The 24th Hour, page 15
Yuki stayed with Mary Elena before, during, and after her tele-session with Dr. Aronson. She made tea and then helped Mary Elena into bed.
CHAPTER 72
JOE PARKED HIS car at the intersection of Divisadero and Pine, giving him a 360-degree view of the street and cross streets. If the guy who’d left the computer was on foot, Joe might recognize him. If he was driving, Cyber Security Incorporated was St. Vartan’s best or only chance to get the ghosts out of the machine.
Bao said, “I still don’t get it. Why did he leave his laptop? ‘I was here. Where were you?’ What’s that?”
“What do you think?”
“He was stood up.”
Joe laughed. “Thanks, I needed that.”
He really did need a laugh. He was tense, tired, hungry, and exhilarated. If they succeeded, they’d be elated. People would live. If they failed, St. Vartan’s was going to have to find millions and Apocalypto would still be in business.
Bao leaned toward him. “Joe. See that?”
“What? Where?”
“That dark SUV parked across the street. The driver just flashed his lights. Joe. Flash ours.”
Joe turned on the lights and flashed them.
Bao said, “He’s waving. To us. I think he could be wearing a green windbreaker.”
“Great freaking catch, Bao. I recognize him.”
Bao had called CS Inc. and spoken to Pete Wooten, who’d pinged the laptop she’d put in the footwell. He’d confirmed that it was the one Apocalypto was seeking. Joe reached Craig Steinmetz and brought him up to date. “I’ll call you if we nab him.”
Bao held the laptop. She would coax, untangle, trick, and in every way deploy her technological chops on that box. CS Inc. could extract the key to the malware implanted in St. Vartan’s network. But they still needed the Apocalypto operator to give up what he knew.
“Joe. I think we should go talk to green windbreaker before he drives away. What about you?”
“Okay. Bao, you go around to the passenger side of his car. I’ll go to the driver’s side. Keep your gun down at your side.”
Joe got out of the car. Keeping his eyes on the SUV but totally aware of where Bao was coming up on the passenger side, he stepped up to the driver.
“I’m Joe Molinari, FBI. We need to talk. Raise your hands. I’m opening your door now. Don’t make any sudden moves.”
Joe opened the driver’s-side door with his left hand and showed the driver his Glock.
The driver asked, “You have my laptop?”
“Maybe,” said Joe. “What’s your name?”
“Robert. Nicholson. Bob.”
“Bob. My partner to your right is Director Wong of the FBI. I need you to keep your hands up and get out of the car.”
“Okay, I’d like to talk to you, too.”
Joe’s inner voice asked, Why? Was this the Apocalypto connection? Or had he just taken some kid’s homework?
Bob said, “I’m not armed. I’m going to roll my legs out and try to stand.”
Joe watched Bob awkwardly angle his way around the door frame. He tightened his core muscles and eased his legs out until he was standing.
Bao joined Joe as he threw Bob across the hood and frisked him. The guy had no weapons. His wallet held his driver’s license and another picture ID. Bao first pulled Bob’s right arm behind his back, then the left, and Joe cuffed him.
“Hey, take it easy,” Bob complained. “And by the way, where’s your warrant?”
“You had no expectancy of privacy, Bob. You left the laptop on a table in a public place. Look it up.”
Now Bob Nicholson was laughing.
“Wait until I tell my friends I got arrested by the FBI for leaving my laptop at Starbucks. Oh. Am I under arrest?”
Bao said, “We’re bringing you in as a person of interest in an ongoing case.”
Bob said, “Starbucks is open. Why don’t we—”
Bao said, “Let’s talk here, Bob. What are we going to find on your laptop?”
“That’s why I want to talk to you. Depending on what you can do for me, you’re going to be able to liberate St. Vartan’s hospital. And I can expose Apocalypto—all you want to know. Locations. Active operations. Weak links. Okay? But, right now, I’d say the deal is that I stay a free man, and the FBI makes sure that I don’t get murdered.”
