Cold Vengeance - Lincoln Child [77]
Suddenly a red light winked on beside the yellow one, and a low alarm began to bleat.
Fear and disbelief washed over him like a tidal wave. A full-scale breach, with hardly any warning? It was impossible, unthinkable… The withered hand reached toward a small metal box fixed to one arm of his wheelchair, flicked away the safety toggle covering the kill switch. One crooked finger hovered over the switch. When it was pressed, several things would happen very quickly: 911 calls would go out to police, fire officials, and emergency paramedic units; sodium vapor lights would come on throughout the house and grounds; alarms in the attic and basement would emit earsplitting shrieks; magnetic media degaussers placed strategically throughout the room would generate targeted magnetic fields for fifteen seconds, wiping all data from the hard disks; and finally, an EMP shock pulse generator would fire, completely disrupting all the microprocessor circuitry and electronics in the second-floor room.
The finger settled onto the button.
“Good evening, Mime,” came the unmistakable voice from the darkness of the hallway.
The finger jerked away. “Pendergast?”
The special agent nodded and stepped into the room.
For a moment, the man in the wheelchair was nonplussed. “How did you get in here? My security system is state-of-the-art.”
“Indeed it is. After all, I paid for its design and installation.”
The man wrapped the bathrobe more closely around his narrow frame. His composure was quick to return. “We had a rule. We were never to meet face-to-face again.”
“I’m aware of that. And I deeply regret having to break it. But I have a request to make—and I felt that, by making it in person, you would better understand its urgency.”
A cynical smile slowly broke over Mime’s pale features. “I see. The Secret Agent Man has a request. Another request, I should say, of the long-suffering Mime.”
“Our relationship has always proceeded on a—how shall I put it?—symbiotic basis. After all, wasn’t it only a few months back that I arranged for a dedicated fiber-optic line to be installed here?”
“Yes, indeedy. Allowing one to bask in three hundred Mbps goodness. No more purloined sips from the T-3 soda straw for me.”
“And I was instrumental in having those troublesome charges against you dropped. You’ll recall, the ones from the Department of Defense alleging—”
“Okay, Secret Agent Man, I haven’t forgotten. So: what can I do for you this fine evening? Mime’s Cyber-Emporium is open for all your hacking needs. No firewall too thick, no encryption algorithm too strong.”
“I need information on a certain person. Ideally, her whereabouts. But anything will do: medical files, legal issues, movement. Starting from the time of her presumed death and going forward.”
Mime’s sunken, strangely child-like visage perked up at this. “Her presumed death?”
“Yes. I am convinced the woman is alive. However, there is a one hundred percent certainty she is using an assumed name.”
“But you know her real name, I assume?”
Pendergast did not answer for a moment. “Helen Esterhazy Pendergast.”
“Helen Esterhazy Pendergast.” Mime’s expression grew more interested still. “Well, dust my broom.” He thought for a moment. “Naturally, I’ll need as much personal data as you can provide if I’m to fashion a sufficiently girthy search avatar of your… of your…”
“Wife.” And Pendergast passed over a thick folder.
Mime reached for it eagerly, turned over the pages with his withered hand. “It would appear you’ve been holding out on me,” he said.
Pendergast did not reply directly. Instead, he said, “Searches through official channels have turned up nothing.”
“Ah. So M-LOGOS came up dry, did it?” When Pendergast did not answer, Mime chuckled. “And now Secret Agent Man wants me to try it from the other side of the cyber-street. Lift up the virtual carpet and check what’s beneath. Probe the seamy underbelly of the information superhighway.”
“An unfortunate mix of metaphors, but yes, that is the general idea.”
“Well, this may take a while. Sorry there