Death of Secrets

by Bowen Greenwood

  Mike set his jaw. "Alright, then. I never felt good about these people, right from the start. Colleen, grab that little device they've built. Kathy, pop our flash drive out of the drive. Colleen, how do you destroy a hard drive so thoroughly that the data can never be recovered?"

  Colleen looked at him approvingly. "Smarter than I thought," she said, smiling. "It's not enough just to delete files, the hard drive retains them. Basically, we'll have to take the hard drives with us. The only way to be one hundred percent certain that data can never be recovered is to burn them."

  Mike sighed. "OK, maybe you better deal with the hard drives. I'll get the flash drive and the little thingy here."

  Colleen shook her head. "This one hard drive is enough. I was with him the whole time in here, he never transferred the files to any of his other machines."

  Mike nodded and popped the flash drive that had started the whole mess out of the computer's drive. He put it back in its case, which Jakarta had left sitting beside the computer. Colleen stretched out her hand for it, and Mike passed it over.

  He reached for the power button to power the box down while they disassembled it. His finger was posed on the switch when he looked one last time at the screen.

  >New subject acquired.

  >Subject four feels intermediate interest in noises to front.

  Colleen didn't see the screen. She was behind the computer, pulling cords out. "Does anyone see a screwdriver?" she asked? "I have to get this box open."

  "No time," Michael hissed. "They're coming!"

  Colleen looked up from behind the computer to see Mike pointing at the screen. She recognized the danger at once – a new subject could only mean someone coming toward their room.

  "I’ve almost got the gizmo unplugged, give me a couple seconds more."

  "Where do we go?" Mike asked. "He's gonna come through that door any second!"

  Colleen gave up on getting the GigaStar mock up unplugged, and her head swiveled madly around, looking for another way out. What she saw instead was Kathy standing about five feet away from her, picking up the beige desktop box to one of the other computers.

  "Kathy, what are you…"

  Kathy hefted the computer, cords and all, clearly straining. Rather than answer Colleen's question, she threw it out the window, shattering glass. Still plugged in, its cord dragged the computer across the worktable before tearing loose.

  "They heard that for sure," Mike said.

  "Kathy, what are you doing?" Colleen asked. It came like a cross between a shout and a whisper.

  "Getting us out of here. There’s only one door and your pal techno-boy is about to come through it," Kathy said. "Now follow me."

  She grabbed a coffee cup from the table and used it to clear out the excess glass as Colleen protested. "We must be a hundred feet up! We can't go out there!"

  Kathy was already crawling across the desk and out through the window when she said, "Remember, I’ve been out the windows of this place once before. I don’t think it’s more than fifty. There’s a ledge out there we can stand on. But if you want to stick around, go ahead. Don’t count on them being gentle." Then she slid out of view through the window.

  As she went out, Mike and Colleen heard. "Here we are again, Lord. Please keep me safe one more time. Keep all of us safe."

  Mike looked at Colleen, Colleen looked at Mike, and then the two of them dashed at once for the window. The Congressman let Colleen go first. Hurriedly she crammed the flash drive into the pocket of her tight jeans; she was too rushed to get it all the way in, but it was good enough.

  Mike went after her. Once through the window, he felt a hand take his and help him.

  He couldn't look down because he was facing the building, standing on the narrowest of ledges. But he heard the street noises far below, and that was enough. Mike found himself standing on a ledge outside the window, feeling the cool night breeze tug gently at his clothing.

  He swore and closed his eyes. In his ear he heard Kathy's voice say, "To your right! Fast! Make Colleen go!"

  He cracked open his eyes and looked right, where he saw Colleen, turned to face the building, clinging to little handholds of brick. Apparently, on coming out the window, Kathy had gone to one side and Colleen to the other. Now the Congressman found himself between them.

  "Colleen," he whispered, "we've got to move now or we'll get caught."

  Colleen inched one foot slightly to her right, then followed it with the other.

