Invasion of Privacy: A Novel Read online

  “Not a friend of the family after all,” said Shanks. “A reporter.”

  A final picture appeared on the monitor. It was Tank Potter’s mug shot from two nights before.

  The Mole smirked. “And a drunk.”

  40

  Class was over.

  Jessie took her time putting away her laptop, keeping an eye on the front of the room, where the older students were talking to Linus. Normally she liked to be first out, but today she had a reason to wait.

  “That was amaze-balls,” said Garrett, taking the seat next to her, swiping his blond hair out of his face. “We haven’t even talked about that stuff. How did you do it?”

  “Just figured it out, I guess.”

  “Maybe you can explain it to me. You want to get a hamburger or something for lunch?”

  “I ate earlier,” said Jessie.

  “How about a coffee? I can give you a ride home, too, if you want. I’m eighteen. It’s okay.”

  “My mom’s getting me.”

  “Well, um…,” Garrett stammered, and Jessie almost felt sorry for him.

  “Miss Grant.” Linus Jankowski stood in front of her desk. Garrett stood, giving a wave and a “See ya” before shuffling out of the classroom.

  “Hi, there,” said Jessie.

  Linus sat down. “So, young lady. Mind telling me how you did it?”

  “I already explained it.”

  “I mean how you came to possess that kind of knowledge.”

  “It just seemed kind of obvious.”

  “Really? That’s not usually a word I’ve heard attached to advanced encryption algorithms, but okay. So why didn’t you speak up when I asked the first time?”

  “I don’t like attention,” said Jessie. “It creeps me out.”

  “Humility. What a concept.” Linus trained his eyes on Jessie. “Do you know the last person to solve that hack? It was Rudeboy at DEF CON last summer. He did it to win Capture the Flag.”

  “Rudeboy solved it?”

  “He wasn’t the only one, but he was the quickest. Five minutes flat. I came in third. Three minutes behind. You, Miss Grant, needed thirteen minutes and seventeen seconds.”

  “But…how did you know that I’d—”

  “I was watching you. None of the other propeller-heads in class stood a chance.” Linus stood and picked up his satchel and his endless cup of coffee. “I’m gone tomorrow. See you after that.”

  “Yeah, sure. See you.” Jessie watched helplessly as he walked out of the classroom. “Linus,” she called, rising from her chair and running into the hall. “I need your help with something.”

  “Homework?”

  “Not exactly. It’s kind of private.”

  “Not now.”

  “But—”

  “Tonight. Crown and Anchor. Nine o’clock.”

  The Crown & Anchor was a pub on San Jacinto Boulevard. “No—ten.”

  “Even better. Ten.”

  Jessie left the classroom and headed downstairs. Outside she sat by the fountain. She put her hand in the cold water, asking herself what she’d done. Meet Linus at a pub at ten? Was she crazy? She wasn’t allowed to leave the house on her own at night. Even if she managed to sneak out, how was she supposed to get all the way downtown…and then back again? And what about going into a pub? Could she even do that?

  She took a fruit roll-up from her pack and ate it. How could someone smart enough to solve the hack that won Capture the Flag be so stupid?

  “There you are.”

  Jessie looked up as a flash of blond hair sat down next to her. “Hi, Garrett.”

  “Lucky I ran into you.”

  And then it came to her. The solution was in front of her all the time.

  “Yeah, lucky coincidence.” Jessie smiled. “Did you say something about having a car?”

  41

  Ian ran up the stairs of ONE 1 and entered the cabin of his jet without looking back.

  “Christ, I hate that place,” he said. “Like the Inquisition without the party favors.”

  A flight attendant took his jacket and handed him a bottle of Penta water.

  Peter Briggs followed him into the aircraft, pulled the door closed, and locked it. “Activate the ECMs,” he said.

  The flight attendant moved to a control panel and turned on the plane’s electronic countermeasures.

  Ian collapsed into a chair. “What the hell is she doing now?”

