“We’re going to sweat the bastard out,” Detective Sgt. Robert Loomis swore with a vengeance.
The head of the special task force to investigate Internet-based crimes frowned as he studied the faces of his team; two county sheriffs and an FBI agent. A second detective, Paula Douglas, had not yet arrived. Nothing of vital significance could happen until she did. Where the hell was she, and what was she doing?
Loomis was out for blood. His vanity would be pleased with nothing less. It had taken months of endless on-line sessions to draw out the target. The days and hours he had committed to this case had escalated into countless nights away from home.
The possible consequences of his steady absences were not a predominant worry. Another kind of man—a less self-absorbed man, in a far more passionate relationship might worry, with just cause—but Loomis did not. The swivel chair he leaned back in protested his weight with an oppressive squeal.
His pager buzzed.
It was the duty sergeant from headquarters. “How’s it going down there?”
“What’s up Tommy? Tell the boss that he need not be so concerned; we’re going to get him this time. The Glitch was an arrogant-ass, hanging around hacker’s chat rooms, bragging about his little scams. Paula and I will have him hardwired faster than a shockwave can cap a browser. The trace is ready to go.”
“Your boy is a smooth talker.”
“As smooth as snot on a windshield,” Loomis agreed.
“We got a call a few minutes ago from a man who identified himself as a Detroit Police Department detective. He talked the talk and knew all the right things to say. He wanted us to bring him up to speed on the SWAT team operation of a hacker that’s supposed to go down tonight.”
“What? Nobody but us knows.”
“Obviously somebody else does,” the sergeant said. “He wasn’t guessing. We didn’t give him jack after he said he was you.”
“Holy Madonna,” Loomis whistled.
“Bob,” His friend’s tone wavered. “There is one other thing. Your wife called.”
There was a weighty silence.
“Did she leave a message?” He asked. There was no sense in trying to avoid her any longer.
“She sure as hell did,” Tommy said.
“A bit edgy, huh?”
“You know it. She said you’d better turn on your cell phone or stop ignoring her pages.”
“Did you remind her that I’m in the middle of a damned important operation down here?”
“I got the impression that she understood that.”
“When did you get this urgent call of hers?”
“About ten minutes ago. Just before the other one.”
“Thanks again, Tommy—”
“Bob, I just promised that I would get the message to you.”
“Don’t sweat it,” he told Tommy. “No foul, no harm.”
He began reflecting on his wife the instant he disconnected. It would be better he thought, if he beat her to the punch and called her now.
“Oh thank God,” she said. “You’ve got an extra suit and tie there, don’t you? You still have time to meet me at the theatre if you hurry. I’ll leave your ticket at the box office.”
“I can’t Judith.”
“Can’t or won’t?” She fumed. “Robert, I should have known better. If you had a heart or mind, you’d stop whimpering and try something different like keeping a promise for a change.”
“I never—”
“Oh yes you did,” she challenged. “You were just oblivious to my wants and needs, as usual.”
Now he was growing impatient and getting angry. Something about her tact had taken on a more blatant and demanding characteristic than usual. His mouth constricted in sudden fury. The harsh implication in her words made him consider the prospect that a drink or two had loosened her tongue. He denied himself any overt reaction and exhaled to check himself before speaking.
“All right, we need to talk, but it will have to be later. I have to go now.”
“So do I.”
“You’re not listening to me. I’m not sure you ever have.”
“You had better listen to this. If you don’t come now, whenever you do decide to come home, I won’t be there.”
The line was silent.
Though she had threatened before, Judith’s disquieting tone made him feel uneasy. Nothing would come of it, he thought, nothing ever did. Lately the extent of their communication rarely amounted to little more than a series of thinly disguised conversations that quickly escalated into squabbles. The quarreling had gradually evolved into a ritual. They’d had more disagreements in the past few months than they had experienced throughout their entire seven-year marriage.
A barren Judith had once wanted children. Robert would never have had the time. She teased him about his dedication to his job and accused him of making her bargain for every minute of time they did spend together. Maybe a child would have been a good preoccupation for her. Maybe he had not appreciated her as much as he might have. He resented the insinuation that something might really be wrong, far less than she probably resented his lack of presence around the house. She had found a friend on the Net at one time, but obviously she did not feel like that kind of mingling tonight.
Quickly dismissing any implication that he might be lacking, Loomis convinced himself that he was a better detective than he was a husband.
Tonight he would triumph over the menacing hacker known as Deadly Glitch, a computer security specialist who had written software security programs. Glitch was the worst kind of electronic shoplifter and con man in the virtual universe.
