Chapter 14

My second or third greatest work related failure occurred in May of 1994 when I was forbidden by an Act of Congress from ever setting foot within the State Department. This happened almost immediately after my first and only tour of our major European embassies. This was followed quickly, in congressional terms, three months later by a second Act designed to keep me away from the Justice Department. I guess they figured by then that I was already so deep into the FBI that it was pointless to include them.

When Dr. Wills was informed of their actions he laughed so hard I was worried he might hurt himself. He said it was the funniest and most absurd thing he'd ever heard. David Jones said it didn't really matter, since I'd already proven I could link using live video.

I didn't take it quite as well.

They hadn't forbidden the CIA or the Department of Internal Security ... they'd banned me personally ... by name! Goddamned congressional restraining orders is what they were.

To the best of my knowledge I'm the only American citizen, as well as the only civil servant, in history to have been so honored. Some honor.

My relationship with Congress and its various sub-committees on Intelligence related matters was never much good after that. Not that it'd been all that great to start with.

The Pentagon allowed me in, but never left me unescorted. Not ever. I don't think they trusted me to see things from a military point of view now that I was a civilian and one of the enemy. Considering the adversarial nature of the relationship between the two organizations over the past fifty-odd years I suppose it was understandable. Sad, but understandable.

The only thing I never quite understood was why they hadn't refused me access to the NSA. Maybe the honorable members didn't have any friends working there. Or perhaps they were more afraid of the NSA than they were of me.

Three days after I'd taken Izzy to work with me I was back in my office, alone and staring at my computer screen with a scowl on my face. I'd been inundated with files, forms, memos and notes of just about every conceivable type on the subject of Carlos/Alex. I found it interesting that so many different sections and so many different and seemingly unrelated people had hung on to their documents. It made me wonder what else might be lying around that no one was paying attention to. Armies may travel on their stomachs, but governments ... apparently they survived on a diet of paperwork.

For a guy who'd left the Agency four years earlier, and despite the efforts of Deputy Director Quinlan, there was still one hell of a paper trail remaining. Of course, making sense of it all was another thing.

Fortunately I had a plan.

Unfortunately my plan relied rather heavily on the skills and abilities of someone I hadn't even met.

I copied all the files, which I encrypted, onto a Compact Disc and a high density Zip cassette, both of which went into my briefcase, and then started the long tedious process of erasing every single one from my hard drive.

As the computer went about its business my phone rang.

"Yes Eric?"

"Doctor, there's an agent Roger Coburn from the FBI here to see you. He says you're expecting him."

Coburn ... Number One.

"Send him in Eric."

"Yes sir."

I turned off my computer screen, letting the eraser program run in the dark, and pushed my chair back from the desk.

The main door opened and Number One stepped into my office for the first time.

I hadn't seen the man in person since the night I visited the FBI building for the first time. I'd been there several times since, but always made every effort to avoid face to face contact with my moles. They wouldn't be much good to me if there were even a hint of suspicion.

Coburn was a big man, an inch or so taller than me, roughly the same weight and build, with short sandy blond hair and friendly brown eyes. The only things that kept him from looking like a good natured Nebraska farm boy was a two inch long puckered scar that ran from the corner of his right eye down over his cheek bone, and the fact that he was about forty five years old.

He looked a little older than I remembered, and a little heavier around the waist, but that was to be expected. It had been eight years after all.

Coburn's eyes widened slightly and one foot caught on the rug, causing him to stumble slightly. He regained his balance quickly, never losing his grip on the handle of the briefcase in his left hand, and shut the door behind him before approaching my desk.

"Good afternoon Doctor Blacktower." he said in the light tenor I was familiar with from our phone conversations.

"Welcome to the CIA, Number One. Have a seat." I suggested, indicating one of the two matching leather chairs.

"Thank you sir." He sat down and put the briefcase on his lap. I noticed for the first time that there was a short chain attached to the handle that led to a handcuff attached to his wrist. He reached into his right side jacket pocket and retrieved a small key, which he then used to release the cuff on his wrist. Turning the briefcase around he quickly dialed the twin combination locks and opened the case. Coburn reached inside and came out with a red bordered file, stood up part way and placed the file on my desk.

