EMPIRE: Investigation

by Richard F. Weyand

  “What do we do to turn up the heat some more?” Purny asked. “You said you had ideas.”

  “Yes. Well, I think my research on the records accomplishes some of that. I have to assume they were monitoring the terminal. That’s one reason to use physical terminals. It’s easier to monitor what people are up to. But I do have another idea.”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “Yes,” Culligan said. “Well. The planetary governor and the provincial governor both have public sites in the VR system. You know, those cheesy political sites where they brag about all the wonderful stuff they’ve done, blah, blah, blah.”

  “OK. And?”

  “And they both have one of those ‘Ask the Governor’ things, right? Where members of the public can ask them questions?”

  “OK. And?” Purny asked.

  “What if we asked some really nasty questions? In public?”

  “Ooo. I like it.”

  “I thought you would,” Culligan said. “Now what are we going to ask them?”

  “Something that makes them really angry. Angry people don’t think clearly.”

  The questions that appeared on the planetary and provincial governors’ public sites had them both seething.

  “For the Planetary Governor: Did you really think you could keep the murders of Adam Berwick, Victor Konig, Natasha Lenkov, Barry Gordon, Samuel Weast, and Samantha Gowers quiet forever?”

  “For the Planetary Governor: How does this corruption scheme work? Are you paying Provincial Governor Pearson, or is he paying you?”

  “For the Planetary Governor: What is your plan for escaping Dalnimir when the Emperor finds out what you’ve been up to?”

  “For the Planetary Governor: Do you think Provincial Governor Pearson will throw you under the shuttle when the Emperor finds out about your corruption, or will he go down with you?”

  “For the Provincial Governor: Have you been enabling Planetary Governor Knowlton’s corruption, or merely looking the other way?”

  “For the Provincial Governor: How does this corruption scheme work? Are you paying Planetary Governor Knowlton, or is he paying you?”

  “For the Provincial Governor: Is Sector Governor Gerber part of your and Knowlton’s corruption scheme, or is he merely incompetent enough to miss it?”

  “For the Provincial Governor: Do you think Sector Governor Gerber will throw you under the shuttle when the Emperor finds out about your corruption, or will he go down with you?”

  The questions were legitimate political commentary, the Empire permitting no laws against free speech at any level of government. And they were all signed by Jan Purny or Howell Culligan.

  The site supervisors tried to take them down, but the Section Six computers, while pretending to be University of Annalia machines, restored them as soon as they went missing. After hours of trying to block the outside computers replacing the messages, the site supervisors had to shut down the ‘Ask the Governor’ section of both sites.

  It was wasted effort, though. The questions had been picked up by independent sites and rapidly went viral on Dalnimir’s social networks.

  A gambling site in the VR system started running odds on Jan Purny and Howell Culligan, whoever they were, surviving thirty days.

  “Dammit! This is ridiculous. They can spread these vile accusations against me, and I can do nothing?” Planetary Governor Knowlton asked his attorney general, Neil Isaacson.

  “Not legally, no. Their freedom of speech is protected by the Empire, particularly when it comes to criticizing government figures. My advice is to ignore it.”

  “Well, I’m not going to.”

  “Then it’s time I leave this meeting,” Isaacson said, and dropped from the VR channel.

  Knowlton, spun on Timothy Dennler, the director of the Dalnimir Bureau of Police.

  “Shut them up. I don’t care how you do it. Just get it done.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Provincial Governor Vincent Pearson called in his personal secretary. Matthew Quincy was his right-hand man and henchman.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Matthew, I suspect Planetary Governor Knowlton will overreact, perhaps badly, to these postings on our network sites.”

  “That seems likely, sir.”

  “Yes. At the same time, I have a bad feeling about this whole situation. It’s different, somehow, than the others. These people are absolutely trying to get a violent response, and Mr. Knowlton is almost sure to give them one.”

  “You suspect an Imperial connection, sir?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps. I just don’t see the benefit of giving an antagonist exactly what they seem to want.”

  Pearson stared down at his hands for several seconds, then looked up at Quincy.

  “Matthew, I think it is time to make sure our own arrangements are in place and standing by.”

  “I’ll let the pilots and the captain know, sir.”

  “Excellent. I didn’t get to where I am by being unprepared. Thank you, Matthew.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Now we do have evidence that one or both of them may be armed.”

  The other chuckled.

  “Nothing we can’t deal with. But it may mean they get killed in a robbery gone bad, rather than merely put in the hospital with some time to think things through.”

  “That is also acceptable.”

  “OK. Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”

  “And will the usual payment method be acceptable here?”

  “Half up front, half later. Sure. No problem.”

  “Very well.”

  Something Stupid

  Culligan and Purny were out to eat at a restaurant a couple blocks from the hotel. It had become one of their favorites.

  “Something’s coming. I can feel it,” Purny said.

  “Like we’re being watched. Followed, but discreetly. Gives you an itch between the shoulder blades.”

  “Yes. Exactly. And you haven’t changed your mind about taking prisoners?”

