2 The Dante Connection by Estelle Ryan

see it coming or react to it, I didn’t know. The weapon dropped from his hand onto the pavement and he looked down in surprise. His eyes locked on the knife protruding from his chest and he slowly went down on his knees. He looked up once at Francine before he fell over and stilled. The first man had stopped moving. The horror on her face was visible despite the grainy image. She bent over and heaved. I tapped the screen and looked at her.
    “They tried to kill you.”
    “Yes.” Her eyes were glued to the paused screen on the tablet computer. She looked pale under the bruises.
    “Why?”
    She looked at me. “Watch the next two minutes.”
    Usually I preferred to watch political thrillers or art films. Movies with absurd amounts of violence didn’t appeal to me. Watching someone I had recently called my friend get beaten up was not pleasant. I steeled myself and tapped the screen again.
    Francine was frantically wiping her hands on her dress. That explained the blood on her designer garment. Her movements were disjointed and I could see that she was in shock. Wearing only one shoe, she stumbled out of view.
    “I went to my car and came straight here,” she said softly. “Continue watching.”
    For a few seconds I only saw the two bodies lying prone on the pavement. A dark, shiny pool grew from the tall man’s chest. Blood. I shuddered. The door opened and three men, also dressed in dark clothes, walked to the death scene. They didn’t even take time to check the attackers’ vitals. One man rolled out two sheets of what looked like hard plastic and within a minute both bodies were rolled and bound. One by one, they carried the bodies to the left of the camera, out of view. When they returned, they disappeared inside only to come out with cleaning equipment a few seconds later. They started cleaning the pavement.
    “They spend about ten minutes doing that,” Francine said. “I’m sure that pavement has never been that clean.”
    “What happens after they finish cleaning?” I asked, watching them scrub the pavement with hard-bristled brooms.
    “Nothing. People come and go. I watched the video until it became light. No police. Nothing,” she said again. “My guess is that they put the bodies in a car and got rid of them somewhere. God, I can’t believe this happened.”
    I tapped the screen and looked at her. “You are an excessively paranoid person. Why would you go to a place like this? What made you think it was safe?”
    “I got hacked.” I couldn’t clearly see the anger in her face, but her tight fists and hard breathing communicated it loudly. “The only way that could ever have happened is if someone had physical access to my computers. Every single one of my computers has been built from parts, none of which has imprinted hardware ID’s. I also compiled my own operating system with FreeBSD…”
    She must have noticed the confusion on Vinnie’s face and lack of interest on mine. Colin was the only one nodding his head in understanding. Francine sighed heavily. “My computers were completely safe from external hacking. I would never, never, insert a CD or USB drive in my computer without knowing where it came from, who it came from and what was on it. In other words, someone had broken into my super-secret apartment and loaded their crap onto my computers.”
    “Do you know who?” I asked.
    “I’m working on it. When I checked my connection logs, I noticed traces in the data. That is how I knew I was hacked. Now I’m working on finding the little bastard.”
    “But what does this have to do with you attending this party?”
    “Ah, yes. Sorry. I get angry every time I think about some bastard breaking into my place, raping my computers, and forget what I was really talking about. This bastard had access to my entire database, so he knew all my communication, everything. A lot of success in hacking relies on psychology. You need to know what your intended victim will respond to. Studying