In fact, none of us even lives in the same country. We just get together once every week on video chat and plot to take over the world. Don’t tell my dad, he would freak.”

  Angela mulled over the genius in front of her. She hoped he was kidding about taking over the world.

  “The agency has pretty good security,” Angela said. “You do realize that it would take a computer trying all possible passwords into the next century to figure it out.”

  “That’s why I want to try out my new algorithm. I based it on a 32-variable operations research Zed equation that uses the frequency of letters and combinations of letters as inputs. Instead of trying random values for the potential password, the Zed equation will work toward the most probable answer.”

  Angela and Alex nodded their heads as if they understood what he was saying.

  “And who said anything about using one computer?” Travis continued. “I will have my botnet army work on it.”

  Angela gave him that look again. “Botnet army?”

  “It’s a collection of computers that I have already broken into. I put a virus in each one of them that allows me access whenever I want them to do something for me. Some people use their armies to generate spam, but I use mine to process some of my more complex physics problems. I break the problems up into several pieces and let each of the computers work on a small part of the problem. The password prediction program is the perfect program to farm out to the botnet. I’ll give each one of the computers a copy of the prediction program along with a range of the parameters for it to work on. Then I will give each computer this computer’s IP address. As each of the botnet computers comes up with a potential password candidate, it will try it out on the receiver program.”

  Alex still looked unconvinced. “So, how extensive is this ‘army’?”

  Travis thought for a moment. “I don’t have what you would consider a sizeable army. It only has about fifty thousand computers.”

  Angela’s eyes widened. “Did you say fifty thousand computers?”

  “Yeah. Spread all over the world,” Travis said. “A couple of my hacker buddies have over five times that many in their armies. But this is a hobby for me. I just have enough computers to do my quark simulations.”

  Angela paused for a moment and let her head catch up with all he had said.

  “Okay, what do you do now?” she said.

  “Let me sit down,” Travis said. “I’ll set up the wireless card in the laptop to find the home network and then I’ll upload the password prediction program into my botnet control website. I have the program right here on a flash drive.”

  Travis took a flash drive from his pocket and connected it to the laptop. He opened a web browser and typed in the botnet control website URL. After a moment, a simple page with a skull and crossbones appeared. Travis continued to enter keystrokes, but now the characters did not appear on the screen.

  “What are you typing?” Alex said, leaning in to look closer at the monitor. “I can’t see any words.”

  “I’m entering this computer’s IP address and some other information to direct the army,” he said as he continued to type. “I have the words masked, so they don’t show up. You cannot be too careful in public with a site of this type. Can’t make any typos though.”

  After a few more moments of frenzied typing, Travis sat back in the chair.

  “That’s it,” he said. “Should be just a few moments.”

  No one said anything as the three of them began to watch the monitor. The lone indication that anything was happening was the skull was now slowly turning on the screen.

  After ten minutes had passed without any sign of progress, Angela and Alex began to have their doubts that Travis was going to have any luck finding the password. They both stepped back behind him and gave each other a look that said one of them should stop him and give up.

  Angela volunteered and stepped forward and put her hand on Travis’s shoulder. “Travis, honey. I don’t think-“

  “Okay. We’re in,” Travis said in a calm voice as he sat up in the chair.

  Angela looked over at the monitor. The receiver program was continuing past the password screen and had already begun to load a map of the area.

  Travis got up from the chair and stood next to Angela and Alex. “Sorry that took so long. Mom must have had a pretty strong password.”

  “Dude, that was awesome,” Alex said as he gave Travis a guy-smack on the shoulder with his hand.

  Angela gave him a giant hug. “Awesome indeed.”

  She moved to the chair, sat down in front of the receiver keyboard and began typing and using the mouse until she had the program set up to monitor for agent watch transmissions. Then she clicked on a Start button and the receiver began its scan of the area.

  “I have it set up to scan an area that encompasses a fifty mile radius from downtown. It should take a few minutes.”

  Angela leaned in close as the scan started redrawing the map from the top of the screen. Her eyes widened as the scan displayed the area around downtown. There was a small red dot on the map just east of downtown.

  “I see something, but this is not good,” Angela said. “The dot should be green, but this dot is red. That means that the person wearing the watch has set the distress beacon.”

  Angela turned to Alex and gave him a look that said she was sorry. He was right about something being wrong.

  She continued. “Agents set the distress beacon when they are in immediate danger and need to get out fast.”

  “Can it be activated by accident?” Alex asked.

  “That can’t happen,” Angela said. “There is an exact sequence of buttons on the watch that must be pressed to activate the distress beacon.”

  She zoomed in on the area around the red dot. The red dot grew in size on the map, and more information was displayed in a bubble attached to it.

  “Well I’ll be,” Angela said to the screen. “She still has it.”

  “Still has what?” Travis said. “And why does the red dot have my mom’s name next to it?”

