Art nodded, though he didn’t understand. What mattered was that their communications were supposed to be rock solid secure now. The rest of the field office still had unsecure phones and faxes, but all sensitive communications took place in here. “So this is the KIWI thing. As long as it works…”
Van Horn smiled and shook his head. He did understand the basics of code gear — though he had no illusions about ever knowing the secrets inside the silver cube — a knowledge gained during four years at MIT and several more at Harvard. At first he’d studied computer and number theory, and then, being a shrewd young fellow, decided that the brotherhood of lawyers had far too few who would be qualified to handle the cases of the burgeoning electronic frontier. Piracy, electronic fraud, and the like. But somewhere along the way to a JD he had decided that some practical experience in the law might help, and the FBI had seemed all too eager to add to his resume.
But a strange thing happened then. Two things, actually. One, he found that he liked, truly enjoyed doing what a Bureau man did. Two, while enjoying what he did he caught a slug in a Philly shootout with some well armed bank robbers. Scratch two bad guys and the use of his body below the waist.
So his legs didn’t work? So what? The Bureau had agreed, and though he didn’t chase bad guys in the street anymore, he sometimes chased them in the digital realm, and was the Chicago office’s Com clerk, the agent responsible for the security and well being of the crypto gear.
And KIWI had just made his life a whole lot less stressful. “It will work,” Van Horn assured the A-SAC. He pointed to a three inch space behind the cube. “See that. Six phone lines come in. You know what comes over those? Garbage. Electronic noise. It goes through KIWI — again, from my sources, with some sort of time keyed three step decryption routine — and into readable info or conversation in here. Phone, fax, or computer. Even the old teletype.” He wondered when the Bureau would finally get rid of that, considering that a fax was essentially the same thing. “And,” he added, grabbing a blank sheet of paper from a tray next to a laser printer, “let’s say that for some reason the phone lines are down, like when the loop flooded, and we need to get a coded message out.” Van Horn held up the blank paper. “We enter our message through this station and call for a loop back. The KIWI gear encrypts the message and prints it out. On this paper you’d see nonsense, but all the operator of another KIWI machine would have to do is enter what he sees on the paper into their station and call for a loop back decryption and…bingo! Out it comes making complete sense. Slow, for sure, and it won’t work for the phones, but if we have to we could courier the message. It’s a great backup when Ma Bell screws up.”
Blah blah blah blah blah. Art knew Van Horn might as well have been speaking in some tongue derived from Sanskrit. “So the communications are going to be secure?”
Van Horn allowed a chuckle and nodded. “Yes, they are.” He reached over and patted KIWI again. “Trust us.”
“Okay,” Art said with resignation. He would have to succumb to the technology sooner or later. “Show me what she’s got.”
Several hundred miles away a phone was being answered by a man with red hair. The call was brief and to the point. A favor was needed, and the red-haired man still owed much to the person who was requesting the favor. When he completed this task the debt would be nearly repaid. He hung up the phone and began to pack, confident he could make short work of things.
Not far from where the call to the red-haired man was placed, a car drove past a blue mailbox in northern Maryland and slowed. The driver, an Asian man in a gray suit, braked the silver Lexus and noted a mark on the rounded top of the box. He parked his car and withdrew a prepared postcard from his coat. It was addressed to his mother in Kyoto, and he stepped from the vehicle to drop it in the box. As he did he wiped off the mark.
He got back in the car and drove away at a normal speed. An hour later he had dinner with a friend in Washington, and after they were finished that friend, another Asian man, drove to a bar in College Park, near the University of Maryland, and ordered an Asahi before going to the restroom. The stalls with doors were empty. He entered the third one and closed the door.
Someone outside the stall might have heard the squeak of screws turning or the click of the metal tissue holder coming apart. Or possibly the crackle of paper unfolding. But there was no one to listen.
A minute later the Asian man flushed the toilet, washed his hands, and dried them under an air drier.
Back in the bar he took his beer by the neck and drew long on it, but left it half full and walked out the door. He had to get back to the office quickly. This information could not wait.
Chapter Three
Children of the Eighth Day
Jean Lynch freshened the tea in Anne’s cup and set the pot back on the coffee table. She sat next to her husband, their legs touching, and took his hand in hers.
“I hope you can understand why we’d like Simon to come five days a week,” Anne said after her lengthy plea/explanation. She tasted the Earl Gray and placed her cup back on the saucer on the end table to her left. An empty rocker was next to it, and a sofa across the low coffee table from her. The Lynches stared at her from it.
Martin Lynch ran slow circles over the back of his wife’s hand with his thumb as he put his thoughts into words. He was talking to an educated lady and did not want to sound like the high-school dropout he was. “Dr. Jefferson, we appreciate your interest in Simon. He seems to like going to the center.”
“He does,” Simon’s mother added enthusiastically. “He even remembers bits and pieces of his day when he gets home.”
Martin Lynch waited for his wife to finish. “But I don’t want it to become his world.” He gestured to the room and pointed upstairs. “This is his world. This room, his bedroom.” He put a hand to his chest. “We are his world.”
Anne knew she was losing this battle. She had sensed it from the beginning of her visit when Simon’s father dispatched him to his room. The mother seemed at least receptive, but the father, well being as he might be, was obviously the decision maker in this house. She might not agree with that or with him, but neither could she force a change. “I understand your concern, Mr. Lynch.”
He shook his head politely. “No, you don’t. Do you have children, Dr. Jefferson?”
“A girl. She’s grown and in college.”
“You can’t understand,” Martin Lynch said in a contemplative tone. “We’ll never be able to say any such thing about Simon. We’ll never be able to say he’s ‘all grown up’ and believe it. He’ll never go to college. He’ll never get married, have children.” His wife’s gaze dipped toward the floor. “He’ll never be part of the normal world.” He was quiet for a second, then said, “My father used to say that on the eighth day God made rogues and idiots.” There was pain in Martin Lynch’s eyes as the words came out. There was also acceptance. “I know my son’s station in life, Dr. Jefferson. The place he needs to be most is here, in this home, with us, not — with all due respect — with you or Dr. Ohlmeyer doing tests on him. That’s just the way I see it. It’s the way it’s going to be.”
Mission not accomplished, Anne thought, scolding herself, though she wondered if there was a way to convince Martin Lynch that his son should not live his life as an island. Probably not. But she had tried. “I respect your decision, Mr. Lynch.” She pulled a business card from her purse and jotted a number on the back. “I don’t have cards yet, but my office extension is on the back. That’s one of Dr. Ohlmeyer’s cards. If you do need anything, please call. Please.”