The Blue Nowhere

hacker murder case in Silicon Valley, and Internal Affairs wanted to find out how much damage Miller had done and how long he’d been Phate’s partner and lover.
    Department of Defense agent Backle was still intent on collaring Wyatt Gillette for a laundry list of offenses involving the Standard 12 encryption program and he now wanted to arrest Frank Bishop as well—for breaking a federal prisoner out of custody.
    As for the charges against Gillette for the Standard 12 hack, Bishop explained to Captain Bernstein, “It’s pretty clear, sir, that Gillette either seized root at one of Holloway’s FTP sites and downloaded a copy of the script or just telneted directly into Holloway’s machine, broke through the firewall and got a copy that way.”
    “What the hell does that mean?” the grizzled, crew-cut cop had snapped.
    “Sorry, sir,” Bishop had said, then translated the techno-speak. “What I’m saying is I think it was Holloway who broke into the DoD and wrote the decryption program. Gillette stole it from him and used it because we asked him to.”
    “You think, ” Bernstein had muttered cynically. “Well, I don’t understand all this computer crap that’s been going around.” But he picked up the phone and called the U.S. attorney, who agreed to review whatever evidence CCU could offer supporting Bishop’s theory before proceeding with charges against either Gillette or Bishop (both of whose stock was pretty high at the moment for having nailed the “Silicon Valley Kracker,” as the local TV stations were describing Phate).
    Agent Backle grudgingly returned to his office in San Francisco’s Presidio.
    At the moment, however, the attention of all the law enforcers had turned from Phate and Stephen Miller to the MARINKILL case. Several recent bulletins reported that the killers had been spotted again—this time right next door, in San Jose—apparently staking out several other banks. Bishop and Shelton had been conscripted into the joint FBI/state police task force. They’d spend a few hours with their families for dinner and then report to the bureau’s San Jose office later tonight.
    Bob Shelton was home at the moment (his only farewell to Gillette had been a cryptic glance, whose meaning was completely lost on the hacker). Bishop, however, had delayed his own departure home and was sharing a Pop-Tart and coffee with the hacker while they waited for the troopers to arrive to transport him back to San Ho.
    The phone rang. Bishop answered, “Computer Crimes.”
    He listened for a moment. “Hold on.” He looked at Gillette, lifted an eyebrow. Handed the receiver to him. “It’s for you.”
    He took it. “Hello?”
    “Wyatt.”
    Elana’s voice was so familiar to him that he could almost feel it beneathhis compulsively keying fingers. The timbre of her voice alone had always revealed to him the entire range of her soul, and he needed to hear only a single word to know whether she was playful, angry, frightened, sentimental, passionate. Today he could tell from her greeting that she’d called very reluctantly and that her defenses were up like the shields on the spacecrafts of the sci-fi movies they’d watched together.
    On the other hand, she had called.
    She said, “I heard that he’s dead. Jon Holloway. I heard it on the news.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Are you all right?”
    “Fine.”
    A long pause. As if looking for something to fill the silence, she added, “I’m still going to New York.”
    “With Ed.”
    “That’s right.”
    He closed his eyes and sighed. Then, with an edge in his voice, he asked, “So why’d you call?”
    “I guess just to say that if you wanted to stop by, you could.”
    Gillette wondered: Why bother? What was the point?
    He said, “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
    They hung up. He turned to find Bishop looking at him cautiously. Gillette said, “Give me an hour. Please.”
    “I can’t take you,” the detective said.
    “Let me borrow a car.”
    The detective debated, looked around the dinosaur pen, considering. He said to Linda Sanchez, “You have a CCU car he can use?”
    Reluctantly she handed him the keys. “This isn’t procedure, boss.”
    “I’ll take responsibility.”
    Bishop tossed the keys to Gillette then pulled out his phone and called the troopers who’d be transporting him back to San Ho. He gave them Elana’s address and said he’d okayed Gillette’s being there. The prisoner would be returning to CCU in one