The Last Day

by John Ramsey Miller

  Agent Mayes said, “Just make sure all of the computers are turned off. Yours, too; it's illegal for you to look at that.”

  “You can't be serious,” Mark said.

  “You can't think we did this on purpose?” Ward asked, incredulous.

  “Of course not,” Firman answered.

  Ward's cell phone rang and he recognized Natasha's number. When he opened the phone, everybody in the room could hear the sound of his irate wife letting him have it with both barrels. Ward shuddered at the thought of the people on her e-mail list.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Gene Duncan's arrival made Ward feel better, but not for long. A contingent of no fewer than twenty FBI agents and other personnel arrived minutes before his attorney, moving through the building in ones and twos searching the offices. FBI computer techs, armed with laptops and other electronic equipment, hooked up to the RGI servers and sat typing as they stared intently at illuminated screens.

  In the three hours since the virus's release, media vehicles had made their parking lot look like the streets outside the L.A. courthouse during the O. J. Simpson trial. The television viewing public was fast becoming aware that the virus had originated from a system serving a NASCAR- related business right smack on the buckle of the Bible Belt. The pundits descended.

  As unnatural disasters went, this one was way off the charts, so RGI's name was fast becoming a household word, and not in a good way. Ward's suspicion was that someone was out to destroy his company, and this was probably going to accomplish just that. It was noon before it was Ward's turn with the interviewing agents, and Gene Duncan was at his side. The agents who'd arrived with the initial warrant, Mayes and Firman, were in charge. They interviewed Mark, Leslie, and the company's techs before they got around to Ward.

  Agent Firman, whose expression was as unreadable to Ward as Chinese characters painted on a wall, was doing the talking.

  Firman said, “Mr. McCarty what we've established so far is that the virus originated here in this building.”

  “You think someone here did this?” Ward asked incredulously.

  “Obviously someone did this to damage the company,” Gene railed.

  Firman asked, “Do you have any enemies, Mr. McCarty?”

  “Flash Dibble has been trying to buy this company for six months,” Ward said. “I have refused to sell it. Maybe he figured if he couldn't have it, he'd destroy it to lower the price, or start another company using our pissed- off clients as his base. Yesterday I told his son I'd never sell to them. He threatened me.”

  “Flash Dibble's son is trying to destroy your company? Okay, it's a theory,” Firman said, writing. “Our techs tell me that the images seem to be mostly Russian pornography. Is your Mr. Dibble a Russian mobster?”

  “It makes as much sense as anything else,” Gene said. “The threat was veiled, but it sure sounded like a threat to me. Couldn't anyone with the knowledge create the virus? That is something that could be purchased. What about Trey Dibble? Who else would want to destroy a company that he can't buy? He's a malicious brat.”

  “Destroying it would certainly be a lot cheaper than paying twenty- two million,” Ward said.

  Firman reached into a sack and removed a glassine envelope with a padded envelope in it. Ward could read his own name on the front, above his home address, complete with canceled stamps. The return address wasn't one he was familiar with.

  “We found this in your desk,” Firman said.

  “I've never seen it before,” Ward said.

  “My techs tell me that the CD inside this envelope was the source of the virus. Our techs have tracked the virus's point of origin to one desktop computer here, Mr. McCarty Yours.”

  Ward felt as though he'd been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. “That's impossible,” he protested, feeling suddenly nauseated.

  “When someone put this disk in your computer, it infected your servers, and spread and sent e-mails containing the virus to the addresses in all of the computers in the building.”

  “You can't think I did it?” Ward asked, stunned. “I didn't use my computer yesterday except to check e-mails, and I haven't put any CDs into it in ages.”

  “Based on what we know, it's possible you did,” Firman said. “I don't say so, the evidence does. I'm sure whoever did it didn't do it on purpose. If you did it, you obviously didn't know when you looked at it that it contained a Trojan horse that waited some amount of time before it came to life. I strongly suspect you, or someone not yet identified, just wanted to look at the porn, but whomever you, or someone else, got it from played a dirty little trick on you, or them. I strongly suspect that you, or someone else yet to be identified, is a pervert who's going to spend some quality time in a federal prison.”

