Exceptions to Reality_ Stories - Alan Dean Foster [58]
“The state,” Hayes replied flatly. It was no good getting into a battle of wits with Spitzer. You’d lose.
Chief Agent Morrison leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. His bristly blond hair looked stiff enough to remove paint. “I’m surprised at you, Hayes. Unless you’re doing this to try to lighten the mood. Otherwise I think your story makes a good item for the tabloid files.”
“No.” This was even harder than Hayes had imagined it was going to be. “It’s a genuine threat, not a crank call. Don’t you think I’d check it out before bringing it up here for discussion? Give me five minutes.”
Morrison glanced absently at his watch. “Okay—but only if you make it fun.”
Hayes wanted to say that it was anything but fun, but suspected that if he did so, he would lose his precious five minutes. And he could not afford to. “The hacker calls himself Wilbur. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it’s even his real name. He says he gained access to the restricted section of the Special Collections Department at the Widener Library at Harvard, snuck in a portable wide-angle scanner, and spent the better part of a day copying out as much of this venerable if not venerated book as he could manage.”
Morrison frowned. “I thought you said it was fictional.”
“No. I said it was thought to be fictional. Just for the hell of it, I checked with Harvard. Routine follow-up to this sort of thing. I had to go through four different people until I could find someone who’d admit to the library even possessing the volume in question. As soon as I did so, they went off to recheck my identification and credentials.
“I finally got to speak to a Professor Fitchburn. When I told him the reason for my call, he got downright frantic. First he sent someone to check the records of recent visitors to the restricted shelves of the Widener. They were able to identify only three people in the past year who had been granted access to see the book. All three were well known to the staff, either academically, personally, or both. Then someone—apparently people were gathering in this Fitchburn’s office all the time we were talking—remembered that a renovation crew had been in the Special Collections area for less than a week back in April, updating the fire suppression system. That must have been how this Wilbur guy gained access.”
“He would have to have known the book is there, what to look for,” Tiffin pointed out.
“Even if all of this is true, so what?” Morrison reached for the glass of ice water that always stood ready exactly six inches to the northeast of his notepad. “What does Harvard want us to do about it? Perform an exorcism? Tell this Fitchburn to contact the local Catholic parish.” Under his breath he growled, “Damn academics.”
“It’s not that kind of esoterica.” Hayes’s fingers kept twisting together, like small snakes seeking holes in which to hide. “The information in it has nothing to do with any of the major religions. It’s—Professor Fitchburn was reluctant to go into details. I got the feeling he didn’t want to tell me any more about it than he felt I needed to know.”
“This discussion is also woefully short on details.” Morrison checked his watch again. “Your five minutes are about up, Hayes, and we have real work to do this morning. Sorry that all these kidnappings and murders and terrorist threats have to take up our valuable time.”
“You remember the sinking of the Paradise Four?” Hayes asked him.
It was Van Wert who responded. “The cruise ship that sank off Pohnpei in that typhoon six months ago?”
Hayes nodded. “This Wilbur claims he’s responsible for that. Claims he was trying out a couple of pages from the scanned book.”
Morrison guffawed.