Possible, but is it plausible?
Or Coulter had some sort of accident and it was an electrical fault after all . . .
But that doesn’t explain the burst scrotum. Or the cry of ‘stop’.
Perhaps he was worked over the day before, while testing the suit, and then his attacker, or attackers, finished him off by sedating him and rigging up an incendiary device in the condo. But no evidence of such a device has been recovered from the crime scene.
Rose pushes the photos away from her. None of it feels right.
She needs to know more about the suit. She has already called WadeSoft to ask to speak to someone on the team that developed the Skin, since the similarities between Coulter’s device and the new must-have computer leisure accessory are too numerous to overlook. She had been put through to the company’s technical director who had promised to have someone call her back to help with her queries. That was two days ago and she has heard nothing from WadeSoft. She makes a note to call them again.
Then there’s the company that employed Coulter.
Rose opens Coulter’s wallet. There are the usual mall cards, bank cards and there – a swipe card for Peek Industries. It’s a black card with a red, peak-like logo. She lays that to one side. Bank records may also be helpful to see if there was any unusual activity such as large deposits or withdrawals in the run-up to Coulter’s death, but that will require a subpoena.
Coulter’s cellphone SIM card was destroyed in the blaze.
Rose tabs onto her phone’s Google browser, searching for Peek Industries. The link takes her to a black page with the red mountain chevron logo in the top right corner. The company slogan reads, ‘The Cutting Edge of Innovation’. She clicks on the ‘About Us’.
‘Founded in 2010, Peek Industries specializes in information systems, solutions, communications products and simulations for the federal government, including the Department of Defense.’
She searches for any recent news articles. There are plenty relating to the company’s contributions to the development of high-tech missiles, surveillance drones and next-generation military training software. Then, a few months ago, a communiqué was leaked that revealed that Peek was exempt from the usual government contractual procedures. The revelation caused a minor stir on Capitol Hill, but not much else. Rose browses the articles but can find no specific mention of anything that resembles the body suits of the kind Coulter appeared to have been wearing at the time of his death. Going back to the ‘Contacts’ page she taps in the number given for the company’s headquarters. She notes Peek Industries is based in Falls Church, Virginia, a bit off the beaten track given the nature of the work they claim to carry out.
‘Peek Industries, how may I direct your call?’ a female voice asks.
‘Good afternoon, my name is Special Agent Rose Blake, FBI. May I speak with your CEO, please?’ She quickly recalls the name from the website’s details. ‘Mr Frost.’
‘One moment, please . . . Mr Frost’s unavailable right now. Is there anyone else who might help you?’
‘I really need to speak to Mr Frost.’
‘I’m afraid Mr Frost cannot be contacted without prior notice. In any case, I know he’s out of the office today.’
‘Then could you give me his cell number?’
‘I’m sorry, but that’s against company policy, Special Agent.’
‘Fine. Then, for now, put me through to your head of personnel.’
‘Tobias Preis is our head of Human Assets.’ She emphasizes the last two words. ‘Would that be of help?’
‘Yes . . . Thank you.’
‘Just a moment, please.’
‘Tobias Preis, Human Assets. How may I help you, Special Agent Blake?’
‘I’m calling to advise that an employee of yours – Gary Coulter – has died.’
‘Who?’
‘Gary Coulter. He was a software engineer. He had your swipe card in his wallet.’
‘Oh . . . Jesus. I’m sorry to hear that. How did Gary . . . Mr Coulter . . . er . . . What happened?’
‘I’m not at liberty to say, but we are treating the circumstances as suspicious. We’re investigating his death and I need some background on Mr Coulter.’
‘And that’s why you’re calling us?’
‘Yes,’ she says patiently, finding it a comfort to know that US industry is still recruiting the brightest and the best.
‘I knew him well enough to say that Coulter was one of our freelance staff, a very gifted lead coder. We have a number of projects, many classified by the US government. Our employees sign multiple NDAs, so I cannot discuss the specifics. You want anything more detailed than that and we’d need a court order. I’m sure you understand.’
‘I guess,’ Rose replies testily. ‘And we’ll get a court order if we need to. In the meantime, his neighbour says he was working from home for the last month. Was he still working for you then?’
‘No.’
‘Why is that?’
‘It’s a bit awkward, Miss Blake.’
‘You can call me Special Agent Blake. Awkward or not, the man is dead, and we need your cooperation in uncovering the circumstances of his death. Is that clear?’
‘Yes . . .’ Preis hesitates before continuing. ‘Well, about a month ago, we had cause to place Gary under internal investigation.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘I’m not sure I can tell you, Special Agent Blake.’
‘I’m sure you can tell me something.’
‘Mr Coulter took some company property off the premises, which was a serious breach of his contract. So we were obliged to terminate his employment.’
‘What was the nature of the property he removed?’
‘That’s classified.’
‘Classified?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘All right, then . . .’ Rose decides to try a different tack. ‘What was he like as a person? You can at least tell me that.’
‘He was . . . Difficult. Kept to himself, didn’t bond with the other team members so well. He was off tangent at the time we had to cancel his contract.’
