by Lee Perry
“Ready to go home?”
“Yeah…” Jordan craned her neck until the vertebrae popped, “I really am.”
Millburn, NJ
“Dinner was so nice I forgot to ask you for your interpretation of Jeffers’s file.”
Catherine pulled off Jordan’s FBI t-shirt she wore and dropped it next to her pajama top on the end of their bed. “Oh yeah… wow, that guy was unbelievable.” She slid under the covers and scooted close, entwining legs with her, “So he had a master’s in computer language and an IT job for a midsize computer company and spent his free time hacking into women’s computers using a RAT, a remote administration tool…” They lay on their sides, facing one another and her right hand sought out Jordan’s left, “these tools are called toolkits, and they’re pieces of software that gives a hacker total access to a computer. He started in chat rooms by getting email addresses, pretending to be a woman in there…”
“Chat rooms for women?”
“Yes, young women talking about their love lives or favorite TV shows or whatever. He sent infected instant messages, emails... He also utilized peer-to-peer file sharing networks, using popular songs as bait. His victims would download them thinking they're getting a song, but it would either contain or be a toolkit.”
“He was convicted of hacking hundreds of computers. How could he have served so little time?”
“He plea bargained and allocuted.” She entwined her fingers with Jordan’s, “He got only twenty-four years because he confessed and explained his criminal technique in great detail,” she snorted, rubbing her kegs against her, “which he clearly enjoyed. He ratted, and here I mean he snitched on a circle of hackers he chatted with online where they bragged about their exploits and shared their techniques for spreading their toolkits and collecting slaves.”
“Excuse, me…” Jordan stopped her, “Slaves?”
“That’s the term they use for people who install their software, and Jeffers loved saying it, the assistant prosecutor noted he used that word about a hundred times…”
“The victim’s anti-viral or anti-spam software couldn’t stop these toolkits?”
“If they had it on their computers and updated them, then yes, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t bother. Anyway, he’d go through their computers and look at their intimate pictures, watch them through their webcams and activate the microphones so he could listen in. He’d send them instant messages, talking about conversations he had listened in on, not telling them how he knew or who he was, of course. He blackmailed them into taking nude photos of themselves, or he’d just spy on them and use their credit cards to buy stuff online.”
“What a creep.”
“Definitely.”
Jordan scooted closer, “So, by himself, is he smart enough to pull off another glitch on Wall Street? I take it Nancy wrote at least the first program for that market glitch but is he smart enough to write his own?”
Catherine considered her words and her brow furrowed in a scowl, “I want to say no, but really I have no idea. It’s clear he pirated Nancy’s code and has adapted it for his massive money transfers from his hedge fund victims so he does have some skill in writing code…” Her voiced faded and she rolled onto her back, her hand pulling from Jordan’s so she could sweep the short blond hair from her face. “Alex used code I wrote for customers and adapted it for everything she did for the mafia…” She breathed in slowly through her nose and exhaled quietly. “I think it’s possible Jeffers could have gotten a lot smarter since he used his hacker skills to spy on women and steal credit cards… It’s possible he’s a lot smarter now…” She shrugged, staring at the ceiling, “I don’t know yet.”
“Been thinking about Alex?”
Catherine nodded, “Hard not to… so far the signs point to this man actively seeking out a smart woman who could write sophisticated code expressly for the purpose of crashing Wall Street. Nancy did say in her journal that they met in some chat room for white supremacists…” She turned her head on the pillow to look at her, “Like when Alex met me at Symteck; Jeffers put the moves on Nancy and she fell for him just like Alex used her moves on me…” She rolled back onto her side, “I guess that was a happy coincidence for her.” Her eyes slammed closed and she shook her head, “No… that isn’t fair…”
Jordan reached for her hand and she clutched at it. “Alex didn’t hook up with you with the intention of ending up a widow in the Rossi family, but what she did was the same, she still used your code for her own purposes.”
