Death of Secrets (25 page)

Colleen expelled a gigantic sigh, and paused to root around in
the bushes by the side of the building. As she searched, she said, "It's
not that I'm defending Jakarta, Kathy. If I could get my hands around his neck
right now I'd strangle him. But I was right there. I saw the code on that flash
drive. And I'm telling you no hacker wrote that. This is not Jakarta's
invention. The GigaStar source code is
so
obviously the work of a
corporate programming department there's no way it can be missed. If the feds
have anyone competent look at that flash drive – and I have to admit, Jacobs
seems pretty competent – it'll stick out like a sore thumb. They'll see it
right away as soon as they look at the evidence."

"Colleen," her roommate interrupted, "what are
you doing?"

"Finding this!" she replied, turning around and
holding the flash drive up in triumph. "I knew it had to be down here
somewhere."

Mike stared at the gleaming flash drive case. "Did it
survive the fall?"

Colleen shrugged. "Might be a scratch or two, or maybe
not. Either way, most of it will be recoverable with some expert work."

As they walked back to the street, eventually coming to rest at
a small, covered bus stop, Mike asked, "What makes you so sure it wasn’t
written by Jakarta?"

Colleen replied, "Look, the difference between corporate
source code and a hacker's programming is that a hacker is like an artist,
demonstrating his prowess, in love with the language and wanting to demonstrate
all its uniqueness. But someone working in big business doesn't have that
luxury. Their boss doesn't want them wasting resources on frivolous new ways of
doing things when the existing methods work. "

Michael nodded slowly. "OK, OK. But Colleen…" He
trailed off and let his eyes wander for a bit before continuing. "Look,
I've known D.W. all my professional life. It’s fair to call him my mentor. He
gave me my first job in politics. He taught me what goes into winning an
election, that you never hear about on the news because it’s too boring. He
made my first campaign for office possible. I mean, just the other day I was
telling myself that he'd lost the idealism we used to have about politics, but
this is a totally different thing altogether. It's hard for me to believe that
someone I've known for this long is doing something this devious."

Kathy watched him intently as he talked, and gave him her most
reassuring smile when he finished. She didn't enjoy seeing the disagreement
between her roommate and her… friend, boyfriend, whatever. She was fairly
certain that Colleen was right – that Mike's friend had turned out to be a real
scumbag – but she knew it would be hard for Mike to deal with. Kathy was hoping
Colleen would be gentle about it, and let Mike come to the realization in his
own way rather than backing him into a corner. She was still holding Mike's
gaze and smiling when she caught sight of some motion over his shoulder and saw
John coming down the sidewalk toward them.

She ran to greet him without saying a word to the other two.
They turned to watch her go, then faced each other and shrugged simultaneously.
Then Mike saw John, and understood.

Kathy wrapped him in a fierce bear hug. "John, what
happened to you? What happened to your eye? Oh, look at you!"

"It's OK, Kathy. Those federal guys Nathan left me with
had a guy treat it, it's just a little cut. I got worse than this on the
football field," he lied.

Mike walked up. "John! You look terrible!"

Kathy heard her roommate clear her throat behind her.
"Oops, forgetting my manners again. John, this is Colleen, my
roomie."

They shook hands, and the bouncer related his tale in
abbreviated form. When he finished, Colleen blurted out, "But that’s
great! Um, no, I mean, not great that you got beat up. But great that you’ve
seen their headquarters. Where was it?"

John looked her up and down. Announcing that it was great that
he’d been tied in a chair while getting kicked wasn’t a great way to start a
friendship. But on the other hand, Kathy vouched for her.

"Well, that’s something I wanted to talk to you about,
privately," he said, looking Mike in the eye. "But since Colleen
wants to go into their location, maybe I should just say it here?"

Mike blinked. "What? Was their location in my office or
something?"

John shook his head. "No, but it was in the office of the
guy you come to the Neon with all the time. He was there too, standing there
looking smug when Carlos was about to beat me senseless. He left before the
beatings started, but I don’t believe for a second that he had any doubt what
was going on."

Mike’s face looked like a dam broke – like the problem he’d
hoped would be gone when he woke up from the dream had suddenly announced it
was real. He looked like a kid who’d been hearing rumors about Santa Claus,
whose parents finally told him the truth. He wasn’t looking at anything in
particular when he said, "Tall pudgy guy, thinning hear, likes to wear
nice suits." He didn’t even bother to put it as a question. News this bad
just had to be true.

