Death of Secrets

by Bowen Greenwood

  "How do you know the victim was male?"

  Again the eyes went wide, this time not narrowing nearly so quickly. "I… uh, you know… that's what my neighbors told me."

  "Funny your upstairs neighbors never saw the body either. It was gone by the time we got there and woke them up."

  "Well, you know, the girl who found it. Someone must have known her, and spread the word. I just heard it through the rumor mill."

  Franken shook his head, grumbling to himself about punk kids and their attitudes.

  "Look, Sonny Jim, whoever killed that man knew for a fact that he was coming to see you. They were so sure of it they staked out a duck blind a block from this place and blew him away at long distance when he came to your door to knock. So if they know you know him, and I know you know him, how come you don't know you know him?"

  "I don't know! I don't know anything about this, and I've decided I don't want to talk to you about it anymore. Unless you have a warrant, get out of my house!"

  Inside, he was laughing, but outside he wore a stern expression. "Not that easy, son," he said, and took his handcuffs from his belt. Before the youth could react, he had cuffed one of his wrists.

  "You have the right to remain silent. Should you choose to waive that right, anything you say can and will be used against…"

  "Hey wait a minute!" The kid protested his voice high and on the edge of panic. "You can't arrest me, I didn't kill him, I swear! You've got to believe me! I can't go to jail, my parents would kill me!"

  At that, Franken almost lost control and laughed. "Then tell me who did," he managed to get out without cracking a smile.

  "I don't know!"

  "But you knew the guy who died."

  "OK, OK," the boy whined. "Yeah, I knew him, but I'm not guilty of anything, you can't arrest me."

  "Why was he coming to visit you?"

  "Just personal business."

  Franken swore. "Don't give me a line of bull! Something serious is going down here and I want to know about it. Either you sit down on your ratty couch there and tell me what you know, or I haul you in for murder and you tell me at the station."

  Deflated, the boy walked over to his couch, still carrying the handcuffs around one wrist. He plopped down, rested his elbows on his knees, and held his chin in both hands. "He was supposed to bring me a flash drive."

  "Who's the dead guy?" Franken asked, to get things started.

  "I don't know," the boy responded. Seeing the look on Franken's face he immediately added, "I don't know, honest! I have no idea who he was! He was just supposed to bring me a flash drive."

  Franken pressed on. "What was on it?"

  "I don't know, really. I'm telling the truth, I don't. I was just supposed to bring it to someone else."

  Franken scowled. "So he brings it to you, and you bring it to someone else, and then I suppose that someone brings it to someone else yet again. Why not just have the dead guy bring it to the final guy?"

  "Because the final guy is really paranoid," the kid replied. "He was really afraid of someone finding him. I never got told who or what or why, but he was very specific that I was to just carry the flash drive and not ask questions."

  "Who is this final guy?"

  This sounded more and more to Franken like a job for the Foreign Counter Intelligence office at the FBI. But he planned to learn what he could before handing it over to the feds.

  "Come on, you must know something!"

  The boy shook his head desperately. "Honest, I don't! I only know him over the Internet."

  "Ah, so you do know him."

  "Just his online alias."

  "Which is?" Franken asked, leaning forward.

  "Jakarta."

  CHAPTER 10

  Carlos picked up his phone. He knew Nathan Jacobs; knew that they shared a tendency to behave like workaholics. So he fully expected to find the federal employee in the office on Sunday.

  Carlos grinned, wondering what his old employers would think if they knew who was handling security for Electron Guidewire. But they didn't. There were a lot of things about EG they didn't know.

  And he meant to keep it that way, which was the purpose of his phone call. He dialed the number for Nathan Jacobs' office, planning to tell him about the recent attempted electronic break-in at EG. Since they were the client for GigaStar, they deserved to know about security threats to the program. But even to him, it felt a bit crazy. Alerting the government to a possible investigation at the company when they were trying to hide something from them seemed backwards. But any good martial artist could tell you that victory was easiest to attain when you could turn your enemy's force against him. By channeling the NSA into wondering about external threats, he hoped to keep them from looking at the internal problems – such as the entire GigaStar team being dead.

  Carlos snarled when Jacobs’ voice mail picked up, informing him that the Director was away from his desk, and to call the cell phone in emergencies. He did just that, punching in the new number and waiting for a response.

  Jacobs picked up on the third ring. "Nate Jacobs speaking."

  "Jacobs, this is Carlos Saglieri with Electron Guidewire. D.W. Tilman asked me to give you a call."

  "Sure, Carlos. What's up?"

  "We had an attempted break-in here," he said. To the Jacobs, the words "break-in" didn't mean the same thing they would have to a street cop. To him, "break-in" meant an electronic break in – computer hacking.

  Immediately the casual attitude on the other end of the phone went away. "OK, give me the details."

  "It was Monday, about 11:00 p.m. We don't really know that much about it. He got out as soon as I got on. I was doing the nightly security check myself because the shift manager for the security guards – who normally does one every hour throughout the night – had called in sick. So I logged in and noticed there was another connection to the server, but as soon as I started a trace route on him, the connection broke. Next I went to check the log, and saw that it had been modified just seconds after I logged on. Obviously the guy was watching his back, keeping an eye out for a check. When he saw me, he covered his tracks and left."

