I dropped the BlackBerry and jumped to my feet, but Weimann was blocking the way to the door. And he was holding the champagne bottle, again.
“Marc—Is it true?”
“No. Not all of it. Some of it might be.”
“Then I’m sorry. I’m calling the police. I can’t get mixed up in this.”
“You’re already mixed up in it, Karl. The virus. The memory stick. Your contact. You did deliver it to him?”
“I did.” There was regret in his voice. “I didn’t see the news report till I was on my way back.”
“OK, then. Now, listen. I know you’re spooked. I am, too, after seeing that stuff in black and white. But, please. Don’t do anything rash. Because there’s a lot of weird stuff going on. I don’t understand all of it, but I absolutely haven’t done anything wrong. So how about this? Hear me out. And if you still don’t believe me, call the police then. But at least give me a chance to explain.”
Weimann paced up and down in front of the window, taking short rapid steps, changing direction a little sooner each time until he ground to a halt, facing me.
“OK, Marc. You get one shot. If you don’t convince me, I’m making the call. But stay in the chair. And keep your hands where I can see them.”
I WAS PRETTY HONEST, about most things. I admitted taking the data from AmeriTel. I told Weimann about the break-in. That McKenna was convinced of my innocence, and had been the one who’d released me from jail after Brooking had accused me of creating the virus. I was vague about Peever, because I still didn’t understand how he fit into all this. I was sketchier still when it came to Carolyn’s situation, because I didn’t want to contradict anything Weimann might already know. I skirted around Troye/Brian’s involvement, for his own sake. And I skipped the dead guy in my bathroom altogether, for mine.
“Wow,” Weimann said, when I paused for air. “My head’s spinning.”
“Try living through it. And there’s more. I discovered something else while you were out. Which reminds me—my Dreadnaught prototype? Hello?”
Weimann’s face was blank for a moment, then I saw the penny drop.
“A little clunky. Not up to your usual standard. I can see why you canned it.”
“How did you get hold of it? It never even went to my beta testers.”
“Handed to me on a plate.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Anyway, does that matter, now? Keep going.”
“The Homeland Security woman—” I stalled for a moment, wondering how anyone other than Carolyn could have passed him that plate. “Agent Brooking? She thought I’d created the virus to attack the White House. But can I show you something? It’s on the screen. On your laptop. I couldn’t print it because of the quarantine.”
“Stay where you are. I’ll take a look.”
Weimann was at the desk for ten seconds, then he returned to his spot by the window.
“A record of an email trail?” he asked.
“Correct. But did you see how it had been bounced around? It came from one place, got redirected half a dozen times, went to a Hotmail account, and then got forwarded to AmeriTel?”
“I saw.”
“And what does that tell you?”
“That there are two people involved. One smart. One stupid.”
“Exactly. The smart one used all the right moves to hide the fact he’d sent an email to a throwaway account. And the stupid one ruined it by sending it on to his work address.”
“He probably didn’t know that when it was forwarded all its history came with it. If you know where to look. The schmuck.”
“And not just any schmuck. I know the guy. Michael Millan. AmeriTel’s CFO.”
“Wow. Not very smart, for a CFO. I wonder who was emailing him?”
“I think I know that, too. Did you see the time stamp?”
“No. Is it important?”
“Very. The email hit the Hotmail account at eleven twenty-three pm, last Saturday night. Millan forwarded it at five twenty-three the next morning. Sunday.”
“So what?”
“So, on Sunday, the board of AmeriTel met to discuss the bid they were about to submit for the government bandwidth auction. The revised bid. They were expected to get creamed. But they didn’t. Out of the blue they upped the amount they were offering, and they won huge. We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“You think they had a tip? They had an insider thing going?”
“I think that’s safe to assume.”
“Which means this Millan guy’s bent. Maybe the whole AmeriTel board is.”
“It means a lot more than that. Where do you think the tip came from?”
“I don’t know. Who’d be able to feed them that kind of information? Someone in Washington?”
“Someone in the White House.”
“Are you sure?” Weimann put the champagne bottle down.
“I was around that office every day for weeks. People were talking about the auction the whole time. It sounded like a three-ring circus, and the White House was at the center.”
“I have the tools. I could track those IP addresses.”
“Do it.”
“It would be dynamite, Marc. It would put AmeriTel out of business. People would go to prison. And it would prove the White House has a leak.”
“More than that. It would prove the White House has a virus. Think about that. If the White House was shut down by terrorists, there’d be chaos. The government would grind to a halt. Wall Street would melt down. No one would get paid. There’d be no food on the shelves. Riots. Looting. People would die.”
“And there’d be repercussions. Civil liberties would take another hit. Maybe even another war would get started.”
“Right. But narrow it down. From where I’m standing, it means the virus I’m accused of creating actually started at the White House, and spread to AmeriTel. Not the other way round. It means Homeland Security’s been looking in the wrong place.”
IT ONLY TOOK WEIMANN sixteen minutes to confirm the original email had come from the White House, but when he turned back to me I could see he had something else on his mind.
“We got carried away.” He looked disappointed. “This doesn’t prove the virus was already at the White House. It doesn’t look good, insider-trading-wise, given the attempt to hide the message and the timing and whatever, but the virus? That part doesn’t hold water.”
“So what’s your theory? A virus, custom-made for the White House turns up at a company that just received an email from the White House, and it’s all just a coincidence?”
“It could be. Yes. The one thing doesn’t prove the other.”
“Of course it does.”
“It doesn’t prove squat, Marc. We’ve got nothing.”
Friday. Late afternoon.
NATURE, OR NURTURE? THOSE WERE THE TWO OPTIONS I’D always heard about for explaining people’s behavior. And I’d always thought they covered the whole spectrum pretty well. Until that afternoon. That’s when I realized there’s a far more significant factor.
Whether it’s your ass that’s in the sling.
WEIMANN WAS PACING AGAIN.
“We should call the police. Or Homeland Security. What do you think, Marc? Homeland Security?”
“We should call no one. Not till we figure this out the rest of the way. I think I’m close, though. Here’s what I have. Someone at AmeriTel realized I was capturing their data, and could find the record of the White House email coming in. They didn’t want any ticking time bombs, so first thing Monday, before I could set foot in a room with a computer in it, they canned me. Problem solved. Or that’s what they thought.”
“Because they found out you had a copy of the data.”
“Right. Which is why they sent Carolyn to ask for it back. Then the burglars to steal it, when she walked out. Then the thugs.”