Hurricane Power

by Sigmund Brouwer

  I had found Carlos’s neighborhood again.

  Still running hard, I looked more closely at the houses on each side of the street. With the sun shining bright in a cloudless sky, the street looked very different from the way it had the night before. I recognized some of the houses. A half block later, I stood in front of the big old house where Carlos and his family lived.

  I stared at the huge house with its broken windows. Clothes hung from balconies to dry in the breeze.

  I told myself this had all started with Carlos. If he was the problem, then he might also be the solution.

  I ran up the front walk. I pushed the door open, smelling the same scent of garlic and grease from the night before, hearing the same loud television from somewhere on the main floor. As I walked up the stairs, I heard babies crying somewhere above me. I walked down the hallway and passed the same doors with the same chipped and peeling paint.

  I stopped in front of the door that led to Carlos’s family’s two-room apartment.

  I knocked and waited.

  chapter twenty-three

  Carlos opened the door. He didn’t say a thing.

  He looked up and down the hallway. Ignoring my soaking-wet T-shirt, he pulled me inside and bolted the door behind me.

  “You must be crazy,” he said. “What you doing here? Man, people see us together, I’m dead.”

  His brothers and sisters wandered out of the small bedroom at the back of the apartment. They stared at me. They spoke to one another in Spanish. Probably talking about my wet T-shirt.

  His father and mother weren’t here. Or if they were, they stayed in the other room.

  “I’m here because I don’t want to have to worry about getting knifed at school,” I said. “The people you hang with aren’t too nice. And for some reason, they don’t like me.”

  “They don’t like you because you put your nose where it don’t belong. Just like now.” He sniffed the air. “Man, speaking about noses...”

  He sniffed again. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “How’s your little sister?” I asked. I didn’t want to answer his question.

  “Better,” he said. He sniffed again. “What do you do? Look for that stuff and roll in it? Are you some kind of sick?”

  “Some kind of unlucky. And again, it’s your fault.”

  “Me? I don’t push you into it. I don’t—”

  “You looked me up in the school computer, didn’t you?” I looked squarely into his face. “When you saw my dad was a doctor, you decided to visit because Juanita was sick.”

  “It wasn’t me,” he said. “It was them. I just overheard them talking about you and your family and where you lived.”

  “‘Them’?” I asked. “Who is ‘them’?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “They changed my grades too, didn’t they? Who are they? And how do they get into the system?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head, “I can’t tell you anything.”

  “There are guys with black rose tattoos chasing me. You’ve got to tell me what’s going on.”

  “No way,” he said. He pointed at his brothers and sisters. “You say the Black Roses be chasing you. That’s your problem. I can’t let you put your problem on my family.”

  The Black Roses.

  “The Black Roses?” I said. “Is that the name of a gang?”

  “You stupid?” he asked. “You live all your life in some igloo? Of course the Black Roses are a gang. They rule the school, man. All of it.”

  “Then I really need your help,” I said.

  “So that’s it,” he answered. “You’re here because you think I owe you for what your old man did for my sister.”

  “No,” I said, “that’s between my dad and you. I’m asking for your help because I don’t know where else to start. Tell the Black Roses I don’t have a fight with them.”

  “Me?”

  “They’ll listen to you. You’re part of them.”

  “They don’t listen to no one. And I’m trying to stay out of it too.”

  What?

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “If you’re not part of them...”

  “I can’t tell you nothing,” he said. “How many times I gotta say that? I’m in too deep.”

  He stared at me. I stared at him.

  In too deep.

  I wondered if I should tell Carlos about my dad. And how he once thought he was in something too deep.

  I decided I would tell him. I drew a breath to speak.

  The door behind us opened. It banged against the chain lock.

  “Carlos?” It was a woman’s voice.

  Carlos spoke Spanish to her. He unlocked the chain and opened the door. His mother walked in, holding a bag of groceries.

  The first thing I noticed was a black rose sticking out of the bag. Just like the rose I had found in my locker. Whatever color it once had been, it was now spray-painted black.

  Carlos saw it too. He pointed at it and spoke some urgent Spanish to his mother. She smiled and explained something.

  All the life left Carlos’s face. His shoulders slumped.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “She said she was walking home when this nice boy came up and gave her the rose.”

  Carlos could barely speak. “It’s a message. To me. I’m now on their list. And they want me to know they can get me anytime. And that they can get to my family.”

  “If that’s true,” I said, “then you have no choice. You have to do something—now.”

  He looked at the floor for a long time. He finally looked up at me again. He nodded.

  “Maybe we can help each other,” I said. “But you have to tell me what’s going on.”

  After a few seconds, he nodded again.

  chapter twenty-four

  Just my luck, I had to run into the two policemen who had stopped me with my brother’s water pistol.

  I was sitting in the police station, three hours after talking to Carlos. I’d had a chance to go home and change my shirt. I was waiting for another officer to come out and talk to me. I saw the big cop with the mustache first. Then his partner caught up to him.

  They caught me looking at them. They were so close that I could read the names on their badges. Fernetti. Tunnerd.

