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  The second question was, ‘Is there any history of official, internal reprimands against either Veedock or Robertson.’

  The Commissioner replied, ‘Neither my legal staff nor I were able to locate any record of official reprimands against either player.’

  Brett’s final question read, ‘Were there ever any recorded altercations, conflicts of interest, or other aggravating circumstance between Phil Robertson and Greg Veedock?’

  ‘Neither my staff nor I were able to locate any records of conflicts between those players.’

  The final answers left Brett lacking a clear motive for Veedock to kill Robertson. Brett typed a polite response, thanking the Commissioner for his cooperation and his prompt reply.

  The fourth message was from Wen Jing. It was simply a smiley-face emoticon with her initials, ‘:-) SWAK WJL.’

  Brett had forgotten to ask Wen Jing about how much cyborg subprocessors were like robot processors, so he decided to do some unassisted research into the subject. If Veedock did murder Robertson, and he had no motive, could he have been under the control of someone else? Even then, there was no obvious answer to the question of why.

  Brett checked the time. It was now 11:32 AM. He called Chief Bennett on his desktop videophone.

  The Chief looked as if he had deliberately mussed his thinning hair. He leaned over the desk, slightly groggy, as if he had been recently awakened. He said, “What is it, Crabtree?”

  Brett said, “Good morning, sir. I want permission to take an express flight to Boston this afternoon. Can I have authorization for the expense?”

  Bennett was still somewhat unfocused, “Why?”

  “I want to interview Phil Robertson about his death and his relationship with Greg Veedock. I also want to poke around a little into Robertson’s past while I’m there, and I think it will require some in-person visitations.”

  “Do you still think Robertson was murdered by Veedock?”

  Brett could see the sleeve of DCI Graves’ mackintosh walk by at the edge of the screen. She was obviously in his office, as no one else would ever wear an overcoat in Los Angeles in July. Brett nodded, “More than ever, sir.”

  Bennett said, “Still sounds far-fetched to me...but all right. I’m authorizing a credit line tied to your police ID. Don’t spend any more than you have to. This is taxpayer money.”

  Brett said, “Thank you, sir,” just as Chief Bennett terminated the call from his end.

  Brett was able to find a seat on a suborbital express flight to Logan Airport in Boston that launched from Los Angeles International at four o’clock. He had about an hour to do research on the topic of cybernetic hacking. He walked down to the cyberforensics lab. The other technicians were out to lunch, but Brett caught the director, Srinivas, just as he was sitting down to a pungent, yet aromatic lunch he had brought.

  Brett asked, “Srinu, can I ask you about something technical?”

  Srinivas did not pause, tearing a piece of paratha from its round pancake and using it to grab onto a small portion of yellow, masala potatoes from an adjacent bowl. He said, “I can tell you’ve worked for DCI Graves,” as he stuffed the morsel in his mouth and began chewing.

  Brett asked, “Is it a bad time? I’d normally wait, but I’m leaving town in a few hours, and I still have to pack.”

  Srinivas swallowed, “Go ahead and ask me your questions.”

  “Can a cyborg be hacked?”

  Srinu took another bite of his lunch, and answered with his mouth full, “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Srinivas stopped chewing. He squinted as he looked at Brett. “Why do you ask? Is this about that baseball player?”

  Brett nodded. Srinivas swallowed and took another bite, finishing it before saying, “It should be impossible. But there might be an exception, and I wouldn’t call it a hack vulnerability. It’s just something that can happen.”

  Brett waited for Srinivas to continue, but the Director took two more full bites, finishing the first of two pancakes he had brought with him before saying, “If a cyborg wants to, they can place their body on automatic pilot. But to do that, they need to have some kind of program that the body can follow. It can be something as simple as recording a series of motions and then repeating them in a loop.”

  Brett asked, “Why would a cyborg do that?”

