Death Match Read online

  “And then he had his brainstorm. Eden, with Liza as the computational core. And the rest, as they say, is history.” Lash took a sip of coffee. “So what’s Liza like to work with?”

  There was a pause. “We never get near the core routines or intelligence. Liza’s physical plant is in the penthouse, and only Silver has access. Everybody else—scientists, technicians, even the computer programmers—uses the corporate computer grid and Liza’s data abstraction layer.”

  “Liza’s what?”

  “A shell that creates virtual machines within the computer’s memory space.” Tara paused again. More and more pauses were creeping into her sentences. Then, abruptly, she stood up.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Could we talk about this some other time? I have to go.”

  And without another word she turned and left the cafeteria.

  TWENTY

  W hen Mauchly walked into the office around four, Lash was standing before his whiteboard. The man moved so silently Lash didn’t notice him until he was by his side.

  “Christ!” Lash jumped, dropping his marker.

  “Sorry. Should have knocked.” Mauchly glanced at the bulletin board. “Race, age, type, personality, employment, geographics, victims. What’s this?”

  “I’m trying to type the killer. Assemble a profile.”

  Mauchly turned his placid gaze on Lash. “We still don’t know there’s a killer.”

  “I’ve gone over all your records. There’s nothing psychologically wrong with the Thorpes or the Wilners, zero clinical evidence of suicide. It would be a waste of time to explore that avenue further. And you heard what Lelyveld said in the boardroom: we don’t have time.”

  “But there’s no signs of murder, either. The Thorpes’ security camera, for one thing. It didn’t show anybody entering or leaving the house.”

  “It’s a lot easier to cover up a murder than to cover up a suicide. Security cameras can be interfered with. Alarms can be bypassed.”

  Mauchly thought about this. Then he looked back at the writing on the board. “How do you know the killer is in his late twenties or early thirties?”

  “I don’t. That’s the baseline for serial killers. We have to start with the pattern, and refine from there.”

  “And how about this: that he’s either well employed or has access to money?”

  “He killed people on opposite coasts within a week of each other. That’s not the modus operandi of a drifter or a hitchhiker: their killing patterns chart erratically across short distances.”

  “I see. And this?” Mauchly pointed to the scrawled words, TYPE: UNKNOWN.

  “That’s the troubling part. Usually, we type serial killers as organized or disorganized. Organized killers control their crime scenes and their victims. They’re smart, socially acceptable, sexually competent. They target strangers, hide their corpses. On the other hand, disorganized killers know their victims, act suddenly and spontaneously, feel little or no stress during the crime, have few work skills, leave the victim at the scene of the crime.”

  “And?”

  “Well, if someone murdered the Thorpes and the Wilners, he exhibits traits of both the organized and disorganized killer. There’s no coincidence here: he’d have to know the victims. Yet he left them at the scene, like a disorganized killer. But again, the scene isn’t in the least bit sloppy. Such inconsistencies are extremely rare.”

  “How rare?”

  “I never came across a serial killer like it.”

  Except once, came the voice in his head. He quickly pushed the voice far away.

  “If we can get a fix on this guy,” Lash went on, “we can compare it against criminal records. Look for a match. Meanwhile, have you thought about keeping a sharp eye on the other four supercouples?”

  “We can’t do a close surveillance for obvious reasons. And we can’t provide adequate protection until we know exactly what’s going on. But yes, we’re already getting teams in place.”

  “Where are the rest located?”

  “All across the country. The closest couple, the Connellys, live north of Boston. I’ll have Tara get you brief reports on all of them.”

  Lash nodded slowly. “You really think she’s the right person for me to work with?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “She doesn’t seem to like me. Or else she’s dealing with some issues that are distracting her.”

  “Tara’s going through a hard time. But she’s the best we have. Not only is she chief security tech—which gives her access to every system—but she’s unique in having worked both the security and computer engineering sides of the company.”

  “If she gets with the program.”

  Mauchly’s cell phone went off, and he quickly raised it. “Mauchly.” A pause. “Yes, of course, sir. Right away.”

  He replaced the cell phone. “That was Silver. He wants to see us, and right now.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  T he day had grown dark and overcast, and the elevator doors opened onto a view far different than Lash had witnessed the day before. Only a handful of the cut-glass ceiling fixtures threw small pools of light across the vast room. Beyond the windows lay a gray stormscape of skyscrapers. The museum-like collection of thinking machines lay before them, hulking objects set against a lowering sky.

  Richard Silver was standing by the bank of windows, hands clasped behind his back. At the elevator’s chime he turned.

  “Christopher,” he said, shaking Lash’s hand. “Nice to see you again. Something to drink?”

  “Coffee would be nice.”

  “I’ll get it,” said Mauchly, moving toward a wet bar set into one of the bookcases.

  Silver motioned Lash to the same table they’d sat at the day before. The magazines and newspapers were gone. Silver waited for Lash to sit, then took a chair across from him. He was wearing corduroys and a black cashmere sweater, sleeves pulled up his forearms.

