David Dun - Unacceptable Risk

"The gang members we talked to say this isn't the first time these two have shot at each other."

"Look. Those two kids were being used. I know it was the work of the man I've described to you."

"Perhaps, but they are both dead. Preliminary ballistics tests confirm the bullets that hit you and Anna Wade didn't come from the two thugs' guns. But they got away from the scene. One of them might have had a second gun and that gun may not have been fired into the surrounding buildings. Or there might have been a third shooter involved in the melee. Of course both those options are unlikely. Ballistics supports your sniper theory, but we have nothing more at this point. Nobody saw anything except two guys shooting on the street."

Sam didn't say anything, hoping for more, for something else.

"Look, I'm sympathetic. We're doing a lot of forensic work on the bodies. Maybe we'll find someone who knew about a setup. Maybe they talked to somebody. Right now we have nothing but your instincts and a mysterious ballistics test."

"Whatever you can do, I appreciate it."

"You're not going to take the law into your own hands?" Cross was concerned.

"I'm going to do my job, nothing more and nothing less." But despite his words, there was a deadly single-minded de termination in Sam and nothing anyone could say or do would change that.

When he hit the street, he called the nurses' station and spoke with Lydia, the nurse he had befriended. Anna's con dition hadn't changed, but her color looked good and they were still full of hope, Lydia said. He would call back in a few hours.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Grogg began the phone conversation. It was the way everyone from the office started. It was hard to go on working and act normally while Anna lay in a coma. Sam wasn't quite sure how to deal with it, right down to the condolences. He couldn't stop thinking of her, seeing her lying there, so still.

"I appreciate your thoughts, Grogg. I'm sure Anna does too. I wish I could put the world on hold and be with Anna, but since I can't, I just keep chugging as best I can. So, tell me, have you turned anything up?"

"Yeah, something important."

Sam could hear the excitement in his voice.

"What is it?"

"Just a minute."

Sam then heard Jill pick up on a second line.

"Sam, we got an e-mail message from someone in the French government, probably their Senate, purporting to relay a message from Benoit Moreau. It says 'I can help you disinfect Cordyceps and deliver Chaperone.' "

"Did you say yes?" Sam said, absolutely amazed.

"We couldn't get hold of you, so we winged it and said 'Absolutely yes.' "

"Good answer. How the heck did she send the message?"

"E-mail. It was sent to firechiefatbluehades. com."

Sam's mind tumbled as to how such a thing could be pos sible.

"Guess she put one over on us, Sam."

"I gave that to Anna Wade, the CIA, a few other people. Wait a minute. The CIA. Figgy might know that e-mail. He could have told his clients, the French. Benoit Moreau is one of the best information gatherers in the world and she prob ably talked it out of some French agent right after she screwed him. That's Benoit Moreau."

"And why would someone in the French Senate want to relay a message from a convicted criminal? It could be a setup or a feint by Gaudet to mislead."

"True. But I don't see the harm in saying yes. Good job. Let me know when you get a response."

"There's more. We couldn't get hold of you at all, so we wrote a second response."

"What did you say."

" 'How can we help?' "

"Good answer."

"You won't believe what she or rather her friends an swered."

"I am all ears."

" 'Monitor uaeromtioneb. net//exchange. Meet you in New York.' Signed 'Caterpillar.' Then we got no more."

"It wasn't easy monitoring that site," Grogg chimed in. "You have to have a password. Rollin's password quit work ing the day he died."

"But that wouldn't stop you, would it?"

"Hell no."

"So what did you do?"

"I downloaded Figgy's computer."

"You what?"

"I downloaded his computer awhile back and just re cently pulled it up on Big Brain and hit gold."

"That's inexcusable. Actually, it's outrageous. What did you get?"

"His correspondence isn't saved and he has special soft ware that scrambles it beyond recognition no matter what you do. But I got protocols for getting onto certain limited segments of the SDECE server. I was able to do the best hacking of my life and log on to the computer of Jean- Baptiste Sourriaux, a commandant apparently assigned di rectly for at least some purposes to Admiral Larive, the big tuna. For some reason Jean-Baptiste had the password we needed."

"Grogg, you are good. What's Baptiste up to?"

"Aside from the password, his correspondence and so on, it's all scrambled."

"Okay. Well. Use the password if it's still good. Write an e-mail. Let's take a complete flier. Pretend to be Figgy. Write: 'Please confirm independently the instructions for the meeting.' Can you make it appear that Big Brain is Figgy's laptop working through the SDECE server?"

"Good enough so only two or three computer geeks out of a thousand would catch the forgery."

"Give it a try. See what we get back."

"Hey, Sam," Jill said. "Why a meeting? What meeting?"

"No idea, but it's worth a try, isn't it? I presume Figgy meets with Baptiste at times, don't you?"

"Sure. Why do you think Benoit Moreau signed her note Caterpillar?"

"Maybe because she fancies she'll be turning into a butter- fly."

Michael, Grady, Professor Lyman, and the entourage made their way across the campus. The journals were stored in a clearinghouse structure, where various artifacts from antiquity were examined, cataloged, and held until their final resting place had been determined. Some artifacts were actually reburied once thoroughly studied. The building was located at the edge of the campus and was outfitted with heavy wire screens over the windows. It was a long brick building of three stories, simple but attractive with well- maintained white trim and matching shutters. It had no doubt been constructed for some other purpose, perhaps classrooms. It was mostly the province of physical anthro pologists, paleontologists, and that sort, although the evolutionary biologists had a corner.

"Is there twenty-four-hour security?" Michael asked.

"Well, I don't really think so, but I'm sure it's safe."

They stopped at the front desk and each person signed in and received a name tag. There were people coming and going and the place looked occupied.

Michael picked up the pace as they walked through the door to one of the storage areas and proceeded to a spot pointed out by Dr. Lyman. There were about eighteen years' worth of three-ring binders, including the ones created by Michael's father before his death, with an average of three 4-inch binders per year totaling a little over sixty volumes. There were five trunks each about 4 feet by 1.5 feet by 14 inches. Each trunk was said to contain twelve volumes. Michael saw the trunks at a distance and literally trotted up to them with Grady on his heels. Reaching into his pocket, he removed a key. Each trunk had two locks. According to the labels af fixed to the ends of the trunks, they were in chronological order. Michael started with the most recent trunk, dated from 1998 through October 2003. Grady felt the tension while she reassured herself that they had to be there.

But when Michael opened the trunk, it was empty.

"Amazing," Dr. Lyman said, sounding genuinely surprised in his own understated way.

Michael kicked the next trunk in line and it too was obviously empty. The rest were not. Someone had taken everything back to 1995, no doubt figuring they would get the volume describing the plant or animal that would turn out to be Chaperone.