  "Faster!" Kathy growled.

  In response, Colleen whimpered, "I don’t like heights." But she picked up her pace a little bit.

  Mike moved sideways carefully over the ledge. He couldn’t help it any longer, and craned his neck around to look over his shoulder. A small river of car headlights flowed at least fifty feet below him. Swearing under his breath, he followed Colleen.

  Whimpering all the while, Colleen made it to the corner of the building and stopped. Mike was close behind. Kathy, closest to the window they'd come out of, heard the door in the computer room open and Jakarta swearing loudly.

  "Around the corner, Colleen. Right now!"

  Still whimpering, Colleen crooked her leg around the corner and groped with her unshod toes for a foothold. Finding one, she moved the other leg around too, and disappeared from view. Mike followed her around, scraping his fingers as he scrabbled for any kind of handhold. Kathy came last.

  The wind howled madly, unrestricted by many buildings at this height. Mike felt it whipping his shirt around, getting down through the collar and billowing out. He edged a little bit further toward Colleen. Apparently the other side of the building was protected from the wind, but here they were right in its path.

  Colleen turned to look at him, but the movement shifted her balance. She waved her arms in little circles. A noise like a squelched scream slipped out of her lips as she leaned precipitously forward. Her foot slipped.

  Just as one foot waggled over the void, Mike reached around her back and pulled her forcefully back onto the ledge. But even as she jerked back to stable footing, the flash drive slid loose from her pocket and tumbled, end over end, down behind her.

  Colleen was about to look over her shoulder to see where it landed when Mike stopped her. "Forget it. It’s not worth you falling."

  Kathy paused only long enough to make sure her roommate wasn't going to fall. Voices of Jakarta and Jerry drifted to her from the computer room. She kicked in the window in front of her, that Mike and Kathy had squeaked past. She gave several more little kicks to clear out loose glass, wincing at the unavoidable noise.

  "I think this goes into the living room, where we first came into this place," she said. "Come on, we can go out the door and get out of here." With that, she swung her feet through the window, and followed them with the rest of her body.

  Mike edged over to the window. He looked over at Colleen, gave her hand a good luck squeeze, and went through himself. Immediately upon entering, he heard voices and the sound of running feet.

  "Kathy, I think they heard you break the window," he whispered.

  She was already at the far door, though, holding it open and urging him forward. Mike turned back to look at the window, watching Colleen crawl timidly through.

  Only when she was all the way in did he run over to Kathy. Colleen scrambled to her feet, shook her head once to get her bearings, and started walking toward Kathy and Mike. The other door flew open, then, with Jakarta framed in the doorway.

  "Stop!"

  Instead of stopping, Colleen sprinted over to her roommate, who pulled her through the door and slammed it shut behind her. Together, all three ran down the deserted hallway as fast as they could.

  They heard the door open, and the noise of running feet behind them, but none dared look back until Kathy skidded to a stop. She yanked open the entrance to an emergency staircase. As she turned, she caught sight of Jakarta closing rapidly.

  In desperation, she looked around for anything she could use as a w
eapon. There was nothing, but as Mike passed her and started heading down the stairs, she spied a fire alarm. She grabbed it and yanked with all her might.

  Sirens screamed throughout the building as Colleen passed her and headed down. Kathy slammed the door again, with the pursuit bare yards away, and ran after the other two. She'd gone one full flight of stairs and was half way down the next when she heard the door behind her come open again.

  Kathy poured on a burst of speed and passed Colleen on the wide staircase. She got close enough to Mike that she could communicate with him without being overheard by Jakarta one flight above.

  "The next door, Mike! Take the next door!"

  Obediently, he opened the door and went through it, running head on into someone from that floor trying to get into the staircase.

  "Is there a real fire?" the person asked, seeing them running all out.

  Kathy came through after Mike, then Colleen.

  "No fire," Kathy said. "Don't open that door."

