“Interesting. Well, I heard not half an hour ago that an NSA computer had picked up two more messages from California, one signed ‘Wynken,’ the other, ‘Blynken.’”
“So I might as well have stayed at home.”
“Your trip wasn’t for nothing. You got to know Hamish, and he got us confirmation on the three operatives. That’s worth a lot. It will make Scott Hipp at NSA very happy to know that his people’s work was confirmed.”
“Who is Scott Hipp?”
“A deputy director, in charge of electronic surveillance and cryptology. Very political. I expect to hear from the White House tonight that he has told them about Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.”
“I expect the Secret Service will be interested in that information.”
“Yes, they will,” Kate replied. “One thing troubles me, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Remember when Grace issued you your credentials and the two phones?”
“Yes?”
“Remember that we have constant GPS tracking on some of our phones?”
“Yes.”
“Hamish has one of those phones, one of those with the facility of encrypting, and the tracking on that phone indicates that he never left London.”
Holly stared at her boss blankly.
“Also, that Citation Mustang that he occasionally borrows from his friend, a London entrepreneur, has not been out of its hangar at Blackbushe Airport for the past ten days.”
“So Hamish lied to me?”
“Exactly,” Kate replied. “Now I want to see if he claims reimbursement for the airplane’s fuel usage. He can always say that he found another way to contact his sources and changed his mind about flying, but if he claims for the fuel, I’ll have his head.”
“But what about the information he said he got from his sources? Can we trust that?”
“Yes, because it has already been confirmed by the NSA-also, because Hamish has always been very careful not to overstate the quality of the information he passes to us, and he has never been wrong.”
“Somehow, I feel had,” Holly said.
“You haven’t been had, Hamish has just blown in your ear, that’s all. Now, don’t you have secretaries to interview?”
Holly stood up. “Yes, ma’am.” She went to her office, where the first candidate awaited her.
20
Mike Freeman answered his suite door at The Arrington to find a messenger standing there with a package. He signed for it, tipped the man, and took it inside. He unwrapped a large cardboard tube and found a note attached to it.
“Call me when you receive this,” it said, and it was signed by Scott Hipp.
Mike opened the tube and shook out an enlarged photograph, a satellite view of the Los Angeles area. He flattened the photo and weighted the corners, then he called Hipp on his direct line.
“Scott Hipp.”
“It’s Mike Freeman, Scott. What have you sent me?”
“First, a little preamble,” Hipp said. “Yesterday one of my people was going through data collected on an automated computer, and he found two more messages with the text ‘All is well. I am fine.’ One was signed ‘Wynken,’ the other, ‘Blynken.’”
“Uh-oh.”
“Exactly.”
“What does the satshot you sent me have to do with them?”
“Are you looking at the photo?”
“I am.”
“Then you’ll see three straight lines emanating from a point on the high ground, just above the Stone Canyon Reservoir, which is the cell tower that received and transmitted the e-mails.”
“I see the lines.”
“They’re fairly close together, you will observe. Through some technology I’m not allowed to tell you about, we’ve gone back to the computer record of the three e-mails, which were all sent from cell phones, and determined the radials from the tower on which each caller was located when the e-mails were sent. This is not definitive, of course, because we can’t determine the distance of the sender from the tower. In theory, they could be standing anywhere on those lines, out to infinity. In practice, they were probably all within five miles of the tower.”
“I understand.”
“As you will no doubt note, one of the lines-the message signed ‘Nod’-passes through the grounds of The Arrington, so Nod could have been on the property when it was sent. Of course, he could have been north or south of The Arrington, too, or it could simply be a coincidence, but you get my drift.”
“I do.”
“That’s all I’ve got for you,” Hipp said. “I thought you’d find it interesting.”
“I find it fascinating, Scott. One more thing: do you have the dates on which the e-mails were sent?”
“Nod transmitted a week ago yesterday, the twelfth, Wynken, the fourteenth, and Blynken, the fifteenth.”
“Thank you again, Scott. Very much.”
“Take care.” Hipp hung up.
Mike stared at the map a little longer, then he got up and walked down the hill to the old Calder House, now the site of The Arrington’s executive offices. The building was nearly finished, now, and all the offices were occupied. He stopped at the reception desk.
“Good afternoon,” he said. “My name is Michael Freeman, of Strategic Services. We’re supplying all the security personnel for the hotel.”
“Yes, Mr. Freeman, I’ve seen you before.”
“Who is in charge of hiring for the hotel?”
“Well, each department head hires his own people: Food and Beverages hires the kitchen and restaurant staff, Domestic hires the maids, Landscaping, the outdoor workers, and so on.”
“Is there a director of personnel, who presides over the entire hotel?”
“No, sir. Each department has a budget and hiring conforms to that.”
“Who’s in charge of the overall budget?”
“Why, Carol, I suppose.”
“And who is he?”
“She. It’s Carol Pressler. Her office is just down the hall.” She pointed.
“Thank you.” Mike continued down the hallway and found a door labeled “Comptroller.” He knocked, and a woman’s voice yelled, “Come in.” He opened the door to find an attractive woman in her forties seated at a computer, her desk stacked with printouts. “Mrs. Pressler?”
“It’s Ms., and I’m Carol,” she said, holding out her hand. “You’re our security guy, aren’t you?”
“Mike Freeman, of Strategic Services.”
“Have a seat, Mike. What can I do for you?”
“I’ve just been told that there is no personnel director, as such, and that each department head is in charge of his own budget. Is that correct?”
“It is. The philosophy is that each department head will be much better acquainted with the qualifications of hirees in his department than an overall director of personnel.”
“But your department pays everybody?”
“Correct.”
“So you have a computer record of all employees?”