  They stopped.

  Fernetti, the one with the mustache, snapped his fingers.

  “You,” he said. “You’re the kid who rolled in the—”

  “Yes,” I said. How long was that going to follow me? At least they didn’t know about the second time. “That’s me.”

  “Robbed anyone with a water pistol lately?” Tunnerd asked. They both laughed.

  “No,” I said, “but I found out why the boy I was chasing ran away. And that’s why I’m here.”

  “Yeah?” They were still laughing.

  “He thought I was in the Black Roses,” I said.

  That stopped their laughter.

  “What do you know about the Black Roses?” Fernetti asked.

  I shook my head. “Not until I have a deal.”

  “Deal?” Tunnerd said. “What do you think this is? Television? You don’t get no deal.”

  They moved closer, looking down on me. Both of them had their hands on their billy clubs.

  “Tell us what you know, kid. And don’t mess with us.”

  Fortunately I saw Dad heading down the hallway. A woman in uniform walked with him. They reached me as the two cops in front of me were pushing closer.

  “Fernetti. Tunnerd,” the woman said. Her dark blue uniform was crisply ironed. Her blond hair was pulled back in a bun. There was no smile on her face or in her voice. “What are you doing?”

  They backed away.

  “Kid’s got something to tell us about the Black Roses,” Tunnerd said. “And he’s trying to get cute and cut some deal.”

  “He does have a deal,” she snapped. “And he’s got a lot to say. Since it’s your neighborhood, how much of it do you want to hear?”<
br />
  “All of it,” Fernetti said.

  “Then behave.” She smiled. “Better yet, apologize for trying to push him around.” We all sat in her office. I knew her name from the sign on her door: Captain Helen Chandler. On her desk was a picture of her with her family.

  She’d had the officers bring some chairs in from another room. It was crowded, but I didn’t mind.

  “Dr. Calvin was kind enough to explain quite a bit to me before you two joined us,” Captain Chandler said, her words as crisp as her uniform. “And I have agreed to his terms. Which means you can proceed, David.”

  So I told them what had happened to me during the week, right down to the part where I was chased from the school. When I told them about not having sand to throw when I was trapped, I thought they’d never stop laughing.

  “What my friend told me was this,” I finally broke in. “The Black Roses have a hacker, someone who can get in and out of computer systems without getting caught. Or noticed.”

  “Computer systems?” Fernetti said. “What good does that do to a bunch of punks in a high school gang?”

  “Bank computers,” Captain Chandler explained. “Utility company computers. Military computers. How dangerous do you think someone would be who can get into them?”

  Fernetti whistled. “Plenty.”

  “Except they stay away from those computers,” I said. “At least, from what I know.”

  “Meaning?” Captain Chandler asked.

  “Meaning they might not be able to make money getting into those computers.”

  “Bank computers...,” Fernetti said. “Wouldn’t tapping into them be like breaking into a bank?”

  I nodded my head. “But sooner or later, banks will notice the money is missing. Someone will come looking. Even if they never catch you, you’d always be worried about that possibility. And selling military secrets would be dumb too. Then you’re dealing with people from other countries. And you wouldn’t want two armies after you.”

  “You seem to know a lot,” Tunnerd said. “You sure you’re not the ‘friend’ you’re talking about?”

  “I’m not the friend,” I said. “I just like reading books and learning about computers and stuff.”

  Which was why I had gone to the school secretary in the first place. I’d wondered if computers were involved in some way.

  “How can we be sure you’re not the friend?” Tunnerd asked.

  “Because my family moved to Florida legally.”

  “Huh?” he asked.

  “The Black Roses get their money from people in their neighborhoods. People they know they can scare. People they’ve helped move here. People who can’t go to the police for help because, if they do, they’ll get kicked out of the country.”

  “Illegal immigrants, right?” Captain Chandler asked. “This is about illegal immigrants.”

  I nodded, thinking of Carlos and his family and how they were struggling to survive.

  “When the Black Roses hack into computers, they don’t steal anything. Because when you take something, the people who own it eventually come looking. Instead they add things.”

  Captain Chandler nodded as she began to understand what Carlos had explained to me. With millions of names on computer databases—like the ones for the school systems in Florida—who’s really going to notice if you add a few more? Or a few dozen more? Or even a few hundred more?

  “In a few months,” I said, “my friend and his family will be us citizens. At least the government computers will show them to be citizens. The hacker has even enrolled my friend and other people like him in school, just by breaking into the main computer system for the city’s school district.”

  I explained the rest of it. How the Black Roses not only made money by selling citizenships and entry into the education systems but also by taking their time getting the citizenship stuff cleared. In the meantime, they blackmailed people like Carlos into doing stuff for them. If, like Carlos, those people tried to say no, the Black Roses would threaten them or their families, knowing they would never go to the police.

  “Wow,” Fernetti said. “That’s big business. You almost have to be impressed that high school kids can have so much power.”

  “This is bigger than you think,” I said. “From what my friend tells me, it’s not just the Black Roses. It looks like they’re the muscle for someone else.”

