The bunker belonged to Carver. The business was set up with McGinnis and the administrative staff up top at the entry point. The web hosting center with all the designers and operators was on the surface as well. The high-security colocation farm was below surface in the so-called bunker. Few employees had subterranean access and Carver liked it that way.
Carver sat down again at the workstation and went back online. He pulled up Angela Cook’s photo once more and studied it for a few minutes, then switched over to Google. It was now time to go to work on Jack McEvoy and to see if he had been smarter than Angela Cook in protecting himself.
He put the name into the search engine and soon a new thrill blasted through him. Jack McEvoy had no blog or any profile on Facebook or anywhere else that Carver could find. But his name scored numerous hits on Google. Carver had initially thought the name was familiar and now he knew why. A dozen years earlier McEvoy had written the definitive book on the killer known as the Poet, and Carver had read that book—repeatedly. Check that, McEvoy had done more than simply write the book about the killer. He had been the journalist who had revealed the Poet to the world. He had gotten close enough to breathe in the Poet’s last breath.
Jack McEvoy was a giant slayer.
Carver slowly nodded as he studied McEvoy’s book jacket photo on an old Amazon page.
“Well, Jack,” he said out loud. “I’m honored.”
Angela Cook’s dog did her in. The dog’s name was Arfy—according to a five-month-old entry in her blog. From there it took Carver only two variations—for fitting it into the six-character password requirement—to come up with Arphie and to successfully log onto her LATimes.com account.
There was always something oddly tantalizing about being inside another person’s computer. The mercurial addiction of invasion. It gave him a deep tug in the guts. It was like he was inside another’s mind and body. He was them.
His first stop was her e-mail. He opened it up and found that she kept a clean board. There were only two unread messages and a few others that had been read and saved. He saw none from Jack McEvoy. The new messages were a how-are-you-doing-out-there-in-L.A. from a friend in Florida—he knew this because the server was Road Runner in Tampa Bay—and an internal Times message that appeared to be a terse back-and-forth with a supervisor or an editor.
From: Alan Prendergast
Subject: Re: collision
Date: May 12, 2009 2:11 PM PDT
To: [email protected]
* * *
Hold tight. A lot can happen in two weeks.
* * *
From: Angela Cook
Subject: collision
Date: May 12, 2009 1:59 PM PDT
To: [email protected]
* * *
You told me I WOULD write it!
* * *
It looked like Angela was upset. But Carver didn’t know enough about the situation to understand it, so he moved on, opening up her old mail folder and getting lucky. She had not cleared her old mail list in several days. Carver scrolled through hundreds of messages and saw several from her colleague and cowriter Jack McEvoy. Carver began with the earliest one and started working his way forward to the most recent messages.
Soon he realized it was all innocuous, just basic communication between colleagues about stories and meetings in the cafeteria for coffee. Nothing salacious. Carver guessed from what he read that Cook and McEvoy were strangers until quite recently. There was a stiffness or formality to the e-mails. No shorthand or slang employed by either. It appeared that Jack didn’t know Angela until she had been assigned to the crime beat and he was assigned to train her.
In the last message, sent just a few hours before, Jack had sent Angela an e-mail with a proposed summary for a story they were working on together. Carver eagerly read it and felt his concerns about detection ease with every word.
From: Jack McEvoy < [email protected]>
Subject: collision slug
Date: May 12, 2009 2:23 PM PDT
To: [email protected]
* * *
Angela, this is what I sent Prendo for the futures budget. Let me know if you want any changes.
Jack
COLLISION—On April 25th the body of Denise Babbit was found in the trunk of her own car in a beachside parking lot in Santa Monica. She had been sexually assaulted and asphyxiated when a plastic bag was pulled over her head and secured with clothesline. The exotic dancer with a history of drug problems died with her eyes wide open. It wasn’t long before police traced a lone fingerprint left on her car’s rearview mirror to a 16-year-old drug dealer and gangbanger from a South L.A. housing project. Alonzo Winslow, who grew up fast in the projects, not knowing his father and rarely seeing his mother, was arrested and charged as a juvenile with the crime. He confessed his role to the police and now awaits efforts by the state to prosecute him as an adult. We talk to the suspect and his family as well as those who knew the victim, and trace this fatal collision back to its origins. 90 inches—McEvoy and Cook, w/art by Lester
* * *
Carver read it again. He felt the muscles in his neck start to relax. McEvoy and Cook didn’t know anything. Jack the giant slayer was climbing the wrong bean stalk.
Just as he had planned it. Carver made a mental note to check back to read the story when it was published. He would be one of only three people on the planet to know how wrong it was—including that poor soul Alonzo Winslow.
He killed the list and brought up Cook’s sent messages. There was just the overlap of the back-and-forth with McEvoy and the missive to Prendergast. It was all pretty dry and useless to Carver.
