Nimec was quiet again. When DeMarco had told him about being caught on camera at the Rio, the first thing to enter his mind was the possibility of corporate espionage. Several Asian and European telecom carriers had been competing to become the African fiber ring’s savior when Planétaire went belly up, and it was conceivable one or more of them could have gotten upset enough to go over the top when UpLink won its contract with the Gabonese government, figuring they could still gum up the deal. There were also various national lobbying groups that had joined in opposition to yet another dominant foreign company moving in its assets and tried to block UpLink’s entry with a passel of legislative maneuvers once they happily bade adieu to Planétaire. A few were still making moves despite the ruling party’s obvious support. Any of these interests, or combination of interests, could have decided to do some peeping.

Except Nimec had nothing but questions about what their game might be. Add them to the questions he’d been left with after talking to Pierre Gunville, and there were more than he could count . . . though bundling them all together in his head was almost certainly a bad idea. He had a vague mistrust of Gunville, but at this stage, it was merely that. Nimec didn’t know whether it meant Gunville was connected to anything he needed to be concerned about, let alone to whoever was messing with UpLink. The truth was he didn’t know what was going on. But the involvement of the gendarmerie was heavy, and he would need to start producing some answers fast.

Nimec took a bite of his fry bread and chewed. Happy, happy business traveler enjoying a treat on his off day . . . and how was he to know talking with a mouth full of food was hell on lip readers?

“The termite that hopped out at you this morning,” he said. “You know the real problem?”

DeMarco indicated he did with a grunt as he shook his head no, borrowing Ackerman’s little mixed signal trick.

“For every one you spot, there’s a hundred more you don’t,” he said. “If they’re infesting us, we’d need a Big Sniffer to find all of them.”

Nimec swallowed perfunctorily. The Big Sniffer was Sword’s most sophisticated countermeasure sweep unit. But the device was hardly inconspicuous. Used with a boomerang antenna for scanning walls and other surfaces, its microcomputer-controlled instrumentation was carried in what amounted to a medium-size hardshell suitcase.

“If the termites on the surface twitch their feelers, they’ll stir up the nest,” he said, wiping his lips with his napkin. “We’d get rid of the soldiers and workers, but the breeding colony would just go deeper into the wood.”

DeMarco nodded.

“I’ve been hashing that over,” he said. “And I haven’t come up with a solution.”

Scull shrugged.

“Think garnets,” he said.