Randy Bell didn’t answer.
“Randy…you there?”
“Why are you asking about this?”
“Just trying to tie up some loose ends.”
“What kind of loose ends?”
The cat was officially out of the bag. Mary gave up all effort at pretense. She was no investigator. She was just a wife who wanted to know the true circumstances surrounding her husband’s murder. “Sixteen trips. That’s how many times Joe went to San Jose without telling me. You guys were partners for at least eight of those. He kept flying out there even after we moved. I’m guessing that’s why we came to Austin, so he could continue to work that case, only from out here. I’m guessing that’s what got him killed.”
“I can’t talk about this, Mary.”
“There’s something fishy about the explanation of Joe’s death. It isn’t right.”
“Did you hear me? I can’t discuss this.”
“Come on, Randy. We’re talking about Joe. You were like an older brother. Can you see him getting into a car with an armed informant? Can you?”
“Mary, please-”
“They’re painting it like it was his fault. But it wasn’t. Joe knew he was in trouble. He was scared. A scared man doesn’t get into a car with someone whom he believes might want to hurt him.”
“Mary, stop. How do you know he was scared?”
“He called me before he was killed. I didn’t speak with him, but he left me a message. He knew something was wrong. He told me to find someone named Sid. Do you know who that is?”
“No. Can’t say I do.”
“What about a Judge Angelo Caruso? Travis County Superior Court?”
“Where are you getting this stuff? Last I looked, Joe’s casework was confidential.”
Mary shook her head, staring at the notepad, running a pen over the silly blue flags. One more stonewall. She wondered if Don Bennett had gotten to Randy, too. “Sure you don’t know someone named Sid?” she asked again. “Joe said he was one of the good guys.”
“Please, Mary. Stop asking these questions.”
Mary stared at the little flags that Joe had drawn all over the page. It dawned on her what they were. Of course. It was obvious.
“Semaphore,” she blurted.
“What did you say?”
“Semaphore. Why?”
“Shut up, Mary.”
“Excuse me? Did you tell me to shut up? Randy…are you there?”
“I’m here. Whatever you do, don’t say that word again.”
“What word?”
“Never. Do you hear me? Goodbye now.”
“Randy?” she said, but the connection had ended.
She called back and the phone went to message. “Randy. What did you mean about not saying that word? What word? Semaphore?”
36
“She’s in danger,” said Randy Bell. “We need to pull her in.”
“And do what with her?” said Dylan Walsh, chief of the FBI’s Cyber Investigations Division. “Shall I put her up at my place? And the girls, too?”
“Maybe Keefe can help.”
“He’s on the bricks for three days. Can’t come near the office until he visits the company shrink.”
“We’ve got to do something,” Bell argued. “Between Mason and Prince, she won’t last a minute.”
“Calm down,” said Walsh sternly. He was tall and handsome and sturdy, forty-two years of age, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon with an advanced degree in computer science. Dressed in a dapper blue suit, his brown hair combed perfectly, he was an exemplar of the new FBI. “I understand your concern, and I appreciate your loyalty to Joe’s family. I don’t want anything to happen to Mary any more than you do. But we need to look at all the pieces here.”
Bell nodded a grudging agreement. “You’re the boss.”
Walsh patted Bell on the shoulder. “All right, then. Run this by me one more time.”
“She said it: ‘Semaphore.’ Just like that-out of the blue. It’s not exactly a word used in everyday conversation.”
“You have a point there.”
Dylan Walsh ran a hand across the back of his neck as he paced his office on the fifth floor of FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Semaphore had been a small operation to begin with. Just four fulltime agents, including himself. The number was limited by necessity. You didn’t raise a red flag when you wanted to investigate the man who had hacked into the Bureau’s mainframe. Not when that man was Ian Prince. That went double when your biggest rival in the organization was in Prince’s back pocket.
The Cyber Investigations Division had been formed five years earlier to help combat threats to national security through computer strikes, namely illegal attempts at intrusions-hacks-into mainframes belonging to the government and private enterprise. To that end, Walsh oversaw his team’s cooperation with all members of the U.S. intelligence community (CIA, NSA, Homeland Security, and so on), as well as state and local law enforcement agencies. In those five years, a ten-man “fire team” had grown into one hundred dedicated agents, nearly all with master’s degrees in computer science, tasked with stopping computer and network intrusions, identity theft, and Internet crime.
Inside the Bureau, the Cyber Investigations Division went by the moniker CID, pronounced “Sid,” to differentiate it from the standard CID, the Criminal Investigative Division.
“Still,” Walsh went on. “Her saying it doesn’t mean anything of itself.”
“She knows Don Bennett is covering something up. That’s enough. I know her, Dylan. She won’t give up until she finds out the truth about her husband’s death.”
“I wouldn’t either.”
Bell sipped from a mug of coffee. “Any word from Mason?”
“Flew down there yesterday to oversee matters. A show of the Bureau’s concern for one of our own.”
“As if.”
“Ed Mason keeps peddling the same moonshine. He believes that if anything bad happens to ONE, or to Ian Prince and that supercomputer of his, it’ll jeopardize the NSA’s ability to do their job. Our job isn’t to stop the bad guys from snooping on our computers only to let Mason and the Emperor do it at their will.”
“Don’t know about that,” said Bell. “I do know that if we believe Mary Grant’s going to keep looking, then so does Ian Prince.”
“Exactly,” said Walsh, walking to the window and looking out across the Mall at the Washington Monument and the Smithsonian Building. “That’s what I’m counting on.”
37
“I can’t just stay here,” said Jessie, standing with her mother in the kitchen. “It’s depressing. I missed class yesterday. I can’t miss again today.”
“You need to be here with your sister.”
“Grace is fine. She can go over to the Kramers’ and play.”
“Jess, please.” Her mother’s face hardened, her lips tightening over her teeth. “Not today.”
“But…” Jessie tried to act like Grace. She held her arms at her side and didn’t slouch. It was harder keeping her voice all upbeat and chirpy. “It’s okay, Mom. I’ll stay if you need me.”
“Thanks, sweetie. That’s nice of you. I appreciate it.” Mary tilted her head. Her mouth softened, and a weight seemed to lift from her shoulders. “Come to think of it, Grace will be fine.”
“Sure? I don’t have to go.”
Mary smiled and checked her watch. “Class starts at eleven, right?”
“Eleven to one. But I can hang around afterward.” Jessie winced at her choice of words. Parents thought “hanging around” meant looking to score weed or commit a jailable offense. “I mean, I can stay and talk to the teacher. He’s wicked smart.”