Guilty Blood

by Rick Acker

  She joined him at the bar, resting her elbows on the smooth granite. The moon was huge and low, hanging just above the horizon. It cast a pale, ethereal yellow light over the rolling countryside, giving it a magical look. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Thanks for sharing it with me.”

  “Thanks for being here. I’d much rather share it with you than enjoy it alone.”

  “You don’t have to be alone,” she said, putting her hand on his arm.

  He turned toward her and put his arm around her, looking down at her. She saw the longing in his eyes, the same longing she felt. Her heart stood still, waiting for his kiss.

  But he didn’t kiss her. He hugged and released her, holding her at arm’s length. “Yes, I do,” he said, his voice full of regret.

  He gave her shoulder a friendly pat. “Thanks, Jess, for a wonderful dinner and a magnificent house staging. I’ll walk you to your car.”

  CHAPTER 58

  Kevin sat back in his chair and smiled. He could finally see the pattern. All the pieces fit together at last.

  He wanted to call Nate right away, but he had learned that it was best to take a short break first, stretch his legs, and then look at everything one last time to make sure he hadn’t missed a key fact. Besides, he had been drinking Mountain Dew more or less continuously for the past twelve hours and hadn’t been to the bathroom in the past three.

  Five minutes later, he was back in his seat, feeling much more comfortable. He cracked open another Mountain Dew and slowly swiveled back and forth, letting his eyes rest briefly on each of the monitors lining his U-shaped desk. He checked the pattern once more, briefly testing each element and connection one last time. His brain buzzed with a cocktail of caffeine, sugar, adrenaline, and fatigue, so he went slowly. After fifteen minutes, he was satisfied.

  “Hal, call Nate Daniels,” he said to his digital assistant.

  “Calling Nate Daniels,” the voice said from the speakers positioned around the desk.

  A moment later, Nate’s voice said, “Hello, Kevin. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, Nate. How are you?” Kevin replied, remembering the proper response.

  “I’m well. What can I do for you?”

  “I figured it out. I know why the Chinese military wanted to change Brandon Ames’s DNA profile.”

  “That’s great, Kevin. What did you find?”

  “Lan Long is run by members of the Chinese military.”

  “That’s very interesting,” Nate said. “How do you know that?”

  “The Chinese military computers are very secure, but the Chinese bank computers are not. I found the banks in the cities where the People’s Liberation Army has its cyberespionage units. Then I looked for bank accounts with large balances. After that, I filtered out those that weren’t owned by military officers.” He paused. “Do you understand?”

  “I do.”

  “Okay. Then I social engineered those officers. Three of them talked about Lan Long in encrypted emails. They didn’t talk about Brandon Ames or DNA or the FBI, but they did mention making shipments to California.”

  “I see. It sounds like you’ve been busy, Kevin.”

  “I guess so,” Kevin said. Over the past thirteen days, he estimated that he had worked on this approximately fifteen and a half hours per day. But that was about how much time he always spent on projects that interested him.

  “I’m very impressed,” Nate said. “And I really appreciate all that you’ve done. If you could send me what you’ve found, that would be extremely helpful.”

  Kevin warmed at the compliment. It made him feel good to do something that both impressed and helped Nate. “I will. Are you going to send it to the FBI and the CIA?”

  “I, ah, hadn’t planned to,” Nate said.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing, you might be in trouble when they find out what you’ve done. I’m not sure all of it is entirely legal, Kevin. Particularly when you hacked the FBI’s computers.”

  “But I didn’t do anything wrong,” Kevin protested. “I was helping.”

  “They may not see it that way.”

  “But can’t you explain it so that they’ll understand? I know you’re good at that.”

  “I can try,” Nate said. “But I can’t make any promises.”

  Nate always said he couldn’t make promises, but then he always did the thing he said he couldn’t promise to do.

  “I want you to tell them anyway,” Kevin said.

  “Why?”

  That seemed self-evident to Kevin. “Because these people are criminals. Real criminals. They murdered someone.”

  “I’m sure the FBI and the CIA will figure this all out on their own,” Nate said.

  That made no sense to Kevin. “Why are you sure? If the FBI knew that Brandon Ames’s profile in its DNA database had been altered, wouldn’t they have fixed it? And if they knew about these officers and Lan Long, wouldn’t those men have been arrested?”

  “US authorities can’t simply arrest people in China,” Nate said.

  “Why not? They’re criminals.”

  “Because they’re in China. Chinese authorities would need to arrest them.”

  “Okay, tell them too,” Kevin said.

  Nate sighed. “Let’s start with telling the US authorities. You’re sure you want me to do that, even though it might get you in trouble?”

  “Yes. Can you wait to do it until tomorrow?”

  “Of course. Why?”

  “Because I may have more evidence for you by then.”

  The line was silent for several seconds. “Would you be doing any more hacking or social engineering?”

  Kevin frowned. “Social engineering is a subset of hacking, Nate.”

  “Thank you for the clarification. Would you be doing social engineering or any other form of hacking?”

  Kevin’s frown deepened. “I might. Why?”

  “I’m going to have to ask you not to.”

