The Florentine Deception (3 page)

It took just a few minutes to disable the spyware from Richard's PC now that we knew how it ticked.

“Feeling voyeuristic?” I asked. “Want to see a transcript of this guy's last minutes?”

“What do you mean
last minutes
?”

“My dad picked up this PC at an estate sale. That means that the owner's dead. Deceased. Pushing daisies. That spyware wiretap file probably has the last words he ever typed in his life.”

Steven's eyebrows rose. “Seriously? What do you think we'll find?”

“Who knows? Probably nothing.” I glanced over my shoulder conspiratorially and lowered my voice. “But maybe, just maybe, the directions to the Wellingsworth treasure.”

“Wellings-what? Treasure? Really?”

“No, not really.” I laughed. “It's probably just a list of the last few porn sites the guy visited.”

I slid the mouse back over to the file, but a fraction of a second before I could open it, the lamp's filament flared and popped, and the power to the house died.

“Perfect timing.” Speaking about timing, I looked down at my watch. It was 6:45 p.m. “Crap! I need to go. I'm late for Tom's party!”

Chapter 4

“Tom!” yelled Gennady, “Alex is here.” Gennady grabbed me in a bear hug, then stepped aside for me to enter. “Long time no see!”

“Hey Gennady.”

“Come on in. What do you want to drink?
Wodka
? Jäger?”

“Jäger? I feel like I'm still in college. I'll take a Diet Coke and save the shots for later. Thanks.”

I walked down the hallway to the kitchen. A half-dozen people, most with familiar faces but unfamiliar names, were mingling around the living room with red party cups. Pink Floyd's
Dark Side of the Moon
was playing in the background.

“Hey Alex!” A hand waved from behind the refrigerator door, then a second later, Tom popped his head up. “One sec, I'll be right over.”

Tom finished his rummaging and returned holding a can of Pabst.

“Happy birthday, man.” I handed him a bag of Reese's Pieces.

“Epic—just like old times! Thanks!” Tom ripped open a corner of the bag with his teeth and tipped a handful into his mouth.

“And here's the real gift.” I placed an envelope in his hand. “Don't forget to open it or you'll regret it.”

Tom gave me a quizzical look and placed the envelope with the others on the counter.

“Thanks. I won't. Follow me,” he said, walking over to the other guests. “You remember Vic and Letty, right?”

“Hey guys,” I said, “good to see you again.” I had no recollection whatsoever who they were.

“And this is Cindy.” Cindy was a well-endowed brunette, very good looking.

“Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Alex.” I shook her hand. “How do you know—”

“And her girlfriend Vivian,” interrupted Tom, strategically.

“Oh. Hi Vivian, nice to meet you too.”

“The other two are Gennady's friends from Russia.” Tom issued a polite smile and nodded. “They don't speak much English, but boy can they pound the vodka.”

“Hello,” I said, nodding as well. The pair smiled.

Tom motioned me back to their red leather Bugatti couch. “Take a seat.”

“So what's up? Word is that you bailed from ViruTrax?” said Gennady from the kitchen.

“That word is right,” I said, shoving aside a bag of chips and taking a seat. “That was a while ago. When did we last talk?”

Tom, clearly well on his way to inebriation, stared up at the ceiling and considered.

“Don't remember,” he said, taking a gulp.

“I do. Camping last November in Sequoia.”

“Sue!” I hopped up from the couch to give her a hug. “How are things?”

“Good! I started a new job last week, and Gennady and I are heading to Maui next month, so I've got nothing to complain about.”

“Excellent! Come sit with me.” I sat back down and patted the couch. “I want to hear all about your job.” Sue sat down and wrapped her arm around me for a second hug.

“Anyway, why'd you leave?” continued Tom. “All your options vest?”

“Nah. Things just got too political.”

“Like he needed the stock options,” said Gennady, handing me a red party cup. I took a sniff. Just Coke, no
wodka
. “Now on the other hand, we could have used the options.”

I nearly choked on my drink. “You missed your calling, Gennady. You should have gone into standup.”

