The Genesis Code

by John Case

  ‘And where’s that?’ Lassiter asked, gazing out at the drifts of snow, glowing in the moonlight.

  ‘What, sir?’

  ‘Home.’

  ‘Oh – Pindi, sir. But that is what the television people call it, you know: “the Storm of ’Ninety-six.” Very dramatic.’

  ‘You want to go left up here.’

  ‘May I ask, sir? Have you traveled far?’

  ‘Italy.’

  The driver nodded. ‘And did they rob you?’

  Lassiter shook his head. ‘No. They did everything else, but they didn’t rob me.’

  ‘Then I congratulate you.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For traveling so light! Even as an immigrant –’

  ‘Left at the corner.’

  ‘Very good – even as an immigrant, I brought many more things to America. But I can see that you practice nonattachment, sir – an extra jacket. No more! You are very wise.’

  ‘Thank you. I am very unattached.’

  ‘I can see that, sir.’

  ‘It’s the driveway on the right.’

  ‘The very big house?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘My goodness! It is so modern –’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I am reminded of Leonard Nimoy.’

  Lassiter gave the driver two twenties, declined a receipt, and told him to keep the change. With a little wave, he turned and climbed the steps to the front door.

  And then he hesitated. The house was dark, completely dark – which wasn’t the way he’d left it. Whenever he traveled, he made a point of leaving on a light or two, not so much to discourage burglars as to welcome himself home. But the only light that he could see was the red diode on the alarm system, winking steadily in an aluminum panel next to the door.

  At least the alarm’s on, Lassiter thought, recalling that it came equipped with a battery that kicked in whenever there was a power failure.

  With his house and office protected by state-of-the-art security systems, Lassiter knew that leaving a key outside was truly stupid. ‘You don’t know how easy those keys are to find,’ he’d been told. ‘They use metal detectors, they surveil places. . . .’

  So Lassiter didn’t tell anybody about the key, but he was glad he kept it there. The key wouldn’t do anybody much good, in his opinion, not without the alarm code. He trudged through snow that was almost up to his hips and then ducked under the deck. He kept the key in one of the joists, where it was impossible to see and could be located only by touch. And there it was. Stepping inside, he groped for the keypad that controlled the alarm and tapped in the code that turned it off.

  Then he closed the door behind him and stood in the darkness, listening to the house. After Naples he’d become more cautious about his entrances. But there was no one, and nothing. Just the soft light of the snow, seeping through the windows. He tried the light switch on the wall, but it wasn’t working. Neither were the lights in the hall – and now that he thought about it, the heat was off as well.

  Lassiter sighed. The temperature in the house was only forty-five degrees or thereabouts, but even so, he wouldn’t have to go to a hotel. There was a fire laid in the study, and a leather sofa that pulled out into a bed. He’d sleep there, and if the lights were off in the morning, he’d move to the Willard until they were fixed.

  The phone still worked, of course, and Lassiter used it to report the power outage. The woman who answered laughed at the report and asked, ‘Where have you been? There hasn’t been any power in McLean for three days! But we should have it back pretty soon.’

  And so they did.

  When Lassiter awoke, the fire was out, but the heat was on, and the house had gone from cold to cool. Padding across the carpet to the bath, he found enough hot water to take a lukewarm shower, and dressed quickly. He was thinking that he had a lot to do at the office, when he heard it – a low hum on the way out of his study.

  The computer was on. Sometime during the night, when the electricity was restored, it must have rebooted. Lassiter went to the desk, where the monitor was glowing, and shut it off. Then he thought about it.

  If the computer rebooted, it must have been on when the power went off – three days ago. Which meant one of two things: either he’d forgotten to turn off the computer when he’d left for Italy, nearly a month ago, or someone had broken in.

