“Yeah,” Watts replied. “I missed what you said about what you’ll be doing in this operation.”

“If the trail leads across state lines it becomes federal, so it seemed prudent for us to be in on the investigation from the start.”

Rebecca met Watts’ gaze for the first time. His expression was blank but his eyes spoke for him. He knew as well as she did that Clark knew much more than he was saying.

CHAPTER TEN

THE FIVE OF them left at the table when Clark walked out remained in silence for a moment. Clark had implied that Rebecca was in charge of the nuts and bolts aspects of the operation, yet there they all sat in the middle of Sloan’s territory. Rebecca and Sloan looked at one another across the expanse of smooth black stone. Watts and Jason watched them. Officer Mitchell stared straight ahead, her eyes fixed somewhere over the Delaware River.

“What’s your plan?” Rebecca asked finally. There was no point in drawing lines in the sand over false issues. She and Watts couldn’t do what Sloan and McBride could. Chances were they’d never even get to the point of arresting anyone. Clark was after something with this fishing expedition, she had no doubt of that, but there was more smoke in the room now than before the briefing.

“This kind of Internet surveillance op isn’t new,” Sloan said with a shrug. “And like Clark said, it usually involves a huge number of man hours for something that often produces short-lived results.”

“Like busting hookers,” Watts remarked. “No percentage in it.”

“Exactly.”

“So why hasn’t he given you a dozen people to sit here and surf the internet—flood the system and maximize his returns?” Rebecca persisted.

“Can’t say. It’s costly, there aren’t that many computer savvy agents readily available, or…” she considered her words carefully, because she didn’t know the blond cop at all. She was bothered by that fact as well, had been since the first phone call had come from Washington asking her to head up the computer side of the investigation. “He wants to limit the number of people exposed to the operation.”

Rebecca nodded. That played with her sense that there was a hidden agenda beneath the stated objectives of the investigation. And there was nothing to do but do the job and keep her eyes open. “Did he give you anything specific to work with?”

“Actually, yes,” Sloan affirmed. “There are probably 100,000 sites that supply child sex images world wide. Many of them link to credit-card transaction and on-line billing sites that take Visa, MasterCard, and AmEx. When you trace them through their domain registry, they turn out to be in the Balkans or Bali or some other even more remote locale.”

“Untouchable,” Jason commented.

“Right,” Sloan agreed. “A more profitable place to search is the web-hosting companies. Most porn sites are explicit about their content when they register with a server—you know, clever names like underagenymphos.net and lolitaland.com. Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section has given us a prescreened list of potential US-based companies that specialize in porn sites. I’ll start there, looking for intersecting references to anything in the Northeast corridor as points of origin. If there is a big supplier, particularly a live feed line somewhere local, we’ll get a whiff of it eventually.”

“Sounds simple,” Watts commented dryly. “What’s the catch?”

“There’s an international network of Web resellers who buy and sell space on hosting frames. They can cloak the site content so it’s not so conspicuous to broad searches.”

“And that’s what we’re looking for, right?” Rebecca asked. “A central clearing house.”

Sloan nodded, an appreciative glint in her eye at Rebecca’s quick assessment. “Yes. That’s very high up on our list of desirable Intel. While I do the broad sweeps, Jason will try for individual contacts.”

Watts regarded the only other man in the room sympathetically, feeling an instant kinship with him based on that fact alone. “Jeez, you’re gonna pretend to be a perv?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” Jason replied flatly. “The rest of the time I’m going to pretend to be a girl.”

“We’re going to go at this from every angle we can,” Sloan affirmed, shooting Jason a bemused smile that no one else noticed.

Rebecca stood. “Is there someplace here where Mitchell can set up shop for us?” She didn’t add that she wanted a place where she could discuss the street side of things with Watts privately, but she didn’t imagine she needed to. Sloan was too sharp not to know that no one shares everything, ever.

“I’ll show you,” Jason offered. “There’s another meeting room you can have at the other end of the floor. It’s small, but the coffee machine works.”

“It’ll be fine,” Rebecca acknowledged. “Thanks.” She glanced at Sloan. “The first time you get a hint of anything that even vaguely connects to here, let me know.”

