Time: 3 PM
Lance and Tom drive to Joe's warehouse. From a block away, Lance calls Todd who's been monitoring the audio from Joe's warehouse, "Hey Todd, what'ya got?"
"The place is empty. It's all yours. They won't be back until nine-thirty."
"Good, catch you later."
Lance pulls up next to the side door and Tom hops out, takes out his keys and opens the door. He hurries over to the van and cuts Sean free.
"Let's go, Lance is waiting outside," says Tom. Tom re-locks the side door and hops in the SUV with Sean. They return to the club.
Time: 5 pm
Late Friday afternoon, driving west across the frozen prairie, Ed says, "Let's get something to eat. I saw a sign for a truck stop just outside Grand Island."
"Sounds good to me, we need gas anyway."
A few miles later they pull off the interstate and into a vast truck stop. The lots are filled with trucks, hundreds of them, all parked in parallel facing the exit ramps. About thirty huge diesel pumps are arrayed one next to the other under a massive, garishly colored steel canopy.
They park their car and walk to the large central building. Within its confines are the usual gift shops, convenience store, banking and electronics kiosks, showers, groceries, snack bar and restaurant.
Ed and Jim opt a restaurant populated by the usual fat middle aged guys in boots with too many tattoos and scraggly beards. They get a table. Jim orders some fried chicken with French fries, coleslaw, a small side salad and a beer. Ed gets a well done steak with fries and salad and ditto on the beer. They receive the customary, "You got it honey," from a nice but disinterested middle aged haus frau of the plains.
They lounge back on their chairs, the smoke from their cigarettes rising slowly in curling tendrils, musing what will happen later that night. Jim leans forward and laughs, "Ka-boom," making a gesture to imitate an expanding cloud.
Ed laughs and likewise leans forward and says, "And then no more club, dude!"
Their order arrives on several plates. They each ask for another beer. Ed says, "I wonder how much TV coverage we'll get? We really need to be in a motel before ten o'clock, Jim, I don't want to miss the news break ins on the networks."
"Right, dude, we'll be there. It's not that far now. You won't miss your Special Bulletin moment," replies Jim.
As they eat their supper, across the room one trucker says emphatically to another, "It's them, I know it. Damit, I was there. I saw what happened at the truck stop north of Kansas City."
"You really sure, Merle?" says the other.
"Yep, wait, there's my partner, he saw them too," as he waves to another driver coming out of the men's room across the diner.
The other driver crosses the room and says, "What's up Tony?"
"Ya see those two eating at that table over there?"
"Yeah, I see them. Holy shit! I know them! They were the ones down on I29 who shot up all those trucks, aren't they?"
"That was my feeling as well," says Tony as he turns to the third driver and says, "Well, it's them."
The third says, "Come with me, we need to talk to a few people," as they head over to another side of the diner, tapping a few drivers and beckoning them to come along.
The drivers, about ten of them, talk intently, nodding to themselves and periodically looking in the direction of Jim and Ed who are oblivious to the attention being lavished on them. The group finally agrees on a plan, nods all around. They separate and watch Ed and Jim, drinking coffee until they see them getting ready to leave.
All the conspirators head to their waiting trucks, idling in the cold outside. In that part of the world in winter, you don't want to try to start a diesel at twenty degrees below zero. One by one, they shift the gears and hit the pedals causing columns of black soot to shoot skyward. The sound of the rumbling idling diesels is broken by multiple sharp blasts of releasing air breaks. Many big rigs start rolling towards the exit ramp. All CB's now switch to channel 38.
The first six trucks pull out onto the highway and start gaining speed while one waits back at the parking area to watch for Jim and Ed to leave the diner. Another positions himself just to the side of the ramp leading onto the interstate.
When the lookout sees Jim and Ed get in their car, he clicks his CB mic and says, "They're on their way." The truck waiting at the side of the ramp begins to roll slowly onto the ramp. The lookout now also begins to move.
As Jim and Ed pull onto the ramp they're delayed behind the big truck that was waiting for them. It slowly accelerates with both stacks blowing smoke. The driver's CB is also blowing smoke, as he calls ahead to the trucks already on the road. When the ramp finally merges with the highway, Ed impatiently pulls around the truck that has been blocking them. But the delay has given the other trucks already enough time to get to highway speed. This time, they won't make any mistakes.
Jim and Ed aren't interested in attracting attention so they cruise along at the legal speed of 70 MPH. The lookout truck and the ramp truck are both dead heading home thus empty and faster. They soon catch up with Ed and Jim. They follow a few hundred yards behind, relaying the mile marker locations to their friends further ahead. Ed and Jim soon catch up. The caravan of trucks now paces their prey.
