Authors: James Swain
“What? I knew I should have busted that guy when I had the chance. He’s a threat to national security,” Garrison said.
Peter covered the phone’s mouthpiece, and shot Garrison a wicked look. “Snoop is part of our deal.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You can’t arrest him, no matter how many laws he breaks.”
“Your friend’s a public menace.”
“Yes, he is. Now nod your head, and agree.”
Garrison scowled, then nodded almost imperceptibly. Peter heard Snoop’s ever-cheerful voice say, “Hey, Peter, what’s shaking?”
“Stop whatever you’re doing,” Peter said. “I’ve got a job for you.”
50
The AES 256 level algorithm was more important to national security than Peter could have ever imagined. According to Snoop, the complicated encryption device was used to protect the Pentagon, the CIA, and the National Security Agency, as well as the computers of every major bank and financial institution on Wall Street. The keeper of secrets, AES 256 was considered impenetrable.
“Ready when you are,” Peter said to the intercom.
“Let me explain a few things,” Snoop said. “Any password can be cracked if you give a hacker enough time. The software I use will run through all possible permutations of numbers and letters given the password’s size. If the password has five characters, no sweat. Six, and I’ll need more time, because there are two billion possibilities. Seven, and it jumps to seventy-eight billion possibilities. Any larger, and we’ll be here all night. Make sense?”
“Loud and clear,” Garrison said.
“How can you know the size of the password before you start?” Peter asked.
“Magic,” Snoop said.
“Come on, be serious.”
“It’s actually pretty straightforward,” his assistant explained. “A password must be easy to remember if it’s used every day. Is the computer you’re trying to hack being used often?”
“We think so,” Peter said.
“Good. Then the password won’t be complicated. I’ll need information about the person using the computer. Name, date of birth, phone numbers, that sort of thing. Most passwords consist of familiar letters and numbers. Is that information available?”
“I’ll go check,” Garrison said.
The FBI agent beat a path to the door. Valuable time was slipping away, and Peter felt a growing sense of panic. Sometimes, it was murder to know the future.
“Is Papa Bear gone?” came Snoop’s voice out of the box.
“He’s gone,” Peter said. “What’s up?”
“Have you talked to Liza in the past couple of hours?”
No, he hadn’t. Peter shut his eyes, fearing the worst. “Is something wrong?”
“She called me earlier, asked if she could rent Zack’s space from me,” Snoop said. “Are you guys Splitsville again? I thought you were getting things worked out.”
“I don’t want to be talking about this,” Peter said.
“I’m in the middle of this, Peter,” Snoop said. “I work for you, and your soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend wants to live in my place. That puts me in a delicate situation, as they say.”
“Yes, we’re Splitsville. I’ve been holding back on her about some things in my life.”
Snoop let out a whistle that sounded like a bomb falling through space.
“Spare me the sound effects,” Peter said.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Snoop said, his tone mildly scolding. “You should have confided in her from the start. It’s what women want from us.”
“I realize that. If there was any way to undo it, I would.”
“You really hurt her.”
“You’re really cheering me up, you know that?”
“I’m sorry, man. Somebody had to tell you.”
Peter stared at the screen of Carr’s computer. Talking to Snoop about his personal life was torture, and he wanted the conversation to end.
“You can’t run away from this forever,” Snoop said.
“Who said I was running away?”
“It’s what you do when you don’t like how things turn out in your personal life. You run away, instead of facing reality.”
“Thank you, Dr. Phil. Next caller, please.”
“You’re my best friend. I just want to see you happy. Okay?”
Peter swallowed the lump in his throat. “Okay.”
Garrison returned with a copy of Carr’s personnel file, which he began to read into the intercom. “Here’s the information you asked for. Doctor Lucas Carr. Age fifty-six. Height, five-foot-nine. Weight, one hundred and sixty pounds. Home phone number—”
“Hold on a second,” Snoop said. “What kind of doctor is he?”
“He’s a nuclear physicist at the Shoreham plant on Long Island.”