  Briggs sat in the chair opposite. “She’s asking about Semaphore. Said it by name in a conversation with her husband’s former partner, Special Agent Randall A. Bell.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “How do I know?” Briggs’s face was redder than usual, his pale blue eyes brooking no challenge. “Maybe her husband left the case file open on his desk. Maybe she reads his e-mails. Maybe he whispered it to her while he was banging her the night before he died. Does it matter how? She said it. Listen for yourself.”

  Briggs set his phone on the table and played the recording of Mary Grant speaking to Randy Bell.

  “Sounds like it was a shot in the dark,” said Ian.

  “No such thing.”

  “But she called Bell back to ask which word she wasn’t supposed to repeat. If she was certain it was Semaphore, she wouldn’t have needed a confirmation.”

  “Well, thanks to Randy Bell she has it. He might as well have attached a homing beacon to the word. After the call she performed searches for the word semaphore alone and in combination with FBI, CIA, cybercrime, pirating, you name it.” Briggs banged a fist on the armrest, index finger extended for good measure. “Mason told us she was a pain in the ass. He said she wouldn’t quit.”

  “Ed Mason thinks that everyone who doesn’t work for him is either a pain in the ass or a risk to national security.”

  Deputy director of the FBI Edward G. Mason III was either his best friend or his worst enemy. Ian walked to the front of the cabin to make sure that none of the attendants were listening. “What else has our intrepid widow been up to?”

  “See for yourself.”

  Briggs handed Ian a printout of the surveillance data collected from the Grant home. Ian looked over a list of online activity. Someone in the house liked to watch videos of cute animals on YouTube. Kittens, puppies, and sloths. Sloths. Despite his ill temper, he smiled. His own sons spent hours watching cute animals on YouTube. Ian didn’t mind. It beat spending hours watching less cute videos of men and women that were as easily available. Twelve-year-old boys didn’t watch kittens playing the piano forever.

  “We’ll deal with this when we get back. Till then—”

  Briggs raised a hand. He had his phone to his ear and his face had gone from red to redder. “What did you say?…A who?…What?…Oh, Christ. Fuck me.”

  “What is it?” asked Ian.

  Briggs dropped the phone onto the table. “She’s got a visitor. A newspaper reporter. Still want to wait till we get back?”

  42

  Tank sat with Mary Grant at her kitchen table. He was grateful to be out of the heat. And more grateful for the iced tea she’d offered. He knew she wasn’t from the South because the tea didn’t have enough lemon or sugar. But it was cold and wet and he drank down half the glass before he knew it.

  “Well, then,” he said, setting down the glass. “Why do you think the FBI is lying to you?”

  Mary Grant sat on the edge of her chair, anxiety radiating from every pore. “According to them, it’s an open-and-shut case. Joe let an armed informant get into a car with him and the informant shot him.”

  Tank set his phone on the table and asked permission to record their conversation. Mary nodded and went on. She described a voice message she’d received from her husband (Tank assumed that this was the voicemail Grace had referred to) and her fractious interactions with Don Bennett. “First he wanted to take my phone, then he didn’t want anything to do with it. He point-blank refused to help me find the message. Why?”

  “Maybe he knew wha
t was on it.”

  “The whole thing didn’t make sense,” she continued, more calmly. “The doctor said that the bullet that killed Joe struck his spinal cord. He would have been paralyzed instantly from the chest down. He couldn’t have shot anyone after that. I just don’t get it.” She sighed and looked Tank in the eye. “Mostly, Mr. Potter, I just know they’re lying. I know Joe and I know he wouldn’t get himself into that situation. Your turn. Why are you here?”

  Tank finished his iced tea. He wasn’t sure how much to tell her. She didn’t need to know that he too had questions about who shot whom. It was a cardinal rule of reporting to keep your ideas close to your vest.

  “I share your opinion that the FBI has been less than forthcoming about the case,” he said. “If we could just find out who the informant was, we’d be a lot closer to figuring things out. Can you tell me anything about what your husband had been working on lately?”

