7. Sunday January 14
Time: Noon
A little before noon David and Lance are ready to go to Pete's hotel. They knock on Mike's door. He answers and they ask, "Where's Jay?"
Mike walks over to the balcony and points at Jay who's sitting at one of the tables far below. "There she is. She's down there playing with the damned canaries. She takes more interest in the birds than me!"
On the floor below Jay is sitting at a table banging away on her laptop while five canaries are perched on the top of the screen singing away. Several more are feasting on the peanuts she's crushed and sprinkled on the table. Two more are on her shoulders. Jay has attracted a serious following among the wing'ed set as she brings them seeds and nuts liberated from Todd's larder.
David laughs as they watch the show and says, "Hey, don't knock it."
"Yeah? You know how many she's got living in the apartment now? They fly up to the door and peck at it until she lets them in!"
"Well, at least they knock," says David.
Finally, Lance shouts over to the balcony, "Hey Jay! Lose the birds. Let's go."
She looks up and hollers back, "Okay, I'm ready. Have Mikey give you my coat."
They meet her on the floor, hand her the coat and drive to Pete's hotel. They park David's SUV about a block away. Jay has an EVDO cell phone card plugged into her laptop. This gives her a data rate of nearly 3 megabits per second of CDMA wireless network access. They conference with Todd and Mike back at the club.
Todd tells them that while they were driving over, Pete left his room. He called Joe and said he wanted to meet him for a quick lunch at a restaurant nearby. Todd says he should be gone for a while.
Lance and David will go to Pete's room and wait for his return. Jay will remain in the lobby and watch then signal the guys upstairs when she sees him. They enter the lobby one by one rather than as a group. Jay arrives last. Lance takes the elevator first. David loiters around the lobby for a minute or two pretending to look at some tourist brochures then follows him up.
Finally, Jay enters and sits on one of the big easy chairs and picks up a newspaper. After a moment, she folds the paper and pulls out her laptop. In addition to her EVDO access, the laptop's on-board wireless transceiver connects directly to the hotel Wi-Fi. She promptly hacks back into the hotel's network and targets its security systems.
Like in most modern hotels, the security system is computer based with digital cameras and controls. Security camera images are stored to disk, not tape. Jay hacks into the control computer and takes the security cameras off line. Then she replaces the files showing Lance, David and herself entering with an innocuous loop she captures from the disk from a few minutes earlier. She also runs a program to multiply rewrite the deleted section with random byte patterns so that it can't be recovered. She disables the camera aimed at where she's sitting and makes it look like a hardware error. She also disables the exit alarms on the top floor and credits her frequent flier account with twenty thousand award points. She waits for the key card system to record the door to Pete's room being unlocked by Lance.
Lance swipes the lock on Pete's room with the key card they made a few days earlier. The LED blinks green and the door opens. Jay sees the transaction appear on the hotel's database and erases it so that the only record of the door being opened will be Pete's. Satisfied, she smiles and looks around her chair for a socket to plug her battery charger into. She finds one and attaches the charger to the laptop. She brings up Pete's laptop camera from the room above and watches David and Lance as they walk into Pete's room. She then pulls out her digital camcorder and fiddles with it like a tourist giving special attention to the penthouse suites up near the roof, one in particular.
Lance and David enter Pete's sitting area. Lance begins thoroughly searching for hidden weapons, under cushions, furniture, behind mirrors. He enters the bedroom and remains out of sight for several minutes. David, meanwhile, goes through some papers he finds on the coffee table.
After a while, Lance comes back into view and says, "Okay, looks pretty clean."
"Good. There's nothing interesting here," says David tossing the papers back on the desk. "Let's sit down and wait."
David sits on the sofa but Lance walks around continuing to look the place over. Finally, he says, "This is nice, I wonder how much it costs a night?"
"Quite a lot, I expect. Why, you thinking of moving here? Stick with the loft you already have, it's bigger."
"Hey, I got no complaints, just wondering. I like the balcony," he says walking out and rubber necking at the view below. "Maybe I could extend my apartment out so the balcony would be part of it?"
"Might work. You pay for the renovations, though."
David picks up his cell phone, puts it on speaker phone and calls Jay in the lobby, "We're all set up here. Ya'see him yet?"
