The Spy Is Cast (30 page)

“Have you seen a
young, blue-eyed blond man anywhere?” I interrupted. “I’m not sure
if he’s a prisoner or not.”

“I’d need more
information,” Wheeler responded. “There are a few men who fit that
description.”

Kane pushed the laptop
across the table. “You know where to start.”

I sighed and carried
it over to the counter to begin entering parameters, dividing my
attention between the database and the continuing briefing.

“Did the analysts get
anything from the bugs yet?” Wheeler asked.

“No, nothing yet,”
Kane replied. “Can you drop a few more?”

“I’ll try,” Wheeler
said. “I get turned back by Harchman’s guards if I try to approach
the house, but my contact in housekeeping might be able to sneak me
in. Which reminds me, she gave me some more information about
Harchman’s wellness spa.”

“Yes, Webb dug into
that, too,” Kane said. “Apparently it’s remarkably profitable. He’s
reporting almost a million in revenue after only the second
quarter. It’s definitely suspicious. There isn’t that kind of money
in the spa business.”

Wheeler grinned.
“There is in this one.”

Kane leaned forward,
his eyes lighting with predatory fire. “It’s not a spa, is it?
Give.”

“Oh, it’s a spa all
right.” Wheeler’s grin broadened. “No advertising, very exclusive,
strictly word-of-mouth. You have to know somebody to get in, and
Harchman charges astronomical fees.”

“For what?” I
demanded. “A stay in the guest house and some nice food? So what?
Who’d pay big bucks for that?”

“A man who’s having
his erectile dysfunction cured.” Wheeler grinned at our dumbfounded
faces. “Harchman is promoting a new hypnosis cure. One hundred
percent guaranteed. His clients will pretty much pay whatever he
asks. Clients can bring their wives or girlfriends if they want,
but the rumour is that he offers extremely skilled, uh…
therapists.”

I sank back against
the counter, my jaw dropping. “Holy shit. That slimy bastard. What
a brilliant scheme. All completely untraceable, and nobody’s going
to blab. That explains -”

Speaking of blabbing.
I caught Kane’s tiny headshake and closed my mouth before I blurted
anything out in front of Hellhound. Hellhound’s keen gaze darted
between our faces, his brow furrowed. I knew that look. Give him
the tiniest clue, and he’d figure the whole thing out in no
time.

“Nice cover,” Kane
agreed grudgingly. “Hides his true activities, and makes a bundle
at the same time. But you haven’t heard rumours of any other kind
of activity? Say, dead bodies being removed in the dark of
night?”

Wheeler sobered. “No.
Nothing.”

“All right,” Kane
said. “Aydan, when can you be ready to go?”

I considered for a
moment. “I can be physically ready to go out the door in about ten
minutes. I just need some breakfast. But if there’s no particular
rush, I’d like to talk to Spider first and get his take on some of
the n…” I remembered Hellhound’s presence in the nick of time and
bit off what I’d been going to say.

“That’s a good idea,”
Kane said. “Go ahead and eat, and then call Webb.”

I started assembling
my breakfast, and Germain and Hellhound propped themselves against
the counter to finish their coffee. I gratefully slid into the
vacated dinette bench and chowed down on my toast and peanut
butter.

“What is it with you
and peanut butter?” Germain teased me.

I shrugged and grinned
at him. “It satisfies three of the four basic food groups: sugar,
salt, fat, and booze. Add a beer, and you’re looking at a
nutritionally complete meal.”

The ring of the phone
interrupted the general laughter that followed, and Germain picked
up. The smile slid off his face as he listened.

“Damn.”

We all sobered,
listening to his end of the conversation.

“Okay. Thanks.”

He hung up, his face
grim. “Richard Willis is dead. He died of a heart attack on
Thursday afternoon. Webb dug into his background, and found out he
was a computer programmer. No apparent ties to Fuzzy Bunny, no
criminal record, no known associates with any suspicious past
whatsoever. He lived with his mother. He worked for a software
development company. The software company has no known ties to
Fuzzy Bunny. The owners are clean. So far, he just looks like an
innocent civilian.”

