Cipher

by Robert Stohn

  Jonathan sat back in his chair as she spoke to him. He tried to understand the gravity of what she was saying. No wonder the Italians wanted to pay him a million dollars for that thing. They could use it to swipe billions upon billions of dollars if they knew what they were doing. And he was sure that was their intention. But knowing that now, Jonathan was at a loss for what to do. Should he help the mob get the cipher drive back or not?

  “That’s crazy. So you helped to build a device to hack any computer system in the world?”

  “Well, I didn’t know that’s what the intent was at first. The initial specs of the project, like I had told you before, were to find the vulnerabilities in the RSA-key at the 1024-bit level. But, when I did that and we moved onto the 2048-bit level, I guess I had an assumption that’s what the intent was.”

  “And you didn’t say something? You didn’t do anything to stop it? Why, if you knew, did you continue to help them?” Jonathan was searching her eyes for an answer to the question. Why would she have gone along with a project that she knew was bad? What was her motivation in it all? It wasn’t adding up.

  “It’s a legitimate lab and it was part of my research… part of my passion,” she said, stumbling for words. “I didn’t realize it was going to fall into the wrong hands. Plus, they paid me really well for the job. I mean, it would have taken me 20 years of work to make the same amount of money I made in that 2-year span,” she said.

  Jonathan looked at her. Something wasn’t making sense. She wasn’t telling him everything. He felt like she was leaving something out, but he just didn’t know exactly what it was. He was an expert at reading body language, and he analyzed all the signals. He looked at her gestures and her expressions, and he knew that she wasn’t being completely honest with him. He knew that she wasn’t telling the complete truth. He took another big gulp of his wine as he tried to digest the gravity of the situation. He looked out towards the water to watch the beautiful colors dancing in the sky.

  “That sunset… look at the colors,” he said, trying to change the subject and not seem so combative.

  “I know. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “I never realized this country could be so beautiful.”

  “Yes, well, it is. This is home. This is my home.” She spoke silently as she finished off her glass of wine and looked out towards the water. The remaining entrees arrived and the waiter topped off their wine glasses. After they were finished eating, they walked towards her car.

  “That was delicious,” he said. He stared at her pale blue eyes. She was almost his height with her high heels on. She was only an inch or so shorter, and he couldn’t help but take her all in. He looked at her with this lost longing that he hadn’t felt in a long time. He had masked his pain and agony for years, but in that very moment, he almost felt like he was meant to be there. It was as if he had been destined to go to that place. At least that’s what he thought to himself in his mind.

  “I know. I love it here. So, where are you staying? I can drop you off,” she said.

  “I’m staying in Besiktas. Is that how you pronounce it?”

  She smiled. “No, well, not exactly. It sounds different than it looks. It’s pronounced Beshiktash. The line under the letter ‘s’ is pronounced with a ‘sh’ sound. So Beşiktaş is pronounced Beshiktash.”

  “Oh, okay,” he said.

  As they were about to hop into her two-door ten-year-old blue BMW, a black SUV with tinted windows was coming at them head on. Jennifer’s car was parked next to a stone wall that supported the raised terrace of the restaurant that they just finished up having dinner at. The SUV was traveling fast. They could hear the engine revving as it gunned the throttle towards them. In a split second move, Jonathan grabbed Jennifer and pulled her aside just in time as the SUV knocked out the side-view mirror of the car and rammed into the driver door of the car behind them before speeding off.

  “What the hell!?” she yelled. They were both breathing hard as they looked back at the SUV as it slammed on its breaks and spun back around. This time it was coming at them even faster.

  “Hurry up, give me the keys!” Jonathan yelled at her. A few people had gathered atop the terrace and looked down at the SUV as it gunned its engine back towards them. Jonathan was in a panic. “Shit! Come on.”

  This time as the SUV approached, It lowered its passenger window and Jonathan could see the barrel of a silencer as an olive-skinned man with silver aviator lenses pointed it towards them and fired. Jonathan pulled her down behind the car just in time as the gunshots grazed them and the slugs lodged themselves into the wall behind them.

  “Shit!” Jennifer yelled. The people on the terrace above screamed, and the SUV gunned passed them again. “Here… here are the keys!” she yelled and threw the keys at him. He ran to the driver’s side door, breathing heavy. He was in a panic. What the hell was going on? Someone was trying to kill them. Someone was after them. They knew he was there. They knew where she was.

  He threw the car into gear and reversed hard into the car behind them, a sound of crunching steel erupted as the two cars slammed into one another. Then, he threw the car forward and lurched out of the very tight parking spot against the stone wall as he hit the car in front of them just to get out of the parking spot. Jonathan gunned the engine of the compact BMW as the SUV headed straight towards them in the narrow strip that was encased by parked cars on both sides. They were playing chicken on that small side road, and Jonathan could hear the thumping beat of his heart in the back of his throat. He could feel the dampness seep into his hands as he gripped the steering wheel at 10 and 2 o’clock. He pushed the throttle down harder and the car lurched forward towards the SUV.

