The Spy Is Cast

by Diane Henders

  “Did the analysts get anything from the bugs yet?” Wheeler asked.

  “No, nothing yet,” Kane replied. “Can you drop a few more?”

  “I’ll try,” Wheeler said. “I get turned back by Harchman’s guards if I try to approach the house, but my contact in housekeeping might be able to sneak me in. Which reminds me, she gave me some more information about Harchman’s wellness spa.”

  “Yes, Webb dug into that, too,” Kane said. “Apparently it’s remarkably profitable. He’s reporting almost a million in revenue after only the second quarter. It’s definitely suspicious. There isn’t that kind of money in the spa business.”

  Wheeler grinned. “There is in this one.”

  Kane leaned forward, his eyes lighting with predatory fire. “It’s not a spa, is it? Give.”

  “Oh, it’s a spa all right.” Wheeler’s grin broadened. “No advertising, very exclusive, strictly word-of-mouth. You have to know somebody to get in, and Harchman charges astronomical fees.”

  “For what?” I demanded. “A stay in the guest house and some nice food? So what? Who’d pay big bucks for that?”

  “A man who’s having his erectile dysfunction cured.” Wheeler grinned at our dumbfounded faces. “Harchman is promoting a new hypnosis cure. One hundred percent guaranteed. His clients will pretty much pay whatever he asks. Clients can bring their wives or girlfriends if they want, but the rumour is that he offers extremely skilled, uh… therapists.”

  I sank back against the counter, my jaw dropping. “Holy shit. That slimy bastard. What a brilliant scheme. All completely untraceable, and nobody’s going to blab. That explains -”

  Speaking of blabbing. I caught Kane’s tiny headshake and closed my mouth before I blurted anything out in front of Hellhound. Hellhound’s keen gaze darted between our faces, his brow furrowed. I knew that look. Give him the tiniest clue, and he’d figure the whole thing out in no time.

  “Nice cover,” Kane agreed grudgingly. “Hides his true activities, and makes a bundle at the same time. But you haven’t heard rumours of any other kind of activity? Say, dead bodies being removed in the dark of night?”

  Wheeler sobered. “No. Nothing.”

  “All right,” Kane said. “Aydan, when can you be ready to go?”

  I considered for a moment. “I can be physically ready to go out the door in about ten minutes. I just need some breakfast. But if there’s no particular rush, I’d like to talk to Spider first and get his take on some of the n…” I remembered Hellhound’s presence in the nick of time and bit off what I’d been going to say.

  “That’s a good idea,” Kane said. “Go ahead and eat, and then call Webb.”

  I started assembling my breakfast, and Germain and Hellhound propped themselves against the counter to finish their coffee. I gratefully slid into the vacated dinette bench and chowed down on my toast and peanut butter.

  “What is it with you and peanut butter?” Germain teased me.

  I shrugged and grinned at him. “It satisfies three of the four basic food groups: sugar, salt, fat, and booze. Add a beer, and you’re looking at a nutritionally complete meal.”

  The ring of the phone interrupted the general laughter that followed, and Germain picked up. The smile slid off his face as he listened.

  “Damn.”

  We all sobered, listening to his end of the conversation.

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  He hung up, his face grim. “Richard Willis is dead. He died of a heart attack on Thursday afternoon. Webb dug into his background, and found out he was a computer programmer. No apparent ties to Fuzzy Bunny, no criminal record, no known associates with any suspicious past whatsoever. He lived with his mother. He worked for a software development company. The software company has no known ties to Fuzzy Bunny. The owners are clean. So far, he just looks like an innocent civilian.”

  Germain blew out a long breath. “And the IDs came through on the two torturers. They were definitely associated with Fuzzy Bunny.”

  My toast turned into a cold lump in my stomach, and I laid the remainder of the slice back on my plate.

  “Dammit!” Kane put his coffee mug down on the table with unnecessary force.

