Rick Mofina - Full Tilt

A pipe burst in my bldg. I’m flooded. Can’t make it. Sorry.

Darn, Hugh. How will I know him?

He’ll know you.

What’s his name? Appearance?

I’ve never seen him before.

What!?!

He goes by Viper.

Seriously?

Yes. Sorry, Kate. I have to go. Good luck.

Great. Shaking her head, she set her phone on the table.

Her drink came with a bowl of peanuts. She munched on a few as she took inventory in a bid to spot her source. The place was packed with Manhattan white-collar types. She noticed a man nearby warming a stool at the bar. Tie loosened, he was stealing glimpses of her while pretending to watch the TV overhead.

What? Now he was grinning and offering Kate little waves.

He couldn’t be Viper. No chance.

She turned away, sipped her drink and checked the time on her phone.

Viper was half an hour late.

This was starting to feel like a washout.

Well, she still hadn’t exhausted the Denver angle. She had more work to do following up on the information Will Goodsill had sent her. Maybe there was a link to Nelson and who he really was. She consoled herself with the belief that the Colorado case still held promise, before she glanced at one of the TVs showing a news report on Rampart.

A sudden wave of sadness rolled over her. For the first time she realized that she’d have to think about planning a funeral for Vanessa.

Kate shut her eyes tight for a second.

How much more of this I can take?

“Kate Page?”

A man in his twenties-early twenties-materialized at her table.

“Yes.”

“I’m a friend of Hugh Davidson’s. We were to meet.”

The stranger was about six feet tall with a medium build. He had dark, slicked-back hair cut short, a stubbled goatee and stud in his left lobe. He was wearing a polo shirt under his leather jacket.

“I suppose I should ask you your code name.”

He started to grin, nodding to himself.

“Viper. But you can call me Erich.”

“All right, have a seat, Erich.”

As he removed his jacket, Kate noticed small tattoos on his toned arms.

“May I get you something?” A waitress set down a coaster.

“Tomato juice with ice.”

After the server left Kate asked why he’d ordered the juice.

“Are you under twenty-one, Erich?”

“I’m twenty-two.” His eyes went to Kate’s phone. “May I?”

She pushed it his way and he inspected it without touching it.

“What was that all about?” Kate asked.

“Nothing.” He shrugged. “I have an interest in the types of phones people use.”

“You’re twenty-two, and Hugh says you did some work for the CIA and NSA. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of work?”

“Network security.”

“What exactly did you do?”

“I can’t discuss that.”

“Figures. Oh, Hugh couldn’t make it because-”

“I know why.”

“Who are you working for now?”

“I’m freelancing here and there. I do okay.”

After Erich’s juice arrived, Kate waited until the server had left.

“Okay, then,” she said. “Hugh told you why I need help.”

“You’re trying to find Carl Nelson, the guy the FBI’s looking for.”

“Yes. Are you willing to help me, to help me confidentially?”

Erich nodded.

“Hugh told you that neither I, nor Newslead, can pay you?”

“Not a problem,” he said.

Kate sipped her drink, heartened to have help.

“All right, so what can you do, how does this work, because I can’t tell you how badly I want to find this guy.”

“It’s about your sister.”

“That. Yes. And all the other victims.”

Erich looked off at nothing. “I’ll give you an overview, how’s that?”

“Yes.”

“For starters, I’ll tell you what’s going on. The FBI will have secured IP addresses of every computer Nelson’s had access to.”

“Home and work?”

“Right, cell phones, laptops. They’ll look at his online history, with every site he’s visited, every email he’s sent, every online transaction. They’ll get warrants or subpoena the networks he’s been on.

“Sounds exhaustive.”

“It’ll likely be useless and the FBI knows this, given Nelson’s line of work and his mind-set.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been following the case. He’s supposedly a network security expert. He’ll know some tricks of the trade, and he’s already attempted to cover his tracks. So he’s likely taken steps not to leave any digital trail.”

“Oh.”

“Additionally, if he never touches a computer and goes off the grid, he’s gone. Then it becomes the proverbial needle-in-a-haystack search, leaving police to rely on traditional evidence like fingerprints, license plates, DNA and eyewitness sighting, or anticipating and leveraging who he might physically contact.”

“Right.” Kate’s heart sank.

“However, I don’t think that’s the case with Carl Nelson.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, he’s stolen access to private financial data for some forty million people, which is child’s play, by the way.”

“For you, maybe.”

“My guess is Carl’s going to use that data while he’s on the run.”

“What if he doesn’t? What if he stays off the grid and uses cash?”

“It’s possible, but today there are places that won’t take cash, increasing the chances that he’d use one of his stolen digital identities.”

“If that’s true, then how would you know who, what or when?”

“There are some protocols I could run.”

“I see. Okay.”

“Look, I have to go,” Erich said. “I’ll work on this, I’ll keep in touch.”

“Wait, I’ll give you my cell phone and email-”

“I don’t need any of that.” He smiled.

“Or course,” she said. “Before you go, tell me something. Why agree to help? Is this sport for you?”

“Sport?”

He looked into his glass of tomato juice.

“No, a few years ago a friend of mind, who was quite troubled and naive, had been lured over time by an online predator who eventually raped her. She committed suicide. I was a pallbearer.”

“Oh, God.”

“Police couldn’t find the man responsible, so I looked for him with a vengeance. In my zeal, I attacked a few places, intruded-guess you’d call it hacking. But I found him.”

Erich nodded and finished his juice. Kate suddenly noticed that he’d been drinking it with the napkin wrapped around the glass so he wouldn’t leave any fingerprints. He pulled on his jacket to leave.

“You got this?”

“Yes. Wait. Erich, what happened? You found the creep, what happened to him?”

“He’s dead.”

New York City

The morning after her meeting with Erich, Kate got to the newsroom around nine-thirty.

Something about this “Viper” character disturbed her.

Implying that he’d been involved in someone’s death as an act of vengeance had left her feeling uneasy. So did the way he held his glass, as if being careful not to leave fingerprints. It prompted her to head straight for the business section.

She found Hugh at his desk, wearing a pale blue shirt and bow tie. He was putting his jacket on a hanger when he saw her.

“Kate, I’m sorry I stood you up last night. My apartment’s a disaster. So how’d it go with Viper? Did he show up?”

“Yes. What’s the story with him tracking down an online predator who assaulted his friend and then died?”

“Oh, that.”

“Yes, that. Did Viper have something to do with his death?”

“Yes. Let me buy you a coffee and explain.”

Downstairs in the building’s food court Kate recounted her meeting. Then Hugh told her how he’d first found Viper through industry sources when he wrote a series on corporate cyber security.