States. Or the state could split up and different parts go different ways."
"So, that's why she's going for broke?"
"Yep, that's about it. Strike while she can. Once the new constitution is approved, it's all over. She's already begun losing control over the military. Every day, it seems, another base defects."
"But she still has NSA, FBI, Homeland, DIA?"
"Yeah, but the days of running the country on blackmail, intimidation, bogus IRS audits and midnight battering ram raids are over. And, obviously, she's got no leverage over the convention crowd. They're not scared of a SWAT team in the middle of the night. Now they shoot back! Things have changed. We either act now or Munson and his crowd will be running the show and that means jail or worse for a lot of us."
"So, everything needs to go right, no fuck ups. But, if everything does go right, we cut their communications, decapitate their leadership, round up the rest and finish this convention crap, once and for all. It's risky but worth the risk, given the alternatives."
"Right. But I don't think it's that much of a risk. They have no idea what we're up to but I'm sure we know everything about them. They know nothing about our plans. When we act, they're toast. They haven't a clue what they were up against."
"Don't be so sure. I'm told they're using some new encryption tricks and NSA is worried. But we still need to act, regardless. This window won't last long."
Bader, now on his fourth scotch whines on, "The time has come to end this charade. What we need now is a government of leaders. Not this constitutional crap. The country's too big to be hamstrung by some ancient set of gentleman's rules. We've wasted too much time letting them have their say. Now we end it."
He gulps down the remainder of his glass and waves to Phil for a refill.
"How the hell did things get so out of control so fast?"
"We moved to quick. Too big a power grab. We tried to change things too fast. We should have been more patient. We woke the damned yokels up. And then, all the class, race and gender warfare trash talk just polarized the crap out of the country. It backfired. We ended up with a few miles of the coast and while the opposition ended up controlling the other 95% of the country. It seems that the fools had some backbone after all and some weren't as stupid as we thought. We didn't count on that. Anyway, this will be all over in a week."
They talk a while longer and then, finally, Bader says, "It's getting late. I'm heading upstairs."
Bader powers down his laptop, packs it into it's case and staggers towards the elevator. Mark swills down the last of his drink, looks suspiciously around, then heads through the lobby out to his car.
Andy unplugs his equipment, slips out of his closet and joins Ryan, Phil and Jim and the bar. They simultaneously gasp, "Holy shit!"
After a few moments of stunned silence Jim asks Andy, "I'm guessing from the conversation we just heard that you got what you wanted?"
"Totally. The mother lode."
"What'ya got? What kind of files did you capture?"
"Crap! Email, memos, voice mail recordings, pictures, address books, cypher codes, you name it, what didn't I get? Holy shit! This is a big operation. There must be nearly six thousand emails in here and they go back a couple of years. They've been at this for a while. I need to start sorting through this stuff and see what I can find."
"Wait, he's getting a phone call."
"How do you know?"
"Oh, I hacked his cell phone too. He had it attached to the laptop to copy some picture files. So I went in and loaded a few apps of my own. Like partyline. Here, I'll put him on," says Andy proudly.
They hear a slightly cell phone distorted voice coming from Andy's laptop and listen intently.
"Calm down Mark, I can't hear you."
"Then shut the fuck up and listen, asshole. I said, someone was in your room."
"What? How do you know?"
"We installed some cameras, that's how."
The guys go "Huh?" and look anxiously at one another.
"When?"
"When you were with me at the bar."
"Oh, that's probably just housekeeping."
"Nope, this was some college kid and he went over the place pretty carefully."
"Did you get a picture of him?"
"No, he had on a hoodie and a Halloween mask. He knew what he was doing."
"Richard Nixon," says Bader. "I see the mask in the trash next to the door. Prints? I'm guessing no since there's a pair of latex gloves in the trash too."
"Right. We'll take things from here." says Mark as the phone clicks dead.
Phil blurts out, "Security cameras! They'll check the security cameras!"
"Not to worry. When I was in your closet I fixed the camera system too. They won't show anything. It will look like an electrical problem." comments Andy. "But maybe it's time we should get out'a here and now before Mark comes back? I'll drop you guys back at East Gym."