  “Do they really believe a young guy like that died of a heart attack?” I asked.

  Germain scowled, lifting a shoulder. “What choice do they have? That’s all the autopsy will show.”

  I didn’t really want to know, but I had to ask. “What about the other captive?”

  Germain turned to the laptop. “Webb did a search for all other men under fifty who died of a heart attack on Wednesday and Thursday. One was a petroleum consultant who was a member of the Calgary scuba club. His name was Arthur Ketchum. Webb sent a photo.” He put the laptop on the table in front of me. “Look familiar?”

  I sighed as heavy sadness rolled through me. “Yes. Probably. The hair colour and the build is right. I wouldn’t be able to identify the face. But if he was a petroleum consultant, he was probably at the party, and the tattoo pretty much tells the story.”

  “Dammit,” Kane said tiredly.

  I pushed my plate away and sank my face into my hands. Two innocent men dead.

  “Well, that’s it, then,” Kane broke the short silence. “We’ve lost our physical surveillance points, and we’ve lost our chance to find out anything from the questioning of the captives. Aydan, Hellhound, thank you for what you’ve done. You can both go home. Wheeler, we’ll keep you undercover. Go get some sleep so you’re ready for your next shift. Looks like we’re in for the long haul here.”

  He leaned his head against the wall behind him, lines of fatigue scoring his face. “Germain and I will set up base camp at the old location and carry on with the investigation. Our next step is to find out if there was a common thread between the captives. Then maybe we can figure out what this was all about.”

  He blew out a breath. “And once again, Fuzzy Bunny slips through our fingers.”

  “They just killed two men,” I protested.

  “Leaving absolutely no evidence,” Kane replied grimly. “The only person who can place the captives at Harchman’s is you. We can’t reveal your identity, and we especially can’t reveal how you were able to identify the captives.”

  “So there’s nothing you can do.”

  Kane’s voice was hard. “For now.” He rubbed his forehead wearily. “We’ll find a way. Once we get more information on the captives, we’ll have more to go on. I wish I knew what questions Fuzzy Bunny asked them.”

  I sat up slowly. “Maybe I can help with that.”

  “How?”

  “I need to talk to Spider,” I told him.

  “Do it,” he said. He turned to Hellhound. “You might as well head out. Thanks again.”

  Hellhound levered himself away from the counter reluctantly. “Okay, Cap,” he growled. “Stay safe. All a’ ya.” He put his coffee cup in the sink and clumped out of the RV, followed by Wheeler.

  As his Harley roared to life outside, I picked up the phone and dialled.

  Chapter 31

  Spider answered immediately. I greeted him, feeling a pang of sympathy at the exhaustion in his voice.

  “Sorry to bother you, Spider,” I said. “Do you have a minute to talk to me about the network?”

  “Sure.” There was a short pause, and he spoke again on the tail end of a yawn. “What do you want to know?”

  “A couple of things about how the sim files work. Did anyone tell you that we’d discovered a real-time sim of the security room?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, so if it’s running, it shouldn’t matter if anyone goes in or out of it, should it? I mean, in terms of making obvious changes to the date-time stamp or anything?”

  “No, the date-time stamp would always be current, because it’s always live. But don’t forget, it’s a data record that can be played back. Anyone using the sim would appear in the data record.”

  “Unless they were invisible.”

 
I heard the smile in his voice. “Right.”

  “Okay. Next question. If I open data records or files in the network and just look around in them, would anybody be able to tell I’d been in them?”

  “Files, you can look at, as long as you don’t make any changes. The only way you’d get caught would be if you had the file open when somebody else tried to access it. Then they’d get a message that the file was in use, until you closed the file.”

  “So as long as I was quick about it, it should be pretty hard to detect,” I surmised.

  “Yes.” Spider hummed thoughtfully on the line for a few seconds. “Sim data records, though, if you enter the sim, you’re updating the file. Even if you’re invisible, the timestamp would be updated because your presence would be recorded as part of the sim.”

