An Absence of Light

Some private agencies had become so specialized in certain fields of data collection and analysis that law enforcement agencies at every level-all the way up to the CIA-were utilizing these specialized information resellers and private agencies whenever those entities had an edge on them in any given arena of activity. They didn’t like having to do it, and they didn’t publicize it But they did it.

Now, more than at any other time in world history, “private” information was in danger of becoming only a nominal concept The information business, legal and illegal, governmental and private, commercial and political, personal and public, legitimate and underground, was in an era of explosive growth. And, as in all boom-time businesses, abuse was rampant Unfortunately, the American public didn’t have a clue about what was happening to it.

But there were a few independent-private-intelligence operations like Arnette Kepner’s whose work was nothing akin to the highly visible corporate swashbucklers like Kroll. Her experience was in the world of international intelligence, not merely investigation, and in her profession a high profile was the kiss of death and anonymity was the mark of a right-thinking operation. She did not work for businesses or governments, but for other intelligence agencies, and her computers, which occupied most of the rooms in one of her adjacent houses, were packed fat with rarified data about intelligence networks and thousands of individual agents, officers, and operatives which the traditional private and corporate investigative agencies knew nothing about.

Arnette stared at him through the thin haze created by the smoldering joss stick, her errant gray hair forming a lively aura around her face.

“Okay,” she said. She leaned forward and took a cigarette from an ocher pack of a foreign brand sitting on the coffee table in front of her. She lit it and blew the smoke up into the midday dusk to mingle with the incense. Sitting back, she folded one arm across her waist and rested the wrist of the hand holding the cigarette on her knee. “What do you want?”

“A log of their movements and photographs of everyone they talk to. I want to be briefed daily.”

“This kind of thing can be a long haul, Marcus. Two weeks is nothing.”

Graver nodded. “Yeah, I know. But I don’t have much of a choice here.”

She looked at him seriously. “Okay, let’s see what comes up. What’s his address?”

Graver told her and gave her Ginette’s office address as well. She nodded thoughtfully but didn’t write down anything.

“Tomorrow Dean starts two weeks of vacation,” Graver said. “I think his wife will have to work during the first week, but the second week they’re off together.”

“I’ll put someone out there right now,” she said, “something to hold it until I can get a team together later on in the evening. You have any reason to think he’ll bolt?”

“No. I think it’s too soon for that kind of panic. He’ll try to sweat it out. He knows Westrate-everyone-wants to see this thing put to bed. He’ll wait to see if it is.”

“Okay, well, by tonight I’ll have this together anyway.” She pulled on her cigarette and then studied him, a sober expression on her face. “I know this is eating you alive,” she said. “I’m so sorry it’s happening.”

To his surprise, Graver was suddenly relieved she had just come right out with it He felt like he was wrapped in a straitjacket, and he alternately panicked and despaired at his condition.

He shook his head. “It’ll soak in, I’m sure,” he said. “But right now it doesn’t seem very real… I just don’t understand it… why in the hell he’s in this situation. It’s absolutely… senseless.”

Arnette nodded. “It’s going to take a lot of guts to do this, baby. It’ll be hard on you. It’s going to tear you apart You’ve got to know that.”

He didn’t respond immediately. “I just want to know why he’s doing it,” he said.

“And you think you’ll ‘understand’ it then? You don’t really believe it’ll be that simple, do you?”

Graver shrugged. He didn’t even know if what he had just said was that simple. If he had thought about it for ten minutes he might have said something else. If he had this same conversation half an hour from now, he wasn’t sure it would be anything like it was now. Maybe if there was one thing he did know it was that nothing that had happened to him in the last year was “that simple,” least of all what was happening to him now.