The Traders' War (Merchant Princes Omnibus 2) (17 page)

A lot had happened in twelve weeks. The assorted federal agents who had been sucked into the retreat in Maryland had acquired a name, a chain of command, a mission statement,
and a split personality. In fact it was, thought Mike, a classic example of interdepartmental politics gone wrong, or of the blind men and the elephant, or something. Everyone had an idea about how
they ought to work on this situation, and most of the ideas were incompatible.

‘It’s not just Smith,’ Pete complained from the other side of his uncluttered desk. ‘I am getting the runaround from
everyone
. Judith says she’s not
allowed to use agency resources to cross-fund my research request without a directive from the Department of Justice – she’s ass-covering – Frank says the County Surveyor’s
Office isn’t allowed to release the information without a FOIA, and Smith says he wants to help but he’s not allowed to because the regs say that data flows into the NSA, never
out.’

Days of running around offices trying to get a consensus together were clearly taking their toll on Pete Garfinkle. Mike nodded wearily. ‘Have you tried public sources?’

‘What? Architecture websites? Property developers’ annual reports, that kind of thing? I could do that, but it’d take me weeks, and there’s no guarantee I’d spot
everything.’ Pete’s shoulders were set, tense with frustration. ‘We’re cops, not intelligence analysts, Mike, isn’t that right? I mean, except for you, babysitting
source Green-sleeves. So we sit here with our thumbs up our asses while the big bad spooks run around pulling their national security cards on everybody. I can’t even requisition a goddamned
report on underground parking garages in New Jersey that’ve been fitted with new security doors in the past six months! And this is supposed to be a goddamned joint intelligence task
force?’

‘Chill out.’ It came out more sharply than Mike had intended. ‘You’ve got me doing it too, now. Listen, let’s go find a Starbucks and unwind, okay?’

‘But that means –’ Pete rolled his eyes.

‘Yeah, I know, it means checking out of the motel. So what? It’s nearly lunchtime. We’ve
almost certainly
got time to sign out before we have to sign back in again.
Come on.’

Mike and Pete cleared their cramped two-man office. It wasn’t a simple process: nothing was simple, once you got the FBI and the NSA and the CIA and the DEA all trying to come up with
common security standards. First, everything they were reading went into locked desk drawers. Then all the stationery supplies went into another lockable drawer. Then Mike and Pete had to
cross-check each other’s locked drawers before they could step outside into the corridor, lock the office door, and head for the security station by the elevator bank. FTO – the Family
Trade Organization – was big on compartmentalization, big on locks, big on security – big on just about everything except internal cooperation. And big on the upper floors of
skyscrapers, where prices were depressed by the post-9/11 hangover and world-walker assassins were considered a greater threat than hijacked jets.

The corridor outside was a blank stretch punctuated by locked doors, some with red lights glowing above them, the walls bare except for security-awareness posters from some weird NSA
loose-lips-sink-ships propaganda committee. Mike made sure to lock his door (blue key) and spun the combination dial before he headed toward the elevator bank. The last door on the corridor was
ajar. ‘Bill?’ asked Pete.

‘Pete. And Mike.’ Bill Swann nodded. ‘Got something for me?’

‘Sure.’ Mike held out his keys, waited for Bill to take them – and Pete’s – and make them disappear. ‘Going for lunch, probably back in an hour or so,’
he said.

‘Okay, sign here.’ Swann wasn’t in uniform – nobody at FTO was, because FTO didn’t exist and blue or green suits on the premises might tip some civilian off –
but somehow Mike didn’t have any trouble seeing him as a marine sergeant. Mike examined the proffered clipboard carefully, then signed to say he’d handed in the keys to his office at
12:27 and witnessed Bill returning them to the automatic key access machine – another NSA-surplus security toy. ‘See you later, sirs.’

‘Sure thing, I hope.’ Pete whistled tunelessly as he scribbled his chop on the clipboard.

‘Dangerous places, those Starbucks.’

‘You gotta watch those double-chocolate whipped cream lattes,’ Pete agreed as they waited at the elevator door. ‘They leap out at you and attack you. One mouthful and
they’ll be rolling you into pre-op for triple bypass surgery. Crack your rib cage just like the alien in, uh,
Alien
.’

