ZERO HERO (The Kate Huntington Mystery series) (18 page)

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            Rose picked up the receiver of her desk phone. “Hernandez.”

            “I’ve only got a few minutes,” Dolph said. “Today’s my anniversary, and if I don’t get home on time, there’ll be hell to pay.” By the time he’d finished filling her in, she’d realized the excitement in his voice wasn’t about his anniversary.

            Rose got online and looked up Benito’s Plumbing Supplies. The website looked normal–promotional hype on the home page, catalog, order forms, etc.

            She moved the cursor across the screen to close the window. As it passed over the P in plumbing, the arrow turned into a hand. She moved it over the letter again. Sure enough the P changed color as the index finger of the little white hand pointed to it.

            Rose clicked on the link. A login box appeared. She looked it over thoroughly but could find no place to register. Apparently one had to already have a username and password to go any further.

            She started to call Dolph, then remembered his anniversary. She looked at her watch. Five-forty.

            Liz should be home from work by now. She was an excellent hacker, much to Rob’s dismay, although Liz did try to keep things legal. But if she thought it was for a good cause, she was willing to bend the rules a bit.

            Rose called the Franklins’ home number, hoping it was early enough she wouldn’t be interrupting their dinner.

            When Liz answered, Rose gave her a brief rundown of Tyrell’s information and what she had found on the website.

            “Don’t click on that link again!” Liz said. “Are you at home or at work?”

            “Still at the office. Why?”

            “My guess is that link goes to a hidden page. It may be the illegal side of his business. And they may have something on there that tracks back to the IP address of your computer.”

            “Like a cookie?”

            “A bit more sophisticated than a cookie.”

            “Is that legal?”

            “Oh, yeah. Not that it would stop these guys if it wasn’t.”

            “True... Crap!” That wasn’t the word Rose was thinking. “So they may know now that our computer was taking a look at their site.”

            “Maybe. More likely they’d just be able to tell the general geographic area.”

            “Is there a way to get past their login box without raising red flags?” Rose asked.

            “Why don’t you come over here? I can set up my computer so it can’t be traced and we’ll take a look.”

            “On my way.”

            At the Franklins, Liz answered the door and ushered Rose into the family room. A laptop was sitting on the round table on one side of the room. “Hang on while I turn down the oven. Rob just called to say he was running late. You’re welcome to stay for dinner.”

            “Thanks,” Rose said. Liz was one of the few people who cooked better than she did herself.

            Liz looked back over her shoulder as she headed out of the room. “When’s Mac getting out of the hospital?”

            “Friday,” Rose called after her. She heard the sound of an oven door opening, then clunking shut again.

            Liz came back around the corner from the kitchen. “The roast shouldn’t dry out too much.”

            “Roast, as in beef, as in red meat?” Rose said, one eyebrow cocked at almost a forty-five degree angle.

            Liz, the health nut, chuckled. “It’s Rob’s favorite. Pot roast with all the trimmings. I make it once every two months. Hey, I’ll pack up the leftovers for you to take home, for Friday’s dinner. You’ll have your hands full with Mac, without worrying about cooking.”

            Rose wasn’t too sure that hauling away the leftovers would endear her to Rob’s heart but she agreed anyway. “Thanks, that would be a big help.”

            “Now, to the computer.” Liz gestured for Rose to join her at the table. “My laptop’s rerouted through a service that masks the IP address. It’ll look like this inquiry is coming from someplace overseas. What’s the website address?”

            Rose handed her a slip of paper.

            Liz typed in the address, then started clicking on various links on the site. She would move the mouse, click, lick her lips or make a tsking sound, then move the mouse again. Rose sat across from her, trying not to fidget, but patience wasn’t her strong suit.

            Finally Liz said, “They’ve got a pretty good firewall but I think I’ve found a back door into their login program. If I’m right, I should be able to insert a username and password into the existing list.”

            “And if you’re wrong?”

            “They’ll probably assume that somebody in Korea or Russia was trying to hack into their system.”

            Rose got up to move around behind her.

            Liz typed something, then clicked the mouse to exit that page. “Okay, here goes.” She moved the mouse over the P and clicked, then typed in the fake username and password she’d planted. She clicked on the login button and a page appeared.

            Rose grinned. “It worked!” Without taking her eyes off the screen, Liz lifted a hand in the air. Rose high-fived her.

            They both stared at the screen. On a plain white background was a list of what looked like codes, combinations of letters and numbers, underlined in bright blue, indicating they were links.

            It was getting harder for Rose to curb her impatience. Now that they were in, her hand was itching to grab the mouse away from Liz and go exploring. “Click on one,” she said.

            “Not so fast.” Liz reached over and pulled a pad of paper closer to her. “Hand me that pen, please.”

            Rose gritted her teeth but she grabbed the pen from the far side of the table and handed it to Liz.

            Liz wrote the first letter of each code horizontally down the page. She moved over an inch and wrote the next part of the code there, then the third part and so one, in columns down the page.

            “First letter is male or female,” she said.

            Rose looked at the computer screen. “Yeah, they’re all M’s or F’s.” She took a deep breath. Liz was right. They needed to be methodical. A wrong step could get them dumped out of the site, and then locked out.

            “Then a number,” Liz was saying. “Mostly two digits but a couple are one digit. I’m guessing age. Then another capital letter–C, N, A or H. Race?”

            Rose pointed at one of the codes. “Here’s an A with a little r.”

            “Arab.” Liz tapped the pad with the pen. “Small b is next, then two capital letters that vary, then a small c and another two caps that vary.” She circled the bNO in the first code. “Born, New Orleans.”

            “The
c
is for current location.”

            “SW. Seattle, Washington?”

            Rose leaned further over Liz’s shoulder and ran her finger down the next column on the screen. “SR, then a number between 1 and 5. What the hell could that be?”

