“Nathan’s been promoted to another office. Can I help you instead?”

“This is his roommate, Ben. Do you know his new extension?”

“Hey, Ben,” Andrew’s voice warmed up. “I’ve heard a lot about you. How’s everything at the Supreme Court? Change any laws today?”

“No, nothing today,” Ben said. “We only change laws on Wednesdays. On Mondays we just try to speak to our roommates.”

“Yeah, Nathan said you had a sarcastic sense of humor,” Andrew said, showing no sign that he intended to transfer Ben’s call. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask Nathan-how’d that prank go with your other roommate?”

“Which one?”

“You know, the one you needed the microphones and cameras for. Nathan said you guys were trying to catch your roommate doing the deed.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ben said, quickly remembering how Nathan had swindled the high-tech equipment out of the State Department. “It went fantastic. I’ll have to remind Nathan to bring you some of the pictures. They were a bit blurry, but they’re pretty funny.”

“Well, if the pictures suck, tell him to bring in the audio. I’m sure the briefcase mikes picked up every moan and groan.”

Ben paused. Briefcase mikes? “How do those mikes work again, Andrew?”

“The same as the cordless ones. The only difference is that they’re built into a briefcase. They’re used when someone is concerned that the regular microphones might get exposed. Pound for pound, I’d say they’re about as close as we get to a James Bond movie. They’re still only at the prototype stage, but Nathan thought you’d get a real kick out of them.”

“Oh, they sure were awesome,” Ben said as a cold sweat covered his brow. “We got to hear everything we wanted to hear.”

“Well, let me transfer you to Nathan,” Andrew said.

“I’ll tell you what,” Ben said. “I’m running late, so I’ll just give him a call later.”

“Do you want me to tell him you called?”

“No, no,” Ben said. “I’m going to be busy all day. I’ll see him at home.”

Ben hung up the phone and leaned his head against the phone booth. Shutting his eyes, his mind searched for a reasonable explanation. When he couldn’t come up with one, his breathing quickened. With his eyes still shut, he slammed his head against the metal booth. “I don’t believe this!” he screamed. He picked up the receiver and searched his pockets for more loose change. As he was about to deposit the money, he paused. “Damn!” he screamed, slamming the receiver back in its cradle. Rubbing his forehead, he mentally replayed his conversations with Rick and Andrew. Struggling to make sense of both exchanges, he stood silent.

Ten minutes later, Ben stepped out of the shadow of the phone booth and returned to the Court. When Lisa heard the door of the office slam shut, she quickly turned her head. After throwing his coat into the closet, Ben stood directly in front of Lisa’s desk.

“What?” she asked. “What’d I do now?”

“Listen, I’m going to tell you this, but I’m only telling you because I need your help,” Ben explained. “A week ago, Rick contacted me-”

“I knew it,” Lisa interrupted. “I knew he-”

“Lisa, please give me a chance to explain,” Ben pleaded. “When I spoke with Rick, he asked me for the Grinnell decision. In exchange, he was going to give me three million dollars. Obviously, I would never give him the decision, but I was hoping that when we met for the exchange, I’d be able to finally I.D. him. Our meeting was supposed to be at the airport this Saturday, probably in one of the executive lounges.”

“And now you need my help to make a plan?”

“I already had a plan,” Ben said. “I had called all the airport lounges to see which ones were reserved for this Saturday. When I got that list, I started doing background checks on any names I didn’t recognize-that’s why I was reading a week-old newspaper. I figured if I could anticipate which room Rick and I were supposed to meet in, I’d be able to wire the room, or bug it, or do something to it in advance. Anyway, just as I start feeling confident that this’ll be the time I nail Rick, I get a surprising phone call from our favorite scumbag.”

“That was Rick who called before?”

“Yep. And he told me that I can go scratch myself because our meeting is canceled. He said he didn’t need my help and then he hung up on me. Obviously, he got the Grinnell decision from someone else.”

“If you think he got it from me, you’re on crack.”

“To be honest, I did think it was you,” Ben admitted. “I figured you were the only other person who had access to the decision.”

“Ben, I swear-”

“Let me finish. After I got Rick’s call, I went to a pay phone to call Nathan. I ended up talking to one of his coworkers, who asked me how the briefcase microphone worked.”

“What briefcase mike?”

“Exactly,” Ben said.

“And now, just because Nathan withheld a piece of equipment, you think he’s the one talking to Rick?”

“What else can I think? This wasn’t just any piece of equipment-if I had the briefcase mike, I would’ve been able to get Rick on tape when we met at the restaurant. I’d have everything documented by now: Rick’s offer, his explanation of the original CMI scam-everything I needed to get me off the hook. But Nathan somehow managed to not include it in his little bag of tricks. You don’t think that’s suspicious?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ve tried to come up with a reasonable explanation. But I can’t for the life of me explain why Nathan wouldn’t say word one about it. Especially when it’s such a cool thing to talk about.”

“But if Nathan was working with Rick, Rick would’ve known about the briefcase mike, so it wouldn’t have posed any real threat.”

“I thought about that,” Ben said as he walked toward the file cabinet. “But I keep coming back to the idea that Rick couldn’t have kept the briefcase out of the limo. If he hadn’t let me bring it in, I wouldn’t have gotten in myself. I’d have said that I couldn’t abandon the briefcase in an alley since there were vital Court documents inside. And at that point, Rick had to get me in the car.”

“That’s not a bad theory,” Lisa agreed.

“So now I have to figure out if it’s really Nathan,” Ben said, leaning on the cabinet.

“Ben, let me ask you one question. Fifteen minutes ago, you thought I was selling your soul to the devil, and now you walk in here and pour your guts out to me. Why the change of heart?”

“Lisa, the God’s honest truth is that I have absolutely nothing to lose by telling you. Rick’s cut me loose; he presumably has the Grinnell decision; I don’t have any more meetings with him, and therefore I have no hope of catching him. Even if you are working with Rick, there’s nothing to tell him. I’m lost. I have no suspect, no clues, and a lie detector test in two days. More importantly, I have no one else I can trust.”

“What about Ober?”

“Believe me, he was the first person I thought about. But I realized he really wouldn’t be able to help. Ober’s great, and I love him like a brother, but he couldn’t find his ass with a map and a pickax. I need an extra brain to figure out what to do from here.”

“So if Nathan is in on it, how’d he get the decision?”

“For all I know, he could’ve used some State Department super-computer to break into our computers here. Or he could’ve just as easily gotten it from my briefcase-all he had to do was take it out in the middle of the night, photocopy it, and return it before I got up.”

“Don’t you have a lock on your briefcase? Especially after what happened with Eric?”

“Of course I have a lock. But Nathan knows the combination-he used it for his interview at the State Department.”

“Well, no offense, but your choice of friends is worse than Julius Caesar’s.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Ben said, returning to his desk. “Now, will you help me?”

“That depends,” Lisa said. “Do you trust me?”

“At this point, I don’t trust my own mother. Last time I was home, she started looking a little shifty.”