“No problem.”

When Jason left them in a conference room that made anything at the one-eight look like a slum, Rebecca said, “Mitchell, take ten. We’ll discuss your assignment when you get back.”

“Yes ma’am. I’ll be back in ten. Bring you anything?”

“No thanks. How many open cases do you have?” Rebecca asked Watts when the uniform left. “Because officially, you aren’t even on this case.”

“Nothing pressing. A few follow-up interviews, two coming to trial, and those cold files I’ve been slugging through.” He hiked a hip up unto the corner of another sleek tabletop, the fabric of his shiny brown suit stretching over his ample middle. “I thought we…uh…you were just supposed to be the contact person when these eggheads find something. If they find something.”

“That’s what Henry said,” Rebecca agreed. “I think we’re all going fishing for Avery Clark, and I don’t like that too much. Let’s poke around and see if we can find out what he really wants us to catch.”

“You think it’s Zamora?” Watts asked flatly, watching her carefully. Nicholas Zamora was the head of the local organized crime syndicate, and he had been amazingly successful at avoiding prosecution. So successful that most cops believed he had friends in high places.

“I don’t think anything,” Rebecca replied steadily.

“Wouldn’t it be a bite in the ass if Zamora goes down for selling dirty pictures after all the times we’ve tried to nail him for drugs and racketeering. Justice is a funny thing sometimes.” His expression was one of happy expectation.

“Don’t jump to conclusions, and don’t talk this up at the squad,” she warned sharply. I don’t want another…partner…winding up dead.

“Wouldn’t think of it,” he replied. “Especially if chasing around for you keeps me from hunting down weenie waggers in the park. Can you get me some slack with the Cap?”

She considered her options, and they were slim. Officially this was a desk job for her. Talking to the feds, coordinating with the computer cops, and sitting on her ass until something happened. Which might be never. “I could probably justify some time for you on this by telling him I need you to run down the guys Jeff and I put away in that kiddie prostitution bust last spring. Find out if any of them are out of jail yet. Shake them down for some names. Go through the paperwork—you might even dig something up that would give us a lead.”

“Good enough for me,” Watts said. “I don’t suppose whatever we’re going to be doing is going into the rookie’s log book.”

She just looked at him.

“Right. I’m ready,” he said more seriously. “Just give me the word.”

“Go ahead and start on it,” she said as a discreet cough from the doorway to the conference room announced the uniform’s return. “I’ll call you later.”

“What’re you gonna be doing?” he asked as he ambled toward the door.

She didn’t answer. He hadn’t expected her to. It would be a long time—maybe never—before she confided in him. Some cops never accepted another partner after one was killed. Didn’t want to take the risk of losing another, or as in her case, most likely, they could only form that kind of attachment once in a lifetime. He put his hands in his pockets, walked to the elevator, and tried not to be bothered by her secrets.

“Come in, Mitchell,” Rebecca said as she slid open a drawer under the counter that held an automatic coffee machine and discovered prepackaged coffee packets of a better than average brand. She didn’t speak again until she had poured water into the coffee pot from the cooler in the corner of the room. Then she turned to face the officer who was standing just inside the room, shoulders back, hands straight down at her sides. It was a posture most young officers assumed when dealing with superiors, but on her it looked a lot more natural.

“What did you do before you were a cop?” Rebecca asked, walking to the windows and glancing at the view. Breathtaking. For an instant she thought of Catherine, and wondered what she was doing at that moment. She looked away from the pristine sky and glistening water.

“I was in the Army, ma’am.”

“Enlisted?”

“No, ma’am. Second Lieutenant.”

“West Point?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Serve long?”

A tightening of the muscles along her jaw which might have gone unnoticed, but Rebecca was looking for it. “No, ma’am. Just over a year.”

Rebecca studied her, noting the faint bruise on her left cheek that was more obvious in the sunlight coming through the windows than it had been previously.

“How long have you been on the force?”

“Eight months.”

Allowing for her time in the academy, she was probably in her mid-twenties, which was about how old she looked. Rebecca poured herself a cup of coffee. “Have some coffee, Mitchell.”

Mitchell glanced at her, surprised. “Thank you, ma—”