I Will Not Yield Read online

  He watched Mike and Lokai sprint across the street and waited until both feet and paws touched the sand. Pushing from the alley building, Sokol crossed the street to infiltrate Mike’s building and once inside flashed an FBI Shield to get past security and took an uneventful elevator ride up to Mike’s apartment. He bent in front of Mike’s door and slid a tiny speaker under the doorsill and pressed a button.

  Sokol pressed play. “Strawhead, sleep.”

  The computer voice sounded sad. “As you wish.”

  Nice touch. He removed a set of lock picks from his jacket pocket. He was an expert, and it did not take long to gain entry. Once inside he pressed his hand against the fingerprint reader to turn off the alarm. Mike’s fake handprint was created by a 3-D printer and glued to his palm. Thanks to Candie’s flawless round breasts he had enough salvageable points to deactivate the alarm after five long seconds. Good.

  Sokol’s arrogant gait took him straight to the jar of marbles. He reached in to retrieve the hidden key and opened the file cabinet and replaced the contract with blank papers. After the contract had found its way into his coat pocket, he was careful to wipe every place he and his man touched. It took less than a minute. He retrieved the wireless hidden cameras.

  He took a moment to bask in the irony of beating the ignorant American at his own game. A hunter of men must know how to socially engineer. He socially engineered one of the greatest computer security experts in the world.

  He felt something unusual; his lips curled up, and a soft laugh escaped his lips. With the file you provide, Mr. O’Connor, my team will cross the border unchallenged. You just signed your country’s death warrant.

  He reactivated the handprint alarm and used burglar tools to force the tumblers in place. He heard the satisfying click of the deadbolt. Sokol bent over and inserted the cable speaker to bring Strawhead back to life.

  Done, he headed for the airport. It was time to return to Russia. He was anxious to finish the encampment preparations and set out training his team. America’s destruction awaited.

  CHAPTER 5

  Dress Up

  Sokol kept his silent promise to Natalya. He knew the only god she bowed to was her bloodlust.

  Mike needed a few days break after a friend died. They completed a couple of White Hack projects together. His friend was a little nerdy and lack social skills, but he was not a bad guy. He certainly did not deserve to be hacked up in some cheap motel. After the close casket funeral, Mike got back to the digital grind.

  The days flew by. Mike rubbed his three-week-old scraggly mess of a beard with one hand, untamed hair sprouted everywhere.

  Lifting himself from the couch, he decided it was time to feed Lokai. He looked in the pantry and tried to unearth something for Lokai to chow down on. Nothing in the cupboard.

  Lokai followed him, looking up with droopy eyes and barking a couple times.

  “Hush boy, let me check the fridge.”

  The fridge wasn’t much better: three beers, spoiled milk, and a pizza box. He opened the pizza box and handed Lokai the last two pieces.

  Lokai attacked and scarfed down each.

  Mike’s reflexes saved a finger or two from joining the pizza. “I will get you real food today, promise.” He rubbed his beard again. Regret pinged his heart. Sorry, Lokai.

  “I think we’re close, knucklehead.” He crouched down and scratched one of Lokai’s ears. “Everything will get back to normal, you’ll see. Don’t worry.”

  Lokai barked again and wagged his tail.

  “I’m going to spoil you rotten, but right now, I need to get to work.”

  Lokai barked again.

  “Awe, shut up already.”

  Mike applied Einstein’s genius rule to hacking: ninety-nine percent hard work and one percent inspiration. Hours went by, but eventually, inch by digital inch, Mike crept closer, exposing different parts of the network’s open architecture. He learned the devices on the network, but could not breach it. Satisfied with his progress, he sat back on the couch and patted his knee.

  Lokai jumped next to him. He grabbed his jowls, and his favorite mutt stuck his tongue out in an effort to lick him. “Okay, buddy. Fingers on the keyboard only got me so far. Time to hack a human.”

  While a crime to impersonate military personnel, the break-in was part of an FBI contract, and they gave him leeway. It was part of the test. Mike picked up his phone to call the John C. Kluczynski Building. Besides, it’s only a little bit of a lie. I used to be military, just never a general.

