35. The Hacker
The Hacker
Not long after Belle had left the hangar where she conducted the search, Amir oversaw a flurry of activity in the hangar; his men went into overdrive.
They needed to move the illegal weapons and ammunition he had brought into the country quickly, and his men needed to disappear; they normally returned to France via container ships.
They all had forged identities and contracts to work on them.
Equipment moved hands and boxes with haste; there was no time to waste.
The timeline had been sped up, and now several unmarked trucks were parked just outside its doors.
The men made short work of loading the crates for their delivery across the country.
Amir had many customers in desperate need of his products.
And once they were filled, his men boarded each truck, and off they went in different directions.
They were watching him, of course. Amir knew this all too well; he too had little spies watching in the distance.
He was ready for their tricks. By the time the sun began to set, the jet had been moved outside the hangar and was being refueled expeditiously.
Amir didn’t want to overstay his welcome, and with the drive in his possession, he understood it was only a matter of time before they returned for it.
A man lowered the jet door staircase gently to the ground.
One of Amir’s men entered the jet, closely followed by a second man; both carried large boxes filled with cash.
Overflowing. Many of the bills wafted overhead, falling to the ground from the hangar all the way to the jet; a trail of illicit bills leading back to Amir.
“Carefully!” the man said, picking up the bills by the jet. He followed the trail all the way to the hangar until he reached the last couple of bills, when he stopped suddenly. There was a foot on it.
“What do we have here?” the man said. He reached down quickly, grabbed the hundred-dollar bill, and slipped it into his front pocket.
This surprised Amir, who watched from afar.
He’d never seen a spry, fat man before. With thick glasses and thicker hips.
And a ginger-red beard that matched his red tropical shirt.
“That doesn’t belong to you,” the man said.
“Consider it an advance. Or an inconvenience fee. I had to change my flight because of your organization’s incompetence, after all. Do you have the package this time, or should I return to the hotel? I’ve got a grand suite, and the girl at the front desk has the best rack —.”
“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Duluk,” Amir said, exiting the jet with the package in his hand. Nazim trailed closely behind, with a silenced Uzi hanging at his side.
“It’s Dalek, but only other hackers call me by that name. You can call me Carl,” Carl said.
“Okay, Mr. Dalek-Carl, I apologize for your inconvenience. You are correct; it was truly unprofessional. But, at the very least, I hope the tour of the city was to your liking; I see you had a change of clothes. Time is limited, unfortunately. We will have to conduct our business quickly. Shall we?” Amir said.
He walked over to a cleared table and placed the black bag on it. “I will be leaving soon.”
“Straight to business. I like that,” Carl said. He took off his backpack gently and placed it at one end of the table, opened it, and removed a rather large laptop and some cables. Amir watched cautiously as Carl donned white antistatic gloves and turned on the laptop.
“The gloves? What are they for?” Amir said, inquisitively.
“To prevent damage to sensitive electronics.”
“I can destroy this by touching it?” Amir replied. One of his men approached and whispered something foul in his ear. His face suddenly soured and reddened.
“Bad news?” Carl said as he opened the bag.
“Unfortunately, it appears we have less time than expected. Mr. Hacker Carl, you have ten minutes to access that device and remove the protections, or my associate here will blow your brains all over the wall,” Amir said.
He looked at his associate, Nazim, and nodded; Nazim slowly lifted the Uzi to the back of Carl’s head.
“Ready the plane. We leave in thirty minutes.”
“What? I can’t do this in ten minutes. Do you have any idea of the amount of encryption on this device? This is a multi-day operation. Forty-eight hours, at the least,” Carl said. He glanced back at Nazim and focused on the Uzi. “Please, there’s no need for this.”
“Unforeseen circumstances have changed our agreement, Mr. Carl. My source in Interpol has warned us that my cover’s been blown and agents are on their way,” Amir said. He raised his left hand and looked at the watch. “You have nine minutes.”
“Shit! Shit, shit,” Carl said. Flustered and shaking, he quickly opened the bag and grabbed the device.
It was small. And black with streaks of red.
At the front end, the name APOLLO, was emblazoned in gold.
The letters shone in the light. But more interesting was the front-end adapter.
It had a connector that the hacker had never seen before.
Anywhere. A USB connection. And something else.
Much wider and with many more prongs. He was fascinated by it, but there was no time. Nazim was counting down behind him.
“Eight minutes,” Nazim said, pressing the silenced UZI into his back. “Go!”
“Alright. Just calm down,” Carl said. He carefully placed the drive next to the laptop and plugged it into a wired USB dongle. “This will take a moment.”
The drive appeared on the screen, right below the picture of a Delorean he had as a wallpaper. He clicked it once. Nothing happened.
“That’s odd,” Carl said. He let out a nervous laugh. “Let me try something else.”
He opened the command line on the laptop and typed a command to access the drive.
The screen froze; then it went black. The laptop had shut off on its own.
Amir, enraged at the thought that he had damaged the drive, took out his own weapon and pointed it at Carl.
Suddenly, it looked as if all his efforts were for naught.
Amir was no IT expert, but he knew the basics of how hard drives worked and how to access one; Amir believed Carl was up to something.
He pressed the gun to his head. Carl pressed the power button. Nothing. The drive refused to respond.