The radio crackled. ‘No Chief, nothing.’
‘You have a telephone number for Simm’s office in England?’
‘Yes Chief, it’s in London.’
‘Call them now. Check if Simm travelled with a computer. Come back to me directly.’
Lee hung the mic back under the dash and started the vehicle grinding down the hill. ‘I think we may have found out what our killer stole from Mr Simm.’
Of course. Like with Pop, the murderer was looking for information. ‘You think Simm’s laptop has something the killer could use? For more murders?’ Kate’s spine chilled at the thought, and illogically she tried to reassure herself. ‘Perhaps he just wants to publish what he finds, condemn the people involved.’
‘It doesn’t matter what I think is on the computer, what does matter is what the killer actually finds on it. He’s a murderer, Kate. I don’t think he plans to write an article.’ Lee’s grin did not hold much humour.
‘You think he’s looking for more paedophiles to kill.’
‘And their suppliers.’ Lee explained about Moo. ‘He was a criminal, a man known to procure flesh for tourists. We now believe, we have heard, he has recently been involved in supplying children.’
‘Was he killed in the same way as Simm, with his throat cut and... everything?’
‘His throat was cut, but no other organs were touched. I believe the killer had to leave the scene quickly. It was a very public place. He did not have time to send the message. Perhaps he was disturbed at the scene.’
‘You say this victim was a known criminal?’
‘Yes, and a police informant,’ Lee looked directly into Kate’s eyes as he stopped the Land Rover outside the orphanage. ‘He was known as Moo. It means Pig in English. And like a pig, he would eat anything, anyone. His prostitutes were mutilated as punishment. He used his teeth.’
‘Oh God!’
‘Yes. He became our informant after he bit off part of a young girl’s vagina.’
‘Ugh! And you let him back out on the streets as an informer? After that?’
Lee pushed open the door, got out and said, ‘We have informants who have done much worse, Kate. But without them,’ Lee shrugged. ‘it would be impossible for my men to function effectively.’ As he walked around the Land Rover and helped her down he added, ‘No one caught for stealing sweets would risk becoming an informant, would they? In this country, Kate, criminals have a truly vicious form of punishment for such men.’
Kate did not want to hear it.
***
‘Benjamin, we need to talk.’
‘Jeremy old boy. We spoke only yesterday, at some length I seem to recall. Please tell me you aren’t panicking again.’
‘No, but we do need to talk.’ Sir Jeremy’s knuckles cracked as he squeezed the phone as if he could compel the man to do his bidding that way. He had vowed not to speak to Sir Benjamin again, but he needed to find out for sure if his old friend was acting as George’s successor. And if so, what he had planned for the occupants of the Palace.
‘If we must then. This evening at the Club. I’ll see you around seven. And stop worrying, I told you I’d tie up the loose ends. Everything’s in hand.’
That was exactly what Sir Jeremy was afraid of.
***
Kate was impressed. The orphanage was set in a beautiful building in a spectacular location. It could have been a true paradise, a home and refuge for those unlucky enough to have no one else to care for them.
‘Our tradition is to look after orphans within the extended family, cousins and so on. Sadly, this too is becoming less common, partly as we adopt more western ways, but mostly of course because of AIDS.’ Lee’s eyes glinted as he spoke.
‘AIDS?’ Kate knew it was rife in Thailand, but her thoughts on the subject extended only as far as Johnny and her warning to him to use condoms.
‘Yes. The disease is frightening. We can’t afford to treat all the victims as you do in the UK or US, the drugs are expensive. When we made our own versions the western drug companies had their governments threaten us with trade sanctions.’ He waved a hand at the orphanage. ‘This is the result. Families won’t take in the orphaned children of parents who die from AIDS.’
‘That’s sad.’ Kate meant it.
‘Our sex industry ensures the continued early death of many young mothers, often mothers who were impregnated by tourists, infected by tourists.’
The anger in his voice, the passion there, surprised Kate. Once again, she wondered about the photo on the Chief’s desk, the young woman and child. Is that why he hates tourists so much?