"Nope, nothing yet. Pretty quiet down here. I can see Lance, though."
Lance hears and waves. Jay nods and says, "Hello Lance. I won't wave in case anyone's watching me."
Todd's voice suddenly cuts into the phone call, "Hey guys, we got a problem."
"What is it?" says David as Lance returns to the room.
"Okay, so you know my phone scripts have been monitoring calls by anyone on the network whose cell numbers we've captured?"
"Yeah."
"And I've had my viruses make their phones send me their pen registers?"
"Yeah."
"Well, it seems two cell phones in Kansas City on our list got calls from a St. Louis phone early today. I don't have an ID on the St. Louis phone since it's a pre-paid phone with no registered owner."
"So what does that mean?"
"It means someone in St. Louis wanted his calls to be untraceable. Always a bad sign. And it gets worse. My hack of the cell phone tower routers says that those two phones from KC arrived in Omaha about forty-five minutes ago. They popped up in a cell near the airport. Now my data says they're within a few thousand feet of where you are. Something's going down, guys."
"What do you think we should do?"
"Jay, have you got your EVDO card plugged in?"
"Yep"
"I'm gonna remote login to Jay's laptop and run some cell signal samples off her EVDO card. This will take about a minute or two, hang on."
David and Lance go over to the balcony and look down towards Jay. David says, "So why is Pete getting visitors from Kansas City?"
"Probably not a social call," replies Lance.
After a few moments Todd says, "Okay you guys, get the fuck out of that room, now! Those two phones are in the hotel. Probably in the lobby very near Jay. I'm getting a strong ID signal off both of them. Jay, stream the best lobby security cam to me."
"Here it comes," says Jay as she quickly types some commands.
"Good, I've got it, I can see you. Now wait, I'll make them reveal themselves. I'll ring both their phones at once. Jay, don't give on but listen closely. They could be anywhere."
Jay jumps a tiny bit as she hears the cell phones on two guys in chairs not fifteen feet away begin to chirp with annoyingly happy ring tones. Jay says quietly into her phone, "We have a winner, two winners, actually. They're about fifteen feet to my left."
Todd says, "I see them."
David says, "We see them too."
The two guys pull out their phones and answer them. Todd's programmed them to receive a recorded sales pitch for a credit card. They immediately hang up and look at one another shaking their heads in annoyance as one mutters something to the other. Neither suspects that they've been ID'd.
David says, "Oh-oh! Look, there's Pete just coming in. This is getting interesting."
One of the guys from KC spots Pete and gestures to his accomplice who nods. They sit quietly watching Pete stride across the lobby to the elevators. They both get up and walk to the elevator and get in with Pete. A family with two small children gets on as does a bell hop. Pete does not recognize the two guys from KC. David, Lance and Jay watch as the elevator
begins to ascend.
David says to Jay on the phone, "We're out'a here. We'll duck down the emergency staircase to the next floor then circle back and take the elevator down to the lobby. Can you try to patch the feed from Pete's room into my cell phone?"
Jay says, "No problem, I'll have you on audio and video in about fifteen seconds. Todd, you still there?"
"Yep. Just watching the lobby feed. Keep the channel open. I'm also monitoring Pete's room."
Lance says, "Watch for prints. I think there's gonna be police here soon," as he tosses him a small towel and begins wiping all the surfaces they may have touched.
"What'ya mean?"
"Those are hit men, dude. Pete's about to check out for good."
"Yikes."
"Yikes indeed. Now fucking move it!"
David and Lance quickly dart out of the room and into the adjacent emergency staircase. They begin running down the stairs to the next floor where they re-enter the corridor and race to the elevator. Jay disables the security cams in their path as they proceed.
"They got here pretty quick," says David.
"Well, there are airplanes, ya'know. There's a commuter run between here and KC about five times a day. With the right incentive, you can have very prompt service and I'm sure Jack paid for the best," says Lance.
The elevator stops on several floors until just Pete and his two visitors from KC are left. On the top floor Pete gets out. The two follow him. About half way down the hall, he begins to be uneasy. He walks faster. They walk faster. He begins to run to get to the safety of his room. They run faster. They hit him from behind smashing his face against the door just as he tries to swipe the keycard through the lock. One of the two wrenches Pete's arm painfully behind his back, the other slaps a piece of masking tape over his face as he tries to yelp out a scream.