  “Supposedly we came to Austin so that Joe could work a municipal corruption case, but it was a lie. There was no corruption case.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do.” She hesitated, then said, “He was working on something else. A case that had begun in Sacramento.”

  “Really? And how long ago was that?”

  “Nine months. Maybe ten. Last October or November.”

  Gold. He could sense it. Tank knew better than to push. It was a matter of letting her air her own suspicions. She poured him more iced tea, then turned back to get a glass for herself. Tank’s heart jumped a beat. She was going to spill.

  “This is what I know,” she said, sitting down and fixing him with determined blue eyes. She described in detail her actions since her husband’s death: searching his clothing; finding the boarding pass; discovering his secret trips to San Jose, which had begun all the way back in November and continued through the past week; finding out about her husband’s contact with Judge Caruso; and finally hearing the bizarre reaction evinced by her husband’s former partner, Randy Bell, when she said the word semaphore.

  “Does any of this make sense?” she said in closing.

  “I don’t think it’s uncommon for an FBI agent to work a confidential case. Still, if you think there’s something wrong, there probably is.”

  Tank looked away, not wanting to be a party to her hopes. He glanced at his hands, noticing how lousy his nails looked. Probably like the rest of him. He glanced up to find Mary Grant still staring at him. His problem had always been that he was a sucker for honesty. Straight talk was the chink in his armor.

  “I visited the medical examiner’s office last night,” he said. “I was trying to get the lowdown on the informant. I didn’t, but I saw something that convinced me in no uncertain terms that the FBI is being untruthful. It’s not a pleasant matter.”

  “Go ahead, Mr. Potter. I consider myself forewarned.”

  As gently as he knew how, Tank gave his opinion that the wounds suffered by Joe Grant and his informant, identity unknown, could not have been inflicted with a handgun, and as such did not jibe with the FBI’s official explanation.

  “What are you trying to say?” asked Mary.

  “That doctor in the hospital was telling you the truth. Your husband couldn’t have shot the informant. I don’t think the informant shot him, either. It’s my opinion that your husband and his informant were murdered by a third party, and that they were shot with a rifle, not a handgun.”

  Mary Grant sat back. He could see her working through what he’d said, coming to the conclusion, almost against her will, that her suspicions were accurate. The FBI was lying. Her husband had been murdered. Someone was orchestrating a cover-up. Her eyes watered, and for a moment he thought she was going to break down. She looked away and drew a tremendous breath. He thought it was as if she’d swallowed a kind of stone, as her features hardened into a grim mask.

  “Have you shared this with the paper?” she asked.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s important for me to have corroborating evidence first. My opinion isn’t enough.”

  “But you saw the bodies…”

  “Even so. I need proof.”

  “Did you take pictures?”

  Tank lied without blinking. “Not allowed.”

  “Won’t the autopsy reveal what kind of bullet killed my husband?”

  “In principle, yes.”

  “I spoke with Mr. Feely at the funeral home last night. He said the FBI is keeping my husband’s body a few days longer. The results should prove that what you said is true.”

  “Actually, the postmortem isn’t going to be performed here. Your husband is being sent to the FBI’s forensic lab at Quantico. The autopsy will be performed there.”

  “Is that normal?”

  “Not to my knowledge. Postmortems are performed in the county where the death took place.”

  “So they’re stealing his body to cover up what happened.”

  “Slow down,” said Tank, though he shared the same conviction. “We have no idea why they want to send the body to Quantico. There could be a dozen other reasons to perform the autopsy there.”

  “When are they transporting my husband’s body?”

  “Sometime after twelve p.m.”

  “Today?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mary bolted to her feet and threw her purse over her shoulder. “Grace,” she shouted upstairs, “I’m taking you to Carrie’s house. We need to go. Now.”

  Tank stood as Mary scooped up her car keys and shepherded her daughter outside. “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “Downtown. To the medical examiner’s office. I’m not letting them take Joe without a fight.”

