The Hanged Man's Song

Bobby’s backup DVDs but they are encrypted. The current holder of the laptop is launching attacks signed Bobby. Apparently not all files are encrypted; we are trying to recover it. We are searching for a man named James Carp, a former employee of U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee who we believe now holds the laptop and is launching the attacks. Any help appreciated. We believe it necessary to find Carp before government agents. Believe agents already searching for him.
    —Estragon
    I dumped it with a return address, and then went looking in another direction. We had all of his credit card numbers from the bills we’d found at his place. Credit card databases are basic stuff, and I checked the ones I had for card activity: as far as I could tell, he hadn’t used a credit card for a month.
    LuEllen had the inspiration: “Check his mom’s cards.”
    I did, and immediately found a Shell card that was getting activity. It had been used the afternoon of the shooting—once, an hour later, near Slidell. Had he gone back to his mother’s place, or was he just heading east on I-10? No way to know from just that. But the next use of the card was at a pump in Meridian, Mississippi, way north on I-59. Then, the next morning—just about the time Marvel had been screaming at us about John—he’d used it to charge gas and food in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
    “Going north,” I said. “Going fast.”
    “Headed for Washington.”
    “Maybe.”
    >>> A HALF-HOUR had passed by the time we finished with the credit cards, and I went back to my dump site. We found a note from Lemon:
Estragon:
    YOU MUST RECOVER THE LAPTOP. When I was online with Bobby, he rapidly accessed multiple encrypted laptop files, I believe with encryption codes kept on the laptop itself. I don’t know how codes were kept, but maybe disguised as another encrypted file. While Carp may not be able to use them, any encryption center would break them out almost immediately, if that is how they are disguised. GET THE LAPTOP. I will search for Carp and advise at this address. Much Carp information online. He maintains current address at 1448 Clay Street, Apt. 523, Washington, D.C.
    I went back with the three e-mail addresses we had for Carp, suggested that Lemon monitor them, but not give away his presence:
We maybe try to find Carp for face-to-face using e-mail, if nothing else works.
    He was back in a second:
Will do that, will begin research now. You go to Washington?
    I went back:
Think so. Will advise. Will check here every six hours.
    He said,
Who did burning cross?
    I said,
We did—wanted FBI investigation, so we could monitor. Monitoring now, they find nothing, but should start working on Bobby angle.
    He said,
Okay. Will get back in six hours.
    >>> “ARE we going to Washington?” LuEllen asked.
    “Tell you in a minute. I’m gonna run a little check on this Lemon stuff.”
    I went back out, looked in a couple of databases, and came up with a phone bill—a big phone bill—for Carp at the Clay Street address in Washington. “There it is,” I said.
    “So . . .”
    “Everything goes there,. Carp’s headed that way, Lemon says he has a current apartment there, and so does AT&T, and there’s this working-group thing. I think that’s where it’ll happen.” Iturned and put my arm around her shoulder. “But it’s getting a little strange for a simple burglary wench,” I said.
    “I’ll hang on for a while longer. Guy’s starting to piss me off.”
    >>> BACK in Longstreet, we lost John, which we’d expected. Marvel, arms crossed, said, “I’m putting my foot down. If John gets killed, I’ll have to find work to support the kids. To do that, I’ll have to go out of town and the whole Longstreet project goes down the drain. So I’m telling him, No. ”
    John looked abashed, the guy who didn’t want to appear to be under his wife’s thumb, but who knew she was right. I couldn’t see any reason for him to come with us. “It’s all gonna be computer stuff at this point. If we need help carrying a body, we’ll give you a ring.”
    “Do that,” he said. But I think he wanted to come.
    >>> WE LEFT for Washington the next morning, driving. We were driving because that’s about the only anonymous way to travel around the U.S. Everything else will wind up in a database.
    Even by car, anonymity is tough: if you pay for motels or gas with credit cards, if you speed and get a ticket, if you use your cell phone, you’re gonna be on a