Bring Back Cerberus Read online

  I thought of all the photos on his office walls – it certainly wasn’t cans of Mace he was toting in those.

  ‘And you’re sure he’s in there?’ I said.

  ‘The intel’s gold-plated,’ said Hound, looking over at his tech guy. ‘Isn’t it, Guzman?’

  ‘He’s in there,’ said Guzman.

  ‘All you need to do is lure the rat out so we can nab him,’ said Hound.

  ‘And he’s definitely connected?’

  ‘You saw his rap sheet – do you think this rat could survive without the net?’

  Hound was right.

  Once my family went on holidays to this tropical island in the Pacific. The brochure said that there was wi-fi available but when we arrived there was nothing but sand and water and swaying coconut palms. Miranda said that she’d be okay, but as the days went by she seemed to get smaller, thinner, weaker. In the end we cut the holiday short so she could get back online, get herself a life-saving transfusion of data.

  I opened my backpack, removed ClamTop, placed it on my lap.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ said Guzman. ‘I’ve never seen anything like that before.’

  ‘It’s a limited-edition model,’ I said.

  ‘PC or Mac?’

  ‘Neither, actually.’

  ‘So what operating system does it use?’

  ‘Linux,’ I said, though I really only had a vague idea what Linux was.

  ‘Oh, Linux,’ repeated Guzman. ‘Sweet as.’

  ‘Give the kid some room, can ya?’ said Hound, lighting up a cigarette.

  ‘You smoke?’ I said.

  ‘Only when I’m stressed,’ he said.

  If he was stressed, what was I?

  The other times I’d opened ClamTop I’d done it vocally, by saying the word ‘open’.

  But there was no way I wanted to go all Ali Baba here, especially not in front of Guzman.

  So I closed my eyes, concentrating my thoughts on one word, one request, one command.

  When I opened them again ClamTop was still closed. And the thing about ClamTop is that when it’s closed it really is closed. Not like a suitcase, or a normal laptop. Even when they’re closed it’s easy to see that, given the right action – a twist of a key, an unlatching of a latch – they could be opened. The ClamTop, however, looked seamless, hermetically sealed.

  ‘Everything okay?’ said Hound, expertly directing a stream of smoke through the small gap in the window.

  ‘Okay,’ I said as again I screwed my eyes shut.

  Concentrating, lasering all my thoughts onto this one word, this one action.

  The tiniest of clicks.

  I released my eyes and – ohmigod! – the ClamTop was open, its screen flickering to life.

  ‘Wow!’ I said as I scanned the list of networks available in this area.

  ‘What’s up?’ said Hound, ashing his cigarette in the ashtray.

  ‘There sure are a lot of networks around,’ I said.

  ‘No kidding,’ said Guzman.

  ‘You’ll sort it,’ said Hound confidently.

  I started scrolling down, looking to see if any of them obviously belonged to the rat.

  But after several screens I realised how stupid that was.

  A career criminal wasn’t going to call his network ANDRENET or NITMICKHOME or FindMeAndPutMeInJailNet.

  In fact, a career criminal wasn’t even going to use his own money to set up a network. A career criminal, especially a black-hat hacker, was going to steal himself some bandwidth, he was going to piggyback on somebody else’s wi-fi network.

  So I sorted the list into unsecure and secure networks, figuring that as an unsecure network was easier to hack into, that was the one he’d use.

  But I soon realised that I was probably wrong about that as well.

  For an elite hacker, a secure network didn’t present that much of a challenge. Maybe five more minutes of their time.

  And then they knew that nobody else – except a fellow elite hacker – could access their computer.

  So I switched my focus to the secure networks. Which narrowed it down to around a hundred.

  I sorted these according to broadband speed, figuring that Nitmick, like most geeks, also had a pathological need for bandwidth speed.

  I cracked open SHIVANET, the network on top of the list.

  Hound was engrossed in a book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Private Investigators, but I could see that Guzman was trying to check out my screen, see what I was up to.

