Double Digit Read online

  Within five minutes, the building was surrounded by police cars. Dozens of cars filled with dozens of cops, none of whom knew the code to disarm the bomb. Even if Buddy found it, it couldn’t be dismantled without the code.

  Sounds of barking made their way down the hall and then stopped. Bass was back on the phone. “Great. Okay. Can you . . . ? Right.” To me: “There’s a keypad on it, all letters no numbers, and a display screen with nine flashing Xs. We need nine letters.”

  Nine letters could be anything. Nine numbers would have given me more to go on, but letters could be just words. Oscar could crack it, but my laptop would have to be connected to the detonator for it to run through all the possible combinations of letters. There wouldn’t be time to go get my laptop where I assumed it was, lying in Jonas’s bag next to his body, and then log in and then train someone over the phone to run it.

  Bass was totally calm. “Let’s take this really simply. This is a game to him. The letters won’t be random—they’d have to have meant something to him. And they could be simple because he never thought you’d be able to communicate with anyone. He could have made it really obvious.”

  “Kill Digit.” Ella was counting on her fingers. “That’s nine letters. And it’s what he wanted to do.”

  “Try it.” Bass addressed the waiting police officer who was presumably just sitting there watching the clock tick away on our lives. “Try ‘Kill Digit.’ Yes, I’m serious. Try it. Please.” We waited and watched the red blinking lights on the window, hoping for a change. “No? Okay, stay on the line.”

  Clarke was visibly agitated. “What else have we got? What else do you know about him? His dog’s name? Who wrote Silent Spring?”

  “It’s not nine letters. His Wi-Fi password was FurnisFire—that’s ten.” My mind was racing through every conversation I’d ever had with him. Bass was right. He would have given me a clue, some sort of a chance. Otherwise it just wasn’t fun for him. All these codes of his that I’d cracked in the past were just codes for their own sake. He could have just come on out with the information: Pssst, go blow up the Tree of Life at Disney World. He took some sort of pleasure in making the people around him work for information.

  When we were down to fifteen minutes, the police officer (whose name I still don’t know) spoke up. “Listen, guys, I can only stay for another ten minutes, then I’m going to have to get me and this dog out of here.”

  “Thank you.” Bass was totally resigned to his fate.

  I had no reason not to get onboard. “You guys, I’m really sorry to have brought you all into this. And not to be able to get you out of it. I’ve been playing this game with Jonas Furnis for seven months. He’s dead, and we’re going to be too. I . . . I don’t even know who won.”

  “Pretty much looks like he did, Digit.” Clarke was angry, and I didn’t blame her at all.

  Scott was busy reassembling Clementine. It was like watching a mortician make up a dead body. Well, I assumed that’s what it would be like. I mean, gross.

  Bass took my hand. It was too late for this to seem like romance. I was just a person to grab on to as we watched the clock tick down. We had five minutes less than we thought we did, since the officer was smart enough not to want to stay in the building till the end. “He didn’t know he was going to die. But he knew he was going to win.” I could picture Jonas Furnis walking out the door. And there it was: “Checkmate! Officer, try it. Checkmate.”

  I held my breath and squeezed Bass’s hand. From the phone in the middle of the room, we heard, “Got it!” and the lights on the windows and door went green.

  Bass and I held on to each other in relief for anywhere between thirty seconds and a week. It was hard to tell. When I finally looked up, Tiki was standing over us with her arms folded, shaking her head. “Girl. Something’s on here. Don’t lie to me.” I hugged her and the shell-shocked hackers.

  I handed Clementine’s phone to Scott. “Thank you,” I said to both of them.

  Clarke offered a status report on my life. “Well, the good news is that your family is coming in about an hour and you’re going on trial tomorrow morning. Maybe you skip the rest of your homework?”

