by Andrew Grant
Then another explanation dawned on me.
“Now you get the picture.” Peever was smiling, but without any warmth. “Still think your new buddy was getting rid of bugs, Marc?”
Wednesday. Late afternoon.
PEEVER SENT THE OTHER AGENT OUT OF THE ROOM AND FOR THE next few minutes I stayed still, pinned to the ground as if the force of gravity had increased by a thousand percent.
When Peever’s guy returned, he was carrying a black box, like an old-fashioned transistor radio. He set it at the center of my desk, flicked a switch, checked its display, then nodded.
“OK.” Peever pointed to the box. “This thing will block the signal of anything else that’s transmitting in here. It means we can talk.”
No one said anything, giving me a respite to focus on Peever in the hope of escaping my mental merry-go-round. It struck me that if McKenna would be at home working in a bank, this guy would be better suited to delivering your groceries. He was around six foot, but looked shorter because he was so stocky. His two-day stubble didn’t match his swept-back bleached hair, which looked like it had been transplanted from a My Little Pony doll. And neither could deflect attention from the unruly straggle that was escaping from his undone top button.
“Specifically, it means you can talk.” Peever swiveled around on one heel and jabbed his finger in my direction. “Let’s start with your computer.”
“Which one?”
“The one the detectives impounded, yesterday. Who knew they’d taken it, aside from yourself? Who did you tell?”
“Nobody. Except for McKenna.”
“Not your wife? She doesn’t know?”
“No. I haven’t spoken to my wife since before the break-in.”
“Why not?”
“She’s been tied up. With work. Her company won big at—never mind. But why? What does it matter who knew?”
“It matters because your computer’s been stolen.”
“Stolen?” I almost laughed at him. “No. The police have it.”
Peever didn’t reply.
“Wait. You mean, it’s been stolen from the police?”
“Someone broke into the evidence locker and took it.” Peever frowned. “Have you got any idea how much juice it takes to pull off a thing like that?”
“How would I?”
“It takes a lot. Believe me. Which tells us that someone with major-league connections was desperate to get their hands on your computer.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I shook my head. “The only valuable thing on it was my prototype, and that had been erased by whoever broke in here. Which was why I called the police in the first place.”
“Maybe that is why you called them.” Peever waggled his finger at me. “But you weren’t expecting them to take your computer. The detectives’ report says you were surprised, and reluctant to let it go.”
“Only because I needed it for work.”
“That’s not the full story, is it? You realized there was something else on the computer. Your problem wasn’t what’s missing. It was what’s still there.”
“This makes no sense.” I’d never liked people who spoke in riddles.
“Who did you call? Who else is involved? One name. Give me one name—one that leads somewhere—and it’ll go a long way toward making things easier on you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Have you ever seen the movie Titanic, Marc?”
“Yes. I guess. But what the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“You know what happens at the end, when the ship’s hit the iceberg? It’s going down, and one of two things can happen to the passengers. They can get on a lifeboat. Or they can drown. Well, I’m the guy who decides if you get on a lifeboat.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Do I need to draw you a picture? What am I wearing?”
“A delivery guy’s uniform.”
“Correct. And you didn’t hesitate when you saw me at your door, because …?”
“I was expecting a delivery.”
“Two for two. Only there’s something you don’t know. Your delivery came already.” He tapped his watch. “Earlier, when the detectives were here, waiting to break the news about your first computer being stolen.”
“My delivery came? Then where’s my stuff?”
“At the police lab.”
“What the hell? Why? And if they opened it and interfered with my private property without a warrant—”
“We had no need to open anything.” Hayes’ voice sounded thin and shrill after Peever’s booming foghorn. “Not to know what was inside. The contents are listed on the waybill.”
“What did you think, Detective?” Peever turned to her. “One computer disappeared before your lab could take a look at it. And someone went to elaborate lengths to hide another one from you altogether.”
“I thought, this looks like bullshit. And it smells like bullshit. And in my book, that makes it bullshit. In other words, probable cause. So we impounded the computer. Sent it to the lab. And told them, this time, get on it right away.”