Catherine’s voice was soft, “Yes… I know.”
“We have an appointment with Lianna tomorrow…”
A smile finally touched Catherine’s lips, “I’m okay.”
“I love you.”
“Thank you…” she whispered, “You know, I love you too.”
“By right of the Sippe I take what is mine!” Gray gloved hands gripped yellow plaid and shoulders both as he thrust and rammed his sheathed member in the lax channel. “And everything you have…” he grunted, “Everything you are is mine!”
Catherine sat bolt upright in bed, “NO!” She shouted, her hands flying to cover her mouth.
Jordan jerked upright, “Catherine?” She took care to call to her first before touching her.
“I’m sorry!” She turned to her, looking at once terrified and apologetic, “I’m sorry…” she whispered hoarsely.
She pulled the petite shaking form into her arms and tucked the covers around them both, “Don’t apologize…” Jordan tucked her under her chin and placed a kiss against damp hair, alarmed at how Catherine still trembled, “Bad dream?”
She drew a deep breath, determined to calm herself, “Yes…”
“Alex?”
“No… Jeffers… I guess. I dreamed he was yelling about the Sippe and sodomizing a dead body.”
A lone brow rose on Jordan’s forehead, “He does have a thing for that.” She smoothed blond bangs from dark eyes, “Maybe hiding crime scene photos from you isn’t enough… Maybe you should stick to working with Bea and I’ll…”
“Please… Jordan…” Catherine pulled the hand to her chest, “please, I can handle this, I can… Given what’s happened in my life, I think I’d probably have a bad dream every now and then anyway…” She sniffed, “If Chelsea was still here I doubt I’d still be processing everything and having any bad dreams at all anymore.”
“Chelsea…”
She managed a watery smile, “I really wish you two could have known each other.”
Jordan smiled back, “Me too.”
“Is it too late… or early to make love?”
She grinned, pulling her closer, “Never.”
La Jolla, CA
“Ah, but I do love the late night rendezvous…” He chuckled and walking his hands back, pulled his now flaccid member from the lax channel with a grimace. Still kneeling between the dead man’s spread legs, he leaned to one side and peering down at his shrinking, dangling penis, carefully stripped off the condom and sat up.
“And thank you…” his grin was lascivious as he snatched the plastic grocery bag he deliberately left on the floor next to the body, “for this…” He placed the used condom inside then carefully stripped off the latex gloves, adding them to the bag before he stood, pulling up his pants and underwear. He jogged his penis back into his clothes and then buttoned and zipped the fly. Feeling past the cleaned garrote, he pulled a fresh pair of gloves from his jacket pocket and pulled them on his hands, “So let’s see…” he squinted at the monitor, “if my program is ready for the transfer.” He looked at the body face down on the thickly carpeted floor, his head cocking thoughtfully to one side as he briefly regarded the rumpled shorts and underwear left in a bunched heap next to it.
“And thanks for living so close to home…” He sat down at the modular computer workstation and multiple wide screens, “My commute is so short this time.” He clicked open the transfer window, murmuring as he typed, “Ten million US d
ollars… thank you very much and…” He held his gloved forefinger aloft, pointing downward and turned to give the body a quick grin, “Enter.” He sounded giddy as he proceeded to the next offshore account, repeating the process. “I love your long private driveway… I could probably stay here for a while and enjoy your company some more but…” He hit the enter key again and looked over his shoulder, “I dare not tarry when my own home is just a few minutes away.”
He continued working in silence and when he finished he closed his banking program and opened the file on his flash drive that would strip the dead man’s hard drives of every bit of data. He initiated the program and sat back in the chair, resting his hands on his soft belly, the fingers interlaced. Closing his eyes, he hummed softly until he heard the beep indicating the program had completed its task and he stood, stretching briefly before removing the drive. He pulled the pocketknife from his pants pocket and walked around the body, kneeling next to it. He rolled the dead man onto his back, his gaze steadfastly avoiding the wide, bulging eyes that stared terrified into the unknown.
