Germ

Whenever she could, she'd quietly sit in on Goody's case meetings, just to watch him work and learn the investigative ropes, if only vicariously. At first she was merely a curiosity, a pretty woman with a thing for criminal investigators.

But her attraction to him had nothing to do with the man's physical appearance. She conceded that his trim frame, chiseled features, and Caribbean-blue eyes were a handsome combination, but she believed his greatest asset was his ability to capture criminals.

After all, physical characteristics were simply handed to you: luck of the draw. She knew that people found her attractive. But what she admired—and wanted people to admire in her—were accomplishments, strength of character, applied logic. Things for which a person had to work.

Goody was a good investigator because he wanted to be, he tried to be. That's what she found alluring.

One day an argument had flared up between Goody and Special Agent Lou Preston, a surveillance expert, over the reason several wireless transmitters kept malfunctioning. Preston had placed the bugging devices under the tables in the visiting room of the Quincy State Correctional Facility to monitor conversations between a hood named Jimmy Gee, imprisoned there, and his brother-in-law, Mike Simon. The Bureau suspected Gee of negotiating with Simon to kill a young woman who had witnessed Gee murder a rival.

But during Simon's visits, white noise—in the form of continuous static, sudden loud pops, and high-pitched whistles—interrupted the reception for five or more minutes at a time.

The snatches of conversations that were clear had led Goody to believe he had one last chance to get the scheme recorded. White noise at the wrong moment would blow attempted-murder charges against the two and could cost the young woman her life.

"You're telling me there's nothing you can do?" complained Goody. He stood at the front of a small conference room. Someone had taped color pictures of the suspects on a dry-erase board. Beside them was a portrait of the intended victim, a blonde in her twenties with girl-next-door freckles and a radiant smile. A diagram of the visiting room leaned against a tripod. Humming fluorescents bathed the room in a bluish-white glow.

Preston's anger strained his voice and got him out of his seat. "You know electronic surveillance is prone to all kinds of problems—background noise, weak signals, even electromagnetic interference from the sun, for crying out loud! We're lucky we got what we did."

Other agents around the long table appeared to shrink in their chairs. Julia watched in fascination from the back of the room.

"So this girl's gonna die because of solar flares?" Goody asked, pointing at the portrait.

"I'm not saying that's what's causing the white noise. But we've considered everything." Preston began counting on his fingers. "Are we too close to the kitchen? No. The laundry? The wood shop? The metal shop? No, no, no. Could one of the guards have a device to intentionally disrupt our reception? We've changed guards. Could Gee or Simon be carrying something? Our searches came up with zip. We've replaced the bugs and the receivers and the tape machines. What more do you want?"

"I want to get an entire conversation recorded for once."

Preston threw up his arms and turned his back on Goody.

Julia stared at the diagram on the tripod. Before realizing it, she had raised her arm.

Goody gawked at her faintly waving hand, as rare in these meetings as albino bats from Mars. "Julia, what is it?"

She cleared her throat. "Excuse me, sir, but what's in the corner there?" She pointed toward the diagram. "There, where the row of tables stops? There's room for another table, but it's not on the diagram."

"Maybe they ran out of tables!" Preston blurted, obviously annoyed.

"No," said Goody. "It's a Coke machine."

Julia stood, counting on her firm posture to belie her shaky confidence. She focused on Goody's interested face, knowing that a glance at the other agents in the room would be as ruinous to her composure as a novice mountain climber's look down.

"Pop machines are not the problem," Preston said sharply. "We've planted bugs in them before."

Goody waved him off. "Julia, what's your point?"

"If the electrical contacts—the brushes—in the Coke machine's compressor motor are worn, they would spark more than usual. Electrical sparks produce broadband radio signals—white noise. Such broadband interference covers most of the usable RF spectrum, which is why replacing the bugs and receivers didn't work."

Goody's smile broadened. He looked at Preston, who just glared.