  “Apparently, some of them will do it to earn extra money. There are a lot of cyber workshops around the country that rent cyborg bodies from the users while they sleep. They mostly do repetitive work that an industrial robot would normally do, except that the shop owner does not have to buy a robot. They just rent the cyborg, sometimes by the hour, sometimes by the day. Some of them are so desperate for the money that they do it while they’re awake too. I hear that they like to watch television on their internal monitors or surf the Internet to pass the time.”

  Brett asked, “Does the program override the cyborg’s will? Can they stop an automation program once it begins running?”

  Srinivas said, “The cyborg can interrupt the program at will. Their brain always has control.”

  “Is it possible that someone could write some malicious software that could override the brain? Like a computer virus or Trojan horse?”

  Srinivas’ nose scrunched up as he took a bite that seemed to be spicier than he had anticipated. He hiccupped three times before answering, “No. If it’s possible, then I’ve never heard of it being done. The brain’s neural connection links straight to the body’s synthetic musculature. The subprocessor has to go through the organic brain before it can cause a motor response, and any input from the brain will override it. No. I don’t see how it can be done.”

  Brett asked, “Have you done any more work on Greg Veedock’s hardware since Wen Jing was scanning it last night?”

  Srinivas shook his head, “No, but we still have it in the lab. We haven’t sent it to the evidence room for archiving yet.”

  Brett said, “Thanks for your time, Srinu.”

  Srinivas waved to Brett as the detective turned to leave. It was more of a shooing away than a salutation.

  Brett retrieved a vending machine lunch from the cafeteria, stopped by the quartermaster’s office to requisition an electronic notepad, and then returned to his office, where he spent the next hour conducting Internet searches, trying to find any evidence of cybernetic hacking. There were hundreds of conspiracy theories about the subject, ranging from corporate mind control to government mind control to foreign corporate government mind control, none of which had any evidence whatsoever to support them. There were decades-old articles on how cybernetic security was supposedly foolproof, along with technical documents discussing the architecture at a layman’s level. Brett copied those articles to his notepad. When his clock rolled over to 1:00 PM, he found a stopping point and shut down his desktop. He sent Wen Jing a note letting her know he was leaving for Boston and would probably be gone at least a full day, and promising to call her when he was safely ensconced within a hotel room.

  Monday, 10 July, 14:15

  Detective Rhys’ police cruiser pulled up to the red-painted curb in front of 443 Shatto Place just before noon. He exited the vehicle, instructing it to park itself at the nearest available location. The car drove away, easily merging into the light traffic on the three-lane side street that ran in front of the six-story Chinese consulate. Well-manicured hedges extended about ten meters from a white-painted, wrought-metal fence that cordoned off the doors to the building. It was clearly designed as an anti-explosive buffer zone. A gate in the fence was flanked by a one-man guardhouse. Rhys walked up to the sliding-glass window of the guardhouse and tapped on the pane. A civilian Joebot in a security guard’s uniform was standing inside. It opened the window and eyeballed Rhys, no doubt scanning him with its electronic sensors.

  “Ni hao, Detective Rhys,” the Joebot said in an unconvincing Chinese accent. “You are expected. I will need to check your sidearm here before you can be admitted.”

  R
hys nodded, removing his bulky, 15mm pistol from its shoulder holster and offering it, grip-first, to the security robot. The robot took the weapon and manipulated a control that lay below the reach of Rhys’ vision. With an electric hum, the gate swung open, “Please wait inside the lobby, Detective Rhys. A representative will be with you shortly.”

  Ben walked through the gate and up to the solid-bamboo double doors at the entrance. Bronze plaques flanked the entrance on both sides, proclaiming in Chinese on the left and in English on the right that this was the correct building. Grasping the rightmost of the elongated, vertical handles, also made of bamboo, Rhys opened the door. He was hit with a rush of cool air that caused his epidermal sensors to register a drop from the 33-degree external summer heat to 22 degrees on the inside.

