by Thomas Scott
“Of course it will work. I designed it. Hey, Sis?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re doing it aren’t we? After all this time, we’re going to make them pay.”
“You bet your ass they’re going to pay, baby brother. They’re going to pay big time.”
“Hey, a minute and a half hardly makes me your baby brother.”
“Be careful, Nicky. Sometimes I think you don’t realize what we’re up against here.”
“No worries, Sis. I'll see you in an hour.”
They still had some work to do, but they were almost ready. Almost there.
Nichole went to her fridge, pulled out two Buds—the liquid kind—and handed one to her brother. “What about Pearson? Maybe we should let that go.”
“Little late for that. Besides, the plan is already in place. Pearson is going to pay for what he did to our family.”
Their plan had evolved over the years. It started out as nothing more than a childhood fantasy—a way to get even with Pearson for the altercation he started that eventually led to their father’s death by an Indiana State Trooper. Shortly after the Pope twins turned seventeen their mother died and that was when they began to understand a few things, the biggest of which was that they were on their own. They had no other family so they made a promise to themselves; they would take care of each other no matter what came their way.
And that’s what they did. Nichole had proven herself to be quite a little thief, a talent she discovered in short order after their mother died. They had to eat, after all. She became a master shoplifter, which, Nichole discovered, required a good deal of acting. You couldn’t look suspicious if you were about to steal something, no matter how big or small said something might be. You had to act normal. You had to act like you belonged where you were, doing whatever it was you were doing. Nichole discovered she was good at it…the acting. She could act like a punk or a princess…a young socialite, or a homeless teen. Her biggest score had been their most elaborate one to date, not counting what they were doing now. She went to the mall, stole the most expensive dress she could find—with matching shoes, of course—then went to one of the more exclusive college graduation parties in nearby Carmel, Indiana. Nicky had hacked into the guest list, added her name and once she was inside she used the list of probable passwords Nicky had given her and cracked the safe hidden in the parents bedroom closet. That score alone netted them almost fifty grand, mostly in cash and Canadian Maple Leaf coins. The coins didn’t have serial numbers, God bless you, Canada.
Of course that wouldn’t have been possible if Nicky hadn’t become such an expert coder and hacker over the years, a skill he picked up on the Internet as he began to track Pearson’s every move. It wasn’t long before he’d found and built backdoors into virtually every area of Pearson’s digital life, from bank records, to utility bills, personal and professional email accounts, cell phone records and texts, employment records, the works. When Pearson became the governor’s chief of staff, Nicky followed him—electronically speaking—right into the second most powerful position in the state.
And that’s when things got interesting.
The Pope twins began to understand just how corrupt and manipulative Pearson really was. They had accumulated massive amounts of data on him. They had proof of bribery, falsification of official state records, evidence that demonstrated election fraud and extortion. The problem though wasn’t in the acquisition of the data. The problem was what to do with it. They couldn’t just hand it over to the cops and say, “See…here’s a bad man. Arrest him please and, oh by the way, it’s really all about payback for our father. You see…”
No, that wouldn’t work. They’d be the ones locked up for theft, spying and whatever else the prosecution could think of. They understood that whatever they were going to do, they would have to do it themselves, just like they always had. Which wasn’t to say they didn’t have a little help along the way.
Nicky hacked his way into the credit agencies, created a dozen false identities—all with excellent credit—then bought passports and driver’s licenses that would stand up to not only human inspection, but machine inspection as well. Those had cost them dearly, but they were worth every penny, or in this case, every Canadian Maple Leaf.
“What is it?” Nichole asked.
“I guess I just realized that if our plan doesn’t work, it won’t be long before I’m broke and alone in a foreign country.”
“Don’t worry, Nicky. Everything is going to work out just fine. The code is in place, we’ve got Pearson by the short hairs and we are all about to be richer than Jesus H. Christ himself. That is, if your little bit of code works.”
“That little bit of code as you call it took me over two years to perfect.”
“But what if your boss gets one of the other coders to dig around and root out your program?”
“They’d never find it.”
“But how do you know? For sure, I mean.”
Nicky sat down on the sofa. “It’s sort of complicated, but the bottom line is this: They won’t be able to find it because it’s not in the main system. It’s buried deep in a tiny subroutine that overrides the security measures at the point of sale. Remember, we don’t want or even need control of the main system. Just the printer that generates the ticket.”
“And that instruction comes from the configured play slip you gave me?”
“Yep. Go get it and I’ll show you.”
Nichole went to her bedroom, got the slip and handed it to her brother. “See here,” he said as he pointed to the slip. Every play slip has five boards you can play. Most people don’t play that many, but some do. Anyway, see how every board has forty-eight spaces?”
“Yeah. So what?”
“You’re supposed to pick six numbers for each board that you want to play. Take a look at the slip. I’ve played six numbers on each board except the last one. On that one, I’ve played eight. Not just any eight either. I’ve got the system set up to bypass the security measures at the point of sale, no matter where that might be. When the bypass occurs, the program will compile, the code within the algorithm will run and the nifty little printer they’ve got behind every gas station and grocery store counter in the state will print out a post-dated ticket with any numbers we want, which in our case happens to be the six numbers on the last board.”
