Maxwell's Silver Hammer

PART 1 (2017)

~ 1 ~

His name was Parker Nash. 

He grew up in the wealthy Detroit suburb called Auburn Hills. He was the only child of Edie and Phillip Nash, and the heir to the Nash family estate, which was rumoured to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of $110 million. Phillip Nash was a stock market player and a mathematical genius with a clear understanding of how the US economy worked and the role it played in the international economy.

In addition to being very astute, Phillip was also very shrewd and moved the better part of his fortune into a trust for young Parker who was their only child.

Parker grew up pretty much parentless, left with nannies and very much to his own devices from a young age. But Parker was a peculiar boy. He didn’t seem to need anyone or anything. He was also a gifted boy, with an Eidetic memory, which was never really diagnosed until he was in his late teens.

Perhaps it was because he lived almost totally in his head, combined with the sense of abandonment that he felt from his emotionally unavailable, genius father and his self-absorbed, socialite mother, Parker came to terms with his solitude very early on in life.

 From the age of six, he was shipped off to boarding schools, where he kept pretty much to himself, having discovered that the other rich kids he was thrown together with were, for the most part, shallow and self-centred or troublemaker of one kind or another. They were not in school to learn, but simply to tread water until their trust fund money became available, and then, who knew what would happen to them.

Parker was neither weak nor strong physically. But his mind was quite agile, and he realized at a very young age that if he was to make his way in the world with any success, he needed to educate himself. And being fortunate enough to be endowed with a strong sense of purpose, he set about that task with all the energy could muster. He taught himself computer skills all through high school, and created several useful programs, which attracted the attention of Michigan State University.

By the age of 21, Parker had arrived home in Auburn Hills, with a newly minted Master’s Degree in Computer Engineering and an open invitation to return to Michigan State to work toward his Ph.D.

But Parker was through with higher education and chomping at the bit to make a name for himself in the computer sciences.

Three days after his twenty-second birthday, Parker was sitting in his parents’ house, researching career opportunities and seriously contemplating his future. It was a Saturday and he had no idea where his parents were. They had left early the previous evening for some political event downtown. He wandered around the house, as he had been doing for the past week since he got home from school. He was about to get in his car and head out to get some dinner, when a Michigan State Police car pulled into the driveway.

An officer named Clinton Farrell got out of the car. 

“Parker Nash?” He asked.

“Yes. What can I do for you, officer?”

“Mr. Nash I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, sir.”

Parker stood beside his car as Officer Farrell explained that his parents had been killed in Detroit. They were at a fundraiser for Calvin Dodd, the incumbent Democratic State Senator.

Parker wasn’t sure whether it was delayed shock or simply no reaction at all, but he simply stood there. Then he asked. “How did they die?”

“I’m afraid they were caught in a rampage. An individual with a semi-automatic weapon opened fire on a group of people at the reception. Nine people were killed and about thirty were injured before the Secret Service protection detail finally got to him.” 

“Did they kill him?”

“Yes sir, they did.”

“The killer. Do you know anything about him?”

“No sir. Those details have not been released.’ Farrell said. “I’m very sorry for your loss, son.”

 He then handed Parker a piece of paper with an address, name and phone number on it. “This is the address for the county morgue. You will need to confirm identities and arrange for your parents’ bodies to be released. I understand that you are the only blood relative.”

“Yes. My parents were both only children and all my grandparents are gone. There’s just me.”

“Please call the morgue, sir. And again, I’m terribly sorry for your loss.”

“Am I your first visit?” 

“Yes sir.”

“Guess this is the really shitty part of your job.”

“Yes, sir. That pretty much describes it.”

Officer Farrell got into his cruiser and left Parker leaning on the front fender of his car with the small sheet of paper in his hand. All he could think of was that he had been pretty much alone for his entire young life. Now it looked like he was going to be alone some more.

~ 2 ~

The murders of the nine rich folks in Michigan sparked new waves of hysteria and hypocrisy in the United States. It was one that had been going on for the past several years since the frequency of mass shootings had ratcheted up to the point where it was estimated by news sources that there was at least one mass shooting somewhere in America every day. 

The political divide on that issue, like the political divide on just about every important issue in the country, was very wide. The Democrats screamed out for gun control. The Republicans screamed out for more personal protection. The reality of the situation was that, in the current climate of the US, no amount of personal protection would stop a lunatic bent on murder and mayhem. No, what was needed was much more drastic. The country needed to ban and get rid of as many high powered assault weapons as possible. It also needed to clamp down on far right-wing groups, which were the breeding ground, either directly or otherwise, for many of these killers. 

The sad reality was that there was no shortage of this type of person in today’s America. Social misfits all found a home in the myriad of right-wing fanatical groups. And just as many were loners, brooding away over their inability to conquer the American Dream. 

Mass shootings were America’s trademark. Just as suicide bombings were in Europe and Great Britain where gun laws were much more strictly enforced. But the terror was everywhere. And it was growing.

Parker knew about all of this because he consumed a massive amount of information every day. He also knew that even though his parents and probably the other folks who were killed or wounded in this attack were among the upper class in American society, nothing would be done. It angered him in a deep but quiet way.

The next day, Parker drove into Detroit and identified the bodies of his parents. Three days after that, the bodies were released to his custody and he arranged to have them cremated through the Garrison Funeral Home in Auburn Hills.

During the time that Parker waited for his parents’ bodies to be released, he met with the family’s lawyer, Thomas Whiteside, who explained to Parker that the entire estate had been bequeathed to him.

All tolled, the estate had a value of $214 million in various money market accounts and his trust. There was also another $5 million for the property in Auburn Hills.

He also informed Parker that he was beneficiary of the life insurance policies on his parents totalling another $6 million. Finally, he gave Parker the passcodes for both his parents’ chequing and savings accounts. He assured Parker that there would be enough in both of those accounts to take care of any immediate expenses he would incur.  

Parker told Whiteside he would need some time to process all of this. Whiteside suggested that he hire a financial manager to keep track of everything and make sure all the various bills and property taxes were paid, life insurance benefits collected, policies cancelled and the money was put to good use, investment wise. He told Parker to call him when he was sorted out and he would put him in touch with a very good person who could handle his entire estate.

Parker just thanked Whiteside and told him he would definitely look into it once his parents were laid to rest. 

When Parker got home, he wandered around the large house waiting to break down and grieve the loss of his parents. After a while, he realized that was not going to happen. As he thought more about it, he came to understand that he had been virtually alone for most of his life up till then. And now that he was actually alone in the world, he didn’t feel anything but a mild sense of relief.

It made him a bit angry that relief was the only emotion he could muster, but even that soon wore off and he started to set his mind to what he would now do with the rest of his life. 

~3 ~

Parker was fortunate that being left to his own devices hadn’t turned him into an anti-social or uncaring person. Now that the news had broken and the victims’ names were released, Parker got a call from a writer at the Detroit Free Press. He politely answered the questions and told the reporter that, as per their wishes, his parents would be cremated and there would be no funeral service.

A week later, his parents were cremated as per their desires in their wills, Parker brought them home in a pair of beautiful pewter urns that he had purchased at the mortuary. He put them on the fireplace in his dad’s study.

Parker had read the obits in the Free Press and attended the funerals of several other shooting victims, a few of whom had left behind children around Parker’s age.

At the last funeral he attended, Parker met Victoria Desmond. Victoria, like Parker, was an only child but was spared the ordeal of organizing the funeral and burials. They were handled by her father’s law firm business partner and brother.

Victoria was as tall as Parker, thin with a beautiful mane of light brown hair. She wore large glasses with thin horned rims which made her look older than her twenty-one years.

Parker and Victoria talked for quite a while at the reception that followed the funeral. Like Parker, she had spent her childhood in private schools. That experience had left her shy and introverted. But the common ground they shared made Victoria feel comfortable and willing to open up to Parker.

Parker and Victoria continued to see each other for a few months, mostly just for lunches and dinners in town. They talked a lot about their feelings, their inability to grieve and the sense of relief they both felt being cut loose from family ties, no matter how frayed they had become. 

Over the next two months, Parker had noticed that Tori, as she preferred to be called, had become much more outgoing and less shy, even if it was just with him.

They gradually moved beyond sharing meals to going to movies, then to watching movies in the home theatre that Parker’s dad had built, complete with a popcorn machine and high-end reclining chairs. There they were in their own little space, safe from the world outside, each with a person they cared about. 

Slowly but surely they fell in love. Slowly but completely Tori moved in and they began the process of remaking the house into a home for both of them. They gave almost everything in the house away to charity, except for his dad’s desk, which Parker liked a lot, and the recliners and popcorn machine in the small home theatre, and bought new furniture. For her part, Tori just turned her family home over to a real estate agent who would try and sell the house furnished, It was like she was trying to erase that entire part of her life.

They talked a lot about what they would do. Tori had a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Bryn Mar. She had planned to do a year of teacher’s college and become an elementary school teacher. But with the astounding number of school shootings in the country, the thought of stepping into any school anywhere in America terrified her. So instead she began writing. She wrote beautiful poetry and now that she was in a loving relationship, started to write longer prose pieces as well. She wrote mostly about her early childhood, which was a series of good memories.  

Parker had always been interested in the market. So, just on a lark, he took $500,000 from his trust and opened a trading account. He then began researching the US market for interesting opportunities. 

He busied himself with that for the next few months, which was how long it took him to realize that playing the market was an ‘all hands on deck’ game and that while Parker’s formidable memory served him well, he had no real passion for the game. He had added about $125,000 to his initial investment, but there was no joy in it. No feeling of accomplishment. To someone with the kind of brain Parker had, the market represented no challenge. But it was a good lesson, and he got to check off another item from his rather finite bucket list.

Every day, and perhaps it was because of their situation, they would sit down together and watch the news. It seemed like every time they did they saw the story of another tragic shooting. In a shopping mall. In a nightclub. At elementary and high schools. At street festivals. And then they would watch the interviews with the local politicians and the clowns in Washington sending out thoughts and prayers to the families of the victims. 

They talked a lot about the deaths of their parents and they wondered what they could do. How they could jar the politicians into some kind of action, even if it was just to ban assault weapons. They knew that they lived in another world and always had. But with the deaths of their parents, the real world had broken in and ransacked their lives. The more Parker thought about it, the more convinced he became that he should try something. 

Because perhaps it wasn’t grieving that he and Tori needed. Perhaps it was retribution. 

~ 4 ~

Once that thought nested in his brain, it only took a few hours before Parker Nash, 23-year-old orphan, figured it out. When he expressed his thinking to Tori, she said nothing for quite a while and then asked him how he would go about doing that.

So they went for a long walk around the neighbourhood and talked about it. When they got home, Parker sat down and drafted out an action plan. Parker had all the skills to do what needed to be done. But he was also smart enough to know it had to be done carefully and methodically and leave no fingerprints or DNA, so to speak, for the authorities to glom onto. 

During his college years, Parker became an avid reader of crime novels. He was also a gifted student and was able to see quite clearly and quickly how the mathematical world worked. His vision was so clear that he didn't really have to study all that much. After his first year at State, a psychology major he knew from his neighbourhood diagnosed him as having an Eidetic memory. This explained a lot to Parker about why he was able to learn so quickly and be able to call up the knowledge so easily.  