  The lobby, a ten-meter square room with doors on the opposite side, was adorned with several of what appeared to be either original paintings or excellent reproductions of Chinese artwork, mostly watercolor on silk, with subjects ranging from ocean waves to orchids to fog-shrouded mountaintops. Twin benches made from genuine mahogany with padded seat cushions lined either side. Rhys waited a minute before opting to take a seat. He did not need to sit, being a cyborg. He merely wanted to experience what it was like to rest his posterior on antique Asian workmanship. Rhys had never learned much about Asian cultures in general, and he regarded the Chinese government as overly authoritarian. He often found it difficult to read the expressions and body language of persons of Asian descent, and was therefore reluctant to take their words at face value. The reason for his visit, the matter of one of the consulate’s vehicles being used to smuggle kidnap victims into the Port of Los Angeles, did not alter his preconceptions.

  If the ambassadorial staff was deliberately seeking to try Rhys’ patience, they succeeded. Even he, who was normally calm under pressure, even when he was still a living human, could watch as his stress meter crept higher with every passing minute inside the otherwise silent foyer. Alana had been correct to send Rhys instead of pursuing this lead herself. She would most likely have broken down the inner door and—

  The latch on the doorway to the consulate offices clicked, an older, mechanical model of the variety that still required metal keys to open, making them less susceptible to electronic hacking. The door swung open, revealing a fit, Asian man in a tailored business suit standing in the entrance. A carpeted corridor ran all the way down to the back wall of the building, ending in a fire escape window. Another security robot stood behind a counter to the left of the doorway.

  The suited man spoke first, in perfect English, with no trace of an accent, foreign or otherwise, “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Detective Rhys. I was unavoidably detained by my ambassadorial duties. If you would come with me, I’ll try to answer your questions.”

  Rhys scanned the man with thermal imaging, and had his thermogram not been clearly human, Ben would have sworn that he was looking at a robot.

  As Rhys walked through the open doorway, he could tell from the shape of the frame that he was also walking through a covert security scanner, at least a magnetometer, perhaps something even more invasive. Regardless of how many American privacy laws the Chinese were breaking, Ben was on Chinese soil, and they did not apply.

  The man led Rhys down the hall until they reached the last door on the right side. The official held the door for Ben and gestured with a sweep of his arm for the detective to pass through the portal, which he did. The room was less than ten meters square, smaller than the foyer. From the position of the room relative to the entrance, Ben deduced that the windowless walls formed the back corner of the building. A two-meter long wooden table with four chairs was pressed against the far wall by its short side. A serving tray with four glasses and a pitcher of water rested at the far end. A network hub, with several ports of varying types sat in the middle of the table, along with a hologrammatic projection device.

  The Chinese official said, “Please take a seat, Detective Rhys,” as he closed the door.

  Ben seated himself, and the official followed suit, taking the chair directly across the table from Rhys. His inability to judge Asians accurately through conversation did not apply here. The official’s lack of introduction and stone face told him that he was not going to be any more cooperative than was absolutely required. Ben said, “You have me at a disadvantage.”

  The Chinese man’s head did not move one centimeter as he replied, “I am First Secretary Chu. Tell me how I may help you this afternoon.”

  Ben gestured toward the hub and asked, “May I use your interface?” Chu nodded, and Ben extended his interface cable, plugging it into the hub. He activated his virtual desktop and began selecting data from his internal memory. If the sight of Rhys typing in mid-air affected the First Secretary, he did not let it show. The holoprojector came to life, and a three-dimensional image of the car that was destroyed during the warehouse raid the previous day appeared above the table. Ben said, “This car was used in the commission of a number of very serious crimes against American citizens. It was blown up by a group of criminals, but we were able to analyze its black box. According to its internal transponder, the car was registered to this consulate.”

  Chu was unfazed, as if prepared for the question, “We had been wondering where our car had gone. Our records show that it was taken out of our parking facility on autopilot and sent for routine maintenance and cleaning. It never returned.”