  She crouched away from the door and pulled Michael after her. He pulled Colleen. Together they ignored the bewildered resident and listened to the sound of sprinting feet race by their level and continue on.

  ***

  When he tumbled out of the emergency staircase having run the whole way down, Jakarta found his friend Jerry standing guard at the front door. "They can't have come through here," Jerry reported. "I took the elevator straight down, no way they got here before me.

  Jakarta waved his arm at the small flood of people going out the front door, driven by the wailing fire alarm. "They could have gotten mixed up in this bunch."

  Jerry shook his head. "No way, man. I've checked."

  "OK, well, I think we have to proceed on the assumption that they're still in the building. If they're out, we'll never catch them anyway. You stay here and keep them from going out the front door. I'll start a floor-by-floor search. We can't let them stop us, Jerry. We're too close."

  With that Jakarta fought the tide of residents trying to get out the emergency staircase and made his way back up to the second floor. There, he walked carefully down the hallway, looking for his "guests." There wasn't much he could do if they'd talked another resident into hiding them in an apartment. But he was counting on the fact that this was a city, and smart people weren't likely to open their doors to breathless running strangers.

  His ears picked up the wail of sirens in the distance on top of the internal building alarms. The fire department was responding to the alarm, he assumed.

  He grumbled as he finished the second floor and started on the third. Pulling that fire alarm had been a smart move on their part. The human tide of people stumbling out of the building made his search much harder. And of course, if they could get in contact with the fire department, it would be a lot harder to neutralize the threat.

  He and the three other people involved in this project had prepared for the possibility that life and death decisions might have to be made. Once Eric died, that had become much more real.

  But that didn't make it any easier to kill anyone, especially Colleen. He was not a killer – at least, he never had been before. It was a lot different to talk big about it in a late night bull session than to confront it as a reality while chasing someone trying to escape. Jakarta's crimes were all made up of bits and bytes of electronic information. It was a lot easier to ignore any pain his actions caused when all he ever saw was text on the screen. Killing someone face to face was going to be a lot harder.

  "If I can even catch them," he muttered, finishing the third floor and starting the fourth.

  Outside, the sirens of the fire engines rose in volume. He heard the distant noises of firemen deploying to his building as he walked the fourth floor, trying to find Colleen and company. This was getting close. If they rushed Jerry and got by him, they'd be home free now, and that was bad news.

  ***

  Michael paced back and forth in the hall, listening to Colleen and Kathy argue. He too could hear the firemen deploying to the building, and silently he crossed his fingers, hoping firemen would get to them before they had to accept Kathy's plan.

  "Kathy, no," Colleen said. "Look, I'm sorry, but I just can't. I'm scared to death of heights. I am not climbing down eight stories outside the building."

  "Colleen, we don't have a choice! The stairs? Jakarta's on 'em. The elevator? I'm sure that fat slob Jerry is guarding it. If we don't do this and do it now, we're going to get caught again."

  Around them, the last families made their way to the staircase, and the girls got more space to argue. Several people gave them inquisitive looks on the way past, but only Mike noticed.

  "The firemen might get to us first," Colleen offered.

  "No way. Jakarta has a huge head start on them. Once they realize it's a false alarm, they might not even come up."

  "Yes they will! They can't tell if it's a false alarm until they check! Kathy, I'm not going out through another window, and that's final. I almost fell the last time. I don't want to do that again."

  "Fine!" Kathy yelled, exasperated. "You stay here and get caught. Come on, Mike, we'll…" She finished in a scream as Jakarta emerged from the staircase.

  He seemed almost as surprised to see them as they were to see him. But the hacker recovered quicker. He grabbed Kathy and pulled her to him, her back facing his front, and from his belt he produced a pistol. "OK, nobody move. Let's discuss things rationally and no one has to get hurt."

  Mike froze instantly, his eyes riveted to the gun pointed at Kathy's head. Slowly, his hands went up above his head and he said, "Just don't hurt her. I'll talk."