  “No,” Culligan said. “It’s too dangerous to try to preserve their lives while they’re focused on taking ours. All we need are their IDs. Do you have your ID scanner on you?”

  “Of course. And you?”

  “Yes. if we can get their VR IDs, then we can have Center follow the money. That’s all we really need. I think that will tell us more than they could tell us, anyway.”

  “And our walking route,” Purny said. “Do we change it?”

  “No. Better a weak spot we know about than to try to maintain twenty-four-hour vigilance. Too easy to slip up.”

  “Well, if it goes down, just stay out of my way.”

  “I’m backup only, Culligan said. “Just in case.”

  “Good. Then you disappear. They can pick me up.”

  “That’s the part I don’t like. Why not the other way around?”

  “Because I’ll be the one with powder residue on my hands,” Purny said. “Because you can disappear without trying and I’m no good at it. Because I have a better shot surviving a women’s prison than you do a men’s prison. All the things we talked about.”

  “All right, all right. You’re right. I know it. I still don’t like it.”

  “I’ll be fine. You take care of business.”

  They chatted on the way back to the hotel like they didn’t have a care in the world, but both were hyper-sensitive, especially walking through the alley shortcut they took to get to their hotel, in the middle of the block opposite.

  But nothing happened that night.

  “Look at that shit. Right through the alley. Completely oblivious.”

  “Yeah. This is gonna be easy. You should probably give ‘em a discount.”

  The other laughed.

  “Nah. It averages out.”

  The next night, walking back from the restaurant, both Culligan and Purny were again at heightened awareness, especially as they walked down the alley. It was darker here than on the street,
and Purny extended her cameras down into the infrared.

  As they walked down the alley, Culligan was babbling something about dinner. He did the talking through the alley, so she could concentrate.

  There. On either side. Infrared hit on two guys lurking in the shadows. Neither moving. No weapons showing up.

  Purny said in VR, “Two guys lurking. On either side. No movement.”

  When they had passed those two, and were about fifty feet further on, the two men came out and started following them down the alley.

  Purny said in VR, “They’re following. Soon now.”

  Another fifty feet further and two men stepped out of the shadows about forty feet in front of them. They both carried truncheons.

  “Stop right there, you two.”

  Culligan and Purny stopped. She was watching the two behind them. They both reached into their jackets, started pulling their hands out....

  Purny shouted in VR, “NOW!”

  She turned to her right, toward Culligan, putting her on-side arm toward the bigger threat, the gun-toting duo behind them. Her arms flew up from her sides, a gun appearing in each.

  She double-tapped all four men in quick succession. All staggered, but did not go down. Body armor. She switched to head shots, and with six more shots all four went down.

  “Get their IDs,” Culligan said. “I’ve got the front.”

  Purny stashed one gun in a pocket, and pulled out the ID scanner as she ran to the trailing pair. It was about the size of a deck of cards. She held it up against the head of one, got a green light, held it up to the head of the other, got a flashing red light.

  “I got one,” Purny said. “The other’s VR is trashed.”

  “I got both,” Culligan said.

  Police sirens sounded. They were close by.

  “That was quick,” Purny said. “Get out of here.”

  She tossed him the scanner and he caught it. She stood where she had fired from and dropped both guns on the ground. Police cars appeared at both ends of the alley, their lights blinding her. She held both hands up in the air.

  She checked her cameras, but Culligan had vanished.

  Gulliver watched from hiding as the police arrested Turley. They told her she would be detained while the situation was investigated. They put a VR suppressor on her.

  While he watched, he was busy. He read the three IDs off the ID scanners in VR and transmitted them directly to Section Six under emergency priority. He also sent a message to Daniel Parnell, also under emergency priority in case he was asleep or otherwise occupied.

  To: Captain Daniel Parnell

  From: Paul Gulliver

  Subject: ACTIVATE

  ACTIVATE RESERVES NOW. IG LG Ann Turley in police custody and in extreme danger. Move to Stolits jail in support. I will meet you along your way.

  It would take them probably an hour to get under way, Gulliver knew, and another couple hours at least to the jail from there. He slinked through the shadows along the alley to the entrance out onto the street, then exited the alley the simple way. He walked across the entrance of the alley as if he were a passing pedestrian on the sidewalk.

  A cop saw him walk across the entrance to the alley, but he saw what he expected to see – a pedestrian walking on the sidewalk, not someone exiting the alley.

  Follow The Money

  Gerry Conner got the emergency message transferring the three IDs to Section Six, and he sent them on to the Co-Consul. It was the beginning of the business day in Imperial City.

  Darrel Hawker VRed the head of the Imperial Investigations group, Sanford Hayes.

  “This is a treason investigation, Sandy. Someone hired a hit squad to murder an Imperial Guard general staff officer. Tracking this down is the Emperor’s number-one priority. Normal privacy considerations no longer apply.

  “Here are IDs for three of the hit men. Pull everything. Bank accounts, spending, mail, travel records, health records, police records. Follow the money. Follow the contacts. Follow it until it runs dry, down every path, wherever it goes. Use whatever other resources you need. Imperial Bank, Imperial Police, anything.