“But I didn’t hide anything!” I caught myself almost shouting.
“You did.” Peever was emphatic. “You mailed the second computer to yourself.”
“The one I was using at AmeriTel? No. I didn’t mail that.”
Peever pulled a computer printout from his pocket and handed it to me. It took a moment to scan the form, but when I found the shipper’s details I saw my own name and address. At first I was baffled, but then it hit me. Those bastards at AmeriTel. They’d done it that way to make me pay for the shipping instead of them. They wouldn’t even pick up the tab for returning my own property after they’d fired me.
“This isn’t right. I know how it looks, but—”
“It was very smart.” Peever pretended to applaud. “The perfect way to hide something. To make sure it wasn’t here when the detectives came the first time, in case they snooped around. Or at your office, in case they looked there.”
“Look, I didn’t mail that computer.” I could feel the heat building in my face. “But even if I did, so what? It’s just a computer. Who cares who mailed it? Ask Roger LeBrock. The CEO of AmeriTel. I wanted to bring the computer home with me, Monday, after I was fired, but LeBrock wouldn’t let me. He insisted on shipping it. Talk to him. He’ll confirm it.”
“Maybe we will.” Peever sucked his lower lip for a second. “But things move on. Who shipped the computer isn’t the issue anymore. Remember, Marc—the lab’s seen it. They know what’s on it. Therefore, I know what’s on it. And if you want a chance to save yourself, you need to tell me who put it there.”
“Who put what where? There are lots of applications on that computer. Dozens. Some are very specialized. Maybe—”
“It’s not an application we’re interested in, Marc.”
“What, then? I can’t remember every piece of software on every computer I’ve ever owned! But whatever’s caught your eye, I’m sure there’s an innocent explanation.”
“Really?” He passed me another piece of paper and a pen. “Read that. Then start writing. I want names.”
CONCLUSION: THE PRESENCE OF A MALICIOUS PROGRAM CAN BE CONFIRMED ON THE COMPUTER EQUIPMENT PRESENTED FOR EXAMINATION. NO NON-MALICIOUS PURPOSE FOR THE PROGRAM CAN BE IDENTIFIED. NO EXAMPLES OF PROGRAMS WITH SIMILAR OR RELATED STRUCTURE, METHOD OF CONCEALMENT, OR METHOD OF PROPAGATION HAVE BEEN OBSERVED BY U.S. AUTHORITIES TO THIS DATE. AS THE FULL EXTENT OF THE PROGRAM’S PURPOSE OR CAPABILITY IS NOT YET KNOWN, AND DUE TO THE EXTREME HAZARD IT APPEARS TO REPRESENT, ALL POSSIBLE MEASURES SHOULD BE TAKEN TO ENSURE ITS CONTAINMENT.
I passed the paper back to Peever.
“This is your big discovery? My computer had a virus? Big deal. Computers pick up viruses all the time.”
“True.” He folded the paper and tucked it back into his pocket. “But it’s all about context. What kind of virus? What kind of d
amage could it do? Who could it hurt?”
“It’s a new virus. Your report confirms that. Which means no one knows. So why aren’t you trying to find out, instead of harassing me?”
“You’re—”
“Wait a second.” I was starting to join some dots. “It makes total sense for there to be a virus on that computer. I bet I know exactly what it does. It’s spyware.”
“And who would be getting spied on, in this scenario?”
“Me, of course. Detectives, remember why you took the computer from here? To get your lab to search for spyware! I figured that’s how whoever stole my prototype had known what I was working on.”
“That’s true,” Hayes admitted.
“Did they find anything out, before it was stolen?”
Hayes shook her head.
“I’d junked that idea when I thought my study had been bugged. But if it hadn’t been bugged, then someone must have been using spyware. And if they were using spyware on one of my computers, they’d be using it on both. Right?”
“A plausible theory, based on the facts. The ones in the open, anyway.” Peever spoke with the confidence of a guy who knew he was about to turn up a fourth ace. “But you’re missing a piece of the puzzle.”
