Buzzworm (A Technology Thriller): Computer virus or serial killer? (29 page)

As Roger tried to roll, so that he could get his footing back, he was shocked to feel the sting of small blades raking across his face and neck. He yelled, reaching up to protect his eyes. Somewhere in the back of his mind, his hands up now to ward of the blows, he came to the realization that he was being attacked by a woman. The only reason he knew that was he could smell her; an unexpected mix in the air of gasoline, cordite, fear and vanilla. She scrambled over him then and he heard her head for the ladder at the end of the tunnel. He managed to get to his feet, reluctantly leaving the gun behind and leapt up after her. She hesitated at the ladder, getting ready to lift herself up when Roger grabbed her from behind and peeled her hands away from the rungs. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, his only thought to disarm those flashing nails.

“Hyde sent me. You’re Kyla, right?” Roger grunted, hanging on with everything he had while she fought like a wild animal. She kicked back at him, landing a painful blow to his knee. Roger squeezed tighter, his weight on one foot, rasping at her through clenched teeth. “I work for your Dad.” It wasn’t completely true, but it was quicker than going through the details. She seemed to hesitate.

“Let me go,” she growled. Roger gladly released her. She jumped away and twisted, her back now to the ladder. In the light from the opening above, Roger got his first good look at her. She was only a teenager, long brown hair, jeans and a hoody. Roger touched his face and winced.

“Your Dad teach you that trick?”

“Who are you?” she asked, wary.

“Call me Roger. Am I going to bleed to death?”

“You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”

“I thought I was rescuing you.”

“Where’s my Dad?” was all she said, her body tense under the light filtering down through the open door above her. The smell of gasoline was growing stronger.

“He’s close. He’s near the farmhouse. He’s waiting for me to shut down the power.”

She cocked her head, curious. “They’ve got guns.”

“So do we,” said Roger, wondering where his had disappeared to.

“This isn’t a game of
Halo,
mister. These guys are freaks. Does he know that? “

“You want to help your father? Help me find the power lines.”

She ran her hand through her disheveled hair. “Just as long as I don’t have to stay here. It’s creepy and the toilet’s backed up. What is this thing anyway?”

“Looks like a bomb shelter.”

“Well, when my Dad gets his hands on that guy, a bomb shelter won’t help him.”

Roger had his hands full. He had acne kid in front of him, his hands still cinched behind his back, making their way along the tree line towards the farmhouse. Kyla was behind them, keeping an eye out for the other farm worker. It was full-on night now, the only illumination a partial moon and a very distant yard light.

Roger saw a threat in every shadow. As a city kid, the looming forest seemed full of dangers to him. He had a hard time controlling the urge to just run up the road and away from whatever
Buzzworm
had in store for them. Goodyear had explained to him how to take out the power lines in case something happened to him. Roger hadn’t paid much attention, absorbed as he was by the view from a thousand feet up in the fragile Ultralight. Now he was adlibbing. The power line followed the cut road into the property. Goodyear’s plan had been to shoot out the transformer box once Roger had disarmed the backup system and then go in guns blazing, Roger staying behind and out of trouble. The problem with tackling the transformer box was it sat on a power pole only a few hundred yards from the farmhouse so
Buzzworm
would know immediately what caused the power outage and his guards would be out in force. Roger decided to make their way further down the winding road and try and shoot out the line itself, from a safer distance.

After walking into his third tree, his forehead bleeding from the numerous branches that whipped across his face, they broke out onto the road. The power line was right above them, a dark wavy line in the dim moonlight. Roger had his shotgun at the ready.

“As soon as I fire, they’ll know we’re here.” He turned to Kyla. “If I hit it, the power should go out. That will be the signal for your dad to move in on
Buzzworm
.”

Kyla had her back to a tree; her arms crossed. “Who’s
Buzzworm
? The jerk who kidnapped me is named Warren. These idiots call him Mr. W.” She sneered in the direction of the kid with the cuffs behind his back

“Warren? That’s his name?” Roger pointed his question at the kid. The teen shrugged, saying nothing. “You’re pretty relaxed for a guy who’s going to go to jail for twenty years as an accomplice to kidnapping. They don’t allow Nintendo DS in maximum security, just in case you were wondering.” Roger could see the kid’s eyes go wide, visible even in the claustrophobic darkness. He raised his gun and pressed the stock firmly into his shoulder like Goodyear had shown him, so the kickback wouldn’t leave him black and blue, aiming the barrel up at the slender power line above.