He closed the e-mail and went to the browser. He scrolled down, seeing all the websites Cook had visited in recent days. He saw trunkmurder.com as well as several visits to Google and the websites of other newspapers. He then saw a website that intrigued him. He opened up DanikasDungeon.com and was treated to a visit to a Dutch bondage-and-domination site replete with photos of women controlling, taunting and torturing men. Carver smiled. He doubted there was a journalistic reason for Cook’s visit. He believed he was getting a glimpse of Angela Cook’s private interests. Her own dark journey.
Carver didn’t linger. He put the information aside, knowing it might be useful at a later time. He tried Prendergast next, since it appeared his password was obvious. He went with Prendo and was in on his first attempt. People were so stupid and obvious sometimes. He went to the mailbox, and there at the top of the list was a message from McEvoy that had been sent only two minutes earlier.
“What are you up to, Jack?”
Carver opened the message.
From: Jack McEvoy
Subject: collision
Date: May 12, 2009 4:33 PM PDT
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
* * *
Prendo, I was looking for you but you were at dinner. The story is changing. Alonzo didn’t confess to the killing and I don’t even think he did it. I’m heading to Vegas tonight to pursue things further tomorrow. Will fill you in then. Angela can handle the beat. I’ve got dimes.
—Jack
* * *
Carver felt his gorge rise in his throat. His neck muscles tightened sharply and he pushed back from the table in case he had to vomit. He pulled the trash can out from underneath so he could use it if necessary. His vision momentarily darkened at the edges but then the darkness passed and he cleared.
He kicked the trash can back into place and leaned forward to study the message again.
McEvoy had made the connection to Las Vegas. Carver now knew that he had only himself to blame. He had repeated his modus operandi too soon. He had left himself open and now Jack the giant slayer was on his trail. A critical mistake. McEvoy would get to Las Vegas and with even minimal luck he would put things together.
Carver had to stop that. A
critical mistake didn’t have to be a fatal mistake, he told himself. He closed his eyes and thought for a long moment. It brought his confidence back. Some of it. He knew he was prepared for all eventualities. The beginning tendrils of a plan were reaching to him and the first order of business was to delete the message on the screen in front of him, and then go back into Angela Cook’s account and delete it from her mailbox as well. Prendergast and Cook would never see it and, with any luck, they’d never know what Jack McEvoy knew.
Carver deleted the message but before signing off uploaded a spy-ware program that would allow him to track all of Prendergast’s Internet activities in real time. He would know who Prendergast e-mailed, who contacted him and what websites he viewed. Carver then returned to Cook’s account and quickly took the same actions.
McEvoy was next but Carver decided that could come later—after Jack got to Vegas and was operating out there alone. First things first. He got up and put his hand on the reader next to the glass door to the server room. Once the scan was completed and approved, the door unlocked and he slid it open. It was cold in the server room, always kept at a brisk sixty-two degrees. His steps echoed on the raised metal flooring as he walked down the third row to the sixth tower. He unlocked the front of the refrigerator-size server with a key, bent down and pulled two of the data blades out a quarter inch. He then closed and relocked the door and headed back to his workstation.
Within a few seconds a screen alarm buzzed from the workstations. He typed in commands that would bring up the response protocol. He then waited a few more seconds and reached over to the phone. He pushed the intercom button and typed in McGinnis’s extension.
“Hey, boss, you still there?”
“What is it, Wesley? I’m about to head out.”
“We’ve got a code three problem. You better come look.”
Code 3 meant drop everything and move.
“I’ll be right there.”
Carver tried to suppress a smile. He wouldn’t want McGinnis to see it. Three minutes later McGinnis came through the door, his key card snapping back to his belt. He was out of breath from taking the stairs down.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
“Dewey and Bach in L.A. just got data-bombed. The whole route collapsed.”
“Jesus, how?”
“You got me.”
“Who did it?”
Carver shrugged.
“Can’t tell from this end. It might’ve been internal.”
“You call them yet?”
“No, I was waiting to tell you first.”
McGinnis stood behind Carver, shifting his weight from foot to foot and looking through the glass at the servers, as if the answer was in there.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“The problem’s not here—I’ve checked everything. It’s on their end. I think I need to send somebody out there to fix it and reopen the traffic. I think Stone is up. I’ll send him. Then we see where it came from and make sure it won’t happen again. If it’s a hack, then we burn the fuckers in their beds.”
“How long will it take?”
“They have flights to L.A. almost every hour. I’ll put Stone on a plane and he’ll hit it first thing tomorrow.”
“Why don’t you go? I want this taken care of.”
Carver hesitated. He wanted McGinnis to keep thinking it was his idea.
“I think Freddy Stone can handle it.”
“But you’re the best. I want Dewey and Bach to see that we don’t fuck around. We get things done. You got a problem, we send our best man. Not some kid. Take Stone or whoever you need, but I want you to go.”
“I’ll leave right now.”
“Just keep me informed.”
“Will do.”
“I gotta get to the airport myself to make that pickup.”
“Yeah, you’ve got the tough job.”
