STATE OF BETRAYAL: A Virgil Jones Mystery (Detective Virgil Jones Mystery Series Book 2) (20 page)

23

__________

S
nowhill
and Epps took him to a break-room where three other programmers were eating
vending-machine dinners. All together the five of them looked a little like a
Seattle grunge band from fifteen years ago. Epps made the introductions by
pointing at the other three programmers and said, “Wu, Myers, Rand.” Then he
pointed his chin at Virgil and said, “Cop.”

Virgil pulled out a chair, sat down
at the table and got right to it. “My name is Virgil Jones. I’m investigating
the death of your coworker, Nicholas Pope. Anything you guys could tell me
would be a big help.”

Myers spoke first. “Might want to
get your facts straight. Don’t know that I’d call him our friend.”

“Why not?”

“He was my friend,” Wu said.

Myers ignored Wu as if he hadn’t
spoken. “Because we hardly knew him. Most of us have been here for quite a
while, hired directly by the lottery, but Pope came over with PTEK. He hadn’t
been here that long before they sacked him.”

“Sacked him? You mean he was
fired?”

Rand gave him a dry look. “No dude,
it means they put him in a paper bag.”

Virgil ignored the jab. “Why did
they fire him?”

They all looked at each other but
no one answered. “Look guys, let’s decide something right here and now. You
agree to talk to me and I’ll give you my word that whatever is said here stays
here. Sound fair?”

“Sounds like cop bullshit to me is
what it sounds like” Wu said. “Wu want no part of it.” He stood from the table.
“If the rest of you had any sense you no want it either.” He walked out of the
room.

Virgil looked at Rand, Myers,
Snowhill, and Epps, raising his eyebrows at them. Snowhill waved the expression
away. “Fuck Wu, he gets all worked up over nothing.”

__________

Wu
was
worked
up.
He was sitting at his desk, his computer monitor displaying the live
feed from the break room. He called Pate. “It Wu. Police are here.”

Pate was instantly worried. “Wu?
What the fuck is going on?”

“Wu just told you. Cop. That what
going on. Here at lottery office. What you want Wu to do?”

“Hold on.” Pate set the phone down,
took out his cell and called Hector. When Hector answered, Pate said, “Come to
the office, now,” then ended the call and turned his attention back to Wu. “How
many? Lot’s of cops? Like a raid?”

Wu rolled his eyes. “Not lots. One.”

“Who’s he talking to?”

“Some of the programmers. You want
live feed? There are security cameras in the room.”

“Yes, yes. You can do that?”

“Wu can do. It is not exactly live,
live.”

“What does that mean, Wu?”

“There is approximately ten second
delay.”

“I don’t care about that. What do I
have to do to get it?”

“Turn on computer.”

“It is on. What do I do?”

“What is your I.P. address?”

There was a flicker of silence. “I
don’t know what that is.”

Wu sighed. “Here is what you do…”

__________

“What do you mean,
he gets worked up over nothing?”

“Well, there’s some loyalty there,
I think,” Snowhill said. “What Wu said is true. Him and Pope were friends.”

Epps nodded. “They hung out
together. Not a lot, but some. He came over with Pope…from PTEK. What I told
you earlier? When I said I idolized him? It wasn’t just me. Everyone did. Pope
was something of legend and I don’t mean just around here. I mean out there…on
the net. He’s been places the rest of us don’t even like to dream about going.
I’m talking heavy duty places that are firewalled so thick that the Chinese and
the Russians don’t even bother.”

“You mean government systems?”
Virgil said.

Rand turned the corners of his lips
down. “No, man. I’m talking about cracking the places that really run the
country. The corporations. There really isn’t any notoriety with cracking the
government anymore. That shit’s too decentralized after 9/11 no matter what the
media says. They go on TV every night and talk about interagency cooperation
and communication but I don’t care you who are, it’s all bullshit.”

Myers agreed. “It’s true. They’re
lying through their teeth every time—”

Virgil cut them off. “Look guys,
this is all very fascinating stuff, but we might be getting a little
sidetracked here. I’d like to focus on who killed Pope and why.”

