Catalyst

by Steve Winshel

  “Oh, uh…Special Agent, I’m not sure…uh…what does that mean?”

  “It means, Mr. Newcomb, that a phone registered in your name, the phone you’re using right now, may be used to commit felonies and it could take a lot of time and money on your part to defend yourself against any related charges.”

  Rigas rolled her eyes, her critique of Josh’s poor interrogation skills overwhelming the excitement of the chase for just a moment.

  “Mr. Newcomb, it is possible one of the perpetrators is close by, using wireless technology to steal your signal. Where are you?”

  Newcomb started stammering, finally spitting out “Am I in any danger, I mean right now? Could they…”

  Josh cut him off. “Mr. Newcomb, where are you, exactly?”

  He seemed to get a grip for a moment. “I’m in the Starbucks on 74th and Broadway. Manhattan. Uh, USA.” The guy must have thought this was an international investigation.

  “Mr. Newcomb, I need you to look around. Are there people there using their cell phones? They’ll probably just be listening, not talking into it. And they’ll have a laptop with them.” There was silence for a few seconds and while he looked around Josh put the speakerphone on Mute.

  “If he’s right there, hijacking a signal, then he’ll need some equipment.” Rigas nodded and he undid the Mute button. Newcomb was back on.

  “Well, there is one woman over there,” as though Josh could see, “but she’s talking pretty loudly about her boyfriend or something. And one guy has an earpiece but he’s walking out the door.”

  “Does he have a laptop? What does he look like?” Josh was practically yelling, but it was too late. Newcomb sounded frightened.

  “Yes, he was carrying…uh, a small computer with a thing sticking out the back. I, I’m sorry, I didn’t see his face and don’t remember seeing him when he was sitting. Just…just his back as he left.”

  Josh didn’t have the patience to allay the guy’s concerns. “Mr. Newcomb, the agency thanks you for your help. We’ll be in touch if we need anything further.” He hung up.

  “Fuckin’ A, Barnes – that was the coolest goddamn thing I’ve seen you do. You think that was him?” Rigas sounded like she’d hit the daily numbers.

  “We missed him, but we know where he is. We’re narrowing it down.”

  * * *

  Murello nearly spilled his cappuccino when he heard the cell phone he had just hijacked ring. In his earpiece he heard the owner answer, even though he could clearly see him across the restaurant. On the screen in front of Murello was the telephone number that had just called the man in the Starbucks: it was Helen’s number, the one Murello had just called. Goddamnit, he had underestimated Barnes. By the time the caller hung up on what turned out to be the first call, Murello had picked up his computer and jumped up to pull on his jacket and gloves. He could hear the man’s phone ring a second time as Murello headed to the door at the far side of the Starbucks and made it outside just as Newcomb was describing Murello’s back. Too goddamn close. Murello was going to put an end to this, quickly.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Josh had to think this through. Rigas wanted evidence to use against Helen’s boss when he was caught. Josh wanted to keep him away from his sister and himself. He wasn’t sure the two were compatible. If Helen’s boss thought Josh was gathering incriminating information then the danger was even greater, if that were possible. Josh needed to get information that would help Rigas build her case but also help them find him. Josh was pretty confident Helen’s boss was in New York City right now. That was good, because it meant he wasn’t anywhere near Los Angeles. But Josh didn’t know how long that would last. He still didn’t know if this man knew who Josh was. Had Helen updated him or was he not that involved in the details? It would buy time if Josh’s identity were as much a mystery to him as his was to Josh. But he couldn’t afford wishful thinking.

  Rigas was working on her own ideas. “I can call a buddy on the NYPD and get some help. We know the general area, and we can get Newcomb back on the phone and get as much description as possible.” She was getting pretty amped up now. “But we gotta do it now! He’s on the move.” She caught herself before Josh needed to, and shook her head. “But we’ve got nothing on this guy, nothing to tie him to the Mills murder or anything else.” He had liked the direction she’d been going, but knew the chances of pulling him off the street were nil. They had to find out who he was. Knowing he was in the city was going to help, though.

