L.A. Bytes (30 page)

“Is that going to be a problem?”

Chris frowned. The server had more power than his old laptop, but he was going to have to make do. He mentally crossed his fi ngers that Martinez wouldn’t wonder why a guy who made his living with computers would send his in to a shop to be

“upgraded.” “Not enough to make a difference. Let’s get that coffee fi rst.”

Chris fi lled the biggest mug and topped it up with just enough cream and sugar to make it palatable. Like David, Martinez took his black. It must be a cop thing.

Back in his offi ce he went online, and downloaded everything from his Blackberry. Then he began the tedious task of sorting through the various log fi les he had created.

The fi rst thing he found was Sandman’s IP address. He ran it through Arin, the online database of IP owners, and found it was owned by one of the larger local ISPs. All that meant was
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that Sandman422 was one of hundreds, if not thousands of customers. Short of cracking their database, no easy trick given their reputation, there was no way to fi nd out any more just from the IP.

Other logs proved more useful. The collection of cookies gathered from every web site Sandman had visited proved very enlightening. Slowly Chris began to get a picture of the elusive man who had haunted his and David’s footsteps for so long.

“This actually means something to you?” Martinez peered over his shoulder, his face a mixture of disbelief and the keen distrust of a Luddite.

Chris took a gulp of scalding coffee, trying to blink away the sands of sleep. The trail of heat down his throat did precious little to revive him. He focused his thoughts enough to answer Martinez’s question. “A lot, actually. Each one of these,” he pointed at a scrap of captured data, “is a session cookie. It tells me not only what web sites he’s visited, but when.”

“Okay, fi ne. What does
that
tell you?”

“That this guy’s visiting a lot of cracker sites, for one thing,”

Chris said. “This is one I’ve heard about. It’s got some fi rst rate crackers hanging out there. Black Alice and The Hobbit are two I know of who put their shingles out there.”

“We already know this Sandman’s a hacker. So he goes to hacker sites. Big deal.”

“Depends why he’s going there.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that’s where crackers go to get code. And they can get help putting the complex stuff together.”

Martinez looked alarmed. “You got any guesses on what he’s doing?”

“Ever hear about a book called Black Ice? Guy named Dan Verton wrote it. He concocted a scenario where terrorists launch an attack combining physical and cyber weapons and showed how they could be used to cripple a whole region. Remember the L.A. BYTES
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2003 blackouts back east? Imagine if that had been followed up by a couple of truck bombs hitting a main gas pipeline or two.

Or a nuclear plant somewhere. Water, telephones, traffi c lights, grocery stores; no food deliveries, no radio stations online to let you know what’s happening, no emergency broadcast system—

everything shuts down. A guy I knew was out there when it hit.

You couldn’t even gas up your car to get out of town. If you can trigger a cascade failure you could take out the whole west coast with something like that—”

“And you think that’s what this guy’s doing?”

“I’m probably reaching,” Chris muttered. “But... do you want to take that chance? We know he hacked Ste. Anne’s. He has access to explosives. Whatever he’s up to, I guarantee it’s no good.”

“If you can get that out of this,” Martinez stabbed a thick fi nger at the monitor. “What else can you tell?”

Chris kept studying the logs. More cookies. More cracker sites.

Then... something else. EBay. An online bank. Chris fi red up his Firefox browser and entered the bank’s domain name. Back in the log, he extracted the bank cookie. Now he needed to fool the site into accepting the fake cookie as one it had generated. If he could do that...

The bank site opened with an error. Chris swore under his breath.

“That’s it, then,” Martinez said. “You can’t—”

Not so fast, Chris wanted to say. Instead he went into his program fi les and opened Internet Explorer, which he rarely used. This time the bank site opened into Sandman422’s account.

Chris stared at the numbers on the screen. He swallowed hard and looked up to fi nd Martinez watching him with fl at black eyes.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Uh, yeah. Listen, maybe you want to go out in the living room or something...” Chris trailed off. “So you don’t have to see anything illegal?”

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Martinez grunted. “Can you see the name on the account?”

“Should be able to.” Chris clicked each tab in turn until he came to one with customer information. He read off the screen.