“This is for the official record…” he spoke in a low voice, “This is for future generations, so they can look back into history and see how it all began.”
New York City, NY
“So,” Lianna smiled, “how is your first case together coming along?”
“I wish I could say we’re very close to catching this guy, but we’re not.” Jordan slumped in the chair, “Although we finally got some DNA so we now know his real name is Warren Jeffers.”
Catherine nodded, “And he’s killed three people so far… his first victim, Nancy Ward, left plenty of evidence that she created that fat finger debacle on Wall Street and she and Jeffers profited by it…”
Jordan added, “Probably as a kind of loyalty test for her.”
“And then Jordan found his manifesto.”
“Wow,” Dr. Sackette looked surprised, “he has a manifesto?”
“Oh yes…” Jordan’s tablet sat on her lap and she powered it on, “our first victim hid this file away in her personal online journal.” She stopped, her eyes flicking first to Catherine then to Lianna, “Sorry, I know these sessions are for discussing personal matters, but Catherine had a nasty nightmare involving this case, and she has access to everything concerning it.”
“Except the pictures,” Catherine interjected, “she’s protecting me from those.”
“Protecting you?”
“Yes.” She smiled shyly, adding in a soft voice, “Because she loves me.”
Jordan gave her a crooked smile, “I believe your contracted job description focused on the intriguing nature of computer code and not so much the gruesome aspects of computer crimes.” She waved the tablet, “Anyway, may I read it to you? It should only take a couple of minutes; I’d like your take on it.” She turned to Catherine, “Would that be okay?”
“I think it’s a good idea,” she nodded and gave Lianna a look, “wait till you hear Mister Jeffers’s philosophy.”
Jordan read the document aloud, beginning with the introduction Jeffers wrote for Nancy Ward. When she finished Lianna leaned back in her chair, “It’s interesting, the Nazi Party was more of a mass movement than a political party and it’s certainly been described in psychological circles as a pseudo religion and a cult… Your suspect certainly has a massive delusion of grandeur working for him doesn’t he?”
Jordan snorted, “I’ll say. Would it be too simple to assume he has some major daddy issues going on? First, he idolizes Hitler and Himmler, then he scorns and rejects them… He can succeed where they failed. And his thing with sodomizing his victims after he kills them... It seems as though he has to…” She paused, “Forgive my language, but it seems like he has to fuck them… and according to the autopsy reports, more than once if he has the time.”
“You are correct, Agent Hawkins,” Lianna concurred, “he prefers to dominate via sex. He’s not gay or bi, just determined to dominate everyone… even sexually. He was probably unpopular in high school and unsuccessful with women…”
“It would figure, he was convicted of remotely taking over hundreds of women’s computers and spying on them.”
Lianna’s brows arched but she still shrugged, “Not surprising. Have you been able to find his parents?”
“His mom was a high school teacher, his dad an MD, both are deceased.”
“Nothing suspicious?”
“His dad died of a heart attack a few years ago, and his mom died the year before that of a brain hemorrhage. Why, you think he might have killed them?”
“I wouldn’t have been surprised if you told me he had, given his thoughts in his manifesto.”
“Jeffers himself seems to have gotten through life with few, if any, friends and he was an only child.”
“Well,” Lianna sighed, “one or both of his parents probably made him feel inferior. Not unlike what we think about Hitler, whether your suspect’s inferiority complex was a result of nature, nurture or both, the debate has never ended about Hitler; maybe we’ll be able to figure out Warren Jeffers.”
The small office was silent until Lianna asked, “So Thanksgiving is coming, are there any issues or challenges coming up with that?”
“I’m not cooking,” Jordan said drolly, “so dinner will be delicious.”
Catherine chuckled, “We’re ordering in, the whole thing, so we can concentrate on decorating the house.”
Lianna re-crossed her long legs, “Sounds like fun.”
“It will be.” Jordan assured her.
