A Delicate Touch

by Stuart Woods

  “Well, first, he was an Italian at an Irish event.”

  “What, Italians aren’t Catholic?” Dino said.

  “And then he monopolized the archbishop. None of the rest of us could get a word in edgewise. It was a disaster for everybody but Dino.”

  “That is a string of gross exaggerations,” Dino said. The doorbell rang again just in time, and Ken Burrows joined them. Right behind them, from the Times, were Scott Berger and Jeremy Green, with Jamie Cox in tow.

  They were called in to dinner, before anyone could get to a second drink. An hour later, over port and Stilton, Jeremy Green took charge. Without standing he gave the guests a concise rundown of what had been discovered in Eduardo Bianchi’s secret safe, and Jamie handed around samples of the files for everyone’s perusal—that was to say for the perusal of Gillian McCarthy, who was the only law enforcement official present who had not had wind of them.

  The placards were trotted out, and Jamie began a tour of them for the guests. None of them, except the Times people, had seen any of this.

  When Jamie had finished, Gillian McCarthy was the first to speak. “Well,” she said, “all this is just fascinating, but I’m afraid I missed the part about the crime they’ve committed.”

  “Well . . .” Jamie said.

  “I mean, crime is what we all do, isn’t it? What have these people done?”

  “We’re not sure,” Jamie said.

  “‘Not sure’?”

  “We don’t have the slightest idea,” Jeremy said. “But what we seem to have here is a first-rate Mafia conspiracy, and we suspect that its tentacles reach into a lot of so-called legitimate businesses. But my people don’t have the authority or the resources to dig that deep; that has to be done by law enforcement, hence my invitation to you.”

  “What, exactly, do you want from us, Jeremy?” Ken Burrows asked.

  “Ideally, a combined task force to investigate everybody on these family trees, living or dead. There’s a crime there somewhere,” he said, “maybe a great many crimes, and we think it’s a good use of your time, resources, and budgets to find out.”

  “You’re being very generous with our time and resources,” Ken replied.

  “Not in the least,” Jeremy said. “We’ve done all the work so far with our time and resources. Imagine how much that has saved you and your people. But we’re at a dead end, without the search and subpoena resources of law enforcement.”

  “Well,” Burrows said, “if we wait long enough, they’ll make a mistake, and then we’ll be all over them.”

  Stone spoke up. “They haven’t made a mistake for four generations,” he said, “but if they should, it would be pretty embarrassing for your agencies that you knew all about them all along and did nothing.”

  “Ah,” said Gillian McCarthy, “the screw.”

  “And who do you want screwed first?” Burrows asked the table.

  Silence.

  “Take your pick,” Jamie said, finally.

  * * *

  • • •

  LATER IN BED, after exhausting themselves, Jamie said, “Well, that was a complete bust.”

  “I did the best I could,” Stone replied, reprovingly.

  “Not you. You did very well, as always. I mean the dinner was a bust.”

  “Not entirely,” Stone said. “Now you at least have their attention, and since everybody was at the table, nobody can deny knowledge of all this. You just have to wait for the Thomases to make a mistake.”

  “In another four generations?” she asked.

  “Well,” Stone said.

  31

  Stone sat at his desk and looked across at Bob Cantor.

  “What?” Bob asked.

  “I need you to do something,” Stone said.

  “Well, that’s what I do. What do you have in mind?”

  “I wish I could be more specific, but I can’t, since I don’t know enough.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Enough. Enough to reveal a criminal conspiracy in all its glory, so search warrants can be served and indictments demanded of a grand jury.”

  “What is the nature of the crime?” Bob asked.

  “I just told you: I don’t know.”

  “You want me to find out if somebody has committed a crime?”

  “Exactly. Well, approximately.”

  “Usually, the way this works is a crime is committed, then you figure out whodunit.”

  “This time, it’s the reverse.”

  “Who are we talking about, here?”

  Stone took him through the whole business from the files in the safe to the Times investigation.

  “And they’ve come up with nothing?”

  “Let me narrow this down for you, Bob,” Stone said.

  “Please God, you should do that.”

  “The Thomases have got several high floors of their own building for their offices, but on the ground floor something else is going on that has nothing to do with their banking business. At least, that’s what I believe.”

  “You want me to find out what they’re doing on the ground floor?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not available for the rest of my life,” Bob said. “How long is this going to take?”

  “You take a look at it, then you tell me.”

  “Who’s paying for this?”

  “I am. I can’t involve the Times, and I don’t want Dino, the D.A., or the FBI to know what you’re doing until I’ve got something—maybe not even then. I just want to show them some evidence.”

  “I don’t want any of those people to know what I’m doing—ever,” Bob said.

  “I understand. Just take a hard look at it, okay?”

  “Okay.” Bob got to his feet. “I’ll let you know when I know something.” They shook hands, and Bob left.

