John Sandford - The Devil's Code

"I wish it was true," I said, "But I don't think it is."

We talked about Firewall for a couple of minutes, about the technique of the attack on the IRS and the use of the zombie computers. We also talked for a few minutes about her talks with the cops, which were set for Monday morning, sixteen hours away.

She'd try to pressure them on AmMath. The more pressure that we could apply, the more curious the cops and the FBI and the NSA got about AmMath, the better chance there was that something would break loose. If we could get it into the media, make it a political problem, we had a chance of generating a legitimate investigation.

"I don't see the logic of it," Lane said.

"There is no logic. We just keep bringing AmMath up, hooking them to Firewall, to Jack's killing, to the house burning down, to the burglary at your place. we don't have to explain it, we just have to keep hooking them up."

We agreed to meet the next afternoon, after Lane's talk with the cops. When we left, I was still getting a bad vibration from Lanefor her, Jack was the main question, and it obviously wasn't the same for LuEllen and me.

"She's starting to worry me a little," LuEllen said. "What happens if she decides that the only thing to do is to talk about us, about Firewall, about the NSA, about everything, to get the cops to look at Jack?"

"She doesn't know that much," I said.

"She knows we're the ones who hit Corbeil. That's a lot right there."

"Yeah." We drove along in silence for a moment; then I sighed and said, "It's not out of control yet. I think we could talk to her about the damage she'd do, if she dumped on all of us. She'd listen."

"I hope," LuEllen said. "But we've got to keep our options open." She thought a moment, then added, "Too bad she knows where you live."

Corbeil went online that night. There was no way to tell when they found that the apartment had been cracked, but I checked the clump box all day, every hour, and at ten o'clock, it was spooling stuff from an online session between Corbeil's apartment and the AmMath computer. The software I was using was simple enoughyou can buy copies of the heart of it for $99, over the counter. Essentially, it records keystrokes. Everything that Corbeil typed on his keyboard was recorded, picked up, and sent to my dump box. Sometimes, it can be a little hard to follow, if the guy you're recording is a bad typist, but I've had enough practice that I can read it like a letter.

"What do you got?" LuEllen asked, looking over my shoulder.

"To begin with, we've got the phone number, the sign-on protocols, and Corbeil's password to get into the AmMath computer," I said. "After that, not much."

Corbeil sent company mail to one of his security people, telling him about the break-in.

Where are you? Can't find you. My apartment was hit by burglars. They pulled the safe out of the wall, must have used industrial equipment because they wrecked the place. They got money and jewelry. We need a full alert downtown, and somebody's got to keep an eye on the ranch.

We need some over-night temps at the office. I tried to call Nasmith security but can't get hooked up. We need people downtown tonight!! (I'll go down myself when we're finished here.) I had to call cops about the burglary because the apartment management discovered it. No way around it. Cops on way now. Maybe it was the money amp; jewelry, Marian wore it Friday amp; everybody saw it. There's no way to be sure, we have to assume otherwise. We better get low for another week or two. I'll call the paks this afternoon and put them off. wipe this when you get it amp; call me.

He also pulled a file. We couldn't see what it was, because the program only recorded keystrokes, but we got the name, OMS2. All he did was read, and then the connection shut down, and he was off-line.

"Let's go," I said. "He's off, and he's going to be occupied for a while."

We went out to a Red Roof Innchecked in with the fake ID I got in San Francisco, but paid cashand got online. The dump box was still off-line, which meant that Corbeil's computer was shut down. I went out to the AmMath number, punched in his password, and we were in.

The OMS2 file was short and sweet: a few corporate memos, and a list of names and phone numbers. I then checked for an OMS3, got nothing, went to OMS1, got nothing, and then simply OMS, and again, got nothingwhich was odd, because the files we'd inherited from Jack were labeled OMS. They could have been in another sector of the computer, or a different computer entirely, someplace where I didn't have access.

I did find a find a large administrative file called CLPR, which turned out to be internal memos about the Clipper II program. I dumped it to our Jaz disk, which took a while. Too long, actually. When we had it, I closed down the connection.

We'd taken care not to touch any hard surfaces inside the room that we didn't have to, and when we were done, we wiped those we'd had to touch, told the motel clerk that something had come up at home and that we'd have to check outyou could see the Yeah, right, in his eyes as he looked at LuEllenand headed back to our hotel.

"We should have spent a little time fooling around," I said. "For verisimilitudeyou don't really have that nice pink postorgasmic look that you get afterwards."

"We could still go for it," she offered.

"Too late to impress the clerk," I said.

The OMS2 file was mostly interesting for the namesmilitary people from around the world, but mostly from the band of Islamic states that stretched from Syria to Indonesia. Only Egypt in Africa; and Turkey was missing.

"Why is that odd?" LuEllen asked, when I commented on it.

"Just the selection of names. If you're doing the Clipper, these people might all be customers, but the main customers would be the bigger statesEngland, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, China, India, like that. Instead, we have Syria, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Pakistan, Indonesia, Kazakhstanmissing Afghanistan, missing Saudi Arabia, missing Turkey."

"It's only one file. If it's OMS2, that implies other numbers, even if we couldn't get them. Maybe they're someplace else, or they erased them."

"Yeah, that's true."

The CLPR file included a couple of thousand memos on routine technical, personnel, and financial matters. We spent four hours reading through them-scanning them, reallywithout finding a single useful fact.

"You know what?" LuEllen said. "If I had to be an administrative guy, I'd cut my wrists. I can't imagine even writing this shit, much less worrying about it."

"Not a single goddamn thing," I said, discouraged.

"Maybe there is one thing," she said. "Not a fact. and I'm not sure, but let's look at the dates on these things."

We looked at the dates, and LuEllen pointed out that two years earlier, there were ten or twenty Clipper memos being filed every week. A year ago, there were ten at the most. For the past six or eight months, there were four or five being filed weekly.

"Like the project is running down," she said.

"Maybe it's running out of time, or money. Maybe they've been stealing from it, and that's what they're trying to cover," I suggested.

"So why would they kill for a picture of three guys in a parking lot? If they did?"

"We'd know, if we could figure out who the guys were," I said.

"How do we do that? Figure it out?"

"I don't think we do. We're not the fuckin' FBI. We're just some guys."

ST. JOHN CORBEIL

Corbeil was in a rage: the necklace was gone, and the palm of his hand itched for it. His space had been violated. He had been so angry about the necklace that he hadn't seen that it was a diversion. And they'd done it so beautifully.

They'd absolutely suckered him. Those greasy footprints all over the living room, with only one track leading past the computer. He could still see the footprints in his mind's eye, could still feel the way he'd relaxed when he realized that the computer hadn't been touched.