"As you requested, the test results from our lab as well as the CDC. When I saw our lab's preliminary report I decided to take a sample myself to the CDC for verification. I think you'll understand when you read the reports."

I picked up the file, linked with the man before me and read them both.

No change in the ring I'd put in him all those years before. Not that I expected otherwise, but it never hurt to be sure. I found it comforting to know that what I made stayed made.

The reports in the file were not in the least bit comforting, but in their own way they were oddly reassuring.

'Flunitrazepam (generically known as Rohypnol), cocaine, grain alcohol... '

I looked up from the file to find Coburn looking at me. He appeared puzzled.

"Something wrong Number One?" I asked him.

"No sir ... not wrong. It's just ... your hair is longer and you don't have the beard anymore, but apart from that you haven't changed at all from the last time I saw you."

I smiled slightly. "Good genes I guess."

I flipped thru the pages of both reports, both of which were nearly identical.

Rohypnol. I knew the name. I'd come across it before in the course of my work at the clinic. A legitimate sleeping pill in many other countries, it was illegal in this one, often used as a so-called date rape drug. Most common side-effect ... amnesia.

I felt the heat begin to build behind my eyes. I crushed the anger that was growing in me, shoving it back into the dark recesses of my body for another time.

I took a long, deep breath and set the file down.

"Thank you for taking care of this for me, Number One."

"My pleasure, sir. If there's anything else I can do..." the look on his face was pathetically eager.

"About this, no. I'll deal with it in my own way."

The man shuddered and blinked rapidly.

"Of course. I understand completely."

"Do you?"

"Yes sir. Some years back I worked a couple of kidnapping cases where Rohypnol was used. I've seen what it can do. It doesn't take much to do serious long term damage. Or to kill."

I nodded and returned my attention to the file. The man did understand. It shouldn't have mattered to me, one way or the other, but it did. A little.

According to the reports, the accumulated drug levels in Izzy's blood should have killed her four or five times over. Why didn't it?

Something else to think about, but that was for another time. Right then it was an effort to think of anything more than the various creative ways I was going to use to destroy Carlos Negron. The bastard was going to suffer like no human in the history of the world ever had. I'd see to that.

I closed the folder and set it aside.

"There is something else you can do for me though. Officially."

"Name it sir."

"Get with Jason McMurphy and tell him I want Harold Roberts picked up and held, along with everything McMurphy's got on him. Computers, phone records, surveillance photos, wire taps ... the works. The two of you keep him incognito and out of sight. No one, apart from the three of us, is to know about this. Once he's secured, contact me and I'll let you know when and where to deliver him."

"Black bag?" he asked, curious what I was up to.

"Midnight black. Mr. Roberts and I are going to deliver a little presentation to Congress in a few days. I wouldn't want him to turn rabbit and miss his stage debut, which is why I want you and McMurphy to sit on him."

Coburn grinned happily. "No problem Doctor." He snapped the briefcase shut and re-attached the cuff to his left wrist. "Good afternoon." he said, getting to his feet.

I stood up with him and extended my arm. His face registered complete surprise as he reached out hesitantly and gripped my hand.

"Good job, Number One. Thank you."

He looked like a schoolboy who'd just gotten an 'A' on his final exam. I almost felt guilty for what I'd done to the man.

Almost.

Apart from going over hundreds of files on Alex Chorney, and deciding exactly how I was going to handle my congressional confrontation, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the problem of locating the mysterious and mythical 'Lucifer'.

The NSA thought he was most likely on the west coast, in the general vicinity of San Francisco. I didn't have any better ideas on where to start, so that was as good a place as any.

I didn't know a damn thing about hackers, and only slightly more about computers in general. So I had to do a lot of research on both subjects, so I'd have some idea what I was up against.

A hacker, I discovered, is person who tries to gain unauthorized access to a computer or to data stored on a computer. After that the definition got a bit murky.

