The Associate (36 page)

“Where are you?”

“I’m still in Providence.”

“Are you coming back to New York?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Need I remind you, young lady, that this is the third consecutive day in which you have not billed a single hour.”

“I take it you’re at the office.”

“Yes, racking up hours along with every other first-year grunt. Everyone’s here but you.”

“Fire me. Sue me. I don’t care.”

“You’ll never make partner with that attitude.”

“Promise?”

“I was thinking about dinner tonight. There’s a new restaurant in the East Village that just got two stars from Frank Bruni.”

“Are you asking me out for a date?”

“Please. We can split the check since we work for a gender-neutral firm.”

“You’re so romantic.”

“We could do the romance later.”

“So that’s what you’re really after.”

“Always.”

“I get in around seven. I’ll call you then.”

_________

Kyle clipped Trylon for twelve hours, then called a sedan for the ride to dinner. The restaurant had twenty tables, a Turkish menu, and no dress requirement, though jeans were preferred. After the two-star review by the
Times
the place was crowded. Kyle got a table only because there had been a cancellation.

Dale was at the bar sipping white wine and looking almost serene. They kissed, a peck on each cheek, then squeezed together and started talking about their Thanksgiving holidays as if they’d just had a month at the beach. Both of her parents taught mathematics at Providence College, and, though wonderful people, they had a rather dull existence. Dale’s gift for math led to a relatively quick Ph.D., but she began to fear she’d wind up much like her parents. The law beckoned her. The law, as portrayed in film and on television as nonstop excitement. The law, as the cornerstone of democracy and the front lines for so many social conflicts. She had excelled at law school, received offers from the top firms, and now, after
three months of practice, she sorely missed mathematics.

Later, at their table and still sipping wine, she was quick to confess some exciting news. “I had a job interview this morning.”

“I thought you had a job.”

“Yes, but it sucks. There’s a boutique firm in Providence, downtown in a beautiful old building. I got a job there one summer when I was in college, making copies and coffee and doing the general gofer routine. About twenty lawyers, half women, a general practice. I talked them into an interview on a Saturday morning.”

“But you have a cherished associate’s position with the largest firm in the world. What more could you want?”

“A life. The same thing you want.”

“I want to be a partner so I can sleep until 5:00 a.m. every day until I die at fifty. That’s what I want.”

“Look around, Kyle. Very few stay more than three years. The smart ones are gone after two. The crazy ones make a career out of it.”

“So you’re leaving?”

“I’m not cut out for this. I thought I was pretty tough, but you can have it.”

The waiter took their orders and poured more wine. They were side by side, in a narrow half booth with a view of the restaurant. Kyle’s hand was between her knees under the table.

“When are you leaving?” he asked.

“As soon as humanly possible. I practically begged for a job this morning. If I don’t get an offer, I’ll keep
knocking. This is madness, Kyle, and I’m checking out.”

“Congratulations. You’ll be the envy of our class.”

“What about you?”

“I have no idea. I feel as though I just got here. We’re all in shock, but it’ll wear off. It’s boot camp, and we’re still sore from the initial bruising.”

“No more bruises for me. I’ve collapsed once. It won’t happen again. I’m slacking off to fifty hours a week and I dare them to say something.”

“Go, girl.”

A platter of olives and goat cheese arrived, and they toyed with it. “How was York?” she asked.

“The same. I had lunch with my real mother and dinner with my next one, a quick deer hunt that killed nothing, and some long talks with my dad.”

“About what?”

“The usual. Life. The past. The future.”

_________

Nigel was present for the second meeting in a row, and long before Kyle arrived in the hotel suite, preparations had been under way. On a small desk, Nigel had set up a computer that looked very similar to those on the eighteenth floor. Next to it was a monitor that was identical to the one Kyle had stared at for twelve hours the day before.

“Are we close here, Kyle?” Nigel was singing away as he proudly revealed his copycat workstation. “Please have a seat.”

Kyle sat at the desk, with Bennie and Nigel watching every move.

“It looks very similar,” Kyle said.

