Moriarty shrugged. “It takes a high-security ID.”
“More importantly, why should somebody do that?” Margo asked. “Did the mainframe problem this morning have anything to do with it?”
“No.” Moriarty said. “This file compare dump I’ve just done implies the file was deleted sometime before last night’s backup. I can’t be more specific than that.”
“Deleted, eh?” Smithback said. “Gone forever. How clean, how neat. How coincidental. I’m beginning to see a pattern here—a nasty one.”
Moriarty switched off the terminal and pushed himself back from the desk. “I’m not interested in your conspiracy theories,” he said.
“Could it have been an accident? Or a malfunction?” Margo asked.
“Doubtful. The database has all sorts of referential integrity checks built-in. I’d see an error message.”
“So what, then?” Smithback pressed.
“I haven’t a clue.” Moriarty shrugged. “But it’s a trivial issue, at best.”
“Is that the best you can do?” Smithback snorted. “Some computer genius.”
Moriarty, offended, pushed his glasses up his nose and stood up. “I really don’t need this,” he said. “I think I’ll get some lunch.” He headed for the door. “Margo, I’ll take a rain check on that crossword puzzle.”
“Nice going,” Margo said as the door closed. “You’ve got a really subtle touch, you know that, Smithback? George was good enough to get us into the database.”
“Yeah, and what did we learn from it?” Smithback asked. “Diddly-squat. Only one of the crates was ever accessioned. Whittlesey’s journal is still missing.” He looked at her smugly. “I, on the other hand, have struck oil.”
[190] “Put it in your book,” Margo yawned. “I’ll read it then. Assuming I can find a copy in the library.”
“Et tu, Brute?”Smithback grinned and handed her a folded sheet of paper. “Well, take a look at this.”
The sheet was a photocopy reproduction of an article from the New Orleans Times-Picayunedated October 17, 1988.
GHOST FREIGHTER FOUND BEACHED
NEAR NEW ORLEANS
By Antony Anastasia
Special to the Times-Picayune
BAYOU GROVE, October 16 (AP)-A small freighter bound for New Orleans ran aground last night near this small coastal town. Details remain sketchy, but preliminary reports indicate that all crew members had been brutally slain while at sea. The Coast Guard first reported the grounding at 11:45 Monday night.
The ship, the Strella de Venezuela, was an 18,000-ton freighter, currently of Haitian registry, that plied the waters of the Caribbean and the main trade routes between South America and the United States. Damage was limited, and the vessel’s cargo appeared to be intact.
It is not presently known how the crew members met their deaths, or whether any of the crew were able to escape the ship. Henry La Plage, a private helicopter pilot who observed the beached vessel, reported that “corpses were strewn across the foredeck like some wild animal had gotten at them. I seen one guy hanging out a bridge porthole, his head all smashed up. It was like a slaughterhouse, ain’t never seen nothing like it.”
Local and federal authorities are cooperating [191] in an attempt to understand the slayings, easily one of the most brutal massacres in recent maritime history. “We are currently looking into several theories, but we’ve come to no conclusions as of yet,” said Nick Lea, a police spokesman. Although there was no official comment, federal sources said that mutiny, vengeance killings by rival Caribbean shippers, and sea piracy were all being considered as possible motives.
“Jesus,” Margo breathed. “The wounds described here—”
“—sound just like those on the three bodies found here this week,” Smithback nodded grimly.
Margo frowned. “This happened almost seven years ago. It has to be coincidental.”
“Does it?” Smithback asked. “I might be forced to agree with you—if it wasn’t for the fact that the Whittlesey crates were on board that ship.”
“What?”
“It’s true. I tracked down the bills of lading. The crates were shipped from Brazil in August of 1988—almost a year after the expedition broke up, as I understand it. After this business in New Orleans, the crates sat in customs while the investigation was being conducted. It took them almost a year and a half to reach the Museum.”
“The ritualized murders have followed the crates all the way from the Amazon!” Margo said. “But that means—”
“It means,” Smithback said grimly, “that I’m going to stop laughing now when I hear talk about a curse on that expedition. And it means you should keep locking this door.”
The phone rang, startling them both.
“Margo, my dear.” Frock’s voice rumbled to her. “What news?”
[192] “Dr. Frock! I wonder if I could come by your office for a few minutes. At your earliest convenience.”
“Splendid!” Frock said. “Give me a little time to shuffle some of this paper off my desk and into the wastebasket. Shall we say one o’clock?”
“Thank you,” Margo said. “Smithback,” she said, turning around, “we’ve got to—”
But the writer was gone.
At ten minutes to one, another knock sounded.
“Who’s there?” Margo said through the locked door.
“It’s me, Moriarty. Can I come in, Margo?”
“I just wanted to apologize for walking out earlier,” Moriarty said, declining a chair. “It’s just that Bill wears on me sometimes. He never seems to let up.”
“George, I’m the one who should apologize,” Margo said. “I didn’t know he was going to appear like that.” She thought of telling him about the newspaper article, but decided against it and began to pack up her carryall.
“There’s something else I wanted to tell you,” Moriarty went on. “While I was eating lunch, I realized there may be some way we can find out more about that deleted database record, after all. The one for Whittlesey’s journal.”
Margo abruptly put down the carryall and looked at Moriarty, who took a seat in front of her terminal. “Did you see that sign-on message when you logged into the network earlier?” he asked.
“The one about the computer going down? Big surprise. I got locked out twice this morning.”
Moriarty nodded. “The message also said they were going to restore from the backup tapes at noon. A full restore takes about thirty minutes. That means they should be done by now.”
“So?”
“Well, a backup tape holds about two to three months’ worth of archives. If the detail record for the Whittlesey journal was deleted in the last two months— [193] andif the backup tape is still on the hub up in data processing—I should be able to resurrect it.”
“Really?”
Moriarty nodded.
“Then do it!” Margo urged.
“There’s a certain element of risk,” Moriarty replied. “If a system operator notices that the tape is being accessed ... well, he could trace it to your terminal ID.”
“I’ll risk it,” Margo said. “George,” she added, “I know you feel this is all a wild goose chase, and I can’t really blame you for that. But I’m convinced those crates from the Whittlesey expedition are connected to these killings. I don’t know what the connection is, but maybe the journal could have told us something. And I don’t know what we’re dealing with—a serial killer, some animal, some creature. And not knowing scares me.” She gently took Moriarty’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “But maybe we’re in a position here to be of some help. We have to try.”
When she noticed Moriarty blushing, she withdrew her hand.
Smiling shyly, Moriarty moved to the keyboard.
“Here goes,” he said.
Margo paced the room as Moriarty worked. “Any luck?” she asked finally, moving closer to the terminal.
“Don’t know yet,” said Moriarty, squinting at the screen and typing commands. “I’ve got the tape, but the protocol’s messed up or something, the CRC checks are failing. We may get garbled data, if we get anything. I’m going in the back door, so to speak, hoping to avoid attention. The seek rate is really slow this way.”