  “When did you notice it was missing?”

  “It was brought to my attention through an internal email last week, after a routine audit of our assets discovered that it was not where it was supposed to be. Despite its condition, I should thank your police department for locating it.”

  Rhys mimicked Chu’s blank expression, made easier by the fact that Ben was a cyborg, “Why did you not contact the local police when you discovered it was missing?”

  “An incident such as the disappearance of an official vehicle could prove to be inconvenient for the consulate. An official sedan is specially equipped and especially expensive. Imagine if the American embassy lost such a vehicle in Beijing. Your country would likely seek to locate it before troubling law enforcement authorities.”

  Rhys had expected an evasive and untruthful answer, and he was not disappointed. He said, “You are saying that the car was stolen,” giving the Secretary an opportunity to state otherwise.

  “I’m afraid so, Detective Rhys. It was an unfortunate event that appears to have ended...tragically.”

  “Where is the garage where the car was being stored when it was stolen? I didn’t see a vehicular entrance at the front of the building.”

  “It is in our basement. There is a ramp that leads to the rear of the building. Our vehicles can come and go from there in safety. How do you know it was used to commit crimes?”

  Rhys slammed into an evidentiary wall. He had already formed a theory, based on the analysis he did of cyborg transponders entering the Port of Los Angeles. He had not yet had time to search for surveillance videos from the area. Until he did, his suspicions were just that, that the car was used to transit the otherwise tight harbor security by virtue of diplomatic immunity. It made perfect sense. The victims were taken to the warehouse to which DI MacGruder led their team yesterday, and then they were carried into the port three to five at a time. The ambassadorial car would have had countermeasures to prevent direct inspection of its contents, and it would have been illegal to stop and search it.

  Rhys decided to be more direct, “Are you denying knowledge of the crimes?”

  First Secretary Chu was absolutely stoic, the kind of demeanor that would have made him a formidable poker player. He replied, “Of course. We would never condone such behavior on the part of our staff.” He then turned the question back on Ben, “Are you suggesting that the Chinese people’s government was involved?”

  “Of course not. But, it is possible that one or more of your staff could have been acting on their own?”

&nbs
p; Chu was silent for several moments. Ben zoomed in on the Secretary’s ears, and at high magnification, he could see the outline of a form-fitting earpiece. Chu was likely receiving instructions from someone else. Ben wished he had turned up the sensitivity of his hearing prior to the meeting, but doing so in the middle of the conversation would require either a verbal command or an awkward series of eye movements.

  Chu said, slowly and deliberately, as if interpreting for someone else who wasn’t speaking in English, “I will inform the Counselor of your concerns, and recommend that he open an internal investigation into the matter. What would be the best way for him to contact you with the results?”

  Rhys pulled an old-fashioned business card from his pocket, placed it face up on the table, and slid it across to Secretary Chu using his middle finger. Chu picked up the card, his eyes betraying that he understood the nature of the obscene gesture Ben had made. He inserted the card in his jacket pocket without reading it, which Rhys correctly interpreted as a counter-insult.

  “Is there anything else, Mister Rhys?”

  Ben unplugged his interface cable from the hub, and the image of the burned-out sedan faded away, “Your answers were insightful, Mister Chu. Thank you for your time.”

  Chu stood first, opening the door and gesturing toward the far end of the corridor, “I believe you can find your way out on your own?”

  Rhys stood, nodded to Chu, and took his leave. The Joebot at the security desk was watching him over the duration of his journey to the exit. Chu watched him from the far end of the corridor.

  Rhys retrieved his sidearm from the security Joebot and was about to summon his police car when another sedan, a gloss-black model, screeched to a stop at the curb. The door swung open, revealing an empty passenger seat. Rhys heard a voice call to him from the opposite side of the vehicle, and although he could not see the occupant from where he was standing, he recognized his voice from the evening of the port warehouse raid. It was Agent Derringer, of Security Division, and he commanded, “Get in!”