“Holy crap! Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place,” Snoop said. “If he’s working with classified information, the government requires him to encrypt his files with a password that’s a minimum of twenty characters. We could be here all week.”
Garrison tossed the file on the desk in disgust. “That wasn’t the news I wanted to hear.”
The intercom went silent. Peter could almost hear Snoop thinking.
“Has Carr been in trouble recently?” his assistant asked.
“He’s been acting weird,” Garrison said. “Lost his family. Why?”
“Did the people who supervise him notice?”
Garrison retrieved the file, and looked through Carr’s records. “Matter of fact, they did. His supervisor noted Carr’s erratic behavior on three separate occasions in the past year.”
“Bingo! He’s got a key-logger!” Snoop said triumphantly.
“How do you know he’s got a key-logger?” Garrison asked.
“Because all government employees handling classified information who display erratic behavior in the workplace have key-loggers put on their computers without their knowledge.”
“How do you know
that
?”
“I read it on a government Web site that I hacked.”
“I pray to God you’re right.” Garrison got on his knees, and crawled beneath the desk. “Well, I’ll be damned, there’s a key-logger plugged into the power cord.” He came out holding a device the size of a pack of cigarettes with wires attached to it. “I need another computer to look at this. I’ll be right back.”
Garrison did another sprint to the door. Peter checked his watch. They were creeping toward nightfall. Simple logic told him that it would be harder to catch Carr when the sun went down. That gave them only a few hours to find him. That was one scenario. The other was that they wouldn’t find him, and whatever he was carrying in his knapsack would be unleashed.
“I need you to do me a favor,” he said to Snoop. “Find Liza, and tell her to stay inside. Same for you. You don’t want to be outside right now.”
“Liza is at the theater. I was just heading there. What about tonight’s show?”
“Cancel it.”
Garrison returned to the room. In his hand was a pad of paper containing the password to Carr’s computer that he’d lifted off the key-logger. He typed the password into the computer. On the screen appeared a page of complicated chemical equations. There was also a photo of a vaned spherical device the size of a bowling ball. Garrison let out an exasperated breath.
“We need to evacuate the building,” he said.
“Later,” came Snoop’s voice over the intercom.
They ran down the hallway to the lab where the CSI techs were gathering evidence. Garrison made the techs strip down to their shorts, and ushered them outside, where he found a garden hose, and proceeded to spray them down. The techs knew the drill, and did not protest. When Garrison was finished, the techs went to their van, and put on spare uniforms.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Peter said.
“The strange-looking thing you saw on Carr’s computer is called a bomblet, and is used to unleash biological weapons.” Garrison ripped out his cell phone, and began punching in numbers. “Our government stopped making them in the seventies, but there are some still around. When the bomblet is dropped, its outer shell shatters, and the agent is sprayed out of the top.”
“What kind of agent?”
“Based on what I saw on Carr’s computer, I’d say it was Novichok, the most deadly nerve agent ever made. Exposure to Novichok will cause the involuntary contraction of every muscle in your body. That leads to cardiac arrest and immediate death. If Novichok is released into the atmosphere, tens of thousands of people will die. That’s what you saw during your séance.”
Garrison started talking into his cell. His eyes were filled with dread. This was it, Peter thought. If they didn’t figure out a way to stop Carr, the game was over. He looked helplessly at the sky, as if the answer were hidden in the clouds. A flock of birds passed overhead, and it made him think of Holly, and the power she had over the crows. It gave him an idea, and he stepped away from the FBI agent, and called her. Holly picked up on the first ring.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“At my aunt’s apartment,” Holly said. “The doctor let her come home this afternoon. Max is making his famous chicken noodle soup to cheer her up.”
The Dakota was thirty blocks from Times Square. The apartment would be infected if Carr detonated his bomb. What had Nemo called it the other day? A hell storm. And his three closest friends were about to be caught up in it.
“I have some bad news,” he said, hearing the fear in his voice. “The attack I saw during our séance is about to take place. A madman is going to release a biological weapon. He’s on his way into the city right now. I don’t know if the police can stop him.”
“Oh, my God,” Holly said.