“Jesus, Nicky, that’s a lot of money we’re talking about. I hope you’re right.”
It was a lot of money, if you consider just a shade over three hundred million dollars a lot of money. And who wouldn’t? It was the single largest jackpot in the state’s history. Week after week not one single person had hit all six numbers, then the momentum started to build. When the amount hit fifty million people started to notice. When the amount rose to one hundred and fifty million, people started lining up at gas stations, grocery stores, mini-marts and anywhere else a lottery ticket could be purchased. When it hit a quarter of a billion, people started showing up from out of state, buying tickets instead of paying their bills. Then, when it went to three hundred million dollars, the almost unimaginable happened. One person hit all six numbers and won the single largest jackpot in the history of the Indiana lottery.
Except that person never came forward to claim the prize.
At first, the media coverage was almost nonstop. Who was the winner? Why hadn’t they come forward? When would they claim the prize? But after a few days of speculation, the media got bored, the losers got pissed and the story began to fade away. There was some thought that the winner—the real winner—had lost the ticket. Or maybe they’d passed away, lost it to a house fire, or flood, or some other disaster. Theories of what happened to the ticket were almost as numerous as the jackpot amount, but no amount of supposition produced the winning ticket or its holder. Now, with less than two weeks left before the six-month deadline to claim the prize, the money, if left unclaimed, would quietly go back to the state, just like all other unclaimed payouts.
/> “Oh I’m right. In a matter of days you and I are going to be filthy rich, retired and trying to figure out how to spend the interest on hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“It doesn’t seem real.”
Nicky laughed. “I know what you mean. But believe me, it will seem real enough when you check your account balances. Listen, I have to ask, just to make myself feel better…you know what to do with that play slip right?”
“I do.”
“Tell me.”
She rolled her eyes a little, then told him.
3
If Virgil thought about it—and he often did—he’d have to admit the shooting of James Pope still haunted him. After it happened he was still young and foolish enough to believe that the past was just that and once free from its grasp he’d not worry over it or attempt to be the arbiter of events outside his own control. Except those types of certainties are a preserve best left to youth, a lesson Virgil thought he might never have to learn. Then before he knew it twenty years had sailed away and now this; a summer like no other, the pain a constant companion as it cut a swath through the jungle of his life, a trail laid bare as if it were his only choice, at once clear and true. It would be a harbinger of things to come, a combination of that moment from long ago and his life now, one he might be able to point to someday and say, Ah, yes, that’s when it turned. That’s when it all changed. If only…
A late-afternoon haze drifted across the sun but the air temperature held steady so adjustments to his line depth weren’t necessary. The bobber was simple, made from the cork of an old wine bottle and it vibrated in the water if he held too much tension on the line. It reminded him of those old electric football games Virgil and his boyhood friend, Murton Wheeler, used to play when they were kids. They’d line up the little plastic players, hit the switch, then watch the tiny figurines vibrate their way across the surface of the game board. Virgil could still hear the buzzing sound the board made when they toggled the power button and turned it on.
He had a two-pound monofilament line tied directly to an eye-hook at the end of the cane pole. The pole was twelve feet in length and stained dark with age and the regular applications of Tung oil used to maintain its beauty and structural integrity. The pole was one of Virgil’s most prized possessions. His grandfather had taught him to fish with it and then had given it to him as a gift just a few years before he died. Virgil had a shed full of fishing poles, ones made of boron, graphite, fiberglass or some other space-age composite, and they were all fine poles. Some were so flexible and tough you could literally tie them into a knot without damaging the rod, while others were so sensitive you could detect a deer fly if it landed on the tip. Virgil didn’t know why he continued to buy them. His grandfather’s cane pole was the only one he ever used. When he held the pole in his hands the way he’d been taught so long ago he felt a connection to his grandfather, as if the linear reality of time held no sway in his existence and he was back in control of himself and his own destiny, his path clear, his choices many.
Virgil knew, at least on some level, that he was a sight this Saturday afternoon. He wore a pair of green cotton gym shorts that hung to his knees, a Jamaican Red Stripe Beer utility cap angled low across his brow and a pair of brown leather half-top boots with no socks. He sat at the edge of his pond, cane pole in hand and tried to relax, mostly without any measure of success. The fish were not biting but he didn’t really care. He set the pole in the grass next to his chair, reached into the cooler and took out his supplies. Among them, a plastic syringe with a screw tip on the end, a glass vial of a drug called Heparin, and an odd looking, round container made of a stiff rubbery material about the size of a baseball. The baseball-like container held a drug called Vancomycin, a powerful antibiotic medication that the doctor had referred to as their drug of last resort.