The Eidetic memory gave him the ability to recall anything he looked at in a focused way. As a result, the amount of work he had to do to get his education was dramatically reduced. So he filled his plentiful spare time by devouring crime novels and non-fiction crime stories. And the one thing he took away from all this reading was that God, indeed, was in the details.

If he was going to make his idea work, he would have to make sure that every step was carefully planned, and that his real identity would be nowhere to be found.

A few days later, Parker was going through his father’s desk, looking for any records he could find to show the financial manager that Thomas Whiteside had recommended. As he was looking through the desk drawers, he noticed that a small slip of paper with Scotch tape attached to it had fallen to the floor. It had obviously been fastened to the underside of the drawer to keep it hidden. On the paper were a series of numbers; 326 988 472. 

Parker took the paper and began to walk around the house, looking behind pictures for some sort of wall safe. When he had gone through the top floors, he went down into the basement and looked around. The basement was beautifully finished but mostly used for storage. Parker walked around in the furnace room where the washer and dryer were kept and found nothing of interest. 

There was a good-sized Swedish sauna and shower at the far end of the basement. Parker walked over to it, opened the door and stepped inside. He stared at the interior of the sauna for quite a while and then noticed something strange. On the side wall, there were two thin vertical cuts through the tongue and groove Cedar. Parker sat down on the bench and stared at the sauna wall for a whole minute. He then reached out and, with his right hand, pushed on the wall. He could feel a bit of movement like the section of the wall was on some sort of spring. He pushed again, several times in different places. Finally, the section came away from the wall. Parker pulled on one side and it swung open to reveal a good-sized safe with a small keypad on the front.

Tori was sitting in the sunroom writing a poem when Parker called her from the basement. A few minutes later she was sitting beside him in the sauna.

Parker showed her the slip of paper that had fallen out of his dad’s desk. Then he punched in the nine numbers on the sheet and the safe popped open. 

The safe was about four feet tall, two feet wide and about two feet deep. It sat a couple of feet off the floor and had three shelves. Two of the three shelves were completely filled with cash. On the top shelf was a computer printout, with a breakdown of the stacks of money below. The total was $2,440,000.

The top shelf also contained a box of jewelry, the deed to the house, copies of his parents’ wills and a letter with Parker’s name on it.

Parker opened the envelope and unfolded the single sheet of paper inside it.

Dear Parker

If you’re reading this, it’s because we are no longer with you. We knew you would eventually find the safe because you are and always have been a clever boy. This money is yours to do with as you see fit. It will be particularly handy if you decide to do something you don't want to have made public. Not sure what that could be. But sooner or later on your trip through life, you will probably be happy that you have this. 

We know that we weren’t the best of parents, but we also know that your nature was such that it probably didn't matter a lot. Have a good life son. Do good things. Have children and teach them how to find their happiness.

Love, Mom & Dad

“This is it”. Parker said. “The missing piece of the puzzle. This cash is what we use to ensure it. Nobody can really trace cash.”

“Oh wow,” Tori said. “It’s all getting real, isn’t it?”

“Looks that way, sweetie. Are you ready?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Hell yeah is right” Parker said. And they were off to the races.

~ 5 ~

Over the next three days. Parker and Tori worked out the big picture of their plan. They mapped out a plan of action. They identified all the potential downside risks and guesstimated possible solutions. When they were done, they read over their plan carefully and were pretty much convinced that they could pull it off. 

They drove down to Toledo. Ohio where Parker bought a used MacBook Pro computer, at a small computer shop. It was only a year old and had a lot of RAM. The kid in the store told him that it belonged to an old guy who passed away. His kids weren’t Mac people so they just brought it in into the shop one day. He told Parker that he had completely tuned up the computer, and updated the system. Parker asked if there were any of the original files in it and the kid told him that he had gotten rid of everything. Parker told him that was just fine and gave him $1400 in cash for the machine and its charger. This ‘clean’ computer would be his primary weapon.

Once they got back home, Parker went through the computer and finished cleaning out every trace of the previous owner that the kid in the Mac store had missed. At the same time Tori busied herself writing out the texts for the emails they would be sending, though an anonymous Gmail account and identity Parker would create on the Mac. 

The plan was simple. Parker already had the virus sitting on a thumb drive. He created it under the tutelage of a guy named Ollie Mitchum, a lecturer and the resident computer guru at Michigan State, who was already an inveterate, and now retired, hacker and saboteur. He showed Parker how to build the virus in one of their study groups after everybody else had left. Of course, the entire process was imprinted on Parker’s brain. 

Over the course of his Master's year, Parker did a bunch of research on the dark web and tweaked his little worm two different ways. When he was done he had two full-function, virtually undetectable viruses. One was a disruptor, which would get into the host computer’s mainframe and mess with the files, corrupting and deleting bits of information, leaving the files in the computers but rendering the data useless to the company. The second was an annihilator, which would eat all the data files in the computer completely, even the files in the system leaving the computer an empty shell that would have to be re-programmed from scratch. And if the computer was connected to a network at the time, it would go there and eat everything it found. In short, the target companies would have to re-build their system, only to make themselves vulnerable to another attack. 

Most companies had firewalls to detect viruses trying to get into their systems. But Ollie, criminal genius that he was, had written the code for a cloak that was, at least as far as Parker knew, undetectable.

Parker preferred the cloaked tiny viruses to hacking the network, mainly because it was a lot less work and there was very little chance that anything could be traced back to him. All he needed was a clean computer, which he now had, public internet access which was very easy to come by in America for the price of a cup of coffee, a valid alias identity and a Gmail account in that name. He also would not have to go to the trouble or exposure involved in purchasing a VPN, or virtual private network, which could make him findable by the right geek. 

When Parker was finished constructing the virus, he had two tiny worms which he named ‘Lowly One and Lowly Two’, after the Richard Scarry character, Lowly Worm, which he remembered from his early, early days, when his Nanny, Suzanne, would read him the stories. 

The target was ambitious. The plan of action, as they saw it, started with the deployment of the worm which was done by simply attaching it, as an invisible, in an innocuous email. 

This would be directed to a list of the largest US gun manufacturers. Once the email or text was opened, the virus would automatically find its way into the system and eventually their network. Parker was going to use Lowly One, which, relatively speaking was like shooting up a signal flare. The damage would not be complete but bad enough to get their attention and cost them a lot of time and expense to make right. This, in turn, would disrupt their workflows, shipments and delivery schedules and really piss them off, not to mention cost them money.

Once the companies had cleaned up that mess, using their backup systems, Parker would send Lowly Two and annihilate the data. They could, with any luck, cause the companies enough pain to get them thinking about the evil that they were doing. 

On the media side, they would be sending emails to the target companies and all the various news agencies, stating their simple demands. An immediate and total end to retail semi-automatic gun and bump stock sales and a full buyback program. They would make it clear that they would keep attacking these companies, and others as well, until the gun laws were changed.

While this disruption was probably not enough to stem the tide of gun sales in the United States, it was certainly enough to keep the issue front and centre, especially if it was seen as the work of an organized group of anti-gun hackers. 

This disruption, especially when the bloodthirsty media were notified of it, would start putting the weapons companies and the NRA under a greater microscope.

Tori would be in charge of what Parker called media relations. She would paste the notes onto the clean computer and Parker would email them from the Gmail account to the various media sources they had researched and to the political leaders in the key states dominated by pro-gun Republicans.

Parker was as confident as he could be that none of this would trace back to them because he would do all the actual sabotage and media communication from various Starbucks locations, and other coffee shops in Ohio, Illinois and Indiana. Parker and Tori would take motor trips to cities in the neighbouring states so that the worms and the media messages would be seen as coming from a number of different places. This would theoretically confuse the hell out the authorities. It would also make what they were doing feel like a much larger movement. And who really knew what kind of effect that would have?

They mapped out their plan of action on the whiteboard in Parker’s dad’s office, which was now his, and talked about it for quite a while, changing and revising certain points. Adding details about how things would get done. And making sure they paid cash for anything they needed so there would be no credit card footprints available. 

~ 6 ~

The following week, they began the execution phase of their attack. 

The first thing they did was drive downtown to the city hall and got the forms they needed. Then they drove to a local free clinic and got their blood tests. 

Two days later they picked up the tests and took them to City Hall where they were married by a justice of the peace, with two witnesses, Tori’s uncle Phil and aunt Judith. Afterward, they all went out to dinner and celebrated. At dinner, uncle Phil, who was the executor of the estate of Tori’s parents, told them that the house had been sold and the assets, as per the instructions in both wills, were all placed in trust for Tori. These assets, totalling $22,540,000, would be invested in low-yield, low-risk bonds and This included a partnership buyout of $5 million from the law practice and another $5 million in insurance. The money, which would available for her on her 24th birthday, would likely have grown to more than $29 or 30 million. Tori thanked her uncle profusely. She was grateful for his assistance and not having to go through the painful process of managing it all herself.

The other reason for getting married, aside from the fact that they loved each other and really could not imagine having a life with someone else, was that it protected both of them from being compelled to testify against the other if the long arm of the law should ever actually reach them.

Later that week, Parker and Tori met with a lady named Edwina Light who was the financial manager that Thomas Whiteside recommended. Her company was called The Light Brigade. Edwina insisted on being called Eddie, and she looked the part. With short spiky hair, coloured a shade of crimson, and a completely black outfit that was what Parker could only think of as haute punk, Eddie was a powerful-looking woman, with strong facial features, and dark brown eyes. She also had a lean body that looked like it had been sculpted by more than a few years in the gym. 

Eddie got Parker signed up and within an hour, knew most of what she needed to know in order to do the estate planning. She also quizzed them about their lifestyle for about fifteen minutes, so she would know how much to allow for their living expenses. Parker gave her a memory key with the family’s financial records for the past five years, which he had pulled them out of his dad’s computer, so she would have a better idea of the domestic expenses. Parker told her that they wanted to stay in this house for now, and that they would eventually want to start a family. Eddie told them she would need a week or so to come up with a financial plan that would consist of investments and disbursements to cover their needs. Parker was impressed with the ruthless efficiency that Eddie possessed, while at the same time making them both feel very comfortable with her.

Eddie left, promising to be back in a week with a solid financial plan for them, including suggestions for some life and motor vehicle insurance.

~ 7 ~

For the next week, Parker and Tori worked together researching companies in the munitions industry, the media and state and federal politicians. Tori took to the task with amazing gusto. It very much appeared that all the work they were doing to get this retribution organized was energizing her. 

They talked about that as well and realized that, regardless of the outcome, they were now actively honouring their parents’ memories. And there was a lot to be said for that.

Parker and Tori began their search on Google and one of the first links that popped up was the US Library Of Congress, which listed the top 11 gunmakers in America. 

They copied off the names and went searching for the websites for each of the companies.  

“They all make themselves sound so patriotic, don’t they?” Tori said after they had gone through a few sites.

 “Well of course. I mean, some of these companies go back a long way.” Parker replied. “But you know, I’ve been thinking that history might just be a good way in.”

“What do you mean?” Tori asked.

“Well suppose we send an email to the CEO, or whoever we have to send it to, requesting an interview as part of a book our alias is writing on the history of firearms in America. I’ll bet they would open an email like that. Or at the very least some secretary would open it. And that’s all we would need.”