Germain blew out a
long breath. “And the IDs came through on the two torturers. They
were definitely associated with Fuzzy Bunny.”

My toast turned into a
cold lump in my stomach, and I laid the remainder of the slice back
on my plate.

“Dammit!” Kane put his
coffee mug down on the table with unnecessary force.

“Do they really
believe a young guy like that died of a heart attack?” I asked.

Germain scowled,
lifting a shoulder. “What choice do they have? That’s all the
autopsy will show.”

I didn’t really want
to know, but I had to ask. “What about the other captive?”

Germain turned to the
laptop. “Webb did a search for all other men under fifty who died
of a heart attack on Wednesday and Thursday. One was a petroleum
consultant who was a member of the Calgary scuba club. His name was
Arthur Ketchum. Webb sent a photo.” He put the laptop on the table
in front of me. “Look familiar?”

I sighed as heavy
sadness rolled through me. “Yes. Probably. The hair colour and the
build is right. I wouldn’t be able to identify the face. But if he
was a petroleum consultant, he was probably at the party, and the
tattoo pretty much tells the story.”

“Dammit,” Kane said
tiredly.

I pushed my plate away
and sank my face into my hands. Two innocent men dead.

“Well, that’s it,
then,” Kane broke the short silence. “We’ve lost our physical
surveillance points, and we’ve lost our chance to find out anything
from the questioning of the captives. Aydan, Hellhound, thank you
for what you’ve done. You can both go home. Wheeler, we’ll keep you
undercover. Go get some sleep so you’re ready for your next shift.
Looks like we’re in for the long haul here.”

He leaned his head
against the wall behind him, lines of fatigue scoring his face.
“Germain and I will set up base camp at the old location and carry
on with the investigation. Our next step is to find out if there
was a common thread between the captives. Then maybe we can figure
out what this was all about.”

He blew out a breath.
“And once again, Fuzzy Bunny slips through our fingers.”

“They just killed two
men,” I protested.

“Leaving absolutely no
evidence,” Kane replied grimly. “The only person who can place the
captives at Harchman’s is you. We can’t reveal your identity, and
we especially can’t reveal how you were able to identify the
captives.”

“So there’s nothing
you can do.”

Kane’s voice was hard.
“For now.” He rubbed his forehead wearily. “We’ll find a way. Once
we get more information on the captives, we’ll have more to go on.
I wish I knew what questions Fuzzy Bunny asked them.”

I sat up slowly.
“Maybe I can help with that.”

“How?”

“I need to talk to
Spider,” I told him.

“Do it,” he said. He
turned to Hellhound. “You might as well head out. Thanks
again.”

Hellhound levered
himself away from the counter reluctantly. “Okay, Cap,” he growled.
“Stay safe. All a’ ya.” He put his coffee cup in the sink and
clumped out of the RV, followed by Wheeler.

As his Harley roared
to life outside, I picked up the phone and dialled.

Spider answered
immediately. I greeted him, feeling a pang of sympathy at the
exhaustion in his voice.

“Sorry to bother you,
Spider,” I said. “Do you have a minute to talk to me about the
network?”

“Sure.” There was a
short pause, and he spoke again on the tail end of a yawn. “What do
you want to know?”

“A couple of things
about how the sim files work. Did anyone tell you that we’d
discovered a real-time sim of the security room?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so if it’s
running, it shouldn’t matter if anyone goes in or out of it, should
it? I mean, in terms of making obvious changes to the date-time
stamp or anything?”

“No, the date-time
stamp would always be current, because it’s always live. But don’t
forget, it’s a data record that can be played back. Anyone using
the sim would appear in the data record.”

“Unless they were
invisible.”

I heard the smile in
his voice. “Right.”

“Okay. Next question.
If I open data records or files in the network and just look around
in them, would anybody be able to tell I’d been in them?”

“Files, you can look
at, as long as you don’t make any changes. The only way you’d get
caught would be if you had the file open when somebody else tried
to access it. Then they’d get a message that the file was in use,
until you closed the file.”

“So as long as I was
quick about it, it should be pretty hard to detect,” I
surmised.

