Chapter 8

Grant Hardcastle, Monday, August 11, 2008

I was just leaving school when I got a text from Dov: "We need to talk ASAP." Unfortunately, I had to go to Rosario's for his little anti-war meeting. I texted back that I'd be there as soon as I could and drove to Rosario's house.

The meeting was to plan our next protest. Sarah Palin was planning a campaign event in Indianapolis that weekend, and Pat wanted to do another protest, naked of course. I had to admit it was an effective way to get attention.

As soon as the meeting was over, I drove as fast as I could to the safe house. Dov, David, and Jack were waiting for me.

"You want a drink?" David offered.

"Sure."

"Jack and Coke good?"

"Sure, what's the big emergency?"

"You know somebody named Mark Horn?" Dov asked.

"Auburn hair, a little overweight?"

"That's the one."

"He's your typical computer nerd. He might have the technical ability to help Rosario out, but they don't get along. Rosario thinks he's full of himself, and I haven't seen anything to indicate that he's wrong on that one."

"Is he full of himself enough to be our guy?"

"You mean just to prove he could beat the U.S. government? Maybe, but I wouldn't list him as a suspect without circumstantial evidence."

"Rosario says he tells girls he's interested in that he can hack the Pentagon's computers."

"That's circumstantial evidence, alright. But it's also exactly what Rosario would say if he was onto us and wanted to throw out a red herring."

"There was another hacking attempt while we were in the computer class. It happened while I was looking straight at Rosario's computer."

"Shit. So how do we go after Horn?"

David came back with the drinks. "Unless we want to break into the central office again, the Program assignments are set."

"It doesn't matter anyway. Horn doesn't have a lot of friends, and he's probably opted out of The Program."

"Is there any way we can check that?"

"I can get into the school's email system," Dov responded, "they will have had to email the central office a list of opt-outs."

"How long will that take?"

"A couple of hours."

David cleared his throat, "Good, now we just have to figure out some way to trap Horn."

"I'm assigned to a project with him and Rosario, but I don't think he's planning to do much work on it."

"Why not?"

"Says he's working on something more advanced."

"Probably the hacking. Is there a way we can transfer somebody else into the class to keep an eye on him."

"Our schedules are locked at this point," I responded "there's no way we can change them without special permission from a guidance counselor, and I don't trust any of these guidance counselors."