Cybercop targets the criminal code.

• Position: Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

Doris Gardner entered her master's program at Wake Forest University with modest goals: graduate and become a high-school teacher. Instead, the 37-year-old Winston-Salem native and former computer-science major is trying to teach cybercrooks a thing or two about keeping their cursors to themselves and playing nice online.

In August, she became the first supervisor of the FBI's 15-member computer-crime unit in Charlotte, one of 16 in the country. Charlotte was picked above larger cities for its proximity to big banks, Research Triangle Park and military bases.

But the team's first big case came from none of the above. A month after Gardner's office opened, bombs started showing -- and blowing -- up in Lowe's home-improvement stores in Salisbury, Asheboro and Concord. The bomber demanded Lowe's deposit $250,000 into a Latvian bank account.

The account was registered to a Panamanian company, but the account owner had the online-banking software sent to a Dunkin' Donuts in Winston-Salem. He used an Internet e-mail account to ask the bank for the FedEx tracking number so he could pick it up. Shrewdly, he checked e-mail from public libraries. "Then he got kind of lazy and started checking that account from home."

Gardner's group followed the e-trail to the Internet service provider, then to George Rocha of Greensboro. In his home, they found bomb parts and extortion letters. Rocha pleaded guilty and got a 40-year sentence.

Gardner's interest in the FBI was sparked during grad school by a chance meeting with an ex-classmate turned FBI agent. After getting a master's in mathematics in 1988, she joined, providing technical support for investigators. In 1992, she became an agent, inspired by her technical work on a case involving the mail-bomb murders of a judge in Alabama and a lawyer in Atlanta.

Most of Gardner's cases involve attacks on company and government databases, crimes that cost as much as $500 million yearly in the United States. She doesn't actually smack the cuffs on accused criminals, but her job isn't just stroking a keyboard and nudging a mouse. She also coordinates her team's activities and interactions with other crime-fighting units.

And she still gets to teach. Originally, her team had no experience in computer crimes. "So we had some training to do."

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