Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller (47 page)

After hailing a cab to
take them to downtown Memphis, Josh and Becca arrived at their
rendezvous point. Jared had hired a driver f
or the 14-hour
journey to
Brownsville. Several times during the
trip,
Becca checked on the status
of the A-Car. A little after
8:00
p.m., she said, “Here’s a moment
of truth. The A-Car just dropped us off at the SuperNight Motel in
Arkansas. Now it’s going to the A-Station for a charge.”

Nucleus Corporation had
worked a deal to locate A-Car
robotic
charging and gas stations close
to SuperNight Motels. The couple was among the first in America to
try
a cross
-country trip in
a
fully
autonomous,
driver-less
car.

“
I’d feel like a pioneer
headed West—if we were in the car,” said Josh, with a biting
smile.

“
Yeah, let’s just hope
we’re not like the Donner Party. They tried to get to California in
the winter, too.”

“
That’s dark, Becca. You
know…I’m pretty hungry.” Josh pretended to nibble on her
arm.

“
Gross, that’s nasty. It’s
way too soon for Donner Party jokes.” Becca shook her head in mock
disgust. “Alright, the program has checked us into the motel and
paid for the room. The sensors say that the robotic charging snake
is operational, and
plugged
into the A-Car. Both the happy
couple,
and
their vehicle, are re-charging for the night.”

“
Nice. How are we going to
spend the evening?” teased Josh.

“
Sleeping in separate
beds—until you put a ring on it.”

“
You’re wearing a
ring.”

“
It’s part of the cover
story. Just like sleeping with you,” said Becca, with a flash in
her eye.

“
Touché,” said Josh,
exasperated.

A-OS turned an A-Car into
a mobile Linux server, with a multitude of sensor hardware. It used
5G and Wi-Fi to link
to
the
Internet
. A large number of
communication and status updates took place between the A-Car and
Nucleus. Nucleus monetized much of this information. The company
said all the comms were encrypted and private.

Becca highly doubted this claim. She
was pretty sure that, like A-Mail, the NSA was either in possession
of the A-Car encryption keys, had a back door into A-Car servers,
or had some secret agreement in place with Nucleus Corporation.
Knowing the NSA—probably all three.

She would connect with the
A-Car using her anonymized laptop, communicating through a prepaid,
5G wireless modem. Becca hid a rootkit in the A-OS that allowed her
to interact with the A-Car via an encrypted VPN link. She hoped all
these anonymity and privacy efforts would
mask
her direct SIGINT with the
A-Car.

*

Becca
and Josh arrived in Brownsville, Texas just past
9:00 in the evening.

Christmas decorations
still adorned the city. Becca and Josh exited their ride in the
unlit parking lot of
a
Hispanic
grocery store. They ascended into
the cab of a mid-sized moving truck. Painted on both sides of
the
van
was the logo and tagline for, ‘Boss Storage.’

Their new driver gave Becca the
creeps. His leering eyes also seemed pleased with Becca’s blonde
hair and tight yoga pants. A scar ran down the entire left side of
his face. It looked like it was from a knife fight. Tattoos of
dragons, scantily clad women, and Jesus covered the driver’s arms
and neck. Becca drew no solace from the Jesus tattoo.

Minutes later, the moving
truck arrived at Boss Storage. After entering the access code, the
driver meandered around a
large
number of outdoor storage units.
There were tons of
units;
the facility was a massive maze.

If anything happens, no
one will ever find us
, thought Becca. Josh
looked just as uneasy.

The disfigured driver
stopped at Unit
L. He
backed the truck into a position, such that
the
van
’s
rear was very close to the storage unit’s entry. Everyone left the
cab. The driver unhitched the moving truck’s rolling vertical gate.
A two man team exited the truck, unlocked the storage unit, and
lifted its retractable door. Then, they and turned on the
lights.

The men were just as
sketchy as the driver. Becca’s heart raced.
The space
was 30 feet, by 30
feet. Boxes and junk
filled the
room from floor
to ceiling. There was a
small path down the center of the unit. The driver told the couple
to walk down the
middle
of the aisle.

Becca and Josh anxiously
looked at one another. “
Rapido
,” ordered the driver. The
couple did as
told. As they walked
down the partition, the
driver followed.
Becca felt like their nightmarish chauffeur could put a bullet in
the back of their heads at any second. Maybe this storage unit was
nothing more than a mausoleum. The couple reached the
end.

Josh turned around and bravely said,
“There’s a box in our way. And then a cinder-block
wall.”

“
Move it,” commanded the
driver. Josh pushed the corrugated
box
aside, revealing
a closed,
wooden
hatch. “Open it.”

Josh complied. The couple could see
could see a long ladder, descending into a dark hole.

“
That’s deep,” Becca
gasped.

“
Climb down the ladder.
When you reach the fifth rung, you’ll find another light switch.”
Josh began descending and turned on the light. Becca
followed.

The dim bulb
revealed
more of the shaft, but the
floor
was still shrouded
in shadows. “Hold on tight. It’s a long way to
the bottom,” said the driver, looking down at both of them. He
sealed the wooden hatch. Becca was excited just to get some
distance—any distance from him. “Thank
You,
God,” she said, with a soft
voice.