  I DIDN’T DO IT. AND I’LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN

  MY PARENTS WERE WEIRD. WELL, EVERYTHING was a little weird, me included. The entire incident with the bombs had taken place while they were flying, so when the police gave me my phone back, I sent them a text:

  Some crazy stuff happened at MIT, but I’m fine. See you soon.

  I’m guessing this softened the blow when they pulled up at campus to find my dorm completely surrounded by police cars and the press. The police had confiscated the bombing devices that were on my windows and door and had taken all of our statements. We watched as an ambulance took Jonas Furnis’s body away. Bass insisted that I stay inside my room while he went out and announced to the media that I had saved the lives of everyone in the dorm and had no comment for them at this time. Watching him handle the jungle of cameras and microphones, I could easily imagine Bass out in the world.

  When Bass came back up to my room, we were all sitting where he’d left us. What had just been the least safe place in the world now seemed like the only safe place. Bass sat down next to me and put his arm around me. “I can see why maybe you need a break from all this.”

  “Makes jail seem kinda relaxing, right?”

  My parents knocked on the door and we all jumped. Bass opened the door and said hello. My mom gave him a hug and a kiss, which seemed way inappropriate, and my dad shook his hand.

  My mom grabbed me. “Darling! The police told us what happened. Are you all right?”

  Clarke answered for me. “She’s all right. She’s used to this. But I nearly had a heart attack. I’ve got to get in shape for this lifestyle.”

  I hugged my parents. “Yeah, well I’m done with this lifestyle. Jonas Furnis is dead, his games are over, and I’ve cracked my last code. I’m starting a whole new boring life, dedicated to stuff normal people do . . .”

  Ella reminded me, “As soon as you get out of jail.”

  “It’s going to be her honor to go to jail. She stuck it to the Man . . .” Clarke said as she led Ella and Scott out of the room. She seemed to have a renewed sense of enthusiasm now that she remembered I was going to be martyred.

  Tiki was in her own room, right where she was supposed to be, and I guess Bass realized he was the only one out of place. “I guess I should give Buddy that walk now. I’ll see you tomorrow in court, okay?”

  “Thanks.” We both stood there, stuck again.

  Luckily my dad was hungry. “Let’s get going back to the hotel to meet your uncle Bob for dinner. Tiki? Bass? Would you care to join us?” They both declined.

  We caught up over a perfectly ordinary dinner. It turned out Danny hadn’t come because he’d gotten an audition for a starring role in a new series on the Disney Channel. “Are you joking? He had the idea to become an actor like two and a half weeks ago, and now he’s going to be the star of his own series?” I was surprised but not really that surprised. You have to remember that Danny has a Fast Pass to anywhere he wants to go.

  My dad said, “He told me to tell you, ‘Go big or go home.’”

  “I’m thinking about going small and staying home from now on.”

  “If that’s your choice. Now, Bob, do you have anything to discuss with Digit before tomorrow? Are you all set?”

  Uncle Bob was twirling spaghetti around his fork with more concentration than he’d shown my case. “All set.”

  “Well, all set how? I mean, I’m pleading guilty, and you have a couple character witnesses, right? Is that it?”

  “That’s it. The plea is actually no contest, but there’s another, fancier way to say it. I’ll look it up later. It means that we don’t have to bother with a jury. We’ll just go in with our witnesses and hope the judge goes easy on the sentencing.”

  Why did I wish, more than anything at that moment, that I had an attorney who
didn’t have to look up the fancy term for ‘no contest’? Like maybe there was an attorney out there who had fancy terms rolling off his tongue all the time, rather than spaghetti on his chin.

  “Now, darling, I brought a little cardigan for you to wear over your navy dress. I thought, what if there’s a chill in the courtroom? Or what if a sleeveless dress shows just a tiny too much skin in that setting when all the men are going to be in suits? I’m wearing a suit myself. The one I wore when I played the district attorney in Trial of Love. Remember? The skirt with the little kick pleat in the back?”

  “I do not remember a kick pleat.” It was hard for me to imagine what I would act like the night before my teenage daughter was going to prison, but it wasn’t this.

