Total Control (43 page)

"You think so?"

"Don't you?"

Sawyer shrugged and finished his beer.

"Lady takes off after her husband's memorial service," Gamble continued. "Hardy tells me she tried to give your guys the slip. You followed her all over New Orleans. She's acting suspicious, comes right home after getting a phone call. Hardy also said you thought somebody may have gone through her house while she drew all you guys off the scent. Brilliant how you let that happen, by the way."

"I'm gonna have to be careful what I tell Frank in the future."

"I pay him a hell of a lot of money. He better keep me informed."

"I'm sure he's worth every penny."

"Pennies, right! That's a joke."

Sawyer gave Gamble a sidelong glance. "For all he's done for you, you don't seem to hold Frank in very high regard."

Gamble chuckled. "Believe it or not, I have really high standards."

"Frank was one of the best agents the bureau ever produced."

"I have a short memory for good work. You have to keep showering me with it." Gamble's smile quickly turned to a glare. "On the other hand, I never forget screwups."

They watched the game in silence. Finally Sawyer stirred.

"Quentin Rowe ever screw anything up for you?"

Gamble looked surprised by the question. "Why do you ask that?"

"Because the guy's your golden egg and from all accounts you treat him like crap."

"Who said he's my golden egg?"

"You saying he's not?" Sawyer sat back and crossed his arms.

Gamble didn't answer right away. He brooded over his glass of liquor. "They had a lot of golden eggs in my career. You don't get to where I am off one racehorse."

"But Rowe is valuable to you."

"If he wasn't, I wouldn't have much use for his company."

"So you tolerate him?"

"So long as the dollars keep pouring in."

"Lucky you."

Gamble's look was ferocious. "I took an ivory tower geek who couldn't raise a damned dime on his own and turned him into the country's richest thirty-something. Now, who do you think's the lucky one?"

Sawyer inclined his head toward the man. "I'm not trying to take anything away from you, Gamble. You chased a dream and made it come true. I guess that's what America's all about."

"Coming from a Fed, I'll have to really savor that compliment."

Gamble once again focused on the basketball game.

Sawyer stood and crumpled his beer can.

Gamble stared up at him. "Where you going?"

"Home. It's been a long day." He held up the squashed can.

"Thanks for the beer."

"I'll have my driver take you home. I'll be here awhile."

Sawyer looked around the luxury box. "I think I've had enough of the high life for one day. I'll take the bus. But thanks for the invite."

"Yeah, I really enjoyed it too," Gamble said with the heaviest of sarcasm.

The agent had started up the stairs, but Gamble's "Hey, Sawyer?"

turned him around.

Gamble was looking squarely at him, and then he let out a deep sigh. "I hear where you're coming from, okay?"

Sawyer stared at him a moment before answering. "Okay."

"I wasn't always this rich. I remember real well what it's like to be penniless and powerless. Maybe that's why I'm such an asshole when it comes to business: I'm terrified of going back there."

Sawyer considered this for a moment. "Enjoy the rest of the game." He left Gamble staring into his glass, deep in thought.

As Sawyer walked down the steps, he almost bumped into Richard Lucas, who had assumed a position there. Sawyer wondered if Lucas had overheard any part of the conversation with Gamble.

He nodded at Lucas and stepped down into the bar area, where he launched a hook shot and the beer can sailed through the air and neatly into the trash can.

The bartender looked at him with admiration. "Hey, maybe the Bullets should sign you up," she said with a cute smile.

"Yeah, I can be the token over-the-hill white guy."

Sawyer turned back before exiting the room. "Keep smiling, Rich."

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Jeff Fisher stared humbly at the screen; a weary Sidney Archer sat beside him. She had given him all the personal information she could think of about Jason in order to fathom a proper password.

Nothing had worked.

Fisher shook his head. "Well, we've gone through all the easy possibilities and all variations thereof. I've run a brute-force assault and got nothing. I've tried a partial random letter and number approach, but there are just too many possibilities to conduct in our lifetime."

