Hidden Agendas

anymore, at least not technically, but to hell with it, he was gonna call anyhow.

He hated losing the house Momma had left him, but that was done. He wasn't going home again.

He used one of the one-time scramblers and a pay phone in the lobby of the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Motel on the outskirts of College Park, just off 1-285. Hughes had his virgil rigged up to rascal his call with the military-grade scrambler built into it, so nobody would trace nothin'. He needed to get this done and move out — Atlanta was a big town, but way too close to Marietta. He wanted to be a thousand miles away from both come sunrise, and he'd have to hurry to pull that off. He had a chartered plane waiting at the airport, and once he was in the air, he'd feel a lot better.

'What?' Hughes said.

Yep, he'd woke him up, all right.

'Howdy, Boss. We got a little situation here you need to know about.'

'Hold on a second.'

Hughes put him on hold, and Platt grinned. Six in the morning, Hughes would be in bed, and if he was puttin' Platt on hold, then he wasn't in the bed alone. Somebody was being sent to the John, Platt would bet.

'All right. What?'

'Sorry if I interrupted anything,' Platt said, not the least bit sorry.

'Don't worry about that. What's the problem?'

'The feds ain't as stupid as they look. They backwalked a signal to my momma's house.'

'What? How could that happen?'

'Damn if I know. Maybe they got some new techno-toy I haven't heard about. Don't matter as much how as they did it. I had to hightail it out pretty quick.'

'But you got away without any real trouble?'

'Well, yes and no. They didn't see me, I was long gone time they showed up, I expect, but that place was under my own name. I'm gonna have to do a little ID switching.'

'Is that a problem?'

'Not so you would notice. I got a half-dozen new me's lined up if I need ‘em.'

'How about the other thing?'

'Oh, the other thing. That went smooth as oil on a baby's butt. Our bank boy from the place in — where was it? Minnesota? I-oway? whatever — should be able to do the deed like he's supposed to. I expect to hear from him by about noon tomorrow. Well, today now.'

'Good, good. You need anything?'

'I'm gonna have to hit one of the caches,' Platt said. 'I'm a little short on cash.'

'Fine, whatever you need. Listen, if there are any problems with your IDs, let me know, I'll work something out so you can get out of the country.'

Platt grinned. 'Why, thank you, Boss, I surely do appreciate that. Nice to know there's somebody you can count on in today's dog-eat-dog world. I'll call you back soon as bank boy does his thing.'

'Right. Later then.'

Platt pushed the disconnect button down, pulled the scrambler from the mouthpiece, and dropped it into his pocket. He'd toss it into a lake somewhere later. Hmm. Hughes hadn't seemed as upset as he'd expected by the feds sniffing Platt out. He was a cool one, all right. Maybe too cool. Truth was, Platt trusted him about as far as he could pitch the man one-handed, and while he was strong, that wasn't all that far.

Once bank boy had done his thing, Hughes was going to be eyeball-deep in money, at least for a little while, and maybe he wouldn't need an attack dog as much as he had before. Or maybe he thought he might get rid of the old one and buy himself a new dog.

You had to pay attention at times like this, Platt had learned. People always looked out for their own interests, first, last, and in between. Pretty soon now, Hughes and Platt would have interests going their separate ways. Things could get dangerous when that happened. And Momma Platt didn't raise no fools.

Platt headed for his room. He had a couple of things he wanted to pick up there before he headed for the airport.

Sunday, January 16th, 1:45 a.m.. Quantico, Virginia

Commander Michaels called them into the conference room for a quick meeting. Winthrop looked around. Aside from herself, there was Michaels, Fiorella, Gridley, and in the hall just outside, Julio, who had hung around even though there wasn't anything he could do on-line. He smiled at her as she moved into the conference room, and she felt her spirits lift a little. She was tired — they were all tired — they'd been in VR for what seemed like months, repairing damaged systems. Sure, they'd had help from federal programmers, but this had been a major infection, and it was mud-slogging work, a lot of slow, hard steps. It took a lot out of you, but it was getting done. Most of the damage could be fixed over the next day or two. The biggest problem would come from the systems being down and the money that cost in lost time and transactions all over.

And that whole thing with the Frihedsakse was there too. Or wasn't there, if you looked at it hard enough. They'd been baited. Gridley was royally pissed off about that, since he'd been the one on point, but it could have happened to her just as easily. There was just enough sizzle there so you thought you could smell the steak, even though you couldn't quite see it. It was a good con, and it would have been a long time before they caught it if Fiorella hadn't pointed out the possibilities. She might not be the best programmer, but she had a sharp overview, something a lot of the techno-types didn't have.

'— Federal banking systems are still at risk, but all security programs are being updated and changed, so the old passwords won't get the guy back in again,' Michaels said.

'He got those,' Gridley said. 'What's to say he won't get the new ones?'

That mirrored Winthrop's own thought pretty well.

'The bank programmers are using the new tag system. If somebody breaks in, we'll know where the leak got sprung.'

Gridley nodded. 'Yeah, that'll work for a while, but in the long run, some sharp cowboy will figure out a way around that.'

'In the long run, Jay, we're all dead,' Michaels said.

That brought some tired smiles forth.

'All right, what's the situation on this guy Platt? Joanna?'

She looked down at her flatscreen and called up the report. 'The Cray Colander has sifted everything it could on him.

'Platt dropped out of high school in his junior year. Got into some local trouble as a juvenile — car theft, assault, underage drinking, shoplifting, petty stuff. No time in reform schools or jails.

'Our boy disappeared for the next four years. He was arrested in Phoenix, Arizona, when he was twenty, some kind of con game went bad, he punched out the victim. He got released on bail, then skipped.

'Next time we see him is when he was busted for assault and battery in New Orleans, age twenty-four. He apparently attacked a man on the street for no good reason, beat him senseless. Nobody noticed the old warrant for the thing in Phoenix. He posted bail, and never showed for the trial.

'In 2006, Platt was arrested on a drunk and disorderly charge in Trenton, New Jersey. He walked into a bar and started a fight. Four men wound up in the hospital. Through some glitch in the miracle of modern communications, the bail jumpings in Phoenix and in New Orleans did not appear on his record, and he posted bond a third time—'

'Let me speculate,' Michaels said. 'He left town.'

'Good guess,' Winthrop said.

'The last thing we have on him is an arrest in Miami Beach three years ago. Another assault charge. He attacked two men at a hot dog stand, again for no apparent reason. When the police arrived, he was taken into custody, but as they were transferring him from the car to the jail, he escaped. Both the arresting officers were injured, requiring hospitalization.'

Winthrop looked up from the flatscreen. 'That's it. All we have on Mr. Platt. He has no credit records, no property except for the house outside Marietta, no driver's license, no work history. He's never paid Social Security, filed a tax return, or applied for a passport. At least not under the name Platt. Another of the free-rangers who don't leave electronic tracks or paper trails.'

'A thug,' Fiorella said. 'Hardly seems like the mastermind behind computer break-ins.'