Black Hat Blues (21 page)

for dirt named Talia Tailes. Paul and Sacco had done most of the actual

blogging up to this point, and had written the talking points for the

dozen previous video casts that Sandee had performed with his head

back lit and the image fuzzed to preserve “her” identity as an investiga-

tive reporter who “had worked for the AP” (according to the site any

way). Paul had kept her scripted commentary even-handed in its choice

of political targets left and right, although the content of the critiques

was never less than biting and usually quite unfair.

As she watched, the video from Sandee’s phone started streaming

video live onto the website. Chloe let Paul know it was time to get

started and he readied his link bots and online sock puppets to start

Digging and linking to the event once it got going. C1sman had a cou-

ple hundred computers out in the wide world that he’d taken over using

trojans or malware of some kind, and these zombies would unknow-

ingly serve up the comments and links on the Crew’s behalf. The video

was jumbled and blurry at first as Sandee brought the camera to bear on

the scene, but once the object of its attention was in frame, it steadied

immediately.

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The scene was a row of recently gentrified and restored townhouses

along a street crowded with mid-priced to low-end luxury vehicles,

perfectly manicured micro-lawns, and well-swept stoops. Things were

already starting to get a little washed out in the mid-afternoon sun, and

the lengthening shadows looked cold and in some corners still preserved

week old ice and snow. A knot of people were milling around about

halfway up the block, most of them in their teens or twenties and wear-

ing worn, oft-mended jackets or coats festooned with angry-looking

buttons, pins, and patches. Some of them had knit caps pulled down

close over their brows, others thick scarves or bandannas pulled up tight

above their chins. Almost all of them wore scuffed, heavy boots of one

kind or another. These weren’t flashy, flimsy clothing that wannabe

punks might pick up at Hot Topic. They were real second hand and

refurbished gear, real work and combat boots, real serious cats.

“Well, well, well, what have we here?” Sandee said over the Nokia, not

talking to Chloe but to Talia Tailes’ audience. “These are some unsavory

sorts, gathered in a neighborhood more typically home to Washington’s

lawyers, lobbyists, doctors, and yes, even Congress-critters. Looks like

the kind of display of buttons and black that’s going to lead to some

serious shouting.”

The cluster of disaffected youth began to cohere into action at this

point. Chloe was happy to see that Sacco was nowhere in the picture.

From within their coats came cloth banners wrapped around plastic or

wooden rods. Nothing huge, but there were lots of them. Of the thirty

or so protesters on the sidewalk and spilling into the street a third of

them had signs saying things like “Free The Marianas!” and “End US

Slavery Now!” and “Made by American Slave Labor.” Their attention

was firmly fixed on a townhouse in the center of the block, one with

outward facing security cameras above the door and bars on the first

floor windows.

Sandee focused the camera on the front of the house. So far none of

the protesters had crossed the waist-high fence and entered the ten foot

long front lawn, but they were pressing up against it hard. The video

showed the address and was lucky enough to pick up someone inside

pushing aside a curtain enough to peek out. “Now this is interesting,

interesting, interesting,” said Sandee/Talia. “Whoever in the world

could be drawing the wrath of these very seriously pissed off people.

Lucky for you, Talia Tailes has a database of Washington DC stars

homes in her phone.” The view tilted wildly, showing the ground for

thirty or forty seconds as Sandee pretended to access something, then

swung back to the protesters again who were acquiring new members

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from every direction. They now blocked one whole lane of traffic and

had clogged the sidewalk entirely.

“Welly, welly, well, according to my reckoning, this is the home

of none other than Representative Tom Wolverton, Republican from

Missouri. A modest home for a modest Midwesterner. His wife and son

live back in the home district if memory serves. Now whatever in the

world could this salt of the earth, heart of America guy ever have done

to piss off these scary people. Let’s find out.”

The camera moved forward until it was right behind one of the pro-

testers. “Hey there, you’re being broadcast live to the internet,” he said.

“Care to comment on what’s going on here?”

The protester, a skinny dude with a thick beard and a torn, black

baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes turned to Sandee in mid-

yell, screaming “FREE THE SLAVES!” into the camera.

“Didn’t we do that in 1865?” Sandee asked.

“Not if you’re a textile worker in the Marianas Islands! There you can

be locked into your sweatshop, forced to have sex with Japanese tourists,

and forced to have an abortion if you get pregnant. And every pair of

jeans you sew has a made in the US label on it. That’s slavery, and it’s

in American controlled territory and that rat-fuck congressman in there

supports it 100%! FREE THE SLAVES!” He shouted again, joining in

with the whole crowd this time.

Sandee backed away to take in the whole tableau. “Still slaves in US

territory! Who knew? According to these angry people, Congressman

Wolverton knew. That doesn’t sound good at all.” The video now

showed the angry protesters raising their fists and shaking them for-

ward and back as if they were all hammering some invisible nails above

their heads while chanting for the ending of slavery in the Marianas

Islands. Pressure from those in the back to make way for a truck that

showed no interest in slowing down was transferred forward so that

the people up front had to step or clamber over the fence or be crushed

against it. Once the first few had crossed onto private property, the

ones behind were emboldened, and suddenly everyone was pressing

forward. From somewhere in the crowd people started throwing bottles

and cans.

Chloe, caught up in the video in front of her, didn’t hear Paul the

first two times he said something to her. Finally she looked up to him.

“What did you say?”

“I said the congressman’s in there and he’s calling Danny right now.”