  Mike idly ran his hand over the top of Lokai’s head. “Be happy you’re a dog. You’ll never be put on hold by a government stiff or need to flatter or terrify one.”

  After a few minutes of lying to strangers about his rank, unit, deployment, and whatever else sounded official enough, and getting transferred more times than he liked, he found the one weak link he needed.

  “Listen here little missy, I don’t give a rat’s ass about protocol. The agent in charge of passport division. Name and phone number.” Mike lowered his voice and stretched out the word. “Now.”

  The on the other end trembled. “SSsir...”

  Mike’s fingers tightened on the phone, his voice rising an octave. “Don’t sir me! I want an answer, and I want it now!”

  “Sir...sorry. His name’s John Preston.” She gave Mike the phone number. “Do you need me to repeat that?”

  “No. Got it. Thank you. Forget I called, Understand?”

  “With pleasure, sir.”

  Mike put his phone on the coffee table. He said to no one, “Kind of sad that stuff still works. Spies walking off the reservation whenever they want and I can still work an angle.” Tighten security all you want, but people are still people. The weak link in any security chain.

  After an hour of poking around the internet and the dark web looking for bits and pieces of John Preston, including his address, Mike patted Lokai. “Okay boy, got me a target.” He scratched behind Lokai’s ears harder. “You and yours truly are going for a long walk. The hard way.”

  Mike left his apartment unwashed, unshaved, in filthy clothes, and with a face smeared here and there with shoe polish and plant dirt.

  With Lokai running around him without his leash, Mike did his best understanding of a homeless person, leaning toward people, mumbling nonsense and ogling them occasionally. That’s it lady, keep walking, I don’t smell good, either.

  He did worry about shouting at Lokai if the dog got off track or too friendly to someone -- not because he feared Lokai wouldn’t heed his order – but obey too well, stopping in his tracks and sitting down immediately. A dog that disciplined would raise suspicion.

  Luckily, scared of confrontation, everyone gave Mike and Lokai a wide berth. Their distance allowed Mike to reach John Preston’s home several blocks away and rummage his trash with impunity. He found bills with addresses and crammed them in his pocket. Armed with knowledge, he snuck away. It was time for the crazy act to disappear.

  Head down, walking slowly, Lokai now on his leash, Mike was amazed people paid attention or cared; he made eight dollars panhandling on the stroll home, enough to buy Lokai food.

  After he fed Lokai, he studied the receipts from John Preston’s trash bin. According to the bank statement, Preston frequented a coffee shop on Wednesday and Friday afternoon. The agent was easy prey. The man’s lucky I wear a white hat. Mike looked at his watch; it was ten thirty am. He would make it on time.

  Shaved, Mike squeezed into a computer chain’s repairman’s uniform with dark-rimmed glasses and orange pocket protector. He wore the full outfit: polished black shoes, white socks, and a black tie with an official clip. He attached a “special agent” badge to his black belt. His favorite social engineering outfit, it opened many business doors.

  The coffee shop was a short bus trip away. The crowd was light. The smell of coffee and confections wafted about the room the moment he walked in. Mike surveyed the area and understood why John Preston liked this sho
p: shapely baristas, tight outfits, and a variety of coffee flavors.

  Once inside, he walked up to the counter and ordered a dark Sumatra blend. The barista was too good looking for him to not to noticed. Her innocent smile made him regret hacking the shop’s network. He flirted before he asked for an extra cup. The smile and compliment worked, and he got his cup.

  Coffee in hand, Mike selected his seat with care. Before staking out his chair, he placed the empty cup in the seat next to him along with a newspaper to prevent company. Once comfortable, he opened his computer and hacked. He needed full access to the coffee shop’s network for his plan to work.

  Mike knew that the little mom-and-pop coffee store couldn’t afford network administrators, and sure enough, found dozens of security exploits and used the one he needed. For his plan to work, Mike required the passport agent to log into the coffee shop’s open connection, the one he now controlled. A simple but costly mistake for John Preston.

