Донна Эндрюс - Access denied

I didn't know quite what to say. What if Sigmund was right and Maude had grown tired of me? Or at least tired of all the responsibilities that came with knowing me. She'd worked two jobs

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for over a year. I'd tried to convince her to hire someone else for one or the other, but she'd always refused. Was she refusing because she really wanted to work so hard? Or because she didn't want to let me down?

Was it up to me to say, finally, that she could only do one or the other?

Somehow I couldn't see Maude taking that well.

And I didn't really think Maude was tired of me. Just tired. Working too hard. And some help was in sight. She'd finally agreed to hire an administrative assistant at Alan Grace. She'd been reviewing the resumes the recruiting firm sent when I'd interrupted her this morning.

Of course, things would be hectic until she'd hired and trained her assistant, but after that, her life should improve. I just needed to hold out until then. And be understanding if she was curt in the meantime. She was, after all, tired and overworked.

"Thanks, Sigmund," I said. "You've given me a lot to think about."

Not that his advice had been all that incisive, but he had helped me think through the situation and realize that I should do something to show how much I appreciated Maude.

So before I resumed tracing Nestor Garcia's credit card, I chose some unusual plants I thought she'd enjoy and had them shipped overnight with a thank-you card.

"There's Tim-i" Maude saich when she saw the caller ID. Silly. Of course Turing knew that. She ran the computer-operated phone system. Like everything else at Alan Grace, it needed only limited human intervention.

Then why was Maude working so damned hard? Why was she always so exhausted?

She knew it was partly her own fault. She'd never been

good at delegating. And delegating was harder now. So much of her job, both at Universal Library and at Alan Grace, grew out of the need to keep Turing's secret.

Shed been trying to decide how much of her tendency to do everything for Turing and keep everyone else at a distance was motivated by the need to protect her friend, and how much by her own needs.

It was exciting to be one of the two people in the world who knew Turing's secret. She knew that eventually they'd have to bring others in, but tor now, she enjoyed being in the know on one of the world's best-kept secrets.

It was heady stuff, giving orders after spending most of her career following them. Exciting and scary at the same time. After so many years of grousing about how much better she would run things if she were in charge, suddenly she was in charge. To her delight, she'd found she was damned good at running a department, and even a company.

She allowed herself the occasional moment of regret that she hadn't had an opportunity like this twenty years ago, or even ten. And the occasional self-recrimination—that perhaps if she'd tried, she could have made the opportunity. But usually she concentrated on the present and the future. No sense dwelling on the past. Not much time to do it, either.

That was the irony. Working with Turing had brought her new financial security. Her salary as an executive assistant at Universal Library was more than double what she'd earned as a senior secretary, which would have made her quite comfortable even without the salary and profit-sharing from Alan Grace. She'd moved trom her tiny condominium to a house. Little more than a bungalow, really, though it had plenty of space for her. But still well beyond what she could have afforded in her former life, partly because

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it was within easy commuting distance of both offices, and even more because it had an actual yard, an inviting tree-shaded retreat.

She had a library now, with shelves for all her books and some expansion room, and a comfy reading chair. But the last time she'd made time to sit down with a book, she'd fallen asleep after a few pages. She'd envisioned drinking tea with friends at the wrought iron table on her brick-paved patio. But after four months, she'd only invited friends over twice, and most days the patio was little more than a view through the French doors in her dining room. The only room where she spent much time was the home office where they'd installed her computers and Turing's cameras and microphones.

Turing was gradually taking over all her time. Not really Turing's fault. Maude herself needed to take action. Set boundaries.

Take back part of her life.

Of course, every time she resolved to do this, some looming crisis derailed her. Like this business of Nestor Garcia's credit card. She almost hoped it would be a real crisis, not another false alarm.

Tim had found the house—at least he'd found a mailbox with the right street number, at the end of a tiny cul-de-sac. A gravel driveway led away from the road. But the house itself was invisible, hidden by the trees and the curve of the driveway.

Out in the middle of the woods. Not what Tim had expected. Not where he'd hide out if he were a master criminal with a penchant for cybercrime.

But certainly a good hideout. Would anyone even notice a scream or a shot back there in the woods:?

His heart beat faster as he strolled down the driveway, draped in his birder's gear, his binoculars conspicuously aimed at the treetops. He was almost disappointed when he spotted the house. Apart from being farther back from the road, it wasn't much different from the other normal-looking houses he'd seen up and down the cul-de-sac. Slightly unkempt, perhaps. The small patch of open lawn beside the house was shaggy and pocked with dandelions. Twigs bearing slightly wilted leaves littered the sidewalk and the front porch, apparently left over from the weekend's thunderstorm.

His spirits rose when he realized that the house was at least temporarily unoccupied. He decided to ring the doorbell. Odds were no one would answer, and he could inspect the house more closely while he waited. If someone was home he could always ask permission to do some bird watching on their property.

As he climbed the steps, he saw a small package tucked behind an empty concrete planter, invisible unless you actually came to the door.

He rang the bell and waited, counting to thirty. No answer.

He bent down to examine the package. Not addressed to Nestor Garcia. But still . . .

When no one answered his second ring, he got out his notebook and copied the information on the package label, including the tracking number. Then he pulled out the camera and snapped a few pictures before retracing his steps.

He reconnoitered the area around the house and discovered an abandoned dirt road that cut through the woods near the house, but was shielded from it by thick shrubbery. The dirt road eventually joined another street half a mile away. If he parked his car along the dirt road, would anyone complain?

Would anyone even notice? Probably not.

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He returned to his car and headed off to confer with Maude and Turing and then find the entrance to the dirt road.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON-, 1E:05 P. n -

I'm not sure whether to feel relieved

or disappointed. At least Tim's information has proved useful. The package on the Anderson's doorstep was ordered on yet another credit card — not theirs, and not Garcia's. That suggests that Gar-cia's not using the card.

"Unless, of course, that's what Garcia wants us to think," Maude suggested.

Are humans really that devious? Well, I suppose they are; Maude thought of it, not me.

More to the point, is Nestor Garcia that devious?

I think so, but perhaps Vm too eager to attribute cunning and intelligence to Garcia. To consider him the sinister Professor Mori-arty to my Holmes. Perhaps he is not "the Napoleon of crime. . . the organizer of half that is evil and nearly all that is undetected" in the growing world of cybercrime. Perhaps Vm not the brilliant sleuth I think I am, and he is merely a greedy, cunning, opportunistic criminal. Perhaps thinking of him as Moriarty merely diminishes my guilt at not finding him and rescuing my clone.