Firewall (20 page)

10:45 P.M. WEDNESDAY

At the FBI office, Grayson studied surveillance footage from the airport, before and after the bombing. Much of it he’d reviewed before. He was a single grain of sand on an investigative beach. So many agents had gone through these, but the more eyes, the better the chances of finding evidence. The photographs with Murford and Taryn had been enhanced by manipulating the angle, zoom, frame rate, and resolution. Another set of pics of the van used to house the fertilizer bomb had indicated a woman drove it into the parking garage, but she’d avoided the cameras.

The community had rallied by sending personal photographs from the bombing, sharing Facebook, Twitter, and other social media information, and anonymously phoning in information. All would be reviewed by the HPD, the FBI, or any of the dozens of local, state, and federal agencies that had joined the investigation.

He stole a look at Joe, who needed to be in bed. On Tuesday, Joe had phoned the SSA and volunteered to assist when Grayson and Taryn needed a brief reprieve
 
—before Murford’s men shot up his and Grayson’s home. Now it would take a crowbar to pry Joe out of the office. But the heavy pace aged him.

“How about me dropping you off at the hotel?” Grayson said.

Joe peered at him over his bifocals. “I might have something.”

Grayson stared at his uncle’s computer monitor. “Is that Kinsley Stevens’s Facebook page?”

“Yep. I figure if she’s innocent, she posts everything. And if she’s guilty, she’d have a private page.” Joe clicked on photos. “Pay dirt.”

Grayson viewed the screen over his uncle’s shoulder. “Haden Rollins is in quite a few of them.”

“Take a look at the face in the background of this happy hour scene.”

“Blow it up.”

Joe clicked the mouse and slapped the desk. “It’s Dina Dancer, and I recognize the Marriott bar. Kinsley Stevens and Haden Rollins are part of the party.”

“Blow up this other one. Looks like it was taken at the same place.” Grayson examined each shadow and face. A man’s outline near the bar grasped his attention. “Is that Murford and Breckon?”

“Sure looks like them,” Joe said. “Do we have a family reunion here?”

“Definitely a few black sheep. Send those photos for analysis.” Grayson sat and crossed his legs. “Kinsley Stevens is no airhead. She wouldn’t post pics that could potentially get her into trouble, either with a law enforcement agency or the bad guys. Makes me wonder if she was caught up in something a whole lot bigger than wanting Taryn’s job and sleeping with Rollins.”

Joe did a Facebook search. “His information is private except for those he invites. But I know how to get around his settings.”

Grayson chuckled. “Are you taking hacking lessons from Taryn?”

“I’m old, not senile.” Joe squinted at the screen. “Nothing. Rollins’s page is just a place marker. Didn’t the bartender at the Marriott claim he’d never seen Murford?”

“Right. And we didn’t find anything on their cameras either. But it wouldn’t be the first time security camera footage came up missing.”

“Be interesting to ask him if he’s seen any of the other people in those photos.”

Grayson frowned. “But you should be in bed. I’ll get another agent to go with me.”

“Are you kidding? Miss the fun? How can a man sleep with questions slamming against his brain?”

Grayson stood. “All right, Captain America. We’ll shake up the bartender’s memory. While we’re driving, I want to talk more about Haden Rollins.”

11:30 P.M. WEDNESDAY

Grayson parked his Mustang in a spot near the bar area of the Southwest Marriott. Nothing had turned up on Dina Dancer
 
—a clear indicator of no record, at least under that name. He and Joe made their way inside, where a dozen people lounged in the small area. They sat at the farthest end of the bar, where they could face the entrance.

Grayson waved at the bartender. “Remember us?”

The bald man scowled. “What now? The last time you were here, I lost a waitress.”

“This time we have a few pics for you to identify. You’re in one of them.”

The man tossed his bar rag. “Show me.”

Grayson pulled up Kinsley Stevens’s Facebook page. “We need help here, and this time we want cooperation. Unless you’d prefer an arrest for withholding information from a federal investigation.”

The man took the BlackBerry and looked at the photo. “The others met here a few times. Always used the back door. I didn’t ask questions. Figured they didn’t want to be seen. But not her.” He pointed to Kinsley. “Only remember her once.”

“You must have overheard a few comments.”

“Look, I gave you what you wanted. I don’t need to end up in a box.”

