The Manuscript (6 page)

“Yeah. Nice to meetcha,” Koshi mumbled.

“So, Koshi, Abe here was just explaining how he had received an e-mail yesterday, with an attachment, and when he went to check it this morning it was gone…”

“Uh, all right. But unless someone was on his computer, that’s impossible. I mean, it’s virtually impossible. Theoretically, anything’s possible – let’s just say it’s highly unlikely. But why doesn’t he contact the sender and have him resend the attachment?” Koshi asked.

“I know this is going to sound odd,” Abe said. “I mean, it sounds odd to me as I think about saying it, but here it is: I have no idea who sent me the e-mail, or who the author is.”

“Koshi, Abe says he already checked his trash and spam to make sure he didn’t inadvertently delete it. You want to take a look at his system and see what you can figure out?” Michael asked.

“Sure. Is your browser open to your e-mail, or do you use Outlook or some other program?” Koshi asked Abe as he sauntered around the desk and plopped down in Abe’s chair.

“I’m not sure about all that. I just know that I sign in on the web and check my e-mail for that account,” Abe informed him; he wasn’t super technology-oriented, obviously.

“All right. Never mind. Give me a few minutes and I’ll figure this out.” Koshi was already peering at the huge flat screen on Abe’s desk and typing furiously. “Oh, and just to rule it out, does anyone besides you know your password for this account – or do you leave your computer on when you leave for the night?”

“No on all.” Abe’s stomach growled audibly. “Michael, care to join me for a trip downstairs to grab my sandwich? It should be ready by now,” Abe invited, and without pausing for a response, he grabbed his satchel and opened his office door.

“Sure. We’ll be back in a few…” Michael glanced at Abe for guidance, “…minutes, maybe half an hour. Will that give you enough time?” Michael inquired.

“Should be,” Koshi murmured, immersed in whatever he was doing on the screen.

Michael followed Abe through the reception area and out the front door of his offices. Abe stabbed the button for the elevator, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet as they waited. He seemed awfully spry considering his years and considerable girth. Michael hoped he still had as much spring in his step when he hit his late sixties or early seventies – he wasn’t sure about Abe’s age, but that seemed about right.

The ancient contraption clunked its arrival and the steel door slid open. Michael followed Abe in, feeling a momentary sense of panic, which he squelched – he hated elevators, especially ones that easily pre-dated Eisenhower, and this one had been a bit jerky on the trip up.

The ride down to the street level was creaky but uneventful.

Everyone at the deli knew Abe, and they cleared a small table for him when he announced he was going to eat there instead of take-out. Michael ordered a turkey club and a soda from the boisterous counter man, who winked at him with a disturbing familiarity.

“I didn’t want to say anything in front of your guy, but I’m wondering, how long does it take to scan a book and get it into electronic format?” Abe asked, once their food arrived.

“It’s not that hard, although, depending on the number of pages, it can be time consuming – so the answer is: depends on the size of the document. But it’s not complicated. Why?” Michael wasn’t sure where this was going.

“Well, I printed a copy of the manuscript last night before I left – to read at home – so I have almost 400 pages I’m only partially through. I’d like to get it onto disk. I’ve seen too many coffee spills, lost pages, and fires in my day,” Abe explained.

Christ. How did guys like Abe survive in the modern world without being able to wield technology
? And yet Michael knew that much of the publishing business still ran on hard copy, with progress towards automation fought literally to the last breath. Only in the last few years would agents even accept electronic submissions. It was wild, but that was the industry – one of the last of the dinosaurs.

“If you like, I can have it scanned for you this afternoon and drop it by later,” Michael offered.

“That would be great – we don’t have a scanner…well, I did have one but couldn’t get it to work. Hopefully, it won’t be necessary and we can recover the e-mail, but I’ll take you up on it if we can’t.” Abe paused. “Michael, it’s potentially a very important book, if the claims can be verified. I have to tell you I got shivers when I was reading last night. I just don’t like that it came in anonymously and unsolicited. It’s a little creepy, although it could just be the writer injecting some melodrama to get my attention,” Abe admitted.

“Come on, Abe. With the internet, there are no secrets any more. How inflammatory could it possibly be?” Michael asked. Abe had piqued his curiosity.