This odd caravan rolls across the western Nebraskan night for about an hour. Just east of North Platte, the beers Ed and Jim drank earlier find their way to their bladders and Jim says, "Hey, how about that rest stop ahead?"
Their SUV pulls into the deserted rest stop.
"There they go!" flashes from CB aerial to aerial.
Ed parks the SUV. They hop out and enter the small deserted building.
Their escort of trucks just behind flashes turn signals. Five pull into the truck parking area across from the small brick building. Two of the trucks stop on the entrance ramp thus blocking it.
While Jim and Ed are in the men's room, six drivers scurry across the frozen parking lot and silently position themselves outside the restroom door.
When they hear blow dryers, they nod and ready themselves. First Jim walks out and is grabbed by three of the truckers. One quickly duct tapes his mouth shut while one clamps his arm firmly around Jim's neck whispering, "Relax kid. Keep squirming and I'll break this skinny little neck of yours."
The third trucker quickly binds Jim's hands behind him with more duct tape and then all three quietly drag him out into the dimly lit parking area.
Unawares, Ed now exits the men's room and is likewise bound and gagged. Both Jim and Ed are dumped into the trailer of one of the empty trucks, the one whose drivers recognized them.
One of the drivers looks into the trailer before he slams and latches the door and says, "You fuckers killed some friends of mine the other day back on I29 just so you know. You took some shots at me and my partner too. Now we're gonna even the score. Say your prayers, guys, this night's gonna be your last."
He slams the tall metal door with a clang. They hear the latches, attached to a rod the length of the door, slide into place. Outside they hear the crunch of the driver's boots on the snow as he walks to the tractor. The tractor door slams and the air brakes wheeze. The big diesel roars and the truck lurches forward.
The other trucks have begun to roll west too. There's some comments on the CB's but mainly it's a silent convoy heading into the empty spaces of western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming. At the I80/I79 split, all but one truck head south on I79 towards Denver. The lone truck remaining goes west onto the deserted stretch of I80 towards Cheyenne. Jim and Ed writhe in its otherwise empty trailer.
Ed and Jim manage to squirm around until, with their free fingers, they manage rip the duct tape off their mouths leaving their faces scared with bloody, red welts which, in the darkness, they do not see but certainly feel.
Jim says to Ed, "Man, I'm scared. Where the hell are they taking us?"
"Out in the middle of nowhere and then shoot us, I guess."
"Can you try to pull the duct tape off my hands? They wrapped
it around about ten times and I can barely feel my fingers in this cold."
After some more squirming and rolling about Ed say, "No way. I can't find a start to it and there's too many loops to rip. Try mine."
After a while Jim says, "It's no use, there's nothing I can do. At least let's pull together, it must be fucking -30F in here." They huddle together in silence trying to conserve body heat knowing that it probably won't matter much longer.
Just inside Wyoming, the truck pulls off the interstate onto an old state route heading north. The outline yellow trailer lights are cut and just the headlights and small red tail lights are visible. Finally, miles from the interstate and many miles from any settlement, the truck stops.
Moonlight bathes the snow covered rolling high prairie. A few small, dark clumps of trees can be seen here and there in the distance. The drivers get out and open the rear of their trailer. Jim and Ed are huddled next to each other in the sub zero cold.
As one driver climbs up into the trailer, dim lights on the trailer roof switch on. He grabs Ed and Jim by their coat collars and drags them towards the rear opening. His partner is waiting on the ground with a hand gun pointed at them. The guy on the truck takes out a knife and slits the duct tape binding their arms and legs then slips it back into its sheath attached to his wide leather belt. He hops down and his partner pulls another hand gun from his belt and hands it to him.
They both stand back and one says, "Okay you two, out of the trailer."
They jump to the ground. Ed stumbles and lands on his hands on the cold icy road surface, cutting his palms in several places. He quickly stands up, folding his arms and placing his hands under his armpits. Jim starts whimpering. The driver slams and bolts the door.
One of the drivers laughs and turns to his partner and says, "They're not as tough without a gun in their hands shooting the tires out from under a 56 year old guy with a wife and three kids, are they?"
"Guess not. I guess not."
Jim says, "You can't do this, it's cold blooded murder. You'll hang for this. You won't get away with it."
One trucker laughs and says to the other, "Ya'know, he has a point. Do they still hang people in Wyoming? Maybe we should let them go?"
"It's okay with me. It's up to you guys? Do you wanna go?"
"Yeah?" says Jim not understanding where this is leading to.
"All right you guys, you start running. You got till I count to twenty before we start shooting."
