half the size of a stick of gum. The USB flash drive held a single file that was a computer program. The program could create a mirror image of the contents of a computer-everything from applications to data files-to use on any other similar computer. It was akin to carrying one’s computer around in the palm of one’s hand.
Delgado had set up the program on his flash drive to mirror a laptop that he kept locked in a safe at his converted-warehouse loft.
He also had the flash drive tethered with a plastic zip tie to a high-intensity butane cigar lighter, of the type advertised as “NASA Space Age Technology Windproof to 100 MPH!” If necessary, he could torch the chip into a molten-and unreadable-mass in seconds.
He inserted the flash drive into one of the two USB slots on the side of the flat-screen monitor, then hit the CONTROL, ALT, and DELETE keys all at once. That briefly shut down the computer, and its screen went black. Then he held the CONTROL and Z keys simultaneously as the computer restarted so it would load the program from the flash drive.
After a moment, the LCD screen lit up. He was looking at the same desktop image and icons that were on the laptop locked away in his loft safe.
He clicked on the icon for the Firefox Internet browser. In his computer coding class in high school, he’d learned that Firefox was a very intuitive and clean interface, far better than the crappy ubiquitous Internet Explorer. All those gee-whiz self-congratulatory messages-“IE Just Denied an Unknown Program Unauthorized Access!” or “IE Just Successfully Sold You Yet Another Program You Don’t Need!”-along with the other annoying inflated features made the program more sizzle than steak.
More important for Delgado, Firefox also had a far more complex code for security. Between the flash drive and Firefox, he could encode and decode-then wipe absolutely clean-anything he did on the computer.
He typed PHILLYBULLETIN.COM and hit the RETURN key.
A second later, the screen was awash with articles and photos, updated on the quarter hour, of the day’s news.
The biggest and brightest image was that of a motel in glorious flames. It was surrounded by various emergency vehicles, their lights flashing. Delgado grinned. Then his eye caught the red text of a ticker across the top of the page, the words crawling from right to left: Breaking News… 2 Dead amp; 4 Injured in Shooting at Reading Terminal Market. Police Said to Release More Details Shortly…
Delgado nodded knowingly.
Don’t fuck with me, he thought, and these things won’t happen.
Assholes. They all think they can rip me off and get away with it…
His cellular phone vibrated for a second, indicating a received text message. He picked it up. The tiny LCD screen, beginning with the sender’s cellular phone number, read:
609-555-4901
Delgado picked up the phone. Using his thumbs on the tiny keypad, he punched out:
Delgado grinned at the mental image that came with “tigertails.” It had been a tigertail that had got him sent for his brief first and only visit to the Dallas County Jail in Texas.
He’d just turned eighteen years old and had started to move a lot more product on his own. He needed some help. In order to trust the help, he put the guys through some tests. And one of those tests was torching the cars of some of their East Dallas neighbors. The damn picky people were making louder and louder noises about traffic- both foot traffic and the lawn care trucks and trailers-in and out of Delgado’s house and property.
The term “tigertail” came from a gasoline company and its cartoon tiger mascot. One of the company’s giveaway promotions was a foot-long fake furry black-striped orange tail to tie to the gas tanks.
For a while, judging by all the tails flapping from gas caps, it seemed cars everywhere had “a tiger in their tank.”
Delgado had stolen that idea, but there were a couple of critical differences with his. He had taken a wire coat hanger, straightened it out, then wrapped it with a gas-soaked strip of bedsheeting, bending a hook in the wire’s end to secure the fabric. The sheet-covered wire was then stuck down a target vehicle’s gas tank. Then the “fuse” was set afire.
The neighbors’ cars became blackened hulks in minutes.
As a message sender, the tigertail had been an effective tool. Too much of one, in fact, because Delgado’s boys began torching enough vehicles that the Dallas Police Department had decided it necessary to put together a small task force. And the first night out, the cops caught one of Delgado’s boys-a fifteen-year-old who shit his pants the moment the cuffs were slapped on.
And he quickly fingered Delgado.
Delgado’s lawyer had been able to convince the prosecutor that discrediting the kid’s word would be effortless-“He shit his pants, for chrissake! He’d roll over on his own grandmother if it got him out of this. No one’s going to believe him!”-and that resulted in the charges against Delgado being dismissed.
Delgado never saw that kid again. That, of course, did not stop the unfortunate event that followed-the car belonging to the fifteen-year-old’s mother being tigertailed.
Delgado’s cellular phone vibrated again, and he read the screen:
609-555-4901
Delgado then thumbed: amp; U GO 2 TEMPLE LIKE WE TALKED… DO IT NOW A second later, the incoming reply vibrated Delgado’s phone:
Delgado put down the phone and turned to the computer monitor.
Going to the website for Southwest Airlines, he punched in PHL and DAL, checking for flights out of Philadelphia International Airport going into Dallas Love Field.
“Shit!” he said, seeing he’d missed the nine-thirty departure that morning.
He clicked on the next-most-direct routing, Southwest Flight 55, and booked it, paying for the ticket with a Visa credit card. The bill would go to a post office mail drop in a shopping strip center in East Dallas.
Then he picked up the cellular phone and sent another text to a different cellular phone number:
PLAN 2 PICK ME UP @ 730PM @ LOVE, SW#55
As he went to put down his phone, he saw a kid enter the coffee shop.
Delgado guessed that the short boy, who was black and overweight, could not be more than fifteen and was very likely closer to twelve. And that extra weight was probably baby fat. He had on very baggy blue jeans that were hanging loosely, a white T-shirt with a silk-screened image of a hip-hop singer, white sneakers, and a solid
