No Way to Die (20 page)

“How’s that?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “I would presume that it would be inappropriate to discuss future business affairs between our two companies while your firm is actively involved in an investigation into a matter with which we were, at least tangentially, involved. I suspect you’ll need to come to a conclusion and render your final opinion on the matter before you’d be ethically free to entertain a future business relationship with us.”

I looked at him. “I imagine that’s right,” I said.

“Along those lines,” he said, “are you at liberty to reveal how your investigation is proceeding?”

“No, we’re not,” I said simply. “That would not be appropriate.”

He stared at me for a split second, and then he nodded. “I understand completely. Let me just say that we stand prepared to assist you in any possible way—even if that means simply answering any questions you might have about our involvement with ACS or Mr. Rasmussen.”

“Well, in that case, since you’ve made the offer,” I said, “how’d you find out about the Starfire Protocol?”

“Quite simply,” he said. “We asked. We heard the common rumors that Thomas Rasmussen may have been about to announce the discovery of a factoring algorithm that had the ability to decrypt private keys and unlock messages. This area is our business—our area of expertise. Naturally, we were intrigued. We simply flew over here and asked him about it.”

“And he said yes?” I asked.

“Surprisingly, he did,” Cameron said.

“And he said he’d be willing to sell the Starfire Protocol?” Toni asked.

“Not in so many words, no,” Cameron said. “But he didn’t say he wouldn’t, either. In that case, we thought the best thing to do was to simply present him with an offer—something concrete. This we did in the middle of January. Rather than turn it down, he decided to check us out first and get government approval to talk to us. In my experience, this is a signal that he’d either decided to accept our offer or, more likely, he’d decided he was going to counter our offer. Sadly, as I’ve said, this didn’t happen. The government said it would take a rather lengthy period of time in order for us to be approved, given the fact that we’ve had no dealings with them. We were in the process of regrouping when Thomas died.”

“So to your knowledge,” I said, “the Department of Commerce never actually turned you down.”

“Quite right,” he said. “They simply said that there would most likely be an extended period of time—up to a year, I think they said—before they’d be able to approve us. We are not on their “disqualified”list. Instead, we are on their “unverified” list.”

“And your hope is still to complete the transaction and acquire the technology?” I asked.

“That’s correct.”

“But I must ask, why?” Toni said. “We’ve been told that the Starfire Protocol has little commercial value inasmuch as it destroys security—it doesn’t enhance it.”

“For many firms—maybe most firms—that’s true,” Madoc said. “And the further thought process goes that with the revelation of the Starfire Protocol, people would want to leave the public key technology bandwagon in droves. We agree. But rather than wait for a new successor technology to appear, we feel that we can create a patch, if you will, that would enable companies to simply patch over their public key investments and make them immune to an attack by the Starfire Protocol. The commercial benefits of a patch technology such as this would be profound, indeed.”

“And if you have the Starfire Protocol. . .”Toni started to say.

“Precisely, my dear,” he said. “If we have the Starfire Protocol, then we can figure out how it attacks the factoring problem. We can use the knowledge to invent a new crypto-technology, or in the worst case, we can identify how the Starfire Protocol works, and we can then patch around it. This is our motivation.”

* * * *

“That was unbelievable,” Toni said as we drove westbound on SR-520 back toward the office.

“Sure was,” I agreed.

The rain had stopped, and Toni had the window partway down.

“That guy is either telling the truth, or he’s the smoothest-talking liar I’ve ever seen,” she said.

“What do you want to bet that everything he said checks out. The tip-off from Inez. The note on our door.”

“Who would do that?” Toni asked.

“I have a hunch. Let’s ask young Mr. Hale when we get back. I think he was the last one to leave last night.”

“I’m going to kick his little butt,” she said.

I nodded. “Me, too. If he did it, tell him to just go ahead and Tweet it next time.”

“And another thing,” she said. “Did we just get offered a bribe?”

“You mean the hint of lucrative future work if we hurry up and wrap up this investigation—presumably in such a manner that doesn’t incriminate them in any way? That kind of bribe?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Then yeah, I think we did.”

I drove for a minute, and then I said, “Gotta like the way he back-doored it in, though. ‘I presume it would be inappropriate to discuss future business,’” in a put-on British accent.

Toni laughed. “Perfect,” she said. “Say it again.”

I smiled. I felt something in my chest—something good, something warm. I realized then that I liked making Toni happy. Making her feel good made me feel good.

“I dare say,” I said in my best Michael Caine Brit voice, “that it would be quite inappropriate indeed.”

She laughed. “That’s perfect,” she said, delighted.

Indeed.

AFTER OUR MEETING with Madoc, Toni and I grabbed lunch at Duke’s Chowder House on Lake Union before returning to the office. When we got back, I found that Inez had sent over the gun-purchase documents. Washington state doesn’t require a permit or any sort of registration to own a handgun. You need a concealed weapons permit to
carry
a concealed handgun, but you don’t need a permit just to own one. Still, there’s a background check conducted through the FBI database, and there’s also a police record of the sale. By simply referencing a database search query to the unique serial number of the gun, the police could almost immediately determine when the gun was sold and to whom. Inez had sent me a copy of the record that showed Thomas Rasmussen as the purchaser of a Smith &Wesson Model M&P360 .357 Magnum revolver from Redmond Firearms in Bellevue on January 18, 2012.

As it happens, Redmond Firearms is the largest gun dealer on the Eastside. We do most of our business with them, and I know Grant Evans, the owner, pretty well. I’d even been a guest instructor at a defensive carbine course that Redmond Firearms had offered last year. I called Grant, and he said he’d be happy to talk with us. Toni and I hopped in the Jeep and drove over.