  ‘I didn’t leave the computer on,’ Lassiter muttered. ‘I never do.’ Which meant that someone had entered the house while he was gone. But that didn’t make sense, either. The alarm was working, and it was a good one. If someone had managed to bypass it, he’d have to be a pro. And yet, Lassiter thought, glancing around, nothing had been taken. There was a $2,000 Breitling wristwatch sitting on his dresser. The stereo was intact, and the liquor was untouched. In a corner of the study a small glass cabinet sat undisturbed, holding first editions valued at more than $25,000. The lithographs in the living room were worth even more.

  And yet, none of it had been touched. Except the computer.

  Lassiter sat down in front of the machine and hit the Enter key three or four times. The autoexec.bat file went through its routine until a word appeared in the middle of the screen: Password?

  This was, in fact, not a word at all, but a combination of case-sensitive letters, numbers, and punctuation marks – gibberish – that was unguessable precisely because it was neither a word nor a phrase. Until the combination was keyed into the computer, the hard disc remained inaccessible: no operations were possible, and no information could be obtained. Still . . . a very talented someone had bypassed the security alarm and gone directly to the computer. How likely was it that the password had stopped him? Lassiter didn’t know. But that’s what passwords are for, he told himself: to keep people out. Right, he replied, and that’s what alarms are for, too.

  Reaching down to where the CPU sat on the floor, Lassiter felt for the On/Off switch. It took him a second to find it, and looking down he saw why: the computer had been moved – not far, but definitely. There was an indentation in the rug where the machine had rested for more than year. Now it sat about an inch away.

  You’re hallucinating, he told himself. You probably left it on when you went to Italy. That would explain everything.

  Except, of course, it wasn’t true. And he knew it wasn’t true.

  *

  ‘Hey, Joe –’

  ‘What happened to you?!’

  ‘Welcome back, Mr. Lassiter!’

  ‘Good to see you again.’

  There were exclamations and waves, smiles and looks of real solicitude as Lassiter made his way past the cubicles and watercooler to the sanctuary of his own office. Closing the door behind him, he tossed his coat and cane onto the couch, picked up the intercom, and told his secretary, ‘See if Murray Fremaux’s around.’

  ‘You mean the computer guy?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ll check, but you’ve got about fifty calls – ’

  ‘That’s okay – just get Murray in here.’

  Two minutes later Murray came into the office with a cup of coffee in his hand and a worried look in his eyes.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Lassiter asked.

  ‘I’ve never been in your office before.’

  ‘So? Sit down.’

  ‘Okay, but . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . I mean, am I going to be fired?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good,’ Murray replied, flopping into a chair. ‘I just bought a Camry.’

  ‘Congratulations. Now listen: I think someone broke into my house while I was out of the country.’

  Murray frowned. ‘I thought you had an alarm.’

  ‘I do. They bypassed it.’

  ‘Bypassed it?’ Murray asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Murray thought about that for a moment, and asked, ‘They take anything?’

  ‘No. Nothing I could see. But . . . I was thinking, maybe they got
into the computer.’

  Murray nodded. ‘Could be,’ he said.

  ‘Thing is – I don’t see how they could have gotten into anything. I mean, there’s a password –’

  ‘Passwords suck.’

  ‘– and anything that’s really sensitive is encrypted.’

  Murray looked skeptical. ‘What do you use?’

  ‘N-cipher.’

  ‘Good program,’ Murray said.

  ‘So . . . they didn’t get anything. Right?’

  A shrug. ‘I don’t know. Did you notice anything else?’

  Lassiter thought. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Well . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think . . . maybe they moved the computer.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’ Murray asked.

  ‘Because . . . well, because it was moved – I went to turn it off, and it was a couple of inches away – I mean, from where it usually is.’

  Murray nodded again, and said, ‘Sounds like they took you to the cleaners.’

  ‘What!?’

  ‘My guess is: they took the hard drive out of the case. Copied the contents, and put it back. If that’s what they did, the password was useless. It’s in the boot sector.’

  ‘And the encrypted files –’

  With a regretful look, Murray shook his head. ‘Depends. Where’d you keep your key – on a floppy or the hard disc?’

