Whitcomb lifted his cup to Pulaski's as if toasting. He looked out at the clear day, the sky blue, the city rich green and brown. "Never liked these small windows. Middle of New York and no views."
"I was wondering. Why is that?"
"Andrew's worried about security. People taking pictures from outside."
"Really?"
"It's not entirely paranoid," Whitcomb said. "Lot of money involved in data mining. Huge."
"I suppose." Pulaski wondered what kind of secrets somebody could see through a window from four or five blocks away, the closest office building this high.
"You live in the city?" he asked Pulaski.
"Yep. We're in Queens."
"I'm out on the Island now but I grew up in Astoria. Off Ditmars Boulevard. Near the train station."
"Hey, I'm three blocks from there."
"Really? You go to St. Tim's?"
"St. Agnes. I've been to Tim's a few times but Jenny didn't like the sermons. They guilt you too much there."
Whitcomb laughed. "Father Albright."
"Ooooo, yeah, he's the one."
"My brother--he's a cop in Philly--he decided that all you had to do if you wanted a murderer to confess is to put him in a room with Father Albright. Five minutes and he'll confess to anything."
"Your brother's a cop?" Pulaski asked, laughing.
"Narcotics task force."
"Detective?"
"Yeah."
Pulaski said, "My brother's in Patrol, Sixth Precinct, down in the Village."
"That's too funny. Both our brothers . . . So you went in together?"
"Yeah, we've kind of done everything together. We're twins."
"Interesting. My brother's three years older. He's a lot bigger than I am. I might be able to pass the physical but I wouldn't want to have to tackle a mugger."
"We don't do much tackling. It's mostly reasoning with the bad guys. Probably what you do in the Compliance Department."
Whitcomb laughed. "Yeah, pretty much."
"I guess that--"
"Hey, look who it is! Sergeant Friday."
Pulaski's gut thudded as he looked up to see slick, handsome Sean Cassel and his sidekick, the too-hip technical director, Wayne Gillespie, who joined the act by saying, "Back to get more facts, ma'am? Just the facts." He gave a salute.
Since he'd been talking to Whitcomb about church, the moment took Pulaski right back to the Catholic high school where he and his brother had been continually at war with the boys from Forest Hills. Richer, better clothes, smarter. And fast with the cruel snipes. ("Hey, it's the mutant brothers!") A nightmare. Pulaski sometimes wondered if he'd gone into police work simply for the respect a uniform and gun would bring him.
Whitcomb's lips tightened.
"Hey, Mark," Gillespie said.
"How's it going, Sergeant?" Cassel asked the officer.
Pulaski had been glared at on the street, been sworn at, dodged spit and bricks, and sometimes hadn't dodged so well. None of those incidents had upset him as much as the sly words slung around like this. Smiling and playful. But playful the way a shark teases its meal before he devours it. Pulaski had looked up "Sergeant Friday" on Google on his BlackBerry and learned this was a character from an old TV show called Dragnet. Even though Friday was the hero, he was considered a "square," which apparently meant a straight arrow, somebody extremely uncool.
Pulaski's ears had burned as he read the information on the tiny screen, realizing only then that Cassel had been insulting him.
"Here you go." Cassel handed Pulaski a CD in a jewel box. "Hope it helps, Sarge."
"What's this?"
"The list of clients who've downloaded information about your victims. You wanted it, remember?"
"Oh. I was expecting Mr. Sterling."
"Well, Andrew's a busy man. He asked me to deliver it."
"Well, thanks."
Gillespie said, "You've got your work cut out for you. Over three hundred clients in the area. And none of them got less than two hundred mailing lists."
"That's what I was telling you," Cassel said. "You're gonna be burning the midnight oil. So do we get junior G-man badges?"
Sergeant Friday was often mocked by the people he interviewed. . . .
Pulaski was grinning, though he didn't want to.
"Come on, guys."
"Chill, Whitcomb," Cassel said. "We're joking around. Jesus. Don't be so uptight."
