Invasion of Privacy (9 page)

“Mr. Briggs,” called the guard. “Your badge.”

Peter Briggs stormed past the porter’s lodge of Brasenose and continued to the elevators. He was fed up. There was only so much you could take of hanging around a bunch of grown men who grew sexually aroused talking about petaflops and hard drives and GPUs. He was certain that Patel had been sporting some wood as he brushed up against Titan.

Briggs got off at the third floor and headed for the operations room. A dozen men sat at desks positioned along the perimeter of the office. Not one of them gave a flying fig about petaflops or hard drives or GPUs. Briggs was certain about that.

“Fire under control in K.L.?” he asked.

“Damage localized to a chip storage area.”

“Plant back on line?”

“Yessir.”

“Outstanding.”

Running security for ONE was a twenty-four-hour-a-day job. Briggs had a thousand employees under his command, safeguarding the corporation’s offices and manufacturing facilities in twenty countries around the globe. His responsibilities broke down into three areas: physical plant and manufacturing, cybersecurity, and personal protection.

Cybersecurity was giving him the biggest headache these days. ONE’s servers were under attack from hackers day and night. Most came from China or eastern Europe. The Chinese attacks emanated from a military unit charged with gaining industrial espionage secrets from Western companies. The eastern European attacks came out of Bulgaria and Romania, the work of organized criminals contracted by smaller technology companies to steal ONE’s R&D. Between the two, ONE defended itself against more than five thousand attacks a day.

As was his habit on entering the ops room, he checked an electronic world map that broadcast the location of the company’s top executives.

Today he noted that ten were in Austin, four in Palo Alto, two in Mumbai, two in Guangdong, one in Berlin, and one in Nepal.

“Get the plane ready for D.C.,” he said to Travel. “Party of five plus crew. We fly at dawn. Boss wants the Kraut. Tell her to be at the airport at five a.m. and to make sure she has her bag of nostrums.”

Travel looked up. “Bag of what?”

Briggs patted his shoulder, pleased to be in the company of a man with a vocabulary nearly as limited as his own. “Never mind, lad. Just call Katarina and get the plane arranged.”

“Yessir.”

There was a new symbol on the map that Briggs hadn’t seen that morning. The symbol was a silhouette of a jet, and it appeared whenever company execs were en route or due to embark on a flight. He touched the jet and its flight information appeared on the screen.

ONE 7 / N415GB

JER–AUS 7.31
.

0700MST–1900CST
.

ONE 7 was a Boeing business jet with tail number N415GB, departing from Jerusalem at 0700 hours local time and arriving in Austin at 1900 hours tomorrow night.

The Israelis were coming.

Briggs couldn’t help but feel his pulse quicken. Ian was right. They could not afford any more slipups. Not now, with Titan up and running. Not with the Israelis on the way.

Briggs continued to his office. First there was ONEscape, the browser, then came software, and after that hardware: servers, routers, switches—the machines that made up the Internet’s backbone—then ONE Mobile, the wireless phone carrier, and now, just a few months back, Allied Artists, the country’s biggest movie and television studio.

But all of it was but a prelude for the Israelis. Ian had called them his Praetorian Guard and talked about a “new Jerusalem.” Briggs knew better than to ask about a new messiah.

He sat at his desk and pulled up the report from his contact at the FBI.
Semaphore
. It was the case that wouldn’t die.

“Go easy,” Ian had said. “Nothing heavy-handed.”

But Briggs hadn’t gotten where he was by going easy. He hit speed dial for Firemen.

“I need a team to do a little scouting work for me. A local job.”

“Level?”

Level one, or L1, was a simple look-and-listen on a target’s phone and Net usage.

L2 added wireless surveillance, plus eyes on the subject for defined daily intervals.

L3 amounted to a digital cavity search—all of the above plus twenty-four-hour surveillance and infiltration of the target’s home or office with the goal of installing malware to take full operational control of all the target’s digital systems: tablet, laptop, desktop, mainframe, and mobile communications devices.

“L2,” he said.

“How soon do you want work to begin?”

“Immediately.”

“Have anyone in mind?”

In the end there was really only one team he could trust with the job.

“Get me Shanks and the Mole.”

Showtime
.

Tank Potter parked at the back of the office lot and checked his appearance in the mirror. Hair freshly washed. Eyes marginally red. Shirt clean and pressed. All in all, not too bad after twelve hours in the clink.

