The Suicide Effect

by L. J. Sellers

  Physically, she and Paul were enough alike that people often thought they were brother and sister. They both had dark hair and eyes, light brown skin, and a slender, slightly taller than average build. Paul was Philippine and German, while she was Irish, Spanish, and Indian. People were often fascinated when they heard she belonged to a local Indian tribe, but Sula considered it an honorary membership that required no active participation. Her mother’s tales of growing up on the reservation had done the opposite of what she’d intended. Sula wanted no part of it. Some cultures had no place in the modern world.

  “You’re home on a Saturday night. What’s up with James?” Sula peeled off her sweater. Paul had the heat going, and it was warm enough to strip down to shorts.

  “He found a job in Portland, but I don’t want to move. So he’s not talking to me.”

  “Do you think he’ll take the job anyway?”

  “Hard to say. James is usually more talk than action, but the job is with an ad agency and he’s pretty excited.”

  They moved into the living room where Paul kept his computer set up—three hard drives, two monitors, a printer/fax machine, a phone, a sound system, and a tangle of cords that looked like it could power a small city. A love seat and small TV occupied the other half of the room.

  “Why don’t you go with him?” Sula asked. “What’s keeping you here in Eugene? I mean, since you don’t have family.”

  “I’m comfortable here.” Paul parked in front of a monitor displaying a three dimensional chess board with cartoon rabbits for game pieces. “I hate the thought of starting all over. Friends—people like you—are too important to give up.”

  “That’s sweet, but I would ditch you in a heartbeat for a great job in Portland.”

  “As you should.” Paul sent an instant message to the guy in Singapore to let him know he would be leaving the game room for a while. He rolled his chair in front of the second monitor. “Prolabs, here we come.” He typed the company’s name into Google and pulled up its website. He turned to Sula and said, “We’re going to try an old fashioned Trojan horse.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Pretty much like it sounds.” Paul rubbed his hands together and grinned. Sula hadn’t seen him look this happy in a long time. “First, we send an e-mail to someone at the company. The e-mail contains an embedded program that copies itself to the company’s system when the recipient opens it. The program attaches itself to the guest directory and records users’ names and passwords for all the databases. Then we check the guest directory, find the program, and copy the passwords.”

  She followed the scheme up to a point. “How do we check the guest directory?”

  “That’s the hacker part. Don’t worry, I’ll get in.” Paul turned back to the computer. “Who do you want to send an e-mail to?”

  “Is it a real e-mail with a note from me?” Sula had a little guilt about sending a Trojan horse to a friend at Prolabs.

  Paul laughed. “Hell no. Nothing traceable. I’ll send it from an anonymous hotmail account. I just need an e-mail address.”

  Sula considered her options. “Will the IT people at Prolabs detect the embedded file? Will they be able to track its source?”

  Paul shrugged. “Maybe. Eventually. I doubt if they get much activity. They’re probably pretty complacent.”

  “Send it to Karl Rudker. That’s K, R, U, D, K, E, R at Prolabs.com.”

  “Perfect. He’ll have no one to blame for it.”

  Sula watched over Paul’s shoulder as he created a phony e-mail about a vacation resort. In the subject line, he typed: For top.level pharma execs only. Then he accessed a program stored on his hard drive.

  “You have such a program on hand?”

  “The guys at EFN are compulsive code writers and they like to keep me in the loop. I never, make that rarely, use any of the programs they create.”

  “They’re just snoopers, right? They don’t send out worms or viruses over the internet do they?”

  “Oh no. They hate that crap as much as everyone else. Maybe more. Ready?”

  “Sure.”

  Paul pressed Send and Sula felt a shiver of excitement. She wasn’t sure if it was the idea of getting into places where she didn’t belong or using Rudker to sabotage himself.

  Paul turned and grinned at her. “That e-mail is now being routed through hundreds of internet providers, so no one will ever trace it back to me. Now, let’s take a look at their mainframe and see if they have any vulnerabilities.”

