Buzzworm (A Technology Thriller): Computer virus or serial killer? (14 page)

Med found Roger in the server room
on sub floor four, far in the back, hunched down near the floor in the dimly lit space staring at a wall of blinking lights. She always loved this space; the understated hum of high tech, the dark drama of a symphony of multicolored lights communicating their special function in a language only a chosen few could understand. She felt completely at home here.

Roger stood up, looking distracted, the glowing wall of lights reflecting off his glasses. He was wearing a black shirt and dark jeans. She smiled thinking he looked like a modern day version of a wizard. Or a minister.

“Are you religious?” she asked.

Roger looked slightly amused by the question. He raised his arms to take in the room. “This is my church,” he said.

“I know what you mean,” she answered, running her hand across the black-brushed surface of one of many blade servers stacked up by the dozens. “I just came by to see if you had made any progress on our virus.”

Roger nodded. “You were right about there being dozens of attacks on staff. Everyone I talk to has a story. But all the trails lead nowhere. I was just doing a scan to see if there was any missing storage.”

“Missing?”

“One of the tricks a hacker can use is to take a chunk of hard drive space and make it invisible to the rest of the network.
Buzzworm
could hide there out of the way. I’m running a scan to see if all of the storage space is accounted for. What about you? Any more problems?”

Med shrugged. “One was enough.”

Roger glanced down at the computer he had been working on, watching the progress chart of the scan. Med could see he had been using a keyboard that slid out on a tray from the rack mount. He turned back to her. “Jo doesn’t know about your run-in with
Buzzworm
, does she?”

Med stared at him, watching the bright points of light streak across the surface of his glasses. “I’d rather deal with that myself. I thought we had an agreement?”

“Think about it, Med. Maybe
Buzzworm
isn’t hiding in here.” He waved his hand to take in the server room. “Maybe it’s hunkered down in your top secret system. Wherever that is. And I’m just wasting my time here.”

“Believe me. I’ve looked. There’s nothing there. The company that built that system for us has looked as well. It’s clean.”

“But you said that
Buzzworm
was able to attack you through this GIPETTO program. Doesn’t that worry you?”

Med shook her head. She clearly didn’t want to discuss the incident. “What I saw wasn’t the virus. It was obviously a stupid trick played by one of the developers on our team to look like the virus. Or a sick joke by someone like Frank Scammel. That would be right up his alley.”

Roger was back down on his haunches, checking the progress of his search. “So Frank had access to GIPETTO?”

“He was part of our team.”

“When was that video sent to you?”

Med swallowed hard. “Shortly after 1:30 AM.”

Roger stood up again. “But that was just before he killed himself. Jo said that the time of death was around two. Maybe he was trying to tell you something.”

Med turned, a look of mild disgust on her face “I’m done for the day, Roger. I’m having dinner with my sister tonight. You have my cell number if you learn anything new.”

Out in the parking lot Med climbed into her Honda Civic, started the engine and cranked up her dash mounted MP3 player. She was angry. She had visions of her entire team standing around a large flat panel display, mouths open, as they watched the devil character in that awful video carry out his violent and graphic sexual assault on her.

She cringed as she jammed down on the accelerator pedal and roared out onto the street. It had to be Frank’s doing. She had heard that he was a bit of a sex freak; liked to place the faces of CIA staffers on pictures of naked bodies he found on his perverted web sites and share it with some of the other guys in the lab. She hated men like Frank and the thought of his gory death gave her a slight shiver of satisfaction, which surprised her.

So if Frank was behind her video, and he was dead, why was it still going on? Did he have a partner? And though Frank was good at imagery, there was no way he was smart enough to cause all the other problems the CIA was experiencing. But knowing that GIPETTO was now safe from further intrusion made her relax slightly. She had felt guilty about not taking her issues to Jo, her biggest fear that any focus would bring the horrible video to light.

Her smart phone beeped at her and she resisted the urge to pick it up while in traffic. She waited for the next light and snatched the device from the cup holder near the shifter. There was a text message from the help desk at Building 213. She frowned as she scrolled down through the text.