  Ward said evenly, “I've never seen that envelope before.”

  Gene said, “So even if Ward received the envelope—and who knows what was originally inside it—and inserted it into his computer, you can't prove he knew its contents. And he says he's never seen it before, so you have to prove that isn't the case. Anybody could have put the CD inside the envelope. You have no case against Mr. McCarty.”

  “If he's never seen either, then your client's prints won't be on the envelope or the disk,” Firman said. “And naturally it doesn't have a label saying what it is. That would be a first. There will be more evidence, I suspect, and then we'll have more to go on.”

  “Okay, Agent Firman. If it's true, and he knew, for argument's sake,” Gene said, “and it certainly isn't, why would he be stupid enough to keep that CD in his office?”

  “I don't know, Mr. Duncan. I'll check with the Behavioral Science Unit. Maybe—theoretically speaking, of course—he thinks his office is safe. According to his computer logs, he's visited questionable pornography sites for the past year.”

  “I've never visited any pornography sites,” Ward said.

  Gene put his hand on Ward's forearm. “Are you placing my client under arrest?” he asked the agent.

  “Not yet,” Firman said. “But we'll need to take Mr. McCarty's fingerprints for exclusionary purposes.”

  “No problem,” Ward said, quickly.

  “A polygraph would help to clear him,” Agent Mayes added.

  “I'd be happy to,” Ward said.

  “My client will not be taking any polygraph,” Gene said.

  “Why not, if he isn't guilty?” Firman asked.

  “Because it isn't admissible,” Gene said. “And we all know there's good reason for that.”

  “You aren't a criminal attorney, are you, Mr. Duncan?” Agent Firman drawled.

  Ward said, “I have absolutely nothing to hide.”

  “Oh, Mr. McCarty,” Firman said, smiling for the first time since he'd come into the building. “It's pretty obvious that your lawyer doesn't believe that's the case.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Watcher parked his truck outside a textile mill in Charlotte's south side that had been converted into lofts. He walked to a red door with the gold number 12 on it and rang the bell. He scanned the parking lot and was glad to see that it was deserted.

  The peephole went dark and a second later the door opened. The young man who squinted out at Watcher was thin, stooped, and bald on the top of his head. The remaining halo of hair surrounding his pate was long and gathered into a thin ponytail. He wore a soul patch between his narrow lower lip and the weak chin beneath. The thick lenses held in heavy black frames enlarged his bloodshot blue eyes. He wore a soiled undershirt, and the boxer shorts he wore looked like they were going to fall off as soon as he exhaled. Obviously he'd been awake for a very long time.

  “Hi, Bert,” Watcher said.

  “Hey, man,” Bert said. “Come in. You know what the frigging sun does to vampires.”

  After Watcher went in, Bert looked out and scanned the parking lot before he closed the door. Except for the bathroom, Bert's condo was one open space with eighteen- foot ceilings. The lower seven feet of the floor- to- ceiling windows
, built to provide both light and ventilation to the workers in the cavernous weaving room, were covered by stained bedsheets. On a mezzanine, accessible by narrow stairs, an unmade bed was surrounded by piles of clothes and other flotsam from Bert's solitary lifestyle. The space smelled like a locker room after a football game.

  The TV was on and Watcher was treated to a live report of the havoc wrought by the pornography virus. Watcher and Bert took a moment to watch and admire. Bert laughed out loud when a mother being interviewed started sobbing as she described the trauma to her young daughter the e-mail had caused. The report went from the woman to a minister who called for the arrest of the guilty party who'd perpetrated the unspeakable assault on human decency. The red-faced, gravel-voiced parson called further for the government to control the smut that was destroying the innocence of children and thousands of wholesome God- fearing families. “This is a war with Satan himself,” the sanctimonious minister bellowed. Before his segment ended, he managed to name his ministry and his dot- com address so Christians could send their dollars to help fund his antipornogra-phy campaign.

