The Canton Connection

by Fritz Galt

  “Fine. I’ll see you back in Arlington.”

  Wu stood and dropped his napkin on the table. He stared at Jake. There wasn’t much trust there. “I’m not so sure I should leave you,” Wu told her.

  “Oh, c’mon,” she said. “I’ll be fine. Have a nice trip.”

  Wu flashed a warning look at Jake along the lines of “Don’t mess with her.”

  But she was shooing him away.

  Wu grabbed his room key, and Jake rose to shake his hand. He stood a good six inches taller than his counterpart, and he had a few more pointed questions to ask. But Wu was in a hurry to get on the road.

  Wu threw Stacy one last concerned look. “You okay with this?”

  “You just go ahead,” she said. “Have a good trip. I’ll give your regards to my folks.”

  With that, Wu gave Jake a firm handshake, and whirled about to leave the room. Much to Jake’s approval, there was no affectionate kiss from either party. But their comfortable familiarity was disconcerting. They were like an old married couple that was way beyond kissing good-bye.

  He sat staring at Stacy.

  Alone, she was radiant, with the morning sunlight catching her halo of nearly bleached hair.

  “Two federal agents,” she said. “And you circle each other like prize fighters.” She sounded disappointed, as if expecting them to like each other.

  “FBI agents and deputy marshals are always like that,” he tried to convince her. “We can sense each other from a mile away and there’s a kind of professional rivalry.”

  “Sounds like a terrific place to work,” she cracked.

  “It’s not all that bad, once you get to know the other agents, do some work together.” He was getting off track. “Where do your parents live?”

  “Same place they’ve always been: Bluefield.”

  Jake had heard of the place, a small town in the mountains above Virginia Tech. As he recalled, the town’s main street straddled the Virginia and West Virginia state line. “They are in West Virginia?”

  She nodded.

  “That makes you a Mountaineer,” he said.

  She grinned. “I suppose so,” she said, laying on a thick accent.

  For a moment, he could see her growing up speaking like that. But she had lost the drawl in her everyday speech.

  He was worried that they were long on coincidence, having encountered each other at the Charlottesville hotel, and short on topics of conversation. So he went right to the heart of his investigation. “Witness any murders lately?”

  That froze her expression for a moment. Then she seemed to sense that he was employing a macabre sense of humor. “No, Jake. Haven’t been a witness to any major acts of cruel, inhuman barbarity lately. Thank you.”

  She wasn’t going to cooperate. But how could she not know?

  “Were you with Simon Wu all afternoon?”

  She knitted her eyebrows. “Why the third degree?”

  “I’m a cop. I want to know.”

  “Is this an interview? I thought this was a breakfast.”

  Her mood had changed. He could kick himself. He had managed to destroy any chance of catching her off guard.

  Okay, she wasn’t going to talk. So he would.

  “Listen, there was another murder in Charlottesville yesterday afternoon.”

  She looked stoic, but defensive. “What does this have to do with me? Do you expect me to show up on time to witness every murder in the state?”

  “I do think it’s curious that you were in Charlottesville just as the murder occurred.”

  “Well, I’m not Typhoid Mary. At least I hope not.”

  As long as she would respond, Jake would persist with that line of questioning.

  “Why did you come down on Thursday, and not like most working people do, on Friday?”

  “Do you know what the traffic is like on the Friday before Labor Day?” She shot him a disgusted look.

  It made sense when she put it that way.

  “But why did you overnight in Charlottesville? Why not drive straight to Bluefield?”

  “That was Simon’s idea. We had the time, and it’s a new city for him.”

  Jake nodded. He was running out of accusatory questions.

  She leaned forward. “Maybe you could tell me this.” Her mouth was grim. “Why didn’t you call me after we had dinner together?”

  He stared at her. Had that eaten away at her as much as it had him?

