Zee looked askance at George. “If you are saying that the reservoir fucked up, I’m with you. Shit happens. But if you think it was intentional, I think you are crazy. I know a lot of those guys—”
“Proof!” George said, interrupting and getting the reservoir he found in Sal’s car out of his pocket and setting it on the table. “Proof that the phenomenon I just described is real. Whether it is intentional or a glitch is why I’m talking to you. And to be honest, I’m thinking intentional.”
Zee carefully picked up the reservoir and examined it.
“It can’t be fully appreciated without magnification,” George offered. “The surface of the reservoir contains thousands of tiny encapsulated doses of insulin. Each is individually programmed to be released upon reception of a particular radio frequency.”
“I understand the concept. But why have you jumped to the conclusion that iDoc is killing patients?”
“The reservoir you’re holding was implanted under Sal’s skin about two months ago. It was supposed to last two or three years, depending upon Sal’s blood sugar levels. That reservoir in your hand is completely empty. I believe iDoc sent a message to do a massive, total dump.”
Zee set the chip down on his coffee table, revolted by the thought of where it had been and what it might have done. “How do you know that the reservoir dumped all its insulin just before Sal’s death? Maybe it happened after it was removed from the corpse.”
“Good question. And I don’t know for sure,” George admitted. “That’s one of the reasons I need your help.”
“And why do you think it was intentional?”
“In all five cases, the insulin dump occurred soon after a serious likely terminal diagnosis had been entered into their electronic medical records. That’s a very odd coincidence.”
Zee sat silent, staring at the reservoir on his coffee table. “Exactly what do you want me to do?”
George let out a sigh of relief with the sense Zee was softening up. “Several things.” He pulled out a smartphone. “This was Kasey’s.” He turned it on and showed Zee the iDoc icon, then demonstrated how it didn’t open. “I think Amalgamated wipes it clean after the patient dies, which makes a lot of sense. It guards the confidentiality of the patient’s medical history.”
George then produced the second phone and handed it over to Zee. “This was Sal’s. It followed his body out through the windshield of the Oldsmobile when he crashed. It was obviously damaged. But it apparently functioned for a short time because an ER nurse was able to extract some medical information from it before it died, and I got it to turn on briefly.”
Zee examined Sal’s phone, turning it over in his hands. “Poor guy.”
“Now, it’s only an idea, but I think that perhaps in this case the app wasn’t wiped clean. I want you to see if you can get anything out of the phone. Maybe a dump command or something like that.”
Zee nodded, staring at the phone’s shattered display face. “I might be able to do a kind of forensic autopsy. There should be some data still in its storage unit, if not in its processor.” He looked up at George. “You’re willing to pay me ten thousand dollars to do this?” Zee asked incredulously.
“I’d want a little more than that for ten thousand.”
“Figured. What?” Zee frowned.
“I want you to hack into Amalgamated’s central iDoc servers. If we can get Sal’s whole record we can compare it to whatever you find on his phone. If it’s intentional, like I suspect, I want to be able to prove it. Only then can we be one hundred percent certain of what is going on and if it’s outside hackers or commands from inside Amalgamated that are responsible for the deaths.”
“You’re asking for a lot—”
“If I’m right, they killed my fiancée. You knew her. If I’m right, they killed Sal. You knew him. I’m aware of five deaths. How many others will die before they should when iDoc goes national and then international?”
“I don’t know, man,” Zee mumbled. He looked at the two phones. “This is serious shit, hacking into health records. It’s on par with hacking into the Pentagon, for Chrissake.”
“It is serious,” George agreed. “So is killing people.”
Zee nodded. George had him on that point.
“Amalgamated must have contingency plans to handle anyone with questions or suspicions. I want to be open with you. Doing this might put you and me in physical jeopardy, knowing what kind of money is involved. Billions are at stake, if not trillions. And that’s no exaggeration.”
From the grave look on Zee’s face, George recognized he wasn’t helping his case, bringing up the downside. Still, he felt he had to be honest. “Listen, Zee,” George continued, trying to tone down the urgency in his voice. “I have to play this out whether you help me or not, but I need proof of what is going on in order to go to the media, which is my idea of what I will do if my worst fears are realized. And the only proof I can imagine getting is what I’m hoping you can provide me.”
Zee softened a bit. “Are you serious about the ten grand?”
“I am. And if I’m right, I’m betting there will be a lot of job offers for the guy who helped expose it all.”
Zee nodded, a little embarrassed. “It’s just that I’ve had some recent online poker losses and, well, I have rent and bills and all.”
“Help me and the money is yours.”
“Okay, I’ll do it,” Zee said. “But with a couple of conditions. I use your computer when I try and access Amalgamated’s servers. And I only use your modem. When the shit hits, I prefer it hit there.”
“No problem,” George agreed immediately. “When can you start?”
“Give me an hour. I need to shower and grab a bite to eat to be fresh for this. It ain’t going to be easy. I imagine they have created some serious firewall shit.”
George felt a huge relief wash over him. “Okay, great! How can I help?”
“By paying me. Knowing that I can pay my past due rent will let me give you my undivided attention.”
“Consider it done.”
39
True to his word, Zee appeared at George’s front door an hour later, freshly showered and wearing a pair of baggy sweats. He was holding a coffeepot filled with fresh brew. In his other hand, he was balancing a carton of Red Bull and a carton of Marlboro cigarettes on top of a fishing tackle box filled with tools, computer CDs, and other paraphernalia. In response to George’s comment that he had a lot of stuff, Zee said he was loaded for bear.
George eyed the cigarettes. “I’d rather you don’t smoke.”
“Sorry, dude, but ciggies are a must if I’m gonna have any luck. It’s the cigs or nothing.”
“Okay, fine,” George relented, recognizing that there were people who couldn’t concentrate unless they had their smoking ritual, which was sometimes more important than the nicotine. He pointed toward his dining room table, where he had his laptop set up and ready to go next to Sal’s smartphone. He’d put Kasey’s back in the box in the closet.
“Where’s your modem?” Zee said, scanning the room.
George pointed it out next to his TV. Zee went about inspecting it.
“It works well,” George said. “The cable people said it was a good one.”
“It’s a piece of shit, but it’ll do.”
George realized that everyone who ever commented on his apartment either referred to it or what was in it as “shit.” When all this was over, he’d have to address the issue. Assuming he was still around when it was over. He was painfully aware that what he was doing could very well impact his career.