Splicer (A Thriller)

by Theo Cage

  "Hmmm," she answered, not even looking up from a stack of files on her desk. Her fingers were idly tapping on a half empty Diet Pepsi can. The McEwan power breakfast. He wanted to touch her; see her jump. What he really wanted was to see her smile at him.

  "Earth to McEwan," he tried again, making himself comfortable in one of the high backed leather boardroom chairs.

  She waved her hand at him. "I'm having a thought," she said.

  "Is this a legal thought? Have you stumbled upon my redemption?"

  She pushed a folder aside and put her right palm on her forehead. "Shit! This case is too complicated. We're dealing with computers here and cloning biology, chemistry, software ..."

  "Most of it irrelevant."

  "It's NOT irrelevant. If the judge or the jury doesn't understand these systems, then we're finished" She pushed through her notes, frustrated. "What's this business about Grieves and codes."

  "There is no security around a guy like Grieves."

  "Why?"

  "He knows too much. And he learns fast too. Let's say you have a computer on your desk and you need information from the Law Library across town. You go online. Now you've got all that information at the touch of a finger. But there's a downside. It means that someone at the Law Library can now look at your private files."

  "And what if I don't want that to happen?" asked Jayne, her eyes narrowing.

  "You develop security. Use passwords."

  She sat up. "O.K. So I use a password. Call it FIDO."

  "Your dog, right?"

  "My cat."

  Rusty laughed. "So a person like Grieves wants to get past your password. First thing he'll do is guess."

  "That sounds a little far-fetched?"

  "Not really. You'd be easy. Most passwords are names of pets, spouses or girlfriends - that's the first thing he'd try, in your case - and he'd be in."

  Jayne frowned. "What if it was nonsense? Like random letters or something."

  "Harder. But it has to be stored somewhere. He could write a program that looks for your password."

  "Once he was in?"

  "Read your email - look at your accounting data, steal your credit card data or a charge account listing, blackmail you."

  "Are you saying Grieves could send me a message through my computer even if I hadn't authorized it?"

  "If he knew how to get past your security."

  "Could he send a message to GeneFab?"

  "That would be easy."

  "Why?"

  "Like most companies they're lax about password security. They generally have dozens or hundreds of employees and clients using their system. They forget to change passwords when people leave or use the same ones over and over again. But even if they did change them regularly, that wouldn't stop Grieves. He knows everyone's password."

  Jayne stood, smoothed her black sweater and walked over to a small bar cooler to retrieve another diet pop. "How do you know who the message is from?"

  Rusty shrugged. "It's signed. But it doesn't have to be."

  "That's the only way?"

  "If it was Grieves doing it from the outside - he might leave his name just to rub it in - but then he might not."

  "Could he have sent a message to Jeffrey Ludd?"

  "Sure. In fact, I'd be surprised if he didn't."

  She popped the top on the can and then turned. "He did."

  "What did it say?"

  "He sent a message to Jeffrey Ludd on Monday morning June 12th - say around 8:00 - 8:30 in the morning. The message said meet me for dinner. I have something for you. Signed Rusty. Then Ludd wrote it in his desk calendar. Then he erased the file."

  Rusty's mouth was open. "Damn. You've got it."

  She literally danced to her chair. She sat back, placing her feet on the desk, a big smile on her face.

  Rusty shook his head. "Why didn't I think of that?"

  Jayne shrugged, pleased with herself.

  Rusty sat up. "Jayne! Wait. You're right - but you're wrong. Maybe he didn't erase the file. He might have kept it in the archive file."

  Jayne's smile dropped slightly. "What if it said something he didn't want anyone else to see. Why would he keep it?"

  "He might change it or scramble it and save it somewhere else. In fact I'm sure of it. Ludd was a fanatic about data. A few weeks after I started at GeneFab, Rosenblatt stopped me in the hall. He said Ludd was concerned about the wording of a proposal I sent out to a client. Later that day I went to look at the letter in my computer and it hit me. How did he know what the proposal said? I didn't show it to him. Then Grieves explained how Ludd would go through all the employees documents and letters each night after they were gone."