Tori scrolled down the page and noticed a number of books by various authors about each of the companies. 

“We could say we were referred to them by a couple of these guys.” Tori said. “I’d have to dig down to make sure they’re still around. Maybe we could put that in the Subject line. Referred to you by…whoever.”

Parker just smiled. And so did Tori, because they realized they were actually doing something good.

Tori spent the rest of the week, researching the major gun companies, figuring out the most logical persons to contact. She was amazed at just how accessible these people were, considering the kind of business they were in. She wondered if they got a lot of hate emails. Hopefully, they did. So being humble and requesting an interview for journalistic work would definitely be a good way to go. 

While Tori was doing that, Parker headed out to a Starbucks in Toledo and got busy creating an online persona for the name he had chosen to be his alias. The name was Everett Donaldson. He found a stock shot from an obscure headshot library and created a Facebook page and a profile. According to the profile,  Donaldson was a freelance writer, who was now actively seeking information about gun manufacturers and access to their company histories. His interests included American history of firearms, hunting and target shooting. He also listed publications he had written for from a cursory search of gun magazines, of which there were no shortage.

He then posted the Facebook page and moved onto LinkedIn, where he created an identity with the same profile and fake credentials. On each site, he began following about a hundred and fifty different people in the hope that they would follow him back.

On each of the sites Tori visited, she noticed that the companies all had public relations departments and decided that would be the easiest way in, as opposed to trying the marketing people or any of the company’s operational executives.

Three days later, after Tori had cleaned up the biography pages a bit, because Parker was a mediocre writer at best, and they were ready to launch. So with everything loaded into the MacBook, they got in the car and headed to Cleveland. They had mapped out eleven stops, none of which were in Detroit. In fact, none of them were even in Michigan.

  The ‘about’ line in the emails simply read: Hoping for access to your historical archives.

The copy in the email, from Mr. Donaldson, positioned him as a historical journalist who has been commissioned by Random House Publishing to write a profile book on the history of firearms in America. 

He pasted in Tori’s generic request from Mr Donaldson and with a link to the fake LinkedIn page sent off eleven emails, one from each stop on their field trip, all loaded with the Lowly One virus.

The trip took them as far south as St Louis and took three days. They were pooped when they got back home and were glad to be able to sleep in their own bed.

All they could do now was sit back and wait.

~ 8 ~

True to her word, Edwina Light showed up exactly a week later with a solid financial plan. 

Her proposed plan included a cash draw monthly of $8,000, a reserve fund of $2 million, for new cars, travel or any additional furniture they might want to purchase. Her bookkeeping service would manage all ongoing monthly expenses for utilities, Internet, cable, property taxes, healthcare etc. Her tax person would handle all income tax filings and work hard to keep their tax rate low. They would set up online accounts to take care of it all. The money for all of this financial management including fees to the Light Brigade would come from a $500,000 estate management fund which would be replenished as needed from investment interest. 

Eddie would handle the investment side personally and create an investment portfolio for them, with about $60 million in the market, $30 million in US treasury bonds, and another $10 million in high-yield savings so they could get at that money whenever they needed it. The last ten million would simply be held in trust for any children they may have. 

She explained to them that the market was a little erratic these days, so she only earmarked $60 million for investments, and only used $about 100 million of Parker’s $230 million. Her advice was just to leave it in a high =interest savings account and they would figure out what to do once the market stabilized. 

Parker and Tori took this all in and thought about it for a moment. “So what are we paying you for all of this?” Parker asked.

That will vary on a month-to-month basis, depending on how you use your money, and of course, it will balloon a bit during tax season. Our basic rate is $12 thousand per month, give or take, to a max of $20,000 at tax time. If you start a business of any kind, we can handle that but in order to give you a cost for that I would need complete information.”

“And with the market the way it is these days, what kind of return do you estimate we can expect?” Parker asked.

“Yeah, well as I said its been kind of squirrelly as of late, but it’s stabilizing. I don’t believe it will soon become the bull market that it has been, where returns of 12 to 20 % were not uncommon. Conservatively I’d say between 8 and 10%, depending on how smart we are about our picks.” 

Parker had acquired a good deal of insight during his own little foray into the market and this, coupled with her honesty about the current market conditions it made sense to him. Just listening to Eddie lay out the plan gave him a great deal of confidence. He looked over at Tori who simply smiled and nodded. Then he extended his hand and shook Eddie’s. “Alright.” Eddie said. “We’re in business. All you need to do is keep a simple ledger of your expenses and email them to us once a month.” She handed him a card with the Name Andrea Bower, along with a phone number and email address. 

“Andie will be your day-today manager. I’ll be keeping an eye on the investments.”
“I know you’ll take good care of us, Eddie.” Parker said.

“That’s what I do.” Eddie said. 

They then went to the kitchen and had some coffee. Eddie told them about how she got into her current business. 

“I used to be in advertising, as an account director. Worked at one of the big automotive agencies downtown But about ten years ago, things really started to change. A lot of the creative people who were making the business go, either retired, quit because they were fed up with banging their heads against the wall or went off to form their own boutiques. It all happened fairly quickly. And I saw the writing on the wall so I bailed. I did some freelance strategic development work, mostly budgeting for one of my former clients. I had always had an affinity for numbers. Well, one thing led to another and I ended up at an investment conference where I met up with Tom Whiteside. He was the one who helped me get organized into a financial planning company. He referred me to a couple of his wealthy clients, young adults who had come into their inheritances. Two years later, I was bulking up, adding tax services and accounting services to my investment and money management services. 

I now have three accountants, three market analysts, and four tax specialists and I’m in the process of cloning myself with a young assistant named DeeDee.”

“Wow.” Parker said. “That’s a real Horatio Alger story.”

Eddie just smiled. Then she put down her mug and gave both of them a hug. “We’ll get you organized ASAP. If you need anything or have any questions, just call Andrea. She’s already up to speed.” 

“Once I get the program details worked out, we should meet again, at my office and you can meet Andrea and a couple of the market people who will be taking care of you.” With that, she grabbed her briefcase from the dining room table and was off.

Parker took a deep breath. “Well, that was a bit of a hurricane.”

“I think we’re in very good hands, sweetie,” Tori said as she squeezed his arm. “Let’s go for a ride.”

~ 9 ~

They drove around the suburbs talking about all kinds of things. Tori told Parker that lately she had become interested in the idea of cooking, which was something that neither of them had any clue about.

So instead of going to a restaurant to get a pizza, which was their original plan. They headed to West South Boulevard where Salvaggio’s was located. There they picked up all the ingredients they thought they would need to make their own pizza. Pepperoni, mushrooms, a green pepper, some shredded Mozzarella cheese and some pizza sauce and a couple of slabs of dough.

As they were checking out, Tori said. “You know this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

“You have to start somewhere. Let’s start with pizza and work our way up.”

Tori just shrugged. “Well, you’re the planner.”

They fumbled around for a while but eventually managed to put a two mid sized pizzas together and get them into the oven. When they were done twenty minutes later, they sliced them up and, lo and behold, they weren't half bad.

While they were eating, it was just a minute past eight, so they turned on CNN. 

The announcer was sitting in front of a huge graphic displaying the Words “CYBER ATTACKS”

“The American weapons industry received a shock early today as a series of cyber attacks was launched against eleven of the country’s top weapons manufacturers. The attacks came in the form of a virus that arrived in an otherwise innocuous email request for information about the company from someone named Everett Donaldson, representing himself as an American historian. Attempts to locate Mr. Donaldson have been an exercise in futility. The emails were tracked to several different Starbucks locations in Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Missouri. After the reports of the cyber attacks started coming in, CNN and several other networks received messages from Mr. Donaldson, indicating that he is part of a larger movement called Maxwell's Silver Hammer, which is the title of an old Beatles' song. The group is aimed at getting the weapons industry to loosen its stranglehold on politicians and allow a domestic ban on all semi-automatic assault weapons, Mr. Donaldson also demanded more funding for counselling services in communities all across the country. The message from Mr. Donaldson went on to state that these cyber attacks will continue until these demands are met. We’ll have more on this breaking story as it develops.”

Tori snuggled up against Parker, who was smiling a very large smile. 

“Wow.” she said.

“Wow is right.” Parker said and took a deep breath. 

 

The next day, around noon, Parker got a message on his own computer. It was from Ollie Mitchum:

It was short and to the point, which was Ollie’s modus operandi.

“Let’s have lunch tomorrow. 1:00 Leo’s Lodge. Bring the frau. I’d love to meet her.”

~ 10 ~

The following day they were sitting in the rustic surroundings of Leo’s Lodge in East Lansing and the memories came flooding back for Parker. After Ollie showed up, tall and lanky with with his long brown hair waving free, and a diamond stud in his ear, the two men exchanged a friendly hug and then Parker introduced him to Tori, and they all sat down.

“You hold out hope for nerds everywhere that if they look hard enough they can find a beautiful girl.” Ollie said.

Tori smiled. “It helps if they are good-looking and fabulously well-to-do.” And they all had a chuckle over that.

They spent a few minutes perusing the menu. “Everything’s good here.” Ollie said to Tori. “Has to be. They’re feeding the soon-to-be titans of American industry and the NFL, pretty much in the reverse order.”

They all gave the waitress their orders. And while they were waiting for their drinks Ollie updated Parker on what had been happening around the campus. “You really should have stuck around and got your Ph.D., you know.”

“I suppose, but there was only so much education I could handle.” Parker said.

“I can dig that. I’m only hanging in here because of my irrational fear of the outside world.”

“A totally justified fear.” Parker said.

“Yeah, I heard about your folks, yours too, Tori. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“We’re working our way back, Ollie. But it’s kind of you to say that.” Tori said.

Ollie was quiet for a moment. He took a sip of his beer and tucked his hair back behind his ears. “When I heard about the attack on the gunmakers, my first thought, after my unbridled joy subsided, was that my pal Parker was connected to this in one way or another.”

Parker and Tori said nothing. That was part of their plan. Admit nothing. Give no quarter, no matter to whom.

“I know you can’t comment one way or another, and you’re smart not to. With that, he reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a memory key. He put it on the table and pushed it over to Parker. 

“A gift from me to you. This app will take you anywhere you want to go. Instructions are in the text file.”

Parker said nothing. But took the key and slipped it into his pocket. 

“So that’s the business part of it.” Ollie said. “Then he turned to Tori. “So tell me about yourself and what would possess you to marry this fellow?”

Tori just smiled. “You know computer nerds aren’t such a bad type of human. A lot of them have bought into their nerdiness, and have convinced themselves that normal stuff like human relationships would be hard to achieve, so many of them don't even try. Parker is the exception to that rule. Maybe we both just needed someone to love since the only people we did love were taken away from us.”

Ollie looked at her and smiled. “That’s a good answer.” Then he looked at Parker. “You lucked out here, pal.”

The lunch went on for a couple of hours. At about three fifteen, Ollie looked at his watch. “Ooooh. I gotta get back. I have a seminar at five.”

They all got up and walked to the door. Parker paid the bill and left a tip for the waitress. Outside in the parking lot, Ollie hugged them both. 

“If you need anything else to further your cause, you know where to find me.”

“Thanks Ollie. I’ll take that under advisement if a cause ever pops up.”

