“Mrs. Sykes called in sick this morning,” Julian said apologetically.
Callie ground her teeth. Damned if she’d call the bigga cheese himself for help. She thought a moment. “Gail, computers — what about her?”
“Gail Forrester? She’s in.”
“Thanks, Julian.” Callie headed off down the hallway. She knew Gail Forrester only to say hello to, as one of the office staff that did mysterious but undoubtedly important things to help keep the Bass Agency the efficient money-making machine it was. Gail’s office had more papers, not too neatly stacked, than any other office in the agency. She lived surrounded by papers. The only unpapered surface was occupied by a coffee cup and a half-eaten doughnut.
Gail Forrester herself was licking a finger and looked surprised to see Callie standing in the doorway. “Hiya... what’s up?”
Callie avoided eye contact. “I hate to interrupt your breakfast, Gail, but I need some information.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” the other woman answered cheerfully. “This is for...?”
“Memotek case. Kevin Craig.”
“Okay.” She made a note in a log book that she was able to pull out of the mountain of papers without even looking for it. “Now, what do you want to find?”
“Can you break into the harbor master’s computer?”
“Whoosh!” Gail laughed. “You want me to do a little illegal hacking?”
“Only slightly illegal. All that information is a matter of public record. But it’s current information I want, and that means filling out request forms and going through a lot of red tape. We don’t have time for all that.” Kevin Craig should have had the info they needed on the Sofia ready and waiting by the time she’d come in. “Can you do it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried. Have a seat, Callie. This may take awhile.”
Callie sat on the only other chair in the room and watched Gail as she worked. She was an attractive woman in her thirties who was neat and precise in her movements, a trait somewhat at odds with the paper mess around her. She also had a tendency to mutter to herself as she worked. No sub-menus? Where does that lead? What the...? Oh, very clever!
At one point she turned quickly in her chair and caught Callie’s eye before Callie had a chance to glance away. “Are the harbor master and the harbor patrol under the same jurisdiction?”
Callie shook her head, breaking the eye contact. “The harbor master is God. He’s his own jurisdiction.”
Gail turned back to her screen. “Well, there’s no option for ‘God’ here... let me try this.” She went back to typing and muttering.
A strange feeling had been growing in Callie, an unfamiliar feeling that she slowly recognized as envy. Now Gail was humming to herself, leaning forward eagerly in her chair. How fortunate she was, to be doing work she so obviously loved. Gail was not only able to enter a world that was alien to Callie, but she could even make that world behave the way she wanted it to. Callie would have given ten years of her life for that kind of control.
For the first time ever, Callie wondered what it was like to go anywhere in the world through a machine. How long did it take to learn computers? Was she too old to start?
Gail leaned back and smiled. “We’re in.”
“Hey, nice going.” Callie pulled her chair closer. “Look for the records on a freighter named Sofia.” A window opened and Gail typed in Sophia. “ ‘F,’ not ‘ph,’ ” Callie said. Gail made the change and the record they were looking for clicked onto the screen. Callie read through the first few lines. “Registry granted in Togo. Where’s Togo?”
“Beats me,” Gail replied. “A Pacific island? Let’s check the encyclopedia.” The Sofia record left the screen and after a few seconds a map of Togo appeared: A narrow strip of land in Africa, only the southernmost tip touching on the Gulf of Guinea. A small republic. Adjective form and name of inhabitant: Togolese.
So that was a Togolese flag Callie had seen last night. “Look at that,” she said. “One seaport. One. Is there any way to find out if other ships in the harbor are flying Togolese flags?”
“Ought to be.” Back to the harbor master’s system. A search turned up five more ships. “Wow,” said Gail, “that must be one important seaport.”
“I’d be surprised if any of those ships have ever been there,” Callie mused. “It used to be that Libya would grant registry to any ship willing to pay the extortionate fee — no questions asked. Then some Central American country started doing the same thing, and now it looks as if other countries are getting in on the act as well.”
Gail raised an eyebrow. “Which means...?”
“That the owners don’t want their ship looked at too closely.”
Up went the other eyebrow. “Smugglers?”
“Maybe. More likely the ship just doesn’t meet some international safety standard. Or Togo is included in some excise-free treaty. I don’t really know — I’m out of my league here. Could I have a printout of that?”
While the Sofia record was printing out, Gail suddenly said, “Tongo. That’s the Pacific island I was thinking of. Tongo, not Togo.”
“Ah.” Callie had never heard of it. She took the pages from the printer. “Thanks, Gail — you’ve saved me a lot of hassle.”
“My pleasure. I may take a look at the harbor patrol’s system... you know, just to see what’s there?”
Callie grinned. “Have fun.”
Gail grinned back. “Are you going to be here, around noon? We could ‘do’ lunch, or even eat it.”
Automatically, Callie’s defense system clicked into gear. “I’m leaving in about an hour. Maybe next week.” Gail Forrester seemed like a nice woman, but she still worked for Sam Bass.
“Okay,” Gail said agreeably. When Callie left, Gail was twisting a strand of hair around one finger as she stared at her computer screen, still showing the Sofia record.
Callie went into Kevin Craig’s office and sat down to read the printout. The Sofia was owned by a consortium called Tolbukhin that had a Zurich address. The ship had been built thirty-one years ago in the shipyards at Istanbul. It had sailed from Athens with a cargo of heavy machinery, mostly farming equipment made in Bulgaria.
So. A Swiss-owned Turkish ship sailing from Greece and flying a Togolese flag. And carrying Bulgarian farm machinery.
Bulgarian farm machinery?
Callie shook her head. The whole thing could be perfectly legitimate, with only one member of the crew involved in the lucrative business of smuggling computer chips. Hal Stanwyck stole the chip, the Chinese couple acted as go-betweens, and someone on board the Sofia would get the chip to the German company that had pirated Memotek’s earlier chip.
The Sofia had left Athens nearly a month ago, but she’d developed engine trouble and came limping into Port Wolfe harbor almost two weeks late. Her assigned docking slip was now occupied by another vessel, which explained why the Sofia was anchored out in the bay. And it meant that that world-famous Bulgarian farm machinery hadn’t yet been unloaded. Callie wished Kevin Craig would hurry up and get there.
Finally he did come strutting in, dapper and handsome and pleased with the world. “Ah, Callie,” he said, beaming at her as he sat down behind his desk. “That was a nice piece of work last night. Good show.”
She mumbled something.
“I’m glad to wrap this one up. Memotek will be pleased to learn who their culprit is.”