by T. K. Harris
So what had caught Tommy’s attention in the first place?
Alex thought of Tommy’s emails. Since his email server was available online, all Alex had to do was get access to it, which had not been difficult given the circumstances. Unfortunately, they hadn’t seen or found anything that suggested where Tommy might be. But then they hadn’t been looking for something like this.
"Look through Tommy’s emails again. See if you can find out what led him to trying to hack that website in the first place."
"No prob," came the reply. And then, in a pissed off tone, "Stupid traps."
Alex suppressed a smile. Jason had had a run in with the FBI during his teens which had landed him in juvi for a year. He never talked about it, but it had definitely had an impact. It had also landed him a job with Alex's team several years later.
"Anything else?"
Jason barked a laugh. "Typical teenage boy!"
Alex snorted. So his nephew had visited a few porn sites. He smiled, remembering his teenage years.
"Thanks, Jason." He moved to hang up but couldn’t resist his usual taunt. "By the way, any luck with the encryption?"
Jason grunted in response, making Alex chuckle. He had been trying to break Alex's encryption algorithm for several months now with no luck and Alex knew it was getting to the boy genius. Of course, if anyone could do it, it would be Jason.
The phone went dead and he set it down, laughing. It wasn’t the first time Jason had hung up on him. Alex’s laughter was short lived, however, as he mulled over the implications of what Jason had just told him. Turning back to his computer, he watched the line of chats scrolling by as he tried to decide what to do next. If Tommy’s disappearance was connected with this hack, then maybe the FBI did have Tommy. The fact that they had conducted such a sting without his team’s involvement, however, raised more questions. But it also meant something else. It meant that Tommy might be alive and, for the first time in a while, Alex felt the stirrings of real hope.
Quickly, he called his brother, telling him that they had found what they needed and didn’t need to worry about having to rely on Tommy’s friends to remember anything. When his brother asked if that meant the FBI had Tommy, he simply replied he wasn’t sure, but they were going to look into it. Alex figured it was better to let Ken wait for a little while longer rather than even hint that there might be a possibility and raising his hopes prematurely.
In the meantime, Alex had plenty of places he could start poking around to figure out exactly what was going on.
Chapter Thirteen
The call woke Barrett out of a drunken stupor. Monday had been a crap day and he’d needed something to make up for it. Glancing at the clock he noted it was only six in the morning.
Snatching up the phone, he growled, "What?"
"Sir, someone's been knocking and poking around our trap."
"What the hell you calling me for? Log them with the rest."
"Can't. Their NCCIC."
"What are they doing poking around? We canceled the engagement with them weeks ago."
"We're not sure, sir."
"Well find out. Go have a quiet talk with them and tell whoever it is to back the fuck off. This is our sting."
"Yes, sir."
"Anything else?"
"Sending the latest report to your fax."
"Good. Call me once you’ve taken care of the NCCIC issue."
Barrett hung up, wanting nothing more than to fall back into the oblivion he'd just been ripped out of. But it wasn't going to happen. Even now he could hear the fax machine.
This better be good, he thought, as he headed over to grab the report.
He scanned it quickly, trying to ignore his throbbing headache. But what he read made him close his eyes, hoping that his headache was the reason the words weren’t telling him what he wanted. Opening them didn’t help though. The words hadn’t changed. The forensics teams had found nothing new. Still no smoking gun.
"Son of a bitch!"
Balling up the paper, he threw it across the room. A small end table followed, crashing into the wall behind it and causing Barrett to clench his teeth against the pain it caused his head.
This only served to increase his anger. Furiously, he began to pace, occasionally picking up something else up to throw.
What the hell was wrong? They had to be missing something. It had already been suggested multiple times that maybe they needed to go back in and take the family of the detainees and their computers - despite the fact that they had not traced any other IPs that had hit the trap at these locations. Barrett was seriously considering it but pushed the idea away almost as soon as he thought it. No. That wasn’t the answer. Something wasn’t right. But what, he couldn’t imagine.
Grabbing a bottle of Jack, he opened it and took a few swigs. Something was definitely not right. They had run all the diagnostics they could. They had interrogated the group with no results and even the esteemed doctor had accomplished nothing so far. And, no matter how he tried, he could still not get any answers or direction from the people who'd hired him. And with time running out, and now people from other government divisions poking around, the doubts he had begun to have several days before were growing.
He sighed, taking a few more swallows of Jack. He knew that it was time that he did the one thing he had avoided and should have done days ago. He was going to have to call a meeting of all of the players and tell them they needed to start over with a new group. But the idea made his stomach twist in knots. The last thing he wanted to do was tell his backers, the Director of the FBI, and Gillespie, that they needed to start over.
Barrett took another drink and then yawned. The more he thought about it, the more he realized it probably could wait just a few more days. Maybe putting the group of detainees together, as the doctor had suggested, would net them something. He doubted it, but it was something to hold on to.
