Net Force

31

Suddenly aware of how stiff and tired he felt, Jay Gridley looked at the clock.

Wow. He'd been up all night.

He had scanned enough material to fill a tanker, but now he had a better sense of the programmer they'd chased. Before, they hadn't had diddly, but now that they'd gotten a closer look, a picture was starting to resolve. The guy had the earmarks of somebody trained in the CIS, and Gridley was betting he was a Russian. Not a firm ID, but it sure narrowed things down considerably.

He tapped at the keyboard, using RW mode instead of VR. This was slogwork, basic number- and word-crunching, and he wanted the raw data where he could see it for what it was. He had the Net Force scanning mainframe winnowing possibilities and feeding him those that were within the parameters. Currently, the computer was going through all registered programmers living in Russia.

They were gonna get this lubefoot. It was just a matter of time…

The priority incoming e-mail chime sounded. Gridley shook his head. The tags were in place on the winnow; if something showed up, his station would scream at him. He shifted to the mail and opened it.

Hmm. The incoming was from one of the field teams. They had, they said, something on the Day assassination.

Well, okay, that was important, too. Not as important as the programmer, at least not in Gridley's mind — Day was dead and he'd be dead forever. Nobody could hurt him anymore, but the net was still taking hits. Then again, catching a killer was nothing to turn one's back on. And everybody knew that if they didn't come up with something soon, the boss's head was gonna roll. That was how things always worked around here.

Gridley downloaded the attached file and opened it. It didn't take long for him to see the meat of the message.

Well, well. Look at that…

Megan Michaels was on the front porch of their house, holding hands with a dark-haired, burly man. The two of them kissed. The man slid his hands down her back, cupped her buttocks. She moaned softly, then turned and saw Alex standing there. She smiled at him. "I'm his now," she said. "Not yours." She reached over, put her hand on the man's crotch—

Michaels came out of the nightmare, thick with jealousy and anger.

Dammit!

Scout was asleep, curled into a tight little ball near Alex's feet. There was a new dog bed on the floor next to the TV console, a top-of-the line hand-woven basket with a pillow full of cedar shavings, but the dog declined to use it unless Michaels made him. Somehow, ordering a dog who'd saved his life to sleep on the floor didn't seem right; besides, if Scout wanted to sleep on the bed, well, it was plenty big enough. It wasn't as if he was a mastiff.

When Michaels awoke, Scout raised his head and looked at him. He must have decided nothing was wrong, because he relaxed and recurled himself after a moment.

Walt Carver had a ten a.m. meeting with the President. If Net Force did not have anything new for him to bring to the table regarding Steve Day's assassination, Net Force would grow itself a new head — as soon as Alex Michaels's got lopped off…

Hell with it. He got up and shuffled toward the bathroom.

Scout stood, stretched himself like a cat, hopped off the bed and came to stand next to Michaels. The dog sat, then watched intently as the stream of urine splashed into the toilet bowl. What was Scout thinking? That this was a bit of territory the man was marking as his own?

"Yep, this is my toilet, all right," Michaels said. "Mine, mine, mine."

Scout yipped in acknowledgment.

Toni lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling. Naked next to her under the covers, Jesse "Rusty" Russell slumbered on, breathing heavy.

Oh, Lord. Why had she done this?

She glanced at the man next to her. Rusty was attractive, smart, sexy. She had certainly enjoyed the taste and feel of him, and it had been quite an athletic and satisfying romp. The bought-long-ago condoms she had dug from under the panties and bras in her dresser drawer were still a few months shy of their expiration date. She and Rusty were adults, they weren't married to anybody else, so — who got hurt?

This was all true, and yet, it still wasn't right. Why did she feel so guilty? What was she doing here with this… stranger in her bed? There was a sense of unreality about it, as if it were a dream, not really happening to her. A feeling that also bordered on the edge of nausea. She felt a kind of sick dread. As if she had done something terribly, terribly wrong.

It should be Alex lying there, sated, happy, in love with her. It should mean something. She liked Rusty okay, he was a nice enough man, but he wasn't somebody she was going to spend her life with, or even any big piece of her life. She knew that. He'd been a considerate and experienced lover. The sex had been fun — she'd be lying to herself if she pretended anything else — but sex by itself wasn't enough, no matter how good it might be. There needed to be more, a lot more. She liked Rusty, but she didn't love him.

