Crash Into Pieces (The Haylie Black Series Book 2) Read online

  CRASH INTO

  PIECES

  The Haylie Black Series, Book 2

  CHRISTOPHER KERNS

  All hacks and exploits in this book are based on real technology.

  Information about the tech, hacks, groups, and locations featured in Crash Into Pieces can be found on the author’s website. Links are available at the end of the book.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTERS:

  >>> PROLOGUE. ONE. TWO. THREE. FOUR. FIVE. SIX. SEVEN. EIGHT. NINE. TEN. ELEVEN. TWELVE. THIRTEEN. FOURTEEN. FIFTEEN. SIXTEEN. SEVENTEEN. EIGHTEEN. NINETEEN. TWENTY. TWENTY-ONE. TWENTY-TWO. TWENTY-THREE. TWENTY-FOUR. TWENTY-FIVE. TWENTY-SIX. TWENTY-SEVEN. TWENTY-EIGHT. TWENTY-NINE. THIRTY. THIRTY-ONE. THIRTY-TWO. THIRTY-THREE. THIRTY-FOUR. THIRTY-FIVE. THIRTY-SIX. THIRTY-SEVEN. THIRTY-EIGHT. THIRTY-NINE. FORTY. FORTY-ONE. FORTY-TWO. FORTY-THREE. FORTY-FOUR. FORTY-FIVE. FORTY-SIX.

  PROLOGUE

  Yale University Art Gallery

  New Haven, CT

  August 2nd, 9:56PM

  The man inside the coffin lay stiff as a board, his hands fanned out at his sides, fighting to remain still. Strings of wax fell in clumsy, sloppy clumps as candles swayed around him, like shooting stars leaving trails of white through the darkness. He trembled as the chanting rose up again—Latin phrases tumbling over one another, bellowed deep from the throats of robed figures standing in a semicircle. The coffin rocked, suspended by cloaked arms.

  “Doesn’t look like a lot of fun down there,” Caesar Black whispered, sneaking a glance past the edge of the roof at the building below. He clutched his phone and watched the scene play out on a flickering video stream in the palm of his hand. His breath pushed clouds of steam across the screen as he lifted the device higher, searching for a better Wi-Fi signal. The Yale Art Museum had a strong network signal inside its walls, but out on the far edge of the second-floor roof, it wasn’t quite as reliable.

  “You think they have any idea we’re watching?” Charlotte asked, her jaw shivering from the cold as she spoke. “That we hacked their network in, like, five seconds? And could you pick a colder place for us to watch next time?”

  Caesar shook his head, pulling his black wool hat down, feeling his fingers beginning to go numb. Bobbing up and down in an awkward squat, he blew on his hands for warmth. It didn’t help. The rooftop was cold, and having to stay below the roof’s short wall to remain out of sight wasn’t helping one bit.

  “Just wait,” Caesar said. “This will be worth it. This is going to be epic.”

  Caesar switched his phone over to the infrared camera and zoomed in on the Tomb, the headquarters for Yale University’s most famous—and secretive—society, Skull and Bones. The infrared showed blobs of red, yellow, green, and blue moving through the otherwise dark building. The bright yellow heat signatures of candles formed a halo around the coffin, leaving smeared traces across his phone’s screen.

  “I don’t know about epic,” Charlotte muttered back. “This whole operation—the hack, these clowns in their robes, us being up here exposed—seems complicated. Too complicated if you ask me.”

  “A complicated thing is just a bunch of easy things, all put together,” Caesar said, switching between apps on his phone, making sure everything was perfect.

  “Yeah, you’ve said that like a hundred times,” Charlotte whispered as her teeth chattered. “Doesn’t change the fact that we’re stuck here in private-school central while plenty of real criminals are running around the world. Criminals we could be busting. We’re wasting our time up here—got any words of wisdom for that, old man?” She peered over the other side of their rooftop perch and then quickly recoiled, curling herself up into a ball next to the door.

  “No words of wisdom,” Caesar chuckled. “Maybe just suck it up?”

