Jeff Abbott - Panic

‘You’re in a shitload of trouble.’

‘You have information on who killed my mother, Mr. Gabriel. I have a gun. Do you see how this equation works out?’

Gabriel shook his head.

Evan leveled the pistol at Gabriel’s stomach. ‘Answer my questions. First, where are we?’

‘You won’t kill me. I know it, you know it.’ He put his gaze to the wall, as though bored.

Evan fired.

Galadriel, Jargo’s computer goddess, spent the night trying to track Evan and his kidnapper. She broke into national databases. She wormed her way into the Austin Police Department’s computer system, searching for traces, for reports, for the barest sign of Evan Casher. She moved through a jungle of information as patiently and efficiently as a hunter bringing down prey.

She called at Saturday’s dawn with her first report.

Jargo woke Carrie on the couch and Dezz in the other bedroom. Jargo spoke at length with Galadriel, then put Carrie on the phone while he tended to private business on his phone in his bedroom.

‘Evan hasn’t used his credit cards or accessed his bank account. No one has. Do me a favor, hon. Look at the file I just sent you.’ Galadriel was a former librarian, a heavyset woman who spent her hours away from the computer refining gourmet recipes and watching 1950s movies, when she believed the world had been a kinder place. She had a warm, Southern accent and sounded as if she ought to be a friend’s sweet mother. ‘See if you see what I see.’

Carrie opened the e-mail attachment, and a list of messages appeared, lifted from the Cashers’ e-mail accounts: a private account for Donna, one for Mitchell Casher’s personal e-mails, and another for his work as a computer security consultant.

‘I just tiptoed into their ISP’s database and copied their messages. Since the boys didn’t have time at the Casher house to go through their e-mails,’ Galadriel said.

Carrie scanned through the messages on Mitchell Casher’s account. Mitchell had sent a few e-mails to his son; nothing of great interest. One update on how his golf game was progressing, a mention of a couple of vintage jazz recordings he liked and thought Evan would enjoy along with the songs in digital format, a request that Evan come home soon for a visit. A few Christmas photos done by his mother. No message appeared encoded or encrypted in any way. There were no suspicious attachments.

Donna Casher had a separate e-mail account through the same provider. More messages to and from Evan. The rest of her e-mails were mostly chatty exchanges with fellow freelance photographers. Except for Friday morning.

‘She sent him four digital songs, two photos,’ Galadriel said. ‘But note the size of the photos. They’re larger than they should be.’

‘They had the files hidden in them,’ Carrie said.

‘I suspect one photo contained a decryption program. The other photo contained the files. So when he downloads the photos, the decryption software launches secretly and decodes the files hidden in the second photo. Buries them in a new folder deep on his hard drive, where he wouldn’t look normally. And he never sees or knows that they’re present.’

‘Please tell that to Jargo. That she could have snuck the files to Evan without him seeing them.’

‘But he could have seen them, hon, if he knew they were coming,’ Galadriel said. ‘You know Jargo isn’t going to take the risk that he saw them.’

And you, Carrie thought, you act like you’re sweet as sugar but you won’t be stupid and help me when I really need it. She wasn’t fooled by Galadriel’s honeyed voice. A steel-spined woman was at the other end of the line. ‘Are there copies on the servers that delivered the mail?’

‘Cleaned off. I assume by Donna. Smart cookie,’ Galadriel said.

‘Was Donna your friend?’

‘I don’t have friends in the network, honey, even you. Attachments are dangerous.’

‘So we have nothing to go on.’

‘Actually, we do. Donna had been on e-mail discussion lists for opera and books. And a group on tracing genealogies in Texas.’

‘Genealogy,’ Carrie said.

‘Smart girl. Odd that Donna Casher would be interested in genealogy.’

‘Right. No point in tracing a family tree when you’re living under a false name.’ Carrie jumped to the genealogy group’s Web site and found a message index. The e-mails to the group were mostly requests from people looking for connections to particular surnames in particular counties in Texas. Every message went to every member through the genealogy list’s e-mail address, which meant that every message to that address reached all subscribers. It was not the forum for a private dialogue.

‘I just did a cross-check on who sent Donna e-mails within the subscriber list,’ Galadriel said. ‘Go to message number forty-one.’

Carrie did. An e-mail from a Paul Granger read: I’m very much interested in Samuel Otis Steiner family history you mentioned on genealogy forum. My grandmother was Ruth Margaret Steiner born in Dallas died Tulsa daughter of an immigrant family from Pennsylvania. I can supply records you requested for the Talbott family which originated in North Carolina, moved to TN, appeared again in Florida. Please indicate whether you have appropriate records or access to them. My daughter and I are visiting Galveston soon and are interested in tracing our history back to 1849. I can be reached at 972.555.3478. Regards, Paul Granger

Carrie jumped back to the genealogy discussion list. At the bottom of each e-mail was a link to the list’s online archive. She entered it and did a search on Samuel Otis Steiner.

She found a single posting about Steiner, from Donna Casher approximately two days ago. She did a search on Donna Casher’s name; that single posting was the only time Donna had ever contributed to the group discussion. She’d simply requested information on anyone with knowledge of the Samuel Otis Steiner family.

‘This isn’t about tracing roots, clearly,’ Galadriel said. ‘It’s a contact.’

‘An innocent-looking way to communicate without arousing suspicion.’ Carrie studied the awkwardly worded message. No obvious code, but the numbers might be a key. ‘That number, what is it?’

‘One sec.’ Galadriel put her on hold, jumped back on twenty seconds later. ‘Hon, it’s a Dallas, Texas, metro code. Got a voice-mail system. No identifier as to who it belongs to. I’ll have to see if I can find it in the phone company database.’

Carrie studied the e-mail again. ‘Eighteen forty-nine. Doesn’t an end date seem odd in this context? You only want to go back so far and no further? Genealogists wouldn’t stop at a particular date.’

‘I’m playing with the numbers, sugar. I suspect it’s a code.’

‘One we’ve used?’

‘I can’t tell you that, honey, but I’ll check.’

Carrie clicked her tongue. ‘Eighteen forty-nine might be the key to the rest of the message. Taking the first letter, the eighth, the fourth, and the ninth, then repeat. Or the same pattern, with words.’

‘Too obvious an approach, dear,’ Galadriel said. ‘I’m looking at the server log for Donna Casher’s e-mail account. No messages again from Paul Granger or anyone else.’

‘So this voice-mail account in Dallas, it’s all we’ve got.’

‘Eighteen forty-nine,’ Galadriel said, ‘could be a code word itself. A warning, an instruction, and everything else in the message, other than the phone number, is camouflage. Like 1849 means run like hell or we’ve been caught or go to Plan B.’

‘Or call your son, get him home, then run like hell,’ Carrie said. ‘Does Granger’s name ring a bell?’

‘No. I’ve checked, he’s not in any of our databases. I’ll check national driver’s license records, but most likely it’s an alias. And I’ve checked the message logs; no messages from Granger to Evan or Mitchell Casher.’