Spyder Web

18

Jackson Barnett finished glancing over the report prepared for him regarding the death of Michael Cole. He had been away on Christmas holiday in South Carolina when he was notified of the murder. The deputy director of Central Intelligence had briefed him on the situation and Agency people were already in the Dominican Republic investigating with the local authorities. The distillation of those efforts was the ten-page report that now sat on his desk.

Barnett was thinking about what he’d read and watching the snow fall outside his window when his speaker phone buzzed. ‘Yes, Sally?’

‘Everyone has arrived for your ten o’clock meeting.’

‘I’m on my way.’

Barnett gathered his file and entered the conference room adjacent to his office. He immediately recognized two of the men seated at the table: Frank Villano from the CIA’s Information Technology Group and Cal Mosley, the CIA’s in-house investigator. Mosley was forty-eight and about Barnett’s height, but he carried ten inches more around his waist. The combination of a balding pate, a pair of unkempt eyebrows, and a bushy mustache that threatened to cover his entire mouth gave the CIA investigator the appearance of a walrus.

The third man, Dan Harmon of the FBI, was pouring himself a cup of coffee. Barely thirty, Harmon looked every bit like the handsome dark-haired quarterback he’d once been in college. Harmon was a seven-year veteran of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Surveillance Division and came with his director’s highest recommendation.

‘Mr Harmon,’ Barnett said as he extended his hand, ‘a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard good things about you.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Barnett took his place at the head of the table and pulled the Cole report from his file. ‘Gentlemen, thank you for coming today.We’re here to discuss the unusual circumstances surrounding the death of one of our computer specialists, Michael Cole. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so I’d like to start with you, Cal.’

‘Thank you, sir. On December fifteenth, Michael Cole left Washington on an extended Caribbean vacation. On the twenty-fourth, he arrived in Santo Domingo for a scheduled five-day stay. On the twenty-seventh, a tourist dive ship reported Cole as missing and presumed drowned. As yet, the body has not officially been found. On the morning of the twenty-seventh, approximately three hours before Cole allegedly disappeared from the dive ship, a deep-sea fishing boat recovered the body of a scuba diver. The body has been identified as that of Michael Cole. It’s definitely a cover-up, but we don’t know the motive behind it yet.’

‘Mr Harmon,’ Barnett said, turning to the young FBI agent, ‘what is the status of the FBI’s medical investigation?’

‘Since we received the body, our forensics team has gone over every inch of it with a microscope.’ Harmon inched forward, sitting on the edge of his seat as he explained. ‘We have a theory about how Cole was murdered. Based upon the analysis of blood gasses and other fluids, they believe that Cole had been diving just prior to his death. Samples of tissue from his bronchia and lungs showed a massive short-term buildup of carbon and other byproducts of combustion. Analysis of this material and the remaining air in his scuba tanks revealed the chemical signature of diesel exhaust.’

Barnett jotted down a few notes on a legal pad as Harmon spoke. ‘Was Cole killed by the contaminated air in his tanks?’

‘While it’s possible for a person to become ill, or even die, from a scuba tank tainted with carbon monoxide, that’s not what happened here. Not only were his lungs coated with traces of exhaust but so was his wet suit. The salt water washed off exhaust residue from his exposed skin, but not from inside his wet suit. Without going into detail, the forensics lab found minute traces of diesel exhaust all over the body.’

‘What is the FBI’s theory on how the exhaust got there?’ Barnett asked.

‘The short version: Cole went scuba diving. After his dive, somebody put him in a sealed space and smoked him. Once he was dead, they dumped him back in the water. Neat and clean. Other than a small bump on the back of his head, there were no unusual marks on the body, but the forensics people believe that the wet suit would mask any sign of restraint. Traces of an adhesive were found around the ankles and wrists of the wet suit — the same kind of adhesive found on duct tape.’

‘Cal, could the ship that reported Cole missing be involved with the murder?’

‘Not likely, sir. The boat that reported Cole’s disapperance is a large commercial trimaran. We have solid reports that on the night Cole was killed, this boat was chartered for a party.’Mosley doodled a sportfishing boat in the margin of his report; he had been on several during his initial investigation of Cole’s death in the Dominican Republic. ‘That island is a tropical paradise with a lot of boats, and we haven’t been able to place Cole on any of them.’

Barnett added another note to his list.’Unfortunately, none of what we have, thus far, gives us a clue as to who murdered Cole, or why. That’s why I’ve asked you to be here, Frank. What was Cole working on prior to his vacation?’

Villano cleared his throat. ‘Just one project, sir. It’s classified.’

Barnett cocked his head and glared at Villano. ‘Frank, both Cal and Mr Harmon are cleared for any material deemed crucial to this investigation. They have to know what Cole was working on, since it might have some bearing as to why he was killed.’

