"Uh, do we have a problem?"
She half rolled toward me, so I could see a crescent of her face in the hallway light. "No, I just thought this would be better. As long as we're, like, going into combat."
"Does Dace have anything to do with this?"
There was a moment of silence.
"He's an awful nice guy," she said in a small voice. "He wants to go to Mexico and write."
"You're going with him?"
"I don't know. Nothing happened tonight, if that's what you're asking." She sounded a bit frosty, like she was about to claim she wasn't that kind of girl, but couldn't, since we both knew she was. "He's a nice guy. I like him."
"Okay, just asking," I said, turning away from the door.
"Kidd," she called.
I stepped back.
"I like you an awful lot, too," she said. Now she sounded sad. "But you're not a nice guy. I always wanted, you know, a nice guy."
"Gee, thanks."
"No, really. Do you think you're a nice guy?"
I had to think about that for a minute. Was I a nice guy? The question had never occurred to me.
"See?" LuEllen said in the lengthening silence.
Sometimes I'm sure I don't relate well to women. There always seem to be a couple around, but they always leave. LuEllen, I thought, would be different. She was as self-contained as I was; we fit well together, we each thought the other was interesting. We didn't talk too much, didn't rub anything.
I went back to my bedroom, accepting the change of condition, but when my undershirt came off I found myself wadding it up and pitching it at the wall like a fastball.
The next morning Dace showed up at nine o'clock with a package under his arm and a look of mild embarrassment on his face. He walked casually through to the office bedroom and couldn't quite contain a look of satisfaction when he saw the rumpled blankets in LuEllen's bedroom.
"Ah, I see. " he said, when he noticed me noticing him.
"Yeah, don't worry about it. You must have hit it off last night."
"A fascinating woman," he said. "We're talking about Mexico. Afterward."
"So I hear."
LuEllen came out of the kitchen with a cup of coffee. "Are my ears burning?"
"Just straightening out administrative details," I said.
"Details," repeated Dace. "Say, we got a box." He handed it to me.
The box had no return address, but the postmark indicated that it came from a California friend of mine who operates an electronics specialty business. He usually works from a rented garage, and his appliances are very, very expensive.
"Tools," I said. "Let's start sorting things out."
What?
Need fix on MURs.
Give me numbers.
Can't be simple patch.
Will do cutout.
OK. How much?
1K
OK
The phone company keeps computer records of local phone calls. Hackers call them "muthers," for Message Unit Records. If a hacker uses his home phone for illegal computer entries, and the law gets interested, the phone company can check his muthers to see when and to where he made calls.
Once Whitemark realized that their computer was under attack, they would call in federal investigators. The feds, with their Grays, could sweep the Washington muthers looking for a pattern of calls to Whitemark.
"If Bobby did a simple software patch, one that tells the muther computer to ignore calls from this number, the feds might find the patch and read the number right off it," I told LuEllen.
"So what's he going to do?"
"He'll rig a cutout. Every time we dial out, the call will be assigned to a random number. That's what muther will record."
"He can do that from wherever he is?"
"I don't know. He might hire a tech out here, but for the price, I doubt it. I think he does it from wherever he is."
MURs out w/ random bypass.
Thanx.
We ready for backup.
I'll get back.
We would attack Whitemark in two ways. We would enter the company's computer system and alter it. Some of the changes would be subtle, some crude. The damage would be extensive. As the computer breakdown got Whitemark into deeper and deeper trouble, we'd open the second front: Dace would leak word of the company's problems through the Pentagon rumor mills and the defense press. If it was done right, Whitemark's credibility would crumble, and with it, Hellwolf's. But first we had to get into the Whitemark computers.
Defense industries like Whitemark have physical security ranging from adequate to pretty tight. Fortunately for the craft of industrial espionage, they do have weak points. One of them is greed. They like the idea of their engineers and key managers working at home. Those people inevitably have home terminals with phone links to the main computer center.
The existence of those outside terminals creates a paradoxical problem for the computer centers. On the one hand, if nonexperts, like engineers or accountants, are going to use the computers, the computers have to be friendly-easy to enter and easy to use. On the other hand, if they're too friendly, a bunch of hackers-or spies, if paranoia's your style-could get in and trash the system.
The usual answer is a tough, but thin, security screen. There are a number of different techniques for building the screens, but most are based on coded access. The home users of the system would have entry codes. To get into the Whitemark computers, we had to have the codes. We had to steal them.
The only way to do that was to get into the users' homes. We could copy the code-carrying software and leave behind a concealed bug that would relay computer traffic. If the whole business looked like an ordinary burglary, no one would suspect that computer security had been penetrated.
