The Minders (8 page)

“I did everything I was asked. I told no one. I know nothing.” Karimi finished, shaking and begging for mercy.

“Again, tell me only the facts. What exactly did you do?” Jason asked.

“I invalidated the permits, re-submitted new orders for a change to handicapped seating, just like the directions you guys sent me,” he said sobbing. Jason kept asking the same questions in a different order.

Karimi was definitely the man. It took thirty minutes to get the details out of him. Jason had planned on a weekend of fun with this guy. What a shame, now for the confirmation part. Jason put the tape back on Karimi’s mouth. Bending down, he poked the sharp edge of the clipper into the bottom of the bare foot.

“Can you feel this?” he asked.

Karimi shook his head, no.

Jason made a cutting motion and dropped a little toe into the glass next to the fingers. Karimi started his muffled screams, and creaking the chair from uncontrolled shaking. He lost all bowel control. The stench of urine, crap, and vomit were overwhelming, a common occurrence and one Jason had expected from such visits.

“I don’t believe you, and you pissed all over the place! Now I’m angry.” Jason made another cutting motion, taking another toe to the holding cup. He then walked over to the nightstand, looking for something.

He grabbed Karimi’s iPhone. He walked back, turned it on, and placed it under Karimi’s working hand. He demanded he press the proper security code or he will lose more toes. Karimi, trembling with fear, managed to press the keys and unlock the phone, after three or four wrong, shaky tries.

With the phone working and open, Jason navigated to the messaging app, found the specific text message with web links, and read the text. He then followed the URL link. He found and read the detailed orders. It was as Karimi mentioned, and all for a reduction in gambling debts of $100,000. They paid this poor bastard just to push some permits through the backdoor, no hostages, and no threats. They had this guy figured out as quickly as Jason had, a greedy, selfish, scared alcoholic little man, with a gambling habit.

Jason copied the URLs, deleted the messages, and wiped the phone memory. He then turned the phone off and tossed it on the bed. He started to collect his gear, placing the empty glass of tea in with his gear. He turned Karimi’s chair around, facing the window, and covered his face with a pillowcase. He cut the tape on the arm containing the hand with five fingers intact. He then walked to the door, looking through the peephole. Seeing no one, he replaced the scarf with his baseball cap, and stepped out of the room. He walked out of the hotel with his gear and the intelligence he needed.

*  *  *

Karimi eventually broke free, having spent an hour unwrapping the duct tape. He was stewing in his own sewage and vomit the entire time. Fear, the hangover, the weak character, all made him expel his bowels several more times. He sat there for a few more minutes, shaking, crying, and looking out the window, his one leg still numb. Eventually he dared to look down. To his surprise, all of his toes were in place.

He stood only to fall again. He crawled over to the dresser and grabbed the glass, pouring it on the floor. He picked up a finger, realizing it was a plastic prop. He quickly unraveled the bandages on his hand to find all his fingers were in place, numb, stiff, but all there. Jason had bent them inward, bandaged them, and poured red dye all over the bindings.

With all digits accounted for, he crawled to the corner, curled up and sobbed uncontrollably, holding the plastic fingers and toes in both hands.

Bobby was back on his laptop, enjoying his music. It eased his mind. It made him feel less scared, more motivated, energized. The conversations with Parvaresh were becoming a little stale. There was only so much one can talk on the subject of cell phones. It was becoming trivial. They were both on guard. They would not speak to personal things. Bobby kept thinking there had to be a way to start engaging him, and to figure a way out. At least start doing something to get help, even if he could not get out on his own.

“Mr. Parvaresh, do you think it’s possible to do some programming on my laptop?”

Bobby refused to call Mr. Parvaresh by his first name. He never wanted to feel close or familiar.

“Do what you want with your laptop.” Parvaresh assured him. However, he continued, at the end of every session, I must take the laptop away for inspections by the computer people. They may delete whatever they see as unfit or may take the privileges away.

