by Todd Borg
“It seems,” Bill said slowly, “that the people best positioned to make use of stolen software would be the people who are currently using it. They would know its potential better than anyone else.”
“You mean the people who work for Tahoe Robotics.”
“Yes.”
I turned to Lucy. “Can you add to that line of thinking?”
She looked sick. “I hate to even think it. But the person who most seems like someone with the ability to use the software and also the possible desire to harm Yardley is Tapper Logan.”
Lucy looked at me and added, “I heard you had a disagreement with Tapper yesterday.”
“Not really a disagreement. You had told me I could look through Yardley’s files. When I got there, Tapper was working at Yardley’s desk, and I needed to work in that space. So I just helped him relocate to another place. I think all the other employees agreed that the new space suited Tapper’s needs better, anyway.”
“Oh,” she said. “I guess I misconstrued a comment I heard.”
“One more question, before we go,” I said. “If I stole Yardley’s intellectual property and were to arrange to sell it, how would I go about that in a manner that couldn’t easily be traced back to me? As an investigator, I know that the money trail is often the easiest and best way to track a theft.”
“That’s easy,” Anders said. “Use bitcoin, and do it through one of the bitcoin laundering networks.”
Lucy asked, “How do they work?”
Anders said, “There are lots of ways. For example, you can use cash to buy prepaid gift cards for thousands of different merchants. Starbucks to Amazon to iTunes. Then you can sell those gift cards for bitcoins. Your name is not attached to the gift cards you bought. When you spend your bitcoins, you do it through a bitcoin mixing service or a Tor network. They are very difficult to trace.”
Emily asked, “What’s a bitcoin?”
Anders said, “Bitcoin is a decentralized currency, which provides for a decentralized payment system.”
Emily frowned.
“Here’s a very flawed analogy,” Bill said, turning to Emily. “Imagine a Paypal-like payment system. But instead of a currency called dollars, it uses a currency called bitcoin. Then, imagine that there is no Paypal-like company charging a percentage to provide the payment system. It’s just a software that allows people to make their own payments to one another with no intermediary.”
“What’s Paypal?”
None of us responded.
Emily looked chagrined. “Sorry! I guess I should wonder whether I really want to know something before I ask a question! I’ll just think of it like a computer payment system. Instead of trading beads or cowry shells, it uses digital currency.”
“Perfect,” Bill said.
“Where do we go from here?” Anders asked, looking at me.
“We each keep in mind the things we’ve talked about, the people who had access to information about Yardley’s software, and the people who might know how to turn it into money if they got their hands on that software. If you think of anything useful, call me.”
We all got up to leave. At the door, I pulled William Lindholm aside.
“Thanks for your help explaining how a company can be formed to utilize software. The bitcoin information was good, too.”
“Glad to help any way I can.”
I walked with him out the door and down the sidewalk, doing my best to mosey. “When I was at your Donner Lake place,” I said, “I noticed some soldier pics near your bicycle racing photos. Was it Viet Nam where you served?”
“Yup.”
“I always heard what a rough war that was,” I said. “A lot of soldiers died.”
He nodded. “Almost sixty thousand. I was lucky. The ground forces had it the worst.”
“You weren’t part of ground forces?”
“No, I was a helicopter pilot. Got my training at Fort Wolters, Texas and then spent two tours flying a UH-1C Huey Cobra Gunship over the jungle.”
“A guy would develop some serious flying skills doing that,” I said.
“Yeah. Those were the days. But I wouldn’t go back for anything.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I thought about what William Lindholm had said as I drove south to Tahoe City. He flew helicopter gunships in Viet Nam. I recalled that those Hueys were built by Bell Helicopters. If one wanted to steal a Bell and fly it away, who better than a pilot with a lot of experience in a similar chopper?
The connection didn’t mean Lindholm was the mastermind of an elaborate plot to steal Yardley’s intellectual property and kill Yardley if that was part of the plot. Nor did it mean Lindholm was simply a killer who hated Yardley. But Lindholm probably had opportunity. And he may have had motive if he felt that Yardley had cheated him in some way. He could have easily gotten Yardley to let him ride along on the scanning mission. And as the first investor in Tahoe Robotics, he probably knew better than anyone how to sell Yardley’s software for huge dollars. Maybe Lindholm already owned part of another company that could use the software. And if the loss of the software meant that Tahoe Robotics collapsed, what better cover for Lindholm? He would only be out his hundred thousand while he could possibly make hundreds of millions off Yardley’s creation.
Even if Lindholm wasn’t on that helicopter, he might have known other helicopter pilots. Maybe he even trained helicopter pilots. And I thought of one other thing. Lindholm was a Swedish name.
I put those thoughts aside and returned my focus to Vince and Brie and the kidnapped boy, Jon Cooper.
From Lucy’s house in Truckee, I headed to Tahoe City and crossed over the Truckee River near the dam. I headed south down the West Shore, then turned west on Pineland and worked my way over to Ward Creek Blvd.
