Spyder Web (23 page)

‘It was no trouble, Herr Mosley. How can I help you in your investigation?’

Mosley could see from the look on her face that the incident still troubled her. ‘As I said on the phone, I’m investigating the death of Michael Cole. We have reason to believe that it was not accidental.’

‘You don’t think my wife killed this man?’ Spanhaur’’s husband objected.

‘Absolutely not,’ Mosley replied. ‘No one believes that your wife had any responsibility for this man’s death. She is, however, a witness to what happened. Frau Spanhaur, could you please describe to me the events surrounding that day?’

‘Ja. Last Christmas, my husband and I were on holiday in the Dominican Republic. It was beautiful.’

As Spanhaur began her narrative, Mosley could tell that she’d relived it every day since. He felt sympathy for the woman, who was still visibly shaken by her experience. Holding her husband’s hand, she spoke of the wonderful time they had had in the Caribbean.

‘On the night before the dive, my husband ate something that made him quite ill. The next morning, he felt better, but not well enough to dive with me. I had just earned my dive card and he encouraged me to go on without him. The dive master was very helpful, and he paired me up with Herr Cole. The reef was spectacular-I had never seen such colors before, and the light was indescribable. I was having a wonderful time, but then I noticed that Cole was acting strange.’

‘How so?’ Mosley asked.

‘He was swimming erratically, bumping into things, turning abruptly for no reason. When I tried to assist him, he lashed out at me. The look in his eyes was crazy-he was a madman. He tore my mask off, and that was the last I saw of him. I was unable to find my mask, so I made a controlled ascent to the surface. I told the dive master what had happened, and the rest of the divers searched for Cole, but they never found the poor man.’

‘My wife did everything she could. For a novice diver, she performed admirably. I have been diving for many years, and I have seen what she’s described happen to other divers. It could have been nitrogen narcosis or drugs or any number of things.’

‘Could you describe the man you dove with?’

‘I can do better than that, I have a picture.’ Spanhaur retrieved a photo album from the bookshelf and flipped through the last few pages. ‘Here it is. My husband took this just before we dove.’

Mosley accepted the album and studied the candid photo of Spanhaur and the impostor on the trimaran’s jump deck. A woman, dressed for sunning on the main deck, was handing the man his fins. He looked at the photo for several minutes before setting it on the coffee table and opening his briefcase.

‘Frau Spanhaur, are you certain that this is the man you dove with, the man who attacked you before disappearing?’

‘Ja,’ she replied, a little confused to be asked such a question, ‘this man is Michael Cole.’

Mosley then handed a photograph to the Spanhaurs. ‘Actually, this gentleman is Michael Cole.’

‘This is not the man I dove with.’ Spanhaur gasped.

‘No, it isn’t,’ Mosley agreed. ‘This Michael Cole was murdered at least twelve hours before your dive.’ Mosley explained this slowly, letting the Spanhaurs grasp what he was saying.

Spanhaur’s husband held her close for several minutes as a tangled flood of emotion welled up inside her. She was shocked, angry, relieved, happy, and confused all at the same time. Mosley turned away until she had time to compose herself.

‘Is there anything else, Herr Mosley?’ she asked daubing away at a few errant tears.

‘If you don’t mind, I would like to borrow your photo. It’s the first solid clue we have in this investigation.’

Spanhaur tore the print from her album and handed it to Mosley. ‘This man used me to hide his crimes. I hope you find him and bring him to justice for what he has done.’

Mosley placed the photograph in his file. ‘That’s why I’m here. Thank you both for your help.’

April 21

Mosley’s short trip to Germany had produced his best lead in the four months since Cole’s body had been pulled from the sea. Computer analysis of the man in Petra Spanhaur’s photograph quickly turned up a match, British business consultant Ian Parnell. Dominican Immigration verified that Parnell had arrived in Santo Domingo a few days prior to Cole’s death.

Mosley wasn’t back in his office thirty minutes when a security guard escorted Dan Harmon to his doorway.

‘Mr Harmon,’ Mosley said with a warm smile, ‘what brings you all the way out to Virginia?’

Harmon pulled out an enlarged copy of the Spanhaur photograph. ‘You have to warn me before sending over stuff like this. The Spanhaur photo has blown part of this case wide open.’