  He could lie, or he could tell the truth. Either way, he felt bad about Epstein’s command to keep his hands off her. Even at that breakfast, he had Epstein’s orders in the back of his mind, half expecting Epstein to barge through the door at any moment and catch him talking to her.

  “I noticed a gap in time,” he said. “I’ve been busy.”

  She seemed to accept his explanation, for the moment. “I didn’t call, either.”

  Chalk one up for gender equality.

  “Yeah,” he commiserated. “But I hope it’s not too late to make amends.”

  She looked at him, her eyes searching his, before the corners of her mouth curved upward ever so slightly.

  “Hey, you know what?” he said all at once. “I’ve never been to Bluefield. How about you taking me there?”

  It was a sudden decision, one that he hoped he wouldn’t regret.

  “Meeting my folks?” she said skeptically. “Are you aware of what that means?”

  Suddenly images flashed across Jake’s mind of Hatfields and McCoys and fathers with shotguns behind couples getting married.

  She let out a laugh and patted his cheek. “I’m just joking. I’m not trying to frighten you off.”

  He believed her, but it would take time to get that image out of his mind.

  “Still want to come?” she asked.

  “Still asking?”

  She thought about it for a moment, then pursed her lips and nodded. It was a decision she wasn’t making lightly. “I’d like you to meet my folks.”

  There was some noise by the entrance to the breakfast room as more guests arrived. Jake looked up. He didn’t want it to be Michael Epstein and his crew coming to interview Stacy about her connection to hackers.

  When he saw that the group was just gray-haired academics, he relaxed. “Let’s go,” he said. “Let’s go as far away as we can.”

  Chapter 23

  There were two ways to Bluefield. One west to Wytheville, Virginia, and then north across the grain of the mountains to Bluefield. The second through Blacksburg, home of Virginia Tech, then through West Virginia to Bluefield.

  They had left Stacy’s Jeep in Charlottesville and taken Jake’s sedan, nominally because he wanted to be the gentleman, but principally because he considered himself still at work.

  The road to Wytheville was straight and fast. It was a gloomy day with clouds brewing over the Blue Ridge Mountains.

  They hit rain on the main incline up into the hills. And the dry plains of Virginia were behind them.

  Jake turned on the wipers and looked at Stacy. The mist didn’t diminish the look of excitement on her face. She was returning home.

  “These are your hills,” he said.

  “You bet.”

  Once they achieved the maximum elevation, they hit a pocket of sunshine that sparkled off every droplet on the windshield.

  Stacy opened her side window and let the wind howl through the car.

  They passed lots of trees. The highway was modern and smooth as it curved upward between the mountains. Jake wondered where all the people lived.

  “Here’s the tunnel,” she said.

  They were heading toward one of the rectangular mouths of the twin tunnels carrying the four lanes of highway through the mountain.

  “They took Sully’s plane through here,” she said.

  Jake didn’t get the reference.

  “You know, Captain Sullenberger who had to ditch the plane in the Hudson River?”

  “Oh yeah.” Jake knew the story of the heroic flight
where all passengers survived and were rescued from the Hudson.

  “They took the wings off the plane and fit it right through the tunnel,” she said.

  It was the kind of folklore that would pass from generation to generation.

  The tunnel was long, well lit and hushed. Their conversation paused until they got to the other side of the mountain and broke out into daylight.

  The weather wasn’t much better, and Jake had to make sure his wheels didn’t skid on the wet pavement.

  Stacy directed him to take the first exit, and soon they were splashing southward on John Nash Boulevard.

  “Who’s John Nash?” Jake asked. “A local hero?”

  “Kind of. He came up with the Nash equilibrium. Won a Nobel Prize for it.”

  She looked at him, but he didn’t understand.

  “You know game theory?” she asked.

  “Heard of it.” He knew immediately that he was out of his league.

  “Ever see A Beautiful Mind?”

  “Of course.”

  “That’s John Nash. He grew up in Bluefield.”

