The Red Horseman (8 page)

Tall for a woman, she had the sleek look Of
solid, healthy muscle.

She colored slightly when she met the
admiral’s eyes. Feeling a touch of amusement,
Jake’s gaze returned to Toad Tark’ngton-

“What would you suggest?

“I’d like to go over to Langley and sweat
somebody.., “Who?”

“I’d start with Herb.”

“He wouldn’t tell You jack, even if he
knew anything to tell.” Jake sighed. He drained
the last of his beer, then sat the glass’out of the way.
“Got a phone book?”

“Sure.

“Let’s go calling. There is a fellow who works
at Langley that I’d like to talk to.

There were fourteen Richard HarPers and eleven
R. Harpers listed in the Washington metro
telephone directory.

Rita did the calling while Toad listened on
the living room extension.

She worked for a pizza company and they had lost a
delivery address.

“This won’t work if his wife answers,” Rita
pointed Ou.

“I don’t think he’s married,” Toad told
her. “He isn’t the type.”

“Oh, and what type is that?”

“Sensitive, warm, loving, wholesome, handsome,
sharing, caring-was

,Shut up. it’s ringing … Hello, Richard
Harper please … Mr. Harper, did you order a
pizza about a half hour ago? No? Well, a
Richard Harper on Gordon Street ordered a
large pepperoni and olive and our driver can’t find
the house .

She fell silent as the man on the phone
talked. From the living room Toad
signaled no. Rita made her excuses and
thanked him for his time.

They got lucky. They found him on the fifth
call. An address in Chevy Chase.

“Let’s go,” Jake said.

Richard Harper wasn’t going to invite them in.
Toad shoved the door open and pushed past him.
Jake Grafton followed. “It’s two in the
morning,” Harper squeaked.

“I know,” Toad Tarkington said. “But I
wanted you to meet my boss, Admiral
Grafton. Admiral, this is Richard Harper,
late of the DIA and now with Central Intelligence,
it. Jake stuck out his hand. Reluctantly
Richard Harper took While Harper was still wondering
how to handle this intrusion, Jake dropped into a chair
and turned on the light on the reading stand beside him.
“Let’s all sit down and visit a minute.”

Harper moved toward a chair, but he didn’t
sit. “This won’t take long,” Jake assured
him. Harper perched on the front edge of the seat.

Jake displayed his green military ID card and
his DIA office pass.

Harper refused to touch them. Jake made a show
of replacing the cards back in his pocket,
then began.

“There’s been a security violation at the DIA
and we’re trying to find the leak. We have to do this after
office hours since people don’t want to talk about their
colleagues at the office. You understand?”

Harper nodded reluctantly.

From Toad’s attache case Jake removed a
tape re corder-borrowed from Rita-and placed it
on a low table between himself and Harper. He pushed the
play button and made sure the tape was turning.
“This is Rear Admiral Jacob L.
Grafton.

It is now two oh seven A.m. on June
eighteen. I am interviewing Richard Harper. Mr
Harper, last Monday did You conduct a computer
search of CIA

records at the request of Lieutenant Commander
Robert Tarkington at the DIA computer
facilities? “Now wait a minutecom

“No, YOU wait a minute, Mr. Harper.
Sggsomeone revealed classified information about that
computer search to persons without access. Top
secret information has been corn Promised. This
is an official investigation. If You fail
to cooperate You can be dismissed from government
service and Prosecuted. Do You understand?”

Harper’s face contorted. A tear rolled down
his cheek.

“I’ve already been fired.”

“Say again.”

“The CIA fired me this afternoon. They found out about
My record.”

The two naval officers exchanged glances.
Jake reached Over and turned off the tape
recorder. “Maybe You’d better tell me about
it,” he murmured.

The recitation took most of an hour.
Periodically there were tears.

Richard Harper was twentally-seven and had been
fascinated with computers Since he was in high
school, just I for the cha lenge of it, he became a
hacker, a Person who breaks into industry and
government computer files for the sheer joy Of
outwitting the security devices that 2Uard the e
files. H had been caught Once while he was
in c”‘ggJege and received a suspended sentence. The
second time, when he planted a virus
Program, he bad gone to jail.

