Cup O’Joe’s Internet Cafe 4309 Main Street, Philadelphia Wednesday, September 9, 9:30 A.M.
When Juan Paulo Delgado looked through the windows of the coffeehouse, he saw that the morning rush of business types was gone. The small caf? had a well-worn painted concrete floor and held ten round wooden tables, each with a pair of wooden chairs. There was a stainless-steel lip wide enough to hold a cup-and not much more-that was four feet off the floor and ran the length of the front picture windows. The windows overlooked the chairs on the sidewalk and, a block farther, offered a glimpse of the Schuylkill River. A wide wooden bar, with a dozen wooden stools, ran the length of the right wall to the rear of the caf?. And there, at the back, were four cubicles, each containing a desktop computer and flat-screen monitor that the caf? rented to customers in fifteen-minute increments of Internet online time.
Juan Paulo Delgado strode in through the wood-framed glass front door. A tan backpack was loosely slung over his right shoulder by one of its two straps. He wore sandals, desert camouflage pants with the lower legs off, making them into shorts, and a black T-shirt. The frames of his dark sunglasses wrapped so close to his face that they completely hid his eyes. The tight-fitting T-shirt accentuated his defined muscles and looked to be brand new. On the back across the shoulders, it was emblazoned with bold white type that read GET SLOSHED AT SUDSIE’S, and under that was a cartoon drawing of foam spewing from an oversize beer mug and a clothes-washing machine.
Delgado quickly but carefully scanned the coffeehouse.
A smattering of students and stay-at-home moms, chatting while their babies snoozed in strollers parked nearby, sat sipping lattes and iced coffees. Some clicked away at their laptop computers, using the wireless connection to the Internet. A paunchy middle-aged man wearing dark blue slacks, work boots, and a baby blue shirt embroidered with PETE’S PEST EXTERMINATORS was getting up from the far right of the four rental computers. He grabbed his paper cup of coffee and stepped out the back door, which led to a parking lot.
Two black teenagers, one male and one female, were working behind the counter. The male, who was six feet tall and rail thin to the point of being bony, took orders and ran the cash register while the girl, slightly overweight with a very round face, prepared the drinks.
There was no one in line, and Delgado walked right up to the register. As he did, he slid off his backpack and put it on the counter.
“Hey, brother,” Delgado said to the young man.
He unzipped an outer pocket on the backpack and pulled out a white fiberboard document-mailer envelope. It had FEDEX LETTER printed on it. Its top flap was sealed and there was an obvious bulge, indicating that it contained something other than a flat stack of papers.
The bony black clerk said, “What up, Cat? What can we brew for you? Maybe some trouble?”
He smiled, showing a mouthful of bright white teeth.
Delgado looked at the girl and said, “Usual, please.”
She nodded, and the coffee machine almost immediately began making the high-pressure hissing of steam being released.
As she worked, Delgado slipped the Federal Express envelope to the clerk. He took it and casually placed it under the counter. He then came back up with a brown paper sack the size of a lunch bag. Imprinted on it was FIND YOUR WORLD AT CUP O’JOE’S INTERNET CAF?. The sacks were provided to customers who bought muffins and sandwiches for takeout.
This bag was packed full, its top stapled shut.
“Our specialty sandwich,” the clerk said with another smile, this one suggesting it was an inside joke. “With our compliments.”
Delgado did not return the smile. Without a word, he simply placed the brown sack in his backpack and again slung the backpack over his shoulder.
The pudgy girl delivered his double espresso. Delgado took it, put four single dollar bills on the counter and one in the tip jar, then turned and walked toward the back of the caf?. In the middle of the room, he came upon an attractive olive-skinned brunette. She sat alone at a round table with her laptop and a coffee in a stoneware mug. She glanced up and smiled, her eyes catching his.
Delgado looked at her, then slowed his steps, as if he was going to stop. After a moment, he smiled back at her and picked up his pace, continuing toward the back of the room.
She cocked her head as she watched him walk away. Then she shrugged and returned her attention to her laptop screen-blissfully unaware of how close she’d just come to having her life turned tragically upside down.
Delgado put the backpack on the floor beside the chair in front of the far left computer. It was the computer nearest the wall and had a courtesy panel dividing it from the other monitors, affording the most privacy. He turned the monitor so its flat screen was completely out of sight of anyone else. Then he turned his chair so that he had a clear view of the front door.
He pulled out his cellular telephone and placed it beside the computer keyboard. He put his sunglasses there, too.
Then he reached into a pocket of his cut-off camo shorts and pulled out a computer memory device that was half the size of a stick of gum. The USB flash drive held a single file that was a computer program. The program could create a mirror image of the contents of a computer-everything from applications to data files-to use on any other similar computer. It was akin to carrying one’s computer around in the palm of one’s hand.
Delgado had set up the program on his flash drive to mirror a laptop that he kept locked in a safe at his converted-warehouse loft.
He also had the flash drive tethered with a plastic zip tie to a high-intensity butane cigar lighter, of the type advertised as “NASA Space Age Technology Windproof to 100 MPH!” If necessary, he could torch the chip into a molten-and unreadable-mass in seconds.
He inserted the flash drive into one of the two USB slots on the side of the flat-screen monitor, then hit the CONTROL, ALT, and DELETE keys all at once. That briefly shut down the computer, and its screen went black. Then he held the CONTROL and Z keys simultaneously as the computer restarted so it would load the program from the flash drive.
After a moment, the LCD screen lit up. He was looking at the same desktop image and icons that were on the laptop locked away in his loft safe.
He clicked on the icon for the Firefox Internet browser. In his computer coding class in high school, he’d learned that Firefox was a very intuitive and clean interface, far better than the crappy ubiquitous Internet Explorer. All those gee-whiz self-congratulatory messages-“IE Just Denied an Unknown Program Unauthorized Access!” or “IE Just Successfully Sold You Yet Another Program You Don’t Need!”-along with the other annoying inflated features made the program more sizzle than steak.
More important for Delgado, Firefox also had a far more complex code for security. Between the flash
drive and Firefox, he could encode and decode-then wipe absolutely clean-anything he did on the computer.