quaint room in the most famous Louisiana city.
She still had faith in her husband, despite events that, she had to
admit, had shaken that faith, and nothing short of death would stop her
from helping him. Death? Her husband had escaped its complicated
tentacles one time already. From the sound of his voice, she had
nagging doubts about his present safety. He was unable to give her many
details. Not over the phone. Only in person, he had said.
She so wanted to see him, to touch him, to confirm for herself that he
was not an apparition.
She sat down in the chair and stared out the open window. A refreshing
breeze helped to dispel the humidity. She did not hear a couple in
their mid-thirties, courtesy of the FBI’s New Orleans field office, move
into the room next to hers. With her phone line tapped and listening
devices set up in the adjoining suite recording every sound from her
room, Sidney Archer finally nodded off in the chair around one in the
morning. Jason Archer had still not come.
The house was dark. A layer of new-fallen snow shone under the radiant
eye of a full moon. The figure alighted from the nearby woods and
approached the home from the rear. A few moments at the back door and
the old lock succumbed to the skillful manipulations of the darkly clad
intruder. Snow boots were removed and left outside the back door. A
few moments later a single arc of light cut through the deserted house.
Sidney Archer’s parents and Amy had left to go back to the Pattersons’
home shortly after Sidney had departed for her trip.
The intruder went straight to Jason Archer’s home office. The room’s
window looked out onto the backyard rather than the street, so the
figure risked turning on the desk lamp. Several minutes were spent
thoroughly searching the desk and stacks of computer floppies.
Then Jason Archer’s computer system was turned on. A search was made of
all files on the database. Each floppy was submitted to a detailed
review. With that completed, the figure slipped a hand inside the dark
jacket and extracted a floppy disk of his own. This was inserted into
the computer’s disk drive. After several minutes the task was complete.
The “sniffer” software now existing on Jason’s computer would
effectively capture everything coming across its threshold. Within five
minutes the house was once again empty. The footprints from the edge of
the woods to the back door had been obliterated.
Unknown to the Archers’ nocturnal visitor, Bill Patterson had
accomplished one task, however innocently, before leaving for his
Hanover home. While he backed his car out of the driveway, he had eyed
the familiar red, white and blue truck stopping in front of his
daughter’s house. After the mail truck had departed, Patterson had
hesitated and then arrived at his decision. Save his daughter the
trouble, anyway. He glanced at a few of the items before depositing the
pile of mail in a plastic bag. He turned toward the house and then
remembered he had already locked it up and the keys were in his wife’s
purse. The garage door was unlocked, however. Patterson went in the
garage, opened the door of the Explorer and placed the bag on the front
seat. He locked the car door and then pulled down the garage door and
locked it.
About midway down in the stack of mail and unnoticed by Patterson was a
soft-sided package specifically designed with built-in padding to send
fragile items safely through the postal system. The handwriting on the
package would have been familiar to Sidney Archer at even a passing
glance.
Jason Archer had mailed the computer disk to himself.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Across the street from the LaFitte Guest House, Lee Sawyer stared at the
old hotel through the darkened window of the room he was occupying. The
FBI had set up their surveillance headquarters in an abandoned brick
building its owner was planning to renovate in a year or so. Sawyer
sipped hot coffee and looked at his watch. Six-thirty A.M. Raindrops
clattered against the window as a chilly early morning shower invaded