Warden Chambers sat behind his desk, smiling like the cat that ate the canary. He was absolutely, so satisfied with himself, he could barely contain his joy.
He had solved the mystery of Mistri! He was a genius! Now, all he had to do was trick LeSade into admitting the truth to him. If he could do that, he would be able to figure out what this whole thing was all about. Maybe he could trick LeSade into telling him that, too. One could hope, couldn’t one?
He could hardly contain his glee as he waited for LeSade to be escorted to him. He fidgeted with everything on his desk. Rearranging it for the forth or fifth time. He had lost count.
“Warden?” the Watch Commander, Major Adams, said as he opened the door and stuck his head inside. “Mistri has just killed Tie Tie on the yard. Rec staff verified it was self-defense. They recommended that no charges be filed.”
Well, well, Mistri strikes again, Chambers thought quickly. “Mistri is on his way here, right? I did send for him, didn’t I?”
“Yes, Sir, Warden. They should be coming through visiting now,” Major Adams said.
“Good! You can go now,” Chambers said dismissively.
“Yes, Sir,” Adams said, then closed the door.
Three minutes later Tommy appeared in the doorway to the office. He was escorted by three custody staff and three recreation staff from the yard.
“Come in Mister Mistri. You can go back to your duties,” he told the six staff. “I’m perfectly safe with Mister Mistri. Isn’t that right, Tommy?”
“Yes, Sir. It is,” Tommy replied, as he stood waiting for an invitation to sit down. He figured he’d be there for a while.
No offer was forthcoming to sit and relax so he stood facing the Warden’s desk. He looked the Warden in the eyes. It was a serious blunder in the military. But, he was no longer in the service. His country had made it abundantly clear that he was no longer needed, or wanted! So, custom be damned! If the Warden wanted to disrespect him, the least he could do is offer his own form of contempt.
“So, Mister LeSade, what really brings you here to our fine facility?” Chambers asked, smiling as if he had solved Quantum Physics.
Tommy looked around him. He saw a comfortable looking chair to his left. He took two side steps over and sat down.
“I didn’t offer you to sit down!” Chambers screamed, growing red in the face.
“No you didn’t,” Tommy replied, as he got comfortable. “But, since I’m going to be here a while, I figure I may as well be comfortable. Right?” he continued. “So, what do you want to know? I suppose coffee is out of the question?”
“I want to know why you are here under a false name and more than likely a false charge.”
“Well, neither one is false. It’s true LeSade used to be my last name. But, things happened several years back that forced me to change it. So, I adopted my mother’s maiden name. It’s perfectly legal, I assure you. The charge, first degree assault, is real, I assure you. My next door neighbor slashed my vehicle tires, wrote anti-war slogans on my house and driveway. He finally attacked me with a ball bat because I wouldn’t move. He caught me at a bad time and I seriously injured him. He is in a coma in the county hospital in Tahlequah. It’s all just that simple. Plus, the President doesn’t want the nation to know that one of its Medal of Honor awardees is in prison because he can’t control his temper indefinitely.”
“I don’t believe that’s the whole story. Why would the Governor and the trial judge pull so many strings for you?”
“You would have to ask them to know the truth. But, I believe it may have had something to do with me saving their lives in Iraq. But, like I said. You’d have to ask them to know for sure.”
“Bull shit!” Chambers stated. “There’s a lot more to it than you’re telling me LeSade!”
“There’s just one way you can know for sure,” Tommy said, trying to bait him.
“Yeah, how’s that?”
“Let me use your computer for five minutes or less and I’ll show you.” The Warden bit like a starving bass on a Hoolie Popper. He sprang from his chair and stood behind it to watch.
“Show me!” he said. A satisfied smile on his face as if he had just enjoyed a full seven course meal.
Tommy moved to the computer. He took a deep breath and began to type furiously. His fingers were a blur.
“Woah! Woah!” Chambers yelled. “Slow down. I can’t keep up with what you’re doing.
