want him out of my life and everyone else's, out of commission, whatever. Dead. Right? Aren't we more likely to catch him if I'm visible than if I'm hiding?'
'You're right, and I don't disagree. But think about it first. It's not just your life we're talking about.'
'Grady should not be with me until this is over. I know that.'
'Don't I get a say in that?' Grady had had enough.
Sam and Michael looked at each other.
'Get used to it, Michael. Hey, you have to admit she's not doing bad.' Sam drained his drink and leaned forward, el bows on the table. 'Look, if you're in, that's fine with me. I have a thought as to how we might lay a trap. But you have to be sure.'
'I'm not dying to be a staked goat, but it's better than doing nothing.'
Sam looked at Grady, who glowed with pride at her men tor's earlier remark. Behind the glow, though, her face showed her disquiet. In her eyes he saw both the undaunted determination of a woman with a plan and a smart person afraid for her life. And Michael's.
'All right at least let's move you to a bed-and-breakfast over in Greenwich Village. They'll have to find you again.'
'That's fine,' Michael said and Grady nodded.
'First, I have a big piece of news,' Sam said. 'We re ceived an e-mail today from France. We think they are relay ing messages from one Benoit Moreau.' Sam briefly explained her history with Grace Technologies and her imprisonment. 'She seems to be out, and possibly in New York. Apparently she will want a meeting; an attorney ready to attend and most interesting, a fake 1998 journal copy that looks real but is entirely a forgery.'
'What?'
'That is totally weird,' Grady said.
'I do not know why that request and she hasn't said when she wants a meeting or why. It could be to work her own scam or it could be because she wants to help us. If they think they have the journal, they lay off you. I think she wants me to believe she is on our side. I should mention that the attorney is to be an expert in immigration.'
'Should I make a journal with incorrect latitudes and longitudes and with altered descriptions of the material? Mis-describe flora, fauna?'
'It couldn't hurt. But I'm sure it would be a lot of work.'
'A whole year's worth of actual data? Maybe. But if I got Lyman and some honest graduate students…'
By the next day, a full twelve days after his arrival in New York, Sam had set up temporary offices. Every morning that he could, he would stop by to see Anna and he called Anna's mother or the nurse Lydia at least twice a day. Here he could work the phones and brainstorm with the investigators feeding Big Brain. It wasn't glamorous, but unlike the LA office, he could be near Anna. He had a better chance of finding Gaudet from the computer room than he did walking the streets, because from the office he could greatly multiply his efforts using contract investigators. A new priority was learning why the French were having secret meetings with Gaudet and who had hired the grad student to steal Michael's jour nal.
Back at the bed-and-breakfast he kissed Grady on the cheek, clasped her hand, and left her with Michael. His instincts were talking to him again. Grady and Michael were assuming he'd go back to LA. He didn't bother to correct the impression, although there were various ways they might find him out. Since he always took calls on his cell, it wasn't always easy to determine his whereabouts and people were very used to not knowing.
Preferring anonymity he stayed over in Greenwich Village, in the apartment of a retired FBI agent. The man was travel ing.
On the way to the office he stopped by the hospital. In mid- afternoon the hospital was getting ready for a shift change. Nurses were standing around flipping through charts and talking in low tones. Anna's room was a good walk down a long corridor filled with people with serious problems. There was a faint antiseptic smell and somehow it didn't help his mood. As he neared the door, the deep reserve of sadness that was always with him these days took over his mind. When he entered, he noticed that the monitor was now silent and each beat was only a line on the screen. Sitting by Anna's bed, her mother held her hand, and it made him feel good and it made him feel guilty all at the same time. When he ap proached Anna's mother, he noticed that her face was drawn and that deep fatigue had set in. The vigil was taking its toll.
'I will leave you alone,' she said quietly.
Nothing had ever made him feel so helpless.
Anna's face revealed nothing and it seemed to Sam that she was very far away.
She always liked the smell of a good Cuban cigar, so in violation of all the rules he sat by her bed and smoked a few puffs. After he put out the cigar, he leaned forward and whis pered in her ear.
Sam sat in New York in front of the video-conferencing monitor, talking to Jill in LA the way old acquaintances do, snacking, drinking, and lapsing into silence between broken phrases that called up a history of late nights at the office, long lunches, walks in the park, and even pillow talk. They had each ordered in some fried yearling oysters and Sam carefully dipped the end of about every third oyster in ketchup. He called the ketchup dunking 'cleansing the palate.' Jill liked the unadulterated oyster flavor and skipped the condiment. Harry sat on the conference table of the New York office watch ing every oyster that went into Sam's mouth and got about one out of four. Jill said the dog had superior taste-he'd have none of Sam's ketchup. One of Sam's staff had been kind enough to bring the lonely dog with him from LA.
For a few minutes Jill listened while Sam tried to tell her how he felt about Anna lying unconscious in the hospital. For some reason it was hard for him to speak the right words, and yet he knew she understood.
'I wish I were there to hold your hand,' she said. There were a few moments of silence. Harry put his chin on his paws and looked disconsolate.
'You know the way you're leaning back with those oysters, you're going to spill ketchup on your shirt.'
'Have you ever noticed how some people can't just wear their ketchup stain-even ketchup lovers like me. They have to cover it with a tie, or hold their hand on their stomach, or take the shirt off and use towels and water. In the extreme cases they have to leave the office and get a new shirt. As long as that ketchup is there, they can't stop thinking about it. The ketchup actually rules their life.'
Jill said nothing for a moment.
'Grieving is good, Sam. It's not like a ketchup stain, so don't even think about comparing them.'
'I was talking about hypocritical ketchup lovers.'
'And I was talking about you.'
Sam thought about that. For him, was it Gaudet that was the ketchup stain? Or was it something inside? Was it his self-doubt? Was it that he had Indian blood? Or maybe it was his anonymous life. One thing he believed: nothing could be normal or right until he got Gaudet. Not grieving, not life. Maybe he could choose a public life after Gaudet. Maybe he would have more confidence that he was good enough for Anna. Now he didn't know.
He thought about what his mother had said about Grandfather, about the focusing of his life force. Could a man focus his life on catching another man and have a life worth living? It was a question that he shoved out of his mind almost as fast as it came. Some things were necessary, he told himself.
'You don't think you should tell Grady and Michael you're really in New York.'
'It worked last time.'
'Yeah, Grady was almost strangled.'
'I've gotta get this man that is really not a man. He is more devil than man.'
'I guess if we're going to stop him, we better get to work.'
'Title of the file in Gaudet's mainframe was interesting,' Jill said. ' 'Alpha Worm.' Some kind of joke.'
'Uh-huh.'
'You're tired.'
'Not that tired. How is Figgy doing?'
'Great. If you like would-be traitors. He has a lot of contacts and he's working them. I guess we just ignore that he seems to have had a meeting with our mortal enemy and isn't mentioning it. He has gotten information about Grace from the French, who are suddenly discovering that they knew things they supposedly didn't know.'
'Do you think he would betray the United States for some renegade French spooks?'
