Playing With Death Page 7

  ‘I know, Rose. It’s a hard balance. We can only do our best.’

  Katherine discreetly looks down at her neat silver watch. ‘I’m afraid we’re out of time. That’s the end of our session.’

  Rose is still for a moment before rising from the chair. She hesitates, then takes Katherine’s hand.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says, and means it, the burden having been shifted from her shoulders, hopefully for the final time.

  ‘You’re very welcome.’

  ‘I hope I never have to see you again,’ Rose says, then laughs. ‘That’s not quite how I meant it to sound.’

  ‘I know. There is a saying: what doesn’t kill you—’

  ‘. . . makes you stronger, right.’

  Katherine places her notes down on her desk. ‘For what it’s worth, I know I’ll feel safer knowing that you’re back out there doing what you do best.’

  Rose nods, her heart heavy with the truth that there are many other Koenigs waiting in the wings, preparing to take centre stage when their time comes . . .

  12.

  The FBI seal hangs large and low on a wall in the main reception area of the San Francisco field office. ‘Fidelity. Bravery. Integrity.’ Those three words and the oath have been seared into Rose’s mind since she graduated from Quantico. At the start of every new case she mentally repeats the words of the contract she made with the Bureau:

  I, Rose Blake, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

  Rose waves her ID badge at the two guards seated behind the front lobby desk as she strides down the navy-tiled floor towards the three sets of elevators. She taps in her PIN number on the elevator door. The door opens and she enters, selecting the fourth floor. She checks herself in the mirror at the back of the elevator. She’s wearing a simple grey suit with a white blouse. A wisp of hair has strayed, and she neatly flicks it back behind her right ear. The elevator door opens and she paces down a corridor. She approaches a dark-brown door where she pulls out her badge and holds it up to the ident scanner. The reader’s light buzzes green and the door clicks open.

  Rose enters the field office proper, making her way through the grey cubicles and over to her own neatly organized desk. The office is divided into sections: Terrorism, Counter-Intelligence, Cybercrime, Public Corruption and Civil Rights, Organized Crime, White-collar Crime, Violent Crime and Major Thefts. She slips out of her jacket and hangs it over the back of the chair before sitting down and switching on her computer. The office is large, with a light-blue carpet and rows of blinded windows overlooking Golden Gate Avenue. The red bridge and Cupid’s Span – a huge golden bow and red arrow buried in the ground – are only a few blocks away.

  ‘Good morning, sugar,’ says Baptiste, on the way to her office. She blows across the top of her latte. She’s wearing black slacks and a green blouse. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Doctor’s appointment. I did tell you.’

  Baptiste smiles. ‘I know. What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing important.’ Rose cracks open a bottle of water, takes a sip.

  Baptiste shrugs. ‘Brennan’s been working on what’s left of Coulter’s laptop. You might want to pay him a visit.’

  ‘Owen will want to be there.’ Rose looks through the gap in her cubicle over to Owen’s vacant desk.

  ‘Owen’s working on his DarkChild sting operation. He says he’s close to snaring the bastard.’

  Rose smiles. She has faith in Owen. ‘OK, meanwhile I’ll request a subpoena for Coulter’s emails, phone and bank records for the last six months. We need to get into his background.’

  Baptiste sits on the edge of Rose’s desk. ‘You can try. I’ve already spoken to the Pentagon regarding Coulter . . .’

  Rose is hopeful, but Baptiste shakes her head. ‘They’re being predictably cagey, but they corroborated that he was one of their freelance software engineers. Actually, he’s one of the guys they brought in after the Swarm’s attack, they say. And that’s about it. Other than that Coulter was assigned to special projects at the time of his death.’

  ‘Special projects?’

  ‘That’s what they said. Not very helpful. You think I got anything else out of ’em, then you’re wrong, sister. They’re not saying anything, for the usual “national security” reasons. They’re claiming Coulter was engaged in real hush-hush stuff. I’d lay good money it’s nothing more than fixing the director of the CIA’s printer, or something. Anyway, he’s off their books now.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He was working out of . . .’ – she pauses, scanning the paperwork – ‘. . . Peek Industries until a few months back. Here’s what we have on his background so far, along with Palo Alto PD’s paperwork.’

