Dagmar narrowed her eyes.
“And you hired these bozos,” she said.
Lincoln passed a hand over his forehead.
“It wasn’t one of my better decisions,” he said. “But at least they’re working for us now.”
“Oh,” Dagmar said. “Swell. Just swell.”
He offered a grim smile.
“I believe it’s been brought home to them that they had confessed not only to espionage on behalf of a foreign power but to being members of a conspiracy to murder an American citizen and were also accessories after the fact. Lieutenant Vaughan and I staged an argument in front of them over whether or not the trial would take place in the UK-I wanted to extradite them to Virginia, which still has the death penalty.” He nodded. “So yes-now they’re being very cooperative. We can use them to feed false information to their contact in Limassol, if we can figure out what would completely mislead them.”
“Have them send their assassins in again,” Dagmar said. “That’s the only way we’ll catch those bastards.”
“I doubt they’d send in gunmen again,” Lincoln said. “Not with the base on the alert.”
Dagmar looked at him sourly.
“I’ll try to think of something to tell the Turks that will really fuck them,” she said. “But in the meantime I’ve got to try to work around the technology that those idiots gave to the black hats.”
Lincoln nodded.
“You do that,” he said.
The modem expeditions went reasonably well. Lola and Lloyd did their best on the Akrotiri aerodrome and scavenged three modems, which they took back to the ops room to see if they’d work with Richard’s virtual DOS environment. Helmuth guided Richard and Dagmar through Limassol, first to an electronics store where they bought an armful of the latest internal and external modems, then to the waterfront, where they began moving through a series of small cafes and shops.
“You no want jacket? Nice handbag?”
The merchant at the leather goods store, a portly man with a mustache, was puzzled by Dagmar’s line of inquiry.
Dagmar hadn’t so much as cast an eye over the store’s merchandise before leaning over the counter and noting the dusty modem keeping track of credit card sales. Now she took a look at the coats and jackets hanging on the racks. Some of them seemed quite nice.
“I’ll buy a jacket if you’ll give me your modem,” she said.
This was an offer that was more to the store owner’s taste-he understood this kind of bargain better than he could comprehend a strange offer simply to buy his antique modem. The last transaction processed on the modem was a double-breasted belted jacket made of shiny, butter-smooth brown leather, cost 135. It fit Dagmar as if it had been tailored for her. The credit card receipt would be submitted to Lincoln as a business expense. As far as Dagmar was concerned, this was a win-win transaction.
This was Dagmar’s only success of the morning, but Helmuth and Richard bagged two modems apiece, and they were in an upbeat mood as they met in a cafe for a lunch expertly cut from a sizzling cone of pressed beef and lamb by-products. The gyros were as good as any Dagmar had eaten. She received a number of compliments on her jacket.
Their guards, discreetly armed, sat at their own table and ate burgers.
After eating, they ordered Turkish coffee, dark as molasses and nearly as sweet, guaranteed to keep their energy levels high through the afternoon.
Richard showed off his own major purchase-an entire computer, an ancient PC clone in a heavy steel case, which Richard had bought for the sake of its internal modem. The purchase had taken a fair amount of bargaining, with the owner convinced he was somehow being swindled. In the end Richard had simply taken the man to an electronics store and bought him a completely new fully tricked-out office machine, complete with a printer.
“I think I got the better deal,” Dagmar said, admiring her jacket.
“Not really,” Richard said. “The modem is one thing, but this is another.” He pulled the keyboard out of the shopping bag in which he had carried his prize.
“IBM Model M,” he said. “Nineteen-eighties technology. The keys use a special patented buckling-spring design. The whole thing is solid steel- nothing like the cheap plastic keyboards you see now.” He hefted the keyboard, demonstrating how heavy it was. “Built to last for millennia!” he said cheerfully. “In the event of nuclear annihilation, this keyboard will be the only surviving evidence of human achievement.”
“That’s a Greek keyboard,” Dagmar pointed out.
“I’ll convert it to English.” Richard put the keyboard back in the shopping bag. “Now I’ve got to find a PS/2 to USB converter; otherwise it’s just a nonfunctional antique.”
“That keyboard might draw more power than your USB connection gives,” Helmuth said.
“I’ll work something out.” Richard’s smile was brilliant.
Dagmar’s phone began to sing Thelonious Monk. The display didn’t show the number calling her, and she assumed it was the ops center.
“This is Dagmar,” she said.
“The Internet is back,” Lloyd said.
She straightened in her seat. “We’ve got Internet!” she said, and saw the others react.
“Has the Internet come back in Ankara as well?” Dagmar asked.
“Yes,” Lloyd said. “And we-”
“Is Rafet all right?” Dagmar asked.
“Yes. He’s got the drones over Ankara trying to find out what’s happening.”
Dagmar formed a triumphant fist with her free hand.
“Right, then,” she said.
“Dagmar,” said Lloyd. “We have the Internet now-but you’re in trouble. You need to look at the English online edition of the Turkish Daily Gazette.”
Alarms began to throb in Dagmar’s skull.
“What is this about?” she asked.
Lloyd’s voice was crisp and businesslike.
“You’ve been outed,” he said. “Just read the article; then get back here. You and Lincoln need to get together.”
ROCK STAR DUPES DEMONSTRATORS
DISSENT ORGANIZED TO PROMOTE POP ALBUM
ISTANBUL, 0621. Sources report to the Daily Gazette that recent anti-government demonstrations inside Turkey have been orchestrated by a U.S.-based multimedia firm operating at the behest of English pop star Ian Attila Gordon, whose album Ararat has just been released.
Sources say that Gordon, who played James Bond in the recent film Stunrunner, filmed in Turkey, engaged Hollywood-based Great Big Idea to promote his album by creating popular enthusiasm in Turkey. Great Big Idea, which normally produces online games, also produced a Turkish-themed game to promote the Bond film.
In Great Big Idea’s current promotion, participants are asked to appear in public areas carrying items such as CDs, scarves, and flowers. The events were presented as gamelike activities, and participants were not told that their involvement would ultimately be used to promote a pop album.
Some of these events have become the focus for anti-government demonstrations, though it is not known whether Great Big Idea intended this or whether agitators seized the opportunity to use gullible members of the public for their own purposes.
“I’m completely disillusioned,” said one participant, a college student giving her name only as “Neriman.” “I had been led to believe that the political dimension of these actions was sincere. To find that it was a cynical maneouver intended only to sell pop music is a great disappointment, to say the least.”
Great Big Idea has not commented, and in fact their company policy is never to confirm or deny participation in any media event.
The organization is headed by media mogul Dagmar Shaw, described as “a shadowy figure” who was investigated for a series of murders and terror bombings in Los Angeles three years ago.