  “Uh huh,” Charlotte shot back, leaning into her corner with a huff. “Just wake me up when it’s time to start breaking into stuff.”

  Switching back to the video feed, Caesar notched the volume up a few bars in his earpiece. He could make out the chanting chorus of voices repeating the same word, over and over, in unison. They’d dispensed with the Latin and now spoke in English.

  “Reborn. Reborn. Reborn. Reborn.”

  “When we left the Project, I bet you never thought we’d end up doing anything like this,” Charlotte said. “Seems like forever ago.”

  “Yeah, but it’s only been six months, or close to that,” Caesar whispered, pulling his binoculars up from his neck and scanning the street, checking for visitors. He saw mounds of dirty snow piled on each side, a few students floating into the Starbucks on the opposite corner, laptops in hand ready for a late-night study session, but nothing else. Crouching back down onto the crunch of rooftop gravel, he looked over at Charlotte—the Australian wonder kid who could break into anything you pointed her at—and flashed a quick smile. She had really grown on him over the past few months, and even reminded him of his sister Haylie from time to time.

  “Being on the run from the government sure sounded a lot sexier when we were drawing it up,” Charlotte said. “I was picturing private planes and being handcuffed to briefcases. That sort of thing.”

  “This isn’t like the movies,” Caesar said. “With the code we have now, we can get into any system in the world. We could buy you a plane tomorrow if we wanted to, but that’s not the smart way to go. You know that.”

  “I know, I know,” Charlotte muttered. “I’m just saying—a plane would be pretty sweet. The least we could do is hack secret societies someplace warm. Why is it so cold here? It’s August.”

  “A freak cold front came in, I guess,” Caesar said. “Besides, Brazil was warm. And what about that OilCorp operation in India a few months back? We’ve seen plenty of warm. The cold is good for you, keeps you alert.”

  Caesar leaned over the side of the rail to get a visual of the Tomb’s perimeter. He thought through the history of the building sitting below them—about the men who had entered its doors and left to head out into the world with a new sense of privilege—and nodded to himself.

  Tonight’s going to be a bad night for you guys.

  “Skull and Bones,” Charlotte said. “I don’t get the big deal. A bunch of man-boys running around in smoking jackets, using secret phrases and congratulating themselves. Chanting and all that. Who cares? Let them have their little secret club.”

  “This little club has produced some of the most powerful people in the world. Privilege, influence—all behind closed doors. Aren’t you a bit curious about what goes on in there?” Caesar sneered as he looked down on the building below.

  Snobby little kids, that’s all they are. Snobby kids who turn into titans, just by the luck of the draw. I’d like to punch every one of them right in the throat.

  Charlotte rose to a crouched position and snuck her eyes past the top edge of the wall. “Seems harmless enough.”

  “I’m sure it started off as harmless,” Caesar said. “Most things do. But now it’s grown into a machine that generates a separate class. Skull and Bones doesn’t stop at Yale, it’s everywhere. Anytime these guys need a favor, they’ve got one. Anytime they need a job, boom, it’s right there waiting for them. And not just any job—elite positions. Stuff regular people would kill for. It’s not right.”

  “Sometimes I think you care more about what’s right than what’s a good idea.” Charlotte looked at Caesar with a raised eyebrow as the fog of her breath shot out in small spurts. “You sound like a crazy person.”

  “Crazy, yeah,” Caesar said. “Crazy is their best defense. The things they’re doing—no one would never believe it, right? You’d have t
o be crazy to think any of this stuff is true.”

  “That’s exactly what a crazy person would say, I don’t know—maybe they’re just rich guys who are kind of bored.”

  Caesar shook his head. “The membership roster for this place is nuts. Presidents, senators, congressmen, Supreme Court justices. Even Senator Hancock was a member back when he was in school.”

  Charlotte smirked. “Hancock—what a piece of work. You see his press conference last night?”

  Caesar nodded. “He’s getting more desperate as the election gets closer. Grasping at straws, trying to find any message that will stick. You want to talk about crazy—he’s your guy.”

  “Nothing scares me more than a man with nothing left to lose,” Charlotte said. “He’ll say whatever it takes to be president.”