  I positioned ClamTop so he couldn’t. I didn’t want him to see how easy ClamTop made it all.

  There were five computers connected to SHIVANET, but it looked like only one was active.

  I brought this computer up, its desktop cloned to my screen.

  Somebody was playing Second Life.

  Yes, maybe Nitmick spent his days playing Second Life, but somehow I doubted it.

  I went to MYWIRELESS, the next imaginatively named network on the list. This only had one computer connected. Its owner was on Facebook, telling everybody how they had a cheese and ham sandwich for lunch. With lots of grainy mustard.

  Again, I assumed this wasn’t Nitmick. Hoped it wasn’t Nitmick. That he wasn’t this big a loser.

  Eleven networks, twenty-five computers and an hour and a half later and I still hadn’t found Nitmick.

  Hound was still reading his book. And Guzman was doing something on his phone.

  I cloned another desktop and as I did I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before: on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen a tiny red light, with the letters REC below it, was blinking.

  I didn’t investigate further, however, as I was distracted by the desktop that I’d just cloned.

  The wallpaper was an image of champion UFC fighter Brock the Rock, in triumphant pose, muscled arms thrust into the air. The desktop was so cluttered, though, that much of the Rock’s six-pack splendour was obscured by opened programs.

  The only other person I knew who could cope with as many programs as this open at once was Miranda.

  There was something called Crossword Maestro, and along the top of the screen were live CCTV feeds, which I assumed had been ported from the building’s security system.

  They showed the corridor. The front entrance. The underground carpark.

  A PDF file was open. Under the title ‘Authorised Component Suppliers’ was a list of fifty or so companies and their addresses. The document was watermarked ‘Styxx Secure Document’.

  This had to be him, but I needed proof.

  I went to Internet Explorer where Hotmail was already open. Suddenly I had a feeling of guilt, almost shame. What right did I have to snoop around in somebody’s desktop, somebody’s life, like this?

  It had been bad enough when I’d done it to Imogen, but at least I knew her. Nitmick was a complete stranger to me.

  ‘You getting anywhere, Youngblood?’ said Hound.

  I really wished he’d lose the Youngblood thing.

  I went to the inbox. The latest message was from eve2412.

  My darling Andre … it started.

  Found him!

  But I wanted to make really sure before I said anything.

  So I went through some of the other email messages.

  Apart from eve2412 there were two other senders: [email protected] and LoverOfLinux@gmail. com.

  I thought it was weird that there were only two, but then I realised that this email address must be a secret one, one that only these select people knew about.

  A lot of these emails were in this weird cryptic language. But not all of them, and eventually, after a lot of reading, it became apparent that the three of them were involved in some sort of business venture together. And even though they didn’t say they were going to rob a bank or defraud somebody, I still got the sense that this venture was essentially criminal in nature.

  The whole thing seemed to depend on Nitmick getting his hacker’s hand on a document they called th
e ‘Styxx List’ from some place they called ‘the Under World’.

  I wondered about the PDF I’d already seen on Nitmick’s desktop, whether he’d already been successful and this seemingly mundane list of companies was it.

  There was also talk of ‘Cerberus’, which I gathered was some sort of radical new technology that Styxx was developing. I couldn’t quite work out whether it was a phone, some sort of sensing device, an encryption device, or even a combination of all three.

  Whatever it was, it was going to ‘take market share from all the major players’.

  I also got the sense that LoverOfLinux and Nitmick didn’t have the most harmonious relationship, and that Nitmick had reneged on some promise he’d made.

  After the inbox, I went to the outbox and this was where it started to get even weirder.

  The emails to eve2412 – and there were a lot of them – were all variations on the same ‘Pixel, I love you’ theme.

  But the other emails, the ones to LoverOfLinux and SheikSnap, were written in that cryptic language and didn’t really make much sense. Not to me anyway.

  Suddenly Nitmick – I assumed it had to be Nitmick – started typing a new message to eve2412.

  Pixel, I love you so much my …

  ‘Found him!’ I said.

