37
Ablack SUV and a black van, both with dark tinted windows, pulled up and parked behind George’s apartment complex. A bank of electronic listening equipment lined the interior of the van. Four men dressed in SoCal Edison uniforms alighted from the vehicles, leaving two men in suits behind in the SUV and two technicians in coveralls sitting in the back of the van.
The four men in uniform strapped on an array of impressive electrical tool belts. One went to a nearby pole and climbed up to tap the phone line. The other three went to the building’s electrical panel and opened it, as if they were reading the meter. They then split up: two men went through the complex and the other man walked around the side of the building.
All three quickly closed in on George’s apartment, one in back and two in the front. There was no conversation or hesitation. They were professionals. It was all planned. Nothing was left to chance.
The two inside the complex rang George’s doorbell. There was no answer, which they fully expected. Earlier, having checked his cell phone with GPS, they knew that George was in the San Fernando Valley. Yet they wanted to be sure his apartment was empty. One of the men quickly and effortlessly picked George’s cheap lock.
Without so much as one word, the taller of the two disappeared inside the apartment while the other stood guard just inside the entrance. He peered out of a window. The pool area of the complex was empty. No one was about; it being the Fourth of July, most people with a car were at either the beach or a barbecue.
The other man in George’s apartment worked quickly, hiding several small listening devices and cameras, linking them up wirelessly with a battery-powered amplifier hidden by his colleague on the back side of the apartment behind a downspout. The amplifier would catch the wireless signals from the devices inside the apartment and then relay them to the recording equipment in the van. All told, the whole operation took less than seven minutes.
Once safely back inside the vehicles, the four technicians waited to be picked up by a third vehicle. The car appeared moments later, stopping just long enough for the four men to scurry aboard. The men in coveralls were left behind in the van and the two suits were settled into the SUV, removing their sidearms and generally making themselves more comfortable. They knew it would most likely be a long night. But they were accustomed to it. Their jobs required long hours of boredom punctuated by sudden violence.
The man sitting behind the wheel dialed a number on his mobile phone and left a simple message: “We’re good.”
38
George turned into the street behind his apartment. He was exhausted and had a near accident while driving back from the valley. It seemed like rush hour even though it was a holiday. Pulling into his slot, he didn’t notice the black SUV at the curb in the street. Or the black van that was parked half a block farther down the road. Such vehicles were more common than palm trees in the neighborhood, especially black SUVs.
George parked and grabbed his gear, carefully making sure the tiny drug reservoir was safely in his pocket, and raced to his apartment. He put everything except the microchip on the dining room table, and then located Sal’s broken smartphone as well as Kasey’s. With these in his other pocket, he ran outside and up the stairs to pound on Zee’s door.
“Jesus! Hang on. I’m coming!” Zee yelled. A second later he yanked the door open and took in George’s expression and appearance. “What the fuck, dude?” he said. “We have a fire in the building or what?”
“I need your help. Right now.”
“Slow down, dude. I’m here,” Zee said, trying to calm his clearly distraught neighbor.
George took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said, realizing that he had to get himself under control. He knew that what he was asking Zee to do was going to take a long time, if he could do it at all. And that was assuming Zee was even willing. That was another big if, given that what George wanted Zee to do was very much against the law.
“I need you to do a job,” George said, trying to maintain an even tone. “I’ll pay you. A lot. I have almost ten thousand dollars in cash and credit.”
“Whoa, dude! Cool it! You gotta start at the beginning.”
“It’s just… I know you haven’t been working and money is an issue—”
“Money is an issue for me even when I am working. But let’s hear what you got.”
“I need you to do a little hacking for me.”
Zee’s antennae went up. “No hack job is little. Some are easy, some aren’t. But none are little. Not to the hackee. Just explain exactly what it is you’d like me to do. And relax. You want a beer?”
George took a seat on the couch and said, “Yeah. A beer would be great.”
Zee got the beers and George launched into giving Zee enough background on Amalgamated and iDoc to intrigue him. Luckily Zee found the idea of smartphones taking the place of primary-care doctors mind-blowing. He wanted to sign up for iDoc himself, explaining if he got the clap, he could get treatment without having to explain everything to a real person, case closed. “You know,” Zee continued, “sometimes going to the doctor can be a little embarrassing. But you know something? I know a way for this iDoc to be even better.”
“Zee, I’d like to keep this conversation on point,” George interrupted.
“No! Hear me out,” Zee responded. “When you go to the pharmacy to fill a prescription, you shouldn’t have to deal with the pharmacist! That can be as bad as talking to the doctor. You know what I’m saying? All you should have to do is flash your phone or press your fingerprints onto a touch pad, and, bingo, you get your prescription immediately.”
“That’s a great idea, Zee, but we’re getting off track.”
“Sorry. Continue!” Zee said, holding his beer up to George in a mock toast.
“The iDoc concept is fantastic and it is the future of medicine. But I think there is a problem. Either by design or by accident it’s gone beyond its mandate. I think it’s been acting as a kind of death panel.”
Zee just stared at George with a blank expression. Finally, he said, “Explain!”
George did. He told Zee that Kasey, whom Zee had known somewhat from time spent around the complex, had been a part of the iDoc beta-test group, as well as Sal. He then told Zee about Laney Chesney, Greg Tarkington, and Claire Wong, also members of the iDoc study who had serious illnesses on top of diabetes. “All five relied upon iDoc to medicate them in a truly futuristic fashion, functioning like a real pancreas, using an implanted reservoir of insulin and constant, real-time monitoring of their sugar levels in the bloodstream.”
“I get it,” Zee replied. “What’s the rub?”
“I have reason to believe that iDoc killed all five by dumping the contents of their reservoirs into their systems all at once.”