“Theoretically, it could,” Lucy said. “Because you’ve got to remember that a huge database like CP&L’s isn’t going to reside in any one place. They’ve got other systems with gateways leading to them, which might explain the hacker’s interest in the mainframe in Pittsburgh.”
“Maybe it explains something to you,” said Marino, who always got impatient with Lucy’s computer talk. “But it don’t explain shit to me.”
“If you think of the gateways as major corridors on a map-like 1-95, for example,” she patiently said, “then if you go from one to the other, theoretically you could start cruising the global web. You could pretty much get into anything you want.”
“Like what?” he asked. “Give me an example that I can relate to.”
She rested the notebook in her lap and shrugged. “If I broke into the Pittsburgh computer, my next stop would be at AT&T.”
“That computer’s a gateway into the telephone system?” I asked.
“It’s one of them. And that’s one of the suspicions Jan and I have been working on-that this hacker’s trying to figure out ways to steal electricity and phone time.”
“Of course, at the moment this is just a theory,” Janet said. “So far, nothing has come up that might tell us what the hacker’s motive is. But from the FBI’s perspective, the break-ins are against the law. That’s what counts.”
“Do you know which CP&L customer records were accessed?” I asked.
“We know that this person has access to all customers,” Lucy replied. “And we’re talking millions. But as for individual records that we know were looked at in more detail, those were few. And we have them.”
“I’m wondering if I could see them,” I said.
Lucy and Janet paused.
“What for?” Marino asked as he continued to stare at me. “What are you getting at, Doc?”
“I’m getting at that uranium fuels nuclear power plants, and CP&L has two nuclear power plants in Virginia and one in Delaware. Their mainframe is being broken into. Ted Eddings called my office with radioactivity questions. In his home PC he had all sorts of files on North Korea and suspicions that they were attempting to manufacture weapons-grade plutonium in a nuclear reactor.”
“And the minute we start looking into anything in Sandbridge we get a prowler,” Lucy added. “Then someone slashes our tires and Detective Roche threatens you. Now Danny Webster comes to Richmond and ends up dead and it appears that whoever killed him tracked uranium into your car.” She looked at me. “Tell me what you need to see.”
I did not require a complete customer list, for that would be virtually all of Virginia, including my office and me.
But I was interested in any detailed billing records that were at’Lussed, and what I was shown was curious but short. Out of five names, I recognized all but one.
“Does anybody know who Joshua Hayes is? He has a post office box in Suffolk,” I said.
“All we know so far,” said Janet, “is that he’s a farmer.”
“All right,” I moved on. “We’ve got Brett West, who is an executive at CP&L. I can’t remember his title.” I looked at the printout.
“Executive Vice President in charge of Operations,” Jan et said.
“He lives in one of those brick mansions near you, Doc,” Marino said. “In Windsor Farms.”
“He used to. If you study his billing address,” Janet pointed out, “you’ll see it changed as of last October. It appears he moved to Williamsburg.”
There were two other CP&L executives whose records had been perused by whoever was illegally prowling the Internet. One was the CEO, the other the president. But it was the identity of the fifth electronic victim that truly frightened me.
“Captain Green.” I stared at Marino, stunned.
His face was vague. “I got no idea who you’re talking about.”
“He was present at the Inactive Ship Yard when I got Eddings’ body out of the water,” I said. “He’s with Navy Investigative Services.”
“I hear you.” Marino’s face darkened, and Lucy and Janet’s IOC case dramatically shifted before their eyes.
“Maybe it’s not surprising this person breaking in would be curious about the highest-ranking officials of the corporation he’s violating, but I don’t see how NIS fits in,” Janet said.