  “Crap. So is there a way for me to view a sim data record from within the network, without actually entering the sim record that I’m viewing?”

  There was a puzzled silence. “Say what?”

  “I need to look at the sim data records from when the captives were being tortured.” My voice didn’t seem to be working right, and I cleared my tight throat before I continued. “I don’t need to go into the sim, I just need to view it. The same as when you played back the sim data record from our network tests at Sirius. But I need to do it from inside the network, because I don’t have any way of accessing it externally the way you did at Sirius.”

  “Oh.” He thought for a minute. “That could be tricky. I think it might work if you created a sim of a workstation and played back the sim through your sim. I’ll test it here first and see if it works.”

  “Don’t try this at home, kids,” I joked, and was rewarded with a faint chuckle.

  “Exactly. I’ll call you back as soon as I can. It should take me less than an hour.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I hung up the phone and turned to two expectant faces. “He doesn’t know. He’s going to test it and call me back.”

  Kane got up to pour himself another cup of coffee. “At least that will give you time to finish your breakfast.”

  I regarded my cold toast without enthusiasm. “Kind of lost my appetite.”

  “Eat.” The command came in ragged unison from both men, and I raised my hands in surrender.

  “Jeez, Mom and Dad. All right, already.” I slid back onto the bench and slowly finished my breakfast. Then I brewed a cup of herbal tea, deep in thought.

  I’d need to access all the data records that had been created within the last couple of days. Maybe I could find some document files to snoop into as well, but that could take a very long time. Maybe there was a way for me to copy files from the network so I could look at them externally. I’d have to ask Spider.

  I sighed and sipped my tea, realizing as I did that Kane and Germain were both watching me intently.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You had that look. The one you always get right before you figure something out,” Germain said.

  “I have an idea, but I can’t see how it might work,” I admitted. “I’m trying to figure out a way to steal some files. I’m wondering if I can get Harchman’s guest list. Or anything else that might help.”

  “Too dangerous,” Kane objected.

  “Actually, it would be less dangerous than opening them from within the network,” I countered. “I think, anyway. I’ll ask Spider when he calls back. But I can’t think of a way to do it, so it’s probably pointless anyway.”

  Right on cue, the phone rang. When I picked up, Spider’s voice was triumphant. “It worked.”

  “Excellent.”

  “But…” I heard the jubilation fade. “It worked for me because I understand how network hardware and software works, so I could easily create a workstation sim. I don’t know if you’d be able to do it. And I don’t have any way to send you the sim file.”

  “Which brings me to my next question. What about transferring files?” I asked. “Is there any way I can pull files out and transfer them to another system outside of their network?”

  “No. As long as you’re inside the network, you can create a sim to do anything. But as soon as you leave the network, you’re back inside your own head. Short of memorizing the contents of the file, you can’t bring any data with you. You need a physical network connection to do that.”

  “So somebody like Hellhound could do that. He’s got a photographic memory.”

  “Yes…” he said cautiously. “But Hellhound doesn’t have the security clearance to do it. And anyway, it wouldn’t be much use. You’d know the contents of the file, in your head, but you still couldn’t transfer the file to another system.”

  I sighed. “Okay. I was hoping I’d missed some obvious solution.”

  “No. Sorry.”

  “All right. Thanks. At least we know the sim within a sim works.”

  “For me.” His voice was strained. “Aydan, I don’t know if you should try it.”

  “Well, there’s only one way to find out. I spent some time as a network administrator, back in the dark ages. Maybe I still remember enough to get by. The user interfaces have changed so much that I don’t know how to use them anymore, but I think the underlying structure is still basically the same, isn’t it?”

  “Yes… but… Aydan, can I talk to Kane for a minute?”

  “Sure. Thanks for the info.”

