Death of Secrets (17 page)

She shrugged. "I'm sorry I can't help you more, officer. I
didn't know you would be asking me about it, or I would have brought it with
me. Maybe next time if you just ask me, instead of following me around, I'll
have what you're looking for."

Even knowing he was being manipulated, Franken couldn't help
but get angry. "I'm following you around? You know very well…"

"Well," she said, "It's just too much to believe
that you happen to show up in the very same garage where my designated driver
parked his car."

Franken fumed, thinking dark thoughts about college kids who
thought they were smart. "Listen, Kelver. I don’t think you shot that guy.
But it's for sure you know more about the murder than I do. You're hiding
something, and I want to know what it is!"

She shook her head and looked honest, but he could
smell
the smirk, even if she wasn’t showing it. "I’m sorry I can’t help."

He grumbled. "I ought to haul all of you in for minor in
possession!"

"Who's to say any of us are intoxicated? Or that all of us
are minors. I’m sure none of us would mind a Breathalyzer to check…"

Franken cut her off. "Look, Kelver. I'm going to find out
who shot that guy. When I do, either you'll have helped the investigation or
you'll have hindered it. If you helped, then you're a good citizen and to be
commended. But so help me, if I find out you were keeping things from me…"

She nodded. "I understand."

Franken sat back down in his patrol car. "Don't forget,
Kelver. You've been warned!" He slammed the door to his car and laid down
a strip of rubber as he left.

"That was close!" Their driver breathed an audible
sigh of relief to accompany his statement of the obvious.

"Let's get out of here before he changes his mind and
comes back," Kathy suggested.

The driver nodded, his double chin jiggling. "Yeah, and he
better not follow us either."

They boarded the van and placed their safety in the hands of a
stranger.

***

When the van finally came to a stop, Kathy breathed a sigh of
relief. Whoever their driver was, his right foot weighed a lot more than lead,
she thought. The side door slid open and she and Michael stumbled out.

They stood in yet another dimly lit parking garage. The hard
cement floor felt cold on the feet, and the Spartan columns that held up the
roof cast flickering shadows in the glow from the occasional lamp.

"Follow me," their driver said, and headed for an
elevator.

Kathy and her friends tagged along behind the man, and walked
through the elevator door while he held it open. The quick ride with no
interruptions stopped, and they exited into a hallway. Their driver waddled
forward to open the first door on the right.

The room they found themselves matched the parking garage
almost perfectly. The stark, bare interior had the look of abandonment about
it. A run down couch sat against one wall, and a mismatched loveseat against
another. The room lacked end tables or any other flat surface. No pictures or
other decorations hung from the walls. The only light trickled in through the
windows and down from a ceiling light that looked like it dated back to the
1950's. Overall, Kathy thought, the decor reminded her of…

She sucked in her breath. It was as if he hadn't even changed
clothes.

"Oh my word! You!"

The man standing before her wore a black T-shirt, black slacks,
black socks, and black loafers. The overhead light in the room turned his
photograde lenses dark too.

"Yes, Kathy, it's me. Marvelous though that escape of
yours was, it was really unnecessary."

She backed up involuntarily, bumping into Michael behind her.
He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and stepped slightly in front of her. His
eyes narrowed as he looked at the man in front of them.

Colleen asked, "Jakarta?"

He nodded. "Correct. I really don't see any need to tell
you my real name. But I do feel a need to apologize to Kathy. Had I known you
were trying to find me, I'd never have made such efforts to bring you here
involuntarily."

Kathy growled. "You mean to tell me that was all a
mistake?"

"I truly do apologize. I had no idea you were trying to
reach me, and it was
so
important that I recover that flash drive."

"Yeah," Kathy groused, eyes flashing. "Important
enough to break into our dorm room, try to run us off a bridge, and shoot up
Michael’s house!"