  Jake marveled at the thought. One of America’s preeminent mathematicians grew up in that remote valley. And so had Stacy. “Is there something in the water that produces great minds? John Nash. Stacy Stefansson.”

  “I’m not at his level,” she said, but seemed pleased by the comparison. “Oh, here’s our exit.”

  She pointed out a series of roads.

  They zigzagged down a steep hill through an affluent community of comfortable-looking houses with large, well-manicured lawns.

  “My folks are on the next street,” she said.

  They eased down a driveway toward a white-brick ranch house with a long porch.

  For the first time in their nascent relationship, he saw Stacy look tense. “Looks like nobody’s home,” she said.

  She stepped out of the car and rapped on the front door.

  There was no response.

  She reached under the door mat and pulled out a key. “Let’s let ourselves in.”

  “I don’t feel right about this,” Jake said.

  “Fine. Give me a moment to look around, and I’ll be right back.”

  As he waited in the car, his cell phone rang. It was Bob Snow.

  It took Jake a moment to adjust his focus from the mountains of West Virginia to the frenzied city life back at the nation’s capital and the murder case on his hands.

  “Hi, boss.”

  “We’ve got more on the dead student.”

  “Any connection to Quantum?”

  “And then some. Jason Yang was one of their chief programmers. He worked on the encryption software.”

  “How did you learn all this?” Jake asked.

  “Epstein.”

  “Did you call him or did he call you?”

  “He was trying to reach you, but I said you’d left early for Labor Day weekend.”

  “Thanks for covering for me. This trip has already paid off. Stacy and Wu were both in town yesterday afternoon. I had breakfast with them.”

  “Breakfast with both of them? What, are you nuts? You’re supposed to keep your distance.”

  Jake shut the car door and tried to keep his voice down. “I had to make a split-second decision, so I ate breakfast with them.”

  “Now I know you’re nuts. Epstein will have you kicked out of the Bureau.”

  “I’ll have to take that risk, and hope that Hoffkeit has my back.”

  “I’m telling you, if it’s Epstein or you, Hoffkeit will keep Epstein. It’s nothing personal, but that’s how seniority works.”

  “I know how it works.”

  Jake shifted in the car seat, and felt the packet in his back pocket.

  “Listen, boss. I have sample fingerprints of Simon Wu that I took off Stacy’s Jeep in Charlottesville. I’m Fed Exing them to you today for analysis. I dated them and marked the location as further proof of Wu’s being in Charlottesville during the time of the murder.”

  “Send ’em in. I’ll have the lab look them over for confirmation, and enter them into the case log.”

  When Jake hung up, he considered how much Bob was covering for him. Thinking up that excuse that he was away for Labor Day weekend was fast thinking and just plausible enough.

  Now to get to a Fed Ex office.

  Stacy returned to the car with a relieved look. “My folks left me a note. They’re out shopping for groceries and will make us dinner.”

  “Leaving notes,” Jake mused. “Just like you still live here.”

  “Want to go for a drive?” she asked on a whim, her spirits light again.

  “Sure, but do you have a Fed Ex office in town?”

  She directed Jake to a small office. There, he dropped off the fingerprints that he had taken off her car in Charlottesville.

  “What was that package for?” she asked with a pleasant smile when he returned to the car.

  He didn’t want to tell her that he had dusted her car for prints.

  “Just a routine matter,” he said. “The FBI’s always shipping things around.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “How about I take you away from work? Far, far away.”

  He grabbed the steering wheel. “Fine with me. Where to?”

  “I know a place you’ll like. Ever been to Mountain Lake Resort?”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “You don’t know Mountain Lake Resort from Dirty Dancing?”

  Of course he had seen Dirty Dancing. And the name Mountain Lake seemed to fit the kind of resort in the movie. “You mean it’s a real place?”

  “How d’you think they made the movie?”

  She had a point.

