Alex O'Donnell and the 40 CyberTheives Read online

we’re poor. Well, we used to be poor, and he used to be poor too. He wouldn’t have gotten through college without Dad’s financial help. But when Mom got sick, Dad asked him to help cover the bills so we wouldn’t lose our house.

  And—” Alex waved his hand. “He’s been a jerk about it.”

  “Sounds like he’s one splendid uncle.”

  “He’s a piece of work.” Alex shoved himself into the pool. “But doesn’t everyone have at least one screwy relative? Anyhow, I’m glad we paid off the loan and we don’t have to deal with him any more.”

  Kateri was quiet, thinking this over. It was hard to imagine Alex as a helpless, chubby awkward boy, facing up to a mean older relative. “So you’ve forgiven him, Alex?”

  Alex glanced at her. “I think I have. Actually I prayed the rosary for him last night. Dad’s worried about him. I mean, more than usual.”

  “It amazes me that you can talk about him making you who you are today.”

  Alex laughed. “I’m sure if Uncle Cass had ever thought his actions would have produced a guy like me, he’d have given me lollipops and bought me hashish instead of always trying to sock me and then ask me about the dumb things I learned in Catholic school.” With a quick tug, he easily pulled Kateri into the pool. “C’mon. Race you to the other side!”

  Giving up, she threw herself into the water beside him and swam as fast as she could. She managed to tie with him, but he grinned and leapt sideways.

  “Race you back!”

  She swam after him but gave up after he pulled three lengths ahead. He waited for her to finish, and planted a kiss on her head as she bobbed up from the water on the last stroke.

  “Did I ever tell you that you’re beautiful when you’re wet?”

  She was about to make an acid reply when she spotted David. He had come out of the courtyard door and was standing on the pavement, staring at them with a horrified expression on his face.

  “David?” Alex said, following Kateri’s gaze. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  David seemed to be struggling to speak. At last he came out with it. “Uncle Cass is dead.”

  Less than an hour later, the entire O’Donnell family and Kateri were in the Twilight Hills Hotel van and speeding back up the highway to Northern Virginia.

  Alex had taken the wheel. His father was in no state to drive. Kateri was riding shotgun, and Alex knew she was praying silently as she sat, fingering her scapular. Sam and David, more quiet than usual, sat in the back seat, not playing video games. Alex’s dad was sitting in front of the boys next to Mom, his head in his hands. Alex could hear his sobs as they drove.

  Aunt Mona had called them, after she had looked up the hotel number on the Internet. She was in hysterics, and she had been ever since Uncle Cass had dropped dead in the hospital emergency room.

  Aunt Mona had just thought her husband had the flu. He’d been complaining of a sore throat and headache for a few days. But then he started having trouble breathing, and Aunt Mona rushed him to the hospital. While they were filling out the paperwork, he went into shock, and fell backwards onto the emergency room floor, ballpoint pen still in hand. He was dead fifteen minutes later.

  Alex wasn’t feeling anything now—just concentrating on driving the van and getting his parents there safely. But a steady tattoo of questions was running through his mind.

  “It’s so bizarre,” Mom said, breaking into Alex’s thoughts. “To die of the flu—in this day and age.”

  “It’s like God’s judgment,” Kateri said, and then quickly looked at Alex. “I’m sorry,” she said, a bit husky. “I didn’t know him. I guess from what you told me about him, I don’t like him very much. Maybe he was nicer in person?”

  Alex found himself wanting to laugh. “No. He wasn’t.” He silenced himself.

  “Guess he didn’t get his flu shot. Too weird. Too random.” David shook his head, in a fourteen-year-old’s attempt to come to grips with the tragedy.

  Alex looked into the rear-view mirror and met his father’s red eyes. Instantly he knew that he and Dad were thinking the same thing. Uncle Cass had not died of the flu. And his death was not random.