"What're you doing down here, Mark?" Gillespie asked. "Shouldn't you be looking for more laws we're breaking?"
Whitcomb rolled his eyes and gave a sour grin, though Pulaski saw he too was embarrassed--and hurt.
The officer said, "You mind if I look it over here? In case I have some questions?"
"You go right ahead." Cassel walked him to the computer in the corner and logged on. He put the CD in the tray, loaded it and stepped back, as Pulaski sat. The message on the screen asked what he wanted to do. Flustered, he found himself with a number of choices; he didn't recognize any of them.
Cassel stood over his shoulder. "Aren't you going to open it?"
"Sure. Just wondering what program's best?"
"You don't have many options," Cassel said, laughing, as if this were obvious. "Excel."
"X-L?" Pulaski asked. He knew his ears were red. Hated it. Just hated it.
"The spreadsheet," Whitcomb offered helpfully, though to Pulaski that was no help whatsoever.
"You don't know Excel?" Gillespie leaned forward and typed so fast his fingers were a blur.
The program loaded and a grid popped up, containing names, addresses, dates and times.
"You've read spreadsheets before, right?"
"Sure."
"But not Excel?" Gillespie's eyebrows were lifted in surprise.
"No. Some others." Pulaski hated himself for playing right into their hands. Just shut up and get to work.
"Some others? Really?" Cassel asked. "Interesting."
"It's all yours, Sergeant Friday. Good luck."
"Oh, that's E-X-C-E-L," Gillespie spelled. "Well, you can see it on the screen. You might want to check it out. It's easy to learn. I mean, a high school kid could do it."
"I'll look into that."
The two men left the room.
Whitcomb said, "Like I said earlier--nobody around here likes them very much. But the company couldn't function without them. They're geniuses."
"Which I'm sure they'll let you know."
"You've got that right. Okay, I'll let you get to work. You all right here?"
"I'll figure things out."
Whitcomb said, "If you get back here to the snake pit, come by and say hi."
"Will do."
"Or let's meet in Astoria. Get some coffee. You like Greek food?"
"Love it."
Pulaski flashed on an enjoyable time out. After his head injury the officer had let some friendships slide, uncertain if people would enjoy his company. He'd like hanging out with another guy, a beer, maybe catching an action flick, most of which Jenny didn't care for.
Well, he'd think about it later--after the investigation was over, of course.
When Whitcomb was gone, Pulaski looked around. No one was nearby. Still, he recalled Mameda glancing up uneasily behind and above Pulaski's shoulder. He thought of the special he and Jenny had recently seen about a Las Vegas casino--the "eyes in the sky" security cameras everywhere. He recalled too the security guard up the hall and the reporter whose life had been ruined because he'd spied on SSD.
Well, Ron Pulaski sure hoped there was no surveillance here. Because his mission today entailed something much more than just collecting the CD and interviewing suspects; Lincoln Rhyme had sent him here to break into what was probably the most secure computer facility in New York City.
Chapter Twenty-six Sipping strong, sweet coffee in the cafe across the street from the Gray Rock, thirty-nine-year-old Miguel Abrera was flipping through a brochure he'd received in the mail recently. It was yet another in a recent
series of unusual occurrences in his life. Most were merely odd or irritating; this one was troubling.
He looked through it yet again. Then closed it and sat back, glancing at his watch. He still had ten minutes before he had to return to the job.
Miguel was a maintenance specialist, as SSD called it, but he told everybody he was a janitor. Whatever the title, the tasks he performed were a janitor's tasks. He did a good job and he liked the work. Why should he be ashamed of what he was called?
He could have taken his break in the building but the free coffee that SSD provided was lousy and they didn't even give you real milk or cream. Besides, he wasn't one for chitchat and preferred enjoying a newspaper and coffee in solitude. (He missed smoking, though. He'd bargained away cigarettes in the emergency room and even though God hadn't kept his side of the deal, Miguel had given up the habit anyway.) He glanced up to see a fellow employee enter the cafe, Tony Petron, a senior janitor who worked executive row. The men exchanged nods and Miguel was worried that the man would join him. But Petron went to sit in the corner by himself to read e-mail or messages on his cell phone and once again Miguel looked over the flyer, which was addressed to him personally. Then, as he sipped the sweet coffee, he considered the other unusual things that had happened recently.