Traffic was pretty light for 1:45 on a Friday afternoon as we crossed the 520 floating bridge for the third time today. With a toll of nearly five bucks each way, this was starting to add up.

I left the music off today.

“Still no rain,” I said, searching for a topic that was safe, one that wouldn’t cause emotions to flare.

“Looks pretty nice,” she agreed. “Do you have plans for the weekend?”

I shook my head. “Nope.I was thinking about maybe driving over to Lake Crescent—maybe doing a little fishing.”Lake Crescent, in the Olympic National Park, is a beautiful, uncrowded alpine lake that is one of my favorites. I love to load up the Jeep and camp at a remote spot on the lake’s shore. I usually run the trails in the morning and then laze around the rest of the day reading, fishing, or playing my guitar.

“That sounds nice,” she said.

“Why,” I asked. “What have you got going?”

She shook her head. “Nothing, just staying around here,” she said. She turned back and looked at Lake Washington as we crossed.

“Are you going to see John Ogden?” I asked.

She didn’t answer for a few seconds. Then, she shrugged and said, “I don’t know. He said he was going to call, but he hasn’t yet.”

“He probably will,” I said. A moment later I added, “If he doesn’t, you could always come fishing with me, you know. You any good with worms?”

She laughed. “I’ve baited a hook or two in my time.”

“There you go,” I said. “You’re in.”

“What about your FBI-agent girlfriend?” she asked. “Don’t you think she might get upset?”

I laughed. “She’s not my girlfriend.” I turned and glanced at her. “Why? Did you think she was my girlfriend?”

She didn’t answer.

“Well, she isn’t. We’re just friends. We just hang out—”

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” she said, cutting me off sharply. “I was just saying that if I went to the lake with you—which, by the way, I’m not going to do—but if I did, I wondered if she might get a little upset with me—maybe have my taxes audited or something . . . maybe even get you in trouble.I wouldn’t want either of us to get in trouble.”

“I seriously doubt it,” I said. “That’s not the kind of relationship we have. Jen and I are just friends.”

“With benefits,” she added.

“With benefits,” I agreed.

“So how can you call it just friends, then?” she asked.

“I thought you said I didn’t have to explain?”

She looked over at me quickly, and then she looked back straight ahead.

“You don’t,” she said. “Sorry.”

“No need to be sorry. For the record, neither of us is thinking long term,” I said. “I’m pretty sure that neither of us is even the other’s ideal type.”

“She’s not your type?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Hell no. I mean, she’s cool, you know. But she’s totally into her career. She’s honest about it. She made it pretty clear that there were no strings—no attachments at all—concerning the two of us. As long as the two of us enjoy each other’s company, then we’ll hang out. Anything changes, and then we won’t hang out anymore. No hard feelings.”

“So it’s kind of a ‘present tense’ sort of thing, then?” she asked.

“Exactly.”

She considered this for a moment. “Sounds like a dream for most men,” she said.

I thought for a second, and then nodded. “Probably is,” I agreed.

“But not for you?” she asked, hearing the inflection in my voice.

I looked at her, and then back at the road.

“No,” I said. “It’s not my dream.” I started to feel uncomfortable with the direction this conversation was heading. “Anyway,” I said, hoping to change the subject, “a second ago, you weren’t interested in hearing about this.”

“True,” she said. “I’m not. I’m just trying to keep you out of trouble.”

“Good luck with that,” I said.

* * * *

We pulled into the parking lot at Redmond Firearms and Indoor Range at two o’clock. The store was busy—the lot was full when we parked. As soon as I shut the Jeep down, we could hear the muffled
pop!-pop!-pop!
of gunshots coming from inside the range. The Jeep was probably safer here than it would have been at the Seattle Justice Center, but I locked it anyway, and we walked inside.

The firing range was on our left as we entered, behind glass that was bulletproof and mostly soundproof. It looked to be about half full of shooters firing handguns of all descriptions, from little .22-caliber target pistols all the way to .44 Magnums that sounded like cannons. On our right was the entrance to the store. We stepped inside. The store itself had a long, glass-topped counter with dozens of handguns on display. A half-dozen employees were busy demonstrating firearms and answering questions. On the wall behind the employees were long guns of all types, from cute little pink .22s all the way through a Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifle that cost more than both of my guitars put together (and I have nice guitars). The balance of the store was full of racks of ammunition, accessories, clothing displays, and all the other types of equipment used in the firearms disciplines. We walked toward the far end of the counter, where I saw Grant Evans talking to a customer. He nodded to us as we approached. A minute later, he finished up and turned to us.

“Hey, guys!” he said, smiling broadly. “Long time no see!”

“Hi, Grant,” I said. “It’s been a while.”

“Toni,” he said, “you’re looking lovely, as always.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Danny, you’re looking like . . . yourself.”

“Thanks, Grant.”

“You bet! So how are my two favorite PIs doing this fine Friday?From the looks of it, you’ve got some questions for me, right? Come on back to my office.”

Grant led us through a door at the back of the store. The back room was loaded with shelves holding dozens of boxes of all sizes and shapes. Busy employees scurried about, running stock to the front area. We passed through them and entered a small private office, just big enough for a desk, three filing cabinets, and a couple of chairs. Every available inch of wall space held shelves with vender catalogs.

“Have a seat,” he said.

“You got a card for your decorator?” I joked.

“Danny,” Toni said, “don’t insult the man if you’re about to ask him to do you a favor.”

“That’s right,” Grant said. “Listen to the lady, you cretin.”