From Potter's Field (16 page)

'I don't know,'1 said. 'But when I have unidentified cases in Virginia, I don't rest until I've done all I can to solve them. This case is in New York, but I'm involved because I work with your unit and you have been invited into the investigation.'

I talked with conviction, as if the case of Jane's vicious murder were being tried in this room. 'If I am not allowed to uphold my own standards,' I went on, 'then I cannot serve as a consultant for the Bureau any longer.'

Wesley listened to all this with troubled patience. I knew he felt much of the same frustration that I did, but there was a difference. He had not grown up poor, and when we had our worst fights, I held that against him.

'If she were an important person,' I said, 'everyone would care.'

He remained silent.

'There is no justice if you're poor,' I said, 'unless the issue is forced.'

He stared at me.

'Benton, I'm forcing the issue.'

'Explain to me what you want to do,' he said.

'I want to do whatever it takes to find out who she is. I want you to support me.'

He studied me for a moment. He was analyzing. 'Why this victim?' he asked.

'I thought I'd just explained that.'

'Be careful,' he said. 'Be careful that your motivation isn't subjective.'

'What are you suggesting?'

'Lucy.'

I felt a rush of irritation.

'Lucy could have been as badly head injured as this woman was,' he said. 'Lucy's always been an orphan, of sorts, and not so long ago she was missing, wandering around in New England, and you had to go find her.'

'You're accusing me of projecting.'

'I'm not accusing you. I'm exploring the possibility with you.'

'I'm simply attempting to do my job,' I said. 'And I have no desire to be psychoanalyzed.'

'I understand.' He paused. 'Do whatever you need to do. I'll help in any way I can. And I'm sure Pete will, too.'

Then we switched to the more treacherous subject of Lucy and CAIN, and this Wesley did not want to talk about. He got up for coffee as the phone in the outer office rang, and his secretary took another message. The phone had not stopped ringing since my arrival, and I knew it was always like this. His office was like mine. The world was full of desperate people who had our numbers and no one else to call.

'Just tell me what you think she did,' I said when he got back.

He set my coffee before me. 'You're speaking like her aunt,' he said.

'No. Now I'm speaking like her mother.'

'I would rather you and I talk about this like two professionals,' he said.

'Fine. You can start by filling me in.'

'The espionage that began last October when ERF was broken into is still going on,' he said. 'Someone is inside CAIN.'

'That much I know.'

'We don't know who is doing it,' he said.

'We assume it's Gault, I suppose,' I said.

Wesley reached for his coffee. He met my eyes. 'I'm certainly no expert in computers. But there's something you need to see.'

He opened a thin file folder and withdrew a sheet of paper. As he handed it to me I recognized it as a printout from a computer screen.

'That's a page of CAIN's audit log for the exact time that the most recent message was sent to the VICAP terminal in the Transit Police Department's Communications Unit,' he said. 'Do you notice anything unusual?'

I thought of the printout Lucy had shown me, of the evil message about 'Dead Cops.' I had to stare for a minute at the log-ins and log-outs, the IDs, dates and times before I realized the problem. I felt fear.

Lucy's user ID was not traditional in that it was not comprised of the initial of her first name and first seven letters of her surname. Instead, she called herself LUCYTALK, and according to this audit trail she had been signed on as the superuser when CAIN had sent the message to New York.

'Have you questioned her about this?' I asked Wesley.

'She's been questioned and wasn't concerned because as you can see from the printout, she's on and off the system all day long, and sometimes after hours, as well.'

'She is concerned. I don't care what she said to you, Benton. She feels she's been moved to the security floor so she can be watched.'

'She is being watched.'

'Just because she was signed on at the same time the message was sent to New York doesn't mean she sent it,' I persisted.

'I realize that. There's nothing else in the audit log to indicate she sent it. There's nothing to indicate anybody sent it, for that matter.'

'Who brought this to your attention?' I then asked, for I knew Wesley did not routinely look at audit logs.

'Burgess.'

'Then, someone from ERF brought it to his attention first.'

'Obviously.'

'There are still people over there who don't trust Lucy, because of what happened last fall.'

His gaze was steady. 'I can't do anything about that, Kay. She has to prove herself. We can't do that for her. You can't do that for her.'

'I'm not trying to do anything for her,' I said hotly. 'All I ask is fairness. Lucy is not to blame for the virus in CAIN. She did not put it there. She's trying to do something about it, and frankly, if she can't, I don't think anyone will be able to help. The entire system will be corrupted.'