CHAPTER 73
BAO WONG, Joe Molinari, and Bob Nicholson, the self-described negotiator for a global ransomware enterprise, sat in a semicircle of office chairs facing Craig Steinmetz’s desk. The section chief was dressed in sweatpants and a gray cardigan with a cowl neck and leather buttons, loafers, no socks. Joe knew that Craig, who’d been in bed when he’d called him, had thrown on after-work clothes and made it to his office PDQ.
All of the lights were on. Papers were stacked in neat piles on Steinmetz’s desk, which was bracketed by two standing flags; one the Stars and Stripes, and the other a plain blue banner with the insignia of the FBI at the center. Beyond the plate glass window, the evening sky was broken by streaks of headlights thirteen floors below. No beverages were served nor offered. Nicholson struggled out of his jacket and, with Joe’s help, hung it on the back of his chair. Did he know Apocalypto’s secrets or was Bob just full of crap? Craig would know.
After forty years with the Bureau, Steinmetz couldn’t have been more ready for this critical interrogation. He straightened a line of pens in front of him and spoke.
“Mr. Nicholson, you’re employed by a firm called Apocalypto?”
“Not exactly, sir. I work for a toy company in Amsterdam that markets toys internationally. But that’s their cover. On one floor of their building, about a hundred software geniuses run the real profit center. That’s Apocalypto.”
“Got it,” said Steinmetz. “And how did you come to work for this toy company in Amsterdam when you’re a US citizen?”
“They scoped me out. Found out my grades at Caltech. My skills in advanced software technology. My job history with HP and Intel. Then I was recruited by remote interviews with flattery and mounds of shiny objects and I fell for the pitch. This was about four years ago, sir. My US citizenship doesn’t come into it because I live, work, and pay my taxes here. Also, Chief, the job wasn’t fully explained to me. I thought it was experimental. I typed code into my laptop—like always. Then, it got real. Am I talking too much?”
“No,” Steinmetz said. “Please go on.”
Bob nodded and continued the story of his life as a criminal.
“Over a few years, I was given increased incentives to negotiate with targeted firms. Most of them were industrial, but not pivotal to anything. Lawn mower manufacturer. Aluminum cans. This was all a tryout but I didn’t know. The job seemed great. Creative. Challenging. I got rich. For me. But this year with the hospitals… Well. I’m disgusted with myself, sir.”
“Convince me.”
“Okay. I want to clarify, Chief. I don’t select the targets. I don’t create or deliver the malware. I’m just what they call the closer. I negotiate the ransom with the target, and after the payment is secured, it goes to the first of many banks who wire it to other banks. I am not part of that, sir, but eventually it gets back to a bank in the Netherlands. For a while I rationalized that once we were out of the victims’ hair, we left them more secure than when we broke in.”
Bao said, “Big of you, Bob. Did you assign a value to the people who died because of the malware?”
“No. No. I tinkered with the program, I talked to executives by internet, but when I asked about a human toll, I was iced. ‘Not your job. Hospitals are insured’…”
Steinmetz said, “All right. I get it, Bob. You’re a go-between, you’re saying, an upstanding citizen with computer skills who got duped by terrorists.”
Joe was watching Bob carefully. It seemed to him that Bob had never imagined a moment like this. He was scared. Leaving his laptop at Starbucks hadn’t prepared him to confess to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s top man in San Francisco. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve.
Steinmetz rooted in his center drawer, found a packet of tissues, and slid it across the desk.
Bob was stammering now. “Sir… I was willfully blind and I don’t forgive myself… But for context, this was very heady stuff for a fat kid from a factory town who got scholarships and grades and a way out of Nowheresville… I want to earn a clean reboot…”
Steinmetz said, “So you’re going to quit your job, whether or not you get protection from the FBI?”
“Yes, sir. But without protection, I’ll be killed. And Apocalypto will live.”
CHAPTER 74
CLAIRE AND I drove separately to Susie’s and parked about a half a block away. Just the sight of those windows blazing with light was enough to buck me up. I linked arms with Claire as we walked toward the entrance. I did all the talking, as Claire was unusually quiet.
“Something eating you, Butterfly? Talk to me.”
Claire’s sigh was long and deep.
“Claire?”