Rand swished his index finger back
and forth like a windshield wiper. “No, no, no, it matters. Don’t you see? Pope
came up late in the game. Hell, we all did. There isn’t much money to be made
anymore in hacking, at least in the traditional sense.”

“What do you mean by in the
traditional sense?”

“What I mean is, and just about any
other hacker would agree, the whole damn thing was never about the money. It’s
about the game, the challenge. Sure, a lot of guys made a shit pot of money
stealing corporate secrets and credit card information from databases—and
a lot still do—but the guys that are really good used to do it for the
thrill, the rush. The bragging rights. Now they do it to expose wrongdoing and
corruption. Look at Ed Snowden or Anonymous. You think they’re doing it for the
money?”

“He’s absolutely right,” Epps said.
“It’s what you might call catch and release for coders. Besides, it’s too
damned dangerous anymore to steal. Who wants to go to jail?”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re doing
it for sport or profit,” Virgil said. “The activity itself is the part that
goes against the law. To use your catch and release analogy, the game warden
doesn’t care if you haven’t caught any fish when he pulls his boat up next to
yours. If you’ve got a line in the water, you better have a current fishing
license. If you don’t, it’s illegal.”

“Only if you get caught,” Snowhill
said.

__________

“As much as I enjoy
the
philosophical debate, none of this helps me find who killed Nicholas
Pope.”

“That’s because we don’t know
anything,” Rand said. “I get that you guys probably hear that a lot, but in
this case it’s true.” The others nodded their heads in agreement.

“Why was he fired?”

“Who knows?” Snowhill said. “I’ll
tell you this though, it wasn’t for the reason they’re saying.”

“What reason is that?”

“Ah, he smoked a little dope.”

“But that’s not why they fired
him?” Virgil let the skepticism creep into his voice.

“I really don’t think so,” Rand
said. “It’s…mmm…tolerated, I guess would be the right word.”

“Why?”

“Any number of reasons really, but
the main one is simple. Show me a coder that doesn’t mellow out at the end of
his shift and I’ll show you someone who isn’t a coder. We all smoke. It’s as
simple as that. Odd hours, bad food, too much caffeine, no social life…hell the
pot is the only thing that keeps us sane.”

“And they overlook it?”

“They have so far. They have too,
really. If they didn’t there wouldn’t be anyone to do the job. Besides, that
shit is going to be legal before too long anyway.”

“So all of you believe Pope was
fired for something other than drug use?”

More nodding. “Had to be,” Myers
said. None of us have ever been drug tested. I can tell you this though, I’d
like to know why he got fired. We all would. Whatever he did—and he must
have done something wrong—I’d like to know what it was so I don’t make
the same mistake. I’m not talking about the job, either. I’m talking about
getting whacked.” He said the word ‘whacked’ like he’d been watching too much
television. “The two things must be connected, right? Him getting fired and
then killed?”

“It is possible,” Virgil said. “You
guys might want to watch your backs for a while. Don’t get alone with anyone
you don’t know.” He let them sit with that for a minute before he asked anything
else. “Tell me about your boss, Abigail Monroe.”

“Like what?” Snowhill said.

“Like what kind of person is she?”

“She’s okay, I guess,” Epps said.

Snowhill was taking a drink of his
Coke as Epps spoke and snorted a mouthful onto the table.
“Okay, I guess?
Christ, Eppy, tell the fucking truth why don’t you?”

Virgil looked at Snowhill. “What?”

Snowhill wiped his mouth on his
sleeve and shook his head at me.

“She’s hot, dude,” Rand said. “Epps
wants to bang her just slightly more than the rest of us, and the rest of us
want to bang her pretty fucking bad.”

Even Virgil had to smile at that.
“What about Wu?”

“Well, there’s some debate there,”
Rand said.

“A debate? What do you mean?”

“Ah, there’s no debate,” Myers
said. “Wu’s a little gay.”

__________

Wu was giving
instructions
to
Pate on how to receive the feed when he heard Myers say, ‘Wu’s a little gay.’

What? Gay? Where did that come
from? Wu not gay. He turned the volume up slightly so he could hear more
clearly.