  Rose pulls a frustrated face, taking Coulter’s file from Baptiste, who heads to her office. Flicking through the pages, she scans the various printouts. Late thirties, Bachelor of Sciences in computer engineering, Master of Sciences in computer science, worked for a number of independent software companies on firmware and algorithm development and implementation.

  But there’s not much information on Coulter outside of his career. The odd speeding ticket. A few references to papers on AI he has presented at industry conferences. As for his family, his father had been taken by cancer and his mother was retired in Florida. No siblings, no wife. No signs of any reason why anyone would want to burn him alive, if it was a murder. Nor any reason for him to end his own life in such a manner. Nothing of much investigative use.

  Rose closes the file, crosses to Baptiste’s office and taps on the doorframe as she enters.

  ‘Not much to go on.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Any of this being taken up by the newshounds?’

  ‘You kidding me? Guy goes hog roast at his desk and they give it a pass?’ She reaches into her bag for her smartphone, taps it on and holds the screen up for Rose to see.

  ‘It’s all over “The Gab” news site, but they don’t have much.’ The garish red text on TheGabNews.com screams ‘Palo Inferno! Murder not ruled out’ accompanied by a still of Gabby Vance outside the apartment and a video link. Vance is a stringer who often features on the Bay News Corporation channel.

  ‘On the plus side, the bean counters have agreed to pay for the autopsy and forensics lab work to be fast-tracked. We’ve got Benfield as the ME in charge.’

  ‘He’s good,’ says Rose.

  ‘Yes he is. Should have the results back in a few days. And we’ve got Chan as the CSI in charge down at the lab. So we caught a break there . . .’

  Rose shoots her a questioning look. ‘But . . .?’

  ‘But, on the downside, Assistant Secretary of Defense William Maynard has asked us to keep him informed of every development.’

  ‘That’s heavy. Why is the DoD so interested? They’ve changed their tune. I’d never have figured them as the kind to take an interest in their subcontracted employees’ welfare.’

  ‘Ouch!’ Baptiste fakes a wince. ‘You saying Uncle Sam doesn’t care about his minions?’

  ‘You ever know him to?’

  ‘True that. Anyway, try and keep a tight loop on this, Rose. Something about it doesn’t feel quite right.’

  Rose knows what Baptiste means. The speed at which the Bureau was assigned to the investigation means someone higher up the chain of command is spooked by Coulter’s death.

  Baptiste rubs her tired-looking eyes. ‘Time’s up. Got other people that need my attention. Keep me posted. Looks like it’s going to be a busy week.’ Rose leaves the offi
ce and heads back to her desk.

  She logs onto the FBI intranet and types up her initial report, outlining her thoughts and impressions from the scene of Coulter’s death. So far it’s not officially a crime scene, but she feels it’s only a matter of time. The death of Gary Coulter is becoming murkier by the second. Special projects, national security? How the hell is the Bureau supposed to do its work unless the Department of Defense is more forthcoming? How do they know that it wasn’t one of those very special projects that got him killed?

  Rose drains the water bottle and tosses it in the trash. At least the Bureau has Coulter’s laptop. That, and the coroner’s report, might offer some clues about the circumstances of his death. For an instant she pictures Coulter ablaze from head to toe, just sitting at his desk as he screams in agony. Then she picks up her smartphone and the file and heads down towards Brennan Bamber’s office in the Cybercrime department.

  13.

  ‘Special Agent Rose Blake.’ Brennan Bamber smiles a greeting. The slender blond Texan is the acting head of Cybercrime. He quickly minimizes a poker table window he had up on his screen.

  ‘You must be here about the laptop,’ he says, before spinning around on his seat like a teenager. He’s in his late twenties. He beams, but his eyes look tired.