  She gave Josh another expectant look. This time, he agreed with it. “I have an idea.” She saved him the embarrassment of seeing her do an “uh huh, I figured” look. He sat back down – he’d still been hunched over the speakerphone – and started pulling up the web site for the bank holding Helen’s money. Rigas hadn’t seen this before and the only explanation Josh gave was that he’d tracked some money transfers. “I’m going to see if I can find out what the originating bank was. It won’t be local to where the guy is, but there may be a trail that eventually tells us something about him.” This was going to take a while, and he was probably going to need some help getting access to any systems he couldn’t hack. They’d cross that bridge when they got to it. For now, Josh had a lot of typing to do. Rigas got bored watching the windows pop up and then disappear on the screen and then got bored of pacing the room trying to figure out what she could do. She finally settled on reruns of game shows on TVLand, a channel Josh didn’t even know he got.

  Two hours later he had made some progress. Working back by using bank numbers (legal) and access to routing tables (illegal), he had found two banks that had been part of the transfer of money into Helen’s account, but he could see there were at least two more and he was going to need some help. It would take a while, but between these leads and the information about the two companies that had invested in Lockheed and Cardient, maybe something was coming together. Josh rubbed his eyes and started to get up when he saw the envelope appear in the corner of the screen announcing the arrival of a new email.

  “Rigas. Look at this.” She was off the couch and nudging him aside before Josh finished speaking. “It’s from him.” The return address was the same as the earlier message but all the header information was different. He had routed the message differently. Maybe they could use this information to cross-reference and narrow down the service provider. What was more interesting was the message itself:

  URnotHelen AIM

  Josh had to think about it a minute and when he understood, it made him shiver. Rigas looked from the message to Josh, then back again. “I don’t get it, but it’s not good news, huh?”

  Josh launched a program in a new window and Rigas grabbed his shoulder. “Not so fast – tell me what it means.”

  “It means he knows it isn’t Helen who’s been contacting him. ‘You are not Helen’ is the name he picked.”

  “What do you mean, the name he picked? What are you talking about”

  Josh turned back to the computer and pointed to the program he had started. “That’s AIM, AOL Instant Messenger. He wants to chat.”

  “I get it. So log on and let’s chat him up.”

  “He knows I’m not Helen, but does he know it’s me? I want to be careful just in case. I’m going to create a new AIM account and bounce it off a public server so he can’t trace it here.”

  Josh started typing fast, assuming Helen’s boss was waiting for him to respond immediately. He also figured her boss was taking precautions so he couldn’t be traced through AIM, so Josh was thinking furiously about how to get around the same safeguards he himself was setting up to keep her boss from backtracking to Josh. He needed a way to narrow down where her boss was right now, hopefully a place he thought was safe. His mind raced as he typed. By the time he had created a new account, Josh still wasn’t sure what he could do to track him. What they really needed was AOL to help. They could use their servers to monitor the messages and begin a trace. But a huge, multi-billion dollar conglomerate lik
e Time-Warner, which owned AOL, wasn’t going to wake the CEO up in the middle of the night on a Sunday to help some guy with a crazy story.

  Josh opened an AIM window. He typed into the To: box that he wanted to start a conversation with the user who had registered the name URnotHelen. Then Josh typed a message, which showed the name he had chosen for this conversation:

  IamnotHelen: I’m here.

  Josh hit Enter and saw the message appear on the screen. A few seconds passed and he and Rigas stared at the screen. This was different from waiting for Helen’s boss to call. Before, they knew he was expecting Helen, not them, and they had the advantage. But now they were going to speak directly with him. Josh was scared, but it was also somehow calming. He knew at the other end of this AIM connection was the man who had brought fear and death into his life. They waited. Then:

  URnotHelen: You’re playing a dangerous game.

  Rigas’ eyes widened. She was a tough, experienced cop, but she was thrilled being this close to her quarry. She smacked Josh’s shoulder and whispered, as though he might hear them, “Can you record this? Keep a copy so anything he says we can tie to him?”