He yawned again. Then began to feel slightly better when he realized how large the list of offenders had gotten and was still growing. Surely it wouldn’t be difficult to pull in some major hauls from that list. All it would take was a little more research and maybe a slightly different approach than they’d used with this group.
When the third yawn caught him, Barrett decided he could start checking into this approach later in the morning. Maybe they would even have some more people added to the list by then.
And the more the merrier, he thought, as he decided to head back to bed.
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Within minutes of Barrett’s head hitting the pillow, another alert was triggered from a location a thousand miles away. Billy, a precocious thirteen year old - still running on the thrill of a hacker movie he had watched - was searching for more information about hackers and hacking. He had been practicing, and remembered that someone had challenged him to try and hack a certain FBI website. While Barrett had been fuming and drinking, the thirteen year old had been coding. When the warning message finally popped up on Billy’s monitor, he let out a loud ‘whoot’ and quickly sent a Snapchat of the screen to all of his friends. Maybe he would finally get some creds for this. These were his thoughts as he heard his mom hollering for him to hurry up and get ready for school.
Several hundred miles north of Billy’s home, in a small D.C. office, the agent on duty noted the alert and waited for the local ISP to send the requested information to him. Once received, he would add it to the growing number of people they were monitoring but had not yet moved on. There would be enough time for that after they had decided how to handle the high profile group they already had in their possession. Once precedence had been established that would change things forever.
Then, the mass arrests could begin.
Chapter Fourteen
At the doctor’s request, they put a T.V. in Tommy’s cell. The stations were fuzzy, but there were voices now instead of quiet. Jane – she'd asked him to call her Jane, not doctor or Doctor Lynds
ay - would come to check on him and give him more medicine. Though the medicine made him fuzzy, he was feeling much better. It helped that a few days had passed since the men who asked questions with their fists, and other methods, had stopped coming for him.
Tommy had come to look forward to his conversations with Jane. Sometimes she wrote things down as she asked him about his hobbies, what he was studying in school and his family. She explained that it was part of her job, though she wouldn't tell him what her job was or answer any of his questions as to why he was here. But Tommy didn’t care. She was nice. And not bad looking for an older woman. He thought she'd be a good match for his uncle. She smiled when he mentioned it.
As the talks continued, Tommy began to relax and tried to accept his captivity. He was expecting her to come today, so, when someone else came instead, his pulse began to race. As they led him out of his cell, he wondered if it meant the interrogations would start again, and he tried to prepare himself. Instead, he was led to another, much larger room.
Wondering what the sudden change in routine might mean, he glanced around, noting that there were three other people in the room, sitting on a couch and two chairs, facing a television. Tommy looked at one man who seemed familiar despite the broken nose and the yellow and greenish bruise on the right side of his face. He was about to say something when the guard beside him moved to leave.
Tommy turned, trying to form a question, but the door closed before he could actually ask. He heard the distinct sound of the bolt slamming home. He stared at the door a moment longer before turning back to the three men in the room who were now all standing and staring at him.
At first he couldn’t seem to find his words. His mind was telling him that these three people were actually in the room. But he still remembered waking up and talking to his mother for several hours only to later realize, when the doctor had walked in, that he had been hallucinating. Again.
Jane had explained to him that this was fairly common among people held in isolation for long periods of time, or those subjected to interrogations. But she had looked concerned. That was when she had started visiting him outside of their normal ‘talks’ and just coming to his cell to chat. But, while her visits had helped, he couldn't shake how real the hallucination felt. Just like now.
Do people hallucinate about people they’ve never seen?
Tommy ignored the thought, glancing at the one person who seemed familiar. It was a moment before he placed the older man’s face.
"Tommy?"
"Mr. Borne?"
Duncan's father rose. "What are you doing here?"
Tommy saw the confusion on Mr. Borne’s face. He glanced at the other two men, who both had bruises and lacerations in various stages of healing. He did not recognize either of them.
One man, who looked as if he were Middle Eastern, spoke up. His accent was thick as he asked, "I have heard your name before. Do you know my son, Ali?"
Tommy's eyes widened. "Yes. He and I and Duncan play on the same pickup soccer team on campus."
The other man, tall and broad and looking like a linebacker said, "Then you know my son, Matt."
Tommy nodded.
"Well then. At least we're one step closer to figuring out what these commies have us locked up here for."
Tommy glanced at him, brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"You, son. You're the only one that links us all together. So why don't you tell us what the hell is going on?"
Chapter Fifteen
Tommy was numb with shock and unable to say anything further. How long he stood there, just staring at everyone, he wasn’t sure. When he felt a hand touch his arm he automatically flinched, turning to find Duncan's father looking at him. Tommy hadn’t even noticed him walking closer.
"It’s okay, son," Mr. Borne said gently. "If you've been here as long as us and, from the looks of it, interrogated as well, you're probably going through shock. Come sit down."
