The Hacker Chronicles

By Patrick Oster

The Hacker Chronicles

An Aloysius Wachter Detective Novel

Aloysius Wachter, a clandestine hacker forced by circumstances to turn amateur detective, recounts several of his adventures that begin with spotting a murder on his first night on the job at a city agency that monitors everyone and everything through a 10,000 camera syste

• Language: English
• Publisher: Padraig Press
• Release date: Apr 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9780991643745

Book preview

1

Day 1: The Naked City

The shift chief yelled out that it looked like some guy was lying on the ground along the river walk. He asked for a volunteer to check it out, and I piped up. That’s how it all started.

The chief said the guy looked as if he’d had one too many or maybe had had a heart attack. All I saw was some fat guy in a blue blazer and khaki pants in the prone position, stomach up with the soles of his feet facing a wall in the shadows of the walk. It was my first day on the job so I was hardly the expert on deciphering images from a security camera.

When my cousin Danny, who was showing me the ropes that first night, got a look at the guy, he voted for the passed-out-drunk explanation, based on his two years of experience figuring out what people were up to after midnight in Chicago. We were both wrong, but I was a little closer. Seeing no signs of breathing, I’d guessed heart attack, which was technically true. The guy’s heart had stopped — just not from natural causes.

Murder was the surprise cause of death when the cops finally figured it out. And everything else that happened after seeing that dead guy on the ground was pretty much unexpected too. It sure wasn’t what I’d imagined when I started that job, which I’d been forced to take by my mom, who was paying the bills back then. The way I saw it: I’d been hired as sort of a glorified night watchman at something called the Organization for Emergency Management and Communication.

The name sounds boring, and I think that was intentional so not too many people would suspect what they do. Here’s the skinny: When I joined it, the OEMC had the ability to monitor more than 10,000 police, community and business surveillance cameras hooked up to the biggest spy network in the nation. Chicago may be the Second City, but when it comes to checking up on what residents and tourists are doing on the street or at home, it’s Number One. Forget Carl Sandberg. Big Shoulders had become Big Brother.

The OEMC system is called Operation Virtual Shield, which sounds like it’s mostly defensive. But there’s a lot of sword technology that lets watchers follow people or set up a tracking program to find them. Even with all the people who work there, they can’t watch what’s going on in front of every camera at every moment. So they record everything, like the NSA does with phone calls, according to that Snowden guy. If something is of interest — like a body on the ground — you can go to the archives and see what happened.

I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into when I agreed to do the job. All I knew is that bills had to be paid, and while I had some rainy-day money I’d won playing online poker, I was a little short of operational cash the day my mom came over for The Lecture. Time to get a job or I cut off your allowance, she said. She’s sweet, but she looked stern that day. And she came with a solution: a job my uncle had arranged.

I could hardly refuse. She’d bought me my loft, although that was probably to keep me in Chicago instead of taking off on some Kerouac odyssey. It’s not in the greatest neighborhood, although it’s a good place to live if you want to improve your Spanish. She also financed my brainstorm of the moment: a graphic novel, which I hoped someone would turn into a wicked movie after I inked it out. Plan was to live off the royalties of what would become a book and movie franchise. Like a Jason Bourne thing. Probably sounds lame-ass to you, but I had some talents in this regard, and I persuaded her to pop for all the brushes and special paper you need to do a book. As of the day of The Lecture, though, Hollywood had not come a calling — probably because I hadn’t finished the damned thing. It had a decent plot, but, to be honest, it was not really a story I had much passion for. And so she caught me at a weak moment, and I said I’d take the OEMC job, just to get her off my back.

By the way, I’m Vic.

This was my first full-time job, with health insurance and 401(k) and all that crap adults tell you is important. I’d had some part-time gigs at Blockbuster, Borders and other losers that didn’t get the memo that disruptive technology had passed them by. But this was the first 40-hour thing with lunch and coffee breaks and overtime. Even a time clock, god help me. At least it was the midnight to 8 a.m. shift, which was important because I’m a night owl.