Jim looks quickly at Ed and they both start running back down the deserted road away from the truck while one of the drivers calls out the numbers slowly until they both start laughing. Both truckers head back to the idling tractor and, in a burst of soot, clanking gears, and the roar of the diesel, it resumes its trip north.
One of the drivers says to the other as Jim and Ed recede in the rear view mirrors, "If they're lucky, maybe their bodies will be found by spring thaw."
The other laughs. The engine grinds, gears rattle and air brakes chatter. The truck rumbles off into the distance. Jim and Ed stop running and turn and stand watching as its red tail lights fade in the frigid, moonlit, snow covered wasteland.
Jim looks at Ed and, shivering, says, "Shit, I thought they were gonna do it. What now?"
Ed says, pointing south, "That way I guess. It must be the way back to the interstate." And they begin silently walking south.
After about a mile, Ed looks to one side and, placing his hand across Jim's chest, freezes with terror, and says one word, "Wolves."
Panicked, they look about them and see on either side of the road, in the pale moonlight, six slowly moving dark shapes spaced at even intervals about a hundred yards away. Then ahead of them, the largest faces them on the road, the red-eyed alpha male.
Ed and Jim clutch at one another griped in total fear. There's nowhere to hide, no trees, no phone poles, no branches to make weapons from. Their nervous motion only emboldens the hungry pack.
Then the alpha male ahead of them howls and lurches forward. The entire pack attacks.
Jim and Ed are dead within seconds. Just bones and shreds of torn clothes in blood stained snow remain by morning. The tracks of the 18 wheeler are long since scoured away by the constant wind. Crows pick through the bone pile.
As Jim and Ed meet their end, it's just about ten o'clock. Dinner time on the prairie. Party time in Omaha.
The next day, a passing pickup truck will spot the kill zone. Not unusual in these parts, the driver knows. Lots of deer don't make it through the winter. But he knows this wasn't a deer when he sees a human skull by the side of the road being picked at by a huge, black crow. Normally, this is the sort of story that makes gruesome headlines on the cable news networks but other events that night diminish its impact.
It will be several weeks before Ed and Jim's remains are identified and linked to several arrest warrants for various crimes in several states. The coroner rules that the death was caused by the wolves but no one can come up with an explanation as to why they were alone on that stretch of highway in the middle of the night. The small bits of duct tape recovered a few hundred yards away lead to suspicions but, given their criminal record, there was little interest in wasting Laramie County resources pursuing the investigation further. Case closed. No one claims their gnawed remains which, after a year, will be buried unmarked in the county cemetery.
Time: 8:30 PM
At eight-thirty, Tom and Sean go back to Joe's warehouse. They park Lance's SUV a block away. Tom opens the door and they quickly enter. Sean resumes his position in the back of the van and Tom reattaches the cable ties to his wrists and ankles. Lance expects that Joe will want the driver checked when he returns. Tom retreats up to the second floor which overlooks the garage area below. He finds a small folding chair, disappears into the shadows and waits to release Sean once Joe, Mark and Sid have returned and checked on their captive driver. Sean has a sharp knife concealed in his rear pocket, just in case.
At about nine-thirty Joe arrives at the warehouse and parks his car in the lot across the street as usual. The neighborhood is deserted. Mark and Sid pull in at the same time. They cross the dark and deserted street with the wind howling from the west and the wind chill something unspeakable.
Joe says, "Jack wants a first hand description of what happens. I figure the top floor is the best place since we're only about a two miles from Mo Rún as the crow flies and there are no tall buildings in between to block the view."
"We brought some beer and chips," says Sid holding up a plastic bag. "Might as well enjoy the show."
At this point, Joe doesn't give a damn but the prospect of seeing that club gone heartens him. Now he can get back to his real calling, selling dope. He says to Mark, "Go check on the driver, will'ya?"
A moment later, Mark returns and says, "Just as we left him."
"Good, let's get upstairs, we don't want to miss Jack's big phone call."
They take the freight elevator to the sixth floor and head down a corridor to a dark corner office that faces the north towards Mo Rún. The only light in the room is from the corridor. They pull up some chairs and face a low window sill looking out over the industrial outskirts of Omaha.
To the east, in the downtown area, the buildings are all lit. Lots of night time office work in one of the country's largest financial and insurance capitals. On Joe's end of town, however, there is scant activity. The buildings are all dark. It's an old freight and industrial part of town. On the south side of Joe's warehouse are hundreds of acres of railway staging yards. Omaha is still a major freight junction. The only lights are street lights, an occasional neon sign and the headlights on a passing freight headed out onto the high prairie.
