The Blue Nowhere: A Novel

by Jeffery Deaver

  “Yeah, curious,” Bishop said wryly.

  “Yeah, accidentally,” Gillette added.

  Bishop then said to the hacker, “Let’s get his machine back to CCU. If we’re lucky there might be some reference to his victim at the college. Let’s move on this fast.”

  Johnson and Bishop released the scene, then Linda Sanchez filled out the chain of custody cards and she bundled up Phate’s computer and disks.

  The team returned to their cars and sped back to CCU headquarters.

  Gillette broke the news to Patricia Nolan that the arrest had been unsuccessful.

  “Shawn tipped him off again?” she asked angrily.

  Sanchez handed Phate’s laptop to Gillette and Nolan and then took a phone call.

  “How did he know we were assaulting the house?” Tony Mott asked. “I don’t get it.”

  “I only want to know one thing,” Shelton muttered. “Who the hell is Shawn?”

  Though he undoubtedly didn’t expect an answer just then, one was forthcoming.

  “I know who,” Linda Sanchez said in a horrified, choked voice. She stared at the team then hung up the receiver dangling in her hand. The woman flicked her red-polished nails together then said, “That was the sysadmin in San Jose. Ten minutes ago he found someone cracking into ISLEnet and using it as a trusted system to get into the U.S. State Department database. The user was Shawn. He was instructing the State Department system to issue two predated passports in fake names. The sysadmin recognized the pictures Shawn was scanning into the system. One was Holloway’s”—she took a deep breath—“the other was Stephen’s.”

  “Stephen who?” Tony Mott asked, not understanding.

  “Stephen Miller,” Sanchez said, starting to cry. “That’s who Shawn is.”

  Bishop, Mott and Sanchez were in Miller’s cubicle, searching his desk.

  “I don’t believe it,” Mott said defiantly. “It’s Phate again. He’s fucking with our minds.”

  “But then where is Miller?” Bishop asked. Patricia Nolan said she’d been at CCU the entire time the team had been at Phate’s house and Miller hadn’t called. She’d even tried to track him down at various local college computer departments but he hadn’t been at any of them.

  Mott booted up Miller’s computer.

  On the screen came the prompt to enter a password. Mott tried the hard way—a few guesses at the most obvious ones: birthday, middle name, and so on. But access was denied.

  Gillette stepped into the cubicle and loaded his Crack-it program. In a few minutes the password was cracked and Gillette was inside Miller’s machine. He soon found dozens of messages sent to Phate under Miller’s screen name, Shawn, logged onto the Internet through the Monterey On-Line company. The messages themselves were encrypted but the headers left no doubt about Miller’s true identity.

  Patricia Nolan said, “But Shawn’s brilliant—Stephen was an amateur next to him.”

  “Social engineering,” Bishop said.

  Gillette agreed. “He had to look stupid so we wouldn’t suspect him. Meanwhile, he was feeding information to Phate.”

  Mott snapped, “He’s the reason Andy Anderson’s dead. He set him up.”

  Shelton muttered, “Every single time we got close to Phate, Miller’d warn him.”

  “Did the sysadmin get a sense of where Miller was hacking in from?” asked Bishop.

  “Nope, boss,” Sanchez said. “He was using a bulletproof anonymizer.”

  Bishop asked Mott, “Those schools he books computer time at—would Northern California be one of them?”

  Mott replied, “I don’t know. Probably.”

  “So he’s been helping Phate set up the next victims.” Bishop’s phone rang. He listened and nodded. When he hung up he said, “That was Huerto.” Bishop had sent Ramirez and Morgan over to Miller’s house as soon as Linda Sanchez had gotten the call from the ISLEnet sysadmin. “Miller’s car’s gone. His den at home’s empty except for a bunch of cables and spare computer parts—he’s taken all his machines and disks with him.” He asked Mott and Sanchez, “Does he have any summer houses? Family nearby?”

  “No. His whole life was machines,” Mott said. “Working here in the office and working at home.”

