Rough Draft (35 page)

Hannah stared at the screen.

“You realize, don't you, that it's not a continuous feed? The video image you're seeing on the computer monitor, it's not like television. With computers you have to send packets of data. Two minutes of video time. It plays, then the next packet comes and it plays. They're working on a better video network. It's operational already, much better quality video, but the people broadcasting this Fielding thing decided to use the data-packet method. It's a little antiquated, but it works.”

“You follow all that?” Yoshia said.

“Vaguely.”

Stevie said, “I thought Fielding's voice was kind of weird too. They distorted the timing, took the words and the movements of his lips out of synch to disguise what they did, but when I dial it back to a correct timing, those words you hear aren't always the same words coming out of his lips.”

“Really?”

“For example, when he says your name, Hannah Keller. His lips aren't saying that. That's been inserted.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“So,” Stevie said. “Apparently someone wants to make people believe this image is current. That's why they put in a recent issue of
People.”

Hannah looked around at the workshop, the quiet buzz of current humming in her ears like a low-grade fever. She waited a moment for everything to suddenly make sense, but it didn't happen. Nothing but the hum.

“Do you have a rough location in Washington, an address or something?”

“Better than that,” Stevie said. “I can give you the exact building and the room number within that building. I can even give you the name and beeper number of the contact person who's in charge of this whole operation.”

“Operation? What operation?”

“Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Stevie said. “I got in through their main site. Twenty minutes and I was in, no sweat. Government agencies are the leakiest places on the Web. Their budgets don't allow them much security.”

“You're saying J. J. Fielding's broadcast,
Deathwatch dot com
is part of an FBI operation?”

“Code name Operation Joanie,” Stevie said. “The contact person is a special agent out of the Washington, D.C., field office. Helen D. Shane. I got her Social Security number if you want it.”

Hannah shut her eyes and drew a long breath.

When she opened them Stevie was smiling at her.

“You know, what you said about dreams, that was interesting. Decay. That's such a nice word for a very difficult thing to express.”

Stevie pulled himself up on a stool. There was yellow ooze leaking from one of the sores on his knee.

“A lot of hackers make fun of the FBI. Dumping on them, calling them dull and bureaucratic. But what's that? All it means is, they have rules they have to follow. Like that's bad. Like that makes them dumb. Unlike a hacker who has
no rules, he thinks he's so hot because once he figures out the rules someone else plays by, he can beat them at their game. That gives him an edge, because he doesn't have rules. He doesn't believe in anything or care about anything. Sure he can foul up somebody's system, shut them down. But that's stupid. It doesn't prove anything. Rules are what makes things work. If there weren't any rules, nothing would make sense. Nothing would work.”

Hannah rested a hand on the boy's shoulder. He turned his head and peered at her fingers. Then he reached up and patted her hand, gave her a consoling look.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?”

The boy was feasting on Hannah's eyes. Soul mate in training.

“I can't think of anything,” she said.

“Well, you could always tamper with that broadcast, if you wanted. The same way they inserted the magazine cover and your name, you could insert something into that video. Break into their site, make alterations, make it look like it belonged there. An image, a voice, whatever. And that altered image would be broadcast over the Net.”

“You could do that?”

“It might take a while, but, yeah, I could do that. It's all just code, plus and minus, yes and no. I know most of the browser loopholes, defects in their programs. I just go in, exploit the flaw, write a file so big it causes buffer overload. Once you get inside the site, you open the door wide, it's no problem, you can tamper all you want.”

Behind them Yoshia cleared her throat.

“I'm sorry to intrude,” she said. “But it is time for Stevie's injections.”

Stevie's smile dimmed briefly, then revived.

“So you want me to do that, Hannah? Alter the site?”

“I can't think of anything I'd want to insert.”

“You're the writer. I'm sure you'll think of something. I'll try to break into the site, get it ready in case you come up with something.”

