The Devil's Code

summarized everything we’d figured out. From the GPS receiver, I’d worked out precise locations of the three satellite dishes we’d seen, and the distances between them, and also gave him the directions, azimuths, and times I’d taken from the dish.
U NAUTHORIZED SATELLITE CONTACTS ?
    P OSSIBLE . C USTOMERS COULD GET HIGHRES PHOTOS VIA THE N ET WITH PAYMENTS SENT TO FRONT ACCOUNTS . N AMES IN J ACK ’ S FILE WERE ALL WEST AND SOUTH A SIA , I SLAMIC , AND I NDIAN .
    M UST BE SOME KIND OF ACCOUNTING ON TASKS . H OW COULD THEY TASK THE SATELLITE WITHOUT NRO KNOWING ?
    D ON ’ T KNOW .
    I WILL SHOW DISH DATA TO TWO FRIENDS IF OK WI TH YOU .
    M UST BE * GOOD * FRIENDS .
    B OTH * EXCELLENT * FRIENDS . B OTH KNOW SOME THINGS ABOUT SATELLITES .
    G OOD . A NY NEWS ON G REEN ?
    Y ES . A TTORNEY SEZ COPS PROBABLY DONE WITH G REEN .
    I S ROOM MONITORED ?
    W ILL CHECK .
    A LSO CHECK LICENSE PLATE  . . .
    I gave him the plate number and he said he’d get back. The next morning, we returned the truck, carefully wiped of fingerprints. The gun and other equipment we stowed in the back of the rental car.
    “I’d hate to have a cop look at that collection: night glasses, compasses, GPS, the rifle . . . he’d figure we were assassins,” LuEllen said as I put it all in the trunk.
    “Maybe we are,” I said. As the words came out of my mouth, I tried at the last minute to make them into a joke, but LuEllen looked at me with curious eyes. I had to be careful, now, around her.
    M ore waiting. We spent the day stooging around, checking with Bobby every couple of hours. LuEllen was tired of hitting golf balls with bad equipment.
    “Why don’t you learn how to play golf? We’re always waiting on these things, we’re always trying tofigure out what to do, and you always want to draw or some shit. Why don’t you learn something social?”
    “Golf is for morons,” I said.
    “How would you know? You’ve never played.”
    “If you don’t shut up, I’m going to have to turn you over my knee.”
    “Ooo. That could soak up a couple of hours,” she said.
    T he only thing we got from Bobby in the morning was the ID on the car driven by the two men from Corbeil’s ranch. A William Hart, with an address.
    “Back at the beginning of all this, I got a letter from Jack that mentioned this guy. He said to be careful around him, because he’s an evil fuck, or something to that effect.”
    “So let’s be careful around him,” LuEllen said.
    L ate in the day, Bobby had something:
C AN YOU GO TO L ITTLE R OCK ?
    Y ES ? W HEN , WHY ?
    T OMORROW . P ICK UP EQUIPMENT . N EED TO BUG DISH .
    OK.
    E XCELLENT . T ALKED TO ATTORNEY . G REEN ROOM [348] PROBABLY NOT FORMALLY MONITORED . M AN IN NEXT ROOM [350] NAMED M ORRIS K ENDALL , HEAVY DRUGSFROM CANCER , PROBABLY DIE IN A DAY OR TWO , IF YOU NEED TO ASK FOR PATIENT .
    T HANKS .
    We checked out of the Austin motel and headed back to Dallas, found another room in another anonymous motel, called the hospital for visiting hours, and were told we could visit until nine o’clock.
    “Tell me again what we can get from Green,” LuEllen said.
    “We can point out the benefits of stonewalling,” I said.
    “I’m sure he’s figured those out,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “You’ve got something else working through your dirty little mind.”
    I nodded, reluctantly. “Yeah, I do; but I’m not going to tell you about it yet, because it’d probably piss you off, and then you’d piss me off, and I don’t have the energy for all that. Anyway, tonight, I’m going into the hospital alone. I’ll want you on the street, ready to roll, in case there’s trouble.”
    “Kidd, if you think there’s gonna be trouble . . .”
    “I don’t think there will be, but I’m more paranoid than our two friends at Corbeil’s . . . Okay? Now, shut up for a while: I’m trying to think.”
    S omething else was working through my dirty little mind, and I didn’t want LuEllen to know about it. Not yet, anyway. I’d figured out how to drag AmMath and Corbeil and his goons right into the shit, but I didn’twant LuEllen around when I did it. Texas was a bad state for all this . . .
    I went into Mount of Olives Hospital at eight-thirty that night, with LuEllen waiting in a parking spot on a street behind the doctors’ parking lot. If I had to run for it, I probably wouldn’t get out of the building; but if I did, and I could make it across the doctors’ parking lot, we