Helen Hanson - Dark Pool (22 page)

“What do you want us to do with Meyers?”

“Keep watching him. The keylogger on his computer has proven quite useful.” He peeled the banana and nipped off the end. “He may keep the pen.”

“He’s going to the Silicon Valley Server Farm tomorrow for meeting with Jack Scarson. Same man we met.”

“So we’re a step ahead of him, Anton. That is good. What else have you found out about the senile guy, Fender?”

“Nothing, new. I think we should bring him in and let him sweat.”

“Yuri, sound, please.” Vladimir took another bite.

 

—with Samantha Merrick, outside the SEC investigator’s hotel in San Francisco. Ms. Merrick, what is the status of Patty O’Mara?

 

Vladimir understood Samantha Merrick’s obvious annoyance. The honey-skinned woman shoving the microphone in his face was not polite. But the investigator clearly enjoyed the camera.

 

Mr. O’Mara remains under house arrest as we continue our investigation. Even at this juncture, our case is solid and growing. We expect a swift conviction. Unless Mr. O’Mara wants to confess and save the people the expense of a trial. Samantha Merrick flashed a genuine smile at the reporter. We’d also appreciate locating the missing funds.
The reporter with the mike responded as if speaking to a smart-ass teenager.
Ma’am, you do know he was rushed to the hospital today. I was referring to his medical status. What is his current physical condition?

Then you should have asked his physician.
Samantha Merrick left the reporter on the sidewalk staring into the camera.

 

“Mute,” Vladimir said. “Where were we?”

“Fender.” Yuri used up his quota of words for the day.

“You want to sweat a guy with no memory.”

Anton rocked his neck from side to side as if trying to loosen a crick. “We don’t know his real condition. Forgetting may be more convenient for him than remembering. Maybe he thinks it is safer.”

Anton looked as dense as mortar, but his thinking surprised everyone. Vladimir considered the possibility. “No, we don’t know his real condition. You may be right. How long is he supposed to have had Alzheimer’s?”

“A couple of years. Most people don’t slip away that quickly.”

“Most people don’t warrant our careful attention.” Vladimir strode into the kitchen and opened a drawer to the trash compactor. He dropped the peel. “Have the boys bring him in tomorrow night, Anton. Then you and Yuri can ask him some questions. He’ll be ready to answer by then.”

Anton didn’t smile at the news. Vladimir knew it didn’t bring him any pleasure.

“I don’t want the old man to be able to identify anyone, in case his memory works.”

“You got it boss.”

“And don’t let them get carried away.”

“No.” Anton said, “Yuri, sound.”

 

—and in another part of the city—

 

Vladimir hurried to the television.

 

—police have identified the dead man as Barney Reid, a local import dealer. Mr. Reid’s body was found this afternoon behind a dumpster in the Tenderloin district. A woman walking her dog said the animal veered off their usual path and brought her to the local businessman’s body. Preliminary reports indicate that he may have died of a drug overdose. But police said that a full autopsy will be conducted.”

 

“Mute.” Vladimir suppressed a grin.

 

 

Chapter Thirty-Six

 

 

Kurt understood Jack Scarson’s reluctance to escort him around the Silicon Valley Server Farm without approval from one of the owners. A customer was one thing, but a private investigator was another. Kurt’s reputation put him in a different league than Sam Spade, J. J. Gittes, or Jim Rockford— more in the circle of a Hercule Poirot—but still, a private dick with no legal authority. Jack nattered on about the facility while he waited for a return call to either grant permission for the tour or politely request Kurt to leave the premises.

 

He had picked up Samantha Merrick the night before, but the quiet dinner he imagined became an interrogation. And not just from Samantha. The lead FBI agent called her and passed questions to Kurt until their appetizers arrived. Then Spencer Thornton showed up to continue the grilling through dessert and a round of port. When Kurt arrived home, the media swarmed his building, so he took refuge with an honest martini in a North Beach bar and listened to jazz. Samantha was leaving in the morning, and he didn’t even like jazz.

