The Israeli lit a short, unfiltered cigarette with a butane lighter. Rubbed his face as though in concentration on my question, but I caught his glance at the Mole. The Mole moved his head maybe an inch, but it was enough.
'We know one of the people on the list,' the Israeli said. 'He vanished almost three years ago. We would like very much to locate him.'
'How did you…?'
'I called them,' the Mole said, taking the list from the Israeli, his stubby finger touching the paper next to a name. The name didn't mean anything to me— the Mole was telling me what the Israeli's job was— Zvi was a hunter.
'A sorting program is a simple thing,' the Israeli said. 'It would be a macro… a series of keystrokes stored in sequence. When you invoke the macro, the whole sequence runs.
'I brought everything when I— ' I said.
'I know,' he interrupted. 'It would be somewhere else. Did the…place where you got it have a computer? A small one would be enough, even a laptop.'
'I didn't see one.'
He looked at the Mole again. The Mole looked at me. 'What was on the other disk?' I asked him.
'An experiment of some kind. A scientific experiment. This much I could tell, only— there are a number of subjects, each subject is given the same…thing. The thing could be a substance, a stimulus…I can't tell. Then there are results…something happened to some of the subjects, I can't tell what. The rest is all probabilities, chi– squares, standard deviations.'
'Yeah, okay,' I said, puzzled. 'Do you know what…?'
'I told you everything I know. The subjects have codes too.'
'So there's a sorting program for them too?'
'Maybe.' He shrugged his shoulders.
'I could take a look around,' I said.
'You wouldn't know what to look for,' the Israeli said. 'You wouldn't recognize it if you saw it.'
I lit a cigarette of my own, buying time, thinking about what I'd just learned. The Israeli sat stone–still, as if any movement would spook me into the wrong decision
'What do you want me to do?' I finally asked.
'The…place where you got this from…could you give us the address?'
I exhaled through my nose, watching the twin streams of smoke in the underground bunker.
'The Mole can copy this for you,' I said, handing over the key to Cherry's house. 'I'll call…here…when it's clear. You'll have a minimum of three hours. After dark better?'
'It doesn't matter,' the Israeli said.
I gave him the address.
I left the two disks with the Mole, picked up the key to the Lexus, confirmed that Terry kept a copy for himself, and headed back to Connecticut. It was way ahead of rush hour— the drive didn't take long.
But I had time to chew on it, work it through. They hadn't told me the whole story— I didn't need to know it. That was their business, not mine.
I've got my own business too. I hadn't told them I recognized one of the names on the printout.
Bluestone dust was still dancing in the driveway when I drove up. The kid was lying under the Plymouth— I could see his sneakers sticking out. He pushed himself free, rubbing something off the front of his sweatshirt.
'I changed the oil and filter,' he said. 'Hey, what kind of injectors are you running? I checked my hooks— that's a four–forty in there, it came with carbs, right?'
'I guess so…I don't know.'
'But…'
'Randy, I'm telling you the truth. The car's pretty much the way I got it. I didn't build it— I just drive it.'
'Yeah, okay. Burke…'
'What?'
'She was here. While you were gone.'
'Fancy?'
'No. Charm. She asked about you.'
'Asked what?'
'How come you were here. What you were doing, you know.'
'No, I don't know. What did you tell her?'
'That you were the caretaker. To, like, look after the place while my mother was away.'
'So?'