Bobby didn’t care. He just wanted to do something productive, intellectual busy work, anything. He agreed to the conditions. He stopped the media player, and brought up his Integrated Development Environment (IDE). An IDE loaded with programs used to modify the latest Android operating system, which he used to write a ROM for his own Nexus phone. The exact duplicate of what Parvaresh had hanging on his belt.

“Mind if I watch?” Parvaresh sat next to him on the bed.

Bobby moved over a bit, sat straight, and continued typing on the keyboard. He ran a couple of commands, started the onboard phone simulator and booted the Android OS. It looked gorgeous. Parvaresh was watching with eyes wide open, nearly drooling. Bobby navigated to the settings section, where all the goodies were, and ran through a gambit of possibilities. Parvaresh took out his Nexus phone and navigated to the settings section for comparison.

“My phone has none of those possibilities,” Parvaresh said greedily, as he gawked at Bobby’s laptop.

I know.
Bobby smiled.

A tiny synapse explosion later, it hit Bobby like a brick.
I think I have a way out.

Parvaresh knew a little about flashing ROMs. For the most part, he thought they were for visual items, unaware of the full built-in potential of Android. Bobby continued setting and resetting more features. From CPU speed control, to memory management, to full system level blocking and control for calls and text messages. These features existed in all android phones, but never exposed to the public. It was a way by which vendors such as AT&T and Verizon could more easily control their customers.

“Do you think you could flash this ROM on my phone?” Parvaresh asked lovingly as he drooled.

Bobby, knowing the Nexus phone intimately, mentioned that he had never worked with Parvaresh’s phone before, and would have to do some testing and evaluations beforehand. A simple flashing might brick his phone. In other words, render it useless.

“What exactly do you need to do on my phone?” Parvaresh asked nervously.

“Nothing serious or invasive just some setting adjustments, some test runs, simple validation of things.” He, Parvaresh, could supervise the entire process.

“I’m going to have to think about it.” Parvaresh got off the bed and moved to the chair, a little sad, knowing that all changes would violate internal security protocols.

Bobby nodded in acceptance, and went back to reviewing his old projects. This time around, he was exploring the possibilities of doing something to help himself. He just had not figured out the exact steps. He looked over all the projects he had completed, and even looked over the incomplete ones, for ideas. He was looking for a way to communicate. His brain was in full analytic mode. He started focusing on how to get a message out of a vault completely walled off and encapsulated by tech counter measures.

Lunch was soon over.  Parvaresh got up, collecting the tray items, asking for the computer. Bobby turned the laptop off, tucked it in the computer bag and handed it to Parvaresh. Placing it on his right shoulder, Parvaresh picked up the tray and walked out, locking the door behind him.

Bobby kept staring at the door. He tried to recall all the other departures in which Parvaresh carried the laptop case. It was always on his right shoulder, with the computer bag hip-high touching the cell phone. The laptop and cell phone were within several inches of each other for as long as it took to carry the bag from the room to wherever it was going. Bobby figured at least a 15 to 30 second walk. He smiled as he figured out exactly how he was going to communicate.

A door is opening. If only I can have his phone for several days. Bobby prayed.

As all great designers and programmers do, he began writing code in his mind. He sketched out the entire process, and all the necessary steps.

*  *  *

Bobby programmed for nearly the entire time between lunch and dinner. For the first time during his captivity, he was actually starving. The door finally opened, with Parvaresh carrying the dinner tray in, the laptop hanging on his right shoulder, as always. He placed the tray on the table, laptop on the floor, and sat on the bed with a magazine he had brought with him. He was still thinking about his phone and the sexy new ROM he could have. It was an all-consuming passion amongst Android fans, the idea of manipulating the phone in all ways possible, to actually own your phone, unlike the iPhone, where Apple owned you, with no access to the inner workings, like a child being baby-sat.

There were forums dedicated to every popular Android phone, with subsections for modifying every part of those phones. It was a religion. Bobby could see that Parvaresh was indeed a disciple. He had drunk the Kool-Aid, more than one cup’s worth.

