pretty sure can't be seen through, has too many risks associated with it,' Leif said. 'What if the interviewer detects a change in 'tone' from the one I used with him? What if the substituted agent messes up some detail in the scripted history I've been working with, and with which I've had a fair amount of time to rehearse? And most to the point- what if you can't find anybody as good with as many languages as I am? Because you can't.'
'You know,' Winters said idly, 'smugness is a big failing in our business, Leif.' Leif flushed a shade of red that clashed with his hair. 'Especially,' Winters added, 'when coupled with being right.'
He paced a few steps across the worn white marble, his hands clasped behind his back, thinking. Leif gulped. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I didn't mean to sound that way. But if you scare these people off the nest now, it'll be months, maybe years, before they try something similar, and you know they won't try it in the same place. Drive them even further underground than they are already, and they'll just go off and pull the same number in Moscow, or Buenos Aires, or Beijing… and it'll take Net Force just as long then to get a handle on it as it's taken now, and maybe longer, because they'll have gone to a lot of trouble to cover up their tracks in some way that'll make it difficult or impossible to catch them in the kind of thing they're doing at the moment. If you're serious about stopping these people from ruining any more kids' lives, temporarily or permanently, I don't think you have much in the way of choices. Let us help you get the evidence you need to put these operatives away, anyhow.'
Winters looked at him, then sighed and took a few more paces. 'It's the problem with the Hydra's heads, isn't it,' he said. 'Cut a few of them off and five more grow back for every one you chopped. But at the same time… that's no excuse not to cut off the ones you find biting people, even if it does make other crooks elsewhere more cautious.'
He glanced over at Megan. 'This, of course, doesn't solve your problem, does it? Your friend is still missing.'
'Yes,' Megan said.
'Doubtless you're hoping that when we arrest the 'bad guys,' that under interrogation they'll let slip, or in the process of 'plea-bargaining' trade us, information about what happened to Mr. Kamen.'
'I would hope for that, yes,' Megan said. And she swallowed. 'But I wouldn't hold my breath. And I wouldn't let it stop me from going ahead with what we're planning.'
Winters stopped and looked at her thoughtfully. 'Would you care to elaborate on that?'
She didn't want to.. but this particular line of reasoning had been chasing itself around in her head for many hours now, and there was no escaping from it. 'I don't think it's likely that Burt is the only person they've 'recruited' in the past week, or the past month,' Megan said. 'There have to be a fair number of others. If these kids are seen as a safe and easy way to pass confidential information around, avoiding the Net or other methods that're more carefully policed, then there'll be a lot of them out there… and because there are potentially so many of them available, they may be seen by these people as disposable. Yeah, worrying about Burt got me into this.
I'm still worried about him. But the important thing is to stop this. It's not just Burt's safety that's at stake. Other kids are out there whose parents may really want to get them back safe. Their lives deserve to be saved as much as Burt's. And saving them may make the people who started running this particular scam think again about doing it at all any more… especially if it looks like Net Force may actually be using kids our age in iive' operations. They'll never know for sure, in the future, when they're about to be 'stung.' Strikes me as a good thing, whatever my personal feelings about my friend might be.'
Winters gave her a long look, then went back to his pacing. 'And you?' he said, looking over at Leif. 'Do you agree with Megan's assessment?'
'By and large, yes.'
'Care to poke some holes in it?'
'To what purpose?' Leif said. 'The meter's running, as we say in New York. Besides, you have your mind made up already.'
Winters stopped for a moment, stared at Leif, and then grinned at him. 'Does it show that much?… All right, look. You're suggesting that we enact full surveillance on Leif's next interview with the 'Recruiters.' You know that, if it goes as planned and we succeed in making arrests, you'll have to testify in court, and that despite the usual precautions being taken to protect your real identities, this could possibly lay you open to, shall we say, 'recriminations' from the Recruiters' people at some later date. Or immediately.'
Leif and Megan both nodded.
'Obviously you two are going to have to clear your further involvement in this with your parents,' Winters said. 'Better find out what the situation is with them, and do it quickly. As you say, the meter is running.'
Winters turned to Mark. 'I know you understand this, insofar as you understand anything legal, because, having been properly empowered by Net Force, you've already participated in such undertakings. We can safely assume that the security arrangements which already cover your mother and father can be assumed to protect you as well. Maybe someday you'll even do something to earn them.' Now it was Mark's turn to turn a discordant red. 'Other than constantly manifesting a wild talent with computers which could turn you into our century's version of Professor Moriarty, if you weren't so clearly obsessed with being seen to be operating on the Side of Good.'
'Professor who?
Megan grinned.
'Little Philistine,' Winters said mildly. 'What do they teach them at these schools?'
'And as for being on the side of good-'
'Stop before you say something more incriminating than anything you've said so far,' Winters said. 'Which, admittedly, would take some doing. Remember, the Surete are only a virtmail away.. and there's a standing one hundred thousand Euro reward for turning in a cyberbur- glar in France. Comes to quite a chunk in dollars, at the moment. Don't tempt me. My back porch needs fixing.'
Mark stood there and said nothing, looking extremely glum.
'So as regards your part in all this,' Winters said, 'the initial surveillance you did was, as usual, highly effective. Megan attached a copy. I watched it all. Very incriminating. Very promising. And totally inadmissible as evidence due to the illegal way in which it was acquired… and also inadmissible without a search warrant, which we are now going to have to get busy acquiring so that the next set of evidence also is not contaminated. I'll handle that end of things.' He glanced at Leif. 'You're still waiting for your notification of the time and 'place' of the next interview, I take it.'
' 'Around the same time today,' they said. Nothing more specific.'
'It'll do,' Winters said. 'I'll instruct the system to fast- track any message from you to me immediately, whatever I'm doing, as this whole business is very time-sensitive. I want to hear about this next meeting thirty seconds after you do, from inside Breathing Space's virtual environment if necessary… there are ways to pass the information that won't compromise you. We'll work something out. Mark, have you planted the necessary backup files to substantiate Leif's claim?'
'Uh, not all of them.'
'What??'
'I was working on it earlier, by my dad came in and threw me off the machine. He needed it for business,' Mark said, rather plaintively. 'And anyway, I was having trouble… that's why it took so long to get started in the first place. The Breathing Space client data files are better protected than the virtual space is-a lot better. I think somebody screwed up over there.'
'I wouldn't throw rocks if I were you,' Winters said. 'Get back online and deal with it. I'll have the Paris bureau deliver you another set of Net server hardware pronto, so you won't be interrupted; and I'll speak to your dad. What's your room number?'
'I don't know if it has a number. It's the Presidential Suite.'
Winters smiled slightly. 'Ah, the privileges of rank. How often during this stay has your dad actually been in that suite, though? Poor guy. Mark, why are you still standing here? Go get on with it, and hurry up! There's no telling what records the Recruiters are pawing through at the moment, and you need to be there first!' He cocked an ear at the empty air, and added, 'The Paris bureau chief says that in ten minutes there'll be someone coming down in the elevator with one of the new Force Nine portable setups.' Mark's eyes widened. 'Don't let your father steal it. And don yt break the chair!'
Mark turned and vanished hurriedly, looking both harried and very relieved. Winters turned to Megan and Leif, who had been watching all this a little wide-eyed. 'Don't mistake what you're seeing,' Winters said. 'I know I'm hard on him, but he's in a unique position, and his folks are busy.. and they're friends of mine. Heaven forbid he should
