“Hey Seth, don’t take this wrong, but you're acting a little spooky here. And I mean that in the good way.”
“Yeah, I know. I know. But in a few days it won’t matter.”
“Whoa now, what's that mean? See? That's the kind of spooky I'm talking about Bro,” Tonic said.
“Not what you think. Listen, my life can’t get worse, just give me some time.”
“And you’re willing to take the heat over the fact that doing this makes you look like you’re hiding something?” Finn broke in… he was starting to see something.
“I am. Like I said, it’s not going to matter.”
Finn inhaled so he could explain why it did matter but the line was dead.
“I’m not sure that he likes you, Finny,” Tonic said as he waved for another round.
“Nah, I grow on people. He'll learn. Okay we know a lot more now,” Finn said as he looked back through his notes. “Ray, it’s time to check those credit cards. I’ll check on the private jet thing. No wait.” He pointed his pen at Tonic, “You know someone with the FAA right? Some girl?”
“Yep. I’ll check on Daddy’s jet and you leave your line open in case he calls back with a heart–felt confession.”
That made Finn smile. The practiced exasperation that he’d shown on the phone had drained away as soon as he’d flipped open his book of case notes; it was replaced now by the look of a kid playing with a Spiro–graph. He circled ideas and branched them out to new ones, he was having fun. Finn was making a connection, he just wasn’t there yet, and the look on his face was almost euphoric. Clearly this was his drug. “We’re gonna need more ribs, and Ray… sorry, you’d better call your wife and learn to sleep on your stomach for awhile. Just as soon as you get his credit card records I need you to wake up his boss and go see if you can play with his computer at work.”
“They aren’t going to like that at all,” Ray said.
“You’re a pseudo–cop, just tell his boss that he can willingly cooperate or we can start typing up a bunch of paper,” Finn said.
“I’m an
intern
and he’ll just run to the NSA. McDonalds wouldn’t just give up the recipe to secret sauce.”
“Let’s hear it Carnac, you've got another story for me, don't you?”
“If you barge in there and tell his boss to throw open Meek’s computer, he’ll make a call to the NSA because that’s his bread and butter. If Meek’s boss breaks security, that’s the end of his work with the government, and thus the end of his work with anyone. His credibility will be in the toilet. So, he’ll just call NSA, they’ll bury us in red tape, and that’ll be all she wrote. If they’re not already there, right?”
“Good point,” Finn said. “Keep being smart.” He looked back over his notes. “Still, check the cards and his boss. You never know.”
“So on the credit cards I’m looking for what? Plane tickets? Stuff like that?”
“Sure, but I doubt you’ll find any. Focus on purchases. Oh, and run a medical check… find out if he’s been to the doctor recently. Find out if he’s had any vaccinations.”
“Purchases like what? Vaccinations….” Ray said aloud as he wrote it out on his coaster. Finn’s sudden enthusiasm, as always, was catchy. “
Vaccinations
?”
“Just look for anything out of the ordinary. He probably needs shots if he's really going to Africa, right?” Ray rolled his eyes and Finn paused. “You’re really more fun with a couple of beers in you, Dervish.”
Tonic asked, “What’s got into you? Shouldn’t you be grumpy?”
“I
am
grumpy,” Finn smiled and stopped writing. He plucked his phone off of the ribs and then grabbed a couple for himself. He sucked the sauce off of his fingers and said, “I just wonder if he has the balls to pull it off. Talk about signing your name in a big way.”
“Please help the kids on the short bus understand,” Tonic said.
“He’s hiding something,” Ray said.
“Yes and no,” Finn replied. “Yes he’s hiding something, but we already know
what
it is. He’s hiding identities.”
“Okay, but what the fuck for?” Tonic asked. "You really think he
knows
these guys?"
"Nope, I
think
it was a random hit, but he does know what they look like. And he's got a roadmap. He knows where they are…."
"The tags," Tonic was beginning to see it too.
"Yep."