  ‘He’s there right now?’ asked Hound, putting down his book.

  ‘He sure is.’

  ‘Then we need to find a way to flush him out,’ said Hound.

  We sure do! I thought.

  Obviously Nitmick loved eve2412 and eve2412 loved Nitmick. And from what I knew, people, even paranoid criminals, will do just about anything for love. They’ll even set fire to swimming pools.

  I told Hound my theory.

  He thought for a while before he said, ‘Okay, phish the punk.’

  I’d heard the expression ‘phish’ – who hasn’t? – but I didn’t have a clue how to do it.

  ‘Phish him?’ I said tentatively.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Hound. ‘And this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to send him an email from this Pixel, saying that she’s in trouble, that he has to come straightaway.’

  I remembered all the hacker software on Guzman’s laptop.

  Surely there was something there that would phish: Microsoft Phish, Adobe Phish, something like that.

  And surely Guzman knew how to do it.

  ‘Can’t do it from my machine,’ I said.

  ‘Why not?’ said Guzman.

  ‘They’d parse the IP address,’ I said, repeating something I’d heard Miranda say on the phone once.

  Guzman gave me a strange look. ‘Parse the IP address?’

  ‘Do it, Guzman,’ said Hound. ‘The kid’s done good.’

  As Guzman powered up his laptop I could see everything he was doing.

  He brought up a program called ‘Nuclear Phishing’.

  I read out the email address and he tapped away.

  ‘Bombs away?’ he asked, his finger hovering over the enter button.

  ‘Bombs away,’ said Hound.

  Guzman hit enter.

  I watched proceedings on my screen.

  Nitmick was in the middle of typing one of those typically weird emails to [email protected] – If that’s the case, bolt’s got the number on ‘a mundane glove’, all mixed-up, next to the tiny Phosphorus Mountains – when the phished email from eve2412 arrived.

  He opened it immediately.

  Rapidly typed a reply: Pixel, what’s wrong? The send button illuminated.

  Now we had a problem: what if the real eve2412 was online, what if she replied?

  ‘Quick,’ I said. ‘Send another email that says Come now.’

  Guzman did as I asked.

  Again I watched as Nitmick opened this email.

  As he typed a single-word reply – Coming – and sent the email.

  ‘He’s on his way,’ I said.

  Nitmick left his computer logged on, so I could see him exit his apartment on the CCTV monitor.

  ‘He’s getting into the lift,’ I said.

  ‘Too easy,’ said Hound. ‘We’ll grab him when he hits the street.’

  I watched as the lift opened on the ground floor and Nitmick emerged.

  ‘He’s coming through the front exit,’ I said.

  The rat was out of his nest, and the rest was surprisingly easy.

  As he wobbled up the street, towards where the Hummer was parked, Hound jumped in front of him. And even though Nitmick was big, he was sit-inside-all-day-and-eat-junk-food big and he was no match for the enormous Hound with his fishnet T-shirt, scary pectorals and can of Mace.

  Hound snapped the handcuffs on Nitmick before frogmarching him over to the Hummer. Opening the back door, he shoved him in next to me. Immediately the smell hit me: BO. Sit-inside-all-day-and-eat-junk-food BO. BO that had so much presence I reckoned they’d charge Nitmick for two tickets when he went to the movies.

  Hound got back behind the wheel.

  ‘So I gather there’s nothing wrong with Pixel,’ said Nitmick, glaring at Guzman.

  ‘As far as we know, Pixel’s fine,’ said Guzman.

  Nitmick seemed about to say something, but Guzman said, ‘Probably better if you keep your mouth shut now, Andre.’

  Nitmick kept his mouth shut.

  These two know each other, was my immediate thought. And know each other well.

  ‘I don’t like using dirty tricks like that,’ said Hound. ‘But you really gave us no option, Andre. Why the hell didn’t you turn up at court?’

  ‘Court?’ Again Nitmick glared at Guzman.

  ‘That big building with all the lawyers inside it,’ said Hound. ‘Your hearing was last week.’