The man before them blinked. "I can’t be blamed for that
list, I’m afraid," he said. "I
did
kidnap you, regrettably,
and for that I apologize. But I’ve certainly never asked anyone to fire a gun
at you, nor would I countenance it if someone did it on my behalf."

Kathy’s reply was succinct: "liar!"

He stared at her, holding her gaze. "It’s true, I assure
you. I’ve never lied to you yet. The kidnapping was me, and I am truly sorry.
All the other things you describe…" he shrugged.

"You’re trying to tell me it
wasn’t
you who did
those things?"

"You have my word, it wasn’t me."

Kathy gave a short bark of a laugh. "Yeah, right. You
didn’t trust our word, so why should we trust yours?"

"Miss Kelver, you just spent the last thirty minutes or so
in a vehicle with associates of mine – the last part of the ride without your
cell phones or pagers. If I had been the one who did all these things you
describe, don’t you think I could have had you shot many times over in that
half hour?"

Kathy wanted to object, but couldn’t find a way to dispute his
argument. She grated her teeth, and turned away.

Colleen picked up where her roommate left off. "Who,
then?"

Jakarta gave a wolfish grin. "Most likely the people I
stole the flash drive from in the first place."

"And who are they?"

He chuckled. "All in good time, my dear."

Kathy frowned and turned back around. "If you stole it,
how did Eric Harrison get it?"

The hacker sighed and turned away. "He stole it for me.
Had I known the depths to which they would sink, I would never have sent him.
He, like all the people who work with me, do so out of a sense of friendship
and shared enthusiasm – and mutual profit. He never signed on to get killed,
and I never meant him to. But he did. So as you can imagine, the flash drive
you’re carrying is very important to me.

"OK, what's so important about that flash drive,
anyway?" Kathy asked.

"Ah, yes. The explanation you wanted so badly. Your price,
as it were, for returning the flash drive to me." Jakarta removed his
glasses and wiped a handkerchief over the lenses. "Please, take a seat.
I'll explain. Can I offer you anything to drink?"

Kathy and company shook their heads at the offer of
refreshment, and moved collectively to the couch. When they were all seated,
Jakarta smiled at Colleen.

"You must be the famous Colleen Christina, who tracked me
so diligently. May I say I’m impressed? Not many people can find me on their
own."

She blushed and returned his gaze. Truth to tell, that was easy
for her. Jakarta was
nothing
like most other guys she knew on the
Internet. He was very good looking – slender, clear complexion, and only a few
years older than her. "I had a lot of help, from people I asked and
stuff."

He nodded, and his smile crept ever so slightly towards
becoming a frown. But then he pasted the indulgent smile back into face.
"Yes, you did make rather a lot of noise, which I must admit isn’t my
preference. But I can hardly blame you, since it accomplished your goal. I’m
impressed with your skill and, may I add, glad to discover that someone so good
with computers is also so very attractive."

Colleen blushed deeper and couldn’t hold the young man’s gaze
for very long. Kathy managed to keep from snickering until the moment ended.
Finally Jakarta turned away from Colleen and devoted his attention to the full
group.

***

The unmarked official car crawled through DC traffic at a
snail's pace, and for the tenth time in as many minutes Sam Franken denied the
urge to put his magnetic siren on top of the car and cut through the gridlock.

Instead he white knuckled the steering wheel and swore at any
driver who was the tiniest bit slow getting going when the light turned green.
He knew his anger was really about the Kelver situation, not about the traffic,
but that didn't stop him from expelling a particularly nasty curse at a driver
whose left turn caused him to miss a light.

He reminded himself not to take an unusual shift again.
Covering for a friend was one thing, aggravating his blood pressure problem was
something else entirely. Franken tried to cool himself off by daydreaming about
how he’d spend tonight when he got off, since his friend was taking Franken’s
usual night shift in repayment. But that only made it more aggravating to sit
stuck in traffic.

Something had happened to Kathy Kelver. She'd started off mad
that he didn't believe her report, and wanting the police to do something. But
sometime between that first night and tonight, she'd changed her mind. Now she
didn't want police attention to the matter.

