"So you've got good eyesight and you've done some homework."

"My eyesight is terrible. I used binoculars from across the street to check the earrings. By the way, are you going to show me some MicroLabs' secrets on that Internet session you opened? Is that what that would be for?"

Tango was showing that he knew his business. It was a good thing he made some sort of effort at demonstrating skills. His appearance gave nothing away. He looked like he might be with the band that was still setting up for the night's performance at Icon. Ragged jeans, tee-shirt, leather jacket. Nancy guessed he was about 28 years old. The demonstration impressed Spike even if Nancy was finding it harder to give Roger credit for it since it was delivered at the expense of her naiveté.

"We'll get to that." she snapped. At least being mad was better than being nervous. "Let me tell you why you're here and then we'll see where we go. Tom Barnett gave us your name. A friend and I are working on a project for Tom. It has nothing to do with MicroLabs and it's gotten a little bigger than we can handle on our own. We need some help from someone like you. It may call for some security system work and possibly going through some people's files. Can you do that kind of thing?"

"Look, let me save you some time. It's going to take you forever to go through this story if I don't. I called Tom Barnett and got the whole story out of him before I even responded to your e-mail message. I'm assuming you can give me more details than Tom did, but there's only one thing I have to know before I can tell you whether or not I'm willing to work with you."

"How did you connect me to Tom?" asked Nancy.

"Oh, boring. Look, I'm not in the phone book. You had to be a referral. I only work for a handful of people in the area. Most of them would never admit to it if their tax rate depended on it. I did some background on you. The family tree led to your dad in Stanford's class of 1961. Tom Barnett's class. Same College of Engineering. Close enough for a quick phone call. And what do you suppose is the first thing he says to me? ‘Did Nancy McGill reach you already?' he asks. Boy, I really had to pry it out of him. I told him you had e-mailed me and he assumed I had the whole story. Man, he was excited to tell me all about it. Does that answer your question?"

"That would do it. We're making excellent progress, I guess."



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