Off tangent? What the hell does that mean? ‘In what way was he off tangent, exactly?’
‘Mr Coulter’s contribution to the project we engaged him to work on was increasingly directed towards his own interests rather than ours. That’s all I am prepared to say, Special Agent.’
‘Tell me. Does your company have anything to do with the Skin?’
Preis is so quiet Rose thinks the line has gone dead.
‘Skin? Why no, that’s WadeSoft’s latest toy, isn’t it? I’m sorry I can’t be of much further help to you. We are given very strict guidelines on what we can talk about. Good luck with your investigation, Special Agent Blake. Goodbye.’
Now the line is dead. Rose gazes at her handset.
Why is Peek Industries so keen to wash its hands of Gary Coulter?
21.
Half an hour later, Rose explains all she has learned to Baptiste and Brennan in Baptiste’s office. She places the piece of the torn rubber suit, sealed in a plastic bag, onto the table. Baptiste runs her fingers over the nodes and sinewy texture before passing it to Brennan.
‘Kinky.’ Baptiste rubs her eyes. ‘Must make you sweat like a turkey before Thanksgiving.’
‘You’d think,’ Brennan agrees. ‘But now that I’ve had the chance for a closer look at a sample of this stuff I’m starting to see how the suit works. If it was just rubber you’d stew inside it, like you say. Give it a few weeks and it would stink. That’s never going to play well with the consumer market.’
‘So they came up with a fix?’ asks Rose.
‘Exactly.’ Brennan taps the plastic bag. ‘There’s a latticework of tubes running through the rubber
material. I managed to extract some goo from one of them and it turns out to be a low-viscosity coolant. With a micro pump and proper heat exchange device the person wearing the suit can stay cool, no matter how they, uh, exert themselves. It’s smart stuff. Mind you, it would need to be if this technology is going to market. The military isn’t going to be worried about the grunts’ personal hygiene issues, but John Q. Public won’t be too keen on stinking like a sumo wrestler’s thong. PR nightmare.’
Rose smiles. ‘Fascinating as that is, Brennan, it isn’t helping us much. We need to know more about this suit, what exactly Coulter was working on at Peek and why they fired him. If that’s what they did.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I spoke to the head of personnel, I mean human assets, at Peek. Or at least that’s what he said he was.’
‘Human assets?’ Baptiste raises an eyebrow. ‘Is that what employees are called these days?’
‘Guess so. Anyway, this guy was called Tobias Preis. Even though he seemed disturbed by the news about Coulter he wasn’t giving anything away. Very much a “why don’t you just fuck off and find out” kind of attitude.’
‘Sounds like Peek are hiding something,’ Baptiste agrees. ‘But we can’t do much else for the time being. Not without sufficient evidence to try for a court order.’
Baptiste slides a memory stick across the table. ‘I checked the apartment building’s CCTV. No one came anywhere near Coulter’s place before or during the fire.’
Silence envelops the office.
‘Are we going to reconsider the possibility that it was an accident, or suicide maybe?’ asks Brennan.
Rose turns to him. ‘So Coulter mashes his own nuts to a pulp and beats himself black and blue, and then decides to set himself on fire. That’s quite a theory, Brenn.’
‘It’s not impossible . . .’
‘Jesus!’ Baptiste hisses in frustration. ‘What kinds of entrance tests did you have to fail to get into the Bureau?’
‘Whoa there!’ Brennan holds his hands up. ‘You got me. But how do you explain that there’s no sign of anyone entering or leaving the building for hours either side of his death?’
That is the question, Rose concedes. The trail is growing cold. Unless something comes up quickly it’s hard to see how they can push the investigation further. ‘Could a third party have sabotaged the suit to somehow kill Coulter?’
Brennan thinks for a moment. ‘I’d need to know more before I offered an opinion on that. But even if the suit was sabotaged, so that it went up like a torch, that still leaves the fact that he was beaten to a pulp. That’s the work of someone who was there when it happened.’
‘Well, all right then,’ Rose responds. ‘I just can’t help wondering if this Skin suit could be controlled remotely somehow. But shoot my speculation down in flames then, why don’t you?’
Brennan shrugs. ‘Sorry, Rose.’
For a moment no one speaks and then Baptiste lets out a sigh. ‘In other news, Owen caught DarkChild.’
Way to go, Owen, Rose thinks.
‘He’s the one who hacked the Pentagon, its contractors and some of the telecoms giants. And he’s just turned twenty,’ Baptiste says. ‘What the hell is wrong with kids today?’
There’s a knock at the glass door. Rose turns to see Linda, Baptiste’s secretary, outside. Baptiste gives her the nod and Linda opens the door.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt, but Assistant Secretary of Defense, William Maynard, is on line one for you.’
All three around the desk exchange a look before Baptiste nods her thanks, waiting for the door to be closed. ‘I want you two to be in on this. About time we heard something from the Pentagon.’ She picks up the phone handset and presses the line one button.
