Alex O'Donnell and the 40 CyberThieves (The Fairy Tale Novels)

  Alex shook his head. “Like I told you earlier, we had just arrived at the house minutes before you guys showed up. I was looking around his office and saw the envelope, but I didn’t really put anything together. I guess you’re working on finding out who sent it?”

  “We will be doing that,” Agent Furlow promised. “I’m sorry you’re going to have to be stuck here for three days.”

  “Yeah, that stinks. But you know, it won’t be so hard on us if—listen, are you sure I can’t talk to my family?”

  “Bureau procedure dictates…”

  Alex spread his hands. “Think about it. We just lost our uncle, suddenly and tragically. We’d had no warning—my girlfriend had just arrived from New Jersey an hour before we got the news. We dropped everything, drove up north and rushed up here to be with my aunt. I know my aunt’s a mess. There’s no way any of us could have had anything to do with his death. I mean, my kid brothers are going to be traumatized by this, and I’m sure my girlfriend’s freaking out. I understand why you have to quarantine us, but can’t you let us at least talk to each other?” He put his head on one side. “Can’t you talk to your chief and find out if you can make an exception, in this case? Otherwise, I’m sure the psychological pain of this on top of losing Uncle Cass is going to be too much for the rest of my family to handle.” In these situations, you had to know just what to say to get around the red tape. Gently hinting at civil lawsuits—more red tape—was sometimes a good strategy. So he’d heard.

  Agent Furlow paused. “I can see your point, but standard protocol is…” he shook his head. “Well, you’re right. I can at least talk to the chief and see what he says, in this case.”

  Alex smiled with all the Irish charm he could muster. “I really, truly appreciate it.”

  But after the agent left, Alex didn’t relish his victory. He sank back onto the bed pillows, feeling his hands go cold at the thought of his near escape.

  So the ricin that had killed Uncle Cass had been in that envelope. And I almost picked it up.

  He really hoped the FBI would let him see Kateri soon.

  Kateri was starting to feel herself shift into prison mode—not a good thing.

  She wondered if the FBI would let her tell her parents where she was, at least that she was safe. Or suppose they discovered that she had been exposed to some freak biological virus? Suppose that it was fatal—or worse, chronic?

  Slowly, all the government conspiracy movies she’d ever seen began to knit together and replay themselves in her mind. The US government erasing every trace of their existence in the outside world, while keeping them alive in a secret laboratory for study and observation…

  Several times she had to snap out of it, tell herself that she was living in America, not Communist Russia, but as soon as she started drifting off, the entire movie would start again, in bad 60’s Technicolor. . . Agent Furlow somberly telling her parents that they would never see their daughter again. . . A desperate fight in the bunker for freedom. . . Alex in a yellow space suit escaping from the feds, leaping over tombstones. . .

  “Kateri!”

  Snapping out of it, she blinked to find a completely real Alex staring in her face and grinning. He was wearing bright red sweats and an IV tube was still taped to his arm, but that was the only Technicolor thing about him. “You okay?”

  “Just replaying Capricorn One in my mind for the fortieth time,” Kateri said, rubbing her eyes.

  “Serves you right for watching such lousy movies,” Alex said, hopping onto the side of the bed next to her. “How do you feel? No flu symptoms? No strange sore throat?”

  “No, thank God,” Kateri said. She knew she didn’t have any symptoms, even though her brain had been doing its darndest in her paranoia to convince her otherwise.

  “Hey Alex! Hey Kateri!” David and Sam tumbled in through the door. “Isn’t this a cool place? When do you think they’ll let us out? Do you think we’re underneath the ground?”

  “Pipe down, barbarians,” Alex said. “So they let you guys out too? Where’re Mom and Dad?”

  “Right here,” Mr. O’Donnell said, maneuvering Mrs. O’Donnell’s wheelchair through the door. “Good to see you all again!”

