The Last Hostage (37 page)

Nothing useful appeared.

"You're rather amazing with that, Ken," she commented, realizing she was practically speaking into his right ear.

"I love computers. So did Melinda. She loved the Internet and surfing the Web."

Kat saw his fingers freeze on the keyboard as he looked part way around toward her. "Lumin lured her in through the Internet, Kat.

You probably didn't know that."

"No, I didn't."

"He pretended to be a thirteen-year-old boy who shared her interests.

She hid all the e-mail behind a password-protected file, but I knew her password, and when I got in, I found a long, long list of missives the vermin had written to gain her confidence, and I found her long, chatty, innocent answers. She never suspected she was talking to an adult, let alone a monster."

"These were.., love letters?"

"No. Just pen pal stuff. Mutual interests. That animal had learned how to emulate a young teenage boy incredibly well."

"That was before the charges were dismissed?"

He nodded, launching another search as he typed in a strange sequence of letters and numbers.

"What's that name?" she asked.

"That was his screen name. WWWebster43. It was also his e-mail address, and the police easily traced it to one of his accounts."

The computer churned through a long search routine and repeated the same "No files matching your criteria" message.

Ken leaned forward and searched the skies around them again before dropping his eyes to the list of files once more.

"Just on the outside chance Bostich is a true idiot regarding files, I'm going to try an 'undelete' routine. That restores files the unwary think they've completely erased."

A series of keystrokes started an internal routine on the computer that ground on for nearly a minute before a lengthy list of files popped up.

"Well, well, well. He is computer illiterate." Ken studied the list.

"Ken, what are those files?"

He pointed to the three letters after the period in each filename.

"That gives me information on what type of files they are. Wait a minute."

Ken launched a new fusillade of keystrokes into the keyboard and hit the enter button. Page after page of additional files popped up with the same three letters--TIF--as the last part of the filenames.

"What is it, Ken?"

"'TIF' files are pictures, or graphics. He's got a bunch of them here, and they're all password-protected, and he's tried to erase all of them.

I wonder why?"

"How would he have gotten these?"

"If he brought them in with a diskette, I probably won't be able to find out. But if they came in through an Internet connection.., let's see.

Once again the screens changed in rapid succession as Ken called up more files and programs, then sat back and exhaled sharply.

"What?" Kat asked.

"These picture files came from the Internet, Kat. These aren't official business. These are personal. In fact, he's worked hard to erase the name of the Web site he got them from, which is very interesting."

"I'm not following this, Ken."

He looked around. "There are some Web sites out there a decent person would not want anyone knowing he'd visited."

"You mean sex-related stuff?"

He nodded, returning to the previous list of picture files and typing in a series of commands.

"If I can find the password he uses..."

She watched in silence for nearly two minutes as he entered and reentered keystrokes, then sat back for a second and shook his head.

"I'll be damned!"

"What?"

"I thought everyone knew better than to write down a password where someone can find it, but not only has Bostich written it down, he's labeled it."

"Where?"

"In a special word processor file." Ken pulled out a pen and wrote down a series of numbers, 97883PSY, which he then entered as a password.

"First I'm going to check to see if this opens those picture files. I want to make sure this is really his code."

He worked the keys again, opening and closing three files in a row.

"It does. It's his. He's got legal briefs behind this password, too."

Ken launched a graphics program and fired in the command to open one of the recovered picture files, entering the password 97883PSY when prompted. The computer screen dissolved to black for a few minutes, and even over the distant whine of the idling engines she could hear the computer's hard drive chattering away.

Suddenly a picture began to emerge on the color screen. It was just a shadow of a sketch at first, then, as the data transferred from the disk and translated itself into points of colored light on the screen, a more coherent scene.

"It looks like..." Kat began, "a shot of a woman, reclining."

Another burst of data brought more detail.

"She's on a... a couch of some sort," Kat added, "with her arm around another figure.., around the head.., his head..."

The computer blinked and added a new screen full of definition, and Kat looked in silence.

"This is going to be pornographic, isn't it?" she asked. "I think she's nude."

He nodded.

"Kat, that's not her arm. That's her leg, and that's an adult male."

A final burst of information completed the picture, and Kat gasped, a feeling of utter revulsion shuddering through her.

"Oh my God!" she said. "Ken, that's a child! She couldn't be... look at her body! She couldn't be more than nine or ten."

Aboard AirBridge Flight 90, Telluride Regional Airport, Colorado. 4:23 P. M.

Wolfe and Bronsky sat in silence, trying not to look at the disgusting color picture covering the screen of Rudy Bostich's personal computer.

Ken cleared his throat at last and shook his head slowly.

"I thought I might luck out and find a letter, a reference, a memo, something incriminating in here. But kiddie porn? Even as much as I hate Bostich, I didn't expect this. That little girl isn't any older than Melinda." He groaned as memories of what Melinda must have gone through flooded his mind, consuming him in helpless rage and despair for several moments. With great effort he focused his thoughts once again on the present, rubbed his eyes, and looked over at Kat.

"What do we do now, Kat? What do we do?"

With mixed feelings of sympathy for Ken's loss, and relief that he had his emotions under control again, Kat sat back against the wall.

"Ken, the mere possession of filth like this is a felony, and it belongs to Bostich. At the minimum, that launches a federal criminal investigation.''