He turned to Sidney. "I'm afraid your husband really knew what he was doing. ! figure he's probably got a random number-letter combo of about twenty or thirty characters. We're not going to crack it."

Sidney's hopes plummeted. It was maddening to have a disk full of information in her hand--presumably information that would explain a lot about her husband's fate--and be absolutely unable to read it.

She stood up and paced the room while Fisher continued to peck at the keyboard. Sidney crossed the room and stopped in front of a window. On a table next to the window was a stack of mail. On top was a Field & Stream magazine. Sidney idly glanced down at the stack of mail, eyed the magazine and then looked over at Fisher. He hardly seemed the outdoor type, she thought. Then she looked at the address label on the front cover. It was addressed to a Fred Smithers, but the address was that of the house she was standing in. She picked up the magazine.

Fisher looked over at her while he finished his Coke. When he saw the magazine in her hands, he scowled. "I keep getting that guy's mail. A bunch of companies somehow have my address on their system for this guy. I'm 6215 Thorndike and he's 6251 Thorn-drive, which is clear on the other side of Fairfax County. That whole stack is his. And that's just this week. I've told the mailman who handles this route, called the Postal Service a million times, called all the companies who have been erroneously sending his mail here.

Still happens."

Sidney slowly turned toward Fisher. An improbable idea was taking shape in her head.

"Jeff, an e-mail address is like any other address or phone number, right? You type in the wrong address and it can go to someone you never intended it to go to. Like this magazine." She held up Field & Stream. "Right?"

"Oh, sure," Fisher replied. "That happens all the time. I have most of my frequently used e-mail addresses programmed in so I just have to point and click. That cuts down on the error rate."

"But if you had to type in a full e-mail address?"

"Well, there's a lot more room for error in that scenario. The addresses can get rather lengthy."

"So if you hit a wrong key, the message you intended for someone could go to God knows who?"

Fisher nodded as he munched on a potato chip. "I get misaddressed e-mail all the time."

Sidney looked at him with a puzzled expression. "What do you do when that happens?"

"Well, what happens most often is pretty simple. I only have to click on my reply-to-sender command and I send a standard message saying they got the wrong address and I send the e-mail back so they know what message I'm talking about. That way I don't need to know the address. It automatically sends it back to the originator."

"Jeff, you mean if my husband sent an e-mail to the wrong location, the person receiving the e-mail by mistake could simply reply back to Jason's e-mail address to let him know the mistake?"

"Right. I mean, if you're on the same service, say America Online, it's relatively simple."

"And if that person did reply back, the e-mail would be in Jason's computerized mailbox right now, right?"

Fisher looked up at her, a slightly fearful look in his eyes at the tone in her voice. "Well, yes."

Sidney collected her purse.

Fisher looked at her. "Where are you going?"

"To check our computer at home for the e-mail. If the password is on there, I can read this disk." Sidney popped the disk out of the floppy drive and put it in her purse.

"Sidney, if you give me your husband's user name and password, I can access his mail from right here. I have AOL on my system. It's not hardware-specific. I'll just log you on as a guest. If the key to the encryption is in the mailbox; we can read the disk here."

"I know, Jeff. But would your access of Jason's mail from this location be traceable?"

Fisher's eyes narrowed. "It's possible. If whoever was looking knew what they were doing."

"I think we have to assume these people know what they're doing, Jeff. It'll be a lot safer for you if no one can trace that e-mail being accessed from here."

Fisher turned a shade paler. He spoke slowly, the nervousness evident in his tone and features. "What have you gotten involved in, Sidney?"

She turned away from him as she spoke. "I'll be in touch."

After she left, Fisher sat at the screen for a few more minutes and then plugged in the phone line to his computer.

Sawyer sat down in the recliner and looked once again at the Post story on Jason Archer and shook his head. He flipped the paper over and as his eyes hit the other headline, he almost gagged. It took him two minutes to devour the story. He jumped on the phone and made a series of calls. That finished, he tore down the stairs. A minute later his sedan shot down the street.