‘Sorry, sir,’ Villano apologized, ‘but I’m used to being very quiet about projects like this.’

‘No explanation necessary, Frank,’ Mosley reassured him.

Villano relaxed a little and flicked back an errant strand of black hair. ‘For the past year, Cole acted as the CIA’s technical liaison with the Moy Electronics Corporation on the Spyder project.’

‘Spyder?’ Mosley asked.

‘In layman’s terms,’ Barnett instructed, clarifying the request before Villano could respond.

‘Basically, it’s a programmable device that can capture and transmit information from inside a computer network.’ Villano could see that his description didn’t help Mosley or Harmon. ‘Say you wanted to know how the North Koreans are doing in their nuclear weapons program. You know the North Koreans are hot for faster computers, so you let one accidentally fall into their hands. The trick is, you’ve planted a Spyder inside that computer. Once they get their stolen machine up and running, your Spyder is going to ferret out every little secret they put into it. As long as the Spyder can find a phone line, you’ll get every piece of information that it comes into contact with.’

Mosley could only imagine what it would be like to have a direct tap into the immense flow of information passing through the computers at Langley. The volume would be staggering. ‘Is this project finished?’

‘Yes and no. Cole’s work is complete, but the Spyder will remain under wraps until Operations works up a scenario for using it.’ Villano paused as something disrupted his train of thought. ‘Now that I think of it, Cole was involved with another project just before he went on vacation.’

‘What was this other project?’ Mosley asked.

‘It was more of an interesting puzzle than a project. A recent defector came over with an unusual gift: a box of old computer disks alleged to be the property of Andrei Yakushev, a former KGB Directorate chief who ran dozens of deep-cover agents in the West. Cole restored most of these disks and recovered the records of several previously unknown KGB agents. The files were very detailed, everything about the agents’ personal and professional history, including photographs.’

Mosley directed his next question to Barnett. ‘Sir, have we been able to judge if the files are real or not?’

‘Mr Harmon’s associates are investigating the leads, and several of them look very promising. In some cases, the individuals named as deep-cover agents are living seemingly normal lives as U.S. citizens. It’ll take some time to find any hard evidence to substantiate the files.’

Harmon turned to Mosley. ‘Is there anything in Cole’s background that makes him vulnerable?’

‘Cole had recent marital difficulties that ended in a quiet divorce. The settlement left him with some financial problems. He does fit the profile of someone who might try to market something on the side.’

‘Michael Cole was a decent man and a top-notch computer scientist,’ Villano shot back in Cole’s defense.

‘Decent or not,’ Barnett interjected before Mosley could respond, ‘Michael Cole is dead, and he seems to have given someone ample reason to kill him. Robbery has already been ruled out, so there has to be something else in Cole’s background that led to his death. Cal, please continue.’

‘Thank you, sir. If Cole was dealing house secrets, and I had to choose from his last two projects, I’d put my money on those old KGB files.’

‘Why is that?’ Barnett asked.

‘Simple — blackmail’s an easy buck. Say Cole is restoring these files and he happens to come across someone he knows, maybe somebody here at Langley or up on the Hill. If Cole was the blackmailing type, he’d swipe the files and threaten his target with exposure. With his back to the wall, the target would either buy Cole’s silence or kill him.’

‘Interesting speculation.’ Barnett leaned forward and rested his arms on his desk. ‘With that information in hand, I want you to take a look at Cole’s records up here before heading back to the Dominican Republic. Maybe there’s a name that we can match up with DR Customs and Immigration. There are still several large holes in the days that Cole spent in the Dominican Republic, and I want to know where he went and whom he saw. Also, find out who was on that dive ship. Somebody must have gotten a good look at the impostor, and that’s our best lead to finding Cole’s killer. I’m sure that most of those people were tourists, so feed us the names of everyone who’s left the island and we’ll track them down from here. Frank, I want you to go over the computer files that Cole decrypted and look for any irregularities. I realize that’s a needle in a haystack, but it’s all we have to go on right now.’

Mosley spent the next few days wading through the life of the late Michael Cole. He’d spoken with Cole’s exwife, a nice-enough lady who really didn’t have much to say about her former husband other than that she hadn’t seen him since their divorce became final. There weren’t many friends, either, no one close who could tell you what the man was really like. Cole seemed to be a quiet loner, and that was exactly the type of person who always seemed to end up selling secrets to the other side.

Cole wasn’t a wealthy man by any stretch of the imagination, but no one got rich working for the Agency. His bank statements showed a marginal balance in his checking and savings accounts, indicating that he was just getting by. The only financial surprise were his latest credit-card statements. After carrying a balance on his credit cards, he paid them off in full prior to his vacation. That sum increased by several thousand dollars when added to the cash and prepaid traveler’s checks that he took with him on his vacation.Michael Cole had found a new source of money, but what had he done to get it?