Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

It was Pamela’s first encounter with nerds. Herbie Montgomery wore thick-lensed John Lennon glasses and looked like a bright-eyed nesting bird peering from inside a tangled hedge of hair that merged with an unclipped beard spread to his chest like a bib. His brother was clean shaven, without glasses, and had the soap-faced pallor of someone who never strayed from the sunless vastness of cyberspace. Both wore bib-and-suspender overalls and work boots. Their back office was a snake’s nest of cables, coils, wires, and blank-eyed terminals.

When Pamela showed the two men copies of the two messages, Herbie said, “Hey! Guy didn’t take anything that wasn’t his.”

“Let’s go from the beginning,” said Murray.

“One cool cracker,” obliged Jason. “Came in last Wednesday, said he wanted to rent page space. Called himself the General, like all hackers and crackers do. Paid fifty dollars up front. Expected him back from time to time: That’s the usual way, not on the web themselves so they use our home page and our terminals. But this guy collects his own mail from outside. Cracked in, downloaded, and was away.

“But like I said,” took up Herbie, “he paid. He’s still in credit.”

“OK,” said Pamela. “So let’s go back again. Proper name?”

Herbie smiled sympathetically. “Cyber gypsies don’t use real names. Surfing you can be who you like, go where you like. Nobody knows you’ve been or gone ’less you want them to. This guy wanted to be the General so that’s who he was.”

“How’d he pay?” asked Murray, anticipating the answer.

“Cash. Fifty-dollar bill.”

“Where is it now?”

The brother looked at the local bureau chief in astonishment. “How do we know! It was four days ago! Might have banked it, used it in change, spent it. Could be anywhere.”

“You ever see him before?” persisted Pamela, all expectation gone.

Herbie shook his head. Jason said, “Nope.”

“Describe him.”

Both men thought. Herbie said, “Big guy. Obviously kept himself in shape: no gut. About forty-five. Stood tall, like an army type.” He buried his hand into his bird’s-nest hair. “Had that sort of haircut, too. You know, right up to the top of his head.”

“And a tattoo,” reminded Jason.

“What of?” demanded Murray.

“Eagle. The American eagle, on his left arm.”

“How could you see it?” asked Murray.

“He was wearing a short-sleeved sport shirt, with jeans. New. And combat boots. Like the others.”

“What others?” demanded Pamela.

“There were three other guys in the jeep outside-a modern one, not an army type, but the doors were open and he sat with his foot up against the dash, so I saw his boots,” said Jason.

“What color was the vehicle?”

“Maroon,” said the brothers, in unison.

“I tell you what I want you guys to do,” said Pamela. “I want you to come down to the bureau offices with us and take all the time in the world to work with an artist on an e-fit of the General and the others, if you can remember enough about them. And we’ll look through every make of jeep there’s ever been until you recognize the one they had.”

“What the hell’s this guy done!” demanded Herbie.

“Caused a lot of trouble,” she said.

On their way back out to the car, Murray said, “It’s good.”

“Not good enough,” Pamela said.

When she got back to the office, there were call-back messages from the director and Terry Osnan.

Osnan said, “The navy has a navigation satellite in geostationary orbit over the Pacific. It had been put out by two degrees. Would have put everything off course.”

The director said, “I’m not sure how many more commendations I can award. Looks to me like you might be heading for a presidential medal.”

What about a deputy directorship? wondered Pamela.

Robert Standing had been led away from the building in handcuffs, with virtually every window occupied by watching bank staff. Hollis was sure Standing had been crying; certainly two or three girls inside had been weeping. Carole Parker had been one of them.

The most intense inquest was obviously long distance, from Washington. Leonard Ross insisted on a written, detailed account to which Cowley had to add two further responses to the director’s subsequent queries. In addition there were repeated, tense-voiced telephone conversations. Ross actually echoed Barry Martlew’s diversion cynicism, which Cowley answered by quoting Igor Baratov’s intercepted ridicule of clearing the lock-up garage under the Russian president’s nose. The protection-seeking Danilov had already decided to keep the recorded ridicule-the entire tape and its contents-from Georgi Chelyag.

From the “long drive” remark on the recording, they guessed the man had left Moscow by road, most likely with the arms shipment. Nevertheless, they checked passenger lists of Aeroflot’s U.S. flights and of all the American carriers for the preceding two days. They found no record of Yevgenni Meckislavovich Leanov leaving Moscow by air.

“Viktor Nikov had two passports,” reminded Danilov. “The KGB printed genuine documents. Leanov’s farewell present from the Lubyanka could have been as many as he wanted.”

Cowley spent a long time on the telephone to the FBI office at the Warsaw embassy-which had already received independent priority instructions in the director’s name from Washington-and wired all the available photographs, including Leanov’s from his KGB dossier. The Polish-based agent in charge apologized for not having any useful contacts within the Gdansk port.

“And we can’t risk approaching Cidicj direct, can we?”

“No,” agreed Cowley.

“You’ve no idea what sort of vehicle-or vehicles-will be delivering the stuff? Just that it’ll most likely be Russian registration but that’s not definite?”

Cowley squeezed his eyes shut in exasperation. “I don’t need reminding!”

“Don’t hold your breath that we’ll get anything,” said the other man.

Pamela Darnley was still in Chicago when Osnan relayed the request for Customs authorities there to post an “instant advise” watch for incoming Cidicj freighters. When she spoke to the Washington incident room, Osnan said, “We’re also circulating Leanov’s photograph with a detain order to all airports, harbors, and border crossings.”

“What’s the atmosphere like?”

“Deeply unhappy. You coming back?”

“Albany first, to hear all that Robert Standing has to say.” The case-closing breakthrough might only have been delayed, not lost. The three-D digitized computer drawing of the General looked good-like an identifiable living person-and the physical description was far better than most she’d known, with the bonus of the eagle tattoo. And the Montgomery brothers were positive about the maroon Toyota Land Cruiser. All she had to do was break Standing; in the euphoria the heat would be taken off Cowley. Her sudden desire to do that-help him however she could-surprised her. Then she thought: Why not? They were level-grade colleagues now, no longer with a superior-to-subordinate barrier. And it would be her choice, just like in a singles’ bar.

Pamela went cautiously into the interview at Albany police headquarters, warned by Anne Stovey (“thanks for the commendation”) of her initial arrest interrogation.

“He won’t shift,” said the local FBI agent.

“He been Mirandaed?” queried Pamela. It didn’t matter how many people she had to teach to suck eggs, she didn’t intend getting screwed by a legal technicality like failure to advise the man of his legal rights.

“Read out, in full, in front of his lawyer-the top guy here in Albany-to whom he was granted immediate access before being asked a single question,” confirmed Anne. “Everything recorded on tape.”