  ‘Hard disc.’

  Murray winced. ‘Big mistake,’ he said.

  ‘So they got everything –’

  ‘Probably.’

  Lassiter groaned. He was thinking of the messages he’d sent from Montecastello, listing the women who’d had procedures at the Clinica Baresi, tasking Judy to contact Riordan, and so on. Fortunately, those messages had been sent from his laptop – so at least they were safe.

  ‘You look relieved,’ Murray said.

  Lassiter nodded. ‘I sent some E-mail from Italy. It was pretty sensitive.’

  Murray averted his eyes.

  ‘What?!’ Lassiter asked. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Murray shook his head. ‘They probably got those, too.’

  ‘What? How? That’s impossible.’

  ‘Not really. Let me ask you a question. When you log on to the Internet, what do you do?’

  Lassiter shrugged. ‘Nothing much. It’s all automatic. Basically, I just hit Alt-E. The computer does the rest.’

  Murray nodded. ‘That’s what I thought. You use an automatic log-on procedure – a macro, right? – with your password built in.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So whoever broke into your house has that, too.’

  Lassiter shrugged. ‘I’ll just change the password.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Murray said, instantly regretting the sarcasm. ‘But it only works one way. By now they’ve gotten at your old E-mail – no matter what computer you used.’

  Lassiter stared at him.

  ‘It’s archived on your local Internet server,’ Murray explained. ‘Anyone who’s got the password can get into your old messages.’

  Lassiter leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. So that’s how they knew, he thought. That’s how they knew where he was. In Montecastello. At the Aquila. After a moment he opened his eyes again. ‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘you’ve been a big help.’

  Murray clambered out of the chair and shrugged. ‘Sorry,’ he said, and turned to leave.

  ‘Not your fault. But Murray . . .’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘When you go by Judy’s office, ask her to see me for a second, would you?’

  Murray hesitated in the doorway. ‘Judy?’ he asked.

  Lassiter looked up from his desk. ‘Yeah. Judy Rifkin. She’s your boss.’

  Murray gulped. ‘I don’t think she’s in.’

  Lassiter looked puzzled. ‘Why not?’ He looked at his watch: ten-thirty.

  ‘I don’t think she gets out of the hospital until this afternoon.’

  ‘What hospital?’

  ‘I think it’s Sibley.’

  Lassiter looked blank.

  ‘She had an accident,’ Murray said.

  ‘What accident?’

  Murray rolled his eyes. ‘There was some kind of celebration – I don’t know what it was about. But . . . apparently, she was opening a bottle of champagne . . . and . . . she shot herself in the eye.’

  Lassiter was dumbfounded. ‘With what?’

  ‘The cork.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Uh-uh. I know what you’re thinking: it’s the ultimate yuppie injury, but . . . I guess it was actually pretty serious. Mike said they had to sedate her so she wouldn’t move her eye. They were worried about the retina.’

  Lassiter was nonplussed. ‘When was this?’

  ‘Friday night,’ Murray said, and with a little wave, closed the door behind him.

  Lassiter remained where he was, looking at the objects on his desk, trying to decide what to throw. Not the net-suke, not the scarabs – he liked them too much. Maybe the stapler, or the tape dispenser. Or the scissors! The scissors might actually stick.

  In the end he didn’t throw anything. He got to his feet and, forgetting his cane, limped down the hallway to Freddy’s cubicle, a six-by-six-foot box dominated by a huge poster of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

  ‘Hey, boss! Welcome back!’

  ‘Thanks,’ Lassiter said, dragging a chair over to Freddy’s desk. ‘You got a minute?’

  Freddy sat back, crossed his arms, and waited.

  ‘There’s something I want you to do. Right away.’

  ‘You heard about Judy?’

  Lassiter nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s why I’m here. I sent her a memo over the weekend. I guess she didn’t get it.’

  ‘I guess you’re right.’