From there, I turned off onto what I thought was the road I’d identified on the maps. It was paved but just barely, broken asphalt from decades before. The path was a little over one lane wide and had enough potholes to slow me down to a crawl. I inspected them as I approached to see if any of them were sinkholes deep enough to swallow a wheel.
I motored over a mile of potholes before I realized it would be faster to walk. So I pulled well off the rough road, grabbed my binoculars and topo map, and Spot and I got out.
The road began to rise as we walked, winding around huge fir trees big enough that the original roadbuilder had decided it would be easier to curve around them rather than mow them down. Or maybe the road builder was Tahoe’s first environmentalist who thought trees served a larger purpose than just providing lumber.
After another mile, the road turned to the north, and it seemed it would no longer help me get closer to the house. So I spent some more time studying the map.
Not too far away was an access trailhead that led up toward Stanford Rock and, a bit farther, the Tahoe Rim Trail. While the TRT went less than a mile from Yardley’s stone house, that wasn’t close enough to help me. I compared the topo lines to the landforms in front of me and made a bushwhack plan.
As I studied the map, I spoke out loud to help me remember. “First, we go up this slope toward the big outcropping on the east-facing slope, then veer to the south toward a prominent east-west ridge, then follow the ridge up to the west until it gets too steep, then circle around counter-clockwise and come up to the house below its north side.”
Spot was staring at me. He was used to me talking to myself. But he maybe wondered if this time I’d begun to lose focus. Based on his very slow wag, he possibly anticipated a future with a somewhat demented owner who no longer exercised any discipline or restrictions when handing out treats.
I turned and looked up at the forested slope. Spot turned and looked at it with me.
“Okay, onward and upward.”
We did as I’d planned, hiking into a forest of Jeffrey Pine and California Red Firs. We’d gone about two miles up steep slopes and probably climbed over one thousand vertical feet when I paused to breathe. Our path hadn’t been very l
ong. Nor had we climbed very high. But hiking without an improved trail requires ten times the effort.
We came to a good-sized, flat rock. I sat on it and breathed some more.
Spot was panting and staring up through the trees.
“You want to lie down and take a rest?”
He ignored me, then stopped panting for a moment, something he did when he wanted silence in order to hear better. After ten seconds, he began panting again.
I was about to stand up and resume hiking when he stopped panting again. He did another thing I’ve seen many times, where he looks vaguely down at the forest floor, his ears turning this way, that way, adjusting by small degrees, honing in on a sound source. Then he turned his head but stayed looking at the dirt. I stopped my own breathing, mimicking him.
A high-pitched voice carried through on the breeze. “No, I don’t know it! You can’t make me because I have no idea about it.” A child’s voice. The kid said something else, but the words were unintelligible, lost in the air currents blowing through the tree branches. Then came a thud that sounded like a window shutting.
I took hold of Spot’s collar and tapped my finger on the front of his snout, the signal for quiet. We walked through the forest. Spot pulled forward, eager as always to discover whatever was ahead. He liked to find people in the woods or anywhere else because they usually doted on him. He liked children even better, because they liked to play, often running in circles chasing him, a favorite game for all dogs because it was so easy to evade and dodge people, who, whether young or old or Olympic sprinters in their prime, were always so slow. I took care to pick a route where I saw no sticks that could break with a loud snap.
We went up through the trees at a gradual angle, stepping through the thick duff of fallen conifer needles. We were heading on a traverse course across a slope that was getting steeper, when Spot stopped. His ears twitched, the faux diamond ear stud flickering in the shade of the forest. His head was turned sideways to look up the slope. I looked where he was looking. I saw something hanging from a tree. Two chains, badly rusted. Something dark between them.
A tire swing. The one mentioned in Sylvia’s memoir from 60 years ago. Behind the swing was a tall fence, newer than the tire swing by several decades. I couldn’t see the house, but the fence suggested it was close.
Again, I touched my finger to the end of Spot’s nose, signalling silence. We waited another minute, but there was no more sound.
The slope that rose above us to the tire swing was too steep to easily climb. I gave Spot the gentlest of motions on his collar, and we renewed our traverse across the slope, climbing slowly. I concentrated on not making noise.
The ski runs on the back side of Alpine Meadows came into full view to the north, and I could see a patch of Lake Tahoe to the east. But I still couldn’t see any house.
Five minutes later, we came to a huge boulder that projected 15 feet up from the ground. The front side of the rock was vertical. The back side sloped more gently. If I could climb up on it, I could maybe see the house.
We walked to the back side of the rock.
“Quiet,” I whispered in Spot’s ear. He wouldn’t know the word, but it often seemed he understood that whispering was about trying to be quiet.
I scrambled up the boulder and looked through my binoculars.
There was a prominent fence, and behind it, mostly obscured by trees, an old, stately, stone-and-timber-frame lodge.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The walls of the lodge were made of rough-cut granite. The steep roof was interrupted by tall, narrow gables for second-floor windows, just like I’d seen on the Google satellite view. The roof was shingled in heavy cedar shakes that wouldn’t pass modern fire codes, but, barring fire, would last for 50 years or more. Because of the lodge’s age and remote location, most of the county building inspectors might not even know the lodge existed. And if they did, they may have left it and its wealthy owner alone.
