Tyranny of Secrets

by John Statton

  The car slowed abruptly and made a hard-right turn onto Red's pier. Accelerating out of the turn, Sander could see a definite end in sight. A stout wooden railing sparsely lined with morning anglers was at the end of the pier. Tires thumping on each thick plank, the car rocketed forward, as if drawn irresistibly to the sea. Bystanders’ cries alerted the fishermen, and they hurried out of the way.

  He then saw what had to be the stupidest person in the world standing at the pier end, frozen, staring at the blue streak of death rocketing for him. At the last minute, this mute witness to his own demise managed to uproot himself and dive for the side. Sander could not have saved him; his frantic attempts to move the wheel were for nothing. The railing could have been cardboard for all the good it did in stopping the Prius.

  But it did manage to catch the right rear wheel as the car barreled through and gave a savage pull when it shot out over the Bay. The car did a complete three-hundred-and-sixty-degree flat spin. Then it pancaked into the water with a giant splash, arresting its speed.

  Inside, the air bags deployed and pinned Sander to his seat. The car floated for a tantalizing moment and then sank like a stone. The air bags deflated a moment too early. The sinking car hit the bottom mud with a significant thump, thrashing his head against the wheel with stunning force.

  The bottom slam had buckled the driver's door and broken its window, but the safety glass held the pieces in place; except for a slice that had opened up, allowing the fifty-eight degree water jet to hit his face. He sputtered and looked around.

  He knew that water would fill the interior quickly. He unbuckled his seat belt as he turned to allow the jet to bypass his head. He needed some way to open that slice. He took off his shirt, wrapped his hands, and pulled with all his strength. It took several pulls, but it opened from the window's top to bottom, leaving jagged glass on both sides and a flexible opening. The water surged in with a powerful force.

  He was mostly sure he could get his head and shoulders through it but needed to wait until the pressure equalized. No way he could push back through the flood. Even then, he knew it was going to be all sharp edges because he’d shredded the shirt. He knew all of this effort would go to waste unless he could get through that window before the rapidly dwindling pocket of air ran out.

  Jesus, he thought, my life is turning to shit. The cabin was almost full. He tilted his head back and took in a long, full, last breath. He wrapped the shirt's remains around his hands and pulled back the glass on either side as far as possible, working his head and shoulders through before the glass snapped back. Dragging the rest of his chest through the shards left deep gashes across his exposed skin. The pain was intense. But he got through and started kicking to follow the bubbles rising from the car.

  Breaking surface, Sander gasped for breath and swam towards the group of spectators gathered on the pier. Standing among them, Seth watched Sander bob in the freezing Bay. Seth felt frustrated by his failure but knew he could not get lucky every time with a clean kill. Still, he thought, a nice touch missing that bus. He took pride in his precision and collateral damage avoided.

  But the problem remained. Sander was still alive and being helped out of the Bay and into a waiting ambulance. It looked like he had heavy lacerations, but Seth could not see more before the crowd closed in around the injured man.

  He knew they would pull the car out of the mud and, after hearing Sander's story, check the data from its black box. But none of this concerned him. The hack had erased itself before the car hit the water. Sander would have questions to answer if he stuck to a possessed-car story. As the ambulance pulled away, Seth noted the California Medical Center emblem displayed on the side. He hitched his backpack a little higher and turned to walk a dozen blocks to the hospital.

  #

  Chapter 11

  Bad Medicine

  July 2016

  Mariana’s phone rang, the caller ID showed the California Medical Center. She noted it was almost noon. Odd, she thought. She knew no one at the hospital. “Mariana speaking,” she answered.

  “Ms. McAllister, this is California Medical admissions. Do you know a Sander Bonham?” It was a tired, almost bored-sounding voice; a woman who had to make a lot of these calls every day.

  “Yes, what's this regarding, please?”

  “You are listed as his emergency contact. We’re letting you know he’s been admitted.”

  “This is crazy; I have not seen him in years,” she replied. On the inside she thought, My God, is this the call I’ve always dreaded? A flood of conflicting emotions swept over her. She paused to get herself under control and with an uneven voice asked, “What happened to him? Can you tell me, please?”

  “I see it’s an auto accident; he's in intensive care for close observation. As his contact, you can visit if you like.” The voice sounded more sympathetic the longer the conservation went on.

  Mariana was stunned and wrapped up the call after confirming the hospital's address. She set her phone on her desk and spent a long moment staring at its black screen, then sat back in her office chair. She took a moment to look out the window at the Bay and gather her thoughts.

  She was surprised both at the intensity of her concern for Sander, but equally by his apparently continued feelings for her. Perhaps not completely unexpected. On both counts. She thought last year's encounter would be the last and had carefully walled it off, for his and her continued protection.

  Her suspicions about Mansfield rushed back in. Was NetSecure involved? Had they tried to kill him? Regardless, Sander had been hurt and needed her help. Damn, why can't I let go of you? she silently voiced to the outside world.

  Time to go to the hospital and see what all of this is about, she thought. She took a moment to set her email and voicemail to return an out-of-office reply, gathered her laptop, grabbed her coat, and climbed into a waiting Lyft car as soon as she left the building.