“Wait, why wouldn’t he want you guys to find them? I don’t get it,” Ray confessed.
“He doesn’t care
if
we find ‘em Ray,” Finn said. “He cares
when
we find ‘em.”
“Why?” Ray asked again.
“Because he wants to find them
first
.”
Chapter Nineteen
Infalapsarian
The salesman was wearing a three–piece suit and was strolling about the seductively lit showroom as if he were thinking of making a purchase of his own. He eased over toward Seth as if he’d been expecting him all morning.
“If there’s anything at all I can help with, please let me know.”
“I’m in the market for a new car.”
The guy’s arms went wide open. "Do you have something in mind, or is there something that just looks right?” It was a beautiful hook line, and wholly unnecessary.
“Fast.” Seth smiled, “fast is good.”
The salesman chuckled and took a chance, “I can tell.” He gestured toward Seth’s face.
He played along, “I should probably add ‘
safe’
to the list too.”
A genuine laugh this time, “Well, shall we start at the top and work down?”
“Absolutely, start with big and fast,” Seth said and rolled up his sleeves. Whit’s shirt fit well, and for some reason that was comforting.
The salesman started to get a nice tingle. “BMW
is
safety, the 7 Series is big, and the 760Li is twelve cylinders of fast.” He opened the door and offered Seth a seat. “It weighs about five thousand pounds but will still get up to sixty in five seconds.” Seth’s Civic could have ridden shotgun in this car.
Meek looked around the vast interior and picked up the sheet of options that occupied the passenger seat. Window tint, navigation, run flat tires… he was sure there would be a bulletproof option on the list somewhere.
"Does it have GPS?" Seth asked just as he found it listed under, "BMW Assist."
"Yes indeed. And we'll activate your Assist program, our compliments, for one year and couple your cell phone right now if you wish."
Meek looked up, his mind clicking through possibilities. "No need. It's a gift. I'll have them come in and activate it… to make it more personal. Or will it automatically connect to my phone?"
"Absolutely no problem at all, and no… I mean the system is very easy to use, but it won't connect to your telephone without you… takes about a minute is all."
“Big trunk?” Seth asked as he climbed out of the vehicle, simultaneously side–stepping the conversation.
The salesman popped it, and silently the chasm opened, “Big enough for a D.C. ego Mr….” he held out his hand.
“Meek, Seth Meek.”
Recognition dawned, the man hesitated.
“When can you have it ready? It’s a gift after all,” Seth ended the discomfort.
“Sir, I can have you on the road in less than an hour. Someone is going to be very happy with this car.”
Seth considered that.
Probably not.
* * *
The next stop was only marginally less expensive. At least at the computer store Seth had some idea of what he was talking about. He’d run just about every operating system that ever was, created several of his own, and worked out the kinks in some that most people would never even know existed. He’d spent time on the giant Crays and had the chance to work with the sleek black boxes that the NSA was so proud of now. Computers could be counted on to be reliable. Not that they wouldn’t break, but when they did, a guy like him could always,
always
, find out why. It was just a new twist on applying the math that you learned in high school. Things either worked or they didn’t, but you could always figure out why.
By the time he was done, he had nearly filled the trunk with four big Macintosh computers, a couple of monitors, another laptop, a heavy spool of Cat–5 wire, several routers, and a suite of cameras and lights. There were enough extras to spill over into the back seat. On any other day it would have been fun.
He stopped a few more times that day, once at a pet store, once to meet one of Whit’s bruisers and pick up a set of keys, and again to get a handful of new cell phones from different providers. The cell phone stop bothered him, but he couldn't make sense of just why. He wasn’t hungry in any way, but the grocery store had a few things that he thought he might need as well.
