Virtually Undead

by Robert I. Katz

  “Exactly.”

  “That still makes no sense. With six degrees of separation, you can supposedly connect every person on Earth to every other person on Earth. There are hundreds of millions of people, all over the world, who have some sort of criminal record and can be connected in this way.”

  “I guess I wasn’t clear,” Michael said. “What made somebody a person of interest wasn’t a record of criminal behavior. It was an association with either Gary Woodson or Sandra Devine. We already know that they’ve had contact with all ten murdered players. This is a list of people with a criminal history with whom they have also had contact.”

  “Hmm…” A strange little smile spread across Harold Strong’s face. He peered at Michael with something that might have been reluctant approval. “Okay,” he said. “That is a little more interesting. We’ll look into it.”

  “Will you let me know what you find?”

  The corner of Harold Strong’s lip twitched. “If we feel like it.”

  Chapter 13

  Art Tatum had taught himself to play by listening to player pianos, equipped with paper piano rolls that caused the keys to depress when the ‘player’ moved two pedals with his feet. One of the pieces he later became known for was Tea for Two. Tatum did not realize, when he was young, that the piano roll he learned from was for two players. No matter, he learned to play it all.

  It is said that Oscar Peterson, who would go on to become one of the greatest jazz pianists, refused to touch a piano for over a month the first time he heard Tatum play Tea for Two. Vladimir Horowitz, a friend and admirer of Tatum’s, once composed his own version of the song. He transcribed it note for note on music paper and then went over to play it for Tatum. When he was done, Tatum complimented him, then sat down at the piano and played a much better version of his own. Horowitz, amazed, asked him when he had written it. “Just now,” Tatum said. “I improvised.”

  Horowitz never played Tea for Two again.

  Michael had reluctantly come to admit, if only to himself, that he was depressed. He had been for a while. He toyed with the idea of seeing a psychiatrist. Depression, he had found, is a bottomless pit of dark emotions, a sucking maelstrom not amenable to reason. Though he lived a life that most would envy, he was still depressed. Jackass…

  Michael sighed.

  Stephanie, walking at Michael’s side, glanced at him and wrinkled her brow. “You okay?”

  He grinned at her, a pale and lackluster grin. “Yeah,” he said. “Just thinking.”

  “Work getting you down?”

  “You could say that.”

  Stephanie shrugged. As a lawyer, she also worked long and unpredictable hours.

  “I always liked this place,” Stephanie said.

  They were walking along the Hall of North American Mammals in the American Museum of Natural History. It had been one of Michael’s favorite destinations in New York City ever since his first visit at the age of four, not that he remembered much about that first visit. Except for the dinosaurs. Nobody ever forgets the dinosaurs.

  “Me, too,” he said.

  Stephanie and Michael were walking arm-in-arm. He wasn’t sure how that had happened, or who took whose arm first. She had drifted closer to his side and suddenly, there they were, her hand comfortably in the crook of his elbow.

  Stephanie, Michael realized, was okay. She was more than okay. She was a woman he could talk to, who seemed to understand what was running through his mind. This was only their second date, and he felt like he had known her for years, an unusual feeling. Match.com seemed to know their stuff.

  They paused by an exhibit of a Kodiak bear standing on its hind legs, grassland stretching into the distance, a half-eaten salmon in the forefront and snow-capped mountains to the rear.

  “Big,” Stephanie remarked.

  “It’s because they eat a lot of salmon. Bears in the interior are less than half the size.”

  “You do know a lot of useless information,” Stephanie remarked.

  “I read a lot.”

  Behind them, in the crowd, walked a lean, middle-aged guy carrying a camera. He was white, with brown hair, wearing khaki pants and a dark blue, button down shirt. This was the third exhibit hall they had been to and Michael had seen this guy at all three of them.

  He felt a little tingle run up and down his spine. He smiled.

  Danger, Will Robinson.

