Buzzworm (A Technology Thriller): Computer virus or serial killer? Read online

  BUZZWORM

  By Theo Cage

  Copyright © 2014 Russell Earl Smith

  Published by Shaylee Press Jan 18, 2014

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, companies and incidents are fully the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, establishments or events is entirely coincidental.

  BOOKS BY THEO CAGE

  SPLICER (2012)

  BUZZWORM (2013)

  SATAN’S ROAD (2014)

  CRISPY CRITTERS (2014)

  THE WOMAN IN THE TRUNK (2014)

  ON THE BLACK (2015)

  BERZERKER (2015)

  ON THE BLACK: AFRICA (2015)

  CRISPY CRITTERS 2 (2015)

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TWO YEARS AGO

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  PROLOGUE

  “Wow, I absolutely loved reading Buzzworm. It is filled with enough intrigue to keep you glued to the pages and reading nonstop to the ending you never see coming. Buzzworm is not your everyday CIA spy game novel; it is a very captivating story, which combines all the aspects of a thrilling CIA story, but the plot is unique, utterly believable and very thrilling. The story takes you behind the scenes and gives you an in-depth tour into the back office operations of the CIA and the technology that holds together the intelligence community. What fascinated me even more is Theo Cage's transfixing description of the workings of the hacker community.”

  Faridah Nassozi for Readers’ Favorite

  “Buzzworm makes your head buzz with delight” Amazon Reviewer

  “A must read! What a ride! This book is fast paced from beginning to end. CIA intrigue and high tech computer viruses abound in this very suspenseful thriller.” Lizza Robbins, LibraryThing

  “On a Monday morning earlier this month, top Pentagon leaders gathered to simulate how they would respond to a sophisticated cyber attack aimed at paralyzing the nation’s power grids, its communications systems or its financial networks. The results were dispiriting. The enemy had all the advantages: stealth, anonymity and unpredictability.”

  New York Times

  “Buzzworm was like a virus, a hard-shelled predator that burrowed into his enemies and spread his DNA throughout their dissolving cells.”

  From a report to the division of Science and Technology, Central Intelligence Agency, by intrusion expert, Roger Strange.

  TWO YEARS AGO

  The man in the dirty sweats, his stomach hanging over the drawstring of his pants, struggled to read his printed confession in the jaundiced light of the interrogation room. Two Washington vice cops sat across from him, their eyes hidden in shadow. But anyone seeing their faces could tell by their expressions, they wanted nothing more than to beat their suspect until he bled like a leaky radiator.

  One of the cops handed him a cheap ballpoint that read ‘Phil’s Auto and Recycling’. The pen looked like it had been chewed on by a rabid dog.

  “Sign it, Scammel. Put the Lance family out of its misery,” said one of the detectives, a round guy in a suit that was two sizes too small.

  Frank Scammel placed the unsigned confession down on the tabletop and wiped his hand across his forehead. He felt like he was about to vomit. The words of the confession seemed to move in and out of focus. He nodded and signed it shakily.

  One of the cops took the printed confession and left the room.

  The click of the automatic door lock was like a rifle shot.

  The other man, Wishnowsky, a ruddy-faced veteran of about fifty, shook his head. Scammel was certain that given half a chance, this career policeman would happily stick his service revolver into Frank’s right ear and blow his brains away.

  He almost wished the detective would get out his gun. It would make everything so much simpler.

  “I have a daughter who’s twelve,” said the cop, still glaring, his fingers drumming on the worn arborite top. “If Beverly Lance were my kid, you’d be buried in a shallow grave.”

  Scammel swallowed, tried to put on his brave face.

  He had picked up the girl on the weekend. He knew her family, so she trusted him when he offered her a ride. She was preteen, sassy, insolent, impossibly spoiled. Something bubbled up inside of him as he sat there at the first red light, staring across at her bare legs and shiny candy apple lip-gloss.

  Wishnowsky got up. “I hear those doctors at the clinic sometimes hit the wrong switch. Or their pervert computer goes haywire." He smiled. "You know - while they've got your dick wired to all that hi-tech shit of theirs."

  Frank had already heard about the sexual offender treatment. It consisted of something called a penile interface to a special computer. The machine would track his response to a series of pornographic pictures. The cop obviously didn’t understand the technology. Big surprise there. "Hope you enjoy the barbecue as much as we will.” Wishnowsky left. The lock clicked again.

  Scammel pushed his long matted hair out of his face. He was dirty, unshaven, smelly. Since the incident with the young girl, he had neither washed nor eaten, laying low in his rented bungalow. He was three days ripe now - ugly sweat marks under his arms and down his back. The confession had made him feel light-headed, as if it proved once and for all what he had done to little smiling Beverly.

  Everything seemed so unreal. Like he was living someone else’s life. A scumbags wet dream.

