Chasing the Dime (2002)

by Michael Connelly

  They moved across the beech flooring toward the view. In a house like this it was an automatic reflex. You gravitated to the view, to the blue-black water of the Pacific. Pierce saw a light misting out on the horizon but not a single boat. As they got close to the glass he could look down through the deck railing and see the swells rolling in. A small company of surfers in multicolor wets sat on their boards and waited for the right moment. Pierce felt an internal tug. It had been a long time since he'd been out there.

  He'd always found the waiting on the swells, the camaraderie of the group, to be more fulfilling than the actual ride in on the wave.

  "Those are my boys out there," Zeller said.

  "They look like Malibu High teenagers."

  "They are. And so am I."

  Pierce nodded. Feel young, stay young —a common Malibu life ethic.

  "I keep forgetting about how nice you got it out here, Code."

  "For a college dropout, I can't complain. Beats selling one's purity of essence for twentyfive bucks a bag."

  He was talking about plasma. Pierce turned away from the view. In the living area there were matching gray couches and a coffee table in front of a freestanding fireplace with an industrial, concrete finish. Behind this was the kitchen. To the left was the bedroom area.

  "Beer, dude? I've got Pacifica and Saint Mike."

  "Yeah, sure. Either one."

  While Zeller went to the kitchen Pierce moved toward the work area. A large floor-toceiling rack of electronics acted to knock down the exterior light and partition off the area where Zeller made his living. There were two desks and another bank of shelves containing code books and software and system manuals. He stepped through the plastic curtain that used to be where the door to the garage was. He took a step down and was in a climate-controlled computer room. There were two complete computer bays on either side of the room, each equipped with multiple screens. Each system seemed to be at work. Slowly unspooling data trails moved across each screen. Digital inchworms crawling through whatever was Zeller's project at the moment. The walls of the room were covered in black foam padding to dampen exterior noise. The room was dimly lit by mini-spots. There was an unseen stereo playing an old Guns N' Roses disc that Pierce had not heard in more than ten years.

  Affixed to the padding of the rear wall was a procession of stickers depicting company logos and trademark names. Most were household words, companies pervasive in daily life. There were many more stickers on the wall than the last time Pierce visited. He knew that Zeller put up a logo every time he conducted a successful intrusion into that company's computer services system. They were the notches on his belt.

  Zeller earned $500 an hour as a white-hat hacker. He was the best of the best. He worked as an independent, usually hired by one of the Big Six accounting firms to conduct penetration tests on its clients. In a way it was a racket. The system that Zeller could not defeat was rare. And after each successful penetration his employer usually turned around and got a fat digital security contract from the client, with a nice bonus going to Zeller.

  He had once told Pierce that digital security was the fastest growth area in the corporate accounting industry. He was constantly fielding high-price offers to come on board fulltime with one or another of the big firms, but he always demurred, saying he liked working for himself. Privately, he told Pierce that it was also because working for himself allowed him to eschew the random drug testing of the corporate world.

  Zeller came into the clean room with two brown bottles of San Miguel. They doubleclicked bottles before drinking. Another tradition. It tasted good to Pierce, smooth and cold. Bottle in hand, he pointed to a red and white square affixed to the wall. It was the most recognized corporate symbol in the world.

  "That one's new, isn't it?"

  "Yeah, I just got that one. Took the job out of Atlanta. You know how they got some secret formula for making the drink? They were —"

  "Yeah, cocaine."

  "That's the urban myth. Anyway, they wanted to see how well the formula was protected.

  I went in from total scratch. Took me about seven hours and then I e-mailed the formula to the CEO. He didn't know we were doing a penetration test —it was handled by people below him. I was told he almost had a goddamn coronary. He had visions of the formula going out across the net, falling into the hands of the Pepsi and Dr Pepper people, I guess."

  Pierce smiled.

  "Cool. You working on something right now? It looks busy."

  He indicated the screens with his bottle.

  "No, not really. I'm just doing a little trolling. Looking for somebody I know is out there hiding."

  "Who?"

  Zeller looked at him and smiled.

  "If I told you that, I'd have to kill you."

  It was business. Zeller was saying that part of what he sold was discretion. They were friends who went back to good times and one seriously bad time —at least for Pierce —in college. But business was business.

  "I understand," Pierce said. "And I don't want to intrude, so let me get to it. Are you too busy to take on something else?"

  "When would I need to start?"

  "Uh, yesterday would be nice."

  "A quickie. I like quickies. And I like working for Amedeo Tech."

  "Not for the company. For me. But I'll pay you."

  "I like that better. What do you need?"

