THUGLIT Issue Six Read online

  "We embedded a GPS chip in the card," Dane Rowan says. "It's what geeks do. How'd you get the PIN?"

  I explain the thermal camera. For the first time, Dane Rowan turns toward me and smiles.

  "Mister Smarty Pants."

  He comes into the living room and props his feet on the coffee table. He looks over my shoulder and nods, and someone pushes me further into the room. A man has come up behind me unawares and now he closes the door. He closes the door with very big hands. I mean, the doorknob looks like a fucking marble. This man wears cargo pants, a tight shirt and a military-style wristwatch. He does not speak. Built from granite, he might be thirty years old or fifty. It wouldn't matter.

  Dane Rowan taps his chopsticks to get my attention. "Back to the game, Thomas. How long did it take to figure this out?"

  "Less than an hour."

  "You accessed my account while your girlfriend had the card." He looks around him. "Did you write down the account number?"

  "I remembered it."

  "Oh really? Recite it for me."

  I do so, and quickly. For the second time, a gleam materializes in his eye.

  "She said you had a photographic memory. Outstanding." He gets up from the couch and strolls back to the white board. "Your diagram has a few holes. Carl inflates the contract price to increase his kickback, but you wouldn't know that. However, you need to figure out the rest."

  There doesn't seem to be anything else. Dane Rowan is just a crook and Fat Carl, finder of efficiencies in 2005, is an overworked civil servant who thinks the world owes him.

  "The clock is ticking, Thomas."

  "Toward what?"

  "Your demise."

  "Did you kill Tory?"

  "For goodness sake, no. You, on the other hand..."

  Behind me, the man pulls a black, metallic object from a side pocket and flips a switch. A tiny burst of blue lightning appears.

  "The stun gun will render you unconscious," Dane Rowan says. "Followed by a rather large dose of a tranquilizer that puts you to sleep for good. Your girlfriend says you see big pictures—your gift. I would suggest you concentrate on the task ahead." He points to an American flag pin on his sweater I hadn't noticed. "I'll give you another hint. I am a patriot. This is not about money."

  "Another hint? What's the first one?"

  He rolls his eyes and points to the carton of food. It is from Quik Express, a place down the street known for its fast turnaround time. The man grabs me by the scruff of the neck and puts the stun gun next to my ear.

  "OK, OK. Quik Express is fast...fast computer chips...you make the fastest chips around and that's why you get these contracts...or wait...they're not fast enough and you're getting the contracts anyway... Ow!"

  The man squeezes harder and a numb streak runs down my left arm. Dane Rowan taps his chopsticks together.

  "You're getting cold and I'm a patriot."

  "All right. You're a patriot and this is...Chinese food. Christ, this is about China. And you're a patriot. An American. This is about American computer chips versus Chinese computer chips?"

  "Warmer."

  "Can I get online? My laptop..."

  He tosses me his smart phone. I hold my breath and type "Chinese computer chips."

  Then I scream.

  The stun gun brushes my upper right arm, and Dane Rowan looks bored as I fall to the floor, clutching his phone with my good hand. He digs into his pocket and unfolds a piece of paper.

  "I just got this stun gun—literally today. According to the instructions, a one-to-two second application will cause muscle spasms and mental confusion. That's what you just got, yes? A three-to-five second application will trigger loss of balance and muscle control, plus total mental confusion and disorientation."

  As the damn thing crackles above my head, I look at the phone's lit face and read the first two entries. I click on the third.

  A government watchdog study. I read the top of it aloud.

  "Counterfeit Chinese computer chips are flooding the market…making their way into U.S. military hardware, including aircraft and sensitive systems."

  "Focus, Mr. Boyd. That's good."

  It clicks, as it always does.

  "So that's it: Our government is too cheap to buy good chips—which would be yours. They buy cheap Chinese crap, so you're manipulating contracts to make sure our military gets the good stuff. Because you're a patriot."

  Dane Rowan sighs and dismisses his colleague with a wave of his long-fingered hand.

  "There. Was that so hard?"