Mosley leaned back and propped his feet up on the desk. ‘How so?’

‘Fundamentals, Cal. I wired a copy of the photo to our Chicago office and had an agent run it past Cole‘s team at Moy Electronics.’

‘I hate to put a damper on your story, but we already ID’d the guy.’

‘I’m not talking about the guy-I got a name for the woman handing him the fins. Like I said, we ran the picture past the people at Moy, and they all had lunch with her, including Cole. She’s a freelance journalist named Alexandra Roe and we can definitely place her in the DR at the time of Cole’s murder.’

Mosley scrawled Roe’s name beneath a copy of the photo pinned to his wall. The large tackboard was covered with items related to this investigation. ‘Nice work, Dan. I’m impressed.’

‘But wait, there’s more.’ Harmon turned his head and motioned for someone to join them. A man of medium height and stocky build entered Mosley’s cramped office, taking the guest chair indicated by Harmon.

‘Cal, I would like to introduce Lou Gerty. Lou here is a kindred spirit in the investigative world, though his work lacks the luxury of our federal positions.’

‘This guy talks an awful lot.’ Gerty pointed a thumb in Harmon’s direction.

‘Yeah, well he’s FBI. What can I say?’ Mosley held out a hand to Gerty. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Gerty.’

Gerty quickly shook Mosley’s hand. ‘Call me Lou. Dan asked me to come down and tell you my story, so here I am. I’m a private investigator, mostly domestic stuff, custody, that kind of thing. A couple of years ago, I handled a case for a young lady who works for one of the congressmen up on the Hill. She had her suspicions about her husband and wanted them checked out.’

‘The husband in question is Michael Cole,’ Harmon added.

‘I was getting to that!’ Gerty turned his attention back to Mosley, a little perturbed at the interruption. ‘Yeah, the guy I was watching was Michael Cole. I’m sorry to say that his wife’s fears were justified. It’s bad enough when a guy’s cheating on his wife for kicks, but this guy Cole was leading some kind of double life.’

The term double life had a specific meaning for career intelligence officers, and Gerty’s offhand comment grabbed Mosley’s attention. ‘Could you elaborate on that, please?’

‘Certainly. Michael Cole was a practicing homosexual with wide and varied tastes. His liaisons were, to put it mildly, inventive.’ The look of disgust on Gerty’s face told Mosley that he didn’t approve of alternative lifestyles. ‘I photographed Cole in several encounters with different partners over the course of several weeks. All were male and some may have bordered on the age of consent. I performed my investigation for an attorney, who used my report to back a divorce suit against Cole. She crucified him. Afterward, she asked me to stash a copy of everything I’d dug up, just in case her client needed to protect herself in the future. I had my copy until last December.’

‘What happened last December?’ Mosley asked.

‘I was in my office on a Friday afternoon, just working on some paperwork, when I was visited by this woman who said she was FBI. She had proper ID and I had no reason to doubt her. She told me that Cole was a suspect in an espionage investigation. She knew I’d tailed Cole and that I had something on him strong enough to make him walk away from his divorce empty-handed. In the end, she walked out of my office with my entire file, including the negatives. I decided to let it go at that, figuring that Cole deserved whatever he got.’

‘That’s where I can pick up the story,’ Harmon announced. ‘Cole’s ex-wife didn’t tell us anything about the reason for their divorce, at first. Their settlement called for both parties to remain silent and she was honoring that agreement. Once she realized the seriousness of the situation surrounding her ex-husband’s death, she offered up Gerty’s investigation into Cole’s life. Unfortunately, by then almost everything Gerty had on Cole was already gone.’

Gerty sat back in his chair, smiling proudly. ‘Everything but my memory.’

Harmon threw a supportive arm around Gerty’s shoulder. ‘This guy has a near-photographic memory. When he described the woman in his office, I figured it was probably one of Cole’s friends helping him out. At least that’s what I thought until you found Petra Spanhaur. Lou, will you tell Cal what you told me this morning?’

Gerty pointed at the Spanhaur photo on Mosley’s wall. ‘That’s the woman who took my files.’