  "Every night?"

  "Not by visiting their desks or going through their filing cabinets. He wrote a program that searched through all the main computer's files. He would type in a search word like IM5, and in a second all the documents created that day with that word in it would pop up on his screen. He had a search list. One of the words was resume."

  "You're kidding me."

  "No, I'm not. He was always worried that he would lose us to the competition. So he would routinely search for the word resume. So Grieves and I figured out a way to scramble our documents."

  "Did you guys have any time left over to do your jobs?"

  "This was midnight oil stuff, Jayne. We would save the files under names like Resume or use a competitor's name. The file titles weren't scrambled, so Ludd's program would find them, but the content was. It would send him into a rage."

  "He confronted you?"

  "Never. That would be admitting he was snooping. But Rosenblatt warned us at a meeting several days later that these files were company property and not to use company time for personal business. Nudge. Nudge. Wink. Wink. But the idea of scrambling email files might have given him an idea."

  "It might be sitting there? The message that got Ludd to drive to the President’s Club. Only in scrambled form?"

  Rusty nodded. They both smiled. They knew that whatever reason Jeffrey Ludd had to meet "Rusty" in a dimly lit vacant parking lot, was key to the whole case. Whoever left the message had something on Ludd, something serious enough for him to change his schedule and his routine.

  The phone set behind Jayne rang loudly enough to make Rusty jump. Jayne answered it, an expression of annoyance on her face. She turned then towards the wall of glass that looked down on the Toronto Sky Dome. She spoke under her breath for a moment, then lay the handset carefully backs into its cradle. Her face was pale. She excused herself.

  Rusty pushed himself out of his leather chair and stood by the window looking out over the muddy-orange tinged sky above the dome. She returned a few moments later, this time closing the boardroom door behind her. She walked up to Rusty from behind and placed one hand lightly on his shoulder. He jumped at her touch.

  "Rusty. That was one of the partners calling from the police department. It's bad news." She placed her second hand, hesitantly, on his other shoulder. "Shay was found murdered last night."

  Rusty swallowed hard. "What did you say?"

  "I'm sorry. "

  "Shay?" he said again, all the air, all the energy leaking out of him. “They killed her?" He backed away from her haltingly and sat on the oak ledge that circled the room. Behind him she could see the stark skeleton of an office tower under construction. "How?" As she framed her answer, she moved closer.

  "She was found in her apartment. I don't have all the details."

  "Who did it?" he finally asked.

  She winced. "I think they suspect you."

  A shiver worked its way through Rusty’s frame. He bowed his head as if struck by a physical blow.

  "She never had anything to do with this. She knows nothing," Rusty mumbled.

  Jayne waited, and then spoke. "I think they were after you."

  He got up, looking lost, then slumped into a chair across from her. He had an image of Shay in his head, a mocking look on a beautiful face. S
he used to make him feel so inadequate. Now even in her death, he felt this.

  Jayne cleared her throat. "I don't think you should go home to your apartment. It may not be safe."

  "You think that's necessary?" he said.

  "Is there someplace you can stay?"

  He rubbed his eyes. "I know some people in Whitby." His voice seemed to drop at the end of the comment like a bucket down an old well. Then he added, "A two hour commute."

  "How about a hotel?"

  He made an attempt at a brave face. It failed. "I think it's time to throw myself on the mercy of the public defenders. I'm broke. Maybe I can just sleep in my car?" He pushed his head back, his eyes closed.

  Jayne paced in her anxious, thoughtful, courtroom style; her hand on her chin.

  "You'll have to stay at my place," she said finally.

  Rusty sighed. "Thanks but ... the police are after me again. Some homicidal maniac is looking for me too. I should be like Grieves - underground."

  "It's a two story with guest rooms ... your own washroom. You can park in the back. "

  "Jayne, you're not listening. I don't want something to happen to ..."

  He saw a flash of anger in her eyes. "I'm not your responsibility. But as my client, I need to keep you concentrating on your defense. After a few days we'll see if we can make arrangements with the police department to arrange for some kind of security and housing."