The others glanced at him. They seemed agitated and at the same time embarrassed.
They moved aside as Mr. Borne led him to a seat.
"Are we the first people you've seen in a while?"
"Yes, sir, Mr. Borne."
"Please, call me Frank."
Tommy nodded hesitantly. "Frank. Yes. Except for the guards and the…other people. And Jane."
He saw Matt’s father’s jaw clench. "The bitch."
Tommy looked up sharply at him. "She is not!"
Matt's father moved closer, and Tommy realized just how big the man was. "Yes she is. She drugged all of us repeatedly. She's a commie like the rest."
Tommy felt his face growing hot. Suddenly he didn't care how big the guy was. He moved to get closer before shouting, "You just shut your damn mouth! She is –"
He was suddenly jerked back by Frank. "That's enough, Wayne. The kid is obviously attached. It's common."
Wayne gave a disgusted sigh. "Fine. Sorry, Tommy. The doctor, who has been drugging us after she let the guards beat us, is obviously not a commie. Just a traitor to all Americans. Like her name sake. Jane Fonda."
As Tommy moved to hit the man, Frank growled, "That's enough, Wayne. Tommy, sit down. Everyone, sit."
Frank’s tone brooked no argument. Still, looking at Wayne’s obvious size advantage, Tommy was surprised when he reluctantly did what Frank had ordered. Tommy followed, taking the chair opposite Wayne, and watched as both Ali’s father and Frank took the couch.
Frank turned to him then and said, "We've all been in here for a while, Tommy. A few hours at least and we've already shared our story. But until you came in, we couldn't find anything that made sense. Please, tell us what's going on."
As Tommy glanced around, it suddenly sank in exactly why they were all here. Why they had all been brought in and interrogated. The sudden guilt that followed hit him harder than any blow he had received from one of the interrogators. He started to shake again. Had he been standing, he would have collapsed.
Oh, God. This is all my fault. They are all here because of me.
The thought led to another thought and then another until they were tumbling around his already over-stimulated mind, too many to focus on. He found himself unable to respond.
Why? How could all this happen because of that stupid website?
"What website?"
The question yanked Tommy from his paralysis. He glanced at Wayne and then Ali's father and finally Frank, realizing he had spoken aloud. Seeing the confusion, worry, fear and frustration in their bruised faces, he clamped down on his own fear, took a deep breath and launched into the same story he had been telling since he had been taken.
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Dr. Lyndsay’s doubts, which had been mounting as she questioned each of the detainees over the last several days, were confirmed as she listened to the group interaction. These people were not terrorists or traitors. And only one could be called a hacker. But even most of Thomas Moore’s behavior could be attributed to his chosen college major. These weren’t the people that they had hoped to catch.
Jane felt her stomach begin to tie in knots. The FBI had made a mistake. A very bad mistake.
Chapter Sixteen
Alex unlocked his door while trying to suppress another yawn. Too many days, with little sleep since his nephew had disappeared. And, after finding out yesterday that Tommy may have gotten on the wrong side of the FBI, he hadn’t slept at all.
As he shuffled into his apartment, Alex finally gave up the struggle to stop the inevitable. The yawn seemed to last forever. But despite his fatigue, his mind spun with too many questions and not enough answers.
Dropping his mail on his kitchen counter, Alex walked to the desk in his living room, and turned on his desk lamp and laptop before sitting. Something niggled at the back of his mind, something that seemed ‘off’, but he couldn't put a name to it. Deciding it was just exhaustion, he logged into his secure computer - running on its own cable line like the one in his o
ffice - and began opening his usual chatrooms.
Minutes later, an alert chimed. He usually received several a day, even more in the last two days. Many were just the usual reports on security holes other hackers had found, or invites to hacker raids. Some were simple inquires. But, too many recently, had been people telling him they had not found anything on the man he was looking for. So while Alex wasn’t surprised at the alert, he also wasn’t hopeful.
He was surprised, however, when he checked and saw that he had been invited to a private chat as these were not as common. Not recognizing the chatroom invite #HGTTG or the handle sending the request, he waited. As tired as he was, he was inclined to ignore it all together until the invite popped up again, this time with a question.
<µβ> Missing someone?
He stared at the question, caught between curiosity and shock. Hesitant, he logged into the chat as gr@yg@nd01f and typed: Why do you ask?
<µβ> Because the kid has your last name and you haven't exactly been quiet in your searches.
Alex's heart stopped. It wasn’t like he was a newbie at any of this. He knew how to hide his tracks. He’d been online for years as a lurker, and later as a hacker, before going into security. And he hadn’t mentioned to anyone that the man he was looking for was his nephew. So how did they even know who he was, let alone anything about his connection to Tommy?
<µβ> Not that it matters, but you can think of us as watchers. For now. Your nephew has been caught up in something spawned by a group we have been watching for some time. The same group that is now watching you.
