The Last Goodbye (38 page)

“We going somewhere?”

“Yeah, but that's not the point. I don't feel like looking at you in your underwear.” Nightmare shrugged and walked to a bedroom. After a couple of minutes, he came out wearing some dirty blue jeans and a wrinkled shirt. I stood there staring at him, trying to ignore the fact that justice for eight murdered people was about to depend on him. “So here's the thing, Michael. I need you to help me one more time.”

Nightmare looked down and stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets. “Look, dude, I've been thinking this thing over. If you're going to keep hitting me up, I'm going to need some bank for it.”

“You're kidding. You're holding me up for money?”

“No, all I'm saying, I'm like an independent contractor. I got no ax to grind either way on this deal.”

“Whatever happened to partners? Jackie Chan?”

“I'm just saying, dude.”

“Yeah. You're just saying.” I walked up to him—he flinched, as usual—and I grabbed him by the collar. “Do you know how these people died, Michael?” He shook his head. “They died by exploding inside themselves. They died by bleeding from every orifice of their bodies simultaneously. They died like dogs, in agony. So you and I are going to Grayton Labs now. You're going to help me solve the hideous murders of eight people. I was hoping you'd do it because you were a decent kid underneath your ridiculous, posturing exterior. But if you don't do it for that, you'll do it because if you don't, I'm going to beat the living hell out of you.”

“Grayton Labs?”

“That's right.”

He peeled back my hands, and I set him down. “Yeah, that's cool,” he said.

“Just like that? I say Grayton Labs, and all of a sudden you're all smiles?”

“Look, I said I'd do it.”

There wasn't time to argue. Robinson was waiting. “All right. You need anything?”

He picked up the same shoulder bag he had used at my office. “Let's go.”

If Horizn was a high-tech palace, Grayton was a blue-collar work space built for efficiency. The lab was located in a long, brick building of three stories. The structure was obviously a couple of decades old, and little had been done to modernize its look. Landscaping was nonexistent. That, combined with the security surrounding it, made it look more like a prison dormitory than a player in the brave new world of genetic research.

Grayton security lacked the technology of Horizn—no doubt for economic reasons—but made up for it in human intimidation. Robinson had called the guard, so we were let through the entrance to the parking area. Nightmare and I walked through the front door and stopped before a surveillance station displaying a dozen television monitors. Two armed guards were seated behind the bank of screens sweeping the exterior and interior of the building. As we approached, one rose. We signed in and were directed to a couple of straight-backed chairs several feet away.

Five minutes later Robinson appeared. His face showed a fragile hopefulness, but fear lurked around the edges. I stood. “This is Michael Harrod.”

“Call me Nightmare.”

Robinson stared at Michael silently a moment, then turned and headed toward a hallway. “Come with me.”

Walking through Grayton's mostly empty hallways, Robinson might as well have had the black plague. The few people around ducked into offices when we appeared, or simply stared, giving Robinson unabashed, malevolent looks. Robinson was not immune. By the time we got to his laboratory, he was practically limping with shame. I stopped him at the door. “We're going to fix this, okay?”

“I risked the whole company and lost.”

“Why don't they just fire you?”

“They can't. I have a contract.”

“Can't they buy it out?”

“I don't want the money. I want my revenge. And for the next four months, I have access to the lab.”

“What about support staff?”

Robinson looked down, grappling with his humiliation. “Nobody here is to lift a finger to help me. I'm anathema.”

Before we walked in, Nightmare pointed to the ceiling at what looked like a large shower head. “What's that?” he asked.

“Emergency bath,” Robinson said. “You'll see them scattered around on all the floors. We use a lot of harsh chemicals around here. The idea is that nobody is ever more than thirty feet from a blast of water to get something off them. Just pull the lever.”

Nightmare stared. “Ever see it used?”

