The Throat You Cut

By L. Suzanne Winnow

A hacker hired by the government to work on security measures discovers that his work on the Federal elections has somewhat overstepped the bounds of ethics. Clueless about such things he only becomes aware of it being an issue when people involved with the project begin dying off under suspicious circumstances. Waking up to the danger, he struggles to stay one step ahead of the Federal enforcers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martian Publishing
• Release date: Apr 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215152058

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THE THROAT YOU CUT

By L. Suzanne Winnow

MARTIAN PUBLISHING

Copyright 2023 by Martian Publishing Company

Smashwords Edition

Capitol Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0

All rights reserved.

No portion of this volume may

be reproduced in any format

without the express written

permission of the copyright holder.

This is a work of fiction.

Any resemblance to persons or

organizations, living or extinct,

is entirely coincidental.

CHAPTER ONE

I first had the notion that something was amiss when I got to work a little late one morning. For some strange reason that I did not figure out in my anxiety, my car wouldn't start and I had to borrow a neighbor's car. Ted and I had been friends for some time and had helped each other out before. Sure, borrowing someone else's car was a pretty big deal normally but as he was telecommuting these days…

Anyway, I got to work a few minutes later than I should have only to find Kevin Jameson, my boss, standing at the exit doorway on that level of the parking garage scanning the parked cars. Since it was a strange car to him, he didn't see me until I got out and stood. Stepping away from the car – and I was not so small a sight that anyone could miss – he was somewhat relieved to see me.

Coming away from the exit toward me, his demeanor changed – from relief to what one might describe as grim – as he approached, and I became aware of footsteps coming up behind me.

Good morning, Kevin, one of the voices said.

Kevin grinned but it seemed a bit of a strain to me. Morning, Jerry, Dennis. I'm sure you both know Kevin here.

The two had arrived at both sides of me as I reached Kevin and I nodded to one then the other.

No, I don't think we've had the pleasure, the one later singled out as Jerry said.

Turning back toward the exit, Kevin said, Come along, now. The others are waiting.

The unsettled awkwardness of the moment seemed to have passed and we three followed Kevin to the building although the others' progress was somewhat slowed by my own. At five-nine, my three-hundred plus frame could not keep up with regular people. Needless to say, I was the last in the building, not so much struggling to keep up but slowed by the pondering the strange reaction from my boss.

Relief and then… what?

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here but I'm pretty sure even though the incident was the beginning of my awakening the rest of you are probably adrift at sea.

Chandler insisted I write down my story – even though I am far from being a writer – so I should probably start more at the beginning to save on a lot of confusion.

My name is Kevin Kirkcudbright, not that it should mean anything to you. I have spent most of my life in hiding one way or another. At the start, I did it for fun; now I do it to stay alive.

Early on, computers had me mesmerized. As a child I would stay up to the wee hours playing around with them. Cruising the internet became second nature and I was soon leaving the real world behind in favor of the mystical universe that was constructed of code.

I got very good with, let's say, accessing systems for which I did not have any real authorization. There was little regard for legality of such actions in those days as no one had paid much attention to such things but, as we all know, that changed rather quickly.

There were several other Kevins I knew who were very good at it as well. A couple of them made the news for their activities and people regaled them as wizards of hacking.

If they were really good, though, they would not have gotten caught. Several other Kevins – including yours truly – never got nabbed. Why such a thing should run with those of us named Kevin, I have no idea.

It seemed to be a sad statement about current values that American corporations would have these hackers arrested rather than rewarding them. These guys did nothing malicious against the systems they invaded, not like a vandal or a cyberterrorist might have done. I always thought these guys did a service to the companies, letting them know their systems were vulnerable.

But, no, rather than reward them, the businesses had these guys arrested. If they had any sense, they would have hired the fellows to build them a better security platform.

Yeah, I know. That's a personal rant that I should better save for some other time and place but that remains a burr under my saddle.