  *****

  December now. I have decorated the house for Christmas but it's just making me sick. I cut the tree myself, imagining Tory with me, smiling through the December chill. I went through her stuff and found an old manger scene, three wise men, goats, donkeys and all the requisite characters. I put it on the coffee table next to a burning candle. Maybe Tory had religion in her background. We could have gone to church, sung a few hymns, let our souls breathe. We could have returned to a house smelling of spiced candles.

  The manger scene is bracketed by two laptop computers. One is dark. The other features the logo of Rowan Computer Solutions just before Dane Rowan's face lights up the screen.

  "Time for our weekly update," he says absently. "You wouldn't believe the last few days I've had."

  "Too bad."

  "Please don't be sarcastic. I'm expecting a good progress report today."

  I've been an employee of Rowan Computer Solutions for nearly two months. The salary is excellent and you can't beat the health benefits: Keep working and you get to live.

  My fast work on the white board convinced Mr. Rowan that I might be valuable to his higher mission. He wants to expose the problem of counterfeit Chinese computer parts in U.S. military hardware. Never mind you can find a dozen news stories on the topic. He doesn't think anyone cares. The Iraq war is over, the Afghanistan drawdown in full swing, and America has crisis fatigue. I don't know how he plans to dramatize the situation, but if one of those Navy radar planes ends up missing, I swear I'm heading to Canada. Dane Rowan is a patriot, and that scares me.

  "I don't mean to be short with you," he says. "You've been doing good work."

  "Thanks."

  "And I'm glad you've accepted the loss of your friend. She was not cooperative, and she is living a new life in a safe place."

  "You mean Tory." He needs to hear her name. One day he'll repeat it because he'll have to. In order to stop the pain.

  Mr. Rowan shrugs, which is my signal to begin. My case study starts with Bellum Electronics out of Waco, Texas, which notified the Pentagon in a subsequently declassified report that counterfeit computer chips might have been installed on 40 SeaWolf night attack helicopters—specifically in the fire control system for Hellfire missiles. Bellum bought the parts from a subcontractor in California, which purchased them from an un-vetted independent distributor in Singapore.

  "That's where the problem starts—in Singapore," I say. "It's a chaotic hub of undocumented activity. From there, you trace it back to China pretty easily. American contractors literally don't know what they're buying. It's a daisy chain of suppliers across international lines and no one bothers to police it."

  "Excellent," he whispered. "But how can you be sure?"

  "It's like playing chess, Mr. Rowan. You can look at a board and tell that checkmate is happening in seven moves, maybe eight. Computer chips for military hardware aren't common, and not every country trades with each other. At some point, only so many moves can be made."

  "I see."

  My email beeps an urgent message. I open it. Another five thousand dollars has been sent to my checking account via direct deposit.

  Mr. Rowan chuckles.

  "I have a flair for the dramatic. Keep up the good work. Your next report will be about this un-vetted distributor in Singapore. I'm especially interested if they employ Americans, and who they are. Have a blessed day, Thomas. And find a new girlfriend."

  His f
ace blinks off.

  "Her name is Tory, you mincing little bitch."

  I shift in the couch and flip on the other laptop. A man's face appears in a choppy Skype. He is unshaven with a ratty wool cap, his breath blowing cold steam, the tips of his fingers showing through a pair of gloves.

  "Thank you for responding to my query," I say. "I hope I gave you enough information."

  The man rolls his eyes in frustration. Only a few years older than me, he could pass for a factory worker in his mid-40s.

  "The picture you send," he says, "your American fuck puppet with the rivets in her ears. This is worth so much money? Don't answer that. Yes, you provided enough information. Dane Rowan is familiar."

  I can't help but smile.

  "Sir, you were a clearing house of information on human trafficking in Bosnia for years. You never picked up a gun, but you were no less a freedom fighter than Thomas Paine. I'll tell you about him sometime."

  The man's image pixelates for a moment, as if my praise has weakened him. "I know of Thomas Paine," he says quietly. "Good last name. These are the fucking times that try men's souls. But Rowan must be approached carefully. He has…feelers."