  “But those rules make no sense!” Kevin exclaimed, banging his armrest in frustration. “I’m trying to catch murderers!”

  “Precisely,” Nate said. “You are trying to catch murderers who are sophisticated enough to hack into FBI databases. If they discover that you are hacking them, they might try to kill you too.”

  That had not occurred to Kevin, but he saw that it would be a logical move by Lan Long. Duels between hackers and their targets took place in cyberspace, so he had unconsciously assumed that they would stay there. He now understood that there was no inherent reason why those duels could not move from cyberspace to meatspace, as hackers referred to the outside world. His heart thumped and his palms and forehead began to sweat. He realized that he was afraid.

  “Oh,” Kevin said. “Thank you. . . . I will need to take defensive measures.”

  CHAPTER 59

  As soon as he got off the phone with Kevin, Nate called Sofia to update her and get her thoughts.

  “That’s awesome,” she said when he finished. “This should make the FBI willing to cough up whatever they have on Linc’s murder.”

  Nate wasn’t so sure that the feds would suddenly start sharing information out of gratitude—particularly after Brandon rejected the deal they offered him last week. “I suspect they’ll appreciate the tip, but—” The penny dropped. “Oh, you mean we should try to set up a trade—they tell us what they know about Linc Thomas’s death in return for us sharing Kevin’s discoveries.”

  “Yeah. That was my immediate reaction, anyway. Do you disagree?”

  “No,” he said slowly, turning the idea over in his head. “I think it’s an excellent idea. They will want an adequate proffer, of course.” A proffer was basically an infomercial highlighting the best parts of what they had to offer the government.

  “Right, but we don’t want to give them so much that they can figure it out on their own.”

  “Exactly. We should be able to do that.” He was silent for a moment, thinking through various options. “F
or example, I could call Al Francini and tell him in very general terms that we have information of interest to them—but the only specific we would give is that DNA profiles in CODIS have been altered and that they can confirm it by checking the metadata. The FBI would presumably guess that we had accessed Brandon’s profile, so they would check it and realize that we were correct. That would give us credibility without revealing the extent of our knowledge.”

  “Yeah, but that would be basically admitting that we had someone hack into CODIS. If the Bureau does some digging, they could connect you to Kevin—and that would probably put Kevin in the Bureau’s crosshairs.”

  “Possibly, but he has already instructed me to do essentially that. Also, he has promised to call me if anyone from the federal government contacts him, and they may not be able to learn much by examining his hard drive.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet that thing’s locked down pretty tight,” Sofia said. “Okay, it sounds like we have a plan. Good luck.”

  Nate ended the call and got up from behind his desk. He needed to think through his conversation with Al, and walking helped him think. He paced back and forth in his office, muttering to himself as he played out various possible scenarios.

  His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the number. Jessica.

  He fought the urge to answer. He had already decided that whenever she called, he would let it go to voicemail. Then he would wait at least an hour before returning the call. And when he did call her back, he would make sure he had something scheduled to begin five or ten minutes later. If possible, he would also call from a public place. He didn’t like doing this, but it was for the best.

  That catered dinner at his house had been a mistake, and he needed to correct it. He shook his head at the memory. What had he been thinking? He had been setting himself—and her—up for something like that to happen. Now he had to rebuild the boundaries in their relationship. It would probably feel like rejection to her, and he supposed it was. Guilt stabbed him. Jess had done nothing to deserve rejection. Quite the opposite—she was a wonderful, beautiful, caring woman. Her only mistake had been to care for him too much. And now he was making her pay for it. He closed his eyes and sighed.

  The phone finally stopped ringing. A moment later, a text popped up. Call me when you can. He swiped the message away and dropped the phone back into his pocket.

  Al. He had been getting ready to call Al. He mentally ran through his strategy for the call one more time, rehearsing what he would say in response to the most likely questions and objections. Then he placed the call.

  “Al Francini speaking,” his friend said a moment later.

  “Al, it’s Nate. I’d like to talk about making a deal. I think you can help me with my murder case, and I can help you with your trafficking investigation.”

  “I thought your client rejected that deal.”

  “Different deal,” Nate said. “Or at least our side is different. I’ll cut to the chase. We have information that should be valuable to the FBI and significantly advance its investigation of Lan Long. In exchange, we want everything you have that could bear on the murder of Lincoln Thomas.” Nate could hear the faint scratch of pen on paper.

  “Are you prepared to make a proffer?” Al asked.

  “Not a full proffer, but since we’re friends, I’ll give you a free sample. The CODIS database has been compromised. Someone has altered DNA profiles in it. Check the metadata if you want confirmation.”

  “How do you know this?” Al asked, his voice guarded. “What evidence do you have?”

  “I’ll be happy to share all of it with you once we have a deal.”

  “Huh.” Al was silent for a moment. “That’s very interesting, but it’s really a Main Justice issue,” he said, referring to the Department of Justice headquarters in Washington, DC. “But the Lan Long investigation belongs to my US Attorney. You’ll need both of them to sign off on any deal. So what do you have to proffer on Lan Long?”