Once we had the codes, though, we had to start using them, because the damn things expire. And once we attacked the Whitemark computer, we had to keep the attack rolling. When Whitemark figured out what was happening, they would isolate the computer system and shut us out.
It was a matter of doing everything at once. It wasn't good, but there was no choice.
Bobby's research turned up a long list of potential burglary targets. Dace knew Washington like only a local newsman can, and LuEllen cross-examined him on street layouts, crime rates, and landscaping styles. As we narrowed the list of prospects to a dozen, Bobby went into the credit companies and pulled out full reports on the primary targets.
Late in the afternoon, with the list down to a handful of solid possibilities and their files in hand, we broke for dinner.
I drove, LuEllen in the front seat beside me, Dace in the back. As we stopped at the curb cut before entering the street, LuEllen reached over and touched my hand on the steering wheel, while turning to look at Dace.
"Okay, guys," she said, smiling, "I don't want anybody to look. But when we came out the door, there was a guy sitting in the driver's seat of that green van up the street. I think he was looking for us in his outside mirror, and when we came out he looked back at us. Now he's not in the driver's seat anymore. He's not around. I think he's in the back of the van."
"Watching us?" asked Dace, not looking at the van. It was thirty feet up the street, on the opposite side.
"I'm paranoid," said LuEllen. "I got a funny vibe when he looked at us. It was like our eyes met."
"We can't just sit here," I said. I looked both ways and turned down the street toward the van.
"Dace, you look," LuEllen said. "Like you're talking to me, but look past my head and see if there's anybody in the front seat."
We passed the van and Dace grunted, "Nobody."
"Shit," said LuEllen.
"Maybe the guy was just getting out when you saw him and he left while we were walking to the car," Dace suggested.
"Nope," I said, looking in the rearview mirror. "The van just pulled out. He's coming after us." The van driver waited until there was another car between us, then fell in behind. LuEllen casually turned her head and watched for a few seconds and then turned back to me.
"What the fuck is this, Kidd?" she demanded.
"I don't know. We haven't made a move yet."
"You've been doing the computer stuff. Could the cops be monitoring already?"
"No. That's too paranoid," I said. "There are probably a half million data transmissions every day in this town."
She watched the van for another minute. "Well, then what?" she asked impatiently.
"I don't know, but he's breaking off, whoever he is," I said. The van had followed a few blocks, but as we approached a traffic light at a major intersection, it slowed, waited for two additional cars to get between us, then did a U-turn, and headed back toward the apartment.
I took a left, drove a block, took another left, and headed back after it.
"Go past the apartments and come back from the other side. They won't be looking in that direction," LuEllen said.
When we got back, the van was parked on the street directly in front of the building. A tall man in green maintenance coveralls was just getting out of the back and when he slammed the door, the van pulled another half block up the street and stopped.
"So there are two of them," LuEllen said. "The outside guy is a lookout. The inside man has a radio or maybe a beeper."
"So now what?" asked Dace.
LuEllen looked at me. "Our security must be fucked," she said.
"It's not right," I repeated. "For somebody to be onto us, it'd have to be the biggest coincidence in the world."
"So what are we doing?" Dace asked.
"A million bucks," I said. I thought about it. "We don't even know if we're the targets. If we are, and we can take the guy inside, we might find out what's going on. We haven't broken any serious laws yet. If we catch a guy in the place, and talk to him, we might find out exactly where we stand. And he might not be in there at all."
"We better move if we're gonna do it," LuEllen said. "I'd be surprised if he's in there for more than five minutes."
I shook my head. "That's if he's burglarizing the place. If he's tossing it, looking for something specific about us, or if he's putting in bugs, he'll be a little longer. Any ideas about that lookout?"
"Sure. I need a phone," LuEllen said.
There was a phone box on the side of a recreation center two blocks away. LuEllen called the cops and then came running back.
"I told them that the guy in the green van picked up a little girl outside the rec center and took her down the street," she said when she climbed back in the car. "They'll have a car here in a minute. That'd be a top priority call."
The squad car actually arrived less than a minute later. We waited on a side street. When the squad went by, I pulled around the block and went up an alley into the back entrance of the apartment parking lot. The cops had the van driver in the street.
"Dace, you wait here," I said over my shoulder. "If LuEllen doesn't come down in five minutes exactly, you get the cops up there."
"Why don't I come up?" he asked anxiously.
"I don't have time to argue," I said. LuEllen followed me into the building, and we took the steps to the second floor. At the door to the apartment, LuEllen put her finger to her lips, listened for a few seconds, then checked the door lock.