John nodded. "Yup. Works at a place called Electron
Guidewire."

Colleen pumped her fist up and down. "I
knew
it!"

Kathy gave her a hard stare, warning her to reign in the
gloating, and wrapped her arm around Mike’s shoulder.

***

Jacobs found his way to the coffee shop Franken specified over
the phone, and pulled the car to the side of the road. Finding parking was a
lot easier at this hour of night. Jacobs still couldn't help but chuckle over
that. It wasn't every day he scheduled a meeting after midnight. But Franken
was a night shift detective, apparently, and that meant he kept odd hours.

Walking in, Jacobs found the usual Georgetown food service
establishment – tables closely crowded and college students together in little
knots, holding animated conversations about universal truth or pot or whatever
college kids talked about these days. It had been quite some time since Jacobs
had gone out for late night coffee to discuss the meaning of life with fellow
students.

He asked the waiter whether there was a detective Franken here,
and got shown to his table. Franken turned out to be a pretty big guy, Jacobs
noted at once. The small tables were crowded too close together for him to sit
comfortably without moving something out of the way. The cop was deep in an
animated conversation on his cell phone, but greeted Jacobs with a nod and a
wave of his coffee cup. Jacobs slid into a chair, brushing against an
attractive redheaded girl seated behind him, and politely waited for Franken to
finish.

Finally Franken clicked off his phone. "Sorry about
that," he said. "That was the wife – she was expecting me to be home
tonight, me supposedly being off duty and all." He gave Jacobs a pointed
stare. "But that’s life, huh? Let’s get to business. What do you know
about Katherine Kelver?"

Jacobs replied, "Basically, she's an innocent bystander
who accidentally got caught in a major electronic crime investigation we just
rolled up."

Franken raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"

Nate nodded. "Yeah. A hacker we've wanted for some time –
goes by the name of Jakarta – stole a flash drive from a company that's an NSA
contractor. Jakarta steals this flash drive, but in the process it accidentally
ends up in Kelver's hands. Don't have that part cleared up yet. Anyway, he
spends a long time trying to get it back from her, finally gets her to his
place, and uses it to break into the company, modifying one of their software
products."

Jacobs was scratching his ear. "I think I can clear up
that part about how Kathy got the flash drive."

"Really? I'd love to hear that."

Jacobs nodded. "OK, apparently someone working with or for
this Jakarta guy steals the flash drive. But he's not supposed to take it right
to Jakarta. Apparently your little hacker's a paranoid fellow. He's supposed to
pass it to a guy living on Q Street in Georgetown. That guy will then take it
to a rendezvous in a parking garage, from where, I assume, it's supposed to be
passed on to your guy. Only thing is, someone shoots the original thief, just
as he's about to make the pass to the Q street guy – who I've interviewed. So
Kathy finds the dead guy right after he's been shot, and gets the flash
drive."

Jacobs frowned. "Wait a second, if the guy holding the
flash drive was one of Jakarta's people, who shot him?"

Franken shrugged. "That's what I've been after. That's my
suspect. Hearing your side of the story, I guess the logical assumption is that
Jakarta’s guy got shot by the people he stole the flash drive from, trying to
get it back."

Nathan gritted his teeth. This was a
real
wrinkle in
things. At the very least, EG was going to be in trouble for the lengths to
which they went to recover their flash drive. At worst – maybe Colleen was
right, and they were trying to pull something over on the NSA. "What else
do you know?" he asked.

"Not much," Franken said. "Kelver called in a
possible homicide about five days ago. But when I got there, the body was gone.
Then, I met with her and asked if she knew anything else, but she said she
didn't. Anyway, a lot earlier tonight, I got a call on
another
homicide
in Georgetown. Not usual, you know? So I go to the scene, this elderly couple
has been murdered. I check out their house, and I see that someone has used
their bed as a place to take potshots – there's brass on the bedspread, and
it's rumpled like somebody's been lying there. I look out the window that the
bed is next to, and I see there's a clean line of sight right to the place
Kathy said she found the body."

Franken paused to drink some coffee, then said, "I go to
interview the yap whose place the first guy got shot out front of. He doesn't
want to talk, but I get it out of him – seems he was supposed to take delivery
of a flash drive."

Jacobs nodded. "The one that Kathy picked up off the dead
guy."