Tom quietly opens the van door and cuts the cable ties. He and Sean slip out the side door and run to Lance's SUV parked a block away. They hop in and drive quickly back to the club.
At Mo Rún, Lance invites the crowd at David's apartment to go to the south facing picture window and wait
for an event of some interest. Mary says, "This better be good, honey."
Lance says, "Oh, I think you'll like it. Just look to the southwest,"
Mark and Sid drink beer and snack on the bag of chips. Joe pulls out a quarter liter of whiskey and takes a short swig saying, "Okay, I guess it's time guys." He double checks the time on his cell phone then punches Jack's number in and hits talk.
Jack answers and, seeing the caller id, says, "Are you in position?"
"Yeah, Jack, we're here. Anytime you're ready."
"All right, I've punched in the phone number. Another thirty seconds and it will be exactly ten o'clock and then I'll hit TALK."
The seconds tick by, Joe wonders why he's here. How would Jack know if he weren't?
Then Jack says, "Okay, I'm hitting TALK now. Let me know what happens next."
Through fiber optics the deadly digital signal flashes from St. Louis to Omaha. Phase locked loops in the small receiver in the black rubber tube capture a radio signal. Small semiconductor chips decode its content. It recognizes its ID. It responds. Incoming call. Semiconductor gates latch, the ringer activates. The detonator does too. And milliseconds later, so do three kegs of RDX.
The resulting blast pulverizes every support pillar on the ground floor. The upper floors of the building rapidly begin to pancake. Flames thrust outward driven by the immense shock wave through every ground floor window. Moments later the walls are blown out. As the second floor reaches the ground, it crumbles into rubble, followed in close succession by the third and others. More rubble ensues. In seconds, all six stories have flattened into one.
Jack hears the explosion on his cell phone and whoops, "Wow, I can hear it, must have been loud," but then he hears Joe, Mark and Sid's last screams. Joe's cell phone hits the floor followed by the sound of breaking glass, bricks falling and the roar of the disintegrating warehouse's last upright seconds. The sixth floor hits bottom and the roof flattens upon Joe, Mark, Sid, their chairs, cell phone, beers, snacks and Joe's small broken bottle of whiskey.
The fireball, now unencumbered by the building above, bursts freely into the cold, cloudless Omaha night sky. Nearby brick and mortar buildings begin to collapse from the seismic blast. Joe's car is blown away and its gas tank explodes. An underground high pressure gas main ruptures and a torch of flame shoots a hundred feet into the air. Water mains disgorge, their spray falls as ice in the frigid wind. A nearby electric transformer station is hit by debris. Its coiled high tension interconnecting cables short circuit, producing clouds of sparks until the transformers themselves explode from the overload. Across the south end of the city, buildings and houses darken as the electric grid collapses. Then a propane railway tanker car on a passing freight train is hit by the debris and explodes taking with it two others. The south end of Omaha is in flames.
From across town, the guys, David, Lance, Todd, Tom, Mary and Jay watch from David's picture window. David grins at Lance and give the thumbs up signal saying, "So that's where you put the kegs? Back on the beer truck? At Joe's?"
"Yep, return to sender. I guess Jack dialed home, so to speak," grins Lance.
"I'll tell'ya honey, that's one hell of a wrong number," laughs Mary.
The blast is so strong that David's warehouse shakes a bit. They watch in amazement, their faces illuminated by the distant fire, knowing that what they see was intended for them and the three hundred or so souls downstairs. Out in the club, the birds, sensing the blast, rush high up to the skylights to see the terrible sight that has illuminated the night time sky.
Emergency vehicles rush from all directions but they cannot approach the inferno. It will take most of the night to get the gas mains turned off and to stabilize the fire now burning throughout the rail yards. Using high pressure water when the wind chill is -50F is not an easy job. By morning, there will be an ominous black cloud of soot still rising from where Joe's warehouse was. The plume, caught in the winds aloft, will sheer east towards Iowa like a distant flight of black birds.
In St. Louis Jack sits dumbstruck. He suddenly realizes what's happened. Now he's in seriously big trouble. His colleagues are not going to be impressed. He was not supposed to destroy his own warehouse and, along with it, a large part of Omaha. This will be viewed as very careless. He desperately wishes he knew how this could have gone wrong.
The cable news networks flare into special alert mode, delighted to have a disaster in prime time. Even the national entertainment networks cut in. This beats reality shows of people eating insects. Traffic copters from the major stations in Omaha and Council Bluffs scram into action and flock like vultures around the scene. Within minutes, satellite uplinks are established around the world. Remote broadcast trucks converge on the site and transmitter masts and dishes are quickly deployed. The helicopter video feeds commence with the muffled shocked commentaries from the disoriented on-board news personalities recently rousted from several downtown bars.
