Wildfire (23 page)

"Did you turn it in on a voucher?"

"No, I didn't think we'd want to have a record of that particular trip on file."

"Do you still have it?"

"Uh . . . yeah, probably, in the trash can next to my desk at home."

"Go home right now, get it, and resubmit your voucher," Harris said. "As a dedicated and hardworking member of the board of a major computer gaming association, you have every right to expect the association to cover your expenses when you offer to go pick up the president of that association at the airport. And especially when the additional expenses were the result of a miscommunication that simply wasn't your fault. Who paid for the beer?"

"I did."

"Yours and his?"

"Yes."

"Good. Add that onto the voucher also, as a business expense."

"Really?"

"Absolutely. Did you leave a tip?"

"Yes."

"Double it on the voucher. And if the police ask you about it, hesitate, and then confess."

"Misdirection?"

"That's right." The older man nodded approvingly. "Nothing wrong with exposing a little personal greed. They'll be expecting it, and it will make them feel reassured when you look and act as though you're afraid they might turn you in. The last thing you want to do is to stand out in their minds as someone who has everything covered. Or worse, someone who has something serious to hide."

"I'll get the voucher resubmitted this afternoon," the younger man promised. And then after a moment: "Christ, do you really think they're going to dig that deep over what looks like a chance meeting and a couple of beers?"

"No, probably not. But it's important that you think ahead and that you're prepared in case they do."

"What if they ask me to take a lie detector test?"

"Say no immediately. Be apologetic and offer to help in any other way possible, but say that you've heard that polygraph machines are notoriously inaccurate. No offense meant to them as investigators, but you simply don't believe that machines should be allowed to judge humans. That's why you're so interested in computer gaming. You think humans should be able to beat machines."

"Are they?"

"What?"

"Polygraphs," Eric said. "Are they inaccurate?"

"No, they're not. They can be beaten, but only by people who have a serious pathological indifference to lying."

"I don't mind lying." The young man shrugged. "I've always figured I could do that with the best of them."

"Is that so? Are you willing to wager twenty to thirty years of your future on your expertise in that area?"

"Uh, no."

"Then don't. If the police ask, tell them no, but then immediately assure them that you want to be as open and as helpful as possible by offering them complete access to your office, your apartment, and your car. Any time they wish, day or night. Better yet, hand them your apartment and car keys right there on the spot and tell them to go to it. It's highly unlikely that they will accept, but make the offer anyway. It shows sincerity."

"Which means I'd better go through my apartment again, when I pick up that receipt, just to make sure."

"Excellent idea, but don't make any attempt to clean things up. Get rid of anything that might be compromising, certainly. But other than that, leave everything else just as it is."

"What about leaving a pair of my girlfriend's underwear on the floor in the bedroom?"

"Do you really have a girlfriend?"

"No, but I've got some underwear hanging around." The young man shrugged without any apparent sense of embarrassment.

Harris nodded. "Kicking a pair partway under the bed might be a nice touch."

"Suppose they really
do
ask to search my office or my apartment? Wouldn't I want my lawyer involved at that point?"

"Over what? The unfortunate death of some individual whom you barely remember from college? Someone who means nothing to you at all? Absolutely not. Unless the police actually start focusing in on you as a suspect, a lawyer is the last person you want to be associated with in this situation. You might as well wave a red flag that says, 'Look over here, I've got something to hide.' "

"All this over a goddamned throwaway like Crowley." The young man shook his head.

"Be grateful he's dead," Leonard Harris advised. "Try to imagine what things would be like if he were alive and anxious to talk with the police."

"But I never told Crowley anything at all about what we're really doing, and he never seemed to care much about whom I was working for," Eric said defensively. "I mean, it was like I told him, he was just going to be a go-between. Somebody to transfer things back and forth and to renegotiate the terms of a deal."

"That's right. But remember, he knew you, and he knew that the deal you were sending him out to renegotiate potentially involved several million dollars."

"I realize all that," the young man said testily. "But Crowley had a personal trust from his grandfather of over fifteen million dollars. His family is Cape Cod old money from way back. I was convinced at the time— and still am, for that matter—that the money side of the deal didn't mean a damn thing to him. The guy just wanted to do something adventurous before his family turned him into a seventh-generation investment banker. That's why I used him."

"Suppose he talked to Riser. Did you think about that?"

Eric blinked and was silent.

"So what if he did?" he said hesitantly after a moment. "What could Crowley possibly give him that would be of any value?"

"A description of what you look like and where the two of you went to school. The model of the car you drive. Two days, three at the outside, and Riser could have your name, your home address, your parents' address, your current employer,
and
your outside interests . . . which means us."

"But—but what—?" the young man started to stammer, but Harris interrupted.

"At that point," Harris said calmly, "I can tell you that, from the 'corporate' viewpoint, you would be considered a dangerous liability to the Wildfire project."

"Me?"

"That's right." Harris nodded. "Why, didn't it ever occur to you that if things went wrong, you might be expendable?"

The impact of the words hit the young man like a punch to the solar plexus. Harris allowed his young protégé to think about that for a few moments before he went on.

"Don't worry, Eric," he said soothingly. "If you became expendable, then so would I . . . and I'm not about to let that happen, so we need to keep Riser engaged and distracted. That's why we want him to take on the agents directly, rather than to simply leave evidence of ICER involvement as we originally planned."

The young man nodded, seemingly able to breathe again.

"I just didn't understand," he said hesitantly, remembering the puzzled expression on Henry Lightstone's face in the basement of the courthouse, and realizing that he might be better off if Riser did kill the aggressive federal agent. "I guess I thought they were sort of on our side, and it didn't seem right."