‘Mine’s a turkey club,’ said Mike, ‘and a long stand. Somewhere where . . .’ The elevator arrived as he shrugged. They stood in silence on the way down. The
elevator car had seen better days, its plastic trim yellowing and the carpet threadbare in patches: the poster on the back wall was yet another surplus to some super-black NSA security-awareness
campaign.
We’re at war and the enemy is everywhere
.

‘Do you ever get a feeling you’ve woken up in the wrong company?’ he asked Pete as they crossed the lobby.

‘Frequently. Usually happens just before her husband gets home.’

‘Gross Moral Turpitude ’R’ Us, huh? Does Nikki know?’

‘Just kidding.’

Pete’s marriage was solid enough that he could afford to crack jokes. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘I know, I know . . .’ Pete paused while they waited at the crosswalk outside. It was a hot day, and Mike wished he’d left his suit coat behind. ‘Let’s go. Listen,
it’s the attitude thing that’s getting to me. The whole outlook.’

‘Cops are from Saturn, spooks are from Uranus?’

‘Something like that.’ Pete’s eyebrows narrowed to a solid black bar when he was angry or tense. ‘Over there.’ He gestured down a side street lined with shops, in
the general direction of Harvard Square. ‘It’s a cultural thing.’

‘You’re telling me. Different standards of evidence, different standards on sharing information, different attitudes.’

‘I thought it was our job to roll up this supernatural crime syndicate,’ Pete complained. ‘Collect evidence, build cases, arrange plea bargains and witness support where
necessary, observe and induce cooperation, that sort of thing.’

‘Right.’ Mike nodded. A familiar Starbucks sign; there was no queue round the block, they’d made their break just in time to beat the rush. ‘And the management have got
other ideas. Is that what you’re saying?’

‘We’re cops. We think of legal solutions to criminal problems. Smith and the entire chain of command above us are national security. They’re soldiers and intelligence agents.
They work outside the law – I mean, they’re governed by international law, the Geneva conventions and so on, but they work outside our domestic framework.’ He broke off.
‘I’ll have a ham-and-cheese sub, large regular coffee no cream, and a danish.’ He glanced at Mike. ‘I’m buying this time.’

‘Okay.’ Mike ordered; they waited until a tray materialized, then they grabbed a pair of chairs and a table in the far corner of the shop, backs to the wall and with a good view of
the other customers. ‘And you figure they’re making it difficult because they’re not geared up to share national security information with domestic police agencies, at least not
without going through Homeland Security.’

‘Home of melted stovepipes.’ Pete regarded his coffee morosely. ‘It’s frustrating, sure, but what really worries me is the policy angle. I’m not sure we’re
getting enough input into this. NSC grabbed the ball and the AG is too busy looking for pornographers under the bed and jailing bong dealers to have time for the turf war. Wouldn’t surprise
me if they’ve classified it so he doesn’t even know we exist, or thinks we’re just another drug ring roundup embedded in some sort of counter-terrorist operation Wolf Boy and
Daddy Warbucks are running.’

Mike blew on his coffee cautiously, then took a sip. ‘I’m not sure they’re wrong,’ he admitted.

‘Not sure – hmm?’

‘Not sure they’re right, either.’ Mike shrugged. ‘I just know we’re not tackling this effectively. It’s the old story: if the only tool you’ve got is a
hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Matt’s former associates are a problem, okay? Only we can’t get at them, can we? Which leaves policing techniques to get them the hell out of
our home turf. So why the emphasis on the military stuff? I half suspect some guys who know a lot more than us figure that this
is
a situation which merits military force. It sure
doesn’t look like something we can do more than a holding action against from here, at any rate.’

‘I don’t agree. We’ve got to track down those safe houses they’re still using. What Matt said about them being short of couriers – it’s got to start hurting
them sooner or later! If we can capture enough of them, we can stop them.’

Mike shook his head. ‘If we do that, it just starts up all over again a generation later,’ he said slowly. ‘Unless we can get at their home turf. Which is a military, not a
policing, solution. It may look like magic, but there’s got to be some kind of way to do whatever they do, hmm? Bet you that’s what the Los Alamos guys are into us for. Although whether
they get anywhere . . .’

‘Could be.’ Pete sat back and scanned the shop one more time. ‘It’s getting a bit crowded in here. How’s the home life?’

‘Oh, you know.’ Mike got the message, put his plate down. ‘The cat thinks I’m a stranger, there’s a layer of dust thick enough to ski on in the rec room, and my
neighbors phoned the cops last time I went home because they thought I was a burglar. How ’bout you?’

