Invasion of Privacy (10 page)

The man named Shanks drove down Pickfair Drive. Late in the afternoon, the neighborhood was alive with children riding bicycles and mothers pushing strollers along sidewalks. No one looked twice at the work van belonging to the nation’s largest phone and Internet provider.

Shanks parked at the corner of Pickfair and Lockerbie, across the street from the target’s home. “We’re here,” he said.

No response came from the work bay. He looked over his shoulder at the Mole, seated at the surveillance console, eyes locked onto the monitor.

Shanks climbed out and walked around to the sliding door. He was big and muscular, his pecs straining against his technician’s uniform. He rapped his hand on the door before sliding it open. “Let’s get this done. Too many eyes on the street for my liking.”

“Target is inside but not currently using her phone. Same goes for the girls.” The Mole didn’t avert his eyes from the monitor. He was small and wiry and pale. If Shanks’s uniform was too tight, his was too loose. Tattoos of snakes and daggers and skulls covered every inch of his thin, gangly arms.

Shanks poked his head inside the van to get a glimpse of the monitor. A dozen nine-digit phone numbers filled the screens. It was a wireless capture protocol called Kingfisher and worked by transmitting signals that mimicked the nearest cell tower to pull all nearby mobile calls out of the air. “What girls are those?” he asked.

“She has two daughters. They have phones, too.”

Shanks stepped outside. He didn’t ask how the Mole knew about the girls. “Just concentrate on the woman. Mr. Briggs said level two. Don’t get carried away.”

The Mole shifted his gaze to Shanks. “You giving me orders?”

Shanks came out of Cabrini-Green on the Near North Side of Chicago. He’d served his time in the Corps, and then harder time in Florida State Prison. He’d seen his share of hard types. No one had
eyes like the Mole. Black as day-old blood and set a mile deep in their sockets. “Just do what you got to do and let’s motor.”

The Mole left his seat and grabbed his work bag as he stepped out of the van. He walked to the junction box, a beige pillar standing three feet tall a few yards from the corner, and pried off the plastic cowling. Penlight in his mouth, he scanned the connections terminus, moving down the handwritten addresses posted next to each. He paused, teeth clenching metal, hands holding an ordinary laborer’s tools. Once upon a time he’d been a star student at the MIT Media Lab. Negroponte’s favorite acolyte. Now he was the Cable Guy.

The Mole stopped at “10602 / Grant” and unscrewed the fiber-optic cable that delivered telephone, television, and Internet service to the home. With his free hand he drew a Y-cable from his bag and screwed the tail onto the terminus. He attached the fiber-optic cable to one fork and his black box to the other, checked that the connections were firm, then replaced the hood.

“Keep going,” said Shanks, who acted as lookout. “No eyes on you.”

The Mole selected a sturdy oak tree nearby with a clear view to the target’s home and affixed a micro hi-def camera to the bark. The camera was no larger than a shirt button and once camouflaged with a bit of putty would be invisible.

The camera and the black box were only superficial measures. The camera wirelessly transmitted high-definition images of the home in a five-mile radius. The box captured all digital traffic to and from the target’s house and passed it on to Peter Briggs: landline, television, cable, Internet. It recorded what numbers the targets dialed, what phone conversations they had, what websites they visited, what articles they read, what shows they watched on streaming content services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, what books they ordered—you name it.

Neither provided a granular view of the target’s activities or, more importantly, her intentions. E-mails could not be decrypted. Banking transactions likewise. Anything requiring a password was beyond their grasp.

There was a better way. The Mole’s way.

He stared at the house, imagining its occupants. One adult. Two children. He’d done his research. It was so easy to find out all about them. Mary, Jessie, and Grace were their names. He could be at the front door in three seconds, and inside ten seconds after that. There
would be at least one laptop, maybe a tablet, a phone for every member of the family. Each presented an entry point, a means to burrow into their lives.

The Mole thought about the girls. One was fifteen, the other eleven. How interesting it would be to know more about them. Whether they liked boys or girls, whether they drank or took drugs, whether they looked at pornography. The older girl was dark and tall. The younger was fair and delicate. He liked to imagine her fine wrists, her vulnerable neck.

“You done?” asked Shanks. “I don’t want to have to answer questions about what movies are on special this month.”

The Mole climbed into the van without answering. A moment later he was back in his seat, those deep dark eyes locked onto his machines as if he were some kind of droid powering up.

Shanks knew what he was thinking about.

Nothing good.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Jessie sat on her bed, staring out the window. She had her Beats on, the music loud enough to crowd out any ugly thoughts. Her mom’s words played like a loop over the dark electronic groove, louder than the bass, louder than the guitars, overpowering everything. Everything except Dad.

