Llewllyn’s nose wrinkled. “That sounds like a clerk, not a magician.”
“It’s a consultant. And the less magic you use the better.”
“I don’t know . . .”
Wiz shrugged. “Consider the alternative.”
Llewllyn’s face fell. “The alternative?”
“Dieter thinks you sold him a bill of goods. As my assistant you are under my protection. Otherwise . . .” Again the shrug.
Llewllyn swept a graceful bow to Wiz. “My Lord,” he said grandly, “you have a new assistant.”
Wiz tried to look happy.
Anna was upstairs cleaning when Wiz got back, but Malkin was in the kitchen, brewing a pot of herb tea.
“What do you know about a magician named Llewllyn?”
“Never heard of him,” the tall woman said cheerfully, cocking one leg over the corner of the table and sitting on the freshly scrubbed surface.
“Slender, long blond hair, really white teeth. Handsome and a born con man.”
“Oh, him.” Malkin said. “He’s from around here. Used to hold himself out as a bard but I never heard of anyone who paid him for his singing. I’m kind of surprised he showed his face in these parts. Here, you want some of this? It’s a mixture Anna made up.”
“Thanks,” Wiz said and poured himself a mug of the tea. It was mostly peppermint with a lemony-orangey overtone. A little weak but not bad, he decided. “I take it he had a good reason for leaving.”
The thief gave a snort of laughter. “Only a due regard for his own skin. Seems he’d been stealing old man Colbach’s chickens and bouncing his daughter at the same time.” She grinned and shook her head. “I don’t know which made him the madder.”
Wiz took another sip of tea. “I’m surprised he came back at all.”
“Well, thinking on it, he’s safe enough. The girl’s married respectable now and the first child looked like her husband, so no one much cares on that score. Farmer Colbach probably still harbors a grudge about the chickens but he don’t come to town much. Besides, he’s not likely to push it because it would just remind folks about his daughter.” She took another sip from her cup. “I guess you ran into him.”
“Actually I hired him as my assistant.”
Malkin looked down at him hard. “Then you’ve got mighty strange tastes in your assistants.”
Wiz looked back very deliberately. “I know,” he said.
Sixteen: Black Bag Job
Forget what you read in the papers. These are not very bright guys.
Deep Throat to Woodward
All The President’s Men
Another morning, another surveillance report. By now Pashley was beside himself.
“Look at this!” he shouted. “She’s still on the net.”
“Take it easy,” Arnold said. “Just simmer down and let’s think.” Pashley paused and took a deep breath. His face turned a lighter shade of red.
“Now, how is she doing it? We got every piece of electronic equipment in the place.”
“You’re sure she hasn’t brought a computer back in?” Ray Whipple asked. He was spending a lot more time than he liked at the FBI office and was even discovering he had common interests with some of the agents.
“No way,” Arnold said. “We’ve been watching.”
“What has the van turned up?”
“Absolutely nothing. If there’s a computer in there it’s got Tempest-class emissions security. We know there’s no computer in there.”
Pashley was frantically thumbing through the eight-by-ten glossy color photographs of Judith’s apartment the agents had taken on the first raid. Suddenly his head snapped up.
“Wait a minute! There is another computer in here.” He stood up so fast he nearly knocked the chair over. “Come on, let’s go back to the judge.”
“You want a warrant to seize what?” Judge David Faraday said in an utterly bewildered voice.
“A toaster,” Special Agent Pashley repeated confidently. “We believe it is a vital piece of evidence in this hacker case.”
“But it’s a toaster!” Judge Faraday almost wailed.
“Yes, Your Honor, but there’s a computer hidden inside.” He stepped up to the desk and held out a repair manual. “As you can see here there is a microcontroller-that’s a computer-in the toaster. Further,” he pulled out a couple of clippings, “this is the exact make and model which hackers at a hackers’ convention actually connected to a communications network, like a telephone system.”