honorable people Buchanan had ever met. And yet the senator had no
problem being bought.
Very soon Harvey Milstead would have a new master. The Thirteenth
Amendment to the Constitution had outlawed slavery, but apparently no
one had bothered telling Robert Thornhill that. He was turning his
friends over to the Devil. That’s what troubled Buchanan most of all.
Thornhill, always Thornhill.
The men rose and Buchanan and the senator shook hands. “Thank you,
Danny. Thank you for everything.”
“Please, don’t mention it,” Buchanan said. “Please don’t.” He grabbed
his spy briefcase and fled the room.
CHAPTER 18
“DEGAUSSED?” REYNOLDS STARED AT THE TWO TECHNICIANS.
“My tape has been degaussed? Will someone please explain that to me?”
She had watched the video twenty times now. From every angle possible.
Or rather, she had watched jagged lines and dots swarm across the
screen like a World War I aerial dogfight with heavy doses of ground
flack thrown in. She had been sitting here for a very long time and
knew no more than when she had first walked in.
“Without getting too technical-” one of the men started to say.
“Please don’t,” Reynolds interjected. Her head was pounding. If the
tape was useless? Good God, it can’t be.
“”Degaussing’ is the reference term used for the erasure of a magnetic
medium. It’s done for many reasons, some of the most common being so
that the medium can be used again, or to eliminate confidential
information that was recorded. A videotape is one of the many forms of
magnetic media. What happened to the tape you gave us was an unwanted
intrusion al influence that has distorted and/or corrupted the medium,
preventing its proper utilization.”
Reynolds stared in wonder at the man. What the hell would his
technical answer have been?
“So you’re saying someone intentionally screwed with the tape?” she
said.
“That’s right.”
“But couldn’t it be a problem with the tape itself? How can you be
sure someone ‘intruded’ upon it?”
The other technician spoke up. “The level of corruption we’ve seen in
the images so far would preclude that conclusion. We can’t be one
hundred percent sure, of course, but it really does look like third
party interference. From what I understand, the surveillance system
used was very sophisticated. A multiplexer with three or four cameras
on line, so there was no dwell time gap. How were the units activated?
Motion or trip?”
“Motion is better. The systems these days are so sensitive they can
pick up a hand reaching for something on a desk in a one-foot-square
zone. Trips are obsolete.”
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” she said dryly.
“We did a pixel zoom for detail enhancement, but still nothing.
Definitely interference.”
Reynolds remembered that the closet at the cottage containing the video
equipment had been found open.
“Okay, how could they have done it?”
“Well, there’s a wide variety of specialized equipment available.”
Reynolds shook her head. “No, were not talking a lab setting. We’re
looking at doing it on site, where the equipment was set up. And maybe
whoever did it wouldn’t have even known there was video recording
equipment there. So assume that whatever they happened to have with
them would have been what they used.”
The techs thought for a moment. “Well,” one of them said, “if the
person had a powerful magnet and passed it over the recorder a number
of times, that could distort the tape by rearranging the metallic
particles, which would, in turn, remove the previously recorded
signals.”
Reynolds took a deep, troubled breath. A simple magnet could have
blown away her only clue. “Is there any way to get it back, the images
on the tape?”
“It’s possible, but it will take some time. We can’t make any
guarantees until we get in there.”
“Do it. But let me make this real clear.” She stood, towering over
the two men. “I need to be able to see what’s on that tape. I need to
be able to see who was in that house. You have no higher priority than
that. Check with the AD if you have a conflict, but whatever it takes,
twenty-four hours a day. I need it. Understood?”