“Once.” Robinson nodded but didn't elaborate. He pushed open two large double doors, and we walked into a large, rectangular room about fifty feet long and thirty-five wide. Robinson flipped some switches and the lights above flickered on. The space was crammed with machines of staggering complexity. A labyrinth of computer monitors were scattered around the room. But everywhere were empty chairs. It was apparent that until recently, this was a place of concentrated activity, with accommodations for at least ten assistants. Now—in the face of Robinson's failure—the place was as melancholy as a tomb. Two machines, humming quietly, dominated the center of the room. Nightmare made an audible sound of lust.

“Nice, huh?” Robinson said.

Nightmare looked around wistfully. “What I could do with this much computing power—”

“The body,” Robinson interrupted. “When can we get it?”

Here we go.
“We can't,” I said. “It's gone.” Robinson stared a second, then began to tremble. “Don't panic. I know where it is.”

“What happened? You said you had a guy.”

“They beat us to it. While I was tied up—”

Nightmare interrupted. “Dude, you got tied up?”

I waved my hand, shutting him up. “While I was tied up, somebody got the body released. It was picked up late yesterday afternoon.”

Robinson, already on his last legs emotionally, spoke with a cracked voice. “Who has it?”

I laid the picture from the pathology lab down on a work table. “This guy,” I answered. “He's got Doug.”

“That's it?” Robinson exclaimed. “That's all you've got? A photograph?”

I pointed to Nightmare. “We've also got him.”

“I don't know the guy,” Nightmare said, looking surprised.

“Of course you don't know him. But I know somebody who does, and you're going to ask him.”

“How you figure that?”

“When I went to see Ralston, I had to check into a facial recognition program.”

Nightmare raised an eyebrow. “Biometrics. Damn, man, that is thorough.”

“Everybody who comes through the door.” I pointed to the picture. “This guy is working for Ralston. Which means he's in the database, too.”

Nightmare's vaguely interested expression vanished. “Dude, you have finally completely come unhinged. Grayton was one thing, but I am not going to hack Horizn.”

“If you can get access to their database, you can not only identify this guy, you can probably tell us his favorite color.”

“Look, I got nothing against hacking Horizn. As far as I'm concerned, they're
choice.
But not for you, and not this way. You are out of your mind.”

“You will hack them, Michael, because this is too important for you to crap out on us.”

“Even if I agreed, I would need weeks, and that is no lie.”

“Tell me what's involved, because we don't have anywhere near that kind of time.”

“To do it right? First, I'd get on EDGAR, the SEC site, take a look at their filing. See if they have any affiliates, if they operate under any other names. Maybe there's a back door from a subsidiary.”

“No way. It would take far too long. Next?”

“Assuming they're smarter than that, because they are? I'd take a couple of days and search all the security message boards and blogs, see if there's anything posted. Sometimes people talk about their problems. If there was nothing there, I'd start mapping them, real patient. See which domain names they operate under, which ports are listening. You got to be careful, not get in a hurry. You map the whole network, one DNS at a time. Then—and only then—do I start nibbling away at them. I show patience, dude. I do not blow up like an amateur.”

“Just keep going. What happens next?”

“What do you care? I'm already at a week.”

“Just tell me, Michael.”

Nightmare shrugged. “How many employees do they have?”

Robinson answered. “About fourteen hundred,” he said.

Nightmare nodded thoughtfully. “Fourteen hundred. Okay. So I'd probably look for a Joe.”

“What's a Joe?” I asked.

“Hacker term. Somebody lazy enough to use his own name as his password. Almost every company has one, and one is all it takes.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” I demanded. “We can get a list of the employees, can't we?”

Michael looked stricken. “They're not idiots, you know. They got protections. Maybe Joe is the janitor, dude. And the janitor can't exactly access the human resources database without setting off flares. One wrong move and I'm toast. Or in the case of these guys, more like dead.”

“All right, all right,” I said. “There has to be another way.”

“There isn't.” Nightmare sat down, sulking. “They've probably done away with the body by now, anyway.”

“All the labs have incinerators,” Robinson said, nodding. “We use them for the laboratory animals.”

“Nice,” Nightmare muttered. “I'm here with a bunch of monkey killers.”