Just off the newswire. Two young children found murdered in their home this afternoon in Washington — a domestic dispute that ended in a double homicide. How horrible! There was a reference to a photo she couldn’t see. Why would someone send this to her? Then she saw the names. Abraham and Chloe. Med felt the car seem to lurch, her balance slipping away from her. Those were the names of Laura’s kids. Her sister’s babies. This was a sick joke or a bizarre coincidence. She continued to read. The news story mentioned Silver Spring. The area her sister lived in. With her annoying husband.

Med pulled over to the side of the road when she heard the car behind her hit the horn. The light had changed and she hadn’t noticed. She felt like the temperature in the car had dropped twenty degrees.

She hit the speed dial on her smart phone. She wanted to believe more than anything else that this was just another sick
Buzzworm
prank. The phone rang twice and then a male voice answered.

“Officer Lee. Who’s calling, please?” Med froze. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard. A police officer! She hit the cancel button and held the phone in her hand, unable to move, but unable to put the phone down. She stared at the screen, her whole universe now a tiny glowing icon that represented her sister’s speed dial number. Slowly, deliberately, she pressed the button again. Number two. Yes. She was certain she had somehow misdialed before.

This time the call was picked up immediately. “Ms. Duke. I’m Officer Lee. Please don’t hang up.”

Med could hardly push the words out. “I don’t understand.”

“Ms. Duke. I see by the speed dial here that you’re Laura’s sister. There’s been an accident.”

“Accident?”

“I can’t talk about this over the phone.”

“I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

“No. We need to meet downtown. I'll give you…”

Med threw the phone down on the passenger seat and grabbed the gearshift. She pushed her way back into the traffic heading north, tears flowing down her cheeks. Over and over as the city blurred past her, she kept repeating.
Let them be OK. Let them be OK.
As if chanting this could keep any other possibility from slipping into her thoughts. At one point, she heard a tinny voice yelling at her from under the front seat, her phone obviously still connected.

After what seemed like an eternity, racing along Sixteenth Street, barely aware of the traffic around her, she veered right onto Locust Avenue.
A horrid name for a street,
she always thought, a wave of fear rolling over her. A block before Laura’s home, she finally slowed, wiping the wetness off of her face. She took the last turn, preparing herself for a street blocked by police cars, the neighbors out on the street, gawking at the horror of a suburban massacre.

But there was nothing. No police. No crowds.

Just a neighbor, mowing his yard
.

BW usually left work late
, unable to face a crowded elevator or have to endure eye contact with someone who wanted to crank about how an overlong budget meeting just made the workday a living hell. That’s why he hated them for their pettiness. After all, while they scratched away at their little lives, he was changing the world. Problem was, he had no one to share these accomplishments with. Like the splendid job he had done of turning a simple family dinner for Mary Ellen Duke into a living nightmare. All courtesy of some simple cell phone trickery.

Tonight it was past ten, later than usual for even him. But then, there was so much to do and so little time. He stepped out of the empty foyer into a downpour, the powerful sodium lights on the sides of the building throwing off rain that flashed like live sparks. He started to run, suddenly chilled by the rain running down his back collar. Within seconds, he was out of the glow of the building and into the poorly lit parking lot. His spot was in the far end of lot D, a long trek from Building 213. Over the years, he had applied for a closer spot, but it was always ignored. He wasn’t surprised. He would have to work on that.

Getting closer, BW clicked the key fob in his pocket and the lights on his car flashed. He felt momentarily better. That’s when he saw the figure standing behind the vehicle, his shaved head reflecting the glow of the headlights. BW froze. The man stepped out from the front of the small car, something in his hands.

BW recognized him then. “Hey. Dodge.”

The big man wiped the rain from his face. “We need to talk.”

“Can we get in out of the rain?” Dodge nodded. BW got in the driver’s seat expecting Dodge to climb in the passenger side. Instead, the security officer opened the back door. BW could hear him moving around on the seat, struggling to find a comfortable position in the cramped space. He could have moved his seat up, but he waited, watching the man’s face in the rear view mirror, his eyes in shadow. BW couldn’t read his expression, but he knew this wasn’t a social call. They had known each other only as fellow employees. Then Dodge slid a thick package over the seat back and held it there. BW accepted it reluctantly.

