Surveillance (Ghost Targets Book 1) (15 page)

She nodded, a terse gesture, and he seemed satisfied by it. He moved around the table, squeezing past abandoned chairs from the next table over, and sank down opposite her. He had taken some time to clean up, and lost the hat and sunglasses. Now he looked just as HaRRE had drawn him, except for the expression. He wasn't smiling, and there was no sparkle in his eyes. He was somber, grave, and when he met her eyes, his gaze was like a hammer. His voice was kind, though. "I'm not unlocking your handheld yet," he said. He spread his hands apologetically. "I'm sure you'll understand the precaution." He reached into the wide pocket of his jacket and pulled out a paper notepad and flipped it across the table to her. From his other pocket he pulled out a cheap ball-point pen, and set it on the table.

"You'll want to take notes," he said. "Because nothing we say here will end up in the archive. Do you understand?" He gave her just time to nod, and then continued. "Ms. Pratt, I've had a few minutes to look into what's going on, and it seems to me like I'm your only suspect."

She arched an eyebrow at him. "You know," she said, "I was just about ready to rule you out, before you pulled that stunt at the cemetery."

He spread his hands again. "I don't know you, Katie Pratt. I've been checking you out, as much as I could, but I don't know you." He looked away. "I do know Rick Goodall, though, and I'm not ready to put myself in his hands."

"You might not have a choice, Mr. Door."

He considered her for a moment. "I do." He blushed at the simple arrogance of the statement, and shrugged. "I do, Ms. Pratt, and I came here because I want to help you find Janeane's killer. You can go ahead and rule me out."

The cop in her answered him. "You'll forgive me for wanting more than your word on that."

He looked down at his hands, on the table. "I never had kids. I remember when Janeane was born. She was...." He shook his head. "She always laughed. I don't remember her ever crying, and all babies cry, right? She just laughed and laughed. Happiest little kid I've ever known." He clasped his hands together, squeezing until his knuckles turned white, and then suddenly relaxed. He looked at Katie. "Have you seen her?" Katie nodded, and he nodded. "She was so pretty, before. Why would someone do this?"

Katie knew offhand half a dozen reasons people killed pretty young women. People were violent animals, no matter if God or Hathor were watching over their shoulders. But she didn't say anything. For a long time he just stared at the tabletop, and when he spoke again his voice was almost inaudible.

"I heard you and Jeremy talking about me, back in your apartment. That's how I found out." He took a moment to catch his breath. "Velez wrote that code, fifteen years ago, then Jeremy perfected it, and we all use it." He sighed. "I knew you were looking for me, so I looked you up, and when I saw you were Ghost Targets, my first thought was to break in and yell at you." He smiled again, tight-lipped this time. "Just like Jeremy did. Then I remembered your name." He looked away, and Katie fought down a sudden surge of anger. He said, "So I kept quiet, and I peeked into your case file."

Katie said, "Oh."

He nodded. "That was, oh, six o'clock last night." He took a deep breath. "I haven't slept. I can barely think. I came straight here, but they all think I'm dead." He shook his head. "I've been hiding in the airport all day. I saw you get off the plane this morning. Jeremy looks good." He said it offhand, automatically. His eyes were on something far away.

"Mr. Door," Katie said, "I don't know how much you know, how much you've listened in on, but there is something extremely weird about the Hathor record of the crime."

"I assumed as much, if Ghost Targets was involved."

"Not just that," she said. "Actually...the reason we suspected you, before we knew you were her uncle...there's something going on in the camera code. Ghoster calls it a 'cloud'—"

"And you call it a blackout." He nodded. "I haven't had the nerve to look at the footage, but it sounds confusing."

"It's worse than that. Ghoster is genuinely scared of it. It's packing false identities in so densely that it's threatening to overload Hathor. Or something like that, I don't get all the technical details."

Martin frowned, his eyebrows meeting over his nose as he tried to picture what she had described. "I don't think I understand. Can't you just go in and pick out the legitimate identity to find your man?"