            “Let’s find out.” Liz moved the mouse down and clicked on the fifth code down. “First one would be too obvious that we’re just exploring.”

            A fresh page sprang up. The title read
Asian Male, 39
. Below that was a picture and
Born: Seoul, Korea; Current: Detroit, Michigan.

            “Damn, we’re good,” Liz said.

            Rose pointed further down the screen. “Security Rating, three.”

            Liz hovered the mouse arrow over the words “Security Rating.” A tiny HELP appeared in a bubble. She grinned and clicked on it.

            A new window opened, with another login box.
You must enter your password again
was across the top.

            “In case someone’s hacked in without a password.” Liz entered the fake password again.

            Rose stared at the new page that came up. A security rating of one was
fabricated ID; forged documents.
A five was
real ID, live; real documents, unreported.
Three was
real ID, dead; documents forged.

             “Shit,” she said, as the implications of what she was seeing sunk in.

            “Yeah,” Liz agreed with the sentiment.

            “Why would
real ID, dead; real documents
be a four and not a five?” Rose asked.

            Liz thought for a moment. “Because dead people don’t have credit ratings.”

            “Ah, a five could be used to set up false accounts with credit card companies.”

            “Yes, and I’m thinking the documents are unreported on the fives because they were obtained in such a way that the owner would be unlikely to report their theft.”

            “Such as a prostitute’s john.”

            “Bingo,” Liz said. “This is more than credit card fraud. This is an identity theft supermarket.”

            She right-clicked over the page. Nothing happened. “Yeah, I didn’t think you were going to let me print that page,” she muttered. She jotted down the information on a fresh sheet of the pad. Then she closed the window.

            She was back on the Asian man’s page. Halfway down the page was a box labeled
Notes
. In the box was typed:
immigrated, age 3; naturalized, age 10; deceased, age 16
.

            “How sad,” Liz said. “His parents bring him over from Korea for a better life, and he probably wrapped his car around a tree a few months after getting his license.”

            Rose didn’t respond. She was looking at the bottom of the page. “‘Please select the product you wish to purchase’,” she read out loud. “‘Then enter your account number in the indicated box.’ Interesting. The ID by itself is a lot less than the ID plus documents.”

            “A good forger is apparently pricey,” Liz said.

            “You think the username or password is the account number?”

            “No, and I think this is as far as we go. At this point, we’re a shopper who decided against this product. We try to enter a bogus account number and who knows what’ll happen.”

            “You think the FBI knows about this?” Rose asked.

            “Probably. If we figured it out this easily, they no doubt have computer people who could do the same.”

            “I wonder why they haven’t shut them down yet?”

            Liz shrugged. “Looks like Donati is their main man, but maybe they’re trying to throw out a wide net and get as much of his organization as possible.” She clicked back to the original list of codes and pointed to the screen. “The codes for current addresses are all over the country. Freddie isn’t his only supplier.”

            Rose pulled her phone out and found Tyrell Cooper’s number in her contacts. “No wonder they were trying to keep us from snooping around in Freddie’s business. This operation has got to be worth millions.”

~~~~~~~~

            At seven the following evening, a sizeable group of people was gathered around the big oak table in Kate and Skip’s kitchen. The Franklins and Dolph had been the last to arrive.

            “Thanks for letting us meet here,” Tyrell Cooper said to Kate. “I didn’t want to risk somebody seeing you all trooping into my precinct and report that back to Frederico.”

            “No problem.” She was more than happy to host the meeting. Finally they seemed to have enough pieces of the puzzle to begin to fit them together.

            “I’m just a volunteer consultant,” Judith said. “I haven’t figured out how to bring my lieutenant into the loop without him telling me this is none of my business.”

            Kate and the others nodded their understanding. Keeping her supervisor in the dark was the lesser of the evils for Judith right now. If Pete Jamieson’s case came to trial, there was no good outcome for her. An acquittal would be a black mark on her record. A guilty verdict would mean she’d have to live with the knowledge that she’d probably sent an innocent man to prison for most of the rest of his life.

            Tyrell leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. His dreadlocks fell forward on either side of his face.

            Billy had found them quite fascinating when the detective had first arrived. The little boy had asked if they were his fur, prompting Maria to shoo the children up to their rooms. Kate smiled at the memory, then Tyrell’s voice brought her back to the present.

            “Here’s the deal. I’ve got the feds to agree to let me handle the local operation.”

            “What’d you have to promise them, your firstborn?” Dolph said.

            “Almost as bad. If we’re successful, I turn Frederico over to them. He’ll probably turn for them and testify against Donati. Then it’s off to witness protection.”

            Rose snorted. “I give that less than six months. He disappears and ends up dealing and pimping somewhere else, with one of his own stolen identities, no doubt.”

            Tyrell shrugged. “But he’s no longer Baltimore’s problem.”

            “Somebody else will fill the void quick enough,” Rose said.

            Tyrell sat back in his chair. “I’m a street cleaner. Street gets dirty, I clean it. Gets dirty again, I clean it again. Lots of job security.”

            “Tyrell wants to set up a sting,” Judith said, her tone slightly impatient. “Have one of you go talk to Frederico’s girls again, with a wallet full of bogus credit cards, license, Social Security card.”

            Dolph raised his hand. “I’ll do it. Skip’s too obvious at this point.”

            Skip leaned forward. “Frederico’s seen you with me.”

            “Yeah but the gals haven’t. Except for Roxie, they’ve only seen me in the role of a drunk and a john.”

            “My people couldn’t find Roxie,” Tyrell said. “She’s probably long–”

            Skip interrupted. “No!”

            Kate stared at him. His jaw was clenched and his eyes had turned the muddy brown they became when he was upset.