Death of Secrets

by Bowen Greenwood

  "Whoa," Kathy said. "So someone might have been using our home computer for that?"

  Colleen laughed and turned around briefly to face her roommate. "Kathy, you were using my home computer. No one is going to hack my computer. They had to come bust it up before they could get at mine."

  Jakarta diverted his attention from the screen long enough to say, "Perhaps that’s true of your computer, but not your boyfriend’s. Using that thing made it easy for us to figure out where you were planning to meet Kathy, when I made my ill-advised attempt to get the flash drive from her by force."

  Colleen blushed, and was in the middle of saying, "I never thought of…" when she caught something out the corner of her eye, spun back around, and jabbed a finger at the screen. "Look at that one. There's your middle man."

  Colleen leaned her head in very close to Jakarta's, and said softly, "I love watching someone do this well."

  Kathy turned to Michael, nodded at the two hackers, and winked. He let a tepid smile tug up the edges of his mouth briefly and Kathy leaned close to him to whisper, "Think we can find a way to leave them alone?"

  Mike nodded, then spoke aloud. "You guys don't keep anything to drink around here, do you?"

  Jakarta snapped his fingers. "Please excuse me. I totally forgot common courtesy. He pushed a small button on a box on the desk and got an electronic squawk in reply.

  "Jerry, could you come show our guests to the kitchen?"

  There was a brief reply, and a minute later their driver appeared at the door of the computer room. He beckoned with his finger. "Come with me, please," he said.

  Kathy and Mike stood up and Colleen asked, "Mind if I stay with you?"

  Jakarta shook his head, and she used the opportunity of everyone moving to sit a little closer to him. Mike and Kathy followed the other man out.

  ***

  Nathan wished for someone else to bounce ideas off of. Sitting here brainstorming wasn't getting him the answers he wanted. If he only had another brain – just someone to respond to his theories about what Mike might be doing – he felt like he could make infinitely better progress. The hotel manager had gotten bored and left – no doubt violating several company policies. But Jacobs was glad of it. Were the man still here, he might violate a few company policies of his own and ask the manger, breaking several rules of classification in the process.

  Of course, what he really wanted was to have Mike himself right there.

  What if Mike had actually found Jakarta? That instant message had sounded like they were looking for him, maybe they pulled it off. Nathan found himself holding his breath. If Mike had actually done it, it would be immensely good news for the government. Unless, of course, between the stress and the influence of that girl, Mike ended up liking the man.

  But it didn't seem very likely. Nathan still hadn't satisfied himself that Jakarta would be capable of the kinds of wanton violence that Mike had gone through. The highest probability was that this case involved someone other than a simple computer hacker. He could hope all he wanted, but the chances of his friend finding one of the country’s most wanted fugitives were slim to none.

  Then a new thought hit him. Could Mike actually be working with Jakarta?

  He simply couldn't imagine his friend knowingly cooperating with any criminal scheme. It wasn't possible. But he might get duped into it – cooperating without realizing what was going on.

  Or, it might not even have to be like that. Mike might just have gone looking for Jakarta based on his reputation. If he was frustrated enough with that flash drive, and wanted to know what was on it, then he could have gone out hunting for the famous hacker, to get his help decrypting it.

  Jacobs threw up his hands in frustration. This wild speculation was getting him nowhere. He needed to talk to Mike if he wanted to get anything like a real idea.

  But of course, he wouldn't have even come out here if he knew where Mike was.

  He ran through all the possibilities in his head. Where could his friend have gone – assuming he wasn't dead or something. He might have gone home – that would be crazy, of course, but it was a possibility. Just in case, Nathan picked up the hotel room phone and dialed Mike's unlisted home number.

  After six rings, Mike's voice mail picked up. The message recommended trying his cell number if you urgently needed him, and as soon as he heard that Nathan slapped his forehead. He left a message, but he didn't expect to hear back. As soon as he hung up he immediately punched in the number of the pre-paid phone he had given Mike.

