Daemon (26 page)

“Surely the NSA has heard of
phones
. They’re those things you tap.”

“Why weren’t we told about
Sebeck
?”

They stood glaring at each other.

Another NSA agent came running up. “Agent Philips. Ross just used his Amex card five minutes ago at a car rental place down the street. We put out an all-points bulletin.”

“E911 tracking?”

“We’re talking to the cell phone company now.”

“GPS in the rental car?”

The agent shook his head. “He rented a subcompact. No onboard GPS.”

“Flag his license plates on the freeway plate readers.” She turned to Trear. “I know you’re angry, Agent Trear, but we could really use your assistance on this. Ross could be the one behind the Daemon. He certainly has the technical know-how.”

“The Daemon is a hoax, Agent Philips. When is the NSA going to catch up with us on this?”

“Look, whether you think the Daemon is a hoax or not, the man posing as Ross has been involved from the start, and he’s escaping. Can we get your help?”

Trear took a deep breath and nodded to his men.

Straub turned and shouted, “You heard the man!”

Ten blocks away, Ross tossed his cell phone onto the back of a lumber truck waiting at a stoplight. The rental car ruse combined with the moving cell phone should buy him some time.

Ross headed in the opposite direction as the truck pulled away. The Feds probably wouldn’t take long to figure out Ross wasn’t who he claimed to be, and by then he needed to have taken another identity. He walked with composure onto the parking lot of a nearby Mercedes dealership, still wondering why he’d gotten himself mixed up in all this to begin with. And what the hell had happened to Detective Sebeck? The Daemon must be behind it. This was the type of reversal Sobol was famous for. It’s what Ross had tried to warn the Feds about. Now he needed to figure out Sobol’s plan, and for the time being at least, the only priority had to be getting out of this area. Ross straightened his tie and walked calmly through the glass doors of the Mercedes dealership. He strolled between the showroom models, scrutinizing window stickers. An aria from
The Marriage of Figaro
played softly on the showroom speakers.

Several police cars raced past on the road outside, lights and sirens blaring.

A sharply attired salesman approached Ross, hand extended. “How are you today, sir?”

Ross looked up. “Bored, but it’s nothing a sports car won’t fix.”

The salesman laughed politely. “Well, what are you driving now, Mr….”

“Ross. I have a twelve-cylinder A8—drives like a dream—but I want to get a second car. Something smaller and sportier.”

“And you’re familiar with the SL roadster?”

Ross examined the silver car nearby. “A golf buddy of mine has one. I’ve done some research, but the truth is, if I like the way it feels I’ll buy it today. No financing necessary.”

The salesman nodded. “Let’s take it for a spin. I’ll just need a photocopy of your driver’s license.”

Ross drew his wallet. “Of course.”

The platinum cards were clearly visible as he offered his license to the salesman.

Natalie Philips stood in the car rental company’s parking lot and stared at the car Ross had rented an hour before. She had tracked Ross’s cell phone through E911, only to find it riding to Oxnard on the back of a truck. Ross’s rented subcompact was never driven off the rental lot. And nobody in the Task Force had thought to look for it here—especially with his cell phone on the move.

Trear pounded the roof of his car. “Damnit! This guy’s probably halfway to Mexico by now.”

Philips turned to him. “Halfway isn’t all the way. Besides, he still needs transportation, and we have all the airports, train stations, and bus stations staked out. If he makes any ATM withdrawals or credit card purchases, we’ll be on top of him in minutes. There’s a strike team airborne in the L.A. basin as we speak.”

Trear grabbed a radio, but looked to Philips. “This Ross imposter was most likely Sebeck’s go-to man for computer work. Maybe even the mastermind of this hoax.”

“You mean
if
the Daemon is a hoax.”

“It’s definitely a hoax, and I don’t think Sebeck was smart enough to pull it off—much less to conceive of it. But our imposter just might be.”

Philips nodded, even though it made less sense the more she thought about it.

Ross ditched the Mercedes salesman off the 23 freeway in Simi Valley. He exited the freeway, claiming a bathroom emergency, and never returned after rushing into a restaurant to use the restroom. Instead, he ducked out a side exit and walked over one block to a row of nondescript, corrugated metal box garages.

He pulled out his key ring and cycled through the keys for a moment. Then he unlocked the garage door padlock and pulled up the door to reveal a late-model white utility truck with side cargo panels. A logo on the door read “Lasseter Heating & Air.” Ross flicked the garage light switch then ducked inside, lowering the door behind him.

