Virtually Undead Read online

  Twenty minutes later, Al Horowitz walked in. He saw Michael and Stephanie, grinned, and came over. Following immediately behind Al Horowitz was the individual previously identified by the NYPD as a phony agent of the NSA. He was also grinning.

  “Oh, shit,” Michael muttered.

  Stephanie looked up at the two men, then looked at Michael. She narrowed her eyes, shrugged and sipped her coffee.

  “Doctor Foreman,” Al Horowitz said. “Greetings.” Both men pulled up chairs and sat down at the little table.

  Michael looked at the second man. “Who are you?”

  “This,” Al Horowitz said, “is Special Agent Rick Jacobs, New York office. He’s one of us.”

  “FBI.”

  “Correct.” Al Horowitz nodded. Rick Jacobs smiled.

  “So,” Michael said, “why have you been following me?”

  The café was not crowded. Still, a few people at nearby tables were looking at the little group with evident curiosity. “This is probably not the best place to talk about it,” Al Horowitz said. “Why don’t we go somewhere more private?”

  “Like where?”

  “We’ve agreed to share information with the NYPD. Detective Strong is expecting us.”

  “Who, exactly, is ‘we?’”

  Al Horowitz looked at Stephanie and frowned. Before he could say anything, Stephanie said, “I’m his lawyer. My client is strongly advised to say nothing without the advice of counsel. I will be accompanying him.”

  “Excellent,” Michael said. “You never know when a lawyer might come in handy.”

  Rick Jacobs chuckled. Al Horowitz frowned, then shrugged. “Fine,” he said.

  Twenty minutes later, they were sitting in a conference room at One Police Plaza. Harold Strong was at the head of the table. Michael pointed his chin at Rick Jacobs. “I thought you didn’t know this guy.”

  “I didn’t,” Harold Strong said. “Now I do.”

  Harold Strong looked at Al Horowitz. “It’s your show. Why don’t you get started?”

  A leather binder sat on the table in front of each chair. “Please open your binders to the first page,” Al Horowitz said.

  Michael glanced at Stephanie, who raised an eyebrow and opened her binder. Michael followed suit. Michael recognized the sheet of paper that was facing him, the list of names followed by arrows that he had given to Harold Strong. “I know you know what this is,” Al Horowitz said.

  Michael nodded.

  “It was smart,” Al Horowitz said. “We probably would have gotten there, eventually, but you gave us a clue we didn’t have.”

  Stephanie looked down at the paper, then looked up at Michael, frowning, as if seeing something for the first time.

  “It’s a list of contacts between Gary Woodson and Sandra Devine, who we suspect were paid to sabotage Remington Simulations exosuits, the five gamers who were Facebook friends of all the murdered individuals, and known criminals. Your initial search was a little crude. We uncovered a few other associations that your hacker didn’t find.”

  “Hacker?” Michael said. “What hacker?”

  Al Horowitz rolled his eyes. Harold Strong glanced at Michael and rolled his eyes.

  Stephanie cleared her throat. “Could I have a word alone with my client?” she said.

  Harold Strong gave Al Horowitz a smug look. “I win,” he said. Without another word, the cop and the two FBI agents left the room, closing the door behind them.

  “What’s going on?” Stephanie said.

  Michael told her. It didn’t take long. When he finished, she sat back in her seat, a calculating look on her face. “Criminal law is not exactly my thing, but I don’t think we need to call in an expert. Basically, they’ve got nothing. Let’s see where they’re going with this. If I tell you to stop talking, stop. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  She rose to her feet and opened the door. A few moments later, the three men trooped back in and sat down. “So,” Stephanie said. “You were saying?”