Anyway, I got into college majoring in – of all things – art history. I took a couple of computer classes at the start to get in contact with the people who could take me further in the nether realms of the internet.

Come on in, Artsy, and we'll teach you a few things.

And I would sit watching the screen in rapt attention while the guy fumbled around with the keyboard.

One thing I noticed about the really good hackers, they rarely had to glance at the keys. Typing in snippets of code and command lines were so routine that we could do it in our sleep.

Bob Knowles used the moniker Pugsy507 when he was hacking and he always used the same system. Personally, I changed my username on a weekly basis – sooner if I had hacked into one of the bigger government security mainframes – and I was swapping out machines and equipment on a constant basis.

There was one girl, Yolanda Bennett, who I had my eye on. Not for the reason your dirty little mind jumped to, I'm sure, but I noticed that she, like me, seemed to be asking a lot of silly little questions. I began to think we had another major hacker in our midst.

And rather than simply ask her – and blow her cover – I hacked into her personal computer and left a message. She found it and traced it back to the computer I was using that week and replied in the guise of a virus.

That was the funniest thing that happened all semester.

There was no sense in retaliation because she had no idea who had hacked her system – nor the proper way to respond – so it appeared her talents could not have been very far above the likes of Bob Knowles.

But we still followed Bob's lead in all the shenanigans he was able to pull.

About half-way through the semester, Bob arrived at our gathering white as a sheet and said he was quitting the group. Apparently he had been tracked back to his system from one of the stunts he had pulled. He found the traces of snooping in his system and junked it.

Yes, he was going to have to buy another system but he had suddenly lost interest in continuing his battle against the man. The group was sad to see him go but if anyone had seen the look in Yolanda's eyes, they would have known who had cracked into his system.

After Bob left, there was a short discussion who would take over the leadership of the group and Lenny Wilkins said he would take on the role. He was almost as good as Bob and the rest of us knew it, so we all fell into line with the transfer of leadership.

Walking away after it adjourned, I caught up to Yolanda.

Seeing who it was, she was immediately annoyed. What do you want?

I glanced around and spoke softly. Why did you chase Bob off like that? She stopped and just stared at me so I continued, I mean did you intend to leave the trail for him to find or was that an oversight on your part?

After chewing her lip a moment, she nodded. Okay. I don't know how you figured that out but, yes, that was me. She continued walking. The way I see it, he was going to wind up screwing up something sooner or later and wind up getting all of us into trouble. I don't know about you but I don't need that.

I nodded. Bob was okay but his abilities were limited… I shrugged, and he did not seem to notice the fact.

She glanced sideways at me. So what's your gig, anyway? Aren't you an art major or something, I think I heard. Isn't all this a little out of your subject area.

Au contraire. I laughed. Computers have carved a niche in every aspect of our lives. Even museums will need a permanent staff of people with some tech savvy pretty soon. Since I already have the art courses, I just need to enhance my resume with some computereeze.

Now she laughed. This club won't give you any credits. You'd better enroll in some computer classes or your education in the field won't mean much.

Good idea. I will probably have to do that in the near future. Can you suggest any courses for me to start out with?

Anything with a 100 in the course number would be a good bet.

And you've already finished with those? She nodded. And is there any professor you would recommend?

She told me a few names and I logged them into memory. Not that I planned on taking any of those courses, but if the subject came up again, I could at least lie with a bit more data.

Shortly, the meetings were less one more member. Yolanda appeared to have grown out of the need to be in such a juvenile club.

A year later, she was arrested for hacking General Electric.

But, enough about me. This is supposed to be about the incident so I guess I should ought to get heading in that general direction.

~~~~

CHAPTER TWO

As much as I talked a good line about computers and museums, the institutions themselves do not seem to have gotten the memo and opportunities in that regard were pretty much zilch. I finished college and was back home in Fairfax, Virginia, hitting the want ads.

A friend of mine told me about a new tech start up in Alexandria. He was going to apply there so I tagged along