Death of Secrets

by Bowen Greenwood

  "So?"

  "So when we use the GigaStar for surveillance, someone else could be listening."

  Kathy nodded. "I get it. So you put a wire tap on some criminal’s network, and hear what they talk about. But not only do you hear, someone else hears too."

  Nathan nodded. "Exactly. And looking at this diagram, it looks like the second frequency would only be broadcasting the TR input." He paused to laugh. "This thing is brilliant. Unless we went specifically looking for it, we’d never have found this. And since the TR input only goes to the second frequency, we’d never have known we had anything but an ordinary wiretap. Our old friend Jakarta is slick!"

  Colleen disagreed. "Except for one little problem. Jakarta didn’t do this, Electron Guidewire did. Hugh never meant for you to have it. He sabotaged the code so it would never work for the NSA. I sat right here and watched him do it."

  Nathan’s eyes widened. "Really?"

  Colleen nodded. "I keep telling you, those corporate sharks at EG are the ones responsible for this, not Jakarta."

  Jacobs took his time replying. "Miss Christina, I'm going to be right up front with you. I want to know why – after he tried to kidnap your friend Kathy and lied to you about wanting to destroy this TR technology when he was actually building it – you're so willing to trust Jakarta's story here."

  Nathan took his hands out of his pockets and gestured at the thought reading box. "Look at that. That's not an Electron Guidewire design. It's clunky, big, and sloppy. EG is on the cutting edge of miniaturization."

  Colleen interrupted. "Jakarta’s people had to improvise – they don't have the facilities here to build on that small scale. It's EG's design, but built on a different scale."

  "What makes you so sure it's EG's design? Look, EG called me and reported an electronic break-in earlier tonight. They said someone had broken into their system and possibly been corrupting their code – making unauthorized changes in their software. Jakarta’s a known criminal, and also known to be very good at what he does. What makes you so sure it wasn’t him that put this into their product, in some kind of attempt to corrupt NSA surveillance activities?"

  "That’s crazy! If he had this technology on his own, why would he even bother sneaking it into the NSA’s wiretapping technology? Why not just set one up on the floor of the stock exchange and start making money?"

  "Ah, but how does he get it to the stock exchange," Jacobs replied. "The model you see here is bulky and very difficult to conceal, not to mention being tied to a PC by a wire. But if he could sneak it into EG's project and from there to us, well, it’s not out of the question that we might have to monitor the stock exchange, so suddenly he’s got his little mind reader spying on every trader on the floor."

  "But that doesn’t change the fact that he deliberately sabotaged the EG code, so it wouldn't work for you. So obviously he can’t have been planning what you’re saying."

  Jacobs nodded slowly. "Yeah, that is an issue. OK, what, exactly did he do?"

  Colleen looked at him suspiciously. "What, so you can undo it and use this little contraption to spy on people?"

  Mike shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. The growing disagreement between Colleen and his friend put him in an awkward position. He had to admit, it was a lot easier to believe that Jakarta did all this than to suspect Tilman, one of his oldest friends. But on the other hand, Colleen had been right there.

  Nathan sighed. "Miss Christina, look. I’ve been helping your friends through this whole thing. I personally helped them dodge a tail and get away from Mike’s office. You have to trust me at least a little bit, or we’re never going to get anywhere."

  She hemmed and hawed for a moment before going on. "Well, he got into EG's source code for the program that interprets the input from the GigaStar, and put in a little Easter egg. If he doesn’t log in every 24 hours and enter a password, the Easter egg fatally corrupts the source code."

  Jacobs’ eyes widened. "I see! So in actual fact, he didn’t sabotage it. He left it running, but gave himself the power to stop it at any time. Miss Christina, honestly, does that sound like someone who wanted to prevent the NSA from getting this, or someone who wanted to sneak it in under our noses?"

  Colleen's eyes flared, but she didn’t answer right away. Then she blurted out, "No, wait, he said it guaranteed that the NSA’s copy would never work, because he couldn’t get into your system to enter the password. So he could keep it working as long as only EG had it, so they wouldn’t know their code had been corrupted, but as soon as they passed it on to you, boom, it self-destructs."