Paul had an earphone in his left ear and could listen in on any con-

versations made on either of the phones they’d hacked. “He’s already

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called the cops. Or his wife has, on the house phone.”

“I thought his wife was back in Missouri?” Chloe said.

“Not this weekend. I think she’s here to go to the fundraiser with

him tonight.”

Chloe nodded and went back to the video. Sandee was too busy cap-

turing all the action to answer a warning call about the cops coming

and besides, that was pretty clearly going to happen no matter what.

A bottle shattered against the bars on one of the windows by the front

door. The shouting had gone from organized to calamitous at this point,

and Sandee swept the video around the street to show both how large

the group had gotten and how scared the few remaining bystanders on

the street looked. When she went back and looked at the logs of the

video and the phone calls, she would see just how impressive the DC

police response time really was. The first car arrived within a couple

of minutes, with the second and third cars not more than a minute

behind those.

The cops leaped out of their vehicles as Sandee recorded them, their

nightsticks drawn. At least they had the good sense not to pull firearms,

which had been a real worry. Sacco was supposed to have briefed the

protesters to scatter when police arrived, and most of them started to

do just that as soon as the patrol cars screeched to a halt. The five cops

(one was in his car alone) didn’t bother too much with the first to flee,

concentrating instead on those still menacing the front of the congress-

man’s home.

“The cops have arrived now,” Sandee was saying over the yelling.

“And they do not look happy. I wonder if there are enough of them, but

I’m betting there are many more on the way. This flash protest seems

to be breaking up as soon as it… oh! Damn!” She got a close-up of a

cop banging away on the back of a protester’s head as he in turn was

banging on the front door of the house. The poor kid went down in a

flash, bleeding. “Things are ugly here. Real ugly.”

The five cops had fought their way to the front and rallied on the

steps before turning and facing the protesters in a unified phalanx of

blue-clad menace. Only a dozen or so foolhardy stalwarts remained,

one of whom was ripping a decorative cabbage from the front lawn

and preparing to throw it at the cops. At that point one of the fleeing

protesters knocked into Sandee hard, sending the phone/camera reeling

to the ground. “Hey!” she heard Sandee shout.

A second later he picked the phone up and two other protesters

slammed into him as well. The video was a blur of swinging, Blair

Witch style motion. “Gimme that!” someone shouted at Sandee.

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“Fuck off!” Sandee shouted back, and Chloe and the rest of the view-

ers got a camera eye view of a knuckle punch to the throat. The grabby

protester went down and Sandee started to backpedal, bringing the

camera back up and watching as more cops arrived and those who

hadn’t run in the beginning ended up in handcuffs or pinned to the

ground by angry law enforcement. The guy Sandee had punched lay on

the ground, holding his balls and neck, curled up in a fetal position.

“I think that’s my cue to cut out of here,” Sandee said, sweeping

the camera back and forth across the whole street scene one last time.

“This is Talia Tailes reporting live from Congressman Wolverton’s own

private protest party. Out.” The video went dark.

Chloe sat back in her seat and blew out some air through her lips in a

low whistle. She turned over to Paul, who was still listening intently to

his tap on the Congressman or Danny’s phone. “Are they still talking

about it?”

“Now he’s calling someone in the Secret Service apparently. He’s

still too pissed off about them trampling his front lawn to have even

noticed what the signs said.” Paul paused to listen to something. “He’s

maybe calming down some now. But I’m gonna start hitting Danny

with some tips and questions from media sources in the next couple

hours, and that should get them thinking about the right shit by the

fundraiser tonight.”

Chloe was happy with how things had gone, although a little surprised

at how fast it had all happened. It was the kind of quick crackdown

that pre-internet no one would have ever seen because TV wouldn’t

have gotten there in time. Now one lone drag queen with a camera

could broadcast it live to the world. Sandee called in ten minutes later

to report that he’d made it clear of the rigmarole and was on his way

back to home base. Chloe had been slightly worried that the cops would

try and hold him as a witness if they’d noticed him videotaping the

event, but they’d obviously had bigger issues occupying their attention.

Once the video was online, they’d have no way of tracing them back to

Sandee, since the fictitious Talia Tailes was entirely anonymous, as was

her site (no easy feat that, in this modern day).

An hour later he was back, and Sacco had called in to report that a

dozen of his one-time recruits had been arrested, but there wasn’t any-

one who could lead the authorities back to him. His liaisons with the

protesters had all been smart enough to split when they heard sirens,

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per the plan, and were preparing for the night’s more peaceful but

still important follow up. Paul reported from across the room that his

campaign to drum up views for the protest video was bearing fruit and

that the media outreach plan was reaching its first critical mass where

they could get some real traction on Digg, Reddit, and the other social

networking news sites. Then came the emergency text message from

Bee, asking Chloe to come downstairs RIGHT NOW.

“What the fuck?” Chloe said. “Shit.” She texted back, ignoring for a

moment Paul’s questions. Bee just reiterated her need to see Chloe in

the lobby, and texted their pre-arranged code word for “it’s not safe for

me to come home.”

Sandee walked in at that moment, a smile on his face. “Well, that

was nothing but shocking and awesome,” he said, and then saw Chloe’s

worried face.

“Is something going on downstairs?” Chloe asked.

“Bunch of nerds having a convention,” he said. “Nothing out of the

ordinary or even remotely exciting that I saw.”

“What’s going on?” Paul called across the room.