  He had never been followed before, though most likely, the guy was not actually following them. Danger, even if it was bullshit, did tend to take one’s mind off life’s less serious troubles.

  They wandered down the corridor to the Hall of Ocean Life. Overhead, an enormous blue whale clung to the ceiling. The white guy with the camera and the khaki pants padded softly along behind.

  “Huh,” Michael said.

  Stephanie blinked at him.

  “Don’t turn around,” Michael said, “but I think we’re being followed.”

  She frowned. “Seriously?”

  “I think so.”

  “Why?”

  Good question. “No idea,” he said, though he did, in fact, have a few ideas.

  One of the things you learn in a surgical residency is to keep your eyes open. There are a lot of things you need to pay attention to during surgery, things that can be significant, things that can go wrong, and after a while, a good surgeon develops an almost Zen like awareness of his surroundings, focused on nothing, aware of everything. Michael thought the guy was alone. After a little while, he was sure of it. Nobody else paid Michael, Stephanie or the guy any attention. Nobody else re-appeared from a distant exhibit or kept up with them for more than a few minutes.

  The guy was good. Michael had to give him that. No doubt, he had done this before. He meandered slowly around whatever Hall they happened to be in. Once or twice, Michael thought he had wandered away, but no, within a few minutes, he always came back into view. Out of the corner of his eye, Michael saw him point his camera in their direction.

  “Let’s sit down,” Michael said.

  They sat on a bench. Michael pulled out his cell phone and dialed. Harold Strong answered after the second ring. “Doctor Foreman, what’s up?”

  “Do you have anybody following me?”

  A long silence answered this question. “No,” Harold Strong finally said.

  “How about the FBI?”

  “Where are you? What’s going on?”

  “I’m in the Museum of Natural History. Somebody is tailing me.” Stephanie, listening to this, frowned at him.

  “You’re certain?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Can you send me a picture?”

  The guy was across the room, pretending to look at an exhibit of a whale shark next to a scuba diver. The shark was a lot bigger than the scuba diver. Michael snapped a picture on his cell phone and sent it to Harold Strong.

  “Okay,” Harold Strong said, “where exactly are you in the building?”

  Michael told him.

  “Stay where you are. Look at the exhibits. The area around the museum is well patrolled. I’ll have a couple of guys there within ten minutes.”

  “Sounds good. Thanks,” Michael said, and hung up.

  “Really?” Stephanie said.

  “Afraid so.”

  Stephanie sighed, probably wondering if Michael was another guy who was not going to work out. He smiled, got back to his feet and held out his hand. Stephanie frowned, then, with a tiny shrug, took his hand and rose from the bench. “I don’t get followed every day,” Michael said.

  “Let’s hope not. That would be bad.”

  They wandered around the Hall, finally stopping to stare at a sperm whale munching on a giant squid. Nobody had ever seen such a thing in real life, but it was assumed to be accurate. Giant squid had washed onshore many times and sperm whales had been hunted for both meat and oil for hundreds of years. Sperm whales’ stomachs almost always contained the undigested beaks of many giant squid.

  From
the corner of his eye, Michael saw two men in police uniforms enter from opposite ends of the Hall. They converged on the guy following Michael. The guy frowned as the cops approached. The cops said something to him. He shrugged, produced his wallet from a back pocket, pulled something out and handed it to one of the cops, presumably his ID. The cop took it, turned it over in his hand, pulled out a cell phone and made a call. Michael couldn’t hear what was said, but it seemed to satisfy the cop. He said something to his partner, handed the lean guy back his card and said something to him. The lean guy grinned, glanced at Michael, turned and walked away.

  The cops both left.

  “Well,” Stephanie said, “they didn’t arrest him.”

  “No,” Michael said. “Too bad.”

  Stephanie seemed a bit cool after that. They wandered through the Hall of Gems, spent some time in the Hall of South American Mammals and of course, just had to see the dinosaurs, but somehow, they were no longer walking arm-in-arm.