“I’m not—”
Hayes’ cell started to ring, breaking my chain of thought. She excused herself, and withdrew to the hallway to take the call.
“You saw the lab report.” Peever’s grin had hardened. “But I talked to the guy who wrote it. There’s a difference between what he’ll commit to on paper and what his gut’s telling him. And guess what? His gut had a lot to tell.”
“You’re putting me through all this because of a guy’s gut?”
Hayes stepped back into the room before I could continue, and Wagner started for the door before her partner opened her mouth.
“That was my lieutenant.” Hayes looked paler than before. “Something’s come up. Family emergency. Can you guys take it from here?”
“Absolutely.” Peever ushered her toward the door. “Go. Do what you need to do.”
He waited until the detectives had left the room, then turned to me.
“It’s back to context, Marc. If you were a small-time nerd, and it looked like you’d picked up a nasty disease from a porn site after your mom had gone to bed one night, we wouldn’t be too worried.”
“Don’t call me a nerd, just because I work with computers. I’m an entrepreneur, and someone’s trying to steal my invention.”
“Raw nerve? Don’t be so touchy. I’m not calling you a nerd. And if we genuinely believed you were being ripped off, we’d probably help you. But when I talked to the lab guy, he painted a different picture. He believes we’re dealing with a whole different kind of malware, here. Über-sophisticated. Way more complex than something to log a few key strokes or steal a couple of passwords.”
“How complex? What does it do?”
When you’re in a hole, stop digging. I know that. But I couldn’t help myself. My professional curiosity had kicked in.
“Stop deluding yourself, Marc. Faking ignorance isn’t going to help you. Your only mileage is to talk to me. Our cyber guys are on this, twenty-four/seven. When they figure it out, it’s all over for you. Your value will be gone. The window to help yourself is very, very narrow. And it’s closing all the time.”
“This makes no sense. You don’t know what this virus does, but you’re convinced I do?”
“Yes. Because of the context. Who you are. Where you work.”
“A regular guy? Who works in a regular office? Or did until Monday, anyway. Now I don’t work anywhere. Not after I was fired, and the police department lost one of my computers, and you took the other.”
“Except you’re not a regular guy, are you, Marc? You’re a highly trained computer—not nerd, I know you don’t like that word—let’s say, expert. An expert who had unrestricted access to all of AmeriTel’s systems. And AmeriTel? That isn’t a regular office. Take away the desks and chairs and boring telecom stuff, and what have you got?”
I didn’t reply. There were lots of things I could say about AmeriTel. None of them were flattering. Especially the ones connected with Carolyn or LeBrock. But I couldn’t see how any of that would be relevant to Homeland Security.
“AmeriTel hosts a top-level ARGUS access node.” Peever looked me straight in the eye. “You had a direct line to the largest national security database the world has ever known.”
His words hit me like a tree trunk falling on my chest. Because what he said was true. Special equipment made a record of every phone call, text message, email, Web search, and online purchase AmeriTel’s customers ever made, and relayed them to a government data-storage center in Utah. The place was new. It was state of the art. And it was enormous—five times the size of the Capitol building. They’d had to extend the boundary of the town where it’s located to contain it. And it could store so much data they’d soon have to think up new names for the volumes involved. They were already working in yottabytes—1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000s of bytes. There isn’t even a word for a higher magnitude.
Why hadn’t I put two and two together on my own? I remember arguing with Carolyn over ARGUS when I first heard rumors about it, before she talked me into working at AmeriTel. There was initial resistance from a few civil-liberty groups, but all the telecom networks are hooked in now. And after Peever mentioned it, everything made much more sense. ARGUS was the cyber equivalent of a nuclear missile bunker. It was the last place the government would want a trained computer technician to be loose with an unidentified, aggressive virus. And if Homeland Security thought I was involved in an attack against it, I was in for the devil’s own job convincing them otherwise.
“I see we’re on the same page, at last.” Peever was gloating. “This is your last chance to do yourself some good. Give me a name.”