“So, no problems? No stressors this week?”
Jordan gave Catherine a look, “That nightmare…”
“I had a bad nightmare last night.” She lifted a shoulder, shrugging, “I dreamt I was seeing Jeffers rape a dead body… It was bound to happen, don’t you think?” She looked questioningly first at Lianna then Jordan, “Don’t you have bad dreams about your cases?”
“I have, in the past.”
She turned back to Lianna, “So, that’s normal, right?”
“Absolutely, were you able to get back to sleep afterward?”
Catherine blushed, “Yes, that wasn’t a problem.”
Lianna chuckled softly, more than able to read between the lines. “Well, as long as there are no lingering effects and they don’t become more frequent or you find yourself losing sleep over bad dreams, it’s normal for your subconscious to discharge upsetting energy in that way.”
“I’m not scared,” Catherine’s head tilted thoughtfully to one side, “and I don’t feel like I’ll have it again… I was scared during it but after…” She shook her head dismissively, “I don’t know, it was just so weird.”
“As long as you’re comfortable talking about it to Jordan and me…”
“Oh sure,” her smile was soft and genuine, “always.”
La Jolla, CA
He wandered from the bedroom, walking through the large house in nothing but his boxer shorts and stocking feet. Unaware he was smiling; he reveled in the floor to ceiling views of the not too distant ocean. He opened the glass door, walked out on the wide patio and lay on the chaise lounge, a hand tucked behind his head. The sun was setting and he watched as lights came on in the small city below. A marine layer of fog was visible on the horizon, delineating ocean from sky and he supposed it would move inland to obscure the stars that would soon appear overhead by the time he was ready for bed. His free hand slid under the waistband of his shorts so he could fondle himself while he admired the panoramic view beneath him, I love this time of day…
He had purchased the house as Karl Wiesthor, an alias used by Karl Maria Wiligut, an avowed occultist, astrologer and trusted top member of Himmler’s private inner circle. Wiligut claimed lineage to a secret line of Germanic kings and Himmler promoted him to the rank of Brigadeführer for his work in the Pre and Early History Department within the SS Race and Settlement Office. You did good, Herr Wiesthor… He chuckled low in his throat and dragged the pads o
f his fingers over soft denuded skin, still smooth from the depilatory cream he used before each killing. He sighed and closed his eyes, content to feel the soft warm breeze while he stroked his soft member.
He had hoped the house would be everything he had dreamed for when they turned onto the drive and he saw the street sign, Inspiration Court. Jeffers snickered at the memory; the realtor had described everything about the house in ridiculous superlatives, telling him the 1930’s Spanish home sat on, “more than half an acre situated on one of the most desired cul-de-sacs in all La Jolla…” and that it had been, “remodeled to state of the art perfection!” And it was a steal at only three million six…
“Ah well…” he murmured aloud, “time for a check on my little digital children…” He gave his penis a final squeeze before pulling his hand from his shorts. He stood, and with his hands on his hips, gazed at the glowing city below before turning back to the house, “What you don’t know,” he grinned, “is that all of you belong to me.”
Careful to close and lock the glass door behind him, he turned off lights as he crossed the living room and sat at his desk that faced the sea. He sat in the two thousand dollar ergonomically designed desk chair and powered on the thirty thousand dollar computer. He unlocked the keyboard and clicked open one of the many password-protected programs on the desktop. He laced his fingers over his belly and leaned back in the chair while he gazed out at the now rapidly darkening sky. Once the program loaded, it populated the wide screen with hundreds of small dialogue boxes and he chortled as his eyes swept from one to another, “No one has been detected…” he grinned, “so far so good.”
Designed to infiltrate programmable logic controllers, Jeffers’s master program concealed itself as background noise and observed without interfering with the host computer. Its purpose was to search for specific model numbers and then simply learn the function of the host by covert surveillance. He clicked on several and hummed, “Everyone is on task… We’ll be ready very soon.”
