Part 3 (1/2)

'I guess Swan cottoned on to it before they could do anything,' I said. 'Boy, would I like to talk to her.'

Trina laughed as I made puppy eyes at her. 'Come on, Chick.'

'Give me a present for your birthday, pretty lady.'

'My birthday isn't until tomorrow. And there's no way Swan wants this to get out.'

'It's already got out!'

'Yeah, but I'm deep background,' said Trina. 'I guess you could ask to interview Swan, though. She likes to talk about herself. Just don't get me involved.'

'Don't worry' I said, eating the last of the potatoes. 'I know her reputation. I'll bet she knows mine!'

Not only had Swan heard of me, she'd read my stuff, and she knew right away I might be able to help solve her little mystery. She didn't ask how I'd heard about the intruders: she just ushered me into the plasticky litde staff lounge at the centre of the TLA building. It was more like she was interviewing me than the other way around.

'Everything I tell you is strictly off the record.'

'Not a problem, Miss Swan.'

'If you use what I tell you in a story, TLA's ident.i.ty will be deeply buried.'

'Yes, ma'am.'

Swan nodded. She sat back for a moment, looking me up and down with her X-ray vision. 'You've heard the whole story,' she said at last. 'Who do you know that might try something like that?'

'My first guess would be an ex-employee someone with a grudge, or with a money-making plan. Maybe by blackmailing you after planting a logic bomb in your system, or maybe just by fooling with your payroll program.'

'We can forget about former employees,' said Swan. 'I've already checked.'

'What do you have that someone might want to steal?

Anything new or unusual?'

Swan made a chopping motion with one hand, cutting off that line of conversation. 'The police were useless,' she said.

'They'd never heard of a crime like this one they weren't even sure it was a crime. I'm sorry, but I don't care about any of that. I want these people. And I'm going to get them, never mind the police.'

'It sounds like you have your own procedure in mind, Miss Swan.'

Swan considered me. I could see that the two sides of her hacker personality were at war in that instant: the cool and businesslike side that knew better than to show off, and the enthusiastic side that loved nothing better than boasting and bragging.

'Strictly off the record,' Swan said.

We drove to Swan's house in McLean in her Ford LTD, a station wagon with faux wood panelling. It was a lot of car for one person; I guessed she ferried computer equipment to and fro in the s.p.a.cious back. We stopped en route for j.a.panese takeout.

The house was also big for one person. Swan explained she was renting until she found something she really liked.

The neighbourhood was quiet and wooded, denuded trees reaching into a grey sky. I got a glimpse of a big back-yard inch-deep in new snow. The driveway was clear, thanks to neighbourhood kids in need of video game quarters. Swan pressed the big b.u.t.ton for the door remote and parked the station wagon in the empty garage.

Swan only seemed to live in three rooms of the house kitchen, living room, study. The other rooms were empty, or contained boxes of electronic equipment. One room was a jumble of phones of various vintages. There was an unzipped sleeping bag scrunched up on the sofa; I a.s.sume that's where she slept.

We sat at the table, balancing our takeaway on top of wires and papers. Swan had ordered for both of us: plastic bowls of soup with about two dozen baby octopuses floating amongst the noodles. I gingerly made a pile of them next to my plate.

Swan stared at me as I ferried ex-octopuses with my chopsticks. 'I'm no good with sus.h.i.+.'

'We're top of the food chain, Mr Peters, she told me, slurping up one of the soft little b.a.l.l.s. 'We eat everything, and nothing eats us. That's the way we're made.' It was more the thought of tiny octopus guts that had put me off, but I kept my mouth shut.

Swan sat down in front of a TRS-80 set up on the kitchen table. (One side of the room was an impa.s.sable jungle of cables.) I sc.r.a.ped a chair across the floor and sat down behind her.

What I saw made my scalp tighten. Swan had a line into the Department of Motor Vehicles. With a few taps of the Trash-80's keyboard, she was in their database. She had the same access to licence plates, home addresses, and phone numbers as if she was a DMV clerk sitting at a desk in their offices, rather than a hacker in jeans and sweats.h.i.+rt sitting in a jumbled suburban kitchen.

Swan had jotted down her intruders' number plate. She typed it into the relevant field on the screen. After several long seconds, the computer blinked and disgorged a fresh screenful of information. The van was registered to the university. Swan scowled. 'I was hoping for a home address.'

But she had narrowed the field right down. The van hadn't been reported stolen; whoever was driving it had ready access to the college's vehicles. As well as the technical know-how to set up a Lisp Machine. There couldn't be a whole lot of people who fit that description.

Swan was looking for ways to impress me further. 'Want to see your own record?' For a moment I was tempted as though to prove to myself that what I was seeing was real. I'd investigated a lot of fraudulent use of computers, but I'd never seen anyone with such simple and complete access to public records.

'Uh, no thanks.'

'I can look you up any time I want,' boasted Swan.

'I believe you.' I sure did.

Whoever had hoodwinked Swan, I reckoned they'd be better off in the hands of the police than subject to her tender mercies. In fact, the guy I called next had once tangled with her. That was why he never had the same phone number for more than a week at a time.

Ian Mond known as 'Mondy' to the handful of people who did know him lived a shadowy existence in motel rooms, warehouse corners, and other people's garages. He carried just a trunkful of equipment with him, often sleeping scrunched in the backseat of his second home, a midnight blue Ford Escort, after doing some 'fieldwork': conning information out of telco staff, making unauthorised adjustments to the phone system, and tiptoeing into Ma Bell's offices in the middle of the night. He made a modest living selling cheap calls, 'upgrades' to phone services, and computer equipment that had taken a tumble from a truck. The Mystery of the Lisp Machine was just his kind of gig. I figured if he hadn't done it, he knew who had.

I spoke to him in his mom's bas.e.m.e.nt, a musty s.p.a.ce filled with 'borrowed' phone equipment. Swan had an arcane set of personal ethics that stopped her from messing up the phones or credit ratings of innocents, including Mrs Mond, so Ian was safe as long as he stayed under her roof. We sat on a couple of upturned milk crates while I filled him in.

'Isn't it obvious?' he said. 'It's either one of the staff in the college computer department, or a trusted student. Or both.

You go for a walk through their compute centre and see if you can't spot one of your suspects right away.'

'Already done,' I said. Mondy nodded, satisfied that I was trying to help myself. 'I'm pretty sure I know who at least one of Swan's visitors was. Robert Salmon, the sysadmin, didn't show up for work today. He's a twenty-year-old blond.'

'I've talked to that kid a couple of times. He's OK. '

Mondy peered at me through his thick, square gla.s.ses. 'Don't hand him over to her, Chick P.'

'Relax. I'm a journalist. I'm supposed to observe, not get involved!

He nodded, still peering at me worriedly. 'Good. Good.

Find out what he wants. Find out what she's not telling you.'