“What the hell is going on?” she muttered.
Minimizing the window, she brought up her C programming environment and wrote a quick section of code to scan the entire disk. She was a programmer to heart, where she even thought in code — specifically C. With that language, you could write code that talked with the individual chips on the motherboard or write an entire operating system. Jackie had done both.
The program had a couple of bugs that she quickly fixed, recompiled and started it to run. With 4.7 gigabytes of data to sort through, it was going to take a while. She stopped the program and told it to take samples all throughout the disk instead. Ten minutes later, she had her answer — the entire disk was blank. Amazing. And completely illogical. She could think of a couple of ways of formatting a disk with software, but only with specific drives and media.
Then it hit her. Her grief had clouded her judgment. Before running this software, she should have pulled it apart despite Nathan's final request.
Nathan had configured the software to load into another computer or computers and then delete from the disk. Whatever she had just inadvertently loaded was now out there somewhere, getting ready to do something that she didn't know and couldn't control.
“Oh, God, Nathan. What did you do?”
She brought trembling fingers to her lips as she realized that it had been Nathan’s plan all along for her to set loose whatever it was she’d just unleashed on an unsuspecting world.
“What did I just do?”
Chapter 2
In the Pacific Northwest, a computer server farm powered up. Located where power was cheap, that particular area of the country was popular for similar such farms containing hundreds, if not thousands, of computers, each containing multiple processors and a huge amount of storage. Tied directly into a T-3 line, it had direct and very high-speed access to an Internet backbone.
As the computers came online, each performed a complete system check. The automatic cooling system ramped up to keep the farm cool, which was another justification for having cheap power as the air conditioning units were not particularly efficient.
When the entire farm was powered up, Nathan White’s “Program,” code named Tyrannicide, that Jackie Winn had just inadvertently released, spread its far reaching tentacles into the World Wide Web, gathering data, distributing data, analyzing data. Tyrannicide, named for the killing of tyrants or those who have committed tyrannical acts, also sent out a very specifically written coded packet that would switch on software in predetermined credit card machines all over the globe. Designed to take advantage of round-off errors that happened during every transaction, Tyrannicide would add up these accumulated tenths and hundredths of cents and deposit them into a designated account where it would accumulate cent upon cent, dollar upon dollar and eventually finance the task it was written to perform.
For now, it would only gather money, data and wait until the time was right to strike.
Leo drove for ten hours straight until he found an out of the way camp ground. The advantage of camping rather than checking into a hotel room was that there wasn't any paper trail and it was cheaper. The sleeping bag and packed food and water in the back of his pickup were just fine with Leo.
He selected a camping site away from a group of RVs next to a cluster of fragrant pine trees. He admired the majestic rise of mountains and inhaled the brisk air while he ate a quick meal of MREs that he purchased from a military surplus store.
In the fading light, he sat in the driver’s seat with the door open and reviewed the information on Jackie Winn. Pretty innocuous stuff. The same questions kept rolling around in his head. Why would anyone want to kill her? And why did they come to him to do it? And the bigger question, the one that plagued him the most, was how did they even know he was still alive?
Except for today, Leo had only ever killed outside the United States and only for political ends — high-ranking government officials and others in that general field. It just didn't make sense — Jackie wasn't even a registered voter, just some computer guru dealing with “Systems Security,” whatever in the hell that was. Computers were a tool for Leo, they either worked or they didn't and he didn't want to waste the time spent playing with them like his partner, who was addicted to Internet poker.
Leo looked up, startled, when a burly, yet elderly park ranger stopped at Leo's truck.
“Evenin’, son. Nice night tonight.”
“That it is,” Leo agreed and told himself to remain calm. There wasn’t a reason in the world for this park ranger to question his presence here — or to initiate a search and find the Beretta locked in his glove box. “First time in this park. Real nice place.”
“Can’t argue with you there. ‘Spose you already figured out that I'm collecting camping fees.”
“Figured someone would be around. How much do I owe you?” Leo asked, reaching into his pocket for his wallet.
“That'll be ten dollars.”
Leo pulled out two fives and handed them to the man. “Cheap at twice the price.”
The ranger gave Leo a tight smile and then a long look and Leo could see that he was wondering where Leo’s tent was.
“I sleep in the back of the truck,” he said, preempting the ranger’s question. “Much less chance of getting rained on.”
“Now that’s a fact,” the Ranger said with a chuckle. “How long are you going to be around?”
“Just tonight. Heading out East to visit family. Ten bucks is a lot cheaper than a hotel room, and with the economy, I have to watch my money. You know how it goes.”
“I do. You have a good night now.” The ranger tipped a finger to his hat brim, seemed satisfied and continued his circuit of the camp ground.
Leo watched for a few minutes to make sure the guy was really going away and didn't copy down his license plate or anything. Even if he had, the truck was registered to the store, but it was still a link back to him. Finally, he settled back into his thoughts.
He wondered how his partner would react to his sudden disappearance. Rob had been in the coin business for thirty years and was grateful when Leo bought into the store after Rob’s previous partner died. That Leo brought a bit of expertise and had purchased a number of valuable coins over the years was also a bonus.
He reached in his pocket and pulled out the first very good coin that he had ever purchased, an 1857 S Quarter Eagle two-and — a-half dollar Liberty gold piece. It had cost him almost everything else in his collection to buy it, but it had been a turning point in his life — with this purchase, he became a serious collector. This coin had touched him deeper than anything before and almost anything since. Running his fingers along the edge of the plastic case, the ache caused by the hole in his life echoed through him.
Leo had been collecting coins since he was a child. It provided a refuge from a chaotic home and a physically abusive alcoholic father and a mother whose behavior was only marginally better. Coins had allowed Leo to escape to other worlds and ages and fueled his imagination about the people who once used them. They provided a glimpse into their dreams, aspirations and lives. Though these people were long dust, Leo escaped each time he held the cold metal in his hands.
He used the money he earned from various jobs to fund his growing collection. Though he had made costly mistakes, he continued to learn, study and wonder. Over the years, he’d made some good investments and when Leo had faked his death and walked away from the assassin life, he had enough collateral to set himself up with a new life. His ‘new life’ that no one from his past was supposed to have been able to uncover.