  His hearty greeting made Kateri take a deep breath and try again to switch back to normality. People in conspiracy movies spoke in grim whispers, not in loud, cheerful voices. Besides, all the O’Donnells were wearing the same bright, terrible colors of sweatpants, and life was starting to feel more like an episode of Teletubbies.

  Alex shut the heavy door behind his parents and they all settled themselves on or around Kateri’s bed. “So,” Alex said, “now we can talk.”

  “Are you sure?” Kateri looked around her room suspiciously. “Are you sure this room isn’t bugged?”

  “Highly doubtful,” Alex said, and his father nodded.

  “I’m sure they have the capability to…” Kateri said, pointing at the light fixture where she had been positive that a camera was hidden.

  “Oh, yeah, sure, they do. But I doubt they are,” Alex said.

  “How do you know?” Kateri said sharply.

  “I don’t know,” Alex said with a shrug. “But at some point, you have to trust. Otherwise, civilization and sanity break down.” He patted her on the shoulder. “Look, I know you’ve had some rotten experiences with law enforcement in the course of your career, but don’t let it poison your mind.”

  “Besides, everything I’m going to say to you, I’m going to tell to the FBI myself in a few minutes anyhow,” Mr. O’Donnell said unexpectedly.

  They all stared at him in silence. Mr. O’Donnell removed his glasses from his red-rimmed eyes, wiped the frames, and put them back on again.

  “Not that it’s going to solve any problems,” Mrs. O’Donnell said resignedly.

  “Otherwise, we would have told you all earlier.

  “You’re going to tell us everything?” Kateri asked Mr. O’Donnell, trying not to sound as skeptical as she felt.

  He nodded. “I will,” he said huskily. “I will. I never thought I would hurt anyone. I was just taking a risk…”

  Kateri was stolid. “Curiosity killed the cat.”

  “Yes,” Mr. O’Donnell bowed his head. “But in this case, it killed my brother,” he whispered.

  Telling herself not to be so harsh, Kateri said, “I’m sorry.”

  Mr. O’Donnell sighed heavily. “Okay. So here’s what happened.”

  Alex edged closer to Kateri, who had fixed her entire attention on his dad.

  She didn’t seem to like what she’d heard thus far. There was a deep furrow between her dark eyes.

  “So that’s the whole story, so far as I can understand it,” Dad said, a bit wearily. “And I think at this point, I’d better tell the authorities everything I know.”

  There was silence as this sank in.

  “So that’s the end of the million dollars,” Sam said.

  “It looks like it,” Dad said.

  “Alan, I’m so sorry—” Mom began to say in an agonized voice but he shook his head abruptly.

  “No, Kitty, stop. Don’t blame yourself. I absolutely forbid you to blame yourself. We needed to pay Cass what we owed him. No matter how we did it, he was going to be suspicious. He chose to do what he did.” His voice started to break, but he managed to steady it.

  After a silence had passed, Sam said, hesitantly, “Dad. Are we going to have to give back the hotel, too?”

  “Not necessarily,” Mom said, drying her eyes with a tissue. “What we have to do is make the hotel work. If we can make money with it, we can continue to pay off the mortgage. It’ll be tight, but we’ll get by.” She squeezed her husband’s hand, and said steadily, “Well! It’s been an interesting adventure, being rich, but I had a feeling it wasn’t going to last.”

  Dad looked at Kateri. “I’m sorry you had to be part of this madness.”

  She shrugged, with what Alex knew was pretended nonchalance. “These things happen.” She
didn’t say anything else.

  There was a knock on the door, and a nurse, still masked, poked her head inside. “Excuse me. I’m afraid we need everyone to return to their rooms for a medical checkup. It will only take a few minutes.”

  “That’s fine,” Dad said, and Sam and David, possessed by restless energy, got up and began fighting almost immediately.

  As his mom began to remonstrate with them, Alex pulled Kateri aside.