  Bishop said to Shelton, “Get Miller’s picture out on the wire and send some troopers over to Northern California with copies of it.” He glanced at Phate’s computer and said to Gillette, “The data on there isn’t encrypted anymore, is it?”

  “No,” Gillette said. He nodded at the screen, scrolling over which was Phate’s screen saver—the motto of the Knights of Access.

  Access is God. . . .

  “I’ll see what I can find.” He sat down in front of the laptop.

  “He still could have plenty of booby traps inside,” Linda Sanchez warned.

  “I’ll go nice and slow. I’ll just shut the screen saver off and we’ll take it from there. I know the logical places where he’d plant trip wires.” Gillette sat down in front of the computer. He reached for the most innocuous key on a computer keyboard—the shift key—to shut off the screen saver. Since the shift key alone doesn’t issue commands or affect the programs or data stored on a machine, hackers never hook a trip wire to that key.

  But of course Phate wasn’t just any hacker.

  The instant Gillette tapped the key the screen went blank then these words appeared:

  BEGIN BATCH ENCRYPTION

  ENCRYPTING—DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE STANDARD 12

  “No!” Gillette cried and hit the off switch. But Phate had overridden the power controls and there was no response. He flipped the laptop over to remove the battery but the release button had been removed. Within three minutes the entire contents of the hard drive were encrypted.

  “Damn, damn. . . .” Gillette slapped the tabletop in disgust. “It’s all useless,” he said.

  Department of Defense agent Backle stood and walked slowly to the machine. He looked from Gillette to the screen, which was now a dense block of gibberish. Then the agent glanced again at the victims’ pictures taped to the white-board. He asked Gillette, “You think there’s something on there that’ll save some lives?” Nodding at the laptop.

  “Probably.”

  “I meant what I said before. If you can crack the encryption I’ll forget I saw you do it. All I’ll ask is that you give us any disks you’ve got with the cracking program on it.”

  Gillette hesitated. Finally he asked, “You mean that?”

  Backle gave a grim laugh and touched his head. “That prick gave me one hell of a headache. I want to add assaulting a federal agent to his list of charges.”

  Gillette glanced at Bishop, who nodded—his own acknowledgment that he’d back Gillette. The hacker sat down at a workstation and went online. He returned to his account in Los Alamos, where he’d cached his hacker tools, and downloaded a file named Pac-Man.

  Nolan laughed. “‘Pac-Man’?”

  Gillette shrugged. “I’d been up for twenty-two hours when I finished it. I couldn’t think of a better name.”

  He copied it onto a floppy disk, which he inserted into Phate’s laptop.

  The screen came up:

  Encryption/Decryption

  Enter Username:

  Gillette typed, LukeSkywalker

  Enter Password:

  The letters, numbers and symbols Gillette typed turned into a string of eighteen asterisks. Mott said, “That’s one hell of a passcode.”

  This appeared on the screen:

  Select Encryption Standard:

  1. Privacy On-Line, Inc.

  2. Defense Encryption Standard

  3. Department of Defense Standard 12

  4. NATO

  5. International Computer Systems, Inc.

  Patricia Nolan echoed Mott. “That’s one hell of a hack. You wrote script that can crack all of those encryption standards?”

  “Usually it’ll decrypt about ninety percent of a file,” Gillette said, hitting key 3. Then he began feeding t
he encrypted files through his program.

  “How’d you do it?” Mott asked, fascinated.

  Gillette couldn’t keep the enthusiasm out of his voice—pride too—as he told them, “Basically I input enough samples of each standard so that the program begins to recognize patterns that the algorithm used in encrypting them. Then it makes logical guesses about—”

  Agent Backle suddenly reached past Bishop, grabbed Gillette by the collar and pulled him roughly to the ground. “Wyatt Edward Gillette, you’re under arrest for violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, theft of classified government information and treason.”

  Bishop: “You can’t do that!”

  Tony Mott started toward him. “You son of a bitch!”

  Backle pulled his jacket aside, revealing the butt of his pistol. “Careful there. I’d think long and hard about what you’re doing, Officer.”

