Arlen and Mary Wilson sat up straight. She put a hand over her mouth.
‘‘No,’’ she whispered.
‘‘You are entitled to have a lawyer,’’ Diane re peated.
‘‘You need to do that, son,’’ said the sheriff.
‘‘Listen to them,’’ said Arlen. He started to rise from his chair.
Caleb shook his head violently.
‘‘Look . . . Let’s just say that everything I say is hypothetical and leave it at that. Will that be all right? Everything I’m going to tell you is hypothetical. But I need to tell you.’’
‘‘Okay, son,’’ said the sheriff. ‘‘Tell us your hypo thetical story.’’
Arlen sat back down.
‘‘You asked me if Spence Jefferies recruited me. He recruited Mal—Malcolm—to work as a hacker. Mal was so easily impressed and thought he was on the inside. But Jefferies didn’t just want hackers, he wanted programmers. Mal was a good hacker, but he couldn’t see the ones and zeros, I mean really see them,’’ he said, looking at each of them.
‘‘I know what you mean,’’ said Frank.
‘‘Were you the one who hacked Jefferies’ com puter?’’ Caleb asked.
Frank shook his head. ‘‘It was another guy. I just offered suggestions.’’
‘‘But you understand about seeing the math?’’ he said.
‘‘Yes,’’ said Frank.
‘‘Mal told Jefferies about me. I wasn’t interested in the job fairs, or even getting that kind of job. I was interested in working with AI. I was still in school and wanted to go to graduate school. But Mal told him about me and told him I was the best.’’
Caleb frowned, looking angry.
‘‘Jefferies came after me. He tried to bribe me. First with watches. What the hell kind of bribe is that? I don’t need a watch that costs ten thousand dollars. Who does? Then he offered me money. A lot of it. I didn’t like what they were doing. I knew it was a cybergang. I told Mal it wasn’t a game. It was serious business, and these guys were criminals. He just laughed.’’
‘‘He couldn’t bribe you?’’ prompted Frank.
Caleb shook his head.
‘‘Then he started threatening my family. The farm. He was rich and he said he could take Grampa’s farm away from him. He owed a lot of money and Jefferies said he would buy out his mortgage like they were doing to other people. So I gave in. I told him I would write his programs. What he wanted was trojans car rying viruses to gather information. Do you know about that?’’ he asked.
‘‘I’m a detective in the Metro-Atlanta Fraud and Computer Forensics Unit,’’ said Frank. ‘‘I’ve been working on the rise in identity thefts caused by Jeffer ies’ cybergang.’’
Caleb nodded. ‘‘So you know the damage those vi ruses can do. Jefferies wanted me to write one that was harder to detect. One that didn’t hog the CPU use, so it would be harder to discover. He also wanted me to work in the Rosewood Bank and install one of my viruses to steal information about the patrons and about other banks in the Federal Reserve System. Jef feries was fascinated with programmers. He thought we were a cross between magicians and pets.’’
‘‘What happened with Malcolm Chen?’’ asked Frank. ‘‘Hypothetically.’’
‘‘Stupid.’’ Caleb shook his head. ‘‘He got stupid. I couldn’t convince him these guys weren’t to be messed with. He bought into their hype that he was some kind of special expert that no one could touch. He figured out how much money Jefferies was raking in and de cided to steal some of it. He hacked into Jefferies’ computer and stole some of his offshore account num bers and transferred the money to an account he set up.’’
Caleb shook his head again. ‘‘He didn’t tell me. If he had told me, I could have helped him cover it up. I discovered that Mayor Jefferies’ computer had been hacked when he asked me to work on it. I told Jeffer ies he had been hacked, and he was furious. I didn’t know it was Mal because Mal hadn’t told me, don’t you see?’’
Caleb stopped for a moment as if to catch his breath. He looked at each of them and his gaze lin gered on his grandparents, who smiled at him.
‘‘Jefferies asked me if I knew where there was some land away from everything where he could hide some thing. He didn’t tell me what. I told him about McCar thy’s land. You know, Grampa, the guy from Detroit who can’t decide what he wants to do with his little piece of property.’’
His grandfather nodded. ‘‘I told them about him,’’ he said.
‘‘Jefferies made me take him out there to show him. Curtis Crabtree and Edgar Peeks were with him. When we got there they opened the trunk of the car, and there was Mal in the trunk, tied up and gagged. They dragged him out and called that other guy, Gage Shipman, on Jefferies’ cell. The phone was on speaker and Shipman described my brother Henry doing his chores. Shipman was here at our farm. Over in the woods. He was right here, watching Henry.’’
Diane had a sick feeling in her stomach. She saw Arlen and his wife reach for each other.
Tears began to flow from Caleb’s eyes, spilling onto his cheeks as he started crying. His eyes grew red and puffy. He got the hiccups, and it was hard for him to catch his breath. Frank handed him a box of Kleenex from an end table and went to the kitchen and brought back a glass of water. Caleb wiped his eyes and blew his nose. He took a long drink, almost to the bottom of the glass.
‘‘Jefferies put a gun in my hand and told me if I didn’t shoot Malcolm, they would tell Gage Shipman to kill my little brother.’’
