scanned them before tossing them down and snatching up others, his
movements becoming more and more frenetic. Finally he stopped, a file
open in his hand, his eyes glued to something in the mass of papers
within.
Sawyer was beside him in an instant. “Dammit, Ray, what is it?”
he said fiercely.
In response, Jackson handed over to his partner an object from the file.
Sawyer stared down at the photo in disbelief. In a different pose, the
too-handsome face of Steven Page looked back at him.
Sawyer grabbed the photo he had taken from Ed Page’s apartment off the
table where Jackson had dropped it and looked at the picture again. His
eyes swung back to the file photo. There was no doubt, it was the same
man in both photos.
A wide-eyed Sawyer looked at Jackson. “Where did you get this photo,
Ray?” he asked very slowly, his voice hardly above a whisper.
Jackson licked his lips nervously; his head swayed from side to side. “I
can’t believe this.”
“Where, Ray, where?”
“Arthur Lieberman’s apartment.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Subj: Fwd: Not me.
Date: 95-11-26 08:41:52 EST
From: ArchieJW2 To: ArchieJW2 Dear Other Archie: Watch your typing. By
the way do you often send mail to yourself? Message a little
melodramatic but a nice password nonetheless. Maybe we can talk
encryption techniques. Heard one of the best around is the Secret
Service’s racal-milgo. See you in Cyberspace. Ciao.
Forwarded Message:
Subj: Not me Date: 95-11-19 10:30:06 PST
From: ArchieJW2 To: ArchieKW2 sid all wrong all backwards/disk in
mai1099121.19822.
29629.295111.39614 seattlewarehouse-get help hurry! Sidney stared at the
computer screen; her mind alternated between racing out of control and
threatening to shut down. She had been right, though. Jason had
mistyped, had hit the k instead of the j.
Thank you, ArchieKW2, whoever you are. Fisher had also been right about
the password–almost thirty characters long. She assumed that’s what
the numbers represented: the password.
Her heart sank as she looked at the date of the original message.
Her husband had implored her to hurry. There was nothing she could have
done about it, and yet she had an overwhelming sense of having let him
down. She printed out the single page and put it in her pocket. At
least she would finally be able to read what was on the disk. Her
adrenaline soared with the thought.
It abruptly went even higher as the sound of someone entering the
library reached her ears. She carefully exited the program and turned
off the computer. Her hands were shaking as she put the disk back in
her purse. She waited for additional sounds, her breath coming in
shallow bursts, one hand on the butt of her pistol.
When a sound came from her right, she slipped out of the chair, bent low
and proceeded to move quietly to her left. She rounded a corner and
stopped. Staring her in the face was a bookshelf of volumes she
had spent much of law school and her first years in practice poring
over. She looked through a gap in their ranks at the man in the
shadows. She could not make out his face. She didn’t dare move farther
for fear of making any noise. Then the man started to come directly
toward her. Her grip tightened on the Smith & Wesson; her index finger
clicked off the safety. She pulled it from the holster as she backed
away. Crouching low, she made her way behind a partition, her ears
straining for any sound as she desperately tried to think of a way out.
The problem was there was only one doorway leading into the library. Her
only chance was to circle around, trying to keep a little ahead of
whoever was out there until she reached the doorway and could run like
hell. A bank of elevators was right down the hallway. If she could
make it.
She proceeded to move a few feet and wait, then repeated the process.
She had to assume she was making enough noise for the man to hear her
but not in a manner, she felt, for him to gauge her strategy. The
footsteps from behind matched her maneuvers almost perfectly. That