They agree and quickly exit leaving Phil to finish his shift.
Watching their huddle from the other end of the bar is a young guy with a gym bag out of which a small bit of a gray hoodie protrudes. He follows them back to campus.
Time: 8:30 PM
Back in town, Andy parks his van in a dingy parking lot behind a bar on College Street. One by one they cross over to campus and slip into East Gym through the shrub shrouded back entrance. Their hoodie tracker from the Carrington lurks in the shadows watching until he too makes his move into East Gym.
Breaking open a round of beer, they wait while Andy uploads a copy of Bader's decrypted files through an anonymizing proxy to a foreign cloud server using an account he opened under a fictitious name. Then he places the files into a hidden folder within another encrypted folder in case anyone captures his laptop. The outer folder is a decoy. Next he transfers the encrypted folder to the other guys' laptops and tells them the two passwords, one for the outer volume, one for the inner.
As they start their second round of beers, Andy begins a series of text analysis programs that will detect unusual word usage patterns, phrases and repeating concepts and index these using techniques he learned in an Information Storage and Retrieval class that he really enjoyed. These will take an hour or more to complete so they decide to head out and buy snacks and more beer.
While they're gone, their stalker with the hoodie, who has been lurking in the shadows of the attic rafters, makes his own copy of the files. He heard the passwords. He attaches a wireless mic, out of sight, topside on one of the ceiling beams next to one of the wireless routers Jim installed when he was an ITS employee. He plugs it into the power strip nearby and leaves only moments before the others return.
Time: 9:30 PM
By the time Ben and Phil arrive, Andy has started piecing together the full picture of the conspiracy.
"Well, that was fun," announces Phil as pulls off his tie and grabs a beer. He flops onto an old char, one leg over the arm.
"What happened," asks Ryan.
"About half the security people from Fort Truck were there asking questions about who was in Bader's room."
"What'd ya say?"
"I told them I knew nothing which, oddly, happens to be true, more or less."
"Did they buy it?"
"Maybe. Dunno, really. They didn't get anything from the management who were clueless, as usual."
"Did they get your cell phone?" asks Andy.
'No, why?"
"They could see your text messages and that may be a problem."
"Ahh, I see."
"So let me have all your phones so I can clear your text and call histories. In the future, minimize usage and don't text anything important. I'll also need to clean your laptops too."
"So, what did you learn? Did we get anything worthwhile?" asks Phil.
"A lot," says Jim. We're still piecing it together."
'So who's really behind this? It's not just Bader."
"Nah, it's all the moonbat true believers, the neo-fascist lefties and, ironic
ally, the big money boys that have been financing DeWitt, running the media, the Hollywood moguls, currency speculators, that crowd."
"What's their plan"?
"Their plan is to kill Munson, coordinated attacks in Free State cities, send in the Homeland goons to arrest the Free State governors, seize Convention delegates. The lowfo sheeple will scream for DeWitt to save them. DeWitt the savior! She'll say it's all the work of radical convention confederationalist types plotting a coup. She'll shut down the Convention, declare martial law, suspend the constitution, and march in the Army to occupy the rebel states. Then she'll write her own constitution that pretty much cements her people into permanent power and have it ratified by her hand picked state governments. President for life, banana republic stuff."
"What about Congress?"
"Her opposition will be jailed on day one. It will be reorganized as an appointed National Legislature."
"What about TV, radio, the press? Will they support her?"
"Of course. The network news casts have been nothing but political porn for the past twenty years anyway. Their corporate bosses depend too much on the government to give any push back. Anyway, she's placed her people in all the important network power centers. Didn't you ever notice that the network news people are all former government employees? Dude, they had 'news' broadcasts in Germany in 1938 too. Once she revived the Espionage Act it's been illegal to criticize her. But, in the unlikely event she actually does have a problem with coverage, they've already got special teams ready to take control of network operation centers. NSA will take down wire service operations. Then all the 'news' feeds will originate with her people. She can control the main