“Wu? Hello, Wu? Are you there?”
Pate. He’d forgotten about him. Had Pate heard what they were saying about him?
He didn’t want that. He killed the outgoing feed. “Wu, what happened? I had it
for a split second then it was gone.”

Wu thought for a moment. “Mmm, Wu
not sure. Check the sub-net mask on your router. It is probably not correctly
configured.”

“For Christ sake, Wu, I don’t know
how to do that…”

__________

That might be
something,
Virgil thought. “Tell me more about Wu.”

“Why, do you lean that way?” Epps
said. “You don’t look like the type.”

Virgil laughed at the question.
“That’s good to know and no, I don’t…lean that way. I’ll tell you this though,
the crime scene at Pope’s was messy. It looks exactly like some of the ones
I’ve seen before. The…brutality of it all. When you get to that level of
violence it’s often the result of a scorned lover. And when that type of
violence is done to a man, it’s usually indicative of…well, you can see where
I’m going with this, can’t you?”

“Well, I can tell you this,”
Snowhill said. “Wu didn’t kill Pope.”

“How do you know?”

“He was killed the same day he was
fired, right?”

“Yes.”

“We were all here, working on the
code. Wu was right here with us.”

“He didn’t leave, go out to lunch,
or anything like that?”

“No. None of us ever do,” Epps
said. “When you’re working the code you get into the zone, man. You might be
able to step outside for a quick smoke or something, but no one takes the time
to get in their car and drive to a McDonalds. You’d lose your rhythm.”

“Eppy’s right,” Myers said.
“Besides, that was the day we had the air conditioning problem. It was about
ninety-five degrees in here and we were all running around setting up external
fans to keep the servers from overheating. Wu was fried by the time we were done.
We all were, but he was here. Hey, you know what’s funny? That’s the day we
figured out he was a little gay.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Virgil
said.

“Monroe,” Epps said. “It was so hot
in the building she was walking around barefoot. It’s her feet. Have you ever
seen them?”

Virgil assured them he hadn’t.

“They’re amazing, Rand said. “I
don’t quite know how to describe them.”

“I do,” Epps said. “They’re the
sexiest fucking feet I’ve ever seen…”

__________

“How does that prove
Wu is gay?”

“He thought her feet were
disgusting,” Rand said. He verbally italicized the word ‘disgusting.’

Virgil was skeptical. “That’s
hardly indicative of sexual preference.”

They all stared at him for a few
moments, then Rand said, “Whatever, dude. Wu’s still gay.”

“Fine, fine,” Virgil told them.
“I’m not interested in Wu. I’m interested in Pope…”

__________

“When Wu heard the cop
say he wasn’t interested in him, he hit the button and released the outbound
feed. “What about now?” he said to Pate.

“Yes, yes, I have it,” Pate said.
“But the picture looks wrong.”

“What mean, wrong?”

“Sort of rounded. Like looking
through a glass bowl or something. I can’t tell who is who.”

“Yes. Fisheye lens. Get whole room
that way.”

“Can you zoom in or something?”

“Yes. You want the cop?”

“No, Wu, I want the microwave. Of
course I want the cop. And I can barely hear them.”

Wu tapped a few keys on his
keyboard to zoom the camera, then upped the audio output. “How that?”

Pate leaned closer to his own
monitor. “Yes, that’s much better. I can—”

Wu waited for his boss to finish,
but the line remained silent. Finally he said, “What wrong?”

“That’s not a cop, Wu. That’s the
man who murdered my son.”

Wu had watched Augustus Pate’s son,
Samuel, commit suicide on national TV like everyone else, but he wasn’t about
to debate the facts with his boss. “What you want Wu to do?”

Pate was silent for a few moments
and then said, “Nothing. Let’s hear what he has to say.”

__________

“The thing about
Pope,”
Epps said, “is he was a little shifty.”

“Shifty?”

“Yeah, you know, sort of slippery.
I never really trusted him. None of us did.”

Snowhill, Myers, and Rand all nodded
their heads. “Wait a second…earlier you all said you idolized him.”