  Mott backed off. And Backle, almost leisurely, handcuffed his prisoner.

  Bishop said heatedly, “Come on, Backle, you heard us: Phate’s targeted somebody at the college. He could be on campus right now!”

  Patricia Nolan said, “You told him it was okay!”

  But the unflappable Backle ignored her, pulled Gillette to his feet and shoved him into a chair. The agent then pulled out a radio, clicked it on and said, “Backle to Unit 23. I have the suspect in custody. You can pick him up.”

  “Roger,” came the clattering response.

  “You set him up!” Nolan shouted, furious. “You assholes’ve been waiting all along for this.”

  “I’m calling my captain,” Bishop snapped, pulling out his cell phone and walking briskly to the front door.

  “Call whoever you want. He’s going back to prison.”

  Shelton said heatedly, “We’ve got a killer who’s after another victim right now! This could be our only chance to stop him.”

  Backle responded, nodding toward Gillette, “And the code he broke could mean a hundred other people might die.”

  Sanchez said, “You gave us your word. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  “No. Catching people like him counts—for everything.”

  Gillette said desperately, “Just give me one hour.”

  But Backle merely slipped that snide smile on his face and began to read Gillette his rights.

  It was then that they heard gunshots from outside and the huge crash of falling glass as bullets shattered the CCU’s outside door.

  CHAPTER 00100110 / THIRTY-EIGHT

  Mott and Backle drew their weapons and looked toward the doorway. Sanchez dropped to her knees, digging in her purse for her weapon. Nolan crouched under a desk.

  Frank Bishop, on the floor, crawled back from the outside door, down the short corridor that led to the dinosaur pen.

  Sanchez called, “You hit, boss?”

  “I’m okay!” The detective took cover against the wall and stood unsteadily. He drew his pistol and called, “He’s outside—Phate! I was standing in the lobby. He took a couple of shots at me. He’s still there!”

  Backle ran past him, calling on his radio to alert his partners about the perp. He crouched by the door, glancing at the bullet holes in the wall and the shattered glass. Tony Mott—big gun in hand—joined the DoD agent.

  “Where is he?” Backle called, taking a fast look outside and ducking back to cover.

  “Behind that white van,” the detective shouted. “Over to the left. He must’ve been coming back to kill Gillette. You two go right, keep him pinned down. I’m going to flank him from the back. Keep low. He’s a good shot.”

  The agent and the young cop looked at each other and then nodded. Together they burst through the front door.

  Bishop watched them go then stood up and holstered his gun. He tucked his shirt in, pulled out keys and undid Gillette’s handcuffs. He slipped them into his pocket.

  “What’re you doing, boss?” Sanchez asked, picking herself up off the floor.

  Patricia Nolan laughed, figuring out what had just happened. “It’s a jailbreak, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “But the shots?” Sanchez asked.

  “That was me.”

  “You?” Gillette asked, astonished.

  “I stepped outside and fired a couple of rounds through the front door.” He grinned. “This social engineering stuff—I think I’m starting to get the hang of it.” The detective then nodded at Phate’s computer and said to Gillette, “Well, don’t just stand there. Get his machine and let’s get out of here.”

  Gillette rubbed his wrists. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  Bishop answered, “What I’m sure about is that Phate and Miller could be on the Northern California campus right now. And I am not going to let anyone else die. So let’s move.”

  The hacker scooped up the machine and started after the detective.

  “Wait,” Patricia Nolan called. “I’m parked in back. We can take my car.”

  Bishop hesitated.

  She added, “We’ll go to my hotel. I can help you with his machine.”

  The detective nodded. He started to say something to Linda Sanchez but she waved him quiet with a pudgy hand. “All I know is I turned around and saw Wyatt gone and you running after him. For all I know he’s on his way up to Napa, with you hot on his trail. Good luck finding him, boss. Have a glass of wine for me. Good luck.”

  But it seemed that Bishop’s heroics had been futile.