  ‘So what happens to him now?’ I said.

  ‘Andre’s off to the monkey house, I’m afraid,’ said Hound.

  ‘So he can’t get bail again?’ I said.

  ‘Maybe, if he asks nicely enough. But Andre’s got bigger cashflow problems, haven’t you, Andre? And none of his so-called friends are willing to stump up for him. As for his family, what family? They gave up on him years ago.’

  ‘So who owned me?’ said Nitmick, his eyes moving from Hound to Guzman, before they finally rested on me.

  ‘You?’ he said.

  I really didn’t like his doubting tone.

  ‘Yes, me,’ I said, and I added, ‘You’re lucky I didn’t trash your hard disk while I was there!’

  ‘Steady, cowboy,’ said Hound. ‘Our job is to help people build their lives, not destroy them.’

  Hound started the engine, turned the rap up to volume that could this time usefully be described as ‘ear-splitting’ and we headed back towards the city.

  As we hit the freeway Hound looked at his watch and said, ‘We should be able to get you back to school in time for the last period.’

  ‘School?’ I said, thinking that was the last place I wanted to be after a hard afternoon’s hacking.

  ‘He who opens a school door,’ said Hound, scary eyes, scary pectorals, ‘closes a prison.’

  WEDNESDAY

  GOOGLE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND

  When I got home, I jumped straight onto my computer.

  Brought up Google.

  Typed in Styxx List.

  Hit enter.

  I got a few results but they didn’t make much sense, not in the context in which I wanted them to make sense, anyway.

  I went outside, to the side of the pool, to where I knew Miranda would be doing her tai chi exercises.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  ‘Hi,’ she replied.

  She went into a move I’ve never seen before: standing on one bended leg, she moved both arms in widening circles.

  ‘Wow, what’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s one I invented,’ said Miranda. ‘I was thinking of calling it the Inebriated Emu.’

  ‘Catchy,’ I said.

  I waited until she’d finished the Inebriated Emu before I hit her with the real purpose of my conversation.
‘Have you ever heard of the Styxx List?’

  ‘What is it with you?’ she said. ‘One day it’s all about running round and round in a circle, and the next you’re suddenly the geekiest kid in the whole of Queensland.’

  ‘So you’ve never heard of the Styxx List?’

  Miranda took a small white towel and wiped her face with it.

  ‘Styxx as in s-t-y-x-x?’ she said.

  ‘That’s right, as in the phones. I typed it into Google and all I got was rubbish and I know for sure it’s not rubbish.’

  Miranda smiled an annoying smile, like I was her dumb little brother or something.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘You people,’ she said. ‘You all think Google’s your friend.’

  ‘Google is my friend!’ I said.

  And as I said this, half-jokingly, I realised how true it was: at least Google, unlike Imogen, still talked to me, at least it still answered my questions. And if it wasn’t just a search engine I’m sure it would stand at the window in the morning and give me a little Google wave as I started my run.

  ‘Maybe, but it’s not going to tell you everything,’ said Miranda.

  ‘So what are you saying, that there definitely is a Styxx List but Google doesn’t want me to know about it?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

  ‘It censors the results?’

  Miranda nodded.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Obviously, because it wants to protect Styxx.’

  I must’ve look doubtful, because Miranda launched into further explanation: ‘Look, if you’re in China and you type in how to escape from China, do you think Google’s going to tell you exactly which bus to catch and what time it’s leaving?’

  ‘They’ve got Google in China?’ I said.

  ‘They’ve got Google everywhere,’ said Miranda. ‘It’s just not the same everywhere.’

  ‘Anyway, forget Google. Have you personally heard of a Styxx List?’

  ‘Leave it with me,’ said Miranda, flexing her knees, bringing her palms together.

  But then she stopped whatever it was she was doing to say, ‘He’s so hot!’

  ‘Who’s hot?’ I said, but by the time I’d finished saying that, Seb came into view on the other side of the pool and the question became redundant.

  ‘The pool guy,’ she answered. ‘And he’s smart, too.’