I didn’t want to stay up on the boulder with Spot still below me on the ground, because he might bark. I saw an area in the forest up the slope a bit, where there might be a view of the house without climbing up on a boulder. I scooted down and off the big rock and took Spot through the trees, heading for higher ground, walking quietly.
Just as I hoped, we were able to maneuver to a place in the trees where we had a view window through the forest, looking slightly down over the fence.
There were two significant trees within the fence, on the north side of the house. And we were close enough that if anyone came outside and spoke, we’d easily hear them.
From my new position, the house and grounds were more clear.
In the middle of the house was a large granite chimney, suggesting a living room with a dominant fireplace that would compete for attention with the lake views out the windows.
At the end of the house, on the second floor level, was a deck that projected out from the house. It spanned the entire width of the house, perhaps thirty feet across.
Nothing moved. There was no sign of any people.
The window panes reflected sky and forest, and there appeared to be no lights on inside the house. There could be people moving around indoors, and I would not be able to see them.
I sensed a movement up on the second floor deck. I turned to look at it.
Next to the deck was a grouping of large fir trees. Their branches were long enough to reach across one end of the deck and envelope it. Someone up there would feel like they were in a tree house. An entire group of people could be out on the deck and I wouldn’t know it unless they moved around. I watched for several minutes. A Steller’s Jay flew up from the area where I thought I’d seen movement. I waited longer. Spot acted impatient. He turned and gave me a cold, wet nose poke on the side of my elbow.
“Impatience only accentuates the wait,” I said.
He walked his front paws out, lowering his chest, arching his back, then settled down onto the duff of the forest floor.
The fence around the house was constructed of stone-and-mortar columns with solid wood panels between the columns. Each section looked eight feet long. Running along the top of the fence were rows of wire. From my distance, the wires appeared to be somewhat irregular. I realized they were barbed strands.
The fence made an irregular polygon, the number of fence sections for each straight run differing from run to run. The layout of the fence was shaped and constrained by the small size of the ridge-top plateau, maybe a third of an acre in total. On one side of the house, the fence narrowed to a passage, which had a heavy wooden gate where the drive approached the house. Just inside the gate, on the northwest side of the fenced yard was a garage.
I trained my binoculars on the gate and fence and saw something I hadn’t seen before.
At the top of several stone fence columns, attached to the metal brackets that held the barbed wires, was a brown box the size of a cigarette package, probably made of plastic. The boxes were small and hard to see. I was pretty certain they housed some kind of motion detector for an alarm. They looked like newer additions to the fence. Under the roof eaves were other little boxes. No conventional approach to breaching the castle gates would go unnoticed and unreported.
In the distance beyond the house, it was all blue looking down through the trees below the house. Not sky blue. The deep ultramarine blue of Lake Tahoe. A view like nowhere else.
From the voice I’d heard earlier, I knew there were people, unless they’d left in the time it took me to hike up. I saw no people and no vehicles, either. Although any vehicles could be inside the garage.
Spot lay near me, but on his elbows with his head up, listening and watching, nostrils flexing continuously. Whenever I stayed quiet and acted subdued, he got subdued as well and seemed to focus on what he could smell and hear and, to a lesser extent, see. In these situations, he is my best sensor. He always notices any slight movement or soft sound long before I do. And, of course, the world of smells is an entire u
niverse of which dogs are especially aware, a world that people are largely unable to even detect.
We stayed still for fifteen minutes before Spot moved his ears to the left, zeroing in on a location. I hadn’t heard anything, but Spot’s reaction made it clear there were sounds to be heard if one had sound receptors sensitive enough. I lifted up my binoculars for a look.
Around the side of the house, a man appeared. Because of my elevated angle, I could see him from the thighs up, enough of him that the radio on his belt and the gun in a shoulder holster were clearly visible. He was dressed in khaki pants and a white T-shirt, tight enough to show that he spent hours each week working out. I guessed him at 6-2 and 195. His hair was dark blond, cut off short and ragged. He walked fast and with a bit of bounce in his step, like an athlete eager to get out on the field and crush the competition. Maybe it was the bounce that made me notice the second holster on his thigh, a camo tone not easily visible against the khakis. I tried to steady the binoculars to keep my view from jumping. I let out my breath and stayed motionless.
The thigh holster held a knife. I could tell it was no Boy Scout camping knife. It looked like one of the karambit knives that Diamond said were popular with the Brödraskapet gang.
I couldn’t tell if the man inside the fence was a military professional, trained as an assassin, or if he was a wannabe, feeling tough as he strutted about with the deadliest knife ever designed. Either way, the knife, more than the gun, indicated that this guy was very twisted, his mental landscape a bizarre, paranoid, and death-focused nightmare.
The man walked to one end of the house, stepped up on some kind of raised platform, and looked over the fence toward where we had just been, down below the tire swing. Had we triggered an alarm? Did sensors in the woods put an alert on their security computer? And if this was the house recently purchased by Yardley LaMotte, what were these men doing here? Had they worked for Yardley?