government agencies that would find his research bothersome. You must excuse me. I have a class at the university within the hour.'
'Yes, of course,' Kerney said, getting to his feet.
'Did Father Mitchell stay in touch with you only by telephone?'
'Most of our communication was by email.'
'Do you have his e-mail address?'
Valencia nodded and reached for an address book from a bookcase shelf.
'I have little faith in computers. They crash far too often, so I always write e-mail addresses down. Joe had two: one for general use and another for more private communication.'
Valencia read off the information.
'Did you have copies of Father Mitchell's e-mail letters?' Kerney asked.
'Or perhaps keep them stored in your computer?'
Valencia shook his head and smiled.
'Copies, no, and I make it a practice to have very little about my private or personal life in the computer. I trust them even less than I trust most police officers.'
'Thank you for your openness, Professor.'
'You strike me as a sincere, fair-minded man, Chief Kerney. I wish you well in your investigation. Father Joseph deserves justice.'
One of Mitchell's Internet service providers was an Albuquerque based company with corporate offices in a business park adjacent to the Interstate. With walls of glass facing the outside world, the building presented what passed for a sleek, modern look. To Kerney it seemed nothing more than a five-story rectangular box, plopped down next to another equally unattractive box, with nice landscaping designed to hide its pedestrian dullness.
A directory inside the lobby next to the elevators listed the various company suites. Kerney found his way to the ISP's offices, where a young woman smiled genially as he approached the reception desk. She wore a bright yellow lapel pin that read ASK ME ABOUT SWAMI. On the wall behind the desk a poster proclaimed SWAMI: THE NEXT GENERATION OF INTERNET TOOLS. A swirling, modernistic, multicolored turban served as the logo.
He showed the woman his shield and asked to speak with the person in charge of the subscriber database. A young man no more than twenty-five answered the receptionist's call and introduced himself as Wallace Brooks. He guided Kerney into an office cluttered with computers and thick black notebook binders.
Kerney asked for Joseph Mitchell's e-mail records.
'Do you have a court order?' Brooks replied.
'Can't we dispense with the details?' Kerney asked.
Brooks smiled and shook his head.
'That's not possible, especially now. We're re tooling our subscriber list is frozen, and we can't release any information.'
'Why is that?'
'Our current customer base is being used to test the SWAMI software.
With the trade secrets involved I can't possibly give you access to anything without a court order. Even then, our attorney would probably challenge it immediately.'
'What can you tell me about SWAMI?' Kerney asked.
The young man's eyes lit up.
'SWAMI stands for Systemwide Application for Managing Information. It's a breakthrough tool for Web content management that's going to revolutionize how people use the Internet. And it's scalable, which means it can accommodate everyone from home computer users all the way up to major corporations.'
'How does it work?'
'Right now the World Wide Web is a monster. There are millions of sites with astronomical amounts of data and information getting added at an exponential rate. SWAMI allows users to filter and organize the stream of information. And its a server add-on software package, so users won't have to worry about upgrading to new versions.'
'Sounds like a good investment,' Kerney said.
'Tell me about your corporate structure.'
'We're a subsidiary of an investment corporation. The technology we've developed is based on research done at the national science laboratories right here in New Mexico.'
'Isn't this a risky time for a new start-up?' Kerney asked 'We're not worried about the dot com or the technology stock shake-out.
Everybody is going to use SWAMI.'
'Who supplied the venture capital?'
'We're wholly owned by APT Performa, a subsidiary of Trade Source.'
'Does Trade Source own the rights to SWAMI?'
'Clarence Thayer, the CEO of APT Performa, owns the rights to SWAMI.'
'When does SWAMI hit the marketplace?'
'In three months, max. We believe the trade name is going to be as well known as Intel and Microsoft.'
'What are the royalty arrangements?'
'A fee will be passed on to consumers by the server companies. But we're talking about tens of millions of users worldwide paying a small monthly add-on charge.'
'I hope you have some stock options,' Kerney said.
Brooks smiled gleefully and said yes.
Kerney left, questioning silently if SWAMI's software tricks might be used for intelligence gathering. The FBI already had Carnivore, an Internet wiretap system, in service. Wasn't that enough? Or did the feds want something that had a more global reach?
He followed the connection that ran from Phyllis Terrell to Father Mitchell, and on to the ambassador and Clarence Thayer. Could the murders have had anything to do with SWAMI?
At the top of La Bajada Hill, Santa Fe spread out below him and the mountains filled the horizon. Kerney barely noticed the soft sheen of mare's tail clouds nestled in the foothills. He keyed his microphone, spoke to the detective sergeant on duty, and asked for a court order to access Father Mitchell's e-mail accounts.
He gave the sergeant enough information to start the paperwork process, tossed the microphone on the passenger seat, called Sara on his department cell phone, and left a message for her not to come to Santa Fe for the weekend. He was going to be busy after all.
Outside Applewhite's hotel Bobby Sloan ate a gooey jelly doughnut and sipped lukewarm coffee from a vacuum jug, hoping the sugar and caffeine would keep him going. He hadn't eaten a real meal since lunch yesterday and he knew better than to load up on food if he wanted to stay awake.
While he didn't like going hungry, the upside was his stomach gas had eased off considerably. Maybe it was time to think about changing his diet.
Applewhite didn't move until ten in the morning. But when she did, she left in a hurry. Sloan tailed her to the Rodeo Road Business Park, where she parked and went inside a building marked by a sign on the front lawn that read, APT PER FORMA Five minutes later Charlie Perry arrived to join the party, followed by Lieutenant Molina, who parked at an adjacent building. He spotted Molina with his binoculars, and Sal pointed in sequence at the row of cars in front of the APT Performa building and made a camera clicking motion with his finger. Bobby got busy taking photographs and running plates.
He finished up as a car eased into an empty slot. The plate registered in his mind as he snapped the shutter: it was the same vehicle that had breezed through the guard checkpoint at the air base without stopping.
He got three good shots of the driver's face before the man entered the building.
Sloan accessed the floppy disk with the driver's license photo and MVD record he'd saved last night. The driver was Timothy In gram and he had a Kirtland Air Force Base address.
For whatever it was worth, another player in the game had been identified.
Tim Ingram tried without success to get interested in the shapely legs of the young woman who led him down the office corridor. Instead, the image of Applewhite sticking the syringe into Fred Browning's neck replayed through his mind, as it had since he'd awakened.
At a conference room Ingram gave the woman a weak smile, pushed through the door, and found