  Jacobs nodded. "I suppose he didn’t tell you that he’s hacked us once before, did he? So when he tried to tell you he couldn’t hack the NSA…" Nathan let the thought sit there unfinished. The conclusion was obvious. Jakarta lied – again.

  Colleen didn’t have an answer for that. But she didn’t buy Nathan’s interpretation either. She turned away and stared out the window.

  Jacobs shrugged. "Look, I’m not saying there won’t be an investigation. There will. But Tilman is a decent guy. Let’s not go around smearing his reputation before we…" His cell phone rang.

  Jacobs muttered and started slapping pockets on his coat until he found the phone. He clicked it on and heard Detective Franken’s voice.

  Kathy listened to the part of the conversation she could hear with mounting alarm. "Oh, yeah, I completely forgot… OK, Detective Franken. I can be there… Yeah, I’ve got a lot of new information for you. Sit tight and we can discuss it."

  As soon as Jacobs hung up, Kathy got his attention. "Did I hear you say Franken?"

  "Yeah, why?"

  "Um… there’s something you should know before you go talk to him," she said.

  Jacobs raised his eyebrows.

  "Well, he seems to think I’m up to something here. I’m not, all I was trying to do was find out about the flash drive without getting Mike in trouble with the police, but because of that I didn’t always tell him everything, and I think that made him suspicious of me."

  Jacobs chuckled. "Oh, he’s interested all right. You have no idea. But don’t worry, I’ll set him straight. While I’m gone, I’m sure it’d make the FBI field agents rest a lot easier if you guys would clear out of the crime scene while they investigate."

  The woman who’d spoken to them earlier nodded vigorously as she passed by, and Colleen reluctantly rose from the chair. Mike said, "I guess we can see if there’s a coffee shop nearby."

  ***

  They didn't find a coffee shop. In fact they barely walked far enough down the street to be out of hearing range of the FBI agents swarming over Jakarta's apartment complex. But that was all the further Colleen could go before spitting out, "That arrogant, know-it-all jerk! If they ever want me to give a statement for evidence, they’re going to hear some things!"

  Kathy took her friend's hand as Colleen led them around the corner of the building, away from the street. "Why does it make you so mad, them trying to pin the whole thing on Jakarta? You saw what he did to us. He held a gun on me!"

  Colleen expelled a gigantic sigh, and paused to root around in the bushes by the side of the building. As she searched, she said, "It's not that I'm defending Jakarta, Kathy. If I could get my hands around his neck right now I'd strangle him. But I was right there. I saw the code on that flash drive. And I'm telling you no hacker wrote that. This is not Jakarta's invention. The GigaStar source code is so obviously the work of a corporate programming department there's no way it can be missed. If the feds have anyone competent look at that flash drive – and I have to admit, Jacobs seems pretty competent – it'll stick out like a sore thumb. They'll see it right away as soon as they look at the evidence."

  "Colleen," her roommate interrupted, "what are you doing?"

  "Finding this!" she replied, turning around and holding the flash drive up in triumph. "I knew it had to be down here somewhere."

  Mike stared at the gleaming flash drive case. "Did it survive the fall?
"

  Colleen shrugged. "Might be a scratch or two, or maybe not. Either way, most of it will be recoverable with some expert work."

  As they walked back to the street, eventually coming to rest at a small, covered bus stop, Mike asked, "What makes you so sure it wasn’t written by Jakarta?"

  Colleen replied, "Look, the difference between corporate source code and a hacker's programming is that a hacker is like an artist, demonstrating his prowess, in love with the language and wanting to demonstrate all its uniqueness. But someone working in big business doesn't have that luxury. Their boss doesn't want them wasting resources on frivolous new ways of doing things when the existing methods work. "

  Michael nodded slowly. "OK, OK. But Colleen…" He trailed off and let his eyes wander for a bit before continuing. "Look, I've known D.W. all my professional life. It’s fair to call him my mentor. He gave me my first job in politics. He taught me what goes into winning an election, that you never hear about on the news because it’s too boring. He made my first campaign for office possible. I mean, just the other day I was telling myself that he'd lost the idealism we used to have about politics, but this is a totally different thing altogether. It's hard for me to believe that someone I've known for this long is doing something this devious."