My mom said there’d be job security in working for such a big organization, but I’m not much for belonging to large organizations. More of a loner. Closest I get to the collective thing is being a millennial, but that’s just an accident of my birthday. That said, I am a typical millennial in some ways. Never married, my cell phone is my watch and alarm clock. I rarely read newspapers. I don’t pay for cable. Comedy Central and YouTube are where I get the news. I don’t care, won’t care, if gays get married or adopt kids or if you say your real gender is not the one somebody inked in on your birth certificate. I don’t vote much, but, for what it’s worth, I did haul my sorry ass out of bed to make my X for Bernie and the revolution back in the day.

I never did much dating, but I’ve been into sex since middle school, which is when I discovered drugs and tech. Fortunately I found the latter more interesting, though you may smell some of those funny cigarettes at my place if you drop by unannounced. No hard stuff, though, especially K2. That stuff, which you can get at my local bodega, can make you mental.

I’m into visual things like films but haven’t been to the movies in years. I see everything online. I’ve been a gamer, though I’m no addict. Games that are about kill counts don’t do too much for me.

One aberration: I don’t stream music and I don’t steal it. I like to own my tunes and make my own choices about what to listen to — and when. I have some of the usual on my iPod and hard drive: Phish, Disco Biscuits and some lyrics-explicit hip-hop. But you’ll also find Dwight Yoakam and Rosanne Cash and music from Haiti and Algeria next to 50s jazz. Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga or Adele? Of course.

That pretty much sums up me when my uncle called with the exciting details of the job he’d snagged for me as a favor to my mom. His day job is being an admin guy at the Chicago Police Department. He got that spot as a favor for being a precinct captain, which involves reminding people how to spell Democratic on Election Day. His son Danny, already had the same gig, and my uncle said working overnight with him should be fun. Sitting right next to my cousin. What could be better?

Quite a few things actually. Danny and I have had some laughs at wakes or other family events, which is how we usually met a couple of times a year as we were growing up. But Danny is not going to be my best man, if I were insane enough to get married. He’s perfectly fine if you want to get drunk or otherwise high, but that was about the limit of our relationship.

His family lived on the far west side of the city, a little north of the Eisenhower, almost in Oak Park, so his dad could qualify for a police job without having blacks or Latinos for neighbors — the sort of people who live on my street.

I grew up on the North Shore, which is where my dad came from. I’m for the Cubs. Got Steve Goodman’s genius song Go Cubs Go in regular rotation during baseball season. Danny roots for the Sox. I root for the Blackhawks. Danny has no interest in hockey and complains about having playoffs in June for a winter sport. No great comeback there, but we got some Stanley Cups so who gives a shit? We do both root for the Bulls, but that’s about it in the kindred spirit department.

Enough of the resumé crap. Like Fergie and those other guys sing, let’s get it started in here. Just one little warning, though. I think it was Vonnegut who said all this happened, more or less. Compared with Slaughterhouse Five, my story is more true than not, though I may have shaved a few things around the edges to protect some people from the cops, including me.

So, here goes: On that first night, facing 40 hours of work, I was feeling a bit like Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, with images of factory gears and assembly lines in my head. I got on my bike and pedaled over to OEMC headquarters, which is on West Madison. The OEMC is housed in a modern, marble building. Must have cost a bundle, and somebody’s relative probably got the contract. It’s Chicago.

Anyway, on that first day, the sticky humidity of a 90-degree August Sunday had bled into an evening with a hint of coolness, thanks to Lake Michigan. I thought about taking the elevated — what we call the El —to work, but then I would have had to switch to the bus, which is why I just rode my bike.

I got to the OEMC with time to spare, helped by the fact that it was Sunday night. Anyone with any sense or a normal job was home, in bed or having fun or both. There’s a neat vintage fire station right on the same block as OEMC headquarters, all oil-based red painted wood and brass. I stopped to check it out and then walked my bike the last block to the agency’s front entrance. When I came through the front door, the guard gave me the fisheye till I asked for Danny Dugan.

Danny came down in a sec, cocking his head to the right as he took in my paint-splattered bike, the messenger bag slung across my left shoulder and the Velcro pants strap above my right ankle.

Jesus, Danny said, looking at my bike. Where’d you get that piece of crap? Rob some homeless guy?

That’s Danny’s wiseass way. There was always a bit of taunting and mockery when we met up. We had a tradition of one-upmanship. Rule was: you never showed that the other guy had gotten to you.

It’s actually a pretty valuable Cannondale under all that paint, I said, showing no offense. I uglied it up so it’s less likely to be stolen.

Danny nodded at my comeback.

No chance of that, man.

