Lynne Heitman - First Class Killing

“Out of six hundred fifty total at the base, right?”

“Yes, but only eight-five percent are women.”

“Would it be possible that they could get their dates to come to them? Wouldn’t that be amazing?”

I went back to my chair and settled in with my arms folded on the desk in front of me.

“You seem disappointed,” he said.

“No, not at all. More like devastated. That report only gets the soldiers, not the generals. You have to cut off the head of this snake to kill it. Angel would just hire more women.”

“You do not know that.”

“There are so many things we don’t know. If Angel and the others are hookers, why aren’t they on that report? What’s a pool girl? What was Monica up to, with this blackmail scheme, and is Angel part of that?” I glanced at the file at my elbow. “What happened to Robin Sevitch?”

Harvey leaned in and put both palms on the desktop. He looked as if he were making handprints in cement. “We have accomplished much. You have accomplished a great deal, and if we were to stop now, which I suggest we do, you can be happy with what you have done.”

“I don’t feel as if I’ve accomplished anything.” I picked up the file and climbed out of the chair. “I’m going home to bed.”

It was after three when I walked into my apartment. It seemed as if it should be much later, but only because I had been up for almost two days. It was a brisk afternoon. Since my apartment basked in the morning sun, it chilled in the afternoon shadows, so it was cool inside. I dropped today’s slug of mail on the counter, punched up the first of two phone messages, and went to open one of the radiator valves.

Za, got your message. I was thinking…I’ve been going running most mornings I’ve been up here along the river, and I was wondering…if you wanted to come…I mean, I would like for you to come with me if you can make it. If you want to.

There was a pause where he could have been thinking what I was, that it would be like old times for Jamie and me to go running together.

Anyway, if you want to meet me, I’ll be at the Dartmouth footbridge at five-thirty tomorrow morning. If you can’t, that’s cool, too. I’ll catch up with you later.

It was good to hear his voice. There was something about the case and being in Angel’s world that made me feel lonely and hungry for some kind of deeper connection, one that Harvey and I couldn’t give each other. In spite of all our ups and downs, Jamie was still the one person in the world who knew me best. When I called his cell phone, I got his voice mail. I left a message that I would meet him to go running.

I erased Jamie and punched up the next message.

Dear, whereareyou? Have you fallen from the face of the earth? I cannot find you anywhere.

The sound of Tristan’s voice was instantly guilt-inducing. I had not answered his calls to my cell phone, once because I’d been with Angel and twice when I’d been with Harvey. If I’d answered, I would have had to make up some story about where I was. I had already lied to Tristan enough.

I want to know how things went with brother Jamie. You have called him, haven’t you? Also, Barry and I are having a small dinner party tomorrow at eight. A couple of his real estate friends are coming. Irene is bringing Claire. We want you, of course, and anyone you might want to bring. Bring Jamie! It will be very extravagant. So RSVP me, dahling. Talk to you soon.There was a pause, but he didn’t hang up.I hope…is everything all right? Call me when you get this. I’m worried about you.

I picked up the phone and dialed, but it wasn’t to call Tristan. I dialed Felix in Miami.

“Hey, Miss Shanahan.”

It never failed to throw me when someone answered the phone with my name instead of hello. As far as I was concerned, caller ID had disrupted the very fabric of the universe. “Um…Felix?”

“Hi. I’m glad you called. I was just working on your stuff.”

“So, you got everything? No problem with the encryption?”

“Huh? Oh, no. Piece of cake. I’ve already figured it out.”

“Figured what out?”

“The Web site you sent me. I know exactly what he’s doing. It’s pretty cool, too. I haven’t seen this before. Not personally. I’ve read about it.”

He sounded enthused, which caused me to feel a flutter of hope as I opened the refrigerator door and stared in. Could this actually be good news? “What’s he doing?”

“Using time-limited reverse proxy servers. I think it started in Russia or Estonia or…I don’t know, one of those Eastern Bloc countries.”

“Time-limited what?”

“Oh, it’s a new trick that hackers use to hide their identity.”

“Hide their identity?” I felt less hopeful. I closed the refrigerator and opened the freezer and discovered that I’d already eaten all my four-minute microwave meals. I would have to settle for a protein shake. I got out the blender, the protein powder, and an ice tray. “How does it work, Felix?”

“What he does is download a rogue program over the Internet to some innocent person’s PC, one with DSL, because with DSL the door is always open. He hijacks that machine and uses its high-speed connection to do his stuff, but he sets it up so that it looks like it’s coming from a big server, a master Web server. Whoever’s PC it is never even knows it’s being used as a proxy. It makes it almost impossible to track.”

“Hold on, Felix.” I hit the puree button and let the blender run until dinner was ready. Then I took my milkshake and retired to the couch. “Can’t you track back through the proxy to the server to the hacker?”

“Nuh-uh. That’s the time-limited part. What makes it work is that he uses these proxy PCs only for a few minutes at a time before rotating. By the time I identify the first proxy, he’s on to the next one. It’s a constantly moving target. It’s pretty smart. It’s what makes him almost completely anonymous, which is why I haven’t found him yet. Oh, I guess that’s, like, bad news, huh?”

“You can’t track him?”

“I can track him, but the quickest anyone has done it is in seven or eight days.” Which was too long. All I had was five days.

“So, this guy is good?”

“This guy is very good, Miss Shanahan. But,” he hastened to add, “not better than me. No. No way he’s better. I’ll find a way to track him. I promise you.”

Dueling hackers. This should be interesting. Showdown at the IT Corral.

“If you can do it in less than seven days, that would be very helpful, Felix. Did you actually get into the site?”

“I did, but there’s not much in there. Just some input screens for name, address, and flight number. Do you want me to send you a password so you can look at it?”

“Please. Send it to my partner, too, if you don’t mind.”

“You have a partner?”

I gave him Harvey ’s e-mail address and an explanation. The last time Felix and I had worked together, I had been someone between jobs looking into a friend’s death.

“Wow. So you’ll be a real private investigator with a license and everything?”

“I’m working on it.”

“You are so cool, Miss S. You’ll be so good at this.”

It was unexpectedly and deeply satisfying to feel his enthusiasm. It was exactly what I needed to hear after Harvey ’s grim and graphic scolding. “Is there anything I could get you, Felix, that might speed up the process?”

“Just send me anything you can get. You never know which piece is going to be the one, you know?”

I had another thought. I found my backpack, dragged it over, and dug out my notepad.

“Felix, I don’t know what you can do with this, but take it down.” I read him Arthur Margolies’s e-mail address, which I’d pulled out of the OrangeAir reservations system, and spelled out his name.