  She watched him type in an ftp:// address, then in rapid-fire motion, click through a Prolabs’ site she’d never seen. The screen changed rapidly and Sula found it hard to keep her eyes on the monitor. It was like watching a speeded-up online computer class.

  “I’ll park a port scanner outside the main server to monitor all the VPN activity. Sooner or later, we’ll pick up a password.” Paul tried to sound casual, but she could tell he was psyched. Sula found it hard to stay tuned in. She was not a techie. She’d taken website development classes just to be ready for any workplace, but she used her computer to write, look for information online, read blogs, and send e-mails.

  She wandered over to the window. A group of young men gathered in the parking lot behind the apartments. They passed a joint and talked loudly. With their blue jeans, black sweatshirts, and dark hair, only their faces were illuminated under the darkening sky. For a moment, Sula envied their carefree lives. She walked back to where Paul was clicking away.

  “Next we try the back door. What other websites or FTPs would Prolabs be linked to?”

  “You mean like FDA? For transferring clinical trial data?”

  “Exactly.” Paul snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “Except not the Food and Drug Administration. I think they might be a little tough to get into and a little pissed off if they caught me trying.”

  Sula gave it some thought. “The company’s websites are linked to a lot of disease management sites and PhRMA of course. But Prolabs doesn’t send data to any site that I know of.” She stopped, realizing that wasn’t true. “Except clinical trial sites and TrialWatch, which gathers data on all clinical studies.”

  Paul quickly found the TrialWatch site. The home page was divided into two sides: one for patients looking for trials and one for doctors. “What’s the name of the drug again?”

  “Nexapra.”

  Paul typed as Sula spelled it for him. He used a scroll bar to select Oregon as a location. Two clinical investigator names and locations appeared onscreen, one in Eugene and one in Portland.

  “Print that page, please.” Sula wasn’t sure what she would do with the information, but it pleased her to have it. “Plug in Puerto Rico and see if anything comes up.”

  The location wasn’t on the scroll bar, so Paul typed it into the space. As his GE four-in-one printed out the first page, Dr. David Hernandez and all his contact information came into view.

  “I’ll be damned.” This information pleased her even more. “Print that too.”

  Paul was already on it.

  “What now?”

  “I’ll play around on this site for a while to see if it has any cracks in its structure. But mostly, we wait. Both of our snoop programs may take a few days to generate a usable password.”

  “I thought hacking websites was instant, in and out.”

  “I’m using old-school stuff. I’m not current because I don’t do this anymore, remember, except as a favor for a friend.” Paul grinned.

  “Thanks, Paul.”

  “No problem. This is the most fun I’ve had in weeks.”

  “Do you mind if I get out of here? I’m still exhausted from not sleeping last night.”

  “I’ll call you as soon as I get into the R&D database.”

  Sula folded the printouts and slipped them into her purse. She was still amazed by the information that could be gathered online in twenty minutes or less. She kissed Paul’s forehead, then headed back across town.

  At hom
e when she plugged her cell phone into the charger, she realized she’d missed a call. She connected to voice mail and braced herself, thinking Rudker may have left an intimidating message.

  Instead, a pleasant male voice said, “Hi Sula. This is Aaron DeSpain. We had the little fender bender the other day. I’m calling to see if you’d like to get together for coffee or something. If you do, I’m at 686-4597.”

  Chapter 19

  Monday, April 19th, 2:10 p.m

  Trina’s phone rang, breaking her concentration. She wanted to ignore it and keep working on her story, but she could no more ignore a ringing phone than she could go on the air without makeup. She believed in the ripple effect of everything she did or didn’t do. The one time she didn’t answer the phone, she would miss the hottest story of the year. The one time she didn’t look her best, a talent scout would be watching her newscast. She picked up the phone.

  “Trina Waterman,” she said with a touch of impatience.

  “This is Allen Sebring with the accounting firm of Anderson and Shire. I think I have a story for you. Will you meet me this afternoon?”

