Kill Code (16 page)

A fire engine screamed past them going towards the
fire.

Leo said, “I hope they don't try and put water on
that fire, otherwise they will be in a world of hurt. It could
cause an explosion when the oxygen and hydrogen ...”

“Are liberated explosively,” she interrupted. “I've
played with it before and am familiar with how it works.”

“Then you might be interested to know that there is
about eight pounds of the stuff secreted in various places in this
vehicle.”

“What?”

Leo stopped at a red light. Another fire engine
roared past them, its sirens screaming in the morning air.

“All I ever wanted was to be left alone. I'd done
what I'd been paid to do and hoped that they'd forgotten about me.
But I knew that someday they would come looking for me and it would
come down to my being able to convince them that it was probably a
better idea to leave me alone.”

“Is that why you are helping me?”

“Yes.”

Leo consulted a map, and then pulled onto the
highway.

“Where are we going?”

“I need some open space to think. Hell, a city park
will do, but the bigger the area, the better.”

“Why?”

“It's just the way that I am. I live twenty minutes
from the desert and have grown used to it as a place to figure
things out.”

They drove in silence for a while.

“Did you find what you were looking for in Patrick
Lackey's desk?” Leo asked.

She had completely forgotten about why they had
taken the risk of going back to her business.

Pulling out the sheath of papers, she quickly read
them out loud to Leo.

When she was done, he said, “So, it looks like most
of the money that had been in the company ended up in one place.
What was the name of it?”

She found the notation and said, “A company called,
'Alamut Enterprises.'“

“Excuse me?”

“What?”

“Say that again.”

“Alamut Enterprises.”

Leo chuckled. “No sense in being obvious about
it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, who is considered the first computer
programmer?”

“That's easy, Ada Lovelace. She wrote software for
Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. Why do you ask?”

“It's like Ada Lovelace being part of who you are;
any student of the history of political assassination knows that
Alamut means ‘Eagle's Nest.’ It's the name of the fortress from
which the original Persian assassins in 1090 originated. A bunch of
real hardcore killers led by a guy by the name of al-Hasan
ibn-al-Sabbah. They terrified the ancient Muslim world with their
assassinations. Marco Polo wrote about them when he came through
that area, noting that they used hashish before going on their
assignments. From where we probably got the word
assassin—ashishin.

“Anyway, lots of mysterious gobbledygook hidden in
the mists of time. Probably like naming your hacking company
Hackers Incorporated.”

“Well, there are two types of hackers, 'Black Hats'
who maliciously destroy computer systems, and 'White Hats' who
enjoy learning about computers, taking them apart, fiddling with
them, finding holes in security, all for the greater good.”

Leo nodded, “I wondered where the name of your
company came from. There wouldn't happen to be an address or
something similar in that file?”

She looked through it again, “Nope. Which is what I
would expect out of Patrick. He wanted to know where the money
went, and was probably satisfied when he found the account
numbers.”

“Is there any way you can find out an address from
an account number?”

“Not that I am aware of. Remember, I wrote software
for banks. They may not be on the cutting edge of computer
technology, but they have defense in depth. Secure Socket Layer, or
SSL, encrypts everything in their network and outside to the
Internet. They have firewalls like you can't believe—set to the
standards set by the National Computer Security Association which
is run by a bunch of people from the NSA. Yes, it is possible to
breach their security, but it's damn hard and you have to be awful
lucky.”

“Could you do it?”

She considered it for a moment before saying, “There
isn't a security system out there that can't be breached. If you
can't get at it through the Internet, then you can get to it by
direct physical attack. All of them present problems, risks and
require lots of time and money.”

“I have the money. We just don't have the time.”

Leo was rich? Or he could get large sums of money?
He didn't look like it, at first glance, but she had seen that
while all of his possessions were well worn from his boots to his
truck, they were all very well maintained and probably cost decent
money originally. Another data point to add to the equation of this
mysterious man.

“Can we get something from the bank routing number?
I seem to remember that it's specific to each bank, maybe even down
to the branch.”

“Sure. There is a web site that can tell you that
information. It may not be very up to date because of all the
recent banking problems, mergers and buyouts. But it would get us
pointed in the right direction.”

There was a crook in her back from sitting in the
same place too long. Settling back in the seat, she said, “I wish
we could have snagged one of the computers, or heck, even a cell
phone from the sniper device. It might give us some clues as to who
is after us.”

Leo looked at her. “You are looking for a cell phone
or computer from one of the guys after us for information? How
about a Blackberry?”

“You have one? From the sniper?” How the hell had he
managed to pull that off?

“Nope. But someone tried to kill me, didn't, and as
a prize, I got his Blackberry. I've been carrying it around since
then, though I did take the battery out.”

What other things did Leo have up his sleeve?

“Well, where is it?”

He reached across her and popped open the glove box.
His presence, in her space, startled her. They were so close that
she could feel the heat from his body and the smell of his
skin.

She wasn't sure how she felt about this.

Forcing herself back on task, she took the
Blackberry and its battery from his gentle but calloused hand.

“It was a pain figuring out how to get the battery
out. I was about ready to simply destroy it rather than leave it
someplace where it could lead to me.”

She popped open the back of the Blackberry and slid
the battery into place.

“That's a cell phone, right? Can someone trace us
with it?”

“Yes, but I have a way around that.”

Putting the cover back on, she reached into her
duffel bag.

“What's that, wrap it in foil or something like
that?”

