Aftershocksgesture studyPete Thornton was still in his office, but he wasn’t getting any work done. When the phone rang, he started and swore, knocking his pen to the floor – it was the ring for an internal line. Not MacGyver.
He made an guess as to the caller – there weren’t that many people at Phoenix who would still be in the building at this hour. “Willis?”
“Yeah. How’d you know – never mind. Any word from Mac?”
“No.” Pete’s voice was curt, but Willis knew it was from worry and not anger. “I asked the police on that beat to keep an eye out – they’ve spotted Mac’s truck. It’s been parked in the same place off of Olympic Boulevard since early evening. And they haven’t seen any activity in the area in all that time.”
“Oh, hell. I was hoping he’d be back by now.”
“No such luck.” Pete rubbed his tired eyes. “You calling about anything else?”
“Uh, yeah. You remember back when we were testing the new programming for the personnel records?”
“What about it?” Pete let his head rest in his hand. When Willis started talking about the Phoenix computers, it usually meant trouble of one sort or another.
“Weeelll . . you see, Mac and I put together an entire dummy file on Dexter – his whole past, his arrest record, all that. Just for fun, mostly, and so we could run tests. Well, when Mac decided to reactivate the identity, we . . . well, we kind of fed Dexter’s profile into the computer as an active Phoenix associate.”
“ ‘Kind of’ –
Willis – ”
“C’mon, Pete, Mac
said it was a good background! You yourself sponsored Dexter personally. Phoenix is trying to rehabilitate him. We’ve even got an imaginary psychiatrist who thinks his antisocial attitude will respond to therapy.” There was a long moment’s silence. “Pete?”
Pete massaged his temples. “Your point being?”
“The file’s been accessed.”
“
What?”
“Someone’s been reading that file, recently, and it wasn’t me. Or you.”
“Oh, god. Someone here at Phoenix?”
“Yeah. Has to be.”
After Willis had rung off, it took Pete five minutes to spot his pen where it had rolled under the desk. He finally realised he was looking right at it.
Where are you, MacGyver?
*gnaws on keyboard*
