. . . 67 Hours and Counting . . .

The Motel 8 was so close to the highway that it seemed like part of it, like a watchtower overlooking the endless stream of white and red lights. As a hideaway, it was far too obvious for Ray’s comfort. He all but expected the FBI to be doing a room-by-room search of the place in the predawn hours. But with Brenda’s name on the registry and her credit card on the bill, it would serve well enough to conserve his cash and provide him shelter to think and act. The room itself had that cookie-cutter look of all the roadside, fifty-dollar-a-night flophouses that dotted the nation’s highways. Headless, unstealable coathangers hung in the closet. A battered box with curled-up, unreadable directions pasted on top sat bolted to the TV. A TV remote matched the pay-per-view box, bolted firmly onto the nightstand. Brass-plated reading lamps on swinging stalks hovered over each of the incredibly hard-mattressed beds.

None of these things interested Ray. Finding the room typically devoid of outlets, he had unplugged the TV and the box atop it in order to power his computer. He plugged his notebook into the wall to preserve the batteries. The motel had wireless internet service, but of course it was not free. It came up and asked for a credit card number. Ray didn’t mind paying, but he couldn’t use a credit card that would get him pinpointed on every fed map in the state. So he ran a few programs and hacked his way past the router.

Sitting in his underwear, he sipped a cup of fake coffee as he pecked at the keys and worked the mouse. He worked at the letter desk, staring intently at the flat screen of his notebook computer. The mouse he had attached to the port in the back. He had never been able to get used to those tiny, infernal touchpads.

Clicking the mouse again, he noticed it took far longer than it should have to connect to the university servers. The internet had indeed slowed down. Logging in as Rita Hapgood, he slipped into the system unannounced. Rita was someone who had enrolled in one of his classes this semester, but who had never attended. The system had automatically created an account for her which had never been used and would be automatically deleted at the end of the semester.

The password he would normally have given to Rita the first day of class worked like a charm. He allowed himself a sip of coffee and a grim half-smile. He was in.

Clicking with the mouse and typing in occasional codes, he quickly gained operator permissions, which allowed him to do things that students normally couldn’t do. One of them included reading other people’s electronic mail. He also was able to identify programs that others had executed recently, and review conversations they had had via the computer system with one another. Most people didn’t realize how public their private matters could be when they used electronic media for communications.

What he found in the files wasn’t anything incriminating. It was what he didn’t find that was interesting to him. Certain things seemed to be missing, or incomplete. He knew the system well, and knew what it tracked and didn’t track. Some of the tracks weren’t there when they should have been. To him, this was a clear sign of tampering.

He sat back with this information and cogitated. He tapped his lips with a finger for perhaps a minute. Then he leaned forward again and searched the listing of accounts. Soon enough, he found a group of unfamiliar ones. Super-users that he had never heard of before. Only one was currently logged in, someone who had a login name of: HUNTRESS. He chewed his tongue, fairly certain who that someone was.

“Very cagey, Agent Vasquez,” he said aloud. “My tax dollars aren’t wasted on you.”

There she was, he felt sure, not out cruising the streets for him, but rather lying in wait for him where he was most likely to show up. He envisioned a lioness, choosing a shady spot to stakeout the waterhole. He considered initiating a conversation, but held himself back. Just such antics always seemed to get people caught, people who were too impressed with their own cleverness.

He hoped, in fact, that he hadn’t already been spotted. His tracks were now as indelibly recorded upon the muddy electronic landscape as anyone’s. A few quick checks on Rita Hapgood’s account would instantly look suspicious. The commands he had been initiating simply didn’t belong in the realm of a student account, and certainly not one that had never been used and was supposedly dead anyway.

For a moment his heart rate shifted up into high gear. Had they detected him already? A droplet of sweat tickled his armpits. Just the fact that the huntress was there, waiting for him, gave him pause. He envisioned her sniffing him out on the net and ordering his IP traced.

He rubbed his chin. It had become stubbly. How long would he have before they sniffed him out? Difficult to say. He decided to get on with things and disconnect as quickly as possible. Typing fast, he set up a delayed, anonymous e-mail message and addressed it to HUNTRESS. In the message, he related his leads concerning Justin and the virus. Perhaps if he failed, they might be able to do something with his work. Then he logged off.

He stood there in his underwear, hands on his hips, frowning at his computer. Had they managed to trace him? Were they as on-the-ball as that?

The idea kept growing on him. He knew computer hardware very well, but it was hard to know what special gizmos the FBI had for such situations. Something that he had never read about in Wired Magazine. He decided he couldn’t take any chances. Moving around the room, he disconnected his equipment, dressed and gathered his few belongings together into the Walmart shopping bag that Brenda had left him with. Flipping off the lights on his way out, he left the room keys on the dresser behind him.

As he walked across the parking lot, he realized that eventually he would be caught, or Justin would be dead and then nothing mattered anymore. He had to act quickly on whatever leads he had. The time for action was now. Breathing hard, he climbed into the Honda and revved the engine. Within minutes he was back on I-80. He headed west, toward the University part of town.