  “I can’t make it today. I’m on deadline. What’s the story?” She had no time for this, and yet she was intrigued.

  “I can’t talk about it over the phone, but I guarantee, you’ll like the lead.”

  “Tomorrow morning at 10:30. Starbucks on the corner of 7th and Washington. You know what I look like, right?”

  “Of course. But I need to do this now, before I lose my courage.”

  Trina couldn’t resist. He seemed to be suffering from the stress holding it all in, and she loved a ripe story.

  “Okay. Same place, in forty minutes.”

  “Thanks. See you then.”

  Trina would have liked to walk the short mile to the coffee shop—any opportunity to exercise—but she didn’t have time today. She spent another ten minutes crafting her follow-up report about the murdered woman found near the river, then hurriedly ate the fruit salad she’d brought for lunch.

  This better be good, she thought as she headed out.

  Allen Sebring didn’t look like an accountant. He was tall and thin with a long angular face. Hunched over the small coffee shop table, Trina thought if he swapped his brown tweed jacket for a black overcoat, he could play Lurch. Out of habit, she visualized him from the lens of a camera. Compelling, in a freak show sort of way, she thought.

  After the introductions, he held out his hand and she reluctantly shook it. Hand-to-hand contact was the best way to catch a cold, and she could not afford to get sick. The camera was not kind to virus-infected faces. She excused herself to go order a single-shot Americana and wash her hands in the restroom.

  When she returned to the table, Sebring leaned in and spoke in a quiet voice. “Are you familiar with Prolabs?”

  Trina felt the little charge of electricity she experienced when stories started to come together. She had just been writing about a murdered woman who worked for Prolabs, and now she was about to hear company secrets. Were the events connected? Even if not, talking about them together would make good coverage.

  She kept her face deadpan. “Of course. They’re the city’s biggest employer and they plan to get bigger.”

  “You know the city council just voted to change the zoning so the company could expand.”

  “Yes. I know.” Trina sipped her coffee. It was still too hot.

  “Did it strike you as odd that Walter Krumble, who has never voted to change anything, sided with the business?”

  “That is odd. So?” She wished he would just spit it out.

  “Neil Barstow, the company’s chief financial officer, withdrew fifteen thousand dollars in company funds and made a notation on the withdrawal slip that said Walter Krumble.

  Another shot of electricity. “A bribe?”

  “What else?”

  “Why are you telling me? Are you his accountant?”

  “I’m one of Prolabs’ accountants.” Sebring’s eyes darted around before he continued. “I’m telling you because their books are a mess—largely illegal—and if the JB Pharma deal doesn’t go through, the company will collapse.”

  Trina sat back and gave herself a moment to digest it. She was excited and distressed at the same time. Prolabs was local success story. It employed hundreds of people, including her brother. Exposing its seedy side might bring it down. She didn’t want to be responsible for that. Yet, what else could she do? She had a responsibility to her viewers, many of whom owned Prolabs stock. Besides, bribery and illegal bookkeeping were the stuff of a scandal. If she exposed it now, she might actually help save the company. “Can you provide any documentation?”

  “I made a photocopy of the withdrawal slip.” He pulled it out of his jacket pocket and pushed it across the small table. The paper unfolded and revealed itself to be exactly as Sebring had described.

  Gotcha! she thought with glee. She couldn’t hold back a smile. “What about the bogus bookkeeping?”

  Sebring squirmed. “I don’t know. I could get fired for divulging client information.”

  “I can’t do much with the accounting story without some type of evidence.”

  “You can contact the Securities and Exchange Commission. Call for an investigation.” Sebring started to button his jacket.

  “I have to give them something to go on.”

  “I’ll fax you a document. It lists a loan to KJR Inc., which is a specialty enterprise set up as a tax shelter. In reality, it functions as a personal line of credit to Karl Rudker. The first repayment is five months overdue.”

  “How much did he borrow?”

