curiousers under way

Part 21 - Positively Negatory

I thought about making breakfast the next day but decided Emma was a much better cook. I carried Pacman upstairs. It was quicker than waiting for him to climb unaided.

Sure enough, Emma was already serving Rico and Jeremy with bacon and eggs to so she added a few more eggs to her pan and gave her plate to me. Jeremy fed Pacman with bits of bacon fat he had left on his plate.

The morning was very cold but the ice, on the longest skating rink in the world, the Rideau canal, wasn't thick enough for skating. Instead Licia, Miguel and I took Sam jogging along the canal and watched work crews scraping the snow off the ice and pumping water up through holes (known as ice hog holes) to flood the surface. Pacman refused to come with us even though Emma had crocheted a parka and four tiny bootees as a Christmas present.

We stopped at a cabin where we bought Beaver Tails (delicious squashed donuts stuffed with jam) and we talked about our visit to England in 1778.

Miguel and Licia had to visit relative in the afternoon so I took Sam back to Denny's apartment and headed home. I sensed something was not right when I found our apartment door open. I was sure I had closed it on the way out. Perhaps my grumpy Grandma was responsible. But she wasn't there.

Sitting comfortably at our kitchen table, drinking coffee and playing a computer game on a lap top computer, looking like he owned the place was the Afro-American Andy White and the Caucasian Cornelius Black who had attempted to interrogate me at Kozak's place.

'Come in,' Andy said pleasantly. 'We were expecting you. Please take a seat.'

I turned to run but a very large gorilla of a man stuck his head through the open door behind me, took a bite out of a donut and glared at me ferociously. I figured I wouldn't get very far so I sat down. Con Black said, 'Don't worry, Ziff, you are not in any trouble. We just need a little information.'

I tried to sound more confident than I felt. 'What is going on?'

'Okay.' Andy reluctantly gave up on the computer game.

Con Black said. 'We have evidence that your computer was used to hack into CIA computers in Washington.'

'But I don't have a computer.'

'What is this?' He waved at the laptop Andy was using.

I stared at it. 'Yes, that's mine but it was broken. How did you get it to work?'

'Nice one, Ziff. Good try.' Con's face stretched into a wide mirthless grin. 'You also use the one upstairs, in Eric Bragg's apartment.'

Andy said, 'Negatory,' into his lapel microphone, typed something into the laptop and asked me something in computer jargon.

I looked at him blankly. 'That's English?'

Con pulled a cynical expression. 'You pretend you don't know anything about hacking?' I shook my head in agreement.

Andy said, 'Negatory,' again into his microphone and turned the laptop toward me. I stared at it apprehensively, all I needed now was for Yonnie and Treeka to appear singing all hail supreme lord ziff dion.

I started breathing when the monitor showed the normal desk top icons. 'Your computer has information about weapons of mass destruction,' Con said ominously with a wide grin as Andy opened my word processor files.