"James? Isn't he Smith's boss? The political one?"

"Yeah, him. I take it you haven't met… James is a Company man, all the way through. Works for the NSC, runs covert ops, the whole lot. That's who we're working for. And you know what happens to people who go outside official channels in CIA land? You just don't do that. I've been doing some reading in my copious spare time. You, me, we got sucked in because we were already on the edge of something very big and very classified and very black. Eric told me some, some stuff. About how the military perceive the national security implications of what we're up against. It made my hair stand on end. I think he's wrong about some-maybe most-of this, but I couldn't tell him that to his face. Now, I happen to think we ought to be treating this more like a policing problem, ought to be enforcing the law-but doesn't that sort of presuppose that we're dealing with criminals? What I'm hearing is that like Matt, they think we're dealing with another government, a rogue state, like North Korea or Cuba or something. And right now, they've won the argument. I don't see us getting any backup from Justice, Pete. If you start going behind their backs without evidence, they will stick it to you hard. But if we don't, who knows what kind of mess they're going to get us into?"

"Shit." Pete stared at him.

"Drink." Mike reached into the bag, thrust another bottle at Pete. "Listen, we'll work on this together. Just keep an eye on what's going on, okay? Compare notes. Try to remember who we are and what kind of job we're supposed to be doing, so that if the spooks fuck up we'll be in the clear and able to carry on. Maybe talk to Judith, she's FBI, I think she'll see it our way. Form a, I guess, a Justice Department network." He found he was waving his hands around helplessly. "We're the underdogs right now. Defense grabbed the ball while our team's back was turned. But it's not going to last forever. And when we get an opportunity to make our case we need to be ready…"

Telephony Intercept Transcript

LOGGED 18:47 04/06

"Hello, who's this?"

"Paulie?"

"Miriam-I mean, hi babe! Wow! It's been ages, I've been worrying about you-"

"Yeah, well, there's been some heavy stuff going down. I take it you heard-"

"How could I not? I'm, like, this side of things is completely firewalled from, you know, your uncle's other business interests, but I've been catching it from all sides. You were right about the shit hitting the fan, then Brill turned up with her usual calm head on and sorted most of it out, but they've been running me ragged and I haven't heard anything from you, you could have written! So what's going on in fairyland?"

"Politics, I think. First they dragged me over there full time, then they wouldn't let me back out. I've been out of the loop so long: I mean, I'm frightened. Anyway, now I'm running some errands for them in New Britain they've eased up a bit. I get to cross over here and make phone calls, y'know, like prisoner's privileges? But that's all I can do right now, until they're sure nobody's made me. I'm officially in France, at least that's what the INS think. Anyway, I am going to get them to clear me so we can do lunch and start putting things back together, soon. Trust me on this, right? Tomorrow I've, well, I've managed to wangle a week in New London. I'm supposed to be moving carpetbags of confidential letters about, but I've figured out a better way. So I get to drop by the works and see who's holding it together, or not as the case may be, bang heads and kick ass, that kind of thing. Then let's do lunch, hey?"

"Sounds like a plan, babe."

"Well, that's most of the plan, anyway. There is something else. Two somethings, actually. Tell me no if you don't want to get involved, okay?"

"Miriam, would I?"

"Just saying. Look, one of them's probably not an issue. I want you to round me up a prescription for a friend. Nothing illegal but he can't get to see a doctor-he's out of the country-so if you could order it from one of those dodgy Mexican Web sites and mail it to me I'd be ever so grateful."

"Um, okay. If you say so. What's it you're wanting?"

"Um. Two packs of RIFINAH-300 antibiotic tablets, one hundred tabs per pack, not the small twenty-tablet bottles. They should only set you back a few bucks-it's dirt cheap, they use it all over the third world. As soon as you've got it, mail it to me via your, uh, contact. Family postal service should reach me soon enough."

"Okay, I think I've got that, RIFINAH-300, a hundred tablets per pack, two packs. That it?"

"Well, there's the other thing. But that's the one I think you might want to punt on."

"Hmm. Tell me, Miriam, okay? Let me make my own mind up?"

"Okay, it's this: I want all the information you can find-public stuff, company financials, profiles of directors, that sort of thing-on two companies. The first is the Gerstein Center for Reproductive Medicine, in Stony Brook. The second is an outfit called Applied Genomics Corporation. In particular I'm interested in any details you can find about financial transfers from Applied Genomics Corporation to the Gerstein Center-and especially about when they started."

"Applied Genomics, eh? Is this-is this like our old friends at Proteome?"

"Yes, Paulie. That's why I said you could say no. Just walk away from it and pretend you never heard from me."

"I couldn't do that."

"Yeah, well, couldn't and should are-look, Paulie, I'm sticking my nose into something it's not supposed to be in, and I don't want to get you burned. So the first order of the day is cover your ass. Don't do anything that might draw attention to yourself. Don't post the stuff to me or call me about it, that's why I'm using a pay phone. I'll come collect when we do lunch, and I don't mind if all you've got is their annual filings and disclosures."

"What are they doing?"

"I-I'm not sure. But, uh, sometime in the past year my relatives have come up with a genetic test for, uh, the family headache. And I was wondering how they did that when this other thing, the connection with this fertility clinic, crawled out of the woodwork and bit me. Paulie, there's something-stuff about some kind of W-star genetic trait-that gives me an itchy feeling. The same itch I got when we were investigating that money-laundering scam that turned out to be-well. I think it might have something to do with why they're giving me the runaround, why I'm being pressured to…"

"Pressured to what?"

"Never mind. One thing at a time, huh? Look, I've got to go soon. And then I'm going to be on the other side for a week. Let's do lunch, okay?"

"Okay, kid! See you around. Take care and give my best to Brill and Olga."

"Will do. You take care too. Especially around, uh, the second job. I mean that, I want you to be around so I can buy you lunch. It's been too long, okay?"

"Yeah. Nice to hear from you!"

"Bye."

"Bye."

Transcript Ends-Duration 00:06:42