The team went to work efficiently gathering the information.

For a biography of Deputy Foreign Minister Richard Hausen and any information on his father, Smythe went on-line and executed FTPs-- File Transfer Protocols-- to acquire data from ECRC Munich, Deutsche Elektronen Synchotron, Gerniart Electro-Synchotron, DKFZ Heidelberg, Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung GmbH, Konrad Zuse Zentrum für Informationstechnik Konrad Zuse Center, and Comprehensive TeX Archive Network Heidelberg. Neuman used three computers to enter gopherspace on the Internet and accessed information from Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum Hamburg, EUnet Germany, the German Network Information Center, and ZIB, Berlin auf Ufer. With the help of an aide to Matt Stoll, Deputy Assistant Director of Operations Grady Reynolds, they hacked into tax, employment, and education records of the former Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic,. The records of many Germans, especially the former East Germans, existed as hard copy only. However, the educational and financial history of politicial figures would have to have been put on disk for filing with various government commissions. Moreover, many large corporations had scanned their books onto computer. Those, at least, might also be available.

Darrell McCaskey's office, which had dominion over contact with other agencies, put them on-line with the FBI, Interpol, and various German law enforcement agencies: the Bundeskriminalamt or BKA, the German equivalent of the FBI; the Landespolizei; the Bundeszollpolizei or Federal Customs Police; and the Bundespostpolizei, the Federal Postal Police. The Bundeszollpolizei and the Bundespostpolizei often caught up with felons who had managed to slip past the others.

As the two assistants word-searched data and retrieved blocks of information about Hausen, Dr. Benn wrote it up in essential, digestible chunks. Since Hood had requested a phone call, Benn would read it to him. However, the data would also be stored for downloading or hard-copy printout.

Reading the information which came in, and rereading the original request, he wondered if Hood had got things quite right. There seemed to be some confusion about which Hausen had done what during his career.

Nonetheless, Benn continued to work quickly in order to meet the deadline Hood had imposed.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Thursday, 3:01 P.M.,

Washington, D.C.

All requests for information from the RI-Search division were automatically given a job number and time-coded by computer. Job numbers were always prefixed by one, two, or three digits which identified the individual making the request. Since requests were frequently made by someone in a dangerous situation, other individuals were automatically notified when those requests came in. If anything happened to the person in the field, their backup would be required to step in and finish the operation.

When Hood asked for data from RI-Search, Mike dodgers was alerted by a beep from his computer. Had he not been present, the signal would have sounded once every minute.

But he was there, eating a late lunch at his desk. Between bites of microwaved hamburger from the commissary, he examined the request. And he began to worry.