“That’s not covered under the retrieval cost,” Pistol argued.
“Two thousand…you are getting…I…believe…it is covered.”
Pistol grumbled for a few more seconds before saying, “Fine.”
The e-mail containing the screen grabs arrived four minutes before the hour was up. The Mole quickly opened them and confirmed that the woman in Griffin’s picture was the same one on the driver’s license for Misty Blake. He still had no idea what this woman did or why she would be important, but he did have a name and address.
When the final minute ticked off, he expected ringing to blare from his computer speakers, but they remained silent. He waited a full sixty seconds before deciding he should use his time to see if he could find out anything more. He thought about starting in on the second man, but now that he had the woman’s license picture and name, he could check several other databases.
Since she lived in DC, he thought there was a decent chance she was a government employee. So that’s where he went first, typing her name into a system that would tell him if the US government paid her salary.
He found three Misty Blakes in public service. Two were on the West Coast — one in the forest service in Washington State, and the other an FDA inspector in Bakersfield, California. The third had switched jobs within the last year, moving into a support role at the Labor Board in DC. But her new position wasn’t the most interesting detail. It was the fact that the title of her previous role and the division she’d worked for had been redacted.
The Mole glanced down at the phone icon on his screen to make sure he hadn’t accidently turned off the ringer and missed Griffin’s call, but it was on.
He looked at Misty Blake’s picture again. So what exactly were you doing before?
He ran her name through a couple of the other databases he had access to, but came up with nothing new, so he decided to use his photo recognition software. It would search criminal, military, and intelligence databases for likely matches. To cut down on the search time, he limited it to Caucasian females between twenty-eight and thirty-six, living in the DC area.
After he started the search, he got up to take a leak.
He’d just flushed the toilet when his computer rang. He ran his hands under some water, and grabbed the towel to dry them as he sprinted back into the living room. Plopping down into his seat, he pulled on his headset.
“Hello?”
“Turn that crap off,” Griffin told him.
“What are you talking about?”
“That voice crap. Turn it off.”
The Mole realized he was still plugged into the vocal modulator. “Just a second.”
As he was shoving the jack into the direct connection at the bottom of his computer screen, his monitor dinged. He looked up. His face recognition software was designed to notify him whenever there was a hit, even if the search was ongoing. Apparently, a potential match had been found.
“Okay, I’m back,” he said as he clicked on the link to see what the program had come up with.
“Your hour’s up,” Griffin said.
“I realize that. These aren’t exactly…” He paused. How about that? The search had found her. He started to read the information under her name.
“Something wrong?” Griffin asked.
“What? Oh, no,” the Mole said. “I was just saying these aren’t easy searches.”
“Tell me you at least found something.”
The Mole opened his mouth to say he had, but the words died in his throat.
“Hey! Are you listening?” Griffin said, growing angry.
“Yes, sorry. I’ve been concentrating mainly on the woman, but, well, there’s a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“I ran the car through the DMV database, but it appears that it has been completely removed from the records. Even the backups.”
“There’s got to be something there. The files can’t be completely written over, can they?”
“Whoever did the removal was pretty thorough.” So far everything the Mole had said had been true. The next part, though, wasn’t. Which was why he hesitated before he spoke. “I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to dig something up, but it might take me a little while.”
A pause. “And nothing on the men.”
It took all of the Mole’s will to keep his voice from cracking. “The men, no. The BMW, though, is registered to a—”
“I know about the BMW. I need to know who the people are.”
“I understand that. I was just thinking—”
“How much more time do you need?”
“Uh, well, a day would be good.”
“A day?”
“Like I said, these aren’t easy searches.”
“You have four hours,” Griffin said, then hung up.
What the hell am I doing? the Mole thought.
He knew he should have told Griffin what he had learned, but his gaze strayed back to the facial match result on his monitor. Misty Blake had indeed worked for the government several years before transferring to the Labor Board. The agency she had worked for, however, had been a semiautonomous one. It was this agency’s demise that had undoubtedly necessitated her moving to a new job.
The Office.
The Mole knew it well. While he had never worked directly for them, he’d done enough tangential jobs through third parties — mainly Orlando, and once for her partner Quinn — that a fair amount of the Office’s cash had passed through his accounts. He had talked once to Orlando about the sudden dismantling of the organization, and she’d been very sympathetic toward those who worked there, telling him they’d been given a raw deal.
Hey, maybe one of the men in the other pictures is the guy who used to run the place. What was his name? Paul? Peter? One of those apostle names.
He tried to concentrate on what he should do next. He had never met or talked to Misty Blake. He’d never had any contact with the guy who had run the Office, either. So, technically, he had no reason at all to protect either of them.
But they were Orlando’s colleagues, maybe even her friends. And Orlando was definitely his.
The Mole didn’t have a huge conscience, but he did have one. And before he sold anyone out to Griffin, he knew he had to talk to Orlando first.
He adjusted his headset and opened Skype again.
Griffin sat waiting in his Lexus sedan, his demeanor darkening with each passing minute. He had hoped to have some good leads by now, and while he did have the photos of the intruders, they didn’t seem to be getting him anywhere.
The Mole had so far proven useless. Griffin had given him a deadline that had been completely ignored, and he knew if he let that go unchecked, it would likely happen again. Which meant once this project was over, he would have to make a trip out there. But the more pressing matter at the moment was, what if the asshole didn’t even come through in four hours? That would be a huge problem. Not only for the dumbass techie, but also for Griffin. What Griffin needed to do was branch out and get some others working on this.
Several names came to mind. He finally settled on three, and sent them all identical e-mails with the images attached. He’d barely set his phone down when it rang. The name on the display was one of the people he’d just contacted.
“This is Griffin.”
“It’s Keenan. I got your e-mail. I’m happy to do what I can.”
Griffin sensed a “but” coming, as in “but I don’t have time right now,” so he said nothing.
“It’s…um, I don’t know who the woman or the guy in the car with her are, but the other one, I know him.”
“You do?”
“I worked with him once, maybe eighteen months ago. Also seen him a couple times since. Parallel projects.”