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"Except that I want them to find these two." She held up a phone in each hand.

"I don't get it."

"You will. But first, here . . ." She handed him a minicassette recorder still in a Radio Shack box, two AA batteries, and a cassette tape. She began pulling a second recorder out of its box. When both recorders were ready, she said, "Pretend it's a phone. Hit the record button when I hit mine and chat with me."

"What do I say?"

"Follow my lead."

fifty-three

"Play it again."

Kendrick Reynolds sat in his wheelchair next to a computer workstation, a pair of noise-eliminating headphones clamped over his ears.

The technician used a trackball to manipulate controls on the monitor. Voices came over the headphones.

". . . killed Goody." A female voice.

"Who?" Male.

"My partner, Goodwin Donnelley. The guy who died on your operating table yesterday."

"Right. Who killed him?"

"I don't know, but Despesorio Vero died too." She sounded exasperated. "He was the guy who was trying to get into the Center for Disease Control. They were in some bar in Chattanooga. Goody went to your ER. Vero's body disappeared."

Behind Kendrick, Captain Landon held a single headphone cup to his right ear. He said, "The key-phrase trigger was Karl Litt. When the monitors recognized the phrase, the recorder kicked in."

Kendrick moved a cup off one ear. "But we can't hear it in context?"

"Key-phrasing entire geographical areas means monitoring every conversation, millions of them. It's not like monitoring a handful of lines or even every line in an office building. We can't use record-and-erase technology on geo-keys. Our systems are already taxed—"

"Just say no, Mike." Kendrick looked up at him. He was sure what the captain saw when he looked back was a tired old man. He hated that.

"No, sir. No context on the key phrase Karl Litt."

He hated that too: not knowing how much these people knew, how much Vero had told them. He had to find them, interrogate them, and confiscate whatever evidence Vero had passed on to them. There were two issues now: finding Karl and keeping a lid on projects that were never meant for public scrutiny. He hoped catching up with these three would solve both problems.

The technician at the controls spoke up. "They're still talking."

"What? How long have they kept this connection open?"

"Twenty-three minutes. I'm streaming it live now. Should I bring the audio current?"

"Go ahead."

". . . but that's impossible. If Despesorio Vero did have information, he would have told Goody."

"Donnelley?"

"Yes."

"What about this Karl Litt guy?"

"I don't know . . ."

Kendrick closed his eyes slowly. He pulled the headphones off and laid them on the workstation. "They're moving?" he asked with a quiet sigh.

"Yes," said the technician. "They're both on I-40. The woman's heading west out of Knoxville, toward Nashville. The man's heading east, between Thorngrove and Danridge."

Kendrick shook his head. It wasn't them. As a federal agent, Matheson would know about key-phrasing. But she wouldn't know how much more advanced military technology was over what the Justice Department had access to. She would be accustomed to systems that missed more key phrases than they caught. That's why she repeated the names—Karl Litt, Despesorio Vero, Goodwin Donnelley. Decoys only worked if people went after them.

"Send one team each to intercept them," he ordered. He could not risk being wrong. "Tell them to tread lightly; I don't think it's them. And, ruling out anything along I-40, try to get a handle on where they're really heading."

"That was fun," Allen said flatly.