Mortal Fear (32 page)

Does that help us?

Think, Harper. Whats the essential difference between chat mode and e-mail?

Well... I dont know.

Sure you do. Think real estate. Location, location, location.

Suddenly I have it. In chat mode, each person is sending his side of the conversation to one of our servers in New York. In essence, each is viewing the conversation by long distance.

Whereas e-mail?

Is an actual file that the user downloads from our computer into his own. Usually, anyway.

He grants me a smile patronizing enough to make me feel Im back in the third grade. Thats how Im going to get him.

I try to see farther down the logical track. How? Youre going to give his computer a virus? Destroy all his files? What will that accomplish?

Im not going to do either.

What, then?

A Trojan Horse.

I sit back and ponder this. A Trojan Horse is a program that a hacker plants inside someone elses computer, usually to facilitate the burglary of passwords. It resides in some neutral area of the host computers memory, waiting patiently until a legitimate user logs on and enters his or her password. When that happens, the Trojan Horse copies the users password into a secret file before
allowing him access to the computer. After a day or a week or a month, the hacker dials back into the computer, opens his Trojan Horse program, and removes a hefty new file filled with legitimate passwords. Then he deletes his Trojan Horse so that no one will ever know it was there. After that, he can gain illegal access to that system whenever he wishes by using the legitimate passwords. The Trojan Horse, true to its name, has opened the gates to the city.

I dont see your reasoning, I tell Miles. Youre not trying to break into Brahmas computer.

This isnt going to be a traditional Trojan Horse.
If
I can build it. This will be a
real
Trojan Horse.

I dont understand.

You remember how the Trojan Horse got inside the walls of Troy?

Sure. The Greeks built it, pulled it up to the gates of Troy, and pretended to sail away. The Trojans thought the horse was a gift and pulled it inside their walls.

Miles nods. Which is exactly what Brahma is going to do.

Why should he do that?

Trust me. He will. What happened after the Trojans pulled the horse into the city?

The Greek soldiers hidden inside climbed out that night and killed them all.

Miles chuckles softly. My plan is slightly different from that. But the result will be the same.

But you cant even roll your Trojan Horse up to the city walls. You dont know where it is.

Im not going to, he says calmly. You are.

And then I see it. Miles has arrived at the same conclusion I did at the Indian mound this afternoon, only he probably did it three days ago. You want me to do what Lenz is doing. Pretend to be a woman. Engage Brahma on-line.

He smiles. Dont tell me you havent thought about it. And I know you can do it, Harper. Much better than Lenz. Youre a songwriter, for God sake. A fucking pied piper with words.

Not exactly a successful one.

For reasons wholly unrelated to your talent. And you have more empathy with women than anyone I know. Every girl we ever knew confessed her darkest secrets to you at some time in her life. Am I wrong?

Hes right, but Im in no mood to admit it. Im not saying I havent thought about it. But Lenz has some advantages we dont. Like a SWAT team to take Brahma out if he shows up.

We dont need that! Were not trying to lure him here. We have three simple goals, all based around the Trojan Horse. One, get Brahma to believe in you. Two, keep up the relationship until he switches from live chat to e-mail. Three, get him excited enough that he doesnt examine every bit of information flowing down the pipe from you to him.

Youre going to bury your Trojan Horse program in my e-mail and hope he downloads it into his computer?

Thats one possibility.

But wont he see the program? An executable file piggybacked with e-mail?

I dont know. Im not sure I can do what I want to do with e-mail. But I have an advantage. I designed EROSs e-mail system. We want a situation where the two of you are exchanging long letters, sexual fantasies, anything that requires a lot of bits. If I cant do it with e-mail, youll have to convince him to download some program you say youre wild about. Some sexual thing I could kluge up fast. Maybe with a video file or something.

What if Brahma doesnt switch to e-mail?

Then
you
make the switch. Tell him you get nervous live. You like to compose your letters in romantic contemplation, or some such bullshit.

I consider the plan, searching for faults. Exactly what kind of special Trojan Horse is this going to be?

The serene smile of a Zen master smooths Miless face. A masterpiece. Almost invisible, but deadly in its own way. A study in elegance.

I want to press him, but I know it would be useless. How long will it take?