“Warden I must enter over two hundred foreign words in less than one minute to break through the firewall. So, if you will be patient you will get what you want.” Tommy cleared the screen.
“Go ahead, then. But, you’d better be right!”
“I am. Trust me.”
Tommy began to type again furiously. He had practiced this a thousand times in the past. The time limit was his average fastest time. If he made even one mistake he’d have to start all over again. The code had to be perfect, and in time, in order to unlock the Mistri Virus.
When the clock at the top of the monitor screen clicked over its sixtieth second, Tommy hit the last letter of the last word of the code. The words shattered into a billion tiny fragments and the image of a nuclear explosion filled the screen. A mushroom cloud began to rise into a cloudless sky. As it rose it was as if the camera pulled back into outer space and the explosion began to race around the planet.
Tommy turned from the screen to face the warden. “In August of 2003, I was a sniper in Iraq. I had very distinct qualifications that were required for a particular Top Secret mission. I was led to believe the mission was sanctioned by the U.S. Government through the local CIA office...,” Tommy began to explain to Warden Chambers. Then, a musical note sounded from the computer. He spun around and typed five letters, a space, then five more letters. On the screen in capitols was CLEAN SWEEP. Another musical note sounded, this one an octave higher. Tommy typed six letters, a space, then five more. On the screen in capitals was MISTRI VIRUS.
A planet Earth appeared on the screen and the virus began to cover it like a cloud. Around the planet, in over two hundred leading banking establishments billions of dollars began to move.
The Mistri Virus began to reassemble en masse. When it reached its critical mass it would explode and begin to sweep through the world wide web. It would invade every top level bureaucratic system in the world, establishing back doors at every level of government, state and federal alike. No government was safe and none would know or suspect. The virus was a sleeper; in that it repaired its passage as it went, until it established itself as a part of the existing system.
Tommy LeSade was the only human being on the face of the planet who could stop it, remove it, or repair it. He was its only master. And Tommy LeSade was dead.
As the virus continued to infiltrate the governments of the world, Tommy continued to explain the circumstances behind its creation until Chambers knew the whole story from start to finish.
“...So, when I found out it was all about stealing billions of dollars, possibly trillions, from the Iraqi people for selfish reasons, and they attempted to kill me twice and did kill the woman I was to marry, I created this program. I am the only human being on the face of the planet who knows the code that will open the back doors and allow me in. I have access to information that no human being is supposed to know in total. It would be too damaging to governments if it were to become public knowledge.
“I can topple governments and nations with one key stroke. I can make or break politicians. I can expose corruption at every level. In short Warden...” Tommy turned at a musical tone and made a key stroke, then turned back to Chambers. “...I am the most powerful man on earth, as we speak. And I will never allow that power to be abused.”
As he continued to talk to Warden Chambers the billions drained from the accounts of ‘CLEAN SWEEP’ and retired General Hawk and were amassing in accounts set up by Tommy around the world. From there, exactly half of the grand total would be split off from the rest and deposited
in veteran’s accounts around the globe. The majority would go to U.S. Veterans, but billions would go to foreign veterans as well, if they had bank accounts.
Niles Cramer and General Hawk would be left without a dime to their names and probably millions in debt. ‘It will serve the thieving bastards right,’ Tommy thought, as another musical note sounded, signaling that one hour had elapsed.
The transactions were complete worldwide.
“So, that concludes the story of why I am here, Warden,” Tommy said, as he turned to the computer and made a few more final key strokes. He wanted to insure that Chambers would receive his just rewards, as he had promised Governor Cartwright he would.
At the same time he sent a coded email to Judge Ryan announcing that the Mistri Virus had been fully implemented and allowed to run its course. Tommy would be free within hours. His final mission was a complete success. Just as he had planned.
“May I go back to my cell now, Warden?”
“Yes, get out, LeSade. I’ve wasted over two months on this. I honestly believed you were up to something illegal. A conspiracy or something. You’re just another loser veteran, crying about how your country abandoned you in your time of need!”