  “Something to eat?” Michael said.

  She looked at him, gave a minute shrug. “Sure,” she said.

  Something in Michael seemed to unwind. He drew a deep breath and smiled. “Excellent.”

  It was a little late for lunch but early for dinner. They decided on a nearby Italian place and got a table without any trouble. They split a Caprese salad. Michael ordered braised lamb shank and Stephanie chose grilled salmon, with a side portion of linguine. Neither was in the mood for wine.

  “I’m sorry you’re upset,” Michael said.

  She gave him a level look over the top of her water glass. “Not upset,” she said. “Wary.”

  Upset, Michael thought.

  “Some weird things have been happening,” he said.

  She looked around the restaurant, then sighed. “Tell me about it.”

  Was anything he knew confidential? Not really, he thought. Both the police and the FBI had made it clear that Michael had no role in the case beyond some medical expertise, and nobody had told him to keep his mouth shut. Inwardly, he shrugged.

  Stephanie listened without comment. Finally, when the story was finished, she said, “So, somebody has hacked Remington Simulations’ plant, murdered ten people and done…what, exactly? What else?”

  “That’s uncertain. There have been glitches with traffic control and some problems with the city-wide storm drainage system. Are these things related in any way?” Michael shrugged.

  Stephanie stared at him. “How would you even know that? And what makes you think they have anything to do with each other?”

  Michael shrugged. “They began at about the same time. The problems with the city-wide infrastructure seemed to stop after the murders. The cops seemed to think they might be connected.”

  “And how are you involved in all this?”

  “One of the dead men was my best friend. One of the people injured by the malfunctioning traffic lights was a patient.”

  Michael stopped, stared. Slowly, a smile spread across his face. Outside the restaurant, walking down the street, was Melody Levine, arm-in-arm with the burly, balding guy who had tried to pick Melody up in the little Italian place in the Village. The guy smiled down at the top of Melody’s head. He seemed extraordinarily pleased with himself. Good for him, Michael thought. And good luck. He’s going to need it.

  Chapter 14

  “He claimed he was from the NSA,” Harold Strong said.

  Michael stared at him. “Oh, shit.”

  “But he wasn’t from the NSA. His ID looked official, but it doesn’t check out. Apparently, whoever obtained the information that you’ve provided us did not cover his tracks as well as he thought.”

  “Oh, shit,” Michael said again. He couldn’t help himself. “No idea who he is?”

  “Nope.”

  “No idea why he was following me?”

  Harold Strong raised an eyebrow. “Maybe he was following your date. You ever think of that?”

  Michael blinked at him, trying to still his suddenly racing heart.

  “You said she’s a lawyer,” Harold Strong said. “Lawyers sometimes deal with both sides of the law.”

  “Stephanie is a tax lawyer. She mostly works with trusts and estates.”

  “There’s a lot of money in trusts and estates.”

  Michael drew a breath. “Okay, fine. What do I do now?”

  Harold Strong shrugged. “Go about your business.” He hesitated. “Keep an eye open. Call us if anybody gives you any trouble.”

  Once, when Michael was in middle school, he got into a fight with another kid on the playground. Michael, contemplative, musically inclined, with a reputation as the quiet, passive sort, was nevertheless more athletic than his reputation gave him credit for. They were playing soccer. The ball had been passed to Michael, who faked a kick left, then passed the ball right to a teammate who then kicked it into the goal. The kid who had been faked out promptly punched Michael in the mouth. The next thing Michael knew, he was lying on the ground with the other kid on top of his chest, whaling away at Michael’s face.

  The kid was pulled off Michael. Michael had a split lip. The other kid had a black eye, which Michael had apparently given him in the course of trying to defend himself. They both got detention.

  After this incident, Michael’s father signed Michael up for karate classes. That lasted about six weeks. Michael wasn’t bad at karate. He even sort of enjoyed it. He was awarded a yellow belt, then a green, then hurt one of his precious fingers and couldn’t play the piano for a month.

