John Shirley - Watch Dogs - Dark Clouds

Don’t start thinking about that. Focus.

“What’d you find on the laptop?” she asked.

“It’s just now booted up… oh, here’s the password form. What’s the password?”

She knew the password. Remember GlowWorm.

The laptop accepted the password, and the screen showed a block of text:

Problem: Someone at Blume is using ctOS related wifi to block uploading of files from wifi. If anything relating to Roger Verrick is attempted to be uploaded, the upload is blocked both at 2.4GHz and 5GHz. The blockage is accomplished with wifi signals that immediately overload the band. Other bands are also being searched and blocked.

Cable blocking of any upload relating to Verrick is accomplished via a NSA-quality ctOS search spider constantly checking all uploads in the area.

Solution: Leave town.

Drawback: They’re looking for you to leave town and watching airports, stations, freeways, boats. And if you leave town you will not have the advantage of using the transmitter being prepared for you.

Preferred solution: We have located an area where the wifi blockage is not effective. It is southeast of your location, in the Washington Park area. by tomorrow morning, a powerful transmission device will be installed at that location, by sympathetic local hackers working with SystemsLeak. The device will transmit directly to a satellite. The file upload will go out worldwide. Blockage will then be impractical. The address of the transmitter, available at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow, is—

Wolfe memorized the address. “That’s one of the toughest neighborhoods in Chicago…”

“Let’s make sure the file’s there…”

He opened the text and graphics file on the desktop—the only file on the laptop. He had to use the second password for that: Remember Ruth.

CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN

Ruth Medina Case File 237.

In summary: 1. There are strong indications that Major Roger Verrick, U.S. Army, was planner and key in executing the cash theft from the Road 23B Incident, Somalia Case File 2289…

2. There are further indications that the testimony given by Master Sergeant Mick Jeremiah Wolfe, was in fact substantially accurate.

Verrick appears to have laundered money through a casino in Chicago know as the Four Clubs…

It went on for page after page. “She knew…” Wolfe said, after he’d scanned the extensive file. “Medina knew I was right. She knew what Verrick did…”

“She knew,” Seline agreed. “But she didn’t have enough evidence to convince her superiors. She needed more to have Verrick and Van Ness arrested. The money vanished, sure. They know millions of dollars were laundered through the casino—and that a payment was made to Roger Verrick from ‘Iceberg Investments’. He later ‘reinvested’ a lot of it in Iceberg. But the connection is mostly circumstantial. And the footage you put on disk just isn’t there anymore. So, she was gathering evidence… she spent more than a year doing it.”

“The year I was in prison! Christ. She could have told me.”

“She wasn’t free to do that, Wolfe. She was allowed to investigate but she wasn’t allowed to tell anyone what she knew… except whoever this file was to go to. When she was about to make a move with this data… they killed her.” Seline shrugged, sighing. “She got it to me because she suspected they were moving in on her.”

Wolfe opened a desk drawer, took out the Scotch and two glasses. “Why didn’t she just email the damned thing to her superiors?”

“It could be she didn’t trust them enough. Maybe she was planning to go over their heads. Right to the Pentagon. Defense Intelligence Agency. She was gathering information and she had some pretty damning stuff… Don’t pour any whiskey for me, thanks… And then…”

Wolfe sipped Scotch from the small tumbler. “And then someone killed her.” He looked at Seline. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

“Yeah. They didn’t know I had the file—not until after I got here. I had a friend in the area with some connections with the local chapter of DedSec and I knew they have been working with SystemLeaks so…”

“You sure you don’t want a drink? You don’t really have to worry that I’m trying to get you drunk. I’ll keep an eye on you to make sure you don’t put roofies in my drink.”

“Okay, wise guy. Just one.” She put her tea cup on the desk.

He poured her a drink. “Looks like when we go to that address in the morning, there’ll be someone there ready to help up us do the satellite upload…”

“Uh huh.” She looked around.

“The sofabed,” he said, guessing at her thoughts. “You take that. I’ll be on the cot in the bedroom. Sofabed’s more comfortable.”

Wolfe sipped some Scotch, then got out the PearcePhone and sent a text.

Don’t be throwing your face up on the system here unless you want it to be seen by my guest… We’re doing the upload tomorrow. Crashed a chopper in a lake. Yes that was us… Hope this is secure. Yeah I know: always secure.

He sent the text.

“Who’re you texting?” she asked, going to sit on the sofabed.

He drank off his Scotch, and stood up. “I’ll have to get his permission before I tell you. A friend.” Wolfe looked at her. “Nice new look. Have to get you some loafers to go with it.”

She smiled and sipped her drink.

He said, evenly, “You were pretty cool headed today. Glad I had you on my side.”

She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Are you patronizing me?”

“No. I meant it.”

Seline raised her eyebrows in mild surprise. “Okay. Thanks.” She grimaced. “But… tell you the truth, I felt kind of weird on the roof when I…”

“When you shot that guy? I don’t think it was a killing wound.”

“I never shot anyone before.”

“I wouldn’t feel bad about it where those shit-dicks are concerned. They were ready to shoot us dead.”

“I don’t feel bad about it exactly. Just… a weird feeling. I could have gone my whole life without shooting anybody and been fine with that.”

“I hear you. Only two ways to feel about it. Feel nothing—or the way you do. Me—I think it’s better to give a damn if you have to do it.”

She nodded, just slightly.

Wolfe kept looking at her. No special way. Just looking.

She glanced up at him—then quickly away. She opened her mouth as if to say something…

Then she gave her head a small shake and raised her glass to him. “See you in the morning.”

He nodded, and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

A dull thumping sound woke Wolfe up the next morning. He grabbed his .45 from under the pillow and jumped out of the bed…

And then realized it was only the sound of something thumping in the clothes dryer.

He put on his pants, stuck the gun in his waist band, and opened the door into the other room a little, peering through. He didn’t want to rush out and startle Seline.

Especially now that he knew she had a .44 in her purse. He knocked on the door.

“It’s your place, come on out,” she said.

“It’s not really my place,” Wolfe said, coming out into the living room.

Seline was hunkered down next to the small dryer, taking her clothes from it. She was still wearing the oversized pants and shirt.

“Get all the pond scum off your clothing?” he asked.

“Most of the pond scum’s out there in Chicago,” she said.

She straightened up and looked at him. He thought her eyes lingered on him—and he realized he was bare-chested.

She looked away. “If this is not your place, whose place is it?”

“You go on and change your clothes, and I’ll see if I’m allowed to say whose place it is.”