“Don’t rub it in.”
He clapped Carver on the shoulder and went back out through the door. Carver sat there motionless for a few moments, feeling the residual compression on his shoulder. He hated to be touched.
Finally, he moved. He leaned toward his screen and entered the alarm disengagement code. He confirmed the protocol and then deleted it.
Carver pulled his cell phone and hit a speed dial number.
“What’s up?” Stone said.
“Are you still with Early?”
“Yeah, we’re building the tower.”
“Come back to the control room. We have a problem. Actually, two problems. And we need to take care of them. I’m working on a plan.”
“On my way.”
Carver closed the phone with a snap.
SIX: The Loneliest Road in America
At nine A.M. Wednesday I was waiting outside the locked door of the offices of Schifino & Associates on the fourth floor of an office building on Charleston near downtown Las Vegas. I was tired and slid down the wall to sit on the nicely carpeted floor. I was feeling particularly unlucky in a town that was supposed to inspire luck.
The early morning had started out well enough. After checking into the Mandalay Bay at midnight, I found myself too keyed up to sleep. I went down to the casino and turned the two hundred dollars I had brought with me into three times that amount at the roulette and blackjack tables.
The growth of my cash portfolio along with the free booze I’d drunk while gambling made sleep come easier when I returned to my room. Things took a dramatic downturn after my wake-up call came. The problem was I wasn’t supposed to have a wake-up call. The front desk was calling to tell me my Times-issued American Express card had been rejected.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “I bought an airline ticket with it last night, I rented a car at McCarran and it was fine when I checked in here. Somebody ran the card.”
“Yes, sir, that is just an authorizing process. The card is not charged until six A.M. on the morning of checkout. We ran the card and it was rejected. Could you please come down and give us another card?”
“No problem. I wanted to get up now anyway so I could win some more of your money.”
Only there was a problem, because my three other credit cards didn’t work either. All were rejected and I was forced to chip back half of my winnings to get out of the hotel. Once I got to my rental car I pulled out my cell to start calling the credit-card companies one by one. Only I couldn’t make the calls because my phone was dead, and it wasn’t a matter of being in a bad cell zone. The phone was dead, service disconnected.
Annoyed and confused but undaunted, I headed to the address I had looked up for William Schifino. I still had a story to pursue.
A few minutes after nine, a woman stepped off the elevator and headed down the hallway toward me. I noticed the slight hesitation in her step when she saw me on the floor leaning against Schifino’s door. I stood up and nodded as she got closer.
“Do you work with William Schifino?” I said with a smile.
“Yes, I’m his receptionist. What can I do for you?”
“I need to speak to Mr. Schifino. I came from Los Angeles. I—”
“Do you have an appointment? Mr. Schifino sees potential clients by appointment only.”
“I don’t have an appointment but I’m not a potential client. I’m a reporter. I want to talk to Mr. Schifino about Brian Oglevy. He was convicted last year of—”
“I know who Brian Oglevy is. That case is on appeal.”
“Right, I know, I know. I have new information. I think Mr. Schifino will want to speak to me.”
She paused with her key a few inches from the lock and turned her eyes as if to size me up for the first time.
“I know he will,” I said.
“You can come in and wait. I don’t know when he’ll be in. He doesn’t have court until this afternoon.”
“Maybe you could call him.”
“Maybe.”
We entered the office and she directed me to a couch in a small waiting area. The fu
rnishings were comfortable and seemed relatively new. I got the feeling that Schifino was an accomplished lawyer. The receptionist went behind her desk, turned on her computer and began her routine of preparing for the day.
“Are you going to call him?” I asked.
“When I get a moment. Just make yourself comfortable.”
I tried to but I didn’t like waiting around. I pulled my laptop out of my bag and turned it on.
“Do you have WiFi here?” I asked.
“We do.”
“Could I borrow it to check my e-mail? I’ll only be on a few minutes.”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
I studied her for a moment.
“Excuse me?”
“I said no. It’s a secured system and you will have to ask Mr. Schifino about that.”
“Well, could you ask him for me when you call him to tell him I am waiting here?”
“As soon as possible.”
She gave me an efficient smile and went back to her busywork. The phone buzzed and she opened an appointment book and started scheduling a meeting for a client and telling him about the credit cards they accepted for legal services rendered. It reminded me of my own current credit-card situation and I grabbed one of the magazines off the coffee table to try to avoid thinking about it.
It was called the Nevada Legal Review and it was chock-full of ads for lawyers and legal services like transcription and data storage. There were also articles about legal cases, most of them dealing with casino licensing or crimes against casinos. I was twenty minutes into a story about a legal attack on the law that kept brothels from operating in Las Vegas and Clark County when the office door opened and a man stepped in. He nodded to me and looked at the receptionist, who was still on the phone.
“Hold, please,” the receptionist said.
She pointed to me.
“Mr. Schifino, this man has no appointment. He says he’s a reporter from Los Angeles. He—”
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