  "The second I walk into court Monday morning they're going to arrest me. That is if they don't find me before then. I'll be safe all right, I'll be safe in jail."

  "From what I hear, that's the last place you'll be safe."

  He looked at her. Her mouth was set in anger but he sensed it wasn't for him. Her neat little world of lawyers and criminals was unraveling in her hands. Who had she talked to?

  "They really want Grieves," he said finally.

  "You're right," was all she said.

  "He's mincemeat."

  "You amaze me. You feel sorry for that jerk?"

  Rusty shrugged. "He discovered Pandora's box and now every lunatic on the planet wants his brain in a jar. You should have seen the look in his eyes." The offer of a safe bed in the McEwan mansion was compelling.

  "You were right," she said. "Without him, you're just someone in the way."

  "Without him, I'm dead."

  "Monday morning I'm going to make a request for a temporary recess. I'm going to tell Judge Anderhoff that out of fear for your life you're gone into hiding. That you're still communicating with the courts through me, but that you need time."

  "And what will he do?"

  "He'll go ballistic. The police will swear out an arrest warrant on you, if they haven't already. But so what?" Rusty just kept shaking his head back and forth.

  She thought for a moment. "This time you have an alibi." He looked up. "You were with me during the time of the murder. Between midnight and two AM last night." She looked away. "You've got the mocha stain on your shirt to prove it. Only one thing is left. We've got to find Grieves before someone else does. And before they find us."

  "Find Grieves?" he asked, incredulous. "With what? A bullshit detector?"

  "I'm not going to sit there like Shay waiting for someone to smash in my front door." Then she was instantly sorry she said that.

  CHAPTER 48

  Otter, sweat clinging to what little hair he had in the front, regretted wearing his wrinkled suit jacket into Central Park. He slung it over his shoulder and pulled open the neck of his shirt. Christ, I'd give a days pay for a breeze. He made his way along the reservoir, smirking at the sweaty joggers.

  He had talked to Kozak on the phone that morning; tried to relay a sense of the patchwork craziness of the offer that Mike and his pet monkeys had made. Kozak assumed Otter had been drinking. Homesick already? Otter had surmised a minute after these bruisers in the dark working suits had bunkered into his cab, that they were Feds. But whose? They didn't look like FBI. Fibbies looked neater, preppier. All the ones that Otter had ever met had that unmistakable Harvard look. If they were from the Department of Defense, they didn't act like it either. Defense was all military. Swede looked like he'd rather shoot you than salute you. Mike? He acted like a cop on extended vacation. He was sharp, all right. But there was no fear in the man. You can be the world’s bravest cop but you're still always checking behind you. Always. Mike? He sat with his back to the door. He was either fearless or clueless.

  Otter's old man came off a boat in Montreal in 1933 with the name Vladimir Ostokoff sewed into the sides of his handmade suitcase. Azerbaijan Russian. A harried customs agent changed his name to Otter. Сильный was Russian for guts. Pronounced “HEENLY”. This Mike had HEENLY. Maybe too much.

  If the department of Defense really wanted the Splicer, then what was Mike doing trashing their baby? That was an interesting thought. That would make him a very loose cannon. Or he was lying to suck Otter in. That made the careful cop from Canada sweat even more. I'm a cop in a screwed-up murder investigation on foreign soil. I need this like I need another pair of sweat glands.

  Koz, bless his stony heart, helped put it all into perspective. They're going to give us information. We promise to do what we can to expedite the investigation and make GeneFab sale-ready. Worst comes to worst, the trial is over and GeneFab goes on sale. There ain't nothing we can do. Worst come to worst? He should monogram that on his shorts. Just ahead he saw Mike and the two bookends. How come they weren't sweating like racehorses? He stepped up to the older man without extending his hand.

  "Mike. Like before, I need three questions answered. Then we can talk turkey." Otter stood with his feet spread, a gloss of perspiration painted across his forehead. " First I need your real name. And no bull-shit this time."

  "It's Mike.”

  Otter shook his head. "If you want to deal, we do it on a full name basis. I'll show you how it's done. My name is Gregory Otter. You can call me Greg. See? Easy!"

