Anderson started crying again. She hit the dashboard—angry with herself for being so emotional. “Damnit, Melanie. Why didn’t I see this coming? Who the hell did the network get to replace me?”
“Don’t beat yourself up. We’ll see if we can get you something on the E! Channel or—“
“No! Stop. I’ve been trying for six years to get on a serious news desk. I can’t afford to do any more fluff pieces. I’m a journalist, not a damned fashion model.”
There was silence on the other end.
“Hello?”
“I’m still here. Anji, you don’t have the right pedigree for it. You haven’t been a journalist, honey. Not really. And you weren’t talking serious journalism when we got you onto the San Francisco affiliate.”
“I’m realizing—“
“You’re realizing you’re past thirty and fluff reporting is for twenty-four-year-old news models.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s a problem.”
“No, it’s a challenge.”
“Anji, what you’re talking about is starting back at square one and reinventing yourself. No, actually you’re starting at square negative one because you’re already known as a fashion and lifestyles reporter—meaning you have all the journalistic heft of a British tabloid. It’s going to be a stretch, and at my age, I don’t stretch.”
Anderson searched for words. This was unraveling fast.
“Honey, you’re too old to intern as a serious journalist. Unless you’re a proven hard news reporter at thirty, you’re not going to be a hard news reporter.”
Anderson bit her lip gently. Performed in front of the right man, that used to solve a lot of problems. She realized that Christiane Amanpour probably didn’t bite her lip.
“Unfortunately, major networks are consolidating news production in Atlanta, and laying off in most markets. I could try to get you a spot on a cosmetics infomercial casting in L.A.”
Tears flowed down Anderson’s cheeks.
Chapter 7:// Daemon
Yahoo.com/news
[email protected] Game Company—Thousand Oaks, California: A booby trap sprung via the Internet claimed the life of a CyberStorm Entertainment employee Thursday. An off-site death earlier in the day is also under investigation as a related homicide. Programmer Chopra Singh—project lead on the bestselling MMORPG game The Gate was electrocuted in company offices. Lead detective Peter Sebeck of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Major Crimes Unit confirmed the killings were carried out via the Internet.
Sebeck was already staring at the ceiling when his alarm clock sounded. He switched it off by touch and kept staring at the ceiling. He’d gotten in late last night. Even so, he hadn’t slept. He kept turning the case over in his mind. That’s what he’d taken to calling it: The Case.
The FBI had taken over. They were forming a temporary task force with local law enforcement, but the Feds were in charge. Agents were photocopying files and interrogating suspects when Sebeck left at two A.M. Decker was some sort of workaholic.
Sebeck explored his sense of loss. The Case no longer belonged to him. Why did it bother him so much? He was afraid he knew the answer: he felt truly alive only when something horrible was happening. That was the dirty secret behind every promotion he had ever received.
He’d miscast himself in the role of authority figure. A decision made one afternoon fifteen years ago. He had had to grow up fast, back then—after the baby—but he sometimes wondered if he wasn’t just pretending. If he wasn’t simply acting the way he thought he should act. The way others around him did. He didn’t even know who he’d be without this role. Pete Sebeck was just an idea—a collection of responsibilities with a mailing address.
He tried to recall the last time he actually felt something. The last time he felt alive. That inevitably led to thoughts of her. Memories of the trip to Grand Cayman. He tried to remember the smell of her hair. He wondered where she was right now, and if he’d ever see her again. She didn’t need a damned thing from him. Maybe that’s what he loved most about her.
Sebeck’s cell phone sounded from the nightstand, scattering his thoughts. He glanced over at his wife’s side of the bed. She roused slightly. He grabbed the handset and sat up. “Sebeck.”
“Detective Sebeck?”
“Yeah. Who’s—”
“This is Special Agent Boerner, FBI. I just sent an e-mail to your home address. The agent in charge wants a response before you’re in this morning.” Someone yelled in the background. Boerner clicked off without saying goodbye.
