'I don't do this for money.'
'You can cancel your Amex card,' he said wearily.
'
'You can cancel your Amex card,' he said wearily. 'I'd do it immediately.'
I looked a long time at him and left.
10
Lucy had finished her run and showered by the time I returned to the room. Dinner was being served in the cafeteria, but she was at ERF working.
'I'm going back to Richmond tonight,' I said to her on the phone.
'I thought you were spending the night,' she said, and I detected disappointment.
'Marino's coming to get me,' I said.
'When?'
'He's on his way. We could have dinner before I go-'
'Okay. I'd like Jan to come.'
'That's fine,' I said. 'We should include Marino, though. He's already on the road.'
Lucy was silent.
'Why don't you and I visit alone first?' I suggested.
'Over here?'
'Yes. I'm cleared as long as you let me through all those scanners, locked doors, X-ray machines and heat-seeking missiles.'
'Well, I'll have to check with the attorney general. She hates it when I call her at home.'
'I'm on my way.'
The Engineering Research Facility was three concrete-and-glass pods surrounded by trees, and one could not get into the parking lot without stopping at a guard booth that was no more than a hundred feet from the one at the Academy's entrance. ERF was the FBI's most classified division, its employees required to scan their fingerprints into biometric locks before Plexiglas doors would let them in. Lucy was waiting for me in front. It was almost eight p.m.
'Hi,' she said.
'There are at least a dozen cars in the parking lot,' I said. 'Do people usually work this late?'
'They drift in and out at all hours. Most of the time I never see them.'
We walked through a vast space of beige carpet and walls, passing shut doors leading into laboratories where scientists and engineers worked on projects they could not discuss. I had only vague notions of what went on here beyond Lucy's work with CAIN. But I knew the mission was to technically enhance whatever job a special agent might have, whether it was surveillance, or shooting or rappelling from a helicopter, or using a robot in a raid. For Gault to have gotten inside here was the equivalent of him wandering freely through NASA or a nuclear power plant. It was unthinkable.
'Benton told me about the photograph that was in your desk,' I said to Lucy as we boarded an elevator.
She keyed us up to the second floor. 'Gault already knows what you look like, if that's what you're worried about. He's seen you before — at least twice.'
'I don't like that he might now know what you look like,' I said pointedly.
'You're assuming he has the photograph.'
We entered a gray rabbit warren of cubicles with workstations and printers and stacks of paper. CAIN himself was behind glass in an air-conditioned space filled with monitors, modems and miles of cable hidden beneath a raised floor.
'I've got to check something,' she said, scanning her fingerprint to unlock CAIN's door.
I followed her into chilled air tense with the static of invisible traffic moving at incredible speeds. Modem lights blinked red and green, and an eighteen-inch video display announced CAIN in bold bright letters that looped and whorled like the fingerprint of the person who was just scanned in.
'The photograph was in the envelope with the American Express card he apparently now has,' I said. 'Logic would tell you that he may have both.'
'Someone else could have it.' She was intensely watching the modems, then glancing at the time on her screen and making notes.
'It depends on who actually went through my desk.'
We had always assumed it was Carrie alone who had broken in and taken whatever she wanted. Now I was not so sure.
'Carrie may not have been by herself,' I said.
Lucy did not reply.
'In fact, I don't believe Gault could have resisted the opportunity to come in here. I think he was with her.'
'That's awfully risky when you're wanted for murder.'
'Lucy, it's awfully risky to break into here to begin with.'
She continued making notes while CAIN's colors swirled on the screen and lights glowed on and off. CAIN was a space-age squid with tentacles connecting law enforcement entities here and abroad, his head an upright beige box with various buttons and slots. As cold air whirred, I almost wondered if he knew what we were saying.
'What else might have disappeared from your office?' I then said. 'Is there anything else missing?'
She was studying a modem's flashing light, her face perplexed. She glanced up at me. 'It's got to be coming in through one of these modems.'
'What is?' I asked, puzzled.
She sat before a keyboard, struck the space bar and the CAIN screen saver vanished. She logged on and began typing UNIX commands that made no sense to me. Next she pulled up the System Administrator Menu and got into the audit log.