  “This is an Imperial matter, and I will have an Imperial Decree from the Emperor for you shortly. Use it ruthlessly to get what you need, and do it quickly. We don’t want them to get away.”

  “Absolutely, Mr. Hawker. We’re on it.”

  The Investigations group put everything else on hold. A senior investigator took each hit man, and pulled everything in the records tied to that ID. Each piece of those records was dished out to another investigator. Every contact they discovered was handed off to another. The investigation branched and branched and branched, and a new investigator grabbed each new branch and ran with it.

  Amanda Peters contacted Bobby Dunham in VR, then joined him in channel 22, the simulation of his office.

  “Investigations is going nuts. I assume Dalnimir finally exploded.”

  “Yes. I just signed an Imperial Decree authorizing a treason investigation.”

  “And Gulliver and Turley?”

  “Paul Gulliver has activated the Imperial Guard reserves. Ann Turley was taken into custody by Stolits police. Both are OK at the moment, but not out of danger.”

  “Oh, good. Bobby, please let me know how things go there.”

  “It’s early, Amanda. Several hours, I suspect, before we know how this is going to turn out. But I’ll let you know as soon as I know anything.”

  “Thanks, Bobby. I’ll let you get back to work.”

  Sanford Hayes watched the investigation map in VR. He and a couple of his other senior investigators were sitting in armchairs watching the map grow as contacts and connections were added. Green connections for money down, red for money up. Blue for business connections. Yellow for private or unexpected connections. White for innocuous or structural links. It grew by leaps and bounds as they watched, fanning out. Some of the connections coalesced back into major nodes, independent trails leading back to one source.

  “Do you see what I see, Sandy?” Lea Whitmore asked.

  “Yes, I see it. I don’t like it, but I see it.”

  Hayes called the Co-Consul, and in a few minutes Darrell Hawker joined them in the visualization.

  “What have you got Sandy?”

  “This is our investigation map so far, Mr. Hawker. Do you see what we see?”

  Hawker looked at the map. The three hit men were at the bottom of the chart as the investigators followed up the tree. He saw they had identified the fourth hit man, the one for which they had received no ID. He also saw the connections coalescing toward the top.

  “Yes, I think so. Mr. Knowlton and Mr. Pearson are beginning to figure prominently.”

  “Yes, sir. I wanted to make sure we were authorized to follow those links.”

  “Absolutely. I can tell you this was not unexpected. You have complete authority to scrape their records as well. Follow the links, Sandy. Follow them all.”

  “Some of those records are encrypted or on private computers, Mr. Hawker.”

  Hawker turned toward Hayes.

  “Then hack them. Use whatever computer horsepower you need. The big Imperial Navy simulators can be made available. Tell Admiral Novetsky that, in addition to the general terms of the Imperial Decree, you have my personal authorization for that specific resource. The personnel on those machines as well. They have some good crypto people over there.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Hawker nodded to him and dropped off the channel.

  “OK, this looks interesting,” Joe Abrams said.

  “What’s that Joey?” Eva Dufour asked.

  “Hack into these machines and scrape them.”

  “Some kind of test?”

  “No,” Abrams said. “These are somebody’s production machines.”

  “That can’t be real.”

  “No, it is. It’s out of Investigations. Some kind of Imperial investigation. ‘Fast as you can,’ it says.”

/>   “Well, let’s get our teams going on it then,” Dufour said.

  “Sir, someone’s trying to hack into the server.”

  “Well, stop them.”

  “I’m trying, sir, but the machine on the other side is really fast.”

  “Block all the user IDs.”

  “I’m trying.”

  The silence stretched out, then “Shit!”

  “What? What’s the matter?”

  “They got in, kicked me out, and changed the admin password. I can’t even get into the machine now, much less lock them out.”

  “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! They actually tried to keep me out,” Abrams said.

  “What did you do?” Dufour asked.

  “I beat them, got into their machine, kicked them out, and changed their admin password. Scraping in progress.”

  “Now what?”

  “Oh, when the scrape is done, I’ll put their password back.”

  “How can you do that?” Dufour asked. “It’s not stored naked, it’s probably SHA-384 encoded.”

  “Yeah, I’ll break that, too. I love fast machines.”

  “All of a sudden, I can get back in.”

  “I thought they changed the admin password.”

  “They did. Then they put it back.”

  “The solved a SHA-384 password encryption? That fast?”

  “Yeah. As a show of force, most likely.”

  “Who even has a machine that can do that?”

  “The Imperial Navy does, that’s who.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  Timothy Dennler VRed Hugh Knowlton at home a bit after midnight. Knowlton was still up.

  “Sir, someone is hacking into our machines. One after the other. It’s all happening very fast,” Dennler said.

  “Lock them down,” Knowlton said.

  “We’re trying, sir, but whoever’s doing this is really fast, and they have a really fast machine. And they’re not being subtle about it. They’re just shoving us out of the way, hacking into our machines, and probably scraping them.”