  43

  Mary paused before climbing into her car. “Aren’t you coming?”

  Tank Potter stood watching her, hands in his pockets, tousled head cocked at an angle. “It’s not my job to confront the FBI,” he said.

  Mary placed her foot inside the car. She realized she’d gone too far. He was after a story. She was after much more. “I don’t expect your help, Mr. Potter, but I wouldn’t mind a witness.”

  Potter made no move to join her.

  Mary got in the car and started the engine. With dismay, she noted that the gas was on reserve. “Don’t go yet,” she called as Tank was climbing into his Jeep. Elbowing the door open, she jumped out and ran up the street. “Tell me you’ve got enough gas to get me downtown.”

  —

  Five minutes later the Jeep was barreling down Mopac, the speedometer pushing 75. Mary sat with one hand locked on the armrest, her feet positioned on either side of a gaping hole in the floorboard, praying that they wouldn’t run over a loose rock or stray branch.

  “Are you all right, Mr. Potter? You were looking a little pale before.”

  “I’m good.” Potter offered an anemic smile. If she hadn’t thought he was hungover before, she did now.

  Midday traffic was light. In ten minutes they were zipping past the Arboretum. Potter swung the Jeep east onto 183, skirting the gargantuan new Apple campus, National Semiconductor, IBM, and, finally, ONE Technologies. Mary thought of Jess, her own little Bill Gates…No, who did she say was the greatest programmer? Her own little Rudeboy.

  “We’re making good time,” said Tank. “Hopefully they won’t have moved your husband yet.”

  “Hopefully,” said Mary. “Anyway, thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “For asking questions.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Even so. It means something to me.”

  “I’m a reporter. I’m not doing you any favors.”

  “You didn’t have to drive me.”

  Tank looked at her, narrowing his eyes. “Do you really think you can stop them from sending your husband to Virginia?”

  “No. But at least they’ll know we’re keeping an eye on them.”

  “Lady, I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”

  Mar
y noted the warning in Potter’s voice. It reminded her of Randy Bell’s admonition never to say semaphore again. It came to her that she was putting her nose where it was not wanted and that her inquiries might not be taken lightly. Still, it was the FBI. Joe’s FBI. They might be angry with her, but nothing more. She was a citizen. She had a right to ask questions.

  “I have to make a call to my buddy,” said Tank. “This whole thing may be a wild-goose chase.”

  —

  One half mile behind the battered Jeep, the Mercedes Airstream rolled down the highway, maintaining a similar speed.

  Shanks drove while the Mole sat in the work bay, monitoring surveillance. Though the Jeep was out of sight, there was no chance of losing it. Along with the dozens of pictures of Tank Potter, PittPatt had turned up his phone number, found easily enough on the employee profile page of the Statesman’s website. A cross-check of the number showed that Henry Thaddeus Potter was a ONE Mobile customer.

  “You’re mine,” whispered the Mole as he ordered a real-time tap on the number. A live feed was beamed to the communications console. Potter’s position as defined by the GPS transponder in his phone was denoted by a pulsing blue dot on a mixed terrain/traffic map.

  Next the Mole uploaded a blanket surveillance app onto Potter’s phone. The process was similar to updating the phone’s operating system, only he didn’t need Potter’s consent. The app essentially cloned Potter’s phone, copying all his e-mails, his call log, his voicemails, his browsing history, and everything else stored inside its forty-seven apps. For all intents and purposes, the phone belonged to the Mole. Potter was only borrowing it.

  The Mole had a final trick up his sleeve. Worming his way into the captive phone’s settings, he activated the built-in microphone so that it would pick up everything being said inside the car. In effect, he’d turned the phone into a bug.

  The Mole played the audio over the speaker. The quality was spotty. He guessed that Potter had the phone in his pocket. Even so, with only minor digital enhancement, he could hear Rascal Flatts singing “Fast Cars and Freedom” loud and clear.