  "I need to run some people and some businesses, see what comes up."

  Zeller nodded thoughtfully.

  "Heavy people?"

  "I don't really know but I'd use all precautions. It involves the adult entertainment field, you could say."

  Now Zeller smiled broadly, his burned skin crinkling around the eyes.

  "Oh, baby, don't tell me you bumped your dick into something."

  "No, nothing like that."

  "Then what?"

  "Let's sit down. And you'd better bring something to take notes with."

  In the living room Pierce gave him all the information he had on Lilly Quinlan without explanation about where it was coming from. He also asked Zeller to find what he could on Entrepreneurial Concepts Unlimited and Wentz, the man who operated it.

  "You got a first name?"

  "No. Just Wentz. Can't be too many in the field, I would guess."

  "Full scans?"

  "Whatever you can get."

  "Stay inside the lines?"

  Pierce hesitated. Zeller kept his eyes level on him. He was asking if Pierce wanted him to stay within the bounds of the law. Pierce knew from experience that there was much more out there to be found if Zeller crossed the lines and went into systems he was not authorized to enter. And he knew Zeller was an expert at crossing them. The Doomsters were formed when they were college sophomores. Computer hacking was just coming into vogue for their generation and the members of the group, largely under the direction of Zeller, did more than hold their own. They mostly committed pranks, their best being the time they hacked into the local telephone company's 411 information bank and changed the number for the Domino's Pizza closest to campus to the home number of the dean of the Computer Sciences Department.

  But their best moment was also their worst. All six of the Doomsters were busted by the police and later suspended. On the criminal side everybody got probation with the charges to be expunged after six months without further trouble. Each boy also had to complete 160 hours of community service. On the school side they were all suspended for one semester. Pierce went back after serving both the suspension and the probation.

  Under the magnifying glass of police and school administrators, he switched from computer sciences to a chemistry curriculum and never looked back.

  Zeller never looked back, either. He didn't go back to Stanford. He was scooped up by a computer security firm and given a nice salary. Like a gifted athlete who leaves school early for the pros, he could not go back to school once he sampled the joys of having money and doing what he loved for a living.

&
nbsp; "Tell you what," Pierce finally answered. "Get whatever you can get. In fact, on Entrepreneurial Concepts, I think some variation of abra cadabra might help you get in.

  Try it backwards first."

  "Thanks for the head start. When do you need this?"

  "Like I said, yesterday will be fine."

  "Right, a quickie. You sure you didn't stick your dick into something nasty?"

  "Not that I know of."

  "Nicole know about this?"

  "Nope, there's no reason. Nicole's gone, remember?"

  "Right, right. This the reason why?"

  "You don't give up, do you? No, it's got nothing to do with her."

  Pierce finished his beer. He didn't want to hang around, because he wanted Zeller to get to work on the assignment he was giving him. But Zeller seemed in no hurry to start.

  "Want another beer, commander?"

  "Nah, I'm gonna pass. I've gotta get back to my apartment. I have my assistant babysitting the furniture movers. Besides, you're going to get on this thing, aren't you?"

  "Oh, yeah, man. Right away."

  He gestured toward his work area.

  "Right now all my machines are booked. But I'll get on it tonight. I'll call you by tomorrow night."

  "All right, Code. Thanks."

  He got up. They pumped each other's hand. Blood brothers. Doomsters again.

  11

  By the time Pierce got to his apartment the movers were gone but Monica was still there.

  She'd had them arrange the furnishings in a way that was acceptable. It didn't really take advantage of the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows that ran along one side of the living room and dining room, but Pierce didn't care all that much. He knew he'd be spending little time in the apartment anyway.

  "It looks nice," he said. "Thanks."

  "You're welcome. I hope you like everything. I was just about to leave."

  "Why did you stay?"

  She held up her stack of magazines in two hands.

  "I wanted to finish a magazine I was reading."

  Pierce wasn't sure why that necessitated her staying at the apartment but he let it go.

  "Listen, there's one thing I want to ask you before you leave. Come sit down for a second."

  Monica looked put out by the request. She probably envisioned another phone call impersonating Lilly Quinlan. Nevertheless, she sat down on one of the leather club chairs she'd ordered to go with his couch.

  "Okay, what is it?"

  Pierce sat on the couch.

  "What is your job title at Amedeo Technologies?"

  "What do you mean? You know what it is."

  "I want to see if you know what it is."

  "Personal assistant to the president. Why?"

  "Because I want to make sure you remember that it is personal assistant, not just assistant."

  She blinked and looked at his face for a long moment before responding.

  "All right, Henry, what's wrong?"