  “Man, oh, man, I've never been a general in Satan's army before,” Bert said, barely able to contain his glee.

  The damning evidence was purposefully circumstantial in nature. Watcher still knew that it was possible, though unlikely, that Ward would be arrested. Public outcry was too great. The authorities were under too much pressure. Watcher imagined the pressure on the McCartys and smiled back grimly at Bert.

  A table made from a sheet of heavy plywood and set on sawhorses dominated the living room/kitchen. Five computer terminals lined the table. An expensive armchair on rollers was pushed up to one like a captain's chair. The screen of one computer held hundreds of lines of program coding, as undecipherable to Watcher as sheet music. The young man opened the re frigerator and took out a chilled bottle of beer. Except for a six- pack of Budweiser, a pizza box, and ketchup, the unit's interior was empty.

  “Want one?” he asked.

  “Too early for me,” Watcher said. “I brought you something,” he said, putting a glass vial on the table. He had taken it from his jacket pocket, using his fingertips on the edges to avoid leaving prints.

  “What's this?”

  “A reward for your amazing work.”

  Bert lifted the vial and opened it, peering in at the white powder.

  “Meth? I have plenty of meth. I like meth. You want some?”

  “It's Peruvian flake, Bert. Ninety- eight percent pure, so be careful.”

  “No shit?” Bert poured the powder on a plastic CD case. “Cool. I haven't had any coke in months. So, we're rock stars, man! We made a humongous splash with the naughty porno thing.” He laughed and held his clammy hand up for a high- five slap.

  Watcher slapped the young man's open hand and smiled.

  “You keep any of the kiddie pictures to look at later?” Watcher asked.

  “Well, I've got the virus copies like you said to keep for you, the code and all that, but I'm not stupid enough to keep it around longer than necessary, even if it's a thing of beauty, virusly speaking. Not the porn, though. That's really creepy stuff, man.”

  Watcher took a number-ten envelope from his pocket, again by the edges, and handed it to the programmer. “Five thousand dollars,” Watcher said.

  “You already paid me,” Bert said. “Why the bump? Oh, because I'm such a rock star and because it was so effective for your guy?”

  “Yep. It's a bonus. You earned it, man,” Watcher said, handing Bert a business card without his prints on it, but those of its owner. “Cut it with this.”

  “Cool,” Bert said. He took the business card from Watcher—putting his own prints on it in the process—chopped at the pile of cocaine, and deftly split it into wide two- inch- long rails. Rolling up one of the bills from the stack inside the envelope, he bent down and snorted each rail, one, then the other. He straightened, pinched his nose like a child about to jump into a swimming pool, and sucked in air abruptly as he released his nostrils.

  “Far out!” he said, spinning his chair in circles, using his filthy bare feet for propulsion. “We've been all that's on the jazzing news.” He stopped spinning, sighed. “Wish I could use this in my portfolio. I mean, I wouldn't, because I'd end up in jail … again. But I sure wish I could just tell some of my hacker buds. They'd go ape shit, man!”

  “Are you sure the FBI can't trace this job to you?”

  “No way, man. No frigging way. I put in so much bullshit code around the meat—excuse my pun—that they will never work through all of it. Then I piled the covering shit on shit, so deep that I'm never going to have anybody within ten miles of me. You hired the best, man. The absolute best.”

  Watcher shrugged. He knew Bert's confidence was horseshit. The cops knew all about people like Bert, and given time they'd brace him and he'd end up rolling over like a dachshund puppy approached by a pack of ravenous wolves.

  When Bert bent over the table to put the envelope into a wire bin, Watcher slipped the stiletto from his pocket, pressed the button releasing the long, thin blade, pressed the tip against the base of Bert's skull, and pulled back on his ponytail, shoving the blade in to the hilt. Watcher pulled it out, closed the weapon, and, after wiping off his prints, dropped it into a plastic bag, which he then put into his pants pocket.

