The Blue Nowhere

from Triple-X?”
    No one had taken any calls from the hacker.
    “Do you have his number?” Gillette asked Bishop.
    The detective said no, that when Triple-X had called earlier with Phate’s e-mail address the caller ID on Bishop’s phone indicated the hacker was calling from a pay phone.
    But Gillette examined the encryption program. He laughed and said, “I’ll bet I can crack it without the key.” He slipped the disk containing his hacker tools into one of the PCs and loaded a decryption cracker he’d hacked together a few years ago.
    Linda Sanchez, Tony Mott and Shelton had been looking over the few pages of material that Gillette had managed to screen dump out of Phate’s Next Projects folder before the killer stopped the download and encrypted the data.
    Mott taped the sheets up on the white-board and the team stood in a cluster in front of them.
    Bishop noted, “There’re a lot of references to facilities management—janitorial, parking, security and food services, personnel, payroll. It sounds like the target is a big place.”
    Mott said, “The last page, look. Medical services.”
    “A hospital,” Bishop said. “He’s going after a hospital.”
    Shelton added, “Makes sense—high security, lots of victims to choose from.”
    Nolan nodded. “It fits his profile for challenges and game playing. And he could pretend to be anybody—a surgeon or nurse or janitor. Any clue which one he’s thinking of?”
    But no one could find any reference to a specific hospital on the pages.
    Bishop pointed to a block of type on one of the printouts.
    CSGEI Claims ID Numbers—Unit 44
    “Something about that looks familiar.”
    Below the words was a long list of what seemed to be social security numbers.
    “CSGEI,” Shelton said, nodding, also trying to place it. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”
    Suddenly Linda Sanchez said, “Oh, sure, I know: It’s our insurer—the California State Government Employees Insurance Company. Those must be the social security numbers of patients.”
    Bishop picked up the phone and called CSGEI’s office in Sacramento. He told a claims specialist what the team had found and asked what the information designated. He nodded as he listened and then looked up. “They’re recent claims for medical services by state employees.” Bishop then spoke into the phone again. “What’s Unit 44?”
    He listened. Then a moment later he frowned and glanced at the team. “Unit 44’s the state police—the San Jose office. That’s us. That information’s confidential. . . . How did Phate get it?”
    “Jesus,” Gillette muttered. “Ask if the records for that unit are on ISLEnet.”
    Bishop did. He nodded. “They sure are.”
    “Goddamn,” Gillette spat out. “When he broke into ISLEnet Phate wasn’t online for only forty seconds—shit, he changed the log files just to make us think that. He must’ve downloaded gigabytes of data. We should—”
    “Oh, no,” a man’s voice gasped, filled with wrenching alarm.
    The team turned to see Frank Bishop, mouth open, stricken, pointing at the list of numbers taped to the white-board.
    “What’s wrong, Frank?” Gillette asked.
    “He’s going to hit Stanford-Packard Medical Center,” the detective whispered.
    “How do you know?”
    “The second line from the bottom, that social security number? It’s my wife’s. She’s in the hospital right now.”
    A man walked into the doorway of Jennie Bishop’s room.
    She looked away from the silent TV set—on which she’d been absently watching the melodramatic close-ups on a soap opera and checking out the actresses’ hairstyles. She was expecting Dr. Williston but the visitor was somebody else—a man in a dark blue uniform. He was young and had a thick black mustache, which didn’t quite match his sandy hair. Apparently the facial hair was an attempt to give some maturity to a youthful face. “Mrs. Bishop?” He had a faint Southern accent, rare in this part of California.
    “That’s right.”
    “My name’s Hellman. I’m with the hospital security staff. Your husband called and asked me to stay in your room.”
    “Why?”
    “He didn’t tell us. He just said to make sure nobody comes into your room except him or a policeman or your doctor.”
    “Why?”
    “He didn’t say.”
    “Is my son all right? Brandon?”
    “Haven’t heard that he isn’t. ”
    “Why didn’t Frank call me directly?”
    Hellman toyed with the can of Mace on his belt. “The