Riptide
Page 88
“You mean you have those programs encoded so well you couldn’t get in?” Thomas asked.
“No. I mean that someone who knew what he was doing expunged the records. Only the information I just told you was left, nothing more. The wipe was done recently, just a little over six months ago.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Adam said. “I thought it would be like fingerprints. They’d be there but there was no clue when they were made.”
“Nope. I don’t know how the Greeks got ahold of it, but this system, the Sentech Y-2002, is first-rate, state-of-the-art. What it does is hard-register and bullet-code every deletion made on any data entered and tagged in preselected programs. It’s known as the ‘catcher,’ and it’s favored by high-tech industries because it pinpoints when something unexpected and unwelcome is done to relevant data, and who did it and when.”
“How does this hard register and bullet code work?” Becca said.
Savich said, “What the system does is swoop in and retrieve all data that the person is trying to delete before it can be deleted. It’s funneled through a trapdoor into a disappearing ‘secret room.’ That means, then, that the data isn’t really lost. However, the person who did this was able to do what we call a ‘spot burn’ on the information he deleted, and so, unfortunately, it’s really gone. In other words, there was no opportunity to funnel the deleted data to safety.
“Now, the person who supposedly wiped out the bulk of Krimakov’s entries was a middle-level person who would have had no reason to delete anything of this nature, much less even access it. So either someone got to him and paid him to do it or someone stole his password and made him the sacrificial goat in case someone discovered what he had done.”
“How long will it take you to find out this person’s name, Savich?” Thomas asked.
“Well, MAX already did that. The guy was a thirty-four-year-old computer programmer who was in an accident four months ago. He’s dead. Chances are very good that he was set up as the goat. Chances are also good that he knew the person who stole his password. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy talked about what he did to someone who took it to Krimakov, who then acted.”
“And just what kind of accident befell this one?” Thomas asked.
“The guy lived in Athens, but he’d gone to Crete on vacation, which is where Krimakov lived. You know the Minoan ruins of Knossos some five miles out of Iráklion? It was reported that he somehow lost his footing and fell headfirst over a low wall into a storage chamber some twelve feet below where he was standing. He broke his neck when his head struck one of the big pots that held olive oil way back when.”
“Well, damn,” Adam said. “I don’t suppose Krimakov’s former bosses in Moscow have any information at all on this?”
“Not that MAX can discover,” Savich said. “If they have any more, and that’s quite possible, they’re holding it for a trade, since they know we want everything they’ve got on Krimakov. You know what I think? They’ve got nothing else useful. There hasn’t been a peep out of them in the way of exploratory questions.”
“You found out quite a lot, Savich,” Thomas said. “All those accidents. Doesn’t seem possible, does it? Or very likely.”
“Oh, no,” Savich said. “Not possible at all. That was the conclusion their agents drew. Krimakov murdered all of them. Hey, wait a minute, when you knew him, there weren’t any computers.”
“There wasn’t much beyond great big suckers, like the IBM mainframes,” Thomas said.
Sherlock said, “I wouldn’t even want to try to figure out the odds of all those people in one family dying in accidents. They are astronomical, though.”
“Krimakov killed all those people,” Becca said, then shook her head. “He must have, but how could he kill his own wife, his two stepchildren? Good grief, he burned his own little boy? No, that would truly make him a monster. What is going on here?”
“He didn’t kill his own child,” Adam said.
“No, he didn’t,” Sherlock said. “But the kid won’t ever lead any kind of normal life if he survives all the skin grafts and the infections. Was his getting burned an accident?”
Thomas said, “Listen, all of this makes sense, but it’s still supposition.”
Savich said, “I’ve put Krimakov’s aged photo into the Facial Recognition Algorithm program that’s in place now at the Bureau. It matches photos or even drawings to con-victed felons. It compares, for example, the length of the nose, its shape, the exact distance between facial bones, the length of the eyes. You get the drift. It’ll spit out if there’s anyone resembling him who’s committed crimes either in Europe or in the United States. The database isn’t all that complete yet, but it can’t hurt.”