People from New York to Los Angeles are riveted to their sets. The whole world is watching Omaha. Another ratings triumph for Jack and his special effects gang. And yet another railroad line shut down because of Mike.
Time: 10 PM
At the garage, Bob and Tony remain with the beer truck driver. At about 10 pm, they hear a distant rumble.
Bob jumps up, leaves the office and goes out through a side door to look. In the distance, he sees a tower of flame. He comes back into the office and says, "Let's go guys, it's time."
They put their jackets on. Bob says, "We're gonna tie your hands and feet again. When we get over to Council Bluffs, we'll leave you in the van and make an anonymous call to 911. Okay?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Well, if you put it that way, no, actually."
They lead the driver back to the van and fasten the cable ties on his wrists then tell him to sit on the van floor while they restrain his ankles. They blindfold him again with the duct taped stocking cap.
"You're not gonna put the duct tape on my mouth again, are you?"
"No, if you promise to keep quiet."
"Like a mouse."
"Okay, then in you go," says Tony as the driver rolls into the back of the van on his side. Tony and Bob get in. The garage door opens and they drive out. One overhead florescent shop light remains lit.
Tony heads for the interstate and over into Council Bluffs. He takes the third exit ramp and pulls into the parking lot of a burger place. Tony parks the van in a dark part of the lot out of sight of any security cameras.
Bob turns around and says, "We're in a parking lot. We're gonna put you out next to a parked car. Count to 100 then you can start screaming. If the police ask you what happened, you don't know. We'll make a 911 call so you won't be here long."
"Got it."
They quickly and carefully move the driver next to a parked car and drive off. A minute and a half later, the driver begins shouting. Tony pulls out a cell phone, hits *67 then 911. He reports someone screaming and gives the address. A few minutes later, a police car arrives and finds the driver. The cop unties him, removes the blindfold and takes him to the police station. There, the driver recites his experience of the day.
Bob and Tony retrace their route back to Omaha. As the van crosses the bridge, the fire south of town is still lighting up the horizon. The gas main is still gushing fire and the burning propane tanker has set fire to several other nearby freight cars.
The driver calls his wife from the police station and tells her that he's safe and will be home soon. He calls his boss and recites his story again verbatim. After an hour at the police station, the police take him to his house.
He and his wife then watch the TV coverage of the biggest explosion in Midwest history. The news people can't understand why an empty warehouse was bombed but later in the evening, the story develops that it was a cover for a drug gang. Some form of gangland retribution may have been at play.
She asks, "Do you think what happened to you had anything to do with that
explosion?"
He says, "I don't know. It doesn't seem likely. How could a beer truck do that?"
"Yeah, I guess that's silly."
The next morning, the police will arrive at his house and interview him again. He will play dumb and repeat the story exactly as Bob told him to. He will show them the marks on his wrist. He will then ask them what happened in Omaha. They will say it was drug related and that parts of his truck were found in the rubble of the warehouse. His wife will get a bit hysterical, the police will decide they've gotten all they can from him and will take their leave.
At Mo Rún, the guys watch the TV feeds running on David's big screen and occasionally go back to the window. By now, copters from all the TV stations are sending footage of the fiery disaster. Nationally and around the world, people are riveted to their TV's watching the holocaust in Nebraska. The cause is a complete mystery. The Tokyo stock market plunges on speculation that there's been another terrorist attack and that this will disrupt trans-continental rail shipments.
At Mo Rún in the rafters and on the beams above, small birds chatter excitedly and randomly soar back up to the skylights for another look. Below, the band plays on.
Lance says, "I wonder if this ends it?"
"No, it's not over as long as Jack is out there and he knows Mike is here," says Todd. "But his claws are a bit mangled, just now. He might think twice before he sticks his paw back in here."
Mike says, "Right. I don't think Jack has many assets left to play. His colleagues, so to speak, aren't going to be very happy about this. Believe me, I know. They're probably reaching the end of their patience with this bungling. It won't be long before it's Jack who's the target. He may not be as much of a threat going forward. He has his own ass to think of now. I'm guessing, however, that he's kept quiet about what he thinks I have. If the rest of the mob knew, they would have taken him out by now and moved in on me themselves."
Mary says, "Any idea of where those two scum bags Ed and Jim are?"
"The last audio and GPS tracking signals I got pointed to a rest stop in western Nebraska. The audio analysis indicates that right after the car pulled into the rest stop, several trucks pulled in then all left a few minutes later. Then nothing. The car's been quiet and stationary for a long time and no sounds," says Todd.
