Stone Barrington 27 - Doing Hard Time

accounts, addresses, loans, et cetera. He posits that if a hacker were really, really smart, he could hack into State Department computers and create passport records that would be indistinguishable from the real thing, so that a fake passport wouldn’t set off alarms at an airport.
    “Now, if he could do all that for CIA agents in the field, he could do it for himself, couldn’t he? And if you start looking for him, how are you going to get past all that custom-created background?”
    “Fingerprints or DNA,” Mike replied.
    “When Teddy left the Agency,” Dino continued, “he erased his fingerprint records from the CIA and FBI computers and erased every photograph of him on record.”
    “That makes it tougher.”
    “And who are you going to compare his DNA to? One of his old identities? Somebody who doesn’t exist anymore?”
    “I’ll tell you one thing,” Mike said, “I’d really like to hire this guy.”
    Stone and Dino burst out laughing. “I don’t think he’s job hunting,” Stone said.
    •   •   •
    Todd German woke late, had breakfast in bed, and watched an old movie on TV. At eleven-thirty, a package was delivered to his room. He took it into the bathroom, opened it, and looked at the contents: a gray, pulpy substance. He emptied the box into the toilet and flushed it. “Sorry, Igor,” he said aloud. “Think of it as a burial at sea.”
    He got dressed and packed and drove to LAX to catch his flight to Las Vegas.
    •   •   •
    Todd had just checked into his room at the New Desert Inn when the phone rang. “Yes?”
    “This is Majorov. Come up to my suite now.” He gave him the room number and hung up.
    Todd changed into fresh clothes and went in search of the suite. He rapped on the door, and it was opened by a large man in a suit.
    “You German?” the man asked.
    “Yes.”
    The man jerked a thumb in the direction of the next room. Todd walked into a book-lined study and found a man sitting behind the desk, reading a document.
    “Sit,” Majorov said, then he looked up and gave Todd a long, appraising once-over. “Tell me about Los Angeles.”
    Todd gave him a concise account of the events of his visit there.
    “So the police have no leads?”
    “No,” Todd said. “And I don’t think they’re going to find any.”
    “Why not?” Majorov said. “I thought American policemen never let go of murder cases.”
    “There isn’t anything to find. Billy Burnett doesn’t exist, at least, not anymore. He’s somebody else, now.”
    “We have an airplane tail number,” Majorov pointed out.
    “He’s already figured out that we’re trying to trace it, and he has, no doubt, already changed it.”
    “Is it so easy?”
    “With stick-on numbers, available at any graphics shop.”
    “I see. I want you to find this man.”
    “I don’t think I want that job,” Todd said.
    “Your mother would be shocked.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Your mother and I are first cousins,” Majorov said. “How do you think you got this job? With a degree from that . . .
university
?”
    Todd was shaken. “She told me that all her relatives are dead.”
    “She lied,” Majorov said. “Now tell me why you don’t want Igor’s job.”
    “I would be very pleased to have Igor’s job, but not the job of finding this Billy Burnett.”
    “Tell me why.”
    “Just look at what’s happened so far: he’s killed two of what Igor said are your best men and made them vanish from sight.”
    “Igor found them.”
    “Only because he knew where to look. And now Igor is dead, too. Burnett is smarter than Igor, or he would be dead and Igor still alive. I have to ask myself why you have become obsessed with finding this man. Is it just revenge over this hotel thing?”
    “In my business you don’t allow people to take advantage of you, and that’s what Burnett has done.”
    “And he will go on taking advantage of you until you stop looking for him. In fact, what he will do, if you continue to annoy him, is to cut the process short by simply killing you.”
    “You think he could do that?”
    “I walked in here without being searched,” Todd said. “I could be armed with a gun or a knife. Why do you think you are invulnerable? Igor thought that.”
    “You have a very smart mouth,” Majorov said. He was becoming irritated, not least because he knew the younger man was right. “Igor was paid four times as much as you,” he said, controlling his temper. “If you want