Spyware

Once Vasquez had isolated the rogue student, she had probed the database about her. Rita Hapgood’s address and phone number had flashed up almost instantly, as had the fact that she had dropped out of school entirely in late March. She had never attended the class that entitled her to this account, and, as far as Vasquez could determine, she had never even logged in prior to tonight.

She had pulled up the IP list to get the right provider. She should have him located in minutes, despite the slow response of the net. She hoped Vance would hang around too long for his own good. Assuming, of course, that it was Vance and not just some midnight hacker using Rita’s account.

“I bet it was him,” said Johansen over her shoulder. “I really think he’s our man. The stuff we dug up at his house and office looks too real to me.”

“Too bad he didn’t leave the source code for this frigging virus behind,” she replied, rubbing her eyes briefly. “Is the L.A. team any closer to cracking the binary files that we got?”

“They know the files are those used to build the virus program, but they haven’t been able to come up with a good defense yet. They say it’s very complex. But, it’s enough for a conviction, if you ask me. And that means our end of things will be wrapped up if we can just collar Vance.”

“Call in and check out Rita Hapgood’s address,” said Vasquez, her tone making it a suggestion rather than an order. “For all we know, she’s Vance’s side dish.”

Johansen nodded and pulled out his cell. She glanced at him briefly, then looked away. She did appreciate the way he accepted her leadership and greater experience. She had been worried initially when she had been assigned this hulking Norwegian-blooded young male for a partner that he wouldn’t take to the ideas of a small, bossy Hispanic woman. But, except for his occasional over familiarities, he had comported himself as a professional agent should. He had, in fact, taken on sort of a protective-bulldog attitude around her, which she found endearing. In fact, when all was said and done, he wasn’t a bad-looking guy. She was in her early thirties now, and his late twenties looked very good indeed. But, she told herself, such a relationship would interfere too much with her work.

She straightened in her chair and glared back at the glaring screen. She chided herself for allowing her mind to wander while one of the biggest perps on the loose in the nation was even now escaping her grasp.

Besides, she told herself, he was too tall. Way too tall for her five-foot-one stature. The last thing she needed, even while breaking established Bureau policy concerning such fraternization, would be to appear ridiculous at the same time.

The trace came back moments later. “Vance is at the Motel-8 on I-80, not even five miles from here.”

Vasquez smiled grimly. “Let’s go.”

***

One of the world-wide-web’s more accomplished spiders, Nog was watching the hunters even as they watched for Vance. A smile, taking the form of an odd, lop-sided leer, flickered across his features. He had gotten hold of a digital image of this Agent Vasquez and her dour partner which some of the local hackers had gotten from one of the university paper stills. They had spread across the school system like wildfire. He had done a bit of cropping and enhancing with La Placian transforms, and ended up with a nice portrait of the FBI’s finest pinned up over his computers with the others. Johansen, of course, had been edited out of his version of the picture. He had also made her image into a “wallpaper” mosaic on the background of two of his computer screens. Vasquez was quite pretty, he thought, in a butch sort of way. She had dark hair and big, almond-shaped brown eyes. The idea that she toted a gun about in her purse aroused him almost as much as her image did.

The other image that haunted his computer screens, of course, was that of Sarah Vance. He worried at his tongue a bit until it twinged, paused, then continued fraying the tip until the stinging sensation grew too intense and forced him to stop. With a giggle that seemed out of place, he tackled the mouse and created a new mosaic, one which contained both Sarah Vance and Agent Vasquez. When he was done, he sat back and admired his artwork, popping open a green tennis-ball-like tube of sour cream and onion chips. He ate the chips, munching on six at a time.

Staring at both these women, he thought it ironic that both of them wanted him very badly indeed. Not in a good way, unfortunately. They just didn’t know it was he that they wanted yet. Hopefully, they never would know who the man pulling the levers behind the curtain truly was.