"No, he's been ghosted." She pulled out her handheld, but remembered that he had disabled it. She dropped it on the table and said, "Look, I got in HaRRE on the day the crime was discovered, I saw the moment before the killer stepped off the elevator into the office, and there was no one there. The database had
already
 been scrubbed. But then, on top of that, the lights just went out, total blackout within HaRRE, and it's growing in time and space. Ghoster thought maybe you—" she cut herself off as he winced, and started over, "maybe whoever cleaned the database triggered some sort of bug in the recorder software."

Martin shook his head. "That software has been running for ages. It's on billions of machines around the world and has been for years." He frowned, bitterness in his voice. "And they've been tampering with the archive from day one. I can't imagine something that would do what you're describing just happening
now
. There's a lot of money resting on the fidelity of those recordings."

"The way Ghoster tells it, our whole society is built on it."

"Well, yes." Martin shrugged. "The board doesn't care about our society nearly as much as the sales numbers, though."

"I can show you," she said. She took a deep breath, and let it out. "Mr. Door—" She cut herself off, and met his eyes. "May I call you Martin?"

"Please."

"Okay. Martin." She saw an opportunity. "I tried to tell Ghoster that our only shot at solving this—at bringing justice to your niece's killer—is to get back to Ghost Targets, and get the rest of the team helping. I'm sorry to say it, but I just don't have the know-how yet. But my boss does. If you'll just come with me—" His look was enough to tell her he had no intention of doing that, but she leaned forward and kept him from tearing his eyes away. "Martin, if nothing else, we have authority. You have the technical skills. Ghoster has already said he can't tackle this. If you will come to DC with me, we
will
 get to the bottom of it. All of us working together."

He bit his lower lip. "Show me," he said. When she looked blank, he said, "Hathor, unlock Katie's headset and handheld." Then he met her eyes. "I'm trusting you."

"I understand," she said. When she tried to load the case file, though, she got an access error. She held up a finger, "Hathor, connect me to Craig. Craig, share my case file to my handheld."

The simulated voice answered her, "That action is prohibited. You're in an unsecurable public place. Apologies."

She frowned, and said, "Hathor, connect me to Rick—"

Martin cut her off. "Hathor, no. Lock Katie." When her eyes flashed at him, he shrugged. "I'm sorry. I don't trust you that much, yet."

"I'm trying to help you."

He considered her for a moment, then said, "I believe you. I do." He sighed, and once again looked exhausted. "Hathor, I need travel arrangements for Katie and me to DC within the hour. Have a car waiting for us at the airport. We're going to FBI headquarters. Return." He didn't meet Katie's eyes.

After a moment she said, "So that's it then."

He nodded, still looking away. "I guess it is."

Their plane touched down in DC at nine-fifteen, but Martin seemed anxious to get to work. Katie had no objection. Chances were good Rick would still be there, and if he wasn't, she could at least show Martin the HaRRE footage. As tender as his emotions were proving, it might help to get that out of the way before he had to meet the boss. Either way, she was ready to move, so a few minutes before ten o'clock they stepped off the elevator onto her level. And Martin would get his time for grief, she saw, because the lights for the floor came on as they approached the frosted glass doors.

Martin whistled. "Rick has done well for himself," he said. "You've got a class operation here."

"Just wait until you see our conference table," she said. "Craig, let us in and show my case file on my desk." The doors flew open, and the two walked into the empty office. She turned back to Martin. "I'd still like an answer, if you're willing to give it. Why does Hathor insist you're in Buenos Aires?"

He shrugged. "Another of Velez's ideas. He was obsessed with privacy, so he made us doppelgangers to roam the streets of Buenos Aires. It's a pretty clever program, random enough that it looks realistic." He paused, and looked around the room. "How smart is your boss?"

"What do you mean?"

He didn't answer right away. Then he said, "Hathor, what's going on?" He looked at Katie, and his eyes narrowed. She saw a flash of emotions—anger, betrayal, and panic clearest among them—and he moved with surprising speed as he darted back toward the office doors, but they didn't budge when he pressed against them.

She frowned, uncomprehending, but he didn't seem in a mood for reasoning. She said, "Craig, open the doors for my guest."

Craig answered immediately. "That action is prohibited. Explanation unavailable."

