Authors: Robert Muchamore
‘I must have left it switched on,’ James said, reaching under the desk and yanking the plug out of the wall.
Both boys leaned over the tower case standing on the desktop, as the whirring fan slowed and a plume of dirty air began seeping out via the CD-ROM drive at the front.
Dave tried to turn the computer around, to get a look in the back and locate the source of the smell, but the metal case was hot to the touch. He grabbed a dirty tracksuit top off the floor and used it as a mitten.
‘Jesus,’ Dave gasped, as he squinted into the back of the computer. ‘This fan is all clogged up with dust. Didn’t you clean it out before you plugged it in? Didn’t they teach you that computers run hot when you learned about computer hacking?’
‘I didn’t think …’ James said weakly.
‘Man,’ Dave said, as he wafted his hand under his nose. ‘It’s totally clogged up with grease and dust in here.’
James was furious. ‘My bed and all my clothes and everything are gonna stink,’ he sulked. ‘I’ll have to wash the whole lot tomorrow.’
Dave peeled a greasy worm of dust from between the fan blades at the back of the computer and flicked it at James.
‘If this had been left much longer, it could easily have gone up in flames.’
Dave’s tone changed abruptly from shocked to curious. ‘What the … ? I’ve never seen
that
before.’
‘What?’ James asked, as he crouched down beside Dave to take a look.
‘There’s something behind the fan. See, like a plastic bag.’
‘Oh yeah,’ James nodded. ‘I’ll get my multi-tool.’
James grabbed the fold-out tool from a sports bag under his bed and Dave used it to undo the four screws that held the computer case together. The metal was still warm, so Dave draped the tracksuit top over before lifting it away. The bag Dave had spotted was taped to the inside of the case and the clear plastic felt tacky, like it had been close to melting. He ripped the bag away and unravelled it. There was a mass of green strands, like tealeaves, in the bottom.
‘Marijuana,’ Dave grinned, as he gave the contents a sniff. ‘I think we’ve uncovered Will’s stash.’
‘Makes sense,’ James nodded. ‘Hannah said Will was stoned off his head half the time.’
‘And if his parents snooped, they might have turned out his drawers and looked under the mattress, but you can bet they wouldn’t have opened up his computer.’
James stared at the computer’s innards and spotted something else. It was a purple envelope, wedged under the hard drive. He slid it out and removed a cheap-looking birthday card with a picture of a footballer on it.
James read the inscription out loud. ‘
Dear William, have a fabulous eighteenth birthday, Nana and Pop
.’
But the envelope contained more. James’ eyebrows shot upwards as he pulled out a thin wad of £50-notes and a CD-ROM with
PATPaT
written on the label.
‘And the plot
thickens
,’ Dave said dramatically. ‘How much is that?’
‘You count,’ James said, throwing the money at Dave. ‘I want to know what’s on this disk.’
James slid his laptop out from under the bed. He put it on the desk and flipped up the lid.
‘Two thousand, two hundred
smackeroos
,’ Dave said, while the laptop booted up. ‘Not a bad haul for an unemployed eighteen-year-old.’
James blew the dust off the CD-ROM before putting it into the drive on the side of his laptop. It spun for a few seconds before an error message popped up:
This disk is not Microsoft Windows compatible. Do you wish to exit Windows and run this program in MS-DOS mode?
YES/CANCEL
James had done an entire lesson about MS-DOS when he’d learned computer hacking, but he could hardly remember it.
‘Dave, help us out here will you?’
Dave looked at the screen. ‘Click yes,’ he said. ‘MS-DOS stands for
Microsoft Disk Operating System
. It’s what everyone used before Windows came out.’
James was confronted by a black screen with a single marking on it:
C>:
‘I should know this,’ James groaned. ‘What’s that thingy I do to get a list of all the files on the disk?’
‘Pass it over,’ Dave said, grabbing the laptop. ‘You need to type DIR, which is short for directory.’
Dave typed it and a list of about three hundred files scrolled up the screen and whizzed off the top. He scrolled through before pointing out one called
cpx.exe
.
‘Can you remember what .exe means?’ Dave asked. ‘It’s the same as in Windows.’
‘It’s short for executable, which is another word for a program,’ James said.
‘Exactly,’ Dave nodded. ‘And the batch of files next to it with .
cpx
at the end of their names are saved files that work within that application.’
Dave picked one of the .
cpx
files at random and typed its name. The screen flickered to a crude depiction of a roulette wheel and the laptop played a couple of bars of
Viva Las Vegas
before a screen of text popped up:
Welcome to CPX – Casino Module for Nimbus
Accounting System
Copyright
Gamblogic
Corp 1987
Please enter your operator password >_
Dave correctly guessed that the password was
PATPaT
. A list of options opened up on the screen.
(1) Inputs
(2) Staff
(3) Payroll
(4) Cash Account
(5) Nominal Ledger
(6) More Options
Dave was mystified. ‘This must have come out of some old computer, but why would Will have it?’
‘God knows,’ James shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s just data he found on a second-hand PC. Hannah mentioned that Will was a serious computer geek. He took computers apart and made a bit of money upgrading them, and setting them up for people and stuff.’
‘But that doesn’t explain why he burned the data on to a CD and hid it inside another computer,’ Dave said. ‘There’s got to be more to it than that.’
‘Open up the files. See if you can work out what casino it belonged to,’ James suggested.
Dave selected option one and a screen popped up with a list of data fields.
‘
Golden Sun Casino, Octopus House, London SE2
,’ James read aloud, then he gasped. ‘Holy
turd
on a stick!’
‘What?’ Dave asked.