  “Look, I need to apologize,” he said. “You were right. You saved my life back there in Uncle Cass’s office. If I had touched that envelope, I might be dead now.”

  “Don’t say that,” Kateri muttered, shivering. “I’m completely paranoid already. We won’t be given the all-clear for another forty-eight hours.”

  “But do you forgive me, for being—well, pigheaded, to choose a word?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thanks.” He squeezed her hand and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

  Alex had intended to be in the room when his dad confessed to the FBI, but during the medical checkup, the doctor found some sort of noise in Alex’s lungs that concerned him and ordered another set of tests to be run. “After all, you were in that study where they found the ricin longer than anyone else,” he said testily when Alex argued with him. Alex insisted that it was probably just his seasonal allergies, but the doctor was adamant. Irish charm might sway the feds, but not the already-heavily-litigated-against medical profession.

  So Alex had to sit and have his blood drawn (again) and wait for the tests to come back. There hadn’t been time to talk to Dad earlier. And by the time Alex was pronounced free to move around again, Dad’s room was empty and Mom said he had gone speak to Agent Furlow.

  Mom was really worried about Aunt Mona, so after wheeling her into his tearful aunt’s room, Alex went back to see Kateri, where he confided his fears.

  “Well,” Kateri said, with some hesitation. “Sometimes doing the right thing will get you in trouble. And your dad is willing to risk that.”

  “Yeah,” Alex conceded. “I guess it’s just the O’Donnell clannishness rising up in me. I was raised to be loyal.” He scratched his arms fitfully. “I wish I could be there with him,” he said again.

  Kateri didn’t say anything but Alex knew she was thinking the same thing he was: CKTC.

  Having secured permission for the O’Donnells and Kateri to see one another, Agent Furlow continued to make himself popular when he recommended, over Agent Randolph’s objections, that the family be allowed to have access to a video game console. So while Alex waited for his dad to return, he relieved his anxiety by creaming Sam and David in a Japanese anime game involving crash-testing tanks. Kateri even consented to watch them, so they were all piled on the bed in Alex’s room. Eventually they were joined by Mom, who had been allowed to have crochet needles and yarn (again, thanks to Agent Furlow’s thoughtfulness). She sat in her chair working on a potholder in red and black and making cheerful small talk with Kateri. So they were all there when Dad finally returned, after speaking with the FBI for nearly three hours.

  Dad told them that he had had to reconstruct his visits to the website verbally, since computers that could connect to the internet were disallowed in this facility. “Once we’re given the all-clear, I told them I’d come to the FBI headquarters and show them more. But I think I gave them what they need in order to investigate Cass’s death.” He put his head to one side. “Also, I’m not sure about this, but I get the idea that Agent Furlow thinks he knows who the website belongs to.”

  “Who?” Sam asked.

  “He mentioned there’s a ring of cyberthieves the FBI has been after. He seems to think I might have stumbled onto their website.”

  “Cyberthieves?” Kateri repeated.

  “Criminals who hack into banks, steal personal identities, run internet scams, that sort of thing,” his dad explained. “Most of them are small operators, but apparently there’s a group of them who work together to commit larger crimes.”

  “Like stealing millions of dollars? But where do they steal the money from?”

  David asked. His dad shrugged.

  “There are different ways cyberthieves have of harvesting money. Sometimes they hack into a banking system and deduct a half-cent from each account. That can translate into a lot of money, depending on the size of the banking system.”

  David whistled.

  “So you didn’t just find their website,” Alex said. “You found their online bank. Where they store their money.”

  “I’m just hazarding a guess,” Dad said. “You know how federal agents are: they never want to tell you anything for certain. But Agent Furlow seemed to feel comfortable telling me a little more.”

  “So these criminals have millions of dollars, and they don’t mind killing people,” Alex was thinking hard.

  Dad nodded. “By the way, Agent Furlow told me that the ricin did come in an envelope from the Sundance Fun Foundation, just like our check did. But this envelope was red, padded, and heavily taped.”