The climb was nerve-wracking, but not
as stressful as the last 40 minutes. Becca estimated that the
ladder was about 100 feet long.

“
I don’t think this ladder
would pass inspection by OSHA,” said Becca.

Josh answered, “I’ll let you call
them.”

When they finally reached
the dirt floor, there was another light switch. With a
flick,
numerous
fluorescent tubes sputtered to
life. They ran
the length of the tunnel. Concrete
completely
encased the passageway.
It was like walking through a storm drain. Air ducts hung from the
ceiling, pumping
in fresh
air. Becca and Josh began their subterranean walk
towards Mexico. Not only were they under the earth,
but they were walking directly beneath
the
Rio Grande River.

The couple hiked for about
a mile and a half. After
that,
the concrete lining of the tunnel
ceased. The next portion of the tunnel
was hewn
from the Mexican
earth.
Wooden beams, at intervals
of
every ten feet, reinforced the sides of
the dirt tunnel. Water slowly dripped at many places along the
way.

Finally, another ladder
appeared. It was much shorter than the first. Josh
climbed
the
ladder and raised a stone enclosure. “Wow,” yelled Josh.
“This is so awesome!”
Becca scurried after him. The couple had climbed into a plush
hotel room. Well, it was
plush
for Matamoros.

“
Buenas
noches
, Mr.
Benjamin and Ms. Boucher. W
elcome,
” said a maid. “If this is
acceptable, this will be your room for the
night
. I was just making sure
everything was ready for you. Your driver will take you to Mexico
City in the morning.”

*

The travels in Mexico went
smoothly. Customs at the Mexico City International Airport barely
even examined their fake Canadian passports.
Amman
agents were a bit more
diligent, but not by much.

Now, they were embarking
on the most dangerous phase of their trip, moving from
Jordan
into
Israel—through the Rabin crossing point.
A
salty breeze blew from the
direction of the Gulf of Aqaba. Becca and Josh wore broad
smiles,
aided by
the cotton balls stuffed in their cheeks. Before they got to the
crossing point, Becca applied
makeup
to both of them. It distorted
the contours of their faces. She had ditched all her
electronics; there
was plenty stashed
on the
other side.

“
Let’s hope the facial
recognition software here
works
on facial features and not deep
learning,” said Josh.

“
If not, then you are
wearing make-up for nothing,” replied Becca. “But it looks
exquisite
.”

Josh narrowed his eyes and scowled.
“Is the makeup making me look like I’m smiling?”

Becca chuckled.
“
Actually,
the makeup doesn’t. But the cotton balls do.”
At least,
they
could make each other laugh in a high-stakes moment.

Deep learning based facial
recognition software was much more accurate than the older type of
software,
which used
calculations from facial measurements—like
the
distance
between eyes—to identify people.

“
Wouldn’t it be ironic if
the deep learning
algorithms that
led us to the Ark,
got us imprisoned
before we could find
it?”
asked Josh.

“
I
had
enough irony in English
class,” replied Becca.

Minutes later the couple
walked up to a female, Israeli border guard. The Canadians pulled
out their passports. The guard asked them a few questions. “Sarah
and Abraham, that’s
kh-ute
,” she said, stamping their
passports and
waving
them through
.
The sound of the Hebrew guttural and the pounding stamp was music
to their ears.

“
That was all too easy,”
said a relieved Josh.

Becca replied, “It must have been the
makeup.”

9:35 a.m., Monday, January 11, 2021 –
Jerusalem, Israel

The Noble Sanctuary/
Temple Mount

Becca and Josh stepped off
the tour bus. They brusquely walked through the barriers guarding
the Wailing Wall
plaza. The
illicit adventurers wore
long coats, hats,
and scarves. Not only was it a chilly morning, but the couple knew
that cameras, drones, and advanced facial recognition software ran
in overdrive at this location.

They got lucky in Eilat.
They didn’t want to press that luck
on
the most controversial piece of
property on the face of the earth. After purposefully
straggling
behind their party, they ambled their way to mingle with
other groups gathered in the
plaza
. Then they left
altogether.

After a short
downhill
walk through the
Jerusalem streets,
they came to the
property purchased by Jared Adler. The house gave all the
appearances of a residence undergoing extensive remodeling. A dump
truck and industrial-grade machinery
were
on site
.
Scaffolds encircled the
three-story
house. It was bigger than Becca expected.

“
We’re looking
for the construction foreman,” said Josh,
to the first workman he encountered. The laborer wore
a white hard-hat and looked Arab. He pointed to
inside the house.

The couple entered the
residence and found
the foreman.
He stood in a spacious living room. Detailed
architecture plans
were
scattered across
makeshift desks. Josh
gave the
construction boss
the
code word.

“
Hi, Abraham. I’m Ismael
Khalid.” The
foreman
extended his hand to Josh. “And you must be
Sarah?” Ismael wore a black and white checkered Palestinian
kaffiyeh
, with a
black band around the crown of his head.