Private Lives

18

Leif Anderson shot a suspicious glance right and left along the block as he stepped out of the expensive apartment building he called home. Like most New Yorkers, he’d normally have thought nothing about darting across the street in the middle of the block if it saved him a couple of steps on the way to the deli where he could satisfy his craving for mint-chocolate ice cream.

That was before Megan’s warning call, however. Now, whenever he left the house, Leif found himself slightly on edge about being attacked by a hit-and-run driver.

One day, he thought, I’m going to end up choking that girl. If I live that long.

His attention was so concentrated on the traffic, he almost missed the figure darting toward him from the darkened service entrance of a nearby building. Leif just caught a suggestion of motion at the corner of his vision.

His Net Force self-defense training kicked in, however. And, given the strained condition of his nerves, it wasn’t exactly surprising that he went with the old saying “The best defense is a strong offense.”

Leif swung around, throwing a punch—

And realized his “attacker” was Bodie Fuhrman.

She flinched away so violently, she almost fell to the sidewalk, even though he pulled back on his blow.

“What are you doing?” Bodie squeaked.

“I should be asking you that,” Leif responded, staring at the girl. Quite frankly, Bodie looked like hell. Her usually wild red curls were matted down on one side, her clothes were dirty…. She looked as though she hadn’t seen a mirror — or a bed — in a couple of days.

Suddenly self-conscious, Bodie brushed at her grungy clothing. “I haven’t been back to the dorm,” she said tightly. “A friend of mine up in Westchester had me over for the weekend. Then I heard what happened to Professor Wellman, and when I checked out my answering system, there were these scary messages….”

Leif rolled his eyes. “Megan O’Malley!” He really was going to shoot her one of these days!

“The kid from Washington? Frack that!” Bodie said. “It was all the hang-up calls. Somebody was trying to figure out whether I was in the dorm or not!”

Her green eyes shone with terror. “They must have found out that I was helping with the article for The Fifth Estate. Now they’re trying to shut me up — just like the professor and Tori. You’ve got to help me!”

“Me?” Leif repeated in surprise.

“Yes, you, Mr. Pickup Artist.” Bodie looked torn between anger and fear, but fear won out. “That girl, Meg. She—”

“Megan,” Leif corrected.

“Whoever,” Bodie said irritably. “She let it out that you were both Net Force Explorers, trying to help that Winters guy. I got hold of Alexis De Courcy, and he told me you weren’t actually Leif Magnuson, but Leif Anderson.”

Oh, yes, she was definitely steamed over Leif’s little bit of undercover work. But apparently she was willing to overlook that right now.

“Hey, I’ve been living in the streets for a day now, trying to find you! You have an in with Net Force. You’ve got to help me!”

Bodie glanced around the almost empty street. “I figured they’d have given you a bodyguard or something.”

“That’s because I’m not as important as you’ll probably be.”

Sighing, Leif took Bodie’s arm and escorted her into his building. My parents are just going to love this, he thought. Maybe we can get Anna Westering on the case….

Jay Gridley opened the door to his home and welcomed Matt Hunter. “I’ve just been hearing from Captain Winters what you and the other Net Force Explorers had been doing for him,” the head of Net Force told him. “I don’t know that I like all the methods, but I am impressed with your initiative and your results. You certainly managed to run a couple of circles around my I.A. people.”

“Internal Affairs has the job of finding people guilty,” Matt said. “We had an incentive to do just the opposite.”

He followed his host into the house, through the living room, and down the hall to the room that served the combined purposes of home office and Jay Gridley’s den. As they came down the hall, Mark Gridley peered out from the doorway of his room, eyes full of curiosity — and a little alarm, Matt noted.

“Sorry, Mark,” Jay Gridley told the Squirt. “This has to be a private discussion.”

Those few words just about tripled Mark’s nervousness.

He thinks his dad is going to hear about him hacking into the Net Force files! Matt realized. Both he and James Winters had agreed it wouldn’t be necessary to reveal that part of the Net Force Explorers’ investigation. But there was no way to tell Mark that — not with his father standing right beside Matt.