White hat versus black hat. White hats were thought of as simple explorers. Essentially curious and non-destructive. Black hats, on the other hand, were the conquistadores and privateers of the computer world. Invade, rape, pillage and plunder then make off with their ill-gotten gains.

And then there were the different hacker flavors; phone phreaks, programmers, data travelers, electro-wizards, networkers, hardware freaks, techno-anarchists, communications junkies, cyberpunks, stupid users, UNIX gurus, whizz kids, warez dudes and assorted varieties of system managers.

I discovered a legion of famous, or infamous, hackers whose names were essentially unknown to the public, but legendary among their kindred spirits: The Chaos Computer Club, Cult of the Dead Cow, Markus Hess, Datastream Cowboy, Prophet, Kevin Mitnick, Gold and Schifreen, Legion of Doom and Master of Destruction who'd fought the so-called "Hacker Wars", Phobia Optik, Scorpion, Acid Phreak, Corrupt, Torquemada, VegHead, Kevin Crow, Neon Bunny, Terminus, BillSf, Uridium, Kevin Poulsen, Codex, Zap, otaku, MarkDZ, Brian Oblivion, Professor Falken and Maelstrom. And of course the highly sought after but oh-so hard to find Lucifer.

I learned about password crackers and recovery tools, packet sniffers, security scanners, credit card and calling card number generators, encryption software (the only thing I knew even a little about), steganography (embedding data within another file type), war dialers, blue boxing programs, password grabbers and key loggers.

Some of it was interesting enough I suppose, but for the most part it bored the hell out of me. Numbers are just not my thing, not in any shape, form or fashion.

And none of it gave me the slightest bit of insight into the whereabouts of 'Lucifer'. Well, almost none. I did find an article about something called DefCon, an annual hacker conference usually held in Las Vegas during the summer. I made a mental note to call Megan Posey. Maybe she could come up with attendance lists or sign in sheets. Somehow I doubted that the NSA head-hunters would have missed something as obvious as that, but it never paid to assume too much.

I sat back in my chair, rubbed my weary eyes and then stared at my blank computer screen.

If I were the most dangerous hacker in the world, where would I hide?

In plain sight.

Obviously. But what would a hacker think of as plain sight?

Don't think dangerous, that's Alex's label. Think smart, clever, and resourceful.

Okay then, what would a smart, clever and resourceful hacker think was plain sight?

What do hackers do?

Break into computerized systems.

When I was a little boy, computers were things that only scientists and the government used. They were the only ones who could afford them. But things had changed radically during my teens. Apple, Atari, Commodore, and IBM had become household names and middle-class America had taken the idea of the Personal Computer to its collective heart. There were guys I knew during my time in the Army, young guys mostly, who'd bought inexpensive PCs and gotten involved with things like Q-link and bulletin board systems, early forerunners of the Internet and World Wide Web. It had never interested me, but I'd heard of them. You couldn't work in CID and not have heard about them. One of my earliest bosses had often spoken at length about what a chore it was going to be trying to secure something that was everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Secure. Security ... Computer or Network Security.

What better place for a hacker, for the best hacker, than as a computer security expert? He'd have continuous access to the latest in hardware and software and free run of powerful systems to practice on. And as an added bonus, he'd be paid well for doing it.

So I was looking for someone who either worked for ... hold on ... why worked for? Why not the owner? It wouldn't be a huge company, no ... small, but well known in the right circles. Hell, it was possible it might be a company in name only.

In the vicinity of San Francisco.

The Silicon Valley? Sure, why not? Lots of high-tech companies had blossomed there during the 80s and early 90s. Microsquish was up in Seattle, but that was software. I supposed it was possible my hacker worked as a software programmer, but I didn't really think that was the case. He might be a decent programmer, but I was betting more on the networking aspects of computer security.

Okay, so I had someplace to look ... but it was a big place. I'd narrowed the parameters down a bit, but it was all guesswork so far. I needed to verify my guesses and narrow my search a lot more.

