What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [20]
Most of the stores in town ran out of space heaters within hours of the explosion. One store, however, sold its entire supply – it had nine on hand – in just thirty minutes. And every single one of the space heaters, it turns out, was purchased by the same person – an individual using a credit card registered in the name of Mr. B. L. Tod, which was the same name the guy in the white Lamborghini had used in signing up for his parking space.
The street address associated with the credit card had been a fake. Fortunately, one of the agents had thought to check the address on the Internet, so the FBI was spared the embarrassment of sending an assault squad to the National Cathedral.
Now, Robertson was back at the office, taking care of some paperwork that had been piling up while he’d been out failing to solve the Washington Gas fiasco. His team was still investigating, but he wasn’t particularly hopeful.
“Bob? Bob! I think I’ve found him!” One of his younger agents stood, leaning halfway over her desk as she continued clicking her mouse. After a few more clicks, she grabbed a couple of sheets of paper off the printer, and headed over to Robertson’s desk.
“Danvers, right?” he said, looking over the pages she’d handed him. Robertson knew Danvers’ name perfectly well, and her perfectly-shaped bottom even better. He studied the page. It looked like – well, he couldn’t tell what it was. He handed it back. “What is this?”
“It’s from an Internet forum,” she said. “Someone has been posting using the handle Bacon, Lettuce, and Death. And apparently he’s a big Star Wars fan.” She nodded and smiled as she said this, apparently thinking that it explained everything.
“Bacon, lettuce, and what?”
“Bacon, Lettuce, and Death,” she said. But Robertson still wore a confused expression. “‘Tod’ means ‘death’ in German. B.L. Tod. B.L.T. Bacon Lettuce and Death. Simple really.”
Robertson shook his head. “Great,” he said, stretching the word out like a sardonic, cynical version of the cereal-chomping tiger. “Danvers, have you been smoking the dope?”
Danvers turned to him and smiled, apparently taking Robertson’s statement as a joke. “Look here.” She flipped the pages. “I contacted the ISP, and I asked for the IP address.” She ran a finger along the side of her head, tucking her long blonde hair behind her ear.
It took a second for Robertson to remember where he was. “What?”
“I got Mr. BLT’s IP address.” Robertson gave her a blank look, so she continued, “It’s a unique identifier – an address – and every computer connected to the Internet has one.”
“Do we need a warrant for that?” Robertson wasn’t up on all this computer mumbo jumbo.
She gave him a sly smile.
“Okay…” he said.
“Anyway, it didn’t tell me much. Just that he’s been posting from a computer here in Washington.”
“That kind of seems like a lot to me.”
“Well,” she said, “yeah. I guess so.” She paused, giving him a look he recognized and remembered as the same look he used to get from girls in high school. And college. She nodded emphatic nods and spoke slowly, as if that would help the information penetrate. “It just … won’t actually … allow us … to find him,” she said.
Robertson squinted, so Danvers soldiered on, flipping pages. “There’s a big party for a senator tonight,” she said. “A fundraiser. Here in town. And apparently one of the Star Wars producers is going to be there. Tod keeps asking ‘Are you sure?’ and ‘How do you know?’” She smiled triumphantly.
Robertson just kept staring at her with an intense but confused look on his face.
“I think he might be planning to go to a fundraiser here in town,” she said.
No change, other than a slight twitch of his mustache.
“Tonight!” she said.
Robertson looked skeptical. “How can we be sure it’s him?