They were quiet until they hit Highway 96 which would take them back to Detroit. 

“He knew, didn’t he?” Tori asked.

“Well, he is pretty smart.” Parker replied.

“So what do we do about that?”

“He gave me a new worm, so he is now complicit in our crime. It was his way of saying our secret is safe with him.”

Tori thought about that and then she thought about the brotherhood of computer geniuses that Parker was part of and then she started thinking about other things as they rolled along through the Michigan countryside.

~ 11 ~

The cyber attacks were big news over the following weeks. And they were excellent fodder for attacks from the left and righteous indignation from the right. Cyber experts of every shape and size were interviewed for news shows. The weapons manufacturers spent millions trying to keep things from spinning out of control. And hundreds of thousands more rebuilding their fractured systems so they could keep the business of arming the world going strong. 

The FBI assigned their most experienced cybercrimes person, Robin Pierce, to investigate. But anyone in law enforcement with any experience in cybercrime knew that even if they figured out how the hacks were achieved, there was always another way into any company whose business was online. 

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer was researched and talked about ad nauseam. After about a week of intermittent viewing, Parker and Tori sat dumbfounded, at just how little mention was made of the demands that were the reason for the hacks in the first place.

The online world was another matter entirely. There was all kinds of support for the Maxwell’s Silver Hammer movement. In fact, someone in Kansas City had started a Silver Hammer fan club and over the week, they watched its followers grow into the tens of thousands with a hyperactive chat room and very little in the way of dissenting opinion. So, if nothing else, they were getting the people on their side.

Parker was too smart to sign anything or join the group and was careful not to check in too often.

One night as they lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, Tori asked. “What happens if nothing happens?”

“Well, we’ve only just started. These things take time. And if, after we go through the second round, and still end up where we started, then at least we gave it our best shot.”

“I was thinking…what about the government?”

“The government? What do you mean?”

“Those Federal Republicans. I would imagine they all have their own websites, right? You know, to keep their voters informed and raise money.”

Parker said nothing for about a minute. “You know…that might just be a big idea.”

“I have them from time to time.”

“Let’s get through the second round and see what happens.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” And she threw her arm over Parker’s chest and nestled her head on his shoulder until they both fell asleep.”

The next day, Parker took a look at the virus Ollie had given them, mostly so he could memorize the coding. It didn’t look all that different from his “Lowly Worm” versions. But he knew Ollie wouldn't have given it to him if it wasn’t new and improved somehow.

Parker found himself eager to test it so he did a little research and found the website for a far-right-wing group called the Georgia Citizens Militia.

They drove down to Toledo where Parker sent an email to their address on the website. The header read: ‘Anti-Gun Control Rally This Weekend In Atlanta.’ Tori had composed a paragraph that made it sound like the real deal, complete with location specifics and times.

Once the text was sent. They went back to the home page, got a second coffee and waited. Fifteen minutes later, the site simply vanished. The screen went blank. Parker typed in the URL for the site, and received a message stating that there was basically no such site, then transitioned to the GoDaddy site telling Parker that the URL was available.

“Well, I guess we know how powerful this is.” Parker said.

“Oh my. It just disappeared the site like it was never there.” Tori said.

“Yeah.” 

They drove home slowly and didn’t talk much at all. They were in possession of a weapon that could easily end them up in prison for life and they were both smart enough to know it. At some point, they had to draw a line in the sand, because the minute they attacked a politician’s website they would have a whole soup full of alphabet agencies on their trail. The real question was, how much could they get away with before the Federales came knocking on their door.

Parker was the first to admit that no plan, no matter how well thought out, was 100% foolproof. Sooner or later some smart hacker would figure them out and turn them in for whatever reward the gun companies were planning to offer.

The fact that they were both young and relatively inexperienced in the ways of the cyber world was actually making them unnecessarily fearful when in fact they had virtually nothing to fear. The people of law enforcement were less experienced at tracking cyber crimes than the vast majority of the people who were committing them were at covering their tracks. And because cybercrime was now in its third generation, the criminals had learned one critical thing from the generations that came before them and that was anonymity was the key to success.

In the early days, too many hackers would want to make sure that some little bit of the code contained their signature, mostly in the form of an innocuous symbol. This was sheer egotism and, as it turned out for many of them, sheer folly. The cyber sleuths that worked for the various levels of law enforcement picked up on this almost right away, because although they would never admit it, that’s what they would have done if they were on the other side of the law. 

The new generation, with guys like Parker and Ollie, were more interested in results than making sure their community knew how clever they were. They left no telltale hints that they were ever even there, because the viruses simply did their job and then disappeared themselves as they were programmed to do.

Parker knew all of this, but he also knew that Tori was frightened by the power they now had in their possession. And because he loved about her, came up with an idea that would hopefully put her mind at ease.

~ 12 ~

Three days later they were in Virginia Beach with their cars filled with their clothing, computers and a few keepsakes, including the ashes of Parker’s folks. 

Parker had chosen Virginia beach based on three things. First was the weather, which got them out of Michigan winters, which gave new meaning to the concept of cruelty. The second was that it was just a few hours drive from the massive population centres of Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia where they could maintain their anonymity. The third reason was that they could purchase a boat here and learn how to handle it, so that if the unthinkable should happen, they could just get on the boat and sail away.

Before they left, Parker opened an account with the CIBC First Caribbean International Bank in the Cayman Islands. He seeded it with a $100,000 money order using a small part of the cash his father left him in the basement safe. He then hired a real estate company to sell the house in Auburn Hills, fully furnished. Parker figured that once it sold he would end up with about $4 million that he would then have deposited in his Cayman Islands account. He then called Eddie Light and told them about their move, that nothing would change about their relationship and he would send her new contact info once they found a new place to live, the details of which which they could discuss once they were settled in their new home on the east coast. 

Eddie was no fool. She felt that Parker and Tori were planning to leave the country sooner or later. But the world of finance had shrunk to the point where, via the business relationships she had developed on other continents, she could take good care of her clients no matter where they lived.

The worst case scenario, as Parker saw it, was that they could flee to Morocco, which had no extradition agreement with the US, and was the most appealing of all the countries they looked at. This, coupled with the fact that in two more years, Tori would have her inheritance and they would be just another rich American couple living abroad. Also, at any point in that scenario, they could purchase new identities and travel pretty much anywhere they wanted. 

This seemed to set Tori’s mind at ease, and it was really Parker’s first lesson in the things you do for love. But it also gave him the confidence he needed to step up the cyber attacks.

~ 13 ~

A week later they were sitting on the deck of a beautiful house overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, feeling the cool breeze and even though it was mid-July, the temperature was totally bearable. The Virginia Beach house they were renting was just south of the long line of hotels and restaurants that dotted the ten miles of beachfront. 

They were only a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Dulles Airport in Washington, which could take them just about anywhere they wanted to go. One day, they drove it just to make sure. And later that day, in the parking lot of a Starbucks in an area of south Washington called Mount Vernon, they launched their first attack on a Republican senator from Georgia named Phillip Bostwick.

Bostwick was one of the vanguards of the new right-wing fanaticism that had festered and grown over the past several years. He was an outspoken opponent of gun control and a malicious critic of the current administration. But it was really his stance on gun control that interested Parker and Tori and so they decided to hit him hard, with a dose of Ollie’s annihilator. All it took was an email inquiring how to offer financial support for the Senator and the good work he was doing. The email was opened almost immediately, and fifteen minutes later the site had completely vanished.

“That was pretty easy,” Tori said. 

“Yes it was, wasn't it?”

“You know your friend Ollie is completely insane, don’t you?”

Yeah, but it’s a good kind of crazy to be.”

On the way home they stopped for dinner, in Richmond. But just before that they found another Starbucks and Parker sent out an email to the press, letting them know that Maxwell’s Silver Hammer was still alive and well, and coming for pro-gun Republicans. 

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer is still waiting for some meaningful gun legislation. So far we have seen nothing. You were warned in the beginning that we would be fighting with formidable weaponry. But you have chosen to ignore our demands. That will not stand. What happened to Senator Bostwick’s website will happen to the sites of every Republican senator and congressman who opposes sane gun laws and the banning of assault weapon retail sales. We can do this all day. How long can you keep resisting?    MSH.

By the time they got home, the story was all over the news, complete with a psychotic-looking Senator Bostwick, who appeared to be using every ounce of restraint he had to keep from screaming. Parker and Tori sat on their back porch, flipping around to the various news outlets and hearing different versions of the same story. 

They were big-time domestic terrorists now. And they did not doubt that the FBI would be upping its game. 

And there was nothing the FBI, in the person of Special Agent Robin Pierce of the Cybercrimes division, would have wanted more than to be able to up their game.

 But the simple fact was that Everett Donaldson, which was the name they traced back to the computer that was sending the messages, simply did not exist. There were seven Everett Donaldsons in America. They were all interviewed and eliminated because all of them were alibied out in one way or another. Only two had any sort of social media presence, and all their sites showed were family pictures. 

The image from the fake Everett Donaldson site traced back, at no small expense to the taxpayer, to an obscure stock photo library, which dated the image as one that was posted in 1985. Whoever these bad guys were, they were extremely well-equipped, organized and lethal. They wanted what they wanted and weren’t afraid to go as high up as necessary to get it. 

Agent Robin Pierce was an ex-hacker herself, although you would never find that info anywhere near her resume. It was just something she and a small group of friends did for fun at Columbia. She knew enough about that world to understand that the lion’s share of cybercrimes go unpunished, simply because many of the hackers were smarter than the cops. They were certainly smarter than her, and she knew her way around that world pretty well, after two years of hacking and ten years of trying to bring people like her to justice.

The ransom messages, she noticed were well written, so her assumption was that there were at least two of them, because historically, techies were not really good writers. The tracebacks of the initial hacks, all in the lower Great Lakes states told her they were mobile, and free to move around during the day, so they probably didn’t have real jobs. And they probably didn’t live in any of those states, but close by. So either Michigan or Pennsylvania or maybe even Wisconsin. But all this was just semi-educated guesswork. For all she knew this could be a huge clandestine network that could be run out of anywhere and have as many as a dozen people or more in it. Robin hoped that was the case, because a dozen people could create a fuckup a lot easier than just two or three.

Robin also noted that the hack on the Republican Senator from Georgia was similar to the one on a whacko Citizen’s Militia group she was investigating in that the sites weren’t just messed with they were completely obliterated like they never existed. So it was either a copycat using the same M/O, and borrowing the Maxwell’s Silver Hammer name, or these hackers had really upped their game to scary.

Robin got her notes together, closed her laptop and headed down the hall for a situation meeting. The room would be filled with all kinds of people she wasn’t far enough up the food chain to recognize, and they would all be reading her the riot act, questioning her abilities and threatening to remove her from the case. But Robin knew that there was nobody in the whole FBI who knew more about these people and the kind of shit they were pulling than she did.

She would live to fight another day, so to speak. But there were only so many days that you were given. At some point, she had to really up her own game and nail these fuckers, like Uncle Sam was paying her to do.

An hour later she came out of the meeting with something she hadn’t really expected, which was permission to bring an active hacker into the mix. Up until the hack on the Senator from Georgia, this was a seven or eight. Now it was a red hot ten. Fortunately for Robin, she knew just the source to tap. 