One of them takes the keycard which has dropped to the floor and opens the door. They shove Pete into the room. Once in the room, they quickly bind his arms behind him and shove him onto the couch. They wrap his ankles together in duct tape. Pete squirms but is trapped and helpless.
As David and Lance get on the elevator the streaming audio and video feed begins to appear on David's phone. They hear the click of Pete's door opening and they hear on the speaker phone an unfamiliar voice saying, "Move it, we don't have all day."
Then they hear the unintelligible muffled sound of Pete's terrified voice.
"Jack's not happy about last night. He doesn't think he likes seeing his people on TV or in the morning papers."
Pete knows Jack's hired these guys to take him out. He knows why these guys are here. That's the way Jack works, no warning.
"Oh, yeah, but this time Jack wants lots of publicity," chides one of them. "He wants it known that he can take care of a fuck up like you. We're here to make this as messy as possible."
One of the hit men holds a gun on Pete while the other quickly closes Pete's laptop, grabs Pete's loose papers and stuffs them into the laptop bag. He carefully checks around the room for anything Jack might not want the police to see then says, "Okay, I think we're ready."
"We're not gonna shoot you dude. We're gonna let you fly out'a here on your own."
At which, one grabs Pete by the legs and the other grabs him by the shoulders. Pete kicks, squirms and emits muffled screams as they quickly carry him over to the balcony, give a couple of practice swings then hurl his writhing body over the balcony and out into the open atrium beyond.
David and Lance exit the elevator and walk over towards Jay. All three are looking up towards Pete's room. Jay has her camcorder. Suddenly they see Pete fly over the balcony, wriggling frantically, his arms and legs tied, his mouth gagged.
Pete begins his parabolic final descent to the floor below announced with only an inaudible, muffled scream. The two killers stand at the balcony for a brief moment and watch, grinning at their handiwork. No one in the lobby has heard Pete's soft last cry. Even if Pete were in full voice, the laughter and din of the lunch crowd below, accompanied by an over load piano, would be enough to drown out an opera singer.
Suddenly, a woman spots movement in the air high above and gives forth with a bloodcurdling shriek. Others quickly look up. The screaming becomes general throughout the lobby. The piano player freezes in mid stanza. The hitmen quickly decide that it's time to beat their retreat and they rush out of Pete's room and down the emergency staircase.
A second later, the crescendo of screams halts abruptly in a crashing thud of impact that echoes throughout the massive open space. Pete's descent terminates among the luncheon buffet's crab dip platters. Little cocktail forks thrust into the flesh of his unconscious corpse.
Plates, silverware, serving trays, bowls and utensils fly upward in all directions. There is, for a fraction of a second, absolute, stunned, dead silence, followed immediately by the thundering clatter and crash of all those items sent airborne returning back to the earth. Another moment of silence except for the sounds of round platters spiraling about on the floor. Then bottles of wine and liquor that have fallen, finish their roll across the tables and begin to crash on the brick floor beneath.
The sound of shattering glass is followed by the first stunned but now hysterical screams from the formerly contented dining patrons who watch as the spilled alcohol from the upset hot plate warmers blossoms into blue flame. The festive paper winter decorations, linens and napkins join the fire.
Pete's Wagnerian crab dipped immolation rises to an aromatic apotheosis as bottles of very high proof cognac, used to flambé the occasional entré or desert, topple and burst into vigorous and colorful incandescence. As Pete incinerates, the desert liquors festively join the growing inferno.
The pyre is finally brought to completion by a small propane cylinder hidden beneath the tables used to provide gas for the rotisserie. Its control valve is ruptured from the force of the impact that collapsed the center of the table. The ruptured tank gushes forth a cloud of flammable gas which promptly explodes.
The resulting fireball swiftly surges up through all nine stories of the open atrium until it liberates itself into the cold Nebraska air through the shattered skylights of the ceiling high above. A storm of glass shards, hors'd'hoerves, and little bits of Pete fall at various speeds to the lobby below while people quickly duck under the tables for cover.