Loomis knew that it required nothing less than his own tenacity to trap this cyber punk—a trap that was firmly in place tonight, with or without modification.
Through a small tinted window, Loomis observed the dark avenue, speckled with rundown buildings and shelters. The Cass Corridor was the home of the destitute. A man with an unkempt beard slowly pushed a rusty shopping cart full of bottles and other discarded gems.
What kind of game was Deadly Glitch playing, and why had he lured the detectives to skid row?
Detective Loomis looked at a laptop screen with a pervasive hunger in his impatient eyes. He stared at the blinking white cursor. His own background had yielded little indication ten years ago when he had gotten into law enforcement, that he would end up in a weather-beaten mobile command post with deceptive Water and Sewage insignia, complete with a dozen rack-mounted computers, in a cyber surveillance stakeout in a virtual room, where they became actors enticing strangers to give up their secrets. The anonymity of going undercover on the Internet made it easy for anyone to pretend to be somebody they weren’t. He loved the pursuit and playacting almost as much as he loved fishing. That was the only other place that he wanted to be—sitting near the warm water with a cold beer.
Three mild taps against the tarnished vehicle startled the school of fish in his imagination, drawing everyone’s attention to the back door, which sat in close proximity to an open manhole flanked with bright orange cones. The door opened. Detective Paula Douglas, a six-foot-four-inch brunette, came inside.
“Sorry for the delay,” she smiled. “I thought they told you that I was to take a bus over from headquarters so I’d look like a civilian.”
“Thirteen hundred Beaubien is less than two miles from here. So what happened?”
“The bus driver got a bit flirty.”
“Flirty enough to ignore his schedule?”
“So, I’ve got charisma,” Paula smiled with self-approval. “I didn’t stop traffic all by myself. By the way, it looks like they’ve already shut the street lights out about an eighth of a mile in all directions of our target to help the SWAT team sneak in.”
Paula picked up a clipboard from the dashboard and faced the other team members.
“He’s using a cell phone radio transceiver with his computer. We’re picking up the electronic high-five with scanners. I’m going on-line to hold his attention long enough for us to track him. He’s also got a program that can monitor me any time he suspects we’re not on the up and up.”
“Wouldn’t it be simpler to hit up his Internet provider with a court order to give up what we need?” Agent Chase, assigned to the case at the last minute, had a limited knowledge of the Internet.
“He’s using false headers in his E-mail; the provider couldn’t give us anything but the bogus name and address.” The Glitch was an Internet shoplifter, Loomis thought. He had access to corporate trade secrets worth billions. He was a cyber safecracker, the kind who could read your will and personal diary without your knowing he had been there. He had hacked and seized control of a Michigan phone system and wiretapped the authorities that searched for him. That made him a threat to national security.
“What makes you so sure that he’s here?” Agent Chase inquired, with a strong suggestion of skepticism in his tone.
“Our boy just social engineered the desk sergeant,” Loomis told him.
“I’m nobody’s mooch.” Paula smiled. “I can be incredibly persuasive when it comes to reverse engineering.”
“Paula,” Loomis said, “I’m from Missouri, it’s show time. We need all the time we can get to trace. The second he bites, snatch that hook up in his jaw like he was a fat corn-eating catfish.”
“I think I can keep him engaged long enough.”
“We tossed enough ground bait in that chat room to choke a snake. They’re going to be like leeches, so move fast.”
It was hot, and Paula’s sunburned skin glistened with sweat. Loomis put his hand up and glanced at her. He wondered with growing curiosity if he could revive an old and brief affair with her. Almost short of breath, he had a yearning to feel her damp body next to him.
The only passion Paula shared with Loomis now was the inimitable passion to trap Deadly Glitch as bad as Loomis wanted to.
“You’re a very naughty boy.” She winked.
Loomis glanced at the FBI agent.
“You do your job,” Agent Chase said. “My support unit will take him. All you have to do is find him.”
Paula positioned the laptop across her legs, caressed the keyboard with her fingers, and logged on as Trixie, just as she had the same time every night for more than a month. As she watched the other geeks in the chat room, she felt like a hooker on a street corner, waiting for Deadly Glitch. There was no sign of him. Within minutes she opened a dialogue. Several irrelevant conversations with curious computer geeks drew short and unconcerned responses from her. Loomis began to wonder if Glitch was on to them.
The computer suddenly shrieked like an alarm. The scanner locked on to a special call. There was the familiar static crackling sound of the modem connecting. A miniature box popped up on the upper right corner of the screen, which displayed the call data and the number dialed.