Martin wheeled on her, fire in his eyes. "What are you trying to do to me? I've done nothing!"

"
I've
 done nothing," she said. "I don't know what's going on."

"Shut up. Shush." He waved her to silence, and tilted his head listening to his headset. After a moment he said, "Details to my handheld," and dug out that ancient, battered handheld she had taken from him earlier. It looked like one her dad might have used. He scanned it quickly, shaking his head, and said, "Oh, this is not good."

Katie said, "What?" She was starting to feel panicky herself. Martin didn't answer her. "Craig, open the doors." But she only got the same error message. She realized for the first time that the layout of the floor was one big trap. There was only one way in or out, and that was through three-inch thick, beautifully-frosted and probably bullet-proof glass doors. She decided if she didn't get an answer soon, she was going to test that last theory. "Hathor, connect me to Rick—"

Once again Martin cut her off, this time rolling his eyes. "That's not going to do you any good," he said. Two tones later, he was proven right. Rick wouldn't take her call. She left a message, and tried for building security, but she got no answer there, either.

"Hathor, connect me to the building receptionist," she said, trying everything she could think of, but Martin finally looked up with exasperation in his eyes.

"Could you be quiet, please?" He tapped several controls on his handheld and shook his head. "You don't have access to anything right now. Within this scenario, they were smart enough to realize that they probably can't trust you."

"Me? What did I ever do?"

"Just—wait. Okay?" He stepped away from the front doors and looked around, his eyes lingering on the big glass windows overlooking the sparkling city. He went into the conference room, and ducked out of sight. When she followed him in, he had his eyes closed and he was talking into his headset like a man deep in prayer.

It sounded like gibberish to Katie. "Rick is get ID Rick Goodall, Department Head, FBI Ghost Targets. Display ID details to my handheld. Stream is get audio stream using Rick. Do duplicate stream to my headset using background is true, no input is true. Done." He waited for a moment, listening and nodding. Then he frowned, thinking, and finally shook his head. "Hathor, reroute all vehicles heading here to, umm, the airport." He listened for a moment longer, then said, "Say something." He waited, then opened his eyes and looked at Katie, impatient. "Say something."

"Oh!" she said. "What?"

His eyes narrowed, and he said, "Hathor, lock out Katie's headset." Then he asked her point-blank. "Have you led me into a trap?" When she didn't answer, he growled. "Did you do this on purpose?"

"Do what?" she shouted. "No."

He nodded and closed his eyes. "Good news for me, bad for you," he said. "They're listening to you—"

"Who?"

He took a deep breath, clearly impatient. "Your office is a ghost trap. It makes sense. If I'd thought of it before—and I should have—I probably could have detected it remotely. I trusted you, though." He sighed. "Anybody without a solid ID walks in here, the whole floor goes into lockdown and an alarm sounds on your boss's headset. There's six agents on their way here, right now."

"So—"

"They were listening to your headset, too. That's the only reason I trust you at all. You're new, but you could have known about this. But I checked, and they were listening and they weren't talking, so you're not getting coached. Sounds like they don't trust you." He stopped and held up a finger, listening. Then he glanced down at his handheld and cursed. "Your boss is a smart man."

He watched his handheld for a moment, then continued. "He's not coming directly here. Probably routed to one of the buildings next door, but I don't know for sure. Hathor...never mind. Crap! I don't know how to get to his car. Hathor, coding. Get driver using Rick." He shook his head, probably at an error message, and spoke over it. "Get driver ID using Rick. Get driver by passenger using Rick. Get vehicle—no. Done. Argh!" He jumped to his feet, looking around in a panic. "He's getting closer. Katie, he's mad."

Katie said, "Calm down. I'll talk to him when he gets here—"

"No," he said, listening to an audio stream she couldn't hear. "He's not going to listen. You brought Jeremy here, and now you brought me here, and he thinks you're trying to bring down the department." He shuddered. "You wouldn't believe the language he's using."

"But why? All I've done—"

He caught her by the shoulders, his nose an inch from hers, and screamed, "I don't know, Katie. But he's coming in hot. He just learned that I rerouted the other agents, and he responded with a shoot-to-kill order. Got it? He thinks we're dangerous."