  “I hate politics,” Caesar said. “Big waste of time. Like I said,” he pointed down at the Skull and Bones headquarters below, “it’s all rigged.”

  “Well, I think the real question is: why would anyone be dumb enough to put cameras in their secret meeting place? Kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”

  “I know,” Caesar whispered. “Luckily for us, their new sergeant-at-arms is an internet-of-things geek. Has a blog about it and everything. But, as it turns out, he’s terrible with passwords.”

  Caesar scrolled through the mobile interface to the collection of documents he had taken from the Skull and Bones archives the day before. Meeting notes, membership rosters, chapter secrets. The documents went back for decades, piles of scanned paperwork. Even after reading for almost an hour earlier in the day, he hadn’t scratched the surface of what lay inside.

  “Can we get moving?” Charlotte asked with a huff. “Just post this video file and be on our way?”

  “Oh, we don’t have to post the video anywhere,” Caesar said, continuing to read the documents on his phone, opening new folders as he went. “I’m live streaming their little ceremony on the Yale homepage.”

  “You’re what?” Charlotte plucked her phone from her pocket and brought the site up. “Are you joking? Dude, we need to get the hell out of here.”

  “We’re fine,” Caesar said. “Hold tight. I just want to watch their faces when it happens.”

  He scrolled down to a subfolder labeled “Reprisal” and his eyes narrowed with curiosity. He tapped the screen to check the contents, reading the first few paragraphs. He froze in his tracks.

  “No way,” he breathed, continuing to read. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “What is it?”

  He continued reading. As more details unfolded, his eyes grew wide. He placed a hand over his mouth without even realizing the motion. “There’s dirt about everyone in here. Even about Hancock. This is going to make headlines. This is going to change everything.”

  “How long is changing everything going to take?” Charlotte said, switching her phone over to infrared and scanning the Skull and Bones building. “They don’t appear to be going anywhere. All seven are still in there, chanting or whatever.”

  Caesar, still thinking about the Hancock documents, looked up as the words registered.

  Seven?

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “Didn’t there used to be nine?”

  Caesar craned his neck to see her camera’s view, counting the heat signatures.

  One, two, three, four, five, six…

  A loud pop came from behind them, steel hitting concrete, then light flooded from the door to the roof and into his eyes. Caesar could see two silhouettes now standing in the doorway, thick legs at shoulder width, standing firm.

  “That’s them,” said a man’s voice.

  “I knew they’d be up here—drop the camera,” another man’s voice rang out.

  Caesar and Charlotte both froze in place, exchanging glances.

  “He said, drop the camera.” One of the men took a step forward and let the door close behind them. “You deaf? We know what you’ve been doing—filming us. My girlfriend saw it on the internet and texted me.”

  “Yeah,” the other man said. “What’s your problem?”

  Caesar smiled at Charlotte, dropping his phone his pocket. He faced the men, although it was too dark to make out any of their features. “No problem here. Not for me.”

  “I’ll give you a problem,” the man on the left said. “We’ve already called the cops.”

  “They called the cops,” Charlotte said to Caesar, and then turned back to the men. “You called the cops? Wow, fellas, way to man up. Maybe you could call your moms next time?”

  “Funny,” one of the voices said. “Just don’t move until they get here.”

  “How about this,” Caesar said. “If you guys go back downstairs, collect your little robes, close the front door to the Tomb and throw away the key, then we’ll forget this whole thing ever happened.”

  “Shut up, dude,” one of the men growled. “You’re the one who’s in trouble here, not us. We were just minding our own business and you had to go mess with us.” As he spoke, his speech began to slur, showing cracks in his bravado.

  “It’s a shame you don’t realize what you’re doing,” Caesar continued. “You’re hurting our country—our whole society.”

  “Here he goes,” Charlotte muttered. “You went and got him all excited.”

  “I’m serious,” Caesar continued. “You’re creating an unsustainable system. One of privilege, not right. It was only a matter of time before it crumbled, even you guys had to realize that, right?”