  After dinner we hung out in the hotel bar for a bit. My parents were on California time, and I wasn’t in any hurry to get to bed and wake up and relinquish my freedom. My dad drank a Scotch on the rocks, which was unusual but not unprecedented. He got a little tipsy.

  “I couldn’t be happier that Jonas Furnis is gone. Really gone,” he said.

  “Me too. I mean, because he was horrible. But so much of what he said sort of stays with me. It’s like if he had been twenty percent less crazy, he could have changed the world.”

  “Well, you’re the one who’s still alive, and you are going to change the world. Unless you decide not to. I’m one hundred percent behind you whatever you do. Just remember I said that.”

  “I guess I’ll have a long time to think about what I’m going to do. Prison time and then the rest of college. I think I’m probably a little burned out from all that’s happened, but I wouldn’t mind making my life a little more normal. And smaller.”

  “Good luck with that, Digit.” He started to laugh, and my mom rolled her eyes at him like he was being silly.

  “I’m serious.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Dad took off his glasses and wiped them clean (they’re real; he needs them to see). “Normal? Maybe. Maybe later. But small? I think the ship has sailed on you ever having a small life.”

  I’M NOT MYSELF TODAY; MAYBE I’M YOU

  I’VE BEEN LET DOWN BY TV a million times. You envision what the school dance is going to be like or a homecoming football game, based on what you’ve seen on TV. But when you get there, there’s no soundtrack, the lighting’s all wrong, and no one’s smiling. My trial was the opposite—it was exactly like it is on TV: the courthouse looming on top of the huge steps, the hushed lobby, the double wooden courtroom doors that make the Law & Order “Boom! Boom!” when you close them. Seriously, it was just like TV.

  I’d texted John late Sunday night before I went to sleep.

  Google “incident at MIT.” I’m fine. Jonas Furnis is dead.

  Going to sleep. See you tomorrow if you can make it.

  And I turned off my phone. In the morning I turned my phone back on to John Bennett 6 TEXT MESSAGES.

  I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.

  You must have been terrified.

  I’m glad he’s gone.

  Can we talk, are you asleep?

  Okay, I’m leaving D.C. now, will be there tomorrow.

  Love you, of course.

  I like how a series of unread texts sort of reads like a sonnet.

  We ran into John and Mr. Bennett as we walked into the courtroom. Mr. Bennett gave me a quick, too quick, “Hello, Digit,” and John pulled me back out into the hallway. Uncle Bob called after us that we had three minutes.

  “Digit, I don’t even know what to say. I’m so glad you’re okay.” He hugged me for half of our allotted three minutes. “Are you scared?”

  “This is the least scary thing that’s happened to me in the past twenty-four hours. I’m fine.”

  John smiled. “Okay, and this is going to be okay. I can’t . . . Well, it might get weird in there. Will you just trust me?”

  “Weird? What about this isn’t weird?”

  John gave someone behind me a nod and then leaned down and kissed me. I think I’ve established that I am not very good at describing a kiss. In this context, this kiss could have been an “I don’t know when I’ll ever have a chance again” kiss. Or even an “I’m so relieved you weren’t blown up” kiss. I deserved either. But what I got was neither of those. It was more like a kiss that was put on me. Like when you have a stamper for a return address and it’s almost out of ink. You press it down on the paper and hold it there, just to make the ink stay. This kiss was stamped on me. I’d never had this particular kind before, and I felt a little like a fire hydrant that had just been marked.

  I turned to see Bass behind me, hands crossed over his DIG IT T-shirt and looking like he didn’t really know where to be. He shook hands with John. “So today’s the big day.”

  “It is,” John replied.

  “I’m pretty sure yesterday was a big day. This? We know how it’s going to end.” I was trying to be light, trying to make this okay for everyone. I mean, I had no one to blame but myself for all this, and I was kind of sick of everyone feeling sorry for me.