  Nate wasn’t surprised. After he got off the phone with Sofia, it had occurred to him that US Attorneys had a fair amount of autonomy from Main Justice, and they guarded it jealously. Al could use that as a lever to get more out of Nate. Which was fine. The fisherman is always happy to get the fish to take a bigger bite of the bait.

  “Names,” Nate said. “The names of multiple individuals who are involved in the control of Lan Long, plus financial data tying them to it.”

  The line was silent for several seconds. Nate smiled. Time to set the hook. “But now that we’re talking, I’m reminded of your warning about the dangers of crossing Lan Long, so perhaps a deal wouldn’t be in my client’s best interests in any event.”

  “Oh, I’m sure we could work something out,” Al said quickly. “We have lots of experience protecting confidential witnesses.”

  Nate said nothing. Silence during a conversation—particularly a negotiation—could be a very effective tool. It put pressure on the other side to say something to fill the gap. And during a negotiation, filling the gap often meant making a concession or volunteering useful information.

  After a moment of dead air, Al went on. “This is intriguing, Nate, but I’ll need to talk to some people on my end. We’ll also have to reach out to Main Justice. It could take a little while for us to get back to you.”

  Al’s interest was obvious, so Nate decided to push a little. “Our trial date is September six, so the sooner you get back to us, the better. And we’ll want to know a little more about what you’ve got to offer, of course—both in terms of what you’ve got on the Thomas murder and on the protection front.”

  “Understood. I’ll see what I can do.”

  CHAPTER 60

  Brandon sat on his bunk, reading one of the textbooks for his civil-engineering class. His mother had managed to find several in softcover—the only binding that the jail allowed—and have them shipped directly to him from Amazon. It had been a nice gesture, but reading them was agony. They reminded him of the joy of building.

  When he came home from college on breaks, he used to drive through town, looking at houses he had helped build. They had cars and basketball hoops in the driveways, new flower beds under the windows, landscaping and trees where there had been raw earth. They were homes now, not just construction projects. He had made someone’s home. A home that would last for generations, maybe centuries. It always gave him a swell of pride.

  And now the books reminded him of what he had lost, the future that had been stolen from him on a sunny Wednesday morning last November.

  He knew his mother and lawyers were doing everything they could to get that future back, but he also knew better than to get his hopes up. This was a DNA case, and those were hard to beat. If you had an innocent—and believable—explanation for how your DNA got to the crime scene, you might win. And Phil, the old-timer Brandon met early in his stay, claimed to have once known a guy who walked because the crime lab messed up the DNA testing. If Brandon was honest with himself, he knew that he had little chance of winning at trial. And so he would never be an engineer.

  But he still couldn’t put the book down—and realized that he was probably the first person who ever felt that way about reading an engineering textbook. That was partly because he owed it to his mom. She had spent hundreds of dollars getting these to him, and she regularly asked whether he was reading them. He also actually enjoyed learning about engineering—or, at least, he enjoyed it more than staring at his walls or doing burpees.

  But those weren’t the only reasons. There was a small, irrational voice in the back of his head that kept whispering that he might actually walk out of here and back into a Berkeley classroom. Listening to that voice felt like how some inmates described taking a hit of crack—a feel-good rush, followed by a nasty comedown when reality came crashing back. It wasn’t worth it, but you couldn’t stop. After hearing Brandon describe his case, Phil had shaken his head and said, “Get real, keep your head down, and do your time. Hope
is the most dangerous drug in this place.”

  A bang on his cell door startled him out of his reverie. “Hey, Ames,” a guard called. “Want to talk to the padre again?”

  It would be a relief to get outside of his own head for a little while. “Yeah, sure,” he said, closing the book and pushing it away.

  Five minutes later, he was back in the little room, sitting opposite Father Vicente. “I did what you suggested,” the priest said.

  Brandon didn’t remember suggesting anything. “Uh, what exactly was that?”

  “That I talk to Los Reyes.”

  Oh, great. “What did you say?”

  “I told them that I had heard about their run-ins with you and that they should let it go. That Jesus teaches us to love our enemies and turn the other cheek. I also said I would tell you the same thing.”

  “Yeah, and I’ll bet they just nodded and said, ‘Yes, Father. Whatever you say, Father.’”

  Brandon’s voice had been heavy with sarcasm, but Father Vicente smiled. “That wasn’t exactly their reaction, but I’ll keep trying. And praying, of course.”

  Of course. His mom would love this guy. “Well, you may want to pray harder. Things are weird whenever I’m in the yard. It always feels like a fight is about to start. Not that the guards seem to care.”

  Father Vicente looked at him in surprise. “Haven’t you heard?”

  “About what?”

  “The new rules that started after Hector’s death.”

  “No. I’ve been in ad-seg, and I haven’t talked to anyone. What happened?”

  “There was a total lockdown that began that day. Full searches of every cell, the yard, and all the pods. The yard has been almost entirely shut down ever since. The only inmates allowed out at all are the guys in ad-seg. The official reason was that the jail needs to develop new policies to prevent incidents like the fight between you and Hector, but a lot of prisoners think they’re being punished. Also, any known Reys have been basically limited to their cells and pods ever since. A lot of people are very unhappy, and they’re getting unhappier every day.”