  “That’s your mother’s watch but your sister is wearing it!” Angela said. “I caught Melina with it yesterday and told her to put it back. Apparently she didn’t. Way to go, girl!”

  “So does that dot tell us where they are?” Alex asked.

  “Not quite,” Angela said. “Downtown is about thirty miles away. At that distance, the receiver can only pinpoint a watch to the square mile. We need to be closer to downtown to get an exact location. We’ll have to drive down there.”

  Alex and Travis looked at each other and then back at Angela.

  “Let’s go,” they said together.

  Angela unplugged the receiver and put it back in its case.

  “Take this case upstairs,” Angela said to Travis and Alex. “I will be up there in a moment.”

  As the boys scrambled up the stairs, Angela walked over to one of the cabinets and opened the door. She reached in, grabbed a small wooden case and opened it. She took the gun from the case as well as a few extra clips and put them in her pocket. As she was walking away from the cabinet, she paused and went back. She grabbed the two LREDs and headed for the stairs.

  Chapter 11

  Melina stood at the sink washing her hands, trying to clean the filth of the room off them. And it was not the first time. It seemed like everything she touched was covered in thick dust or some sticky substance. Of course, there was no soap, so she did her best to clean them as she rubbed her hands together under the water.

  As Melina focused on her hands, her eyes were drawn to the water stream. She thought her eyes were playing tricks on her because the water had stopped flowing straight down. It was now flowing sideways at an angle as it left the faucet, like gravity somehow had shifted. She stopped rubbing her hands and just stood there watching the water s
tream. It continued to flow at an angle further and further to the left until it almost flowed out of the sink. But before it did, it slowly straightened out and then began moving toward the right. Melina turned around to yell to her dad that the water in the sink was acting weird when she noticed that he was standing right behind her waving one of his arms all around. She looked back at the water and saw that the water was moving in unison with the movements of his arm.

  “How are you doing that?” she asked.

  “I am a descendant of the great Poseidon,” he said with a deep and powerful sounding voice. “I have dominion over all water!”

  She gave her dad a look that said she was not amused. Again.

  “Okay,” he said holding out his arm. “It’s the watch. I have the magnetic bullet deflector on. You see water is a dipole, so the individual molecules have both a positive and negative orientation. Just like metal does. This means that water molecules are affected by a magnetic field. The difference in the force exerted on one side of the molecule versus the other causes it to move away from the field. Cool trick, huh? Fun at parties. Amuse your friends.”

  “He’s a real hoot around the lab,” David chimed in.

  Melina held out her hand. “Can I try …?”

  She stopped talking. Her dad’s smiling expression suddenly turned serious as he turned around and walked over to the middle of the room. Melina had seen him do this before, so she looked up at the vent in the ceiling as he did.

  “They’re coming,” he said, now strictly business. “Both of you come over here under the vent and listen carefully to the sound of these footsteps. Try and determine how many there are.”

  The three of them stood under the vent, looking up at it and not saying a word. The sound was low and muffled at first and then became louder with each passing second. Then, the sound of the footsteps increased in clarity until they became distinct from each other.

  “I hear three sets of footsteps,” David said.

  “I hear three, too,” Melina said.

  “Three it is,” Evan said. “From the cadence, two of them are the same two that visited us the last time. William is not with them. Everyone to their places. Ten seconds.”

  Melina ran to her position along the side wall behind the cabinet next to the sink. Evan and David had moved it out a few feet away from the wall. This was her dad’s idea, giving her something to hide behind at the beginning of the fight when it was anticipated that there might be shooting. He wanted to move all of the shelf units over too, and surround her with them. But Melina put her foot down, so they just went with one cabinet. They did make sure that the cabinet had an outlet behind it, so she could still plug in the extension cord when it was time. She reached down, grabbed the end of the extension cord off the ground, and held it near the outlet.

  David moved to his position behind the shelf unit. It had been moved right next to the area around the door just outside the door’s swing radius. The top shelf was filled with the shelves from several of the other units to make it top-heavy and easy to tip over.

  Evan walked to a spot in across the doorway from David’s shelf unit where would be behind the door when it opened inward. At his feet was a paint can that had been filled to the top with water.

  The sound of the footsteps continued to get louder and became a mesmerizing staccato as they approached the outside of the door.

  Then they stopped.

  Melina peered from behind the cabinet and focused on the doorknob. She could see the shiny metal stub of the deadbolt that stretched between the door and the doorjamb. She listened closely as she heard the jangling of keys being pulled out of a pocket and moved toward the key hole. Then there was a loud click as the metal stub of the deadbolt retreated into the door. The door was unlocked. Melina turned to the outlet and forced in the plug.

  In an instant, there was a loud wail from the other side of the door followed immediately by a loud thump as the person on the other side of the door hit the floor. Melina looked over at her dad. He gave her a thumb’s up and then motioned for her to unplug the extension cord. Evan watched as she yanked the cord out of the outlet. Then he stepped forward, grabbed the doorknob and threw open the door.