~ 14 ~

Parker and Tori spent a fair bit of time the next week watching the news to see if the FBI, now in overdrive, with a lady named Robin Pierce at the helm, was actually making any progress. The attack on the Republican politician seemed to have pinched a nerve in Washington and got the debate over gun control kicked into another gear.

Early the next week, they drove down to Raleigh, found a Starbucks and started checking on the weapon manufacturers. All of them had had their sites rebuilt. They debated whether or not to unleash the Kraken, which was the name they gave to Ollie’s virus. Finally, they decided, in for a penny, in for a pound, which was a saying they had heard in an old movie they watched the night before.

They knew that they probably could not use the Everett Donaldson email. So they opted instead for a text message. Ollie had told them that the texting platform was a better choice for his beast because if you sent a text right to their site it would get into their system whether the text was opened or not, which was something that Parker wasn’t aware of at the time of the initial attack.

Tori composed a bullshit message and Parker embedded the virus into it. One by one, as they travelled west, north and back east again.  They sent the Kraken virus off to the 11 weapons manufacturers. They then sent off a new message to the media, stripped the computer of any traces of their activity and headed back home, to watch the news.  

The next morning, all hell broke loose on the news. The repeat sabotage of the major weapons manufacturers’ sites was everywhere. The heads of all the companies flew to Washington to meet with the Secretary of the Interior to demand that the Democrat government do everything in its power to protect these companies and their vital role in the American economy. 

The Secretary of the Interior, James Freeburgh, listened to these men rant and rave. And once they were all talked out. He leaned forward in his chair and folded his hands in front of him.

“Gentlemen. I can see that you are fuming with anger. It’s obvious that you have been attacked not once but twice by an enemy who appears unwilling to take no for an answer. The FBI is searching the entire country for the people who are responsible. But I would be lying if I told you I held out a lot of hope that they will be brought to justice. They leave no clues. They are all sent from open servers. The viruses that infect your systems, disappear along with your data. No intelligence has surfaced as to the identity, or even the nationality, of this Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. My advice to you is simple. Cut your losses and agree to their demands. Talk to the Republican politicians you support and tell them that you want them to vote in favour of legislation that will get these weapons out of the consumer market. Otherwise, your businesses will be ruined. 

“Yes, I am a Democrat, as is this administration. But gentlemen, the only way out of this mess for you, at the moment, is capitulation. Because even if we find these people, which is highly unlikely, these viruses are out there, and frankly, by not giving in to these demands, which by the way, a solid majority of the American people support wholeheartedly, you will simply be asking for more of the same pain you are going through now.” 

The next fifteen minutes were insane. Allegations flew. Accusations that the administration was behind it all were thrown. Reprisals were threatened. Bluster was the order of the day. Finally, Mr. Freeburgh had had enough and simply got to his feet. When he did, the room went quiet. 

“Back in the other life I had before politics, I ran my own manufacturing business. And if I were faced with the ultimatum that has been put in front of you, I would have started thinking, and quite seriously, about the greater good. A short-term setback with a long-term boost to your company’s perceived image. Perhaps these Maxwell’s Silver Hammer folks are actually doing you all a favour. It’s something to think about. In the meantime, we are working diligently to find the source of these crimes. Good day gentlemen.”

Freeburgh’s speech was recorded by one of the aides from the Colt Company and released on several social media sites where it went viral in the space of an hour. From there, it found its way to every news organization in the world. 

Freeburgh’s speech was being hailed as one of the greatest bits of political honesty of the modern age. 

That night, while Parker and Tori were getting dinner ready, they heard it for the first time. They hugged each other and both of them cried. Finally.

PART 2 - 2018

~ 15 ~

Parker and Tori were now living in the beach house they now owned in Virginia Beach which was the easternmost part of a triplex of towns that also included Norfolk and Chesapeake. 

A year had passed since their cyber attack on American gun manufacturers. And during that time, Tori had been busy writing and had compiled enough material to make a small book. She found and hired a local designer named Tessa Ryder to help her put her book together. 

Tessa took a week to read the stories and poems and then met up with Tori at a small coffee shop called Bad Ass Coffee Of Hawaii. The first thing Tessa told Tori was just how much she liked the poems and stories and how she believed it could be very popular with children of all ages. Tori told Tessa about her aspirations to be a teacher and her fear of schools, which Tessa found completely understandable. They then talked for half an hour about the format, most especially about illustrations for the book. On her iPad, Tessa showed Tori samples from three different illustrators. They settled on a lady named Clarissa Waylon, whose style was simple and whimsical and who used a lot of pastel colours in her work. Once they agreed on that, they discussed size and agreed on a soft cover in a 7” by 9” format. 

Having made those decisions, Tessa said she would go away and work on a few page layouts and cost out the entire project including the printing of 1000 softcover books. Tori had no interest in dealing with the publishing world. She had a friend in college who was quite gifted and the astounding amount of bullshit she had watched her friend put up with trying to publish her first novel turned her right off the idea of going that route. She chose instead to create a website for her book and sell it that way. Tessa who was quite a versatile creative person, said she would also be happy to design a site for her. 

Tessa also asked Tori if she had a title in mind. Tori told her she was playing around with several different ideas and that she would send along her final choice in a day or two.

Though Tessa was in her mid-thirties, she and Tori got along famously. They talked a bit about how she and Parker ended up in Virginia Beach, but there wasn’t much that Tori could tell her, except that they had both lost their parents at the same time and had only been married for a little more than a year and a half.

Tessa said she would need about a week to put things together and they agreed that Tessa would come to the house and meet her husband, Parker. When Tori gave her the address Tessa said. “Wow. You live just a few houses down from Penny and Deacon Fredericks. You guys should get to know them. They have five-year-old twins. I’m sure I could arrange for them to look at anything we do to see how they like it.”

 Tori rode home from the coffee shop feeling that she was in very good hands. When she got home she researched Penny Fredericks. Her Wiki page was massive. She had developed Lilliworx which was the #1 small business interactive software, pretty much everywhere in the world. She was also heavily involved with helping startups and several other philanthropic causes. 

That afternoon, as they took a walk down the beach, Tori was telling Parker about her meeting with Tessa Ryder. It was a beautiful summer day and they noticed that Penny Fredericks was sitting on the back steps of her deck. The children were building a rather large sand castle. 

Tori waved at Penny who returned the wave. Then Tori walked up to the deck with Parker close behind. 

“You’re the new neighbours,” Penny said. 

“Yes, I’m Tori and this is my husband Parker Nash.”

They both shook hands with Penny. “Well, welcome to the neighbourhood.” Penny said.

“You know,” Tori said. “I’ve just had a meeting with someone you know, Tessa Ryder.”

“You don’t say. Tessa is a very good friend and a great designer.”

“I just hired her to design a children’s book I’ve put together.”

“Well, she’ll do an amazing job for you.” Penny said. Then she looked at Parker. “So what brings you to Virginia Beach?”

“Long story,” Parker said. “But mainly the weather. We used to live in Michigan.”

Penny nodded. “I’ve been to Michigan in the winter, so I know exactly what you mean.”

“We would love to have you and your husband over for dinner one of these nights. We know almost nobody around here.” Tori said.

“Well, that would be delightful.” Penny said. “Give me your phone.” Tori handed her phone over and Penny punched in her name and number. “My husband is out of town for a few days. Give me a call on the weekend and we’ll work something out.”

Tori smiled. “That would be wonderful. By the way, your kids are beautiful.”

Penny just smiled. Tori and Parker continued along the beach for a while then turned around when they hit the hotels. When they came back past Penny’s house everyone was inside.

That night as they lay in bed, Parker said, “I was really impressed with you today. Walking up to a stranger and introducing yourself like that. You’ve come a long way in a short time.”

“Yeah, I guess I have at that.” she said as she grabbed his hand and they both lay there in the dark listening to the waves break. 

~ 16 ~

 

One of the things that Tori and Parker talked a lot about was the political situation in the US. Both had been raised in wealthy Democratic homes and though they weren’t political themselves, they saw and heard about much of what had happened, especially since Donald Trump’s disastrous term in office. 

They watched the news every evening. It had kind of become a habit with them that they found hard to break. They were as aware as anyone in the general public of just how far to the right the Republican party had moved. A relatively small group of extremists had gotten together and formed something called the Freedom Caucus, which both Tori and Parker found quite amusing since they were about anything but freedom, The problem was that this relatively small group was able to control the actions of the entire party. This had, of course, slowed the normal business of government to a near standstill, and worse than that, it had weakened the US’s position in the global community. 

The media, as usual, played right into their hands, because their only job was making sure they could capture the largest audience possible. So the more extreme the events they would broadcast the more people they would have with their eyes glued to them.

Then one evening Parker called his old friend and compatriot, Ollie Mitchum, who was now an associate professor in computer science at Michigan State.

“Ollie. It’s Parker.”

“Parker, my man. How’s it going amigo?”

“We trudge along life’s narrow pathways. How are things with you?”

“Well as of this semester, I’m teaching full-time. So no real world for me. How about you and the lovely missus?”

“We’ve moved. Pretty much mostly summer here. Got a nice house on the coast. Tori is putting a children’s book together.”

“How about you, man? Gettin’ into any trouble?”

“Naa. Mostly just enjoying the weather. Listen, I wanted to ask you something. But umm, just wondering if this is the most secure way to do that?”

“Hmmm,” Ollie said. “Tell you what. Scoot on down to your nearest bodega. Buy yourself a burner phone and bunch of minutes, then text me the number. I have a couple of burners here that aren’t linked to anything. We can talk freely then.”

“Alright. Will do. How’s the student crop looking for this year?”

“They’re gettin’ brighter. Gotta work extra hard to catch the AI cheats, but other than that I’d say the future looks not too shabby.”

“OK. Look for my text.”

“Will do, amigo. Talk soon.”

Parker disconnected, then headed out to the garage. He got on his e-Bike and headed downtown. They had bought e-bikes shortly after they arrived. They were a great way to get familiar with the town without burning a lot of fossil fuel. He found a variety store called Willy’s on 48th Street. He picked up a burner and a 120 minute card, paying cash for both. 

He waited till early in the evening and texted his number to Ollie, who called him back almost immediately. Parker put the phone speaker so Tori could also hear the conversation, while she cooked dinner. 

“OK, dude. You have the floor. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Okay. I just started to think about other things that we can do here to keep the government on their toes, especially now that there’s what I consider to be a complete psychotic a runnin’ the show. 

“That’s for sure.” Ollie said. “He’s scarin’ the shit out of all the lefties in my business.”

“Okay, well, I just wanted to let you know that we’ll be starting a new campaign, and using the Kraken, which is the name I gave to that piece of software you gave me last year.”

Ollie laughed. “The Kraken. Well named.” 

“We’re gonna start with the lunatic fringe and then move on from there.”

‘Sounds like a plan.” Ollie said. “There is one thing you should know though. Just after you wiped out that Congressman’s web site, I got a visit from an FBI agent named Robin Pierce. She’s pretty savvy about cybercrimes and also about the mechanics of pulling this kind of shit off. I suspect she was a hacker in her youth. You need to keep an eye out for her. Knowledge is power, amigo.”

“I appreciate that Ollie.”

“Anything for the cause, my friend. And how is your lovely wife?”