  ***

  Being admitted to Sander's intensive care floor was difficult. Not in a “can’t get past law enforcement” way, but instead, just the ruthless combination of hospital administration policy and the staff's care for its very ill patients. They got the difficult ones, and an all-hands, Code Blue emergency to attend was a common occurrence each shift.

  Visitors were admitted sparingly and monitored carefully. This was doctor and nurse territory, not easily shared with family and others counter to the treatment of the general hospital population. With their telemetry tied into the nurses’ station and the frequent caregiver rounds, each patient might as well have had a guard stationed inside their room.

  While running the gauntlet of entry questions, Mariana noticed how fast hospital staff entered the floor to pick up and drop things off, in sharp contrast to her slow process. They waved their cards at an electronic lock and the door sprung open. Mariana finally satisfied the tiny intercom voice, and the door opened for her too. She was met inside and escorted to Sander's glass enclosed room, two down on the left-hand side.

  He was sleeping. An IV attached to one arm adding fluid, a second IV in the other arm administering antibiotics. His head was partially shaved and a row of stitches showed under a dressing over his right eye. Heavy scratches that had been cleansed and closed covered his chest; she thought he looked like he’d been dragged across a cheese grater. He also wore a lot of facial bruises.

  Mariana took in her battered friend's injuries and felt grateful he lived, My God, it could have been so much worse. What’s the explanation for this? As she gazed at him with more than a little relief, his troubled sleep ended, his eyes opened, and after a few seconds locked on her.

  “Hey,” he said with a weak voice.

  “Hey, yourself. You've looked better,” came her reply.

  “Felt better too. Weirdest experience of my life.”

  “That takes in a lot. Want to stick around and tell me about it?”

  “Have I got a choice? I got into my car and headed towards the ballpark along Third Street. T
he car just took over, almost killed me by reckless driving along The Embarcadero, and tried to finish off the job by crashing into the Bay.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that, the steering headed for a particular spot, the breaks were unresponsive, the gas did its own thing, and I couldn't even get the door locks to open up. It all happened so fast, and I sailed out through the guardrail and into the Bay. I felt trapped in a robot-car.”

  He looks like hell, Mariana thought, feeling relief she was even able to have this conversation. After all these years of dreading seeing him in exactly this position, she was not very ready when it came. She gave him a caring smile. “You’re pretty banged up.”

  “By the time the front hit bottom, the airbags were deflated and I got a bump against the steering wheel. I got these scrapes when I went out through the glass. McCovey Cove is a sewer outlet, and I think they’re more worried about the E. coli and fecal coliform counts than any injury. I did ring my head pretty well. I just need rest.”

  He soon dozed, and a nurse came in and started to inspect her patient.

  Mariana asked, “Can you tell me if he's OK to move?”

  “Oh yes, we’re just holding him here overnight for observation, but his signs are stable. He'll move into the general population tomorrow morning. He's going to be tender for about a week. Lucky guy, and lucky to have you here to provide support.”

  “Yeah, lucky guy,” she echoed softly as she gazed down at Sander. Something in his story had triggered a memory. She slipped out of his room and headed downtown to one of her favorite coffee shops. She needed to think.

  ***

  Mariana absently stared at the double cappuccino sitting in front of her. The coffee house was filled with telecommuters, the self-employed, and those in the neighborhood who just needed to have a little human contact in their early afternoon. She reached out and pulled up the cup for a sip. The caffeine hit her like a tonic.

  She’d heard about the robot-car hack. It had been a few years ago, on her last visit with Boris. A Mossad-NetSecure contract took her to Jerusalem and they got together for a drink. Her memory took her to a warm summer night at her hotel's bar. It had opened to a long terrace lined with olive trees in terracotta vases. They were out on the terrace, where two comfortable chairs had faced each other over a table containing an ice bucket chilling a bottle. They had been tossing back vodka shots and started trading tales and bullshitting about great hacks.

  As Boris leaned over to refill their shot glasses, he said, “OK, I've got an old one but a good one, we call it the Magic Carpet.”

  It had been almost word for word what Sander had just said. The hack easily installed during routine car servicing or over-the-air. With active remote control or using an entirely preprogrammed path, activated when it crossed certain GPS coordinates, it delivered control of the vehicle and its human cargo. The steering and doors locked, the pedals were unresponsive. The driver completely immobilized until the car reached its destination.

  “We find it very useful for snatch and grabs,” Boris continued. “The best part, it’s untraceable. The code erases itself, and the car's systems show none of the victim's frantic attempts to steer or brake.”

  Boris had smiled as he revealed the deepest part of the secret with a magician’s hand wave, “Presto, it’s a very effective tool for making people disappear.”

  Mariana did not have to see the analysis of Sander's car's black box to know it would show nothing as he described. A killer had used the Mossad's tool to try and murder one of her friends. Another friend almost killed under unusual circumstances after stumbling on NetSecure’s violations of law. Mariana had acknowledged the truth of Paul's assertions a year ago when Sander had first raised them with her, but not the full truth.