“Sorry. I was thinking about some results I’m waiting on. I was collecting scrapings from under Jamie Fricke’s fingernails yesterday and noticed that his right hand was a little swollen and the knuckles were slightly abraded. Like he’d punched someone. Probably just before he dropped dead.”
“Claire, this is huge. You’re thinking he slugged his killer?”
“Or he scraped the sidewalk. All I know right now is that he skinned his knuckles. Anyway, I swabbed each knuckle, segregated the swabs, covered his hand with gauze, and asked the lab to rush it through rapid DNA. Maybe it’ll match to his killer.”
I asked the air, “How did we miss this?”
“Linds. When I got to the scene, there were ten people inside the perimeter—say, a hundred square feet. And twice as many true crime addicts were outside the tape, taking pictures, shouting questions. Fricke was lying face down in pooling blood. We got him into the van quick—”
I said, “No, it’s okay. I’m feeling some hope…”
“Me, too,” said Claire. “Some. But I’d advise you to keep it in check.”
And then we were at Susie’s front door.
I pulled it open and the aroma of spice billowed out to the sidewalk along with light, laughter, and the jazzy beat of steel drums. I held the door for Claire and she smiled as the Yellow Bird Band launched into an original tune. The room itself calls up the image of a yellow bird. The walls are the color of ripe mangoes and hung with hand-painted market scenes in the Jamaican style.
Susie was setting up the main floor for the limbo competition and the long bar to our right was packed with regulars who were tossing ’em back without falling off their stools. The barkeep was half-past thirty, played trombone, had a mop of yellow hair, and was wearing a flowered shirt with a name tag reading “Fireman.”
He waved and called out to us as Claire and I pushed through the main room, then took the corridor that skirts the kitchen’s pass-through window and opens into a smaller, quieter dining area.
Susie’s back-room waitress, our friend Lorraine O’Dea, whistled to get our attention and pointed to “our” booth. Yuki was already seated there, scrunched back in the corner wearing a designer suit and a smile that fell short of happy. Claire slid into the booth next to her. I took the bench seat across from them.
Claire said, “Let’s get something to drink. I’m ready.”
Lorraine read our faces. She brought over menus and a pitcher of draft plus three frosty beer mugs, and asked Yuki if beer was okay.
Yuki’s “go wild” drink is a fruity margarita—she downs tequila like soda water. Then she giggles and sings. I was glad when she said “Sure” to the brew.
I said, “Lorraine, chips and dip until Cindy gets here?”
“You bet.”
Claire waited for Yuki to put down half her beer, then placed her hand on Yuki’s arm and asked, “You got something to share, sweetie?”
Yuki said, “Oh, boy. I hate to have to say this.”
I said, “This is about Mary Elena?”
Yuki nodded. “Wasn’t her fault. It was all going well. She was fine in court and on the stand. Then Tyler Cates, that SOB, jumps up and says that he knew her. That they were in a mental institution together. Brookside Psychiatric. And he hadn’t been sworn in. He was at the counsel table when he got to his feet and bellowed this crap out to the jury.”
CHAPTER 75
MY JAW ACTUALLY dropped as I pictured Tyler Cates blowing up Yuki’s case with his news that he and Mary Elena had both been patients at Brookside Psychiatric.
Then I sputtered, “That’s bull, right?”
“We don’t yet know,” Yuki groaned. “It’s near impossible to get hold of medical information. But I googled it. There’s a Brookside Psychiatric in Bangor, Maine; in Louisville, Kentucky; and in Pensacola, Florida. Also a Brookside Wellness—a chain of clinics—and a couple of Brookside Mental Health Spas. Those are all in different states, with different laws, and given HIPAA rules, the patient has to sign on the dotted line or you can’t find out beans.”
I heard myself say “Oh, man” just thinking of the legal hurdles that would have to be cleared to get protected information.
Claire said, “Hold up a second. Just so I understand. If Cates really did know Mary Elena—just sayin’—how does that affect the charges of an obvious violent rape and beating?”