He reached into the bag on the seat beside him for a box of Band-Aids. His hand shook as he freed one from the box and shook more as he struggled to peel off the wrapping.

Reinforcements needed.

He dropped the bandage and delved under his seat for his backstop, ducking his head below the dash to take a pull of tequila. His hand was rock-steady as he peeled off the wrapping and affixed the Band-Aid to his forehead.

“Thank you, JC.” Jose Cuervo, not the other guy.

For a minute he looked at the
Statesman
’s headquarters. Thirty days and all this was history. It didn’t come as a surprise. Every paper in the country was slashing its staff, and he was no Pulitzer winner. Even so, he’d thought it would be easier.

A last helper to calm the nerves and he was good to go.

He stashed the bottle, then rummaged in the glove compartment for his Altoids, counted out five, and popped them into his mouth. Fortified, he climbed out, feeling capable, calm, and only mildly hungover.

“Potter!”

Al Soletano stood outside his glassed-in office in the center of the newsroom, hands on hips, his face flushed a shade past fire-engine red. Tank raised a hand in greeting as he made his way down the main aisle. The newsroom was a sea of vacant cubicles. A plague zone, he thought as he entered Soletano’s office.

“Sit.”

“I’m okay.”

“I said sit.”

Tank sat down in the visitor’s chair.

“How you feeling?” Soletano was short, with a gut, a tonsure of black hair, and a voice that could be heard in all six neighboring counties.

“Not bad, all things considered.”

“Your head?”

“It hurts, but I’ll be all right.” Tank had spoken to Soletano as soon as he was freed from the holding cell. He had a story ready. He’d been in a fender bender, banged his head, and spent the night in the emergency room.

“You don’t have to be going fast to do some damage.”

Tank touched his bandage gingerly. “You can say that again.”

“Say, buddy, do me a favor. Hand me my glass of water, would you? I’m thirsty.”

Tank looked to his right, where a glass of water sat on the desk’s corner. The glass was full to the brim. He looked back at Soletano, leaning against the wall, not making the slightest effort. Tank clenched a fist, then picked up the glass. Water spilled onto Soletano’s desk. He set the glass down.

“I’m waiting.”

Tank stared at his hand, willing it to stop shaking. Standing, he picked up the glass and walked over to his editor. Halfway there, a spasm shook his hand and water sloshed onto the floor.

“And that’s after the snort in the parking lot,” said Soletano. “By the way, where’d you get hit? I didn’t see any dents—or any new ones, at least.”

Tank said nothing.

Soletano approached him and ripped the bandage off his forehead. “I hear you met one of my friends last night. Lance Burroughs. Young guy. Detective.” He circled his desk and picked up a piece of paper. “Your arrest report,” he said, by way of explanation. “You blew a point thirty-four. That’s four times the legal limit. I have to be honest, Tank. God knows I love to tie one on as much as the next guy, but point thirty-four…that’s enough booze to knock out Godzilla.”

“It’s been a stressful few days.”

“And nights. A federal agent murdered in our backyard and I’m buying the story from a stringer out of Dallas. It’s embarrassing.”

“At least you’ll have practice for when the suits finish the deal,” said Tank.

The suits were the private equity guys from Wall Street who’d been running around the place for the past month figuring ways to cut costs.

Soletano didn’t take the bait. He stood, arms crossed, shaking his head. “You used to be a decent journalist.”

The tone hit Tank hard. He’d been a damned sight better than that.

“There’s another conference later this afternoon,” he said. “I’ll be there. Did you read the release? Bennett is stonewalling us. Once we find out the informant’s identity, we’ll have a beeline to what the feds were looking into. I mean, Dripping Springs, for Chrissakes. That tell you something?”

“Maybe the CI’s from Dripping Springs?”

“It tells me that it’s a pretty big case if they’re meeting their CIs twenty-five miles away to make sure they’re not seen.” Despite the air conditioning, he was beginning to sweat. “You know how many FBI agents have been killed in the line of duty in the past twenty years?”

“Four.”

“Yeah, four. Not many. This one’s got legs. I can feel that there’s something here. Let me run with it.” He smiled sheepishly. “Everyone gets a DUI. It’s not a big deal.”

“You’re a day late and a dollar short, pal. I told you to read that letter.”

“One DUI. Come on. It’s a misdemeanor.”

Soletano snapped a finger at the arrest report. “You forgot to mention that it’s your second offense. Two DUIs in ten years. That makes it a Class A misdemeanor. Mandatory suspension of license for one year. Fine of up to ten grand. What you did is more than enough for rightful termination.”

