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  'Absolutely sure,' she answered firmly.

  'Well,' he sighed, 'this is very difficult for me, Anna. Very embarrassing. A whole series of print-outs from that file has been found in your desk. So,' he cleared his throat, 'I'm asking you how you think it might have got there.' He hesitated before adding superfluously, 'Series A 16.'

  'It's impossible,' Anna responded. 'I don't have any use for that material, nor do I have clearance to pull it in the first place. It couldn't have been in my desk, unless there's some mistake.' Too late, she began to realise the import of Charles Robbins' words.

  'Anna,' he sighed, 'this is really very difficult, very painful for me. Please, don't say anything now until I'm finished.' He twisted uncomfortably in his chair. 'N.T.E.L. is, as you know, an information processing company. Our clients confide data in us for analysis, and our job is to advise them on the patterns and implications of the information we study. It is of course essential that the client trust in our absolute confidentiality. Our reputation is based on that trust.'

  His gaze was directed through the tinted panes of the windows to the skyscrapers along the horizon. At intervals he darted a glance to Anna's eyes. 'Naturally,' he went on, 'as big as we are, one of our most valued clients is the Federal Government. In order to fulfill our Government contracts, we have to work with classified material, so our personnel has to be organised in terms of security clearance. If an employee is found to have handled material for which he or she was not cleared, that employee has to be let go—immediately. The reputation of the entire company is at stake, of course, so, inhuman as it seems, I must say the rule is necessary.'

  He looked at the file on the desk top before him. 'Now,' he went on, 'this material was pulled from the computer under your personal access code. 1289, isn't it?'

  Anna nodded, realising what had happened, and that it was impossible to prove her innocence.

  'The classification code was punched in, of course, or the computer wouldn't have responded,' he said. 'Although you didn't have clearance for this material, you know the computer well enough to be aware of the various classification codes.' A forced look of anger came over his naturally friendly features. 'I have no choice but to let you go, Anna—I'm sure you realise that. But I know you'll understand how important it is to us to know what motivated your action. Who put you up to it, so to speak. I think,' he added, 'I'm in a position to say that if you give me that information, it will go easier for you.'

  Anna sighed. It was obvious what had happened. Porter Deman had simply used her access code to pull the WR-3-A material, had had it printed out, and brought it straight to Charles Robbins.

  'May I ask,' she said, 'who discovered this material in my desk? Who brought it to your attention?'

  'You know I can't tell you that,' he answered, irritation in his voice. 'Naturally I have to protect the source against possible reprisals. Besides, it doesn't make any difference who found it; what matters is that it was there. Now are you going to tell me why you wanted this file?'

  Bitterly, Anna pondered the efficiency of Porter Deman's strategy. There was no way she could defend herself convincingly.

  'I never pulled that file,' she said simply. 'I would have no reason to look at it, and I never did look at it. There's either some mistake, or… or I don't know what.'

  Charles Robbins sighed. Plainly, he had expected just such a denial.

  'So,' he said, 'you don't intend to tell me who put you up to this?'

  'No one put me up to anything,' she retorted, angered by the tone of his words. 'I've never seen that file.'

  'Then we're at a standstill, aren't we?' he said.

  Desperately Anna searched her memory of the company's operations to find a way of exposing Porter Deman's treachery. But it was impossible. He had clearly acted immediately, so that she would be accused of a security breach before she had time to report his harassment to Charles Robbins, or anyone else. Now the classified file was a fait accompli, and her own explanation of the situation would sound like a desperate and improbable attempt at self-defence.

  'I'm afraid,' she said simply, 'I can't enlighten you about this. I've worked for this company for four years, and never had any problems. I know nothing about the file you're talking about. Beyond my own work record and reputation within the company, I can't offer anything to support what I say. It happens to be the truth, however.' Bitterly she heard the hollow ring of her words.

  Chuck was staring at her with a perplexed intensity.

