After he dropped the ambassador off at his house, Rubens checked in with the Art Room. Telach had gone home for some rest; her relief, Chris Farlekas, filled him in on the situation in Peru. They had hacked their way into the computers where the list for the voting machine distribution was kept, decrypted the list, and determined that the cards would be shipped to too many places to make intercepting them convenient. Therefore, they were going to have to break into the bank the next night.
“We have a good plan,” said Farlekas. “Tommy Karr’s chomping at the bit.”
“Mr. Karr would be eager to tap-dance into Hades. What does Mr. Dean think?”
“Charlie says fine. Lia agrees.”
“Very well. Move forward with the plan. I will be in first thing in the morning.”
Rubens snapped off the phone.
The CIA people had analyzed past elections and predicted that the cards would be sent en masse to a single city or at most two, most likely in the south where Ortez was weak.
Surely not a deliberate mistake, thought Rubens, just a simple mistake. And yet he couldn’t quite convince himself.
17
The day began for Calvina Agnese like most days of her life for the past five years: walking in the dark for an hour and a half from her apartment on the outskirts of Lima to a restaurant in the city’s tourist area. Calvina’s steady pace was somewhat faster on Wednesdays than other days, for two things happened on Wednesday that she looked forward to: her boss Senor DeCura always arrived at 6:00 a.m. for coffee in the kitchen, and she was paid.
The latter was far more important to her than the first, for her meager wages supported not only Calvina but also her mother and father, along with her sisters and brothers. But she liked also to listen to Senor DeCura, who would spend an hour describing the wonders he had seen in his life, in America especially.
Senor DeCura had gone to the United States during the 1980s. His first job had been as a busboy at a diner in a city called Goshen. He lived in a trailer with three other workers from the restaurant. Senor DeCura said the trailer was considered a hovel in America and claimed not to like it very much, but when he described his days there it sounded to Calvina like a palace. So did every place he spoke of-the restaurant where he worked as a short-order cook, the one where he began as sous chef, and finally the grand establishment where he commanded the kitchen. By the time he was thirty-five, Senor DeCura had saved enough money to return home and open his restaurant in an old mansion. He had not only earned a great deal of money, but he had learned what the Yankee tourists liked and were willing to pay for.
Senor DeCura had opened the doors to his restaurant five years ago. Since that time, he had become a hero and inspiration for others. Many of his young workers left for the U.S., most after gaining advice (and a few dollars) from him.
Calvina wanted to join them. If she were a boy-or if her money were not so important to her family with her father out of work-she would have left by now.
As she neared the block where the restaurant sat, Calvina sensed that something was wrong. Two of the employees she worked with were sitting on the sidewalk in front of the building, heads in their hands. She quickened her pace until she was almost running.
“Carlos, Jenna? What is going on?” she shouted when still several meters away.
Jenna moaned and Carlos shook his head. The iron gates in front of the restaurant door had not been opened. A new chain wound through the bars, clasping it closed.
“What happened? Where is Senor DeCura?” Calvina demanded.
“Dead,” said Jenna. And she began to sob.
“Who?”
“He killed himself, God save his soul,” said Carlos. “He had debts.”
“Debts? Senor DeCura was a rich man. His restaurant—”
“All gamblers have debts,” said Carlos. “And this restaurant has not been his own for more than two years.”
“But will we be paid today?” said Calvina. Tears streamed down her face. “Is there money to pay us?”
The others stared at her, unable to speak.
18
Hernes Jackson had visited Crypto City several times during his years with the State Department, and so he was prepared for some of the security gauntlet he had to run when he reported for work at seven o‘clock the morning following his dinner with Rubens. He began at Operations Building 1, which looked very much like a modernist-style corporate headquarters building, its black-mirror glass adding style to the cold cube of its form. The fact that the building sat on a high berm and could only be approached after passing two different security checks might have tipped off the uninitiated that it was something else entirely. If it didn’t, then the gamut inside would, since all visitors had to pass through a set of special gates that not only checked for bombs and weapons but sniffed out electronic devices as well.
On the other side of the gates, Jackson was met by not one but two “men in black”—members of the paramilitary security detail assigned to protect the NSA’s secrets. The men were representative of the breed- unsmiling and huge. Behind them lurked a man of medium height and slouchy build, whose walruslike blond mustache seemed at first glance a stage prop. He wore a turtleneck beneath a blue blazer; about fifty, he looked like an Ivy League professor enjoying the benefits of tenure as his career wound down.
“Ambassador Jackson, hello,” said the man. “I’m Kevin Montblanc. I work for Mr. Rubens. I’ll be your escort today. That badge you’re wearing doesn’t allow you to go where we’re going without a friend, so think of me as your best friend.”
Montblanc and the escorts led Jackson down a corridor to another security station.
“I hope you haven’t picked up a weapon in the last thirty seconds,” said Montblanc good-naturedly. “Otherwise we’ll all have to be strip-searched.”
“Do you have a pacemaker or similar device?” asked one of the guards.
“No.”
“Do you have an iPod or a PDA or anything like that, sir?”
“I’m not entirely sure what that is,” said Jackson.
The man smiled and began waving his hand around Jackson’s body. It took Jackson a moment to realize that the guard had some sort of detector in his hand.
“An iPod is the modern equivalent of a Sony Walkman,” said Montblanc. “A PDA is a small handheld computer. They have memory, so they’re forbidden to be brought in and out. A lot of the younger people have iPods for music. You can have one kept here if you wish, however. It’s easily arranged.”
“I’m not sure I want one.”
Jackson looked down at the man who was using the miniature searching device. Most people who wielded metal detector wands passed them swiftly and sloppily around someone’s body, especially if he had already been searched. This man moved slowly and carefully, pausing and occasionally doubling back. He didn’t touch Jackson, but when he finished there was not an inch of his body that the detector could have missed.
“This search is just part of the protocol. Even Mr. Rubens goes through it,” said Montblanc, holding out his arms.
Down the hall they boarded an elevator. There was no control panel or floor indicator.
“Close doors, please,” said Montblanc, and the doors gently shut The elevator started with the gentlest tug imaginable. Jackson realized they were descending, but he had no way of knowing how far. The doors opened on an
