'Dude. Are you seriously asking us to hack into servers in hostile countries so you can catch one of our own? First off, we don't kiss and tell. Second, we could go down for years on something like that.'
John looked at the man who had actually had the guts to stand up and speak. It surprised him that it was one of the nerds, probably 120 pounds soaking wet with a chest that looked like a safe had fallen on it. 'Certainly not. The FBI would never suggest or condone such a violation of international law. We ask only that you use your own unique skills to track this network and find the origination sites of the users.'
'Come on. You know damn well our "own unique skills" happen to be hacking illegally into closed sites. Personally, I already did one-to-three for that, and I'm not about to risk it again.'
A lot of murmuring from the group then, and John couldn't blame them. He had to measure every word, say everything exactly right.
He leaned his arms on the podium and let his eyes travel over every face. We trust you all,' he said, and everyone laughed. 'For that reason, we are absolutely certain that we will never have reason to suspect that any of you would violate federal or international law. It would be pointless to waste Bureau time investigating such a possibility. Is that perfectly clear?'
For a moment, everyone went silent. Nobody knew doublespeak as well as a really good hacker. Special Agent in Charge Paul Shafer looked like he'd swallowed a toad, which, for some reason, pleased Smith mightily.
'Furthermore,' John continued, 'your efforts will not be expended on catching "one of your own." These people are not identity thieves, spammers, or virus disseminators. These people are cold-blooded killers. They film their murders and post them on the Web for the world to see.'
The lights in the auditorium dimmed further and the screen behind the speaker became illuminated with the introduction to a PowerPoint presentation. The caption read: 'Cleveland, Ohio.'
'What I'm about to show you is a series of five videos that were pulled from various websites over the past several months. Some of you may have stumbled across these videos before they were pulled from the Web, and even though you now know that these are authentic, please be warned - the images you are about to see are extremely graphic and disturbing. Before we begin, I want to give anybody here who doesn't feel comfortable with viewing such content the opportunity to leave the auditorium now.'
No one in the room moved a muscle.
'The reason we are showing you these films is to highlight the critical importance of tracing the murderers who posted these films. They are still out there, probably still killing, or planning to kill, and we have absolutely no idea who they might be. They are extremely computer proficient. For this reason, I warn you not to discuss this case with fellow hackers who have not been invited to this seminar. If you do, you may unwittingly be talking to one of the killers. All of you here have been thoroughly vetted to the very limits of our resources. Still, we realize that the vetting process is not perfect, and that some of the murderers may be in this room at this very moment.' He paused for effect, pleased to see a few attendees cast sidelong glances at their seatmates.
'Now. The films you're about to see have already been seen by hundreds of thousands of people on the Web, but very few of those people realize that what they were watching was actually real. Nor do they understand that these may not be anomalies, but perhaps the very grim beginning of an unimaginable new cyber crime.'
He tapped some keys on his laptop to roll the first film but didn't turn around to watch the images. He didn't have to. He knew exactly what was happening on the large screen by the involuntary gasps from his audience.
You had to see a body close-up, touch it with your own hands, to connect with the deadly real loss of a single human from the entire race. Everyone in this room saw murders almost every day. On television, in movies, video games, on computer screens that showed that which was real, and that which was staged. The average person never connected a depiction of death with a human being, and that was more than a problem; it was a moral catastrophe.
'These are real people,' he said in the break between one film and another. 'People who were here one moment, and cruelly torn from the world the next. Please remember that.'
In the very back row, in the darkness under a balcony, Grace MacBride watched the next film and felt her heart take a double beat, because if this couldn't be stopped, it could change everything.
Chapter Three
The thermometer on the sleek black Cadillac read eighty- five degrees when Detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth pulled into a slot in the underground garage.
It was a new car, relatively speaking, confiscated from a dealer who'd been smart enough to finance a bells-and- whistles model and too stupid to latch the trunk. A couple of kilos of coke started blowing out behind him on the freeway, leaving a Hansel and Gretel trail right to his front door. Magozzi and Gino had the Caddy on loan from Narcotics for a week until their new bare-bones sedan was delivered.
Gino had pretended disdain when Narcotics made the offer. 'Oh, yeah, sure. Every major dealer in Minneapolis tools around in a Beemer or a Mercedes, and the only one you guys can catch is some low-level incompetent with a stinking Cadillac. Thanks a million. Does this piece of crap have a GPS?'
The guy from Narcotics shrugged. 'If you hadn't beaten your old sedan to a pulp you'd still have a nice ride.'
'The damn thing was three years old and the only thing that worked in it was us.'
Whatever. Is Angela cooking for Thursday-night poker?'
'Maybe. We'll see how I like the car.'
As it turned out, Gino liked the car just fine. It had GPS, a working air conditioner, a tricked-out engine, and electric seats with more positions than the Kama Sutra. Angela had cooked for Thursday-night poker, and they had the Cadillac for another week.
Magozzi turned off the engine and opened his door. The garage was stifling already, and it was barely eight o'clock. The imposing red block building that was Minneapolis City Hall squatted on top of the garage like a stone comforter, holding the heat and humidity its ventilation system never handled very well on days like this. Gino started mopping his brow immediately.
'This sucks. Let's get back in the car, push the seats on full recline, crank up the air, and plug in some tunes. They'll never find us.'
'Nice talk for a crime fighter.'
'It's too hot to fight crime. You know what I've been thinking? About shifting from homicide over to Water Rescue, just for the summer.'
Magozzi glanced over at his partner's generous paunch.
'What?'
'I just had a really scary visual flash of you in a wet suit.'
Gino gave his protruding belly a fond pat. 'Some women find this profile irresistible.'
'What women?'