“Hello?” Sebeck stared in irritation at the handset. Rude asshole. He glanced at the clock: 6:32 A.M.
His wife sat up on the other side of the bed and stretched in one of her full-length nightgowns.
“Laura, I have to jump in the shower first. I’ve got a full day ahead.”
“Fine, Pete.”
“I won’t be long. Go back to sleep.”
Sebeck ran through his ablutions in fifteen minutes, dressed, and tied his tie on the way downstairs. He ducked into the kitchen.
His son, Chris, sat reading the morning paper. The kid was getting big—muscular big. Sixteen. Almost the age Sebeck was when he and Laura conceived the boy. Had it really been sixteen years? “Why don’t you get a shovel, Chris?”
Chris had a bulging mouthful of cereal. The boy grabbed at his dad’s suit jacket as he walked past. Chris flipped the paper over to reveal the front page. There was a color picture of Sebeck over the headline: “Internet Killings Spark Federal Investigation.” Mantz was also in the picture to his left. Sebeck stopped short and picked up the page, reading slowly as he sank down into a seat at the table.
Chris chewed his way back to speech. “L.A. Times. That’s big.”
Sebeck just kept reading.
Laura walked into the kitchen.
Sebeck glanced up. “Did you see this?”
She looked down at the page. “Not a great picture of Nathan.” She went over to the stove to make tea.
Sebeck handed the paper back to Chris but kept looking at Laura. “I won’t be able to pick up Chris from practice today. I’ve got the FBI here, the national media, and God knows what else.”
“We’ll manage.”
Chris lowered the paper. “The Feds are interrogating the insurance guys. You think they did it?”
“I’m not the one questioning them, Chris.” Sebeck stood. “From here on out, I’ll be lucky to be in the loop at all.” He glanced at his watch. “I gotta go.”
Sebeck headed down the hall to the den. Once there, he dropped into the desk chair and hit the power switch on the computer. While the computer booted, he moved a gaming joystick off to the side and tossed two soda cans into the trash. He called to the kitchen, “Chris, I won’t keep asking you to clean up in here when you’re done!” No answer.
The computer desktop came up. Sebeck launched his e-mail program, then clicked the GET MAIL button. He waited as 132 messages downloaded. Goddamned spam. When it finished, the message subject lines ranged from “Barely Legal Teens” to ”Nigerian Exile Needs Help” to ”Lolitas Take Horse Cock.”
He searched his inbox for the FBI message. It was near the top and had the subject line “Case #93233—CyberStorm/Pavlos” from
[email protected] Sebeck double-clicked on it.
Strangely, as the e-mail opened, the screen went black. Then the words ”Testing Audio” faded in. The hard drive strained. Sebeck stared in confusion. What did he do? In a moment, the words faded out and were replaced by a grainy video image of a man. It was hard to tell his age or precise appearance due to the poor video quality. It was amateurish—poorly lit and off-center.
The man looked thin and pale—a condition emphasized by his standing against a featureless white background. He was completely bald and wore what looked to be a medical gown.
What the hell was this, some sort of FBI lab report?
It took Sebeck a moment to realize that the video was already playing. The man swayed unsteadily??
?his pixels adjusting like colored tiles. Then he looked directly into the camera and nodded as if in greeting.
“Detective Sebeck. I was Matthew Sobol. Chief technology officer of CyberStorm Entertainment. I am dead.”
Sebeck leaned forward—his eyes fixed on the monitor.
“I see you’ve been assigned to the Josef Pavlos and Chopra Singh murder cases. Let me save you some time; I killed both men. Soon you’ll know why. But you have a problem: Because I’m dead, you can’t arrest me. More importantly: You can’t stop me.”
Sebeck stared in stunned silence.
Sobol continued. “Since you have no choice but to try and stop me, I want to take this moment to wish you luck, Sergeant—because you’re going to need it.”
The image disappeared, revealing the e-mail inbox again.
Sebeck didn’t move for several moments. When he finally did, it was to forward the message to his sheriff’s e-mail address.