"Whether it's
right
or not isn't the issue," Harris said soothingly. "If you're forced to choose between principles and survival, there's only one logical choice."

"So what do
we
do now?" Eric asked quietly, the cocky and arrogant demeanor of his previous visits now long gone.

"At the first opportunity we reassure Riser that all is well, and that as far as we are concerned, Crowley was a greedy and foolish idiot who went rogue all on his own. And, of course, got exactly what he deserved."

"In other words, blame Crowley for the renegotiation idea. Like he was trying to arrange his own cut, right off the top."

"Exactly."

"You think Riser will believe that?"

"Maybe, maybe not." Harris shrugged. "The important thing is for Riser to remain absolutely convinced that he is the master of his own destiny. You must remember that Riser is a professional. If he believes that he and his organization are secure, he will concentrate on the agents
and
his mission."

"Because he doesn't get paid until he completes the job, right?"

"Until he completes each phase of the job," Harris corrected. "Yes, that's right."

Eric smiled, seemingly relieved now that the discussion was back on matters that were more familiar and far less threatening.

"You said something about being concerned that Riser might have stolen that computer we gave Crowley," he reminded.

"Yes." Harris nodded. "That computer was set up as a very temporary arrangement, to give Crowley a safe and secure means of contacting us, should something unforeseen occur."

"So what's the problem? We bought it with cash and used a false out-of-state business name, so there's no way that the police can track it back to us. And I had Crowley pay for his own registration into the network."

"You're forgetting something," Harris said.

"What's that?"

"Crowley was very unsophisticated when it came to computers. That was why we decided to program the one we gave him so that it would automatically log into a password-protected Internet bulletin board when he turned it on."

"Yeah, I remember talking to you about that. It sounded like a good idea."

"It was, but we didn't expect Crowley to lose the computer or Riser to acquire it."

"Are you sure he has it?"

"Apparently." Harris nodded. "At least it wasn't recorded in the listing of evidence taken from Crowley's hotel room. But there was a modem connector cord listed."

"Has Riser tried to contact us with it?"

"No, not yet."

"Then I don't understand the problem. So Riser has the computer. What can he do with it, other than log into the bulletin board and wait for us to answer?"

"The problem is, Eric," Harris said calmly, "we know that Riser has access to some sophisticated electronics expertise. It would not be beyond such people to examine the program code, gain access through the network into the main board, and then acquire some useful information about one protected bulletin board in particular, such as the user account names and phone numbers."

"You mean our
corporate
account?" The young man almost choked on the word.

"That's right."

"Why would he want to do that? I mean, he works for us, for Christ's sake!"

"The thing you must always remember about our friend Riser," Leonard Harris said carefully, "is that he is extremely talented at recognizing and then immediately taking advantage of an opponent's weakness."

"But. . ." the youth started to protest, but hesitated when Harris raised a cautionary hand.

"Remember, Eric, Riser is
not
one of our employees. He's a private contractor. And as such, I can assure you that his only allegiance is to himself. The fact that we're the ones paying his fee right now is no guarantee—no guarantee
at all—
that he won't turn on us someday in the future for an equivalent or larger fee."

"Christ" the young man whispered.

"Perhaps now you understand why, up until now, we've required Riser to communicate with us through a neutral intermediary who takes a small cut of the action and supposedly provides at least a minimal enforcement of the rules. But if Riser has acquired the ability to communicate with us directly . . ." Harris left the rest unsaid.

"So what are you going to do?"

"Wait until he calls. And when he does, explain to him that we don't mind him having the computer at all, but the system as it stands right now is awkward. Neither side knows when the other is calling. What I'll offer to do is reprogram the laptop over the modem, and put him into direct electronic contact with us for real-time communications. That way, any time he wants to contact us, all he has to do is hook up the modem, dial us up, and a bell rings at our end."

"Why the hell would we do that?" Eric asked. "Sounds to me like you're making it worse than it already is. Might as well give him a key to our back door."

"Not necessarily." Harris shook his head. "The address we program into the computer will connect up here through a series of routers that we control. In essence, we give ourselves an electronic cutout. Once his query hits the first router, the switching equipment will transfer the link to at least one other cutout location at a very rapid speed. Ultimately we'll get the call, but Riser's electronic gurus won't be able to follow the physical connections to our facility."

"But they would be able to find the physical location of the switching points, right?"

"The first one, certainly."

"But what if they just decide to go to the location, break in, examine the switching equipment, read the codes again, and then start tracking down switch site number two?"

"That's the beauty of the system," Harris said. "The new routers are very small, and I have an associate who works for the telephone company. He can create these switch sites virtually anywhere."

"So where are you going to have him put them?"

"The first one was placed in the middle of the communications center of the Fairfax County Police Department."

Eric blinked in surprise. "Is that a good idea?"

"If you're talking about the Fairfax County Police, their technical people would have no indication that such a device was there, and absolutely no reason to make a random search through literally tens of thousands of electronic components."

"What about Riser? Won't that scare him off or make him suspicious?"

"From what I'm told, our Mr. Riser doesn't scare that easily. But even so, I don't think he'll be willing to risk an intrusion into a protected area of a major police facility just for the minimal advantage he'd gain in terms of communications. If anything, I think he'll simply be amused. Besides, he's got to focus on dealing with those agents. They won't be anywhere near as easy as our ICER 'friends.'"

The young man was silent for a while, thinking. Then he said, "We're sure going to a lot of work to protect ourselves from a guy who's supposed to be on our side, or at least for right now," he added.

"Believing that to be true would be the most serious mistake of all," Harris cautioned. "If there's anything that's absolutely certain in this operation, it's that our friend Riser is on nobody's side but his own, no matter what."