  When they arrived at Aunt Mona’s house, she met them at the door. Her red hair was disheveled and she was missing one oversized earring. “Oh Alan! Oh Kitty!” she exclaimed, and fell into his dad’s arms, sobbing while his mom patted her on the back. It was as though all the bad feelings between them had evaporated, and they were back to behaving like a normal family. Had his parents and Aunt Mona ever gotten along? Maybe a long time ago? Alex wasn’t sure. He stood a bit awkwardly to one side with Kateri and his brothers, while his mom and dad helped Aunt Mona to the massive oak kitchen, where his dad started making tea at Mom’s suggestion. After a moment or two of standing around while the grownups fell to talking and weeping, the younger generation drifted back into the living room.

  “Keep quiet so they can have some space,” Alex said in a hushed voice to Sam and David, who obeyed with unusual attention.

  In the living room, Sam sank onto the white leather couch, while David stood around fidgeting, hands in his pockets. Kateri sat down carefully on a white satin antique-looking chair.

  “Nice house,” Kateri said, looking around, apparently wanting to say something.

  “If you like this sort of thing,” Alex said, his eyes traveling over the opulent room with its glass coffee table showcasing marbleized Venetian glass paperweights that probably had never held down any paper. Vanity of vanities, he thought randomly, and made himself say another prayer for his uncle’s soul. It was odd to think that Uncle Cass, his enemy for so long, was dead. And no longer an enemy.

  He noticed a picture hanging very low on the wall and recognized that it was probably covering the place where the drywall had been punched in during the fight. Although he was sorely tempted, he decided not to mention it to Kateri.

  But now that he had started thinking about that night, Alex couldn’t stop.

  In a moment, he had crossed to the door of the home office and tried it. It was open.

  Glancing around, he made a decision and slipped inside.

  The office was in more disarray than the last time Alex had seen it. Books and papers were scattered everywhere. He stepped cautiously, looking around carefully.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” David said, pushing open the door. “You trying to get onto their computer or something?”

  “Shh! No.”

  Kateri was behind him. “Alex, why are you in here?”

  “Just curious.”

  “CKTC!” Sam piped up from behind her.

  “You shouldn’t be in here,” Kateri warned, hands on her hips.

  “I’m not touching anything! I’m just looking,” Alex rounded the corner of the desk. The laptop was open, but it was off. He looked carefully over the large mahogany surface.

  At last he spotted what he was looking for. In the wastebasket was a torn envelope from the Sundance Fun Foundation. But it wasn’t a paper envelope. It was a red padded envelope that looked as though it had been heavily taped.

  So Uncle Cass had gotten his check.

  He reached down for the envelope and found his hand caught by Kateri’s.

  “You just said you weren’t going to touch anything,” she reminded him.

  Now he was annoyed. “I’m just looking in his trashcan!” he whispered.

  “Doesn’t matter! It’s in his office!”

  “Look, will you stop picking a fight?”

  “I’m picking a fight? You’re the one who’s poking around in someone’s private papers!” she hissed. “Leave it alone, or I’ll call your aunt!”

  “Fine,” he retreated from the trashcan. “If you want to be pigheaded about it.”

  Just then, the doorbell rang loudly, right behind them.

  All of them jumped. Hurriedly, they all exited the office. Feeling guilty despite himself, Alex attempted to open the front door calmly. “Can I help you?”

  Two men in
dark suits stood on the doorstep. One was short, with blond, bristling hair and a stiff, wooden expression, the other was tall, dark haired, and thoughtful-looking. Behind them, a police car was quietly pulling up to the curb.

  The taller man produced an ID. “I’m Agent T. Furlow of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We need to speak to Mrs. Cassidy O’Donnell.”

  Hearing the doorbell, Aunt Mona had come out from the kitchen, trailed by Alex’s parents. “I’m right here,” she managed to say. “What—?”

  “Mrs. O’Donnell,” the agent said, looking sober. “Agent Furlow of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This is my partner, Carter Randolph. May we speak to you?”

  “Come in,” she said, backing up.