She loved Alex.

Right. So how could she have done this? And how was she going to be able to look Alex in the eye now? She had been unfaithful to him.

Wait just a second, girl, the voice of rationalization began.

Shut up, she told it.

Next to her, Rusty stirred.

She should get up, shower, get dressed. She didn't want him to awaken and expect a repeat of last night. It had been enjoyable, but it had also a mistake — and she was not going to repeat it.

Ruzhyo sat cross-legged on the motel bed, staring at nothing. He was not bored — he did not get bored anymore, hadn't for years — but he was not very interested in much of anything. It did not greatly bother him, but he was aware of his lack of connection to the world.

Plekhanov would eventually call; today, tomorrow, the day after. Likely when he did call, the Russian who had adopted Chechnya as his own would, using the fugue of non-specific and indirect language, order Ruzhyo to go forth and kill again. It would be part of Plekhanov's grand plan to become a powerful man who could run countries as he chose. In the beginning, Plekhanov's reasons had been important to Ruzhyo. Now, that Plekhanov wished a thing to happen was sufficient in itself. Ruzhyo was the tool that did the deed; it was his only reason for staying alive.

Live. Die. It was all the same.

Jay was waiting when Michaels arrived at his office. He was smiling.

"You have good news?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Come in."

In the office, Jay said, "Take a look. If I may?" He waved at Michaels's workstation.

"Be my guest."

Jay lit the system, called up a file.

"This is the report from our field team in New York State," the younger man said. "And this—" — he tapped keys, and an image flowered on-screen—" — is the Not the Brothers Dog Kennel. Located on the beautiful eastern shores of Great Scandaga Lake, between the hamlets of North Broadalbin and Fish House."

Michaels stared at Jay.

"That's north and west of Amsterdam, which is north and west of Schenectady, which is north and west of Albany, which is—"

"I got it, Jay."

"Mm. Anyway, this is where the little champagne poodle was trained."

"Really?"

"Yep. One of a handful of places that do such things. They'll train your dog, sell you one already educated, or even rent you one. That's what happened with yours. He's a rental." Jay smiled.

"Of course, they never saw who they rented the dog to. This woman is really sharp, Boss. Cash and instructions came by courier. The note was a computer printout, and the FBI doc-jock says the font and paper probably originated at one of the big print-copy places — Kinko's, LazerZip, no way to backwalk it to which one.

"Our ops traced the dog's delivery to another courier, then a third delivery service, which wound up giving it to somebody waiting in the lobby of a new Holiday Inn in north Schenectady. The courier remembers that a man signed for the dog, paid more cash. Average-looking guy, courier wouldn't know him if he saw him again."

"This doesn't sound too promising to me."

"Ah, but wait. The Holiday Inn is one of the new computer-controlled modules. They've got hidden surveillance cams built in all over the place. Take a look at this."

Jay touched more controls.

"Here's the guy who picked up the dog."

There was a image of a man holding a small plastic travel kennel. He was obviously outside, in some kind of courtyard. A lot of greenery and flowers were in the background. The man was medium-height, medium-build, medium-haircut, wore a shirt and slacks and dark shoes. Albert Anybody.

"And here is the woman he gave it to."

Another image, a three-quarter-front view of a woman standing in front of the man with the kennel. She looked about forty, had graying brown hair worn long, was a little dumpy, sported sunglasses, a baggy, long-sleeved shirt, baggy pants and running shoes. Angela Anybody.

"The hotel security cams shoot three frames a second, so if we let it run, it looks pretty jerky, but we've got six or eight real good images of the woman.

"She doesn't look anything like the old lady," Michaels said. "And what's to say she's not wearing a disguise here?"

"Our guys in ID say she probably is disguised — the size of her neck and wrists, the thinness of her face and hands don't really go with the weight of her torso and hips. Probably she's padded."

"So how does this help us?"

"Well. Computer-enhanced imagery says she probably didn't alter the shape of her ears or her hands, and using objects in view that we know the measurements of — that planter there, or those decorative bricks — we can tell her shoe size, her height, we can come pretty close on her true weight if we extrapolate from wrists and neck diameter. The hair is probably a wig, so that's no help, but the images give us a good view of her wrists and hands, and the techs in the FBI Skin Lab tell us that she's not wearing makeup there, so she's probably a natural redhead, to judge from her skin tone."