  'Anna,' he said at last, 'I'm going to have to let you go. You can understand, of course, why that is unavoidable. But in view of your spotless record with the company, and my personal regard for you, I'm going to take a chance. I may regret it, but I can't help believing it's the right thing to do. I'm going to notate this as a termination due to employee incompatibility, in your personnel file. I will not mention the present episode. This will give you the opportunity to find work in this field, or at least in computers. Of course, any mention in your file of a security breach would be disastrous for you.'

  She nodded quietly, too hurt and angry to thank him for his magnamity, yet grateful for his gesture.

  'But before I do so,' he added, 'and in view of your excellent work for us, I want to give you one last chance to tell me what's behind this business. I'm ready to listen to whatever you have to say.'

  Anna sat uncomfortably in the massive leather chair before his desk. What was the point of saying anything? Porter Deman had been diabolically clever.

  Nevertheless, the thought of Barbara and Debby, and all the other women who might someday share her unfortunate fate, drove her to speak.

  'Mr Robbins,' she began, 'I can see that it's too late for me to defend myself in a believable way, beyond pointing out that everyone at N.T.E.L. knows me well enough to see the… absurdity of this accusation. But I'll tell you what I think is behind it, for your own information.'

  He regarded her in silence, awaiting her explanation.

  'This is embarrassing for me as well,' Anna went on, 'but I'll say it anyway. I was asked by one of our executives to do something improper. Something that didn't have anything to do with the company, but improper in any case. I refused. When I did so, I was told that my days here were numbered. And now, as you can see, I'm being fired.'

  'Which executive? What sort of impropriety?' Suspicion vied with acute interest in Charles' troubled eyes.

  'I don't feel inclined to mention the person's name,' Anna sighed, 'since I'm leaving you anyway, and since an accusation coming from me obviously wouldn't carry much weight. Perhaps you'd better investigate the situation for yourself.' She took a deep breath. 'The impropriety… has to do with the fact that I'm a woman.'

  In consternation he turned once more to look at the skyline, his lips pursed, before returning his gaze to her.

  'You're talking about harassment,' he said, articulating the words with a grunt of displeasure.

  Anna made no response.

  'But you won't say who the culprit is.'

  'I'd prefer not to.' Despite her determined tone, she felt herself flush in embarrassment.

  'When did this ultimatum, as you describe it, take place?' he asked.

  'Do you mean…?'

  'I mean, when were you told you were going to lose your job, as a consequence of not going along with this improper proposal?'

  'Yesterday,' Anna replied. 'I had intended to make an appointment with you right away, but I got your memo before I could call your secretary. The… situation,' she added, 'had been going on for some time before it reached the point of this threat.'

  His eyes were riveted to the file on the desk top before him.

  'Anna,' he said, 'nobody likes it when the word harassment rears its ugly head. We know it takes place occasionally, but we don't like to admit that it could happen here.'

  'It came as quite a shock to me, too,' Anna said ruefully.

  'You're not understanding me,' he frowned. 'Coming as it does on the heels
of this very serious security breach, your explanation is not very convincing.'

  'I know,' she began. 'I already…'

  'And there's another thing to consider,' he interrupted, his pained expression betraying the annoyance he felt in his inquisitor's role. 'This file was pulled over a week ago. The employee who brought it to me had hesitated for several days—out of regard for you, I might add, and disbelief—to make its existence known. Now how do you explain that all this started long before the so-called ultimatum you describe?'

  In silence Anna weighed the importance of his words. Porter Deman must have found a way to predate his pulling of the file from the computer's memory. Anna herself could not imagine a procedure which could override the machine's automatic dating mechanism, but Deman, she knew, was a past master at programming.

  On the other hand, she thought, perhaps he had in fact pulled the file days before his final confrontation with her, as a weapon to be kept in reserve against her. Perhaps, in his calculating cruelty, he secreted such evidence against all his prospective victims.

  Clearly there was no defence of herself that could compete with the power and expertise of such a twisted mind.

  'Well?' Charles Robbins asked.