  “Dude, what are you even talking about?” one of the voices laughed. “You don’t know nothing. We’re not doing anything wrong. And it’s a private club, we’re allowed to do what we want. People like you get jealous, always jealous. You’re just mad you weren’t chosen, that you’re not good enough.”

  “How about me?” Charlotte said, taking a step forward into the light. “Can I join your little club?”

  “No girls … I mean women … allowed. Everyone knows that.”

  Even in the darkness, Caesar could see Charlotte’s eyebrow raise halfway up her face.

  One of the men’s phone screens illuminated in the darkness. “I don’t know where those stupid cops are. I’m going to call again. For all the money we pay in tuition, you’d think they’d be here already.”

  “Right,” Charlotte said. “The cops—the ones you called. Did the voice on the other end of the line sound anything like this?” She unlocked her phone’s screen and raised it into the air, hitting a play button. A recording of the Skull and Bones 911 call played at full volume.

  “How’d you get that?” the man asked.

  “You weren’t really talking to the police,” Caesar said. “We intercepted the call and rerouted it to someone else on our team.”

  “What do you mean, your team?”

  “Listen—last chance, seriously,” Caesar said. “Go shut it down. You can focus on getting better grades. You can make new friends. Your parents will be thrilled.”

  “How about I just kick your ass?” one of the men suggested, falling back into slurred speech.

  Caesar heard the crunch of a footstep and saw one of the silhouettes moving towards him. He felt the tightness in his fist rising, numbing his entire forearm. Just take one more step. I’ll rip your head off, you spoiled little brat. He took a breath, knowing he had to remain in control, knowing that doing what he wanted to do would put them both at risk.

  “You got it ready?” Caesar asked Charlotte, swallowing his heart back in his throat.

  “Got it right here,” Charlotte chimed, pulling up her phone and displaying an app with a single, giant button.

  “What’s that?” one of the men asked. “I can’t see it.”

  “One tap of this button releases all of your data from the past fifty years,” she said. “Meeting notes. Payments to officials all over the world. Membership rosters and favors handed out. All the Skull and Bones nonsense goes out to six different news outlets. Just. Like. That.”

 
“You’re lying,” he stammered.

  “Nope,” Caesar said. “There’s so much good stuff in there: backroom deals for Supreme Court positions, campaign finance violations. Members making assault charges disappear from campus records.”

  Silence hung over the rooftop.

  “Don’t do it. We … we can help.”

  “Yeah, he’s right,” the other man shouted with growing desperation. “I mean … we can get you things. Anything you want. You said it yourself—we have connections. We know people. Anything you want, man.”

  “You want a job? Is that it? Like, Wall Street? We can do that.”

  “What I want?” Caesar asked, stepping forward. “What I want is the same thing you want. I want you to be reborn.”

  “Dude, c’mon,” one of the men pleaded.

  “What do you think?” Caesar said to Charlotte. “Should we press the button?”

  “Oh, this button?” Charlotte said in a mocking tone. “I pressed it ten minutes ago. Sorry, I’m not very good with computers, I’m just a girl.” She raised her middle finger in front of the illuminated screen, directing it towards the men in the doorway.

  The men backtracked, disappearing through the door at full sprint, back into the building. The door closed and the light from the hallway disappeared, shrouding them in darkness.

  “Well, I think that went well,” Caesar said, rubbing his eyes.

  “Warmed me right up,” Charlotte beamed. “Now, let’s get the hell out of here. For real.”

  They tossed their bags onto their shoulders and threw the rope ladder over the side of the rooftop. Charlotte stepped down first into the darkness below. Caesar threw his leg over the side of the rooftop, disappearing into the night.

  This is going to change everything.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Littlefield Hall, University of Texas

  Austin, TX

  October 23rd, 3:39PM

  Click.

  Haylie sat huddled in her college dorm hallway, knees twisted and body upright, struggling to keep her eyes level with the doorknob. She craned her neck to the left, fighting for a good view inside the lock’s chamber. She pushed down with the hairpin in her right hand, turning gently to the right. With her left hand, she slid the second pin inside, searching for the right rod by touch, testing for the one that would give the most resistance against the chamber.