“You’re firing me?”

“You fired yourself. You saw those suits in here. They get a chance to knock a hundred grand off their liabilities, they’re going to jump on it.”

Tank threw up his arms. His severance package gave him one month’s salary for every year he’d worked at the paper. The total came out to a little over $100,000.

“Let me have this story, Al. I’ll prove to you I’m the reporter I used to be.”

“What story?” said Soletano. “Just because the Bureau isn’t divulging
the name of the informant doesn’t mean there’s a story. They’re probably waiting a day or two to get their ducks in a row, inform the guy’s family, and then they’ll release it. This isn’t Waco or Ruby Ridge. There’s no Pulitzer at the end of the rainbow. It’s just a case of an agent making a dumb mistake.”

“I’m not so sure…”

“I am,” said Soletano. “There is no story. You’re done. You blew a point thirty-four. You’re not some cute first-time drunk. You’re a monster. Don’t you get that?
A point thirty-four
. I’m surprised you didn’t spontaneously combust. I can’t have a reporter driving drunk all over town. The word
liability
mean anything to you?” Soletano opened the door and motioned for Tank to leave. “Get out of here. Go away. Get some help. You’re a sick man.”

Tank walked back to his car, hands in his pockets, arms stiff as ramrods to make sure he stood straight in case Soletano was watching. He opened the door and slid behind the wheel. All spirit went out of him and he laid his head against the steering wheel.

His hand dropped to his backstop and he took a healthy slug. Screw Soletano. He could watch all he wanted.

He dropped the bottle and grabbed the copy of the day’s paper off the passenger seat. The headline read: “FBI Agent Dies in Dripping Springs Shoot-out.” The story carried an AP byline, no name attached. The future of print journalism, he thought ruefully.

The lead paraphrased the Bureau’s press release, and the body offered nothing that indicated any actual reporting. No suggestions about what case the agent was working or any background on him besides the boilerplate info, no quotes from the widow, and, most important to Tank’s mind, not a whisper about the informant’s identity. He could have filed it from the holding cell.

Tank banged his fist against the glove compartment and took out the envelope with his name on it. An hour ago the letter had held the promise of a new life. A hundred thousand dollars went a long way. After expenses, he’d figured he’d have enough to hit Pedro’s five nights a week, go hunting in Nacogdoches in the fall, head down to South Padre Island at Christmas, maybe even get a haircut once in a while. It was a recipe for high living.

He started the car and gave it a little gas.

A decent journalist
.

Soletano’s words scratched at something buried deep. He wasn’t sure if it was pique or pride. Whatever, they dug at something he’d suppressed for a long time. He suspected it was ambition, which he’d once possessed in abundance.

He kissed the envelope, then tore it in half and threw the pieces out the window. The future he’d dreamed of was gone. It was up to him to make another.

He unscrewed the cap of the bottle of tequila and brought the bottle to his lips.

Hell, he’d been a crackerjack journalist.

Tank took the bottle from his lips. For some unknown reason, he chucked it out the window, too. Al Soletano could clean up his mess.

Tank put the Jeep into gear and punched the accelerator. By the time he pulled out of the lot, he had his phone to his ear. Don Bennett was stonewalling about something, and that something was the informant. Tank still had one contact who might be of help.

“Austin Medical Examiner’s Office.”

“Give me Carlos Cantu,” said Tank. “Tell him it’s urgent.”

Mary stood inside the foyer of her home, the blast of air conditioning doing nothing to cool her temper. Forty minutes after leaving Don Bennett, she remained incensed by his behavior. One moment he was ripping the phone out of her hand, the next he didn’t want to glance at it. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that something or someone had changed his mind.

Mary shook her head, vowing action, and walked into the kitchen. She dumped her purse on the counter and took a bottle of water from the fridge. Her eye stopped on the colorful cans of energy drinks neatly arranged in the back corner. Joe’s drinks. She thought about throwing them out, then changed her mind. She needed him with her for a while longer.

Her phone buzzed. The number belonged to an old friend. Another condolence call. She let it roll to voicemail. She had more important items to attend to. There were the funeral arrangements to make, flights to book, hotel rooms to reserve. She couldn’t mourn. She had too much to do. But before any of that, something else required her attention.

If Don Bennett wouldn’t tell her what Joe was working on, she’d damn well find out herself.