  “I’ve thought a lot about what you told me yesterday,” he said. “About these deaths not being suicide. I didn’t want to believe it. But I think you were right.”

  “I don’t see any other possibility.”

  “No, I didn’t mean that. I meant what you said about Eden being involved, either way.” Silver looked past Lash, his expression troubled. “I’ve been too wrapped up in my own projects, here in my ivory tower. I’ve always been more fascinated by pure science than applied science. Trying to build a machine that can think, learn, solve problems on its own: that’s where my heart’s always been. Exactly what problems interested me less than the capability of solving them. It wasn’t until the idea for Eden came along that I grew personally involved. Finally, a task to which Liza was worthy: human happiness. Even so, I’ve kept removed from the day-to-day process. And I see now this was a mistake.”

  Silver stopped, his gaze focused again on Lash. “I’m not sure why I’m telling you this.”

  “People tell me I’ve got a face that inspires confidences.”

  Silver laughed quietly. “Anyway, I finally decided that, if I’ve been uninvolved in the past, there was something I could do. Now.”

  “What’s that?”

  Mauchly returned, coffee in hand, and Silver stood. “If you’ll come with me?”

  He led the way to a far corner, where the glass windows that ran around three sides of the room met the bookcases of the fourth. Here, Silver’s collection of computing machines appeared to run to the musical: a Farfisa Combo; a Mellotron; and a modular Moog synthesizer, all patch cords and low-pass filters.

  Silver turned to him. “You said the killer was most likely a rejected Eden candidate.”

  “That’s what the profile suggests. Perhaps a schizoid personality that couldn’t accept rejection. There’s a smaller chance the killer dropped out of the program after acceptance. Or was one of those clients not matched within your five-cycle window.”

  Silver nodded. “I instructed Liza to parse all accessible applicant data, looking for anomali
es.”

  “Anomalies?”

  “It’s a little hard to explain. Imagine creating a virtual topology in three dimensions, then populating it with applicant data. Compress the data, compare it. It’s almost like the avatar matching Liza does every day, done in reverse. See, our applicants have already been psychologically vetted; they should all skew to tightly bounded norms. I was looking for applicants whose behavior, personality, lie outside those norms.”

  “Deviants,” Lash said.

  “Yes,” Silver looked pained. “Or people whose behavior patterns were out of sync with their evaluations.”

  “How did you do this so quickly?”

  “Actually, I didn’t. I instructed Liza on the nature of the problem, and she developed the methodology on her own.”

  “Using the data from applicant testing?”

  “Not only that. Liza also called on data trails left by rejected applicants and voluntary dropouts in the months or years since their original applications.”

  Lash was shocked. “You mean, data gathered after they weren’t potential clients anymore? How is such a thing possible?”

  “It’s called activity monitoring. It’s practiced by many large corporations. The government does it, too. We’re just a few years ahead of everybody else. Mauchly’s probably shown you some of its elementary uses already.” Silver smoothed the front of his sweater. “In any case, Liza flagged three names.”

  “Flagged? As in, already?”

  Silver nodded.

  “But there must have been a tremendous amount of data—”

  “Approximately half a million petabytes. It would have taken a Cray a year to parse. Liza completed it in hours.” And he gestured at something near the wall.

  Lash stared with fresh amazement at something he’d assumed was another antique from Silver’s collection. A standard computer keyboard sat on a small table, before an old-fashioned monochrome VDT terminal. A printer stood to one side.

  “This is it?” Lash said incredulously. “This is Liza?”

  “What did you expect?”

  “I didn’t expect this.”

  “Liza herself, or her computational plant, occupies the floors directly below us. But why make an interface more complicated than it has to be? You’d be surprised how much I can accomplish with just this.”

  Lash thought about the computing feat Liza had just completed. “No, I wouldn’t.”

  Silver hesitated. “Christopher, you’d mentioned another possibility. That the killer was somebody on our own staff. So I also instructed Liza to search for anything unusual, internally.” His expression grew tight, as if in physical pain. “She flagged one name.”

  Silver turned to the small table, picked up two sheets of folded paper, and pressed them into Lash’s hand.

  “Good luck—if that is indeed the right word.”

  Lash nodded, turned to go.

  “Christopher? One other thing.”

  Lash glanced back.

  “I know you understand why I gave this Liza’s highest priority.”

  “I do. And thanks.”

  He let Mauchly lead the way to the elevator, considering Silver’s last words. The same thought had also been running through his own head. The Thorpe couple had died on a Friday, eleven days before. The Wilners had died the following Friday. Serial killers liked consistency and pattern.

  They had three days.

  TWENTY-TWO

  F our names,” Mauchly said.

  He was staring at the table in Lash’s office. The two sheets of paper Silver provided lay on it, unfolded.

  “Any idea why Liza flagged these four in particular?” Tara asked from across the table.