  Kathy watched him intently as he talked, and gave him her most reassuring smile when he finished. She didn't enjoy seeing the disagreement between her roommate and her… friend, boyfriend, whatever. She was fairly certain that Colleen was right – that Mike's friend had turned out to be a real scumbag – but she knew it would be hard for Mike to deal with. Kathy was hoping Colleen would be gentle about it, and let Mike come to the realization in his own way rather than backing him into a corner. She was still holding Mike's gaze and smiling when she caught sight of some motion over his shoulder and saw John coming down the sidewalk toward them.

  She ran to greet him without saying a word to the other two. They turned to watch her go, then faced each other and shrugged simultaneously. Then Mike saw John, and understood.

  Kathy wrapped him in a fierce bear hug. "John, what happened to you? What happened to your eye? Oh, look at you!"

  "It's OK, Kathy. Those federal guys Nathan left me with had a guy treat it, it's just a little cut. I got worse than this on the football field," he lied.

  Mike walked up. "John! You look terrible!"

  Kathy heard her roommate clear her throat behind her. "Oops, forgetting my manners again. John, this is Colleen, my roomie."

  They shook hands, and the bouncer related his tale in abbreviated form. When he finished, Colleen blurted out, "But that’s great! Um, no, I mean, not great that you got beat up. But great that you’ve seen their headquarters. Where was it?"

  John looked her up and down. Announcing that it was great that he’d been tied in a chair while getting kicked wasn’t a great way to start a friendship. But on the other hand, Kathy vouched for her.

  "Well, that’s something I wanted to talk to you about, privately," he said, looking Mike in the eye. "But since Colleen wants to go into their location, maybe I should just say it here?"

  Mike blinked. "What? Was their location in my office or something?"

  John shook his head. "No, but it was in the office of the guy you come to the Neon with all the time. He was there too, standing there looking smug when Carlos was about to beat me senseless. He left before the beatings started, but I don’t believe for a second that he had any doubt what was going on."

  Mike’s face looked like a dam broke – like the problem he’d hoped would be gone when he woke up from the dream had suddenly announced it was real. He looked like a kid who’d been hearing rumors about Santa Claus, whose parents finally told him the truth. He wasn’t looking at anything in particular when he said, "Tall pudgy guy, thinning hear, likes to wear nice suits." He didn’t even bother to put it as a question. News this bad just had to be true.

  John nodded. "Yup. Works at a place called Electron Guidewire."

  Colleen pumped her fist up and down. "I knew it!"

  Kathy gave her a hard stare, warning her to reign in the gloating, and wrapped her arm around Mike’s shoulder.

  ***

  Jacobs found his way to the coffee shop Franken specified over the phone, and pulled the car to the side of the road. Finding parking was a lot easier at this hour of night. Jacobs still couldn't help but chuckle over that. It wasn't every day he scheduled a meeting after midnight. But Franken was a night shift detective, apparently, and that meant he kept odd hours.

  Walking in, Jacobs found the usual Georgetown food service establishment – tables closely crowded and college students together in little knots, holding animated conversations about universal truth or pot or whatever college kids talked about these days. It had been quite some time since Jacobs had gone out for late night coffee to discuss the meaning of life with fellow students.

  He asked the waiter whether there was a detective Franken here, and got shown to his table. Franken turned out to be a pretty big guy, Jacobs noted at once. The small tables were crowded too close together for him to sit comfortably without moving something out of the way. The cop was deep in an animated conversation on his cell phone, but greeted Jacobs with a nod and a wave of his coffee cup. Jacobs slid into a chair, brushing against an attractive redheaded girl seated behind him, and politely waited for Franken to finish.