Mary nudged open the door to Jessie’s room. “Hi, sweets. Can I come in?”

Jessie lay facedown on her bed, arms splayed over the edges. “Go away.”

Mary took a step closer. It was no time to argue. A truce had been declared between all mothers and their teenage daughters. “I need your help,” she said. “I’m looking for my in-house IT squad.”

A groan was the only response.

She entered the bedroom tentatively. Clothes covered the floor. A glass of root beer sat on Jessie’s desk, and next to it an ice cream wrapper.
The posters of horses and boy bands were long gone. On one wall, done up as a lithograph, was a quote from Julian Assange about “information wanting to be free,” and on another a street advertisement for DEF CON, the hackers’ convention in Las Vegas. The room was essentially a battlefield. The frontline between adolescents and parents.

Mary sat down on the bed. She waited for an outcry, a command to get off, or just a plaintive “Mom!” Jessie was silent. Progress, thought Mary. She ran a hand along her daughter’s back. Fifteen years old. Already taller than her mom. Mary’s firstborn was a young woman.

“It’s about my phone,” she went on. “I think I lost a message.”

“So?”

Mary fought the reflex to pull her hand away. “It was from your dad.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

A moment passed. Still Jessie didn’t move. Mary gathered a measure of the sheet in her fist. She gave Jessie until three to move or to show the smallest hint of civility.

One…two…

Jessie grunted, then pushed herself up to an elbow. “Give it.”

Mary handed her the phone. “I thought maybe you could tell me how I lost it or if I can get it back.”

“Maybe.” Jessie sat up and put her feet on the floor. She cradled the phone in both hands, head hunched low over it like a priest blessing the sacred host.

“He called at four-oh-three,” said Mary. “But I didn’t check the message until around five-thirty.”

“I see it.”

Mary’s heart skipped a beat. “The message?”

“No,” said Jessie. “The call.”

Mary tamped down her disappointment. She caught a glimpse of the screen. Lines of letters and numerals and symbols as alien as cuneiform or Sanskrit. Her daughter, Champollion.

“Not here,” said Jessie.

“I thought maybe I deleted it by mistake.”

“And then deleted the deleted messages? That would be lame.”

“I didn’t do it. You can check—”

“The older messages are still there,” said Jessie. “I can read.”

“I listened to it once at home and then before I went into the hospital to see your dad. I told Mr. Bennett that I’d gotten it and—”

“Why?” Jessie sat up straighter, a hand pushing the hair from her face, tucking strands behind her ear. For the first time she looked directly at her mother. Mary found her gaze oddly innocent, frightened.

“I thought he would be interested in what your father said.”

“What did Dad say?”

“It doesn’t matter. It was about his business.” Mary took a breath. “And so when I came back for my phone, the message wasn’t there anymore.”

“Then why are you so hot on getting it back?”

Mary hesitated, suddenly slack-jawed. How had Jessie managed to take control of the conversation? “Dad said that he might be in trouble. He said that he loved us all very much.”

“He was in trouble? Like how?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did he say?”

“I can’t entirely remember. I was upset when I heard it.” Mary gestured to the phone, anxious to get clear of dangerous waters. “Do you think you can—”

“So he called when I was unlocking your phone?”

Mary nodded.

“And it was before…” Jessie stopped. Her eyes flitted around the room, gathering pieces of the puzzle. “So you’re saying it was my fault.”

“No, sweetie, of course not. I’m just asking for your help to see if we can get the message back somehow.”

Jessie tossed her the phone, stood, and brushed past her. “You’re trying to tell me that if I hadn’t been unlocking your phone, you would have gotten the call and maybe we could have done something to help Dad.”

Mary rose. “Of course not. You have nothing to do with it.”

“Really? Then why are you telling me about it?”

“Because the FBI won’t help me. Because I don’t know who else to ask.”

“He’s dead. What does it matter? Daddy’s dead.” Jessie threw herself back onto the bed. “Why did you tell me about the message?”

Mary sat down and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Jess, please.”

Jessie knocked the hand away. “It wasn’t my fault. Get out.”

“Jessie.”

“Did you hear me? Leave.” Jessie dug her head into her pillow. A sob racked her chest.

Mary walked to the door. Grace was there, peering in, eyes wide. Mary returned to the bed and knelt by Jessie’s side. “It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered. “Don’t you ever believe that.”

A cry escaped the pillow. A plea to break a mother’s heart.

“Why did you tell me, Mommy? Why?”