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.Dr.Wu studied it, frowned.“This doesn’t necessarily indicate…”“It does,” Daryl replied.Tom’s voice mail clicked on.“Tom, it’s Daryl Hewes.The two students in the lighting booth were Type O.The superintendent was Type A1.But there’s fresh blood on a textbook in the lighting booth that’s Type A2.The superintendent was shot with a Beretta at point-blank range.I think there was a struggle.I think the superintendent hit Galileo with the textbook, maybe knocked the rifle out of his hands.I think the blood on the textbook belongs to Galileo.Tom, I think we’ve got him.”20They finally got lucky.It was the law of averages, really.How many times could Galileo elude them? He had to make a mistake sometime.He wasn’t supernatural.He was just a man, after all, a man who bled.In the early ’90s, the Justice Department launched a pilot program which married the burgeoning fields of computers and genetics.They labeled this program the Combined DNA-Index System, or CODIS, and by the turn of the century it contained records on over 100,000 known felons, just in the United States.In five years, the database passed 500,000.By 2005, though, CODIS had, in the spirit of Big Brother, expanded its jurisdiction to include federal employees.Tom’s DNA was in CODIS.The president’s DNA was in CODIS.And Galileo’s DNA was there too.“Or, should we say, Henry Booth.”The technician handed Tom the printout.Twenty-two long hours later, after working the phones, calling in interdepartmental favors, and working every angle he knew, Tom had gotten what he needed and was on a train to Baltimore, home to Booth’s last known place of business, a private security company that called itself Bellum Velum.Tom would have taken his bike, but he couldn’t ride with his arm, and he wanted to use the time to review all the data extant on Henry Booth.He sat by the window.To his left, the East Coast in bloom.He paid it no attention.His gaze was fixed on the file in his hands, his mind working overtime to compartmentalize the past, and the future.Henry Booth was ex-CIA.He’d joined the Agency after completing ROTC at the University of Maryland and got enmeshed in various wetworks activities in the Middle East.All CIA operatives go through rigorous psych screenings, but no amount of Freudian guesswork can predict the effect that combat will have on a person.Henry Booth had a strong religious upbringing.He loved God and his country, in that order.He was in the Middle East for fourteen years.Whatever it is he saw there, whatever it is he did, took its toll.When his handler recommended he return to the states, he didn’t argue.He didn’t say much of anything.He turned in his letter of resignation and for five years he disappeared off the face of the earth.Eventually, he found his way to Bellum Velum, or they found their way to him, and tax forms were filed and suddenly Henry Booth was back on the grid.Any reservations that the CIA had about Mr.Booth were apparently not shared by Bellum Velum.“Yes, Henry’s been with us for nine years,” said the woman on the phone.She said her name was Roberta Watson, and she was the head of PR for the company.No one else was available.“He’s an excellent employee.”“What exactly is it he does for you?”“We are a private security firm serving North America, Europe and Asia.”“Mmm-hmm.And what exactly is it he does for you?”“Security.”Tom didn’t feel like dancing with this woman, especially not on the phone, especially not with forty people dead.He made an appointment to come up to their main office in Baltimore.He had a file on them too.Once the train docked at the city’s neo-classicist Penn Station on North Charles Street, Tom flagged down a yellow cab and gave the driver Bellum Velum’s address—which turned out to be a skyscraper two blocks away.The private security company occupied the building’s top two floors.Mercenary work indeed paid well.Tom looked both ways down either end of the sidewalk, saw what he wanted to see, then passed through the revolving door into the lobby and obstacle course of construction scaffolding.From the looks of it, the building was being renovated, although islands of burgundy carpeting were scattered throughout the exposed floor.Somewhere in this maze of tarps and orange signs, someone was drilling, by the sound of it, to the center of the earth.The security guard at the desk was wearing earplugs, and had to remove them when Tom approached.“Tom Piper for Roberta Watson, Bellum Velum.”He didn’t bother with his badge.The guard cupped one hand over his left ear, and phoned up.“She’ll be right down,” he said.But Roberta Watson took her time.Tom lingered in the cacophonous lobby for a good ten minutes before she showed.By then the noise had gifted him with a headache, deposited right behind his eyes.“Agent Piper, good afternoon.”Roberta Watson held out her hand.Tom shook it.He noticed two things: A) the woman was all smiles B) almost ninety percent of those smiles were genuine.She had a dark complexion that contrasted strikingly with her ice-white pantsuit.“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Agent Piper,” she said.“I hope you haven’t come all this way for nothing.I’m afraid that Mr.Yolen, our CEO, is away on business and Mr.Yates, our CFO, is out with the flu.I probably should have told you that on the phone.”Tom was impressed.What an elegant liar she was! He almost complimented her, right then and there.Truly excellent fabricators, like her, were able to believe two contrasting ideas (what they knew to be the truth, and what they knew to be the falsehood) at the same time.They were able to convince themselves, on the spot, that one was just as valid as the other.It was a very difficult skill to master, if only because awareness that one was lying underlined—and undermined—the lie itself.Good for her.“That’s okay, Mrs.Watson.”“Please.Call me Roberta.”“Roberta, can we maybe speak upstairs? The noise…”She shook her head and grimaced.“It’s awful, isn’t it? It seems to be never-ending [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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