"Scratches," she said, pressing her lips close to my ear. "They weren't there before. They could come from an old-style automated lockpick."
"Can we get inside?" I whispered back.
"He'll hear us coming. If he's armed, we're in trouble."
"Will he take the elevator or the stairway?"
"Stairs."
"Let's go back there."
We walked back to the stairs and shut the steel fire door.
"You better go down and tell Dace we're okay," I said. "I'll wait here and try to take him when he comes through the door."
There was a small, mechanical sound from beyond the fire door. "Too late," LuEllen said. "He's coming."
"Shit. Get down the stairs, out of sight."
LuEllen scrambled down the concrete steps and stopped below the next landing. I stood behind the fire door and waited. If the person coming down the hall was one of the alleged hookers who frequented the place, or a Pentagon general, this would be embarrassing.
But it wasn't. The guy who came through the door was slender, anemic, with thin blond hair and pale, watery eyes. He was wearing coveralls and carrying the toolbox. He pushed the door open with his right hand and his body was into the doorway before he saw me. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open, and I pivoted and kicked the door as hard as I could, a good solid karate-style thrust kick that smashed the steel door into his body and the side of his head.
His tool case fell. Its contents spilled over the landing as the door rebounded off him, and he half stumbled. I kicked a leg out from under him and rode him down to the concrete. He put out his hands to break his fall and I got a knee in his back and an arm around his throat.
"Fight and I'll break your fuckin' neck," I said. LuEllen had come back up the stairs, and I said, "Tell Dace." She turned to go, and froze: a rat-faced guy was on the landing. He had eyes like ball bearings and was pointing a small, black pistol at my forehead.
"Let him go, motherfucker," Ratface said. He had a high-pitched, ragged-edged voice like a chalk squeak, but there was nothing ragged or shaky about the black hole at the end of the pistol's barrel. It was cold and round and absolutely steady. I stood up and the guy beneath me got to his hands and knees, sobbing, saying, "Jesus Christ," scooping his gear back into his toolbox. Except for a few pairs of pliers, screwdrivers, and some black plastic tape, the equipment was all electrical, and mostly illegal.
"Who the fuck are you?" I asked Ratface. LuEllen looked like she was ready to make a move, but I put out a hand, and she relaxed.
"Shut up." The hole at the end of the barrel never wavered.
When the tech's box was packed, he stood up, shot me a fearful look, and scurried down the stairs past Ratface. The gunman backed down after him, the gun steady on my face.
"We're walking out," he said. "Don't come after us."
We heard the door slam below, then the fire door opened above us. Dace.
"What happened to you?" I asked him. "The second guy came in right on top of us with a gun."
"Christ, the cops talked to him for a couple seconds, and then they left. I mean, they just got in their car and drove away. About one second later this guy was running over here. I never had a chance to get in front of him; I was too far away. I took the elevator up; I was hoping that if you were inside, he'd stop in the stairwell and wait or something."
"How'd he get in the door?"
"Key," Dace said.
"Probably had keys to the outer door, but not to the apartment. That's how they got into the stairwell, too," LuEllen said. She looked at me. "We all fucked up, it's not Dace's fault."
I said, "Something's really fouled up. This guy wasn't a burglar, he was a wire man. And I can't believe that somebody's already on us. It must come out of Chicago."
In the apartment we packed, and I took the phones apart. They were bugged. The bugs were crude and so was the installation.
"He wasn't in here long enough to do much more," I said. "We could probably sweep the place and we'd be okay."
"Let's check Chicago," LuEllen said. She had packed everything she brought with her. She wasn't planning to come back.
We moved into a Holiday Inn for the night. When I called Chicago, Maggie was vehement about her security.
"There's no possibility of a leak here," she said flatly. "Three people know about your team-me, Rudy, and Dillon. Period. And none of us would talk. It's more likely this guy Dace is the problem."
"I don't think so. We go back too far," I said.
"You don't know, though."
"No, I don't, but he's a friend. My instinct tells me he's okay. He was scared today. And surprised."
"I tell you, the problem isn't here," she insisted.
"I still can't believe they just stumbled over us," I said. "If we can't figure this out, we'll have to call it off."
"Christ, just hold on for a couple of days. I'll get Dillon checking. " There was a longish pause, and then she said, thoughtfully, "Say, do you suppose this might be some kind of leakage from the previous tenants? Didn't you say it was some kind of whorehouse?"
"Something like that," I said. I thought about it. It made some sense, at least, better sense than the other possibilities.
"What's the landlord's name?"
I gave it to her, and she told me she would get back to us.
That night I worked the tarot. LuEllen and Dace came to argue, huddle together, and watch me turn cards.