The Devil's Code

things to do here, but we’ll be in Dallas the day after tomorrow. Or the day after that, not later than. You could surprise themsomehow, get out to the airport, ditch the car, get on a plane.”
    “What if they’ve got people in Dallas?”
    “Fly to Seattle first,” I suggested.
    “All right; I’ll talk to Lane about it.”
    “How is she?”
    “Antsy. But here, you talk to her.”
    Lane came on and I told her about Jack and Lighter, that Jack may have found something at AmMath that needed Lighter’s attention. She didn’t immediately pick up on the problem of the second trip.
    “I knew something was going on,” she said. “If Jack was talking to this guy, and this guy was killed, then we’ve got to tell somebody. This proves it. That something was going on with AmMath.”
    “It doesn’t prove anything in particular,” I said. “And the second trip—that’s a problem.”
    “I don’t see a problem. The guy—”
    “They’ll say Jack shot him,” I said.
    That stopped her only for a few seconds: “But we know he didn’t,” she argued. “He wouldn’t do that.”
    “They’ve got a gun in Texas that was stolen in San Jose years ago. They’ve got witnesses who say he was the shooter, and one of those witnesses took a bullet in the chest. Now, if they ever get around to looking, they can show that he flew into Baltimore late in the afternoon—after working hours—and flew back the next morning. His NSA contact was murdered right in the middle of that time period, and he never said a word about it to anyone.”
    That stopped her for a little longer: “Okay. Thatsounds bad. When you put it that way. But maybe he didn’t even know about it . . .”
    “There’s another problem. If we pass information to the FBI . . . where did we get it?”
    “We could finesse that. An anonymous call from Dallas . . .”
    “All right, we could figure something out. Maybe we’ll do it. But later. When the information doesn’t look so incriminating. Or when there’s something else to go with it.”
    H ow are the burns?” I asked.
    “The bad ones are peeling, like a heavy tan. The lighter ones are almost gone. Not much pain anymore. Everything itches like crazy.”
    “Have you talked to the Dallas cops again?”
    “Yup. The lead detective of the case called today and wanted me to fly out. I told him it’d be a couple of days yet and got on his case about AmMath again.”
    “How’re you fixed for cash?” I asked.
    “I’m okay. You need some?”
    “No. But get Green to use his credit cards when you go to Dallas, and give him cash to pay him back. They don’t know who he is, so they won’t be able to track him using his credit cards. Take your cell phone.”
    “Of course. Where’re you guys going?”
    “We’ve got some more research to do here and then we’ll hook up with you in Dallas. Stay with the phone . . .”
    I have never been a particularly good sleeper. My sleep/wake cycle is about twenty-five hours long, so I tend to push the clock around, until I’m sleeping all day and working all night. Then I just keep pushing. In any case, seven hours is about right: anything shorter than that and I tend to get grumpy.
    I got fairly grumpy when LuEllen ran her cold fingers up my spine at eight o’clock in the morning; I nearly bounced off the ceiling, which she thought was moderately hilarious.
    “You’re gonna give me a fuckin’ heart attack some day,” I snarled at her, and there were some teeth behind the snarl. I didn’t like her sneaking up on me. “How’d you get in?”
    “The lock is shit,” she said.
    “Wonderful, that’s just fuckin’ great. You give me an aneurysm because you want somebody to talk to at breakfast.”
    “No, no. I had some seriously bad news to share with you, but you’re being such a mean asshole that I’m not going to do it,” she said. She crossed her arms.
    “What news?”
    “Say please.”
    “Give me the fuckin’ news or I’ll breathe on you.”
    “The feds busted Bobby,” she said.
    “What?” The news left me completely disoriented. “Where’d you get this? Who called?”
    “It’s on TV. They busted him last night and he’ll bearraigned today in federal court in New Orleans. They say he’s involved in the attacks on the IRS and that the attacks are continuing.”
    “Sonofabitch.” I fumbled the TV remote off the nightstand and punched up CNN. At the same time, I asked LuEllen, “Did you bring the cold