Conspiracy

91

It didn’t take nearly as long as Gallo had feared for the information about Amanda Rauci’s request to be forwarded to the NSA. It turned out that the credit-checking company staffed its computer center around the clock. Gallo talked directly to a tech there, explaining that they were trying to figure out whether a Secret Service guy had killed himself or not; the tech cut through the red tape and gave him the details he wanted.

In the meantime, he’d done a search and discovered that Christopher Ball was the police chief in Pine Plains — one town over from the library where Amanda Rauci had used the computer.

“Why would she be checking out the police chief?” Gallo asked Rubens when he found him in the Art Room a short while later.

“A very good question, Mr. Gallo. Let us see if Ms. DeFrancesca can supply an answer.”

rubens was just about to talk to Lia when one of the Art Room communications specialists told him that National Security Advisor Donna Bing was calling for him. Rubens told Marie Telach to brief Lia on what Gallo had found, then went to the empty stations toward the back of the Art Room to talk to Bing.

He glanced at the clock on the console as he sat down. It was five past nine. Bing didn’t skimp on her hours.

Unfortunately.

Rubens pressed the connect button on the communications control clipped to his belt. The unit connected to his headset via an encrypted very short-range frequency (E-VSRF).

“This is Bill.”

“Billy, how are we doing on Vietnam?”

“I’m about to roll up the operation there. As I told you earlier, we’re confident that there is no connection.”

“And I told you to work harder. You’re obviously missing key information.”

Rubens considered how to respond. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Ser vices had already been briefed on Thao Duong’s organization; Tommy Karr had installed permanent listening devices in Thao Duong’s house and the digital records would be forwarded to the Citizenship and Immigration Services and the FBI for their use. There was simply nothing else for Deep Black to do in Vietnam. Even if the President wanted them to continue investigating the attack on Senator McSweeney — as the National Security finding directed them to do — it was senseless and expensive to keep Karr and Dean in Vietnam.

“Are you still there, Billy?”

“I am still here,” said Rubens. “And personally, I prefer to be called Bill.”

“Have you proved that Vietnam was not behind the attempted assassination of Senator McSweeney?” said Bing, ignoring Rubens’s remark about his name.

“It will be hard to prove a negative.”

“Why do you always give me such a hard time? Is it because I beat you out for this job?”

“I am not giving you a hard time, Madam Advisor.”

“Have a full report on the situation to me by noon tomorrow,” said Bing, hanging up.