“I’m just fine, Ollie.” Tori said. “I’m in the process of getting myself first children’s book published.”

“Well good for you, darlin’.”

“Thanks.”

“So that’s about it Ollie. Keep your eye on the news, there’s gonna be a lot of it.”

“The more the merrier, Parker.”

And with that they disconnected and Parker and Tori got to work researching the politicians they wanted to torture, and the kind of messaging they wanted to send.

For the better part of the two next days, Tori and Parker worked on the freestanding MacBook to update all the information on federal and state political leaders, and the media most likely to run with the story.

Once they were ready and had the letter they needed for the media they got in the car and headed and west and north to get out of Virginia to do all the grunt work. They picked out Starbucks in Washington, Baltimore and finally, Pittsburgh where they vanished the web sites of a total of ten politicians and informed all the local stations and newspapers in those cities. 

The message this time was simple:

Start doing your jobs, which are in the service of the American people. Start making laws that benefit them and not the rich people who are slipping you millions under the table. These attacks will continue until you wake up and start putting the American people first. MSH

They then drove south to Morgantown, where they stayed at the Hampton Inn, just across the river from West Virginia University.

They got some takeout Chinese food and sat in their hotel watching the Network news and their wall-to-wall coverage of the catastrophic events. Most of the newscasters read the note that Tori had created verbatim.

When they got home, the next evening, there was a note sitting on the table on their back deck. It was from Penny Fredericks. it simply said. “Pick a night. Would love to have you both over for dinner.. My old man is back in town and he loves to barbecue. Penny.” 

Parker read the note and handed it to Tori. “Looks like we’re going to dinner with our neighbours. You should call her and work out a time.”

Tori just smiled and took the page into the house. Parker followed her in and got out his burner phone. There was a text from Ollie. It simply read. “You guys are really something else.”

~ 17 ~

The next day, Parker drove downtown and picked up a couple bottles of very nice French wine, and he and Tori made their way a couple hundred feet along the beach to the house of Penny and Deacon Fredericks.

After the introductions were made, Penny stuck the kids with hot dogs and chips, in front of a Harry Potter movie in the family room and everybody sat down out on the deck. It was a warm night with relatively little breeze. Parker and Tori talked about the circumstances under which they met. They kept it short and to the point, because it was still, especially for Tori, quite a load to carry. 

Then Penny told the story of how she and Deacon met while she was waitressing in her uncle’s Waffle Palace. Deacon was an ex-Marine and was gifted a pretty substantial inheritance from his grandmother. They met, went into business together, with her AI/Software idea called Lilliworx, became a couple and basically made a ton of money, then even more money when they sold the rights to Apple.

Parker, who read everything he could get his hands on about the computer business, recalled an article he had read on LilliWorks in Time magazine. He was impressed because he didn’t really believe that AI could actually be used successfully as a business forecasting tool. But Penny Fredericks proved that it could. Now they lived on the beach. Penny was a stay-at-home mom and Deacon, whose whole name was Deacon Blue Fredericks, He was named after the Steely Dan song of the same title. After they struck gold, he started a photography business and eventually bought a gallery which showcased the work of local photographers, himself included, to tourists. He was also executive director of the trust that he and Penny set up that helped them to do some real good with the millions they were making every year.

“I remember reading about Lilliworx, probably right after you launched it.” Parker said. “I was still at Michigan State then but I recall a lot of debating about its long-term viability.” Parker said.

“Well, so far so good. We’re in our 6th version and the market just keeps growing.”Penny said.

They talked about a lot of things. Deacon and Penny were particularly interested in Penny’s children’s book. 

“Tessa told me that she had just finished re-reading it and thought it was delightful. I can hardly wait to see it in print.” Penny said.

Deacon declared the barbecue heated up, so there was a lot of rushing around. Tori went into the kitchen to help Penny make the salad and check on the baked potatoes. Parker basically stood around watching Deacon put the steaks on the grill.

“Guys always get the easy part.” Deacon said. 

“Yeah, we have been trying to learn how to cook for a while now. So far all we have managed is pizza and hamburgers.”

“Steaks are basically just hamburgers that haven’t been ground up.” Deacon said. They also talked a bit about photography, which Deacon loved. While the steaks were cooking he took Parker and Tori on a mini tour of his photos, which were quite stunning. 

The dinner talk was pleasant. There wasn’t a lot of years between them and they were all of the same mind about the political situation that seemed to have the country in a chokehold.

“About the only good thing that’s happened lately,” Deacon said “Was that massive hack attack on the major gun manufacturers last year. That really had an impact. It’s kind of sad to think that people have to go to those kinds of extremes to get businesses in this country to do the right thing.”

Parker smiled and nodded his head. He didn’t know these people well enough to tell them they were having dinner with the culprits who pulled it off. Maybe someday. Instead, he just squeezed Tori’s hand and she smiled. 

They talked for another hour. Then Penny had to get herself and got the twins ready for bed. Parker and Tori got up and thanked them both for the lovely evening. They agreed that they would get together again very soon. Tori volunteered to babysit anytime they wanted to have a date night. Penny smiled and said. “You know, we just might take you up on that.” 

Twenty minutes later Parker and Tori were sitting on their own deck, a little drunk from the wine. Parker said. “We did the right thing back in Detroit. These are really smart people and they totally appreciated it. And we’re doing the right thing now.”

Tori didn’t say anything. She was just happy that they had made some friends and that life in paradise just got a little bit better.

~ 18 ~

Special Investigator Robin Pierce sat in her office in Washington DC with her feet up on an open drawer and a TV remote in her hand. She was flipping around to all the local news shows that were giving wall-to-wall coverage to the mysterious disappearance of the websites of every single member of the so-called Freedom Caucus.

If she thought her life was made miserable by trying to track down the saboteur who created a living hell for the weapons business, that would pale in comparison to the shitstorm she knew would be soon making its way to her door. So she just sat quietly watching the news, looking for clues or hints or anything that would give her even a little to go on.

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer was the biggest puzzle in her mind. But she had to admit that their sabotage of the online operations of eleven of the country’s top weapons manufacturers really did help pave the way for more sane gun control legislation. 

She never found out who was behind this group. Never even came close, in fact. But that didn’t surprise her, because percentage-wise cybercrimes had, far and away, the worst batting averages of anything in the criminal world. And with the rapid growth of AI, this was only going to get more critical as time went by. 

Finally, her phone rang and she was summoned to the Director’s office. She entered the meeting room where she was instructed to go and saw three people sitting there. One was her boss, Director, Thomas Reynolds. He introduced the two other gentlemen as Damon Ford of the State Department and James Andrews of the Department of Homeland Security.

The discussion, or at least to Robin, the lecture from on high was that the political pressure to shut this activity down was tremendous. Robin was quick to point out that like any investigation of this nature, one needed some evidence, which, unfortunately, was non-existent at the moment. These strikes were tracked back to open servers at various Starbucks around the country. Pretty much all the events were launched from different locations which meant that the perps were extremely mobile and either independently wealthy or being paid by someone or some individual or organization, foreign or domestic.

 All three men in the room knew what that meant; a suspect list that was extremely large and sensitive. In Robin’s opinion, this time they were attacking the extreme Republican contingent that had been basically holding Congress hostage for the past few years. This was obviously a major distraction and an attempt to loosen their grip on the government, which she felt was their ultimate objective. Even so, it still got her no closer to discovering their identity and it was quite likely that she would not discover it until they made a mistake.  

All three men were seasoned law enforcement people and understood the situation implicitly. They agreed with Robin and urged her to keep a microscope on their activities looking for that one little mistake that could open the door. 

They spent another few minutes talking about setting a trap of some kind but could not, for the life of them, articulate what that could be. Robin left the meeting breathing a huge sigh of relief, went back to her office, sat down at her desk and did the only things she could do, which were to watch and wait.

~ 19 ~ 

The next day the President called a press conference to salvage what he could from the insanity around him. He assured the American people that the attack was the work of a foreign power. And while he was considered pretty much an idiot by almost everyone in Washington, it was a theory that made perfect sense. 

In the meantime, Parker and Tori sat on their deck and watched with a certain amount of bemusement.

In Washington that night, Robin Pierce was sitting on the balcony of her apartment with her life partner, Jenny Rothwell. They had been together for ten years now. Jenny had recently been made an associate law professor at Georgetown.

“I have been trying to connect up this case with the Maxwell’s Silver Hammer case from last year.” Robin said, using Jenny, as she often did, as a sounding board.

“Well,” Jenny said. “What are the differences?”

“The targets, which are politicians and not private sector companies. 

“And the similarities?” Jenny asked.

“The destruction, which is, well, total. And the lack of anything even close to a lead.”

“And how many people in America would have the computer savvy to create programs that would do this kind of damage?” Jenny asked.

“About a million too many, hun.” Robin replied.

“So you’re assuming these are the same people.”

“Yeah, because I don’t believe in coincidences.”

Jenny thought about it for a little while and then said. “From everything you’ve told me about these people, it sounds very much like they are either independently wealthy or are extremely well funded. Maybe if you looked at the independently wealthy with some sort of motive, and the ability to create their own digital weaponry…that might be a place to start. Maybe they lost a friend or relative in one of those crazy shootings around the country. Or maybe they’re just seeing the Republican party for the shit circus it is. No matter the reason, I’d say they were very intelligent and likely very rich. You have been busting your hump to dig up evidence to follow. I’m suggesting that maybe you should be busting your hump to discover some kind of motive.”

Robin poured another glass of wine from the half-empty bottle. “You know, you might just be onto something there, my dear.”

They sat in the warm night and talked about a whole lot of different scenarios. Robin didn’t know it at the time, but she was actually moving closer to the reality of things. But she knew in that same moment that her brain was in the process of shifting gears. After she got finished kicking here own ass for not having gone down the personal motivation road in the first place, she started thinking a little differently. 

She thought about it a lot over the weekend and when she got back to the office on Monday, instead of staring at her TV monitor, she stared at the USA map on her wall with the coloured pushpins in it. The red ones denoted the locations from which the emails were sent in the arms manufacturer’s case. The green ones, a smaller number, denoted the locations for the current case against the far-right politicians in Washington. 

She then got online and started to research possible trigger events from a year to a year and a half back. She focused on the northern states, since that’s where the original hacks had started. There had been at least five dozen relevant mass shootings in the time period she was looking at. She looked through every article. Most of them were schools and malls. But about three hours later, one in particular caught her eye. It was a mass shooting at a Democratic Senator’s fundraiser in downtown Detroit. She read several different accounts of the shooting and wrote down the names of the nine fatalities. She then began researching them individually. They were all wealthy professional people. Two of the women were housewives, the other three were working professionals. Of the men, three were lawyers and one was an independent market trader. She continued to burrow deeper into the names and found that four of the nine people killed were couples. with children in their early twenties. 

She stopped there and asked herself just how crazy she was being. Then she got up, walked down to the coffee shop on the corner of her block, and got herself a coffee. She always thought better while she was moving around. She sipped her coffee and walked slowly around the block. But by the time she got back to her office, she had convinced herself that she should be interviewing people related to those killed at the Senator’s fundraiser.

~ 20 ~

The next day, Robin Pierce flew into Detroit and was picked up by an agent named Tim Philpot, who knew his way around the city and would accompany her on her interviews, just in case she needed corroboration.

