“We investigated Meyerson before she came to the White House. Everything was clean — her family, her school, all of her contacts. No Zionist leanings. But apparently we missed one thing. One very important thing.”
“You’re damned right you did.”
Roarke spun around and searched for Bessolo. He caught the field investigator in the bedroom, examining lipstick containers he found deep in Meyerson’s dresser. “Hey, Roy, I need you to look at something.”
Roy? Roarke never called him Roy before. “What?”
“Just come here.”
Bessolo hated the idea of cooperating with Roarke, but he was smart enough to know that Roarke would ultimately get anything he requested.
“What now?”
“The e-mails. You should see a couple of them. The most recent.”
“Already have.”
“Then check them out again. Particularly the last two or three.”
“I’m busy.”
“Okay, then, but I need Gimbrone to print them out for me,” Roarke said.
“They don’t go anywhere!”
Bessolo’s inclination was to throw the Bobbi Brown lipstick container on the floor to show his anger. But everything was considered evidence.
“Nothing leaves here.”
“Sometimes I think you stepped out of the wrong building.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“Natural History instead of the FBI.”
Bessolo didn’t get it.
“Nevermind. Can you just do this the easy way for a change? Allow Gimbrone to print out the damned e-mails for me.”
“Why?” Bessolo asked, deciding to be more difficult.
“You’ll see why,” Roarke said, forcing a smile. “Pretty please.”
Bessolo stormed past Roarke while Roarke remained in the doorway between the two rooms. The two FBI men talked to each other. Two minutes later, Bessolo was back with printouts.
“Here you go, Sherlock.”
“Thank you,” Roarke said, not giving into the comment.
Roarke read the header of the first e-mail. “Okay,” he simply said. He put it behind the next sheet and continued to scan the remaining pages, one after another. It took all of 15 seconds.
He handed them back to Bessolo with an interesting upturned grin.
“So you’re a fucking speed reader. I’m impressed.”
“No. I saw what I was looking for.”
“Pray tell, what was that?”
“Look at the header.”
“Which one?”
“Take your pick.”
Bessolo held up the first page. It didn’t look any different than the last time he’d read it.
“And the next one.” Bessolo complied.
“And the rest.”
The FBI agent read them all. If there was anything specific he was supposed to catch he failed to recognize it.
“Okay. I give up. What magical thing have I missed?”
“Nothing on the pages. It all looks like she sent them out in the middle of the night.”
Bessolo checked the time stamps on the header. 3:11 A.M., 2:24 A.M., 4:56 A.M.
“Yeah, so?”
“So, what time is it now?”
Bessolo was becoming more irritated, but he looked at his watch. “It’s two-fucking-twenty in the middle of the fucking afternoon.”
“P.M.?” Roarke asked.
“P-fucking-M,” Bessolo shot back.
Roarke leaned around Bessolo and pointed to the computer in the living room. “Really? Are you sure?”
Chapter 18
Aleksandr Dubroff nursed his bottle of vodka for over an hour.
At this time of night, alone, as he had been for 24 years, he worked on another hobby. When he was 83, he bought himself a computer. Two years later, he was proficient at surfing — as the Americans called it — the Net. If only the phone lines were more reliable in his dacha. Better yet, he wondered, when will Russia step into the 21st century and be wired with high-speed lines like the West, Japan, South Korea, and even the smallest European villages?
“This will come,” government spokesmen often said. Propaganda, he said to himself. Time had really not changed Russia.
So, almost every night, his service was interrupted. Dubroff learned to quickly save files and pour through them, waiting for the intermittent service to return. He was amazed at what he found. Decades-old Soviet secrets now there for everyone to see in Times New Roman English text. There were complete accounts of Russian space disasters, exact figures on the industrial and agricultural failures of the Soviet Union, hundreds of websites devoted to the most degrading pornography, and more sites that outed him as a KGB agent.
He checked accounts that detailed means that he used to extract information from informants, enemies of the State, and traitors to the Party. He was amazed what people uncovered. As Dubroff read on, he remembered each interrogation, each face, each admission. Throughout his service he had been proud of his accomplishments, but now, reading the stories, he appeared to be a psychotic torturer: a war criminal. How could this be? These were not the appalling, inhumane acts chronicled in these pages. It was my duty to get information. That was all. But that was not all. Dubroff knew it.
Every night he searched for new references. Fortunately, no reporters had searched hard enough to actually find him. That would be difficult. His telephone was unlisted. He never received a phone or electrical bill. They were paid for life through his pension. The little mail that he got came to a postal box, and his pension checks were issued by first initial only, then last name. Dubroff hadn’t talked to anyone in government for years. I’m one of the walking dead. A remnant of the old guard. Probably lost to them all.
Dubroff was quite right to assume he was lost to humans. But he was not lost to the system. He was not lost to SORM.
“Let’s take a walk,” Roarke said, after Bessolo returned from his second visit to Meyerson’s computer.
The FBI field supervisor didn’t object, but he was confused: confused enough to want to learn what Roarke was thinking. The two men went downstairs and out the front door without talking.
“Where to?” Bessolo asked.
Roarke motioned to the left. Once clear of the building, the police tape, and anyone who might have closely observed them, Bessolo spoke up. “Okay. You better take me through this. So the clock’s wrong on the computer. I got that much. What’s the big deal? I can’t get my damned TWO to work.”
“It’s not just wrong. It’s exactly wrong. By twelve hours. A.M. for P.M.”
“So?”
“So the last e-mail was what? Four fifty-six A.M.?”
“Yeah,” the FBI agent in charge replied.
“A.M., like in the morning.”
“Right.”
“The next day she left for L.A. on Air Force One.”
“Yes,” Bessolo said, sliding his answer across three syllables.
“And presuming the clock was right, she sent it out at 4:56 A.M., why was it 2:15 A.M. when we just looked at the time?” Roarke stopped walking. Bessolo automatically did the same.
“I don’t know.”
“I do.” Roarke took a half a step forward and lowered his voice. “She never sent out an e-mail at 4:56 A.M.”
“Of course she did.”
“She didn’t send one out then, and I’ll bet you she didn’t send out any of the others, either. Someone else did. Someone else came into her apartment during the day, reset the clock on the computer to make it look like it was in the middle of the night, and then hit send.”
“You’re lull of shit, Roarke.”