‘Millie’s list, the one I showed you with all the robberies on. Have you still got it?’
‘I tossed it after you showed me. We can’t leave stuff like that around with Max, Pete and Sonya coming in and out every five minutes.’
‘OK, forget that,’ James said. ‘Switch that disk off for a minute and go on to the Internet. Do a news search for
Golden Sun Casino
and see what you get.’
It took James’ laptop a couple of minutes to shut down, reboot and connect to the Internet. But a quick Google News search confirmed his suspicions:
(
Golden Sun Casino Robbery Nets Over £90,000
BBC London News – 03 Jun 2004
LONDON – A security guard was seriously injured following an armed raid on the Golden Sun Casino. The raid took place over … (
8 Related Stories
)
Dave grinned at James. ‘Well remembered. The only snag is, Leon would have needed way more than ninety grand to buy that pub, especially if he had to share the loot with partners.’
‘But look at the date on that web article: June 2004 ties up perfectly,’ James said. ‘It’s obviously not the whole story. But you can’t tell me it’s a coincidence that a kid who lives on this block has information about a casino that was robbed at exactly the time Leon came into the big money.’
Dave nodded. ‘I think Millie’s on duty tonight. I’ll leave a message about this on her
answerphone
. You contact the twenty-four-hour desk on campus. E-mail them the data on that disk and get them to send it to MI5 for a detailed analysis. Carbon-copy the message to John Jones, so he knows what’s going on as soon as he gets to work in the morning.’
By the time James had converted the information on the CD into a format that could be read by Windows and attached to an e-mail, it was gone 1 a.m. He dragged his duvet and mattress through to the living-room to escape the lingering smell of burnt dust.
Dave had already set off for his first morning’s work on the car lot when James got woken by a text message from campus:
AM ON THE CASE. WELL DONE ;) SPEAK LATER. JOHN
James snapped his phone shut and snuggled up. He fancied a lie-in after the late night, but realised he had to get off his butt and go to the laundrette, unless he was prepared to walk around smelling like a bonfire for the rest of the week.
*
It was a quiet morning on the lot. Pete had gone fishing with a couple of mates from college. Dave waxed cars and Leon watched daytime TV in the cabin until the first customer turned up. She wanted to test drive a Vauxhall Astra with a
Car Of The Week
sticker in the front window.
‘Back in a flash,’ Leon yelled, as he clambered into the car with his customer. ‘Any problems, go next door and speak to George in the pub. If any more customers turn up, be polite. I’ll be back in under half an hour and tell ’em I’ll make it worth their while for waiting.’
Once Leon drove off, Dave strolled into the office. He bent under Leon’s desk and plugged a flash memory drive into the USB socket on the front of Leon’s computer. The machine was already on and had no security whatever, not even a basic password. Dave simply clicked on the
My Computer
folder and dragged the icon for the hard drive across to the window that had popped up when he’d plugged in the miniature drive. It took five slightly nervous minutes to copy everything over.
Dave was back to waxing, with the contents of his boss’ computer tucked into his shorts, when Leon returned. He squeezed his barrel-shaped body out of the Astra and led his customer into the cabin to sort out the fine points of the deal; emerging ten minutes later and shaking her hand enthusiastically before she drove off the lot.
‘If every customer was as dumb as her, I’d be driving round in a Rolls Royce,’ Leon grinned, as he sauntered up to Dave with a finger in his ear. ‘She could have got that same car at a supermarket for six hundred less than what she paid me. Not a bad rack on her either.’
Dave nodded. ‘Yeah, but a few too many miles on the clock for my taste.’
‘Let’s lock the gates for half an hour and we’ll get a fry-up. My treat.’
The Palm Hill Grill was on the corner a few hundred metres from the lot. The staff and regulars all knew Leon. A couple of elderly men sucked roll-ups at the table next to Dave and Leon. The other diners were spattered in paint or brick dust.
‘Bacon, beans, two fried eggs, bubble, fried slice and a mug of tea,’ Dave said, when the waitress came over to the table. She was small and curvy, with pouty lips and a spray of zits across her forehead.
‘Look but don’t touch, Dave,’ Leon grinned. ‘My Pete’s been after little Lorna for two years.’
Everyone in the café roared with laughter; except Lorna, who flushed bright pink. Dave realised this was a good moment to find out if anything had ever gone on between Leon and Will.
‘
So’d
you hear about my brother’s new computer?’ Dave asked.
Leon shook his head, as he drank a mouthful of tea.
‘He got off with Hannah Clarke. She took pity and gave it to him, along with some bits of furniture.’
‘Lovely young girl, that Hannah,’ Leon nodded. ‘Quite friendly with my Liza, though she’s being sent to some posh school now.’
‘It belonged to Hannah’s cousin, Will. James left it plugged in and the
poxy
thing was clogged up with dust. It overheated and damn near burned us out. I blasted his room with air freshener, but it still reeks in there.’
One of the old men at the next table overheard. ‘Isn’t Will Clarke the young fellow who came off the roof?’ he asked, with a heavy Irish accent.
‘Yeah,’ Dave nodded.
The man shook his head slowly. ‘A real pity that was.’
‘Tragedy,’ Leon said. ‘Really bright kid. He was only about thirteen when I got my first computer on the lot, but everyone told me Will was the bee’s knees. I had him over for a couple of afternoons and he set everything up for me and showed me a few tricks. When Max wanted a computer in his room, I got hold of a dodgy one off a bloke in the pub. Will came over and fixed it up: you know, put the Windows disk on it and the latest games. It would have cost
hundreds
to have bought the real stuff.’