There was about six feet of space on either side of the vehicle. Ross moved alongside and opened one of the cargo panels, revealing a mirror hanging on the inside of the door. There was a toiletry bag and a change of clothes. He pulled a wallet out from under the clothes and flipped it open to reveal a California driver’s license with his picture on it. The name read “Michael Lasseter.” In the picture he was bald as a billiard ball. He lined up the mirror and pulled an electric shaver out of the toiletry bag. He looked for the single electric socket up by the overhead light.

In ten minutes or so, he was completely bald. Clumps of dark hair covered the floor. He examined himself in the mirror and rubbed his bald scalp. “
.” It felt strangely good to speak his native language again. And bad, too. This place wasn’t supposed to be needed.

He emptied Jon Ross’s wallet and placed the credit cards and identification on a hot plate. He powered it up and kept working as the acrid smell of melting plastic filled the space.

He changed into jeans and a work shirt.

When he finished he looked at himself in the mirror. He stopped and grabbed a bottle of rub-on tan, then smeared it over his face, neck, and arms. He took another look at Lasseter’s license photo. Much better.

Jon Ross was dead. Long live Michael Lasseter.

He hid Ross’s clothes and the toiletry bag in a tool bench cabinet, then unplugged the hot plate. He checked to be certain that Ross’s ID and credit cards were completely melted. It was a multicolored puddle. He took one last look around, then opened the garage door.

The sun was suddenly blinding. He got into the truck and started it up. He sat there pondering for a moment. He was confident he’d get past any roadblocks, but what then?

Sobol was sharper than he expected—and he was expecting a lot. Sobol had destroyed Sebeck somehow and made everyone believe the Daemon was a hoax. Why? Some milestone had been achieved, and the Daemon was moving on to the next task. He knew there was a reason for framing Sebeck, but he just couldn’t wrap his head around it. Why make the Daemon famous and then turn around and make people believe it didn’t exist again?

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

One thing was for sure: he’d be damned if the Daemon was going to defeat him. It might have defeated Jon Ross, but it had never even heard of Michael Lasseter.

I
n the corner boardroom of building OPS-2B, the group of agency directors reconvened. In the windowless room it was impossible to tell whether it was night or day. And from the government décor it was impossible to tell whether it was 1940 or 2040.

DIA: “I caught the news on the way in. They’re saying the Daemon is a hoax. Is that true?”

FBI: “The money trail leads to two people that we know of. Detective Sebeck, now in custody, and one Cheryl Lanthrop, a medical executive. We thought we found her in Kuala Lumpur, but our intel was bad.”

There was silence for a moment.

NSA: “Let me get this straight: you’re telling me that Detective Sebeck and this Lanthrop woman turned Sobol’s estate into a high-tech death trap?”

FBI: “Tax records show Lanthrop was sales director for a string of MRI labs owned by Matthew Sobol. He appears to have become obsessed with MRI technology in the latter stages of his illness. E-mail records show her advising Sobol to invest in a functional MRI business in which she was part owner. She sounds like a kook. Her specialty was neuromarketing research—examining the brain activity of people viewing various consumer products.”

NSA: “You didn’t answer the question.”

CIA: “Where does Sebeck come in?”

FBI: “We’re not sure yet, but credit card records show Lanthrop staying at the same hotels where Sebeck attended law-enforcement seminars. They also traveled to Grand Cayman together. Lanthrop set up an offshore bank account there for a holding company that later held short positions in CyberStorm Entertainment stock. We have video of Lanthrop and Sebeck sitting at a bank manager’s desk. Sebeck’s wife had no knowledge of this trip.”

NSA: “How do Sebeck and Lanthrop build an automated Hummer or an electrocution trap in the CyberStorm server farm? I mean, how would they get access to CyberStorm?”

FBI: “We’re still putting the pieces together. There may be more people involved. Possibly even Singh and Pavlos. We found deleted files on Sebeck’s computer. They include lists of equipment and a draft power of attorney later signed by Matthew Sobol—probably after dementia incapacitated him. That power of attorney placed part of Sobol’s assets under the control of an offshore corporation in which Sebeck held a controlling interest.”

CIA: “Am I the only person who thinks this is a load of horseshit?”

NSA: “No.”