  I passed the phone over to Kane and slouched on the bench. Dredging up my ancient computer knowledge, I tried to figure out how the simulation might work. My brain tied itself in a knot while I contemplated sims inside sims, and I made fists in my hair. I really had no idea. I’d just have to try it and hope for the best.

  Kane disconnected and gave me a level look. “No.”

  “What?” I floundered up out of my abstraction, wondering if I’d spoken that last part out loud.

  “No,” he repeated. “If you’re not absolutely positive you can do this, then it’s not an option.”

  “Spider said it worked.”

  “Webb said it worked for him.”

  “Did he just rat me out?”

  “Yes.”

  I sighed. “It could work for me. You know I used to be a network administrator.”

  “The operative words are ‘used to be’,” he said severely.

  “Okay, how about this,” I proposed. “What if I go in and try to create my workstation sim. If I can’t create it at all, then nothing’s lost. If I can create it, I could test it with one file, just for a second. Worst case scenario, it updates the data record. It would only be that one record, and I’d only be in it for a couple of seconds. And if it actually works, the best-case scenario gives you exactly the answers you need.”

  He scowled, and I knew I’d won. The cost/benefit analysis really didn’t leave him much choice.

  “All right,” he said reluctantly. “When can you be ready to go?”

  “Just let me put my leathers on.”

  Chapter 32

  We pushed through dense thickets of diamond willow, and I blessed my protective leather clothing as the twigs raked at me. The small creek trickled feebly beside us.

  Kane held up a hand, and I waited while he scanned the way before we resumed our slow progress. In a few yards, he dropped to a crouch to thread his way through the beginning of a steep cutbank. I followed, and after a few more minutes of stealthy travel, he straightened with a barely audible sigh.

  “We’re inside the security perimeter,” he whispered. “Try it now.”

  I obediently sank to the ground and concentrated, but to no avail. I shook my head, and he shrugged resignation and jerked his head to indicate that we should continue. I followed him again while he made his way further west.

  I tried to ignore an unpleasant sensation of déjà vu. This is how he’d gotten captured last time, babysitting me. If they caught him this time…

  My foot sank up to the ankle in the muck of the stream bed. I pulled it loose with a sucking sound and shook my boot vigorously to disl
odge the clinging mud.

  I yanked my mind away from my worries and focused on deflecting the twigs that threatened to poke my eyes out. Mosquitoes swarmed enthusiastically. I shook my hair loose from its ponytail and let it fall around my shoulders to ward them off. Ahead, Kane smeared one of the little bloodsuckers across the back of his unprotected neck.

  He sidestepped onto solid ground and surveyed the surroundings cautiously before nodding at me again.

  I sat, and was surprised when I actually stepped into the network. I took a few deep breaths to slow my pounding heart and began my check for active sims, wondering what creative fantasies I might discover this time. Now that I knew the truth behind the porn simulations, I wasn’t sure whether having to spy on them was worse or better.

  The security sim was active but unoccupied. I slipped in and surveyed the displays, but I was afraid to alter the camera views, and urgency prodded me on.

  In another sim, Harchman was entertaining himself with my construct again. Apparently the cute blonde hadn’t held his interest for long. I let out an inaudible sigh of irritation and floated down the virtual corridor.

  The happy couple had apparently checked out, and I allowed myself a smile at the thought that Harchman had added a little bit of joy to the world, however unintentionally.

  When I approached the blond man’s room, my pulse raced a little faster as I wondered yet again about the true nature of his sim.

  I peeked in and doubled over the stab of icy horror in my gut, clamping both invisible hands over my mouth to smother my reaction. In an instant, I was rocketing through sim-space to stand in front of the portal.

  When I stepped through, I struggled against the pain and the hard hand clamped against my mouth. When I managed to control my frantic whimpering a few moments later, Kane released his grip, staring down at me.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “Another prisoner! They’ve got another prisoner! They’re torturing him…” I gasped a couple of wheezing breaths. “We have to stop them!”