Yuki said, “Mary Elena’s credibility is at stake. There were no witnesses to the crime, so it’s ‘he said, she said.’ Yes, she was brutalized, but she also said she didn’t know Cates. She said under oath that a stranger demanded sex. He said she’s the one who asked for it. So. If she demanded sex from someone she used to know, some people would say it wasn’t rape. Aggravated assault? Very possible. Still. One vote could hang the jury, and Cates could get a hall pass.”
I asked, “Can Cates document his time at Brookside?”
“No idea,” Yuki said.
“And what about Mary Elena?”
“She says it never happened. No way.” Yuki went on. “Red Dog would have to move mountains to get this information if Brookside was in San Francisco. Even then, he’d have to pull a million strings. He’s barely speaking to me because he said this case sucked from the beginning.”
Yuki, Claire, and I had all been at the scene of the crime. This was a case that had to be tried and won, and I said so.
Yuki continued, “Our best chances are with Judge St. John. He’s fierce and he’s furious. He also doesn’t want to lose this jury and have to start over. We’re hoping he instructs the jurors to ignore all references to Brookside, as there’s no actual evidence or sworn testimony.”
“Or?”
“Or he can call a mistrial. Even Red Dog would rather get a mistrial and forget it. We’ll find out in the morning. I wish Cindy was here to give you the eyewitness journalist’s version. Where is she, anyway?”
In an exception to the “no phones” rule, I turned on my phone, as did Claire. There was a text for me from Joe.
I’ll be home late, Blondie. I called Mrs. Rose and she’s got the kiddo and the doggo.
That’s when Claire called out over the restaurant racket, “Here she comes.”
I turned to see Cindy dressed in a pretty floral dress coming down the corridor and into the room.
She wasn’t alone.
CHAPTER 76
CINDY HAD BROUGHT her mother.
Darcy Thomas was right behind her daughter as they entered the Women’s Murder Club special dining room. We’d all met Darcy before at a party for Cindy’s first book, Fish’s Girl. We’d had dinner together with paper plates in hand at Book Passage in Corte Madera, and had unanimously liked her. The family resemblance was there. Darcy had the same bone structure and curly hair, and she also had an easy laugh over stubborn determination.
Lorraine moved a chair to the end of the table so we could all fit at the booth. Darcy slid in next to me and reached out for a hug, which I was glad to give and receive. She reached across the table and bumped fists with Yuki and Claire.
“So good to see you all. Am I interrupting a serious Murder Club meeting?”
Claire spoke up, saying, “Not at all, Darcy. We were summing up. We know the menu and can make recommendations.”
“No time to eat,” she said. “Time for a drink, maybe.”
Lorraine had her pad in hand and took our dinner orders, Darcy’s order for a glass of Chardonnay, and Cindy’s request for a mug of beer, then disappeared as if in a puff of smoke.
Darcy said to the table, “This was a one-day turnaround trip. I’ll have dinner on the plane, but I do have a problem for the club’s consideration, and I hope you all can help out.”
Cindy groaned, “Oh, God.”
Lorraine brought wine for Darcy, a mug for Cindy, and I used the moment to call Joe. He picked up.
“Can’t talk now, Linds. Sorry.”
“Later?” I said. “I’ll be home in an hour. Or so.”
“Don’t wait up,” he said. “I’ve got no idea when… I gotta go.”
He clicked off and I hung up on dead air.
Lorraine came back quickly with our food, and as Darcy was dipping chips, I said, “Darcy, you wanted to brainstorm with us?”
When Cindy’s mug was topped up, Darcy said, “Let me say first, no guns are involved. No one gets injured. No ambulances are needed.”
CHAPTER 77
DARCY WAS A natural comic, and the three of us laughed, of course, until Cindy said, “Mom, spit it out, will you? You’re being overly dramatic.”
“Cindy, you tell it, okay? I’m exhausted,” said Darcy.
“We went shopping!” Cindy said. “For wedding gowns.”
“Ohhhhhh,” two or three of us said in unison.
Darcy jumped back in. “There are three semifinalists down from thirty. Cindy is not even committed to a type of dress. You need to write a column about this, Cynthia. Find out how other women deal with the life-and-death decision of buying a wedding gown.”