"Yeah. But when the guy got killed, our little courier
freaked out, and took off. So I didn't get to talk to him the night Kathy
called it in. But tonight, he breaks down and tells me everything he knows. It
isn't much. Just that he's working for some guy named Jakarta, and was to bring
the flash drive to a certain parking garage. So I finish my interview and go
there. Who do I find but Kathy Kelver. That's what set all my instincts off.
But she won't tell me jack, acts like she wants to get rid of me. Well, from
there I went to her dorm room, and that's how I got in contact with you."

Franken finished his tale and Jacobs simply nodded at him. The
cop felt a bit of anger rising because the federal guy didn't seem to care.
"Well, I guess the case is in your hands now."

Jacobs shook himself out of his reverie. "Yeah, but you
just made it a lot more complicated. I gotta make some calls."

Franken smirked. "Well, I'd like to talk to Kelver for
some follow up notes, just to kind of wrap up our involvement, since this is
going to be a federal matter now. Do you know where she is?"

Jacobs looked up from his cell phone and said, "I left her
back at the scene where we collared Jakarta. I assume she's still there, you
can probably find her there." He gave the address of the apartment
building.

Franken stood up. He dropped a business card on the table,
saying, "If you federal guys still need anything from us, let me
know." With that, he walked away.

Nathan didn't even look up. He dialed Carlos Saglieri's number
at EG. He listened for quite some time until the voice mail picked up, but
didn't leave a message. Frustrated, he clicked off his phone. He needed to talk
to Carlos or Tilman now. From what Franken had to say, their methods of trying
to recover their flash drive were way above and beyond accepted norms, to put
it mildly. At the very least, it would cause a big problem with the GigaStar
vote. At worst, he might have to turn them over to the FBI.

Where had Carlos gone? Jacobs had expected he'd wait at his
desk for news of the bust. At the very least, they usually kept a security
staff on all night, who should have answered the phone. Growing more and more
curious, he clicked his phone back on and dialed Tilman at home.

There was no answer there, either.

Franken drove his square, rusting Jeep Cherokee over to the
apartment building Jacobs had named. His official car was actually more
comfortable for him than his own vehicle – a Ford Crown Victoria with a nice
bench seat. But those were the breaks. He’d left the unmarked car at the
precinct when he went off shift, so now he was stuck in the jeep.

It wasn’t long before he spotted the FBI vehicles parked out
front, one with a bubble siren stuck on top of the roof. Franken pulled in
behind it.

He got out of his car and looked at the building. It looked
about five stories tall, which was about average height for a DC apartment
building. He liked the look of the place, actually. The old, almost Victorian
architecture breathed fresh air into the midst of the plain square boxes that
made up most of the office and living space in this town.

He was about to walk inside when he caught sight of Kathy
Kelver, about a block down the street. She was in the middle of a small gaggle
of people. It wasn't Kathy who really caught his eye, though. It was the men
holding guns.

Franken had spent enough time on the streets to know it wasn't
safe to stand there and gawk. If he drew attention to himself, the gunmen would
turn on him. But on the other hand, he didn't want to miss whatever was going
on here. Quickly, he stepped back inside his car. He pulled the door most of
the way shut but didn't fully close it, not wanting to risk the noise that
would make. Then he rolled down the window a crack, in case there was anything
to hear. He barely had time to realize he was in his private vehicle and didn’t
have a radio when he saw Kathy and the rest of the group being herded into a
car.

***

Mike slumped against the Plexiglas bus stop, shoving his hands
in his pockets. "I just can’t believe D.W. would do this," he
muttered.

The voice that replied wasn’t Kathy’s, Colleen's, or John’s.
"Whatever you can or can’t believe, it doesn't change the fact that you
all will be coming for a ride."

They all whirled in unison to see Carlos Saglieri – Rat Face,
to Kathy – holding a gun on them. Four armed men in combat fatigues flanked
him, with matte black, oily, ugly looking guns. "No games this time,"
he said. "No chances to run or to fight back. Just pile in the van and do
as we tell you."

The air went out of Kathy and her friends like a deflating
balloon. So much energy was spent in the escape from Jakarta and the argument
with Jacobs that none of them possessed the reserves to resist now. Kathy's
shoulders dropped to a slump. Colleen sighed. Mike expelled a short curse. Only
John tensed his muscles and whirled around.

"Ah," Carlos said when he saw John. "You and I
just keep running into each other. Well, this time will be the last, I think.
My boss wants to see you. I think he wants to make you all a deal."

He gave a signal, and each of his four accomplices moved into
position next to Kathy, Colleen, John and Mike. As one, each man wrapped an arm
around the neck of his target.