  Most of the terminals in the Cybercrime office have three screens to each tower, staffed in total by twenty investigators and technicians, and, since the window shades are angled down, the room is bathed in a blue hue. Rose knows that these days their attention is concentrated on computer and network intrusions, identity theft, online fraud, phishing and other e-scams, as well as sex crimes against children. With an ever more interconnected world it is an overburdened and underfunded department. Brennan constantly complains that they are failing to keep up with online crime, with thousands of identities stolen and offences committed every day. And that’s only on the surface, everyday web. The deep web, sometimes called the dark web, is vast – a portal to drug dealers, black marketeers, hackers, whistleblowers, terrorists, political extremists, human traffickers, illegal arms dealers, exotic animal traders, child pornographers and even crowdfunded hit men.

  Brennan’s bookshelf contains philosophy books, Terminator action figures, Rubik’s cubes, glowing balls and other juvenile yet intricate contraptions. His hair is in its usual state of dishevelment, and he’s wearing a checked white and blue shirt with a yellow T-shirt underneath. On the T-shirt is stencilled a quote from Einstein that reads ‘Intellectuals solve problems, Geniuses prevent them’. He is manically energetic, unable to sit still for very long. Baptiste finds him irritating, but Rose can tolerate his eccentricities, most of the time, even though she can’t help feeling he’s way out there on the spectrum.

  ‘Any luck, Brenn?’

  Brennan leans back in his chair, cracking his bony knuckles as he swiftly collects his thoughts. ‘Not much so far. Coulter’s laptop was cooked medium rare. Most of the external casing melted, but we managed to extract the hard drive, which I’m working on now.’

  Brennan points at the slender aluminium case hooked up to his computer via power and data cables. A window on his computer is flickering with scrolling numbers.

  ‘Vic’s data is encrypted pretty well, and it’s not going to be easy to crack. As you’d probably expect from a software professional . . . But I like a challenge. Beats looking at thousands of images of child porn all day.’ He laughs weakly, but Rose can see his discomfort as he shifts in his seat. None of them likes having to deal with such extreme perversions.

  ‘There really are some sick bastards out there . . .’ Brennan shares Rose’s moment of reflection before he says quickly, ‘What’s the deal with this laptop guy anyway?’

  ‘Honestly, we don’t know much.’ Rose tells him about the crime scene and what they’ve found out so far. Brennan is lost in thought for a moment.

  ‘Have you got any images?’ he asks.

  ‘Sure.’ Rose pulls out her smartphone, hands it to Brennan. Brennan swipes past the various pictures, grimacing occasionally. Then he stops and squints at the screen.

  ‘See something?’ Rose asks.

  Brennan zooms in on a patch of the charred body. ‘What’s that?’

  He swivels on his chair so she can see the screen and taps the image of the blackened body, indicating the shoulder and arm. Then he pinches his thumb and finger together, zooming in on the shoulder to close in on the long sliver of the rubbery material they found on the body. He tilts his head to one side as he carefully adjusts the image, trading off resolution against detail. ‘That’s not skin or muscle tissue. The surface pattern looks too regular. Like a mesh, almost.’

  ‘We thought it was a wetsuit or something.’

  ‘Wetsuit?’ Brennan chuckles. ‘Kinky.’

  ‘I really hope not. But you might want to share your thoughts with Owen. He’s more on your wavelength. Anyway, what do you think it is?’

  ‘The first thing that strikes me are those wires . . .’ He flicks back a few images and there’s a close-up of the back of Coulter’s body with a small bundle of cables just visible amid the charred remains.

  ‘Wires?’ Rose leans closer, trying not to wince at Brennan’s overpowering aftershave. She had looked at the images several times but had thought that the wires were folds in whatever Coulter had been wearing when he burned to death. Now that Brennan has pointed them out, she sees that he’s right. ‘So what are they doing there?’

  ‘Not quite sure . . . Looks like the vic was attached to something.’ He shows her another image with the object sitting on the blackened desk. ‘Any idea?’