He eased down from his stool and reached out a hand to
Hannah. She smiled and took it in hers. Stevie Brockman's grip was light and knowing, more alert than any hand she could remember.

“There
is
one other thing you could do for me, Stevie.”

“Yes?”

She took the floppy disk out of her purse and handed it to him. Stevie looked at it for a moment then turned and popped it into the slot on his computer. When the directory came up, he clicked on one of Randall's E-mail files. A message from Barbie-girl. The password protection box came up.

Stevie swiveled around slowly, and shook his head.

“No, I'm sorry,” he said. “I don't do that kind of thing.”

“It could be important, Stevie. It could be very important.”

“These are Randall's files?”

“That's right.”

He kept shaking his head.

“You mean you'll break into the FBI's site, or the FAA, but you won't decode the password on my son's E-mail filer?”

“I have my values.”

“Well, can you at least give me a clue, something I could try?”

He shook his head some more.

“He's your son,” Stevie said. “You're the expert on him. Most people use passwords that mean something to them. A special word of some kind.”

Hannah turned back to the video screen on the workbench. She ran her fingertip along the dithering line of pixels.

“So, tell me, Stevie, what was Fielding really saying when they substituted my name?”

The boy settled into his chair again and used his mouse to switch his screen to J. J. Fielding's hospital room. The old man was sitting upright in his bed. It was the same scene that she and Frank Sheffield had watched together in the Bayshore house, Tuesday morning. Fielding calling out to Hannah.

Stevie double-clicked his mouse and Fielding spoke.

“I need to see you, to talk to you in person. Please, Hannah, I have something terrible to confess. It's about your parents. The terrible things I've done. Please come, Hannah. Right away. There isn't much time left. Look at the message I've left for you and do what it says. Please, Hannah. Please, I beg you.”

Stevie wiggled the mouse, tapped it, then tapped a couple of keys, and the voice sounded again.

“There isn't much time left. Look at the message I've left for you and do what it says. Please, Maude. Please, I beg you.”

Stevie turned in his chair.

“You know a Maude?”

“His wife,” said Hannah. “Maude Fielding.”

“Maybe you should talk to her. She might know something.”

“I don't know how to locate her. I've tried. At least I know she's not in the phone book. I could call my friends at Miami PD, see what they could come up with, but that might take days.”

He looked at her for several moments.

“You think Maude drives a car?”

“A car?”

Then a slow smile dawned on Hannah's lips.

“You mean you could break into the Department of Motor Vehicles?”

“I could try.”

Senator Ackerman wasn't making eye contact with his constituents this morning. In his one-of-the-guys uniform of khakis, blue work shirt, and highly polished Weejuns, standing at the picture window that looked down on the marina and the bay, he sipped thoughtfully from his FBI coffee mug as Frank Sheffield summarized his last few hours of work.

“Amazing as it sounds, there were no reported thefts of red dirt bikes in the last two days in either Dade or Broward County. So I ran a list of all transfer of titles of for the same time period, and found twelve. I cross-referenced those twelve new motorcycle owners against arriving airline passengers in the last forty-eight hours. And there were no hits. So either he's using multiple IDs or he came to town by bus. Or else that's not him on the red dirt bike. I'm leaning toward the multiple-ID theory. All of which, of course, get us nowhere.”

“If you're trying to impress me with your industry, Frank, I think it's a little late.”

Ackerman's frown was pinched around the edges. His complexion seemed to have soured overnight, a yellow haze in his eyes.

When he spoke again, it was with the measured cadence of a professional orator forced for the moment to address an unworthy audience of one.

“I'm deeply disappointed in you, Frank. The childish way you've behaved. I think your father would be ashamed of you as well. I think he would be deeply saddened by your insubordination.”

Sheffield tried to muster a smile but it wouldn't take hold.

“Hey, I'm sorry, Senator. Apparently the charisma gene skipped a generation. What can I say? I wish it were otherwise.”