Kathy started to scream, but in the next instant he stuffed a
rag into her open mouth. It covered her nose as well. She worked her tongue,
trying to get the rag out, but he held it firmly in place. She didn't even
notice the smell until she tried to breathe in. As soon as she did, she passed
out.

Mike, Colleen and John had similar experience. Maybe it was the
fact of seeing him again so soon after John accused Tilman. Or maybe it was
Jacobs' unwillingness to agree with Colleen.

For whatever reason, as he passed out, Mike's last thought was
that he finally knew where he had seen Carlos before. He'd been the man in the
car wreck. The man who pulled a gun on him and told him not to call the police.
And D.W. had been right there, agreeing right away that there was no need to
call the police.

When the chloroform took effect, each black-clad man dragged one
of them into the van. They pulled away from the curb and headed back toward
Virginia.

He never noticed the sport utility vehicle that pulled away
from the curb just as he did.

***

Sam Franken pounded the dash board as he used every four-letter
word in his vocabulary. Every time he thought he understood what was happening,
something new turned up.

Judging by what Mr. NSA had to say, he thought this was about
wrapped up. The evil Mr. Hacker was behind bars, and this was supposed to be
over. Yet here was Ms. Kelver again, being led away at gunpoint – and drugged,
by the look of that little scene. Were these the same people she'd been with in
that parking garage? Some of them looked the same, but some of them looked
different. And she
probably
got into that van in the garage voluntarily,
although he couldn't be sure. But this time, she was definitely going for a
ride against her will.

When he saw the little scene where Kathy and her friends got
chloroformed, Franken’s first instinct had been to reach under the dashboard
for his radio. His hand had groped around there twice, closing only on thin
air, before he remembered he was in his private car. He ground his teeth
together and spat out a profanity. Procedure was crystal clear here. Call for
backup, set up a road block, and negotiate for the hostages – which is what
Kathy looked like to him.

But without a radio, all that went out the window.

Franken jammed his hand savagely into the pocket of his
windbreaker, and drew out his cell phone. He punched the power button, and
heard the low battery tone. That drew an even more vile curse than he’d used
yet tonight. Hoping against hope, Franken dialed the direct number for
Lieutenant Washington’s desk, but as he punched in the last few numbers the
phone went dead.

As the van pulled away from the curb, he threw his dead cell
phone across the car, where it bounced off the passenger side door. Bitterly
cursing his long phone call to his wife, Franken stared at the van’s receding
tail lights.

For precious seconds, he simply froze. Judging by what Jacobs
told him, less than 100 feet away he would find a whole gaggle of FBI agents,
who could easily get him some back up. But if he went to find them, he’d lose
sight of the van. On the other hand, to keep track of the van, he’d have to
tail it. Alone. And the van held four armed men who seemed to have little to no
compunction about violence.

He reached for the door to go looking for the FBI men, changed
his mind, and jerked the key around in the ignition. Stomping on the gas, he
sprinted off after the van, which had gained three blocks on him while he sat
there.

So, the federal agents were wrong – surprise surprise. And that
meant that little old Sam Franken, newly minted detective on the MPD, was stuck
holding the bag. Aloud he muttered, "Typical."

Franken hung on the van's tail as it crossed the Potomac into
Virginia, despite the fact that he was traveling outside jurisdiction. His
badge might not get him very far out here, but he didn't plan on showing his
face. He planned to evade, observe, and call in backup at the very first
opportunity when he could find a phone and not lose sight of the van.

He reached for the jumbo-sized cup of coffee in the cup holder
– long since gone cold. He treated himself to a stale sip.

***

At three o'clock in the morning, the EG parking lot showed not
a single sign of life. The building was dark; the parking lot was empty. Even
the security guards had been sent home. Not a single office light gleamed
through a window. And in a dark colored van, Carlos Saglieri chauffeured four
unconscious people around to the loading dock in back.

The other mercenaries had been dropped off at a prearranged
location, the better to keep them from ever knowing for whom Carlos worked.
Tilman had been very specific about never letting the hired help know anything
about EG.

The spartan loading dock offered few amenities, but few were
needed. A bare cement set of stairs led up to a steel door. One at a time,
Carlos dragged Kathy and her friends up the steps and into the building. He
hauled them into the elevator and up to his office, where each was left lying
on the floor, hands and feet secured.