“Then you heard what they were up to.”

He inhaled sharply. “They sat in the back. Huddled together. All I did was make sure their drinks were filled.”

“Something spooked you.”

He muttered a curse. “I have work to do.”

Grayson leaned on the bar. “We’ll wait.”

“I have no idea what they were up to. I heard the mention of big money and working the plan.”

“Anyone else ever join them?”

“No.”

“When’s the last time they were here?”

“Saturday night at closing. Dina served them, and they all left together.”

Grayson replaced his BlackBerry. “Two of the people who were in the photo are now dead.”

His eyes widened. “Look, I don’t know anything.”

Grayson focused on Joe. “I think we got what we came after.”

Joe grinned at the bartender. “Thank you, sir. In case you haven’t figured it out, don’t leave town.”

Once Grayson was en route to their hotel and had processed what they’d learned, he swung his attention to Joe. “You’re quiet. So tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Nice to think an old man can still provide input.”

Grayson laughed, and it felt good. “We have a connect.”

“And two of them are dead. Which one of those left is pulling the strings?”

“Neither.”

“Yep. I think Murford was in charge. Rollins may be living on borrowed time.” Joe paused. “Our Facebook gal may be okay. But she needs to get those pics off her page.”

“I’m calling her now.” Grayson handed Joe his phone. “Pull up her number for me.”

A few moments later, a sleepy woman answered.

“Kinsley Stevens, this is FBI Special Agent Grayson Hall. We spoke at Gated Labs and at our office.”

“Why are you calling me?”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.” Her voice grew stronger.

“You have incriminating photos on your Facebook page.”

“I don’t understand. All I have are personal ones.”

“We are familiar with the posted photos. For your safety, we suggest you remove those with Haden Rollins taken at the Southwest Marriott lounge.”

“Why? That’s ridiculous.”

“Two of the people in those photos are dead.”

She gasped. “I’ll do it now.”

“Understand the wrong people could have already accessed the photos.”

“What should I do?” Panic rose in her words.

“Consider laying low, maybe staying with a friend, but the FBI will need to know your whereabouts.”

“Okay. Are you contacting Haden?”

“Yes.” Grayson was itching to talk to the man. After thanking the woman, he had Joe find Rollins’s number.

The phone rang four times and rolled over to voice mail.

He hit redial three times.

They’d make one more stop before checking into the hotel.

1:30 A.M. THURSDAY

After agreeing to meet Joe at 7 a.m. for breakfast, Grayson unlocked his hotel room. Rollins hadn’t answered his condo’s door, so now they needed to see if he reported to Gated Labs in the morning. Kinsley could have lied, and Rollins was with her, but Grayson didn’t think that was the case.

The bed seemed to call Grayson’s name, and he’d already checked on Taryn. He wanted to spend the night on the couch at the retirement center, but job performance meant sleep and a strong focus on working through the case. He typed an e-mail to the office about tonight’s findings and tried to unwind. In the darkness, his mind whirled like an EF5 tornado.

If only he could download into his brain the data from the thousands of minds working on this case. His assignment from the start had been Taryn and Murford, and life hadn’t slowed since.

He snapped on the light and reached for his phone to make a few notes.

1. Who gains when oil prices go up?
   
2. Who loses when oil prices plummet?
   
3. Does anyone stand to gain in either case?
   

As soon as the questions were typed into his BlackBerry, the answers hit him. Oil traders. Wall Street. New York City. He checked, and agents were already on it. No great revelation there.

Calls from Vince and Murford traced to the same number in New York, a burner phone. Could an oil and gas trader stoop so low as to steal software for personal gain? And how did that theory fit into the bombing? Could the explosion have been a diversion or part one of an ultimate plan? Pretty far out there.

Why blow up a terminal to eliminate Taryn and Murford? A sniper could have easily taken care of them. Grayson could count Ethan Formier as a third person connected to the software, but his death was circumstantial. Or so some thought. No other persons had hit the radar in the investigation. Bewildering, while the public cried out for arrests.

God, I need You in this. Those responsible for taking lives and destroying property must be brought to justice.

Grayson breathed in and out. . . .
Relax.
His mind slowly weighed the possibilities. What if the Middle Eastern signature held no credibility? Other homegrown terrorists had used fertilizer bombs, like Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City.