  Mauchly picked up the sheet on which a single name had been printed. “Gary Handerling. Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “He’s part of the scrub crew,” Tara said.

  “The what?” said Lash.

  “Data scrub. They’re in charge of data storage and security.”

  Mauchly glanced at her. “You’ve started the internal trace on him?”

  “It should be completed within twelve hours.”

  “Highest degree of confidentiality?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then I’d better get started on the three clients.” Mauchly picked up the other sheet. “I’ll have Rumson in Selective Gathering do complete workups.”

  “What’ll you tell him?” Tara asked.

  “That we’re running some random prototyping on a few obsoletes. Just another system test.”

  Obsoletes, Lash thought to himself. Eden-speak for disqualified candidates. Guess that makes me an obsolete, too.

  “Dr. Lash, we should have the results back by midmorning tomorrow. We’ll meet then, run them by your profile.” Mauchly checked his watch. “It’s almost five. Why don’t you two head home. We’ve got a long day tomorrow. Tara, if you wouldn’t mind taking Dr. Lash through the checkpoint, make sure he doesn’t get lost on the way out?”

  By the time they pushed through the revolving doors onto the street, it was quarter past five. Lash stopped at the fountain to button his coat. The clamor of Manhattan, almost forgotten in the hushed spaces of the Eden tower, reasserted itself with a vengeance.

  “I don’t see how anyone could get used to that,” Lash said. “Going through those checkpoints, I mean.”

  “You can get used to anything,” Tara replied, slinging a satchel over one shoulder. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Hold on a minute!” Lash trotted to keep up with her. “Where are you going?”

  “Grand Central. I live in New Rochelle.”

  “Really? I live in Westport. Let me drop you off.”

  “That’s okay, thanks.”

  “Then let me buy you a drink before you head home.”

  Tara stopped and looked at him. “Why?”

  “Why not? It’s a thing coworkers do sometimes. In civilized countries, I mean.”

  Tara hesitated.

  “Humor me.”

  She nodded. “Okay. But let’s go to Sebastian’s. I don’t want to catch anything later than the 6:02.”

  Sebastian’s was a sprawl of white-covered tables on the upper level of Grand Central, overlooking the main passenger terminal. The cavernous space had been completely restored in recent years, and was more beautiful than Lash ever remembered seeing it: creamy walls rising to a ceiling of groined vaults, green spandrels, and constellations of glittering mosaic. The voices of countless commuters, the squawk of the dispatch loudspeaker calling out arrivals and departures, mingled together in an oddly pleasing patchwork of background noise.

  The two were shown to a small table perched directly in front of the railing. Within moments, a waiter bustled up. “What can I get you?” he asked.

  “I’ll have a Bombay martini, very dry, with a twist,” Tara said.

  “A vodka Gibson, please.” Lash watched the waiter thread his way back through the tables, then turned to Tara. “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “For not ordering one of those horrible martinis du jour. Somebody I was dining with the other week ordered an apple martini. Apple. What an abomination.”

  Tara shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Lash looked over the railing at the streams of commuters. Tara was silent, twisting a cocktail napkin between the fingers of one hand. He looked back at her. Hazy light slanted down, catching the gentle curve of her auburn hair. Her eyes, framed by perfect high cheekbones, looked serious.

  “Want to tell me what’s up?” he asked.

  “Up with what?”

  “With you.”

  She wrapped the napkin around one finger, twisted it tight. “I agreed to a drink, not a psychiatric session.”

  “I’m not a psychiatrist. Just a guy trying to get a job done, with your help. Only you don’t seem too eager to help.”

  She glanced up at him for a minute, then returned her attention to the napkin.

  “You seem preoccupied. Disinterested
. That doesn’t bode well for our working relationship.”

  “Our temporary working relationship.”

  “Exactly. And the better we work together, the more temporary it will be.”

  She dropped the napkin on the table. “You’re wrong. I’m not disinterested. It’s been—a rough couple of days for me.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me about it?”

  Tara sighed, her gaze wandering toward the soaring vault overhead.

  “I’m buying. It’s the least you can do.”

  Their drinks arrived, and they sipped a moment in silence.

  “Okay,” Tara said. “No reason you shouldn’t know, I guess.” She took another sip. “I didn’t learn about any of this until yesterday, when Mauchly called to tell me I’d be your liaison while you were inside the Wall. That’s when he told me about the problem.”

  Lash remained silent, listening.

  “The only thing is, just this Saturday, I got the nod from Eden.”

  “The nod?”

  “That’s what we call getting notification your match has been found.”

  “Your match? You mean that you . . .” He stopped.

  “Yeah. I’d been a candidate.”

  Lash stared at her. “I thought Eden employees weren’t allowed to be candidates.”

  “That’s always been the policy. But a few months ago they started a pilot program to phase in employee applicants, based on merit and seniority. In a pool with other Eden employees, not the general pool.”