Trying to ignore the frightened eyes on him, Matt stepped into the den. It was a small room with bookshelves, comfortable chairs, and a set of techno-toys that would set any computer-literate kid drooling. Nowadays, most home computing system components were built to be unobtrusive. You saw the display — either a hologram projector or screen, and maybe a keyboard. Jay Gridley’s computer had its guts spread across a large wooden table. That’s because some of the components were black-box specials, samples of technology that had yet to find their way into the consumer market.

Matt was so busy trying to identify any new bells and whistles on the system that he didn’t notice James Winters until the captain rose from his seat.

Matt’s cheeks burned as he shook hands. Jay Gridley had said he’d been speaking with the captain. It just hadn’t penetrated Matt’s thick skull as to where and when they’d been doing that.

Oddly, Matt saw that the head of Net Force looked just about as ill at ease as Matt felt.

“I owe you a large apology, James,” Gridley finally burst out. “It’s bad enough you were treated so shamefully, but worse when I think that I was part of it. When this thing with Alcista started, I should have told HoloNews, Tori Rush, and Hank Steadman to take a flying leap.”

“Sure,” Winters said dryly. “It would only mean trashing the public’s perception of Net Force, damaging our relations with the congressmen who control our budget appropriations, and possibly putting your control of the agency at risk.”

“I run a high-profile agency. Supposedly I’m a powerful man, or so I keep hearing in the media.” Gridley sighed. “I feel as though I turned my back on you.”

“You handled a difficult situation in the way your staff suggested,” Winters said steadily. “I can’t say it was fun, but if it had happened to someone else, I’d probably have advised you to deal with it the same way — to express measured support, and then step back and see where events took the situation.”

“I have to say, I’m happier about where events seem to be heading now,” Gridley admitted, “at least as far as you are concerned. These murders worry me….”

“That makes two of us,” Winters said. “And we’re not out of the woods yet. I won’t be until we can confirm that Marcus Kovacs is actually Mike Steele, and that he had a motive for the Alcista bombing and everything that happened around it. It would be nice if we can pin him to these recent killings.”

He sighed. “And even if we can, there are going to be newspeople ready to charge us with a cover-up.”

Gridley looked grim. “The cover-up happened four years ago, when we didn’t go public with Steele’s evidence tampering and the reason for Alcista’s plea bargain.”

“Sealed court records.” Winters shrugged. “It was part of the deal.”

“A deal accepted on the advice of my staff, to keep Net Force from taking a publicity black eye.” Gridley rested one arm against a bookcase. “Looking back on it now, we buried a dirty little secret — and it grew up to be a big dirty tree.”

“More like ‘the weed of crime,’” Winters suggested.

“I’ll be glad when the whole blasted thing is pulled up by the roots,” Jay Gridley said. “We seem to be getting there. The fingerprint lab has promised to give me the full results of their work by tomorrow. And even if we can’t directly link Kovacs and Steele, that college girl up in New York—”

“Bodie Fuhrman,” Matt put in.

Gridley nodded. “Nice name. Anyway, she’s talking her head off to the NYPD and to our local agents up there. We’ll have ample grounds to question Mr. Kovacs about his investigatory efforts for Tori Rush — and his involvement in the demise of Ms. Rush and Professor Wellman.”

The head of Net Force looked grim. “We’re going to take full jurisdiction in this matter. It’s not just the Alcista thing and the destruction of The Fifth Estate’s owner and offices. We’re dealing with one of our own here.”

Both Winters and Matt nodded in silence.

It will really be over once Net Force gets on the job, Matt thought. When they start pulling at any and every loose string, I suspect the connections between the so-called Marcus Kovacs and all the killings will unravel pretty darned quick.

“If all goes well, we should be ready to move by tomorrow afternoon,” Jay Gridley said briskly. He turned to Matt. “Until the results actually hit the media, however, I have to ask you to keep things quiet.”