Had she been bought off? It was a possibility, but Franken
didn't believe it. His earlier hunch about her came back to him. Kelver was one
of the good guys. That much felt certain to him. So why was she shutting him
out?

He growled. Most probably, she was off on some vigilante
mission, trying to take care of things herself since there had been so little
official interest at first. College kids and their sense of justice. Kids think
they can take on the whole world by themselves, he groused. Well, he'd find out
what she knew.

When she'd first reported the body, Franken remembered that
Kathy had brought her roommate along. He'd just go talk to her, and find out
what Kathy had been doing.

Unfortunately, Franken didn't remember the roommate well enough
to realize he'd just seen her getting into that van with Kathy. Hoping he'd
find her in Kathy's dorm room, he headed for Georgetown.

The Resident Assistant at Kathy's dorm room was a remarkably
helpful soul, urged along by the University's policy of as much cooperation
with the police as possible. With a few well-timed words about the possibility
that Kathy Kelver might be in danger, the RA had been perfectly willing to open
up her dorm room.

Franken gazed around, wondering whether he could learn anything
here. He'd been disappointed to find the roommate out, but a useful clue might
still be here.

The most obvious feature of the room was the astonishing mess
on the floor. Books and women’s clothing stretched in no order at all from one
wall to the other. An experienced cop, the disorder spoke two words to him:
"break-in."

Beyond the mess, though, the collection of computer parts
jumbled on one of the two desks caught his eye. Franken was no technology whiz,
but he could tell right away most of those things belonged inside the beige
box, rather than outside. It did not escape his notice that, according to the
young man he had just interrogated, this whole business revolved around a thumb
drive. Perhaps the disassembled PC was connected somehow?

He sat down at the desk and began to rummage through the
drawers.

***

"So, you want to know what's on the flash drive. In order
to understand, though, you'll need a bit of background. Please bear with me if
it seems like I digress."

Jakarta rested his hands behind his back and looked at them,
locking eyes with each one in turn. To Colleen he looked like a professor about
to lecture.

"There was a time when, if you wanted to know a fact, you
had to want it bad enough to go to the library and try to look it up.
Congressman Vincent probably remembers it, although the rest of us may be too
young."

Mike’s face tried to look grumpy about the implication that he
was ancient, and wry that yes, he did remember having to go to the library to
look things up.

Jakarta went on. "In the 90’s, looking something up became
a little easier. If you mastered the art, you could spend a few hours looking
things up on Alta Vista or other primordial search engines. From there, we grew
into sitting down at keyboard, dialing in a web address, and Google giving us
the answer right away. That became today’s world, where we simply speak the
question into our phone and get the answer."

He paused, and stared directly at Kathy. "The inevitable
destiny of our current course is this: instant availability of information.
Anywhere you are, whoever you are, you'll be able to instantly know anything
you want to know. Anything."

"That seems a
bit
farfetched," Kathy replied.

"Really? Consider this: in the beginning, computers were
capable of accepting input only by rearranging their wires. Later they evolved
to accept punch cards, and then keyboards. In the late 1970s, the graphical
user interface was developed, and humans could interact with computers by the
now-famous pointing and clicking. That became touch screens, cutting the mouse
out of the input chain. And after GUI? Already, voice recognition systems are
gaining currency. Today, they are simply a method of speaking commands which
would otherwise be transmitted by a mouse or keyboard. But as Windows and
Macintosh were developed specifically to take advantage of the easiest form of
input possible at the time – the mouse – how long can it be before an operating
system is developed to take real advantage of voice recognition?"

The hacker was really warming to his theme, now. Colleen was
again reminded of one of her professors giving a lecture. He had a tendency to
stroke his chin during pauses, and now he even removed his glasses to once
again wipe them clean on a handkerchief. When he resumed speaking, he also
resumed pacing.