Threat Level Black

This was all a mistake, he thought to himself. But he was stuck now, and she was stuck too. She tried making conversation and he tried not stumbling. Their salads came. Howe had never been very good at small talk but tried some now, asking about the difference between romaine and iceberg lettuce. She told him the leaves were different.

“Why’d you want to have dinner with me?” he asked finally.

Alice put down her fork. “You wanted to have dinner with me,” she said, taking her napkin off her lap.

She put it on the table and pushed her chair back.

“Wait,” he said reaching for her arm. “The food’s just coming. We might as well eat.”

“Thanks anyway,” said Alice, taking her hand back and walking away.

Chapter 7

“You want Syracuse over Kentucky?”

“I don’t want anything over anything,” Fisher told Macklin. “I don’t bet.”

“You don’t bet? Go on. You have every other vice possible. You’re telling me you don’t gamble?”

“A man has to draw the line somewhere,” said Fisher. He continued scrolling through the notes on the computer, where the case information was compiled.

“ ‘Final Four, first time in New York City,’ ” said Macklin, obviously parroting a commercial Fisher hadn’t heard. “ ‘Games this weekend, with the championship next Monday. Come on. Join the pool. You have a one-out-of-four chance of winning.’ ”

“And a three-out-of-four chance of losing my money.”

“All right, Fisher. Just don’t pout on Tuesday when we’re splitting the winnings.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Listen, the Secret Service is asking for a little cooperation running down some leads…”

“I don’t have time to talk to every nut in New York City, Michael.”

“It’s not every nut. Just the violently psychotic ones.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t have time.” Fisher got up from the computer.

“Where are you going?”

“Grab a smoke.”

Fisher hadn’t lied exactly: He did have a cigarette immediately upon going outside the house.

It’s just that he had that cigarette in one of the task force vehicles, which he drove to FBI headquarters in Virginia. Six hours and countless cigarettes later, he corralled his quarry, Martha Friedrickberg, an expert on identity theft who had investigated the credit card ring that was selling IDs to the terrorists.

Martha worked in an office that could have passed for a surgical scrub room. The whitewashed walls had nothing on them, her metal desk was bare, and even her computer was immaculate. The distinct odor of Listerine filled the air as Fisher entered the room.

Friedrickberg looked up from her computer. “Andy Fisher. Oh, Gawd.”

“Happy to see you, too, Martha. How’s the germs?”

“In stasis until you arrived.”

“Stasis is good or bad?”

“Neither. That’s the point: balance.” Friedrickberg pulled a spray bottle out from a bottom drawer and placed it at her elbow. “What do you want, Andy?”

“I need some information on that credit card ring.”

“Which one?”

Fisher started to explain.

“You could have just called on the phone,” said Friedrickberg, turning to her computer.

“You would have taken the call?”

“Of course not.”

“Yes, well, you’re an exception in many ways.”

She pulled up a list of numbers and pointed to it. Fisher leaned over the desk to look at it; Friedrickberg wheeled her chair backward.

“Just a lot of numbers, right?” said Fisher.

“And streptococcus is just another bacterium.”

Fisher straightened. “I’m guessing it’s not.”

“Have you had your sinuses flushed lately?” Friedrickberg wheeled herself back behind the desk, closer to her bottle. “You’d be surprised what lurks in your septum.”

“What about those numbers?”

“Fifty-three point six percent are from Asia, primarily Japan. We’ve tracked a significant subset to American tourists and businessmen.”

“And this has something to do with strep throat?”

“I despair sometimes, Andy. I truly do.”

Fisher instinctively reached for his pack of cigarettes. Friedrickberg was quicker on the draw, however: She had the bottle squared and ready to fire before he took the pack from his pocket.

“No smoking in the building,” she intoned.

“Yeah, I know that,” said Fisher. He twirled the pack between his fingers.

“I’m warning you, Andy. There’s ammonia in here.”

“So the significance of the card numbers is what?”

“There’s an Asian connection. As a matter of fact, some of us think the real masterminds are Asian. They found these poor immigrants from Nigeria, knew they’d be willing to make some easy money, and set them up. Every few weeks they supply fresh data: credit card numbers, social security, date of birth, et cetera. The Nigerians go out and start creating a file, usually by applying for cell phones. They get it going, then sell off the cards. Sell a card for two hundred dollars, you’ve made more than a hundred percent profit.”

“That’s all they make?”