Private Lives (2000)

by Clancy, Tom - Net Force Explorers 09

  “So tricks like that are how Tori Rush was able to assemble so much information on the captain in such a short time,” Leif said. “It’s just basic info-crunching on an exalted scale.”

  Westering nodded. “Yes. She’d probably apply the same kind of methods used by the low-end private investigative outfits that advertise their services all over the Net for searching out lost friends and loved ones. Given a few sketchy details—full name, date of birth, Social Security number—they can grind through all the public datafiles, state and federal, to find a match. But there’s far more and far better data held in private by companies and individuals. Successful investigators know how to tap into that secret sea of information, whether the database holders want them to or not.”

  Leif couldn’t help himself. “And then they spy into people’s private lives.”

  Westering looked at him in silence for a moment. “You’re awfully quick to judge, even while you’re demanding information from that very same sea.” Her eyes challenged him. “Is it so different from what the agents of Net Force do? Or what you do yourself when you need to know something about someone? For the record, I did the same sort of work for Interpol before I went into the private market.”

  “Perhaps you can tell us what you found this time,” Magnus Anderson interjected, trying to head off any argument.

  Anna Westering nodded. “The basic information is pretty run-of-the-mill. I-on Investigations started up about seven years ago. It’s what’s known in the trade as a ‘cop shop,’ founded by several retiring police detectives.” She shrugged. “Happens often enough. Most states require that anyone applying for a private investigator’s license should have prior experience in the field. Police detectives are, of course, trained in basic investigative procedure…although they may not be up on the latest techniques.”

  Anna’s lips twisted. “Ex-cops would also expect to get a lot of work because of their former employment. That doesn’t always happen. It didn’t for I-on. The company was frankly floundering until it was taken over by new management.”

  “I knew they’d been taken over,” Leif said. “That much I found in the business datafiles.”

  Magnus Anderson looked interested. “What sort of people take over a failing detective agency?”

  “Foreign money, sir,” Anna said.

  Leif noticed that the woman showed his father considerably more respect than he got. His dad had probably earned it the hard way—and it was certainly deserved.

  “What kind?” Leif asked.

  “I haven’t succeeded in pinning that down.” She frowned. It clearly bothered her that the shell game hadn’t yielded to her inquiries. “The new CEO is a Marcus Kovacs. The name is Hungarian, but his background—”

  “Is lost in one of the Balkan wars, I’ll bet,” Magnus Anderson finished for her. “A lot of people have that sort of cloudy past. Some of those clouded pasts are even legitimate.”

  Westering nodded again, this time more cautiously. “I-on has done considerably more business—and made more profit—since the new management came in. A lot of new blood has been hired—hackers. And they’ve gotten a certain…reputation.”

  “What kind?” Leif and Magnus Anderson both asked.

  Anna Westering shrugged unhappily. “My father had a phrase he used to use as a joke: ‘You lie, and I’ll swear to it.’ Some people say that I-on takes that saying seriously—and that they take it further than that. You lie, and they won’t just swear to it, they’ll even create the evidence to back up your story.”

  “She said what?” Megan demanded after Leif made his report. They and the rest of the D.C. crew were floating again in Matt Hunter’s virtual workspace, sharing information—and attitude, Megan had to admit.

  “This is just great,” she went on. “We’ve got newspeople who think they’re defending democracy while breaking their own rules, and detectives who succeed by lying and cheating.”

  “‘Quis custodiet ipso custodes?’” David Gray quoted.

  “If that’s something about custodians, I don’t want to hear it,” Andy Moore cracked.

  Matt and Andy had recently saved their school from being blown up by a spy disguised as a custodian. Megan didn’t find the reference particularly funny, under the circumstances. She steered the conversation back to the subject at hand.

  “It means ‘Who will guard the guardians?’” she said.

  “More like ‘Who will watch those very same watchmen?’” Leif spoke up unexpectedly. “In the original source material, the Latin poet Juvenal was making a joke about keeping wives faithful.”

  That got a stare from Megan and everybody else in the room.

  Leif shrugged. “Just another symptom of an expensive but generally useless education,” he said.

  “Let’s get back to the point,” Megan said. “Where does this new information get us?”

  “It gets us a bunch of new questions,” Matt said.

  “Like?” Megan challenged.

  “Like,” Leif said, “if Tori Rush had I-on Investigations create a case against Captain Winters…why did she do it? Why him? What has she got against the captain?”

  “If she had them do that?” Megan glared at Leif. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you starting to think Captain Winters is guilty of all this crap?”

  “I think that either the captain is suffering from the lousiest series of coincidences in all of history, or he’s being set up,” Leif said flatly. “Going by the ‘Motive, Opportunity, and Means’ stuff fed to Matt by Agent Dork, what have we got?”

  “We have an organization with a rep for creating evidence.” Matt held up a finger. “That gives us means, I guess.”

  “And there were days between the Alcista killing and Net Force I.A. searching the captain’s house,” Maj Green said. “That has to be a window of opportunity.”

