‘Cancel it,’ he said. ‘I was hoping we could use money from seized assets, from drug raids. But we can’t.’ He paused as I shook my head in disbelief. ‘It’s not my choice. You know the budget problems. You have them, too.’
‘Lord,’ I said. ‘I thought you wanted to trail him.’
‘Your credit card isn’t likely to show us where he is, only where he’s been.’
‘I can’t believe this.’
‘Blame it on the politicians.’
‘I don’t want to hear about budget problems or politicians,’ I exclaimed.
‘Kay, the Bureau can barely afford ammunition for the ranges these days. And you know our staffing problems. I’m personally working a hundred and thirty-nine cases even as we speak. Last month two of my best people retired.
‘Now my unit’s down to nine. Nine. That’s a total of ten of us trying to cover the entire United States plus any cases submitted from abroad. Hell, the only reason we have you is we don’t pay you.’
‘I don’t do this for money.’
‘You can cancel your Amex card,’ he said wearily. ‘I’d do it immediately.’
I looked a long time at him and left.
10
Lucy had finished her run and showered by the time I returned to the room. Dinner was being served in the cafeteria, but she was at ERF working.
‘I’m going back to Richmond tonight,’ I said to her on the phone.
‘I thought you were spending the night,’ she said, and I detected disappointment.
‘Marino’s coming to get me,’ I said.
‘When?’
‘He’s on his way. We could have dinner before I go-‘
‘Okay. I’d like Jan to come.’
‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘We should include Marino, though. He’s already on the road.’
Lucy was silent.
‘Why don’t you and I visit alone first?’ I suggested.
‘Over here?’
‘Yes. I’m cleared as long as you let me through all those scanners, locked doors, X-ray machines and heat-seeking missiles.’
‘Well, I’ll have to check with the attorney general. She hates it when I call her at home.’
‘I’m on my way.’
The Engineering Research Facility was three concrete-and-glass pods surrounded by trees, and one could not get into the parking lot without stopping at a guard booth that was no more than a hundred feet from the one at the Academy’s entrance. ERF was the FBI’s most classified division, its employees required to scan their fingerprints into biometric locks before Plexiglas doors would let them in. Lucy was waiting for me in front. It was almost eight p.m.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘There are at least a dozen cars in the parking lot,’ I said. ‘Do people usually work this late?’
‘They drift in and out at all hours. Most of the time I never see them.’
We walked through a vast space of beige carpet and walls, passing shut doors leading into laboratories where scientists and engineers worked on projects they could not discuss. I had only vague notions of what went on here beyond Lucy’s work with CAIN. But I knew the mission was to technically enhance whatever job a special agent might have, whether it was surveillance, or shooting or rappelling from a helicopter, or using a robot in a raid. For Gault to have gotten inside here was the equivalent of him wandering freely through NASA or a nuclear power plant. It was unthinkable.
‘Benton told me about the photograph that was in your desk,’ I said to Lucy as we boarded an elevator.
She keyed us up to the second floor. ‘Gault already knows what you look like, if that’s what you’re worried about. He’s seen you before – at least twice.’
‘I don’t like that he might now know what you look like,’ I said pointedly.
‘You’re assuming he has the photograph.’
We entered a gray rabbit warren of cubicles with workstations and printers and stacks of paper. CAIN himself was behind glass in an air-conditioned space filled with monitors, modems and miles of cable hidden beneath a raised floor.
‘I’ve got to check something,’ she said, scanning her fingerprint to unlock CAIN’s door.
I followed her into chilled air tense with the static of invisible traffic moving at incredible speeds. Modem lights blinked red and green, and an eighteen-inch video display announced CAIN in bold bright letters that looped and whorled like the fingerprint of the person who was just scanned in.