“Open it,” was all that Dodge said.

BW slid the contents out onto his lap. Printouts. Many stapled together, the ink on the cover page had already started to run and the corners were curling up. He looked at Dodge in the rear view mirror again. The heavy rain running down the windows was casting animated shadows across the skin of his face. His expression seemed to undulate and squirm; he looked like a man who was melting. His clothes were drenched. He must have been waiting for a while.

“You been out in the rain long?”

“Turn to page two.”

BW flipped the soggy cover page over. He hesitated, unwilling to take his eyes off the security director, a man who had been declared missing and feared dead. BW couldn’t see Dodge’s hands. Did he have a gun? If he did, BW didn’t have a lot of options. Dodge looked like he had been on the run or living on the streets. That explained the stubble on his face and why the car already reeked of Dodge’s desperation

The second page of the documents was a log report, showing administrator access to a system called Archive K. BW knew that archive K was both a repository of evidence gathered over the years by intelligence operatives plus an inventory of physical evidence. Files, tapes, CD’s, film, whatever would be gathered in an investigation. Some of these files would be as old as the CIA. The electronic data was newer. Very few people had access to this server or even knew where it was. The information it contained was incendiary. How had Dodge figured this all out when no one else could? Including Strange, the hired hacker?

BW knew the archive K system intimately. He had been scavenging there for at least a year, maybe more. He still remembered his excitement at locating what many in the CIA thought was a myth. He also felt the fear of exposure. Information that valuable would be monitored closely. The log showed his exact movements over time. The files transferred. Copied. Erased. Archive K was where BW had found personal information on David Xavier, surveillance photos of various employees and internal memos that dealt with gambling addictions, drugs, affairs, sexual habits,
etc.
An extortionist’s gold mine.

BW flipped through the next few pages. The last six months were fully documented. Someone had gone to a lot of work. There was enough here to send him away for ten lifetimes.

“What am I supposed to be looking for?” he asked Dodge. BW was shaking now. He might claim it was a chill from the rain, but he knew better. He might be able to run if he could get out of the car fast enough. But how far? If Dodge got his hands on him, and believed that BW was responsible for killing his buddy, he would be lucky to live to see a trial.

Dodge slid forward on the seat and spoke directly into BW’s ear, his breath sour with coffee and cigarettes. “Frank told me you would know what that file meant.”

“Scammel?”

“He gave it to me last week. Just before he died. Told me to keep it in case anything went down. Somehow
Buzzworm
got to him. I can’t make head or tail out of it, but someone will.”

“Dodge. It’s just a bunch of printouts. Why ask me?”

Dodge hesitated. “I don’t know who to trust. Someone inside the system got Frank killed. You always seemed a bit of an outsider. No offense. I’m no insider myself. But you know this stuff. I thought you could help.”

BW took a deep breath. He almost laughed. Dodge wasn’t confronting him. He was just looking for help.

“I’ll need some time with this. There’s a lot here. Where can I reach you?”

Dodge touched BW’s shoulder. “I’ll give you a cell number. I’m hiding out in a motel. I know I’m next. Frank told me that I needed to watch my back. You’ve got to help me.” He gave the number and BW scribbled it on the front page of the report.

BW turned. “Do you have anymore?”

“No. That’s it. It’s all babble to me. Can you use it to find
Buzzworm
?”

“I don’t know, Dave. But I’ll give it a try.” BW slid the logs back into the soggy envelope. He was quiet for a moment, then he seemed to wake up. “Do you need a ride?”

Dodge hesitated, looking out at the rain. “Better if I don’t. Don’t want to be followed.” He pulled the door open then and disappeared into the storm.

BW sat there, hearing the roar of the rain for the first time. As soon as he had recognized Dodge by his car, his head had filled with an awful noise. It was gone now, thankfully. But the bundle of papers on his lap sat there like a loaded gun that only seconds ago had been held to his head. What had Dodge called him? An outsider? Dodge was an idiot.

Looking through the rain at Building 213 in the distance, BW knew what others didn’t. He was the ultimate insider. Dodge would regret that. And soon.