“Adnan Behnia Baruq, Stocker Street...” He looked up to fi nd Martinez had gone very still.

“What was that name?”

“Adnan Ben—”

“That little shit,” Martinez said.

“You know him?”

“We’ve been chasing him all over fucking town.” Martinez scrubbed his face furiously.

Chris stared at him. “Why?”

“Bastard killed his mother. Poisoned her.” Martinez fl icked something off the sleeve of his jacket. “Cyanide.”

“From that to building bombs and trying to blow up hospitals?”

“Don’t forget the hacking shit. Guy’s fl exible.”

Poison. Chris shivered. There was something so intrinsically evil about someone using poison to kill another human being.

“I’m surprised they expect to get away with it.”

“It’s not routinely tested for. Unless there’s a reason to suspect it or the coroner sees something hinky.”

“Hinky?”

“Out of whack. She was diabetic. He was probably thinking we wouldn’t see past that.”

Chris kept fl icking through Sandman—Adnan’s—bank site.

Nice balance. “Nearly ten grand. This guy’s not hurting.”

“Especially considering his last job was slinging burgers.”

Martinez leaned over his shoulder. Chris could smell his sweat; his breath reeked of garlic and onions. “Could he have stolen it?”

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Chris shrugged. He opened up the transaction history page and studied the numbers. Not a lot of activity. But a half a dozen fi ve and six thousand dollar deposits and three noticeable withdrawals all in the last month.

“Wonder what he needed...” Chris counted it up in his head,

“twelve-thousand dollars for.”

“Maybe some of those other...cookies will tell you,” Martinez suggested.

“There was that eBay account. Maybe he bought himself some Jesus toast.”

Martinez looked at him strangely and Chris shrugged.

“If he was on eBay we may actually be able to see what he bid on—”

The house phone rang. He scooped it up. A male voice asked,

“Is David there?”

“W-who is this?”

“Brad Dortlander. I’m the forensics technician for the LAPD.”

“Why are you looking for David?”

The guy seemed hesitant. “Ah, he asked me to do some work for him...”

Chris thought of his server. Was that where David had taken it?

“What kind of work?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t discuss that—”

“David’s not here.”

“When do you expect him?”

Chris squeezed his eyes shut. Then they fl ew open and he glanced at his computer clock. “What are you doing calling him this time of night? What on earth did you fi nd that’s so important?”

268 P.A. Brown

Chris’s mind tracked fast and furious. This guy must have found his web bug and was calling to tell David about it. It hardly mattered now.

“He’s not here,” Chris repeated.

“Let him know I called—”

“I will.” Chris hung up. He glanced at Martinez. “You know a Brad Dortlander?”

“Who?”

“Never mind.”

Martinez stabbed his fi nger at the monitor. “Okay, you said something about fi nding out what he bought.”

“Right.” Chris hunched over his laptop and opened eBay. He immediately went to My eBay and selected Sign In. The cookie worked as designed, and populated his login fi elds with a user ID and password. He hit enter and was in. “Walk in the park,”

he crowed.

“Well let’s walk in and see what our Adnan was up to.”

After snooping around the site for several minutes, Chris sat back and rolled his aching head on his neck to relieve the pounding in his skull.

Something called a GeoDuct Conduit, brass caps and sealing tape. Purchased at different times. Chris’s skin felt clammy.

“You okay, Chris?” Martinez popped a mint into his mouth.

“You’re lookin’ kinda pale.”

“What the hell is this stuff for?” Chris stared at the screen.

Martinez’s heavy sigh belied his placid tone. “You got me.

Got anything else? He buying fertilizer? Ammonium nitrate?

Fuel? Oil?”

“What are those?”

“ANFO. It’s what McVeigh used in Oklahoma. Bombing 101

for good old boys.”

Chris shivered.

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“You know, you really don’t look good, Chris. Should they have let you out of the hospital this early?”

Chris shook his head, but he meant it to be more of an “I’m okay, let’s get on with it” kind of shake. It was a mistake. His head spun and nausea tightened its grip on him.

