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Anchorage. For a certainty, from a public telephone booth. Untraceable."
    "Probably. Not certainly. I don't know if you can dial direct from Anchorage to here. I don't think so, but we can find out. If not, the telephone operator will have a record. There's a chance that we might locate the phone."
    Mackenzie briefly surveyed Fort McMurray through the base of his glass and said, "That'll be a big help."
    "It might be a small help. Two ways. That call came in at ten this morning. That's six A.M. Anchorage time. Who except a nut -- or some night-shift worker -- is going to be out in the black and freezing streets of Anchorage at that hour? That sort of odd behaviour, I suggest, isn't likely to go unnoticed."
    "If there's anyone there to notice."
    "State Troopers in a patrol car. Taxi driver. Snowplough driver. Mailman on the way to work. You'd be surprised at the number of people who go about their lawful occasions in the dark watches of the night."
    "I would not be surprised." Mackenzie spoke with some feeling. "We've done it often enough in this damned job of ours. Two ways, you said. What's the second way?"
    "If I locate this pay phone, we can have the police remove the coin box and give it to their fingerprint boys. The chances are good that the person who made the call to Fort McMurray used more high-denomination coins than anyone else who went into the pay phone that day -- or night. Get two or three large coins with the same prints, and that's our man."
    "Objection. Coins are handled by many people. You'll get prints, all right. A plethora, shall we say, of fingerprints."
    "Objection overruled. It's established that on a metal surface -- the overlay -- the last person to touch such a surface leaves the dominant print. By the same token, we'd print the area around the dial. People don't dial in fur mittens. Then we'd check with criminal records. The prints may be on file. If they are, we'll get the man and ask him all sorts of interesting questions."
    "You do have a devious mind, George. Low cunning, but albeit a mind. First catch your man, though."
    "If we get a description or prints with history, it shouldn't be too difficult. If he's gone to ground, it would be different. But there's no reason why he should think he has to take cover. Might be awkward for him anyway. May well be a pillar of the Anchorage business and social communities."
    "I'll bet the other Anchorage pillars would love to hear you say that. They'd have the same opinion of you as our friend John Finlayson has now. What are we going to do about Finlayson, anyway? Rapprochement doesn't seem advisable -- it's essential. With the tie-up so obvious -- "
    "Let him stew in his own juice for a while. I don't mean that the way it sounds, but just let him worry awhile in Prudhoe Bay until we're ready. He's a good man, intelligent, honest. He reacted precisely the way you or I would have if a couple of interlopers had tried to take over. The longer we stay away, the more certainly we're guaranteed his co-operation when we get back. Jim Brady may have been the bearer of bad news, but that call of his couldn't have come at a more opportune time. Gave us the perfect excuse to take off. Speaking of Jim -- "
    "I've been thinking that I don't much like any of this. Presentiments. My Scottish forebears, one presumes. You know that Prudhoe Bay and this place here contain well over half the oil reserves of North America. It's an awful lot of oil. A man wouldn't want anything to happen to these two."
    "You haven't worried about such things before. An investigator is supposed to be cold, clinical, detached."
    "That's about other people's oil. This is our oil. Massive responsibilities. Awesome decisions at the highest levels."
    "We were talking of Jim Brady."
    "I still am."
    "You think we should have him up here?" "I do."
    "So do I. Must be why I raised the subject. Let's go call him."
     
     
     
    Three
    Jim Brady, that passionate believer in leanness, keenness, fitness and