“Just the hardware here, Kyle, as you know. Not crucial, but we’re trying to pinpoint the manufacturer, that’s all. Only the software matters, we know that. Are we off the mark?”

Neither the computer nor the monitor had markings or names or models or makers. They were as blandly generic as the ones they were trying to imitate.

“These are very close,” Kyle said.

“Look hard, man, and find something different,” Nigel pressed. He was beside Kyle, bent and staring at the screen.

“The computer is slightly darker in color, almost a gray, and it’s sixteen inches wide and twenty inches tall.”

“You measured, Kyle?”

“Obviously. I used a fifteen-inch legal pad.”

“Bloody brilliant,” Nigel exclaimed and seemed ready to hug Kyle. Bennie couldn’t hide a smile.

“It has to be a Fargo,” Nigel said.

“A what?”

“Fargo, Kyle, a specialty computer company in San Diego, big on government and military machines, tons of work for the CIA, big stout computers with more security and more gadgets than you can believe, I assure you of that. You won’t see one at the local mall, no sir. And Fargo is owned by Deene, a client of you know who. Old Scully protects its ass at a thousand bucks an hour.”

As Nigel chirped away, he hit a button on the keyboard. The screen became a page unlike any Kyle had ever seen. Nothing from Microsoft or Apple.

“Now, Kyle, tell me what the first page looks like. Anything remotely similar here?”

“No, not even close. The home page has one icon for the tutorial, but that’s it—no other icons, message boards, edit bands, format options, nothing but an index to the documents. You turn the computer on, get through the pass codes and passwords, then wait about ten seconds, and, presto, you’re into the library. No system profiles, no spec sheets, no home page.”

“Fascinating,” Nigel said, still staring at the monitor. “And the index, Kyle?”

“The index is a real challenge. It starts with broad divisions of documents, then it breaks down into sub-categories and subgroups and sub-this and sub-that. It takes some work to find the batch of documents you’re looking for.”

Nigel took a step back and stretched. Bennie moved closer and said, “Suppose you wanted to locate the research materials relating to the B-10’s air-breathing engines and the various types of hydrogen fuel that were tested. How would you get there?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been there yet. I’ve seen nothing about air-breathing engines.” The statement was true, but Kyle decided to draw a line at this point. With over four million documents in play, he could easily claim he had not seen whatever they were curious about.

“But you could find these materials?”

“I could find them quickly, once I knew where to look. The Sonic program is pretty fast, but there’s a ton of paper to sift through.”

Bennie’s movements were quick, his words a little more urgent than usual. Nigel was downright giddy
with Kyle’s information. It was obvious that his progress had them agitated.

“You were in the room yesterday?” Bennie asked.

“Yes, all day.”

“With a briefcase and a jacket?”

“Yes, both, no problem. There was one other briefcase. No one checks them.”

“When will you return to the room?” Bennie asked.

“The team meets in the morning, and there’s a good chance I’ll get another assignment. Monday or Tuesday for sure.”

“Let’s meet Tuesday night.”

“Can’t wait.”

N
ow that he was an official member of Team Trylon, Kyle had the honor of beginning each week with a 7:00 a.m. Monday chalk talk in a huge conference room he’d never seen before. After three months in the building, he still marveled at the meeting areas and balconies and tucked-away mezzanines and small libraries he was stumbling upon for the first time. The firm needed its own guidebook.

The room was on the forty-first floor and large enough to house many smaller law firms. The table in the center seemed as long as a bowling alley. Forty lawyers, give or take a few, crowded around it, gulping coffee and settling in for another long week. Wilson Rush stood at the far end and cleared his throat, and everyone shut up and froze. “Good morning. We’ll have our weekly session. Keep your comments brief. This meeting will last for one hour only.”

There was no doubt that they would leave at exactly 8:00 a.m.

Kyle was as far from Rush as possible. He kept his
head low and took furious notes that no one, not even himself, could have read afterward. Each of the eight partners stood in turn and gave succinct updates on such gripping topics as the latest motions filed in the case, the latest haggling over documents and experts, the latest moves by APE and Bartin. Doug Peckham presented his first report on a complicated discovery motion. It almost put Kyle and the others to sleep.