“Yes.” Spider hummed
thoughtfully on the line for a few seconds. “Sim data records,
though, if you enter the sim, you’re updating the file. Even if
you’re invisible, the timestamp would be updated because your
presence would be recorded as part of the sim.”

“Crap. So is there a
way for me to view a sim data record from within the network,
without actually entering the sim record that I’m viewing?”

There was a puzzled
silence. “Say what?”

“I need to look at the
sim data records from when the captives were being tortured.” My
voice didn’t seem to be working right, and I cleared my tight
throat before I continued. “I don’t need to go into the sim, I just
need to view it. The same as when you played back the sim data
record from our network tests at Sirius. But I need to do it from
inside the network, because I don’t have any way of accessing it
externally the way you did at Sirius.”

“Oh.” He thought for a
minute. “That could be tricky. I think it might work if you created
a sim of a workstation and played back the sim through your sim.
I’ll test it here first and see if it works.”

“Don’t try this at
home, kids,” I joked, and was rewarded with a faint chuckle.

“Exactly. I’ll call
you back as soon as I can. It should take me less than an
hour.”

“Okay, thanks.” I hung
up the phone and turned to two expectant faces. “He doesn’t know.
He’s going to test it and call me back.”

Kane got up to pour
himself another cup of coffee. “At least that will give you time to
finish your breakfast.”

I regarded my cold
toast without enthusiasm. “Kind of lost my appetite.”

“Eat.” The command
came in ragged unison from both men, and I raised my hands in
surrender.

“Jeez, Mom and Dad.
All right, already.” I slid back onto the bench and slowly finished
my breakfast. Then I brewed a cup of herbal tea, deep in
thought.

I’d need to access all
the data records that had been created within the last couple of
days. Maybe I could find some document files to snoop into as well,
but that could take a very long time. Maybe there was a way for me
to copy files from the network so I could look at them externally.
I’d have to ask Spider.

I sighed and sipped my
tea, realizing as I did that Kane and Germain were both watching me
intently.

“What?” I asked.

“You had that look.
The one you always get right before you figure something out,”
Germain said.

“I have an idea, but I
can’t see how it might work,” I admitted. “I’m trying to figure out
a way to steal some files. I’m wondering if I can get Harchman’s
guest list. Or anything else that might help.”

“Too dangerous,” Kane
objected.

“Actually, it would be
less dangerous than opening them from within the network,” I
countered. “I think, anyway. I’ll ask Spider when he calls back.
But I can’t think of a way to do it, so it’s probably pointless
anyway.”

Right on cue, the
phone rang. When I picked up, Spider’s voice was triumphant. “It
worked.”

“Excellent.”

“But…” I heard the
jubilation fade. “It worked for me because I understand how network
hardware and software works, so I could easily create a workstation
sim. I don’t know if you’d be able to do it. And I don’t have any
way to send you the sim file.”

“Which brings me to my
next question. What about transferring files?” I asked. “Is there
any way I can pull files out and transfer them to another system
outside of their network?”

“No. As long as you’re
inside the network, you can create a sim to do anything. But as
soon as you leave the network, you’re back inside your own head.
Short of memorizing the contents of the file, you can’t bring any
data with you. You need a physical network connection to do
that.”

“So somebody like
Hellhound could do that. He’s got a photographic memory.”

“Yes…” he said
cautiously. “But Hellhound doesn’t have the security clearance to
do it. And anyway, it wouldn’t be much use. You’d know the contents
of the file, in your head, but you still couldn’t transfer the file
to another system.”

I sighed. “Okay. I was
hoping I’d missed some obvious solution.”

“No. Sorry.”

“All right. Thanks. At
least we know the sim within a sim works.”

“For me.” His voice
was strained. “Aydan, I don’t know if you should try it.”

“Well, there’s only
one way to find out. I spent some time as a network administrator,
back in the dark ages. Maybe I still remember enough to get by. The
user interfaces have changed so much that I don’t know how to use
them anymore, but I think the underlying structure is still
basically the same, isn’t it?”

“Yes… but… Aydan, can
I talk to Kane for a minute?”

“Sure. Thanks for the
info.”