“I’m just an employee. I’m no accomplice,” whined acne kid.

“I think that’s what the Nazi’s used to say,” Roger replied. And then he pulled the trigger.

The incessant thrum
of the Avion was beginning to take its toll on the two women trapped on sub floor six, something they had never been bothered by before. Med began to think of the constant vibration as a form of low-level torture. She knew now why no one ever volunteered to work in this area.

Vienna had tried to leave by elevator at one point, and was hardly surprised to find that the system was inactive. She yelled obscenities into the security cameras; her nerves obviously frayed. Then she stomped off to a washroom in the far corner of the work area.

Med wanted to yell at the camera too. Her deal with Hyde was that he would let her know the minute he could be sure of his daughter’s safety. The problem was now he had no way to reach her. Cell phones couldn’t pick up a signal this far underground. The CIA had repeater networks set up so that workers on the lower floors could access cell phone networks. Courtesy of
Buzzworm
, they had been switched off. So even if Hyde were able to free his daughter, there was no way to let Med know.

They both talked about ways to potentially stop the attack from the Avion without completely shutting down the power, but neither were engineers. Neither wanted to carry out an action this early that could lead to the death of an innocent girl. But they both also kept an eye on the clock. Vienna’s two-hour limit was quickly coming to an end.

“Do you think he’ll keep his word?” asked Vienna. “About letting her go?”

“Hyde was in a hurry, so I didn’t get a chance to ask. I don’t know what the odds are.”

“Did he have a plan? Hyde was a top recommendation from the police. But he also seemed to be a bit of a… rogue.” Med froze when Vienna said plan. She remembered the graph she ran. She realized that by showing Hyde the report,
Buzzworm
might have seen the results. Was he listening in on their conversation as well? Med rolled her chair over to Vienna’s impromptu work desk.

“He may be listening, so I’m going to keep my voice down. I ran a report for Hyde. I can’t show you because I think that might alert
Buzzworm
.”

“What kind of report?”

“Secure comm. Traffic coming and going out of the CIA for the past year.”

Vienna hunched over, her voice low. ”And how did that help?”

“There’s a location in Fredericksburg, in the middle of nowhere, that showed up. That’s where he went. Do you know about it?”

Vienna sat up, shook her head and eyed the security camera at the other end of the room. “Not one of ours. But that’s a long shot.”

Med agreed. It was a slim rationale for a desperate act. But it made her think. She used her HUMMER to tap into the CIA’s database of employees. There were over 20,000. Each one had an attached photo for security purposes. She thought about the discussion they had that afternoon in Scammel’s lab. She was certain now that
Buzzworm
was an insider, a CIA employee or operative, someone with access. Roger had asked her once if it was possible that Xavier was
Buzzworm
. It sounded preposterous at the time. Not so much anymore especially considering his sudden disappearance.

She rolled back over to Vienna’s side. “You gave me tickets to a charity dinner years ago. It was held by Staticom, one of the military suppliers. That was the night I met David Xavier. Where did you get them?”

Vienna lowered her eyebrows, trying to puzzle out the question. “I seem to remember they were left on my desk. That was a long time ago, but it was also the first time that ever happened. And the last.”

“Who put them there?”

“Never found out. There was a note.
Please give to Mary Ellen
.”

Med saw something in Vienna’s expression. “You thought they were for you at first?”

“A woman can hope.”

Med lowered her eyes. “Do you remember what day it was?”

Vienna laughed lightly, aware how easily Med had read that sliver of regret in her eyes. “It was a Monday. That’s all I know.”

“What if they were left by
Buzzworm
? That would mean that he was in our building that day.”

“That’s quite a leap. Do you know the date of the dinner?

“I’ll never forget it. Friday May 14
th
. Our anniversary,” she said sarcastically.

“It was that memorable?” Med didn’t respond. “Then they were left on my desk on the Monday, May the 10
th
.”

Med dragged over the heavy laptop,
the brute
she often called it, after banging huge gouges in her coffee table from lugging the monster home. She tapped the magnesium base of the laptop with her fingernail. Earlier that day she had seriously considered going through the 20,000 photos in the database. Now she had the potential employee list reduced substantially.