Chapter 8:// Escalation
“Mr. Ross, help us understand this: You have no permanent address, and yet you’ve got nearly three hundred thousand dollars in liquid assets. Am I to believe you live with your parents?”
Jon Ross rubbed his tired eyes and tried to concentrate on the question—the same question they’d asked twenty different ways. The one they kept coming back to.
The taller FBI agent leaned in close. “Mr. Ross?”
“I’m a contract nomad. Ancient people followed caribou. I follow software contracts.”
The shorter agent stood next to a mirrored window and flipped through his notes. “You’ve been at Alcyone Insurance for what, two months now? Is that a long time for you?”
“Not particularly. Three or four is typical.”
“Your clients give us various physical addresses for your business. Kind of strange for a one-man corporation, isn’t it?”
Ross ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “You contacted my clients? Are you trying to destroy my business?”
“Why are you concealing information from your clients?”
“I maintain contact addresses legally through resident agents in several states. This is legal commerce. Why are you guys doing this to me? I was trying to help Hadi.”
“That doesn’t explain why you have a phony personal address.”
Ross sighed. “I had the fake address because society requires everyone to have a permanent home address.”
“Then why don’t you have one?”
“Because I don’t need one.”
Both agents were pacing again. The shorter one was the first to speak. “Single. No property. Do you pay all your taxes, Mr. Ross?”
“I’m a Delaware service corporation. I pay myself a reasonable salary, max out my 401(k), and take the remainder as corporate profits—minus travel and business expenses. And the corporation leases my car.” He hesitated. “Look, I didn’t do anything wrong. I was trying to help my client.”
The phone in the center of the table rang. The shorter agent grabbed it without saying a word. He listened. After a few moments he nodded slightly and looked at Ross with some surprise. “Understood.” A pause. “Yes.”
He hung up. “It looks like you’re off the hook, Mr. Ross.”
Neal Decker and three other FBI agents sat in the darkened training room of the Ventura County Sheriff’s headquarters intently watching a screen projection of Sobol’s MPEG video. Sebeck, Mantz, Burkow, and Ventura County’s assistant chief, Stan Eichhorn, watched alongside them. Aaron Larson ran the video off a laptop hooked to the department’s digital projector.
Sobol’s grainy image glowed on-screen. “…I want to take this moment to wish you luck, Sergeant—because you’re going to need it.”
The image froze, and Sobol’s audience whistled and broke out into raucous discussion. Larson brought up the lights, revealing Agent Decker staring intently at the blank screen. He finally came around and stepped to the front of the room.
“Gentlemen, this changes things.” Decker looked to Agent Straub. “When does the computer forensics team get in, Tom?”
“They’re already en route from Oxnard Airport.”
“Get them over to CyberStorm as soon as they arrive. Where are the Alcyone Insurance computers?”
“Put on a plane to D.C. last night.”
“Good. Hopefully they’ll get something off the drives. In the meantime, have the forensics team comb through the CyberStorm network. I want it sniffed for booby traps, and then we need to shift our focus to Matthew Sobol.” He pointed to the projector. “Get forensics a copy of this video file.”
Larson perked up. “I burned copies onto CD. I can make more if you need them.”
Decker held up his hands. “That brings up an important point. I want absolute secrecy concerning this case.” He looked to the local police. “That means no talking to friends and relatives, and absolutely no talking to the media. We need to control what information gets out there.”
Sebeck pointed at the screen. “Has anyone heard of this Sobol guy?”
Decker didn’t say anything. He just fished through folders on a nearby tabletop and then slid a folder over to Sebeck. It was labeled MATTHEW ANDREW SOBOL.
“What, you already knew about him?”
“Died Thursday. We thought he might be another victim, but he died of brain cancer. He’s been ill for years. He was a company founder. Had access to everything. It all fits. Except for the motive.”
Straub picked up from there. They were like an old married couple. “His assistant said Sobol suffered from dementia. He was paranoid and secretive. It got worse as his illness progressed. He finally had to stop working last year.”