But Kyle stayed awake, and while scribbling on a legal pad, he kept telling himself not to smile at the absurdity of the moment. He was a spy, perfectly planted by his handler, and now within reach of secrets that were so important he could not comprehend their value. They were certainly valuable enough to cause men to commit murder.

Kyle glanced up as Isabelle Gaffney took her turn on the floor, and ignoring her words, he looked at the far end of the bowling lane, where Wilson Rush seemed to be glaring at him. Maybe not, there was so much distance between them, and the old man was wearing reading glasses, so it was hard to tell exactly whom he was frowning at.

What would Mr. Rush do if he knew the truth? What would Team Trylon and the hundreds of other Scully partners and associates do when they learned the truth about young Kyle McAvoy, former editor in chief of the
Yale Law Journal?

The consequences were horrifying. The magnitude of the conspiracy caused Kyle’s heart to hammer away. His mouth became dry and he sipped lukewarm coffee. He wanted to leap for the door, sprint down forty-one flights of stairs, and run through the streets of New York like a madman.

_________

During lunch he used the basement exit ploy and hustled over to the office of Roy Benedict. They chatted for a minute or two, then Roy said there were two people Kyle should meet. The first was his contact in the FBI, the second was a senior lawyer in the Department of Justice. Kyle nervously agreed, and they walked next door to a meeting room.

The FBI supervisor was Joe Bullington, an affable sort with a big toothy smile and hearty handshake. The man from Justice was Drew Wingate, as our-faced sort who acted as though he preferred not to shake hands at all. The four sat at a small conference table, Kyle and Roy on one side, the government guys on the other.

It was Roy’s meeting, and he took charge. “First of all, Kyle, how much time do you have?”

“About an hour.”

“I’ve laid it all on the table. I’ve had a dozen conversations with Mr. Bullington and Mr. Wingate, and it’s important now for us to review where we are. Joe, talk about the background on Mr. Bennie Wright.”

Always smiling, Bullington squeezed his hands together and began, “Yes, right, well, we ran the photo of this guy through our system. I won’t bore you with the details, but we have some very sophisticated computers that store facial images of millions of people. When we feed in a suspect, the computers search and scan, and in general do their thing. With Mr. Wright, or whoever he is, we came up with nothing. No hit. No clue. We then sent it to the CIA, and they conducted a similar search, different computers, different
software, same result. Nothing. We’re surprised, frankly. We were pretty confident we could identify this guy.”

Kyle was not surprised, but he was disappointed. He’d read about the supercomputers used by the intelligence services, and after a lifetime of living with Bennie, he really wanted to know who he was.

Bullington brightened a bit and went on: “Nigel might be a different story. We placed your composite of him into our system and came up empty. But the CIA got a probable hit.” Bullington opened a file, pulled out an eight-by-ten black and white, and handed it to Kyle, who immediately said, “That’s him.”

“Good. His real name is Derry Hobart, born in South Africa, raised in Liverpool, trained as a techie in the British intelligence services, got bounced ten years ago for hacking into the confidential files of some rich folks in Switzerland, generally regarded as one of the most brilliant hackers in the world. Brilliant, but a real rogue, a hired gun, warrants outstanding in at least three countries.”

“How much have you told these people?” Wingate asked. It was more of an accusation than a question. Kyle looked at his lawyer, who nodded and said, “Go ahead, Kyle. You’re not under any type of investigation. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I’ve given them the layout of the computer room, general stuff like that. Enough to keep them happy, but no data whatsoever.”

“Anyway,” Bullington said, “the other two composites turned up nothing. If I understand things, these two boys are just part of the surveillance and not that important.”

“That’s right,” Kyle said.

“Your composite of Mr. Hobart is remarkable, Kyle,” Bullington said.

“It’s from a Web site.
QuickFace.com
. Anybody could do it.”

“What’s your next step?” Wingate asked.

“We meet tomorrow night for an update. The plan is for me to somehow hack into the system, either download or divert the documents, and hand them over. I have no idea how this is supposed to be done. The computer system looks completely secure.”