“
Dios
, man, you look green.”

Chris fi gured that was apt. He felt green.

Martinez shoved his cuff back and glared at his watch. “Listen, it’s late. Why don’t we take a short break, come back in say three, four hours. I think we can both use some rest.”

Chris rebelled at the idea. But even trying to focus on the big Latino set his already aching head to pounding. He knew Martinez was right. He had to rest.

“Okay if I stretch out there? Save me having to go all the way home and explain to the wife why I can’t stay.” Martinez pointed to the futon along the far wall. His face scrunched up in distaste at the idea as soon as he mentioned it.

Chris managed a weak grin. “It pulls out. I can get you some sheets—”

“Just show me where they are,” Martinez growled. “I’m more domestic than I look.”

Chris did just that, then dragged himself up the stairs. He barely paused long enough to strip off his jeans and Tee before he tumbled into bed. He knew he should be weirded out having David’s partner bunking in his offi ce, but he couldn’t raise any feelings whatsoever. He was out before his head hit the pillow.

Less than fi ve minutes later Martinez was growling at him again, only this time it was to “wake up.” Chris thrashed away from him on the bed, but Martinez was persistent. Finally Chris sat up.

“What?”

“It’s nearly eight.”

Chris grabbed his T-shirt off the fl oor where he had dropped it and slipped it on.

270 P.A. Brown

He looked at the bedside clock. Five hours? He’d been asleep for
fi ve hours
? Sleeping while David—

Panic gibbered behind his façade and it was all he could do not to start screaming. He was hyperventilating.

“Why’d you let me sleep so long?”

Martinez scrubbed his hand through his hair. An indentation on his cheek looked exactly like the watch on his wrist. His eyes were red-rimmed and sunken. They danced away from him and he realized Martinez wasn’t doing much better than Chris. “I slept in. Guess that thing was more comfortable than I expected.

Either that, or I was more tired.”

Chris knew how he felt. Even though he had slept for nearly fi ve hours, he barely felt rested at all. He could have kept on sleeping for hours more.

“Give me ten minutes.” A quick shower might help. “If you want, there’s a shower downstairs. There are towels in the same closet where the sheets were.”

Martinez grunted something and left Chris to his own jumbled thoughts.

Hot water, a fast shave and clean clothes left Chris feeling almost human. He found Martinez sitting at the kitchen table looking uncomfortable.

“What now?”

“Called the station. They got a BOLO out on David and Adnan. If anyone spots either of them they know to approach with caution.”

“That’s reassuring,” Chris muttered.

“No one’s going to do anything stupid and put one of their own at risk, if that’s what you think.”

Chris fi lled his mug with double-strength coffee and made his way to his offi ce.

He’d left his laptop on and only had to clear the screen saver and log back in. He pulled up the newest logs generated from the L.A. BYTES
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connection to Sandman/Adnan’s machine. Not a lot of activity, he noted. He told Martinez as much.

“Fits. He
was
otherwise occupied.” Martinez sipped his coffee.

“Go back to where he bought that equipment. What did he use?

A credit card?”

Chris did as directed. “Visa.”

Martinez grabbed the offi ce phone and dialed. Before the call could be completed, he hung up. “No, I gotta do this in person.”

He rubbed a mole on the side of his neck and blinked owlishly at Chris. “I’m going to have to run in to Northeast. I can start the process to get a subpoena for this guy’s fi nancials from there better than here. Maybe we can work out where some of that money went. This stuff had to be delivered, right? It might clue us in to where we can fi nd him.”

David too, went the unspoken comment. Neither of them wanted to dwell on where David was being held, and under what conditions. Chris fi gured they both had to keep on believing David was fi ne. That he only needed fi nding.

Chris saw Martinez out then locked the front door and visited the kitchen again, where he freshened his coffee, knowing he’d pay for the caffeine overdose later. He returned to his offi ce.

Back on his laptop, reading logs. Line after line of captured code. All he had to do was interpret it.

More session cookies. The machine name and IP address repeated several times. He wished he dared try to remote into Sandman/Adnan’s computer, but he knew someone like that would spot Chris in a heartbeat.