  No answer there either, and that bothered him. The whole point of that phone was to give Mike a way to stay in touch while hiding. Nathan left another message and went back to thinking. Where else might the Congressman have gone?

  Aloud, he said, "Well, as long as I'm trying stupid ideas, I might as well try all of them." With that he picked up the phone again and dialed his office. Pushing aside his moral qualms about it, Nathan asked an officer on duty to track down a phone number for Kathy Kelver. He found a cell phone right away, but even before the duty officer said anything about it, Nathan already knew that was sitting in the Longworth House Office Building. After a longer search, the NSA came up with the main office number of Kathy’s dorm. Once he had it, Nathan hung up and dialed that.

  When he identified himself as being with the government and looking for Ms. Kelver, the person on the other end of the line said, "Are you sure she’s not in any trouble? You’re the second cop looking for her tonight."

  Jacobs blinked. "I think I better speak to the other officer," he replied.

  There was a delay, and then a gruff voice said, "Yeah?" into the phone.

  "This is Nathan Jacobs of the National Security Agency. I was trying to reach Kathy Kelver or Michael Vincent."

  "The more I've learned about this case, the more I've been expecting to run into federal agents. And here you are, finally. This is Detective Sam Franken of MPD."

  Jacobs blinked. The DC Metro Police Department was involved? That gave things a whole new dimension and one, he was sure, that his friend Mike wouldn't like. "You're investigating Ms. Kelver?" he asked, just to figure out how much the cop knew.

  "Not really. I've been investigating a homicide. She found the body. I came over here tonight to try to interview her roommate, but found neither of them in. I take it you're investigating her, then?"

  "Not exactly," Jacobs replied. "But still, it sounds like we're beating around the same bush. I think we need to meet, Detective Franken."

  "Yeah," Franken replied, "I think we do. I’m going off duty shortly here, so if we could do it sooner that would be better."

  "How about an hour from now?"

  Franken agreed. "Sounds good to me." He named his favorite restaurant, where the owner gave him free coffee. He added his cell phone number as well.

  Jacobs took the information down, they signed off, and he hung up. Once off the phone, he stood up from the chair and began to pace. This changed everything. Mike's desire to avoid police involvement was now out the window. Nate wished he could warn him, but to do that he'd have to know where he was. Which he didn't.

  Which brought him back to the reason he was here. This Detective Franken hadn't added anything to his store of information. Walking back and forth in the small space of the room, Jacobs wracked his brain, wondering where Mike might have gone.

  He was still pacing half an hour later when someone knocked on the door.

  Pounded, more like it. Two thumps on the hotel room door, and then nothing, as if all the visitor's energy had been expended in those two knocks. Nathan went to the door and looked through the peephole.

  He threw open the door. "John, right? John Lincoln? You were with Mike and Kathy? Where are they?"

  The difference in John's face made Nathan take a step back. He went from anticipation to disappointment so fast it was hard to see the changes.

  "They're not here? I just ran ten miles to find them here and they're gone?"

  Nathan s
ighed. So much for a quick answer. "Come on in and sit down, you look terrible. Let me get you a glass of water."

  John sunk into one of the room's cheap chairs, and Nathan showed up with tap water in two disposable plastic glasses. John swigged one down right away, and Nathan handed him the other one, then sat down on the bed.

  "I haven't heard from Mike for too long," the NSA man said. "I called and they didn't answer here, so I came out, hoping I could find some clue to where they were."

  John said, "I haven't heard from them since you did."

  "What happened to you, anyway?"

  John closed his eyes and leaned back. Mike had trusted this guy, and he had helped them lose their tail before coming here. But on the other hand, Mike had also trusted that other guy – John still didn't know his name – and he hadn't proved to be that safe at all.

