By checking the EDI Fraud Unit's system log, Spike was able to immediately see the file being accessed by all the programs. Spike had never seen so much wasted memory overhead getting chewed up as what those COBOL programs were going through. Half of them were going to crash before they even returned interim results. Spike grabbed a copy of the probe trace file and got the hell out of there.

A few diversionary stops along the way and Spike arrived back at MicroLabs. Nancy was busy with someone in her office when he arrived so Spike placed a call to her through the phone switch.

"Guess who?" he said in his signature computer generated voice when Nancy picked up the phone.

"Not funny, hold on, a minute can you? Bob I've got to take this." She said turning to her purchasing coordinator. "Can we get back together later? Thanks."

As Nancy closed the door behind Bob, Spike brought the e-mail message he had gotten from Lindquest's office up on her monitor. Nancy read through it carefully.

"Tom was right, something is going on."

"But it's nothing like what he thinks it is. They're actually trying to protect the net not take it over."

"Remember, Tom said his reporters thought it was a take over."

"Yeah, good point. But either way, they need to layoff the story or they'll expose the investigation."

"I suppose you're right. It could cause the terrorists to set off their bombs before they can be found."

"That's actually another thing I have to tell you about Nancy. I checked in on the guys doing the research at the FBI and I don't think they're going to be finding the source of the probe any time soon. It's just not what they're good at. I don't know why this landed in their laps."

"Maybe we should help."

"I was hoping you would think we should. In fact, I brought back a copy of the probe trace file with me."

"I don't even want to know about it, Spike. You get to work on it, let me know what I can do to help if anything occurs to you."

"Well, since you mention it, I'm going to need a little more work space. Could you put a couple more disk drives on line?"

"All right, I'll do that right after I call Tom Barnett back. We need to let him know where we are on this."

Nancy called Tom and Spike began to review the probe trace. Tom agreed that his people needed to keep out of the way but insisted on being kept in the loop for whatever progress Nancy and her mysterious partner made. Tom knew this was a big story even if it was not quite developed yet. Nancy agreed to stay in touch.



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