"You think?" says David.
"Yep, I think some truckers ID'd them from the other day. That's the only thing that fits. I don't think Ed and Jim will be coming down for breakfast anytime soon," says Todd.
"And they won't be missed," says Mary.
David says, "But, in the meantime, I think it's time we took the war to Jack's door. Todd and I have worked up a few tricks of our own," says David. "We'll call you tomorrow when we're ready to strike."
13. Saturday January 20
Time: 10 AM
Saturday morning around ten o'clock David pages Jay and Mike from his cell phone, "Can you guys come to operations center on the second floor?"
"Sure, what's up?" asks Jay.
"We have a few computer exploits we're gonna initiate and you may want to watch."
"What'ya want me for? All that computer stuff gives me a headache," asks Mike.
"Oh, you're here to observe revenge being exacted."
"Cool, works for me! Be right there."
David and Todd are seated at keyboard consoles around the main system displays. Lance is lounging on one of the executive chairs at a desk nearby, leaning back, hands clasped behind his head, legs up on the desk top watching.
The huge map of the world is on panoramic central display. On the other displays, only slightly smaller, arrayed in a semi circle, appear the U.S., Europe, Russia, East Asia, India, and Oceana. On them are rapidly rising and falling bar graphs in many colors. These show world telephonic and Internet traffic.
As Mike and Jay approach the entry door, a chime tones telling David that someone is at the door. David checks the door cam then hits a key. The door unlatches. Mike and Jay enter the main control room of David's digital empire. They walk quickly down the corridor between howling blowers cooling racks of hot CPU's and busy disk arrays.
Arriving at the main system console, David says to them, "Pull up some chairs, people," as he points to well padded executive chairs in front of consoles.
Jay hops into a chair whose dampened spring mechanism bounces briefly as she rolls the chair up to the console and studies the screens arrayed in a semi-circle before them.
Mike says, "Don't swivel, David has those chairs rigged and he hates swiveling."
"Only when adolescents can't sit still."
Todd begins keying in coordinates saying, "Okay, you two, settle down. This is the fun part. I'm switching to the main north American graph." As he does, the large screen changes from a world view to a view of Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean, the U.S. and Canada.
Jay says, "Okay, what's up?"
David replies, "Now we go on the offensive. You're about to witness a cyber world war. We're gonna shut those bastards' financial empire down. Todd, it's all yours."
"Okay, here's their weighted cell phone call traffic network thresholded at a thirty per cent probability."
A multi-colored network of lines flash on the screen with major star-like intersection points clearly visible, like a highway map with lines emanating from city to city. Some lines point off the display, some east towards Europe but most south towards South America.
Jay asks, "What's this?"
"We've been monitoring cell phone traffic since we got control of Mark and Sid's cell phones. We installed viruses on them, as you know, and they've propagated themselves to the phones they called and phones they called and so on. The phones began sending me the numbers they were calling," says Todd.
"Then I analyzed the calling patterns. The colored dots are major incoming or outgoing cell phone traffic sites. The size and brightness of the dot indicates its level of activity. The lines connecting the dots represent the traffic between major hubs in the network. The thickness of a line indicates the amount of traffic," adds David.
"So, as you can see, it's basically a hierarchy. Here, let me super-impose the states and city names," says Todd as he makes a few keystrokes. The map changes. It now shows faint outlines of the states and, in small text letters near the dots, city names.
"For example, look at Omaha. It's a relatively small dot and nearly all the cell phone traffic from here goes either to Des Moines or St. Louis, with St. Louis being the primary connection point," says David.
"The lines are thresholded, that is, I'm not showing low level traffic. In fact, there's a lot of low level traffic from Omaha phones to almost everywhere but it's not significant so it's not shown, just the repeated, high volume traffic. You can see that St. Louis is heavily involved with Chicago, New York and Los Angeles which, from the amount of traffic through them, are higher up on the hierarchy," says Todd.
"Sweet," says Jay. "Now what are you gonna do with this?"
"Well, first, you're gonna look through my file of names and addresses and compare them with what you've got stored as a result of your investigation and find out how many match. We extracted these from the network analysis as the most probable mob phones," says David as he transmits a file to Jay's console.
"Hang on a minute," says Jay as she logs onto a server half a world a way and begins writing an SQL script. She compares the format of David's file with her script several times then says, "Okay, I'm running your file against my database."
A few seconds later she says, "Okay, here's your file back with asterisks in front of the names that matched. The second line is indented with a quick summary of what I have on them," as she transmits the file to David and Todd. "Next, I'll run the names through a Soundex algorithm and run it again. That way I can allow for possible spelling differences."