  "I was outside the club, taking a smoke break, and overheard two people saying they'd come to find out where Mike and Kathy were. They said they'd learned they were here. They had a little debate about whether it was safe to kill Mike, him being a Congressman and all. Then they found me and caught me by surprise. Next thing I knew, I woke up in some six-by-six cell tied to a chair. They beat me senseless, and said they'd be bringing some specialist to drug me up to make sure they got the truth out of me."

  Nathan's eyes had grown to the size of half-dollars. "Let me get you some more water. What did they want the truth about?"

  As he poured two more glasses of tap water, he heard John say, "About how much Kathy knew about what was on the flash drive she found."

  Jacobs returned to the desk and gave John both plastic glasses. He drained one and sipped at the other. "I broke out when they came back with the specialist," the bouncer said between sips. "Idiot beat me so hard he broke the chair, so I could get a hand free to untie myself. Then I pulled the light socket out of the ceiling by its cord, and when the SOB specialist showed up, I let him have a few volts right to the heart. Beat up the other guy, too, then ran out. And ran. And ran. And finally I ended up here."

  Suddenly Jacobs bolted to his feet and grabbed for his cell phone.

  "Wassup?" John asked.

  "I’m missing a meeting, gotta make a call," he replied. Jacobs rummaged through his pocket until he found the scrap of paper with Franken’s cell phone number on it, then dialed.

  When he heard an answer he said, "Detective Franken, Nathan Jacobs, NSA. Look, I’m going to miss our meeting, something came up."

  Franken, already sitting at the meeting place and enjoying a cup of black coffee on the house, muttered under his breath. "Fine. Do you still want to meet, or just put it off?"

  Nathan frowned as he thought about it. He took off his glasses. "Is any later tonight going to work?"

  He heard a sigh on the other end of the line, and something inaudible that seemed to be about never taking an irregular shift again. "Well, I’m off duty for the night in an hour, but normally I’m a night shift kinda guy, so I suppose I could still see you tonight if you wanted."

  "Hmmm. You gonna be up late? Wanna get together some time around midnight?"

  "Normal business hours for me, man, but I didn’t think you feds worked our shifts. Sure, I can do midnight if you want. Let’s do the same place."

  "Got it, Detective. Thanks for your understanding. I’ll be there."

  Nathan sighed as he hung up. "I haven’t even met the guy yet, and already he doesn’t like me."

  John laughed, then winced. "Remind me not to do that for a month, give the ribs time to heal."

  "Man, who got you?" Nathan asked. "Did you get any idea who we're dealing with here?"

  John closed his eyes again. He did that to avoid peering suspiciously at Nathan. He had a clear mental picture of the Neon Nightclub, a group he saw there all the time. Some of their best customers. In this all-too-clear memory, Mike sat at the table. On his left was the man from Electron Guidewire – the one whose name he didn’t know. On Mike’s right was this man, Nathan Jacobs. Now, Nathan had been pretty helpful so far. But if one of Mike’s friends was in on this, who could say for sure that this one wasn’t too? John had done a lot of thinking while he ran, and the one thing that kept coming back was that someone was lying. Maybe the Electron Guidewire guy was lying to Mike. Or maybe Mike was lying to him. But somebody was lying for sure, and until he knew which somebody, John didn’t want to take any chances. If Nathan wasn't on the level, John didn't want to give him any warning that he was onto him.

  Finally he said, "I recognized one of them for sure," he replied. "That rat who doesn't shave, who's been on us since day one of this thing. Name’s Carlos."

  Nathan's shoulders slumped as he sat on the bed. "Unfortunately, that doesn't put us any closer to them. Knowing his first name and what he looks like isn't enough to come after him where he lives. We've got to find a way to take the fight to them."

  Jacobs looked off into the distance when his cell phone rang.

  He raised the instrument to his ear and heard, "Chief, we’ve got him!"

  The caller was from his office, and Jacobs didn’t even have to ask. The elusive hacker who they’d first discovered when he fell for one of their decoys. The effort to trace him had not gone well, with subsequent connections never lasting long enough to be traced.

  "Got the trace running already?"