“Good news.” Jack Scarson swiveled in his chair. “Or bad news, really.” The smile on his face wavered as if he couldn’t decide on the proper emotion. “The tour and interview are approved because one of the owners has a relative who lost money with Patty O’Mara. That’s the bad news. Apparently, you are to be extended every courtesy.” The smile returned.

Kurt stood alongside Jack.

“What did you want to see today?”

“O’Mara’s computers. The area he kept them. Is it still intact?”

Jack put his hands on his hips. “The feds removed everything, and we’ve reconfigured the space for other customers since then.”

“Show me, anyway.”

They walked through the lobby to the other side of the building. Jack laid his cardkey on the reader and gained access into the man-trap. After Kurt stepped inside, the door behind them closed. While the machine read Jack’s fingerprints, Kurt realized his shoes were sticking to the floor. Beneath him, a bright white sheet of sticky material collected the debris from the bottom of his shoes. Many footprints bore witness to prior entrants.

“You’ll be stepping on those throughout the facility. It keeps dirt from entering the data center.”

When they made it through the second door, the temperature was noticeably cooler.

Jack laughed. “I’m ready to give you my usual pitch, here. But you’re not a potential customer.”

“Please, tell me what you would tell any visitor. If I have questions, I’ll let you know.”

“Fair enough. We have redundant cooling systems to keep the temperature at an ambient seventy degrees Fahrenheit. The servers put off an enormous amount of heat. Excessive heat can make them unreliable.”

They walked up a ramp lined with the sticky mats. The closer they got to the top, the fainter the footprints.

“I should get some of these for my house,” Kurt said.

“My wife says the same thing.”

“So why did we walk up?”

“Thirty-inch raised floor. Each section is an access panel to a city’s worth of wiring underneath, plus the plenum space to keep the air in constant circulation.”

“No shortage of wiring overhead either.”

As they walked through the aisles of server cages, Jack pointed to the ceiling. “We have miles of conduit in here. Our business is all about connectivity—to internet backbones, to power sources, to the financial exchanges, all at the speed of light. And with enough redundancy in systems to ensure that even a lonely little server in the corner is always up and running.”

With row after row of metal structures, the data center reminded Kurt of a locker room minus the odor of ancient sweat. The cages were about his height, but made of wire mesh to allow airflow over the computer server boxes mounted on racks inside. He pointed to the cage in front of him. “What’s in this one?”

“Computers. Functionally, these boxes aren’t much different than the computer you use in your office, but these are in standard case sizes, so we can attach them to a nineteen-inch rack. They take up less space that way. And these don’t all need a monitor and keyboard.” Jack pointed to a stack of metal cases each the size of a large pizza box. “These are what we call 1U servers. Each server box takes up one unit of vertical rack space. These look like our boxes, but we rent them, sell them, or you bring your own in, and we keep them supplied with electricity and internet access.”

“Who are your customers?”

“They come from across the globe. Some programmer in Botswana could rent a server here and never set foot in the place.”

“Does that happen often?”

“From Botswana?” Jack laughed. “No. But we have many customers that order services online and manage them remotely. Not all of course, but many do.”

“Tell me more about the financial exchange access. Did Patty O’Mara subscribe to these services?”

“Absolutely. It’s likely the reason he placed his servers here. This is a hot area for data center growth. Demand is booming. The days of sweaty guys in suits screaming and running numbers on the exchange floor are over. Now it’s about shaving nanoseconds off the time it takes to trade. Any delay, or latency in high-frequency trading will cost you money. It’s all about the speed of your feed.”

“He who arrives with the bid first, wins,” Kurt said. “Wall Street isn’t really in New York, anymore.”

Jack stopped in front of more cages. “O’Mara’s computers were in this space before. He had a custom cage that he managed, maybe ten feet square. There was a small desk inside, but I can’t say I ever saw anyone in there.”

“Did anyone from your facility ever have reason to access it?”

“With the type of service he had, we only go in by request or for an emergency. Neither of those events occurred while O’Mara was a customer. He’s been the talk of this place, too.”