  He looked at the disposable cell phone on the table that he'd given Bert. Using his fingertips, Watcher took the envelope of cash and put it under the computer's keyboard. Satis fied, he took one of Bert's business cards and pocketed it for later use. Now, he thought, the circular evidence trail was exactly half laid.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  While Ward was relieved that he wasn't leaving his building in handcuffs, Gene Duncan had told him that being arrested by the FBI in the near future was possible. Just being accused of anything related to child pornography would leave a permanent stain. As he walked out of the building with Gene and Mark, Ward saw that all of the cameras in the parking lot turned on the trio. Ward realized the mistake they'd made in agreeing to join Gene when he made a statement. The cameras were pasting human faces to the scandal.

  Ward fought the urge to turn and bolt for the building. He walked out in front to stand behind Gene, facing the waiting cameras like a politician. Firman and his partner, Mayes, left the building after them. They strolled to a stone gray sedan and drove off, watching Ward the whole time.

  “All we can tell you at this point,” Gene was saying when Ward focused on him, “is that RGI called in the FBI as soon as they were aware of what had happened. It appears obvious that someone intentionally infected RGI's computers with this despicable virus, and we are hopeful that the FBI will find the culprit or culprits and bring them to justice. Raceway's owners and all of its employees are cooperating with the FBI and hope to see this resolved in the very near future. My clients, I am certain, will be exonerated. Thank you.”

  Ward felt certain that not one of the people in the lot or out there in the free world would believe for a second that he was innocent.

  After Gene's statement, the three men went to their respective cars and drove away. Ward drove straight home, with Gene following him. Twenty minutes later, they had to slow to pass through a sheriff's department roadblock at the entrance of his driveway He couldn't believe the number of cars and trucks parked on the side of the road, the milling curious, and the reporters shouting questions at his car as he rolled by. Even though he knew the FBI was planning to search his house, Ward hadn't expected them to be at it so soon.

  Gene and Ward parked in the grass beside the Crown Victoria driven by Firman and Mayes. Ward walked with Gene to the open front door. Natasha stood in the foyer, crying. Her trembling right hand held the FBI search warrant, which she handed to Gene.

  “They're searching Barney's room,” she told them between her sobs. There were no words for what Ward was feeling as Gene took the warrant and started reading it. Ward tried to put his arms around his wife to comfor
t her, but she pulled away, crossed her arms, and went outside into the sweltering heat. Firman and Mayes both walked in and out of view, directing traffic. A tech wearing surgical gloves who was carrying Ward's personal laptop computer walked around him, heading out to the closest van.

  An hour later, while Ward sat on the couch in black- cloud thought, the last of the FBI search party left the house, leaving a mess behind. Gene had a list of everything they had taken, and, seated beside Ward, studied it carefully. Ward got up and went to the door leading into the dining room where Natasha sat at the table in silence, sipping a glass of orange juice.

  “I'll clean up,” Ward told her.

  “I work with children,” she said. “Can you imagine what my patients’ parents think?”

  “Someone did this to us,” he said angrily. Ward wasn't so much angry as he felt like he wanted to lie down on the floor and die in place so this would end.

  She looked up at him, and in all the years he'd known her, and except for the ordeal they'd gone through with Barney's death and its aftermath, he'd never seen her so utterly devastated.

  “Who? Why?” she asked.

  “He's right,” Gene said.

  “Can you prove it?” she asked.

  “We will,” Gene said positively.

  She shook her head slowly.

  Ward wanted to believe him but wasn't any more convinced than his wife seemed to be.

  “You can't believe I had anything to do with this?” Ward asked her.

  “How does what I think matter here?” she demanded. “My husband's company sent child pornography out to the world. The press has already told everyone he's a pedophile. The FBI questioned me like I was a criminal, destroyed our home, and carted off our computers. My office phone hasn't stopped ringing all morning because our computers sent the trash out to hundreds of people, my patients chief among them. The majority of my new patients have asked for a transfer to one of my partners. I'm out of business, probably for good here. My partners have suggested that I stay out of the office until this is resolved. Do I believe my husband is guilty? What the hell does that matter?”