by Ian Miller
"I'll be a few minutes longer," Burrowes said to Hooper and McKenzie, "but if you wish, you can wait outside then we can go back to town together and I'll buy you lunch, or you can go by yourselves and I'll find my own way."
It came as no surprise to Burrowes that they elected to go by themselves. They did not want protection.
The someone was an attractive young woman, and when she had escorted Hooper and McKenzie out the engineer started moving towards the door.
"Excuse me," Burrowes said. "I would like a few words with you before I go." He flashed his Federal Agent ID.
"What's all this about?" the engineer asked. He seemed worried. "Look, we have the highest security clearance, and –"
"I know," Burrowes said, and tried to give an understanding and sympathetic smile. "It's just that I want to make sure you treat this document with the utmost care."
"Of course I will," he snorted. "Look, we are used to –"
"There has already been one serious attempt to steal it, and maybe two."
"Well, they won't steal anything from here."
Maybe, maybe not, Burrowes thought. "And I want everything you do on computers for this project to only involve computers disconnected from the internet, and with all things like Bluetooth shut off."
"Nobody could hack us."
"Don't be so sure," Burrowes said, and then added with a very cold challenging smile, "How much do you want to bet, remembering I have the resources of the NSA behind me?"
The engineer backed off from a bet. "All the same, nobody else has those resources," he said. "We're safe from –"
"The Russian government?"
There was a stunned silence, then the engineer said, "OK, I'll do as you suggest."
"Good. Now, while you will take all sorts of care with that documentation, and while you will look as if you are working from it, you won't."
"What? What's all this about?" The engineer now started to look a little angry. "If this is all wasting my time –"
"Not at all. It's a security measure. As I said, people have been trying to steal this technology, so what you have in that envelope is rubbish. It is a decoy that I concocted. The real technology is in this envelope," and with that he opened his briefcase and took out an equivalent envelope.
"Then why didn't you just give that to those two before wasting my time?" The annoyance and anger were clear.
"Because," Burrowes replied, "my agency is convinced this problem has yet to go away, and another attempt will be made. Frankly, if I were you I would not take either document home, or you might not live. Just do what I ask, please."
Burrowes could see the thought, "And if I don't?" cross his mind, then it occurred to him that the if might mean the Federal Government might cancel a lot of contracts, so finally he said he would.
Burrowes then decided to return to the airport, in case he could get an earlier flight home. Strictly speaking, he was supposed to be protecting those other two, but since the main objective had been achieved, his attitude was, if they want to get themselves into trouble, let them pay the consequences. Added to which, he had offered, they had declined, and he really had no idea where they were. He could probably track them through the taxi, but why bother?
As it turned out, they returned safely. Also, he still had a gun and a Federal badge.
* * *
Dennis knew that he had to do something. He still had no idea what, but he knew Goldfinch was after this torpedo, he knew that a week ago the two inventors had taken their document to Super Dynamics. At that point, he had no real plan, but he felt that this project had the potential to shaft Goldfinch, because he knew how much money was involved. It was also of major importance to the US government, which meant that if it even looked like Goldfinch was playing the system, Goldfinch would be in deep trouble. The attractiveness of this torpedo was that Goldfinch was actively pursuing it. Rutherford had been very clear: Rutherford would only forgive him if Goldfinch got burned. Rutherford had also made it clear that Dennis would only get the credit for Goldfinch's difficulties if he could show he was responsible.
The one advantage he had was that he knew that Burrowes had taken a copy of the agreement between the inventors and Seafarth, and of between Seafarth and Super Dynamics, and had lodged both on his computer. Accordingly, when Burrowes and Svetlana had left the office for some reason, he quickly accessed Burrowes computer, found the agreement file and copied it to a thumb drive. Later, when he opened it, he had the conditions, but more importantly for the present, he had the addresses of the parties. Hooper and McKenzie had somewhat thoughtlessly written down their private addresses. Possibly they did not have an alternative. Whatever the reason, he had carried out a little surveillance, and had watched each of them come home. Accordingly he knew their car number plates, and he knew what sort of cars they drove.
His surveillance efforts had landed one additional gem: Hooper was trying to shaft Lamont and Ellison, and particularly Burrowes, so today he was dragging McKenzie off somewhere to find alternative funding. He watched McKenzie come out the front door with a briefcase and a large suitcase and kick the front door shut after him. McKenzie then put the rather fat suitcase in his car, then he drove off. This was even better than he could imagine: McKenzie did not intend to come back straight away.
Dennis parked a block away from where McKenzie lived. He took a briefcase, put on a large hat and tinted glasses, then walked to the building and let himself in through the front door, which McKenzie had forgotten to lock when he kicked the door shut. He had checked the outside and he knew that McKenzie was in apartment four. That door was locked, but it took Dennis no more than twenty seconds to pick the lock, and had someone from one of the other apartments come out, they would have thought he had used a key.