“You have a good day, Warden,” Tommy said, thinking ‘you’d better enjoy it you bastard. You don’t have many left. The clock is ticking as we speak’. Secretly, he laughed to himself as he left the office and slammed the door behind him.
* * * * *
For over a month now, Cramer had been thinking about the email he had received the night he had killed his chief of home security in a fit of rage. He didn’t have a clue who it had come from or even where it had come from. But, he did know one thing. It was bad news, and he hated bad news!
He had made enemies world wide over the years. So, from that aspect, it could have come from anywhere and anyone. Still, he figured that with the right computer programmer he could trace the email back to its origin. Then he would have a better idea what it meant. It was so cryptic, ‘swept clean’? What the hell did that mean, he wondered.
Since cost was of no concern he had hired the best hacker/programmer money could buy. The guy was good, he had to give him that. But, he was unable to trace it back to its sender. The closest he had come was that it had been sent from the United States; Central or Western area.
He knew no one in the Central United States and only General Hawk on the west coast. But Hawk wasn’t smart enough, or dumb enough, to send him such a vague email. If he could send one at all. As far as Cramer knew Hawk’s only desire was his boys and his drugs and what they could do for him when they were combined in vast quantities. So, Hawk was out. He could not, would not, send an email that read simply ‘swept clean’.
Cramer now sat at his desk and studied the email. He read and reread it, trying to make the connection. He was failing miserably.
Since receiving the message he had been unable to eat, sleep or play with his boys and girls as he once had. He was losing weight, had bags under his eyes, and his equipment failed to function as nature had intended it should.
Every time he left the house he expected a bullet in the head. He jumped at every unexpected sound. He was beginning to suspect everyone he saw and met of being his killer. He had become very paranoid!
Across the desk from him sitting in an overstuffed, black, butter soft, leather chair sat the man he hoped would be able to solve the mystery of the email. He waited expectantly. Hopefully.
“So, have any luck, yet?” he finally asked, realizing the man could sit there in stony silence forever; like the sphinx.
“We are closer, Efendi. We are very doubtful that the message originated on the west coast of the United States of America.”
“Oh, and why is that?”
“On the date in question, at the time the email was sent, the west coast was experiencing a major power failure that lasted for a while. Then, rolling power outages were put in effect. So, most computers were crashed as a result. Unless, of course, they were connected to emergency power generators. Then, perhaps,” the short, fat, bald headed, head of Mossad for Pakistan said.
Kalief Goldman was very deep under cover in Pakistan. He posed as an arms dealer for Mossad, and sent Israel information on who was buying what and how many and at what cost. He was very good at his job. He and Cramer had met years ago in Israel and had become fast friends once they discovered they shared mutual interests. In fact, Cramer had purchased two of his youngsters from Goldman. They had been orphaned in the war, but now they had a father that loved them very, very much. And they were happy.
“Are you suggesting, then. That it came from the Central United States?”
“That, my friend, is a very good possibility,” Kalief said thoughtfully.
“But, I don’t know anyone there. In those states.”
“At least you do not know that you know them. People move around in the states like fleas on a camel. So, who is to say for sure whether you know the person responsible lives there or not?”
“True,” Cramer agreed thoughtfully. “But, it has been several months, now and nothing has happened. Perhaps it was a prank,” he said, just as his computer chimed announcing the arrival of an email.
Cramer turned and watched it reel out of the printer. He picked it up and began reading. The more he read the paler his face became until he seemed on the verge of passing out.
When he finished reading the message he began to immediately call up his bank accounts. He skipped from one to the next as the message echoed inside his head. ‘Have you checked your bank accounts today? When I checked they had all been ‘swept clean’! ha! ha!’
It was true, under the account balance was nothing but, $0.00. Nearly a trillion dollars had simply vanished into thin air. There was not even a record of the transaction, past or present, to trace. Not even an echo. They all read ‘ACCOUNT CLOSED’ in bright red letters.