David, Lance and Jay stagger and look at one another grinning, and say in unison, "Holy shit!" with enthusiasm.
David says, "I think it's time we checked out too."
Lance says, "Right dude, let's go before something else happens."
They quickly pull on their coats and gloves and wrap themselves in scarves and join the throng pushing for the exits to leave the scene of chaos and fire behind.
When the guys from KC reach the parking lot behind the building, they calmly walk to a main street a block away and hail a cab back to the airport.
However, once they're in the cab, Todd can't resist. He rings both their phones. When they answer in unison, he says, "Nice work guys. Got it all on video. Nice arc on the Pete toss. So, we're awarding you both of Pete's ears. Unfortunately, you blew his fucking tail off. Now, where in Kansas City would you like the body parts delivered?" They flip their phones shut, look in horror at one another and cringe in panic at their discovery.
Jay is first to the SUV and she leaps in the driver's seat. David calls shotgun, Lance says "Screw you!" and off they ride. Jay executes a high-G U-turn and swiftly heads towards the club just as the first fire engines scream to the scene.
Jay says, smirking, "So, I guess Pete's day went down hill, so to speak?"
Lance says, "I think we let him down, man."
"What goes up, must come down," says David.
Jay says, "Yeah, I saw him at the buffet. Seemed to be in a hurry."
"Oh, he's not in a hurry now," says David.
"Well, parts of him aren't. They're gonna have to scrape some bits of old Pete off the walls with a butter knife," giggles
Lance.
"And we just wanted to be friendly, but someone beat us to it," interjects David.
"Well, I don't think he'll be switching sides now," says Jay.
Todd phones and tells them he called the hitmen. They all get a big laugh wondering what their reaction was to Todd's greeting.
"Probably wet their pants," says Jay.
They continue to chatter as Jay's somewhat erratic New England driving style careens them merrily towards the club. She parks the SUV in the lot behind. They all go in and straight to David's apartment. Waiting there are Mike, Todd and Mary who watched and heard most of what transpired via Pete's hacked laptop until the hitman stuffed it in the bag. They watched the lobby security cam until the explosion took it out. Now they're waiting for full play-by-play.
David, Jay and Lance collapse on the couches and Todd says, "Wow! Didn't see that coming."
"No shit!" says Lance. "Those guys were pros. In, out, quick, and splashy."
"Jack wanted to send a message. A nice loud message," says Lance. "He needs to let people know he can do things quickly and decisively, just so no one gets the idea to move in on him."
Mike chimes in and says, "So tell us what happened up on the balcony? We couldn't see that part from the laptop cam after they closed it. We saw Pete's body hit the buffet, then it looked like a bomb went off. The power must have gone off because we lost the signal. The local TV news cut in a few minutes ago saying there'd been an explosion at the Regency Hotel."
David and Lance fill Mike and Todd in on the details while Jay gets some beers and cold pizza from the kitchen. When she returns, she says, "Okay, now do you wanna see it from Jay's lobby-cam angle? This you will really like!"
She takes out her camcorder and, sitting next to David and facing the big screen, attaches a USB connector to it. A playback window appears on the screen. Jay hits PLAY on the camcorder and they watch the digitized movie that she captured from her vantage point in the lobby.
Jay was across on the other side of the lobby when she began shooting with the digitally stabilized telephoto lens. She caught the moment when Pete's bound body was hurled into the atrium. Jay's video follows him all the way down and catches the entire impact, fire and explosion and the bloody bits falling all around along with shattered glass and the light luncheon hors'd'oeuvres.
David, Lance, Mike, Todd and Jay watch the video over and over again.
"Brilliant! It's perfect. Captures Pete's last flight in perfect detail," raves Lance.
"Definitely a winner," says David. "I guess we'll be responsible for another big ratings boost for the networks."
After watching it several times, some in slow motion, Jay says, "I think it's time we sent it to the cable news networks, local TV, and the newspapers. Then, in a couple of hours after the cable channels have played it ad naseum, I'll upload it to the usual video sharing sites."
"And don't forget sending a copy to Jack," David adds. "And be sure it hits the KC stations too. I know our hit men will want to see their handiwork. They're probably already catatonic with fear after Todd's call. Let's ratchet up the angst a few notches. My guess is that the police should be able to make out their faces on the video."