Danny showed me the bike room, which was on the lower level, and told me to lock my ride up, even though we were inside.

I don’t trust most of the people who work here, Danny said. Besides, this bike room is one of the few places in the city where we don’t have a camera. Go figure.

Danny took me down a long, concrete hall to a little studio to have my photo snapped for a building ID. A machine spit out a green plastic badge with my formal name on it, Aloysius Wachter. No one ever calls me Aloysius or even Al, which is why I didn’t mention it before. My Irish-side maternal grandfather was Aloysius Dugan, and rather than have confusion about who was Al when we were both in the room, he’d done a little research and found out that his name came from the Latin — Ludovicus — and decreed that I was to be called Vic. And in those days, no one dared contradict him.

He used to joke that Vic’s a winner. But the origin of my nickname didn’t have anything to do with victors or victory. It just means famous warrior. Warriors win, and warriors lose, but at least they’re in the battle, not on the sidelines, so I embraced that idea after I’d figured it out. I had no desire to join the military, but, over the years, I’ve been in some battles, warring with bad guys in the shadows, by which I mean online.

This isn’t the same badge the people in the lobby have, I said once the technician had handed me my ID.

Danny smiled, looking at his own green badge, which showed a pizza-loving person about 20 pounds heavier than I was.

Smart boy.

So we’re not working for the OEMC?

"We’re doing work for them. We’re just not employed by them."

Not following you.

We’re contractors….Look on the back. In the fine print you’ll see a reference to the OEMC.

I looked but still didn’t get it. Seeing my puzzled look, Danny said: You know those security guys who worked in Iraq after the army left?

Yeah.

That’s us, except we don’t have guns. At least most of us don’t.

Why do it that way?

You’ll see. Wait till we get to the control room.

I got in the elevator first and was about to punch the button for the floor indicated on the building directory for Control Room. Danny grabbed my wrist before I could.

Not that one.

Danny punched the button for the second highest floor, and flashed one of those Cheshire Cat smiles all the way to the top. We got out and walked down a corridor to an unmarked door. Danny swiped his pass over a security lock, and the door sprang open. Inside, half a dozen operators were sitting in the eerie white light of large computer screens — huge ones on the far wall and medium-size ones, three per desk, arranged in pod formation across the room’s floor.

Showtime! one of the men at the terminals shouted. Miss Nothing On At All, a little late for her usual evening performance. Middle screen, far wall, on the top, gentlemen.

Danny smiled at the horseplay.

One of the perks of office. You are about to find out that Chicago is the real Naked City.

On a big screen up front and on a several small screens on the desks, a naked woman who looked to be in her 30s walked to her bedroom window and did a big stretch. She dropped her arms, turned around and headed toward a king-size bed. She stripped the bedclothes off it, lay down in the center and appeared to let out a shout.

We don’t have sound, Danny said. Sorry.

A moment later, a dark-skinned man who looked like he worked out, walked into the bedroom, peeled off his clothes in no particular hurry, mounted the bed and then the woman, and they began to go at it, her legs wrapped around his back. Like a porn film.

Yikes, I remember saying. This happen often?

With her, several times a week, and, unlike that movie, always on Sunday — or, I guess, this time it’s first thing Monday. Danny looked at his digital watch. I got 12:05.

And she doesn’t realize you guys are watching?

Danny shrugged.

Don’t think she cares. She’s over east of Michigan Avenue in a high-rise, so she knows she could be seen by anyone looking her way. I think she gets turned on by having people watch. That’s what most people here think, too.

And you have other people who do the same?

All kinds. Gay guys, fat women, gnarly, wrinkled old people.

And you guys watch that?

No. No. My rule is no seniors. That’d be like watching my parents.

2

Possible Gunshot

Danny showed me to my desk, a U-shaped unit with three 20-inch screens mounted on top. He laid out the basics of how to switch from one camera to another if something of interest popped up on the big monitors at the end of the room.

Somebody check sector 24, Alonzo, the shift chief, shouted. Possible gunshot.

Got it, Danny yelled.

Danny used the keyboard to call up that sector, a block of underground Wacker Drive near the Chicago River. He grabbed a joystick attached to the keyboard to maneuver down the street by magnifying the initial camera. He switched to the camera at the other end of the block to do the same. Seeing nothing, he went to the next block east and spotted an old pickup, belching oil plumes out the exhaust. After a moment, a big puff of dark smoke came out of the truck’s tailpipe and a popup message on Danny’s screen said: Possible gunshot.