“Nope, something a lot more sophisticated, a cell
phone jammer. It's an invention of my own design, based on a
schematic that I found on the Internet. It's a multiple band
jammer, and can even block some of the European frequency hopping
cell phones. If it transmits between 800 megahertz and 2200
megahertz, and is within thirty feet of us, it won't work.”

She found the device she was looking for, not much
bigger than a pack of playing cards with two short, stubby antennas
sticking out the top. Flipping a switch, a red LED started
glowing.

“We're protected.”

“Okay.” Leo didn't seem impressed.”I also have the
ability to jam WiFi and GPS and almost any other frequency I'd
like. The cool thing is that this single device self tunes using
phase locked-loop and is driven by a micro-controller. Quite a
sophisticated design, if you ask me.”

Leo growled, “I'm not asking. What have you
found?”

She realized that she was treating Leo like she
would some of the computer geeks that she hung out with. While he
may be a 'gun geek,' he probably didn't have the education or
inclination to understand her world and appreciate the things that
she could do.

She flipped through the screens on the Blackberry.
The call log had been deleted, but there may be a way around that.
The Blackberry is simply a very small computer and it stored things
like computers do—when something is deleted, mark off the space
allocated by the deleted file as 'available' and continue on your
way.

The contact list was blank and there were no e-mails
or anything else of interest saved. There was, however a
SIM—Subscriber Identity Module—card with this particular model and
while she couldn't directly access it here, there might be
important information saved on it. The information on the SIM not
only included information allowing the phone to access cellular
networks, they often contained a phone book and copies of any
messages sent—deleted or not.

She wasn't that familiar with this particular model,
so it took a bit for her to find out if a memory card was
installed—yes, there was one.

Powering down the device, she popped open the back
and removed both the SD memory card and the SIM card. While she
hadn't ever really had any interest in cell phone hacking, she knew
the exact person who could help her.

“Find anything?” Leo asked.

“Nothing that I can use right now. I will have to
talk with someone else about reading these cards.”

“Why?”

“Because it's an area of expertise that I don't
have. Hackers specialize, and I know just the person we need to
see.”

“Who?”

She tucked the chips into a static proof plastic bag
that she found in her duffel and tossed the Blackberry in after
it.

“I'll give you the directions to get to his
place.”

With a reluctant sigh, Leo started the truck up and
pulled into traffic.

###

Leo didn't know what to make of Jackie's
performance. Was she trying to impress him? It was like she had
been a giddy school girl. Maybe it had been the adrenaline burning
off that had caused it. He had plenty of experience in dealing with
it and knew that the feelings were like riding a roller coaster—you
were thrilled as hell to be alive, and then you hit bottom, often
with a depressive crash.

He knew that the cycle would continue for the next
couple of days and she would have to find some way to take the edge
off. Leo had long experience with the adrenaline highs and lows and
knew that in a couple of hours he would be ravenously hungry. Sex
was often a great release, but Leo didn't subscribe to that
particular thinking as it opened you up to other
vulnerabilities.

Despite it being Saturday morning, there was a great
deal of traffic. Leo carefully made his way through the streets,
always driving at two miles per hour less than the speed limit and
obeying all traffic laws to the letter. It wouldn't pay at all to
get pulled over for a simple traffic violation with all the
specialized equipment he had in the truck. After the shooting, he
hadn't had the time to properly stow and hide it. While it wouldn't
be noticed during a cursory search, why even take the chance?

Leo was also anxious to follow up on the Alamut
Enterprises information. Why would a company that specialized in
assassinations be so obvious about what they were up to? Hiding
behind obscure historical facts that very few people knew was one
thing, but all it would take would be a simple Internet search to
track down a bunch of history about the meaning behind the
name.

That they were so obvious meant something, but Leo
couldn't figure out what. It might be as simple a thing as that it
was a shell company that led to someplace else. Anyone trying to
find out more about the company would set off trip wires that would
trigger a lethal response.

Another explanation was that the company had
protection from the government or governments. D
eniability
for your dirty work was always something that Leo understood—if
captured and tortured, he had no links back to the US government.
Another point was that he had an expensive and very specialized
tool and didn't require the skill set that say, a SEAL did. Why
invest a huge amount of money and time into skills that a long
distance shooter wouldn't ever need or use?

So, letting a company do your dirty work on command,
be deniable and cheaper than a cruise missile strike, was an
obvious reason to look the other way when they conducted their
business.

But how would you go about making such a company,
obviously protected by the government at some level, leave him and
Jackie alone? Finding the name and address would only be the start
of the problem. Somehow, they needed to find a way to leverage the
company into forgetting them on a permanent basis. This wasn't
going to be easy to do when it would always be cheaper and easier
to just kill them both and walk away.

Any company had vulnerabilities that could be
exploited for various reasons. The concern was, how do you find
them and use them when the company may be protected by the federal
government, which had infinite resources, time, money and really
didn't care about squashing an annoying bug or two?

The data contained on the Blackberry might be an
inside into the company. He was way the hell outside feeling
comfortable. Just give him a target, put a rifle in his hands and
step back—all this spooky stuff was enough to make your head
hurt.

Jackie broke him from his thoughts, saying, “We're
here.”

Leo looked around. They were in a strip mall, way
too public for Leo's taste with the number of people walking
around, some burdened with packages. Hadn't they just burned down a
building not a ten minute drive from here?

“Pull in here,” she said, motioning to a parking
slot in front of a cell phone store. Leo noticed the camera pointed
right at them and kept driving.

“Why didn't you park there? It was perfect.”

“Except that it was being watched by a video camera.
The fewer of those that we show up on, the better.”