Verify how?

Where do hackers learn to be hackers?

Hacker school?

Very funny. But not unreasonable.

I was going to have to interview. That wouldn't be hard to do. Being in the CIA would open a few doors ... but the west coast? A much different mindset from the one I was familiar with in D.C.

You ain't just a whistlin' Dixie. You're talking about the center of bleeding heart liberal, fuck the establishment-land. They'll like your look, but they won't say shit once they see the badge.

No, probably not. Still, I only needed to get in the door. After that ... they'd tell me what I wanted to know.

Okay, so it looked like I was going on a tour of the colleges and universities of California. Lilly would probably love it. Neither of us had ever been to the west coast before, so that was an added bonus. If I worked it right it could be a second honeymoon.

Except we'd never had a first one. Any of us. Izzy and Peggy would have a cow.

Thinking along those lines led me into uncharted territory for the first time in my married life. I started analyzing my relationship; something I'd never done before, never felt the need to do before.

What the hell were you thinking? What kind of idiot thinks it's a good idea to marry three women at the same time? What kind of idiot even lives with three women at the same time?

That would be me ... I'm that idiot.

No shit, Sherlock. So we're agreed; you're an idiot.

If you say so.

I say so, you say so ... six of one, half dozen of the other.

Fine, so I'm an idiot. Get on with it already.

Alright, exactly what were you thinking?

I wasn't. They told me what they wanted to do and I went along with them.

Why?

I love them.

My inner voice went silent for a long time. I leaned the chair back and put my feet up on the corner of the desk.

Answer me this; how do you think of Izzy?

I should have known that was coming. After all, I'd asked her the same about me.

An image of my sister sprang up in my mind, complete in every detail, from her long dark hair all the way down to her delicately shaped feet. Her dark, silky skin, enticing eyes and sensuous smile beckoned to me from my memory and I felt my blood begin to boil.

Uh-huh ... and Lilly?

Izzy's image disappeared in a puff of mental smoke, as Lilly's figure appeared in her place. Shorter in stature and hair length, but her eyes and smile dazzled me, even in memory. I felt myself falling into her eyes, swimming thru their boundless depths of affection and passion to her core; a heart I'd helped heal and make strong.

Okay ... Peggy?

Lilly vanished, replaced in an instant by Peggy's tiny image. Her pixie-like grin and impish features, so full of life and ceaseless energy ... made me feel like a kid again; filled me with hope and eager anticipation for whatever the future might have in store. Not to mention the bright, bubbly, loving personality that I'd damn near created from scratch.

Kinda makes you feel like ... oh, I don't know ... a god? How 'bout now?

Peggy's image was suddenly flanked on either side by the figures of Izzy and Lilly and my heart started pounding like a jackhammer.

Individually each one went slinking sensuously around the verdant pastures of my mind, capturing my attention, becoming the sole focus of all my feelings. Right up to the point where they came together, when it became impossible for me to think of them as separate people. They were my girls.

I love them, want them, need them; protect, defend ... they are my life ... they are everything!

How can you feel like that about them as individuals, and then just as strongly as a group?

It was a good question. How could I?

When I was with them individually it was as if they were the only woman in my life. All my focus was on the girl I was with; all my feelings were centered on her and her alone. I didn't compare her with or to the others, didn't spend time wishing they were there as well. I just enjoyed being with her.

But when they were together, like when we went to sleep at night, it was as if we were one person, and that was always when I was the happiest and most content.

No, I hadn't gone looking for the relationship I'd ended up with. But I didn't turn it down either. I could have ... and maybe I should have. But I didn't, so maybe, deep down that was what I'd wanted all along.

Maybe Izzy had seen things more clearly and had done for me what I was unwilling to do for myself. Maybe she figured she had to act preemptively before I got the chance.

And maybe I'm a duck! Dumb-ass, having all three was never part of your plans.

I didn't refuse because it never occurred to me. Izzy told me what the three of them had agreed on and I went along with it.

Why?

