Who's In Trouble Now?

By Spense

Chapter Five – Plot Counterplot

Alan had slept hard in his hiding place during the day on Friday. The bolt hole at school had proved invaluable, but he couldn't stay forever. He'd be bored to death. After nights of putting his plans into place and trying to sleep during the day, he was ready to be out of here. But it was a necessary evil. He had to take some time to get everything together. His saving grace was the fact that he and his buddies had once made it a point of pride to be able to access the most secure of the teachers offices. Not ever Fermat knew about that dare. What he didn't know, wouldn't hurt him. They both operated by that!

The irony of using the schools computers for his purposes was something Alan really enjoyed. There was a symmetry to it that tickled him. But now, Alan checked his watch, he had to get moving. It was getting close on 4am on Saturday and he had things to do.

Putting on clear, non-prescription glasses he had picked up at the drug store, Alan smiled to himself. Between those and the semi-permanent dark brown hair dye, he sure didn't look like the pictures in the paper. And as the crowning touch, a baseball cap he'd picked up at one of the souvenir shops on his very careful forays into town. The cap, emblazoned with 'International Rescue' was just too good to pass up. And with the non-descript clothes and backpack he'd picked up cheaply at the thrift store, and he was good to go. He knew he'd been lucky not to be spotted, but every good campaign needed luck to survive. He also knew nobody would expect him to still be here. Oh, this was just too much fun. Take that, everybody who thinks Alan Tracy is a mistake and a screw up!

Time to go. He needed to be out of here before everybody was up and around. Saturdays were notoriously unpredictable. He needed to be in place when his 'bomb' went off. All hell would break loose then, and keep everybody he was concerned with busy, while he headed to his chosen destination.

Alan left Wharton Academy. Probably for the last time when the Headmaster learned what his computer had been used for in the dead of night.

TB TB TB TB TB

"Dad! I've gotten a hit on Alan off of one of the airline reservation programs!" John's excited call came in mid Saturday morning, bringing Jeff to the vidphone in a rush. There had been no rescue calls as of yet, and following breakfast, his sons had scattered throughout the island, involved in the various tasks he'd set for them. Fermat and Tintin had vanished right after the meal, as had become the norm for them lately. Peace reigned, at least for the moment.

"Where John?" Jeff asked eagerly, leaning forward to get a closer look at what John was doing.

"Looks like . . . Boston to Washington DC, then to . . . Paris?" he finished doubtfully. "No wait, here's another one." There was a pause, then, "Is Virgil going somewhere on commercial airlines?"

"No," was Jeff's reply. "At least nothing I'm aware of, why?"

"Because he's booked on a flight from New York to LA to Tokoyo in an hour," John finished.

"What!" Are you sure?" Jeff asked, sitting down.

"Yeah. "Here's another. In Alan's name, this time on the train. Boston to Florida." He started to laugh. "Luxury sleeper car – for two! Hang on, no. Wait. No, the first reservation was cancelled, but here are three more. One's in your name Dad. No, geez . . ." John trailed off.

"What is it John?" Jeff asked, slightly apprehensive at his son's rambling monologue. "Just trace the reservations and find out which of them he uses."

"I . . . don't think it's going to be quite that easy. We're going to need help," John finished helplessly. "Lots and lots of help."

Hours later, computers covered every spare inch of space in Jeff's study. All hands who could run onehad beendrafted. Kyrano declined, saying somebody had to feed them all. The study became a war room, and the battle was joined

It was quickly determined that the problem was a very sophisticated computer virus. It was sent to various airline, train, bus, and travel agency computers piggybacked onto an innocent reservation. One reservation would multiple into thousands in minutes, snaking their way through the system, eventually turning back on themselves and canceling the travel plans. The only constants in the barrage were that all bore the name of Tracy. Pick whichever Tracy first name you wanted, but all were names of the family.

Some reservations were changed as many as ten times before finally canceling. Others were actually sold online to secondary parties, and the money credited back against the account on which it came. Others were actually used. (Brains was fascinated with that, and everybody knew he wasn't going to get any sleep until he figured that one out.) This prompted the authorities to go out to each site and physically check who was using the ticket. None were Alan. Some reservations bounced from company to company and method of travel before finally canceling.

The problem was that each entry had to be followed. Because one of the barrage of many would actually be used by Alan. Of this they had no doubt. Brains said it would actually take longer to write a program to fix it because there were too many variables. Problem was, 'quicker' was a relative term.

The barrage of information lasted exactly four hours, then stopped flat. The amount of time to finish sorting through the mess took significantly longer than that, even with the resources of all five Tracys, Brains, Fermat, TinTin, and Lady Penelope in England.

The end result was that Alan would use one of these trails. They had to find that one. Meaning, eliminate everything until you found the one that couldn't be eliminated. Divide and conquer was the word of the day.