He shrugs. I dont know. I never know that. Bumming code isnt linear work. I mean, I might hack through it
line by line, but more likely Ill stare at the TV for two days, then cop to the right thing when Im not thinking about it.

Reaching across the twin bed, he pulls down one of my old Martins. He studies the guitars scarred face, then cradles it under his arm and puts his fingers to the strings. A halting rendition of Neil Youngs The Needle and the Damage Done tinkles from the sound hole. I taught him to pick that tune sometime around 1974. At fourteen Miles was growing his own marijuana, and he drove me crazy to teach him the song. As far as I know, its the only thing he can play.

How long since you played that? I ask.

Ive picked it out on every guitar I ever found leaning against a wall in someones apartment.

I laugh with him. The bonds of friendship are strange, and the moment emboldens me to be painfully honest. Miles, what were talking about could take a while. You know as well as I do that one of those sheriffs cars could pull up outside with a search warrant any time. And wed both be arrested.

He nods soberly. If that happens, Ill go back out through the tunnel, just like I came in. And I wont come back.

Drewe isnt going to like this.

I know. But I dont think she wants me in jail, either.

Shed rather it be you than me.

He hangs the guitar back on its pegs and unfolds his long frame on the bed. Sighing deeply, he turns his head to face me. Exhaustion clouds his eyes like smudges on a camera lens.

We could go two different ways, he says, as if Ive already agreed to his scheme. Use the identity of a real EROS client, a woman with a blind-draft account. Or we can create a fictional woman, totally from scratch.

After a useless moment of internal resistance, I ask, Which is better?

A real woman is easier from a technical standpoint. But there are disadvantages. You wont know much about her. Brahma might discover real information that conflicted with what you were telling him. Also, if Brahmas
selection criteria
are
medical, we dont know what they are. A real woman has real medical records, and if he got access to them, he might disqualify her on that basis alone. Plus, wed be putting her life at risk. Without her consent. Unless someone like Eleanor Rigby would let us

No, I say, cutting him off. Miless manipulative tendencies are never far from the surface. As I consider his words, an image of Agent Margie Resslers gamin face comes into my mind. What about a fictional woman?

The plus is that she can be whatever you want. The negative is that she wont really exist. Which means Ill have to create her.

What do you mean?

Bureaucracy. Social Security card, drivers license, motor vehicle records, address. Im sure the FBI faked credit cards and everything else for Lenzs decoy.

They did, I confirm, recalling Lenzs boasts in his car. Can you do that?

Miles yawns heroically. Sure. Only I dont have the help they do. If we go that way, Ill keep it simple. No medical records at
all
. That way, Brahma has to go with whatever you tell him.

Despite anxiety about the risks, Im fascinated by Miless proposal. Rather than trying to lure a predator toward us in the hopes of trapping himwhich is basically Lenzs planMiles means to trick him into swallowing a hand grenade. As his eyes close, I say, Those goals you mentioned? Contacting Brahma, keeping the relationship going long enough for him to switch to e-mail, all that?

Yeah? He opens one eye.

You forgot one.

Both eyes are open now. What?

Catching the son of a bitch before he decides to kill me.

He smiles, then both eyes close.

Miles is snoring softlywith three cups of coffee in him, no lesswhile I sit at my desk with the contents of his briefcase spread in front of me. Drewe is still on the
phone with her mother. Occasionally her voice rises above the hum of air conditioner and computer.

Theres enough stolen information on my desk to fill twelve hours with steady reading. Not merely Nexis newspaper stories, but lab results and detectives case notes, things that would put Miles under a jail were they ever entered as evidence in a court of law. Yet all of it pales into insignificance beside the photographs of the victims.

Confucius was right about pictures and words. All the words on the paper in this pile add up to mere statistics, but the faces are real. The faces are
people
. A more analytical man might look at those statistics and see gold, see his destiny, might feel certain that after enough solitary study of those lines and squiggles, a new relationship would emerge like a hologram from the chaos and point him toward the killer. But my analytical gift ends at murder. I feel too much empathy with the women in these searing images to place myself at the appropriate remove for objective study. Perhaps this is the reason I first strayed out of my fathers footsteps.

