DEAD BEEF (Our Cyber World Book 1) (3 page)

Chapter 4

Approximately eleven hours prior, shortly before two in the morning, Martin Spencer had arrived in Marina del Rey. He’d only been here once two years before, to visit former colleague, and he hoped still friend, Julian Rogers.

Julian lived in a condominium near the marina, where he also kept a boat. The trick now would be to guess whether Julian was spending the night in his boat, or in the condominium. It was a weekday, and though Julian usually reserved stays at the boat for weekends, he made special exceptions for one-on-one encounters with members of the opposite sex. Martin calculated he had a somewhat better than fifty percent chance of finding Julian in his condominium.

Martin parked in one of the visitor spots and walked over to the intercom where he dialed the four digit number for Julian’s condo. Much to Martin’s surprise, Julian answered on the first ring.

“Took you long enough,” Julian said before Martin could announce himself. Before Martin could formulate the question in his mind as to how Julian could know it was him, Julian added, “Look up, you’re on candid camera.”

Martin looked up and saw the small lens of the surveillance camera, 2 feet above the intercom. “Nice. Didn’t know you were now the building manager.”

“I’m not,” Julian replied. “I just love, love reality TV. Do me a favor and cover up that thing, will ya?”

“Sure. I’ll be just a minute.”

Martin retrieved a rolled up canvas, custom-made for his FJ-40, and quickly covered it up. As soon as he returned to the entry gate, he heard a long beep and the click of the gate’s release latch.

“I see your cleaning lady is as proficient as ever,” Martin said when he came into Julian’s living room. Well, it was supposed to be a living room, Martin mused, but it was hard to tell with all the debris and junk lying about. Julian, dressed in shredded shorts, a dingy tank top, his blond ponytail at least 6 inches longer than Martin had ever seen it, seemed a perfect fit in the midst of it all.

“If you’d given me a little more time to prepare, maybe I would have time to do some spring cleaning,” Julian said. “You didn’t even give me 24 hours.”

Martin nodded. “Word travels fast.”

Julian grinned back. “Electrons travel way faster.”

Martin looked away, thinking to himself that Julian was still up to his old tricks. In violation of his agreement when he left InfoStream, Julian was still tapping into video feeds, hacking into data lines, including those transmitting notification of Martin Spencer’s termination.

“I trust you’ve been making good use of your time,” Martin said.

“The two laptops are almost ready. Right up to your specifications, of course. Running some final diagnostics now.”

“The rest of my stuff?” Martin asked.

“Right where you left it.” Julian waived his hand toward the doorway leading into his bedroom.

Martin went in and said, “You can come in.”

“Whoa, turning a new leaf already.”

“The safe is about to be all yours,” Martin replied. He walked to a sliding door closet, doing his best both to ignore and avoid the smelly mess that pervaded Julian’s bedroom.

The last time he’d been here, Martin had installed a 5 foot tall safe in Julian’s closet. He had yet to share the safe’s combination with Julian, but the day had come. Martin spun the dial quickly and the safe opened.

“The combo is your birthday,” Martin said. “Year, month, day, then day, month, year plus 1.” He allowed himself a grin when he confirmed the safe’s contents remained as he had left them two years before. “Must have killed you not to hack this one.”

“Nah, that’s just too old school for me.”

“Right. No electrons.” Martin retrieved an empty duffel bag and started stuffing it with stacks of $100 dollar bills. When he counted to 100, he stopped.

“Whoa, man. I’ve been your bank all this time and didn’t know it.”

Martin stood up. “Twenty stacks left. They’re yours.” He looked at Julian, who now stood mouth agape, sliding his gaze to the safe, then to Martin, then the safe, then back to Martin.

“Geez, Martin, you didn’t have to do that. I still owe you, what, $50 Gs?”

Martin smiled. It was more like $125 thousand, but he wasn’t going to tell Julian that. Julian had needed the money, and Martin had little choice but to help. Truth was, he’d never expected Julian to pay him back a cent, but had said he did in hopes it would make Julian more responsible and less prone to gambling money away.

