MIND FIELDS (21 page)

Kincade was silent for a brief moment.  It was hard to get the words out.  “I know.  I was there.”

“You what?”

“I was with him, Chief.  That bomb was meant for me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Richie.  You remember a guy name of Aldo Echeverria?”

“Echeverria...Echeverria...wasn’t that some drug dealer Hank busted by accident a couple of years back?”

“Yeah.  It was the case of that auto de-chipping ring in Anne Arundel County.  Hank was tracking down a rash of de-chipped cars used in petty crimes.  He discovered that they were all done at this auto shop in Anne Arundel.  Echeverria was the owner of the shop.  Turned out he was using the cars to smuggle drugs.  Hank stumbled into this department’s biggest drug bust of the decade.”

“What’s that have to do with this?  He got twelve years in the state pen, didn’t he?  He should be safely locked away.”

“I just got off the phone with an Agent James O’Grady at the NSA.  Apparently, they were keeping an eye on you after your shenanigans at BNI.  One of their surveillance teams spotted Echeverria messing around with Unit Five just before the explosion.  Seems he just got out of the pen a couple of weeks ago and had Hank in his sights, wanted to send a message.  You know how those drug runners are.  They don’t forget someone who gets in their way.”

“So where’s the weasel now?”

“In the morgue.  The NSA agent chased him down right after the bomb went off, but Echeverria resisted arrest.  He took two bullets in the head.”

Kincade thought a moment.  “Sounds a little too neat to me, Chief.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Listen, Chief.  Do you think you can get a hold of that O’Grady fellow?  Try and convince him that I’m minding my own business.  Tell him that you talked to me and I got the message loud and clear, would you?”

“Did you?”

“Of course, Chief.  I’m just using the free time to help out a friend, you know?”

“Yeah, right.  Listen, Richie.  Watch your back.”

  “Thanks, Chief.”

__

The cab pulled into Sandi’s driveway.  Kincade paid the fare and they went inside.

“I’m telling you, you’re not going to find anything.  Maybe Guy’s not being totally up front with me about everything, maybe all the sweet talk was just to get into my pants, but he’s no super sleuth.  He’s got the brains of a Neanderthal, but he’s real sweet, you know?”

“Uh huh.” Kincade was trying to be polite.

Even Sandi doubted the words coming out of her mouth. “Even if he did want to steal the data off my computer, nobody knows my access codes,” she said while waiting for the computer to boot up.  “Here we go.  Let’s have a look.”

She pulled her desk chair up to the monitor, and Kincade looked over her shoulder.  “Computer, access Internet logs.  Display all uplinks initiated from this location between twelve PM and three AM for the past two years.”

She looked over her shoulder.  “I’m telling you, it’ll come up empty.  Guy never goes near this thing and
I’m
always asleep by eleven.”

Within a few seconds, the computer responded.  “There are no entries that match the specified search criteria.”

Sandi smiled and breathed a sigh of relief.  “There, satisfied?”

“Mind if I have a go at it?”

Sandi shrugged her shoulders and stood up, offering the chair to Kincade.  “Computer, access OS Internet log, same search criteria.”

“Access denied.”

“See,” he said to Sandi, “the programmers put a hidden file in the operating system that keeps a log of all Internet sites accessed from the computer. They don’t really want you to know about it, and even if you do it’s almost impossible to access.”

“You mean they keep a record of all of my personal use and hide it from me?”

“Yup.”

“What for?”

“For security reasons.”

“Who’s security?  Certainly not mine.”  Sandi was brilliant, but still naive when it came to the ways of the business world.  She was offended at the thought of someone recording all of the intimate details of her personal life.

“For times like this,” Kincade said as he slipped a disc into the micro drive. He waited for the deciphering program to load.

“Computer, access OS Internet log, same search criteria,” he repeated to the computer.

This time the results were different.  A large file several pages long came up on screen listing hundreds of Internet sites.  Sandi stared wide-eyed at the list.

“Computer,” Richie said, “eliminate all entries with the words ‘sex’, ‘babes’ or ‘hot’ in them.”

Sandi started to object, but held back, mouth agape, as she watched the list shrink dramatically.

“Well, you sure can learn a lot about someone from this, can’t you?” Sandi said, obviously offended at the thought that Guy had been using her computer to frequent adult Web sites.

Richie felt sorry for her.  Obviously, Guy wasn’t quite the person she had imagined him to be.

The list was considerably smaller.  Some of the calls to BNI were now apparent, but numerous other Web sites remained on the list.  It was apparent that Guy spent a good deal of time surfing the Web in the middle of the night while Sandi slept.