  She’d not told him she’d been the brain behind the bulk collection program to extract the international cable data; something she’d developed early on for NetSecure. She and her team had led its deployment in the offices of friendly overseas telecommunication companies. It required the installation of the same splitter Paul had discovered. There could be no other purpose behind its use at Shasta Bell.

  She’d followed the news about the retrospective Congressional approval for any cooperation by the telecommunications companies with the national security community. But she’d never seen any news about Congressional approval for a domestic data collection dragnet. Now I’m pretty sure Mansfield was serious when he asked about my team installing in the US, she thought. I bet Blair’s been working it, he's a weasel who wouldn’t hesitate breaking a few dozen anti-domestic operations laws.

  Mariana had no idea about DARKSIDEMOON and the secret population control work NetSecure engaged in, but she understood very well the same data collection technique she developed and deployed outside the US could be repurposed domestically and used for extensive citizen surveillance.

  She thought, With Sander's attack, it sure looked like someone tying up loose ends and doing it in a way pointing back to her company. Logically, NetSecure would be the one to be tapped to do the splitter install; the Agency did not like to gets its hands dirty with that level of activity. It’s why, years ago, her team had been installing similar equipment and software around the world. With Mansfield's desire to buddy up to the Mossad, it was not a stretch to think NetSecure’s killer was using Magic Carpet to eliminate Sander.

  Suddenly a deeper chill fell across her. Mansfield's questions after the funeral, he was probing about Sander. Holy damn, she thought, “They are not going to stop; I’ve got to get back and protect him. I need to find some answers. She paid up and headed back to the hospital. She began to realize breaking off their relationship to keep him safe had not worked out so well.

  ***

  The Angel of Death was a 500 pound, drug-dispensing, pharmaceutical robot that the Hospital staff had christened the Donkey.

  Finding the physical access to Sander’s intensive care ward heavily restricted, Seth chose to go cyber in his next attack. He sat in the hospital's basement cafe, looking like any number of others intent on their screens. But while they were using the hospital's network to provide access out, he was using it to drill in.

  Using NetSecure supplied code, he bypassed the system's security. He set up a manager-level account, authorized to make prescription changes. With that, he opened Sander's prescription order. Sander's examining doctor had prescribed fluids and antibiotics. Mr. Bonham, why don’t we also make it easier for you to rest, thought Seth as he added a potent sedative to the list—one he’d used to ill effect before—and exited the system.

  A bored nurse filled the prescriptions for the Donkey’s rounds. She gave a cursory double-check against Sander’s prescription order, noting they agreed. She applied the label with his name, room and patient ID number on the drip bag, and placed the powerful narcotic into the robot's dispensing system. Locking the system, she started it on its way. Intensive care was fourth on its list, and it would get there in about an hour.

  While the deliverer of death drew closer to Sander, the second part of his impending tragedy was being set up. The new Kryotube networked IV pumps provided intensive care nurses with precise dosing and centralized reporting, so one could keep an eye on the treatment of many. But the pump had only the thinnest of digital security. Almost anyone on the hospital's network could access the pump connected to Sander's arm.

  Using his forged account, Seth slipped inside the pump's control software. The pump carefully monitored the drug delivery levels so the patient could not overdose. It contained a library of medications and their upper dosage limits, to ensure a safe flow. Seth substituted in a new drug reference library, with higher lethal dosage caps. He locked out other users from being able to make changes to the pump and waited for the delivery. He thought, Now it’s just a matter of time before the new sedative arrives, and the pump follows its instructions to administer a deadly jolt.

  ***

  Mariana surveyed the rather cavern
ous hospital cafe. A step up from institutional, but it still screamed cafeteria. She missed her coffee house. Around the spacious basement room were scattered a mid-afternoon group of staff and others like her, waiting for loved ones elsewhere in the building. Many were engrossed in their laptops or phones. She found a table along the wall, an out of the way spot offering an unobstructed view of the room. Across the chamber from her, a man had mirrored her seating choice, concentrating on his screen.

  She used her laptop to access the hospital's network. Once she identified the type of software guarding the system, she employed a green day hack reserved for that kind of security, got access behind the firewall, and proceeded to find patient telemetry. She wanted to see in real-time just how Sander was doing.

  Sander's vitals appeared as a dashboard on her screen: heart, respiration, EKG, ECG, perspiration, and more. He rested comfortably all in alignment with norms.

  She paged over to his records. Everything seemed to reflect what the nurse had reported when she last visited; he seemed okay to move but would be tender for days to come. A strong antibiotic was prescribed.

  She glanced across the new entry under medication, noting the change in prescription. She did not recognize the medicine and quickly Googled it. For unexplained reasons, Sander was also going to receive an exceptionally powerful sedative, so powerful they used it on horses. What the hell? she thought. This is weird. He’s resting just fine.

  An uncertain feeling nagged at the back of her mind. Then it came to her, That same night in Jerusalem, the hack I put on the table in response to Boris's Magic Carpet story. Just to show her side could go toe-to-toe.