  Al Horowitz nodded. “The thing about hackers is, there are always databases that they can’t hack. There’s this stereotype of the high school genius with his Mac Plus, sitting there in his bedroom, drinking hot chocolate, or maybe sipping his daddy’s Scotch, and breaking into the secret databases of the CIA and the Kremlin. The stereotype is bullshit. Mostly what these guys are breaking into are private email accounts. No matter how good Norton, McAfee and the others are, they’re almost always just a bit behind the curve. Personal computers can be hacked. Large institutions have their own teams and much more sophisticated software, dedicated to keeping their data safe. Government agencies that depend on secrecy are reliably secret, unless you have some idiot who tries to run the State Department through a private server in her bathroom. I think we can assume that Russia and China and anybody else with a minimal interest now knows everything there is to know about the inner workings of the State Department under the prior administration.” Al Horowitz paused. “Any questions so far?”

  Michael shook his head. Stephanie, apparently wondering if she should be offended on behalf of one of her heroines, frowned.

  “Okay,” Al Horowitz said. “So, here’s the thing. There are a good number of corporations that stand to gain if Remington Simulations goes down. The biggest of these is Industrial Dream Machines. You’ve heard of them?”

  “I have,” Michael said.

  Al Horowitz smiled at him. Something about the smile made Michael uncomfortable. “Of course, you have,” Al Horowitz said. “That very cleverly concocted list of contacts that you gave us leads directly from Sandra Devine to her cousin, David Klein, who is an old college buddy of a guy named Jason Grundy, a PhD in bioengineering who happens to be the Vice-President for Development of Industrial Dream Machines.”

  “Okay,” Michael said cautiously.

  “Jason Grundy is a former co-worker of a man named Silas Munro. The two of them worked for DARPA. Have you ever heard of DARPA?”

  “Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,” Stephanie said.

  Michael and Rick Jacobs looked at her, surprised. Al Horowitz nodded. “DARPA is a division of the Department of Defense. It was founded in 1958 by President Dwight Eisenhower, in response to the Soviet Union’s successful launch of Sputnik. DARPA has been spectacularly successful. They were early pioneers in computer networking, the graphical user interface, spy satellites, unmanned drones, radar detection, hypersonic flight and a shitload of other advances.” Al Horowitz shrugged. “Most of what they do is top secret but everything they’ve publicly announced is cutting edge. A lot of it is revolutionary.”

  “I’ve heard of DARPA,” Michael said.

  “Have you heard of the HI-MEMS program?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Stephanie looked bewildered.

  “HI-MEMS stands for Hybrid-Insect-Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems,” Michael said. “Basically, they took a moth still in the pupa stage and inserted microprobes. When the pupa underwent metamorphosis into an adult moth, the microprobes became incorporated into their bodies. The probes could then be used to control the insects’ wings and flight paths, through electrical impulses. The insects could also be implanted with tiny cameras and microphones—perfect for spying.”

  “The preliminary results of the program were de-classified and released in 2008,” Al Horowitz said, “in response to a FOIA request. Nobody knows what happened to it after 2008, or how sophisticated this technology has become in the years since. The program might have been dropped.” He shrugged. “Or we could have insect spies right now in every bedroom and boardroom in the country.”

  “I remember a paper on the HI-MEMS program,” Michael said. “I think it was from Cornell.”

  “It was from Cornell,” Rick Jacobs said. “DARPA funded the research. DARPA itself does not have enough personnel to pursue every idea that they’re interested in. DARPA has funding agreements with major universities and corporations all around the country. Cornell was doing the wor
k that DARPA wanted done.”

  So far, Michael could dimly see the direction in which this conversation was heading. “Go on,” he said.

  “DARPA was also interested in brain-computer interfaces,” Rick Jacobs said. “Presumably, they still are. They were trying to develop an interface that would let a computer system see and record whatever the human brain was perceiving, and, alternatively, to let the human brain directly translate computerized data into sights, sounds, etc.”

  “A lot of people are trying to do that,” Michael said, “in a lot of places.”

  “Yeah,” Al Horowitz said. “Virtual reality is becoming more real by the day.”

  “A lot of this research,” Rick Jacobs said, “is funded by DARPA, and a lot of the results are classified.” He smiled. “They were also working on ways to directly control larger animals, either by direct stimulation of the motor centers, or indirectly, by stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain.”