Ken turned slightly. "Thanks to your caution, Kat, you had nothing to do with opening those files. Only I did."

She nodded.

Ken fired off another series of keystrokes, saving the one picture to a nonprotected file, then triggering a new one.

Another full color picture of a naked female child feloniously intertwined with a leering adult male swam into view.

"Oh, Lord. I'll bet they're all like this." He triggered a third, and yet another similar color picture emerged.

"Kat, there are at least fifty pictures listed of this type. It would take a while to open them, and I... I don't have the stomach for it."

She shook her head. "Nor do I."

Ken looked up from the computer and checked outside before turning to look at Kat, who had moved back to the copilot's seat. He studied her in silence for a few seconds, then took a deep breath and pulled the PA. microphone from the center pedestal.

"Folks, a while ago I forced FBI Agent Katherine Bronsky aboard this aircraft against her will. She's sitting in the copilot's seat right now, and she's been trying her best to end this thing by helping me work out the arrest of Bradley Lumin with her superiors. Now, there's something else you need to know, but first I want Rudolph Bostich to stand in the aisle again by the seat he fled to a while ago. I realize many of you think that since Bostich is a United States Attorney and a big man politically, and I'm just an aggrieved father, I have to be wrong about his lying to a judge, because a man of Bostich's position couldn't possibly have told a lie under oath."

Ken unsnapped his seatbelt, handed Bostich's computer to Kat, and swung out of his seat just as something moving in the distance caught Kat's attention. As Ken opened the cockpit door, she peered through the left window, making out the outline of a C-130 transport obviously inbound to Telluride.

For a split second she had an impulse to turn and tell Ken, but she stifled it instantly, reminding herself where she was, who she was, and what was happening. The fact that she could have even formed such a thought was sobering.

What's happening to my head? I'm trying to end a hijacking, not help the hijacker!

But the thought of the pictures she had seen sparked a miniature firestorm of anger at a senior law enforcement officer who could even think about possessing such filth.

The C-130 reimposed itself on her consciousness. If the pilots could get in and land before Ken discovered their presence, perhaps they could make a difference.

But Ken's threats rang in her ears, especially the threat to take off if anyone showed up.

She glanced back at him, standing in the door with his back to the windscreen, the cord of the P.A. mike stretched to its limit as he continued to speak.

She looked back to the west again. The C-130 was disappearing to the south behind them. She could see the gray military color, and decided it was probably Air Force, and probably carrying the Hostage Rescue Team at the urgent request of FBI Headquarters.

She reached down to the VHF radio frequency control head and quietly dialed in the universal emergency frequency, 121.5. As Ken pressed the P.A. button behind her, she fingered the transmit switch on the control yoke, trying to decide what to say as Ken's voice rang again in her ears.

"Come on, Bostich. On your feet. I want to be able to see you back there.

Annette? Can you hear me?"

Annette appeared just behind Bostich, her hand in the air, her face too distant to read.

"Annette, would you please get the P.A. microphone from the back galley there and stretch it forward so Mr. Bostich can talk to us?"

Ken could see Annette hesitate, then raise her palms to the ceiling and disappear for a second, returning moments later to hand the microphone to a very confused Rudolph Bostich. She talked to Bostich for a few seconds, obviously coaching him on how to press the button on the mike.

"Do you have the mike in your hand, Bostich?"

There were a series of bumps and scrapes with the microphone as Bostich experimented with the button, then held it down.

"What do you want, Wolfe?"

Ken pressed his mike button.

"I want some answers, Bostich, to some simple questions, and folks, please pay close attention. Okay, Rudolph Bostich, do you approve of hardcore pornography?"

Bostich answered instantly.

"No, of course not! What kind of stupid question is that?"

Ken nodded and pushed his PA. button again.

"The counselor doesn't like the questions, folks. Okay, Rudolph, would-be Attorney General-designate of the United States of America, the second question is: Have you ever purchased, or otherwise obtained, had, or carried around with you anything that could be described as hardcore pornography that clearly involves children under the age of consent?"

Again Bostich's voice bellowed a quick, sneering answer.

"He's insane, people, but for the record, the answer is not only no, but hell, no!"

Ken pressed his button.

"Okay, again you answered no. Now, Rudolph, a little while ago I confiscated your briefcase from the first class overhead compartment over your seat. Inside that briefcase was your computer. So happens, working out the intricacies of computers has long been a hobby of mine, so I went looking in your computer files to see if I could find any evidence you'd lied to that Connecticut judge. By the way, folks, those of you in the rear of the coach cabin, please turn around now and watch his face on this one. Rudolph, do you recognize the personal computer file password 97883PSY?"

Standing in the rear aisle of the 737, with one hand holding the mike, the other on his hip, and a furious scowl on his face, Rudy Bostich at first looked confused. The few dozen passengers who had turned to watch him saw the blood drain from his face and his eyes grow large, his mouth gaping open for a second before he caught himself and tried to return to the fierce expression. He raised the P.A. mike back to his lips.

"Not"

In the cockpit door, Ken nodded again as he raised the mike.

"Rudolph? One more. Are your answers as truthful as the answer you gave that Connecticut judge when he asked if you had phoned Detective Matson?"

The answer was slow in coming from Bostich.

"Yes, damn you!"