He took a deep breath, blew it out. ‘After that, I saw more and more examples of the government’s stupidity. How the stupid did the governing. I came to believe that intellect ought to be valued in government over age or religion or any other meaningless attribution of ability put above it in the current political spectrum. If a teen had an IQ high enough to make his own medical decisions, why should his will not trump that of a person who had the lowest grades of their medical school class?’
The bright red of righteous anger flashed in first, then again, that distinct shade of purple Jenna was all too familiar with: narcissism.
Intense stuff, and not without some merit.
But Flint’s emotions added to his inflated view of his intellect led to some skewed logic. His feelings of entitlement because he was better than others screamed of at least one personality trait of the dark triad. Maybe even two, since he was somewhat focused on his own self-interests. But those self-interests were motivated by something deeper – his sister’s suffering, which suggested he didn’t lack empathy, and his story hadn’t triggered any alarms – or colors – to suggest it wasn’t genuine.
So far.
‘I’m so sorry about your sister,’ Saleda said, steering the conversation away from a rant and gently reminding Flint who was present in the room.
He hung his head. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just always a tough subject.’
‘We understand,’ Jenna said. ‘Everyone copes with grief in different ways, and it’s healthy to acknowledge positive and negative feelings.’ It was also normal for people to find different ways of expressing those feelings. Some were healthy; some, not so much. ‘I’m starting to gather that the website wasn’t just a public airing of grievances but more reaching out to others who had similar pain.’
Flint nodded, Jenna’s words seeming to calm him, as understanding had a tendency to do in most people. ‘Of course, some people who found the site were conspiracy theorists or just general nutjobs, but I tried to moderate it well. I blocked those types from the private forums quickly. The actual group, well … everyone had their own reasons for being there.’
‘Similar to yours?’
‘Some,’ Flint said, pacing again. ‘Lots of lost loved ones. Painful situations and life-changing scars that in some way were the result of a government run by people not qualified to run it. In many ways, we were like an odd little family. We didn’t know everything about each others’ lives, but I think we were as close as you can get through a computer screen, if you can believe it.’
‘Tell us about when the group started to fracture,’ Jenna said.
‘Well, as you can imagine, a group like this has a lot of people with very strong opinions,’ Flint said.
‘And a lot of wackos,’ Porter muttered.
Flint ignored him. ‘A couple of the more bitter members didn’t find the same comfort in just talking and commiserating as the rest of us did. They sounded more and more radical, wanted to take more action. At some point, I was approached about an in-person meeting that had been set up.’
‘None of you had met in person?’ Saleda asked.
‘No,’ Flint said. ‘We enjoyed each others’ company and support, but by nature of what our group talked about, we were also, to some degree, afraid. Didn’t give our identities on the forum at all—’
‘Which is how the literary handles started?’ Jenna cut in, curious.
‘Kind of,’ Flint said slowly. ‘The handful of us there from the beginning came up with the motto, so choosing a literary character for a forum identity sort of became a trend, if you will. A couple of people did it, then everyone wanted one.’
‘So, everyone named themselves, then?’ Jenna asked.
‘Technically, yes.’
‘Why technically?’
Flint paused, seemed to consider. ‘Several people talked amongst themselves as they tried to decide what names fit them. The characters were’ – he pursed his lips, thinking – ‘personal. Everyone really got into their characters. It wasn’t a trivial thing to anyone.’
That made sense, given all they’d seen so far.
‘But even if people crowd-sourced ideas, they still chose their own, correct?’
‘Technically.’
A salmon color flashed in. One she recognized easily, as it had bitten her in the rear in the past if ever she didn’t readily recognize it – someone holding back. ‘What am I missing?’
‘One of the two I mentioned that were setting up the meetings kind of became the go-to forum authority on handle characters. He was one of the people first to pick a character after I did, but he was definitely the first to announce his choice in a post containing a long, in-depth analysis of the literary aspects that led him to it. Others followed suit. As the forum admin at the time, I could see when members sent private messages to one another. When character names became the ‘in’ thing, I noticed a lot of people were messaging back and forth with Ishmael. Though I didn’t read their messages, of course, I assumed they wanted his assessment of them.’
‘Ishmael?’ Jenna repeated.
Flint nodded. ‘I don’t know a lot about his situation, really, just that he was brilliant, intense, and very resentful. He was severely disabled, though he never went into specifics of his condition. We all got the feeling he was homebound. Or that maybe he was agoraphobic.’
Jenna wasn’t as sure of Flint’s amateur psychological analysis as he was, but she’d ask why they’d had that ‘feeling’ after a few other things were straightened out. Right now, the far more interesting aspect of Ishmael was that he’d had a hand in naming the members and was one of the inciters of the in-person meetings.
‘So if he was homebound, why set his sights on in-person meetings?’ Jenna asked.
Flint shrugged. ‘I can’t say I know, entirely. I didn’t ever go. The whole idea made me as uncomfortable as the undercurrents that came with it. If I had to guess, I’d say they probably had him on video chat. I remember him mentioning doing that for things … and the way he sounded when he mentioned it was one of the reasons I was sure he never left his home.’
