The special assistant looked at the photo Whisperer pushed across the desk, the face in the background carefully circled. ‘Who is he?’ he asked.
‘Years back he was known as the Rider of the Blue. He was probably the best intelligence agent there’s ever been.’
The special assistant smiled. ‘I thought that was you.’
‘So did I,’ Whisperer replied, ‘until I met him.’
Chapter Fifty-one
THE CROWD HAD started to arrive early, streaming into the largest auditorium on the campus of New York University. Frankly, I didn’t think the room would be big enough to hold them all. It was the first day of Ben Bradley’s long-planned symposium – the Davos Forum for investigators and the technicians who worked in the pit-lane on their behalf.
They came from twenty different countries – even a two-man delegation from the Bosnian police department who didn’t speak English but had convinced someone in authority that they should attend. By all accounts, they were having a whale of a time in New York and, over early-morning coffee, they communicated to Bradley their support for making it an annual event. They suggested holding the next one in Vegas.
After Bradley’s welcoming address, in which he recounted some of his own experiences on 9/11, including the plight of the guy in the wheelchair – conveniently omitting the part about how he had saved him – he was given a large round of applause. That was the cue for him to introduce a hitherto unknown colleague who had assisted Jude Garrett on so many of his investigations. In other words, I was on.
Thanks to Battleboi and the databases he had manipulated, I was now Peter Campbell again. When I had visited him in Old Japan to ask for help with the new identity, I asked if he could make the new identity convincing, given that we only had limited time.
He nodded. ‘We’ve got one huge advantage – people believe what they see in databases. They’ve never learned the most important rule of cyberspace – computers don’t lie, but liars can compute.’
I laughed. ‘Is that why you’re so good – you’re a gold-plated liar?’
‘In a way. I guess I believe in alternative realities. Look around, I live in one. I suppose they’re one big lie.
‘I’ve never said this to anyone,’ he continued, ‘but in a fair fight I’m better than your buddies at the FBI or any of those secret-agency guys.
‘You see, to them, alternative realities or cyberspace is just a job. Because I’m big and unattractive, it’s different – I don’t like the real world much.’ He indicated the racks of hard drives. ‘This is my life.’
‘Funny,’ I replied. ‘I’ve never thought of you as big or unattractive. I’ve always thought of you as Japanese.’
I saw from his face how much it meant to him. ‘You’re probably right, though,’ I continued, ‘about being the best. I’ll tell you this – if I ever got into a tight corner and needed computer help, you’d be the guy I’d call.’
He laughed and finished his cup of tea. ‘You wanna start?’
By the time I left, Peter Campbell was a graduate of the University of Chicago who went on to study medicine at Harvard and then spent years helping Garrett with his research. As I had planned earlier, Campbell was the one who had found the manuscript of Garrett’s remarkable book and, because I had access to his meticulously kept files, the publisher had asked me to edit it. As a result, I had an encyclopaedic knowledge of all his cases – I mean, it was almost as if I had investigated them myself.
So when, as Peter Campbell, I stood up in front of the congregation of my peers, I started nervously but quickly found my groove. I talked about Garrett’s reclusive nature, how I was one of the few friends he had had and the fact that, essentially, he lived a double life: while everyone knew he was an agent with the FBI, most of his work was for agencies in what I coyly termed the ‘intelligence sphere’.
I expanded on a number of those investigations – the ones featured prominently in the book – and when I thought I had caught their interest I opened the cases up to discussion and questions. The place exploded. I have to say I sort of began to enjoy it – it’s a weird thing to stand on a stage and hear your peers attack, analyse and praise you. A bit like reading your own obituary.
There was a woman in a turquoise shirt sitting at the front who led the charge – dissecting evidence, analysing motive and asking pointed questions. She had a good mind and an even more attractive face – hair with a natural kick, high cheekbones and eyes that always seemed close to laughter. At one point she said: ‘I noticed a few things he wrote in the text – I don’t think he liked women very much, did he?’