into your scapegoat, Vance. I suppose this image of your wife is getting to you. Well, it’s public property, Vance. It’s lifted right from faculty picnic pictures taken two years ago and posted in a public place.”
“I’m not talking about the virus or the picture. Frankly, I don’t give much of a shit about either one right now. What I want to know is what you have to do with my son’s kidnapping.”
Nog frowned. His mouth opened, then closed. It was clear that he was taken aback. This disappointed Ray, who watched closely for a guilty response. He had watched students lie a thousand times in his class and office. Most people were lousy liars. They hesitated before they lied, they looked away and pursed their lips. All he saw in Nog’s misshapen face was a moment of real confusion. He doubted Nog could fake it so well. Part of the reason for his direct approach was to shock Nog, who, like most nerds, lacked social skills.
“What are you talking about?” Nog asked.
“My kid, Justin, is missing. There was a 9-1-1 call from my house this afternoon. The house had been broken into and Justin was gone.”
Nog blinked behind his coke-bottle lenses. He nodded, as if piecing things together. “So, now I get the uncharacteristic tough-guy stuff. I didn’t know anything about this.”
“It’s all over the news, man.”
Nog snorted. “I don’t watch the news. I’ve been watching the investigation from the inside, on the net. You know, with eavesdropping utilities and shit.”
“But you know something, don’t you?” demanded Ray.
“Look man, I don’t know what happened to your kid. He probably went to the park and got lost somewhere.”
Ray shook his head. “No, Nog. A virus hits and my kid vanishes in the same day? These two events are linked somehow. And you know something.”
“Sorry.”
Blood rushed up Ray’s neck and he felt heat in his face and arms. He lifted the tire iron and flashed it down. Nog instinctively lifted his flabby arms to protect his face. The spiked end of the tire iron punched through one of Nog’s keyboards and bit deeply into the desktop below.
Ray breathed hard for a moment, regaining control of himself with difficulty. “Look man, I’m asking you, I’m begging you and I’m threatening your life all at once. Tell me whatever you know.”
Nog had difficulty breathing. His hands had balled themselves into fists, but he kept them at his sides. He shook his head.
Ray stepped away, toward the door. His mind raced and his sides heaved. “So, this is your place? You make two million, and you live in the same off-campus place and still never date and still have no life. Your mind is festering in here, Nog. You built a virus to get even with the world when the world has never harmed you.”
“Three million, and you don’t know what you’re talking about, teacher-man.”
Ray nodded his head to himself, vigorously. “Yes, yes I think I do. You probably dream of stalking women too, but you don’t have the guts to do it, do you?”
Nog chuckled. “I’ve had more women than your sorry ass ever will.”
Ray glanced at him, then at the door. “You’re right about one thing, Nog. I’m a criminal now, and it seems to my criminal mind that you’re an easy man to get to.”As he spoke, he touched the sliding glass door. He opened it. “I would have thought your place would have an alarm, Nog.”
Nog grinned. “I never said it didn’t, fool.”
Vance looked at him. He pondered, for a hard moment, beating the shit out of Nog. He pondered it coldly, with the walnut-sized reptilian layer of his brain which had now been awakened as it perhaps never had been in his life. His child had been taken, and at this moment all his instincts sang, turning his nerves into steel wires.
Nog looked at him and must have seen something in his eyes. He blinked, then swiveled in his chair. As an afterthought, he covered his exposed penis. Ray thought he had rarely seen anything more pathetic.
“It’s a silent alarm. The cops will be here any minute, Vance,” he said. He paused for a moment, Ray could tell he was thinking. When he went on, he sounded as if he spoke to himself. “You have to pay extra for that hook-up, you know. You have to pay the sheriff’s office, the phone company, and the alarm boys for that one.”
Ray nodded his head. He recalled a similar arrangement that protected the school datacenter when no one was present.
Nog ran a finger over the tire iron that pinioned his keyboard like a staked vampire. Ray walked out onto the balcony feeling stunned and deflated. He couldn’t quite attack Nog. He wondered if that made him an inferior creature, one that deserved to lose his only son. If he only understood Nog’s role, he told himself, violence would come easily. But without any real evidence… Looking out at the parking lot, he saw a squad car pull into the drive. The car’s lights were off. He shook his head, Nog hadn’t been shitting him about the alarm. He threw one leg over the railing.
“Vance,” he heard a voice call behind him. He glanced back into the dank room. The lights had been turned off again, leaving only the blue glow of the computer screens to silhouette Nog’s toad-like form.
“Log onto ‘No Carrier’, Vance. Look for someone with the handle: Santa.”
Ray breathed deeply, nodded over his shoulder, then dropped off the balcony.
… 61 Hours and Counting…
6:00 A. M. said the cool green digits. Vasquez struggled to reach the top of the alarm clock. She was betrayed by her short arms, struggled with the blankets, and finally managed to hammer the snooze button with her fist. The buzzing ceased and silence blissfully prevailed.
Sitting up, she automatically gathered the stiff, white hotel sheets against her breasts. Outside, the sun was shining. She always left the blackout curtains open, as having sunlight in the room seemed to help her wake up. She wasn’t a morning person, and she needed all the help she could get.
When her eyes could focus, she saw the blinking screen of her notebook, set up on the letter desk in much the same spot that Vance had set his. They had ransacked that room, but come up with nothing useful. They did know that it was Vance, the night clerk was pretty definite on identifying his photo. They also knew from the rearrangement of the room that he had a computer with him, which heightened the odds greatly that Hapgood’s account had been used by him. But that was it. He had checked in, used a computer, then disappeared. They’d waited until two for him, then put a squad car with two uniforms in the parking lot, but there was no sign of him.
She wondered if their anonymous tipper had had a fit of remorse and also tipped Vance. Sometimes that happened. The truth was that all police work, even that of the Bureau with all its the fantastic resources, relied largely on informants. The police forces simply couldn’t cover all the bases, they couldn’t be there at every crime scene. But very often, someone was. Somewhere, somehow, a pair of quiet eyes witnessed most crimes. For an agent on the job, the informant was usually faceless, a disembodied, hushed voice on the phone. Of course, you never knew if you could rely on the information or not, particularly if the source was a paid one. It was a frustrating way to solve crimes.
The message blinking on her computer said that she had e-mail. She allowed herself a trip to the bathroom where she peed and fired up one of those dinky one-cup pots of coffee. Still in her underwear, she sat at the letter desk. Her machine had gone into sleep mode. She roused her machine by nudging the mouse.
She had mail, explained a cheerful, rotating icon. She had the volume on the sound card turned down or it would have told her aloud as well. The computer was still attached to the HUNTRESS account. She clicked twice and the message came up.
Agent Vasquez,
I’m sending you this to help you find my son. Whether you believe the case of the virus and my son are related or not, please take my input seriously. I believe the virus was written and released by John Nogatakei. His motives are fairly clear: he hates me and has a thing for my wife. I don’t know who took Justin yet, but I am doing my best to find out. I’m sure it wasn’t Nog who did the kidnapping, it isn’t his style, he has never been a direct, physical person. This indicates an accomplice, as yet unidentified.
P.S. Don’t bother to stake out this system. I won’t be using it or this account again. Use your time to find my