‘So the other member intent on taking action in person must’ve led the meetings?’
‘Atticus,’ Flint said without missing a beat.
Brick red flashed in. The attacker in the bank video with the machete. The one who had stepped in to finish the creepy guy’s slow torture of the blonde, get things back on track. She couldn’t confirm it readily, but it made sense. The letter said two characters were from To Kill a Mockingbird, but they’d only known Scout. The color. That was Atticus.
‘What do you know about what brought Atticus to the forum?’ Saleda asked.
‘Bits and pieces,’ Flint replied. ‘I know he lost his job at some point, which I think is what led to his divorce. His little girl died. Just had a long string of such awful circumstances, and he wouldn’t have joined us had it been just rotten luck.’
Damn. The sequence of events was brutal, and yet, it rang true. Jenna thought of Scout, dry-heaving after killing someone. Of Hester and her clumsy, untrained form rushing at a stranger, driven to kill. To be committed enough to their cause to take such horrendous actions, every one of their stories had to be equally compelling and terrible.
The shade of blue Jenna associated with devotion flashed in. Atticus and Ishmael had to be absolutely sure the people who joined their more radical group were completely vetted. Relationships online were strong, but for what they were planning, they needed to be very, very sure of these people.
‘Flint, you said you were invited to the meetings. But not everyone was?’
He shook his head. ‘They definitely seemed to feel people out. See if they were “with” them or not, so to speak. It was subtle, though. Manipulative.’
‘How so?’ Dodd asked.
‘They’d test the waters with people, and then anyone they didn’t deem fit – maybe they weren’t hardcore enough, maybe they seemed too unsure of the more extreme ideas
– they would manage to force out of the group. It’s ultimately what they did to me, even though by the time it happened, I was wary enough that I was ready to walk even without the “help.”’
‘What do you mean by ‘help’? How did it all play out?’ Jenna asked.
‘Like I said, I was invited to the meeting, but I didn’t want anything to do with it. Some of the ones more like me, like Scarlett, who had lost a brother in the Iraq war were invited. But then you had creepy guys like Mr Darcy involved—’
Hunter green flashed in at the word creepy, then the deep crimson Jenna hated so much almost immediately after – the one that only showed up when bloodthirst was involved in violence. The man skewering the pretty, young girl in the bank. Atticus jumping in with the machete to end it. That man could be Mr Darcy.
‘Mr Darcy? From Pride and Prejudice?’ Grey asked.
Flint nodded. ‘Yeah. Weird one. Was into everything Black Shadow wasn’t supposed to be about. Class warfare, things like that.’
Sure. Because elitism isn’t class warfare at all.
Jenna forced herself not to ask more questions about Darcy. Focus. ‘We’ll need a list of any other Black Shadow members’ names you remember from that time.’
‘Whatever you need.’
‘So, you didn’t end up going to the meeting …’ Saleda coaxed.
‘No. Thought about it a lot, but I backed out at the last minute. Shortly after, I started hearing less and less from everyone on the regular website. Those who did go left our regular forum. The way they were so cold toward me, though, prior to leaving, made me think they’d been poisoned against me somehow. Wouldn’t surprise me, since many of the others not selected for this little “mission” had the same thing happen. One by one, people starting leaving the forums. Forums got boring. Pretty soon, no one hung around.’
The watery, transparent brown that reminded her so much of the lager Jenna’s father would drink out of a clear stein flashed in. In her lexicon, she’d come to associate it with deviation from the norm. Irv said the last private messages on the Black Shadow forums had stopped long before the first in person meeting because there wasn’t a trace of anything like this.
‘Wait a minute. How were the messages about the meetings delivered?’
‘The details came through their website,’ Flint responded.
‘They have another website? What is it?’ Saleda asked.
‘I don’t know. It’s transferred every week.’
‘What does that mean?’ Porter asked.
Flint narrowed his eyes. ‘I want it to be clear that while I was privy to the information, I had nothing to do with the creation of it.’
Saleda nodded. ‘Understood.’
He took a long pause. ‘They attach a Trojan to a plug-in that websites can download free, like one of those news tickers or visitor counters. Anyone who downloads it is now infected. On a set date every week, the virus chooses an infected website at random and installs the New Black Shadow’s website on the infected site’s server.’
‘That can be done?’ Teva said curiously.
‘Oh, easily, on certain low-security hosts. That’s how it’s kept from being found or easily accessed even now, I’m sure. It’ll reach out to new randoms every set amount of time, copy the files over, then delete the previous ghost page. Not hard for the right people,’ Flint said.
The intellectually elite.
‘So if that’s how the new Black Shadow are communicating, how do members get the web address when it changes if the sites it infects are random?’ Jenna asked, thinking how they might just give it out at in-person meetings, though they couldn’t have done that the first time. And now it’d be getting more and more dangerous for them to meet as a group other than for the actual attacks. Groups of that size would draw attention, particularly once the FBI gave the profile of the attackers.