He closed the door behind him, took gloves from his coat pocket, and began searching. He was in luck. McKenzie had a small desk and in one of the drawers there was a copy of the torpedo plans, together with all the details of the experiments carried out, and McKenzie's comments on what had happened during them, his notes on all the things that could go wrong, and what he had done to ensure they did not. Dennis gathered these up, but just to make sure, he searched thoroughly through the apartment. He made no attempt to tidy up after him; he wanted the place to look burgled.
Dennis took the bundle of papers and put them in his briefcase. He opened the apartment door, checked nobody was there, then closed and locked the door behind him. He carefully wiped the door handle, and any part of the door he had touched, then he left the building. As far as he could tell, nobody saw him.
Later, when he returned to his apartment, he realised that if anyone had thought he could be responsible, they would search his apartment. On the other hand, very few people knew he owned a small quite secluded dwelling on the upper reaches of Delaware Bay. This was usually as much a problem as anything because it was somewhat run down, and the local authorities had left notices saying that certain things had to be done to it before it could be used as a dwelling. They were more interested in having it demolished on the grounds it was an eyesore, except nobody could see it unless they went up this somewhat tortuous drive. He would find a hiding place there.
It was only after he had hidden these documents it occurred to him that he had no real idea what to do with them. The theft had been opportunistic. He was back to square one as far as Goldfinch was concerned.
* * *
"So," Burrowes said, as he reported again to Lawton. "Now what?"
"Back to Rutherford's place. We still have this manganese issue to solve. You have discovered the manganese could be being used in a special air force paint. We need to know more."
"Charming."
"You don't seem very enthused?" Lawton said, with a chastising grin on his face.
"I don't see we're going to get very far with that," Burrowes replied. "In the event this paint is something really secret –"
"Assume it is," Lawton interrupted, and his now chal
lenging grin was clearly intended as a clue.
Burrowes was stunned. Lawton had effectively told him that this paint was the objective. How could that possibly be the case? He gulped a little as he resumed, "In which case, you surely don't expect the secret to be explained on the web?"
"So what else is there?" Lawton challenged.
"Basically you need either a sample or the formula, and I can't see us getting either from hacking, or you'd need someone to go in and get a sample."
"That's what Ruth has been told, and she hates the idea."
Burrowes had no idea who this Ruth was, but he knew better than to ask. If Lawton wanted him to know, he would tell him. "Then she has my support. The idea of someone going into a warehouse and stealing a tin of paint is just ludicrous. They aren't going to leave a tin around with a label, 'Special Air Force Top Secret Paint'. Your thief could end up with some standard interior white enamel."
"And your opinion of someone pretending to be a journalist and going in and asking questions?"
"They'll get answers, but you won't know whether they're true, so you risk the agent's life for no reward," Burrowes said. "That's just silly."
"Elaborate on this truth issue?" Lawton said. For once he was genuinely interested. It was clearly something he had not thought about.
"Just the math," Burrowes explained. "Either the paint is real or it is not. If it's real, the manager might admit it if he doesn't think it is important, or if he is proud of it. On the other hand, if he's the slightest bit suspicious of where this conversation is going, he might deny it in case he is talking to a spy, or even worse, an undercover FSB agent.
"Now, suppose it's not real? The manager might deny it because he hadn't heard of it, and for that matter he might do that if it's real but he's the wrong manager, or alternatively he might confirm it if he's been primed up to keep some sort of deception going. He might also confirm it if he's the boastful type, even if he knows it isn't true. So, how do you tell?"
Lawton looked slightly abashed. He knew that he should have thought of this. "Yes, you're right. Look, keep quiet about this, and I'll tell Ruth Telfar to can this silly exercise."
Burrowes was slightly amused. Telfar was a sufficiently uncommon name he would soon find out who she was. Almost certainly, if she were running agents, she would be CIA. As for his conclusion, undoubtedly Lawton would state he had thought of it, and take whatever credit was around, but then he thought, so what? Lawton must have suspected he was having such thoughts because he was looking at him quizzically, as if challenging him to say something.
Accordingly, he thought he had better say something, so he said, "Since I'm going back to Rutherford's I presume you want me to return this ID."
"No. Hang onto it for a moment."
"Isn't that fraud?"
"Actually, no, it isn't. You are at present a Federal agent. Just don't let that go to your head, though."
"No arresting someone who beats me to a parking spot?" Burrowes countered with a laugh.
"Most definitely not."
"Spoil sport," Burrowes said with a pronounced sniff. "You think I'll solve the manganese problem from there?"
"Probably not," Lawton said, "but there's still the issue of that torpedo, how Irving Goldfinch came to know about it, assuming he was the one who organised the burglary, and who the third party was, and why they did what they did? We may not find answers to those questions either, but since you tell me some thugs have taken an interest in watching Rutherford's place, I have this feeling that having someone there is as good an approach as any."
Burrowes could not really argue with that.
* * *
When Burrowes turned up the following morning, the others greeted him with a little surprise. He was less than impressed to see that Dennis had turned up, and there seemed to be no interaction between him and Rutherford. Presumably Rutherford had decided that Dennis' financial loss would be a big enough punishment. He took a seat, and tried to look as if he had not even been away.