He could hear Helen Shane talking on the phone in the back bedroom. A tense question now and then, but mainly listening. Andy Barth was nowhere to be seen, and in the adjoining room his computer had been shut down.

“I'm meeting Hannah at noon at the Orange Bowl. There's still a possibility Hal will show. We've got almost sixteen hours left.”

“Not anymore,” Ackerman said. “The mission is dead. We're finished. We're folding up our tents, pulling out.”

“Why? What happened?”

Ackerman turned back to the window. In the harsh morning light his face appeared bloated and his eyes had the defeated, empty glaze of a sleepless man.

“You want to know what happened, Frank? What happened was that you chose to personalize this. You decided at some juncture to let your own trivial needs preempt the goals of the mission. Willfully and for your own self-gratification, you drove a stake through the heart of Operation Joanie.”

“I didn't want to see Ms. Keller get hurt.”

Ackerman swung back around.

“Frank, do I have to remind you who we were dealing with? A man who has killed dozens of human beings, a man whose method of murder is so ghastly, so obscene as to challenge the very definition of evil. And for some reason, Frank, you let your own petty personal interests supersede our goal of catching this monster.”

“Your daughter's gone, Senator. Sacrificing Hannah Keller won't bring her back.”

The mist in Ackerman's eyes cleared instantly as if burned away by a sudden flare of the sun.

“You stupid, stupid boy,” Ackerman said, taking a half step in his direction, his hands balling. “You have the unrestrained impulses of a spoiled adolescent. As soon as I get
back to Washington I'm going to see to it that your career in law enforcement is terminated. I won't have you enjoying the respect and benefits of a profession you so clearly disdain. You're finished, Frank.”

He heard Helen Shane slap the phone down. A second later she hustled into the room, slinging the strap of her bag over her shoulder.

“Hal Bonner is in Nashville, Tennessee,” she said. “Field office there has two eyewitnesses and the body of one Hector Ramirez, heroin distributor. His chest has been punctured, heart stopped manually. It's Hal's signature, no doubt about it.”

“Wait a minute,” Frank said. “Nashville?”

“That's right, Frank.”

Ackerman gulped down the last of his coffee and set the mug on an end table.

“The rental car Hal was seen driving away from the scene was found parked outside a Holiday Inn near the airport SWAT teams have already set up a perimeter and they've agreed to wait till we arrive. But if Hal moves out before we get there, they'll take him down themselves. Your plane is waiting at Opa Locka, Senator. We've got to move.”

Frank headed them off at the doorway. Helen halted, bringing the voltage to her eyes.

“Look,” Frank said. “Something happened last night out on the bay. A guy stole our kayak, paddled away. Out at Stiltsville.”

“Stand aside, Agent Sheffield.” The senator raised his right hand as if he meant to stiff-arm Frank backward through the wall.

“Do you hear me? This guy tried to drown me. He had a burr haircut like the guy Hannah spotted earlier, the one on the motorcycle. It was dark, so I didn't get the greatest look, but from what I could tell, he fit the description.”

Helen gave him a small smile.

“You're pathetic, Frank. Truly sad.”

“You think I'm making this up?”

“Whatever you're doing, Frank, it hardly matters anymore.”

“Get the hell out of the way, Sheffield.”

The veins in Ackerman's temple had squirmed to the surface and looked like they might be about to rupture in unison.

Sheffield stepped back and followed them out the door and down the hall to the twin elevators. An elderly Japanese couple was waiting by the stainless-steel doors, smiling up at the numbers.

“Maybe this guy in Nashville, he's a copycat of some kind.”

“Bullshit,” Ackerman said.

The Japanese couple smiled more brightly at the numbers.

“I'm sorry to disappoint you, Frank,” Helen said. “But we've got a positive ID. Hal Bonner is in Nashville. If he was ever in Miami, he's not here anymore, and I think we all know the reason why. Because a certain FBI agent decided he'd rather shack up with a certain second-rate hack writer than follow his assignment in a professional manner.”