  Alex, his brothers, and Kateri exchanged glances.

  Dad put his head to one side. “I’m wondering if the red envelope was meant to be a warning. In other words, if you’re using the online bank and you do something wrong when you’re making a transaction—such as not logging out correctly—the site administrators will send you a red envelope of ricin. Someone who’s part of the ring of cyberthieves will know they’ve done something wrong, and would know not to open it…”

  “But Uncle Cass was an outsider, so he didn’t know,” Alex finished.

  Dad didn’t say anything, just touched Mom’s hand. She shook her head and gave him a familiar look, saying softly, “The luck of the Irish saved you that time, Alan.”

  “Let’s hope that luck holds out,” was all Dad said. Kateri narrowed her eyes.

  Alex recognized too well what she was thinking: what was his dad going to do next?

  The man looked around one more time to make sure he was really alone, then stepped into the mahogany office and softly closed the door.

  It was after three in the morning. Everyone was asleep. No one could possibly know what he was up to.

  He fumbled in the briefcase he’d brought with him from home, and opened up his laptop.

  In the middle of the night, something had suddenly gelled into a resolution.

  Arguing with himself, he opened the black SSH screen, and then, with a deep breath, went to the online folder that contained the program he had secretly downloaded from the helpdesk website several weeks ago. He’d promised himself that he’d never go back there, never take advantage of the passwords he’d collected with the MouseCatcher. But…

  His finger hovered over the enter key. Should I? Is it wise? He reminded himself that he had neglected to mention to the FBI that he’d copied the program and hidden it in his web e-mail.

  He took a deep breath, and opened up the “Sesame” program.

  Darkness.

  The verification process. The security questions. And then the cave materialized around him. He wondered if he would be visible to other users or not, or if he’d have to attach the MouseCatcher to someone in order to become invisible.

  But the questions were irrelevant, he realized at once. He wasn’t alone in the cave. Someone was waiting for him.

  The ninja.

  Unlike last time, the ninja was facing the camera, and his dark eyes seemed to bore through the screen. The man had no doubt that this time, the other user could see him, or at least, some online representation of him.

  A transparent veil dropped over the screen, and words appeared.

  You again. I thought you might come.

  I kept that portal open and waited to change my login information just to see if you would try this door again.

  And you did.

  Very clever of you to get in. You must be a hacker of exceptional skill.

  Would you like to tell me how you did it?

  I’m sure we can co
me to some sort of an understanding …

  Kateri woke up on the plush mattress of the guest bedroom where she had been sleeping since their release from the decontamination facility. Unable to shake her farm upbringing, she had woken early, even though she’d gone to bed far after midnight. There was no falling back to sleep again, even in a bed as comfortable as this one.

  Her fears of being pinned for the crime on some sort of flimsy grounds had not materialized. Actually, those fears had evaporated in the face of more reasonable fears that the FBI would take Mr. O’Donnell into custody. But apparently the FBI didn’t think that was necessary. Or else they weren’t ready to prosecute. So after making a copy of Mr. O’Donnell’s laptop and warning all of them to not talk to others about their experience at the decontamination facility, lest they accidentally jeopardize the security of their country (blah blah blah), Kateri and the O’Donnells and Aunt Mona were released and allowed to go wherever they wanted.

  And much to everyone’s surprise, Aunt Mona insisted the O’Donnells and Kateri all come home with her, now that her house had been decontaminated and given the all-clear.

  It only made sense, from a certain point of view. There was a funeral to plan and a will to figure out, and a story to keep out of the public eye—at least for now. So the O’Donnells moved into Aunt Mona’s various guest rooms and camped out to help her through the trying days that followed.

  Aunt Mona told all well-wishers that her husband had died of the flu and explained the presence of the police and the biohazard team to her neighbors by saying that her husband’s job involved sensitive government information.