False alarm, Danny yelled. Truck fart. Standing down.

Danny showed me how to type up the event in a blank report form that had automatically appeared with the numbers of the cameras used.

Pretty impressive, I said.

Danny snorted.

This is nothing. We got a thing called pan-tilt-zoom software that lets us track whoever looks interesting as they leave the scene, and we can use facial recognition to search for someone in the archives We can even track physical parts of people.

Why would you do that?

Danny shrugged.

Because we can. One of the guys in the front row tracks this babe who has hooters out to there. So big they’re distinctive. And he’s got another alert he uses for this woman with an amazing ass. She was the first one he searched for. Named the program Booty Call."

Is that legal? I asked.

Well, there is that bothersome Fourth Amendment.

But you do it anyway?

Yeah. He shrugged. It’s mostly just us dickin’ around, scoping out babes. No one gets arrested so nobody complains. But sometimes we see something, we say something. To the right people. On the phone. And a squad car suddenly winds up in an area and just happens to spot a crime in progress, and you have a righteous bust.

And if someone figures that out?

Danny smiled.

That’s why we’re contractors.

Deniability.

Exactamundo. Down in the official control room and its twin over at police headquarters, all the rules are being followed, including a little injunction the ACLU got a while back to spoil our fun. The city is in compliance, but some bad boys on this floor, being paid out of some fund I officially know nothing about, are here fighting for truth, justice and the American Way. And porn.

Danny handed me an operator’s guide, which told me to run an interactive video on how the system worked.

Any questions, just write ‘em down. I’ll deal with ‘em later.

You going out?

Nah. Nap time. I’m getting too old for this overnight shit.

Danny grabbed a mini Maglite and crawled under his desk and pulled the chair close to him.

If anyone comes in — which isn’t likely — tell ‘em I’m checking a loose connection and kick my shoes.

While Danny snoozed, I studied the guide and tried a few functions. I figured I had the basics down and volunteered for some assignments from Alonzo that proved to be nothing. Danny had said no team their size could monitor everything, given all the cameras out there. We had to focus on the big stuff, which occasionally would be assignments from a special police unit on the floor above us. If I got any of those, he said, I should wake him up.

Things were quiet until about 2 a.m. when an officer needs assistance call caused an astounding number of police vehicles to converge near the southern part of Grant Park. Someone else grabbed the assignment from Alonzo, but with nothing else to do I watched the whole thing play out as police with guns and flashlights spread out across the area. Ten minutes later, they frog marched some guy in a torn T-shirt out of the park and tossed him into one of the squad cars. I watched it take off up Michigan Avenue, lights flashing, siren whooping.

It didn’t take long for the next event.

Man lying down next to the wall along the river, Alonzo shouted. Might be a drunk. Might be worse.

I can get, I said. Danny and I did that Wacker Drive one earlier. Same area.

OK. We got cameras up and down the river walk, so if you get stumped, let Danny know….Where is he anyway?

Ah, fixing a loose connection under his desk.

Alonzo, a tall black man, laughed.

Yeah. He gets one every night about this time. But wake him up if you need him.

I used a map book to figure out which camera to check first. The light was gauzy given the humidity in the air. On the third camera I tried, I spotted the man. No one else appeared to be around. I zeroed in.

I kicked Danny’s shoes.

Wha? Danny said, snapping on the Maglite. Then a groggy, That should do it.

He crawled out. Seeing no supervisors, he yelled: The fuck you wake me up for?

I think we got a dead body, I said, pointing to my center screen.

Danny massaged his forehead as if to stimulate some blood flow to his brain. He let out a gust of air from his lungs and peered at the body. He dialed a number.

It’s Danny. Possible murder. Looks like somebody down just east of the Michigan Avenue bridge. My bet is he’s just drunk, but you never know.

Danny paused to listen to what I guessed were instructions.

Will do, he said.

Danny took over my chair and said, Now watch this.

Danny entered some keystrokes on the command line, and the live image of the body started shimmering until a woman came into the frame standing over him. Eventually, the man was standing again, then the two were in an embrace.

I’m going to speed this up so we can figure out what the heck happened, Danny said.

After going back