‘Huh. You need to get a girlfriend.’

‘Not really.’ Mike stirred his coffee. ‘The job tends to put the good ones off.’

‘Like, what was she called? That journalist you were seeing last year, or whenever it was.’

‘Drop it, Pete.’

Pete stared at him. ‘Getting you down, huh?’

‘I said, drop it.’ Mike looked up. ‘Do
you
have a life? Or is it just me?’

‘Wherever I hang my hat, there’s my home. That’s what Nikki tells me, anyway. Mostly I use the hook on the back of the office door. If I was earning overtime . . .’

‘I’m saving up my vacation days.’ Mike finished his coffee. ‘When we get this under control I’m going to – I don’t know. Get a life, I guess. Nine years
and I could do the early retirement thing, head south and get a boat and go fishing forever. Except at this rate there won’t be enough of me left to do any of that.’

‘You’ve got to stop putting everything into the job,’ Pete advised. ‘At least, take a couple of evenings a week to have a life. You about finished?’

‘Nearly.’ Pete drained his coffee and pulled a face. ‘Let’s take a hike. I could do with some fresh air before I go back.’

They were half a block away before Pete said it. ‘Loose lips, Mike. I know’ – he waved off Mike’s answer before it began – ‘it’s just not office
politics as usual, is it?’

‘No, it is not.’ Mike chose his next words with care. ‘Your data-mining hunt. Do you think they’re giving you the runaround deliberately?’

‘No, I –’ Pete paused. ‘No, it’s not deliberate. I think what it is, is they’ve got you riding herd on Greensleeves and they had to find something to keep me
out of trouble as I was in on that first debrief. But they don’t expect to tackle this as a civil law enforcement problem, so they’re not giving me any backup. You, they can use.
Intelligence, in a word.’ He shrugged. ‘It makes me mad,’ he added offhand.

‘If they’re not looking at it as a civil law enforcement problem, how do you think they’re going to deal with it?’

‘I don’t know. And that gives me a very bad feeling.’

*

If the altitude doesn’t give you a nosebleed, the interagency catfights will do it every time
, Mike reflected mordantly as he waited at the elevator bank in the
Boston office. He sniffed, mildly annoyed with himself. He’d only just got back from his lunch and chat with Pete, and had just about made up his mind to do something in the evening –
some propitiatory gesture in the direction of
having a life
, like phoning his sister Lois (in Boulder, safely distant) or renting a movie – when his insecure phone rang. ‘Mike?
Deirdre here. Can you come up to the meeting room, please? Eric would like a word with you.’ ‘Eric’ – Colonel Smith – was one rung above him on the embryonic org
chart, and the colonel was more likely to give him a headache than offer him a Tylenol. Odds were high that the phone call meant he’d be working as late as usual tonight.
Bad cop, no
life
. It was like being on a homicide case twenty-four/seven.

The twenty-first floor had once been mahogany row, back when these offices had belonged to a dot-bomb. FTO had leased them cheap, from the sixth floor up. Everything below ten was a red zone
– at risk of enemy incursion. Mike’s destination was the office meeting room. It bore a red security seal, but there was no combination lock – it was a meeting room, not a High
Security Portal leading to an NSA-style Vault Type Room. FTO didn’t have enough secrets yet to fill a bucket of warm spit, much less a multimillion-dollar bank vault in the penthouse of an
office block. It was a sign, in Mike’s opinion, of how badly the whole business was going. Or of how starved they were for intelligence.

Mike hit the buzzer outside the door, next to the small CCTV lens. ‘Mike Fleming, as requested. You wanted to see me?’

‘Come in, Mike.’ Smith normally tried to be friendly but sounded unusually reserved today. Taking his cue, Mike straightened up as the door opened.

Despite not being a full VTR, the meeting room was about as friendly as Dracula’s crypt – no windows, air-conditioning ducts and ceiling and floor tiles made out of transparent Lexan
so you could check them visually for bugs, white-noise generators glommed against every flat resonant surface to confound any bugging devices. It hummed and whistled like an asthmatic air
conditioner, mumbling to itself incessantly to drown out any secrets the conferees might let slip. Meetings in the crypt always sounded like a conference of deaf folks:
Eh, what? Would you
repeat that?