Page 59 of Havoc

“This is not a joking matter,” Hacker shot back sternly. “According to the metadata, the timestamp is the date of Riley’s assault. It was recorded at six fifty-seven in the morning, lasted for seven minutes, and was deleted three hours later.”

I stared down at Nine as a multitude of questions filled my mind. What was this confession that went on for seven minutes? Was it an actual video of him accosting me? Me begging him to leave me alone? Him tipping my shirt open? Or was it him talking to his lawyer, assuming I would report him?

“I just found something else,” Hacker blurted out, clearly shocked. “I was tinkering around, just to see if I could find anything else unusual. I ran that program I mentioned earlier, and it found another spyware app.”

“What in the hell else could he want that the first app doesn’t provide? They’re already monitoring every single thing I do on my phone with the one disguised as a puzzle game.” When both Havoc and Mace turned to stare at me in shock, I was embarrassed that I let my temper get the better of me. I’m supposed to be better than this. And I used to think I was. It’s becoming increasingly obvious to myself and everyone else that this situation is making me unhinged.

“Sorry about yelling. I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that the stress is getting to me.”

Havoc stated soothingly, “It’s fine. We all feel the same way. We just need to hold it together long enough to get to the bottom of this.”

“Alright, please continue, Hacker.”

“This one wasn’t transmitting to the same relay.” The tone of his voice implied we’d know what that meant. Looking from Havoc to Mace, I could tell we were all equally bewildered.

Finally, Havoc asked, “You need to explain this shit to us like we’re a ten-year-old. We don’t understand the significance of different relays.”

“A different relay means this app is using a whole different system, one that’s not related at all to the puzzle spyware. It was a second tracker. It could be some kind of failsafe, you know, a backup in case the first system fails.”

I grew more agitated instead of less agitated. “That makes zero sense. I can’t believe there is someone in the world who wants to track my movements, much less that tracking me is so critically important to this creep that he’s installed a backup tracker operating on an entirely different system.” I snapped my mouth shut because I was ranting at the nice guys who have dedicated their time and effort to see to my safety.

Havoc lifted me into his lap and held me close. “Alright, we’re ready to hear the rest, Hacker.”

Hacker picked right back up where he left off. “Like I was saying, it’s a different server, which means there is a different destination. And here’s where it gets really interesting: the server they’re using is located at the Griffinsford PD.”

I gasped. “You think the two police departments are in cahoots? Is that what you’re saying?”

“It could be that they’re all dirty and working together. This app was disguised too, but as a system tool called ‘Voice Assistant Update.’ It looked so legit that I missed it the first time around. My bot doesn’t miss anything though.”

Havoc rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “We can’t ignore that someone at the Griffinsford PD has realized what a liability Slater is and decided to go after him. They must know that the only way to totally put him out of commission is to take down his old man as well.”

Mace threw in his two cents’ worth. “That seems highly unlikely. We already know there are deeply rooted problems with Griffinsford PD’s chain of command. I can’t imagine them deciding to be hometown heroes all the sudden.”

Looking from one to another of them, I wasn’t sure what to think. They continued to debate that last point until Hacker decided to wrap it with a recap of what we’d learned so far.

“Looks like we have two separate trackers going at the same time. The one linked to Slater is highly intrusive and tracks a lot of information. The one originating from the Griffinsford PD servers is basically a listening program. It activates when the phone is in use.”

“Hold on a moment,” I said, suddenly realizing something.

“What?” Havoc muttered.

I mouthed the words to him and pointed to the laptop, “If someone is listening in, then they know what we’re doing.”

“What’s she saying?” Hacker asked.

“She’s worried someone’s listening,” Havoc said.

“Not at the moment,” Hacker replied. “I switched it to airplane mode remotely before I started going through the code. If someone’s listening now, they’ll probably think you’re in a dead zone.”

I felt myself relax at that bit of news.

Havoc’s voice became steely and determined. “What we need is a plan.”

Hacker shot back, “No, what you need is to meet with Storm and the other club officers so you can come up with a plan together. Considering this puts you right between an organized crime family operating under the cover of law and our own local police department, this isn’t something you can do on your own.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that. I’ve recently learned that I need to cool my jets and engage in doing the proper front-end work if I want to keep my shit from going sideways,” Havoc told him.

“When we meet with Storm and the others, I’ll recommend that we track Slater’s end first. I don’t know exactly who is managing his servers, but if we can get to him and force him to talk, we might find out who was confessing to what. Once we get that information, it might be helpful, and it might not be germane to our situation. But one thing is for certain: squeezing intel out of their IT professional will give us the inside information we’re looking for to nail Slater and his old man down.”

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