  “Like The Matrix,” Stephanie said. “This all sounds very far-fetched.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Al Horowitz said. “Yet every bit of it is real, and possibly, by now, even outdated.”

  “So, Jason Grundy and Silas Munro worked for DARPA,” Michael said, “and they have some indirect connection to Sandra Devine, who died in a boating accident that may or may not have been deliberate.”

  “Correct,” Al Horowitz said.

  “And Jason Grundy is Vice-President for Development of Industrial Dream Machines.”

  “Also correct.”

  “Where does this Silas Munro come in?”

  “Silas Munro has a PhD in bioengineering, with a second PhD in neurophysiology, both of which he managed to acquire before the age of thirty. It’s unclear why he left DARPA. His yearly performance evaluations, however, do give some clues. It seems that he was resistant to direction, brilliant, but argumentative and not a good teammate. There was also a charge of sexual harassment. It went as these things often go. His immediate supervisor recommended termination. A review board reversed the decision, gave him a thirty-day suspension and sent him for ‘sexual harassment training.’ A couple of other women, who had initially held back, then came forward with further charges. He claimed discrimination. EEO got involved. He wound up resigning and all charges were dropped.” Al Horowitz shrugged.

  “What was the nature of the claimed discrimination?” Stephanie asked.

  “National origin. It seems that his family emigrated from Scotland when Silas was three years old.”

  “Scotland?” Michael said. “That’s insane.”

  “Not entirely,” Rick Jacobs said. “Though it might come as a surprise to most Americans, the question of Scottish independence still manages to fire up passions in the United Kingdom. There is some historical animosity, there, and Silas Munro’s immediate supervisor happened to be of British descent.”

  “Jesus…so are half the people in America.”

  Al Horowitz shrugged. “The discrimination claim was almost undoubtedly bullshit, but it served its purpose. The agency preferred the whole thing to go away. He resigned and the sexual harassment charge was dropped. No harm, no foul.”

  “So, then what? Why are we even talking about this guy?”

  “Silas Munro wandered from institution to institution for a few years and then landed a position at Selwyn College of Medicine. He is now a tenured Research Professor in the Department of Bioengineering. He’s published a lot of papers with a man named James Garrett, a neurosurgeon.”

  Small world, thought Michael. He remembered James Garrett. “Okay…” Michael said.

  “A year or so after Silas Munro left DARPA, Jason Grundy also left. Grundy went into partnership with a couple of friends and founded Industrial Dream Machines. Silas Munro, it seems, was his closest friend. They kept in touch. Munro has invested most of his savings into Industrial Dream Machines.”

  Michael stared at him. “So, you’re suggesting that Grundy and Munro sabotaged Remington Simulations and murdered ten people? How about the stuff in New York City, with the traffic lights, the power outage and all the rest?”

  All Horowitz smiled at Michael. “That’s where you come in.”

  At thirty-five years of age, Michael Foreman was no longer inexperienced. He had long since come to know that the first night you spend with a woman is always special, filled with discoveries. What will she look like naked? What will she do? What will she not do? Michael was willing to do pretty much anything and everything that his partner wanted.

  There is no such thing as bad sex, in Michael’s considered opinion, but great sex? Not guaranteed. So many questions to be answered, so many answers to delight or disappoint.

  The first night is a revelation, but the second night, Michael had come to feel, is even better. The number one question has already been answered: yes, you’re going to get laid. The hesitant, fumbling preliminaries are out of the way.

  As soon as they came through the apartment door, Stephanie turned toward him, a crooked smile on her face, and raised her lips to his. Within seconds, her tongue was wriggling inside his mouth. Stephanie was panting. He trailed a line of kisses down her neck, biting just a little, and she groaned.

  “Come on,” she said, and ran for the bedroom, trailing her clothes on the floor as she went. Michael, his head almost swimming, followed.