  "What's wrong is that I don't appreciate your telling Charlie Condon all about my phone number problems and what I'm trying to do about it."

  She straightened her back and looked aghast but it was a bad act.

  "I didn't."

  "That's not what he said. And if you didn't tell him, how did he know everything after he talked to you?"

  "Look, okay, all I told him was that you'd gotten this prostitute's old number and you were getting all kinds of calls. I had to tell him something because when he called I didn't recognize his voice and he didn't recognize mine and he said, 'Who's this?' and I kind of snapped at him because I thought he was, you know, calling for Lilly."

  "Uh-huh."

  "And I couldn't make up a lie on the spot. I'm not that good, like some people. Lying, social engineering, whatever you call it. So I told him the truth."

  Pierce almost mentioned that she was pretty good at lying about not telling Charlie at the start of the conversation but he decided not to inflame the situation.

  "And that's all you told him, that I had gotten this woman's phone number? You left it at that? You didn't tell him about how you got her address for me and I went to her house?"

  "No, I didn't. What's the big deal anyway? You guys are partners, I thought."

  She stood up.

  "Can I please go?"

  "Monica, sit down here for one more second."

  He pointed to the chair and she reluctantly sat back down.

  "The big deal is that loose lips sink ships, you understand that?"

  She shrugged her shoulders and wouldn't look at him. She looked down at the stack of magazines in her lap. On the cover of the top one was a photo of Clint Eastwood.

  "My actions reflect on the company," Pierce said. "Especially right now. Even what I do in private. If what I do is misrepresented or blown out of proportion, it could seriously hurt the company. Right now our company makes zero money, Monica, and we rely on investors to support the research, to pay the rent and the salaries, everything. If investors think we're shaky, then we've got a big problem. If things about me —true or false —get to the wrong people, we could have trouble."

  "I didn't know Charlie was the wrong people," she said in a sulking voice.

  "He's not. He's the right people. That's why I don't mind what you said to him. But what I will mind is if you tell anybody else about what I am doing or what's going on with me.

  Anyone, Monica. Inside or outside the company."

  He hoped she understood he was talking about Nicole and anybody else she encountered in her daily life.

  "I won't. I won't tell a soul. And please don't ask me to get involved in your personal life again. I don't want to baby-sit deliveries or do anything outside of the company again."

  "Fine. I won't ask you to. It was my mistake because I didn't think this would be a problem and you told me you could use the overtime."

  "I can use the overtime but I don't like all of these complications."

  Pierce waited a moment, watching her the whole time.

  "Monica, do you even know what we do at Amedeo? I mean, do you know what the project is all about?"

  She shrugged.

  "Sort of. I know it's about molecular computing. I've read some of the stories on the wall of fame. But the stories are very . . . scientific and everything's so secret that I never wanted to ask questions. I just try to do my job."

  "The project isn't secret. The processes we're inventing are. There's a difference."

  He leaned forward and tried to think of the best way to explain it to her without making it confusing or treading into protected areas. He decided to use a tack that Charlie Condon often used with potential investors who might be confused by the science. It was an explanation Charlie had come up with after talking about the project in general once with Cody Zeller. Cody loved movies. And so did Pierce, though he rarely had time to see them in theaters anymore.

  "Did you ever see the movie Pulp Fiction?"

  Monica narrowed her eyes and nodded suspiciously.

  "Yes, but what does it —"

  "Remember it's a movie about all these gangsters crossing paths and shooting people and shooting drugs, but at the heart of everything is this briefcase. And they never show what's in the briefcase but everybody sure wants it. And when somebody opens it you can't see what's in it but whatever it is glows like gold. You see that glow. And it's mesmerizing for whoever looks into the briefcase."

  "I remember."

  "Well, that's what we're after at Amedeo. We're after this thing that glows like gold but nobody can see it. We're after it —and a whole bunch of other people are after it — because we all believe it will change the world."

  He waited a moment and she just looked at him, uncomprehending.

  "Right now, everywhere in the world, microprocessing chips are made of silicon. It's the standard, right?"

  She shrugged again.

  "Whatever."

  "What we are trying to do at Amedeo, and what they are tr
ying to do at Bronson Tech and Midas Molecular and the dozens of other companies and universities and governments around the world we are competing with, is create a new generation of computer chips made of molecules. Build an entire computer's circuitry with only organic molecules. A computer that will one day come out of a vat of chemicals, that will assemble itself from the right recipe being put in that vat. We're talking about a computer without silicon or magnetic particles. Tremendously less expensive to build and astronomically more powerful —in which just a teaspoon of molecules could hold more memory than the biggest computer going today."