And no wonder he wanted to talk to her today. Kate was certain the Minister of Tourism did not have this in mind when he had twisted Lee’s arm into seeing her. ‘You don’t like him, do you? The Minister of Tourism?’
‘You are insightful, but please quote me as being a big fan of the man!’
‘Fine.’ She grinned at him and swept her soggy hair from her forehead.
They went into the building, a clean pleasant place. The fabric of the structure was beginning to crumble. Neglected. But clean. Kate decided the staff worked hard, but the boss, Pop, probably kept the money for renovation for himself. She could not help but contrast the splendour of his palatial home with the threadbare orphanage.
‘What are we doing here?’ Kate was following Lee, taking in the schoolrooms, the dormitories, realising there was remarkably little noise for a building full of kids. She sensed and felt the sadness here.
‘I’m looking for a boy. The eyewitness to the death of the American. We believe Fan was the procurer who supplied the boy to Simm.’
‘Ah. So the orphanage was a... a sort of warehouse?’ Her eyebrows lifted, the thought horrifying her.
Lee moved off and started talking in Thai to an employee, a kindly looking lady. A carer. Kate peered into a classroom through the window in the door, the children sitting cross-legged on the floor, reciting. A faded chalkboard was the only visual aid. It was primitive but the staff were doing their best. She noted all the children were barefooted, wearing threadbare hand-me-downs.
Lee returned and said, ‘Fan, the man linking Simm to the boy, was supposedly the lad’s cousin. He collected him from here. Moo was a regular visitor too. They both took children out for nights at a time.’
‘Do you think anyone else was involved? Surely they must’ve suspected something. The children would have talked, wouldn’t they?’
‘To the staff here? I very much doubt it. The Principal ruled like a God.’ Lee tapped the crucifix hanging on the wall. Jesus, sad faced and pained, looked down on them. ‘His assistant knew nothing of his Christian boss’s crimes. I believe the man is honest and good. A true Thai. No, I suspect Pop managed to instil great fear into the children. His home contained many items that would rightly terrify an impressionable youth.’
A dreadful thought occurred to Kate. ‘Are they all going to die of AIDS? The children?’
‘No. Children born of mothers with AIDS test positive for HIV at birth but only from the antibodies passed by their mothers. Many do not actually have the disease. By the age of two the doctors can tell, HIV or normal.’ There was the suspicion of a tear in his eyes.
Again Kate wanted to probe about the family photo, but instead said, ‘So the children here?’
Lee looked away and then recovered, eyes expressionless. ‘Many will be normal. Those with severe infection die before they are five. Very few survive into their teens.’
‘Are there babies here?’ She had not seen any, could not hear any.
‘No. This man, Pop, was clever. His orphanage takes children from around three years old, but no babies. From what I’ve seen at his house this orphanage was purely here for his own personal profit and pleasure. There is little money to be made from babies. Especially those with AIDS.’
‘He was truly evil.’ Kate found the whole thing unreal. News copy, articles, all had retreated far from her mind.
L
ee was talking to the woman in Thai again and Kate wandered outside. An apparent paradise yet hell on earth for the children. It was a tragedy.
‘It looks like my eyewitness was a boy from here. Lek.’ Lee stood beside Kate looking out to sea, the late afternoon cooler, a breeze tickling the palm fronds. ‘He arrived yesterday morning. Naked, with dried blood on him. He appeared unharmed but was in a state of shock. He’s missing. I need to find this boy.’
The Chief went to the vehicle, stood beside it while talking on the radio. Kate waited, sitting on the steps at the entrance.
Lee walked back to her. ‘The laptop. It’s missing. It seems your brother and Mr Simm had something in common. Thank you.’ Lee bowed a little and Kate could see he meant it.
‘What do you mean, Chief? Thanks for what?’
‘We missed it. We did not know he had one. We thought nothing had been stolen. Apparently, it was a very special computer.’ His grin widened, his white teeth brilliant against his tanned yellow face. ‘Now you have something for your editor! I am incompetent as well as brutal!’