What if the signature was a deflection from the who and the motivation? He typed into his BlackBerry and read the many reports surfacing from the investigation. Specialized agents worked the same theory. They needed a link
 
—a name, US companies, or a country that would benefit from the US not being able to export LNG. Obviously Russia didn’t want their economy damaged, but they weren’t that stupid.

He speculated on oil and gas traders. They were ruthless cutthroats and able to cover their tracks. He lay back on the pillow, ready to go after the complexity of the bombing from a new angle.

9:30 A.M. THURSDAY

Taryn woke groggy and ready to roll over and go back to sleep until she saw the clock. Twelve hours. She hadn’t slept so long in years. The drapes were drawn and the room incredibly dark. Not at all like her condo, where she kept the drapes open wide for
sunshine to stream through. Buddy slept on a rug beside the bed. How kind for the agents to have the dog there for her.

Like a flash flood, all the happenings since Sunday rolled over her, and a wave of panic clutched her chest. So many horrible tragedies, and none had been solved. She shuddered at the thought of the many people involved in an attempt to gain access to Nehemiah. Now Save thought he was close, but she’d designed numerous layers. Was he smart enough to see how she’d built the firewall?

I can’t do this alone. But I’m not. . . . God will walk with me through this nightmare.

She climbed from the bed and opened the bedroom door. Two different agents were in the kitchen and living room area. She said good morning and turned to the shower, already imagining the warm spray relaxing her battered flesh. She’d wash her hair and be careful of the stitches, then slip into some clean clothes and grab a cup of coffee with the laptop. What a wonderful thought without fear of anything. She’d contribute something today other than another concussion.

In less than an hour, she e-mailed Grayson.

Grayson,

I feel so much better, and I’m ready to discover Ethan’s password. I plan to spend half the day working on it. Then I’ll delve into the hacking job. Will Special Agent Laurel Evertson contact me?

I appreciate all you’ve done to help me.

Please give Joe my best and thank him again for sending Buddy.

Taryn

She typed in a question about when he’d visit, but deleted it. A friend, yes. Nothing more. The only reason she’d become dependent on him was because he’d saved her life. And if she believed that, she might as well consider herself legally insane.

She fed Buddy, and one of the agents took him outside for a walk. With two cups of coffee and a bowl of dry granola and fresh fruit, she dug into the task. The agents assigned to her kept to themselves. A good thing because if they were Clint and Patti, she’d want to chat. People meant more to her now, and getting to know them mattered
 
—from their distinct personalities to how they felt about life.

She pushed her wandering thoughts into a mental box and focused on Ethan. Her list of possible words and numbers began, and by the process of elimination, each one brought her closer to what she hoped was the answer.

When her burner phone rang, she recognized the FBI number.

“Taryn, this is Special Agent Laurel Evertson. Grayson told you about me?”

She remembered the attractive woman with short blonde hair and huge brown eyes. “Yes. I’m working on Ethan Formier’s computer password and could use your help.”

“Let’s dig in.”

“You sound excited.”

“I am. Like an early Christmas present. Tell me what you have and everything you can think of about Ethan.”

Taryn told Laurel about her and Ethan’s close relationship and the e-mails he’d sent prior to his death. She vocalized their past conversations, talked about keywords and phrases, and toyed with letter and numerical forms. “So what would ‘in plain sight’ mean to a man who worked in computer security?”

“Close your eyes and envision you’re in his office. Sit behind his desk. What do you see?”

“I’ve done this before, but here goes.” She recalled an oddity about him. “Hey, I might have something. Although Ethan had sophisticated knowledge and use of technology, he still had a paper flip calendar on his desk, on the left-hand side because he was left-handed. In plain sight. ‘Every thirty days life changes.’”

Laurel’s keystrokes clicked through the phone. “Nothing yet.
Since September is the current month, and we’re assuming he wanted you to find it, I’m thinking this could be a game.”

Taryn took on the challenge. She typed
September
and toyed with letters and numbers, all the while praying for a way to unlock the files. She typed the month backward in lowercase
 
—
rebmetpes
 
—and assigned a number to each letter, which became
18 5 2 13 5 20 16 5 19
. Nothing.

“This is frustrating,” she said. “I don’t want to give up, but this is not my expertise.”

