Read Online The Directive by Matthew Quirk - Free Book Online

that by dialing those first four numbers followed by 000 you could reach the switchboard.
    So now I had a number to call, but who was I?
    I had done an Accurint search on Sacks last night. That’s one of the big data-mining sources. If there’s a piece of information about you floating in a commercial or government database anywhere in the world, they buy it, pull it into one place, and make it all searchable. Once you learn how to read those reports, those few pages will tell you someone’s life story and a good portion of their secrets. I had Sacks’s addresses from his childhood home on, and lists of his relatives, associates, co-workers, neighbors, anyone he lived with, as well as their phone numbers, employment histories, criminal records, and most of their Social Security numbers.
    From the last names and birthdays, I could see that Sacks had two daughters and a wife, and a single-family home in Falls Church. Then last summer he started living alone in a new luxury town house in Southwest DC. That sounded like divorce, which would explain financial motives.
    Work is a good first place to look for a workaholic. I went to LinkedIn, and they spun off a list of a dozen of Sacks’s colleagues and associates. I picked a guy who worked at the Treasury in the same policy area and could have had a good reason to be getting in touch with my man.
    I was now Andrew Schaefer. I hesitated for a moment before I made the call. It felt like crossing a line, my first action for Lynch. I Googled a few more terms and found an actual org chart of the Fed staff, with phone numbers.
    That cinched it. I had no good excuse and plenty of ways to work this. I dialed the main switchboard. “Monetary Policy,” said the man who answered the phone.
    “Laurie Stevens, please.” She was the admin in Sacks’s office.
    “One minute.”
    “This is Laurie.”
    “Hi, Laurie,” I said. Being transferred from the main switchboard meant my number would show up as an internal extension on her phone, which made it more trustworthy. “This is Andrew Schaefer at OEP. I was wondering if I could get some time on Jonathan Sacks’s schedule today.”
    “Did you try e-mailing him?”
    Clearly I had no idea how things were done in this office.
    “Yeah. I haven’t heard back. Having trouble getting ahold of him. Sort of need to get this squared away today for the CPI.”
    “He’s been out for a few days. Flu or something. E-mail’s probably your best bet.”
    “Do you have his cell phone number?”
    “His cell phone? I don’t think so. You can talk to the deputy director if it’s urgent.”
    I’d overstepped. Time to throw it into reverse.
    “No. I’m all set. Just double-checking something with Jonathan. I’ll wait for him to get back on e-mail.”
    “Okay.”
    “Thanks.”
    He’d bailed on work. Sacks really was hiding out. I looked at my list of his family and associates in the area. With fewer than twenty-four hours, I didn’t have time for door-to-door or even trying them out one at a time over the phone.
    I had hoped to turn Jonathan Sacks slowly and deliberately, the way I’d been taught, a gradual closing of a trap he couldn’t escape. But that was too bad. I was on deadline. I just had to reach out and rattle his cage.
    After I’d made some calls and broken the ice, I was on a roll. There was a sliver of something else, too. Fun wasn’t the right word; it was more the pleasure of giving in to one of your weaknesses.
    I looked over at the property manager’s office and thought for a minute. Then I dialed Sacks’s ex-wife’s number.
    “Hello?”
    “Hello. I’m sorry to bother you. This is Stephen at River Park Homes. You’re listed as Jonathan Sacks’s emergency contact.”
    “Is everything okay?”
    “Oh yes. We had a pretty major leak over here, and we only have his office number. We need to access his unit and were trying to get in touch with him.”
    “You tried his cell? Do you have the new number?”
    “We