“I see.” Tank smiled as if he knew what she was talking about. “Do you know when your mom will be-” The squeal of an automobile turning tightly into the driveway cut short his words. He turned to see a late-model Nissan come to a halt at the head of the walkway.
“There’s Mommy,” said Grace.
Tank waved shyly. He didn’t want to appear menacing, but there was only so much you could do when you were his size.
A trim, attractive woman got out of the car and rushed up the walk. “Can I help you?”
“Mrs. Grant? Tank Potter. I’m with the Statesman.”
“It’s a newspaper,” said Grace.
Mary Grant stopped a foot away, checking over his shoulder that her daughter was fine before fixing him with a decidedly unhelpful look. “Why wasn’t there anything new in the paper today about Joe?”
“I came here to talk to you about that. First, may I offer my condolences?”
“Thank you.” She pointed a finger at him. “Potter? You didn’t write the article yesterday.”
“I was on another story.”
Mary stepped around him to address her daughter. “Grace, go inside. Give me and Mr. Potter a minute.”
“His name is Tank,” said Grace, rolling her eyes.
“Shut the door, sweetheart,” said Mary.
“Bye, Tank,” said Grace as she closed the door.
“And so,” asked Mary, “what took you so long?”
“Excuse me?”
“To figure out the FBI is lying. That’s why you’re here, right?”
Tank nodded tentatively. It was his job to assume the FBI was lying. He wondered what had convinced Mary Grant of the fact. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”
“Is there anything you want to tell me?” She stepped forward. “Are you feeling all right, Mr. Potter?”
“I’m fine.” Tank cleared his throat and stood taller. He could feel sweat beading on his forehead, his tongue dry as felt. “Can we talk inside?”
“After I see your press credential.”
Tank flashed his Statesman ID. Mary Grant clutched his hand to bring the pass closer. “Henry Thaddeus Potter.”
“Are you a football fan?” he asked as she compared his face to the picture on the pass. “I played at UT.”
“I went to Georgetown. We prefer basketball. Come in.”
–
“She’s got a visitor,” said the Mole.
Shanks kicked his feet off the control console and sat up to study the monitor. “Big fella, ain’t he?”
“What do you think?” asked the Mole. “Family? Friend?”
“Friend. Doesn’t look like any of them, that’s for sure. You get a read on his license plate?”
“Forget the license. We have his face.” The Mole duplicated the last sixty seconds of images transmitted from the hidden camera and replayed the loop on a second monitor. He and Shanks watched as the Jeep pulled to the curb and the tall, florid man climbed out of the car. For an instant the visitor stared directly at the hidden camera. “Gotcha.”
The Mole froze the image and uploaded it to PittPatt. “All right, baby,” he said. “Go to work.”
Short for Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition, PittPatt was an advanced facial recognition software program developed at Carnegie Mellon University to help hunt terrorists in the days following 9/11. ONE had purchased PittPatt a year earlier and tweaked the technology for a different purpose. It planned on licensing the technology to merchants of every stripe, who would use it to identify their customers and, based on past purchases and publicly available personal information-age, sex, zip code, credit history-send news of sales, discount coupons, or the like directly to their smartphones. The only terrorists it was interested in finding were those with a credit score of 700 and an American Express Gold Card.
“Image captured,” said an officious female voice. “Mapping completed.”
Shanks and the Mole waited as PittPatt conducted a search of every public database on the Net for images that matched the visitor. It searched Facebook and Instagram and Google Images. It searched Tumblr, YouTube, Match.com, Picasa, and a thousand more like them.
It also searched private databases. These included the National Crime Information Center; the Department of Public Safety and its equivalent in all fifty states; the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System; and Interpol.
Images filled the screen, six to a line, the lines rapidly scrolling down the page. The first picture to appear was of a football player running down the field.
“Tank Potter,” said the Mole, reading the caption. “Never heard of him.”
“He was almost famous.”
“Let’s go deeper.” The Mole requested that PittPatt search for more detailed and personal information. The name Henry Thaddeus Potter led to property records showing him to be the owner of a home in Tarrytown and the former owner of homes on Blanchard Drive and Red River Street. Mention of a Potter family trust was found in a bankruptcy filing for a Mrs. Josephine Willis Potter which listed a sole son, Henry Thaddeus, and gave his date and place of birth.
PittPatt did all this in.0005 second.
“Still waiting on the jackpot,” said the Mole. “Got it!”
Potter’s name coupled with his place and date of birth helped the program find batches of Social Security numbers issued in Houston on or around his birthday. Time and again an algorithm paired Potter’s name with a probable Social Security number. Though the algorithm had a tiny chance of success on each try, it continued to run through all possible numbers until it found a match, in this case a credit report that listed the last four digits of his Social Security number.
The Mole read to the bottom of the list. In ten seconds he had learned more about Henry Thaddeus “Tank” Potter-impoverished heir to a once-great fortune, All-State football star, washed-up college athlete, divorced father of two children who lived with their mother in Arkansas, and journalist-than Mr. Potter’s closest friends ever would.
“Not a friend of the family after all,” said Shanks. “A reporter.”
A final picture appeared on the monitor. It was Tank Potter’s mug shot from two nights before.
The Mole smirked. “And a drunk.”
40
Class was over.
Jessie took her time putting away her laptop, keeping an eye on the front of the room, where the older students were talking to Linus. Normally she liked to be first out, but today she had a reason to wait.
“That was amaze-balls,” said Garrett, taking the seat next to her, swiping his blond hair out of his face. “We haven’t even talked about that stuff. How did you do it?”
“Just figured it out, I guess.”
“Maybe you can explain it to me. You want to get a hamburger or something for lunch?”
“I ate earlier,” said Jessie.
“How about a coffee? I can give you a ride home, too, if you want. I’m eighteen. It’s okay.”
“My mom’s getting me.”
“Well, um…,” Garrett stammered, and Jessie almost felt sorry for him.
“Miss Grant.” Linus Jankowski stood in front of her desk. Garrett stood, giving a wave and a “See ya” before shuffling out of the classroom.
“Hi, there,” said Jessie.
Linus sat down. “So, young lady. Mind telling me how you did it?”
“I already explained it.”
“I mean how you came to possess that kind of knowledge.”
“It just seemed kind of obvious.”
“Really? That’s not usually a word I’ve heard attached to advanced encryption algorithms, but okay. So why didn’t you speak up when I asked the first time?”