  “Actually, I’ll need to ask you to step outside,” Agent Furlow said apologetically. There were police officers coming up the walk. Aunt Mona didn’t seem to like this idea, but the FBI was the FBI. She came out onto the walk, holding her arms around herself, trailed by Kateri and the O’Donnells.

  The agent glanced around. “Are these people your relatives?”

  “Yes.” Aunt Mona started to shake. “Oh God. What did Cass do? Is he in trouble?”

  “Not any more,” Agent Furlow said. “But perhaps the rest of us are. The medical examination showed us the cause of your husband’s death.”

  “It wasn’t the flu,” Alex guessed, speaking aloud before he could stop himself.

  The agent gave him a keen look from his blue eyes. “No.” He turned back to Aunt Mona. “He died of ricin inhalation, a biohazard contaminant. I’m afraid we need to quarantine this house in order to search for the source of the contaminant.” He looked at the rest of them. “Also, for your own protection, everyone in the house needs to be given medical attention immediately. We have our biohazard unit coming to escort you all to a medical facility for decontamination and observation.”

  He didn’t mention that it was going to be a top-secret medical facility, Kateri thought to herself hours later as she sat in her windowless room, staring at the cinderblock wall. After the agent’s pronouncement, what had followed was something out of a science-fiction movie. An eighteen-wheeled truck had backed into the cul-de-sac and a team of men in puffed-out yellow suits with masks descended on the house. The O’Donnells and Kateri weren’t allowed to return to the house, not even to get Mrs. O’Donnell’s purse. Instead, they had all been asked to get inside the truck, which turned out to have a complete decontamination facility inside of it.

  After being shown to a private shower, Kateri was instructed to wash twice with a decontamination solution and rinse, scrubbing for at least five minutes for each session (she did ten). At some point during her third shower, she became aware that the truck was moving, and realized, with a tremor in her stomach, that she was completely in the hands of the US Government. As someone who had been raised by her parents to be a conscientious objector, this was fairly terrifying.

  She wasn’t allowed to get her clothes back. In fact, she suspected that her entire outfit—her vintage blue peasant blouse from mom, the jeans she had borrowed from her sister Tracy, and her favorite wooden clogs—was gone for good. They said she might get her medal of St. Catherine back eventually. They had strongly suggested she should unwrap the thread from the thin braids in her hair, and, Kateri, juggling in her mind between dissenting again government interference and the possibility of contracting a biohazard disease, submitted.

  She’d had those tiny braids wrapped for the past four years of college, one for each time she’d been arrested for leading a protest. With a few furtive tears, she acknowledged that that time in her life was probably over for good as she unwrapped the braids and handed the tangled thread over to the female agent monitoring the shower unit. Another compromise. Great.

  When the agent gave her a pair of Wal-Mart sweats to wear instead, in pink and purple, it didn’t make her feel any better about her surrender.

  After she was dressed, she was shown to another small cubicle somewhere in the bowels of the truck, and FBI Agent Carter Randolph, who, Kateri quickly discovered, had the personality of a two-by-four plank, came to interview her about what had happened at the uncle’s house. Of course, he was wearing a face mask and rubber gloves, which probably inhibited his personal interaction.

  Kateri, who, due to life experience, knew a thing or two about talking to the feds, matched her behavior to his and answered his questions without any elaboration, just telling him what he wanted to know and not giving any extra details. She hoped she wasn’t sweating.

  If they dig up my records and do a background check, I bet I’ll be their prime suspect. After all, she had willingly disobeyed abortion clinic access laws repeatedly during her college years, and her older siblings had been labeled as terrorists because they had organized nonviolent protests against abortion.

  But the agent didn’t ask her any questions about her past, and after a while, Kateri realized that all the O’Donnells, who had been questioned as well, would probably corroborate what she’d told the agent: she’d never met Uncle Cass.

  She’d been in his house only about fifteen minutes. By the time she’d even heard of the existence of Cassidy O’Donnell, he was already dead.

  It took about two and a half hours for the truck to reach its destination.

