Stuart Woods - Hothouse Orchid

“One of those geeks in computer services has come to me twice, now, with the news that someone outside the Agency has managed to log on to the mainframe, at least twice.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. Of course, he may have logged on before, but he has been caught at it only twice.”

“Who is it?”

“Unknown. He creates a sort of channel through several computers around the country, then logs on from one of them, so we haven’t been able to pinpoint his location.”

“What has he been doing on the mainframe?”

“Both times we’ve caught him he’s been looking at information about you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. Is there some old lover of yours out there who used to be Agency who might still be obsessed with you?”

“No. I don’t know anybody who fits that description, especially the obsession part. What did he want to know about me, do you think?”

“The first time, he was looking up background information on one Colonel James Bruno.”

“What kind of information?”

“The trial record of his court-martial and Bruno’s Florida driver’s license application.”

“Bruno is a suspect in the series of rapes and murders we’ve been having here,” Holly said. “The search could be related to that.”

“The other time we caught him, he went into your personnel records.”

“Holy shit,” Holly said involuntarily.

“Exactly. Who would want to do that?”

“I can’t imagine,” Holly said.

“I can imagine somebody who might be just a tiny bit obsessed with you.”

“Enlighten me, please.”

“You attended the opera with him once, and you may have put a bullet in him at one point. Let’s not mention any names.”

Holly winced. “You say you haven’t been able to pin down his location?”

“Not yet. He may be on the move, but the last time, our geek thought he might be somewhere in Florida.”

“You think he might be looking for revenge?”

“Possibly, but he wouldn’t need your personnel file for that; he’d just find you and kill you.”

“Well, yes. Maybe he hasn’t gotten over our last encounter.”

“Perhaps not, but I don’t have any sense that you’re in any real danger. You might keep an eye out for him, though, or for someone who might be him.”

“I take your point.”

“Then go armed and be careful.”

“I’ll do that,” Holly replied.

The screen went blank. Holly shut down the computer and left the little office. She walked into the kitchen to find Josh, naked, making coffee.

He jumped. “Where did you come from?”

“I was just on the phone.”

“Where? I couldn’t hear you.”

“In a secret place,” she said. “You look very nice.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” he said, backing away. “I’ve got to get to work.”

“Oh, you have some time,” she said, advancing on him.

Jimmy Weathers was sitting at his desk when Chief Bruno appeared in his cubicle door. “Good morning, Chief,” he said.

“Somebody has vandalized my car,” Bruno said.

“How’s that, Chief?”

“Somebody cut one of my tires; I had to have it replaced yesterday.”

“Why do you think it was a vandal?” Jimmy asked. “Couldn’t you just have run over something?”

“It wasn’t that kind of damage; it was a clean cut or, rather, two clean cuts. The tire would have blown as soon as I ran over a bump of some sort, like a pothole, and if I had been driving fast-say, in a pursuit-I could have been killed or seriously injured.”

“Buy why would anybody cut your tire, Chief?”

“I don’t know; I’m asking you for ideas.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have a clue,” Jimmy replied.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, Chief. I don’t know anybody who would want to cause you harm.”

“What about the Cade girl?” Bruno asked.

“Lauren? Why would she…”

“Oh, come on, Weathers. You know about the false charges she brought against me.”

Jimmy colored slightly and decided not to deny it. “I just don’t think Lauren is the type to do that,” he said finally.

“She’s a woman, isn’t she? A woman with an imagined grievance?”

“I guess you could put a guard on your car,” Jimmy said.

“We don’t have enough manpower as it is,” Bruno said.

“Well, we have a surveillance camera pointed at the back door. I guess you could aim it at the parking lot instead.”

“Now that’s a damn good idea, Jimmy,” Bruno said. “Do it now.” He walked away.

Jimmy sighed. Why hadn’t he just kept his mouth shut? It was a fault of his that, around anyone of authority, he tended to talk too much. He got up from his desk, walked downstairs to the basement and found a ladder. He left the building through the outside basement door and set up the ladder on the back porch of the building, then he turned the camera so that it was pointing directly at Bruno’s cruiser.

He was about to get down from the ladder when he saw a silver Toyota across the street pull out of a parking spot and drive away. The driver looked like that man he and Lauren had questioned, Smithson, his name was.

Jimmy climbed back down the ladder, stowed it in the basement and went upstairs again. He went to Bruno’s office. “Chief, I turned the camera so that it points at your car.”

“Let me see,” Bruno said, turning to his computer. He tapped a few keys and a grid of images appeared on his screen, views of a dozen cameras set up inside and outside the building. “Yeah, there it is. What kind of tape loop do we have?”

“It’s either six or eight hours, I think,” Jimmy replied. “You’d have to call our tech guy for an accurate answer on that.”

“Good work, Jimmy. Thanks.” Bruno turned back to his desk.

Jimmy returned to his cubicle and sat, thinking about the tire and Bruno’s reaction to it. His phone rang. “Detective Weathers,” he said.

“Hi, it’s Lauren.”

“Hi, Lauren.”

“Bruno had the tire changed before we could get to it and take a cast,” she said.

“Yeah, he just told me. He noticed the cut and was afraid he’d have a blowout at speed. Now he thinks vandals are persecuting him. He made me turn the back door surveillance camera toward his car, so he can watch it.”

“Who does he think the vandals are?” she asked.

“You.”

“Me? He thinks I cut his tire?”

“He mentioned it, but I’m not sure he really believes that. He’s just getting paranoid.”

“That’s going to make it harder for us to nail him,” Lauren said.

“Yeah, I guess it will make him more careful, but if he’s the guy, he’s already being real careful; we still don’t have anything on him.”

“No, we don’t. But he’s going to make a mistake eventually,” Lauren said. “I just hope nobody else dies before he does.”

“So do I,” Jimmy replied. He took a deep breath. “Hey, uh, Lauren, would you like to… have dinner sometime?”

“Thanks, Jimmy,” she said, “but I’m seeing somebody, and he’s taking all my time.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks anyway.”

“Call me if you get any more ideas,” Lauren said. “See you.” She hung up. Oh, God, she thought, how’s he going to take that?

Lauren was about to leave for the day when her phone rang. “Lauren Cade.”

“Hi, it’s Holly Barker.”

“Hi, Holly.”

“How’d your search for Bruno’s tire go?”

“Not well,” Lauren replied. She told Holly about the search at the tire recycling plant.

“That’s a shame,” Holly said. “Maybe if I’d gone with you we would have had a better chance to find the tire before it got sucked into that machine.”