officers and civilians from Washington arrived unannounced. They poked and prodded the dismembered, blackened carcass and photographed everything, then climbed back into the waiting planes parked on the baking ramp in front of base ops. Toad was left with his solitude and his writing.
So the days passed, one by one, as Rita slept.
In Washington, Jake Grafton was also writing, though he went about it in a vastly different manner than Tarkington. He dictated general ideas into a recording machine and gave the tapes to his subordinates, who expanded the ideas into smooth, detailed drafts which Jake then worked on with a pencil. Flight test data and observations were marshaled, correlated and compiled. Graphs were drawn and projections made about performance, maintenance manhours, mean time between failures and, of course, costs. Money dripped from every page. Every officer in the group had an input, and conclusions and recommendations were argued and re- argued around Jake’s desk, with him listening and jotting notes and occasionally indicating he had heard enough on one subject or another. All of it went into a mushrooming document with the words “top secret” smeared all over.
Vice Admiral Tyler Henry spent some unhappy hours with Luis Camacho. It had been quickly established that the data contained on the E-PROM chip from the crashed prototype was identical to the erroneous data contained in the Pentagon computer file that had last been changed by the deceased Captain Harold Strong. TRX’s latest, correct batch of E-PROM data was also in the com- puter, but under another file number.
Three days and a dozen phone calls after be had sent Lloyd Dreyfas to Detroit, Camacho went himself. On Thursday at noon he rode the Metro out to National Airport and was sitting in the president of AeroTech’s office in Detroit at 3:50.
Homer T. Wiggins had gotten himself a lawyer, a manicured, fiftyish aristocrat in a Brooks Brothers suit and dark maroon tie. His stylish tan and his gray temples and sideburns made him look like something sent over from central casting. “Martin Prescott Nash,” he pronounced with a tiny nod at Camacho, then pointedly ignored the proffered hand. Camacho retracted his spurned ap- pendage and used a handkerchief to wipe it carefully as he sized up Wiggins, who was apparently trying his best to look like a pillar of outraged rectitude.
“My client is one of the most respected leading citizens of this state,” Nash began in a tone that might come naturally to a femi- nist activist lecturing a group of convicted rapists. He had it just right — the slight voice quaver, the distinct pronunciation of each word, the subtle trace of outrage. “He is active in over a dozen civic organizations, gives over half a million dollars a year to char- ity and provides employment to six hundred people, every one of whom pays the taxes that provide salaries for you gentlemen.” He had just the slightest little bit of difficulty pronouncing the word “gentlemen.”
Nash continued, listing the contributions Homer T. Wiggins had made to the arts, the people of the great state of Michigan and the human race. Camacho settled into his chair and let him go, occa- sionally glancing at his watch.
Dreyfus waited until he had Camacho’s eye, then winked broadly. Wiggins saw the gesture and winced.
Finally, as Nash paused for breath, Camacho asked, “Are you a criminal lawyer?”
“Well, no,” admitted the pleader. “I specialize in corporate law. My firm has advised Homer for ten years now. We handled his last stock offering, over ten million shares on the American Exchange, and the subordinated debenture—“
“He needs a criminal lawyer.”
Deflated, Nash looked to his left, right at the pasty, perspiring face of leading citizen Homer T. Wiggins, who was staring at Ca- macho and licking his lips.
“Read him his rights. Dreyfus.”
Both agents knew this had been done on one prior occasion, yesterday, and Wiggins had declined to answer questions unless his lawyer was present. Dreyfus removed the Miranda card from his credentials folder and read it yet again, slowly, with feeling. The warning usually had a profound effect on men who had never in their lives thought of themselves as criminals. All the color drained from Wiggins’ face and he began to breathe in short, rapid breaths. It was as if he could hear the pillars crumbling and see the plaster falling from the ceiling of that magnificent edifice of position, re- sponsibility and respect that had housed him so well all these years.
As Dreyfus put the card away, Wiggins squeaked, “You going to arrest me?”
“That depends.”
“On what?” said Martin Prescott Nash, who was looking a little pale himself.
“On whether or not I get some truthful answers to the questions I came here to ask.”
“Are you offering immunity?”
“No. I have no such authority. I am here to question Mr. Wig- gins as a principal about bribery of a government employee and illegally obtaining classified defense information. Both charges are felonies. If you want to talk to us, Mr. Wiggins, we’ll listen. We may or may not arrest you today. I haven’t decided. Anything you say will be included in our reports and will be conveyed to the Justice Department. The attorneys there may or may not use it as evidence against you. They may take it into account when they are trying to decide if prosecution is warranted, or they may not. They may consider your cooperation when they make a sentencing rec- ommendation after your conviction — if there is one — or again, they may not. I have nothing to offer. You have the right to remain silent, but you’ve heard your rights and your attorney is here with you. Or you can decide to cooperate with the government that you and your six hundred employees support with your tax dollars by telling us the truth. It’s up to you.”
Nash wanted to talk to his client in private. The agents went out into the hall and walked toward the cafeteria.
“Have you really got it?” Camacho asked Dreyfus.
“Chapter and verse. He turned in expense-account reports for every trip to Washington, including credit-card receipts for dinners with the name Thomas H. Judy on the back as a business guest in his own handwriting. Apparently he didn’t want any more trouble with those IRS troglodytes about his expense account.”
“Can you tie him personally to the data?”
“Yep. An engineer here got the computer printout about seven months ago — Wiggins himself handed it to him. Told him to make up some experimental chips to see if they could validate the method and their computer stuff, and to develop a cost projection. All of which he did. Other people swear to that. I’ve got a sworn statement in writing from this engineer burning Wiggins and a cassette recording of him telling it to me originally. And the NSA computer records show Judy as one of the officers who had routine access to the E-PROM data. We’ve got Homer T. cold as a frozen steak.”
“Is this the right time?” Camacho muttered, thinking aloud.
“Well, shit!” Dreyfus hissed. “I don’t know! I just dig this stuff up. You—“
Camacho silenced him with a glance. Dreyfus lit his pipe and walked along with smoke billowing.
“So why the big screw-up with the chips?” Camacho asked when they reached the cafeteria, which housed three microwaves and a wall full of vending machines.
“Oh, AeroTech got in four or five different data dumps from TRX and even one from the Pentagon, all in the last three months. The first three chips just sat there on the engineer’s desk. No one is sure how or when they went to the mail room. No one knows how they got mixed up with an outgoing shipment. The mail-room guy is from Haiti, with a heavy accent. He denies everything. Rumor has it he used to be a medical doctor in his former life.” Dreyfus shrugged. “Looks like human error, that plus the usual careless- ness and a tiny pinch of rotten luck. Voila! Anything that can go wrong, will. Isn’t that the fourth or fifth law of thermodynamics or Murphy or the Georgia state legislature?”
“Something like that.” Camacho removed a plastic cup full of decaffeinated coffee from the vending machine and sat on a plastic chair at a plastic table beneath a fluorescent light with a faulty igniter — the light hummed and flickered.
“I think the doctor in the mail room is an illegal.”
“You asked to see his green card?”
“Nope.”
“Going to?”
“Not unless you tell me to.”
“Let’s go see if Wiggins wants to talk.”
Dreyfus stoked his pipe again on the stroll down the hall. Wig- gins’ secretary glared at them. Dreyfus gave her a sympathetic grin, which she ignored.