Dad understood. Dad knew about code and software and how cool tech was. He didn’t think it was weird that she liked what she liked. He totally got the part of her that liked to disappear into the Net, the part that came alive when she held a phone in her hand. When she was connected.

Now he was gone. Dead. And dead meant forever. She tried to understand forever, but she couldn’t. It was too scary.

Jessie picked up her own smartphone—a cheap Android platform—and opened the mail she’d sent herself containing the screenshot of the log from her mom’s phone. Smartphones remembered everything. Somewhere there was a record of every call, every website visited, every keystroke the user ever made. You might erase texts or e-mails or voice messages, but you could never erase the traces they left behind. Not unless you destroyed the phone, and by that she meant grinding it up into a thousand pieces. Even then, there was a record at the ISP and maybe even the wireless carrier.

She brought the screen closer in order to read the blizzard of letters and numbers and backslashes. The notation showing all traffic to the number was clear enough: calls made, calls received, calls missed, voice messages, time, duration. She spotted the incoming call from her dad at 16:03:29 and ending at 16:04:05. (Phones used the twenty-four-hour clock.) She calculated that his message had lasted twenty-five seconds, because her mom’s greeting took forever.

“Hi. This is Mary. Please leave a message and I promise to get back to you as soon as possible. Have a great day.” Jessie mouthed the words.
So cheerful, so original…
so boring
. Hey, Mom, she thought, news flash: they know it’s you. They dialed your number.

Jessie reviewed the lines of code that followed, noting that there were no further voice messages. It was 17:31 when her mom finally listened to her dad’s message. And 18:30 when she listened to it a second time. But nowhere in the lines of code did Jessie spot any instructions to delete a message. At least her mom wasn’t lying. With adults, you never knew.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Jessie admonished her mother. “It’s yours for not listening to it earlier.”

Jessie returned to a line of code that appeared different from the others. It was nothing but a jumble of letters and symbols. Meaningless. She was pretty sure she’d seen almost every kind of computer language, but she hadn’t seen this.

She sent a text containing the mysterious code to Garrett, the only other high school student in her class at UT. He was no Rudeboy, but he was okay smart.

“G. WTF is this? Found it on my mom’s phone. Help.”

Jessie dropped the smartphone on the bed, then pulled off her headphones and stood up. She felt different, like herself again. She realized that she hadn’t thought about her dad the entire time she was looking at her phone. That was enough to trigger another wave of tears. She cried for a minute, but that was all. She was too tired to cry anymore.

She got dressed. Jeans, Zeppelin concert T (the ’74 Stairway to Heaven tour). She brushed her hair and looked in the mirror long enough to make sure she didn’t have any zits and her face wasn’t puffy and blotchy. She pulled her shirt tight across her chest. She hated how big her boobs were getting.

She left her room and crossed the hall. Grace’s door was open. She lay on the bed reading.

“Hey,” said Jessie, poking her head inside.

Grace looked up, then back at the book.

Jessie saw the cover. Another mermaid. Ugh. She sat down on the edge of the bed. “Good book?” She had no idea where the question came from. She hated mermaids and Grace knew it, but she didn’t know what else to say. She was the big sister. She was supposed to console her little sister.

Grace put the book down. “You want to read it after me?”

“Not a chance,” said Jessie, then softened her tone. “I mean, no thanks.”

“You don’t have to be nice to me.”

“Yes, I do.” Jessie forced herself not to leave. “How are you doing, mouse? Feeling better?”

“I’m okay, I guess.” Grace rolled on her side. “I think I was just carsick.”

“I should have cleaned up the mess.”

“It’s okay. Mom did it.”

“I didn’t mean that. I mean about Dad.”

“I’m sad. I can’t talk about him or I’ll cry.”

“Me, too.”

“How’s Mom?”

“Mom’s mom. She’ll be fine.”

“She said you’re going to have to wear a dress at the service.”

“I know.”

“Are you?”

“Yes. For Dad.” Jessie glanced at the empty pet cage on Grace’s dresser. “Gonna get another hamster?”

“Maybe. I still miss Lucky.”

“Lucky didn’t do very much except eat and sleep. Whenever you held him he pooped in your hand. Is there something better you want? An iguana, maybe?”

“No!”

“How about a snake? A boa constrictor?”

Grace’s eyes widened in horror. Before she could answer, Jessie’s phone trembled. It was a text from Garrett. “Gotta go.”

“But—”

Jessie ran into her room and slammed the door behind her. The text read: “Wow. That’s some serious shit. Think it’s NITRON.”