  I wave my hand dismissively. "Yes, I'm painfully aware of his reach. But his subsidiaries pop up in reports from several human rights organizations. They just can't connect the dots to him. That's what I intend to do. But first, tell me what you've found."

  The man growls a laugh. "At first I thought it was joke. Victoria Pinto. Like secret agent."

  "Dude, just tell me."

  He turns away from the camera and blows his nose. It sounds like a foghorn. He comes back into the picture with a sheaf of papers. "OK…now…this is like two weeks ago. An American named Victoria Pinto was arrested on prostitution charges in Yemen…"

  "Yemen?"

  "…in Yemen, yes, and summarily jailed. My source identifies her as a menial employee for Dane Rowan-Yemen LLC, one of his subsidiaries. His company is among a number of American firms that supply IT services there. Totally legit. Their internet sucks, by the way."

  "Where—what's going to happen to her?"

  "Dude, she's an American prisoner in fucking Yemen. Nothing good can happen to her."

  "Where is she exactly? What prison?"

  "Before I get to that, you should know something. The arrest came after a so-called 'high profile incident.' She tries to blow the whistle on human trafficking taking place in an old hangar on Dane-Yemen site. Probably didn't even know what she had seen—just a bunch of children huddled together. Suddenly, she's arrested for prostitution. So rest easy. She's not being trafficked—yet. She sounds impulsive."

  "Yeah…she is."

  My gaze comes to rest on the manger scene, and the pain is almost more than I can take.

  "All is not lost," he says, noticing my look. "I know the prison she's in. And for another two thousand dollars, I can tell you."

  Eastern Europe: Hate the food, love the clarity.

  "How about I call the American embassy in Yemen?"

  "Go ahead, Roger Ramjet. Book a spot on Good Morning America. Then it becomes high profile. Then Dane Rowan finds out. Then her knees are broken. Of course, you could contact Yemen directly and ask for a cooperative official, which would be like finding a unicorn fucking Bigfoot while being filmed by the man on the grassy knoll."

  He lets it sink in.

  "Give me your bank account information. I'll wire you the two thousand."

  "Make it one-five. You have a kind face, and I don't wish to gouge."

  In ten minutes, his computer beeps and his face brightens. He exhales toward the screen in a cloud of steam. "Do you see this? I can't even afford heat where I'm living. Merry Fucking Christmas to me. If only I could live in 4G world. Next time, I ask for seven large. I am too nice. This is my constant problem."

  "Just spill it."

  "They have taken her to the Central Prison in Sana'a. Very tough. I have a contact there, he maintains an inmate locater system. Password-protected website. For your one-five, you get the password, his contact information and your girl's number."

  "Number?"

  "You get a better match that way. She might be Tory Pinto. Then she's processed into a different section as Victoria Pinto. Then she pops up as V. Pinto. The guy who runs this, he prefers to catalog by numbers."

  "She's…a number?"

  "Yeah. Grab a pen."

  I adjust the goats and donkeys so they are facing baby Jesus.

  "Just tell me. I'll remember it."

  Wheels

  by Rena Robinett

  A turning of the wheel, a roll of events for which we feel no responsibility, leads to choices, leads to events, leads to the guns waving in the air.

  Event: I awoke at the end of an eighteen-hour flight from San Francisco. Delhi at two a.m. was a scattered pocket of gems in the dark Asian night. The guy beside me smiled. "Better fasten your seat belt.” I fumbled with the belt. The last year of my life had been spent on planes, another drifter on the jet highway from Asia to Europe to America and back again.

  The hash grown in lush fields beneath Afghanistan's Hindu Kush mountains was often transported by car or bus over the Khyber Pass to Karachi, Pakistan, where meticulous craftsmen shaped thin bricks into Samsonite cases. A sharp Customs officer could bust a case on just one loose thread. Packing cases was a craft, but running was the art. You had to act, to bluff through fear. Cops could smell fear. In Pakistan the cases were matched to the runners. Corrupt diplomats, adventurous students, and world-weary loners streamed through Karachi's tiny airport, headed for New York, Miami, San Francisco, and all the tiny hamlets of the world.

