America

least.'

' 'Fortune favors the bold.' That is a quote, but I do not know who said it.'

'Today your attorneys filed a libel suit against a columnist for an American newspaper who suggested your good luck might be more than fortune.'

'Indeed they did. There is not a word of truth to that charge. That newspaper is distributed here in the United Kingdom, so we sued here. British libel law is quite clear. We defend our honor.'

There was more, but Jake went back to his desk. The names, Alt, Stalnaker, Le Beau… Grafton! And Blevins. All these military officers supposedly had investment accounts with Jouany's firm. Was that the fact that had been leaked to the columnist? If so, it would certainly come out in the libel suit. It was untrue, of course, but it would cast a pall of suspicion over those officers. Would lead to investigations and charges and countercharges in the press and in Congress. A lot of smoke.

He went back to the door and called for Carmellini, who came in to Jake's office. Jake indicated a chair and closed the door.

'Let's do the timetable again. When did your supervisor tell you of the Jouany problem?'

Carmellini consulted the calendar on Jake's desk before he answered. 'Fourteen weeks ago, at least, Admiral. We targeted Sarah

Houston and I started working on her about twelve weeks ago, in early June.'

'But the Jouany operation predated the loss of the SuperAegis satellite?'

'Well, looking back on it, I guess it did. The Jouany firm had been selling dollars and buying euros for months.'

'Was the date for the London break-in set when they first told you to meet Sarah Houston?'

'No. It couldn't be. We had no idea just how fast I could get her into a situation where we could put her out. I'm good, but I ain't James Bond. We knew something about the security setup and knew we needed eyeprints and fingerprints to get access.'

'The other night you told me about always getting into her computer, regardless of the password, on the third try.'

'Right.'

'What if you hadn't gotten in?'

'I didn't expect to. I went there to steal the hard drive. Obviously, if I took it they would know I had it, so I tried to finesse 'em. Whoever set me up didn't expect me to learn that any old password would do. They wanted me to get in, open the door for NSA hackers, then go sashaying home proud as punch about how I played that outfit like a fiddle. So I didn't do it.'

'You're a difficult employee, Tommy.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'The CIA still doesn't know you're in Washington?'

'I suspect they do, but they don't know where. Or if they do, they haven't come after me. I'm doing okay bunking at Tarkington's. He's got beer in the fridge. Hell, he's got a fridge. My apartment is in the dead zone. I hate to think what the refrigerator is going to be like when I get back.'

'Tell me again about the CIA's London man.'

'McSweeney, a real piece of work. The Brits have to know he's CIA. He might as well wear the black T-shirt with the big white letters. They know as much about his business as he does. Maybe more.'

'That's an opinion.'

'He makes no secret of the fact he's CIA. He tools around London like he was an earl on an expense account. They know what he eats,

where he eats it, when he eats it, who he screws, when he screws, everything.'

'So what do you want to do? Go back to the CIA? Tell them you are alive and well inside the Beltway, reporting back?'

'No, sir. I've submitted my letter of resignation. I'd just as soon hang out with you and Tarkington until my time runs out, then sort of sift on out of here. If the Langley crowd never sees my smiling face again, that'll be fine by me. If they get pissy maybe you can tell them you had me sweating in your shop?'

'I don't think the federal personnel regs work just that way,' Jake Grafton said. 'Why don't you just drop them a note and tell them you quit? I'll even buy the stamp.'

'Geez, I would, Admiral, but there are some old felony investigations lying around in various prosecutors' offices. The statute of limitations has run on some of that stuff, but some of it's still hot. To make a long story short, the CIA sorta drafted me a few years back. Now I want to move on to a more lucrative career. A man's got to make his way in the world, seek his fortune, save a little for his old age.'

A hint of a smile made Jake's lips twitch. 'I see,' he said. 'Involuntary servitude, in this enlightened age. Who would have thought it?' He made a sound with his tongue.

'Shocking, I know,' Carmellini said earnestly. 'I normally don't trot out my troubles at the office, but I am in kind of a bind.'

'I'll do some research on the personnel regs. It'll take a few days.'

'Fine. Anything I can do to help, just say so.'

'Well, there is one thing. This list is going to start stinking one of these days. Who is Sarah Houston?'

'I don't know,' Carmellini said, his brows knitting.

'If you were going to find out, how would you go about it?'

'I've got her eyeprints and fingerprints. I—'

'Do you?'

'Well, I've got someone's.'

'Talk to Tom Krautkramer when he comes in. Get a real name to go with your eyeprints and fingerprints. Let me know what you find out.'

'Yes, sir.'

Next through Jake's door was Captain Sonny Killbuck. 'What is the navy doing to find the SuperAegis satellite?' was Jake's question.

'It's a question of probabilities, Admiral,' Killbuck said, rubbing his hands together. 'This is pretty neat. I wish I could have taken credit for it, but the engineers at NASA came up with this.' He used a pen on a sheet of paper to illustrate. 'The trajectory that the missile was to follow is this line, which is also the line of highest probability. Lines are then drawn, say one degree apart, radiating outward from the Goddard platform. Inevitably, the greater the distance from the intended track, the lower the probability that the third stage came to rest there. The distance from the Goddard platform is also a function of probability — we know precisely where the missile was when we lost it on radar. Voila, with those parameters we drew the chart and started searching the areas of highest probability first, then worked our way down.'

'Scientific as hell,' Jake Grafton said and whistled softly.

'Left alone, engineers are dangerous,' Killbuck agreed.

'How many assets are devoted to this task?'

'Thirty ships, sir. Everything that will carry magnetometers and side-scan sonar. And every area gets searched twice.'

It was indeed a neat system, but the searchers had yet to find the missing third stage. Jake refrained from commenting on that obvious fact.

'How about doing a computer study, by tomorrow, if possible. I want you to identify all the areas in the Atlantic between, say, Britain and Natal, with one hundred feet of water or less. Better make it a hundred and fifty.'

'I'll do it both ways, sir. Shouldn't be difficult.'

When FBI agent Krautkramer came in an hour later, he had a file on Heydrich. An underwater demolition and salvage expert, Heydrich had worked all over the globe. Jake studied the file as Krautkramer briefed him on the state of the FBI's investigation.

'One of the SuperAegis techno-kings is missing. Peter Kerr. Told his wife he was going fishing for a few days and never came back. She called us yesterday, fearing foul play.'

' 'Foul play.' I didn't know real people used phrases like that.'

'Her words, not mine. Kerr is in his fifties, got a daughter in grad school, been married over thirty years. In