“Computer, display only sites containing ‘BNI’ in their name.”

Once again, the list condensed quickly, displaying numerous uplinks to BNI’s Intranet.

“I’ll be damned.”  Sandi looked at the list on the screen, which was now identical to the file that Richie had shown her in the car.  Every Saturday morning at two AM, this computer had called a computer at BNI and uploaded her work files.  Every week since Guy had moved in, this computer had been used to give all of her work to her major competitor.  “Right under my nose,” she sighed.

“How often do you change your access codes?”

“Every month, and I never give them to anyone.  Could he have been getting them off the computer somehow?”  She was starting to believe that maybe Guy knew a lot more about computers than she had given him credit for.

  “Not likely.  Even with a program to break the encryption codes, it can take hours to break the encryption system that this software uses.  The programmers aren’t always up front about what they put on your hard drive, but they do try to keep it safe.  If it was easy to steal personal data from a PC, then no one would feel safe using one and the programmers would be out of business.”

“Then how is he doing it?”

Kincade walked over to the sofa on the other side of the room and sat next to Sandi.  “Tell me about your Friday nights.  What’s your routine?”

Sandi blushed.

“Sorry to pry, but there’s got to be a clue, something that he’s using to gain access, and since it’s always on Friday nights, that seems to be the place to start looking.”

“Well,” Sandi thought, “I’m afraid I’m really very boring.”  She was embarrassed to admit how poor her social life was when Guy was not around.  “Fridays are really tough days for me, getting everything tied up at the lab for the weekend.  I usually don’t get home until about seven or eight, and by then Guy’s long gone.  He plays down at the club every Friday night.  He’s usually not back until after one in the morning.”

She stopped briefly, realizing that the timing would be perfect for him to go to the computer as soon as he gets in from work, with her sound asleep and unaware of his late night activity.  “I just thought he was being thoughtful by not waking me.”  Her voice started to break. 

“Take your time, I know this can’t be easy.” Richie said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Like I said, I’m exhausted when I get in.  I fix a quick bite to eat, take my insulin shot and then watch a little TV until I crash at about ten o’clock.  That’s it, I’m afraid.  Like I said…boring.”

Richie raised an eyebrow.  “Insulin?”

“I guess you don’t know
everything
about me, Detective, huh?”

  “How often do you take your shot?”

  “Oh, it’s that new stuff, Synthulin.  You only have to take it once a week.  It’s great.  When I was a kid I used to have to take a shot every night.  Boy, did I learn to hate needles.  But now, with this new synthetic insulin, I only have to take one shot a week.  I keep it in the fridge and every Friday night like clockwork, I...”

  “Every Friday night, eh?”

  “Of course!”  Sandi smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand.  “It would be so easy for him to...Look, I keep the stuff in the refrigerator.  That’s no big secret.  All Guy would have to do is to slip a little Allohypnol into the vial while I’m at work.”

“Allohypnol?”

“Yes. It’s a hypnotic drug, real potent stuff.  It was developed by the military, but it’s not that hard to get, especially for a guy with connections like JT Anderson. Allohypnol renders the subject highly suggestive.  With that in my system, Guy could talk me into doing anything.”

“Like accessing your files and uploading them to BNI.”

“Yup, he could wake me in the middle of the night, get me to upload the files and I wouldn’t remember a thing in the morning.”

“So why don’t we test that insulin vial of yours?  Let’s see if the drug is in there.”

“It’s not that easy, I’m afraid. The drug rapidly degrades once injected into an aqueous environment.”

“You lost me, Doc.”

“Aqueous...water.  Once it’s injected into the vial containing the liquid solution my insulin is in, it would degrade in a matter of hours.

“So he’d have to inject it into the vial every Friday.”

“As long as he does it within twelve hours of the time I inject myself, it would still be active.  Once it’s in my system, it would stay active for several hours more.  I’d be like fruit, ripe for the picking when he gets home at one in the morning.”

“Well, it is Friday, isn’t it?  What time does Guy usually head downtown for work.”

“Of course.”  Sandi smacked her forehead again.  “Ouch!”

“I’d stop doing that if I were you.  You’re going to make it bleed again.”

“Bad habit.  Maybe that scrape on my forehead will cure me of it.”  She rubbed gently around the sore on her forehead.  “Damn, that hurt.”

“Could have been a lot worse,” Richie said, thinking about Hank.

“Yeah,” Sandi sighed.  “Anyhow, Guy usually splits around twelve-thirty or one in the afternoon so that he can grab a late lunch down by the Inner Harbor.  He must inject the Allohypnol into my insulin vial right before he leaves.”