The day had been hard on his bank account; by the time the sun was fading against the Capitol skyline, he’d gone through just under a quarter of a million dollars, a light day for Washington, but an insane day for Seth. But then, that’s what this was all about wasn’t it? At six he pulled off the Beltway and up to the west end of a little strip mall called the Elkhorn. It was a first look at the office that Whit had tracked down for him. There was a shipping and receiving door, and this Seth unlocked first in order to pull the car out of sight. He shut the thing down and stepped out in the narrow garage bay. The car was perfect, the only minor defect was the missing satellite fin. (The one he'd removed inside a carwash about ten minutes after leaving the lot.) He didn't want to risk a thing, and the words Global Positioning System rang like a gong in his mind. Honestly, he didn't think that anyone could track him, but it eased his mind to check possibilities off of his list. He looked up at the roof and wondered for the thousandth time what else he'd missed…. it would only take one thing.
The main floor of the office space, about a thousand square feet of worn wood slats, was completely useless for his purposes. A half dozen folding chairs were stacked amongst a pile of other refuse, either too invaluable, or too heavy to be carted off of the property before it closed. Fifty or so heavy wooden shelves and a pile of wire spaghetti were shoved against the north wall. He tore the
Space Available/For Lease
sign out of the window and flipped it over.
OPENING SOON
, he wrote in neat block letters. He replaced the sign, and then neatly papered over every open inch of glass. The locks on the doors were the next project. Instead of changing them all, he simply added large deadbolts.
Only then did he turn on the lights.
Access to the basement was via a door that pulled up out of the floor. It would have been tough to spot were the carpeting not frayed along the edges. A dozen steps down led to a storage area in the 200 square foot range, about ten feet by twenty of bare, dry concrete with fluorescent lighting. For some reason it smelled of eucalyptus. Not for long. He found the Internet connections just has he’d hoped; Whit hadn’t missed a thing.
Over the space of the next two hours, Seth unloaded everything from the car and laid it out across the floor like a giant pocket watch that he’d disassembled. He catalogued it all in his mind, and backed it up on paper making certain that he’d missed nothing. Satisfied, he began to set up.
He uncoiled the spool of bright orange Cat–5 cable and strung it along the wall so that he could have a connection in the basement where he’d be doing all of his work. Likewise, he ran four extension cords from the various outlets around the room and fed them down the basement trapdoor. It was simple work, nothing that he hadn’t done hundreds of times, but he found himself sweating. For a moment he paused, wiped at his forehead, and again, caught a glimpse of himself reflected in the window. His face itched, his split lip particularly, and while the swelling had gone down a bit, he still looked as if he’d had a bout of unsuccessful plastic surgery. He watched himself, a slight figure with rolled up sleeves, disheveled hair, and a coil of electrical cord clutched in one hand. It wasn’t a menacing image. Certainly not one that would inspire his enemies to simply throw up their hands and surrender en mass. His fear told him to look away, to get back to work and put his faith in something else, maybe the system. Maybe the police.
Just let them do what they do.
Seth had rarely even
bent
the law. He’d never had a speeding ticket, never cut corners on his taxes. Never been late on a payment. All of his life he’d worked like a demon to keep ahead of the law by adhering to it so that when the time came, he’d be absolutely blameless to the employer who would, undoubtedly, sift through his records and compare him to the other famous Meek. Early on, he’d understood that the successful computer guys were not the renegades that populated the movies, the brazen hackers that challenged everyone and everything. The guys who made it were the ones who could be trusted. He’d cultivated that image. He’d
become
that image.
His rage, however, told him something else. It begged him to keep staring at the reflection, to see the weakness and recognize it as strength. To trust that when the time came, it would be there for him. He had no tears, felt no self–pity. No… mercy.
It’s not about your fear, it’s about
their
fear. It’s about doing what’s right and making it count.
He stared.
Seth was insignificant, and he knew it. A coward, and a failure, but he listened to his rage. He was so thoroughly insignificant that they would never expect him, and certainly never fear him. Rage told him that he could get in close, that he could make patience pay off, and then exact his revenge. And more.
He tossed the remainder of the extension cord into the basement, and went back to work.
It would count.
Someone would pay attention.