“Well, you can do a little something for me to earn it.” Martin reached into his jacket’s pocket and extracted a phone and a baggie holding two microchips. “This phone I picked up on my way here. These chips I ripped out of my old phone. Sprinkle some firmware tweaks and these are all the ingredients you should need.”

Julian smiled like a kid who’d been given cart-blanche to play his favorite game. “One mondo private to the max phone mod coming right up.”

“I have 2 hours, 3 tops before I have to leave.”

“That should be plenty.”

While working at InfoStream in his first and last job for corporate America, Julian Rogers had helped Martin invent and deploy highly specialized electronics now operating United States information assurance and Cyberwarfare infrastructure. These electronics came in two basic flavors: chips whose internal logic was set at the time of manufacture, never to be reconfigured; and programmable logic chips, of the sort whose behavior could be reprogrammed via firmware updates.

After setting up a makeshift workshop in his kitchen, complete with delicate soldering gear and magnifying glass, Julian made quick work of the piggy-back installation of the chips Martin had brought. This addition, along with the firmware updates that would follow, would render Martin’s new phone untraceable and capable of secured, encrypted communications.

“Downloading the existing firmware now,” Julian said after he’d typed a couple of commands into a laptop tethered to the phone. “Should take a few minutes, then I’ll check the version and apply the hack that goes with it.” He turned to Martin. “So they canned you.”

“That they did.”

“Now you know how it feels.”

“That was different,” Martin said.

“Right. Exactly right, actually. I didn’t leave there with a couple of billion to my name.”

Martin wanted to point out how he had told Julian they were about to terminate him. Martin wanted to remind him that by letting him know before the hatchet fell, Julian was able to leave “on his own terms,” as he blabbered on and on during his going away luncheon. Martin could have also pointed out how, thanks to Martin’s insistence, Julian received a generous severance package, and how, when Julian had squandered it all, Martin had bailed him out financially, time and time again.

But truth was that Martin still felt guilty about how InfoStream forced Julian out, disposed like yesterday’s obsolete piece of equipment. Martin still wondered whether Julian’s fortunes would have turned out differently if Martin had been more of a close friend. Truth was also that in the years that followed, as Martin monitored Julian’s carefree life, he envied him a little. He envied him now.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Julian said, looking down. “You’ve been nothing but supportive. You’ve done your best to take care of me.”

Martin nodded. “I’ve done nothing but try to make up for screwing up your life. And I’m about to screw you some more and hope that $200K plus an offshore account will make up the gap.”

“They’re coming for you, huh?”

“And you.”

“Sail away, sail away, sail away, then,” Julian half sang, half said. “Did you think about this day when you bought me that sailboat?”

“Yeah.”

“Always the chess player. Ten, twenty moves ahead, down all possible combinational branches, most of which you may not play. But what happens when the wildcard branch comes up and grabs you, the one you didn’t see or plan for?”

Martin didn’t reply. He didn’t care to replay the conversation he and Julian had carried in one form or another over the years. It always came down to Julian chiding Martin for living life as if one could plan anything, when, according to Julian, life was about reacting and adapting to random events and circumstances.

Martin checked his watch. “One hour left. How’s the firmware coming along?”

“Almost ready,” Julian replied. “Don’t sweat it, man. You got at least 4 hours before notification hits the fan in D.C.”

“How do I like my designs, Julian?”

“With plenty of margin, of course.”

“And I don’t have that much of it.”

“You can come with me,” Julian offered. “Let’s go down the coast, don’t stop at Mexico, blow past Honduras, maybe do some sight-seeing in Costa Rica. I hear the chicks there are sweet and hot.”

“I get sea sick.”

“Where are you going, Martin?” Julian asked.

“Nowhere you want to follow.”

Julian stole a quick glance at his laptop before he looked back at Martin. “You’re not going to do anything crazy, are you?”

“Craziest thing I’ve ever done,” Martin replied. “I’m off to undo my regrets.”

Chapter 5