  The older man glanced off across the pond, his elbows on his knees. He wore the same uniform as the day before, minus the sweater.

  "Aaron."

  "Last name?"

  "It wouldn't help you."

  "Right. I call my superiors up. I say we have a deal. They say with whom? I say, uh sorry, I'll get back to you."

  "If they want the info, they'll make the deal, Mr. Otter."

  "I wouldn't bet on it." Otter shifted his weight. "Number 2. How do I know you won't just take GeneFab and have your way with it? Like invent a disease that makes all Socialists sterile?"

  Grey laughed. "You make it sound like Aladdin's lamp."

  "Well." said Otter. "If the dishware fits ..."

  Grey turned his disturbingly dark eyes onto Otter. "When I get GeneFab in my grasp, I will incinerate every scrap of hardware and software personally. You have my word on that. I wouldn't trust the Splicer in the benevolent hands of Jesus Christ himself."

  "You're a convincing son-of-a-bitch. But once you have it, all bets are off."

  "As you have probably deduced already, it will be ours sooner or later. Sooner is safer. All we're asking from you is time. Time is the bandit here, not us."

  "How do you know for certain that they even have this damned Splicer?"

  "Our intelligence is very good on that matter. Literally irrefutable."

  "We're talking that old oxymoron - military intelligence?"

  "Don't take military intelligence for granted. They're very good at what they do."

  They thought Otter. Did he notice the slip? He'd be willing to bet a crisp 50 these characters weren't Department of Defense. Likely pure military. Grey looked at him, his jaw tightening.

  "I'd be willing to guess, Otter, that you're a passable interrogator back home where the beavers roam."

  "Where the buffaloes roam you mean?"

  "I heard your people slaughtered all the buffalo. I hear all you have is roaming beaver now."

  Otter didn't like this man. His arrogance. "Yeah! I wish."

>   "You have one more question?"

  "Only a big one. Tell me how I'm supposed to trust you? I'm just old fashioned that way."

  "You're wasting not only my time, but your time, and the world’s time. Count the children, Mr. Otter. Do you have children?"

  "Three."

  'How safe will they be? I have children. I want them safe. I want their children safe."

  Otter pulled the sticky collar away from his neck. "Kozak - he's my partner in this investigation - you knew that. He has an in with a very powerful judge who had influence with the Canadian Securities Commission. That’s why your sale is in limbo. Koz will do what he can to reverse it. No promises."

  Grey snapped his fingers and the Swede swaggered over. He pulled a fat manila envelope from inside his jacket and handed it to Otter.

  "Not just talk this time, Mr.Otter. Hard copy. Cops like hard copy. Courts like hard copy. There was a murder yesterday in your hometown. Shay Redfield. She is linked intimately to your investigation." Otter's furry eyebrows lifted. "This will give you all the facts you need. Names. Flight records. And more. Plus everything you will need on Ludd’s death. I trust you'll do your best. And I'd appreciate it if you'd leave my name out of this wherever possible."

  "Aaron or Mike or whoever you are, you keep your end up - we'll do ours." With that Grey got up, betraying just a hint of his age, then turned and marched off down the gravel pathway.

  CHAPTER 49

  Otter felt better. A breeze had built into a nervous gust across the park, fluttering litter on the path and cooling his forehead. He was aware that Mike and his men had disappeared like ninjas into the tree line but he felt no great appreciation for their performance. The whole incident in the park seemed overly melodramatic and somehow childish to Otter. I guess old habits never die he thought.

  Then Otter froze. He felt like a complete ass - like a brain dead rookie. He was holding something of considerable value and clout – the envelope - and walking down the path in the sunshine with it like a teenager in love. Shit. If Grey wasn't military, and that was highly likely, then the military would clearly have a problem with Otter. A real problem. After all, he was dismantling their dream machine and had all the data he needed to connect them with at least one murder. He broke into a run and another sweat. Mike probably assumed Otter was some kind of professional, would take the normal precautions that any pro would under the circumstances. He got that wrong.