Like his time sheets. At SSD you simply walked through the turnstile and your ID card told the computer when you entered and when you left. But a couple of times in the past few months his sheets had been off. He always worked a forty-hour week and was always paid for forty hours. But occasionally he'd happened to look at his records and saw that they were wrong. They said he came in earlier than he had, then left earlier. Or he missed a weekday and worked a Saturday. But he never had. He'd talked to his supervisor about it. The man had shrugged. "Software bug maybe. As long as they don't short you, no problemo."
And then there was the issue of his checking-account statement. A month ago, he'd found to his shock that his balance was ten thousand dollars higher than it should be. By the time he'd gone to the branch to have them correct it, though, the balance was accurate. And that had happened three times now. One of the mistaken deposits was for $70,000.
And that wasn't all. Recently he'd had a call from a company about his mortgage application. Only he hadn't applied for a mortgage. He rented his house. He and his wife had hoped to buy something but after she and their young son died in the auto accident he hadn't had the heart to consider a house.
Concerned, he checked his credit report. But no mortgage application was listed. Nothing out of the ordinary, though he noted that his credit rating had been raised--significantly. That too was odd. Though, of course, he didn't complain about this particular fluke.
But none of those things troubled him as much as this flyer.
Dear Mr. Abrera:
As you are quite aware, at various times in our lives we go through traumatic experiences and suffer difficult losses. It's understandable that at moments like this, people have trouble moving on in life. Sometimes they even have thoughts that the burden is too great and they consider taking impulsive and unfortunate measures.
We, at Survivor Counseling Services, recognize the difficult challenges facing persons like you, who've suffered a serious loss. Our trained staff can help you get through the difficult times with a combination of medical intervention and one-on-one and group counseling to bring you contentment and remind you that life is indeed worth living.
Now, Miguel Abrera had never considered suicide, even at his worst, just after the accident eighteen months ago; taking his own life was inconceivable.
That he received the flyer in the first place was worrying. But two aspects of the situation really unnerved him. The first was that the brochure had been sent to him directly--not forwarded--at his new address. No one involved in his counseling or at the hospital where his wife and child died knew that he'd moved a month ago.
The second was the final paragraph:
Now that you've taken that vital first step of reaching out to us, Miguel, we'd like to set up a no-cost evaluation session at your convenience. Don't delay. We can help!
He had never taken any steps to contact the service.
How had they gotten his name?
Well, it was probably just an odd set of coincidences. He'd have to worry about it later. Time to get back to SSD. Andrew Sterling was the kindest and most considerate boss anybody could ask for. But Miguel had no doubt that the rumors were true: He reviewed every employee's time sheets personally.
*
Alone in the conference room at SSD, Ron Pulaski looked at the cell phone window, as he wandered frantically--walking in a grid pattern, he realized, not unlike searching a crime scene. But he had no reception, just like Jeremy had said. He'd have to use the landline. Was it monitored?
Suddenly he realized that although he'd agreed to help Lincoln Rhyme do this, he was at serious risk of losing the most important thing in his life after his family: his job as an NYPD cop. He was thinking now how powerful Andrew Sterling was. If he'd managed to ruin the life of a reporter with a major newspaper a young cop wouldn't stand a chance against the CEO. If they caught him he'd be arrested. His career would be over. What would he tell his brother, what would he tell his parents?
He was furious with Lincoln Rhyme. Why the hell hadn't he protested the plan to steal the data? He didn't have to do this. Oh, sure, Detective . . . anything you say.
It was totally crazy.
But then he pictured the body of Myra Weinburg, eyes gazing upward, hair teasing her forehead, looking like Jenny. And he found himself leaning forward, crooking the phone under his chin and hitting 9 for the outside line.