  Joan came into the office. “You want to tell me what you and Bob are cooking up?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want you to know,” Stone replied.

  “I smell something in the air,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I think it’s desperation,” she replied. “You need something that only Bob can give you, and that sort of thing is usually illegal.”

  Stone sighed. “It’s not illegal yet,” he said, “but if it turns out to be, you’re better off being ignorant.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “but I don’t like ignorance. I prefer knowing everything, good or bad. I can always lie about it later.”

  “Not this time,” Stone said. “Now go back to your office and try getting over it.”

  Joan went, but reluctantly.

  * * *

  • • •

  BOB CANTOR DRESSED in a business suit with a necktie and put a briefcase in his truck. He drove to the Thomas building and parked in the underground lot, near the elevators. Then he put on some horn-rimmed glasses, a fake mustache, and a fedora, took his briefcase, and got into the elevator, where he discovered that he couldn’t go above the mail lobby without a key card. This meant clearing security. First, he had to go to the reception desk.

  “Picture ID,” the security guard said.

  Bob handed him the Florida driver’s license he had made for himself earlier that day.

  “And who did you wish to see?”

  “Congressman Hank Thomas,” Bob replied.

  “I don’t know if he’s in New York today,” the man replied.

  “He’s been in the building since early this morning,” Bob said. “He asked me to meet him here.”

  The guard handed him back his license and a guest security badge. “Wear that,” he said. “Take the elevator to the fortieth floor, that’s where his New York congressional office is.”

>   “Right,” Bob said. He went through a metal detector while his briefcase was X-rayed, then went to pick it up.

  A guard was staring at an object inside his briefcase. “What’s that?” he demanded, pointing at the screen.

  “A ham and Swiss on rye with mustard,” Bob replied.

  “What?”

  “A sandwich. I’m on a diet, and I eat only what my wife prepares.”

  “Okay,” the man said, “go on up.”

  Bob picked up the case and had a good look at the building directory, checking for ground-floor offices. The word “Private” was the only name that appeared on the ground floor.

  He got onto the elevator and pressed the button for forty; when he reached that floor, he immediately switched to a down elevator. You didn’t need a pass going down.

  In the garage, he got into his truck, which was a Mercedes Sprinter, took off his jacket, and ate his sandwich. At noon, people began to enter the garage and drive away. Upstairs, he figured people were leaving their offices for lunch. At a quarter to one, he got into some coveralls and a baseball cap, and, keeping the mustache and glasses, took his toolbox and located a spot near where the private offices were, a floor above. There was an entry door, which was locked.

  Bob made short work of picking the lock, then let himself in, wearing his visitor’s badge. The stairway, he noted, had a half dozen thick cables leading up from somewhere below, and he recognized them as concealing bundles of many smaller cables. He made his way upstairs and found a woman sitting at her desk, eating a salad. “Yes?” she asked.

  “I’m here to fix the copying machine,” he said.

  “We don’t use copying machines much,” she replied. “There’s only the one.”

  “Then that must be the one,” he said. “Where would I find it?”

  “Go over there, take a left, and there’s a door at the end of the corridor, with a sign saying ‘Admittance to Authorized Personnel Only.’” She opened a desk drawer and handed him a key.

  “Thank you,” he said. “This is going to be a full service, so I’ll be at least an hour.”

  “If I’m not here when you get back, just put the key in this drawer.” She pulled it open to show him, revealing many other keys.

  “Sure thing.” Bob followed her directions, and walking down the hallway he could see through a glass wall into a large room filled with people at long tables, working on computers, with supervisors looking over their shoulders.

  At the end of the hall he let himself into the restricted room and looked around. “Bingo,” he said aloud to himself.

  * * *

  • • •

  AN HOUR AND A HALF later Bob returned the key to the woman at the desk, thanked her, and went back to his truck. Two hours later he pulled into Stone Barrington’s garage.

  32

  Stone stared across his desk at Bob Cantor. “You’re looking very smug,” he said. “What did you find?”

  “Everything and nothing,” Bob replied.

  Stone stared at the ceiling. “Jesus,” he muttered. “All right, Bob,” he said. “In your own time.”

  Bob told him how he had gotten into the building and held up a key ring with two keys attached. “These open the downstairs door from the garage and upstairs, which turned out to be a room full of computers and electronics. The computers are stacked in rows, and put together, they approximate a supercomputer. There are fifty of them.”

  “If you want a supercomputer, why not just buy one instead of stringing together fifty other computers?”

  “They’re making themselves a semi-supercomputer because buying a supercomputer isn’t all that easy. First of all, they cost tens of millions of dollars, and people like IBM are not going to take an order for a supercomputer from some schmuck who wanders in off the street with a checkbook. The government wants to know who owns these things and what they’re doing with them. The National Security Administration, down at Blackstone, in Virginia, wants to know about them, too, because they’re going to want to break into the new supercomputer at the first opportunity and find out what’s in it. On the other hand, anybody can buy a bunch of desktops from a dozen suppliers and build their own semi-supercomputer. And they may not need a supercomputer for their specific needs. Something less will do nicely for thousands of applications.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Stone said. “Why do the Thomases want their own semi-supercomputer?”