  “But we still have no motive,” Leif said. “The other guys who got put under the microscope had at least done something to catch Tori Rush’s interest. The ballplayer had extra wives. The corporate guy was juggling his company’s money. All Winters did was go on TV and get sand-bagged.”

  “Maybe this Rush babe is a friend of Jay-Jay McGuffin’s,” Andy suggested.

  “That almost sounds serious,” David said in mock amazement.

  “I didn’t think to ask that,” Leif admitted. “Guess I’ll have to get back to people and check.”

  “I’ll take another run at The Fifth Estate,” Megan said. “If my new friend Professor Wellman can’t think of a possible connection between Rush and McGuffin, he’s sure to have a lot of people he can check with.”

  She thought for a second. “I’ll also hit him with I-on’s reputation. He should know about that if he’s doing a story about them being in bed with Tori Rush.” Megan shrugged. “Be interesting to see what he’s gotten on this Kovacs guy and the people who bought the company.” She grinned at Leif. “Maybe we’ll see if the media research types manage to beat out A.I.M.’s investigators. It might interest your dad, anyway.”

  “You’re all forgetting something,” David Gray pointed out. “That so-called test blast Hangman Hank Steadman’s guys discovered in their Net Search.”

  He looked seriously around at the other kids floating in space. “That happened after Tori Rush first plastered Captain Winters’s face around the Net—but before Alcista was blown up.”

  “Coincidence,” Maj tried to bluster. But her voice sounded shaken.

  “It’s marked with the same chemical tracers as the IA techs found in the captain’s workshop—and in the bomb that killed Alcista.” David’s voice was inexorable. “That’s one hell of a coincidence. In fact, the more I think about it, the more it scares me.”

  Calm, cold David Gray never gets scared, Megan thought. At least he never talks about it. Now I’m scared.

  But she could see why this sudden insight would upset him. It upset her.

  Ever since she heard about the Alcista bombing, she’d figured it for an orga
nized-crime hit which someone had twisted to attack Captain Winters.

  But if the false evidence trail was being planted before the bombing, that meant whoever set out to frame James Winters also blew up Stefano Alcista.

  It would take a really sick puppy to commit a murder just to create a news story.

  “Net Force I.A. got that bombing report through a Net Search,” Matt offered. “What if someone tampered with the date—or even inserted the report after creating a phony crater and bomb?”

  “What-if and maybe,” Leif grumbled. “This is Net Force we’re talking about here. They should be able to detect if anyone was screwing around with those records. We can’t just wish evidence away. Otherwise, we’re not going to have any solid facts to work with.”

  We’re got one solid fact, Mr. Smart-ass Anderson, Megan told herself. We know that Captain Winters is innocent.

  At least, she amended, I do.

  8

  After David’s liberal dose of cold reality, calling The Fifth Estate seemed almost pointless.

  But it’s all I can think of doing to help the captain, Megan told herself. She sat down at her computer system and gave the orders for a holographic connection. Once again she was quickly connected to the newsmag’s professorial publisher.

  Professor Wellman didn’t seem surprised to see Megan on the other end of the holophone line.

  He didn’t seem very enthusiastic, either.

  “More hypothetical questions, Ms. O’Malley?”

  “Just plain, ordinary ones,” Megan replied. “Some people I talked with had interesting things to say about I-on Investigations. Seems they have a really creative touch with evidence. It appears like magic to back up whatever stories their clients want to sell.”

  “Wellman nodded, but his expression still wasn’t encouraging. “If so,” he said, “they haven’t been caught at it yet. Otherwise, their license would have been pulled. That could merely be badmouthing by people on the other side who lost court cases.”

  So, Megan thought, he already knows what I told him, but he probably can’t prove it.

  “My second question goes more to motive—why someone would try to get James Winters in trouble. Hardly anyone outside of Net Force—and the Explorers—knew the captain before he went on Washington People. That’s where the interviewer tried that trick question and got the reaction everyone saw on Once Around the Clock. The local reporter, Jay-Jay McGuffin, took a lot of grief from Net Force Explorers after the show aired. Kids from all over the country wanted a piece of him.”

  “You’re making a case for young McGuffin to seek revenge against James Winters,” Wellman said in his most professorial voice.

  “I was wondering if he had a friend higher up in the network,” Megan said. “Someone on Once Around the Clock.”

  “Someone like Tori Rush,” Wellman finished for her. Not only did he sound like a teacher, the teacher was clearly disapproving of his student’s answer.

  “Tori Rush started out in HoloNews local outlets in the western states,” Wellman said. “She never worked in Washington, whereas Mr. McGuffin has only worked in the D.C. area. As far as we’ve been able to ascertain, there is no connection—friendly or otherwise—between the two of them.”

  “Then where did she get the clip of Winters?” Megan asked in frustration. “She can’t scan every episode of every local news show—”

  “An interesting question,” Wellman responded. “One I haven’t been able to find an answer for.”

  That reminded Megan of the answers Anna Westering hadn’t been able to get. “Do you know anything about the foreign investors who bought up I-on Investigations? It seems like a weird investment, picking up a failing cop shop.”

  “I-on has been remarkably profitable under its new management,” Wellman pointed out.