"Okay, here's the Soundex match. Names from your file first with asterisks, my spelling indented on the second line," as she sends the second file as before.
<
br /> "Great, looks like our filtering project worked pretty damn well, Todd."
"Yep, very well indeed. Okay, you wanna strike North America first or do you want to wait and do the rest of the hemisphere as well?" asks Todd.
"Let's bring in South America. Just the confirmed links from Jay's list," says David.
Todd hits a few keys and the map expands to show the western hemisphere as far south as northern Argentina. The lines reform to connect dots with especially bright ones in Columbia and a few other countries well known for the drug trade. The national borders appear faintly and the city names affix themselves to the dots.
"There it is," says Todd. "And we own every one of their phones."
"Okay, shut'em down," says David.
"What'ya gonna do?" asks Jay.
"We're gonna make it impossible for them to call one another. Their phones will still work but whenever one of them tries to call another, the call will be randomly re-routed to some call center by the receiving phone."
"So you mean if some guy in New York calls Medellin, Columbia he gets a TV cable company?"
"Right, something like that. And gets put on hold for hours," laughs David.
"Won't they suspect something?"
"Probably, they might even go out and get new phones. But when they do and they try calling one another, the new phone will be infected too. I doubt that they'll call customer service and say they can't phone their dope suppliers, not a good PR move."
"Are you ready?" asks Todd.
"Make it so," quips David.
Todd makes a few key strokes and says, "Okay, here's the current point to point traffic of phones on our list. I'm now sending messages to all of them to reject calls from the list of numbers that I'm transmitting. It'll take about ten minutes to propagate the order through all the phones."
"Anyone want coffee?" asks David as he gets up and walks over to a table with a coffee maker, a tray of donuts and a lot of cups turned upside down.
"Yeah," says Jay as she jumps up and joins David. Todd does too and they all return to their consoles a few minutes later with coffee, donuts and napkins.
"See?" says Todd, "Their communications network is beginning to crumble. Those little flashes you see next to the city dots are calls being rejected."
They watch as the lines between the cities begin to fade and disappear and are replaced by multiple multi-colored bursts that quickly grow more frequent.
"They're getting desperate, watch," says David. "Every call that doesn't get through, they're trying other numbers in succession. They're out of touch. It's all breaking down now."
Soon, all the lines are gone now totally replaced by star bursts that are now dominating the display.
Mike says, "This is freaking great. But what will they do now?"
"Well, as a general rule, they don't like land lines, too easy to wiretap. Cell phone traffic is encrypted and it's more difficult to do a wiretap warrant on. I expect we'll see new phones being brought in including a lot of anonymous, pre-paid phones. But they won't help much. I'll update the reject list with them as soon as they start phoning one another. Soon, they won't even know one another's phone numbers, their whole network is going to hell in a hand basket."
"But next, they'll try the Internet," says Jay.
"True," says David, "But as you know, we're cracked their VPN's and we've loaded root kits on their machines world wide."
Todd keys up another western hemisphere display and says, "Here's their computer network."
"It looks similar to the phone network for obvious reasons," says David.
The screen displays a similar pattern of dots and lines. Todd says, "Let's switch to a cumulative real time display and see how many are trying to get through with their laptops now that their phones are dead."
The screen lines darken then start to reappear as messages are being sent point to point and multi-point.
"Yep. That didn't take long. Okay, I think it's time to shut down their VPN network."
"You got it," says Todd as he sends out messages to his root kits on a few thousand machines at once. The root kits begin to halt VPN traffic making the lines on the screen begin to fade. Eventually they go dark with just each dot and adjacent flashes showing. "Each flash is a message trying to be sent to another on the VPN networks. And, my root kits are now routing unencrypted copies of all their email messages to the DEA. Should make for interesting reading if any of the bureaucrats there are working, probably not. We're also getting copies, wanna see some?"
"Yeah, let's look at some," says David.
The screen flashes to text and messages begin to slowly scroll by with desperate, what the fuck is going on texts from one bad guy to another. Some are funny, most are clueless as to what is happening.
"Hee-hee, that's sweet man, real sweet," says Mike happily.
"Okay, Act II. Now they're deaf and blind, let's make them poor too," says David.
Todd hits a few keystrokes and a world map appears with various sized and brightness dots appearing randomly. "These are where their major off-shore banking accounts are. All numbered accounts in tax havens with very lax banking laws and no data exchange agreements with major governments."
"How did you get their account numbers and passwords? All that stuff is encrypted. You couldn't have broken the code in a week," asks Mike.
