Quinn took the number home with him and worked on it for two days and nights. If it was coded, there could be enough variations to give a computer headaches, let alone the human brain. It would depend how secretive Moss had wanted to be, how safe he thought his contacts book would stay. He began to run through the easier codes, writing the new numbers yielded by the process in a column for Sam to check out later.
He started with the obvious, the children’s code; just reversing the order of the numbers from front to back. Then he transposed the first and last figures, the second-first and second-last, and third-from-first and third-from-last, leaving the middle number of the seven in place. He ran through ten variations of transposition. Then he moved into additions and subtractions.
He deducted one from every figure, then two, and so forth. Then one from the first figure, two from the second, three from the third, down the line to the seventh. Then repeated the process by adding numbers. After the first night he sat back and looked at his columns. Moss, he realized, could have added or subtracted his own birth date, or even his mother’s birth date, his car registration number or his inseam measurement. When he had a list of 107 of the most obvious possibilities, he gave his list to Sam. She called him back in the late afternoon of the next day, sounding tired. The Bureau’s phone bill must have gone up a smidgen.
“Okay, forty-one of the numbers still don’t exist. The remaining sixty-six include laundromats, a senior citizens’ center, a massage parlor, four restaurants, a hamburger joint, two hookers, and a military air base. Add to that fifty private citizens who seem to have nothing to do with anything. But there is one that might be paydirt. Number forty-four on your list.”
He glanced at his own copy. Forty-four. He had reached it by reversing the order of the phone number, then subtracting 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, in that order.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s a private unlisted number carrying a classified tag,” she said. “I had to call in a few favors to get it identified. It belongs to a large town house in Georgetown. Guess who it belongs to?”
She told him. Quinn let out a deep breath. It could be a coincidence. Play around with a seven-figure number long enough and it is possible to come up with the private number of a very important person just by fluke.
“Thanks, Sam. It’s all I have. I’ll try it-let you know.”
At half past eight that evening Senator Bennett Hapgood sat in the makeup room of a major television station in New York as a pretty girl dabbed a bit more ocher makeup onto his face. He lifted his chin to draw in a mite more of the sag beneath the jawbone.
“Just a little more hair spray here, honey,” he told her, pointing out a strand of the blow-dried white locks that hung boyishly over one side of his forehead, but which might slip out of place if not attended to.
She had done a good job. The fine tracery of veins around the nose had vanished; the blue eyes glittered from the drops that had been applied; the cattleman’s suntan, acquired in long hours toiling under a sunlamp, glowed with rugged health. An assistant stage manager popped her head around the door, clipboard like an insignia.
“We’re ready for you, Senator,” she said.
Bennett Hapgood rose, stood while the makeup girl removed the bib and dusted any last specks of powder off the pearl-gray suit, and followed the stage manager down the corridor to the studio. He was seated to the left of the host of the show, and a soundman expertly clipped a button-sized microphone to his lapel. The host, anchoring one of the country’s most important prime-time current affairs programs, was busy going down his running order; the monitor showed a dog-food commercial. He looked up and flashed a pearly grin at Hapgood.
“Good to see you, Senator.”
Hapgood responded with the obligatory yard-wide smile.
“Good to be here, Tom.”
“We have just two more messages after this. Then we’re on.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll just follow your lead.”
Will you, hell, thought the anchorman, who came from the East Coast liberal tradition of journalism and thought the Oklahoma senator a menace to society. The dog food was replaced by a pickup truck and then a breakfast cereal. As the last image faded of a deliriously happy family tucking into a product that looked and tasted like straw, the stage manager pointed a finger directly at Tom. The red light above camera one lit up and the host gazed into the lens, his face etched with public concern.
“Despite repeated denials from White House Press Secretary Craig Lipton, reports continue to reach this program that the health of President Cormack still gives rise to deep concern. And this just two weeks before the project most closely identified with his name and his incumbency, the Nantucket Treaty, is due to go before the Senate for ratification.
“One of those who has most consistently opposed the treaty is the chairman of the Citizens for a Strong America movement, Senator Bennett Hapgood.”
On the word Senator, the light of camera two went on, sending the image of the seated senator into 30 million homes. Camera three gave viewers a two-shot of both men as the host swung toward Hapgood.
“Senator, how do you rate the chances of ratification in January?”
“What can I say, Tom? They can’t be good. Not after what has happened these past few weeks. But even those events apart, the treaty should not pass. Like millions of my fellow Americans, I can see no justification at this point in time for trusting the Russians-and that’s what it comes down to.”
“But surely, Senator, the issue of trust does not arise. There are verification procedures built into that treaty which give our military specialists unprecedented access to the Soviet weapons-destruction program…”
“Maybe so, Tom, maybe so. Fact is, Russia is a huge place. We have to trust them not to build other, newer weapons deep in the interior. For me, it’s simple: I want to see America strong, and that means keeping every piece of hardware we have-”
“And deploying more, Senator?”
“If we have to, if we have to.”
“But these defense budgets are starting to cripple our economy. The deficits are becoming unmanageable.”
“You say so, Tom. There are others who think the damage to our economy is caused by too many welfare checks, too many foreign imports, too many federal foreign aid programs. We seem to spend more looking after foreign critics than our military. Believe me, Tom, it’s not a question of money for the defense industries, not at all.”
Tom Granger switched topics.
“Senator, apart from opposing U.S. help to the hungry of the Third World and backing protectionist trade tariffs, you have also called for the resignation of John Cormack. Can you justify that?”
Hapgood could cheerfully have strangled the newsman. Granger’s use of the words hungry and protectionist indicated where he stood on these issues. Instead, Hapgood kept his concerned expression in place and nodded soberly but regretfully.
“Tom, I just want to say this: I have opposed several issues espoused by President Cormack. That is my right in this free country. But…”
He turned away from the host, found the camera he wanted with its on-light dark, and stared at it for the half-second it took the director in the control booth to switch cameras and give him a personal close-up shot.
“… I yield to no man in my respect for the integrity and courage in adversity of John Cormack. And it is precisely because of this that I say…”
His bronzed face would have oozed sincerity from every pore had they not been clogged with pancake makeup.
“ ‘… John, you have taken more than any man should have to take. For the sake of the nation, but above all for the sake of yourself and Myra, lay down this intolerable burden of office, I beg you.’ ”