“I can’t. You don’t understand. I don’t have anything to do with ARGUS. The node’s in a secure room. I’ve never even been—”
“Marc, I’m disappointed.” He cut me off. “I thought you were smarter than that.”
Wednesday. Early evening.
I’D NEVER UNDERSTOOD IT WHEN I TURNED ON THE TV AND SAW people who claimed to have done nothing wrong being led away by the police, heads bowed, hands cuffed, bodies meekly compliant. Why didn’t they shout their innocence from the rooftops? Fight for their freedom? Force the officers to drag them into custody, kicking and screaming every inch of the way?
Now I know. You fall under a kind of spell. The immediacy of the situation is at such grotesque odds with the truth that your brain just can’t process it. Your emotions are no help—they’re overwhelmed with the stress. So you shut down. You regress to a childlike, naive, unquestioning state. And rather than rebel against authority, you cling to anything that resembles it as a last desperate defense against the chaos that’s consuming you.
I walked out of my house flanked by the agents and they waited, one on either side, as I fumbled for my keys and robotically locked the door. Being arrested by Homeland Security was by far the most extraordinary thing that had ever happened to me, but even as it played out I somehow clung to my mundane rituals—trying the handle to make sure it was properly secure, checking there were no windows open or lights left on. I almost walked to my Jaguar, still on autopilot, but Peever gripped my arm and diverted me past the UPS van he’d parked on the driveway when he’d arrived.
The agents had left their other vehicles on the street, out of sight of my house. They had a pair of nondescript sedans—a silver Ford and a dark blue Dodge—and a white panel van. The van was covered with pictures of seafood and had a logo for a company called Guttman Lobster and Crabmeat on the side. They were different models and colors, but it was basically the same configuration that McKenna’s team had used. Except there was a pair of agents sitting in the Dodge. McKenna had deployed all his people to apprehend me, but Peever had come at me with only one
guy to back his play. Incongruously, given the circumstances, I felt a little insulted.
Peever ushered me into the back of the Ford. He climbed into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine. The other agent got in next to him. Then the van pulled away from the curb and Peever followed, so close it was like we were attached. The Dodge moved off too, making us the meat in a tightly packed law-enforcement sandwich, and the three vehicles tore down the center of the long, winding, tree-lined streets of my neighborhood so fast that any normal driver would have been arrested for it.
I kept waiting for Peever to say something, but he stayed absolutely silent. As did the other agent. I figured they were trying to trick me into starting a conversation so I’d incriminate myself, somehow. Like McKenna had tricked me with the bugs in my study.
Wait. McKenna had tricked me? How did I know that? I only had Peever’s word for it. Peever claimed McKenna had his guy pretend to find the first set of bugs, as a cover to plant his own. But who was to say Peever hadn’t pretended to find the second set, to discredit McKenna? Or to plant more? What they’d done with the phone wasn’t a million miles from pulling a dime out of a kid’s ear, and the two guys’ performances had been equally convincing.
I was still weighing the odds when a small sports car—a Mercedes SLK, in red—shot out from behind a giant boulder at the side of the road. I lost track of it for a moment, then realized it had managed to squeeze into the tiny gap between our car and the Dodge. The Mercedes’ hood was alarmingly close. I couldn’t see its radiator grill. Or license plate. But I could see the driver. She had long, wavy, blond hair. Richly tanned skin. Scarlet nails. And she was simultaneously applying eye makeup and adjusting her CD player. The lack of a collision suddenly seemed like a miracle.
The woman reached down to swap her mascara for a paper coffee cup, losing a little of her speed and allowing a small gap to open up between her car and ours.
“Watch her,” Peever warned his partner, backing off the gas a little himself as we steered into a tight curve.
It was an unnecessary instruction. The agent—like me—couldn’t keep his eyes off the woman. It was fascinating, the way she could apparently pay so little attention to the road and yet keep herself out of harm’s way. Next she discarded the coffee in favor of her phone, and the only impact was the loss of a little more speed.
