In Death 13 - Seduction in Death

the source?"
    "That would've sounded better if you hadn't had your lip curled, but it'll do. I know this is the source because by tracking through the central system, I traced the virus to its starting point. This unit was the first infected, and the virus was programmed to self-clone and, I suspect, slither into central, spread to all interfaced units, then erupt in a nearly simultaneous burst. It's very clever."
    "Great."
    Rinksy stepped up beside her again. "Your kit, Lieutenant."
    "Thanks." She took the kit, opened it. She coated her hands with Seal-It first, then passed the can to Roarke. "Don't touch anything yet." She took out a wand, shined its pencil-thin beam and washed cool blue light over the coffee mug. "Gotta good thumbprint. Yeah, partial index finger. You got your palm unit on you?"
    "Always."
    "Can you access the casefile? I need to compare these latents."
    While he did as she asked, Eve shined the light over the table surface. Too many prints, she mused, most of them smeared.
    "Lieutenant?" Roarke held out a small printout of the casefile prints.
    She grunted, then held the printed copy against the latent on the mug. "That's our boy. Hold on." Using the wand she picked up the mug, balanced it with a sealed finger on the base, then poured the coffee mixture into an evidence bag. "Why do people screw up perfectly good coffee with all that froth and flavors?" She sealed the bag, then tipped the cup into a second, sealed that. "Question."
    "Ask it."
    "How did he know we were coming? He had to know. That's why he uploaded the virus. We were here minutes after notification, but he tagged us, dumped the germ and danced. How?"
    "I have a theory, but I'd prefer exploring it a bit first."
    She shifted her weight. "Exploring how?"
    "I need to open this unit."
    She debated. Strict procedure meant she could, and likely should, roust either Feeney or McNab and haul them over to check out the unit on site. Or she could call in another EDD tech.
    But Roarke was here.
    If he'd been a cop, he'd have been commanding EDD by this time.
    "Consider yourself field drafted as an expert consultant, civilian."
    "I've always liked the ring of that." He slid a small case out of his inside pocket, then wiggled his sealed fingers. "I'm touching things now."
    He used a micro-drill and had the casing removed in seconds. Then he let out a little hmmm and began to probe. "There are three system levels in this club," he said conversationally. "This is the highest level and costs from one to ten dollars a minute depending on the number of functions utilized."
    Her stomach sank. "Is this your club?"
    "It is, yes." He continued to work, hooking his PPC to the unit with a hair-thin cable. "But that's neither here nor there. Unless you consider that you'll have no bitching and moaning from the owner about tonight's little adventure -- or the impounding of this unit as evidence." He glanced up once, just a sweep of her face with those amused blue eyes. "Less paperwork for you."
    "You know how those right-wing bureaucratic demigods are. They feed on paperwork."
    "You've a bruise gathering on your jaw."
    "Yeah." She rubbed her thumb over the ache. "Shit."
    "Hurt?"
    "I bit my tongue. That hurts more. You?"
    "Nothing major. This system is corrupted, and very thoroughly. Clever boy," he reflected. "Clever, clever boy. You'll need to run a full diagnostic, but it appears you have a top-level tech on your hands, and one who believes in being prepared. It isn't a simple matter to rig a public unit to notify a user of a search on his account. He had a portable scanner, highly sensitive, I'd say, interfaced it. Very cautious, very smart."
    "Can you get around it?"
    "Eventually. The units in this club are designed quite well to shut down and lock at any attempt at contamination. There's an internal detector and filtering system as backup. Despite that, he managed to upload a virus that wiped this unit, and every other in here. And it did it in minutes, after detecting a shield notification."
    She leaned back. "You sound impressed."
    "Oh, I am. Considerably impressed. Your man has a brilliant talent. A pity, really, that he's as corrupt and worthless as this unit."
    "Yeah. Breaks my heart." She stood up. "I'm going to spring the staff, have the unit impounded and sent to EDD. Once we're cleared out, I want a look at security. Let's see what he looked like tonight."
    He looked, Eve decided, smug. She caught it in the way his eyes drifted over the crowd