Gennady and Tom had been employees number two and three at my college cyber-security startup. I'd invented an entirely new approach to detect computer viruses, but didn't have the mathematical background to make it work, or the business acumen to make it a success. Gennady, a brilliant applied mathematics major, and Tom, a physics major and business savant, were the perfect partners. I, of course, did all the programming.

After about twenty-four months of stealth R&D in Tom's parents' guesthouse, we shipped a new crowd-sourced antivirus technology that put existing security products to shame. Word spread, and the product was free, so within nine months on the market, we'd reached one hundred and sixty million users, surpassing ViruTrax as the world's most popular antivirus vendor. In a bout of desperation, ViruTrax offered us seventy-five million for our company; we settled for two hundred and ninety. Gennady and Tom had wisely cashed out and declined employment, but I promised to stay on a year as a condition to close the deal.

“So how's the new startup going?” I asked.

Tom looked at Gennady and smirked.

“Kaput,” said Gennady. “Our VC funding ran out, and neither of us is willing to put any more of our own cash in.”

“Not to mention that the product sucks,” said Tom, just a little slur in his voice.

Gennady glared at Tom a moment, then nodded grudgingly. “It's true. So basically we're trying to figure out our next project. So what have you been up to, Alex?” he asked. “Traveling the world in a private mega-yacht? Ascending Mount Everest?”

I thought a moment. “Climbing, eating, sleeping.” I took a drink. “And I think I'm having a midlife crisis too.”

“Wow—you've been busy,” said Gennady in his odd Russian-Texan accent. “Midlife crisis? At what, twenty-six?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Same difference.” He picked up a tumbler of some opaque alcoholic concoction from the coffee table and sipped. “Try buying a dacha in St. Petersburg and getting a new nineteen-year-old girlfriend. That worked for my dad.”

I pulled out my smartphone and pretended to scrawl with my finger on the screen. “Nineteen-year-old girlfriend. Check. Vacation home in former Soviet Union. Check.” I nodded. “Got it. Thanks man.”

Sue began giggling.

“Let's create another startup,” said Tom. “Nothing like ninety-hour workweeks to give your life meaning.”

It wasn't a half-bad idea if I could just find a project I was passionate about; I needed something challenging to do soon or I'd die of sheer boredom.

“I'll give that some thought as well,” I said, gazing around the room at Tom and Gennady's slovenly home-slash-headquarters. Why the two of them still lived together like college students when both could buy mega-mansions—for cash—was an enigma. Then again, who was I to judge; I lived in a tract home on low-fat microwave burritos and slept on a purple IKEA futon.

“How's Julie,” asked Sue, changing the subject.

“Ummm … She dumped me two months ago.”

“Sorry, Alex.” Sue squeezed my hand, then said, “I didn't like her anyway. No big loss.”

“Brutal,” said Gennady, shaking his head. “I think we need to go on a bender to fix Alex up.”

“Ben-der!” yelled one of the Russians from behind.

“Nah, I'm good. I'm just in a lull.”

The doorbell rang.

“Be right back.” Gennady made his way to the door. “Pizza's here,” he yelled.

“Oh, before I forget,” said Tom, “there's a letter for you on my desk.”

“A letter?”

“Yeah, from Sheila.”

“Why did she send it here?”

“No idea.” Tom shrugged. “Maybe she lost your address. She's been backpacking in India for the past seven months. You know, I used to have a major thing for her.”

Tom disappeared upstairs and returned with an envelope covered in colorful Indian stamps.

“Thanks,” I said. I folded the letter and shoved it into my back pocket.

“Wow that smells good,” said Tom, sniffing the aromatic deep-dish. The other guests had already grabbed plates and were snagging slices.

“Here you go, Alex. Dig in.” Gennady handed me a paper plate and a napkin, then grabbed a slice for himself.

I eyed the pizza longingly, then put down the plate. “No thanks.”

Gennady took a bite. “Dude, you've got negative body fat and your muscles have muscles,” he said through a mouthful of pizza. “You can afford a slice.”

“Not going to happen.”