“If that’s the way he’s doing it.”

“There’s one way to find out.”

Sandi called next door to Mrs. Flannery.  The elderly woman had a ten year old Camry, but hated to drive.  Sandi often ran errands for her and she was only too happy to loan the car to Sandi.  It was nice to be able to do a favor in return, she had said.

Sandi grabbed the vial of Synthulin on the way out the door.  “A friend of mine over at Hopkins can run this through an analyzer in a second.”

They drove to Hopkins, and just as Sandi suspected, the vial contained Allohypnol. 

“Look, Doc, maybe you shouldn’t go back home tonight.”

“Don’t be crazy.  I can handle Guy.  Besides, he won’t know that I know what he knows.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

Sandi looked at Richie and smiled.  “You’re sweet.  Why can’t I find a man like you?”

“Keep your eyes on the road, young lady.”  Richie was more concerned that she’d catch him blushing than he was about getting into an accident.  It was pretty flattering to have a younger woman pay him a compliment like that, especially one that he found increasingly more attractive as he got to know her.  With the passing years, his waist was growing faster than the graying hair on his head.  It had been a long time since any woman other than his wife had noticed him.

Kincade checked in with the chief as they drove.  The bomb squad had checked out Sandi’s car; it came up clean.  The two of them stopped by to pick up the car, and Richie drove it back, following behind the old, reliable Camry.  He tried again to talk Sandi into accepting some protection, but his protests were in vain.  They dropped off Mrs. Flannery’s car, and then Sandi drove Richie home before returning to prepare for the evening.

Chapter eighteen

Trace McKnight was watching the breaking news on the TV screen in his Buick LeSabre.  He had just pulled into his driveway, but left the car running to savor the moment.  It hadn’t taken the news crew long to converge on the scene of the blazing vehicle just outside of Lexington Market.  The smoke from the wreck that had been the Baltimore Police Department’s Unit Five billowed high into the sky and out of the frame of the small TV screen.  Trace smiled; he was proud of his work.

“One officer is dead,” the reporter said, “and another officer injured at the scene. There was at least one civilian reported injured as well, but both the injured officer and the civilian have left the scene.  The degree of their injuries is undetermined, and their identities remain unknown.  The body in the car was …”

The ring from Trace’s car phone temporarily cut off the sound from the TV.

“Shit,” he said, annoyed at the interruption.  “Answer call,” he said to the computerized phone.

The face of James O’Grady appeared on the screen.

“Well, Uncle Jimmy.  What a pleasant surprise.”

O’Grady didn’t look too happy. “What kind of crap are you trying to pull, Trace?  I told you to stay away from Kincade. You’re gonna take a toothless cop and turn him into a media darling.  With press support, this guy can knock our legs out from under us.  Use your head, would you?”

“Well,” Trace said, “news travels fast, eh?  Do you have your TV on?  Our problems have just gone up in smoke.”

“They don’t put everything on TV, you know.  The fried corpse in that car was a BPD detective, name of Hank Holiday.  He was Kincade’s partner.”

Trace went white.  “But I saw him …”

“You saw wrong, and what’s more important is you
thought
wrong.  Initiative is only a good thing when it’s used at the right time; breaching my orders is
not
the right time.”

  Trace was fuming.  He was sure that he had nailed Kincade.  Failure did not come often, and he didn’t like the feeling.

“Don’t make the same mistake twice, Trace.  One dead cop will have the police force on full alert. Two dead cops and we’ll be so thick in blue that we won’t be able to make a move in this town without them knowing about it.”

James O’Grady stared at Trace through the video screen.  It was a cold, piercing stare, the kind that made it clear who was in charge.  This was Commander O’Grady’s face, not Uncle Jimmy’s.  Trace was not the first who had been frozen by those eyes.  He knew better than to speak.

“It’s like a chess game, kid.  We make the right moves and Kincade gets knocked off the board; everyone forgets a player once he’s out of the game.  We make the wrong move and everyone on the other side knows just what we’re up to. Let’s not make a martyr of this guy, huh.  We don’t want anyone wondering what he was snooping around for.”

Trace nodded.

“Nuff said.  You’re doing a heck of a job, Trace, but you’ve still got a few things to learn.  You stick to the tech stuff and let me handle the chess game.”

The transmission clicked off and the TV news came back on screen.  “We now return to our regular programming.”

Trace reached to turn off the car, then pulled back.

“Phone access,” he said.

“What number please?”