Laurel laughed. “Make it fun. Would he have used the year? 2014 was too obvious, unless he wrote it backward and wove it with the month.
14 18 5 2 13 5 20 16 5 19 20
.” A moment later both realized that held nothing.

Taryn used caps with no result while Laurel used various forms.

“What if he used a capital letter instead of the number for the first letter of the month?” Laurel said. “That would make
14 18 5 2 13 5 20 16 5 S 20
.” Still didn’t work.

“I’ll change the
14
to an
N
, but it seems too easy.” Clenching her fists, Taryn typed the password into Ethan’s encrypted file. Success! Except a request for another password appeared. If this was meant for her to find, then it might be something about her but not be the same code as before. What did she have in plain sight? For the next several minutes she and Laurel talked and typed in one word after another. What about her was obvious?

She closed her eyes and thought about the times she’d been at Ethan’s home with his family. One of their sons loved word puzzles with keywords, and Taryn was the only person who played them with him.

Ethan’s statement rang through her mind.
“Taryn, you’re a unique woman.”

“With an exclamation mark,” his young son said.

The descriptor became a part of her time with Ethan’s family.

She shook her head. . . . Maybe. “I have an idea. Ethan’s son and I used to play word games. We had our own special code, and
Ethan knew it. Quite simple, actually. He might have wanted me to learn his password.”

One of the first rules of using a keyword was not to repeat a letter.
Unique woman!
had two
n
’s and two
u
’s, but she’d give it a try. She and Ethan’s son spelled out numbers and special characters and eliminated spaces. Grabbing a piece of paper, she listed the alphabet. Below it she wrote
uniquewoman!
, which took up the letters
a
to
l
. Beneath the original alphabet, she began with the letter
m
and assigned the letter
a
, then continued through the alphabet. After
z
, she started over with
a
through 
l
. Next she used the corresponding letters of the keyword and the letter
l
for the exclamation mark. The keyword
uniquewoman!
became
GZUCGQIAYMZL
.

With a deep breath, she typed in the letters. The screen sprang to life, and the files were revealed.

“I’ve got it.” Taryn realized she’d been holding her breath.

“Might have to recruit you,” Laurel said.

“I’ve heard that before. Grayson’s SSA said he’d either recruit me or send me to prison.”

“Ouch. Now that you have the password, do you want to call Grayson?”

Oh, did she. “Sure.” After reading some of Ethan’s files, she contacted Grayson. “Laurel helped me with the password. I’ve found Ethan’s research,” she said. “Can you talk, or are you busy?”

“I’m at the command center near the airport. How about I wrap things up and stop by?”

“Sounds good.” She ignored her quickening pulse. Her reaction to him was wrong. She needed to heal from the betrayal before allowing another man to creep inside.

“Mind if I pick up a burger and fries before we talk?”

His humor always lightened the moment. “Your poor body.”

“I know, but it tastes wonderful. Do you need anything?”

“No thanks.” She smiled. “I’ll work on the hacker job until you get here. Grayson, I wish we’d found this earlier. Maybe the case would have been solved by now.”

“Your findings bring us one step closer. Hold on a minute. I have a call coming through.”

She patted Buddy, pleased she’d finally contributed something. If Grayson’s call was important, she should hang up.

“I’m back.” He sounded distracted.

“What’s wrong? Has something happened?” Her first thought was Zoey, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask the question.

“It’s not Zoey.” He paused. “The call was about your mother.”

“What is it?”

“Your mother is being harassed by media and doesn’t understand what’s going on. Neither has she been able to talk to you. While your brother was visiting her, a reporter showed up and wouldn’t leave, so your brother punched him.”

Worry clawed at her heart. “I can call Mom, right? This is my family, Grayson.”

“There are guidelines.”

“Name them because I have to talk to her. I have to reassure her.”

“You’re bound not to discuss anything about the case or your location. And the agents there must be present during the conversation.”

Fury swept through her. “They’re supposed to listen to every word? You don’t trust me?”

“I can’t let you risk your life or your family’s. If the FBI is watching your family, what do you think the other side is doing?”

“That’s cruel. Mom needs me. My family doesn’t deserve to suffer for this. Is nothing sacred to you?” She disconnected the call and tossed the phone on the sofa.