The glass vial of Heparin was fitted with a threaded female connector that matched the male connector of the syringe on the table. He scrubbed his hands clean with a disposable alcohol wipe, then used another to cleanse the top of the Heparin vial and yet another to wipe the connector that was sutured and taped under his arm. The tube that penetrated his body was a Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter, or PICC Line for short. Once he had everything sterilized he filled the syringe from the Heparin bottle with the required amount of the drug and injected it into the tube.
Heparin, the doctor had told Virgil, was an anti-coagulant drug that prevented the formation of blood clots and helped aid in the healing process of human tissue. In non-technical language, it greased the skids for the real medicine, the Vancomycin.
After injecting the Heparin, he hooked up the Vancomycin container. The delivery process of the Vancomycin would take about thirty minutes as the medicine flowed from the ball and into a vein through Virgil’s heart before being distributed throughout his body.
Five months ago, while working a case as the lead investigator for the state’s Major Crimes Unit, Virgil had been kidnapped, tortured and beaten almost to death. In the course of the beating his leg was broken and required surgery to repair the damage. The surgery went well, or so he’d been told and he was up and around in no time at all. Except one day about eight weeks into the recovery process, he woke in the morning with a low-grade fever that did not seem to want to leave him alone no matter how many aspirin he took. He began to feel worse with each passing day until finally on the fifth morning Virgil’s girlfriend, Sandy Small, found him unconscious on their bedroom floor. During the surgical procedure to fix his leg, Virgil had picked up a staph infection. The infection grew in his body where it eventually worked its way into his blood stream, a condition known as staphylococcal sepsis. He’d been taking the Vancomycin twice a day for the last six weeks in an effort to kill the infection. This would be his last dose.
It had been a rough couple of months. During his previous investigation—right after his release from the hospital—the wife of one of the main suspects in his case killed Virgil’s father, Mason. She was trying to shoot Virgil, but his father took the bullet instead.
The buzzing in Virgil’s head was with him constantly. It had nothing to do with childhood memories and simpler times, nor did it have anything to do with the Heparin or the Vancomycin. It was because of the other drugs he was still taking. Oxycontin was one. He took two of the blue-colored thirty milligram tablets three times a day. Between doses, he’d toss back two or three Vicodin…both for the pain in his leg.
At least that’s what he kept telling himself.
When he thought about the men who kidnapped and tried to kill him, Virgil thought they might yet succeed.
He broke two of the Vicodin in half and swallowed them with a couple of sips of Dew. A few minutes later he felt the chemical rush hit his system the same way a shot of whiskey will burn the throat and warm the blood. He closed his eyes and let the feeling flow through his body and for a few minutes he felt confident and strong and happy and free. But he also knew the feeling wouldn’t last, that soon the reality of his situation would once again wrap itself around him like a second skin, one in which he could not seem to find an edge. He thought if he could he’d peel it away until there was nothing left at all.
After twenty-five minutes or so, the Vancomycin container was empty, so Virgil unscrewed the connector and capped it off tight. He had an appointment later in the day to have the tube removed and a blood test to ensure the infection was gone.
When he pulled his fishing line from the pond he noticed that not only was the worm missing from the hook at the end of the line, but so too was his desire to fish. The late morning air was warm and still and when Virgil let his gaze settle on the bowed limbs of the willow tree planted next to the edge of the pond water he saw his father standing there, leaning against the trunk of the tree, his face partially hidden by the leafy, feather-veined fronds. He was shirtless under his bib-style bar apron tied off at his waist and he had a towel thrown over his left shoulder. Virgil could see the scar from the bullet wound
at the bottom of his father’s chest, the skin around the edges gnarled and puckered, yet somehow pink and fresh like that of a newborn baby.
They stared at each other for a long time, then Mason moved sideways just a bit. “I’m worried about you, Son,” he said. When he spoke, the buzzing inside Virgil’s head went quiet and the absence of the incessant sound was more of a surprise than the vision of his dead father. “You’re hitting the meds pretty hard, don’t you think?”
“Better living through chemistry,” Virgil said, but regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. The sarcasm didn’t seem to bother Mason though; the look of both love and concern on his face remaining steady. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
“It’s alright, Bud. I remember you told me that day in the truck how the pills were making you cranky.”
“That’s not what I meant. Why do I think you know that?”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“Of course not.” Mason looked away for a moment and wrapped his hands around the trunk of the willow tree. “This is a beautiful thing you did here, Virg. It’s more significant than you might imagine.”
After Mason’s death, the people who meant more to Virgil than anyone else in the world brought his father’s bloodied shirt to his house along with the willow tree. Together they buried the shirt and planted the tree on top of it. “Thanks, Dad, but I’m not exactly sure what that means.”
“It’s okay, Son. You wouldn’t. You learn things over here. It’s sort of a timeless knowledge. I can’t really explain it. The actual words don’t exist.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t want you to take offense.”
Mason smiled. “What is it, Son?”
“Why haven’t I heard from my grandfather?”
“He’s been here with you all morning, Virg. In fact, he spends most of his time with you.”