  There was something so dangerous and yet so damned exhilarating about how he had just swung the van over, stopped, and smiled at her —feeling cockier than he had felt in years.

  Reading the confession had chilled him. In the end he guessed he would be examined and prodded by a bunch of over-educated quacks, spend a couple of months in a locked room, and then be released. It was funny. So much fuss over so little.

  But there were other issues. At work, all they knew yet was he was away on bereavement leave. When they heard the whole story, he’d be lucky to be able to sell newspapers on the corner. And the people he worked for
had a knack for digging up the truth.

  It was the cops who had offered him a deal. Frank knew this case was all about his word against the little girl’s. But they told him they had a clincher — a semen sample.

  Beverly’s mother had the presence of mind not to wash the new jeans after the girl had broken down and told her what had happened. Frank could hardly imagine that kind of presence of mind in a young mother. But it was still possible. He blew it. He should have done a better job of scaring the girl — maybe twisted her fingers until she cried or pulled her hair a little harder. He could have made her swear not to tell anyone.

  Or he could have just made her disappear altogether.

  He’d know better next time.

  For now, he would confess to guilt, the deal being he would volunteer for a new state-funded rehabilitation program. No real time in the slammer at all. If he could do the time on weekends, maybe he could keep it away from his bosses.

  The door opened, breaking his reverie. Wishnowsky led in a man in an expensive-looking suit.

  “You’ve got fifteen minutes with your lawyer,” the officer said.

  The man, tanned like he just came back from two weeks at Club Med, took a chair. Frank’s dicey stench was quickly mixing with the odor of expensive cologne, the combination giving Frank an instant headache.

  This guy looked confident and rich.

  And Frank had never seen him before in his life.

  “Did you know that your ex-lawyer drove a Honda Civic?”

  Frank squinted. “Ex-lawyer?”

  “Dangerous little boxes those Civics. With all that heavy iron on the road these days.”

  “What happened to Purcell?” Purcell was Frank’s court appointed lawyer. A chubby middle-aged ambulance chaser who drove a rusted Honda. Frank was starting to sweat again. Would an injured lawyer mess up his arrangement with the police?

  “Head-on with a Lincoln Navigator this morning on I-95 near Woodbridge. Seen those SUVs? They’ve got a prow on them like an oil tanker. Driver wasn’t even bruised.”

  “Purcell’s dead?” Frank blinked. The man nodded. “And who the hell are you?”

  The man smiled at Frank. He placed a slim aluminum briefcase on the tabletop and settled one hand on top of it, protectively. “I’m your new lawyer.”

  “I’m not sure I need a new lawyer,” Frank said, his voice sounding thin and dry.

  Though the man smiled only slightly, there was more charm in his expression than the two cops who had just left, had in their entire bodies.

  And more of a threat too.

  “Take my word, Frank. You need a new lawyer. If you listen to me and do what I say, you’ll walk out of here today.” He paused and let that start to take hold. “If you don’t, you’ll be hounded the rest of your useless life. If you live, that is. It’s open season on perverts these days in the pen. But then that only seems fair, doesn't it?”

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree, man. I’m about to get three months of treatment. First offense.” The other man seemed amused by Frank’s optimism. “And if you don’t tell me right away what you’re fucking up to," he pointed towards the door, "I’m going to start yelling bloody murder.”

  The smile faded. “You should spend less time skulking around the Internet scoping out the kiddy-porn sites, and more time just checking out the News channel.” Frank felt a twinge. “I guess you’ve never heard of the Harrison Act!”

  Frank didn’t respond. Something about the name Harrison . . .

  “Harrison is the young Senator from Wisconsin. Had a daughter who was abducted and raped. The body was found a week later in a dumpster. The guy who did it was a repeat offender — out on bail. Ring any bells yet?”

  Frank didn’t say anything, but a bell was definitely jangling somewhere.

  “Harrison rammed a law through Congress that throws the key away on jerk-offs like you. Once you enter the hospital for sexual abuse treatment, any judge in the country can sign a document holding you there for as long as the plaintiff sees fit. By the way, the little girl you picked as a target — her daddy sits on the local Republican Nominating Committee. You’re not nearly as bright as you think you are. You might see daylight on your sixtieth birthday.”

  Frank swallowed. He only knew the Lance family because they had asked him once to help fix their home computer. He had met Beverly’s dad one evening standing around a kid’s soccer game in the local park. Frank was doing what he did best, stalking preteens. All he knew was Lance was a minor contractor for the military, who sometimes got mentioned in the press. The official records would show that Frank himself was a programmer for C-Tan International, which was presently one of many CIA domestic fronts.

  “You work for Lance?” Frank asked.

  The man shook his head. “If I worked for Lance, your funeral would have been yesterday. I’m part of something much bigger. You can call me David.”