  Rose is silent and they both stare at the screen for a moment before Brennan returns to the images of the body. He finds one taken from the side and zooms into the back. This time the fine tendrils at the end of the cables are more clearly visible, like the splayed ends of a pigtail. Rose notices a small black box.

  ‘What do you think that is?’

  ‘OK, now we’re getting somewhere. Definitely some kind of connections to whatever he was wearing. Power, data . . . or both. That small box looks like a power source for what he was wearing, although it’s hard to be sure. The thing is pretty well melted. We’re not going to make much out of that.’

  ‘The box?’

  ‘Yeah, evidence team brought it in. Internals are completely destroyed.’ Brennan scratches his chin. ‘I got a feeling I might know what this is. I mean, what the vic’s wearing.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I might be wrong, but it’s possible it was something like those Skin things they’ve been advertising on TV recently.’

  ‘Skin?’ Rose feels her pulse quicken as she recalls her discussion with Robbie this morning. ‘As in “be better than real, pre-order now” Skin?’

  Brennan nods. ‘But they haven’t released that yet. This looks like something very similar though. There was an article in Wireless a few years back about how the military were using sensory suits for advanced combat training. Looked kind of fun, but then it disappeared from the radar. This could be a prototype. I mean, our man has suction with DoD, right?’

  ‘Have you still got the article? Were there any pictures?’

  ‘Whoa! Do I look like the kind of nerd that has back issues piled up at home?’ Brennan tuts. ‘I’ll see if I can find something online. Think I vaguely recall a fuzzy close-up on some news channel somewhere, but it was deleted soon after.’

  ‘All right. So how does this suit work? For those of who don’t read Wireless magazine?’

  ‘Suit? You mean the Skin? The latest gizmo from Wade Wolff’s company? It’s like it sounds. You wear it over you and the material carries a micro network of sensor inputs that deliver a tiny electrical current to the host’s nerve system. There is also some kind of tensioner system built into the Skin that can contract and expand the material. The ups
hot is that the person wearing the suit can be made to feel the physical sensations of whatever software simulation the program is running. You know, jogging, swimming, climbing, skiing – all that sort of stuff. Quite cool, eh?’

  ‘Cool? I guess. Until the day you happen to get fried in the suit. Like Coulter.’

  ‘Boil in the bag,’ he laughs.

  She gives him a hard stare. Brennan continues: ‘Coupled with a helmet, or visor maybe, the experience is supposed to be as immersive as it gets. Forget all those crappy early visors. If that’s what Coulter had got his hands on, then he’s a lucky man, or was. But then, it’s a technology we’re all going to be able to use soon enough. Skins are going to be the next big thing. WadeSoft’s billion-dollar toy.’

  ‘My husband and son want to get one.’

  ‘They’d better pre-order it, then. It’s gonna sell out. Fast.’

  Rose isn’t in the mood for levity. ‘If Coulter was burned to death while wearing one of these Skin things then it might be an accident.’

  ‘More than likely,’ Brennan says. ‘Something in the suit shorts and there’s a fire. Maybe the prototype hasn’t got any fire-retardant treatment built in yet. And bingo – barbecued beta tester.’

  It could have been an accident, like Brennan says. But what if it isn’t? Mrs Tofell heard him scream ‘stop’. What if someone did not want Coulter to have the prototype? What if they had some way of sabotaging the suit, or controlling it, so that it killed him?

  A competitor?

  Rose can now sense a corporate conspiracy angle coming into play. Brennan hands back her smartphone.

  ‘What did the fire department say?’ he asks.

  ‘They reckon there’s no obvious sign of any accelerant. Even so, when it happened, the heat was as intense as it gets.’

  They are both silent before Brennan speaks. ‘I would have a closer look at any remains of the suit.’

  ‘All right. I’ll see if I can get what’s left from the coroner. That’s one angle. But what about Coulter’s laptop? Worst-case scenario, if we can’t salvage anything useful, what else can we do?’