  'I can't explain that,' she replied. 'I know only that for four years I worked here without any problems. Then this business started. When I refused to do what I was asked, I was told I would lose my job. Now it's all over.'

  Despite the expression of exasperated stubbornness on his face, Charles seemed to be weighing her words carefully.

  'A name would help, Anna,' he said at last with visible discomfort. 'It might help a great deal.'

  For a long moment Anna hesitated, her hopeless outrage and involuntary shame threatening to reduce her to silence.

  'You suggested,' he prodded, 'that I investigate the situation for myself. Now, a name…'

  The memory of Barbara Moore's delicate vulnerability decided Anna at last to speak.

  'Porter Deman,' she said abruptly. 'And for your information, Mr Robbins, I'm not his only… victim.'

  Hardly had she begun to pronounce the distasteful syllables when the man before her began to shake his head. With pursed lips and furrowed brow, Charles seemed at once to want to interrupt her and to blot out what he had heard.

  'That's going a little far, Anna,' he said reproachfully. 'Porter Deman is a very valuable man to this company. We went to great lengths to acquire his services. He has a spotless reputation in the field, and no one has ever accused him of anything even approaching what you're talking about.'

  'I wouldn't know about that,' Anna replied. 'I only know that my troubles started when he joined this company. And as I say, I'm not the only…'

  'All right,' he cut her off. 'You've said what you wanted to say. And, as I've told you, the situation leaves me no choice but to do what I must do. I'll make good on my promise to keep this problem out of your personnel file. As I see it, nothing remains but to wish you the best of luck in whatever you choose to do.'

  'Thank you,' sighed Anna, standing up to leave. Clearly, his haste to end the interview betrayed the incredulity he felt, or wanted to feel. His hands were tied within the company, and they both knew it. Porter Deman had won. There was nothing left but to admit defeat.

  'Anna,' he stopped her, 'I really am terribly sorry about this.'

  'So am I,' she said, her hand on the doorknob.

  'If I can be of any help in any way…' He had arisen, the friendly contours of his overweight body and rumpled suit contradicting his rigid expression.

  'I'll get along,' she responded proudly. 'But there are other women in the company who need your help, Mr Robbins. I'd suggest you give some thought to them.' She closed the door behind her.

  Charles Robbins settled exhaustedly into his desk chair. The worst part of this job, he reflected, was letting people go. So embarrassing. So contrary to his helpful nature.

  How could she do it? he wondered in perplexity. Of all people, he never would have suspected Anna Halpern of being a security risk. She was the very bedrock of her department, and that was why she had been promoted to supervisor two years ago. The thing strained credulity. Yet there was no denying the evidence.

  'Well,' he sighed, 'it's impossible to know what motivates people. She seemed so stable, and now she comes out with this cock-and-bull story…

  'What's the use?' he thought, reaching to touch his intercom button. 'Such a good-looking woman, too. I'll be sorry not to see her around any more.'

  'Yes, sir?' squawked his secretary's voice, amplified by the intercom.

  'Who's up?' he asked.

  'Mrs Adamson is here. Then Mr Foley, then Bob Hamer, and the Miss Moore who called you yesterday.'

  'All right,' he said. 'Hold them all. Just a minute.' His finger still pressed against the button, he stared blankly before him. If there was one thing he had learned in business, it was to anticipate the unexpected. At all costs, one must cover all the bases, and spread responsibility evenly. Never sit on top of a situation alone.

  'Sir?' Perplexity resounded in the female voice. What the hell, he decided. Let's be on the safe side. 'Get me Porter Deman,' he said aloud.

  Two hours later Anna sat disconsolately at the table in the dining nook of her flat, contemplating the unfamiliarity of the muted midday sounds filtering through the window. Never since she moved in had she been at home on a week day. The unaccustomed atmosphere, combined with the strange faces of the noontime passengers on her Michigan Avenue bus, was intensely disconcerting, and she had to struggle to control the panic that threatened to take possession of her.