“The madman’s name is Dr. Lucas Carr. I was hoping you might be able to cast a spell on him, and slow him down.”
“I can try. Do you think he’s on Facebook? I need to know what he looks like to cast a spell.”
“He’s a physicist, and works at the Shoreham nuclear plant on Long Island. Try Googling him. There must be a photo somewhere.”
“I’ll do it,” Holly said.
“Don’t go yet. Did your aunt fix the broken window in the living room?”
“The maintenance people replaced it today.”
“Good. Don’t go near the windows, and shut the air vents. And for heaven’s sakes, don’t go outside, no matter what happens.”
“Don’t you trust me?” Holly asked.
“Damn it, Holly. My life is falling apart. I don’t want to lose you, too.”
“You’re shouting at me.”
“Am I? Maybe it’s because you don’t listen.”
“Peter!”
“Just say it.”
“I promise not to go outside.”
“Thank you. I’ll call you once I know something.”
He said good-bye and ended the call. Garrison had finished his call as well. There was a spark of hope in the FBI agent’s eyes.
“We just got lucky,” Garrison said. “Carr’s van was just found at the Hunters Point train station. A man resembling Carr bought a one-way ticket into the city. He gets in to Penn Station at four-forty-five. The police are going to apprehend him when he steps off the train. I want to be there when that happens. Come on.”
A break. It had been a long time since Peter had caught one. Perhaps the spirits were trying to help him. They hurried across the grass to where the FBI chopper was parked. The pilot stood outside his aircraft. Seeing them approach, he crushed out his cigarette.
“What’s the fastest way to Penn Station?” Garrison asked the pilot.
“The Thirtieth Street Heliport is the closest,” the pilot replied. “I’ll have you there in thirty.”
Soon they were airborne, flying just below the clouds. Peter sat in the front seat beside the pilot, his eyes peeled to the horizon. New York’s jagged skyline was visible in the distance, the mass of tall buildings like a pirate’s upturned treasure chest. Dark storm clouds continued to hang over the city, sending down heavy rain. In the storm’s swirling mass, he made out the faces of his mother and father, Madame Marie and Reggie, the hobo he’d seen on the rooftop in SoHo, and many other ghosts that he communicated with during his séances. It was rare for so many spirits to come together at once, and he realized they were trying to protect the city by causing it to rain. They knew, just as he knew, that a deadly nerve agent was about to be released, and were doing everything within their supernatural powers to stop it from occurring.
But could the spirits stop the nerve agent from spreading by causing it to rain? Something told him they couldn’t, and that the gesture was futile. That was the terrible part about battling evil. Sometimes, evil won out, and innocent people perished. It was how the universe had been created, and could not be changed. The only thing he could do was fight the battle, and push back at the darkness. No matter what the outcome, he had to try.
In the end, he supposed that was all that really mattered.
51
Holly folded her cell phone, and stared into space. She wanted to cry, but fought back the tears. Peter had sounded so
brutal.
It wasn’t the person she knew, or loved.
“What’s wrong, my dear?” Milly murmured.
Holly glanced at her aunt lying in bed. “I thought you were asleep.”
“One can’t sleep one’s life away forever.” Milly pulled herself into a sitting position, and leaned against the headboard. “You look upset. It’s about Peter, isn’t it?”
“How did you know?”
“Call it intuition. What’s wrong now?”
Rain pelted the windows and sounded like tiny drumbeats. One of the wonderful aspects of living in the Dakota was that every room had windows, and made the apartment feel bigger than it really was. It was an illusion, just like everything else in her life.
“The doctor said you should stay quiet, and get plenty of rest,” she replied.
“Is that a nice way of telling me to shut up, and mind my own business?”
“I’m sorry if it sounded that way. There’s nothing you can do.”
“Try me. You may be surprised.”
“Very well. A mad scientist is about to attack the city. Peter wants us to stay inside, away from the air vents. He asked me to cast a spell on him to see if I can slow him down.”
“Is this the same attack Peter saw during the séance Friday night?”
“Yes, it is.”
“That’s old news, my dear. Now tell me what’s really wrong.”