  In Patricia Nolan’s hotel room—by far the nicest suite Wyatt Gillette had ever seen—the hacker had quickly decrypted the data on Phate’s computer. It turned out, however, that this was a different machine from the one Gillette had broken into earlier. It wasn’t exactly a hot machine but it contained only the operating system, Trapdoor and some files of downloaded newspaper clippings Shawn had sent to Phate. Most of them were about Seattle, which would have been the location of Phate’s next game. But now that he knew they had this machine, of course, he’d go elsewhere.

  There were no references to Northern California University or any potential victims.

  Bishop dropped into one of the plush armchairs and, hands together, stared at the floor, discouraged. “Not a thing.”

  “Can I try?” Nolan asked. She sat down next to Gillette then scrolled through the directory. “He might’ve erased some files. Did you try to recover anything with Restore8?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Gillette said. “I figured he’d shred everything.”

  “He might not have bothered,” she pointed out. “He was pretty confident that nobody’d get into his machine. And if they did then the encryption bomb would stop them.”

  She ran the Restore8 program and, in a moment, data that Phate had erased over the past few weeks appeared on the screen. She read through it. “Nothing on the school. Nothing about any attacks. All I can find are bits of receipts for some of the computer parts he sold. Most of the data’re corrupted. But here’s one you can kind of make out.”

  Ma%%%ch 27***200!!!++

  55eerrx3^^shipped to:

  San Jose Com434312 Produuu234aawe%%

  2335 Winch4ster 00u46lke^

  San Jo^^44^^^^9^^^$$###

  Attn: 97J**seph McGona%%gle

  Bishop and Gillette read the screen.

  The hacker said, “But that doesn’t do us any good. That’s a company that bought some of his parts. We need Phate’s address, where they were shipped from.”

  Gillette took over for Nolan and scanned through the rest of the recovered files. They were just digital garbage. “Nothing.”

  But Bishop shook his head. “Wait a minute.” He pointed to the screen. “Go back up.”

  Gillette scrolled back to the semilegible text of the receipt.

  Bishop tapped the screen and said, “This company—San Jose Computer Products—they’d have to have some record of who sold them the parts and where they were shipped from.”

  “Unless they knew they were stolen,” Patricia Nolan said. “Then they’d deny knowing anyt
hing about Phate.”

  Gillette said, “I’ll bet when they find out Phate’s been killing people they’ll be a little more cooperative.”

  “Or less,” Nolan said skeptically.

  Bishop added, “Receiving stolen goods is a felony. Avoiding San Quentin’s a pretty good reason to be cooperative.”

  The detective touched his sprayed hair as he leaned forward and picked up the phone. He called the CCU office, praying that one of the team—not Backle or one of the feds—would pick up. He was relieved when Tony Mott answered. The detective said, “Tony, it’s Frank. Can you talk? . . . How bad is it there? . . . They have any leads? . . . No, I mean, leads to us . . . Okay, good. Listen, do me a favor, run San Jose Computer Products, 2335 Winchester in San Jose. . . . No. I’ll hold on.”

  A moment later Bishop cocked his head. He nodded slowly. “Okay, got it. Thanks. We think Phate’s been selling computer parts to them. We’re going to have a talk with somebody there. I’ll let you know if we find anything. Listen, call the chancellor and the head of security at Northern California U and tell them the killer might be on his way to the school now. And get more troopers over there.”

  He hung up and said to Nolan and Gillette, “The company’s clean. It’s been around for fifteen years, never any trouble with the IRS, EPA or state taxation department. Paid up on all its business licenses. If they’ve been buying anything from Phate they probably don’t know it’s hot. Let’s go over there and have a talk with this McGonagle or somebody.”

  Gillette joined the detective. Nolan, though, said, “You go on. I’ll keep looking through his machine for any other leads.”

  Pausing at the door, Wyatt Gillette glanced back and saw her sit down at the keyboard. She gave him a faint smile of encouragement. But it seemed to him that it was slightly wistful and that there might be another meaning in her expression—perhaps the inevitable recognition that there was little hope of a relationship blossoming between them.