The Fourth Horseman by David Hagberg

scattered on various desks and worktables. In addition, several large tables were filled to overflowing with printed maps, files, books, newspapers and magazines. Most of the chairs were stacked with folders. Other books were piled just about everywhere.
    “Not everything is digitized.” Otto had been saying this for years. “And probably won’t ever be, provided there’s a need for secrecy. A computer can be hacked from ten thousand miles away, but a piece of paper in some obscure file somewhere ain’t so easy to access.”
    Several of the monitors showed various colors as backgrounds, ranging from light yellows and reds to deep violets, which lately meant his search programs—his little darlings, he called them—were running into something that could potentially be dangerous to the U.S.
    One of the programs was working on the Messiah’s brief speech; the image was on a screen, the voice low in the background.
    “Pink picked up the fact that the voice was artificially enhanced,” Otto said. “I didn’t hear it myself. But I set her to filter out the enhancement, leaving only the original. Not so easy even for her since we have no idea, not even a clue, what the original sounds like, except its Punjabi seemed to be clipped, odd vowels here and there. Maybe someone who’d learned British English.”
    “About half the educated males in Pakistan,” McGarvey said.
    “Eighty percent,” Otto said. He entered several commands from a keyboard. “I’m trying to translate what the guy was saying into English—the way his voice might sound if he were speaking in English.”
    “Are you making any progress?”
    “It’s coming, but slowly. And even if Pink does come up with a credible voice, whose will it be? Any one of millions.”
    “There’s only one reason he went to the trouble to disguise his voice, and it’s because we’d recognize it. But if we could find out whether his English was Punjabi accented or not, it would give us a direction of sorts.”
    “My program has a seventy-eight-percent confidence that Punjabi is his native language.”
    “What about the voice-enhanced technology he used? Was it anything that you’re familiar with?”
    “Nothing that stood out. You can buy the basic chips and other circuit elements at your local Radio Shack.”
    McGarvey stepped right up to the monitor showing the Messiah. Nothing was visible of the man’s face—if in fact it was a man—and even the eyes were in deep shadows under his kaffiyeh; nor were his hands clearly visible, except for a brief shot of him holding Barazani’s severed head.
    “His hand,” McGarvey said.
    “I tried enhancing it for at least a partial print on one of the fingers, but no go. It was his left hand but I couldn’t find a wedding ring. Though I got the impression of a light band around his wrist.”
    “He wore a watch or bracelet?”
    “Probably. But the mark isn’t deep, so it could mean he doesn’t spend a lot of time outdoors with his sleeves rolled up.”
    McGarvey stared at the image. “What’s your snap judgment?”
    Otto perched on the edge of one of the desks. He liked to think on his feet, he’d said, but he also liked to relax. “It was a brilliant move on his part bringing in the Taliban, or at least offering them a place in the new government. The attacks on the army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi stopped almost immediately after his speech. And commercially Pakistan went back to normal. But if you’re asking what his agenda is, I don’t have a clue. Maybe Miller knows something I don’t know.”
    “We’re the ones who brief her, so if you don’t know—if the CIA doesn’t know—then she doesn’t either.”
    “That’s a scary thought,” Otto said, “considering what she’ll ask you to do.”
    McGarvey looked away from the screen. “Is anyone saying Pakistan has become a credible threat against us?”
    “No. And from what I understand our CIA guys have shed their tails. I talked to Ross just