  Upon getting an affirmative answer, Jacobs announced that he was coming in to Fort Meade.

  "By the time you get here I expect we’ll have him traced."

  Jacobs hung up. "Want to come with me to the office, John? I want to hear more about this crap you’ve been through. There’s got to be a clue in there somewhere. But right now I need to go down to the office. We’ve got a line on someone we’ve been tracking for quite some time. We’ve also probably got someone around who could put some antibiotics on those cuts of yours."

  John shrugged and agreed. He knew that the bad guys knew about this place, and if Mike and Kathy had left in a hurry, that meant they’d probably been attacked here. He didn’t figure they’d be back to this hotel room any time soon. "OK, I’ll come. Let’s take Mike’s computer along," he suggested. "I don’t think he’ll be back here for it."

  Nathan nodded. "I suspect you’re right." He hurried through the process of shutting the machine down and unplugging it from the wall, then he and John hurried out of the room, heading for NSA Headquarters. Jacobs didn’t feel any particular sensitivity to speed limits tonight. He was in the office less than forty minutes later, John tagging along behind him.

  "Talk to me," Jacobs said, striding through the door where his people were at work.

  The agents in the office gave John a curious glance, then one reported to Nathan. "He’s still on, chief. Must be doing serious business tonight. He’s built himself three proxies already and working on a fourth."

  Jacobs nodded eagerly. "But you got the trace?"

  "Oh yeah. Right away." A colleague gave him the location and then added, "We’re just watching him now, trying to catch him in the act."

  Jacobs picked out one of the men who didn’t seem overly busy and asked him to run and fetch a first aid kit. "This is John," he said. "He’s a friend, had a bit of a scrape tonight. I want his help with another project of mine, so don’t run him out to a hospital or anything, but see if we’ve got anything to clean him up a bit."

  John followed a young agent out of the room, thinking that, of all places, he ought to be safe from any backstabbing here. Of course, he didn’t know what Kathy and Mike were thinking about Nathan Jacobs at that moment.

  Nathan watched John leave, then pulled a chair up to the work area and flipped it around backwards, so he could rest his arms on the chair’s back as he sat. He noticed a six pack of Mountain Dew on the desk with four of the cans gone, and felt no compunctions about grabbing one for himself. At this late hour, guzzling soda pop and staring at a computer screen, all of them forgot entirely about the trappings of federal power surrounding them. It was just like being back
in college, up late at night playing an online game.

  Jacobs chuckled. The desk even looked like his old desk back in college – the entire work surface covered in papers, obeying a filing system that only the owner would ever understand. Even the keyboard sat on top of what looked like a report.

  His reverie was interrupted when one of the agents swore and asked, "Do you realize who he just connected to?"

  Jacobs looked at the screen, quickly finding the number that represented the IP address their quarry had just attacked. It looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.

  When his boss didn’t answer right away, the other man blurted it out. "EG! He’s hacking Electron Guidewire!"

  Nathan blinked. Then he blinked again. "You’re right," he breathed, his voice barely above a whisper. EG worked on a myriad of different computer projects at any one time, most of them for the government. But Jacobs knew of only one where Tilman had reported trouble. GigaStar. He reached in his pocket for his cell phone.

  "Who’re you calling?" his colleague asked.

  "EG. We can only watch him from here, but they can put a stop to it from their location."

  The other agent nodded, and Jacobs went on. "Wake up the FISC judge, we’re gonna nail him!"

  The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was a special court for America’s intelligence agencies to get warrants when they needed search permissions but also needed secrets kept. In this case the applicability was borderline – the criminal they were after was likely to be a domestic criminal, not a foreign spy. But the involvement of Electron Guidewire, working on one of the NSA’s newest projects, gave him an excuse to suspect a foreign intelligence agency was involved.

  CHAPTER 12

  They went back down the same hallway they’d come up, and passed through the room where they’d first met Jakarta. The next door from there led them into a small kitchen with a square table and three chairs. There was no other door out but the one they’d entered through.