“All right folks, it's time,” said Tom. “Grab your chow and take a seat, because we're going to start the movie in five.” Every year on his birthday, Tom invited his friends to watch
Back to the Future
on his big-screen. There was only one hitch: any time a character said “McFly,” you had to take a shot.

Tradition was tradition.

“Let's do it,” I said. “But I'm stopping at three shots. And I'm only drinking Stoli—none of the cheap stuff.”

“Lightweight,” said Gennady.

Three hours later, after all the other guests had left, Gennady and the two drunken Russians gave a rousing rendition of “The Power of Love”
by Huey Lewis. A second later, Gennady curled up on the couch and began snoring. Sue gently laid a blanket on him.

“It was great to see you, Alex,” she said.

“Thanks for coming, man,” Tom added.

“Wouldn't miss it for the world. Happy birthday!”

Chapter 5

Well, at least the power was back on.

Ignoring the half-dozen flashing clocks, I worked my way to the kitchen and opened the freezer. I definitely needed to go shopping. A lone low-fat, low-sodium TV dinner box stared at me from the top shelf.

Good enough for government work.

I removed it, tossed the packaging, and threw it into the microwave on high.

While the food was spinning away in the oven, my mind wandered back to the computer upstairs and its late owner. So who was this Richard guy? And what was he thinking, or at least typing, in the final days before he died? A love letter? A suicide note? I felt mildly guilty prying into something so personal, but technically the guy was dead, and the curiosity was killing me.

A few moments later, a glass of water and the steaming tray in hand, I headed upstairs, flipped on my bathroom light for illumination, and eased down onto the floor in front of the old computer.

Once the computer had completed its glacial boot-up, it took just a minute to locate the spyware's concealed wiretap file. Ideally, the transcript would contain both Richard's keystrokes and a recording of the computer's screen as Richard typed: as if a spy were videotaping the monitor. Unfortunately, most spyware doesn't have this level of sophistication and Richard's was no exception. All I had was a recording of Richard's keystrokes, a one-sided conversation with the computer.

The spyware archived its recordings in chronological order, with the earliest entry in the file from April 6, and Steven's Google search at the rear. Surprisingly, minus the keystrokes that Steven and I had contributed, the entire listing contained only a handful of lines; Richard was a light computer user. The first day's recording began predictably:

R1CH4RD

r1ch4rd

He must've accidentally hit the CAPSLOCK key before logging in. I continued down the listing:

www.amazon.com

Hephaestus

shazam

Not much to go on. Another challenge. I double-clicked on the Internet Explorer icon and surfed to the Amazon homepage. Once the page rendered, I found what I was looking for: just below the web page's banner,
Amazon.com
welcomed Richard Lister back and recommended several new books he might be interested in. Like thousands of other websites,
Amazon.com
sends compact tracking beacons called “cookies” down to each customer's computer to track their shopping habits and deliver personalized recommendations. Just what the computer sleuth ordered. I jotted Richard's full name on my handy college-rule notepad.

What were Amazon's recommendations for Mr. Lister today? Healing Crystals and Gemstones: From Amethyst to Zircon for $16.98 and
The Heartless Stone: A Journey Through the World of Diamonds, Deceit and Desire
at the discount price of $25.72. The magnificent Mr. Lister was a morgue-meandering mineralogist. I jotted down the titles.

From the main Amazon screen, I clicked on the “Your Account” tab and then clicked on the “Manage Address Book” link. As I'd feared, Amazon balked and immediately popped up a login page asking for Richard's password before allowing me to see the goods. On a whim, I keyed in “Hephaestus,” the first of the two password-like keywords in the spyware's log, and hit Enter. Remarkably, Amazon accepted the password, and after a brief delay, displayed its Billing and Shipping page containing Richard's address:

651 Latigo Canyon Road

Malibu, CA 90265

Score two points for the Fife-meister. I jotted this down, navigated back to the Account page and clicked the “Change Name, Email-address or Password” link. Amazon promptly delivered Richard's registered email address,
[email protected]
, which I also scribbled onto my notepad. In two minutes and fifteen seconds, I had Richard's full name, his home address, his email account, and his taste in books. Such is the power of the Internet and user-friendly online shopping.