He picked up his coffee but changed his mind and set it back down.

'And I don't believe she's been put on the security floor because some people think she's sabotaging CAIN. If you really thought that, you'd send her packing. The last thing you'd do is keep her here.'

'Not necessarily,' he said, but he could not fool me.

'Tell me the truth.'

He was thinking, looking for a way out.

'You assigned Lucy to the security floor, didn't you?' I went on. 'It wasn't Burgess. It wasn't because of this log-in time you just showed me. That's flimsy.'

'Not to some people it isn't,' he said. 'Someone over there raised a red flag and asked me to get rid of her. I said not now. We would watch her first.'

'Are you telling me you think Lucy is the virus?' I was incredulous.

'No.' He leaned forward in his chair. 'I think Gault is the virus. And I want Lucy to help us track him.'

I looked at him as if he had just pulled out a gun and shot it into the air. 'No,' I said with feeling.

'Kay, listen to me . . .'

'Absolutely not. Leave her out of this. She's not a goddam FBI agent.'

'You're overreacting . . .'

But I would not let him talk. 'She's a college student, for God's sake. She has no business-' My voice caught. 'I know her. She'll try to communicate with him. Don't you see?' I looked fiercely at him. 'You don't know her, Benton!'

'I think I do.'

'I won't let you use her like this.'

'Let me explain.'

'You should shut CAIN down,' I said.

'I can't do that. It might be the only trail Gault leaves.' He paused as I continued to glare at him. 'Lives are at stake. Gault hasn't finished killing.'

I blurted, 'That's exactly why I don't want Lucy even thinking about him!'

Wesley was silent. He looked toward the shut door, then back at me. 'He already knows who she is,' he said.

'He doesn't know much about her.'

'We don't know how much he knows about her. But at the very least he probably knows what she looks like.'

I could not think. 'How?'

'From when your American Express gold card was stolen,' he said. 'Hasn't Lucy told you?'

'Told me what?'

'The things she kept in her desk.' When he could see I did not know what he was talking about, he abruptly caught himself. I sensed he had brushed against details he would not tell me.

'What things?' I asked.

'Well,' he went on, 'she kept a letter in her desk at ERF - a letter from you. The one that had the credit card in it.'

'I know about that.'

'Right. Also inside this letter was a photograph of you and Lucy together in Miami. You were sitting in your mother's backyard, apparently.'

I shut my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath as he grimly went on.

'Gault also knows Lucy is your point of greatest vulnerability. I don't want him fixing on her, either. But what I'm trying to suggest to you is that he probably already has. He's broken into a world where she is god. He has taken over CAIN.'

'So that's why you moved her,' I said.

Wesley watched me as he struggled for a way to help. I saw the hell behind his cool reserve and sensed his terrible pain. He, too, had children.

'You moved her on the security floor with me,' I said. 'You're afraid Gault might come after her.'

Still he did not speak.

'I want her to return to UVA, to Charlottesville. I want her back there tomorrow,' I said with a ferocity I did not feel. What I really wanted was for Lucy not to know my world at all, and that would never be possible.

'She can't,' he simply said. 'And she can't stay with you in Richmond. To tell you the truth, she really can't stay anywhere right now but here. This is where she's safest.'

'She can't stay here the rest of her life,' I said.

'Until he's caught . . .'

'He may never be caught, Benton!'

He looked wearily at me. 'Then both of you may end up in our Protected Witness Program.'

'I will not give up my identity. My life. How is that any better than being dead?'

'It is better,' he said quietly, and I knew he was seeing bodies kicked, decapitated, and with bullet wounds.

I got up. 'What do I do about my stolen credit card?' I numbly asked.

'Cancel it,' he said. 'I was hoping we could use money from seized assets, from drug raids. But we can't.' He paused as I shook my head in disbelief. 'It's not my choice. You know the budget problems. You have them, too.'

'Lord,' I said. 'I thought you wanted to trail him.'

'Your credit card isn't likely to show us where he is, only where he's been.'

'I can't believe this.'

'Blame it on the politicians.'

'I don't want to hear about budget problems or politicians,' I exclaimed.

'Kay, the Bureau can barely afford ammunition for the ranges these days. And you know our staffing problems. I'm personally working a hundred and thirty-nine cases even as we speak. Last month two of my best people retired.

'Now my unit's down to nine. Nine. That's a total of ten of us trying to cover the entire United States plus any cases submitted from abroad. Hell, the only reason we have you is we don't pay you.'

'I don't do this for money.'

'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.