“Sweet Jesus,” Loomis’s faint grin blossomed into a full smile of delight. “We’ve got activity,” he shouted. “He’s coming out to play. Start that trace, now.”
A flurry of activity flooded the command center. All eyes were on the computer monitors. Everyone knew their assignments. One techie rotated a small directional antenna, while another punched the keys on a second keyboard, entering the frequency data of the Internet connection they were trying to seize.
With the touch of a button, Loomis put the scanner in an automatic trap mode. Little lights flashed as it skipped from one channel to another.
Loomis signaled to the driver. They began to move slowly. The strength of the signal became stronger as the Cellscope got closer to the location of the target.
Typing feverishly, without error, Paula communicated with The Glitch.
Trixie: Hi guy.
Deadly Glitch: What’s going on?
Trixie: I need your help with something.
Deadly Glitch: Eavesdropping?
Trixie: That’s positive. You rock dude.
The Mobile Command Center made a left turn at the end of the block. The signal began to drop.
“Wrong direction,” Loomis screamed. “It’s the other way.” He was as much a cyber dog as Glitch. He knew how to sniff out a hot modem and where to backtrack. In this instance he was certain it was somewhere in a six-block radius. “Make a left here,” He ordered.
They cruised by a four-story brick and wood building. The signal jumped. The decibel readings bounced. The red LED blinked fast at nine o’clock.
Deadly Glitch: Have you been lurking?
Trixie: I was waiting on you. Can we talk?
Deadly Glitch: You mean—alone?
Trixie: Please.
The cursor blinked for a very long moment.
Deadly Glitch: Join me in the green room for a more private chat.
Paula and Loomis looked at each other. “What can I give him?”
“Give him whatever it takes to buy us a few more minutes,” Loomis replied.
Paula depressed a button. A small box appeared in a corner of her laptop screen. The others would no longer see what she and The Glitch typed to each other.
Deadly Glitch: Where are you?
Trixie: Why?
Deadly Glitch: Curious.
Trixie: In the Sunshine State, Clearwater, near the Gulf of Mexico. Where are you?
Deadly Glitch: In the Windy City. Pardon me. I need to attend to something.
Deadly Glitch typed JAM, which meant Just a Minute.
“Think he suspects something is wrong?” Loomis asked.
“What do you think he’s doing?”
Paula shook her head.
“He’s probably checking. I’d guess he has Hacker Tracker.”
“That means he can pull up a map and see where this connection is coming from. We’re running out of time. You better hurry.”
Deadly Glitch: What’s cooking?
Trixie: It could be my hard drive before long.
Deadly Glitch: Somebody in your house?
Trixie: Major unauthorized invasion.
Deadly Glitch: So you went to sleep and left a door unlocked, huh?
Trixie: I’m no guru—I thought I’d had all my ports closed and my firewall was secure, but somebody got in my shit, man, and they’re screwing around with me.
Deadly Glitch: You have a secret love, the kind of shy guy that likes to talk dirty—without a response. Don’t worry. He’ll run out of wind and sail himself into a boring little corner before long. It’ll pass.
Trixie: No I can’t risk the wait. It’s more than that—much more.
Deadly Glitch: For instance?
Trixie: I’m in trouble with the law. I’m on the run.
Deadly Glitch: A fugitive with a computer?
Trixie: It’s a laptop; it’s all that I have left. The cops tried to pick me up for some pretty big bad checks I wrote.
Deadly Glitch: So be cool and lay low.
Trixie: That’s kind of hard dude, not being able to contact my family and friends.
Deadly Glitch: I doubt if they care to track you down for checks.
Trixie: That’s just it. I feel like a marked woman. You know I’m not too sure they haven’t sent this person to mess with my E-mail. I know somebody’s reading it, and making little changes.
Deadly Glitch: You’re being paranoid; the police don’t work like that. If I intended to hurt someone, I mean really mess with an enemy’s mind, I’d get in his pocket. The bank is a very vulnerable institution. So are wives and their secrets.
Loomis touched Paula’s shoulder. “You’ve got to keep him on-line, just a few more minutes. He’s so damn close I can smell him.” In a low voice, as though someone on-line could hear him, Loomis instructed the driver to make a right turn at the next corner. The shift in direction confirmed his suspicion. The fading signal gathered strength again. The techie pointed the antenna toward a set of buildings in a single block. They passed right by what looked like the hot spot. The signal faded again.
“Go back,” Loomis ordered.
They turned and doubled back.