She gave him a smile, but wanted to understand him more. ‘I must admit, I find you a little confusing, Chief. The man Moo, you could allow him to wander the streets even knowing he was capable of inhuman acts and also supplying children for sex.’
‘We did not know about the children. But with regard to his other crimes? Yes, sadly it is sometimes necessary.’
‘It couldn’t happen in the UK or the US.’ Kate was adamant.
‘That may be so. But we have a different culture here. Needs must.’
‘And these children here, suffering at the hands of paedophiles, young girls and boys being pushed into the sex industry. Orphans! How can you be so sanguine?’
‘Kate, I have no truck with the sex industry at all. And as for paedophiles, the word is interesting. In some countries, the age of consent is very low, in fact it’s non-existent in some parts of the third world. In England, what is the age of consent?’
‘Sixteen I think.’ Kate couldn’t help thinking about her own experience. She lost her virginity at fourteen years of age to her boyfriend, at that time a nineteen-year-old high school football star. Statutory rape.
‘In many countries, including Thailand, the age is lower. So if I were to have sex with a fifteen year old girl it would be legal. Yet in your country I would be branded a paedophile. Interesting. It seems our difference in culture allows the same thing to be deemed a criminal activity in one country at the same time as being entirely legal in another, although sex workers here do have to be eighteen by law.’
As they climbed into the Land Rover Kate changed the subject. She was still struggling to get a handle on the man. ‘Why do so many people have nicknames like Moo, Joy, Lek?’
‘Ah. Two reasons. The spirits can’t find you so easily if you have two names – it confuses them!’ Lee laughed. ‘It’s absurd!’
Kate was not so sure. She started thinking about Johnny and his obsession with having two passports, the twin identities he had created for them both. She knew the CIA and evil spirits were not so different in his mind.
‘And the second reason?’
‘People do have traditional Thai names. The meanings of given names are important and auspicious, and they have increased in length over the years to incorporate more things, for better luck. Here, people also change their names for many reasons, such as when a fortune teller indicates they should do so!’
‘So what’s Joy’s Thai name?’
‘Kriengsak Niratpattanasai.’
The Land Rover cut through the traffic to Kate’s hotel. She grabbed her things together and asked him as she opened the door, ‘But your name is Lee? That’s a Chinese name isn’t it.’
‘My family came to Thailand from China in the nineteenth century and like many immigrants took on the naming customs of the Thais. I chose to change my inordinately long Thai name back to Chinese whilst in Hong Kong.’ He grinned and shook his head. ‘And don’t ask.’
Kate hopped on to the tarmac and thanked him for the day. As the Land Rover disappeared into the chaotic traffic Kate thought what an intelligent, cultured yet complex man he was. But she had next to nothing on tape. Such a great reporter, she thought. And what do I tell Charles?
***
Cindy and George Simm Junior sat with their mother. The doctor told them he wanted to take Gloria into a secure hospital. He feared the worst.
The two students, eighteen and nineteen years old respectively, acceded to the request. Money was no object. They wanted the best for their mother.
The attorney arrived at their home later in the morning, hurrying because he was due to leave for England that afternoon. He needed to discuss the prospect of legal action by SimmpleTravel before the Board meeting scheduled in London for tomorrow.
When he spoke to George Simm’s heirs he was startled by what they had to say.
***
When Cody dashed from the Skunkworks, chased by the sound of his team cheering their new hero, he went straight to his boss’s office.
He breathlessly explained the crisis, a Level Five hack, and Teague had woken the Director who arrived in the office a little after 3am.
The meeting was tense. As the Director arrived he said, ‘Your team better be real sure about this.’ Cody’s vivid description of a Level Five jangled in his head.
‘Yessir.’ Cody waited as the Director sat at his desk facing the wall mounted screen. ‘You understand a Level 5...’
‘He’s screwing my wife! I remember. Now get on with it!’