“Do we expect any more fireworks from Mike-Marc?” Winters looked a little ill, in spite of the deliberately restrained language he used for murder. “I think he…overreacted…when he saw his frame job about to crack.”

“I just don’t want any premature warnings stampeding him into a quick exit,” Gridley said somberly. “Mike Steele is not going to come back and haunt us another time.” Again, he looked at Matt. “Okay?”

“Got it, sir,” Matt said. The mood in the small room seemed to have mellowed now. Both men seemed comfortable in each other’s company. Matt figured it was time for him to butt out.

“I guess I’ll be heading home,” he said.

Jay Gridley nodded, a wry smile on his face. “I’m sure that as soon as you’re out of this door, you’ll face a barrage of questions as intense as any HoloNews interview. Remember what you just said. No one — not even Mark — is to know what’s going down tomorrow.”

“You can count on me,” Matt said. “Kovacs will get no warning from any Net Force Explorer.”

Megan O’Malley sat in front of her computer. She could feel the frown on her face — part of her was not happy with what she was about to do. But she’d made her decision in spite of it.

“Computer,” she said. “Net connection. Voice only — no holographic projection. Vocal filter program, mode choice, ‘gravel voice.’ Route connection through the following nodes…”

She then went on to reel off a list of the most heavily trafficked sites on the Net, while throwing in some random-access evasion programs as well. When she finished, it would be the best anti-tracking effort she’d ever come up with.

Megan allowed herself a small smile. At least this was something she could do. The walls of security around I-on Investigations and Marcus Kovacs himself were too powerful to be breached by her hacking. She thought of recruiting the Squirt — he could get her in to cause havoc in Kovacs’s home or business system. But she didn’t want to drag anyone else in on a personal vendetta.

She didn’t know which was worse, seeing a friend and mentor destroyed by a phantom enemy, or knowing who was doing it, and helplessly watch him not only avoid the consequences, but thumb his nose at justice.

But she did know she wasn’t putting up with it any longer.

Megan had to do something!

She gave the computer the private communications code for Marcus Kovacs. That had been the one useful item of information she’d been able to dig up in all her hacking. Even with the speed of her computer, there was a bit of a time lag as the signal bounced all over the Net, even popping into sites in other countries.

Ah! There was the bleep that meant the connection had been made!

“Hello,” a drowsy voice said. Megan had aimed for a time when most normal people would be asleep.

The voice became more alert. “Why isn’t there a visual? Is there a problem?”

“I know who you really are.” Megan whispered the words, but they were nearly washed out of her own ears by the amplified voice that mimicked her speech. True to its description, it had the hoarse, gravelly tones of an old man.

“Don’t be so sure you got yourself off the hook by murdering all those people,” she went on. “I think you only postponed the inevitable. But I’m not the patient type. So I took a page from the old Iron Mike Steele playbook. When you don’t have evidence to incriminate people, just make it up and plant it on them.”

“What—?” Kovacs’s voice was sharp now. Obviously, he was fully awake. Best of all, Megan could detect a note of alarm in his voice. Time to wrap this up.

“Search all you like. You’ll never know where this little bit of information is hiding. But it will be somewhere, tick, tick, ticking away, waiting for just the right moment to wreck your life.”

She cut the connection and pulled out of the Net, bouncing through another set of cutout addresses to foil any chance of a trace.

The computer finished its program and automatically shut down. Megan flopped back against the cushions of her computer-link couch, feeling drained — and a little silly.

It would be great if she could actually do what she’d threatened. But she didn’t know how to pull off such a scam. Not only was it wildly illegal, it was impractical. She hadn’t even managed to get access to the guy’s computers.

Megan sighed, massaging her temples. But even if what she’d done was little more than an elaborate prank call, Marcus Kovacs — or rather, Mike Steele — knew his number was up. He might get away with taking people’s lives, with taking James Winters’s reputation, but he knew somebody was on to him.

At least the scuzz-bucket wouldn’t get away with his own peace of mind.