"So, where have you been?" Svetlana asked. She obviously could not contain her curiosity. Rutherford was in the background, and was seemingly keen to hear the answer. Dennis seemed as if he was at least trying to look as if he did not care.
"Recall those two who had this torpedo design?" Burrowes noticed at this point that Dennis looked up. Not caring was not going to last. "Well, someone had to escort them to where it will be made, so I was babysitting."
"It took three weeks to get an envelope to Boston?" she teased. "Poor thing. You must have walked, and think, I could have given you a bus ticket had you asked."
"Well, there was a little more than that," Burrowes said. "I had some investigating to do."
"Ha! You're a secret agent!"
"They don't call me Dick Tracey for nothing," Burrowes said with a grin.
"They don't call you Dick Tracey," Svetlana pointed out.
"Bother. That's another alias that hasn't worked out."
"So, what were you doing?"
"Guarding that secret file," he said. He had thought about saying he had taken a vacation, but he knew that would not look likely. He would have gone somewhere with warmer weather, and he knew he looked pale.
"What? Why? Why not put it in a vault somewhere?"
"I don't know," Burrowes said, somewhat crossly. He could understand her being interested in why he had been away, but this seemed a little too interested. "The guy who's paying me, indirectly at least, told me to do it, so I did."
"Ha! So you've seen him. Who is it?"
"He didn't say," Burrowes said. "Why the curiosity?"
"Oh, nothing." Svetlana said. She paused, as if thinking, then added, "It's just that nothing much happened around here. Your absence was the most interesting thing that happened, so . . ."
"If my absence was that interesting, it must have been really lively. So you're not even going to say you were all working hard?"
"Oh, we were doing that," Svetlana said with a shrug. Burrowes noticed that Rutherford was shaking his head slightly. Obviously he did not agree.
"Right, so back to the Russian exercise. How's progress?"
"As requested, I got the article translated into Russian, and, if I say so myself, it ended up being quite impressive. I gather someone will try to get it published in a Russian magazine. The editor will probably make changes, and it's been arranged that I will make whatever corrections that are needed to get it published."
"So, have we any information on when a shipment of material from that place near Ufa will be made?"
"What? Why?"
"We're trying to track what happens to it," Burrowes explained. "There's no point in worrying about it until some more of whatever it is moves."
"How are you going to track that?" She seemed quite doubtful that it could be done. Then after a pause, she added, "I suppose if you had one of your secret agents nearby, they could check with the trucking agencies."
"I rather think we could do it from here," Burrowes said.
"Except you haven't so far. Maybe the Russian security is a bit better than you think?"
"Maybe," Burrowes said. It was a good point, although not necessarily the way Svetlana thought. Suppose nothing had moved in the last year because there was nothing to move? So, he was back to two options: either there was nothing there, or the Russian secrecy was effective. Which was it? And how to find out? The problem with everybody working from both ends was there seemed to be no proof of a connection in the middle. The other problem with failure to find something was that they could be looking in the wrong place. He had been checking on transport companies, but suppose the military were moving it? There would be no obvious way to check on that because they would not necessarily leave specific information on a computer linked to the web, knowing only too well the danger of being hacked. That meant they might be down to human intelligence. He would have to tell Lawton.
As he expected, Lawton was hardly thrilled with this idea. He would have to tell
Ruth Telfar, but he knew she would not be enthused.
"Getting an agent to try to actively find something like that risks exposing the agent," Lawton grumbled.
"Perhaps," Burrowes said, "but you've got to try something."
"I know," Lawton said. "We haven't got a lot of options, have we?"
"We have one more than you think," Burrowes said. "I've had an idea."
"What? You volunteering to go to Russia as a secret agent?"
"Well, not exactly like that," Burrowes said, "but consider this. Suppose an American investor went to Russia with the idea of buying an interest in a Russian paint company or so, with the offer of bringing some American technology, and access to American markets?"
"You don't really think that would fly do you?"
"It doesn't have to happen," Burrowes said. "All that it requires is that someone plausible go there and tries to get information on the company."
"That's just financial," Lawton said in a rather sceptical tone.
"And technical, and financial means sales, and that has to be broken down into what sorts of paints."
"And suppose the Russians don't play ball?"
"Then you've wasted some time, but you're not risking any agents."
Lawton thought for a moment, then said, "Suppose you're right. I can see we don't lose much, but how do we win? Why will the Russians believe anyone we send could conceivably want to buy a Russian paint company?"
"Because with a bit of luck, that person will have sufficient money that they won't be able to disbelieve him. Why else would such a rich man go there? No really rich person would waste time going to Russia and investigate paint companies unless they were relevant to their investment programs."
"And why would such a person go there?"
"How about annoying Rutherford?"
"What? Ask Rutherford to go? He'd be as credible as someone trying to exchange three dollar bills."
"No, I was thinking of Irving Goldfinch, or at least using his company. He does billion dollar deals. He'd be credible."