The Director was well known for his loathing of working nights and the rebuke stifled Cody’s carefully prepared speech, it died in his mouth. ‘Sir.’ With words failing him he switched on the massive plasma screen instead and let Johnny’s masterpiece speak for him.
‘What the hell!’ The Director sat, eyes glazed as the display paraded Johnny’s message.
Cody could see that he was not impressed. ‘Sir, this arrived on the screen of a member of my team as he was working on a Trojan Horse program we were setting up to track,’ Cody turned to the enormous ass mooning behind him, ‘the creator of this. The guy who hacked us Monday night.’
‘This is puerile, like a practical joke! How do we know it’s a Level Five and not a Four again?’ The Director’s tone was aggressive and hopeful. ‘This can’t be as serious as all that, Cody.’
‘Basically, he’s playing with us, sir.’ Cody was finding it all rather difficult to believe himself. It sounded outrageous even to him. ‘This suggests, confirms in fact, that he was already inside our system. We can’t see him but he’s been watching us for days. Who knows, maybe longer? Months... Years even.’ Cody swallowed, his Adam’s apple bouncing against his collar and tie.
‘Watching us?’ The Director was struggling with the concept and Teague stepped in.
‘Cody means he’s accessing the systems here. He’s able to see what we are doing inside the network. Right son?’
‘Sir. He knew we were trying to trap him. He was watching my guys while the team were creating the programs to catch him. He’s quite brilliant sir.’ Cody kept his eyes aimed at the Director, avoiding Teague’s glare. He knew that admiration for the intruder was not what they wanted to hear, but Cody had to make them understand what they were dealing with. ‘Every single one of my guys has developed his own idiosyncratic security for his personal computer, anti-virus, firewalls and so on. It’s like we customise our gear, sir. We’re proud of it. Even I can’t hack into my team’s computers, not any one of them. This guy,’ Cody paused, checking the Director realised the full import of what he was saying, ‘has hacked them all. Every screen in our office had this on it within one minute of it arriving.’ Cody breathed deep. Go for it. ‘Frankly sir, he’s that good I would.’ He pointed to the words on the screen in bold, frozen with the cartoon backside displayed behind him: Kiss my ass, Cody!
‘Are you saying that if he can get on to your screens he can g
o anywhere in the system?’ The Director’s voice was tense as he slapped his palm on his desk. ‘This is a security disaster!’
‘If he wanted to, sir. In fact, any screen linked to our intranet, including the FBI, NSA, Homeland Security, the National Police Computer, in fact pretty much any Government computer could be showing this,’ Cody jabbed his thumb at the screen, ‘right now.’
The silence was complete.
Cody waited for them to speak. Nothing. ‘He could, given a little time, check out any one of our computers, even see what’s on your screen, sir, check out your files.’
‘You said yesterday there’s nothing we could do about this if it ever happened, short of unplugging everything.’
‘That’s right sir, but...’ Teague spoke up. ‘We can switch to our command bunker parallel systems Jack. They’re on a totally separate network, designed for the aftermath of a nuclear or electromagnetic pulse strike. At least we have some command and control this hacker can’t access. There’s no way this idiot can start World War Three!’
‘Sirs, I don’t believe he’s a threat.’ His comment fell on deaf ears.
‘The President needs to know the degree to which we’ve been compromised.’ The Director glared at Cody and picked up the phone, the anger in the room tangible.
‘Sir. He is not a threat. DON’T DO THAT!’ Cody was losing it. He would kiss his fellow geek’s ass, but was sick of kissing theirs. He had told one of his colleagues earlier, ‘It’s hard enough thinking up analogies so these brainless sons of bitches can understand. They are so intellectually inferior I feel like a scientist trying to communicate with dolphins!’ After no sleep and working solid for over fifty hours he had reached the end of his fuse.
‘What did you say, son?’ The Director was poised with the phone halfway to his ear, about to create panic throughout the entire Government network and clamp down communications as if a nuclear blast was imminent.
‘Sir, with respect. You don’t need to make that call.’
The Hack Page 21