  Event: 1972. I was fished out of a low crowd in Amsterdam, hanging out with street-people while hustling pool in a sleazy bar in the Red Light district. A couple of Irish dealers hung out there, and we got friendly through the long nights of cocaine and gin. Broke and sick of Amsterdam, I was ready to quit Europe and go home when Brian called. "You'll go to Paki, won't ya? Do a little deal for us?" It became the big deal; a smuggler was born.

  I checked out the guy in the seat next to me. His long-fringed jacket labeled him cool or wannabe—hard to tell if he was a rock star or somebody to be careful of. Anyone could be dangerous on this highway. This trip was just one more circle around the world, out two weeks, and now returning to Nick in Kabul with the money. It had been a long year of hours locked in motel rooms trying not to think about the four minutes it takes to walk through customs.

  I first met Nick in the sultry chaotic jungle of the Karachi airport after being put on a plane in London, and shipped to him special delivery from the Irish lads. For two weeks Nick trained me, the speed course in “how to be a runner."

  He told me to buy some young frilly dresses and wear my hair back or up. Look fresh and young, with no heavy make-up or flashy jewelry. Keep to soft colors and wear comfortable shoes. Just answer their questions, where you're coming from and where you're going. Never lie unless you have to. Only tell lies that are close to the truth. Be friendly, casual, don't over-talk to strangers.

  We walked down marble hallways in Karachi's Inter-Continental Hotel whispering. The game is, don't get busted…don't get killed. And over cups of black tea surrounded by businessmen and high-class Asian whores, whispering, know the rules. I had always been a game player, a taker of chances, and a spinner of wheels.

  We were merchants. Nick squatted around smoldering fires in mountain hideaways and bargained with Afghani tribesmen who traded canvas bundles of hash for bright green American dollars, which they turned around and traded to Russians for shiny, black guns. The same guns used to kill the same Russians who later tried to take their land.

  Those of us brave enough or crazy enough, then caravanned from Kabul to Karachi to Amsterdam to Brussels to Canada to Maine to California to buyers gathered deep in Santa Cruz or the hills above Oakland or the flatlands of Los Angeles. It was an infinite line of tiny black ants loaded with fifty times their weight
plodding onward around the globe, a line so invisible that no one could imagine or grasp the actual size and scope of the load that was transported until there stood, in the vast flatland of America, a mountain of endless need.

  "We'll be landing in five minutes,” the stewardess chanted. We scrambled off the plane together, my seatmate shadowed at my side, and then we rode the bus across gray asphalt to the terminal. Delhi reeked like a breath from hell. We pressed our way through a crowd of enraged travelers, yelling, jostling each other. Mothers in bright red and yellow silk saris, holding babies in both arms with toddler’s fists clasping folds of silk, were prodded along by white suit-clad tiny men with angry faces.

  "Sir," I shouted to the Indian standing, official, within the center of the turmoil, "when is the transfer flight to Kabul due in?"

  "Miss," he cleared his throat, "all flights are canceled. The weather is very bad over Peshawar."

  Not good. I wanted to be safe in Kabul tonight, me and the money, not wandering Delhi’s slaughterhouse of thieves. My stomach rolled and cool sweat broke out on my arms. Behind me, that same smooth cadence broke through.

  "Are ya gonna find us somewhere for the night?" The stranger from the plane shouldered through the crowd and towered over the nervous Indian.

  "Yes, sir, of course." The Indian bowed to the delayed passengers. "We're doing our best." He attempted a smile. "It will be most difficult due to the NATO convention. The suitable hotels are booked.” The crowd roared as he lifted thin arms. "Please, ladies, gentlemen, we’ll do our very best."

  The frazzled clerk appeared between us and the two men smiled at each other. "Maybe you could find us one room?” A nod from the stranger to the clerk, who smiled at me.

  “Miss, could you share a room with," his eyes lowered, "your friend?"