Dinner was quick on that night. Bobby wanted to start working on Parvaresh. He started asking what his concerns were. Parvaresh recited rules against modifying Center phones and security protocols. Bobby explained in detail that he would not touch the existing ROM. There could be a dual boot system in place. While at work, Parvaresh could run the phone as intended.  On his time off he could boot into his custom ROM. Parvaresh knew that was against the rules as well, but felt it was safe enough given that no programs or apps on his phone would be touched, plus he figured he’ll just play with it for a while then delete the new ROM in a couple of weeks. Parvaresh gave the O.K., but insisted he be involved in every step of the process. Bobby agreed.

*  *  *

They both sat at the table, Bobby grabbed the laptop, and they began to work. Neither had been this excited in some time, but for different reasons. Parvaresh might get a new toy and Bobby might get to communicate out. They placed the laptop and phone near each other. Bobby grabbed a USB cable from his bag to connect the two devices. Given that Parvaresh had already flashed a ROM, the phone was rooted, with administrative privileges, and had backup and recovery capabilities. Bobby began by creating a shared partition where they installed the new dual-boot manager. Parvaresh was ogling at the screen without blinking. Bobby then opened up the note pad, leaned back in his chair, getting ready for some Q&A time.

“O.K. The basics are done. Now, I have to get some requirements from you, and I need to check my download archives for the source code for your specific phone. Hopefully, I have it!”

He went over all the steps taken, making sure Parvaresh was comfortable. He then began identifying some of the custom configurations that Parvaresh may like. In reality, he wanted to manipulate the boot sequence, and some of the boot loader files. He began typing and asking a series of benign questions of Parvaresh, about his usage when at home or on weekends. Having finished, he told Parvaresh he needed to place these custom configurations into the baseline OS before they flashed the ROM. He could always change them himself later.

“Sounds good,” Parvaresh said, blinking once, and again staring at the screen.

Bobby opened up his development environment, with as many confusing tabs as he could, mainly as distractions for Parvaresh. At first Parvaresh watched very closely but quickly, his eyes started glazing over. He sat back and started playing with his phone, still connected to the laptop.

“You can look, but just don’t touch any buttons,” Bobby said, happy that Parvaresh was looking away.

Bobby manipulated several areas of the entire boot sequence in order to achieve his goals. He wrote several short scripts, made changes to the order of several start-up events, made sure several processes were always kept-alive or restarted should they be turned off, re-named several processes, and hard coded some names so that they couldn’t be changed. An hour into it, he was done.

Watching someone program is like watching paint dry. By the end, Parvaresh was busy reading his magazine on the bed. Bobby pressed several more keys, and the download was complete. The changes saved to the phone. There was a brand new custom ROM in place, with hidden scripts running auto mode. Background communications were in place and running. Now, it was a matter of waiting and hoping conditions allowed for an open door.

“Alright, my friend, your phone is ready to go.” Bobby disconnected the phone and handed it off.

Parvaresh was brimming with excitement, like a kid in a toy store. He took the phone and, sitting close to Bobby, went through the process of booting between the two operating systems. Playing with features, he asked dozens of questions. He then stood up and, while collecting the dinner tray, profusely thanked Bobby. As usual, he placed the bag on his right shoulder hitting against the belt clip holding the phone. Saying goodnight, he closed the door and left.

*  *  *

Bobby had programmed the phone’s Near Field Communications (NFC), Wi-Fi, GPS and data network capabilities to remain on at all times. He created a simple messaging system where the phone would ping a specific URL address every 15 minutes, with a simple message, a message that included GPS coordinates and some text.

http://TowersConstuction.com/35.703670-51.410930-MikeShams

His computer could update the text message as needed, if held within six inches of Parvaresh’s phone. Bobby knew no data would ever leave the building, but was anticipating communication once Parvaresh left the building. On the outside, there would be a ping every 15 minutes while the phone was on.

The messaging system was in place. Bobby could only hope it would work, and that everyone back home did their jobs.

He was hoping on the other end the network administrators, at his dad’s company, would notice the anomaly and tells someone.