“No way,” wrote Jessie. “NITRON’s for WCs.”

NITRON was a software language used exclusively by wireless carriers—WCs—namely phone companies like Sprint, AT&T, and ONE Mobile.

“You mess with the handset?” wrote Garrett. “Maybe you got ’em pissed.”

Jessie had never considered that it might have been something she’d done that had erased her father’s message. “Didn’t touch it. Swear.”

“No worries. We can ask Linus in class.”

Linus was Linus Jankowski, the TA who taught Jessie’s summer school computer class. The course was titled “Exercises in Extracurricular Programming,” but everyone in class called it the Hack Shack.

“For sure,” texted Jessie. “He’ll know.” The thought offered some relief. No one knew more about hacking than Linus. He’d almost won Capture the Flag at DEF CON last year.

“I’m really sorry about yr dad. That sux.”

“I’m ok.”

“No really. Feelin’ for you.”

“Tx.”

“TTYL.”

Jessie leaned against the door. She prayed that Garrett was wrong about the code being NITRON. She’d lied about not touching the handset. If the code had come from the mobile carrier, it meant they’d sent it because she’d unlocked the phone and that was against the rules. The code was probably an automated response she didn’t know about that did something crazy to the phone.

Jessie slid to the floor and covered her head with her arms.

Maybe it
was
her fault that her father’s last message had been erased.

Mary stood in the hall outside Joe’s office. It was four. The house was too quiet. Jessie should be rummaging through the refrigerator, complaining that there was nothing good to eat. Grace should be in the living room, watching an episode of
Pretty Little Liars
for the umpteenth time. Instead of melancholy and loss, she felt anger. A will to act. The silence acted as a call to arms, as stirring as a bugler’s tattoo. No one, she realized, was going to help her.

Mary flipped on the light. Joe’s office was a small, wood-paneled room with venetian blinds and a rattan ceiling fan. She took a look around before sitting at his desk. There were magazines and folders and a few paperback books, as well as the latest tomes from Home Depot on a dozen do-it-yourself projects. She saw nothing of interest that might be from his work. No court orders, no case files, no subpoenas, no warrant requests.

Somewhere there was a clue to what he had been doing. Jessie said that anything you did on a phone left a mark. People left marks, too.

Mary opened the drawer. It contained a riot of pens and pencils, erasers and rubber bands, unused DVDs still in their wrapping, and plastic packs of Zantac. There was a box of his business cards and another containing cards he’d collected, mostly from fellow agents and colleagues in the law enforcement community. She ran a hand to the back. Her fingers touched another box, this one containing a variety of flash drives. Several were standard stick drives, but the others were more imaginative, designed to conceal the aluminum dock. She found a silver pendant shaped like a heart, a big fat car key, a box of matches, and her instant favorite, a pack of bubble gum.

Mary carried the flash drives into the kitchen. One after another she plugged them into the desktop. All were unused. She found no stored information anywhere. Another dead end.

She returned to Joe’s office. A single personal decoration was on the desk: a small jolly brass Buddha, a souvenir of their time in Bangkok.
They’d entertained Joe’s Thai colleagues often, hosting barbecues on the terrace of their apartment overlooking the Chao Phraya River. It was Joe’s practice to stage a charm offensive upon his arrival at a new posting. He’d invite the SAC, the agents he’d be working with, and any other noteworthy personalities. It was only now that Mary realized that Joe hadn’t brought home any of his new colleagues from the Austin residency.

There was something else. It came to her that Joe had given up speaking about his work to her. The FBI didn’t encourage its agents to divulge details of investigations to their spouses, but it wasn’t the CIA either. The Bureau maintained nothing close to a code of absolute silence. There was no “bromerta” among agents. And yet she couldn’t recall the last time he’d spoken to her about anything specific he was working on, other than the occasional trip to San Antonio for bureaucratic necessities.

She put down the Buddha and stood to leave. She paused at the entry and looked back. It took her a moment to spot what bothered her. The answer was nothing. The problem, she realized, was that the room was too clean.

Joe had the neatness habits of an eight-year-old. She’d spend an hour straightening up his office only for him to have it looking as if a hurricane had moved through ten minutes later. Her last effort to bring order from chaos had been five days ago. Since then, she knew, Joe had spent several late nights here, but there were no papers littering the floor, no empty cans of Red Bull in the trash.

And so?
she asked herself.
What am I driving at?

She didn’t know. Something was just…
wrong
.

Everything…
and everyone
…left a trail.