  Yeah, Megan thought. Telling lies for fun and profit. That’s bound to pay better than catching errant spouses in the act.

  “How about the new head honcho?” she asked.

  “Ah, the elusive Mr. Kovacs.” Wellman allowed himself a slight smile. “There’s very little about him on the record—and what records exist are remarkably war-torn. The village where he was supposedly born no longer exists. His school records were wiped out when a cruise missile went off-course. There are some college records for a Marcus Kovacs, but he seems to disappear for years. And he wasn’t very forthcoming when we interviewed him.”

  “The Fifth Estate actually went up and asked him questions?” Megan said. “Won’t that warn him that a story is coming out about his association with Tori Rush?”

  “No,” Wellman replied. “He was under the impression he was being profiled by a small business journal.”

  Megan stared at him. “After all the stuff you said about journalists abusing their power—aren’t you doing the same thing?”

  “A profile will appear in that journal,” Wellman said stiffly. “But we’ll be able to use the information as well.”

  “You did lie to him, though.”

  “A stratagem.” Wellman’s pink face went pinker still. “We have to live in the world as it is. Kovacs would have boxed us out the minute he learned we knew he was working for Tori Rush. He’d claim client privilege, and we probably wouldn’t even have gotten any general information on his company. This way The Fifth Estate got information on I-on and images of Kovacs—he’s remarkably camera-shy—and The Review of Small Business got a story as well.”

  “You have pictures of Kovacs?” Megan said.

  “A few.” Wellman’s small smile appeared again. “He told our photographer he was a very busy man.”

  “Could I see one?” Megan requested.

  Know your enemy, she thought.

  Wellman dug around on his desk and came up with a sheaf of flatcopy images. “This is the one we’re considering for our story,” he said, holding up one of the pictures.

  Marcus Kovacs was a remarkably hairy man. A thick, full beard covered his jaw, meeting unfashionably long hair that brushed his collar. Both his beard and his mane of hair were dark, flecked with gray.

  “He looks more like a poet than a private eye,” Megan said. “Much less the head of a company.”

  Out of sight of the pickup, her hands danced on her computer’s keyboard, ordering an image capture from the holographic display. Now she’d have this picture of Kovacs, as well.

  Wellman ran through a sequence of images. Apparently deep in thought over the answer to one of the interviewer’s questions, Kovacs ran a hand through his leonine mane, revealing that at least one ear hid behind all that hair. The next picture his hand was down, moving toward the camera. The third picture just showed the palm of his hand.

  “That was the end of our photo session,” Wellman said dryly. “It seems Mr. Kovacs has the temperament of a poet, as well. His background, however, seems to be in finance. That’s what he told our interviewer. He had been hired by the takeover group to spruce up the company, probably with the idea of reselling it. But he proved himself to be a more than competent manager, not merely juggling the books, but actually making tremendous profits where none had previously been made.”

  While pushing the company’s mission into the gutter of falsifying evidence, Megan thought.

  “Two final questions,” she said. “When is your story coming out…and why are you telling me all of this?”

  “You have a most refreshing directness, Ms. O’Malley—and a touching innocence, if I may say so.” Professor Wellman removed his glasses, cleaning them with a small piece of cloth. But out from behind the lenses, his eyes seemed even sharper as he looked at her.

  “My dear young lady, you’re a source on a high-profile story,” Wellman said. “At some point, as this story develops, The Fifth Estate may turn to you for a reaction from one of Captain Winters’s protégés. We’ve already tried contacting the captain directly. He’s strictly incommunicado at the moment.

  “Anyway, when the time comes for us to seek information, I hope you’ll
remember that we were generous in answering your questions. Quid pro quo, you see.”

  The only thing I see is that I’m bumping into a lot of Latin on this case, Megan thought grimly. And everything else is Greek to me.

  “In answer to your first question, the Rush/I-on story is scheduled to come out in two weeks.” Wellman frowned. “Because we cover the media, we have to make sure all of our facts are absolutely true before we publish. I think we’ll end up regretting that policy. Events are moving faster than I’d wish. Instead of exposing the story, we may end up as a footnote in a much larger media frenzy.”

  “Meaning?” Megan said, almost afraid to hear his answer.

  Wellman tried to keep his tone gentle, but his words hit Megan like brutal blows. “Meaning our voice will just be lost in the stampede, once Captain Winters is indicted for Stefano Alcista’s murder.”

  Leif took a call from Megan O’Malley and got a storm of worried anger as well as a few nuggets of information.

  “Hey, what does a retired journalism professor know about the law?” he said, trying to make her feel better. But he had to admit that his words sounded hollow even in his own ears.

  About an hour later Leif received a virtmail notice for another special meeting of the Net Force Explorers for the next day. Coming after Megan’s call, this looked ominous.

  “Maybe that professor does know something,” Leif muttered grimly. “They’re probably getting us together now to soften the blow when Steadman’s report comes out.” Now he wished that no one had told him the nickname attached to the head of Net Force Internal Affairs. “Hangman Hank” didn’t sound like a joke anymore.

  Leif barely picked at his dinner that evening.

  “Are you feeling all right?” his mother asked.