“Who else?” He waved a hand.
“What about the letter you translated for me? Anyone else know about that?”
“No way.” Terry looked indignant.
No one but the University of Maryland professor, and I’d been followed to Maryland by Weis. Or at least someone connected to him.
I looked straight into Terry’s eyes. “Do your clients have mob connections?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t ask those kinds of questions.” He didn’t look away from me.
Assuming the answer was yes, who were those guys in the car with the stolen license plate?
I sipped more coffee. It was damn good.
“Maybe the sniper wasn’t trying to kill me,” I muttered.
“Just warn you off?” Terry asked. “From what? What do I have to do with it?”
“Maybe nothing.”
Dell raised his mug. “More coffee?”
“Yes, thanks,” I said. “Just black this time.”
???
It was late by the time I got back. Staying overnight in Ocean City had been an option, but I felt the need to get home and get to the bottom of whatever the hell was going on.
I studied my flowchart of names again. Then I tore a blank sheet off a writing pad and started scribbling fast as I could. The resulting brain dump was a disorganized mess of semi-decipherable words. But it jolted my brain into thinking outside the constraints of my flowchart.
I sensed an answer before one could fully form, but it was there. When the thought became coherent, it came at me like cold water thrown right in my face.
The answer had always been there. Perhaps I couldn’t have imagined it. In any case, I hadn’t wanted to see it.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
I checked the time. It was 0030. A little late to be calling anyone, but I speed-dialed Nick, my new intrepid journalist mentor, with the hope that he’d be up. Much to my relief, he answered.
“Are you okay?” he asked. Not an unreasonable question given the hour.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Have you ever written about smuggling or its connections to terrorism?”
“I never had a story run, but I have done some poking around.”
“To the best of your knowledge, do these smugglers use computer hackers?” I asked.
This elicited a “hmmm” from the other end. “It’s likely that they do, since so much crime involves computers these days. How exactly they might use them I couldn’t say.”
I considered the implications. Nick eventually said, “When I saw your caller ID, I was afraid you were having a crisis.”
“What makes you think this isn’t one?”
“The questions you’re asking—I mean, I thought you were having a mental—” Nick faltered. “You know what I mean, right?”
I nodded, like the guy could see me. “I know. It’s late, but I need help and wanted to run these ideas by you while they were still fresh in my mind.”
“Erica?” Nick’s voice had a razor-sharp edge. “What’s going on?”