Mary started at the door and walked the room’s perimeter, tilting the bookcase, peering behind the easy chair, getting on her knees and looking under the desk. She found it lodged between the wall and the shredder. One crumpled-up ball of paper. She freed it gingerly and unfolded it on the desk, smoothing it with her palm.

Joe’s nearly illegible scrawl covered the page. There were mostly numbers, an address, some names, and a whole lot of doodles. Hardly the treasure trove she’d hoped for.

A phone number was printed at the top of the page with the name Caruso below it, and then “Exp. Confirmed 7/25.”

“Exp.” meant what? Expired? July 25 was only a few days ago.

A few inches lower, printed diagonally across the page, was an address: “17990 Highway 290 East. 3PM.” And then, a few inches further down: “FK. Nutty Brown Cafe. 1PM.”

Mary shook her head. Only in Texas could there be a Nutty Brown Cafe.

Below this were doodles of sticks and triangles, a dozen of them at least.

Mary hurried to the bedroom for her iPad and returned. First she typed the address into the query window. A satellite photo of burned central Texas landscape appeared, with a white line denoting Highway 290 running through it. The
X
showing the location of the address appeared in the middle of a tract of scrub. She zoomed in and dotted property lines appeared. Closer still, and a name. “Flying V Ranch.”

She zoomed out until the town of Dripping Springs appeared to the west.

The Flying V Ranch was where Joe had been killed.

Next Mary typed “Nutty Brown Cafe” into the query window. The café had its own website and advertised itself as a restaurant and outdoor music venue. Pictures showed a long, low-slung building set back off the highway, a white awning running its length bearing the café’s name. A twenty-foot-tall neon cowboy slinging a lasso welcomed visitors. She plugged in the address and a map appeared showing the café to be located on Highway 290, fifteen miles east of Dripping Springs.

“FK. Nutty Brown Cafe. 1PM.”

She assumed that Joe had met someone at the café at one p.m. yesterday. Was that someone “FK”?

She dredged through the names of Joe’s colleagues, looking for one that started with an
F
. She didn’t remember any, offhand. She asked ONELook to search “Boys’ names beginning with F.” A long list appeared, but she didn’t remember any Farleys, Franks, or Fredericks.

Or was “FK” the informant’s initials? Mary didn’t think so. It didn’t make sense to meet an informant in a public place, then drive out to a secluded ranch to meet him again a few hours later.

She returned to the phone number written at the top of the page. She picked up her phone and dialed. Four rings and then: “Angelo Caruso speaking.”

“Hello, Mr. Caruso?”

“State your business.” A crusty voice. Older. Tobacco-cured.

“I’m Mary Grant.”

“Do I know you?”

“My husband was Joe Grant.”

“Who’s that?”

“Special Agent Joseph Grant of the FBI. He was killed yesterday.”

A pause as Caruso cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am. But I don’t think I can be of help.”

“I saw your name and number on his pad and—”

“Then you know that I am a superior court judge for the state of Texas, Travis County. Any business I had with your husband must and shall remain confidential. May I ask why you are calling?”

“I had some questions about his work. I saw your name on his legal pad. I thought that maybe—”

“Your husband was a federal agent, Mrs. Grant. As such, his business did not concern his family. I suggest you halt your inquiries. Good day. And again, I am sorry for your loss.”

Caruso hung up.

Mary lowered the phone, stunned by the man’s bluntness. He might as well have slapped her across the face. Who was he to say that Joe’s business did not concern her or that she should halt her inquiries? “And F you too, Judge Asshole,” she said aloud.

It was at that moment that Mary Margaret Olmstead Grant formally assumed the role of her husband’s advocate, protector, and voice in this world.

I will find out what happened to you, Joe
, she promised his spirit, though she had no idea what in the world she might be getting herself into. At that moment she didn’t care. Something was being kept from her. She wanted to know what.

Mary studied the wrinkled paper, her eyes fixing on the doodles scrawled across its lower half. They were pairings of triangles colored solid blue with little sticks extending from one side. No, not that. She had it wrong. Twin sticks connected at one end like the hands on a wristwatch, each leading to a blue triangle. The triangles were positioned differently. The first at twelve and three. The second at four and eleven. The rest at odd variations thereof. Phone doodles made while Joe carried on a conversation.

Mary folded the paper in half and stood. The thought came to her that Don Bennett wasn’t the only one hiding something.

And then she remembered that she still hadn’t examined one thing.
Something that had come home from the hospital along with Joe’s shoes, belt, wristwatch, Marine Corps tie clasp, and the beloved Saint Christopher medal he’d worn around his neck since the age of thirteen.

She ran upstairs.