Kurt studied the area for a few quiet moments. He didn’t really know what he was looking for. But he rarely did until it was the thing he needed. He stared until the images weren’t things anymore but colors on the palette with defined beginnings and endings. Like one of those pages with no picture apparent until you look past the dizzying pattern to find the pelicans in flight over the crashing waves. But he did this in reverse, capturing every detail in a separate impression, so it would steep in his subconscious. In case it was important.

From somewhere, a clanking door broke the spell. The cages returned to the forefront. “Patty O’Mara isn’t your only link to the news recently.”

“Excuse me?”

Kurt leaned against the cage. “Martin Fender. Didn’t he work here?”

“Good guy, Martin. I can’t believe someone would try and hurt him. He left a few years ago when his Alzheimer’s became obvious.”

“Did you know him well?”

“Well enough. We had the same duties but worked different shifts. I liked him.” Jack’s brow bunched in concern. “What’s he got to do with O’Mara?”

“I didn’t say he did. But I’m paid to ask questions, so I ask as many as I can.” The answer seemed to satisfy Jack. “Did you know his son, Travis?”

“Sure. He often hung out with his father on weekends, occasionally after school. Security was less strict in those days.”

“Was he really a computer whiz like the prosecution said at his trial?”

“The kid was a quick study. No doubt.” Jack checked the phone at his hip. “We were stunned when he was arrested.”

“Nice kid?”

“Oh yeah. But he had it pretty rough. His mom died of some horrible disease that atrophies the muscles. And you know about his dad. That’s enough to send any kid over the edge.”

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe prison. If not, he lives with his father and a half-sister who is in charge of them both. Maggie’s her name.”

Kurt pushed off from the cage. “Can I get their address from you?”

 

 

Chapter Thirty-Seven

 

 

Maggie spent a sleepless night with every house creak amplifying her fears. Was it a bough scraping the roof or a Russian assassin wielding a twelve-inch dagger? By dawn, she abandoned the game of name-that-noise, dressed for cool weather, and wandered downstairs for her purse.

 

Sergeant Garcia met Maggie in the lobby of the Half Moon Bay Police Department while she thumbed through a public safety brochure. She dropped it on the table when she saw him. It didn’t contain any advice for dispelling her paranoia.

“Ms. Fender.”

“Thank you for meeting me.” She thrust her hand out to him. His hand was large, warm, and kept her own from shaking. “I’m scared, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Is this related to your father’s case?”

“My brother’s. My father’s. I don’t know anymore.”

“C’mon, let’s talk back here.” He led her past the reception booth and down the hall to what was probably their break room. He poured coffee into a thick paper cup. “Coffee?”

“Please.” Maggie folded out the two sides of the handle while he poured another cup for himself. The friendly smell put her more at ease.

He led her across the hall to a conference room with a glass wall and closed the door.

“Tell me what’s got you so worried?”

She closed her hands around the cup. Suddenly she felt foolish for coming to the police. What was there to tell? “I’m not sure where to begin. I recently left a job at a restaurant, and one of my former co-workers said that two men came in looking for me. I don’t know these men.” The heat from the coffee made her hands sweat.

“Did they eat at the restaurant?”

“Yes.” Maggie took a sip and put the cup down.

“So they were diners. Why were they looking for you?”

“They said I’d been their waitress before, but I’ve never served them before.”

“How can you be sure?”

“They had Russian accents. I would have remembered that.”

Sergeant Garcia sipped his coffee. A brown bead hung from his mustache. “How long did you work there?”

“Over a year.”

“And you remember every customer.”

This was turning into an interrogation. “I remember all the Russian ones. There were zero.” She should have stayed home.

“What do you think they really wanted?”

“I don’t know, but my neighbor said there were some Russian men down the street pointing at my house.” That sounded stupid, and now she wasn’t sure if she should mention Fyodor. She took a gulp of coffee. The caffeine helped her nerves. “And someone keeps calling the house and asking for my father.”

The sergeant looked perplexed.

“He hasn’t used the phone in over a year. The caller won’t leave a name or hangs up.”

“Perhaps it’s a telemarketer.”

Or Peter. But, again, she had no proof.

“Has there been any other activity?”