  In a normal voice he told her it wouldn’t do any good. “Using AIM is like using a hotmail account. You can make up a name, give bogus information, and the only thing anyone can prove is what machine was used to send the messages. But even if you could prove he was using the machine at the time the messages were sent, you still wouldn’t have any proof. There are no central servers storing all the conversations going on with AIM like they have at Hotmail; it’s just too much. And even if you save your own copy, it’s easy to edit the conversation later to make it look like someone was saying whatever you want. So there’s no original and it’s easy to make a fake copy…there’s no direct trail. He knows that. It’s why he wanted to use AIM.” Rigas looked disappointed – somehow more in Josh than in the technical limitations of AIM. She kept looking at him, waiting for the “but,” and he didn’t disappoint her: “I’m going to try to trace where the messages are coming from. He has to have an open port on his computer that lets his machine communicate to us through the AOL servers. I’m going to run a backtrace while we’re chatting.”

  It sounded strange to say “chatting,” such an innocuous thing to do online. Teenagers chatted with one another, Josh chatted with co-workers or Allison during the day using AIM. But the idea of chatting with this monster was surreal. Josh responded to him:

  IamnotHelen: I don’t want to play a game. I just want this to be over.

  URnotHelen: It can be. Give me the Ventrica and you and your sister live.

  Josh swallowed hard. Helen must have told him about Allison. That probably meant he knew Josh’s identity. Josh had to assume so. He also had to assume this guy wasn’t going to live up to any bargain he made. Crawford had proven that when he tried to kill Allison just because Josh was going to be a few hours late. This had to end with Helen’s boss being caught.

  IamnotHelen: I’ll do anything. I’ll bring it to you, wherever you are.

  * * *

  Sitting in an apartment on the Upper East side of Manhattan, one of several owned by a shell corporation three steps removed from The Catalyst Fund, Murello almost smiled. Barnes was smart. He knew he was in danger, knew finding Helen’s boss was the only way to save himself. He was baiting Murello. Murello would go along until he knew what he needed to know. He entered more text, which traveled from his computer out to a wireless connection he was using from the apartment building across the street. No fancy hacking needed here – people set up wireless networks in their apartments and never turned on any security, letting anyone within a hundred yards piggyback off their connection.

  URnotHelen: Prove to me you have it. Then we deal.

  IamnotHelen: Helen told you she had it; that means I have it. I need to know we’ll be safe after I give it to you.

  * * *

  Josh believed – or chose to believe – Helen had not told her boss about the attempt on Allison’s life. If this were a scam being run all around the country, then her boss probably didn’t know all the details of every extortion. That meant he didn’t know Josh already knew he wouldn’t keep any promises. Josh had to get him to set up a meeting.

  There was a delay, as if he were thinking. Then:

  URnotHelen: You’ve brought in the cops. I know about the woman. How much do they know?

  That threw Josh, though not Rigas. “How the hell does he know?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe he’s just guessing, maybe he has a police scanner. Who knows. It doesn’t matter. I want to know why he cares. Deny it for now.”

  IamnotHelen: The police don’t know anything about the Ventrica. Helen’s partner broke into my house. He was killed. They’re investigating. And they’re tying it to the murder of someone named Mills. But that’s it – I haven’t told them anything about the Ventrica. Or you.

  * * *

  Murello looked at the last message. Son of a gun. Barnes had managed to survive a face-to-face with Helen’s sidekick Crawford. It made Murello wonder what happened to Helen. He’d find out soon enough, but right now he had to make a decision. His gut told him Barnes wasn’t lying; he was clever, but not good at subterfuge. On the other hand, there had been a cop with him when he’d called to check on his family. She was out of earshot during the call, so maybe she didn’t know what it was about. Maybe she was protecting Barnes. He took a calculated risk:

  URnotHElen: Let me talk to the cop who’s with you.

  * * *

  “Son of a bitch,” Rigas said under her breath. She elbowed Josh out of the way to type.