Tilman walked into the office. Carlos was sitting in his desk
chair, guarding the prisoners and catching his breath from the work of pulling
four unconscious people to the top of a five story building. The boss’s
eyebrows went up.

"Got them all, I see. No trouble?"

"No trouble. How do you want to handle this?"

"I would prefer not to lose a vote for GigaStar if I don’t
have to," Tilman replied. "So I’m going to talk to Mike, and I want
him predisposed to agree with me."

***

Sam Franken longed for some coffee. Stale, cold, bitter – it
didn’t matter. He just wished for some coffee. But even if he had his car here,
the cup in it was drained.

He’d followed the van to the headquarters of Electron Guidewire
in northern Virginia, but had thought it would be a little too obvious if he
just pulled into the parking lot right behind them. So he parked his car a couple
blocks over, and walked the rest of the distance.

He’d felt naked walking across the parking lot, absolutely
certain that surveillance cameras were tracking his every move. As he walked
past uncounted yellow lines, vacant of any vehicles, the one thought Franken
kept having was that he shouldn’t have to do this alone. He should have been on
duty, not taken his stupid friend’s shift during the day. He should have had a
radio. He should have called for backup. He definitely should not be walking
unprotected through a heavily monitored parking lot, the only blue suit for
miles, and not even wearing his blue suit.

He couldn’t have known that his worries were groundless. The
guards who normally watched those cameras had all been sent home early tonight,
the better to keep their minds free of unnecessary and dangerous information.

Once he’d reached the building itself, keeping right next to
the wall let him feel much more secure, even though he knew that if there were
cameras around, they could see him as easily here as they could in the lot. But
there was something unsettling about being the only moving figure in such a big
open space.

He’d crept around the building, trying to ignore the
spine-tingling feeling of being on camera, wondering just where the van had
gone. He peeked around the corner of the back side of the building and found
it. He’d arrived in time to see the last body being pulled out of the van and
into the service door.

He kept his head back until he heard the door slam shut, then
looked again. No one was in sight. He’d walked up to the van and looked inside,
only to find it completely empty. Turning to the service door, Franken walked
up and found it locked. Frustrated, he chewed his lip, wished for some coffee,
and thought for a while. He had just decided it was time to go for a phone when
he heard the sound of another car.

His ears told him it was coming from his left, so he moved to
his right to keep out of sight behind the van. A luxury sedan pulled up near
the stairs to the service door, and a man climbed out. The light made it
impossible to recognize facial features. The man left his car and walked up the
stairs to the service door.

Silently, Franken came out from behind the van, watching the
man’s back as he opened the door. When he did, the light from inside showed him
a dark gray business suit and thinning brown hair, but still not enough to have
any chance of identifying him. That didn’t matter. The important thing was that
by opening the door, he offered Franken a way into the building.

The detective sought a balance of speed and silence as he
rushed toward the door, but still his footfalls echoed loudly in his ears. The
door swung gradually shut behind the tall man, and Franken measured the
distance against the time it would take to fully shut. He gave up a bit more
silence to get there on time.

His fingers slipped around the handle just before the door
latch seated, and he tugged it back open just a hair. If the tall man had heard
him, there’d soon be some sign of it from inside. When no sign came, Franken
pulled the door open a crack and looked inside. He saw his quarry turning a
corner at the end of a service corridor.

Franken slipped inside and trotted down the hall, past storage
crates and undecorated walls. When he reached the corner, he peeked around it
to see another door at the end. Praying that it didn’t lock, he ran up to the
door.

It was a double wooden door, and the nice finish on the wood
set it apart from the otherwise barren service corridor. His caution got the
better of him, and Franken pressed his eye to the slight gap between the two
doors, checking for danger.

Beyond he saw a wide foyer, clearly the way people were
supposed to enter the building. The dim lighting kept much of the area in
shadow, but Franken made out a reception desk, or perhaps a security desk, the
doors to the front of the building – which he’d been looking at as he crossed
the parking lot – and a bank of three elevators. The tall man stood before one
of them, waiting. He watched as the elevator doors slid silently open. The tall
man went in, and the doors closed behind him.

"Leave now," Franken muttered aloud. "Go back
out the door and go for backup." He trotted back to the service entrance,
pushed on the door, and swore under his breath. Locked. For a moment he stood
there, not knowing what to do. At every step of this thing, the proper
procedure was to get help, and lots of it. But he was stuck here, alone, with
at least one girl unconscious and in need of help somewhere in the building.
Wincing, he turned around and went back the way he’d come.