She first interviewed the widows of two of the men killed. They had children but they were married and lived in different parts of the country, mostly quite a bit further west than Robin was looking. She then interviewed the relatives of two couples, one of whom had a daughter, Victoria, who was in her early 20s and lived with her husband in Virginia. Ronald Desmond, Victoria’s uncle pointed out that his niece had actually married the son of two of the other victims. His name was Parker Nash, and from what he knew of the Nash family, Parker would have been quite wealthy. They got married, lived for about a year in North Detroit and then moved to Virginia Beach.

“What kind of person is Parker?” Robin asked. Because she had not been able to find any next of kin for his parents.

“Oh, he’s extremely bright. He has an Eidetic memory. Recalls everything he reads. He has a Master’s Degree in applied mathematics from Michigan State. They came to visit us recently, told us all about their house on the east coast and how they really loved not having to deal with Michigan winters anymore. They talked about taking a trip around the world. They could certainly, afford it. Victoria inherited more than seventeen million from her parents plus the estate and the insurance. Parker was worth at least five or six times that. His father was a very savvy investor.”

“Thank you so much for this information.” Robin said.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with all that nastiness with the gun manufacturers last year does it?”

“No, we’re just following through with the victimology part of the shooting investigation.”

“Because those kids, they are quite unusual. Victoria is a wonderful writer and neither of them have a violent bone in their bodies.”

“Like I said, we’re just following up on the shooting.”

As they were driving back to the airport. “Tim Philpot said. “You know, if anyone could pull off that stuff with the gun people, they’d have to be pretty damn smart.”

“Yes, they would.” Robin said, and then she stared out the window at the relative bleakness of Detroit.

~ 21 ~

By the time they got back to the field office, the full effect of the what the news stories were calling “The Digital Assassins” were coming in from pretty much everywhere in the world. The United States was now seen as a bit of a joke internationally, when computer hackers could actually be a threat to government. Although, Robin thought, putting the most extreme Republicans out of business, even for a short time certainly had a purpose in and of itself. If it sustained for any length of time, their abilities to fundraise for re-election were severely limited.

She wondered if, indeed, this could simply be the work of a small group of AI pranksters. There was enough of that starting up in many different areas of the culture. And the number of companies that were making various types of AI available were part of one of the most active industries in the country.

While the agents sat and watched the news reporting, Robin could sense the frustration of a bunch of crime fighters with no leads to follow.

She then grabbed Tim Philpot and said. “Let’s drive up to Michigan State.”

An hour and a half later, they were sitting in Ollie Mitchum's office with cups of freshly brewed coffee in front of them.

“Well, I’d like to say this is a pleasant surprise, Robin, but I figured it was just a matter of time before you got around to me.” Ollie said.

Robin, knew Ollie from way back in high school in Cleveland where they both grew up.

“So what’s your take on this AI attack on the Republicans?”

“Probably a Democrat I’d say. So that limits your suspect list to about eighty to ninety million. I can’t comment beyond that because, well, there’s nothing to really analyze. But I’ll tell you, whatever program they’re using to do this shit is next gen for sure. So you’re looking at some serious genius behind the wheel.

“What about motive?”

“Motive? That’s rich. The Republican party has gone to hell in a handcart. They’re more a terrorist organization than a political party, especially the little gang that had their sites disappeared. I don't give a shit about politics and I'm pissed off about those assholes.”

“This activity, in my opinion, at least, is designed to focus attention on the disruption that’s being caused by these people. They were elected to govern and all they fucking do is obstruct. There have to be a whole lot of people who are pissed about that, and smaller subset of that whole lot that would be willing to do something about it. And an even  smaller subset of people who could pull it off cleanly.

“I sympathize with your situation, Robin. But you won't find these people. They know how to hide. And yes. I will answer your next question, I think this is the same group that shut down all those gun companies last year.”

“Last question.” Robin said. “What do you know about a young man named Parker Nash?”

“Parker Nash. How’d you glom onto him?”

“His parents were killed in a shooting in Detroit about a year and a half ago.”

“Parker was one of my students. Very bright. But a programmer. A pure super smart nerd. Nice guy too. Doesn’t have to work, cause his family was rich. I would imagine he’s working on inventions that will save the world. He was very interested in that as I recall.”

“Do you think he might harbour any resentment toward the gun manufacturers and the politicians that support them?”

“This is a guy with a big brain. He has what’s known as an Eidetic memory, which means he remembers just about everything he sees and experiences. Guys with big brains like that go after big issues like the environment, and trillion dollar inventions. As I understand it, the cops killed the asshole who shot his parents. Knowing him, I’d say that would be the end of it.”

“He sounds like an interesting young man. Do you know how I can get hold of him?”

“I know he doesn’t live in Michigan anymore. He told me they were moving, but didn’t say where to?”

“OK, Ollie. Thanks for the information.”

“You can dig him up and talk to him. But I seriously doubt he would want to have anything to do with any of this. Bigger fish to fry and all that. Wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t end up running Microsoft or some other powerhouse company.”

They shook hands with Ollie and left the campus. Tim Philpot drove Robin to her hotel where she picked up her bag and then he drove her to the airport. Four hours later she was back home in DC with something she didn’t have before she left for Michigan, which was an idea.

~ 22 ~

Back in Lansing, Ollie called Parker’s burner. They chatted briefly about how things were going then Ollie said. “I just had a visit from the FBI, an investigator named Robin Pierce. She was the lead investigator on the gun thing. She was asking cop questions about you.”

“You didn’t tell her where I was did you?”

“No, but you should make sure that you don’t do anything that would make your address public.”

“Yeah, I thought about that. So far neither of us has changed any of our address information.”

“Good. Keep it that way and she’ll have a bitch of a time finding you.

“My credit cards all trace back to a PO Box in Auburn Hills. Our financial manager agreed to pick up my mail every week. She’s the only one who knows exactly where we are.”

“Pierce will figure it all out sooner or later. The Feds always do. Just be cool when she interviews you. She won’t be pleasant either because there’s a shitload of pressure on her right now.”

“Her pressure is not my problem.”

“That’s the spirit. Stay in touch. People are getting the message.”

~ 23 ~

When she got back to DC and onto her own computer, Robin started searching for Parker Nash. Three hours later she had an address in Virginia Beach, through the real estate agent who brokered the sale of the Ocean Front Avenue home that he had purchased even though it was in Tori’s name.

The next day, she was up early and on the road to Virginia Beach. She had no search warrant. This visit was to decide if she actually needed to apply for one. She arrived at Parker’s house at around 4 in the afternoon. Parker was sitting on the back deck reading a paperback. Tori was working on reviewing illustrations for her book at Tessa Ryder’s studio on the other side of town. 

Parker answered the door, still holding the paperback. “Yes?” he asked. 

“Parker Nash?” 

“That’s me. What can I do for you?” Parker already knew who he was talking to but didn’t let on.

Pierce flashed her badge. “Agent Robin Pierce, FBI. I’d like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind.”

“FBI. Hmmm, sure, come on in. We’ll sit out the back.”

As they were walking through the house Robin took in all the details

“Can I offer you something? Iced tea or coffee?” Parker asked.

“No thanks, I’m fine.” 

They got themselves situated on the back deck. 

“Nice view,” Robin said.

“Yeah, we love it here.”

“Where’s your wife, Victoria isn’t it?”

“She at her designer’s studio. She putting together a children’s book.”

“And what about you? What do you do all day?”

“Not a lot. I don’t really have to work. So I just fool around with software development. Every so often I come up with something.”

“Your friend Ollie Mitchum speaks very highly of you.”

“Ollie’s a good man, taught me a lot of useful stuff,” Parker said. “So what exactly would you like to know, Agent Pierce?”

Robin took a deep breath. “I’m the lead investigator of the Cybercrimes Division. I guess I’d like to know if you have any information about the recent disappearances of the web sites of a dozen prominent Republican politicians.”

Parker chuckled. “Yeah, that stuff is pretty good. Getting a lot of attention according to the news networks. But I’m curious about what would give you reason to be talking to me about this.”

“Well, I’m operating on a theory that the people who are doing this are the same people who sabotaged the gun manufacturers last year.”

“OK, but that still doesn’t answer my question.”

“Well, according to your University of Michigan files you have all the requisite skills. Plus your parents were victims of a shooting in which the shooter was using a semi-automatic weapon.”

Parker shook his head. “If you have looked me up you will know that I am actually not an idiot. But I still don’t understand what you’re getting at here. My parents were killed. But then so was their killer. In my book, justice was done. You know what I think, Agent Pierce?”

“No. Suppose you tell me.”

“I think that if I were in your position right now, I would be carrying the weight of the entire Republican party on my shoulders. The pressure to find the culprits here must be enormous.”

“You’re not wrong about that.” Robin said.

“So here you are, essentially clutching at straws, as the saying goes. Well, I’m sorry, but my personal belief is that the Republican party in this country is doing an excellent job of self-sabotage. They certainly don’t need any help from me. When I heard about the website takedowns, my first thought was it was nothing but a prank. The AI world has exploded in this country. There are literally thousands of people creating all kinds of fake stuff, and they are doing it just because they can.”

“I agree.” Robin said. “Unfortunately, my job requires that I find leads and follow them. This led me to you and, to some extent, your wife, because you were both linked to a pretty serious crime. This could have been a motive, not to mention a tragedy to both your families. And yes, I suppose I am clutching at straws a bit. But it comes with the territory, so to speak.”

“I don’t envy you your task.” Parker said. “Just out of curiosity, if and or when you catch these people, what exactly would you charge them with?”

“The criminal offence is really nothing more than public mischief. Where the rubber really meets the road is how much these people would be sued for by the politicians in question. This can result in lawsuits in the tens of millions.”

“That much?” 

“Yes, indeed.”

“Well then I’m glad I’m not one of those pranksters.”

They had come to the end of the conversation and they both knew it. “I’ll be happy to let you ransack my life, if you like. Of course, you’ll need a warrant and probable cause.”

“Yes, well I don’t think that will be necessary.” With that, she handed Parker her card. “If something should occur to you that could be of help in our investigation, please feel free to contact me.”

“Will do,” Parker said, as he took the card. He walked her through the house to the front door. 

“This is a beautiful place you have here,”

“We love it. We’re starting to make some friends here as well, and I’m thinking seriously about buying a boat.”

“Well thank you for your time. Mr Nash.”

“You’re welcome. Sorry I couldn’t be of more assistance.”

“That’s alright. It’s a long game we’re playing.”

Parker closed the door and walked back out to the deck. He was feeling quite proud of himself. But he also knew he was now on her radar and she didn’t feel like the type who would ever let up. He would have to be extra careful next time. If there was to be a next time.

Outside, as she got into her car, Robin was thinking. ‘Slipperier than an eel.’

 

~ 24 ~

On her way back to DC, Robin called the Richmond field office and gave them Parker’s address. She told them she would get clearance for a 48-hour surveillance. Within the next few hours, an agent was dispatched and parked down the street. He then went down to the beach and walked along until he came to the hotels and then turned back. 

By this time, Tori had arrived home with a bag of Thai  food and they were sitting out on the deck eating their dinner.