‘I don’t …’ Flint looked away from them all. Shifted uncomfortably. ‘I don’t want any part in this. I know what you’ll want me to do, but I have a wife and child. Another baby coming. I can’t afford to antagonize anyone. Give them any chance to remember I … to be on their radar.’
‘To remember what, Flint?’ Jenna said.
The calm and collected demeanor reflected on Flint’s face up to now gave way to a panicky, troubled look. He shook his head. ‘I can’t. I just can’t.’
‘We can protect you and your family, Mr Lewis. But we can’t protect a lot of innocent people who might die unless you tell us how to find that website,’ Saleda said, encouraging but stern.
Flint wrung his hands. ‘Please. I just want to stay out of it. Just like I did then.’
Appeal to his narcissism. ‘Whether you want to be or not, Flint, you’re already involved. And I hate to point it out, but you’re already on their radar. They might not have meant it to lead us to your doorstep, but the little scavenger hunt they set us on, teasing us we could find them if we were worthy? It was always going to lead to Black Shadow, because that’s where they started. You’re not to blame, but Black Shadow was your baby. So like it or not, you’re part of their game. But you started it your way. You can finish it your way.’
Flint bit his lip, shifted again. Then, without a word, he walked toward the kitchen area separated from the living room only by the switch from carpet to tile.
He sat down at the table, opened the black laptop in front of him. Running his fingers along the keys, they watched an e-mail account pop up. He typed a username in, saying, ‘This anonymous account was given to everyone invited to the meeting. You log in to get the newest URL. If they still use the same account, that is.’
But as soon as he hit enter, the e-mails came up. They were in.
‘I’ll get Irv on this,’ Saleda said, opening her phone. ‘Need to start if we’re going to crack it in time to prevent another attack.’
‘It’ll take a long time,’ Flint muttered. ‘They’ll be better than that.’
Saleda held her phone, but her fingers stayed at the keys as she stared at Flint. Slowly, she put her phone back into her pocket.
‘Flint, if you think you can get in …’
He hung his head. ‘I know I’ve been worried about my wife and kids, but …’
‘But what?’ Jenna asked.
‘But what if my family just happened to be wherever the next attack occurs? I’d never forgive myself.’
He opened the latest e-mail, copied the link. Sure enough, a login page opened.
‘The login might not even still work,’ he muttered, just like when trying to sign into the e-mail account. ‘They probably deactivated my name when I didn’t show.’
But that wasn’t the case, either.
The website appeared, black with white writing on the sides, the top. But something else was going on.
It took a second for Jenna to realize what she was watching, but as her brain caught up with her eyes, so did the noises of phones vibrating and ringing in the team’s pockets around her. Shit.
She didn’t even reach for the phone. She already knew what the calls were about.
The raw video from the second attack must’ve been uploaded to the Black Shadow site only moments ago, because this was the call informing the team about the attack. Jenna turned heel and ran for the door.
Isaac Keaton lay back on his tiny bed with his feet crossed, a worn copy of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings open in front of him. So nice of this fine super-maximum security correctional facility to give their inmates free access to a library. Granted, Level I prisoners like Isaac didn’t ever see the library, just Li’l Book Cart Pushin’ Lael, who came by once a week or so.
Thank the Miami Dolphins, though. He needed the diversion today. A pipe must have burst somewhere, because the water had stopped refilling in the john several hours ago, leaving it drier than a Southern Baptist county with no liquor stores. And of course he’d had to take a shit all day. The book was a decent read, at least, though he’d only selected it for the title and its special
kind of irony. Had to have some kind of entertainment to pass the day to day. He had a jump on the plan, but patience was key.
Patience, and tapping in to the hidden culture around you.
Correctional officers and inmates alike were quick to tell new intakes there are no secrets in the penitentiary. That was bullshit. There were plenty of secrets in the penitentiary. Secrets Isaac was studying, practicing … learning.
The buzzer sounding the four o’clock head count of all the prisoners jarred the air. The C.O.s yelled at the Level II and III’s, feet scuffled.
Penitentiary secret number one: the C.O.s didn’t start the four o’clock head count until 4:03 because the Level II and III convicts allowed to roam the common areas in the afternoons always took a pretty second or twelve to get standing by their bunks. But because Isaac was only allowed to leave his cell once a day for one hour, he was always inside it for the chaos of cons pushing and shoving to make count, the guards bitching at anyone not moving fast or not toeing the line.
That mere four minutes of knowledge had led to Penitentiary secret number two.
‘Border brother,’ said a voice coming from the empty john. ‘Inked fourteen.’
‘Son of a bitch,’ another voice replied. ‘Where?’
‘Coming down the bowling alley!’
Excitement rose in Isaac’s chest, the knowledge of all the clandestine activity he’d tapped into a bigger rush than sniping those old fools on a picnic at the park. The Aryan Brotherhood uses the pipe systems to communicate.
Flash Point Page 18