  Both men knew that hackers generally tried to hide the fact that they had ever been in a system by modifying its log files – deleting the entry for their connection. The only problem was that the system would still preserve a record of the fact that the log file had been altered and at what time. That always enabled security forces to get an approximate time when the hacker had been in their system, even if it didn't provide any useful information about who he was.

  Only one of them, however, knew that the break-in had gone on much longer than Carlos was letting on. Far from catching the hacker in the act, Carlos's check had only noticed the intrusion long after the hacker was done. And what he'd done, they knew in hind sight, was to disable the building alarm system, so that little bastard Eric Harrison could get in and steal the GigaStar backup flash drive. It was extremely fortunate for Carlos that Kathy had picked up that flash drive instead of its intended recipient. If it had gotten to the hacker who'd arranged the physical theft, no doubt he would have broken the encryption by now. As it was, Carlos was 90 percent certain that the flash drive was still encrypted and the code for GigaStar safely secret.

  "Why'd you wait so long to warn us about it?"

  "It took us this long to figure out how he got in," Carlos lied.

  "OK," Jacobs said, still not entirely happy that they had waited so long to report the trouble. "We'll send a guy. Have any idea what he was trying to steal?"

  Carlos smiled quietly to himself. He was pretty pleased with himself for coming up with this. It was only a remote chance that it would ever be needed, but if it ever was, this was the perfect insurance policy.

  "We don't think he was actually taking out, to tell the truth. It looks like he was putting in."

  "What?"

  "Yeah, it looks like he was putting some unauthorized code on our system."

 
; "Carlos, that's pretty serious. We buy a lot of the programs you guys write there. You know the one I’m thinking about right now. I’m going to have to send someone over; are you going to be averse to letting him go over your source code?"

  "No, we understand," Carlos replied. "The security issues are obvious. We've looked on our own, but haven’t found anything yet. Your guy might have a fresh perspective."

  "Right. OK, I'll have someone out there tomorrow. And if the hacker comes back, let us know quicker, OK?"

  "Will do, Jacobs. We'll give your agent total cooperation."

  Carlos laughed when he hung up the phone. He added, "Well, almost total." But only the walls could hear him, and his office was the only one in the building that actually wasn't bugged.

  ***

  Looking out the rear window, Colleen muttered, "Jeez, that was close."

  Kathy looked back to see what she was talking about and saw a big freight truck behind them, driver angrily shaking his fist. She was about to comment when a radical turn threw her into Michael’s lap. She scrambled back up to a sitting position and closed her eyes, unable to stand the sight of cars coming at them and whizzing by at such high speed.

  Michael wrapped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed gently. He offered as much assurance as he had to give, but in truth he was frightened too. Less of the high speed chase, though, than of the men who’d been chasing them. Those guys were professionals.

  When he looked up from the top of Kathy’s head, Mike saw they were pulling into a giant parking garage. They followed the arrows up a couple stories before finding the spot the driver was looking for. As the window between driver and passengers came down, he said, "Um, I think you picked a bad time to park."

  "You all need to do exactly as I say," the driver said, not looking back at them. He eased the car into a parking spot and popped his door. "Out, now and fast. We’re switching cars!"

  The three piled out of the limo and found the side door of a Chrysler minivan open and waiting for them. They hurried in as the driver went around to the other side. Their driver sped recklessly out of the garage as Kathy squeezed her eyes closed once again. They shot out the exit.

  About thirty feet down the street, Michael could see the Chevy Suburban heading through the entrance. After several twists and turns, he started to feel like they'd escaped. He tapped on the driver’s shoulder. "I think we lost them."

  The man only nodded. "Probably, but I’m going to make sure."

  The van followed a dizzying series of twists, turns, and high speed corners. When they pulled into another parking garage, Mike was thoroughly disoriented. Kathy, of course, felt even worse, since she’d had her eyes closed the whole time.

  "OK, folks," the driver said. "We’re going to make one more car change, and a driver change as well. Please exit the vehicle and get in the one to our right. But before you do, I’m going to ask all of you to give me any cell phones, beepers, or any wireless devices you might have."

  "What?" Colleen asked. "Why?"

  "They’re traceable," the driver replied. "Any transmission on one of those could lead anyone looking for you right smack to you. Where you’re going, we’re very conscious of anything being traceable. Please cooperate, you’ll get them back when you leave. I’m just going to hold them at a separate location while you’re with Jakarta."

  Colleen couldn’t help but suck in a little breath at that. This was the first time their driver had directly mentioned his name. It was really true. She was going to meet him. And that thought made it easier to hand over her phone. Mike did likewise, but the look on his face wasn’t pleasant. He tapped on the keyboard to lock it before passing it over.

  Once he set those on the passenger seat next to them, their driver got out and opened the sliding door. Colleen, Mike and Kathy piled out onto the pavement.

  They met their new driver and were not impressed. His bulk made bucket seats an inconvenience, and his clothing was at least one size too small to cover it all. He waved at their new conveyance.