Sebeck flipped through the folder. It was filled with medical files and psychology reports. “Did he have the know-how to build that booby trap over at CyberStorm?”
Decker and Straub exchanged knowing glances. Decker took the folder back. “Sobol scored 220 on an IQ test in 1993. The NSA tried to recruit him out of Stanford for his dissertation on polymorphic data encryption. Instead he started a game company and made millions by his early twenties. He was plenty capable.”
Sebeck knew he could either accept it or say something. He pondered it for several more moments before he decided to make an ass of himself by speaking up. “What about the phone call from that fictitious FBI agent? There’s someone else involved in this.”
“We’ve got good technical people, Sergeant. Let’s see what they find. But I’ll need wiretaps on your cell, office, and home phones.” He turned to Straub. “Let’s also get Sebeck’s ISP to forward all incoming e-mail to the forensics unit. Sergeant, can I expect your cooperation?”
Sebeck nodded. “Yeah. Let me tell my wife and kid, but yes, of course.”
Straub wrote on a small notepad. “I’ll need your signature on some paperwork.”
Sebeck drummed his fingers on the table impatiently. “Look, I don’t doubt that this Sobol guy was brilliant, but I’m not convinced that that grainy video is Matthew Sobol. If he was such a genius, he sure as hell could take a clearer video than that. I can’t even make out his face all that well.”
A murmur of agreement swept through the room.
Decker was unperturbed. “We’ll have it analyzed by experts.”
Sebeck still pushed. “I think a CyberStorm employee is committing these murders and trying to pin it on this dead guy. The killer obviously has access to CyberStorm’s network, and from what I’ve seen at CyberStorm, they’ve got a lot of clever people. I think this is a setup.”
“You and I are not technical experts, Sergeant. Let’s see what the forensics team finds.” Decker looked at the assembled officers. “Okay, listen up. We’ve got to get our hands on more facts. Chief Eichhorn, I’m going to need your cooperation and some of your resources.”
Eichhorn nodded. “Anything you need.”
“Matthew Sobol had an eighty-acre estate near here. We should have the search warrant in an hour or so. I’m going to need traffic and
perimeter control.”
Larson was still absorbing the first sentence. “Eighty acres?”
Decker nodded. “Yes. Our Mr. Sobol had considerable assets. A net worth of around three hundred million.”
Whistles all around.
“Detective Sebeck might be right; this case might involve others, but we’ll need to follow up on the Sobol lead. Vasquez, I need to know about any disagreements or professional rivalries Sobol might have had with the two victims. I want more detailed interviews with the victims’ families. I also need to know anyone else who might have had a run-in with Sobol. Let’s get someone at NCAMD to do a work-up on him. Straub, I want you over at CyberStorm with the forensics team. Keep me apprised of any new information.”
Decker grabbed a written report from a nearby table and turned to Sebeck. “Sergeant, there’s critical information missing from your report on the first murder scene. Specifically the cable winch. We need the manufacturer, model, serial numbers—”
Sebeck stopped him. “I pulled the evidence unit onto the CyberStorm scene after the second murder. We were going to follow up.”
“Now’s your chance.” Decker tossed the report and a plastic bag containing a gate key and remote. “I want to know when the winch was purchased and who installed it. Maybe the installer can tell us what other work they’ve done. Also find out if a permit was pulled with the city. I want the revised report on my desk ASAP.”
Mantz looked to Sebeck. “I’ll head over to the city permit office, Pete.”
Sebeck felt the heat of this professional slight coursing through his veins. He took a breath and tried to keep a clear head. He wasn’t used to being closely managed. “All right. I want to revisit the first scene, anyway.”
The training room phone rang and Vasquez grabbed it. He listened and then called to Decker. “Neal. NSA.”
Decker addressed the room. “Gentlemen, we’re going to need non-FBI out of this room. Chief Eichhorn, plan for an early afternoon search of Sobol’s estate.”