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Letty: “Right.”
“I’ve been around the intelligence community six years, and I can tell you, there’s something else going on. I think we all know what it is,” Cartwright said.
“You’re right: we do know,” Baxter said.
“Let me say it,” Letty said. “They knew about the gas thing and sold it to Senator Colles and Baxter and me, but their main interest was the train hack. The gas thing was a way to get at Ordinary People and get Baxter to go along. He might not have done that if they’d told him he had to fight the Russians. What they really want is a bunch of hackers who already know how to mess with the Russian rail system but have no connection to the government. Ordinary People are not only deniable, but even arrestable if they complain too much.”
“Got it in one,” Cartwright said. “I’d be amazed if that’s not what your Ms. Nowak has been up to the whole time. We represent a small investment for what could be a huge return. A small investment forthem, not us.”
“We could tell them we’re bailing,” Letty said. “Just not give them a choice.”
“And I could kiss my career good-bye,” Baxter said.
“So could I,” Cartwright said.
“Wouldn’t do me any good, either,” Letty said.
They sat in silence for a moment, then Baxter said, “So we keep on keepin’ on, though I’ll probably get killed.”
“I don’t see that we have much choice,” Letty said. To Baxter: “We’ll miss you when you’re gone.”
They dropped Cartwright at the CVS pharmacy on Melrose, with directions to the banana tree that Letty had used to hide from Barron and Wolfe. They gave her ten minutes to get settled, then headed for Able’s.
“I’m surprised the guy’s still here. He seemed determined to get out, when I talked to him at Poggers,” Baxter said.
At Able’s, Letty forgot the cane and knee brace, and after knocking on the door, and identifying herself, she walked inside with Baxter, and Able looked at her and frowned and asked, “What happened with your knee?”
Letty looked down and all she could come up with was an old Monty Python line, “Got better,” and, a beat later, “Hurts bad either way. I left the cane and brace in the car, to take a break.”
Baxter was carrying one of the boxes they’d stolen from the warehouse. He said, “I think I know what these are, but I wanted an expert to look at them.”
He put the box on top of Able’s washing machine and Able cut it open with a kitchen knife. Letty fished out one of the smaller boxes, and shook out one of the smallest and handed it to Able, who opened it and said, “Wait! The whole box is full of these?”
“We’ve got six boxes full of these,” Letty said.
“If they’re all the same...” He rummaged through the box.“There are twenty-four chip boxes in each one of the small boxes, and there are ten small boxes in the big box. Man, I could sell a big box for ninety or a hundred K, maybe more,” Able said. “I even know the guy who’d take them. He could come up with the cash in an hour. Where’d you get them?”
“Stole them from an illegal warehouse, probably getting packed to be shipped to Russia or someplace that would pay a lot for them,” Baxter said, picking up one of the chip boxes, peering at the chip through the transparent panel on top. “There were probably a couple hundred boxes of these things.”
“How did you...”
“We saw a guy watching Annie Bellado’s place and followed him. He took us to the warehouse, and we watched that, and when they got down to one guy inside, we... borrowed the boxes from him,” Letty lied.
“Is the guy still alive?” Able asked.
There was a knock at the door. Letty said, “That’d be Barb.” She went to the door, peeked out, and opened it.
Cartwright stepped in, looked around, and said, “Cool,” and she looked at Letty and said, “Nothin’.” And to Able: “Nobody followed us.”
“Where are you from?” Able asked Cartwright.
She said, “Texas. Old girlfriend of Charlie’s. Don’t know nothin’ about computers.”
Able nodded, shook his head. “To get back to the original question... the guy you stole these from, is he still alive?”
“He is,” Cartwright said. “We’re not killers. I mean, we are, but we didn’t kill anybody. Today. Well, in the last couple of hours.”
Able chuckled, but insincerely: “Very funny.”