The computer industry refused to hire him.
Computers were his life and he was
blacklisted. He had managed to secure a
temporary appointment at DIA by lying on his
employment application. He knew the FBI would
learn the truth sooner or later, so when agents of the
CIA ap Prggached him about supplying them with
information about DIA Projects, he had agreed if
they wouggd

give him a permanent computer job. A month
went by, he supplied all the information they asked
for, including Toad’s bizarre request, and they had
him start work at Langley last week.

Then today they pretended to have just learned of his
previOUS convictions and fired him. It wasn’t
fair. He had quit the DIA, the CIA had
canned him, the FBI would eventually learn of his
record.

Computers were his whole life yet he couldn’t work
in computers.

“Do you have a computer setup here at home?”
Jake asked.

It was in the guest bedroom at the back of the little
house. There Jake and Toad were treated to a proud
recital of hard disk capacity, extended and
expanded memory, CPU speed, and all the rest of
it as they stared at screens, keyboards and the
innards of computers that were scattered everywhere.

“How good a hacker are you?” Jake asked.

I’m good ” Real good. If I hadn’t done that
virus way back when … And it was nothing, just
tidbits of zen philosophy that popped onto the
screen at holidays and all. It didn’t hurt
anyone and . . .”

Back in the living room, Jake told Harper,
“I have a job for you. I can’t promise a
permanent job at the DIA until we get a
final FBI check and go over it line by line. But
I can pay you by the hour on a temporary basis if
you can do this job.

It would be here at home, on your own equipment.”

Harper was enthusiastic. Yes. He agreed before
he even knew what the job was. Jake felt as
if he were throwing a rope to a drowning man. He
thought he had the authority to hire Harper on a
temporary basis, but if it turned out he didn’t
he would pay him out of his own pocket.

“I want you to find a river of money,” Jake
said, intently watching Harper’s face, “a
subterranean river flowing through the world banking
systems. The task won’t be easy. I’m not even
sure that you will be able to recognize the river
when you see it. The mouth of the river is in Moscow,
but I don’t have any idea where it begins.”

“Banks?”

“Banks.”

“I’ll need computer access telephone
numbers, user names and passwords.

If I go after that stuff myself they’ll be on to me
in hours.”

“I thought-was

“Hackers get in!computers by conning the phone
number and codes out of somebody. I can do that. But
I can’t do it three dozen times and get away with it.
The National Security Agency has that stuff.
They monitor bank transactions on a daily
basis.”

“If NSA has it, we can get it,” Jake
said, glancing at Toad.

“You give me that stuff, and if the money is there,
I’ll find it,” Harper said confidently. Too
confidently, Jake Grafton thought.

“Don’t be so quick to make promises. And I
don’t want anyone to know you’re looking.”

“Maybe you’d better tell me what I’m
supposed to he looking for so I’ll know it when I
see it.”

Fifteen minutes later Harper knew everything
Jake did, which was precious little. So Jake
devoted another hour to discussing the possibilities
and the probabilities. “The problem,” he told
Harper, “is that I don’t know who I can trust.
I’ve got to trust my boss, but who else? I
can’t call friends in the FBI, in the CIA, people
I’ve known for years.

If there is a small cabal in the CIA,
only the people involved know it is a cabal. Everyone
else thinks they are doing their duty when they report
conversations, fill out reports, do what they are
told to do.

That’s the problem.”

“How do you want me to report toyou?” Harper
asked.

“Well, written reports would be okay.
Mail them to my wife. She’ll see that I get
them wherever I am. I may be out of town for a few
weeks.”

He gave Harper his address.

When Jake and Toad left at four in the
morning, Rita was asleep on the front seat of the
car.

Under the streetlight Toad said, “I have
a real bad feeling about this, Admiral. If
Harper steals money or screws up some accounts, you
and I will end up in prison.”

“I hope they give us separate cells,”
Jake told him. “A rear admiral ought to rate
a private cell.”

YLTSIN SAID yFs. Two HOURS AGO
muttered.

“Sure took him long enough,” Jake
Grafton if I were sitting on all those weapons
I’d have got a hot seat months ago.”