  “Well,” Bob said, “I found a schematic of their systems, which I copied on the copying machine I ostensibly went there to service, which didn’t need servicing. There are actually two semi-supercomputers in the building—one serving the upper floors, where the banking business is operated, and another one serving a big room on the ground floor where there are thirty or forty computer stations hooked up to it, with as many people working like beavers on them.”

  “For what purpose?” Stone asked.

  “You remember a couple of minutes ago, I said I found everything and nothing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, the everything part is the two semi-supercomputers. The nothing part is what they’re doing on them.”

  “Well, shit,” Stone said.

  “Now, don’t get your shorts in a twist,” Bob said. “I have a plan.”

  “What is your plan?” Stone asked.

  “I’m going to add another computer to the downstairs semi-supercomputer, one that I can use to operate the whole thing and see everything that’s going on in there.”

  “I like the sound of that. How are you going to do it?”

  “I’m going to buy a computer just like the fifty they’re working on, copy their operating system and files to it, and make myself a system operator, which will allow me inside.”

  “Can you be up and running tomorrow?”

  “Hey, wait a minute! I’ve got a ton of work to do there, including establishing a wireless link from the semi-supercomputer to my pirate computer, and I’ve got to locate that somewhere and make it impenetrable to their system operators if they sniff out the pirate, who is me, and impossible to locate. I also have to not get caught fucking with their computers while I’m setting up this stuff. For all I know, they may have a torture chamber buried in the bowels of that building, where intruders go to talk, then die.”

  “All right, all right. Give me a timeline.”

  “First, I’ve got to go home and study their schematic until I’ve got it memorized.”

  “Go on, how long?”

  “I might be up and running by the end of next week.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Hey, what’s the hurry here? You want this done right, and find out what they’re doing? Or do you want it fucked up and me floating facedown in the East River?”

  “I want you alive and well and pumping information out of their semi-supercomputer and into yours, and I want a detailed description, in writing, of what they’re up to.”

  “Eventually, we’ll get there, but please remember that the Thomases probably spent a year getting that place up and running, and with an unlimited budget. Don’t expect the same from me in a week on your dime.”

  “Bob, you don’t have to reinvent what they’ve done.”

  “I know I don’t or I’d be asking you for two years and a few million bucks.”

  “As it is, what are you asking?”

  “Ten days and two hundred grand, and I’ll need half up front, to buy stuff.”

  “Done.” He buzzed Joan.

  “Yes, boss?”

  “Write Bob Cantor a check for a hundred thousand and bring it to him in my office.”

  “Now you’ve really got me curious,” she said.

  “Don’t ask any questions of either Bob or me,” he said.

  “Oh, shoot!” She hung up.

  Stone hung up. “Joan al
ways wants to know everything I’m doing.”

  “Stone,” Bob said, “Joan already knows everything you’re doing. She’ll figure this one out in no time.”

  “She better not.”

  “Now, I need a place to work that’s not in my home or office. How about your home or office?”

  “Well, I’ve got the New York Times investigative journalism department camped next door in my living and dining rooms, but I can put you upstairs in a bedroom. It’s important that the Times people not know about you and what you’re doing. If they are ever asked by a grand jury about it, it’s best that they can truthfully say they don’t know what the D.A. is talking about.”

  “Secrecy is all right with me,” Bob said. “After all, it’s going to be my dick in the wringer if I get caught.”

  “Bob, I can’t stress too much that, if it’s a choice between your getting caught and our getting this information, you come first. Feel free to cut and run at any moment.”

  Joan came in with a check, flapping it and blowing on it as if there were ink to dry. She handed it to Stone for his signature, then gave it to Bob. “Here you are, sir,” she said. “Go buy whatever your heart desires.”

  “That will be all for now, Joan,” Stone said wearily. “Leave Bob alone with his money.”

  “I’ve got to put something in the ‘for’ space on the computer, so the accountant will know how to deduct it,” she said.

  “Put in ‘tech support,’” Stone said. “Now beat it.”

  Joan beat it, and Bob headed for the garage and his truck.

  33

  Late that same afternoon, Congressman Henry Thomas II, known as Hank to his constituents and to everybody else, walked into the H. Thomas building and gave the security man at the front desk a cheerful wave.

  “Afternoon, Congressman,” the man yelled. “Did you just get into town?”

  Hank stopped, then went over to the desk. “Yes, Bernie, why do you ask?”

  “Well, you had a caller around lunchtime who said you’d been here since seven AM and that he had an appointment.”

  “At seven AM I was having breakfast in D.C.,” Hank replied. “Did you send him up?”