Private Lives

Westering nodded again, this time more cautiously. “I-on has done considerably more business — and made more profit — since the new management came in. A lot of new blood has been hired — hackers. And they’ve gotten a certain…reputation.”

“What kind?” Leif and Magnus Anderson both asked.

Anna Westering shrugged unhappily. “My father had a phrase he used to use as a joke: ‘You lie, and I’ll swear to it.’ Some people say that I-on takes that saying seriously — and that they take it further than that. You lie, and they won’t just swear to it, they’ll even create the evidence to back up your story.”

“She said what?” Megan demanded after Leif made his report. They and the rest of the D.C. crew were floating again in Matt Hunter’s virtual workspace, sharing information — and attitude, Megan had to admit.

“This is just great,” she went on. “We’ve got newspeople who think they’re defending democracy while breaking their own rules, and detectives who succeed by lying and cheating.”

“‘Quis custodiet ipso custodes?’” David Gray quoted.

“If that’s something about custodians, I don’t want to hear it,” Andy Moore cracked.

Matt and Andy had recently saved their school from being blown up by a spy disguised as a custodian. Megan didn’t find the reference particularly funny, under the circumstances. She steered the conversation back to the subject at hand.

“It means ‘Who will guard the guardians?’” she said.

“More like ‘Who will watch those very same watchmen?’” Leif spoke up unexpectedly. “In the original source material, the Latin poet Juvenal was making a joke about keeping wives faithful.”

That got a stare from Megan and everybody else in the room.

Leif shrugged. “Just another symptom of an expensive but generally useless education,” he said.

“Let’s get back to the point,” Megan said. “Where does this new information get us?”

“It gets us a bunch of new questions,” Matt said.

“Like?” Megan challenged.

“Like,” Leif said, “if Tori Rush had I-on Investigations create a case against Captain Winters…why did she do it? Why him? What has she got against the captain?”

“If she had them do that?” Megan glared at Leif. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you starting to think Captain Winters is guilty of all this crap?”

“I think that either the captain is suffering from the lousiest series of coincidences in all of history, or he’s being set up,” Leif said flatly. “Going by the ‘Motive, Opportunity, and Means’ stuff fed to Matt by Agent Dork, what have we got?”

“We have an organization with a rep for creating evidence.” Matt held up a finger. “That gives us means, I guess.”

“And there were days between the Alcista killing and Net Force I.A. searching the captain’s house,” Maj Green said. “That has to be a window of opportunity.”

“But we still have no motive,” Leif said. “The other guys who got put under the microscope had at least done something to catch Tori Rush’s interest. The ballplayer had extra wives. The corporate guy was juggling his company’s money. All Winters did was go on TV and get sand-bagged.”

“Maybe this Rush babe is a friend of Jay-Jay McGuffin’s,” Andy suggested.

“That almost sounds serious,” David said in mock amazement.

“I didn’t think to ask that,” Leif admitted. “Guess I’ll have to get back to people and check.”

“I’ll take another run at The Fifth Estate,” Megan said. “If my new friend Professor Wellman can’t think of a possible connection between Rush and McGuffin, he’s sure to have a lot of people he can check with.”

She thought for a second. “I’ll also hit him with I-on’s reputation. He should know about that if he’s doing a story about them being in bed with Tori Rush.” Megan shrugged. “Be interesting to see what he’s gotten on this Kovacs guy and the people who bought the company.” She grinned at Leif. “Maybe we’ll see if the media research types manage to beat out A.I.M.’s investigators. It might interest your dad, anyway.”

“You’re all forgetting something,” David Gray pointed out. “That so-called test blast Hangman Hank Steadman’s guys discovered in their Net Search.”

He looked seriously around at the other kids floating in space. “That happened after Tori Rush first plastered Captain Winters’s face around the Net — but before Alcista was blown up.”

“Coincidence,” Maj tried to bluster. But her voice sounded shaken.

“It’s marked with the same chemical tracers as the IA techs found in the captain’s workshop — and in the bomb that killed Alcista.” David’s voice was inexorable. “That’s one hell of a coincidence. In fact, the more I think about it, the more it scares me.”

Calm, cold David Gray never gets scared, Megan thought. At least he never talks about it. Now I’m scared.

But she could see why this sudden insight would upset him. It upset her.

Ever since she heard about the Alcista bombing, she’d figured it for an organized-crime hit which someone had twisted to attack Captain Winters.

But if the false evidence trail was being planted before the bombing, that meant whoever set out to frame James Winters also blew up Stefano Alcista.

It would take a really sick puppy to commit a murder just to create a news story.

“Net Force I.A. got that bombing report through a Net Search,” Matt offered. “What if someone tampered with the date — or even inserted the report after creating a phony crater and bomb?”

“What-if and maybe,” Leif grumbled. “This is Net Force we’re talking about here. They should be able to detect if anyone was screwing around with those records. We can’t just wish evidence away. Otherwise, we’re not going to have any solid facts to work with.”

We’re got one solid fact, Mr. Smart-ass Anderson, Megan told herself. We know that Captain Winters is innocent.

At least, she amended, I do.

8

After David’s liberal dose of cold reality, calling The Fifth Estate seemed almost pointless.

But it’s all I can think of doing to help the captain, Megan told herself. She sat down at her computer system and gave the orders for a holographic connection. Once again she was quickly connected to the newsmag’s professorial publisher.

Professor Wellman didn’t seem surprised to see Megan on the other end of the holophone line.

He didn’t seem very enthusiastic, either.

“More hypothetical questions, Ms. O’Malley?”

“Just plain, ordinary ones,” Megan replied. “Some people I talked with had interesting things to say about I- on Investigations. Seems they have a really creative touch with evidence. It appears like magic to back up whatever stories their clients want to sell.”

“Wellman nodded, but his expression still wasn’t encouraging. “If so,” he said, “they haven’t been caught at it yet. Otherwise, their license would have been pulled. That could merely be badmouthing by people on the other side who lost court cases.”

So, Megan thought, he already knows what I told him, but he probably can’t prove it.

“My second question goes more to motive — why someone would try to get James Winters in trouble. Hardly anyone outside of Net Force — and the Explorers — knew the captain before he went on Washington People. That’s where the interviewer tried that trick question and got the reaction everyone saw on Once Around the Clock. The local reporter, Jay-Jay McGuffin, took a lot of grief from Net