“Oh, shit,” Goddard groaned. “Maybe I can grab Salter, or Gruber, or Kimberley. Yeah… Salter’s new. He’ll go pick up Simmons just because he doesn’t know any better.”
“Where’s Morgan?” Wrench hobbled up to pour himself more coffee from the pot in the suite’s tiny kitchen nook. “He ought to be here… if Korinek hasn’t already unzipped him.”
“Relax. He’s green light.” Lessing answered. “Mulder talked to him on the phone yesterday. Said he’s still in Chicago and can’t get a plane. Only three flights a day since Starak, and they’re booked solid for a week in advance.”
“Borchardt?”
“How can he help, all the way from Germany? You want him to send you some Panzer divisions?”
“God damn it, we’re going to need ’em!” Wrench splayed spidery fingers in his wavy, dark hair.
“Jennifer going to arrive in time for the fun?” Goddard interjected. He was doing his best to distract Wrench and keep him from worrying. There were times when Big Bear Bill was actually likeable.
Lessing said, “No. She and her mother are holding down the West Coast.”
“Hosing down, you mean!” Wrench made an effort to laugh.
“It’s Jen who enjoys getting hosed!” Goddard gave them an arch rve-becn-there-and-I-ought-to-know look. There were times, too, when Goddard was eminently dislikeable.
Wrench gulped the last of his coffee. He’d had five cups since breakfast, and the caffeine was hitting him. “Korinek’s going to bust it all wide open: wicked Nazi subversives, international plotters, monsters… devils… the whole coconut full of ka-ka!”
“Stay koozy, foozy, as the Bangers say,” Goddard soothed him. “He hasn’t done it yet. And so what if he does? We’ve got power now: Mulder’s big business friends, the media, the majority of White America. Most of the generals are on our side too. Rollins is coming back from Mexico. Dreydahl is ready to bongo.”
“Yeah, but we can’t contact Hartman. He doesn’t answer our calls.”
“Expected. Win some, lose some. Korinek must’ve got to him. But Admiral Canning’s still ours. So are a lot of the new brass in the Pentagon.”
Wrench turned his coffee cup around and around and peered inside. “I get the feeling we’re the Kerenski government in Russia in 1917: an intermediate step between the Czar and the communists. Intermediate steps get stepped on.”
“You want a better parallel?” Goddard scoffed. “Rubin’s the Czar, Outram’s Kerenski, Korinek is a failed counter-revolution, and we’re the Bolsheviks. Can you imagine us as commies?”
Lessing drew back the drapes to look out over the grey, black, and brown vista of Washington in October. His suite offered a panoramic view south over the Potomac River. Liese loved it. She was such an urban person.
Goddard broke into his thoughts. “…Canada, I said. When ‘re your Cadre troops coming in from Canada?”
“Um? Oh… the first elements’ll be landing at Andrews Air Force Base this afternoon. The Chief of Operations there is friendly. His uncle is Scott Harter, the Secretary of Defense. We haven’t told anybody… not even Eighty-Five.” He glanced up at the sensor he had “accidentally” broken when he moved into this suite. ‘Tim Helm’ll phone me when they get in. There’s no way Korinek can find out.”
“Why wait, then? Tonight we get one of Mulder’s judge-buddies to sign an arrest warrant for treason, and we go pay a visit on Mr. Jew-sucker Korinek!”
“Collar him in the White House? Come on! You and who else’s army?”
“Our army. Your Cadre and my PHASE. What’s he going to do… hole up for a siege? Call down a missile strike on the Rose Garden? He’ll have to give up gracefully… and we’ll have it all live and throbbing on Home-Net.”
“Nothing on TV now,” Wrench grumbled irrelevantly. “No news… maybe they’ve clamped down. Maybe Korinek’s making his move and ordered the media zipped up!”
“Will you can it!” Lessing had become exasperated. “You’ve got the jitters, that’s all! You remind me of my First-time green doggies out in Angola!”
Goddard put out a paw. “Listen, Wrench, we’ve already got a lot of support, and Mulder’s drumming up more. Korinek’s bunch has underestimated us. We’re organized, and we’ve got people in powerful positions. Let the bastards spill our beans… about Dom and Mulder and all… they can’t stop us. Just remember who we are and how far we’ve come.”
“Glad you’re so pogging cheery…”
The vid-phone shrilled, and Wrench fumbled for it.
“It’s Pauline,” he said. “Pauline Haber, from Communications, down on four. Lessing, Mr. Dom wants to talk to you from suite 1501.” That was code for important messages from Eighty-Five. Automatic anti-bugging devices were now activated.
Lessing took the receiver and identified himself.
“Mister Lessing,” Eighty-Five said, “I have a lead on that telephone call which Mr. Korinek dialed to an unidentified party.”
“Yes?”
“I have been seeking anomalies by collating telephone numbers, addresses, zip codes, property ownership, building permits, tax statements, listed tenants, and the like. So far, I have uncovered twenty-seven cases of false identity, over three thousand zoning violations….”
“Get to the point.”
“In the suburb of Annandale, just off Annandale Road, there is a residence that does not exist in any modem record.”
“What?” He signalled Wrench and Goddard to be quiet.
“No structure is located on this lot according to telephone directories, city maps, assessor’s Files, and other sources. Yet an aerial photo taken last month by the Pollution Control Office of Greater Washington shows a building there. It is occupied, since smoke is visible emerging from its chimney. I have checked older maps in libraries in other cities, and they also show a house at this location. Furthermore, a lost microfiche of old construction permits was discovered in a drawer in a city office last month. It indicates that a residence was completed on that property in October 1993. It was occupied for twenty-eight years thereafter and was sold to an unknown buyer. That is where the record ends.”
“A safe-house,” Wrench whispered excitedly. “A kikibird-nest for one of the government’s deep, dark agencies!”
“But why destroy the records?” Lessing puzzled. “Why not just put the place under a fake name, pay taxes, and attract no attention?”
“Korinek… or his people… probably got security-happy and decided non-existent was better than part -existent.”
“Still, how does this tie in with Korinek’s telephone call?”
“A woman called a taxi yesterday morning from Annandale,” Eighty-Five said. “She gave the same 555-9201 number to the taxi company’s switchboard for them to verify her call.”
“Find her!” Wrench ordered.
“I have. The address the cab took her to is listed as the domicile of a Ms. Cassandra Cooper, also known as Diane Montejo, also known as Mary Frances Hyde, of Moline, Illinois. She has a lengthy record of prostitution, what you humans term a ‘high-class call girl,’ I believe.”
“I’ll bet Korinek’d crap his diapers if he knew his bint-baby had used his super-duper secret number to call a cab!” Goddard drew a finger across his throat and made a “k-k-k” noise.
“Two more things. Mister Lcssing,” Eighty-Five continued. “The first is that Ms. Cooper is the apartment-mate of Ms. Dolores Carrera, who is Mr. Korinek’s current mistress.”
“Maybe Korinek likes double-deckers,” Goddard snickered. “Or a pet for a pal.”
“And the second?” Lessing asked stoically.
“The last recorded occupants of the house in Annandale were the Arthur family. The James F. Arthur family.”
Wrench caught it first. “Lessing! It’s the fake name in the hotel in Detroit! The guy who got you hired for the Marvelous Gap spesh-op! A lead to Pacov!”