I don't know. I honestly don't know. My mind was on other things at the time, like keeping us all alive and free and trying to figure out how to keep things that way.

Why?

I don't know why ... I just did!

WHY?

"Because I fuckin' wanted to, and that's all the reason I need, goddamnit!" I snarled at my shoes.

Maybe, just maybe, you're finally starting to grasp the reality of things.

Sarcastic, smart-assed, know-it-all sonofabitch. I hate talking to myself.

Leaving the lobby that evening was markedly different from my arrival a few days before. Except for the sea of discomforting emotions I had to wade thru it was smooth and uneventful. No one asked me any stupid questions or insisted on running my ID thru scanners. The guards didn't even delay me long enough to run detector wands over my body. Apparently word had come down from on high to avoid aggravating me at all costs.

I reached that conclusion based on the high levels of terror and trepidation the guards were giving off.

I got home just in time for dinner, and just as snow started falling from the dark cloudy sky.

The table conversation revolved mostly around three subjects that night. Rosie's drawings, which everyone went out of their way to praise, AJ's remarkable ability to squirt milk from each nostril in sequence, and Belle's wanting to take karate.

"Can I please Daddy?" she wheedled sweetly.

How do women learn that tone? Is it genetic and instinctual or do their mothers take them aside when there aren't any males around and instruct them in the time honored art of manipulation?

I finished chewing my forkful of beef stew and swallowed.

"What does your mom say?" I asked, before taking a sip from my coffee cup.

"She says it's okay with her, if you say so too. So can I? Please?"

I looked up from my daughter's face to look into her mother's eyes. Izzy smiled and nodded back.

"You know that taking karate means you're going to get hit, right?"

"I know. But I don't want..." her voice trailed off.

"Don't want what, honey?"

Belle frowned and her body tensed up ever so slightly. "I don't want to wait for someone else to protect me." she said hotly.

Izzy's face registered shock. I looked around the table. Peggy and Lilly were both flushed with embarrassment. Rosie and AJ just looked curious, but Tink ... Tink had the tiniest little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

I raised my right eyebrow and pursed my lips reflectively.

"Has someone tried to hurt you Belle?"

She snorted. My little girl snorted derisively, disdainfully ... contemptuously. Damn if she didn't sound exactly like her old man, pre-broken nose.

"Ralph Conrad was teasing us on the playground; he pushed Rosie and he pulled Tink's hair. He's a third grader." she explained in a rush.

"Third grader huh? Bigger than you?" I asked.

"Ralph's as tall as Belle but lots bigger." Rosie added helpfully, holding her arms out wide.

I nodded. Okay, so Ralph was a big hefty kid who liked picking on little girls. Either that or he had a childish crush on one of them and was resorting to the time honored method most pre-pubescent boys used to let girls know they liked them.

I looked over at AJ, who looked back at me with a serene calm that was like a dash of cold water in my face. Very curious. Defensive and protective with me, but not, for some reason, about this.

"Did you tell a teacher that Ralph was picking on you?" Lilly asked.

Belle nodded her head. "She told him to leave us alone, but as soon as she left he started doing it again."

"He knocked me down and sat on me." Tink said.

Peggy flared with anger and outrage, causing Izzy and Lilly to stare at her with wide eyes.

"I knocked him off of Tink and punched him in the mouth."

I nodded again, holding back a smile of my own.

"Ralph ran away crying." Rosie told us gleefully. Tink was back to lip twitching and AJ was grinning across the table at his biggest sister.

"I see. Well, you did the right thing, telling the teacher." I said.

"Belle, fighting doesn't..." Izzy started, but stopped when I raised my hand, forefinger pointed at her, thumb cocked back like a pistol in a kid's game of cops and robbers. I brought my thumb forward and mouthed one silent word: "Pow!"

Izzy choked back her words and glared at me.

I got up from the table, pushing my chair back out of the way and got down on both knees.

"Belle, come on over here, would you?"

My daughter slid off her chair and walked around the table to stand in front of me.