  As the two vehicles approached one another, the man pulled out his gun from the driver’s side window and fired towards them. Jonathan pushed her head down and ducked below the steering wheel as the gun shots rattled through the windshield. Five shots made their way into the car as it neared them. Jonathan careened into the parked cars on the right side of the street, against the stone wall, and both cars crunched into one another as they sped by in opposite directions.

  “Oh my God! Shit! Are you okay? Talk to me. Are you okay?” he asked. He was in a panic and breathing harder than ever. His knuckles had turned white and his heart dropped into his stomach as he gripped the steering wheel with dear life.

  She was bleeding from her shoulder. He could see the blood coming out of her, and he started cursing. “I’ve been shot,” she said. She spoke ominously, as she looked at her shoulder to see the blood. She was in a state of shock.

  “We have to stop the bleeding he yelled.” He was trying to pay attention to her as he navigated the car through the side road. When he came upon the exit into the major thoroughfare that ran along the ocean, he slammed on the breaks spun the car left, then right into the lane, barely missing another vehicle. He could see the SUV behind them, gunning its engine. It had to stop at the entrance to the thoroughfare because of the cars that blocked its way. He could hear the vehicle honking it’s horn in a fit of rage.

  Jonathan didn’t hesitate. He didn’t want to waste any time. He gunned the engine faster as he took his shirt and tied a tight knot around the wound.

  “We have to get you to a hospital… we have to…”

  “No,” she said. “No hospitals. They will know to look there. We can’t… we can’t go there. We have to go somewhere else. I have a friend… He’s a doctor. He lives about an hour from here. We have to go there…”

  Jonathan looked at her and he could tell she was fading fast. The color was leaving her face, and she was turning as white as a ghost. He looked in the rearview mirror and could the see the SUV gunning the engine as it came around the bend in an effort to catch up with them. He swerved in and out of the lanes, pushing past cars that honked at him violently as he raced his way through the light congestion of the Oceanside road.

  “Which way? Which way do I go? Are you still with me?” Jonathan shoo
k her by the leg. He tried to get her to stay with him. She couldn’t lose consciousness. If she did, he wouldn’t know where to go. He wouldn’t know how to get there.

  Her eyes were slightly opened, but they were closing rapidly. Each time she had an elongated blink, her eyelids would stay shut for a second or two before she opened them back up again. She looked out at the road with her eyes half opened and pointed the direction. “It’s… it’s up that way,” she said. She pointed to an exit that headed inland from the ocean. She pointed to the right in a general direction. “It’s in that direction,” she said again.

  Jonathan could see that she was fading fast. He had to step on the gas. But he didn’t know where he was going. He threw the car into third gear from fourth and redlined the engine as he gunned past another two cars, swiping left, then right. He could see the SUV close on his tail. Just as soon as he passed the car to the right, and as the SUV tried to follow suit, Jonathan quickly swerved again just narrowly making the next exit. The SUV was stuck behind a car and missed the exit. Jonathan could see him slamming on his brakes as he took the ramp, curving up and off to the right, inland, away from the beach and the crazed murderer.

  “Which way from here? Are you still with me? God, please be okay. Just hold on for me. Hold on until we get there,” he said. He was still in a panic. He squeezed the shirt tighter on her in order to make sure the bleeding was subdued. He kept one hand on her shoulder, squeezing the shirt tight around her shoulder, and the other on the wheel. He had to switch back and forth just to change the gears as the perspiration ran down the side of his face.

  He raced the car up a hill and screeched around another corner as she pointed in the general direction. He couldn’t slow down. He wouldn’t slow down. He had never been shot at before, his mind was racing at a million-miles-a-minute, and he could still hear the thumping of his heart in the back of his throat. He swallowed down hard as he tried to keep his nerve. He was trying to hold back the tears as he looked at her lying there helpless. They drove on like that for twenty more minutes before he felt like they were in the clear. He didn’t spot the SUV again, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t reappear. He knew that if someone wanted to find her bad enough, they would, and he couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t let anything happen to her. Something inside of him just wanted to protect her. He was sent there to extract information from her, but all he wanted to do was keep her safe at that moment in time.

  “Down this road,” she said. “Turn down this road.” Barely able to speak, she pointed to a street that ran up a steep hill to the right, which was lined by new apartment buildings. The street was narrow, and the cobblestones were more pronounced as they got further up the hill. They rounded the corner at the top and sped down another two streets before coming upon the block where her doctor friend was located. “I hope he’s home. Park there, in that underground.” She was in excruciating pain. The bleeding had all but stopped but Jonathan could tell that she was fiercely fighting back tears. He could see the terror in her eyes.

  “Who the hell was that?” he asked her.

  “I don’t know. I have no idea. But I would be dead if it wasn’t for you. I panicked and froze. You helped me.” She turned her head to look at him while he was driving, and it was the first time she felt a twinge of something for a complete stranger that had protected her. She felt like he was her guardian angel at that moment. “You saved me,” she said. “You saved me… I can’t begin to thank you enough.” She had tears in her eyes. Jonathan could see that she was trying her best to keep it together.