“No. I mean that someone who knew what he was doing expunged the records. Only the information I just told you was left, nothing more. The wipe was done recently, just a little over six months ago.”
“How the hell do you know that?” Adam said. “I thought it would be like fingerprints. They’d be there but there was no clue when they were made.”
“Nope. I don’t know how the Greeks got ahold of it, but this system, the Sentech Y-2002, is first-rate, state-of-the-art. What it does is hard-register and bullet-code every deletion made on any data entered and tagged in preselected programs. It’s known as the ‘catcher,’ and it’s favored by high-tech industries because it pinpoints when something unexpected and unwelcome is done to relevant data, and who did it and when.”
“How does this hard register and bullet code work?” Becca said.
Savich said, “What the system does is swoop in and retrieve all data that the person is trying to delete before it can be deleted. It’s funneled through a trapdoor into a disappearing ‘secret room.’ That means, then, that the data isn’t really lost. However, the person who did this was able to do what we call a ‘spot burn’ on the information he deleted, and so, unfortunately, it’s really gone. In other words, there was no opportunity to funnel the deleted data to safety.
“Now, the person who supposedly wiped out the bulk of Krimakov’s entries was a middle-level person who would have had no reason to delete anything of this nature, much less even access it. So either someone got to him and paid him to do it or someone stole his password and made him the sacrificial goat in case someone discovered what he had done.”
“How long will it take you to find out this person’s name, Savich?” Thomas asked.
“Well, MAX already did that. The guy was a thirty-four-year-old computer programmer who was in an accident four months ago. He’s dead. Chances are very good that he was set up as the goat. Chances are also good that he knew the person who stole his password. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy talked about what he did to someone who took it to Krimakov, who then acted.”
“And just what kind of accident befell this one?” Thomas asked.
“The guy lived in Athens, but he’d gone to Crete on vacation, which is where Krimakov lived. You know the Minoan ruins of Knossos some five miles out of Iráklion? It was reported that he somehow lost his footing and fell headfirst over a low wall into a storage chamber some twelve feet below where he was standing. He broke his neck when his head struck one of the big pots that held olive oil way back when.”
“Well, damn,” Adam said. “I don’t suppose Krimakov’s former bosses in Moscow have any information at all on this?”
“Not that MAX can discover,” Savich said. “If they have any more, and that’s quite possible, they’re holding it for a trade, since they know we want everything they’ve got on Krimakov. You know what I think? They’ve got nothing else useful. There hasn’t been a peep out of them in the way of exploratory questions.”
“You found out quite a lot, Savich,” Thomas said. “All those accidents. Doesn’t seem possible, does it? Or very likely.”
“Oh, no,” Savich said. “Not possible at all. That was the conclusion their agents drew. Krimakov murdered all of them. Hey, wait a minute, when you knew him, there weren’t any computers.”
“There wasn’t much beyond great big suckers, like the IBM mainframes,” Thomas said.
Sherlock said, “I wouldn’t even want to try to figure out the odds of all those people in one family dying in accidents. They are astronomical, though.”
“Krimakov killed all those people,” Becca said, then shook her head. “He must have, but how could he kill his own wife, his two stepchildren? Good grief, he burned his own little boy? No, that would truly make him a monster. What is going on here?”
“He didn’t kill his own child,” Adam said.
“No, he didn’t,” Sherlock said. “But the kid won’t ever lead any kind of normal life if he survives all the skin grafts and the infections. Was his getting burned an accident?”
Thomas said, “Listen, all of this makes sense, but it’s still supposition.”
Savich said, “I’ve put Krimakov’s aged photo into the Facial Recognition Algorithm program that’s in place now at the Bureau. It matches photos or even drawings to con-victed felons. It compares, for example, the length of the nose, its shape, the exact distance between facial bones, the length of the eyes. You get the drift. It’ll spit out if there’s anyone resembling him who’s committed crimes either in Europe or in the United States. The database isn’t all that complete yet, but it can’t hurt.”
