by T. K. Harris
They shared a chuckle.
"I got your message. I’d ask how you knew what I was looking for, but I know better."
John gave a low chuckle. "So I’m taking your return call to mean you want that chat?"
"Yep. And a beer or two sure would be good right now."
"Figured it would be that kinda chat."
"With a little crazy mixed in."
"El Diablo Cara, one hour?"
"Sure."
He heard the phone click, and smiled. John never was one for many words.
Nathan had never asked what his ex-partner did for a living now. John was not one to divulge much about himself anyways. But he was a good man and a solid friend, despite the hint of crazy in his eyes. And, if things ever got a little hot, there was no one Nathan would rather have at his back. He imagined that if it had been a different life, John would have been a sheriff or a bounty hunter, going out, guns blazing, with a smile on his face. Nathan laughed at the thought. But knew it was true. John was one of those men born in the wrong timeline.
And he might just be the man to help Nathan knock down some locked doors.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Nathan found his ex-partner already at the bar, with three empty shot glasses in front of him. He quirked an eyebrow at John as he joined him.
"A little early for that."
John gave him a half smile in greeting, pretending to stare off into space. Nathan followed his gaze to the mirror behind the bar, John's sharp eyes met his.
"Work?"
John grunted. Nathan ordered a beer, watching John watch the patrons behind him through the mirror. After a moment he picked out the target, a tall, thin kid, no more than twenty-five, was trying to be discrete as he handed a small package over to a young, dark haired girl. He quickly pocketed the money, his eyes darting around the bar before turning to disappear into the crowd.
"You going after him?"
"Nope."
"The girl then?"
John sighed and looked at Nathan. The lines of age seemed deeply etched in his face today. "Ya. That's my youngest."
Nathan did a double take from John back to the girl.
"Melissa?"
"Ya. She's been a handful since Elizabeth…"
Nathan finished the thought silently. Since Elizabeth, John’s wife, had been hit by a drunk driver and put into a coma. Nathan could still hear the pain. Five years of unanswered hope did that to you.
"Anything I can do?"
"No. But thanks. I just had to see it with my own eyes. I'll figure something out."
Nathan looked at John, a man who had taken down thugs, mob bosses, drug dealers and worse. He had been in situations that would make most seasoned cops quit. But it looked like John had finally found his Achilles heel.
Nathan opened his mouth to say something when John spit out, "You ever heard of extraordinary or extreme rendition?"
"Sure. They used it in the last few wars with the Middle East. It allows the military to get around rules against interrogation, right, by taking them to another country not covered by those laws?"
"Yep. I think you might be barking up one of those situations."
"You mean the kid and the three other – possibly four other – disappearances? You think they've been taken out of the country? That seems a bit…" He stopped himself before he said, 'extreme'. That was John's point.
"Out of the country but not necessarily off of territory located within the United States boarders."
Nathan looked at the empty shot glasses in front of John again and then back at his partner. John's eyes were crystal clear but still…
"Explain."
"It's something that has been flying around the rumor mill for a while and recently that rumor mill has gotten noisier than ever."
"And what would that rumor be exactly?"
"That the US government is using loop holes in the treaties with the Native Americans to ship citizens to nearby reservations and interrogate them at their leisure. Nothing that can be used in a court of law mind you, but then it doesn't take much to take some of that information and create a paper trail later that makes it look legit."
Nathan's face must have showed his incredulity. John just ignored it and continued.
"I think that's what they've done with your missing guys. Shipped them off to a local reservation, either down south to the Ute reservation or out of Colorado all together. That’s why the FBI isn’t talking."
"Come on, John. I've heard some crazy theories from you before, but this just takes the cake."
John nodded in agreement, his eyes back on the mirror, following his daughter, who was now talking to a man at least twice her age.
"Why don't you talk to Kristen?"
"Your wife has her hands full with your three heathens last I heard you talk."
Nathan laughed. "That she does, but you know she also works with troubled youth. And she's been worried about you."
John grunted by way of saying he'd think about it and Nathan left it alone.
"So how do we prove your theory?"
"I'm thinking about heading down to the Ute reservation. Makes the most sense. Hang out for a few days and see what I can find. I'll contact you if I see something."
They both stared at the mirror, watching as Melissa made her way from one guy to another. Nathan decided to push his luck.
"You know my three are off at their grandparents for the rest of the summer and Kristen doesn't know what to do with herself. Melissa is welcome."
"Thanks. I'll think about it."
Throwing back another shot, John stood up and walked to where his daughter was. Saying something to the man talking to Melissa, John grabbed his daughter by the arm and moved to leave. The man stepped forward as if to intervene, along with two of his buddies. Nathan rose, ready to step in, when John said something that made all three men jump back as suddenly as if they had just been hit.
He must have told them exactly how old she isn't, Nathan thought.
Shaking his head in commiseration, he sent up a silent prayer of thanks that his children weren't as bad as they sometimes seemed.
At least not yet, his ungrateful mind supplied.
Paying the bill, he headed back to his office, wondering what, if anything, John would really find on the remote Ute reservation.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Just as µβ had told him to do, Michael had been busy monitoring the boards for signs of gr@yg@nd01f, when he got pinged to join a private chat. He let out a bark of laughter at the chatroom's handle #HGTTG.