"They can tell that?"

"It's still more art than science, but they say they are about eighty-five-percent sure."

"Hmm."

"There's a little more. Watch."

Jay played the recording. The woman took the travel kennel, turned and started away. An image from a different viewpoint appeared — must be another cam, Michaels reasoned. This was a higher angle, looking down at the woman coming head-on. As he watched, the woman carrying the kennel slipped on something.

"See how the floor is wet? They had just mopped the exitway there," Jay said. "Didn't put up the warning sign yet."

The next image showed the woman lurch to the left, put out her arm, stop herself with her free hand against the wall at shoulder height. She shoved off the wall and continued on her way.

"Nice recovery, hey?" Jay said. "Me, I'd probably have fallen on my butt, but she just hit that wall, pushed off like nothing, kept going, even carrying a dog. Didn't even slow her down." His grin was really big now.

Michaels made the connection. He looked at Jay. "Prints?"

"Yep. How many people do you suppose slipped on the wet floor and fell against the wall at just that spot in the last month or two?

"She left a palm print, a clean index, middle, and ring fingerprint and a smudged pinky."

Michaels nodded. This was a big deal. This might just save his ass.

"Oh, and did I mention? We got a few cells and a little useable DNA?"

"Dammit, Jay—"

Jay laughed. "Well, I didn't want to get your hopes up, Boss. It's hardly anything to play with, a few stutters — just enough to know it is a woman, what her blood type is, that's all."

"Jesus! Why didn't you say so to begin with?"

"That's not how you tell a story, Boss. You save the best for the end. Anyway, we don't have a match from the FBI, NCIC, UPolNet or AsiaPol files on prints or DNA profiles yet. It takes a while to run them all, but even if we don't get her that way, she's probably on record somewhere — DL, BioMed, BankSeal, somewhere. If she is, sooner or later she is going to pop up with red flags and sirens screaming. It's just a matter of time."

"This is outstanding work," Michaels said. "You did good, Jay."

"Nopraw."

"Excuse me?"

"Just an expression, Boss. It means ‘no problem.' You gotta keep current, you know. And did I mention — she paid for the lost dog? Sent the money by courier again. We couldn't backtrack it this time, but that was nice of her, wasn't it?"

Michaels was elated, but he tried not to let it overwhelm him. "What about the other thing, the programmer?"

"Getting close to him. He's a Russian, Ukrainian, something like that. I got Baby Huey — the SuperCray mainframe — winnowing possibilities, checking profiles."

"I thought you said he could mask his profile."

"Oh, yeah, he can, but only partially. I got enough of his style down, I'll know him when I see him. It's like a painter. Everybody knows a Picasso when they see one, and how it doesn't look like a Renoir. Style is what gives it away. He's too good to hide all his talent. Some of it will seep out of any bushel he buries it under."

"Truly outstanding work, Jay. Thank you."

"Well, Boss, it is my job. But, uh, if you remember this when you do performance reviews and raises next time, I wouldn't mind."

Both men laughed.

"I should get back to it," Jay said. "I've dumped this into your folder, and I'll check in when I get something new."

"Thanks again."

After Jay left, Michaels called up the material and scanned it again, ordering it in his mind. When he was comfortable with it, he reached for his com to put in a call to Walt Carver. The Director was not going unarmed to his meeting with the President this morning. It might even be enough so Michaels would get to keep his job for a little while longer. His sense of relief was a surprise. It was a lot stronger than he would have thought. Maybe he wasn't quite as ready to chuck it all as he'd rationalized.

"Director Carver's office."

"Hey, June, it's Alex Michaels. He in yet?"

"Since six, Commander. Hold on a moment, I'll put you through."

As he waited for Carver, Michaels looked up and saw Toni pass by his window. He nodded at her, but she didn't make eye contact as she headed for her office. Well. Probably she was tired — they'd all been working without a break for too long. He'd call her in and let her know what Jay had found, as soon as he was done telling the Director. She'd be happy to hear the news.

"Good morning, Alex. You have good news for me?"

"Yes, sir, I believe so. Very good news."