“Anything interesting happen today?” Tori asked.`

“Come to think of it, I had a pleasant visit from the FBI agent in charge of both the gun manufacturers and the politician website cases. She has this theory that they are linked. Sadly for her, she has nothing more than just an intuitive theory about it, as there is no evidence to speak of.”

“Should we be worried?” Tori said, with a little trepidation in her voice.

“I don't think so, but if she runs true to form with the FBI characters I read about, she has probably got someone assigned to watch us 24/7. But since she’s just playing a hunch, I would assume that she will have this surveillance for no more than 48 hours.”

“How do you know this stuff.”

“Mostly from reading cop and spy novels.” Parker said.

“So what do we do?”

“We just carry on as usual. We’ve pretty much done the damage we wanted to do. We need to wait things out for a while. But I’ll find out who’s watching us and we can keep an eye on him. May even be somebody who just walked by on the beach.”

Tori had a lot of faith in Parker’s judgement but there was no getting around the fact that she was a little nervous about all of this. Parker took her hand, and said. “Right here, right now, we have nothing to worry about. Our network is small. We have done all the right things to make ourselves untraceable. I did a lot of reading before we started this project. I simply cannot see any way that they can connect us to anything.” 

“What about your friend Ollie? Tori asked. “Could they get to him?”

Parker smiled. “No, and there are two reasons. First and foremost, he’s in this with us. And secondly, he’s a real deal hacker from way back. He knows all the pitfalls and how to avoid them.”

Parker looked at Tori and could feel the fear in her. “But I’ll tell you right now,” He said, “If you tell me to cease and desist, that’s what I’ll do. I love you Tori, and I will do anything to make sure you’re happy.”

Tori sat and thought about what Parker had just said as she fooled around with the food on her plate. And then she said. “It’s funny, you know. But I felt a lot safer when we were attacking those private companies. The politicians, you know, that’s like a whole other level and if I’m being honest, I guess I’m just not sure how much damage this will do in the long run. Who’s to say that we’re not getting these politicians a lot of sympathy from the people who elected them?

Parker leaned back in his chair and stared at his lovely wife who had to have been working really hard to get that all out. He then realized he wasn’t breathing and took a deep breath. He took her hand again.

“Everything you just said, every word, every syllable, the whole thing. You’re absolutely right.” He looked off into the clear sky for a moment. “I guess I got carried away. I was trying, probably way too hard, to invent a new game.” 

“But there was nothing wrong with the old game. In fact, it was better.” Tori said. “I just felt a lot safer when we were doing that. I also felt that we were actually making a difference. These people, these politicians, they’re not gonna change. They all have been made to fall in line behind their leader, who everybody knows is a scumbucket.”

Parker sat quietly for a long moment.

“When is your book going to be ready for printing?” Parker asked.

“Not for another three weeks or so. We agreed on all the sketches and color schemes. It will take that long to get them all done.”

“OK. Tomorrow or the next day, we’ll take off somewhere for a couple of weeks.  Maybe Europe. It can be our honeymoon.” Parker said.

Tori didn’t quite know what to say. “I’d love to go to Paris.” she said.

 “Paris it is.” Parker said and he started to dig into his food.

The next day, Parker went looking for the agent assigned to watch them. His name was David Vance, and he was parked down the street from the rear end of the house. Parker came out at about ten the next morning and spotted him right away. He walked down the street and leaned into the window. 

“Hi.” Parker said. “I guess Agent Pierce got you assigned to watch us. So I just wanted to let you know that my wife and I are going on a little vacation tomorrow. We’re going to Paris then we’re gonna rent a car and drive around Europe for a couple of weeks. So I think it would be a waste of the taxpayer’s money for you to sit here watching an empty house.”

Parker then walked back to his house.

Agent Vance said nothing, but just started his car and took off.

~ 25 ~

Parker and Tori went online and booked their trip to Paris. It took the better part of the day to book their, flight, hotel and obtain tickets to some of the galleries and museums they wanted to go to. 

Parker called Ollie and told him about his visit with Agent Pierce and that they were heading over to Europe for a couple of weeks, while Tori’s book was being designed and illustrated. Since he was on a mid-term break Ollie agreed to use his network to carry on the sabotage of the Republican politicians. He had all kinds of devious things in mind. 

The next morning, Parker wrapped up his MacBook in two plastic garbage bags and buried it out in the small dune beside their house. Then Parker and Tori were off to Washington to catch their flight. 

On the way, Parker took the burner phone apart and tossed the pieces into the Nanesemond  River as they crossed over on their way toward Richmond. They left the Beamer in the long-term parking garage at Dulles Airport and two hours later they were flying over the Atlantic.

In the plane, they were seated in the second row of first class, and there were only a few people behind them. Parker explained to Tori that Ollie was going to take over the sabotage and that by the time they got back the Republicans should be in pretty bad shape, and that this would severely weaken their position in the upcoming mid-term elections. One of the first things they would do when they got back was contact Ollie and get a reading from him on just how risky it would be to carry on. But Parker was fairly confident that it would not be necessary, especially with him being on Agent Pierce’s suspect list.

They spent the next week in Paris taking in all the sights and eating some great meals at restaurants recommended by the concierge at their hotel. For the next two weeks they rented a BMW and drove around Europe, through France, Switzerland and finally Italy. Somewhere between Genoa and Florence, they started to fall in love with the country. The countryside was so beautiful. The towns were so quaint. The restaurants all served amazing dishes. And the people were beautiful and charming.

Even though they didn’t speak a word of Italian, they felt like they belonged there. They met the most amazing people and totally lost track of time. 

The three weeks flew by. And one day Tori got a call from Tessa Ryder. It was time for them to go back. They drove to Rome, which of all the places they visited, they liked the least, dropped off their car and flew back to Washington. On the way back home all they could talk about was coming back and maybe renting a villa somewhere, learning the language and kissing America and all its troubles goodbye.

~ 26 ~

Tori’s book was beautiful, and while they were over in Europe, Tessa had sent a copy of it to a children’s book publisher she knew in Baltimore, who loved it, and agreed to help market it. So instead of printing 1000, they printed 24,000 and within a year they were all sold, and a new print run was ordered.

While Tori was making the rounds on the East Coast promoting her book and doing readings in various bookstores, Parker flew to Michigan and met up with Ollie. 

Parker thanked him profusely and told him that he was at the end of the road as far as hacking the websites of the Republican politicians went.

“I can’t tell you A.How proud I am of you, and B. How much fun it’s been pranking these motherfuckers.” Ollie said.

Parker took a deep breath. “Yeah, I guess I had a lot more resentment and anger inside than I thought.”

They talked for quite a while and Ollie gave him a memory key with the safe emails of everyone in his network, which stretched right around the world. “Just in case you change your mind.” he said.

Parker thanked him for all the work he had done. Then he told Ollie that he and Tori had decided to move to Italy. It would take them about a year to actually get it all together but he wanted to focus on learning Italian and figuring out what they wanted to take with them. Plus Tori had to do about six months of book promotion and he wanted to go with her.

Ollie leaned back in his chair. “I think that’s a smart move, ‘cause the FBI lady Robin Pierce, she’s a fuckin’ bloodhound and she knows who you are.”

“So maybe it’s a good time for us to fold up the tent completely.” Parker said.

“For you guys for sure. But I’m gonna keep bangin’ away for a while. Send me a postcard from Italy.”

~ 27 ~

Ollie and his network continued to attack the Republicans, mostly because it only took Ollie about fifteen minutes out of his day, and the anti-American sentiment around the world simply astonished him. 

The attacks caused no end of trouble and pain for the Republicans and because they appeared to come from areas outside the US, there was next to nothing that the FBI could do other than to inform Interpol and hope for the best. 

The fact that the Republican politicians could do nothing about it, made them look all the more incompetent, and this was good news for the Democrats, who spent a relatively small part of their time fending off accusations from their political rivals.

Tori’s Kids Book, which was entitled “Cute As A Button”, was in its third run and had sold close to half a million copies. It had been translated into four languages and sold well right around the world. 

After her US promotion tour, her publisher started pressuring her to write another book, and so she started playing around with some stories, but did so at her own pace. 

She and Parker had become good friends with Penny and Deacon Fredericks. Deacon had gotten Parker interested in photography, which he found was a very good creative outlet.  

After Tori’s book tour was done, they took Italian lessons at Norfolk State University, and after several months felt they could pretty much hold their own in Italy, which is where they headed. 

They found a lovely villa just outside of Livorno and spent three months there while Tori finished her second book.  At the end of their stay, they made an offer on the villa which was accepted.

They then flew back to the US, sold their house completely furnished, and their cars and bikes. They had all their clothes and personal stuff shipped to Italy. All they brought with them on the trip back were their laptops and iPads. Parker removed the hard drive and thoroughly cleaned it and the rest of the laptop with bleach. Then he buried the laptop deep on the leeward side of a small dune next to his house. He buried the hard drive several yards away.

At night, in Italy, they watched the US news on satellite, but after a month or so, it all seemed to be the same nonsense every day. And they had both noticed that their anger and desire for revenge had almost totally dissipated. Italy had its share of political bullshit, but they were so far removed from it that it didn’t seem to affect them in quite the same way. Eventually, they stopped watching US TV altogether.

Tori began to finalized her second book, and sent it off to Tessa to design and have illustrated. Parker carried on with his photography. They bought a couple of Vespa scooters and took day trips all over the area, where Parker would find beautiful things to photograph. In town, he made friends with the local printer, a younger guy named Mauro and together got into the business of selling prints online.

Parker quickly learned Photoshop and with Mauro’s help they were able to turn his photographs into stunning images. The more he did, the better he got at it. Six months later, he and Mauro opened their own gallery called FotoLiverno, and offered other photographers in the area a place to display and sell their imagery. They also created a post card business and sold tens of thousands of them every year.

For Parker & Tori, it didn’t matter what happened beyond this. They had done their best by their parents and they knew that changes in the gun laws and increased political cooperation were just around the corner. How long it would take to get around that corner was anybody’s guess.

Robin Pierce kept looking for the culprits behind the Republican cyber attacks, mainly because no one had ever told her to stop. So she paid another visit to Ollie Mitchum.

But Ollie was no fool. He knew that if the FBI was still on the case, then some serious shit could still hit the wall and some of it might just get on him. So he had wound everything down and destroyed any incriminating evidence. 

He had a nice lunch with Robin Pierce and bullshitted her around the block and through the park. Robin left the meeting scratching her head and firm in the belief that computer genius was nothing more than a form of insanity.

About a week after Ollie had wound everything down Parker got a text message It simply read ‘We came. We saw. We conquered. Amen.’

He sent back a text of his own. ‘Yes, indeed. Gracias Amigo.’

Late that same day, Parker was sitting out on the back terrace of their villa in Livorno reading his Kindle.
Tori came out onto the terrace and flopped down beside him.

“Just got a message from Ollie.” Parker said “He’s closed up shop and I think he was kind of relieved about it.”

Tori smiled and took Parker’s hand. “That’s great hun. And the timing couldn’t be better, because we have a new project.

“We do?” Parker asked.

Tori took his hand and laid it flat on her belly.

“Yes we do.” She said.

“Well what do you know. A little Italian.”

The sun was low over the Mediterranean as they stared out at the orange glow on the water and thought about being a family.

FIN