‘Baptiste,’ she says formally. ‘Yes, Assistant Secretary . . . Yes, the room is secure.’ She taps the speakerphone button, leaning forward.
‘We have present Special Agent Rose Blake, Violent Crime and Undercover Operations. Brennan Bamber, Acting Head of Cybercrime and Computer Forensics.’
‘Thank you, Baptiste. Good day to you, Special Agents. So, the situation is that we have the death of a key member of a sensitive Defense project. I’ve taken an interest because of the nature of the work Coulter was carrying out. I don’t know what you’ve found out about Gary, but I’d be grateful if you could copy me in on anything you discover. It might trigger some links at this end that you might find useful to your investigation.’
‘Bullshit,’ Brennan mouths.
‘Thank you, sir. We would appreciate any help.’
‘So what’s the story so far? All I know is that he died in a house fire. And that the Bureau has not made the call yet on whether or not it’s an accident. If there’s nothing suspicious about his death then it’s just a tragedy. Otherwise we’ve got a problem and it becomes a potential national security issue. You understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What’s your thinking?’
‘Special Agent Blake is taking the lead on this case. I’ll let her speak for the Bureau, if that’s OK?’
‘Fine. Go ahead.’
Rose leans forward. ‘It’s possible we’re looking at a homicide. The coroner’s found signs that Coulter was badly beaten and his genitals crushed before he was burned alive.’
‘You’re saying it was murder, then?’
‘That’s the most likely cause.’
‘What about suicide?’
‘Not likely, sir. Most suicides tend not to inflict torture on themselves first, and that hypothesis is also not consistent with what we have discovered so far.’
‘Assuming it was murder, do you think it might have happened during the course of a robbery?’
‘His valuables were still in the apartment, and so was his wallet. And there is no sign of a break-in, sir. Nor any visitors the night of his death.’
‘If he didn’t take his own life, and there’s no evidence that anyone was with him . . . What are you suggesting, Special Agent Blake? You must have missed something. Someone else had to have been there with him. Perhaps waiting for him to get home before they attacked.’
‘There’s nothing on the security cameras, sir.’
‘Then maybe they have been tampered with?’
‘We can certainly look into that angle, but the cameras are sealed units and the feed is stored on the cloud and password-protected. I think we can safely discount any notion of tampering with the CCTV. But there’s another detail you should know about. We found traces of some sort of rubber body suit on Coulter.’
‘Rubber suit? Are you sure?’
‘Yes, sir. We think it may be some kind of software simulator accessory. Like the Skin that WadeSoft is releasing soon. Do you know anything about that?’
There’s static on the speaker.
‘Assistant Secretary?’ Rose says.
‘A Skin?’ Maynard says, eventually. ‘Coulter was wearing one of those suits? You have proof of this, I take it?’
‘At time of death, he was found wearing the partial remains of a device that our experts think is a Skin. Is there any connection between WadeSoft’s Skin and the work Coulter was doing for your department?’ Rose presses.
‘Coulter was working on a classified project. At least he was until recently. He led a small research and development team working with a defence contractor.’
‘Peek Industries?’
‘Yes.’
‘When I spoke to them they said his contract was terminated . . .’
‘That’s right. But my understanding is that he was not fired, exactly. They were forced to suspend him. Something was stolen from the company and they suspected Coulter.’
‘What was stolen?’
‘Classified software. And that’s all you need to know.’
/>
Brennan rolls his eyes.
‘Assistant Secretary,’ Baptiste says. ‘With all due respect, how are my agents supposed to do their job if they can’t fully investigate the victim?’
‘Flora, do not use that tone with me,’ Maynard replies. ‘I appreciate your frustrations, really I do. But my hands are tied when national security is at stake. Have you got any other leads?’
Rose responds. ‘We have the hard disk from his laptop. We’re trying to crack that now, but it may take a while if his encryption is any good.’
‘I see . . . Do you think you’ll be able to gain access to his files?’
‘We’re hopeful. It would help us to know whatever you can tell us about Coulter’s work at Peek, and if you could instruct them to be a bit more forthcoming.’
‘I’ll see what I can arrange to be declassified.’
Baptiste responds. ‘So, right now you can’t do anything to help the investigation?’
‘I’ll contact you when I find out a way to help. Keep up the good work.’
‘Thank you, Assistant Secretary,’ Baptiste says, but Maynard has already ended the call.
Brennan is animated. ‘He totally knows something about that Skin.’
‘Too right.’ Baptiste nods.
‘We still have the CSI report to come. That may turn up something,’ Rose says.
‘It may,’ says Baptiste.
‘And we ask for access to Coulter’s emails,’ Rose adds.
Baptiste turns towards Brennan. ‘See how you get on with the laptop and we can go from there. I’ll also authorize the usual background checks, limited surveillance, some face time with family, friends, co-workers.’
Brennan nods.
‘While we’re waiting for Maynard to cut us some slack it might be an idea to have a word with the people at WadeSoft. They might be able to tell us something, given that there seems to be more than a little similarity between their Skin and the suit that Coulter was wearing,’ says Rose.
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