homeward journey.” Mьller rolled up the drawings, snapped a rubber band around them,
and handed them to Moira. “They’ll be in charge of putting the coupling link together on
site. I have every confidence that all will go smoothly.”
“It had better,” Moira said. “The LNG tanker is scheduled to dock at the terminal in
thirty hours.” She shot Mьller an unpleasant look. “Not much leeway for your engineers.”
“Not to worry, Fraulein Trevor,” he said cheerfully. “They’re more than up to the
task.”
“For your company’s sake, I sincerely hope so.” She stowed the roll under her left arm,
preparatory to leaving. “Shall we speak frankly, Herr Mьller?”
He smiled. “Always.”
“I wouldn’t have had to come here at all had it not been for the string of delays that set
your manufacturing process back.”
Mьller’s smile seemed immovable. “My dear Fraulein, as I explained to your
superiors, the delays were unavoidable-please blame the Chinese for the temporary
shortage of steel, and the South Africans for the energy shortages that is forcing the
platinum mines to work at half speed.” He spread his hands. “We’ve done the best we
could, I assure you.” His smile widened. “And now we are at the end of our journey
together. The coupling link will be in Long Beach within eighteen hours, and eight hours
later it will be in one piece and ready to receive your tanker of liquid natural gas.” He
stuck out his hand. “All will have a happy ending, yes?”
“Of course it will. Thank you, Herr Mьller.”
Mьller nearly clicked his heels. “The pleasure is all mine, Fraulein.”
Moira walked back through the factory with Mьller at her side. She said good-bye to
him once more at the gates to the factory, walked across the gravel drive to where her
chauffeured car sat waiting for her, its precisely engineered German engine purring
quietly.
They pulled out of the Kaller Steelworks property, turned left toward the autobahn
back to Munich. Five minutes later, her driver said, “There’s a car following us,
Fraulein.”
Turning around, Moira peered out the back window. A small Volks-wagen, no more
than fifty yards behind them, flashed its headlights.
“Pull over.” She pushed aside the hem of her long skirt, took a SIG Sauer out of the
holster strapped to her left ankle.
The driver did as he was told, and the car came to a stop on the shoulder of the road.
The Volkswagen pulled in behind. Moira sat waiting for something to happen; she was
too well trained to get out of the car.
At length, the Volkswagen drove off the shoulder, into the underbrush, where it
disappeared from sight. A moment later a man became visible tramping out onto the side
of the road. He was tall and narrow, with a pencil mustache and suspenders holding up
his trousers. He was in his shirtsleeves, oblivious to the German winter chill. She could
see that he had no weapons on him, which, she reasoned, was the point. When he came
abreast of her car, she leaned across the backseat, opened the door for him, and he slipped inside.
“My name is Hauser, Fraulein Trevor. Arthur Hauser.” His expression was morose,
bitter. “I apologize for the incivility of this impromptu meeting, but I assure you the
melodrama is necessary.” As if to underscore his words, he glanced back down the road
toward the factory, his expression fearful. “I do not have much time so I shall come
straight to the point. There is a flaw in the coupling link-not, I hasten to add, in the
hardware. That, I assure you, is absolutely sound. But there is a problem with the
software. Nothing that will interfere with the operation of the link, no, not at all. It is, rather, a security flaw-a window, if you will. The chances are it might never be
discovered, but all the same it’s there.”
When Hauser glanced again out the back window a car was coming toward them. He
clamped his jaws shut, watched as the vehicle passed by, then visibly relaxed as it drove
on down the road.
“Herr Mьller was not altogether truthful. The delays were caused by this software flaw,
nothing else. I should know, since I was part of the software design team. We tried for a
patch, but it’s been devilishly difficult, and we ran out of time.”
“Just how serious is this flaw?” Moira said.
“It depends on whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist.” Hauser ducked his head,
embarrassed. “As I said, it might never be discovered.”
Moira glanced out the window for a time, thinking that she shouldn’t ask the next
question because, as Noah told her in no uncertain terms, the Firm was now out of
ensuring the security of NextGen’s LNG terminal.
And then she heard herself say, “What if I’m a pessimist?”
Peter Marks found Rodney Feir, chief of field support, in the CI caff, eating a bowl of
New England clam chowder. Feir looked up, gestured to Marks to sit. Peter Marks had
been elevated to chief of operations after the ill-starred Rob Batt was outed as an NSA
rat.
“How’s it going?” Feir said.
“How d’you think it’s going?” Marks parked himself on the chair opposite Feir. “I’ve
been vetting every one of Batt’s contacts for any sign of NSA taint. It’s daunting and
frustrating work. You?”
“As exhausted as you, I expect.” Feir sprinkled oyster crackers into the chowder. “I’ve
been briefing the new DCI on everything from agents in the field to the cleaning firm
we’ve used for the past twenty years.”
“D’you think she’ll work out?”
Feir knew he had to be careful here. “I’ll say this for her: She’s a stickler for detail. No stone unturned. She’s not leaving anything to chance.”
“That’s a relief.” Marks twiddled a fork between his thumb and fingers. “What we
don’t need is another crisis. I’d be happy with someone who can right this listing ship.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
“The reason I’m here,” Marks said, “is I’m having a staffing problem. I’ve lost some
people to attrition. Of course, that’s inevitable. I thought I’d get some good recruits
graduating from the program, but they went to Typhon. I’m in need of a short-term fix.”
Feir chewed on a mouthful of gritty clam bits and soft potato cubes. He’d diverted
those graduates to Typhon and had been waiting for Marks to come to him ever since.
“How can I help?”
“I’d like some of Dick Symes’s people to be assigned to my directorate.” Dick Symes
was the chief of intelligence. “Just temporarily, you understand, until I can get some raw
recruits through training and orientation.”
“Have you talked to Dick?”
“Why bother? He’ll just tell me to go to hell. But you can plead my case to Hart. She’s
so snowed under that you’re the one best suited to get her to listen to me. If she makes the call Dick can yell all he wants, it won’t matter.”
Feir wiped his lips. “What number of personnel are we talking here, Peter?”
“Eighteen, two dozen tops.”
“Not inconsiderable. The DCI is going to want to know what you have in mind.”
“I’ve got a brief detailing it all ready to go,” Marks said. “I shoot it to you
electronically, you walk it in to her personally.”
Feir nodded. “I think that can be arranged.”
Relief flooded Marks’s face. “Thanks, Rodney.”
“Don’t mention it.” He began to dig into what was left of the chowder. As Marks was
about to rise, he said, “Do you by any chance know where Soraya is? She’s not in her
office and she’s not answering her cell.”
“Unh-unh.” Marks resettled himself. “Why?”