the parking lot!’’
‘‘Slow down,’’ I said. ‘‘We know he is.’’
‘‘Then go get his ass!’’
‘‘Not yet,’’ said Hester. ‘‘Calm down. That’s where you come in.’’
Nancy took a deep breath, then another. ‘‘Okay, so why not? Why’s he still loose? Why not get him now?’’
‘‘The way we got the message,’’ I said, ‘‘might give us a little admissibility problem.’’ Not true, of course. At least, not in the strict sense of criminal procedures. The admissibility came from not wanting to admit what we’d done to the FBI. But Nancy sure didn’t have to know that. At least, not to help us get the information from another source.
Nancy looked at both of us in turn. ‘‘You’re kidding…’’
‘‘Had to be done,’’ said Hester. ‘‘No other way to get timely data.’’
‘‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’’ said Nancy, ‘‘because they got Phil. I don’t want anybody getting off here.’’
I thought it was pretty clearly implied that, if whoever shot Phil got off, Nancy’s paper would kill us. That was fair enough.
‘‘Now,’’ I said, ‘‘we have less than an hour here, so let’s get down to it…’’
After refreshing her memory a little, which certainly didn’t take much, we asked Nancy what Phil could have said or done that would give the impression that he had a bomb. At first she couldn’t think of anything, but then she remembered Phil’s bottled mineral water. He always drank it, when he could get it, and liked it cold. He had a habit of wrapping it in two of those beer can insulators, and just sticking the neck of the bottle through the little hole in the ‘‘bottom’’ of the upper insulator. He had obtained his insulators from an implement dealer during a photo session, so the two insulators were black, with a yellow rectangle with black printing on the side. In effect, a black cylinder about ten inches long, as big around as a beer can, with a small, white cap on one end.
‘‘He left it at my car,’’ said Nancy. ‘‘When we were going to go in together, he realized he didn’t have it. One of your reserve guys went to the car and got it for him.’’
No shit.
‘‘Borcherding was set up near the car,’’ said Nancy.
‘‘I know,’’ I said. ‘‘You pointed him out, sort of.’’
‘‘He could have seen that. When the cop brought it to him. Phil probably just stuck it in his bag. He wouldn’t have tried to hide it or anything.’’ She thought a second. ‘‘He had a cell phone modem thingy on his laptop.’’
‘‘Borcherding? Are you sure?’’ asked Hester.
‘‘Yeah. I told Phil that I’d have to get one like that.’’
‘‘So Borcherding probably wasn’t really inventing the part about the ‘bomb,’ then, was he?’’
‘‘Probably not, Carl.’’ She shook her head. ‘‘Probably not.’’ She looked up. ‘‘That fucker.’’ She thought again for a few seconds. ‘‘You’re absolutely sure it was him?’’
‘‘Yes,’’ I said, looking her straight in the eye. ‘‘We know the message came straight from his e-mail address, and could have been sent only by somebody at the scene.’’ I hesitated for a second. ‘‘None of the networks had a live feed going.’’
‘‘No,’’ she said. ‘‘No, they never went live until after Phil was shot. I know that.’’
Hmm. Well, by that time our dispatch center would have been so busy they probably turned the TV off.
‘‘We don’t have any reason to believe he gave his laptop to anybody else,’’ said Hester. ‘‘His password had to be used to log on to the server. If he’d loaned it to somebody else, they’d have used their password, most likely. And his seems to be one of those little local companies…’’
‘‘He runs his own server,’’ said Nancy. ‘‘He brags about it.’’ She shook her head. ‘‘He’s one of those people who think they can get in your pants by telling you all the techno drivel they have in their entire head. Supposed to make us horny, or something.’’ She snorted. ‘‘Likely.’’
‘‘Really?’’ That surprised me.
‘‘Oh, yeah. They think it’s erotic.’’
‘‘No, no,’’ I said, grinning. ‘‘Just surprised he has his own server. What do they call it?’’ I asked.
‘‘Oh, shit,’’ she said, ‘‘I don’t remember that. God. But something like the common man net, or some such thing. Maybe free white net, or common free?’’
‘‘Thanks,’’ said Hester. ‘‘We’ll check that out.’’ She pushed her chair back, making a screeching sound on the old hardwood flooring. ‘‘In the meantime, how do you intend to go about getting your information? You can’t be too obvious or quick…’’
‘‘Hell, I know that.’’
‘‘I mean,’’ said Hester, ‘‘I know it’s a little soon, but I’d like to know what you intend…’’
We went over what we wanted, again. We expanded the list, not to give her more work, but more leeway. We were very clear that she was under no obligation to obtain all the information. Just suggestions and hints. We’d take the rest.
‘‘Right,’’ said Nancy. ‘‘Look, I just want to thank you for letting me have something to do with getting this bastard…’’
I made sure she was still sitting there when the two reserve officers came through with Nola Stritch. Our guys had given Nola a bulletproof vest to wear, which looked a little silly on her. It was for someone much larger, was white, and had the long tails on it so you could tuck it into your uniform pants and not have it pull your shirt out when you moved. Kind of looked more like a bulletproof apron, as a matter of fact. I pretended to be a bit upset when Nancy introduced herself, so Nola gave a little statement to the press.
‘‘It’s pretty bad,’’ said Nola, ‘‘when you can’t even trust the press anymore.’’ She started to walk toward the door.
‘‘What do you mean?’’ asked Nancy.
‘‘You know just what I mean,’’ hissed Nola. ‘‘You’re all in the pay of the Jews and the One World Government. You know that. Don’t try to deny it, you are. You know you are.’’ With that off her chest, she turned and just about dragged the officers out the door. It always amazes me when I hear someone I think is intelligent start ranting like that. This time was no exception.
When the door closed, Nancy sighed. ‘‘Well, so much for the sympathetic approach.’’ She grinned. ‘‘I’ll see what I can do for you,’’ she said, heading for the door. ‘‘Just give me a couple of days. I’ll be in touch.’’ And she was gone.
Hester and I exchanged looks.
‘‘I hope we’ve done the right thing here.’’
‘‘Don’t worry, Carl. You worry too much. You’re beginning to sound like George.’’ Hester smiled. ‘‘Speaking of whom… we’d better let him know what’s happening.’’
True. Because when it came right down to it, George had access to the resources that we only wished we had.
When we got to the back room, I greeted George with ‘‘George, you little Zionist, how the hell are you?’’
He looked up. ‘‘I knew it. Now you’re gonna want a ride in my black chopper.’’ He pushed his papers back across the desk. ‘‘So how’d it go?’’
‘‘I don’t know,’’ I said, sitting down near a stack of computer paper. ‘‘All right, I guess.’’ I picked up the first sheet. ‘‘She knew him, though. Didn’t like him.’’
‘‘She’s going to keep her eyes open for us,’’ said Hester. ‘‘We’ll see.’’
‘‘Well, while you were gone, I came up with something that may be very serious.’’
What George had found was a series of messages to an address in Idaho, and returns from the same place.
‘‘This man Stritch has some very interesting connections.’’ George indicated a handwritten list he had made. ‘‘Several of these names of organizations that are mentioned here are the same ones I heard at a very sensitive briefing about three months ago.’’
The FBI, it transpired, was working three of the mentioned groups regarding illegal weapons, Ponzi scams, bank fraud, a possible series of bombings where only very small devices were used, and planning things such as bank robberies, armored car holdups, etc. None of the planned things had happened. All of which told me that the FBI had people inside more than one group.