  This one was a black Ford full sized van. With one little special feature, Colleen noticed as soon as she stepped in. There were no windows in the back, and a curtain pulled across the driving compartment kept them from seeing out the windshield. "Um, what’s with the curtain?" she asked, poking her head into the driving compartment.

  "Please keep to the back of the van," their new driver replied. "The man we’re going to see is very concerned with privacy, and would rather you three didn’t know where we were going."

  "That’s crazy!" Mike protested. "No way!"

  "Well, it’s either that or I leave you here. We’re being very courteous about this, you know. Be thankful I don’t blindfold you. But I am asking you to cooperate. If you don’t, the meeting is off."

  The two girls and the Congressman looked at each other, and then gave a collective shrug. Reluctantly, they all stepped toward the van's door.

  ***

  Franken drove his unmarked car down Wisconsin Avenue on his way to downtown D.C.. Try as he might, he'd failed to get much more information out of the kid. Just that he'd been at his door, ready to let the guy with the flash drive in, when suddenly he collapsed and started spewing blood from his chest. Gilmore had been so terrified that he'd stood there, frozen at the door instead of going out to help, for nearly two minutes. And that was what had put the whole plan out of whack.

  While he was standing there watching, Kathy Kelver had come upon the dying man and been handed the flash drive. Gilmore might have gone out and asked for it, except that almost immediately she'd run off. Instead, he just stood there, horrified at how a simple chance to earn a bit of illicit money had gone so horribly wrong. That probably saved his life.

  Almost right on Kathy’s heels, a van had pulled up in front of his door and someone had hauled the dead body inside. Then more men had fanned out of the van and started cleaning up the mess. Gilmore said he nearly passed out at that, and Franken believed him. According to the kid, he'd fled out the back door of his apartment, and not come back for almost a day.

  Gilmore gave him one single other piece of useful information. He'd been supposed to take the flash drive to a parking garage, where another man would meet him and take delivery. Franken was now on his way to that very garage, just to see what could be seen. He had no illusions about finding a big sign saying "Drop flash drive here, follow directions below to find Jakarta." But on the other hand, one never knew what might pop up.

  The drive to the garage took him longer than he would have liked, with traffic being on the heavy side. But eventually he found the place, showed his badge, told the attendant he was just driving through to investigate, and went on in.

  The dark, gloomy atmosphere of garages always bothered him. Each little light was like an island of safety in the midst of a sea of darkness offering plenty of breeding ground for crime. A mugger could work unhindered here, and the victims would never even be able to identify him. To Franken's eye, conditioned by years of police work, each Honda and Chevy snuggled tight into its spot represented something for a hood to hide behind. The yellow lines were all faded from years of being driven over, and idly he wondered how people knew for sure which spot was theirs.

  A black van with a small crowd standing outside it caught his eye. He looked over, looked away, swore under his breath, and looked back. Then he blinked, and looked for a third time. Sure enough, that was Kathy Kelver getting into that van.

  It was just too much to buy. The same girl who had taken the flash drive intended for Gilmore, now standing around a parking garage Gilmore had been supposed to bring the flash drive to? He stopped the car.

  The entire party looked at him and none of them, Franken saw, were all that happy about his presence. There was much shifting of feet and looking away. Well, that was too bad for them. Something big was going on here, and he wanted to know what it was.

  Kelver, naturally, was the first to speak to him. "Officer Franken! What are you doing here?"<
br />
  "I was about to ask you the same thing, Miss Kelver."

  "Are you tracking me down to ticket me for a false alarm?"

  He had to smile at that. The girl knew how to crack jokes under pressure, and that was something. "No, I'd just mail that to you. No, no, I'm here because I don't think it was a false alarm. I think it was a murder. I think the flash drive you claimed that guy gave you before he died was eventually supposed to end up in this garage, and I'm wondering why I now find you here."

  Kathy’s eyes widened. "It was supposed to come here? Gosh, I wish I had it with me." After all, Colleen had it, not Kathy. "Did you find out what was on it?"

  Franken peered at her face. He stepped up closer to her and looked again. "Didn't you tell me you were studying to be an actress, Kathy?"

  She nodded.

  "I predict great things for you in that field."

  "What do you mean, Officer?"

  He snarled. "Because you sound so innocent, but it's way too much to believe that you just happen to turn up in the same place that flash drive was supposed to come to."

  She shrugged. "I'm sorry I can't help you more, officer. I didn't know you would be asking me about it, or I would have brought it with me. Maybe next time if you just ask me, instead of following me around, I'll have what you're looking for."

  Even knowing he was being manipulated, Franken couldn't help but get angry. "I'm following you around? You know very well…"

  "Well," she said, "It's just too much to believe that you happen to show up in the very same garage where my designated driver parked his car."

  Franken fumed, thinking dark thoughts about college kids who thought they were smart. "Listen, Kelver. I don’t think you shot that guy. But it's for sure you know more about the murder than I do. You're hiding something, and I want to know what it is!"

  She shook her head and looked honest, but he could smell the smirk, even if she wasn’t showing it. "I’m sorry I can’t help."

  He grumbled. "I ought to haul all of you in for minor in possession!"