While she was talking, Sanders turned to his monitor. The e-mail light was flashing. He clicked it.
YOU HAVE 17 MESSAGES WAITING.
Christ. He could only imagine. He clicked the READ button. They flashed up in order.
FROM: DON CHERRY, CORRIDOR PROGRAMMING TEAM TO: ALL SUBJECTS
WE HAVE DELIVERED THE VIE UNIT TO CONLEY-WHITE'S PEOPLE. THE UNIT IS NOW ACTIVE INTO THEIR COMPANY DB SINCE THEY GAVE US THE HOOKS TODAY. JOHN CONLEY ASKED THAT IT BE DELIVERED TO A SUITE AT THE FOUR SEASONS HOTEL BECAUSE THEIR CEO IS ARRIVING THURSDAY MORNING AND WILL SEE IT THEN. ANOTHER PROGRAMMING TRIUMPH BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE SWELL FOLKS AT VIE.
DON THE MAGNIFICENT
Sanders flipped to the next one.
FROM: DIAGNOSTICS GROUP TO: APG TEAM
ANALYSIS OF TWINKLE DRIVES. THE PROBLEM WITH THE CONTROLLER TIMING LOOP DOES NOT SEEM TO COME FROM THE CHIP ITSELF. WE VERIFIED MICRO-FLUCTUATIONS IN CURRENT FROM THE POWER UNIT WHICH WAS APPARENTLY ETCHED WITH SUBSTANDARD OR INADEQUATE RESISTANCES ON THE BOARD BUT THIS IS MINOR AND DOES NOT EXPLAIN OUR FAILURE TO MEET SPECS. ANALYSIS IS CONTINUING.
Sanders viewed the message with a sense of detachment. It didn't really tell him anything. Just words that concealed the underlying truth: they still didn't know what the problem was. At another time, he'd be on his way down to the Diagnostics team, to ride them hard to get to the bottom of it. But now . . . He shrugged and went to the next message.
FROM: BASEBALL CENTRAL TO: ALL PLAYERS RE: NEW SUMMER SOFTBALL SCHEDULE
DOWNLOAD FILE BB.72 TO GET THE NEW REVISED SUMMER SCHEDULE. SEE YOU ON THE FIELD!
He heard Fernandez say on the phone, "Harry, we've got to crack this one somehow. What time do they close their offices in Sunnyvale?" Sanders went to the next message.
NO MORE GROUP MESSAGES. DO YOU WANT TO READ PERSONAL MESSAGES?
He clicked the icon.
WHY DON'T YOU JUST ADMIT YOU ARE GAY?
(UNSIGNED)
He didn't bother to see where it had come from. They would probably have manually entered it as coming from Garvin's address, or something like that. He could check the real address inside the system, but not without the access privileges they had taken away. He went to the next message.
SHE'S BETTER LOOKING THAN YOUR ASSISTANT, AND YOU DIDN'T SEEM TO MIND SCREWING HER.
(UNSIGNED)
Sanders clicked to the next one.
YOU SLIMY WEASEL - GET OUT OF THIS COMPANY.
YOUR BEST ADVICE
Christ, he thought. The next one:
LITTLE TOMMY HAD A PECKER HE PLAYED WITH EVERY DAY
BUT WHEN A LADY TRIED TO TOUCH IT LITTLE TOMMY SAID GO AWAY.
The verses ran on, down to the bottom of the screen, but Sanders didn't read the rest. He clicked and went on.
IF YOU WEREN'T FUCKING YOUR DAUGHTER SO MUCH YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO
He clicked again. He was clicking faster and faster, going through the messages.
GUYS LIKE YOU GIVE MEN A BAD NAME YOU ASSHOLE.
BORIS
Click.
YOU FILTHY LYING MALE PIG
Click.
HIGH TIME SOMEBODY STUCK IT TO THE WHINING BITCHES. I'M TIRED OF THE WAY THEY BLAME EVERYBODY BUT THEIRSELVES. TITS AND BLAME ARE SEX-LINKED TRAITS. THEY'RE BOTH ON THE XCHROMOSOME.
KEEP ON TRUCKIN'
He went through them, no longer reading. Eventually he was going so fast he almost missed one of the later ones:
JUST RECEIVED WORD THAT MOHAMMED JAFAR IS DYING. HE'S STILL IN THE HOSPITAL, AND NOT EXPECTED TO SURVIVE UNTIL MORNING. I GUESS MAYBE THERE'S SOMETHING TO THIS SORCERY BUSINESS, AFTER ALL.
Chapter 21
ARTHUR KAHN
Sanders stared at the screen. A man dying of sorcery? He couldn't begin to imagine what had really happened. The very idea seemed to belong to another world, not his. He heard Fernandez say, "I don't care, Harry, but Conrad has information relevant to the pattern, and somehow we have to get it out of them."
Sanders clicked to the final message.
YOU'RE CHECKING THE WRONG COMPANY.
AFRIEND
Sanders twisted the monitor around so Fernandez could see it. She frowned as she talked on the phone. "Harry, I got to go. Do what you can." She hung up. "What does it mean, we're checking the wrong company? How does this friend even know what we're doing? When did this come in?"
Sanders looked at the message headers. "One-twenty this afternoon."
Fernandez made a note on her legal pad. "That was about the time Alan was talking to Conrad. And Conrad called DigiCom, remember? So this message has to be coming from inside DigiCom."
"But it's on the Internet."
"Wherever it appears to be coming from, it's actually from somebody inside the company trying to help you."
His immediate thought, out of nowhere, was Max. But that didn't make any sense. Dorfman was tricky, but not in this way. Besides, Max wasn't knowledgeable about the minute-to-minute workings of the company.
No, this was somebody who wanted to help Sanders but who didn't want the help to be traced back.
"You're checking the wrong company . . ." he repeated aloud.
Could it be someone at Conley-White? Hell, he thought, it could be anybody.
"What does it mean, we're checking the wrong company?" he said. "We're checking all her past employers, and we're having a very difficult-,,
He stopped.
You're checking the wrong company.
"I must be an idiot," he said. He started typing at his computer.
"What is it?" Fernandez said.
"They've restricted my access, but I still should be able to get this," he said, typing quickly.
"Get what?" she said, puzzled.
"You say harassers have a pattern, right?"
"Right."
"It shows up again and again, right?"
"Right."
"And we're checking her past employers, to get information about past episodes of harassment."