General Brown consulted his watch-

“Fifteen hours ago ere attacked. The
Russian government two army bases w guns,
artillery, APCS and says the attackers stole
machine at’l'east ten truckloads of
ammuniti0nTruckloads?”

“Yeah,” General Brown said. “They killed
sixty s tdiers blew up all but the trucks at
one base, fifty at another, and and APC’S they
drove out.”

Who?” . Maybe Criminal gangs, maybe
Armey.

“They aren’t sure Idiers who are starting their
nians again. Maybe some ex-sO d to the
map On own private army. I General Brown
steppe nted. “Here and here.”

the wall and Poi eat, he said, “The CIA’S
man When he had resumed his s went over
yesterday.”

“Tenney?”

“Yes. He’ll meet you at the embassy.
Ambassador Lancaster will brief you. The
president wants the nukes neutralized and the
Russian government strengthened. Talk to those people.
Let us know what you need to do the job.”

Jake Grafton didn’t laugh. it was too
ridiculous for that.

How in hell had he gotten into the middle of this
mess?

“And,” General Brown continued, “if You can
Piss on any Of those Outlaw or rebel
gangs, that’ll be all right too.”

His stomach felt like there was a rock in it.
“Yessir,” he managed.

“The air force will have a C-141 at Andrews in
six hours.

Be on it.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Albert Sidney Brown came around the
desk and held out his hand. “Good luck, Admiral.

“Don’t worry, sir. I’ll take my
rabbit’s foot along.”

“You’re going to need more than a rabbit’s foot,-
Callie told Jake as she passed him aspirin
and toilet articles to Put in his bag. He had just
mentioned his Parting remark to General Brown. She
didn’t think it was very funny. As she watched him
stuff underwear around his Smith and Wesson com357
Magnum and shoulder holster, she tartly added,
“You’re also going to need more than that little Popgun.”

She pushed her hair back out of her eyes.
“Oh, You men!

Jetting off into the middle of a revolution. It’s
so damn Pathetic.”

“It isn’t really a revolution,” her husband
replied as he folded underwear around a box Of
Pistol ammunition and added it to the bag.

“Yeltsin’s still in the driver’s seat, still in
control.

*’For how long? What does anyone think you and
Toad can really accomplish?”

“Oh, we’ll have some help. Too much
probably.

we can just prod the Russians into- But
if

“Don’t change the subject,” Callie said
sharply. “You know precisely what I mean. Even
with the entire United States Army over there You’d
still be outnumbered ten to one. Sending you and Toad over
there is some kind of insane joke.”

“UmPh,” Jake grunted.

Toad Tarkington’s opinion had been more
colorful but

“Once ag no more optimistic: ain our
politicians are saving the world from foreign
politicians stupider than they are.

And we nincompoops in uniform smartly salute
and grab ankles. BOHICA!”

Ah yes, that lovely old acronym,
BOHICA-BEND Over, Here It Comes Again.

Callie jerked a pair of trousers away from him
that he was rolling up.

She folded them carefully and handed them back.
“Not that they’ll send the entire army,” she said.

“You’ll be lucky to get two privates and a
corporal. One of the privates will he the cook and the
other will peel potatoes. Presumably the
corporal will have a few minutes a day to help you and
Toad when he isn’t busy supervising the
privates.”

She sat heavily. “Oh, Jake. Why you?”

He sat down beside her and took her in his arms.

“Everything will work out. It always does.”

“No. Everything doesn’t always work out. I’m
really tired of hearing that trite little phrase.”

“You know me, Callie,” Jake Grafton
said. “Trust me.”

“Hey, babe. It’s me, Toad. We’re
leaving today.”

“Now?” Rita asked.

Toad gripped the telephone tightly.
“Plane leaves Andrews at six,”

“I’ll see if I can get the rest of the day
off,” she said.

“You’re at home?

“Yeah. Packing.”

“If I don’t call in ten minutes I’m on
my way home.”

“Okay. I I “I have a bad feeling about this,
Toad.”

“It’ll be okay.”

“I love Y.”

“I know that, babe. And I love you.”

“See you in a white.”

The C-141 headed north on the great circle
route to Moscow. After it climbed above the stratus
clouds covering the East Coast of the United
States, it flew in a clear sky illuminated by the
sun low on the horizon.