Mosley didn’t respond for a moment, digesting the new discoveries. Without saying a word, he stood up and walked over to the dry marker board on his office wall that bore a bubble diagram of the investigation. The bubbles held the names of people and activities surrounding the death of Michael Cole; dashed or full lines indicated respectively weak or strong connections in the investigation. Mosley picked up a bold red marker and drew a line connecting Michael Cole, Ian Parnell, and a new bubble with the name of Alex Roe.

April 28

Kelsey, Nolan, and Grin quickly made their way through the corridors of the MARC complex to Sean Kilkenny’s office. Nolan’s father had called them down to review the FBI’s findings regarding their hacker. From the tone of his voice, the MARC director was not happy with what he had heard.

‘Good morning, ladies,’ Nolan greeted the FBI agents as he entered the office with Grin.

‘Take a seat,’ Sean Kilkenny ordered, ‘I want you three to hear what the FBI just told me.’ Sean Kilkenny’s body language signaled loud and clear that the news was not good.

‘We appreciate your cooperation on this investigation,’ Ullrich began. ‘Without your efforts, we wouldn’t have been able to follow this hacker at all.’

So far so good, Nolan thought to himself.

‘In each of the telephone traces we initiated, we were unsuccessful in locating any unusual communications entering your network. Your monitoring made it easy for us to find out where he was going, but we still don’t know how he’s getting in. The lack of any incoming traffic to this building has led Agent Harbke and myself to believe that our suspect is operating from inside your computer network.’

Boom! The other shoe dropped with a resounding thud in Nolan’s mind. ‘You think our hacker is someone inside MARC?’

Ullrich didn’t appear the least bit defensive toward Nolan’s challenge. ‘Yes, it’s the only theory that fits the evidence thus far. We’re dealing with a very sophisticated computer penetration by a highly skilled individual. This is a person with advanced knowledge of networks and operating systems, a person capable of altering system records to hide his or her presence.’

‘Frankly speaking,’ Harbke added, ‘Agent Ullrich and I are very impressed by this individual. In our years of dealing with these types of crimes, we’ve never come across anyone quite this good.’

‘Son, they’ve requested a list of our employees and researchers with system access.’ Sean obviously didn’t like the idea that a member of his staff was a criminal hacker. ‘I want you and Grin to assemble the information they need.’

‘That list will be easy, but the two most likely suspects are sitting right here,’ Grin said, indicating Nolan and himself.

The possibility that they could be considered suspects had never dawned on Nolan until this moment. ‘True, nobody else around here knows the system like we do. There’s got to be someone else, though…’

Nolan’s line of thought was cut short by his beeper. He looked down to the device clipped to his waist to read off the number. ‘It’s the lab. Our hacker is making another run through the system. Ladies, you’re just in time for another live performance.’

Everyone bolted from the office and double-timed it to the MARC computer lab. Grin took up his station at the Cray, and Nolan sat in front of the laptop. The FBI agents and Nolan’s father watched over Nolan’s shoulder as the hacker began punching his way through computer systems.

‘Grin,’ Nolan called out, ‘can you bring up the internal network status?’

Grin was scanning rapidly through the network’s status screens. ‘One step ahead of you. Other than a couple of researchers, no one else is tied into the mainframe.’

‘Damn, how is this guy getting into the Cray?’ The situation didn’t make any sense at all to Nolan; the intruder had to be on one of the incoming communication lines. ‘Let’s drop those two off the system and see if that has any effect.’

‘I’m cutting them loose. Hope they’re not too mad at me.’ Grin sent out a ‘Thirty seconds to shutdown’ warning, which caused the MARC researchers to scramble to close their files before the network cut them off. Both were off the system with a second and a half to spare.

‘We’re all alone now,’ Grin announced. ‘Is our friend still there?’

‘Happily hacking away, but from where?’ There was puzzled disappointment in Nolan’s voice.

Special Agent Harbke wandered away from the rest, looking over the jury-rigged wiring connections behind the Cray. She followed the bundle of network fiber-optic cables as they emerged from the raised access floor like an orange tentacle reaching into the back of the Cray. Another bundle of thickly wrapped cables ran from the Cray into the floor and emerged in a glass-enclosed portion of the lab. Through the glass, she saw a metallic cube and two cylinders of liquid nitrogen.