Lance reached for his briefcase beside his chair, opened it, and produced a form and handed it to Mike. 'Would you kindly complete this form?'
'Of course,' Freeman said, taking the form and glancing at it. 'How soon do you need it?'
'Now would be a good time,' Lance replied.
Freeman took a pen from his pocket and a magazine from the coffee table for support and began filling out the form.
'Well, Stone,' Lance said, 'what have you been up to?'
'Work, work, work,' Stone replied. 'Not much else.'
'Anything you can talk about?'
'I'm afraid not,' Stone said. 'Client confidentiality, of course.'
'Of course. I understand you've recently become type-rated in the Cessna Citation Mustang.'
Stone was surprised he knew. 'Yes, I have. Jim Hackett arranged to have me trained in the airplane.'
'Good skill to have,' Lance said.
'A pleasant one.' He looked over at Mike to see how he was doing on the form. He appeared to be on the last page.
Freeman picked up a phone and buzzed his secretary. 'Would you come in, please?'
The woman entered the room, and Mike handed her the document. 'Would you fill in the relevant spaces on past employment and residences, please? It's all in my curriculum vitae in our files.'
'Of course,' she replied, and left with the document.
Stone began to wonder if Mike's background could stand a background check. Freeman was not who he said he was, and Stone was, perhaps, the only living person who knew that. Freeman was, in fact, British and a former member of MI6, from which he had been forced as part of a witch hunt against him some years ago. Jim Hackett had been killed because Mike's enemies in the British government believed him to be the man they were hunting, when Mike Freeman was, in fact, that man.
'What brings you to New York, Lance, apart from visiting us?' Freeman asked.
'Nothing else,' Lance replied. 'I had, in fact, intended to speak to James Hackett, but of course, his death intervened. Do you know who killed him?'
'We're still working on that,' Freeman replied.
'Stone, how about you? You were with Hackett when he died, weren't you?'
'Yes, but I'm unable to speak about it,' Stone replied. He did not want to tell Lance why not.
'Mmmmm,' Lance purred. 'Client confidentiality?'
'Yes,' Stone replied, hoping his curiosity would stop there.
'You did some work for Felicity Devonshire at MI6 not very long ago, didn't you?'
'If I had, I certainly couldn't comment, could I?'
'No, I expect she asked you to sign the Official Secrets Act.'
The secretary reentered the room before Stone could reply and handed the form to Freeman, who looked it over, signed it, and handed it to Lance.
Lance looked it over, too. 'May I use your fax machine?' he asked.
'Of course,' Mike replied. He led Lance over to a bookcase and opened a panel for him, revealing the machine. Lance pressed a couple of buttons and dialed a number. 'Will it send both sides of the document?' he asked.
'Yes,' Freeman said, 'if you select that option.'
Lance sent the document, then returned to his chair and put the form into his briefcase. 'We'll have a response shortly,' Lance said.
'Don't you have to conduct an investigation?' Stone asked.
'Yes, but for the moment we will compare the information on the form electronically with what we already know about Mike, to be sure there are no discrepancies.'
This did not seem to worry Mike.
Lance's cell phone rang. 'Excuse me,' he said. He held the phone to his ear. 'Yes?' He listened for a moment. 'Thank you,' he said, and hung up. 'Well, that's done. Now we can proceed, I think.'
TEN
Lance leaned forward in his chair. 'Mike, let me outline a not altogether hypothetical situation in which you might be very helpful to the Agency and to your adopted country.'
Freeman said nothing, just nodded.
'Let us say that there exists in a fairly large city of this country a financial institution which we have reason to believe has been funneling funds to an Al Qaeda subsidiary in Indonesia.'
Mike nodded again.
'This institution has a virtually foolproof safeguard against outside intrusions into its computer network.'
'I would be very interested to hear about those safeguards,'
Freeman said.
'Essentially,' Lance replied, 'while they use outside connections to send data, they do not receive data except on a single connection, which has not only the latest in firewall protections, but on which every incoming request for data is vetted by a human operator before it is passed on to the central computer.'
Freeman frowned. 'That sounds almost too simple,' he said.
'Yes, it does, doesn't it? Oh, their ordinary office computer system accesses and downloads from the Internet, but their system for transmitting and receiving secure data is discrete from that.'
'You want us to supply you with people who can hack into their computers?' Freeman asked. 'I should think the National Security Agency could better handle that.'
'Of course,' Lance replied. 'Unfortunately, the bulk of their personnel are not available to us… on-site, let us say.'
'You mean they won't do a black bag job for you?' Stone asked.
'To put it crudely,' Lance said drily.
Freeman spoke up. 'Am I to understand that you want us to put our people inside this institution for the purpose of sacking their computer system?'
'At our present level of expertise, that is the fastest way for us to gain access to their secure data.'
Freeman had not stopped frowning. 'You want us to carry out an illegal entry into their offices and steal their data.'
'We would, of course, provide umbrella protection from prosecution to your people,' Lance said.
Stone spoke up. 'I'm sure that Richard Nixon offered the same protection to the Watergate burglars.'
Lance blinked. 'Well, perhaps so.'
'I'm sure I could find personnel in our organization who would be enthusiastic about such an operation,' Freeman said, 'but I am not sure I could furnish someone with a sufficient level of computer expertise to break into a secure system within a matter of a few hours, which is what you are talking about.'
'I understand,' Lance said. 'That is why your people would take an NSA operative along with them.'
'I think that would make a great movie,' Stone said, 'but a bad business story in the Wall Street Journal. I have to tell you, Mike, that you would be putting your company at great risk at a level all out of proportion to the reward to be gained.'
Lance bristled. 'The reward, as you put it, Stone, is to destroy the enemies of your country.'
'By breaking the laws of my country,' Stone pointed out.
'I think I sense your position on this, Stone,' Freeman said. 'Lance, I will have to discuss this matter with some of our people, then get back to you with a decision in principle, not having details of the actual operation.'
'Perfectly understandable, Mike,' Lance replied. 'I'm at the Lowell, and here's my cell number.' He handed Freeman a card.
