“We know all that,” Megan said impatiently. “That’s why Alcista only took the rap for fraud and extortion.”
But Mark was shaking his head. “That wasn’t the story the court papers showed. Alcista was going to be arraigned on murder charges.”
“How?” P. J. Farris demanded.
“When Net Force couldn’t pin the bombings on Alcista, Iron Mike came up with evidence that showed certain records had been deleted from Alcista’s computer, but not completely destroyed. When Net Force techs brought them back, they definitely incriminated Alcista.”
Megan frowned. “Then how—”
“It wasn’t real,” Mark Gridley said. “Steele got the nickname ‘Iron Mike’ not because he was so strong, but because people joked he was part machine. He was a specialist agent who could just about make computers sit up and bark on command.”
He shook his head. “I was impressed at how he managed to plant the evidence. A seemingly innocent phone call inserted a very nasty program that called several incriminating numbers, then erased the records. Get it?”
Megan nodded. “But the traces would be left if anybody looked for them. And it would seem as if Alcista had tried to erase the evidence that would prove him guilty.”
“Federal prosecutors were getting ready to try and put Alcista away for life….” Mark hesitated. “Until Captain Winters found out that the evidence was false. He took the story straight to my father.”
The nightscape they were floating in was quiet as the Net Force Explorers took that in.
“But — but—” Daniel Sanchez was so upset, his protest came out as a sputter. “Alcista was guilty. By blowing the whistle on the falsified evidence. Winters was letting his wife’s killer walk.”
Mark nodded. “That’s exactly what happened. Not only did the murder case crash and burn, it gave Alcista’s lawyers the leverage to set up a pretty lenient deal for the charges that could stick.”
“Which explains the closed court records,” Leif said quietly. “No one would want the reason for the change in sentencing getting into the public record.”
“So, instead of life, a killer gets a couple of years in a country-club prison,” Megan said bitterly. “Talk about a slap on the wrist—”
“What happened to Steele?” Andy wanted to know.
“That was the disciplinary hearing,” Mark said. “Pretty open-and-shut. Steele twisted the prime purpose of his job — the very reason Net Force was created. He was cashiered but disappeared before charges could be brought against him. Apparently, he was a boat nut. He took his cabin cruiser and headed south.”
The Squirt shrugged. “About a month later the boat blew up in the Caribbean, with Steele aboard. There were some internal Net Force memos about whether it was accidental or deliberate.” He shook his head. “Apparently, he’d told a lot of people that he preferred a Viking funeral, sailing into the sunset aboard a burning boat.”
“Sounds like he got his wish,” Andy said. “Even if he had to arrange it himself.”
“Forget about all that stuff,” Matt said excitedly. “Don’t you see? This whole earlier episode proves that Captain Winters is innocent! He had a chance to screw over Alcista and not even get his hands dirty. Why would he plant a bomb after the guy got out of jail?”
“Take it from Steadman’s point of view,” Leif said harshly. “Winters does this tremendously noble thing, and his worst enemy gets sentenced as if he’d spat in the street instead of killing somebody. A couple of years go by, with Winters stewing over the unfairness of it all. Then Alcista gets out — and Winters sets out to get justice, no matter how belatedly.”
Megan fought a chill as she stared at her supposed ally.
Leif shrugged. “Twist hard enough, and you can make any set of facts fit the pattern you’ve already decided on. We see the captain’s actions as proving his innocence. Steadman saw it as showing his guilt.”
“Won’t a jury get to decide all that?” Matt insisted. “The stuff Mark found shows Winters in an entirely different light from the picture the media is pounding into everyone’s heads.”
“Do you honestly want things to go that far? I don’t. So what do you want to do with what we know?” Leif snapped. “Spread it around to every competitor HoloNews has? It would just be dismissed as wild rumor. We don’t have any documentation we can show anybody.”
Miserably Mark nodded. “I wasn’t able to download anything without setting off alarms from here to Canada. Just getting in was hard enough.”
Leif went on a little more quietly. “Besides, this isn’t news to the one person who really counts. Captain Winters lived through it all. His lawyer could subpoena all the records Mark found, and maybe even petition the court to unseal the records on Alcista’s sentencing deal.”
He hesitated for a second. “If he wanted to.”
“If?” Megan echoed. “IF? Don’t you mean when? What are you talking about, Anderson? This is the captain’s ‘get out of jail free’ ticket.”
She stared uncomprehending at Matt’s suddenly stricken expression. Out of all the kids in the room, Matt was probably the most like James Winters. So why wasn’t he happy? What was wrong with this information that would exonerate the captain?
“If he uses it,” Matt said in a hollow voice. “Here’s a guy who basically let his wife’s killer go rather than ruin Net Force’s reputation for integrity. Do you think he’s going to smear the agency now just to get himself off the hook?”
12
After the Squirt’s bombshell of an announcement — and the realization that it still didn’t help their case — most of the Net Force Explorers began synching out. Some stayed to discuss the news a little, but it was clear their hearts weren’t in it.
Leif Anderson wasn’t one of those. Something that had been said during this get-together was teasing his brain. He felt as though he were on the edge of an idea…just what kind of idea, however, he couldn’t say.
A thought sent him floating through Matt Hunter’s starry sky to where Megan O’Malley hung like a very pretty balloon.
“Well, this went much shorter than I expected,” he said quietly.
She nodded, her expression not a very happy one. Then her eyes went sharp. “You’ve got that I’m hatching something’ look,” she told him.
“I’m not sure what it is,” he admitted. “But I could use your help finding out. You still want to meet?”
She nodded.
“Chez vous or chez moi?”
“Your place, I think,” she replied.
Then it was Leif’s turn to nod. Megan’s workspace was impressive, a virtual amphitheater on one of the moons of Jupiter.
But its vastness wasn’t the greatest place to share confidences.
Leif stretched out a hand, and Megan took it. In the blink of an eye they were in the living room of the Icelandic stave house he’d carved out of cyberspace. Leif dropped onto the sofa, surprisingly comfortable in spite of its angular, modernistic look. Megan joined him.
“Oh!” she said, glancing out the big window. “You run a night and day cycle in here.” She turned from the view to him. “But it’s not a full moon — is it?”
He shrugged. “I like a full moon.”
“Good for romance,” she said cynically.
“Maybe later. We were going to share information, remember?”
Megan gave him a half-smile. “I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.”
He pushed back a wave of annoyance. Megan was acting as if this were some kind of date, playing boy-girl games. Or maybe it was just that he realized he didn’t have much to bargain with.