  Finally Franken clicked off his phone. "Sorry about that," he said. "That was the wife – she was expecting me to be home tonight, me supposedly being off duty and all." He gave Jacobs a pointed stare. "But that’s life, huh? Let’s get to business. What do you know about Katherine Kelver?"

  Jacobs replied, "Basically, she's an innocent bystander who accidentally got caught in a major electronic crime investigation we just rolled up."

  Franken raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"

  Nate nodded. "Yeah. A hacker we've wanted for some time – goes by the name of Jakarta – stole a flash drive from a company that's an NSA contractor. Jakarta steals this flash drive, but in the process it accidentally ends up in Kelver's hands. Don't have that part cleared up yet. Anyway, he spends a long time trying to get it back from her, finally gets her to his place, and uses it to break into the company, modifying one of their software products."

  Jacobs was scratching his ear. "I think I can clear up that part about how Kathy got the flash drive."

  "Really? I'd love to hear that."

  Jacobs nodded. "OK, apparently someone working with or for this Jakarta guy steals the flash drive. But he's not supposed to take it right to Jakarta. Apparently your little hacker's a paranoid fellow. He's supposed to pass it to a guy living on Q Street in Georgetown. That guy will then take it to a rendezvous in a parking garage, from where, I assume, it's supposed to be passed on to your guy. Only thing is, someone shoots the original thief, just as he's about to make the pass to the Q street guy – who I've interviewed. So Kathy finds the dead guy right after he's been shot, and gets the flash drive."

  Jacobs frowned. "Wait a second, if the guy holding the flash drive was one of Jakarta's people, who shot him?"

  Franken shrugged. "That's what I've been after. That's my suspect. Hearing your side of the story, I guess the logical assumption is that Jakarta’s guy got shot by the people he stole the flash drive from, trying to get it back."

  Nathan gritted his teeth. This was a real wrinkle in things. At the very least, EG was going to be in trouble for the lengths to which they went to recover their flash drive. At worst – maybe Colleen was right, and they were trying to pull something over on the NSA. "What else do you know?" he asked.

  "Not much," Franken said. "Kelver called in a possible homicide about five days ago. But when I got there, the body was gone. Then, I met with her and asked if she knew anything else, but she said she didn't. Anyway, a lot earlier tonight, I got a call on another homicide in Georgetown. Not usual, you know? So I go to the scene, this elderly couple has been murdered. I check out their house, and
I see that someone has used their bed as a place to take potshots – there's brass on the bedspread, and it's rumpled like somebody's been lying there. I look out the window that the bed is next to, and I see there's a clean line of sight right to the place Kathy said she found the body."

  Franken paused to drink some coffee, then said, "I go to interview the yap whose place the first guy got shot out front of. He doesn't want to talk, but I get it out of him – seems he was supposed to take delivery of a flash drive."

  Jacobs nodded. "The one that Kathy picked up off the dead guy."

  "Yeah. But when the guy got killed, our little courier freaked out, and took off. So I didn't get to talk to him the night Kathy called it in. But tonight, he breaks down and tells me everything he knows. It isn't much. Just that he's working for some guy named Jakarta, and was to bring the flash drive to a certain parking garage. So I finish my interview and go there. Who do I find but Kathy Kelver. That's what set all my instincts off. But she won't tell me jack, acts like she wants to get rid of me. Well, from there I went to her dorm room, and that's how I got in contact with you."

  Franken finished his tale and Jacobs simply nodded at him. The cop felt a bit of anger rising because the federal guy didn't seem to care. "Well, I guess the case is in your hands now."

  Jacobs shook himself out of his reverie. "Yeah, but you just made it a lot more complicated. I gotta make some calls."

  Franken smirked. "Well, I'd like to talk to Kelver for some follow up notes, just to kind of wrap up our involvement, since this is going to be a federal matter now. Do you know where she is?"

  Jacobs looked up from his cell phone and said, "I left her back at the scene where we collared Jakarta. I assume she's still there, you can probably find her there." He gave the address of the apartment building.

  Franken stood up. He dropped a business card on the table, saying, "If you federal guys still need anything from us, let me know." With that, he walked away.