Sidney parked the Ford in the driveway, hurried into her house, threw off her coat and went straight to her husband's office. She was about to access her AOL mailbox when she suddenly jumped up.

"Oh, God!" She couldn't do it from here, not with whatever was on there. She thought quickly. Tyler, Stone had AOL software on its computers; she could access the mailbox from there. She grabbed her coat, raced to the front door and flung it open. Her scream was easily heard up and down the street.

Lee Sawyer was standing there, looking less than pleased.

She caught her breath and grabbed at her chest. "What are you doing here?"

In response, Sawyer held up the newspaper. "You happen to catch this story?" Sidney stared at Ed Page's picture, recognition all over her features. "I... I haven't, no, just--" she stammered.

Sawyer stepped inside the house and slammed the door. Sidney retreated into the living room. "I thought we had a deal. You remember?

Exchange of information? Well, we're gonna talk. Right now!"

he bellowed.

She pushed past him toward the door. He grabbed her arm and flung her on the couch. She jerked back up. "Get out of here!" she screamed.

He shook his head and held up the paper. "You want to go it alone out there? Then your little girl better get another mommy."

She hurtled forward, slapped him across the face and wound up to do it again. He grabbed both her arms and put her in a bear squeeze.

She struggled furiously.

"Sidney, I'm not here to fight you. Whether your husband did anything wrong or not, I will still help you. But dammit, you've gotta be straight with me."

They struggled across the room and fell onto the couch, she awkwardly on his lap, trying her best to slug him. He held her tightly until the tension in her arms finally faded away. He released her and she immediately pulled away to the far end of the couch and put her face in her lap. He slumped back and waited. Sitting up, Sidney wiped away the tears with her sleeve. Licking her lips, she looked over at the newspaper on the floor. The photo of Ed Page beckoned to her.

"You talked with him on the plane from New Orleans, didn't you?" Sawyer asked the question very quietly. He had watched Page get on the plane in New Orleans. The passenger manifest revealed Page had sat right next to Sidney. That fact had not been important, until now. "Didn't you, Sidney?" She slowly nodded. "Tell me about it. And this time I mean everything."

And she did, including Page's story of Jason's switch at the airport, and Page following her and tapping her phone.

"I talked to the medical examiner's office," Sawyer said when she was finished. "Page was killed, by someone who knew exactly what he was doing. One puncture wound to each lung. A precision cut through the carotid artery and jugular vein. Page died in under a minute. Whoever did it was not your typical street vermin wielding a pocketknife looking for some crack money."

Sidney took a deep breath. "That's why I almost shot you in the garage.

I thought they were coming for me."

"You have no idea who 'they' are?"

Sidney shook her head and rubbed at her face again. She sat back and looked at him. "I really don't know anything other than the fact that my life has sunk far past hell."

Sawyer gripped one of her hands. "Well, let's see if we can get you back to the surface." He stood and picked up her coat from where it had fallen on the floor. "The investigative firm of Private Solutions has its headquarters in Arlington, across from the courthouse. I'm going to pay it a visit. And right now, I'd prefer to have you where I can keep an eye on you. You game?"

Sidney Archer swallowed hard as she guiltily felt the diskette in her pocket. That was one secret she could not bring herself, as yet, to reveal. "I'm game."

Edward Page's office was located in a nondescript low-rise office building opposite the Arlington County Circuit Court building.

The security guard on duty could not have been more accommodating after seeing Lee Sawyer's credentials. The guard led the way to the elevators and in another minute, after being deposited on the third floor and walking down the dimly lit corridor, they stopped in front of a solid oak door with the name PRIVATE SOLUTIONS engraved on a metal plate next to it. The guard pulled out his key and tried to open the door.

"Damn!"

"What is it?" Sawyer asked.

"Key doesn't work."

"Isn't your master key supposed to open any door in the place?"

Sidney asked.

"'Supposed to' is right. We've had a problem with this guy before."

"How's that?" Sawyer asked.