"Right. I'll do that just as soon as I call the police." Kim picked up the phone.
"Good idea," Jamie said. "I'm sure they'll want to know what's in your gym bag."
"Gym bag?"
"Black-market prescription drugs. Probably OxyContin."
Kim stared.
"At the cafe, they were taped under the table you used," Jamie said.
"This isn't funny." Kim scratched her arms.
"With so many operators getting killed, aren't you worried about walking around in the open?"
"Maybe if I were an operator. But there doesn't seem to be a bounty on computer specialists." Kim set down the phone. She picked up the gym bag and headed toward the bathroom.
"Time for another pill?" Jamie asked.
Kim didn't answer.
"I'm told getting off Oxy is a nightmare," Cavanaugh said. "Or maintaining your addiction when you can't find any more doctors to write prescriptions for you and you need to turn to dealers."
Cavanaugh gestured toward the living room, which was sparsely furnished, only a lamp, a canvas chair, and a small television, not even a rug.
"Been selling things to feed your habit?"
"Since we're being so candid, why don't I stop the charade of going into the bathroom?" The pupils of Kim's eyes were pinpoints.
She opened the gym bag and took out a plastic bag that contained a fist-sized quantity of white pills. With a look of defiance, she put two in her mouth and chewed.
Jamie frowned. "Why do you-"
"The pills have a time-release coating so the body absorbs the painkiller over twelve hours," Cavanaugh explained. "If you just swallow them, you can't get a rush. You have to pulverize them and snort them."
"Or chew them," Kim said. "What the hell do you want?"
"GPS's assignment records," Cavanaugh said.
Kim looked baffled.
"You still haven't sold the computer in your bedroom," Cavanaugh told her, "so why don't you crank it up and get me some information I need?"
"That's what this is all about? For God's sake, why didn't you just come to the office to do this?"
"The last time I went to the office, I almost didn't leave it alive."
"I could have given you the information over the phone."
"Sure. But this way, I know the information hasn't been edited."
"You still believe someone at GPS can't be trusted? Me?"
"Distrust a drug addict? Perish the thought," Jamie said.
"You know, lady," Kim said, "I don't need to take crap from the boss's wife." She turned toward Cavanaugh. "You want to fire me? Do it."
"Just get into the GPS assignment records," Cavanaugh told her.
Kim's cheeks looked flushed again. She went to the bedroom and turned on its light, revealing that there was only a mattress on the floor but that a lavish computer set-up occupied a desk in a corner. Cavanaugh went over to the window and closed the draperies against the thickening darkness.
When Kim touched a button on the keyboard, the monitor came out of sleep mode. Jamie stood behind her while Kim sank into a chair, wincing slightly.
"If you're in that much pain, maybe you need to ease off on your martial arts," Jamie suggested.
"Can't give them up."
"Just like Oxy," Jamie said.
"You don't know. I tried detoxing. Last spring." Kim glanced toward Cavanaugh. "Supposedly, I was in the Caribbean on vacation. But I was right here. I vomited for a week. My bones ached. My heart raced. Hot and cold sweats. Wobbly legs. Twitching. And that was the fun part."
"You tried it on your own?"
"Had to. Would anybody at GPS have relied on me if word got out I'd checked myself into a detox clinic?"
"Go ahead and check yourself into one now," Cavanaugh said. "Take advantage of our great medical plan."
Kim avoided the subject, turning toward Jamie. "You know anything about computers?"
"A little," Jamie lied. "I know the difference between a Big Mac and a Mac Apple."
"Always thinking about food," Cavanaugh said.
"You need to step away while I type in the security codes," Kim told her.
"Don't think so. I co-own the company. I get to see everything."
Kim looked questioningly at Cavanaugh.
"I just made her vice-CEO," Cavanaugh explained.
"Let's see those security codes," Jamie told her.
Kim's fingers flew across the keyboard, an elegant blur that made Jamie nod in wonder as she watched information flash across the monitor.
"This is brilliant." Jamie leaned forward, seeing security code after security code. "I never could have hacked this."
"I hope to God not." Kim's fingers kept working the keyboard.
"As you looked for more OxyContin," Cavanaugh said, "I don't suppose people ever offered you unlimited quantities in exchange for showing them the codes."
"No."
"Cross your heart?"
"I guarantee it."
"Hard to guarantee."
"Not really."
"How do you figure?"
"If I had unlimited quantities of Oxy in exchange for giving the bad guys information…" Kim's fingers kept flying.
"Yes?"
"Would I be forced to humiliate myself by paying a cheesy drug dealer to stick that plastic bag to the bottom of that table? A lousy hundred pills? I can go through those in a week."
"She has a point," Jamie said.
"Or maybe that's part of her cover story."
"I'm into the files. Tell me what you need," Kim said.
"All the GPS assignments Carl Duran was on." He watched Kim intently, checking for a hesitation, a slight narrowing of her eyes, anything that might indicate that the name meant something to her. "He was fired three years ago."
"Does the first name have a C or a K?"
"C."
Cavanaugh still detected nothing to suggest that the name was important to her. No pursing of the lips. No tightening of the cheek muscles. In his experience, most dopers couldn't repress telltales when they were under stress.
"Sorry," Kim said. "Carl Duran doesn't have a file."
"Doesn't…? You must have made a mistake."
"When it involves computers, I don't make mistakes."
"But GPS always keeps records about former employees."
Kim tapped more keys. "Nope. No assignment list. No photograph. Nothing."
"Duran must have deleted it," Jamie said.
"Couldn't have. At least, not on his own. Only three people know the codes to get that far into the system. Gerald, Ali, and-"
"You," Cavanaugh said.
"Another nasty mark against me, right? But before you get judgmental again, watch this." Kim tapped more keys. "The purging was so thorough, I can't retrieve Duran's file. But I can search every assignment we've ever had and tell the computer to isolate any that Duran worked on." Kim touched a final key. "And here you are."
The printer came to life, flipping out pages.
"Plenty of trouble at GPS," Kim remarked.
"Yes," Cavanaugh agreed. "Frank Tamblyn's the latest casualty."
"I mean new trouble."
The phone rang.
"And I'm afraid," Kim said, "that this'll be more."
9
The agent made sure his weapons were in place before leaving his house: his.45 semiautomatic on his hip under his suit coat, his 9 millimeter subcompact in his ankle holster, his tactical folding knife clipped to a pocket concealed by his suit coat, and another knife on a breakaway chain around his neck under his shirt.
Uneasy, he glanced back toward his wife whose eyes were filled with equal unease as she held their baby boy.
"Meg, believe me, I'll be careful."
"But what about us? I don't mean to make it seem like the risk you're taking doesn't matter. But…" The baby squirmed under Meg's left arm. He had a slight fever. "What if whoever's doing this starts attacking…"
"Not just operators but their families?"
"I couldn't bear it if something happened to the baby."
"Stay inside. Keep the doors locked."
"I need to take Bobby to the doctor."
"There's a gun on the top shelf in the closet."
"Right. I'm going to hold the baby and blast away like in that John Woo movie you watched last night where the hero's in a nursery in a hospital with kids in his arms and guns in his hands. I kind of doubt it."