  John said to Bass, “Nice T-shirt.” And it sounded less like a compliment than it should have.

  We entered the courtroom, and, just like on TV, there was a long table just for Uncle Bob and me. My parents and my star witnesses were seated directly behind me. John took an empty seat next to his dad in the back. All of the other seats were filled with reporters and other interested parties. On TV don’t they close these things to the press? I had a feeling that the press was exactly who the prosecution wanted here.

  Court was called to order at exactly nine a.m. The Honorable Alvin Horowitz presiding. “In the case of The United States of America versus Farrah Higgins, how does the defendant plead?”

  Uncle Bob stood up and approached the bench. He stopped and looked at his yellow legal pad for reassurance before saying, “My client pleads nolo contendere.” A big smile took over his face, like he’d just gotten down the sidewalk on a two-wheeler for the first time. Before sitting down, he explained to the judge, “That means no contest.”

  Opening statements were made. The prosecutor: “We have here today a very straightforward case of a very complicated crime. Miss Farrah Higgins, a student at MIT, is pleading no contest to hacking into the mainframe of the Department of Defense of the United States of America. This security breach put the lives of everyone in our nation in jeopardy. She did so willfully and with intent to take information that was not hers to take at that time.” True that.

  Uncle Bob: “Your Honor, my client is eighteen years old. She is a freshman at MIT and was trying, misguidedly, to make it to a toga party on time when she decided to hack into the DOD. She had formally requested access to the information that she took, and that access had been granted. She gained access to the DOD’s systems on her own just to speed up the process. You might call it a timing difference.” Uncle Bob turned to me for approval. I should have just gotten up there and given the tater tot defense—same difference. “Since that time, Miss Higgins’s life has been in jeopardy several times in defense of her country and the well-being of her classmates . . .”

  “Objection!” I swear, exactly like on TV. “Her actions subsequent to the events in question have no bearing on the events in question . . .”

  The prosecution called its first witness, a guy named Norb Wolford, whose job it was to keep the data at the DOD secure. He outlined my crime in such excruciating detail that even I was bored by it. What was interesting was what he left out. He described exactly what I did, without revealing any details about how I did it. Probably smart.

  When he finished, the prosecution called its second witness. “The prosecution calls Henry Bennett to the stand.” Wait. What? I swung around to look at him as he walked down the aisle to the witness stand. He did not meet my eye. John gave me a slow shake of the head. No? Was he shaking his head no? As in, No, this is not really happening? Or, No, my dad is not really going to get up there and say anything against you? Or, No, you shou
ldn’t have agreed to trust me?

  Mr. Bennett was sworn in and answered some questions about his position at the CIA. And then it began.

  “Mr. Bennett, how long have you known Miss Higgins?”

  “Seven months.”

  “In that time have you noticed anything extraordinary about her?”

  “She has an extraordinary ability with numbers and codes.”

  “At what point did you realize that she was a danger to society?”

  “Objection!” I bellowed.

  “Miss Higgins, please. I repeat: At what point did you realize that she was a danger to society?”

  “I knew Miss Higgins for less than a week when I realized that her gifts could be used as a weapon.”

  “Would you call her a threat to national security?”

  “I think she’s demonstrated that on her own.”

  “So at what point did you begin tracking her computer activities in the interest of protecting state secrets?”

  I passed a note to Uncle Bob: It was illegal surveillance.

  Uncle Bob shouted, “Objection! Mr. Bennett’s surveillance of my client’s laptop was illegal. None of this testimony should be admitted.” Take that!

  “Your Honor, I submit Exhibit A, an unlimited warrant to monitor Miss Higgins’s telecommunications and computer activity, signed by the director of the CIA, July 19 of this year.”

  Uncle Bob sat down and shrugged.

  “In your surveillance, when you saw that Miss Higgins hacked into the DOD, what was your reaction?”

  “I realized that she was more dangerous than I thought.”

  With that, the prosecution rested its case.