  That was the end of the karate lessons.

  Michael, thirty-five years old, was fast, stronger than he looked, highly coordinated and had excellent reflexes, but was completely unprepared to deal with an individual who might mean him harm and had the ability to do so.

  “Sure,” Michael said. “Will do.”

  The cops had gotten a good look at the guy and Michael had sent them a picture from the museum. Maybe something would come of it. Some database somewhere might yield a hit. He sat in a chair in his apartment, a glass of Scotch by his side, and thought about what he was doing.

  He had been thinking a lot, lately.

  The unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates. Michael had gone to Columbia. They teach you stuff like that at Columbia. Such ancient wisdom was useful, one professor had explained, for impressing people at cocktail parties. The thought wandered through the back of his brain.

  You could spend too much time examining, however, and not enough deciding. Michael was getting a little tired of examining.

  Both Richard Kurtz and Zach Dolan had commented on Michael’s lack of expertise when it came to investigating an evident crime. They were both right and Michael was the first to admit it, and frankly, beyond finding out what had caused Ralph Guthrie and the others to be murdered, Michael had no burning desire to fight the good fight in the name of truth and justice. You could get killed that way.

  So, what did he have?

  Sandra Devine and Gary Woodson had been paid by somebody to do something. It seemed likely that the two of them had inserted the altered code into Remington Simulations’ factory software. It was possible, but just barely, that they hadn’t known what it was that they were being paid to do. Insert a disk or a flash drive, wait ten minutes for the altered program to load, retrieve the disk and walk away. Was that likely? Large organizations generally objected to weak points into their systems. Such weak points could be hacked. Optical disks and flash drives were pretty much obsolete in the corporate world, often forbidden or even impossible, the drives able to read them either disabled or simply not part of the design.

  Not likely, then, that they didn’t know what was being done. The two were programmers. Changes to Remington Simulations design parameters, if any, would have been done onsite, by programmers who knew what they were doing, which meant that, at the least, Gary Woodson and Sandra Devine were accessories to murder.

  And then they themselves died—an unfortunate accident or murdere
d in their turn? Were the illicit lovers conveniently removed or had their deaths disturbed someone else’s plans?

  Modern boats come equipped with computerized nav systems, including GPS, which could, in theory at least, be hacked. Had they been steered onto the rocks that killed them?

  The boat had sunk. So far as Michael knew, it was still at the bottom of Long Island Sound, under fifty feet of water. By now, every transistor and bit of circuitry would be corroded, with no way to tell for sure if the programming had been tampered with.

  Sandra Devine and Gary Woodson had received fifteen payments over the course of at least a year. Who paid it?

  Ten people had died in Remington Simulations’ tournament. Why those ten? What did they have in common?

  The exosuits all contained high-density EEG arrays. Somebody, or some organization, was collecting data. Where did that data go?

  And what did it all have to do with malfunctioning traffic lights, an exploding gas pipeline, a power blackout in the Bronx and the New York City sewer system?

  “How are these things different from each other?”

  Harold Strong had sighed when Michael walked into his office. Michael deposited a box of donuts on the desk and pulled a cup of coffee out of a paper bag. He smiled at Harold Strong.

  Harold Strong ignored Michael’s smile. He leaned forward, opened the box, inspected the contents and selected a toasted coconut donut. “Why don’t you tell me?” he said.

  “It’s simple. The traffic control system, the gas delivery system and the electrical grid are all highly automated and centrally controlled. They could be potentially influenced from outside the system.”

  “Hacked,” Harold Strong said.

  “Correct.”

  Harold Strong took a bite out of his donut. “Go on.”

  “The sewage system is not high tech. The sewage system operates on simple mechanical controls that are decades old.”

  “And so?”

  “So, somebody must have done it. Some person or persons must have physically gone into the drainage system and sabotaged it.”