“It doesn't matter,” I interrupted. “I can guarantee you Doug isn't at Horizn. It would bring murder evidence right into the offices. I don't see that happening.”

“You might be right,” Robinson agreed. “Bringing a body bag into a place like that is no walk in the park. Everything gets signed in and out. Unless a ton of people were in on it, there'd be no way to ensure security. There would be tapes to erase, a log at the guardhouse, people to bribe, potential physical evidence left behind. And a big random factor, like somebody just walking in the wrong room at the wrong time. It would be easier to handle it somewhere else.”

I turned back to Nightmare. “So it's up to you.”

“Then you're out of luck,” Nightmare said flatly.

We stood in silence for a minute, when I suddenly pointed at Nightmare, who flinched involuntarily in his usual, paranoid way. “What he was saying earlier. About finding somebody they do business with. How does that work?”

Nightmare shrugged. “Evil trick. You find somebody they do a lot of business with, which means there's a lot of data flow between them. And maybe this other company has lousy security, so you hack them instead. Then it's just a matter of waiting for them to communicate with each other. Once they do, you run a remote procedure call. Lets you crawl back from the second company to the actual target. Of course, you can only stay on as long as the first company is connected. When they go, you go with them. But by that time you probably figured out how to sign back on as them in the first place.”

I stared. “For God's sake, Michael, why don't you just get a normal job? With brains like yours—”

“Yeah, whatever,” Nightmare interrupted. He gave me a doubtful look. “Are you saying you know of some company like that?”

I turned toward Robinson. “Not a company,” I said. “The United States government.”

“My God, you're right,” Robinson said. “The National Institutes of Health. Horizn would be online with them every day, sometimes for hours. I've seen departments just keep an open connection, because it's easier.”

I turned toward Nightmare. “That's it, Michael. NIH. Can you do it?”

Nightmare sidestepped away from me, gaining a little space.

But I could feel him torn between his familiar anxiety and the tantalizing prospect of a new victim. His ego was pushing him into uncharted territory. “We'd have to know the names of the guys who access NIH—”

“I know
all
their names,” Robinson interrupted. “I can make a list in two minutes.”

“Okay,” Nightmare said.
“If
one of them turned out to be a Joe, then maybe. If you had all that, I mean.”

I looked at Nightmare. “Let's do it.”

Nightmare was wary. “I'd still have to sign on at NIH, and I don't have credentials there.” He pointed at Robinson. “So if this is going to work, I have to go on as him.”

Robinson looked up from his list. “What?”

“There's no point in me hacking NIH if he has credentials. It would be a waste of time. So I go on as him, or it's nothing.”

I started to protest, but Robinson reached out and put his hand on my arm. “It's okay. Let's do it.”

“You sure?” I asked.

“I'm dead already, unless this works. We're just talking about formalities.”

“Is that where you normally log on?” Nightmare asked, pointing to a terminal.

“Yes.”

“Fifty grand.”

“Michael–”

“Fifty grand, dude. This is serious high-tech work, and it costs.”

“So do hospital bills.”

To this day, I don't know if I was serious or not. But Michael must have seen something in my eyes, because he sat down and said, “Well, at least go get me some damn mineral water.”

After a couple of hours of pacing, I finally went to a vending machine and bought fifteen dollars' worth of prefab sandwiches, some chips, and soft drinks. I handed out a couple of sandwiches, storing the rest in a fridge. Nightmare wolfed his down, but Robinson refused to eat. I planted myself in an office chair at the far end of the laboratory, hating every minute that passed. A laboratory full of incomprehensible equipment is a lousy place to spend the day. I tried to talk to Robinson a couple of times, but he wouldn't have it; he kept pestering Michael to see how his hack was coming, and eventually Michael told him to stay out of his hair. More hours passed, and eventually, the facility started to close down around us. At some point—after alternating bouts of equally ineffectual sitting and pacing—I must have drifted off a little. I felt my legs get kicked, jerked my head up, and saw Michael leering down at me. “I got it,” he said. “I'm great, you know. The greatest who ever lived, probably.”