Free Out of the Black by Lee Doty Page B

pretty sure he was regretting opening the door. Ping was struck by the image of being in another doorway. Ahmed was on the other side and examining him through the peephole. He had his hand on the knob, but couldn't decide if he should let Ping in. Ping left him to decide as he continued to eat, his crunching filling the deepening silence.
    Ahmed put down his bowl and picked up the chromed tablet. He extended it and turned it on. He made a few pokes with the stylus. "Locked."
    "Really? Can you explain that for me?"
    The kid looked confused, "It's not mine. Am I supposed to be able to decrypt it or something?"
    "No," Ping set down his empty bowl, "I am."
    He let that sink in as he paused. "It didn't yield to a warrant key, and I can't figure how that is. I mean, you'd have to be a Rumbaugh semaphore to figure how to do something like that eh?"
    Ahmed looked relieved. "Wow, so now I'm a hacker... okay." He laughed, shaking his head. "So you read my record. I left computers behind man."
    Ping's eyes went to the computer desk, then back to Ahmed.
    "Touché. Mostly behind then."
    "And why was that? Why give up so much money and prestige? You could have had it all."
    "All of what? Money? Some kind of fourteen-hour-a-day grind? That's not what life's about. Didn't your mom ever tell you that?" He dropped the tablet on the table and sat back, crossing his arms.
    "Actually she did. Though she could never explain why a prodigy would suddenly throw away his gift." Ping smiled at the irony. He actually could understand why a prodigy might not follow their gift as a profession. He realized he had paused for too long, so he concluded with "Mozart composed until the day he died."
    "Yeah, now that was a happy ending. Maybe he should have written music for fun and spent more time with his kids."
    "So now you only program for fun. Is encryption hacking fun? Are you one of those guys who get a rush from toying with prison time?"
    "Believe me, I don't need any more rush in my life right now. Again, what's this got to do with me? This isn't my tablet and I didn't hack it for thrills or cash. Why are we talking?"
    Ping steepled his fingers and thought about how to continue. "Where were you last night?"
    "Right here. I s'pose the change logs for my files could verify that, but you'd prolly think I hacked them too." His glance indicated the computer desk.
    "Programming for fun?" Ping asked.
    "Definitely not grading papers. Why?"
    "Patience. There's some more stuff I need to ask before I can say anything... it's a cop thing." Ping smiled reassuringly. He was pretty sure the kid knew a lot more than he let on. However he was growing more certain that Ahmed didn't know anything about the scene under the bridge. He wanted to get out of inquisition mode before he dropped the bad news.
    "Did you get along well with Dr. Lutine?"
    " Did I..." the kid trailed off. Oops. "You said ' Did I'." His eyes seemed to glaze with imagined possibilities.
    Ping raised his hands for calm. He was going to have to be more careful, "That's not..."
    "Oh...my..." Alexander's eyes focused on the tablet resting on the table. "That's Ivo's tablet, isn't it... when?"
    "Two this morning." Ping said. "He and his driver were killed in their car just west of the city."
    "His driver?" There was an uncertain pause. "Peter Sieberg? Is that who you said before?"
    "So you did know him?" Ping prompted.
    "No...yes. I think I knew him, but not by that name." There was a blank stare of shock on his face, as if connections were breaking in his mind, leaving him numb.
    Or perhaps the connections were forming. "How many other people did you find dead with them?" It was Ping's turn to be shocked.
    "How did you...?"
    "More than twenty?" The kid looked him dead in the eye.
    "We're not sure, the revised count is now between eleven and fifteen... there's a lot of pieces."
    "Good!" Ahmed slammed his fist on the coffee table so hard that a few of the keys fell from the bowl and clinked across the glass