Cramer began to sob silently as he searched for just one account the thieves hadn’t found. There was not even one left! They, he, she, had found them all. The only money he had was the cash he had in his safe, here in this office. That was less than two million dollars! He was ruined! He began to boil. His anger began to build like a volcano until he could no longer contain it.
“I want those responsible for this, found! I want them delivered to me alive! I want them now! I don’t care what it costs!” he said icily, his voice calm and dead, looking straight into Kalief’s eyes.
Goldman knew better than anyone what that tone of voice meant. His friend Cramer was ready to strike out and he would not be particular about who, or what, he struck out at. Something, or someone, was going to die under his hands.
Kalief smiled cordially. “We will do our best, Niles. You can count on that. I will not stop until they are found and dealt with.”
“Well, get on it then! There isn’t a minute to lose!”
“Yes, Niles. I will start on it now,” Kalief said as he stood and left the office before Niles decided to take his anger out on him. It would be a close contest and the winner would be damaged, severely.
Cramer lay his head on his crossed arms on his desk top. He wasn’t broke at least, he thought. But, one million or so, is a far cry from several hundreds of billions!
Hawk! His brain screamed at him.
He sat up immediately, turned to his computer and began to type furiously.
* * * * *
Retired General Hawk had never felt the desire to fly like his name sake, but he was flying high at the moment. So high, in fact, he was almost in orbit. He lay slightly on his side on the long, comfortable sofa. Between his plump, full lips was a golden pipe stem. It was attached to a long, curling, clear plastic tube. The hose was attached to a three foot tall clear glass water pipe. In the bowl was a delicate wine. In the burner was the finest opium money could buy. In his mind he was chasing and conquering the dragon.
He sucked on the stem slowly, deeply, then slid it
from his lips with a soft smacking sound. A large, twisting, curling, rope of blue gray smoke floated lazily into the still dark air and flowed into the cloud hovering overhead. The marble sized ball of opium burned smoothly. The smoke filled the bowl and Hawk sucked more of the smoke deep into his lungs.
His beautiful young Adonis was trying to draw a lungful of the beautiful smoke through the golden stem hust below Hawk’s ample pot belly. It seemed to be working. Adonis was glassy-eyed and moving in slow motion. He soared as high as the Hawk.
The beeping of the fax machine interrupted their blissful respite from the day’s worries and cares. The General’s fogged mind retrieved the memory that Niles Cramer was the only person on planet earth who had his fax number. Therefore, the fax had to be from Cramer. That meant more money! Or at least good news!
He pried the young Adonis off of his stem, then rolled cumbersomely from the sofa and waddled to the computer and fax machine and retrieved the message. As he read through his bleary eyes he nearly had a heart attack as he read it. Then, he began to laugh hysterically. It was the funniest joke he had ever heard. Who would have thought Cramer had it in him?
Then the reality of it sank in. Cramer was not known for his sense of humor. So, perhaps, this was not a joke. Perhaps he was broke for a fact.
He stumbled to his computer, typed in the code for his bank accounts very slowly. The keyboard seemed to float and twist as he managed to hit the right keys. It felt as if he were punching his finger into a cloud of smoke from his pipe. It was hard for him to focus. But finally he got the number in and his account came up.
“No! Not possible!” he whispered, as he read the account balances. They all read $0.00. Cramer had stolen his money! “The bastard! I’ll kill him!” Hawk muttered, as he fumbled a loaded .45 Colt Desert Eagle from his desk drawer. He began to stomp around, aiming it at first this and then that around the room, believing each to be Cramer, then realizing they were all inanimate objects.
“What’s wrong, General?” Hawk heard Cramer ask in a sexy, feminine voice.
“You stole my money!” the General screamed, then shot the young Adonis in the chest several times. When he lay on the floor dead, Hawk stood over him and emptied the clip into the young man’s face.