The Killing League

WILD CARD





48.

Robertson State Prison

The computer room at Robertson State Prison in Robertson, Alabama was on the second floor. Located between two security stations, few prisoners used the library because it entailed being searched twice.

The room’s current sole occupant was a slight man with brown hair, graying at the temples. His shoulders were stooped and his gray eyes were hidden behind thick glasses.

His hands were long and slender and they flew across the computer keyboard.

His name was Leonard Goldberg and he had been at Robertson for nine years. His sentence was life, received for the murders of thirteen young men and women across eight different states.

Goldberg was a man of many talents, however, and he had never used a computer before coming to prison. But once he began, he had never stopped. He had pored over software manuals, read every book on computer technology and programming he could get his hands on.

Which made the puzzling message before him all the more mysterious.

Goldberg knew about the special firewalls installed on the prison’s computer network. Two years back, inmates had much more freedom, which had been severely abused when an inmate befriended a 12 year old girl on the Internet, lured her to the prison, then killed her in the waiting room.

After that, the prison had taken great pains to install the most formidable firewalls available in the computing world. Additionally, tracking data had been installed so that every prisoner who used the computer could be tracked and monitored in real-time. A series of alarms had been coded into the computer network so that if a prisoner went to any site, or used any emails that the programmers had deemed noteworthy, an alarm would be sounded in the security office.

The problem was, at least for the prison security, the firewalls had been state-of-the-art when installed. But that was two years ago. It only took six months for hackers to post instructions on using back doors and installing “sleeper” bugs in the system to use as loopholes for free and unfettered communication.

Leonard Goldberg had found all of these instructions, posted in innocuous sounding articles, sometimes written in code themselves, and turned them loose on Robertson State Prison’s computer system.

One “window”, solely for his use, had been created.

No one knew of this window because he had never used it. He had simply created it, and left it there, certain that at some point he would need it. It was an escape valve of sorts.

But the message that had just come through his window had been sent directly to him. Which meant that someone, somewhere, knew about his secret passage in the computer system.

The person had to be a hacker, Goldberg thought. Goldberg didn’t consider himself a real hacker. He had simply studied the software he needed to know in order to roam freely on the Internet. Still, he’d done some random hacks to test himself, and he’d broken into a few very low-security computer networks.

Now he had a strong feeling that whoever had found out his hobby, was much, much better than he was. In fact, Goldberg was pretty sure that the person responsible for the direct message was a real hacker.

Still, Goldberg was perplexed.

Most hackers were software geeks, engineers who lived almost exclusively in the cyber world.

The person who had sent him this message was clearly not a cyber resident.

Now, Goldberg read the message again.

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

How is prison treating you? I see you’ve become a bit of a computer specialist in your spare time (you have lots!) Kudos! Other than wanting to tell you how much I admired your work — back during your “spree” shall we call it? — I wanted to let you know about a fun little contest I’ve started. I don’t want to give you any details right now, suffice to say that I know you’ve been in contact with a lot of fellow practitioners of our special little sport. I would like to let you know that you may even get a chance to play a small part in the game. Stay tuned and here’s a link to give you a little taste of what I’m planning.

Sincerely,

The Commissioner

The Killing League

Goldberg’s finger hovered over the mouse. He wanted to click, but wasn’t sure where the link would take him, and if it would leave his protected window.

Finally, curiosity got the best of him.

He clicked.

Immediately, his screen changed to a shot of a Las Vegas odds board. He read with intense interest the names and the respective odds listed.

The screen went blank for a moment and then a series of images flashed by him that gave Goldberg an instant erection: women blindfolded and gagged, tortured, raped, dead bodies, lacerated skin, severed limbs.

Again the screen went black save for two words:

Stay Tuned.