  That destination turned out to be some sort of massive bunker of a medical facility with no windows and no identification. She’d been examined by a doctor wearing a HEPA filter, her vital signs were taken, and then she was shown to a private bedroom, hooked up to an IV, and left alone with a stack of fashion magazines and a television.

  Even if they didn’t know about or care about her activist background, how could she possibly trust these people who had locked her into this concrete bunker like a prisoner? For someone who was used to having her civil rights infringed, it wasn’t exactly easy to relax. And the thought of being killed by biohazard exposure. Well, to the daughter of an organic farmer, this was nothing but ironic. Serves me right for coming to Northern Virginia. . .

  She didn’t open the magazines or turn on the television, just stared at the concrete block wall, trying not to give into paranoia and wondering what in the world she had done to get herself involved with Alex’s family and this crazy mess.

  As the son of a Beltway employee involved in security, Alex had always known that the US government had many resources when it came to terrorist attacks, but he had never dreamed that he would be able to benefit directly from them. During the decontamination process and medical exam, he had looked around as much as possible and, after estimating the direction of the truck and the length it took to arrive at their destination, he had figured out that his family and Kateri were being treated at a facility somewhere west of Mt. Weather. That was the demarcation line for the estimated blast zone of a nuclear attack on Washington DC.

  Once he was left alone in his hospital room, he had gotten out of bed and examined what he could of the room, including the mattress, which was premium (his tutorial with Mr. Bhatka had included what to look for in a good mattress), and concluded that they were in a pretty nice medical facility.

  Maybe we’re at the same place where they’d treat the president if he were exposed to a biohazard. Cool.

  “Feeling okay, Alex?”

  Alex restrained his reflexive urge to jump and casually looked up at the tall FBI agent who’d just opened the door. “Yeah, I am.” He hopped back into bed and straightened out his IV line.

  “Better not kink that tube or the nurse will get teed off,” the man said, sitting down in the chair next to the bed. He pointed to the facial mask he was wearing. “Sorry for this. The medical team’s making everyone wear one.”

  Alex grinned. He figured he should try to get off on the right foot with the agent. “That’s okay. Your name is Furlow, right?”

  “Yes, Agent Thomas Furlow.” For an FBI agent, he looked surprisingly friendly. “My partner and I are the ones they call in whenever there’s a biohazar
d investigation.”

  “How often does that happen?” Alex asked.

  Agent Furlow shrugged. “Enough so that it keeps us on our toes. But usually the cases aren’t fatal, as this one unfortunately was.” He cleared his throat.

  “We’re probably going to ask you not to tell too many people how your uncle died. The public tends to panic over these sorts of incidents.”

  “Yeah,” Alex said quietly. “So—how’s my mom doing?”

  “She’s okay,” Agent Furlow said. “Seems like quite a lady.”

  “She is that,” Alex said. “Can I go and see her?”

  The agent hesitated, toyed with his blackberry. “I’m not sure if that’s possible.”

  Ah. Alex cocked his head. “How long are we going to be here?”

  “I’m afraid that ricin has a long incubation period. To be absolutely sure you’re safe, the medical team is probably going to want to keep you under observation for seventy-two hours.”

  Three days. Alex whistled. “And during that whole time, we’re not allowed to talk to one another? Is there such a big risk of infection?”

  Agent Furlow paused. “Well, it’s not exactly infection. I’m afraid that’s Bureau procedure after there’s been a biohazard incident that might be intentional.”

  Alex absorbed this. “So you think that Uncle Cass’s death was the result of a deliberate assault with a biohazard weapon? Did you find something in his office?”

  The agent’s eyelashes flickered, but he didn’t say yes or no.

  Alex pressed on. “It wasn’t in that weird red envelope in his office, was it?”

  Agent Furlow coughed. “I see you have your suspicions.”

  “Yeah,” Alex said. “I mean, his dying of the flu was too strange. He was such a big, healthy guy. So was the ricin he inhaled in that envelope?”

  Agent Furlow tilted his head with a slight smile. “Okay, I could deny it, but I think it’ll come out in the investigation. So do you have any idea of how it got there?”