"Did Ralph hit you after you hit him?" I asked.

"No, he just ran away."

I put the tip of my right finger squarely in the center of my chest. "I want you to hit me right here, just as hard as you can."

"Daddy?" Belle looked confused and scared.

I smiled gently at her. "It's okay honey. I want to find out something, and show you something too. I promise, I won't get mad."

"Ike..." Izzy was imploring with just my name.

"Izzy, it'll be fine. Go ahead Belle. Right here." I said, tapping my finger on my chest then lowered my hand.

I'd no sooner dropped my arm when my daughter balled up her fist and lashed out, driving her arm with a rapid shifting of her hips, driving her knuckles right into my chest, precisely on the spot I'd pointed to.

She was fast, smooth and had quite a bit of power ... for a seven year old. The kid knew how to punch, no doubt about that. I felt a brief twinge of regret for Ralph.

It hurt. Nowhere near as much as when Anya had pounded on me, but much more than one of Izzy's playful punches in the arm or ribs.

It hurt more than I thought it should. Sure, Belle was bigger than most girls her age. Actually, she was bigger than most boys her age. Apparently she was pretty strong too. And she knew how to use her body to maximize the impact. Impressive.

I grinned proudly at my daughter. "Nice. Very nice. Okay, one more time. As hard as you can."

I linked with my little girl. And quick as a snake, she struck again. More confidently and with even more power than the time before. It hurt.

And Belle felt it, because I fed it back to her. I didn't amplify the feeling, just gave it back to her the way I got it. She grunted softly, clutched her chest with her left hand and staggered back a step or two. Her right hand was still clenched in a fist and raised at shoulder level, ready to strike again.

Izzy, Peggy and Lilly all had a hand pressed between their breasts, distress on their faces.

Belle didn't cry, didn't moan or whimper. She didn't get angry, yell or scream. Her eyelids lowered half way and her lips set themselves in a thin sneer. And that was all the reaction I got.

"You hit pretty good. No wonder Ralph ran away." I told her with a straight face.

"You did that." she accused me, rubbing her hand over her chest.

"Yup. If you want to learn to fight, you're going to get hit. And it's going to hurt. Now you know what Ralph knows; you hit hard. Still want to learn?"

She nodded, still rubbing her chest.

"Okay. I'll get you a teacher."

The sneer left her lips and she beamed at me. Her fist uncurled and she rushed forward, throwing her arms around my ribs.

"Thanks Daddy."

"Just promise me you won't go around beating up every boy you meet. We're not all as dumb as Ralph."

"I promise." she assured me.

Rosie, Tink and AJ clapped their hands with delight and cheered their sister's success in getting what she wanted ... either that or her success in punching me twice and not getting in trouble for it.

Then AJ proceeded to demonstrate his milk-squirting prowess for us and things returned to normal.

Later that night, as the girls and I were getting ready for bed, I broke the news about Izzy's blood test.

"Rohypnol? What's that?" Lilly inquired, removing her shoes and socks.

"It's in the same drug family with GHB and ketamine. They're what are known as Club or date-rape drugs; very popular on college campuses across the country ... so I'm told."

"We use ketamine as an anesthetic for larger animals, and I know that GHB is used on humans in Europe as a general anesthetic. What's so special about row-whatever?" Peggy asked as she unbuttoned her shirt, giving us all a glimpse of her bra-less cleavage.

"Rohypnol, or 'roofies' as it's sometimes called, is a powerful tranquilizer, similar to valium, but much, much more powerful. It's inexpensive and can be found almost anywhere there's a high school or college campus. What makes it so special is that one of the side effects is amnesia; people don't even remember being given the drug. And mixed with other drugs, like cocaine, and alcohol ... well, the high is supposed to be something quite special."

Izzy sat silently on her side of the bed and said nothing.

I dropped my shirt into the hamper, removed my shoes and put them into the closet before walking over and sitting down next to her.

"There were high levels of cocaine and alcohol in your blood as well Izzy."

"He drugged me." she said so softly that I barely heard the words.