  “The only scenes they didn’t film there were the staff’s quarters,” she said. “Those they filmed in North Carolina.”

  Soon they were heading east toward Mountain Lake Resort.

  The hills and bridges and rivers were giving him minor withdrawal symptoms from his urban lifestyle. He cast a sideways look at Stacy. She seemed to be enjoying the fresh mountain air that whipped through her hair. “Don’t you have work to do? Who keeps the A root server going while you’re away?”

  “I’ve got it automated right now. The ‘named.cache’ file keeps updating without my being there.”

  That was news to Jake. “So how long can you be away from work?”

  “Indefinitely, theoretically.”

  “That’s my kind of job.”

  She poked him in the ribs. She didn’t appear to mind being teased, as long as she could poke him.

  “Do you check in by laptop every so often?” he asked.

  “No need.”

  “Blackberry?”

  “No. It works fine without me.”

  “What if your company needs to shut it down?”

  “Why would they shut down the internet?”

  “It’s that simple?”

  “It’s that simple.”

  Wow. What a job.

  Yet it reminded him of how valuable the cargo was that he was carrying. If he crashed on the highway or the car careened off a bridge, the internet would be forever running, untouchable by human intervention. That posed a scenario that was the opposite of the “hackers take over the world” scenario. It was more like “computers take over the world.”

  Why did he have to think in such apocalyptic terms?

  It wasn’t his personality. Nor was he a particularly paranoid person.

  It was his job.

  Chapter 24

  Mountain Lake Resort was as beautiful as Jake remembered from Dirty Dancing.

  He recognized the hotel, the lake, the gazebo, the family’s cabin and the various dance halls. The place seemed as imbued with the magic of the movie as the movie had been permeated with the magic of the place.

  Stacy was the young woman, and he was the slick dancer who performed and gave private lessons.

  They found a seat in the restaurant just as lunch was being served. There weren’t many cust
omers, but he expected more would show up over Labor Day weekend.

  Stacy recited all the details of the movie. Jake was happy to let his cares about the murder cases ebb temporarily away.

  The fine dining was excellent, and sunshine glinted off the lake.

  After lunch, they wandered down to the water’s edge.

  “Want to rent a boat?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  He couldn’t shake the habit of scoping out his surroundings before taking the oars and sitting in the boat. Nobody had followed them from the restaurant, and there were only two hikers among the trees.

  What were the chances of Epstein finding him there?

  Stacy shoved the boat away from the wharf and stepped in with a loud whoop.

  She laughed and settled in at the stern.

  Jake faced her while he rowed. She had a broad smile with rosy lips.

  Sunshine beat down on their shoulders and he scooped up some lake water to splash her. The water was cool and clean, and she took the opportunity to poke him with her toe.

  It was a long lake, certainly deep, and surrounded by mountains.

  She settled into a restful position and began to dose.

  How could this woman be a part of two gruesome murders? Nobody could relax like that without a clear conscience.

  Who were these men knocking off each other around her, but leaving her unscathed? Bob had reported Jason Yang’s connection with Quantum. Now Quantum had lost two major employees, their president and a key programmer. Who was out to get Quantum?

  Was the answer to that question locked in Stacy’s brain?

  Her features were peaceful as she slept. Her smooth cheeks gave no indication of care. Her relaxed smile told only of bliss.

  He was tempted to reach over and plant a kiss on those lips. But that would rock the boat, in more ways than one.

  Stacy’s parents were home when they arrived back at the house late that afternoon.

  Jake was half-expecting her dad to be a recent immigrant from Iceland. And the blond wood interior of the house, including the furniture and flooring, looked like an Ikea showroom.

  But, like many immigrants to the region, the family had retained some customs and traditions, and blended in with the rest.

  “Slinky’s home,” her father called with a warm smile and a thick Appalachian accent. He had a big head that reminded Jake of a wooly-haired Viking and gave his daughter a mighty hug that erased all her years of built-up sophistication.