They really were carrying this 42 thing entirely too far, he thought.
As usual, his mind began on the usual questions of who, or what exactly, µβ was. He knew, from observing the various texting patterns each time the µβ handle appeared, that there was more than one person. Or someone with a severe personality disorder. So he had begun thinking of them as the collective ‘they’. Like the Borg. But only privately. The one time Michael had mentioned this to them, they had booted him out and not invited him back for three months.
Still, he wanted to know who they were, any of them. And what the group was about. But he had learned early on to keep all of those questions to himself. At least if he wanted to stay in with µβ. He wasn’t even sure why they had reached out to him in the first place. But, so far, he was glad they had and he didn’t want to mess that up.
<µβ> fags. what do you have?
<µβ> shut the fuck up! we got to do something about this
ar about that senator in colorado talking about arrests
<µβ> so it only matters if there's lulz and not that the MIB are trying to take us down again?
The truth stung and Michael responded the only way he knew how.
<µβ> time to strike back. those fucking wanna be moralfags need to be taken down
<µβ> easy. first we drop a bomb, then we do the rest old school. with a twist
<µβ> kh@n, you wan’t to tell em
Kh@n gave them the details of what he had discovered a few days ago. As he filled them in, bb0@49 and g@mb1t alternated typing: OMG, WTF?! And OMFG!
<µβ> exactly. need one of you fags to 'accidentally' discover this when you start recruiting and drop the bomb
<µβ> good. we’ll coordinate getting into B and G’s laptops and emails. THAT stays with US! no external recruiting for that. we’ve got to move carefully on this one. understood?
<µβ> then you fags can start the campaign off and we will spell out the rest of the plan once you have initiates. here is what you need to do before and after you drop the bomb
Michael read on as µβ listed out the next few steps, which started with some of the public channels and chatrooms for recruiting purposes. He knew better than to ask what µβ would be doing while they initiated recruiting. As they didn't show themselves often, he doubted µβ would contribute outright to the campaign. Not under the handle µβ, anyways. He thought they would be there though, lurking the channels and coming back to advise when they saw fit. As µβ finished, Michael was laughing hard enough to wet himself.
Fuck school, he thought. There was nothing better than pwning some ass that needed it. Nothing.
A few hours later they launched their first recruiting campaign on one of the popular hacker channels by stating gr@yg@nd01f’s story and current status.
Several other comments were made as people joined and dropped from the channel. After several screens worth of comments, that each spiraling further away from the topic, Michael moved to bring it back on track.
Hotlvr's question went unanswered as juicy2 posted a picture of a naked girl which spawned another and then another until Michael, after posting a few lewd ones of his own, broke in.
SlyDog21 posted a picture of two naked guys spanking each other in response. Over the next several minutes the channel filled with more photos, each trying to outdo the other in crudeness. Between the posts, kh@n and Michael were able to lay out the plan. By the time they logged off at nearly four in the morning, the channel was on fire with splinter groups, each vying for the top dog honor of who would lead the attacks.
Staggering their exits so they weren’t leaving at the same time, g@mb1t, kh@n, and Michael logged out. Tomorrow night they would strike. Michael was grinning at the thought as he stumbled to bed, hoping is mom wouldn't wake him up so early this time. Who got up before noon anyway?
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About the time that Michael and the others logged out, juicy2 did as well. Shortly thereafter, juicy2 and kh@n, both logged into a private chat but with different handles. Yuri was waiting.
Yuri ignored his brother’s comments.
won't be as easy as they think.
Yuri signed off, not wanting to watch the downward spiral he knew that conversation was about to head in.
Taking a deep breath, he leaned back in his leather chair. Now that the hornet’s nest had been stirred, they had very little to do in order to keep it going. Hackers liked to hack. The more challenging, fun or even just crude they could be and get credit for it, guaranteed that they were in. And, if they made the kind of noise – and trouble – he was going to ensure they made, the next stage of his plan was going to be easy.
All the key players had already been informed that they needed to be ready to move quickly. When news of the hack attacks began to spread across the globe, these political and business figures would be pounding on the doors of every government office, demanding that something be done to put a stop to the electronic terrorism. And they would just happen to have laws ready to fast track through the various legal systems. The problems the hackers were going to cause would guarantee that the government officials wouldn’t even think about saying ‘no’.
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"Sir, someone is stirring up the boards about Alex Moore's capture."
Barrett had to unclench his jaw to ask, "How would they know?"
"Logic bombs. Started going off early yesterday morning. He must have s
uspected this would happen."
"Of course he did! He's a traitor! What are they planning?"
"We don't know yet. By the time we found out something was going down, we were too late to get the details. Something big is going on though and we’re not sure what else was mentioned. We did catch something about some moralfag they were going after, but we didn’t see who. But a few of our handles that are very popular are out there and they are planning on launching something tomorrow night. We're going to try and get invited into the private chats to find out."
Barrett gave a curt nod, wondering who the ‘moralfag’ was they were going after. Images of what had happened to him twenty years ago bounced through his head. He shuddered internally, already feeling sorry for whoever it was and hoping it wasn’t him. But the cold feeling in the pit of his stomach wouldn’t leave him alone. His information was much more highly secured now than it had been then. He just had to hope that the men he worked for had built in enough security in preparation if the attack was going to be against him or Gillespie.
