"All I can say, Congressman, is that I'm taking it very seriously. So is the FBI."

"And Ron Olson?" Trent asked.

"He's circling his wagons."

"You'll have a better chance if he asks." Fellows told Ryan.

"I know. Well, at least we'll have our system up and running in three more weeks. We've started turning out the first set of discs and doing preliminary tests now."

"How so?"

"We use a computer to look for non-randomness. The big one, the Cray YMP. We brought in a consultant from MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to do a new kind of type-token program. In another week - ten days, call it - we'll know if the system is what we expect it to be. Then we'll start sending the hardware out."

"I really hope you're wrong on this," Trent said, as the meeting closed.

"So do I, man, but my instincts say otherwise."

"And how much is it going to cost?" Fowler asked over lunch.

"From what I gather, two or three hundred million."

"No. We've got budget problems enough."

"I agree," Liz Elliot said. "But I wanted to discuss it with you first. It's Ryan's idea. Olson at NSA says he's full of it, says the systems are secure, but Ryan's really crazed about this new encoding system. You know he pushed the same thing through for the Agency - even went to Congress directly."

"Oh, really?" Fowler looked up from his plate. "He didn't go through OMB? What gives?"

"Bob, he delivered his pitch for the new NSA system to Trent and Fellows before he came to see me!"

"Who the hell does he think he is!"

"I keep telling you, Bob."

"He's out, Elizabeth. Out. O-U-T. Get moving on it."

"Okay, I think I know how to do it."

Circumstances made it easy. One of Ernest Wellington's investigators had been staking out the 7-Eleven for a week. The Zimmer family business was just off U.S. Route 50 between Washington and Annapolis, and was adjacent to a large housing development, from which it drew much of its business. The investigator parked his van at the end of a street that gave him both a view of the business building and the family house which was only fifty yards away from it. The van was a typical covert-surveillance vehicle, custom-built by one of several specialty firms. The roof vent concealed a sophisticated periscope, whose two lenses were connected respectively to a TV camera and a 35mm Canon. The investigator had a cooler full of soft drinks, a large Thermos of coffee and a chemical toilet. He thought of the cramped van as his own personal space vehicle, and some of its high-tech gadgetry was at least as good as NASA had installed on the Shuttle.

"Bingo!" the radio crackled. "Subject vehicle is taking the exit. Breaking off now."

The man in the van lifted his own microphone. "Roger, out."

Clark had noticed the Mercury two days earlier. One of the problems with commuting was that the same vehicles kept showing up from time to time, and he'd decided that's all it was. It never got close, and never followed them off the main road. In this case, as he took the exit, it didn't follow. Clark shifted his attention to other matters. He hadn't noticed that the guy was using a microphone but those new cellular things had you talking into the visor, and - wasn't technology wonderful? A good chase car need not tip himself off anymore. He pulled into the 7-Eleven parking lot, his eyes scanning for trouble. He saw none. Clark and Ryan exited the car at the same instant. Clark's topcoat was unbuttoned, as was his suit jacket, the easier to allow access to the Beretta 10mm pistol riding on his right hip. The sun was setting, casting a lovely orange glow in the western sky, and it was unseasonably warm, shirt-sleeve weather that made him regret the raincoat he was wearing. D.C.-area weather was as predictably unpredictable as anywhere in the world.