Huge spools spun cellulose too fast to see while thousands of pristine white cigarettes flowed down tracks and were fed into veins that configured them in rows of 7-6-7 for soft packs and 6-7-7 for flip-top boxes before a plunger kicked them into a pocket where they were wrapped in double-wide foil which was married to blanks that were labeled and glued on the sides and fed into big wheel drying drums and finished in cellophane and tear tape and marched single file into stacker towers where ten-packs were pushed into cartons that were carried by elevators up to exit stations with conveyor belts that eventually carried cases out of the building to awaiting trucks.
Bubba was breathless when he reached Bay 8, where he was a maker operator, or more formally, a tech 3, the highest pay grade. His responsibility was huge. He was the sole captain of a module that had been predicted to produce exactly 12,842,508 cigarettes by the end of this day's twenty-four-hour period, or 4,280,836 cigarettes during Bubba's eight-hour shift.
No module was ever unattended at Philip Morris, and Bubba's supervisor, Gig Dan, had been forced to fill in for the last half of second shift and the first sixteen minutes of third. Dan was relieved but unhappy when Bubba appeared, dripping sweat and panting.
'What in the hell has gotten into you, Bubba?' Dan said loud enough for both of them to hear through their earplugs.
'I got pulled by the cops,' Bubba bent the truth.
'And getting a ticket took four and a half hours?' Dan didn't buy it.
'He spent a long time warning me and then the radio was down or something. I'm telling you, I was pissed.
There's a lot of police bullying going on out there, Gig. It's time some of us got involved and…'
'Right now, I just want you to get involved in your module, Bubba!' Gig Dan yelled above machines. 'Our goal today was fifteen million and we were some 719,164 below that even before you decided to take your time smelling the roses!'
'I wasn't…" Bubba tried to protest.
'So guess what? The latest readout has us at 3,822,563.11 this shift, which is exactly 458,272.0 below what we were gonna make when we were already below what we were damn supposed to make. And why? The tipping paper's already broke twice, rejects is three times the usual because the circumference dropped below 24.5 and the weight didn't hit even close to nine hundred and the dilution was minus eight percent, and then the glue got a bubble because there was air in the line, and why? 'Because you weren't here to hand-feed five lousy cigarettes into the Sodimat. You didn't inspect the quality. You didn't check out the machines because you were too goddamn busy getting stopped by the police or whatever the hell it was you were supposedly doing!'
'Don't worry,' Bubba told him loudly. 'I'll make up the slack.'
Brazil was late, too, through no fault of his own. He had jogged in the dark from his endangered car, back to Park Avenue, and when he reached West's apartment he took a moment to settle down. He rang the bell and she wasn't the least bit warm as she let him in.
'Where have you been?' she asked, standing in front of the foyer table.
'Trying to find a deli,' Brazil said dryly.
'What for?'
'A deli, a restaurant, a bank. Anyplace I could maybe park.'
'Obviously you succeeded,' she said.
'Depends on if my car's still there after we're done.'
She oddly continued to stand in front of the table, and he sensed there was something on it she didn't want him to see.
'We're in my office. On the left, just past the bedroom.' She waited for him to go first as she continued to stand in front of the table.
Brazil was already getting a sick feeling. He didn't want to see what was on the table. He walked past the bedroom and refused to look inside. He entered West's office and didn't look around. Hammer was sitting close to the desk, reading glasses on, eyes fixed on the strange map on the computer screen.
'What were you saying to that woman in the Jeep?' Hammer asked him right off. 'The one whose parking place I took.'
'I told her she was in a garbage zone.'
'A what?' West said as she walked in.
'Where trucks pull in and out all night as they make their rounds to restaurant Dumpsters. I showed her my badge and she complied.'
'You probably shouldn't have done that,' Hammer told him. 'You got anything to drink in this house, Virginia?'
'Good stuff?'
'I'm driving my police car.'
Brazil found a chair and set it down near Hammer.
'Water and Sprite,' West said.
'What about Perrier?' Hammer asked.
'Not since the benzene scare.'
'That's ridiculous, Virginia. When chickens get avian flu, do you never eat them again?'
'Has that happened recently? I got Diet Coke.'
'Tap water is fine,' Hammer said. 'Andy, we've been sitting here talking and not getting anywhere at all. Do you have a clue as to what this is about? Please explain how fish got into COMSTAT.'
'Well, they didn't, not directly, Chief Hammer,' Brazil said. 'And I'd love some water, too,' he said to West. 'But I can get it. I can get Chief Hammer's, too, if you want. I'd be happy to.'
'I'll do it. And don't be so polite, it makes me sick.'
'I'm sorry.' Brazil was polite again.
It was awful being inside West's home and reminded that she had never invited him over, not even once since they had moved to Richmond. It was the first time he had seen her in anything but business suits or running clothes, and she was wearing the worn-out jeans that had always driven him crazy. Her gray tee shirt was made out of really soft cotton that clung to every contour of full breasts he was no longer allowed to see, much less touch. He ached all over.
'If you look at the top of the screen here.' He ran his finger across the monitor, addressing Hammer as if West had been caught up in the rapture, never to be seen again. This tells you what we're looking at is our website, because that's its address.'
'No,' Hammer said in disbelief.
' 'Fraid so,' Brazil said.
Hammer and West bent close to the screen and stared in shock at: http://www/sen__orrin__hatch__r__utah.govsen__bill_ _ 10/sen__judic__commit/dept__justice/nij/nypd__I__p ol__plaza/comstat/comp__map__center__dc/interpol/s cot__yrd/fbi/atf/ss/dea/cia/va__nat__guard/va_state__ pol/va__corn__dept/va__crim__just__serv/juv__just__s erv/va__att gen/va__gov__off/va__dept__health/va__ dept__safety/city__mang/gsa/city__hall/city__counc//ric h__pol__dept/off__pub__info/qa/rich__times__disp/ap/ upi/link_ntwk/all_rights_resrv/classfyd/asneed/othr%vyz /pub__domain.html 'Andy, I've never seen such shit as this,' Hammer exclaimed. 'Please don't tell me this is how the public accesses our website.'
'I'm afraid that's it,' Brazil told her anyway.
'How the hell do you expect anyone to remember something like that?' West asked, scowling at the screen.
Brazil ignored her. 'At least it works,' he said. 'We know that much since we've gotten some responses.'
'But why the hell is ours so goddamn complicated?'
Hammer wanted to know. 'How many responses are we going to get with an address like that?' She paused for a minute, a shadow falling over her face. 'Don't tell me Fling had something to do with this.'
Silence.
'Oh God,' Hammer muttered.
'Well,' Brazil answered her, 'you wanted this ASAP, Chief Hammer. It was a matter of finding gateways to pass through en route to our website, sort of the way mail is routed here and there before it finally gets to you, or the way you may have to change planes at four different airports before you get where you need to go…'
'Oh great,' West said. 'So Fling has people going to fifty different airports just to get from one end of the city to the other. He has the post office routing a letter through twenty different states just to travel two blocks.'
To give Fling a little credit, the more gateways, the more secure your system is,' Brazil said objectively.