  He spotted the passport agent enter the shop. The agent looked just like the image on his social network page. At least he doesn’t act like that prick, Townsend.

  Mike removed the empty coffee cup and newspaper from the table next to him. The table was officially opened to customers.

  He had picked the spot to increase his odds, with his back to the wall and an unobstructed view of the entrance, what not only he’d pick, but what a trained agent would prefer. Basic situational awareness, check your six and keep your back to a wall.

  Mike took another sip of his coffee and strained to act normal. He kept his eyes averted and leaned away from the chair to make the one next to him more inviting.

  He willed the agent closer.

  Once the passport agent purchased his coffee, he turned and made the correct seat selection. Mike’s psychological profile proved accurate.

  Perfect. Once the agent sat, Mike forced himself to act interested in a breaking news story on his tablet, Russia conducting war games.

  After John Preston had settled down, Mike activated the side camera where he watched the agent in a small window in the corner of his screen. Moving the front-facing camera was a tedious job. He suppressed a smile when his target pulled out his laptop. Keep reading. Act uninterested.

  Mike waited for the agent to select the coffee shop’s connection. The pop-up appeared. He planted a harmless but nefarious-looking virus on the agent’s computer.

  The expression on the man’s face morphed from reflective to fearful.

  Mike waited.

  “Oh shit. I’m in trouble.” The agent grasped his laptop tightly. “What the hell happened?”

  Mike clicked the camera off and turned toward the agent on cue. “Ahh… That’s a familiar sound anywhere.” He waited for three heartbeats. “Computer problems?”

  He felt anger all but fly from John Preston.

  The seconds dragged as he waited for the agent to recognize his outfit.

  Preston turned to him. “Are you really in computer repair?”

  “No, I wear this outfit to pick up chicks.” Mike fiddled with his glasses.

  Preston’s face relaxed. “You’re funny for a nerd. No disrespect. How much would it cost me to remove a virus? Right here, right now?”

  Mike rubbed his face. “I shouldn’t. It’s not allowed. I’ll need to notify the office.” He let the words sink in. “Let me call.” His hand inched toward his phone.

  The agent’s eyes narrowed, and his lips tightened. “Don’t! I’ll give you fifty bucks cash for fifteen minutes of work. The last thing I need is heat from my IT department and my boss stringing my ass out on a tree.”

  Mike, aka nerd for hire, and started his performance. “What the heck? This will be my good nerdy deed for the day. May the force be with you. Log back in.” Mike watched the agent login and mentally recorded the password keystrokes, the oldest hack in the book. It was pointless, but old habits die hard.

  His target looked up. “Don’t you need any tools?”

  Mike raised his finger to his head and then his watch. “The watch has a ton of storage. It’s my WMD, Watch of Mass Destruction. It will destroy any virus.” He bricked and reprogrammed the code on the watch to accept his custom hacking apps. Definitely a WMD.

  Mike linked the watch to the laptop wirelessly across the coffee shop’s hacked network.

  “What? Can’t a big time nerd like me have a trick up his sleeve? Get the pun? Get the pun?”

  “Got it, got it. Remove the damn virus, please.”

  Good, get angry, you twit. Mike removed the virus and login cache information from the laptop with no effort, then sent the security information over the wireless connection to his own machine.

  “Do you want me to optimize it while I’m here?”

  “No thanks. We’re done. Here’s your money.”

  Later, after the sun set and without fanfare, his social engineering, and hard work paid off. Success! He had hacked into the Passport Agency’s computer system and retrieved the file once he logged into the secured network.

  A quick glimpse at the phony data made Mike’s heart skip a beat. If the data was real, the border security of the United States was compromised.

  Crazy stuff. Why’d they provide realistic details in a dummy file? Doesn’t make sense. Not my problem. Townsend’s one uptight piece of shit, but at least he’s loyal to his country.

  He forwarded the message. With the job completed, Mike fired off an email to the silver-haired Agent Townsend, who explained that he used a pseudo email to evade detection by FBI servers. Mike felt uncomfortable sending the email to a non-FBI address but accepted that the government worked in strange ways. He checked the website domain attached to an email and learned the business address did not exist. It was a pseudo company, something the FBI might setup for a sting.