Drewe has that capacity for distance. It may well be what allowed her to make logical leaps about Brahma while Miles and I plodded along like boys following bread crumbs. Strange that emotional distance would be a requirement for those who heal, whereas I, who feel others pain more keenly than most, have hurt far more people than I have helped.

What can I do for these poor women? What do they need? Someone to avenge them? Theyre certainly past hurting now. As this thought dies, I realize what holds my gaze to their haunted faces. They are eternally unattainable. Like Keatss Grecian figures, they will possess their mystery, and thus their beauty, forever. I can never touch them. And if I can never touch them, I can never hurt them. Granting myself that reprieve, I am able to admit that I do know what they need. They need justice.

But justice cannot be served until their killer has been hounded to his lair, chained, and brought to a place of judgment. It may be that Miles and I can assist with the first task. Yet my logic remains sound enough to
comprehend the scale of the problem. For almost a year Brahma has gone about his business without hindrance. In all the world, I alonebecause of a few ripples in the EROS netperceived the foul wake of his passing. I reacted late, but I reacted, and by so doing created a window of opportunity. And then in Dallas the FBI squandered forever the only advantage it would ever havesurprise.

Now Brahma is hiding. And he has an infinite matrix in which to conceal himself. I once thought the vastness of America was geographic, that miles of space or denseness of wood made massive measure. Then, on an icy Chicago street, I met a man and woman searching for their stolen child. After a single conversation, a couple of long looks into their hollow eyes, I saw that every mountain Lewis and Clark traversed, every steaming swamp De Soto pushed through, every plain the pioneers crossed has been transected by the compass, riven by the surveyors level, scarred by roads, photographed by satellites, and reduced to a thing you can fold into your glove compartment. But those lost parents stared across an uncharted sea of people, praying in vain for the phosphorous glow of a long-vanished trail, each town an eddy, each city a whirlpool that could swallow a hundred children without trace. And across that sea float the millions of milk cartons carrying photographs of the missing like messages in bottles, bound for garbage cans as surely as the ruins of last nights dinner.

Looking at Miless stolen photographs, I know that somewhere in that same sea moves a man who saw final agony twist the faces of these women, who heard the last word or plea or wail that passed their lips. He moves comfortably, in the knowledge that maps do not exist to lead men to him. That he can do his grisly work in peace. That he can taunt his hunters. That only an accident will raise his head above the mob and mark him as a son of Cain.

I found Brahma at 11:30
P
.
M
.

To my surprise, he was deep in conversation with LilithDr. Lenzs personal Eliza Doolittle.

Id been looking for him for about an hour, stopping occasionally to run a global search of EROS, checking for Anne Bridges, the account name that backed up Lenzs Lilith. I also searched a few chat lobbies for Shiva and Levon and Prometheus and Kali. As I searched, I wondered whether Brahma, like me, could roam behind the digital walls that appear solid to EROSs subscribers but yield like curtains to its system operators. If so, he could see me searching. Yet I had no choice if I wanted to find him. After a while, Drewe leaned in, saw Miles sleeping, said good night, and padded away without offering a summation of Erins problems. I wasnt about to ask for one.

And then I got the hit.

At first I didnt understand what I was seeing. The alias interacting onscreen with Lilith was not Shiva or any of the other familiar noms de plume. It was Maxwell. Yet after reading less than twenty lines of text, I knew Maxwell was Brahma. My excitement made me clumsy when I tried to activate the new voice-synthesis program, but I finally got it going.

Now my LaserJet printer hums and whispers as it records the conversation, while the digital voices of Lilith and Maxwell spar and weave and intertwine like mating serpents. They seem to be discussing a sexual incident that sounds like a cross between a group sex encounter and a gang rape.

There is a sudden silence. I wait with my hands gripping the arms of my chair. Where is Lenz getting this stuff? Despite my assertions to the contrary with Miles, Im having a hard time remembering that Lilith is a middle-aged psychiatrist sitting in McLean, Virginia. The female voice synthesized by the computer probably contributes to the illusion, but Lenzs nightmarish story is freighted with the pain of real experience. As I begin to worry that he has somehow blown it, Maxwells voice and text resume.

Another caesura, then:

The longest silence yet kicks up my pulse rate. But finally Lilith responds.

I am praying Lenz will reply quickly, but the next voice that speaks is not his.