  As Evan expected, he saw the large man from the earlier visit, only now he was bent over an unconscious man lying on the floor, trying to figure out what was wrong with him. Evan could see the unconscious man’s face, but he did not recognize him. He looked past the large man and saw that the little nervous guy from earlier was in his assigned position across the hall. Again, he was leaning on the wall across from the door with his gun drawn in a sideways gangsta style. The large man looked over at Evan and stood up. He was not holding a weapon, but Evan could see the outline of a shoulder holster inside the man’s jacket. Evan looked the large man in the eye and assumed a fighting stance with his arms up and his fists clenched. This made the large man squint and put his hands together to crack his knuckles.

  “I’m gonna break you apart,” the large man said as he stepped over the unconscious man and made his way toward Evan.

  “Go bust him up, man,” the little nervous guy said.

  Evan kept his fists up but backed slowly into the room and away from the door. The large man followed him into the room. After a few steps backward, Evan stopped and extended the index finger of one of his clenched fists.

  That was the sign. Suddenly, the cabinet next to the door tipped forward and crashed down onto the large man, knocking him to the floor and coming to rest on top of him. Evan stepped forward, and prepared for the man to push the cabinet up off himself and begin to fight. However, it was clear from the large man’s closed eyes and the lack of movement that he was not getting up.

  Evan looked out the door at the little nervous guy across the hall. His eyes were wide open in terror as he realized that he was now alone. Evan could see in the man’s eyes what was coming next, and he dove for the closest cover available behind the open door. He tried to shut the door, but it was blocked by the cabinet on the floor. In an instant, the hallway resonated with the sound of gunfire as the little nervous guy fired indiscriminately into the room. At less than ten feet away, the man was too close for the magnetic bullet deflector to be much help.

  As the nervous man fired into the room, he didn’t move forward, and he continued to lean against the wall across the hall. Evan listened carefully from his position behind the door, and he counted each of the bullets as they were fired. He knew that a standard semi-automatic pistol held fifteen rounds. Those that like to live a little dangerously keep an extra round live in the chamber. Evan figured this guy to be the type.

  Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen bullets fired. Then silence.

  Evan looked over at where Melina was hiding. She appeared unfazed as she poked her head from behind the cabinet and waved at him. He looked over at David and saw that the bullets had somehow missed him too.

  Evan could hear no movement out in the hall. He moved to the left a little, so he could peer into the hall through the crack between the door hinges. The little nervous guy was not reloading. He was just standing there with wild eyes looking into the room. His gun was still drawn. Evan could rush him, but there might still be one bullet left. He slowly bent down and grabbed the handle of the paint can by his feet. In one swift motion, he sprang up and swung the paint can around the end of the door, letting it fly into the hallway.

  Evan watched as the can sailed across the hall and struck the little nervous guy square in the chest with a monstrous thud. The liquid in the can sprayed all over the hall like a watery explosion and the impact sent the little guy reeling against the wall. As he hit the wall, he involuntarily fired a round into the ceiling. Number sixteen. Without hesitation, Evan took three quick steps and then launched himself across the hall hitting the nervous guy in the midsection with a roundhouse kick. As the man bent over and groaned, Evan kneed him in the forehead and he crumpled to the ground.

  Evan reached down and grabbed
the gun from the man’s hand. He began to search the man’s pockets for extra bullet cartridges when another shot rang out and hit the wall just above his head. He turned around and saw the man that earlier had been shocked by the doorknob. The man was awake and was now pointing a gun at him. He looked like he was still a bit disoriented, so Evan was unsure if the shot the man fired had just missed badly or was a warning shot.

  “Don’t move an inch,” the man said, still shaking his head back and forth in an effort to clear it.

  Melina could see what was going on from behind the cabinet. She looked over at David who gave her a shrug as if he did not know what they were supposed to do.

  Melina knew. She moved from behind the cabinet and quietly crept along the walls of the room until she was next to the door, right behind the man with the gun who was standing in the doorway. He still had the gun pointed at her dad, so she needed to disarm the man without the man shooting him.

  Dozens of thoughts swirled around in Melina’s head. How her dad was able to handle a man with a gun. What Angela had said about always knowing your next move. But, the harder she thought about what to do, the calmer and more focused she became. This is what her dad had been talking about. In a high-pressure situation, he found himself able to concentrate as if his brain were a supercomputer. In an instant, she had the solution.

  Melina lunged forward and sliced her hand down on the man’s wrist. He dropped the gun and turned around just in time to see a fist headed for his face, and Melina connected with his jaw. It sent the man flying out the door where he landed on the ground at Evan’s feet. The man was out cold.

  Evan looked at the man on the ground and then at Melina. “Nice technique.”

  “No sweat,” Melina said as she smiled and lowered her fists.

  Evan grabbed the gun from the floor and yelled into the room. “Come on out, David. They’re all down.”