  The body of the message stated he’d met the conditions of the contract, and the requested file was encrypted and attached using an encryption program he had designed.

  He would transmit the location of the key after payment.

  The following day, Mike smiled after viewing the ten-thousand-dollar addition to his bank account. Life doesn’t get any better than this. Mike refused to send the key via email, Hacking 101, different delivery methods. He typed out another message with the GPS coordinates to a USB device containing the decryption key.

  After he sent it, he threw his hands in the air. “Nobody hacks me! Nobody hacks me!”

  The shout caused Lokai to spring off the couch and bark at the crazy person.

  Mike bent down to calm his over-sized little baby. “Come here boy. Daddy’s not going to hurt you. Daddy’s not going to hurt you. Everything’s alright.”

  Lokai responded to his words and jumped on Mike, knocking the wind out of him. After a few deep breaths, Mike lets Lokai put his head on his lap.

  CHAPTER 6

  Rainy Day

  Mike checked last week to see if the hidden USB drive was picked up. It was gone, but so was the additional ten thousand dollars. All communication attempts were unresponsive.

  Damn Eddie, I hope he wasn’t right? Nonsense, there is no way he could be right. Then why in the hell can’t you sleep?

  Mike flipped and flopped in bed. On his side, on his back, flat or curled up, nothing helped. One eye watched the numbers on his alarm clock flicker from 1:36 am to 1:37 am.

  He closed his eyes. Flashes of battered children’s faces, his classmates numb with fear, grownups screaming in his face, people teetering so close to the edge of violence he smelled it. Tasted it. Caused it.

  He jolted awake. Mike was not a stranger to nightmares. They were frequent companions over the years. He’s ridden several varieties of these nasty steeds. He closed his eyes again.

  After a brief respite, he woke. He looked at the clock. 3:04 am. “Crap.”

  Mike started Tanden-soku deep breathing exercises, sucking in air until he felt a compression of his navel. He exhaled his anxiety over a period of several seconds, centered himself, and e
ventually found sleep.

  A series of sexy breathless utterances tried to wake him, Strawhead’s voice is sultry. “Mike, it’s time to wake up... wake up lover boy.”

  Too damn soon! Without thinking, he slapped the snooze button he had rigged to the side of his bed.

  “Ow!” The slap caused Strawhead’s sultry voice to disappear for a pre-programmed twenty-five minute pause.

  He kept his eyes shut. They were glued together by a lack of sleep. He drifted off.

  Twenty-five minutes later the alarm repeated its clarion call. “Mike, it’s time to wake up... wake up lover boy.”

  The sound dragged him from the world of sleep. He sat up and stretched his arms out and tightened his muscles. Bones cracked. Getting old. What a crappy morning.

  “Mike, it’s time to wake up... wake up lover boy.”

  He shifted his ass in gear and pressed the snooze button without hurting himself.

  He idly rubbed his back, feeling the scars that crisscrossed his skin. Whenever hookers asked, he explained the scars were souvenirs from the war torn middle east, and he didn’t exaggerate.

  An unwelcome gift from his Syrian captors. Mike hated the captors’ crafty razor work and the way they hid it.

  He headed to the bathroom to take a cold shower. Maybe the cold water will wake me up? When the watery torture session ended, he decided he needed peace as well as be awake.

  He threw on a pair of blue boxers that his foster brother Eddie had given him. They had an image of Homer Simpson and a ‘Too Big to Fail’ message printed on them. He slipped on a complimentary t-shirt. It said, “Mr. Burns I Stole Your Data.” He smiled and shook his head. Friggin’ Eddie.

  He walked over to his apartment’s enclosed balcony. The balcony was on the 14th floor of his Chicago lakefront apartment. In reality, it was the thirteenth floor, but old superstitions died as hard in the new millennium as in the old.

  Mike flipped a switch on the wall. Tiny electrical motors unfolded the blinds to reveal a great big lake. A kaleidoscope of colors and the breadth of the lake’s coastline offered peace. Man, the view is flipping unbelievable this morning.