FBI: “If you read the report—”

CIA: “Hang on a second. This is too far-fetched. You’re telling me that these two managed to swindle Sobol out of forty million dollars in loans—but that they didn’t just take the money and run. Instead, they bought stock on margin and orchestrated a shorting scam? Hell, a Wall Street banker might have been able to do it, but not some yokel cop and his girlfriend.”

NSA: “I’m going to side with him on that. This seems improbable. They’d need serious technical and financial expertise. Not to mention luck.”

FBI: “We’re still searching for the man who claimed to be Jon Ross. He escaped from the Calabasas scene and disappeared without a trace. He might be our skilled operator. Sebeck was most likely the muscle. He was probably just looking for a way out. Had his first kid at sixteen, married the mother at seventeen. A rocky marriage. By all accounts, not a family man. Probably felt trapped.”

NSA: “What about the e-mail video of Sobol?”

FBI: “Preliminary voice and image analysis indicates the MPEG video was faked. Not surprisingly, Sebeck was the one who discovered it. This and the other evidence probably gave Lanthrop and Sebeck time to—”

NSA: “What about the acoustic weapons? And the ultrawideband transmitters?”

FBI: “Clearly someone with tremendous technical know-how was involved. But that didn’t have to be Sobol. Don’t forget: Detective Sebeck was a signatory on eight offshore accounts and an officer in nine offshore holding corporations. Some of these accounts are years old. For godsakes, Detective Sebeck had a safe deposit box in a Los Angeles bank where we found twenty thousand dollars in cash and a forged passport with his picture on it.”

NSA: “That’s quite interesting.” He paused for effect. “I also find it interesting that there were several other Ventura County detectives besides Peter Sebeck who might have been assigned this case. And
all
of them had not one, but multiple offshore bank accounts. About which they claim ignorance.”

This produced frowns around the table.

CIA: “I don’t understand.”

NSA motioned for a nearby aide to hit the lights. The room dimmed.

NSA: “Look at this map.” He pulled out a remote and a map of the U.S. appeared, via PowerPoint, on a wall screen. “Here, we see cities where these same detectives incurred credit card charges in the last two years.” He clicked. “Now, we overlay credit card charges occurring on those same days for Ms. Lanthrop.”

The map showed the detectives didn’t travel all that widely. But they had an unusual habit of taking trips to cities on the same day that Cheryl Lanthrop was in them.

FBI: “What the hell…?”

NSA: “Same city. Same day. Note that they
all
took a trip to Grand Cayman at one time or another.”

There was general confusion around the table.

DARPA: “You’re saying that every senior detective in Ventura County was involved?”

NSA: “No. I’m saying that the groundwork was laid to
frame
every detective—a precaution against a single point of failure in the Daemon. That wasn’t the only precaution….” He clicked the remote. The screen changed to a still image from a security camera showing Lanthrop checking in at a business hotel. She was beautiful even here. “Our Ms. Lanthrop. Memphis. Auburn hair, high cheekbones.” The image changed to another security camera image. “Dallas. Blond hair, soft features, and ample bustline.” Another photograph. “Kansas City. Brunette, tall.”

DARPA: “They’re different women.”

FBI: “So this is the NSA’s attempt to bring the Daemon back into the picture?”

NSA: “It’s not an attempt to do anything. These are the facts. It’s also a fact that Cheryl Lanthrop had no known medical or business experience prior to working at Sobol’s company, nor can we find any trace of her family or anyone who knew her prior to that time.”

CIA: “She’s a doppelganger.”

NSA: “It would appear so.”

FBI: “But that just proves my point; these are sophisticated grifters who scammed Sobol.”

NSA: “Your evidence is largely digital. E-mail, financial transactions, travel records. How do you know that Sebeck’s Lanthrop was anything more than a call girl?”

FBI: “This is ridiculous. Occam’s razor kicks in here. Which is more probable: that a dead man set up a system for framing multiple detectives—simultaneously flushing half his estate down the toilet—or that a group of people abused a position of trust to swindle a dying rich man?”

DIA: “But why was it necessary to have all the detectives involved? If a group of people were swindling Sobol, wouldn’t they want to have cops as far away as possible?”

There was silence.

FBI: “Well, it’s a fact that a cop was involved, and it’s a fact that someone orchestrated the stock swindle.”

DIA: “So, does the Daemon exist or not?”

They looked at each other in the semidarkness.

NSA: “I think we can agree that—as far as the public is concerned—the Daemon
must
remain a hoax.”