“Slow down a little and hang a right at the next corner. OK. Drive, drive. He’s here,” Loomis said. The Cellscope left no doubt. The meter jumped like an out of control Geiger counter. The LED pointed toward a building. The Glitch was less than a thousand meters away. “This is it.” Loomis said, “This is the place.”
Loomis beamed with confidence. It was the Crescent, a dilapidated transient hotel on the skid row strip.
“Well, all right then.” Agent Chase chuckled. “That’s a real cute little gadget you’ve got there, Jelly Belly.”
Because neighborhood spectators had seen many drug raids, which they likely assumed this was, they did not draw a crowd of thrill-seekers when several marked cars, transportation, and surveillance vehicles quietly converged on the building minutes later.
The SWAT teams were deployed and ready for action.
Agent Chase spoke into a headset microphone and clicked a switch. “This is Bravo leader to Charlie, testing.”
“Bravo leader, I hear you loud and clear.” Gary Noble, in charge of the designated tactical team going in, responded, flak-jacketed like his troops in bulletproof vest and full gear.
“Take care of the preliminaries.”
Detectives Robert Loomis and Paula Douglas exchange looks. The Glitch had not made a move.
Agent Chase contacted Noble again. “Bravo leader to Charlie. We have to move on this right now, what’s the setup?”
“It’s an old four-story building with thirty units and a fire escape. No back doors on the ground level and no entrances on the sides. The desk clerk says a computer man checked in yesterday, early afternoon. He’s in room two-eleven, but he hasn’t seen him today.”
“I guess not, he’s on-line right now, Charlie. You got a name?” Agent Chase countered.
“Joseph Giordano from Chicago is the name on the registration, which is probably bullshit. He’s not driving, either. A woman dropped him off in a black Navigator. No bags, just a weird-looking phone and a couple of computers. One is a laptop.”
“Secure the perimeters and evacuate the guests on that floor.”
“The building is surrounded,” Noble said. “The second floor is vacant, and my people are ready to go.”
“Outstanding job, Charlie. It’s time to rock and roll. Lock and load,” he ordered Noble.
Loomis panicked and grabbed Agent Chase’s headset. “What the hell, we want to arrest this guy. He’s a cyber thief, not John Dillinger. You’re getting ready to go in like a bunch of paratroopers.”
Agent Chase held his hand up like a traffic cop. Any amity that existed between them vanished with the gesture. “Listen up. We both know he has intent to commit a wrongful act. That act could become an extremely aggressive one upon discovery. He’s relying on our ignorance. If he makes any kind of move against my boys, I’m going to throw down and take him and his hot-ass modem out.”
Loomis stared at Chase.
“What you people fail to understand, Loomis, is that the FBI has the support of the president, and anybody, anywhere that attempts to obstruct my orders will face serious consequences.” Chase turned to the mike and barked instructions to Noble, “Charlie, move sledgehammers into position.”
Inside the hotel, Gary Noble gave a hand gesture that directed ten SWAT troops to creep up the stairs. They secured the rooms on both sides of two-eleven. Two men positioned themselves direction in front of the door with a heavy black metal ram. The others lined up in perfect formation, crouched on either side.
Across the street in the mobile command post, Loomis questioned Chase.
“Is this necessary?” he asked.
“Yes, is the long and the short of it.” Agent Chase explained. “It’s better to bust the hinges off in case he has deadbolts.”
Deadly Glitch: Have the pony soldiers arrived yet?
Trixie: What are you talking about?
Deadly Glitch: You’re spinning my wheels.
Trixie: I don’t know what you mean.
Deadly Glitch: You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. Take a look out the damn window. What do you see?
Trixie: Palm trees? What are you trying to get at?
Deadly Glitch: Poverty. You see poverty, don’t you?
Suddenly Paula was not sure what to type.
Deadly Glitch: Still there? You don’t have to answer. I see what you see, and it doesn’t look like Clearwater to me. The gig is up, as they say. There’s nothing further for either of us to gain by indulging in this boring dialogue—Detective Douglas.
Loomis and Paula were stunned. Paula’s fingers were as idle as the blinking cursor. Loomis’s knees stiffened. A surge of anxiety flickered on his lips.
Deadly Glitch: You’re not in Florida.
Trixie: And you’re not in Chicago.
Deadly Glitch: No, actually I’m not.
Trixie: What do you say we have a little face time?
Deadly Glitch: Should I prepare something special?
Trixie: That won’t be necessary, Glitch. Besides you don’t have the time.
Deadly Glitch: I’m afraid that it’s you who has run out of time, detective. I have to run along now. By the way, I planned something very special for Detective Loomis. I’m sure he’s standing by. Ta, ta.
