The White Ripper

4.

In her upscale home in the gated community of Rinconada Hills in Los Gatos in Silicon Valley, a home she deleted from Google Maps and Map Quest, cyber genius Vicky Volker sat before her three computer screens and searched the Internet for the next racist pig or pigs for Clyde to kill.

According to her performance reviews at Microsoft and Sony, Vicky was “arrogant and confrontational” and “unfit for advancement” and “didn’t work well with others.”

Fed up with corporate bullshit, Vicky struck out on her own. She made a substantial living by infiltrating assumed to be impenetrable cyber security systems, including the Pentagon’s firewall, and fixing the breaches. Her work in cybersecurity for her Internet provider Etheric Networks bolstered her income.

Vicky had clandestine overseas bank accounts and several false identities replete with social security numbers, birth certificates, credit cards, social media accounts, addresses, phone numbers and photographs.

But her proudest achievement was her mobile phone – a device she invented that didn’t use a SIM card, didn’t bounce off cell towers and didn’t leave a digital footprint. Her invented technology also provided her with an unseen IP address that allowed her to travel the Web with impunity.

Vicky grew up in New York on Staten Island. She had a happy childhood until her parents both died when the second plane hit the second tower on 9/11. She was fourteen at the time, and from that moment forward her older brother Pete became her world.

Two summers ago, Pete was murdered outside a gay nightclub in Pensacola, Florida. Three homophobic predators killed him with their fists and baseball bats in an out of control beat down. The hate-filled assholes also killed Casey Cole, the good Samaritan who had rushed to Pete’s defense.

5.

Seated at his desk in FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., agent John McKenna hung up the landline then said to Tyler Douglas, the young agent seated across from him, “We’re putting you in charge of the Ripper case.”

Tyler, a third generation agent, didn’t know how to respond. His expertise was in cyber crime and for the past 17 months he had worked extensively on Russia’s ongoing interference in United States elections. His foremost goal had been to catch the Russian hacker dubbed the Master of Disguise, MOD. Many believed it was MOD who spearheaded Russia’s propaganda machine, spreading lies that included Hillary Clinton ran a child sex ring out of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant. MOD was Tyler’s white whale.

McKenna handed Tyler a large manila envelope. “That’s an overview of the Ripper’s case files. Rita Gonzalez – I take it you know Rita. She’ll be your second in command. She’ll get you up to speed. I’ll be honest with you. Catching this guy is like trying to catch a ghost.”

Blindsided, Tyler asked, “Why me?”

McKenna slid his chair forward. “Off the record. In case you haven’t heard, the piece of shit in the White House has an enemies list. You’re on it. You testified in the Impeachment mess and that means our Dear Leader sees you as disloyal. Did you see his tweet today? He actually thinks we’re giving the Ripper a pass because he’s killing Trump voters.

“The point is, word has come down that unless we catch this guy, here’s the thing. There’s only one shooter. The same gun was used each time. But that’s not the point. Look, like I was saying. Unless we catch him, people will lose their jobs. If one of those people happens to be you, hell, you’re halfway out the door already. It’s two birds with one stone. Capiche?”

Tyler leaned back in his chair and spread his arms. “I’m not a field agent. What the fuck?”

McKenna laughed. “It’s crazy, I know. Welcome to the new America.”

6.

​From his farm twenty miles southeast of LaFarge, Wisconsin, Neo-Nazi Lester Mudd spoke on the phone with his son, Sean “Spider” Mudd, an inmate at Redgranite Correctional Institution.

Spider served fifteen of twenty-five years for first degree manslaughter, a murder he committed in a drug deal gone bad. His parole was granted for three reasons: the prison psychologist believed him to be truly rehabilitated, he was a model inmate and the overcrowded prison needed to free up beds.

From her home in Los Gatos, Vicky listened in on the Mudds’ conversation and learned Spider planned to move back to the family farm and live with his father. She searched, found Spider’s mug shot and saw the swastika tattoos on his upper right arm.

She added the mug shot to her Lester Mudd file.