  Afterward, lying side by side, one of her legs thrown over his, she said. “I’ve never had sex with an international man of mystery before.”

  “I’m dangerous,” Michael said. He grinned. “I can tell that turns you on.”

  She grinned back at him through the darkness.

  “Are you going to take them up on their offer? Are you going to do it?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I am definitely going to do it.”

  Chapter 18

  “We’ve already determined that you’re a nosy son-of-a-bitch,” Al Horowitz had said, “but you’ve been at least marginally useful.” He held up his right hand, the thumb and forefinger not quite touching. “Marginally. Frankly, we probably have enough to arrest you right now.” He paused and glowered at Michael, who met his gaze with a blank expression.

  Michael turned toward Stephanie. “What do you think, counselor? Do they have enough to arrest me?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Legally,” Rick Jacobs said, “you are in possession of stolen goods, specifically, proprietary information relating to the personal financial records of both Sandra Devine and Gary Woodson.”

  “That information was delivered to me by email, anonymously,” Michael said. “I have no idea where it came from. For all I know, it could be entirely fake.”

  Harold Strong made a rude noise. He had, however, a faint smile on his face.

  “Anyway,” Al Horowitz said, “you’ve insisted on butting your way into an investigation that doesn’t concern you. That’s a crime, right there.”

  What bullshit, Michael thought. “I’ve given you information that may or may not be helpful. I have not interfered with your investigation in the slightest.” He turned toward Rick Jacobs. “Why were you following me, anyway?”

  “Two reasons.” Rick Jacobs stifled a cough behind his fist. “First, by butting into in an official investigation, you’ve designated yourself a person of interest.”

  Michael yawned and inspected his nails.

  “Many people return to the scene of the crime. They’re curious. They get a kick out of watching the cops floundering about, or sometimes, they’re insecure. They need the reassurance that they’re getting away with it, that the police have nothing on them.”

  “Second,” Al Horowitz said, “we wanted to see what you would do.”

  “Do?” Michael looked up, confused. “What did you think I would do?”

  “Well, if you were working with the perpetrators, you might lawyer up.” Horowitz glanced at Stephanie, who sniffed.

  “Consulting one’s lawyer,” Stephanie said, “is the right of every American
, and is not to be construed as evidence of anything except reasonable caution.”

  Al Horowitz gave a crooked grin. “Also, you might have disappeared.”

  “What? With my stolen loot? Where’s the loot?”

  “How would I know?” Rick Jacobs shrugged. “We were frankly surprised that you even noticed me. Most people wouldn’t.”

  “You weren’t trying very hard to be inconspicuous.”

  “He wasn’t advertising himself, either,” Horowitz said. “The fact that you did notice him and then notified the proper authorities is encouraging.”

  Stephanie stirred in her seat. Michael frowned. “How so?”

  “It means that you’re smart, observant and willing to take appropriate action. You might be of some use to us.”

  Michael stared at him. Al Horowitz sipped his coffee and said nothing. Finally, Michael sighed. “Okay, I’ll bite. Use to you, how?”

  “We’d like you to go to New Orleans.”

  Michael had been to New Orleans twice, both times for medical conventions. He hadn’t been impressed with the place. It was smaller than he had thought it would be, and filled with drunken partygoers, with miserable traffic, unimpressive public transport, and a perpetual smog. Glitzy, but then so was Las Vegas, and Vegas was bigger and the streets were cleaner.

  New Orleans did have some points in its favor, however. The bayou offered exotic birds, wildlife in its natural state and some excellent fishing. The weather, though the heat could be oppressive, was a lot better than New York. There were good museums, historic old estates, an aquarium and excellent restaurants.

  Michael, like a lot of physicians, did not enjoy flying, something to do with the lack of control. He tried to read a journal but every time the plane hit turbulence, he gripped the seat. “I hate flying,” he muttered.

  “So, I see,” Stephanie said. Stephanie had been happily engrossed in a novel for the duration of the flight.