Med checked the security logs for May 10
th
in the year she first met Xavier. She wondered what
Buzzworm
would be thinking if he was tracking her search right now.
Screw him,
she thought.
Let him sweat
.

On the given day there were only three non-employee visitors to Building 213 recorded. One was a woman, so Med left that out. She opened two security files. The first file was an auditor from Finance. A short balding man with a crew cut. When she saw the photo of the second man, all the blood rushed into her face. Vienna noticed right away and moved up to her side. They both stared at the photo, the exact likeness of David Xavier. A ten-year employee. Intrusion expert with Langley. The name on the file was William Warren. But it was Xavier. And likely
Buzzworm
too, now that his computer credentials were apparent.

Vienna whistled. “That’s our virus!”

Med nodded.
William Warren.
She remembered a neighbor once telling her that the Warrens came over on the Mayflower. That made William as apple pie as you can get. His friends probably called him Bill. Bill Warren. BW.
Buzzworm
.

Under an icy sliver
of a partial moon, the bloated black body of the Mott’s Run reservoir seemed to be taunting me. Across its oily surface, about a quarter of a mile away, a mist clung to the far shore. My destination. But I had never learned how to swim and I hated water.

One chilly autumn, as a kid, my father had thrown me off a dock into a lake very much like this one, greenish-black currents and a hidden bottom. I slipped below the surface without so much as a splash. He almost drowned rescuing me.

Now I was standing on a rickety pier, looking across the reservoir at the back end of Xavier’s property. Or was it
Buzzworm
’s? Whoever the fuck he was today, he was making me cross a body of water that made my skin crawl. The property description that Med had given me only offered two options. I could drive right into his front yard via the one main road or take the back route by crossing over the reservoir behind his property. He would be watching the main road, which didn’t leave many options.

I looked down at my transportation, a flat-bottomed rowboat, one paddle and no lifejacket. I stepped down into the boat, the hollow bump of the soggy wood against the dock enough to wake the dead. I swore.
Just take one step at a time
was all I was thinking. Push away from the dock into the inky water. Keep your eyes on the opposite shore. Don’t think about what was underneath you, the shiny surface swirling around you like there was something deep in the reeds and moving around. Just think about Kyla.

It seemed to take forever to scull across the reservoir. As I approached the tree line of the opposite shore, I realized that getting out of the boat wasn’t going to be any more fun than getting in. The high water obscured the shoreline and the banks, the water crawling up the soggy sides of the trees. I pushed up to the tree line, unable to penetrate the submerged forest around me. I looked down. I had no clue as to the depth of the water at this point. What choice did I have? I crawled down into the dirty water, feeling the cold crab up my legs and into my crotch. I touched an uncertain bottom with my arms held high, the waterline now up to my armpits.

The submerged ground was mushy, all buried roots and rotten logs. I tied the row boat to the closest tree with a frayed old rope and pushed my way up the buried embankment, pulling myself along from trunk to trunk. After a few yards, the water was only a foot or so deep. I checked my position. There was a vague glow, a sodium-colored yard light buried in the distant forest. Xavier’s. He had the lights on for me. How nice of him.

I pushed my way through the heavy brush that sheltered the back of the property, hoping to make it to the clearing without losing an eye. I had my arms up to protect my face from the whip-like willow branches, my wrists already bleeding. Roger was working on killing the power; luckily that hadn’t happened yet. I would be aimlessly plodding in the dark without the lights of the farmhouse to guide me. There was no path, no obvious direction to follow. I was cold and my shoes were ruined, but somewhere ahead, in the farmhouse or one of the surrounding buildings, I would find my daughter. It was impossible to think of any other outcome right now.

Within a few hundred yards of the farmhouse, a small clearing of uncut grass ahead, I heard a distant shotgun blast echo off the building. Almost instantly, the yard light went out, as did the lights on the porch and all the interior illumination. I stopped to listen; the only sound my ragged breathing. If I was Xavier, the first thing I would do is check the breakers, just to be sure. But if he heard the rifle blast from inside the house, he might jump to another conclusion about the source of the blackout. I figure he would then head to the generator to see why it hadn’t cut in. After all, he had spent a lot of taxpayer’s money to buy the best. He’d want to know why the backup didn’t kick in. The generator was a distance through a path in the woods west of the main house. That’s where we predicted he would head and that’s where I would follow once he started out.

