Chris Carter - Gallery of the Dead

Thirty-year-old Michelle Kelly was five-foot-eight, with long dyed black hair and a spiked fringe that fell over her forehead in a teenager’s skate-punk way. Her deep-green eyes were heavily framed by black eyeliner and purple eye-shadow. She had a thin, silver-loop nose-ring going through her left nostril and a second loop-ring that pierced the right edge of her bottom lip. She wore black jeans and a black T-shirt with a lime-green skull. Above it, were the words Killswitch Engage .

‘Detectives Hunter and Garcia,’ Michelle said, as she approached the group. Though confusion still masked her face, her tone was warm and welcoming. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’

They shook hands.

‘Do you know each other?’ Agent Fisher asked.

‘Yes,’ Hunter replied. ‘Michelle and the FBI Cyber Crime Division helped us solve a serial-murder case a couple of years ago.’

‘Hi,’ Michelle said, extending her hand at the two FBI agents. Both of her arms were covered in tattoos from wrist to shoulder. ‘I’m Michelle Kelly... or... official title — Special Agent Michelle Kelly. I’m the head of this division.’

If Agent Fisher tried to hide her surprise, she failed miserably.

‘You are the head of the Los Angeles Cyber Crime Division?’ she queried.

Michelle frowned at her. ‘That’s right. Why? Is there a problem?’ Her eyes moved sideways to Hunter as if asking, Who the hell is this bitch?

‘No,’ Agent Fisher replied. ‘No problem at all.’ She back-pedaled like a pro. ‘I was just expecting to see someone who looked more like a mad professor than a rock star.’

‘Thank you,’ Michelle replied. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

She took a step back and regarded the group for no more than a split second.

‘It’s obvious that this isn’t a personal visit.’ Though Michelle addressed everyone, her stare settled on Hunter. ‘So what can I do for you guys this time?’

‘Is there a more private place we can talk?’ Agent Fisher asked, looking around the large open-plan room, which seemed to be in a league of its own when it came to high-tech equipment. Lights were blinking on and off just about everywhere she looked. The walls were covered by mega-monitors showing maps, moving images and lines of code; she had no idea what they meant or what they were used for. A multitude of desks, with agents typing frantically at their computers, were scattered around the space.

‘Sure,’ Michelle replied. ‘Follow me.’

She guided them to her office, located at the far end of the floor.

‘Better?’ she asked, as she closed the door to her office which, though spacious, was crammed with books.

‘Much,’ Agent Fisher replied. ‘Thank you. This is quite a sensitive case.’

‘Aren’t they all?’

Michelle waited for everyone to take a seat before taking hers behind her desk. ‘So what is this about?’

Agent Fisher took the lead and gave Michelle the run-down on what they needed.

She listened without interrupting.

‘We already have a team checking if the victims were all with the same health-insurance company,’ Agent Fisher said in conclusion. ‘What we need to know is how difficult it would be to hack into one of these databases and search them for anything specific.’

‘From the outside,’ Michelle began, ‘terribly difficult.’ She held the suspense for a few seconds. ‘But it can be done. And if your killer really is finding his victims that way then I’m willing to bet that the only database he hacked into belongs to the GlobalAmerica Health Group.’

‘The largest health-insurance group in the USA,’ Hunter said.

‘That’s them all right,’ Michelle agreed. ‘A few months ago we investigated a breach into one of their servers. They have over one million physicians, six thousand hospitals, and seventy million subscribers, but the very interesting fact, at least where you guys are concerned, is that they have an integrated information and technology platform called Optum, which is pretty much used in four out of every five hospitals in the US, regardless of whether the hospital is part of the GlobalAmerica Health Group or not.’

‘Wait a second,’ Agent Fisher stopped her. ‘Are you telling us that if anyone hacks into this Optum platform, they would be able to access records from everywhere, irrespective of which insurance group the patient might be with?’

‘Pretty much,’ Michelle replied.

‘Sonofabitch!’

‘There’s also a chance that the killer works for a branch of the health-insurance company,’ Michelle added. ‘Or any of the hospitals that use the Optum platform. In that case, accessing any patient health files would be a hell of a lot easier. The downside to that — to the person who is accessing the files that is — is that if those records were accessed internally then it will be much easier to track the digital trail.’

‘Is there any way we can find out if certain files were accessed recently?’ Agent Fisher asked. ‘And in that case, by whom?’

‘We can try,’ Michelle replied. ‘If the files were accessed internally, then our chances of finding out who did it increases exponentially, but if Optum — or any health-insurance database — was hacked from the outside, things get harder.’

‘How much harder?’ Agent Fisher asked.

‘Depending on how good the hacker is,’ Michelle came back, ‘how well he was able to cover his tracks, it may range from “a hell of a lot harder” to “impossible”. I won’t really know until I try it.’

‘Can you try it?’ Hunter this time.

They held each other’s stare for a moment, which seemed to bother Agent Fisher.

‘Sure,’ Michelle finally replied, her gaze now moving to the two FBI agents. ‘But I will need an official request for that. After all, this is the FBI.’

‘Get started,’ Agent Fisher said, getting to her feet. ‘You’ll have the official request within the hour.’

Hunter and Garcia had gone back to their office at the Police Administration Building and by lunchtime, the information on which health-insurance company each of the four victims had a plan with had come back to them. For the first time they seemed to have caught a real break.

Kristine Rivers had a student health plan with Direct Healthcare. Albert Greene had a senior-citizen policy with Cambridge Health Plans. Linda Parker was with Prime US Healthcare Services, and Timothy Davis with AtlantiCare Health. All four of those companies were subsidiaries of the GlobalAmerica Health Group. Their records shared not only the same central database, but they could all also be accessed via the Optum integrated information and technology platform.

‘So you think that the killer is finding his victims through their medical records?’ Captain Blake asked.

‘Right now,’ Garcia replied, ‘it seems like our best bet, Captain.’

‘And how is he getting to the database?’

‘Two ways of doing it: internally — if the killer works for any of the companies under the GlobalAmerica Health Group, or for a medical establishment, like a hospital or a clinic with access to this Optum platform, and externally — by hacking into the system from the outside. What we’re doing,’ Garcia explained, ‘is checking to see when was the last time that any of the victims’ medical records were accessed. With that, there’s a chance that we’ll be able to follow some sort of digital trail and figure out who accessed them. It can take a while though, if we ever get anything.’

Captain Blake took a step back from Garcia’s desk and regarded both of her detectives for several seconds.

‘When was the last time you had a day off?’ she asked.