"Didn't have to. Remember, I've got root kits on their machines. I've been keylogging all their transactions. I've been capturing their account numbers and the passwords as they type them in before the encrypting takes place," says Todd.
"Cool," says Mike.
He hits a few more keys and white stars appear on the map. "These are banking sites associated with major non-profit charitable organizations around the world, Red Cross, Red Crescent, UN agencies, you name it."
"And now, Todd, if you please, let's give our friends a taste of the rule that it's better to give than receive," says David.
"Because their banking accounts are so secretive, once I've got the account number and password, I can make non-reversible transactions in total anonymity. I'm about to drain every one of their private accounts and send the cash to the non-profits who will never know where the money came from. On the other hand, when the bad guys check their accounts, they'll find them empty with no transaction record as to where the money went. Nice little feature of secret off shore accounts, no history tapes."
He hits a few keys. On the screen arrow lines begin to flash from the bank accounts to the charitable organizations. "Those are the transfers taking place."
"Watch. After a while the bank account dots will vanish. When a dot disappears, the account is empty," says David.
Soon, all the bank accounts are gone and only the charitable organization stars remain.
"Well, wasn't that fun?" asks David.
"Holy shit, man, that was unbelievable! You really did it!" shrieks Mike.
"Wow, man, great, just fucking great! They're out'a business!" adds Jay.
"Well, they'll re-group eventually, I'm sure. But for the time being, they're in trouble, serious trouble. They'll be late with their payments to a lot of cops and politicians this month. Could have serious repercussions," says Todd.
"You got any other tricks up your sleeve?" asks Mike with a smile.
David replies coyly, "Well, ya'never can tell, can'ya. I think we'll let this exploit settle in for a while before we move to the next level."
"This should nuke'em pretty well. I wonder if they'll trace it back to Jack's little problem?" asks Jay.
"Oh, they will, I'm sure of that," says Todd. "Before we screwed up their email, I sent everyone a little picture postcard jpeg of Omaha with the caption, Weather sucks, Wish you were here, signed, Jack. It should be a real hit. And I do mean, a real hit."
"There's gonna be a lot of unhappy people when they check their balances tomorrow," says Todd.
"Yes, and a lot of happy charities too. Any idea how much got transferred?" says Lance.
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"A couple of billion, I guess, more or less," says Todd. "I'll have a full total in a day or two when all the transactions clear."
They all laugh and then David says, "All in a day's, er, morning's work."
"Okay, one more trick," says Todd. "I'm sending, anonymously, to Customs, the DEA, FBI, the cable news networks, and wire services a schedule of all large shipments of dope into the U.S. for the next month including port of entry, means, amount, couriers, carrier, etc. and also a schedule of large cash shipments going out of the country for the next few weeks. This should mess up their supply network."
"Wow, the last straw!" says Jay.
"More like the last joint for a lot of places," says Mike looking over the manifests on the display screen.
"And now, anyone for lunch?" says Todd.
Time: 2 PM
After lunch, Mike returns to his apartment and switches on one of the cable news networks. Jay joins him. The explosion and its aftermath still dominate the news but there are no clues as to what was behind it. The true purpose of Joe's warehouse is now known as the police find large quantities of various drugs and a mass of paperwork in fireproof safes detailing the distribution operation in detail.
The police have discovered the bodies among the rubble along with Joe's cell phone. The cell phone is still functional and indicates it was receiving a call at the time of the blast. A check with the cell phone carrier records confirms this and points to a phone number in St. Louis but it's a pre-paid number, not traceable to anyone individually. A more detailed analysis of tower data indicates the cell in St. Louis where it originated, which, the police reluctantly note, includes the address of someone well known in the drug trade, Jack Meyers.
They wonder what his involvement was, if any. They speculate that this was a hit job. Blowing up the south end of Omaha, however, seems a bit flamboyant, even by drug lord standards. Perhaps Joe wasn't the real target. If all they wanted was Joe, a simple bullet to the head would have been much cleaner, not to mention, neater.
Perhaps this was a hit that went wrong and the bomb went off prematurely. Perhaps the real target was somewhere else in town. They shudder to think of what would have happened if that blast went off in the basement garage of one of the downtown hotels.
They continue to check leads. They check the route the beer truck took. When they get to Mo Rún, Lance confirms the truck showed up and that there were two temporary drivers, the usual driver being on vacation. Lance says there was nothing unusual about the delivery. The police are baffled.
Mark and Sid's bodies remain unidentified. Their wallets are found but the ID's are fake. Forensics will attempt to determine their identity from dental records.
Jay and Mike spend the rest of the day collating their material and working on the exposé.