Doctor Who_ Blue Box - Kate Orman [30]
Bob unlatched the panel and let it fall forwards. Tucked behind it was a linesman’s test set: a phone receiver that could be attached to any line by wires and clips. ‘They often hide them here; he said. ‘Since nobody’s using this one, I’ll just borrow it for now.’
He put the panel back in place, and ran a finger over the terminals until he found his own line. ‘Oh, crap,’ he said.
‘There we go’ The wire pair for Bob’s house was marked with thick red crayon. I’m no electrician, but even I could see there were a couple of wires attached to it that didn’t appear anywhere else on the panel.
‘That’s not the same as the tap Mondy used,’ I told Bob.
‘He had a six-inch chunk of metal he said was stolen from the FBI.’ And yet it was clumsy and obvious. If this was Mondy’s work, he was trying to warn us that we were being watched.
Bob muttered something about skinning cats. He disconnected the offending wires from his home phone, and attached them to one of the other wire pairs in the box, apparently at random.
Back inside, Bob reported his find. Peri said, ‘We can’t stay here, can we? Somebody knows we’re here.’
Bob sat cross-legged on the sofa, still clutching the crowbar, with one hand pressed to his fair hair. ‘She knows.
She must have tracked us down.’
I said,’How do you know it wasn’t Ma Bell who tapped your phone? Or the police?’ But no-one took any notice of me.
‘But how?’ said Peri.
Bob poked the crowbar at me. ‘You talked to her.’
‘That was before I tracked you down,’ I reminded him.
‘I’m not about to inform on you to anyone. I’m here to cover the story; not to make it.’
‘I’m sure Miss Swan has many ways of garnering information,’ said the Doctor. ‘Whoever placed that tap, Peri is right. Pack your things, Bob.
That night we drove to Baltimore, arriving close to midnight.
We crowded into the single available room at the motel, the staff lugging a spare bed into the room for me. I unfolded it and sat down. There were two singles and a double bed. Bob spread his bags all over the double bed, marking it as his territory.
Peri lay down on hers without taking off her clothes. I don’t think it was modesty; we were all terribly fatigued.
I’d peeked in the trunk of Bob’s car. He didn’t just have his bags of computer equipment; there were a collection of neatly labelled plastic boxes which looked as though they always lived in the trunk. Computer parts, or tools, I assumed.
He shook his head. ‘In case of nukes,’ he said. ‘Computers will be worthless after a nuclear strike. It’s water and freeze-dried food and stuff.’
‘Stuff?’
‘Oh, you know. Torch and candles. My tent. Some pots and pans. A camp stove. First aid kit. Tool kit. A chemical toilet. Things like that.’ Bob went on munching, unaware that we were all staring at him.
I was reminded of Mondy’s stash: he’d once confided to me that he kept a pack of supplies in a disused building somewhere near his mom’s house, phone equipment, running shoes and more kosher snax. He had memorised a map of his neighbourhood. If he ever heard the heat en route on his police scanner, he could vanish for days.
Mondy. Swan had got to him. He knew most of what was going on in the hacker and phreak communities at any given time: he was the obvious person to contact and hassle for details. And she had plenty of leverage over him.
Maybe it was the only way Mondy could think of to warn me. He might even have called the cops and told them someone had been fooling with the bridging box in Bob’s street – meaning himself.
I just wanted to believe the guy was still on my side.
Bob, as usual, had no trouble dropping off. The Doctor didn’t seem as though he was planning to sleep; he sat cross-legged on top of his covers, apparently meditating. I closed my eyes, but didn’t fall asleep just yet.
Peri tossed and turned. Understandably, she didn’t seem too comfortable sharing a small room with three men. Finally, she whispered, ‘Bob’s really enjoying this, isn’t he?’
The Doctor opened