  Sebring stood and silently mouthed, “Two point seven mil.”

  Trina liked the number. She heard herself saying it on air. She wanted more, but Sebring was leaving. “Thanks for the tip. Can I contact you?”

  “Please don’t.” He started to walk away, then turned back. “Good luck.”

  Trina nodded. The story would require some serious digging, but it could be well worth it. Especially if the dead woman was connected to Prolabs’ accounting scandal. Had she threatened to expose Karl Rudker? Was he prone to violence?

  Trina decided to skip the coffee. Her energy level was already pulsating. This kind of story never happened in Eugene. Bankruptcies, identity theft, and an occasional scam on senior citizens were about all the white-collar crime the local folks came up with. She tossed her mostly full cup, exited the warm coffee shop, and headed back to the station. Karl Rudker’s life was about to undergo a scrutiny that would make even an honest man blush.

  He was in a foreign country and hordes of people lined the sheer cliffs over a mile-wide river. Without hesitation, they all jumped, splashing into the icy water. Robbie knew he should follow, yet he hesitated. He eased up close to the edge and peered over. The water seemed to be moving slowly but it looked incredibly deep. He filled his lungs with air and prepared to push off.

  His leap was cut short by the sound of the alarm. Robbie sat up and slammed off the noise. He swung his legs out of bed and planted his feet on the floor. A moment later, he was up and moving toward the bathroom. Halfway there, he became aware of his actions. He’d never come awake so quickly before. It was the first time in years he’d gotten out of bed without hitting the snooze button at least twice. He could not remember ever getting up to face the day without at least some reservation.

  He smiled. The new drug must be working.

  Once his brain really kicked in, some downbeat thoughts surfaced. Such as how interminably boring his job was. Robbie tried to find a positive thought. Maybe he’d get a seat next to Julie during lunch hour. They would talk and she would smile at him. Robbie decided to leave it at that. No reason to get his hopes up too much.

  His energy level stayed high throughout the morning. After the lunch buzzer rang, Robbie zipped down to the changing room and out into the walkway faster than he had moved in a long time. His energy level surprised him. He wondered if this was what me
th or speed felt like to a normal person. If so, he understood the attraction. His confidence increased with every step. There would be a space at Julie’s table. She would talk to him. Life was good.

  Julie was at a table with only one other person, Melissa from the production office. Robbie hurried straight over, skipping his usual stop at the Coke machine. He sat down next to Julie, placing his lunch bag on the table. The tremor in his hands was obvious, so he put them in his lap. He couldn’t remember what he’d brought for lunch and wasn’t hungry anyway.

  “Hi Julie.”

  She was so pretty. Light brown eyes, pale perfect skin, and the cutest little mouth.

  “Hey, Robbie. How have you been? I haven’t seen you around much.”

  She had noticed that he hadn’t sat by her lately. Very cool.

  “I’m doing great. I started–” Robbie caught himself. He had almost announced his new medication. “I started working out. It feels good.” He promised himself he would do pushups every day for a week.

  “Oh yes, I have to exercise or I get cranky.”

  “I can’t imagine you cranky.”

  “You should see me when I go too long without eating. Whew!” Julie made a mock horror face. Robbie laughed. Julie smiled then bit into her sandwich.

  Robbie opened his lunch bag and discovered a brown banana and a carton of rice leftover from Jason’s Chinese takeout dinner last night. He was too embarrassed to haul them out. He decided to have a Coke instead.

  “I’m going to get a soda from the machine. Would you like one?”

  “No thanks. I brought a Snapple.” Another bright smile.

  He hated to walk away from her, but his throat was dry, and he didn’t want it to sound funny when he asked her out. Which he planned to do the moment he got back.

  The vending machine was near the cafeteria door, thirty feet away. He pulled some quarters out of his pocket on the way. Rootbeer sounded better, so he reached for that button instead. Then he worried it would make his breath weird, so he hesitated, then bought a Coke instead.