'Hackers has learned some tricks since then.'
'And what about the cyber cops? Don't you think they've learned anything?'
He shrugged. 'Way it works,' he said. 'Build a better mousetrap, somebody else gonna build a better mouse.'
'Anyway,' I said, 'technology only takes you so far, even if you're the Kongs. They couldn't get into the system, remember? No matter how many keys they punched, they couldn't find the combination.'
'They got in.'
'They talked their way in. They put technology on hold and called up a human being on the telephone.'
'Some girl, wasn't it?'
'And they sweet-talked her into giving up the password. They used that technique routinely enough to have a special phrase for it.' I groped around in my memory and came up with it. 'Social engineering, that's what they called it.'
'What you gettin' at?'
'I'll show you/' I said.
* * *
'Omaha,' Phyllis Bingham said. 'To think there was a time when I booked you and Elaine to London and Paris. And now it's Omaha?'
'How the mighty have fallen,' I said. 'But I don't want to go there.
I just want to find out if somebody else did.'
'Ah,' she said. 'Detective work?'
'I'm afraid so.'
'And if he went there you have to chase after him?'
'I think he went and came back.' I handed her a slip of paper.
'Probably flew out there on either of these dates, and returned on either of these.'
'From New York to Omaha, and—'
'From Philadelphia.'
'From Philadelphia,' she said. 'I was just going to guess who flies nonstop from New York to Omaha, and I know America West used to, and I don't know if they still do, but it doesn't matter if he flew from Philadelphia. But who flies Philly to Omaha nonstop?' She flexed her fingers, frowned, tapped away at the keys. 'Nobody,' she announced.
'You can get there on USAir via Pittsburgh or you can fly Midwest Express through Milwaukee. Or United if you don't mind changing at O'Hare. Or any airline, just about, but those are the logical ones. I don't suppose you know which airline he used?'
'No.'
'And his name?'
'Arnold Wishniak.'
'Well, if we find him,' she said, 'we'll know it's him, won't we?
Because how many Arnold Wishniaks could be going from Philadelphia to Omaha?'
'I'd say one at the most. I don't think he would have used his real name.'
'I don't blame him.'
'But he may have kept the initials.'
'Well, let's see.' She tapped away at the keys, periodically rolling her eyes while she waited for the machine to respond. 'Every computer's faster than the last one,' she said, 'and they're never fast enough.
You get so you want it instantaneous. More than that, you want it to give you data before you can even think to ask for it.'
'Same with people.'
'Huh? Oh, right.' She giggled. 'At least computers keep improving. Do you see what I'm doing? I'm starting with USAir, and I'm asking if there's a Wishniak on Flight 1103 on the fifth, and there's not, and now I'll ask about Flight 179 the same day… No. Okay, the other date's the sixth, right? So we'll try 1103… Nothing, and now we'll try 179. Is that the right number, 179? It is, so we'll try it. Nope.'
'I don't think he would have used his real name.'
'I know, but I wanted to rule it out because with the name I could access the records. With just the initials I can't.'
'Oh.'
'Let me try Midwest Express,' she said. She did, and United as well, and wound up shaking her head.
'There's another name you could try,' I said. 'He had a brother who anglicized the family name, and Arnold's borrowed the name in the past.'
I told her the name and she repeated it and frowned. 'Spell it?' I spelled it and she hit keys. 'It's a familiar