  Captain Chandler, Fernetti and Tunnerd all leaned forward.

  “There’s someone at the top who sets this up for different gangs in different areas,” I said. “If someone can break into computer systems, why stop at one neighborhood?”

  “In other words,” Captain Chandler said, “stopping the Black Roses is like cutting off one branch. To get the whole tree, we need to get to the root—the hacker and whoever he works for.”

  I nodded.

  This was why Carlos had been so scared. And why I was in so much trouble for getting involved. Because the whole tree was so big, and so much money was at stake.

  “We definitely can’t do this ourselves,” the captain said. She picked up the phone and punched some numbers. She waited for a few seconds.

  “Yes,” she said when someone answered on the other end, “I need to speak to someone in the FBI’s computer crimes division.”

  chapter twenty-five

  Saturday morning. Eight o’clock. Clear, deep blue sky. Grass wet with heavy drops of dew. No traffic. Most of the track team stood in the parking lot behind the school, waiting beside an old yellow bus that would take us across town for the track meet.

  I was standing by myself. Other people had clustered in small groups. There was no sign of Jennifer and her dad yet. That, of course, was why we were waiting.

  Jason walked toward me.

  As usual, he had a sneer on his face.

  “Heard the Black Roses are after you,” he said.

  “News travels fast,” I said.

  “You might as well leave the school,” he said. “Once they decide to get you, they’ll never quit.”

  “That’s what I understand,” I said.

  Jason and I were in our own little world. The early sun cast our shadows on the side of the bus.

  “Aren’t you scared?” he asked. For a second his sneer dropped, as if he was really curious about why I wasn’t scared. For a second I almost liked him.

  “Sure I am,” I said. “Is that what you want? Or do you need me to show it too?”

  “Me?” He put the sneer back on his face. “Why should I care?”

  “That’s my question, I guess. Why should you care? Why have you done your best to make things tough on me? I never once did anything to you.”

  He spat on the ground in front of me. “You’re a Christian.”

  “Huh?” I wasn’t surprised he called me that; I wore a silver cross on a chain around my neck. What did surprise me was the anger and hatred in his voice.

  “Christians.” He repeated it with the same anger and hatred, and he spat on the ground again. “A Bible-thumper like you comes along and Jennifer gets taken in by how nice she thinks you are.”

  Bible-thumper? That wasn’t me. My dad always quotes a writer named Augustine: “Go out into the world and preach; if necessary, use words.” That was the whole reason Dad had moved us down here: so he could work in the clinic. He believed that what you did counted way more than what you said.

  I hadn’t once tried to force Jason or anyone else to believe what I believed.

  “My old man calls himself a regular Christian,” Jason continued. “Before he and my mom split up, he used to hit me. He said it was his duty to drive the devil out of me. Sometimes he hit my mom too. When she left him, he told me I was going to hell because I wanted to live with her instead of him. And he hasn’t paid a cent of alimony. That’s why I have to go to a dump of a school like this.”

  I felt so bad for Jason, I almost put my hand on his shoulder. But the look of hatred on his face told me he didn’t want kindness from me.

&
nbsp; “Ever thought maybe your dad was wrong?” I asked.

  “Whatever,” he said. He spat once more and began to turn away.

  “Jason,” I said, “this sounds dumb, but I’m going to do my best to help you.”

  He turned back, a look of disbelief on his face. “Help me? That’s a good one. With the Black Roses after you, you’re the one who needs help.”

  I’d thought I would enjoy this morning. I had no doubt Jason had put the tacks in my shoes. And Jason had turned people against me. I’d thought revenge would make me feel good. But I hadn’t known about his dad. And he, of course, didn’t know about mine.

  “Let me tell you about my dad,” I said. Coach Lewis and Jennifer were due to show up any second. So I spoke quickly.

  “He is a great doctor,” I said. “He made good money. Everybody liked him. He didn’t beat us up or anything. It was the opposite. He left us alone. He just worked and worked and made money and gave us things instead of his time.”

  “Poor boy,” Jason said. “I can see how life has treated you bad. Brand-new bikes and televisions and stuff like that. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.”

  “Listen,” I said, “the long days and stress got to him. He did something that’s too easy for any doctor to do. He started prescribing drugs to himself. Pretty soon that wasn’t enough. Once he was hooked, he started stealing drugs from the hospital because if he prescribed as much as he wanted, people would know what was happening. Then he discovered cocaine. Six months of it cost our family nearly everything we owned. It ripped our life apart.”

  I had Jason’s attention.

  “When my dad was at his lowest,” I said, “he finally figured out that he had turned to cocaine because he wanted something to fill his emptiness. When he started looking for answers, the emptiness gradually went away.”

  “Just like that,” Jason said. “Say your prayers and everything’s all better.”

  “No,” I said, “it was a long way back for him. And for our family. He went into rehab and had to be certified as a doctor again. But he found purpose. And peace.” I paused to take a breath.

  “Look,” I said, “could it hurt to at least think about what I’m saying?”