Faraday closed the laptop and slid it into his valise. He took a deep breath and exhaled.
“All right. I’m sorry. I just don’t want some hotshot swooping in on my case.”
“Hotshot? Look, I’ve been with the CIA for four years. And I’m doing pretty well for myself, thank you very much. I’m building my career on my own merits, not piggybacking on others or stealing cases. I’m here to help solve the case, Faraday.”
Faraday looked at her face and saw her sincerity. She didn’t look defensive, just determined.
“Call me Scott,” he said, offering his hand in truce.
CHAPTER 3
Back at Turtle Bay, Faraday and Blaine sat in the windowless anteroom outside the office of the director of IT, Madge Grenberg. Graham had managed to obtain clearance and permission for the server logs to be released, from the time period 9:00 to 9:20 of that morning.
Now they were just waiting for the transfer of the data to a portable storage device. Faraday sat with his laptop out, scouring the web for any activity that may be related to the case, and Blaine was scrolling though emails on her PDA. The room was quiet and barren, except for the two low armchairs, the coffee table, and a plastic ficus between the door and a wall clock.
Faraday reached in his valise and pulled out a SkinnyQuick shake and started turning the can end over end. “I’m trying to make sense of this NonCredit Romeo. I’ve run some analyses, and the name turns out to be an anagram of Monroe Doctrine.”
“So this is clearly a guy who wants the U.S. to extricate itself from all international alliances,” said Cat, demonstrating her familiarity with U.S. history.
“And he’s making his point in a deadly way. What I can’t figure out is how he’s connected to me. I can see him stumbling upon my blog and thinking it would be a good place to post his little cryptic messages, but my blog does not identify me by name, or even specify which CIA department I work for.”
“And he knows you were at Turtle Bay this morning.”
Satisfied it was sufficiently mixed up, Faraday popped the top on the shake can and before taking a swig said, “I did receive some very minor press coverage a couple of years back, when the Times identified me as a ‘top CIA cybersleuth’ for tracking down the illegal campaign donations that one of the presidential candidates was accepting through his website. But for security purposes they only referred to me in that article as ‘Agent F.’ Same with the Newsweek article last year – I insisted on confidentiality. I don’t see how Romeo could’ve made the connection.”
“Then maybe it’s someone with inside-CIA connections,” said Cat, picking up a newspaper from the coffee table next to the metal-framed arm chairs in which they sat. She noted a reference on the front page to the current president. “Too bad nobody cared Raines was taking illegal campaign donations, eh?”
“It’s my job to catch those perpetrating malfeasance. It’s the job of the American people to care about malfeasance. Just ‘cause they don’t care, doesn’t mean I’ll stop doing my job.”
“That sounded practiced,” observed Cat.
Faraday sipped at his shake and shrugged, smacked his lips. “It’s a subject that’s come up once or twice before.”
“Sounds like maybe it’s your mantra. ‘Just doin’ my job, ma’am – you don’t have to care,’” she said in a faux manly voice.
Faraday tipped his shake back and finished it off. “Maybe it is a kind of personal theme,” he conceded. “This job can turn you cynical, I’ll admit. That’s why I started my blog – to share my experiences fighting cybercrime and let people know that they can make a difference, even if it seems no one cares. It still matters.”
“Well, I agree - doing good for its own sake is the only way to approach this job. And it can be discouraging when holding people accountable for making bad choices is given little respect.” Cat tossed the newspaper back on the table and turned to Faraday. “But for me, the most frustrating part of this job is the lack of cooperation among those who are trying to achieve the same goals. Take this,” she said, motioning to the closed door of the director of IT. “It seems a no-brainer that we’d need those server logs to catch the killer – yet your boss had to jump through hoops and twist arms to get us any help.”
“Not to mention the information wall between CIA, FBI and other agencies,” agreed Faraday. “It’s a pain, but it is what it is. We just have to do the best we can to work within the existing system.”
The director’s door opened and a heavy-set woman with graying hair, wearing jeans and a red sport coat over her white blouse, walked up to Faraday and handed him a flash drive.
“Nine till nine-twenty,” she said coldly.
“Thanks,” said Faraday, then slipped his laptop into his valise and stood to leave. “Appreciate your help.”
As they left the building, Faraday said, “Tell you what – I’ll make you a copy and we can look these over at the same time.”
“Better yet, why don’t we just go over to the field office in Midtown and use the big screen to review it together. I’ll buy lunch.”
“Just ate.”
“Come on – you know that wasn’t a meal. I know a place on 47th that has great take out Chinese. The pot stickers are to die for.”
Pot stickers. Faraday sucked in his gut a little. “I can see you’re going to be bad for my diet.”
Excerpt © 2011 Michael D Britton / Intelligent Life Books
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