  “We’re not out of the woods yet,” he said. “We need to hide this car.”

  “Here, just park in the underground here. I have the code. Just punch in 2-3-8-5 in the keypad,” she said.

  He pulled up to a keypad, punched in the keys, and it opened up a large garage dedicated to the building. The car would be much safer underground than it was out on the city streets. But the bullet holes in the windshield needed to be fixed or they needed to ditch the car. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but his first priority was to get her patched up. Right then, that’s all he could think about. He would worry about the rest later.

  Chapter 8

  “We’ve had some complications,” said the voice on the other end of the line. Dmitry listened carefully to the man he entrusted to kill the doctor. It was exactly what he didn’t want to hear. It was exactly what he didn’t want to report back to his brother either.

  “Complications?” asked Dmitry. He couldn’t believe that the job hadn’t been done. He was furious. Boris looked at his brother as he spoke on the phone, and he could see him turning red with anger. He knew his brother all too well. He knew just how hot-tempered he was.

  “Yes. The girl. She wasn’t alone. She’s with someone,” said Viktor.

  “What do you mean she’s not alone? This was a simple job. You were supposed to take out the girl. That was all – plain and simple. What happened?”

  “Someone interrupted the plans. Someone helped her, and they got away. They lost me in the city streets. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I’ll fix this,” Viktor said, barking back into the phone. His mind was spinning and he was furious. He didn’t need the bad reputation this would give him. He didn’t need it at all.

  “What the hell do you mean, they lost you? What the hell is that supposed to me?!” Dmitry was yelling into the phone now. His face went from red to purple, and the veins in the side of his neck and forehead were pulsating with anger.

  “Brother, calm down,” said Boris. Boris placed a hand on his shoulder to subdue his hot-tempered brother. “Relax.”

  “I can’t relax brother,” he said. He yelled back into the phone then hung up. “I’m sorry, I screwed this up,” Dmitry said as Boris listened with mild temperament. “I take full responsibility. My guy messed up. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

  “It’s okay. Nothing is screwed up. We’ll get the doctor,” Boris said. He was calm, cool, and collected, exactly opposite Dmitry’s disposition. But the two balanced each other out in that way.

  “You don’t understand. She has help. She’s with someone. Someone is helping her. This is more important now than ever. We have to get her. We have to find her. This is a loose end we can’t afford to have, brother.” Dmitry was sweating in the cool night. Boris could see the perspiration on his forehead as they sat in the large living area of the superyacht as it continued cutting through international waters.

  “What do you want to do brother?” asked Boris.

  “We need to find her. We need to find her now. You need to do your magic. You need to hack into the Turkish healthcare systems and find out where she is and if she checked into a hospital. I need all the information that I can get on her. I want to know where she spends her time and who she spends it with. We’ll find her like that. We’ll force her to surface, even if Viktor can’t. Tell me you’ll do this, brother.”

  “Of course. That’s the easy part. I can get the information. But not over the satellite linkup. We should to get to land. Let’s head inland and dock. We’ll change course towards Istanbul. We can dock in port there. We’re not far from there.”

  “Okay, brother. I agree. Let’s do that.”

  *****

  “What floor?” Jonathan supported Jennifer by her right shoulder – the good shoulder – and helped her towards the elevator.

  “Fifteen. Apartment 1531.”

  They hobbled into the elevator together, and Jonathan proper her up against the side railing, and hit the button. The elevator lurched up, making an incessant whining noise the whole way to the top floor. “Who is this guy, anyways? How do you know him?”

  “He’s a friend of the family. He’s a medical doctor. We’ve known each other since we were kids. He can help and it won’t get logged into any hospital database.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “Yes, with my life,” she said.

  “Okay, okay.”

>   Jonathan led her towards the apartment, and they knocked on the door with three quick thuds. A man came to the door and said something in Turkish, and she replied. He quickly opened the door and she almost collapsed into his arms.”

  “Ne oldu ya?” he asked in Turkish. Jonathan assumed it meant what was happening or what had happened. They started speaking in Turkish rapidly, and Jonathan was lost in translation. He couldn’t understand what was being said and eventually stopped trying to listen to the conversation. He led them to the bedroom where they laid her down and pulled off her shirt.

  “This is my friend Mehmet,” Jennifer said.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said in English. “What happened?” he asked.

  “Thank god you speak English. We were shot at. Is she going to be okay?” Jonathan asked.

  He took off her shirt and Jonathan couldn’t help but stare. He looked into her pale blue eyes and had it not been for all the blood, he would have most likely been floored by the fact that he was seeing her in her black lace bra. He was surprised that she wore such a racy bra that day. Jonathan pulled his mind out of the gutter, but he couldn’t help his mind but to go there.

  “Don’t judge me,” she said, trying her best to crack a smile.

  “I’m not judging. I was admiring.” Jonathan tried to cast light of the situation, but considering the circumstances, he was struggling with what he was supposed to say at a moment like that.

  “The bullet is lodged in there. I have to get it out first,” Mehmet said. “Here, prop her head up with this. I’m going to get some fresh towels and my medical kit.”