Julio said, “Sounds as if you have your work cut out for you on this thing.”
Jay smiled. “Maybe not. I might be able to crack their personnel database. If I can find out who is working for them, maybe I can locate those people by other e-trails. You know, get hits on where they used their credit cards, made long-distance phone calls, like that. If they’ve got some crack programmers working on that ship, that would point another finger in their direction.”
“You think you can blow past firewalls for a place like CyberNation?”
“Well, yeah, if I had a lot of time and a couple superCrays to play with. But there’s an easier way. Social engineering.”
Fernandez smiled. “I remember you talked about that,” he said. “But is that legal?”
“Not in the strictest sense,” Jay said.
“In what sense
“Well, okay, not in any sense,” Jay admitted. “But let’s say, for instance, that I know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who has access to the files, and I can trade him something for the information. That doesn’t cost us anything.”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but isn’t that exactly the kind of thing we are here to stop? Doesn’t sneaking into somebody’s computer system and stealing information constitute a crime?”
“Technically, yes.”
Fernandez gave him a wry grin. “Uh-huh.”
“But look, we’re not talking about some honest citizen whose house we’re breaking into to steal his TV. I’m pretty sure these are the guys who cost nations around the world millions and millions of dollars. People died as a result of the net going down in places. These guys wear eye patches and carry cutlasses. They’re crooks.”
“Slippery slope there, Jay. Blows right past the Fourth Amendment. Fruit of the poisoned vine and all like that.”
“Since when did you become a constitutional scholar, Lieutenant?”
“I’m sworn to uphold and protect it. You are, too, given Net Force’s charter. Once you start breaking the rules to get to the really bad guys, how long before you bend ’em to get to the plain old bad guys? And then the ones who are maybe not so bad, but that you don’t like?”
Jay sighed. “Yeah, well, you have a point. There is probably another way to get to the information without doing anything illegal. Be harder though. And what if while I’m doing that, they hit again, shut down a hospital and kill off a bunch of patients or something?”
“That would suck. But still.”
“You obey all the traffic laws, Julio, all the time?”
“Nope. And if I get caught, I don’t kick, either, I pay the fine. But running a red light in the middle of nowhere at midnight when nobody is around is not the same thing, is it?
“Suppose you get the stuff you need and we use the information to nail these guys. No harm, no foul, right? But then one of their lawyers finds out what we did? The bad guys, who are guilty, get off, and you wind up looking for work, or maybe spending quality time in a cell in some country club
“Yeah, yeah. You’re right. It was just a thought.”
“Can’t hang you for thinking. Not yet, anyway.”
Toni took a coffee break, but she sat at her desk, fiddling with the computer. It had been a while since she had done any serious scrimshaw work — if any of what she had done while she was housebound during her pregnancy could be called serious — and she decided to check in on Bob Hergert, whose on-line class had taught her what she knew about the art of scratching lines on ivory and then filling them with black paint.
Bob’s method ran heavily to stippling, of putting a lot of tiny dots on the smooth surface, using very sharp needles, some of which he made himself, since ordinary needles were too dull for the microscrimshanding he liked to do. Bob could put a realistic portrait on a piece of ivory no bigger than a dime, so detailed that you could only see the thing properly under a big magnifying glass or even a stereomicroscope.
There were folks who didn’t consider that art, but Toni wasn’t among them.
Bob had redone his on-line shop in the past year, adding new material. Virtually everything he had produced for the last fifteen years was available for view, since he kept records of it all.
Toni strolled down the wide aisles — floor space was cheap in VR — and looked at the various pieces set out for inspection. She had a more specific reason for dropping by than just checking. John Howard’s wife, Nadine, had bought her husband a set of faux-ivory grips for his revolver for his upcoming birthday. The newer versions of that looked so much like elephant ivory it would fool almost everybody, but cost a lot less, and didn’t require that Jumbo die for your sins. Nadine had asked Toni if she might be interested in doing some artwork on them. Toni had done a gun butt once, for one of Julio Fernandez’s buddies. The friend, an ex-green hat, had a cowboy six-shooter, and Julio had asked her to do something on one panel. She had done a simple design, with a beret over a thin scroll, with the words, “De Oppresso Liber” on the scroll. “To Free the Oppressed.” The design and motto were right out of the Special Forces T-shirt catalog, so it hadn’t been that hard. She wasn’t pleased with the way it had turned out, the lettering wasn’t perfect, and the shading was not quite right, though the recipient had seemed happy enough with it. Nadine Howard had something a little more complex in mind, and if Toni was going to do it, she needed some help.
The store had been sorted according to her needs when she logged in, so it was easy to find the pistol grips. There were quite a few of them. There was a nice set given to a retiring sheriff by his friends, his badge and name on them. Some that had fancy lettering and geometric designs. Some with a portrait of a grandchild.
The ones that caught her attention were a set showing the front and back of a nude black woman, who was crouched down in an outdoor courtyard, over what looked like a tile floor, surrounded by Middle Easternlike structures. The detail work was intricate — the columns supporting the arched roof were carved, the balusters, rails, parapets of the building, all were exquisite. A domed roof showed in the distance in the back view. You could see the reflection of the woman’s foot on the tile floor. And the nude herself was gorgeous. She had short hair, almost a crew cut, a nose that looked as if it had been broken, and with five-power magnification, you could see that her eyes were light-colored.
She looked familiar.
Bob drifted over. “Hey, Toni,” he said. “How’s it going?”
“Hey, Bob. I might have some gun grips to do, and I thought I’d come and get some inspiration. This is beautiful work.”
“Thanks. That’s Dirisha. Look close at the back of her hand, right there.”
Toni did. There was what looked like a small square with a tube sticking out of one side, extending out like a finger. She dialed up the magnification to get a better look.
“That’s a
“It’s incredible work, Bob.”
“Thanks.”
“I should live long enough to get this good.”
“All it takes is practice, kiddo. If I can do it, anybody can.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Well, okay, a little talent helps. But mostly it’s hard work. Oops, gotta run, customer. See you around, Toni. Let me know if I can help you.”
“Thanks, Bob.”
She bent to marvel at the gun grips again. Bob did his work under a stereomicroscope, and Alex, bless him, had surprised her with one. Which, as it turned out, was instrumental in solving a case he’d been working on, so it had been a pretty good investment for that alone. But if Toni was going to do work like this, it would take a lot more than a good stereoscope. Whatever Bob had to say about it, it took a lot of talent and patience to produce a work of art so detailed that under twenty-power magnification, you could count every hair on the woman’s eyebrows, and not a one was out of place.