  ‘Murray knows how to get at everything. Tell him I want him to download a two-page memo that I sent her. . . .’ Lassiter calculated. ‘It would have been Friday night, your time.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘When you get it, I want you to drop whatever you’re doing. There’s basically two things: a list of women – I think there’s thirteen – who have to be contacted right away. And a pull-together on a scientist named Baresi – books, articles, whatever you can find.’

  Freddy nodded. ‘Got it. But . . . which is more important?’

  ‘The women.’

  ‘I’ll ask the research guys to do the pull-together, and check out the women myself.’

  Lassiter thanked him, and walked back to his office. He wanted to call Judy, but before he did that, he needed to talk to Riordan. And the Aquila.

  He left a message on Riordan’s voice mail asking the detective to call him as soon as he could, and then placed a call to the pensione in Montecastello.

  ‘Pronto!’

  ‘Hugh?’

  ‘No. This is Nigel.’

  ‘Nigel! It’s Joe Lassiter.’

  ‘Oh.’ There was a long pause. ‘How are you?’

  ‘A little banged up, actually.’

  ‘Yes, well, we’ve had rather a time of it ourselves.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You’ve heard about Father Azetti?’

  Lassiter nodded, forgetting that Nigel couldn’t see him. ‘I was the one who found him in the church.’

  ‘Well, they’ve found a second victim –’

  ‘In the woods. Below the town.’

  The pause was even longer this time. Finally, Nigel said, ‘That’s right.’

  ‘He wasn’t a victim,’ Lassiter said. ‘He tried to kill me. But, look: I’m going to get in touch with the Italian embassy, give them a statement –’

  ‘Before you do that . . . I think you may want to speak with a lawyer.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Lassiter asked.

  ‘Well, because . . . when the man was found in the woods . . . Hugh and I were certain he must be you. I mean, you did say you were going to see Azetti, and all. And then, of course, we heard that a body had been found
. And when you didn’t return to the pensione . . . I’m afraid we went to the police.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘I can’t tell you how relieved we were . . . I mean, when we saw it was someone else. But now . . . I think the police want you to help them with their inquiries.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Lassiter said as line two began to blink. ‘Hold on for a second.’ He punched the Hold button and switched to line two. ‘Lassiter.’

  ‘Joe! It’s Jack!’

  ‘I’ll get right back to you,’ Lassiter said, and returned to line one. ‘Look, Nigel, I gotta take this call. Tell the police I’ll be in touch with the embassy. In Washington. And while you’re there, I think it might be a good idea for you to give the police your guest register.’

  ‘The register? But . . . why?’

  ‘Because the people who killed Azetti may come after it. You’ll be safer this way.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll take your advice.’

  ‘Gotta go,’ Lassiter said, and hit line two. ‘Hi.’

  ‘I got some news,’ Riordan said.

  ‘Good or bad?’

  ‘Good as it gets. We got your boy.’

  ‘Who’s “my boy”?’

  ‘Grimaldi.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘We’re picking him up in an hour. You want to ride along?’

  Twenty minutes later Lassiter was sitting next to Riordan in the detective’s unmarked Crown Victoria, heading north on the Beltway toward Maryland. A red light revolved on the dashboard as the car cruised just below ninety miles per hour.

  ‘When we get back to the office,’ Lassiter said, ‘I’ve got a list of names for you.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? What kinda list?’

  ‘A hit list. Women and children. You’re gonna want to contact the local police, get ’em in protective custody.’

  Riordan reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a photograph. ‘Look at this,’ he said, handing it to Lassiter.

  It was a picture of Grimaldi, standing on the porch of an old Victorian house. Though one side of his face was a blur of scar tissue, it was clearly him. Lassiter smiled. ‘Where’d you get it?’ he asked.

  ‘Surveillance shot. Long lens. You can see the grain. FBI took it, day before yesterday.’

  ‘How’d they find him?’

  ‘Remember the nurse?’

  ‘Yeah.’