"Don't worry, Jack's at the top of my email list. The KC stations are a nice and cruel touch. I love it. Oh, and by the way, do you know that one of Todd's root kits has already managed to install itself on Jack's machine in St. Louis?" says Jay.
"Oh really? Hey that's great," says David.
"Yeah! And it's already started propagating itself across all the machines in his email address book. AYBABTU!"
"You've told me before, but explain to me again. What's a root kit?" asks Mike.
"It's a collection of software, mainly spyware in this case, that operates under the detection level of the operating system and anti-virus scanners. It can access files, hide files, run programs and make network connections without the host machine being able to detect its activity," she replies pedantically.
"I think I need a geek guide book," laments Mike.
"Anyway, I started attaching copies of the viruses onto all the email that Pete was sending to St. Louis. I sent them using various buffer overflow and Trojan exploits. I guess one of them finally succeeded and infected Jack's laptop. I've established contact with it and from the messages I'm getting back, everything is okay. The root kit is installed and functioning perfectly. Once it got on his machine, it started hitting other machines in his network since they were all vulnerable to the same exploit. After infecting Jack's machine, it was easier to do the rest of the network. People were duped more easily into opening infected email if it came through their encrypted VPN and appeared to be from Jack," explains Todd, obviously proud of his work.
"It sounds impressive," says Mike.
"I should have gotten updated copies of Jack's address books by now, let me check. Yep, here they are. And I'm getting copies of his email files. I'll start sending out messages to the other machines on his network that I've compromised and see how many I control. Then I'll see if there are any new nodes and try to capture those. Soon I'll have copies of all the files on his machine and see everything he does in real time," says Todd pulling out a keyboard and logging into a server.
"Got any video?" asks David.
"Well, let's see if his machine has a web cam. Yep, it does. I'll switch it on in a low res reduced frame mode. Even though he can't detect my software, I don't want any suspicious performance degradation. I'm already loading his machine with a lot of other tasks. Too much might alert him that some thing's fishy."
"Geez, this is amazing," says Mike.
"Just be happy Jack and his boys use a crapware operating system. This wouldn't be possible with Linux," says Jay.
"Hey Jay? If it weren't for crapware, most software security people would be seriously unemployed," replies David.
While Todd initiates the web cam feed from St. Louis, David punches up the cable networks and local stations in multiple separate windows.
"Here it comes" he says gleefully.
Within minutes there are News Alerts, and Special Bulletins galore as talking head news readers fumble with papers trying to make out what's being said on their IFBs. Jay's tape rolls on each. The Omaha stations cut in with the video as well.
They see again the lurid detail of Pete's descent, the resulting explosion and the fireball. The networks, never missing an opportunity to beat a story to death, re-play it over and over again both in regular and slow motion. Shocked quaffed talking heads, with no knowledge of the event, expound endlessly nonetheless.
Finally, after multiple replays, each goes to discussion relating the event they just witnessed to the events in Omaha earlier in the week. The video, however, continues to cycle in an insert box. Questions are asked and speculation is rampant. They replay the video from the club, the video from the rest stop and then more replays of hotel event.
One of the wire services gets an ID on Pete and moves the story that he's a senior operative in one of the larger drug rings. All the networks flash the details and soon more talking heads appear, now opining on drug lords in the Midwest. Jack's name is mentioned even though he's managed to stay clear of any legal convictions. Soon the speculation graduates to certainty and the news analysts spin webs of conspiracy and made up facts increasingly convincing themselves of their construction of the truth.
The video feed from Jack's machine in St. Louis initiates but all they can see is a grainy static scene with no sound other than street noises in the distance. However, soon the system alerts them when it detects new noises in the St. Louis feed.
Automatically, the video data stream appears in a larger window on David's giant display and the audio from the priority site turns up while the audio from what they were watching mutes.
They hear someone entering the room in St. Louis. A speckled, ghostly picture of a figure, whom Mike quickly identifies as Jack, walks past the laptop and over to a TV. He casually switches
it on, punches up one of the cable news networks and sits in an easy chair.