  “Hold on…how the hell does he know you’re here?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He wants to know if we’re on to him, see if we’re close.”

  He thought about this. As smart as this guy was, he wanted something from Josh. Not just the Ventrica. He wanted to know how much Josh had gotten on him, maybe even if Josh knew his identity. He tried to think of all the possibilities, to see if it was better to make him think they knew more or less. It kept Josh from seeing what Rigas had typed until it was too late.

  IamnotHelen: Hey, tough guy – how you doing? How about we cut the chatter and get together?

  Didn’t take a genius to figure out Rigas had modified her approach from gathering information on this guy to trying to get him in the open.

  URnotHelen: Are you local police? FBI?

  IamnotHelen: Private investigator, shithead. I’m here to keep my client’s ass in one piece. He wouldn’t let me bring the cops in to help find the prick doing all this, so it’s just me and you. You name the time and place and we’re there.

  Josh looked at Rigas with a little extra respect; that was clever as hell. Explained why someone was with him, however Helen’s boss knew that, and let him think the cops weren’t involved. Josh had already decided it was best to go that route if he could get away with it, otherwise this guy might go into hiding even deeper and would let someone else finish the job if he thought the police or FBI were on his trail. This way he would think it was just Josh and his bodyguard. He looked at Rigas – if this guy ever met her, Josh thought he’d be smart not to underestimate her based on size and gender.

  URnotHElen: I’ll be in touch. No cops, and everything will work out.

  He was about to go and Josh had to make a fast decision. Helen’s boss needed to know Josh had some leverage. He typed quickly.

  IamnotHelen: It’s me again, not the investigator. You need to know something – I know about the Benjamin Fund and Lockheed. I won’t involve the cops or anyone else, I just want my life back and I’ll leave you alone.

  This was a huge risk, but Josh wanted URnotHelen to know he had more than just the Ventrica to negotiate with. Rigas wanted to shake him up; well, this was going to do it if Josh was right about the Benjamin Fund being owned or controlled by him. Seconds ticked away and he wouldn’t look at Rigas while they waited for a response. It never came. URnotHelen di
sappeared from the “buddy list,” the list of names AIM shows you of the people you’ve talked to who are still online. Josh didn’t know if this was a good sign or not.

  During most of the conversation, Josh had been furiously typing in a different window on the screen, trying to initiate a backtrace to find his location. It wasn’t enough time. The best he could do was confirm Helen’s boss was in Manhattan, but that was it. Some part of him had been hoping this would do it, that they’d have gotten closer to him. But they were no better off than when he had left the Starbucks a couple hours earlier. Josh banged his fist on the table and cursed, using a word he’d promised Allison he wouldn’t say anymore. There wasn’t anything else they could do, except wait to hear from him. Josh left the AIM window open in case that’s the way he contacted them. Helen’s cell phone was still jacked to ring to the office line. They could only wait.

  Rigas turned her back and leaned against the desk, arms folded, looking at the T.V. but not watching it. When she had thought it through, she said: “He’s gonna set up a meet. He doesn’t know where your sister is, so she’s safe. But he knows where you are – so you’re not so safe. Wouldn’t make sense for him to kill you now, though, unless he’s willing to give up the Ventrica thing. I’ll bet he’ll hold off until he’s got it.”

  Josh told her that wasn’t the most reassuring analysis he had ever heard, but agreed. Helen’s boss would try to get the Ventrica then kill Josh. Rigas too, of course, since she was his bodyguard. She smiled at that, probably remembering that Josh had killed Crawford and avoided her slap earlier, but also probably because she thought she could take him if she had to. Josh wasn’t going to argue with her unspoken conclusion.

  He wanted to be clear on what they would do, though. “We wait to hear from him, then meet him. When we know when and where, then we can figure out how to do it without getting killed. Can you get the FBI involved if he wants us in New York or someplace else?” Rigas looked miserable at the thought. It meant she wouldn’t get a clean collar on the case if it all happened somewhere else.