The Devil's Code

million, the man said, was enough to take care of any realistic need.
    Corbeil made that his number: twenty-five million. When he reached that number, he would shut down the Old Man of the Sea, find a way to seal himself away from Woods and Hart and Benson. Then find something else to do, in a softer climate. Ibiza would be a candidate . . .
    He thought about Ibiza for a while, and then again about Woods and Hart and Benson. If something were to happen to Hart and Benson, and if Woods were to disappear with a large amount of cash, then conclusions might be drawn. Then, if Clipper died, as it appeared that it would, he could liquidate and find that something else.
    That would be a couple of years, yet. He was not yet halfway to his number . . .
    H art came back. “Talked to some guys, they’ll keep their ears open, but right now, nothing. The only talk about us, is, most of them have heard that Clipper is going down.”
    “Common knowledge,” Corbeil said. “I’ve been thinking about this whole problem. There is either a source of information about us, or the Ward woman knows something that we don’t. Maybe she had morefiles than we know about. Maybe Morrison made more than one entry. Maybe they were working together . . .”
    “Possible. But if all that was true, and if she’s giving her stuff to the NSA, why are they so confused? Why are they just sniffing around? They don’t really seem to know much. Maybe she’s just jacking us up, and is gonna come in with an offer . . .”
    “Doesn’t feel like it. If you two hadn’t lost her.”
    “Listen, when they made that switch, that was professional,” Hart said. “Where does a college professor get off spotting a beacon the size of an ice cube? I’m telling you . . .”
    Corbeil waved him off. “We’ve been through all that and she’s out of sight for the time being. The police say she’s coming here to look at the house and to pick up some of Morrison’s equipment and personal effects. You found MasterCard and American Express receipts in her house—maybe you can pick her up through her cards.”
    Hart nodded. “I’ll check.”
    Corbeil leaned back in his chair. “Somebody is working on us, William. Possibly the NSA, but it doesn’t feel like them. Strunk knew a few things, but there were holes in everything he knew. Questions didn’t follow any reasonable logic. He had bits and pieces, only bits and pieces.”
    “Gotta find Ward,” Hart said.
    “Find her, and look at her.”

 15 
    D allas was hot.
    Hot enough that the newspapers were whining about it. Unnaturally hot, for the time of year. When we got to the DFW car-rental building, which was a couple miles from the airport, a chunky redheaded woman dragged a bulky black suitcase up to the Hertz desk with a complaint about her bill. I didn’t hear the details of the complaint, but noticed that her blouse was soaked with sweat from the fifty-yard walk across the parking lot.
    We rented a thoroughly air-conditioned car, using one of LuEllen’s IDs, and got two rooms at the Ramada Inn. When we were settled, we drove to something called the West End Historic District, which turned out to be a fern-bar shopping district injected into a bunch of aging warehouses.
    The TrendDirect building, once a big, old red-brick warehouse, had been dressed up with modern black windows and new tuck-pointing. It stood alone on its own block. Part of the ground floor had been given over to an imposing lobby, with a glass wall separating the street from an interior done in old brick and new marble, with huge wooden beams crisscrossing overhead. A guard and reception desk sat to one side, a half circle of marble. We could see two heads behind it, but no details of the security.
    Except for the lobby, the front part of the building’s first floor was all retail—a couple of boutiques, a men’s formal-wear store, a sports-collectibles shop, a coffee shop and a beer-and-steaks restaurant on the corner.
    TrendDirect, a direct mail advertising company, occupied floors two through five, plus the back part of the first floor. Six and seven were a single law firm, eight was occupied by an ad agency. Nine and ten were AmMath.
    LuEllen had her game face on. “Ten stories,” she said, as we cruised the neighborhood.
    “Ten stories.”
    “Exactly.”
    T he front of the building was on a wide street, but faced a grassy square, and most of the traffic was local. Both side streets were narrow,