  “David who?”

  “Just David is all you’re getting right now, Frank.” He winked. “Of course, a little intrigue should make you feel right at home.”

  Frank pushed his long hair back over one ear. He had a suspicion that the company might have sent this guy. Maybe they’re concerned about bad publicity. “So what’s your brilliant plan for saving my butt?”

  “Your friend Wishnowsky will bail you out.”

  This time Frank laughed, but it was tight and high in his throat. “Wishnowsky would eviscerate me in a minute. If he knew he could get away with it.”

  “Did he say that?” Frank nodded. “Good. That confirms they don’t have surveillance in here. As if the Washington Police had the budget.”

  “You’re from C-Tan,” whispered Scammel, beginning to believe that his people were going to bail him out.

  David grabbed Frank’s chin and squeezed hard. “Start using that high IQ of yours, Frank. Your intelligence buddies — if they knew what a sicko you were — they’d be helping the cops make you disappear. I’m the only friend you have in the whole state.”

  David released Frank and carefully wiped his hands with a monogrammed handkerchief. The initials were DX. “As to whom I work for, you may find out soon enough. All you need to know right now is — I have resources. And that I’m prepared to get you out of trouble in return for some help.”

  Frank sat back, rubbing his chin. He worked in the imaging department at Langley. He had heard the stories, like everyone else, of employees who just disappeared. The official story was they were transferred to International offices. But a lot of them were fuckups, so that didn’t always ring true. And this guy knew more about him than the cops.

  He often thought about how he would react to a bribe — if it ever came his way. He guessed he was about to find out.

  David continued. “Your friend, Wishnowsky, is a twenty-five year man. Wife and two kids. One daughter in college. A veteran Washington vice detective with a fair record. And a $65,000 gambling debt that’s giving him an ulcer the size of a fist.” Frank looked up, surprised again at what this man knew.

  “Loan-sharked sixty large is about six-hundred a week in vig. That’s a lot of interest for a guy on a clean cop’s salary,” said DX.

  Frank shook his head, the long hair moving like snake grass. “So what does his shit have to do with my shit?”

  David enjoyed that. He looked at Frank the way a zookeeper looks at a caged animal. “Everything, Frank. Everything. You give him $65,000 to lose the confession and make the sperm sample report disappear.”

  Scammel snorted. “If you know so much, you know what they pay me. I don’t have that kind of scratch.”

  David slid a package out of his case. He opened it just enough for Frank to see the color of the money.

  “One hundred thousand in medium bills. Non-sequential. This is your life’s savings, courtesy of your new friends.” Frank’s whole face turned red, like he was about to have a stroke. “Of course, you’ll also agree to leave the neighborhood. You’ll never go near kids again. If you
do, Wishnowsky can personally hack off your family jewels, and we’ll supply the knife.”

  Frank couldn’t take his eyes off the money. DX continued. “He’ll push you around a little when you tell him. You deserve it, and he needs the outlet. But he’ll eventually go back to his desk and find a way to bury the evidence. Poor bastard simply has no choice. None. A college education ain’t cheap.”

  Frank was feeling dizzy and nauseous again. “Why one hundred?”

  David grinned. “It’s part two of the plan. Wishnowsky gets to go to the Lance family. Tells them you agreed to go into treatment, and you’ll move. And your lawyer agreed to settle on $35,000 to pay for Beverly’s treatment with the finest children’s psychologist in the state, the Peterson Wellness Clinic. It gets Lance off your back. He won't be happy to hear you've danced around a jail term, but this should keep him from personally hunting you down with a filleting knife.”

  “And he’ll buy that? The cop?”

  “For now. In twelve months, Wishnowsky will be back. A gambling habit is harder to kick than heroin. We’ll get some more favors from him before long.”

  Frank narrowed his eyes. “We will.”

  “We’re a team, Frank. You, me — and the corporation. Just keep it zippered up and everything will be fine.”

  “And what do you want from me?”

  David sat back. “You’re going to become Santa Claus to the Washington police department. Once the word gets around, you’ll have more needy cops at your door than the Policeman’s Benevolent Fund.”

  CHAPTER 1

  Mary Ellen pushed herself away from her desk and the three wide-screen LCD computer monitors that surrounded her. She covered her face with hands that had begun to shake. She could feel the sheen of sweat on her forehead - her skin clammy and cold.

  What she had just seen had sent her into a kind of shock.

  It was late, 2:33 AM to be precise, and Mary Ellen had been finding it more difficult by the moment to concentrate on the tiny blobs and smears that continued to march across her computer screens. Every time she leaned back and took an anxious breath — the fuzzy shapes popped back into harsh focus again. A sensation like someone was pouring ice water down her back made her wish she wasn’t alone in the CIA special imaging room tonight.