TB TB TB TB TB

Alan smiled to himself as he saw the police at the ticket counter. The woman behind it was frowning at the computer and the police were frustrated. He enjoyed watching from behind his magazine. When the bus he wanted was called, Alan went to anotherticket counter, purchased a ticket to his destination (with cash), then walked calmly past the frustrated group and boarded his bus.

TB TB TB TB TB

Scott finished up sorting the last of the blitz of entries he had on his system. He stretched out his arms, and rolled his neck, feeling the popping of his spine. "Well, I've come up with a big fat zero."

Virgil sighed. "Me too."

Hours of straight crossing and matching the massive blitz of computer entries in all the travel programs and companies, and ways of traveling from airplane, train or bus routing from points close to Wharton Academy to points as far away as Greenland. Everything had turned out to be zero. There hadn't even been a rescue call to break their focus.

John chimed in. "Nothing here. Everything turned up zero. Lady P turned up nothing as well."

Everybody was finishing up at about the same time, tallying up their results. All were a resounding nothing.

"I don't believe it!" Gordon muttered. "It was all a trick!"

Scott just groaned, burying his head in his hands. "All that work."

"You know," Virgil said slowly, "the bookkeeping on this when the credit card statements come is going to be enormous."

Jeff groaned. He couldn't help himself. Virgil was right. Alan had accessed about eight different Tracy credit cards - corporate and personal, and at least three different Tracy Enterprises bank accounts.

"How did Alan ever do this?" Virgil commented, amazed, looking at the huge body of information in front of him.

"The answer is, he couldn't," Gordon commented. He thought a moment, then said slowly, "He had to have help." After a pause, he yelled, "FERMAT!"

Fermat looked up startled. "W-w-what?"

Gordon started to round on him. "When did you write this?"

"I d-d-d-didn't!"

"Easy Gordon," Jeff calmed his son with a glance. "Why are you blaming Fermat?"

"Because Alan couldn't have written this!"

"Yes he could!" Fermat shouted back.

"Really," John said slowly from the vid-link, the wheels turning at Fermat's adamant reaction. "Fermat, tell us about Alan and computers. Why you think he could write something like this?"

Virgil looked disbelievingly at his brother. "He couldn't do something like this! He's in ninth grade for God's sake." Virgil ignored the glare from his father regarding his language.

"And I've never seen anything he's done here at home that would show that," Scott had to agree.

Jeff shrugged and looked inquiringly at Brains. Fermat was his son, it was up to him to dictate what his son would say, no matter how much Jeff wanted to know the answer.

"Y-y-yes son, do," Brains smiled slightly at Jeff, then nodded for Fermat to start talking.

Fermat looked around at the faces staring at him and sighed. "I k-k-k-know he can, because he writes complicated p-p-programs and v-v-v-viruses like this at school all the time. He says it keeps him fr-fr-from getting bored. He w-w-w-wrote on one time for our room door to open automatically a-a-at certain times because I kept forgetting my k-k-key, and older kids kept trying t-t-to swipe my stuff. It was really complicated, and it w-w-w-was a security program too. He did it as a-a-a-a surprise for m-m-me one afternoon." He shrugged at his now rapt audience. "He writes stuff like this all the time for other kids too. They pay h-h-h-him a lot for it." Fermat finished quickly, glad Alan wasn't here. He'd never forgive him.

Dead silence reigned in the room as Fermat finished.

"You know," John commented thoughtfully, "I do believe our little brother hasn't exactly been working up to his full potential."

"Why wouldn't he tell us he could do this?" Virgil wondered aloud.

"Probably never even occurred to him, because Fermat, Brains and John are the computer geniuses of the bunch of us, and to his way of thinking, none of the things he writes would be in their league. So it wouldn't be anything very impressive," Scott said firmly, knowing he was right.

"For a ninth grader?" John replied in disbelief. "I'm impressed."

"And why kill the cash cow?" Gordon laughed, earning him a glare from Scott and Jeff.

"I had no idea he could be so ingenious," Jeff commented thoughtfully, finally removing his gaze from his squirming fourth son.

"Try 'diabolical'," Virgil said, shaking his head.

Jeff sighed, ignoring the comment. "We'll deal with that later. What we do know," He looked around the room, "is that this was a very clever smoke screen. It's diverted our attention, and the authorities, for nearly a day and a half. But right now we know one thing for certain," he looked at them all, "Alan is on the move."

"And n-n-not in unfriendly h-h-hands, for the moment at least," Brains commented.

"Probably," Jeff agreed, although this really didn't prove anything definitively.

"Good," a low voice muttered from the vicinity of Alan's exhausted brothers as they packed up their things. "Then I can kill him myself."

At Jeff's frown, all looked innocent and Jeff didn't bother to try to figure out the culprit. There was too much at stake. And, to be honest, there was a part of him agreeing with that sentiment right now as they all filed tiredly out of the room, heading for showers and bed, praying that no rescue call came in.