  Silvery motes of dust floated lazily in the sunlight streaming in the window. The only sound in the room was Anna's turning of the want ads pages, and the quiet friction of lead against paper as she circled the jobs she intended to apply for.

  Determined to remain calm and retain her concentration at all costs, she had bought the latest newspapers at the counter in N.T.E.L.'s lobby, glancing for a last time at the banks of shiny elevators and plush expanse of carpet before pushing through the revolving doors to the sunlit street outside.

  A few minutes' study had revealed that the Tribune and Sun-Times contained the same basic listing of available jobs in computer operation and information processing. As soon as she had made herself a light lunch, she would begin making phone calls in preparation for what would undoubtedly be an exhausting siege of interviews.

  Only one course of action made sense, she reflected. There was no point in alarming Sally immediately with the news of her firing. Sally would be upset and, in all probability, would generously insist on suspending her education in order to go to work full-time herself. But things had not yet reached that extremity. The severance pay which would arrive from N.T.E.L. in a matter of days would suffice to finance Anna's rent and the loan payments for Sally's tuition—for a few weeks. If Anna could manage somehow to find a position comparable to her supervisor's job at N.T.E.L., it might be possible to survive this crisis without disturbing the routine that had governed the two sisters' lives for the last two years.

  Thank heaven for Charles Robbins' leniency, Anna thought with a shudder. If he had not decided to leave her personnel file free of Porter Deman's grotesque accusation, she would have no chance of finding a responsible job with a salary sufficient for Sally's tuition. Even as things stood, though, it was unlikely that as a new employee somewhere else she could command the salary she had reached through her pay raises at N.T.E.L.

  'Let's hope for the best,' she said to herself as she circled another want ad, 'and not get panicky.' Clinging to what remained of her pride, she recalled the first weeks after her mother's death, when it had seemed impossible to earn enough for herself and Sally at the same time. She had used her wits to cope with things then, and she would do so now.

  A shiver of anger interrupted her disciplined reasoning as she remembered the cause of her troubles. She imagined Porter Deman seated comfortably in his office, pu
rsuing his work day as though nothing had happened, while the woman he had victimised pored desperately through the want ads in search of a solution to the crisis he had created. The thought of his impunity, and of his complacency, was infuriating. In all probability it would never occur to him that he had nearly ruined a woman's career. His only regret would be that he had not succeeded in intimidating her into giving herself to him physically. And now, as he sat in the swivel chair behind his executive desk, he was probably wondering who his next victim might be. Or perhaps deciding to renew his exploitation of someone familiar. Perhaps Barbara…

  With a shudder Anna suppressed the image of Porter Deman's perverted sensuality and triumphant arrogance. He had won his battle, and was more than welcome to the turf he controlled. She would be far better off somewhere else.

  She had not had the courage to discuss the reason for her dismissal with Debby and Barbara before leaving the office this morning. Despite their supportive kindness and questioning looks, she had told them only that the inevitable had happened, and that she needed time to think.

  But what was there to think about? Charles Robbins was now in possession of all the information needed to launch an investigation that might expose Porter Deman and exonerate Anna. But his irascible, unwilling demeanour was ample evidence that he had no such intention.

  Briefly Anna had toyed with the idea of taking legal action in her own behalf. If N.T.E.L. were forced to justify her termination in a civil suit, the fact of her innocence might somehow be established. Porter Deman's hand must surely be visible behind the denunciation of Anna, even if, in his malicious cleverness, he had had someone else to do his dirty work for him.

  On the other hand, she thought resignedly, Porter Deman had anticipated just such a move on her part. Her credibility as a plaintiff would surely be compromised by the classified file planted in her desk.

  In order to claim that she was a victim, she would first have to prove she was not a thief and a security risk. And where was she to find the time, not to mention the money, for a legal battle of uncertain outcome? Her memory told her that litigation concerning harassment was a complex, controversial affair in which victimised women were anything but assured of success.