A short flight of steps ended at the bottom of what appeared to be a surprisingly large wine cellar for a mountain getaway. Houston stepped from behind him and held up the lantern, pressing a button to intensify the light. Sharp shadows were cast across the room. The light spilled over crates and suitcases, canisters and body armor.
Lopez flipped open one case. Dark vestments, black gloves, and masks were folded neatly into sections. Houston ran her fingers over one of the masks and sighed.
“Never thought I’d be wearing these in the States. Never dreamed we’d be activated here.”
“Well, it’ll shoot facial recognition to all hell and back. We have to assume the targets will all be wired with a hundred cameras, and half of them might be governmental for all we know.”
“Blended in better in Islamic countries. That’s where all the action is these days. Or used to be.”
“From Rebecca’s tone, disguise will be the least of our issues. We’ll need something more serious than clothes.”
They both turned to an open wooden box, the top of the crate slightly off position. Houston tossed the lid to the ground and they stared inside. The light of the lantern glinted off black metal.
The interior was filled with guns.
PART 2
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent
To blow up the King and the Parliament
Three score barrels of powder below
Poor old England to overthrow
21
“Why do we have to call you Fawkes, anyway?”
Three teenagers crouched in a dark hallway, whispering sharply to each other. Mark and Violetta slunk behind the third, a lanky boy with unkempt hair. He turned back to them with his finger on his lips.
“Because I said so,” he whispered. “Now, be quiet. Boot camp library is around the corner.”
“But it’s locked,” said Violetta. Fawkes reached into the back pocket of his jeans and removed several small, metal rods. “You’re gonna pick it?” Her eyes widened.
“Come on.”
The three moved quickly down the hallway. The building was still and silent, only the emergency exit signs providing light in the corridor. At the end of the hallway a set of double doors framed by windows on each side awaited, a soft glow from computer monitors in screen-saver mode spilling through.
Fawkes knelt down beside the lock and quickly worked the tools as the other two watched in awe. Less than a minute, and the mechanism clicked. He reached up and pulled the handle down and the door opened.
“Inside.”
The three rushed in, Fawkes closing the door quietly behind them. He motioned with his hand for them to follow, and he led them away from the windows toward the recessed counter where the librarian worked. He went behind a computer monitor at the book checkout and wiggled the mouse. A login screen appeared.
“What are you going to do?” asked Violetta.
“I told you. Get us all out of here,” he said with a smirk.
“With the computer? Come on.”
He used one of his tools to open the chassis of the machine as he spoke. “These old junkyard machines have BIOS holes you can drive a truck through.” He toggled from working on the circuit board to typing at the login prompt and back again.
“I hate this place,” said Mark, looking around the dark room. “All I did was one joint. I didn’t even want it. Then it’s undercover cops and detention and mom sending me to this stupid place to save me, or whatever. It’s all my brother’s fault.”
“It seriously sucks,” Violetta agreed. “Caught me with a boy in the attic. Shamed the family, you know. I’m fifteen! They think I’m a baby.”
Mark swept his eyes over her body. “You’re not a baby.”
She ignored him. “So, Fawkes, why are you here? You never said.”
The computer beeped and he typed furiously at a prompt on a black background. “Stepdad. Got tired of beating on me. Decided the ex-marine who runs this place would get my ass straightened out.” He clacked the enter key and the screen went dark. A second later it lit up with a bright image of a field of green grass. “We’re in.”
His companions crowded around the screen. Fawkes worked quickly, searching through file systems and applications.
Violetta continued questioning. “How can you do anything from the library computer?”
“It connects to the others. See, look. I’m using this terminal window to remote login on the other system. They’re so stupid. All the passwords are related. So I’m in there, too. Admin office computer. And these,” he said smiling as text scrolled through the window, “are files on all of us. What’s your last name, Violetta?”
“Rayon,” she said.
“There you are. Born in Mexico City? What, you illegal?”
“Shut up.”
“Maybe you were born in LA.”
The girl gasped as the text changed at his keystrokes.
“You can do that?”
“And, looks like you’re here for the month program. That’s a long time.”
“Yeah.” Her face fell.
“But since the last day is tomorrow, you’ll be going home.”
She squinted at the screen. “You changed the dates!”
Fawkes opened another window and keyed in lines of code.
“Take too long to do this by hand,” he said. “This little script — wait, gotta save it — it will do them all.” He typed the name of the new file into the other command window.
“What’s it doing?” asked the boy.
“Reading all the files in this directory, looking for the dates, and changing them. There, all done. Everyone goes home tomorrow.”
“Fucking awesome!” The boy shouted.
“They’ll figure it out, dumbshit,” said Fawkes. “Don’t get too excited. But we’ll have a few days of chaos. I wonder how many parents will get calls and show up?” They laughed.
“What else can you do? Can you like put naked pictures on the screens or something?”
“Yeah, sure. We’ll need to download some. And — wait, what’s this?” Fawkes stared at the screen and the file he just opened. “Oh, this is good. See the dollar signs? This is budget stuff! Financials! Same format my stepdad uses for his accounts. Okay. We can do some serious damage here.”
The girl’s eyes darted. “Fawkes, maybe we should leave. We could really get in big trouble for this.”
“Hold on, hold on.” He tuned her out, opening other files, scanning the numbers and accounts at light speed. “What the hell? Ah, no, no, no, no, no. Ah, man. Tonight’s fucking lotto. Oh, Mr. Harrison, you’ve been a very bad man!”