“Trust me. If this isn’t a work of fiction and it turns out to be true, this is a game-changer for a lot of entities, including the government. It would be bigger than anything we’ve seen during our lifetimes, and I’m not given to hyperbole or exaggeration. I called some high-level people this morning and put out feelers, but I have to tell you that the message going missing has me on edge,” Abe confided.

“Well, then let’s go recover it. Sounds like you got yourself a once-in-a-career exclusive there, so let’s figure out what happened. Worst case, I scan it for you and return it, stat,” Michael said.

Abe flagged the kid with the attitude and asked for the bill. He paid the tab, and they went back upstairs to see what progress had been made.

When they entered Abe’s office Koshi looked glum.

“I don’t know what to tell you. I checked everything it could reasonably be, including viruses, worms, spyware, or Trojan horses, and there’s nothing. Basically, what you’re describing couldn’t happen, unless the e-mail server at the service provider selectively deleted just that e-mail, which is extremely, extremely unlikely,” Koshi reported.

“What do you think, then? Abe saw the e-mail and read it, so how could that one e-mail simply disappear?” Michael asked.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. This kind of thing just doesn’t happen. Maybe you lose a whole chunk of data, but not just one message - I mean, I suppose it could actually happen, but not accidentally,” Koshi observed.

“What are you getting at?” Abe demanded.

“Look, a high-grade hacker might be able to accomplish the removal of a single e-mail from a server, but with all the security in place these days, we’d be talking government-level capabilities. And I highly doubt that even the government could do it,” Koshi explained.

Abe and Michael exchanged glances.

“I’ll keep drilling down on this if you want from my home system, but there isn’t anything more I can do here. Your system’s clean, the firewall is in place, your virus protection’s up. So you’re good to go,” Koshi said.

Michael frowned. “Let me ask one more question. If I read an attachment or printed something, wouldn’t that leave a trail or record on the computer? Couldn’t you find it that way, just for conversation?” Michael was asking more for Abe’s benefit. He already knew the answer.

Koshi looked at him oddly. “Well, yeah, but I already scanned the system to see if anything’s there, and the short answer is, there isn’t.”

“But I–” Abe started.

“Thanks, Koshi. Yes, please keep on this and see if you can figure out what happened, or how someone could have selectively deleted a file from his service provider,” Michael instructed.

“Oh…it’s way weirder than that. He’s using Securemail.com, which uses 128-bit military-grade encryption – which is why I’m so sure even a very high-level hacker couldn’t have done this.”

Michael’s jaw clenched as he swiveled and regarded Abe.

The old man shrugged. “That’s whatever my technology guy recommended when he set up the network. I told him I wanted the safest possible system for my communications, and that’s what he came up with. Apparently, it’s not so safe…” Abe mused.

“No, he was right, it’s bulletproof. That’s why what you’re describing isn’t possible. Which is what makes it a mystery,” Koshi quipped.

Michael shot him a warning glance. “Okay, thanks again, Koshi. Let me know if you come up with anything else.”

Koshi left Michael and Abe to mull over the findings. Michael’s mind raced over the possible scenarios, and he didn’t like any of them.

“How’s security in the building at night?” Michael asked.

“Never had a break-in or any problems. I mean, Michael, please, it’s not like we have gold bullion stored here, you know? A lot of this stuff I’d need to pay someone to haul away…” he reflected.

Michael gestured to the outer office area with his head and accompanied Abe to the small foyer at the literary agency’s entrance.

“I’ll tell you what, Abe. I’m going to go finish up my job today, and then I want to come over and do a sweep of the office, make sure you’re clean. Remember, this is what I do for a living – and I’ve seen a lot of dirty tricks from competitor companies over the years. I specialize in this kind of security, and if you’ve never had it done, you’re long overdue,” Michael advised.

“Look, Michael, the book business isn’t like that,” Abe protested.

“Yeah. I know. It never is. Tell you what, just for you I’ll do a quick sweep in return for you continuing to prod me along on my book. Keep at me, and I’ll stop in later and ensure your lines are clean, okay? It’s a quick process, no big deal. And it can’t hurt, given all the mysteries so far today, right?” Michael offered.

