Hood was at the limit of his technical know-how, but he got the gist of what Stoll was saying.

Nancy said, "The only people who have diskless workstations at Demain are vice-presidents who deal with information about new games or business strategies."

Stoll erased the program on his laptop. "Give me the names of some of those high-ups who have the technical chops to process game programs."

Nancy said, "The entire process? Only two of them can do that. Etienne Escarbot and Jean-Michel Horne."

Stoll input the names, sent them off to Op-Center, and asked for a background report. While they waited, Hood addressed something that had been roiling around inside him ever since he'd spoken with Ballon. The Colonel had been less than enthused about Hausen's participation. He'd called him a headline-grabber.

What if he were worse than that? Hood wondered. He didn't want to think ill of someone who seemed a good man, but that was part of the job. Asking yourself, What if? And after listening to Hausen talk about his Luftwaffe father he was asking himself, What if Hausen and Dominique weren't enemies? Hood only had Hausen's account of what had transpired in Paris twenty-odd years ago. What if the two were working together? Christ, Ballon said that Dominique's father had made his fortune in Airbus construction. Airplanes. And Hausen was a goddamned pilot.

Hood carried his thinking a few steps further. What if Reiner had been doing exactly what his boss wanted? Making Hausen look like a victim of a hate game in order to sucker Op-Center, Ballon, and the German government into an embarrassing incursion? Who would ever attack Dominique a second time if the first assault turned up nothing?

Stoll said, "Aha! We've already got some potential rotten apples here. According to Lowell Coffey's legal files, in 1981 M. Escarbot was charged by a Parisian firm with stealing trade secrets from IBM about a process of displaying bit-mapped graphics. Demain paid to settle that case. And criminal charges were filed and then dropped nineteen years ago against M. Horne. Seems he received a French patent for an advanced four-bit chip which an American company said was stolen from them. Only they couldn't prove it. They also couldn't find the person who supposedly ripped off the…"

Stoll stopped reading. His white face turned slowly toward Hood, then toward Nancy.

"No," she said, "there aren't two Nancy Jo Bosworths. That was me."

"It's okay," Hood said to him. "I knew all about it."

Stoll nodded slowly. He regarded Nancy. "Forgive me," he said, "but as a software designer m'self, I just have to say that that's very uncool."

"I know," Nancy replied.

"That's enough, Matt," Hood said sternly.

"Sure," Stoll said. He sat back, tightened the seatbelt which he'd never unbuckled, and turned around so he could look out the window.