I crouched and made my way around the back of the farmhouse, my soggy shoes crunching on broken twigs and dried leaves. I expected at any second to confront at least one of the hired hands or bodyguards. But I was ready for them, gun in hand. Med had guessed there might be two, but that could have changed; Xavier could have increased his security now that he guessed we might be after him.

Rounding the west wall, I heard voices on the porch. I crouched down in the shadows.

“I think I heard a gunshot just before the power went down.” A man’s voice. Older.

“I don’t give a shit about what caused it. Why didn’t the generator kick in?” I recognized the voice immediately. Xavier.

The other man replied. “We went through the check list yesterday, sir. Everything was tickity boo.” I could see a moonlit shadow of the two men, one of them clearly carrying a rifle.

“Obviously you missed something. We finally get a blackout and what happens? Someone forgets to turn on the system. Go check it. Get it running. I’ll keep an eye on things here.”

“Yes sir.”

“And where’s Rupert?” asked Xavier. I figured Rupert must be one of the other guards. But just by the way he said it; it seemed to imply there was only one person missing,

“He’s finishing up chores,” answered the other man.

There was a long pause. “What about the kid who crashed the ultra-light?”

“He said he’d bring him with him when he was done.”

“Damn. That was over an hour ago, Jake. Bring them all back here. But get the power back up first. If this outage goes on for a while, I don’t want it to affect my plans.”

From the sound of things, it looked like the BATF agent had probably disarmed one of them and would shortly take out the second. It sounded like they had Roger, but Goodyear was still undercover. I watched as Xavier’s employee jogged off into the darkness.

Xavier was standing on the porch, his eyes on the distant out buildings. I waited for his hired hand to get out of listening distance. Then I stepped around the side of the farmhouse and looked up at him. I had my 9-millimeter aimed at his chest. Change of plans.

“Where is she?” was all I said. He looked down at me. I was moving carefully around the railed deck of the porch, his eyes following me.

“I thought we had a deal, Hyde?” asked Xavier, expressionless.

“Our deal was I keep the Avion running. And the Avion is running, you just don’t know it. Your blackout’s not my problem.”

Xavier lifted one eyebrow. “So you’re responsible for this? I should have known. Hyde, the juggernaut.”

“I asked you where she is. Kyla. And put the rifle down or I’ll shoot you were you stand. ”

Xavier laid the rifle down on the deck of the porch and put his hands up. As I came around to the wide steps that led up to the porch, he sat down slowly in a wicker chair by the wall. “That’s a bit of a problem, detective. You’re not going to find her in time. And right now, her safety depends on a power source. So you are killing her, you just don’t know it. I’d get the power backup if I were you.”

I moved up the stairs and across the porch to where he sat. I swung the Glock hard across his face, feeling the gun connect with his cheekbone. He twisted his face sideways with the blow, his body rigid and his teeth clenched. He had just said that Kyla’s safety depended on power. So she must be somewhere on the property.

“You’re going to take me to her,” I said, trying to keep the emotion out of my voice.

“I wish I could. It’s too late for that, detective.”

I swung the gun again, angrier now, the weight of my body behind the blow. This time when I struck him, his head banged back against the wall of the porch. He closed his eyes momentarily and spit out blood.

“Fort Bragg. Anti-interrogation training. Head of the class,” he growled. “You think you can beat the truth out of me, Hyde? Well, you better have the stomach for it.”

“This isn’t torture, Xavier. And I’m not the CIA. I’m all about the rule of law. I’m just trying to shave some years off your prison sentence.”

Xavier laughed, spitting more blood into the palm of his hand. He held it up for me to see. “You call this rule of law?”

“The feds are on their way with their trained dogs and their infrared guided helicopters. The power going out was their signal. You can make it a lot easier on yourself by giving her up and saving us doing a search.”

Xavier touched his cheek where the skin was broken. The blood looked inky black in the moonlight. “Their dogs and helicopters won’t help. You’ll never find her without me. And if they get even close to her, this whole place will go up. You know me, Hyde. If anything, I’m thorough.”

As he said this, almost as if on cue, the night sky lit up to the west of us. From the direction of the generator shed, a yellow mushroom cloud of flame and smoke rose up over the tree line, followed by a booming roar that shook the deck under our feet.