“Ten seconds, Charlie.” Chase panted. A surge of tension swept through him as though he were there. “Three, two, one. Go, Charlie, go.” He commanded, giving Paula the nod to let it go. Paula Douglas typed a final sentence.
Trixie: Stand clear of the door; I don’t plan on ringing the bell.
Inside there were three loud hits against the door. The men stormed into the room. “Federal agents!” one of them bellowed. There were screams and crashes, and the whole room plunged into pandemonium.
They checked, in the closets, behind the beds, and under the cabinets. Deadly Glitch was gone. Nothing moved in the wide and open space of the room except the little active light on the front of a lone computer.
Once the search was completed, Agent Chase followed up with Officer Gary Noble. “Charlie, did you get him?”
“Nobody is home, Bravo.”
“What? He has to be there, we can see that he’s still on-line.”
“Negative, Bravo, there’s nothing here but a computer with no monitor that has a little blinking red light, hooked up to a cell phone near the wall.”
“Kiss my ass. Are you sure there is nothing there but a fucking computer hooked up to a telephone?” Agent Chase shouted in a breathless rage. “Go to hell!”
“Don’t touch it!” Loomis gasped.
Agent Chase shook his head and looked at Loomis. “Too late, he says he just picked it up a second to look at it.”
“Oh my God.” Loomis pounded his fist on a nearby desktop. “Run now!” Loomis screamed. “Get everyone out of there, now!”
Wide-eyed and baffled, Chase ordered Noble to clear out fast. Inside, grim-faced troops dashed and dove for cover. As the last man cleared the door, there was an explosion.
The scent of smoke, chalk dust, and sizzling electronic components carried as far as the mobile command center across the street where Loomis reacted in a savage rage. “Damn it to hell!”
“How did that bastard manage to get us running after our own tails?” Agent Chase howled.
“He used a roaming number to deceive us.” Loomis explained. “He was doing the same thing we did, but he did it in a different way. Modem numbers and calls to roamer access numbers are like a dead end.”
“Then we never traced him all the way?”
“No, he blocked us. He fooled our equipment into thinking what he wanted us to think.” A pale Loomis shook his head in utter disbelief. “This is bad, very bad. It can only mean one thing.”
Agent Chsae stared intently.
“He has root.”
“He has what?”
“Root access, the ability to take control of the account owned by the system administrator,” Loomis said. “It’s like having the master key in a hotel. You can go in any room and do whatever you want. Change passwords, read files, or delete everything on the hard drive. He’s the God of the Pond.”
Loomis felt drained as he shook his head and looked out a window. The birds began to chirp, and the last gray hints of a long night gave way to the first hint of morning. He looked up at a cloudy dismal sky. His perception of the distance and the seemingly unlimited depth of the sky was much like being at sea, staring across an endless ocean.
His personal cell phone buzzed. He looked down at a familiar number. It was Judith. She was probably worried.
Loomis had already decided to change his habits. Yes, he had the ability to change. There was nothing he wanted more, and he was going to start by rearranging his priorities. Deadly Glitch had given him the slip, and he had no intentions of spending another night at work. He was going home to a wife that he was going to make love to, after a long sentence of unaffectionate nights. There was still hope. He had to try. Maybe he would start by taking some flowers with him. It was time to call a truce. He was ready to reconcile with her.
He held the phone to his ear. “Hello.”
“Mr. Loomis,” a deep velvet voice churned a shudder of shock through the essence of Loomis’s soul. “It was not my intention to take all of your money, but your wife will need a little spending change.”
“What the fuck.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I haven’t properly introduced myself. You know me as Deadly Glitch. Nice to put a voice to a name, isn’t it?” The Glitch delivered his final declaration of revenge in a chilling tone. “Things change, don’t they?” He said with a grin in his voice. “What a difference a day makes. I made her feel appreciated again. She fell right into my plan. A witty exchange of dialogue, a few Internet rendezvous, and presto, like magic, I create a business trip to Detroit and we meet for that definitive act of intimacy.”
“Fuck me!” Loomis screamed in a furious rage.
“Yeah, I suppose we have done just that.”
No children, no money, and no wife. Loomis thought; only a few hours ago, he had felt secure and hopeful. It was all over now. He felt like crying, but what good were tears? He was literally out for blood now. There was nothing left for Loomis to think about but murder.
“You’re going to die, you motherless bastard,” Loomis promised.
“Aren’t we all, someday? Judy, Judy, Judy.” He concluded. “No one’s to blame. She actually suspected that you knew all along, but you were so busy detecting everything but her affair, you never had a clue. You simply had a Glitch in the computer.”