“Poor bastard,” he said. “He tried to save me, you know. Almost killed me in the process, of course, but still… He tried to help.”
“What other guy?” asked Vasquez.
“What?”
“You said, ‘Nog and that other guy.’”
“Oh, yes,” said Ray. “There was a third man. I never saw his face.”
“Do you know his name?”
“Um. No, I don’t think so. But maybe I could recognize his voice if I heard it again.”
“Great,” said Vasquez. “Look, Dr. Vance. You’ve been less than fully up front with us all along.”She began to question him on recent events, and he answered as best he could. He was heartened to see the believing look in her eyes. She might not have liked his story, but she was willing to believe him now.
“I must admit that Nog now seems like an even more likely suspect than you in the virus case,” she concluded.
Johansen was working on his legs now, and with his free, numb hands, Ray tried to help.
“So, am I under arrest or what? I’ll cooperate in any way that I can. All I want to do is find my son, and you can see that I’ve come close. Will you help me?” he asked, without much hope. Surely they would at least want to drag him to a cell. He had resisted arrest too long and there were simply too many unexplained bodies around.
Vasquez and Johansen glanced at one another. “It is true, there are many mysteries here, with only your story to go on… for now,” she said. “Any thinking agent would drag you back to a cell without a qualm.”
“But, we do need your help with our case,” added Johansen.
“With the virus?”
“That would be nice, but that’s not our case any longer,” said Vasquez. “We were- relieved from that case. Our case now is the search for your son.”
Ray’s eyes got big and he grinned as he worked one foot free of the sticky mass of tape. “I can’t tell you how good it feels to be out of that damned tape.”
He looked from one to the other with a new perspective. “You’ve got Justin’s case?”
“Yes, your wife asked that we take it on,” smiled Vasquez.
Soon, they were all struggling up the canal embankment. Johansen helped Ray, who could hardly walk after spending a night with his legs taped together.
Vasquez slipped even though she was wearing flats. Johansen darted a hand down to steady her. “You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said.
When they all reached the top, they took a moment to dust themselves off and strip the last bits of tape from Ray.
“I think the key angle is to find this third man,” said Johansen.
“Right, but there is another possible answer,” said Ray.
“What?”
“Ingles told me he sent me an e-mail message. A message that would release my boy.”
Vasquez frowned at that. “I don’t know. Even if that message was sent, the entire internet is failing. I doubt it could have been delivered.”
Ray stared at her. The enormity of what she had just said sunk in. Had Nog really managed to do it? He hardly noticed as Johansen snapped a set of handcuffs on his wrists.
… 6 Hours and Counting…
“Can we at least try Ingles’ machine?” asked Ray.
Vasquez nodded, following his logic. “Right. Even if the message was lost on the net, a copy should still be on his hard drive.”
“As long as he didn’t erase it,” added Johansen.
“All right,” sighed Vasquez. “Look Vance, I’ll give you an hour, then we have to take you in. There have been two murders and what looks like a third. Johansen, phone in for back-up would you? Someone has to get Nog and that car out of that canal and do all the forensics on it.”
Johansen nodded and snapped open his phone. They all climbed into their car and drove down the dirt road toward the house.
“The virus is still raging on the net then?” asked Ray.
“Nothing seems to stop it. And if you’re right, and the author is now smashed in the bottom of the canal, then it’s going to take even longer to piece together a solution. The damned thing keeps changing its profile. It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen.”
“Nog was truly a genius,” agreed Ray. “He told me something of his work before he died.”He related to her what Nog had told him about the self-evolving software he had written.
“If it’s true, then he’s created a new nightmare we’ve never encountered before,” said Vasquez thoughtfully. “And I, for one, am ready to believe it. There will be a number of federal agencies that will want that source code. We’ll have to put in some special court orders concerning national security issues on Nog’s computers.”
“That’s Verr’s case now,” said Johansen gently.
“We’ll ask for the court orders anyway,” snapped Vasquez. “No one will bitch if we help make sure no foreign power gets their hands on this bomb.”
Johansen nodded without smiling.
Vasquez sighed. “Sorry for snapping,” she said without looking at him. Johansen nodded again and visibly relaxed.
From his vantage point in the back seat, Ray slid his eyes from one of them to the other. He wondered vaguely about their relationship. They seemed closer somehow, more concerned.
When they reached the house they all got out of the car. Johansen half-lifted Ray out of the backseat and the doors crumped behind them. Ray’s legs were so stiff from his ordeal that he could barely walk.
“I’m really grateful that you guys are giving me this chance,” said Ray. “I realize that it must not be easy for you.”
“We should have already gone through Ingles machine,” said Vasquez.
“Won’t Verr be pissed if we do it now?” asked Johansen.
“It’s a valid lead in both cases. Including the one we’re on now,” she said.
“He’ll still be pissed. I bet he’ll report it.”
“Like I said: Screw him,” replied Vasquez with a smile.
“You two will feel and look good if this somehow leads to my son’s freedom,” said Ray. He felt the moment of hesitation and discomfort that his words caused them. He could tell they already counted Justin as dead and gone. Well, he thought to himself, screw them too.
Still in a fog of uncomfortable silence, they entered and the screen door slammed shut behind them. The sound made them all jump a bit. Ray shuffled into the den, heading for Ingles’ computer. He paused when he got there and gestured to Johansen impatiently with his cuffed wrists. Johansen looked at Vasquez, who nodded. He produced a key and unlocked one of the cuffs, swung it around Ray’s body and cuffed it in front of him.
“Wha-” said Ray, then he grimaced and nodded at the agent. Best not to look this gift-horse in the mouth. He could still type this way. That should be all he needed.
The first problem presented itself immediately: The system was passworded. Everything was password-protected, including the BIOS setup in CMOS, the hard disk booting process, and doubtlessly, the network connection and any sensitive files on the hard disk. Ray sighed.
“This will take a minute. Any suggestions?”
Vasquez looked over his shoulder. The BIOS setup password was first. If they could get into that, they could cause the system to boot from an external drive and thereby bypass the hard drive’s boot-up password altogether.
Together, they tried all the obvious ones: just hitting the enter key, typing: “password”, and “santa”.
“Nothing,” said Ray. “Let’s short the battery on the motherboard.”
“That can be dangerous,” cautioned Vasquez.
“Look, if my son is still alive somewhere, he can’t last long with Ingles’ and the rest dead. We have a big time factor here.”
She nodded. They turned the system off, removed the back of the computer and touched a screwdriver to the battery posts on the motherboard. This created a short circuit and within a few seconds blanked the computer’s CMOS chips. Essentially, the computer “forgot” its password and setup.
They then put it back together, fired it up and were able to set the machine up to their liking. Booting on an external drive, they bypassed the boot-up password on the hard disk. Next, they began searching the hard disk for files. Vasquez always carried a boot drive with a set of excellent hacker’s utilities for just such a purpose. Ray could see that she was anxious to take his place and work it herself. It was what he had been hoping for.