They chuckle as they watch Jack learning the news about the events in Omaha. Jack curses to himself, or so he thinks, then turns from the TV and heads for his laptop. On the way, he mutters, "That'll show those fucking bastards not to fool with me." He brings up his email and begins scanning it for messages from his agents about what has happened in Omaha. Nothing.
Instead, however, he finds that a message with a copy of the video that Jay filmed has been sent to him, anonymously. He curses again and the guys in Omaha laugh out loud as they watch his fuzzy image on one window and his screen displaying the video in the other. Jack freezes in panic when he sees the video closeups of his hired killers.
They hear Jack mutter, "Fucking Shea. It's time to get that little bastard."
"Ooooooh," they all chorus at once in mock concern over the threat from their antagonist 500 miles away.
"I wonder what he'd say if he knew we were watching him now?" said Mike.
"You know, we can talk to him through his speakers any time we want. Might give him a bit of a shock, though," answers Todd.
"Yeah, let's not give him a heart attack yet. Maybe later," says David, "We need to keep an eye on him for the time being."
"At least can I write All of your base are belong to us across his screen?"
"Sadly, he wouldn't get it," laments Jay. "Too bad really, we really do own him right now. He just doesn't know it yet. He's like a fish in a tank. But we own the tank."
Jack instantly figures that the flambé of crab dip in the video was from Omaha and that it was Pete's airborne demise. He's not happy that the wire services are revealing that the corpse belonged to a drug dealer from Des Moines. That could be a problem. Jack gives an exasperated sigh and leans back, thinking of what to do next while his TV in the background continues to re-tell the story.
Jack knows he's lost a lot of troops in the past few days and this is bad for business. His operation is quickly becoming the laughing stock of the trade. If Jack's not careful, someone else will be moving in to shut Jack down. Jack knows he has a very serious problem and he needs a very serious, very final solution. Terminating Pete was just the first course. Now he needs to go in for the final, real kill.
Jack pulls out one of his pre-paid cell phones and begins making some calls. He summons some of his more skillful helpers from the termination department. What he needs are a couple of creative psychopaths willing to do anything and he knows just the guys for the job. This time, he wants it done right and he wants to make an example so it won't happen again.
He makes his phone call and sets up a meeting with Ed and Jim, two guys that will kill just for the sport of it and won't botch the job. All this is watched and recorded in Omaha by his unseen audience. Todd's touch-tone analyzer decodes the phone numbers as they're punched. Then Jack calls Joe and sets up a VPN video conference for later.
David says, "Well, It sounds like there's another onslaught in the works. I wonder what he's got planned this time?"
"I guess we'll soon find out," says Mike.
Time: 4 PM
For the rest of the afternoon, Todd spends his time analyzing the data that Jay and Mike brought from Des Moines. Jay continues breaking into networks owned by the mobs both in St. Louis and around the country. By late afternoon, Todd's root kits have attached themselves to all Jack's outgoing messages and installed themselves on the target machines. Subsequently, they spread further using each newly infected machine's address list, secretly cross checked with the lists being compiled back at Mo Rún.
With the path now open into these otherwise hidden recesses of the Internet, Todd and Jay further upload more spyware onto the infected machines including keystroke loggers, screen capture utilities, and file capturing programs. Quietly, in the background, on hundreds of machines, Jay's indexing tools begin to scan files and send back detailed site maps of their contents. These are copied and archived on David's servers on the floors below and cross indexed with the content extracted from other machines. Soon a vast, interconnected database belongs to Todd and Jay.
The main drug network is a multi-national VPN, a virtual private network, using cryptographic tunneling protocols to prevent snooping or even the detection as to which machines are part of the ensemble. With this facility, the dealers can secretly communicate with one another in real time, normally without fear of detection. Besides email and instant messaging, the system includes multi-point video conferencing capabilities. Drug dealing is big business with the IT infrastructure to prove it.
However, all this security is now rendered meaningless as the root kits, keyloggers and spyware spread inexorably from node to node, undetected by the owners of the machines. The root kits send home to Omaha the decryption keys allowing construction of the complete network map. It extends throughout the Midwest with nodes on the west coast, South America and all the way to Southeast Asia. It's a gold mine of data. With Mike's first hand information and this back door into the organization's data networks, the entire operation lies exposed.