“Okay. Done deal. But I still think there’s a simple explanation for all this,” Abe reasoned.

“I know. So let me get going, I’ll deal with this for you.” Michael nodded at the satchel with the manuscript in it, still dangling from Abe’s hand. “I’ll see you in a few hours, maybe around six.”

“I’ll be here,” Abe said.

“It’s a date.”

Michael took the satchel from Abe and exited the offices. Once the door was closed, he paused, studying the area around the lock and the jamb, inspecting for any telltale scrapes or abrasions. He saw no evidence of any, but that was inconclusive.

A big part of what Michael did involved being paranoid about everything so his clients could sleep easily. When unexplained potential security breaches popped up on a routine gig, alarms naturally went off in his head – it was just the way he was wired. Koshi was as good as they came, so if he couldn’t figure out what happened, it could be that Abe had a real problem on his hands, even if he didn’t realize it yet.

Michael was beginning to feel a familiar tingling sensation, which was never good. He’d learned there was generally no such thing as coincidence, and that mysteries which couldn’t be easily explained usually warranted caution.

And his tingle was resonating in an alarming manner.

Chapter 3

Michael spent the remainder of the afternoon at his apartment scanning the manuscript for Abe, while trying to arrange the handoff of the Turkish delegation to Aldous – which didn’t go as he would have liked. They wanted a night on the town, complete with security, so he was going to be on deck with them from when their meetings ended until at least eleven in the evening.

Circumstances having conspired against him, Michael called Abe apologetically, and they deferred the electronics sweep to the following morning at ten. Abe was appreciative and understanding –
Hey, it happened. See you tomorrow; don’t stay out too late
.

Michael hardly had time to glance at the manuscript as he juggled the cumbersome task of manually scanning each page with making his telephone calls – though his native curiosity had been aroused by Abe’s description of the contents. Abe would let him peek at it once it became apparent his office was clean and there was no scheme to censor his e-mail. If so, super – and if not, also fine by Michael. Hell, he didn’t even have time to write his own masterpiece let alone pore through someone else’s. Still, a part of him was intrigued, which was one of the reasons he’d offered to scan the doc and give the office the once-over.

Finally finished at five p.m., he compressed the document and copied the file to a flash drive for Abe and then put it on his keychain – that way he wouldn’t lose it. It stood to be a late one, so Michael grabbed a couple of energy bars and guzzled a bottle of orange juice before leaving the apartment to keep New York safe from the Turks – or perhaps it was the other way around.

He talked to Jim, his electronics security contractor, and they agreed to meet at Abe’s building the following morning. Michael explained that it would be a quick one, as it was just Abe’s small office and a few cubicles and reception area. He also made a mental note to touch base with Abe’s tech guy to get a feeling for his acumen and background.

Which reminded him to call Koshi.

“What do you really think happened to the e-mail, Koshi? I mean, can you think of any scenario that doesn’t involve voodoo or internet Gestapo?” Michael asked.

“Yeah, the most likely is that he accessed his e-mail account from another computer at some point and it stored his password or had spyware on it. Or someone knows the password because he told them, and he forgot he did. That happens as you get older, I hear...” Koshi’s jab was obvious, but Michael ignored it.

“But then why delete only that e-mail?”

“Dude, you don’t really know what else is missing at this point. You just know that he noticed that one is gone and freaked. He could have a third of his logs wiped and I get the feeling he’d never register it. I really wouldn’t want to go down the alternative theory road. It’s a little far-fetched, and frankly kinda nutty – ninjas stole my best seller?”

Koshi was right.

“It does seem odd, doesn’t it?” Michael agreed.

“Look, here’s what we know. There’s an older gentleman, very nice, but still, older, who’s insisting that the spirits stole his e-mail. On the one hand, we have military-grade encryption, complete lack of any realistic explanation, and a universe of alternative theories – maybe his tech consultant logged his password or maybe it’s just not that tough to guess for someone close to him, for example. On the other hand, we have insistence it’s none of those, and that only this one e-mail is missing. Somehow, this is way more complicated than anything I’ve ever seen.” Koshi paused, allowing the silence to underscore his point.