  Colleen's reaction, on the other hand, was totally different. "You! You! You lied to me! I could just…" And she did. Her hand flashed across the open space between them and she slapped him across the face.

  Kathy, trembling and eyes trying to look out the corner of her eye at the gun held to her temple, said, "Uh… Colleen? Don't slap men with guns."

  "Calm down, Colleen, calm down," Jakarta said. "I can explain everything, if you people will just give me the chance. Now, if we'll all just take a nice, calm walk back up to our floor, we can sit down and talk about what you saw and why you shouldn't be quite so upset about it."

  Colleen screamed. "Don't tell me when to be upset! When I start to really like someone who turns out to be a liar, I'll be upset if I feel like it!"

  "Colleen, I didn't have a choice. You know as well as I do that it's not enough to just sabotage their code. The only way to control a technology like that is for everyone to have it. I had to level the playing field. I had to do it this way."

  "Oh! Oh! I see! Everyone has to have it! Well forgive me for not understanding that by everyone you actually meant 'you and your friends!'"

  Michael watched the exchange carefully. The hacker seemed to genuinely want Colleen to understand why he'd built that infernal device. His eyes held hers as he said, "Colleen, please, you've got to understand!"

  While he was looking at Colleen, Mike made his move. He jabbed his hand out as if to throw a punch, but instead grabbed for the gun. He didn't get it right away, but succeeded in pointing it away from Kathy's head and behind her, over Jakarta's shoulder.

  He pressed his attack, pushing the man back and trying to grab the gun. Sensing the weakened grip, Kathy tore free and stumbled to the ground.

  Colleen, on the other hand, threw herself at Jakarta. She and Mike and the hacker tumbled to the ground. In the confusion, the gun went off.

  Mike didn't have time to determine anything except that it hadn't hit him. He landed a punch on Jakarta's face, then another one.

  Colleen found Jakarta's gun hand and she immediately sunk in her teeth. The hacker screamed, but he also let go of the gun. Grabbing it, Colleen scrambled up to her feet – right into another gun.

  "OK, lady, let's drop the weapon."

  CHAPTER 14

  His hair was cut short, almost like a soldier’s crew cut but not quite. His business suit w
as well pressed, and the coat hung open to allow access to the holster Colleen could see at his waist. From that he had obviously drawn the gun pointed at her face. In his other hand, he held a card reading FBI in big blue block letters.

  Colleen dropped the gun.

  "Alright, people, let's everybody stop hitting everybody else, and all of you put your hands behind your head."

  The fight froze at the sound of the new voice. Mike looked up, saw the FBI badge, and swore. Kathy gasped.

  "OK, did you guys pull the fire alarm?"

  "There’s one more person involved!" Kathy reported. "He's either in the suite on the fifth floor or down watching the front door!"

  The special agent brought a radio to his lips and made a report. After a squawk from the handset, he asked, "Overweight, curly black hair?"

  Kathy nodded, and so did the agent. "Then we have him too. I’ll have some backup here in a second, and we can hear all about this."

  Kathy smiled and pointed. "This is Jakarta, he's wanted by the FBI for computer hacking."

  The hacker glared at Kathy. The FBI man’s eyes got a little wider as he stared at him.

  ***

  The FBI agents ran them all down to ground floor, intent on taking all five of them in for a good, long interview. But when they walked out the front door, Nathan Jacobs was the first person they saw.

  "Nathan!" Michael said, his volume just a little too high. The handcuffs around his wrists were a totally new experience for him, and he wasn't happy about them at all.

  Nate put a stop to the procession of agents leading prisoners, and ran up to his friend. "Mike! What's going on here?"

  Without waiting for an answer, he turned to the agent holding Mike. "Uncuff him. And her too," he added, nodding at Kathy."

  "The other girl's her roommate," Mike said. "She's with us."