"Rhyme here."
"Detective. It's me."
"Pulaski," Rhyme barked, "where the hell have you been? And where are you calling from? It's a blocked number."
"First time I've been alone," he snapped. "And my cell doesn't work here."
"Well, let's get moving."
"I'm on a computer."
"Okay, I'll patch in Rodney Szarnek."
The object of the theft was what Lincoln Rhyme had heard their computer guru comment on: the empty space on a computer hard drive. Sterling had claimed the computers didn't keep track of employees' downloading dossiers. But when Szarnek had explained about information floating around in the ether of SSD's computers, Rhyme had asked if that might include information about who had downloaded files.
Szarnek thought it was a real possibility. He said that getting into innerCircle would be impossible--he'd tried that--but there would be a much smaller server that handled administrative operations, like time sheets and downloads. If Pulaski could get into the system, Szarnek might be able to have him extract data from the empty space. The techie could then reassemble it and see if any employees had downloaded the dossiers of the victims and the fall guys.
"Okay," Szarnek now said, coming on the phone. "You're in the system?"
"I'm reading a CD they gave me."
"Heh. That means they've only given you passive access. We'll have to do better." The tech gave him some commands to type, incomprehensible.
"It's telling me I don't have permission to do this."
"I'll try to get you root." Szarnek gave the young cop a series of even more confusing commands. Pulaski flubbed them several times and his face grew hot. He was furious with himself for transposing letters or typing a backward slash instead of a forward.
Head injury . . .
"Can't I just use the mouse, look for what I'm supposed to find?"
Szarnek explained that the operating system was Unix, not the friendlier ones made by Windows or Apple. It required lengthy typed commands, which had to be keyboarded exactly.
"Oh."
But finally the machine responded by giving him access. Pulaski felt a huge burst of pride.
"Plug the drive in now," Szarnek said.
From his pocket the young officer took a portable 80-gigabyte hard drive and slipped the
plug into the USB port on the computer. Following Szarnek's instructions, he loaded a program that would turn the empty space on the server into separate files, compress them and store them on the portable drive.
Depending on the size of the unused space, this could take minutes or hours.
A small window popped up and the program told Pulaski only that it was "working."
Pulaski sat back, scrolling through the customer information from the CD, which was still on the screen. In fact, the information on customers was mostly gibberish to him. The name of the SSD client was obvious, along with the address and phone number and names of those authorized to access the system, but much of the information was in .rar or .zip files, apparently compressed mailing lists. He scrolled to the end--page 1,120.
Brother . . . it would take a long, long time to pick through them and find if any customers had compiled information on the victims and--
Pulaski's thoughts were interrupted by voices in the hall, coming closer to the conference room.
Oh, no, not now. He carefully picked up the small, humming hard drive and slipped it into his slacks pocket. It gave a clicking sound. Faint, but Pulaski was sure it could be heard across the room. The USB cable was clearly visible.
The voices were closer now.
One was Sean Cassel's.
Closer yet . . . Please. Go away!
On the screen in a small square window: Working . . .
Hell, Pulaski thought to himself and scooted the chair forward. The plug and the window would be clearly visible to anybody who stepped only a few feet into the room.
Suddenly a head appeared in the doorway. "Hey, Sergeant Friday," Cassel said. "How's it going?"
The officer cringed. The man would see the drive. He had to. "Good, thanks." He moved his leg in front of the USB port to obscure the wire and plug. The gesture felt way obvious.
"How d'you like that Excel?"
"Good. I like it a lot."
"Excellento. It's the best. And you can export the files. You do much PowerPoint?"
"Not too much of that, no."
"Well, you might some day, Sarge--when you're police chief. And Excel is great for your home finances. Keep on top of all those investments of yours. Oh, and it comes with some games. You'd like 'em."
Pulaski smiled, while his heart pounded as loudly as the hard drive whirred.
With a wink, Cassel disappeared.
If Excel comes with games, I'll eat the disk, you arrogant son of a bitch.