by Barry Eisler
Mr. Bollinger looked up when they came in. “Oh, Evie, what are you doing here? Is your father all right?”
“Thank you, Mr. Bollinger. He’s fine. Just checking up on him.”
“At this hour?”
“It’s a long story. And what are you doing up?”
“Oh, I don’t sleep well since my wife passed. Sometimes I’ll find a fellow insomniac in here and we’ll chat. Otherwise, I read the news online.”
“I see. Actually, I was just going to use one of the terminals myself. A work thing.” She signed to Dash, Okay if you wait on the baseball, good-looking? Only one terminal.
Dash nodded. And though he couldn’t have known what they were saying, Mr. Bollinger seemed to understand the gist. He said, “Oh, why don’t you both have a go? I need to attend to a call of nature, anyway.”
“You sure?” Evie said, wanting desperately to just say thank you instead.
“Oh, these days never surer of anything than that. Here, have at it.” Mr. Bollinger got up and shuffled out, and suddenly, mercifully, they had the room, and the terminals, to themselves.
Dash sat and started working the keyboard. As soon as she saw he was engaged, Evie downloaded Tor—not exactly shocking that none of the residents seemed to have done so earlier—and checked the SecureDrop file she had established at the Intercept. There was a reply. Her heart kicked and she opened it.
Call me at the number below as soon as you can after getting this message. The number belongs to a burner phone, purchased for cash, never used before. To make the call, you should first purchase one of your own.
If after talking we decide to proceed, I propose we meet at the Pennyfield Lock boat launch on the C&O Canal. It is very important that we do NOT discuss the location on the phone. We can talk about a time, but not a place. Given the precautions we’re already using, I doubt anyone could be listening, but we should also be extra careful and not take anything for granted.
The boat launch is easy to find. Don’t search for it online—again, just an abundance of caution. Use paper maps if you have to, but the directions are actually quite simple: it’s at one end of Pennyfield Lock Road, the other end of which is at River Road in Potomac. Turn onto Pennyfield and follow it to the water, at which point you have to turn either right or left. Turn right and you’ll see the boat launch just ahead of you. There’s a gravel parking area just above it. That’s where we’ll meet.
Do NOT use your own vehicle or one that could be associated with you. If you have a cell phone with you, make sure the battery has been removed. If it’s a model where you can’t remove the battery, you CANNOT bring it with you.
I’ll be holding something, probably a newspaper or magazine in both hands. If either of my hands is empty, it means either that the person you’re looking at is someone else, or that there’s a problem and you have to abort. Do the same. Unless both your hands are occupied, I will NOT approach.
If I see you with both hands occupied, I’ll ask you if there’s a way to rent a kayak. You tell me you think they’re closed for the season. At that point, we’ll each know we’re dealing with who we’re supposed to be dealing with.
There was a phone number at the bottom. She wrote it on a piece of paper, double-checked, and closed and purged everything.
She touched Dash on the shoulder. He looked over and she signed, Come on, hon, gotta go.
Dash looked back to the screen, then to her again. Just five more minutes? I’m at level four in—
She laughed, glad he was distracted. Later, okay? Got a lot to do this morning.
They headed back to the front desk.
Cooper looked up as they approached. “Your old man doing okay?”
“He’s fine. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.”
Cooper waved a hand. “Ah, it was nothing. Glad you got to see him. Nice man, like I said.”
“Could I ask you one more small favor?”
Cooper raised his eyebrows. There was something about the man’s face that lent itself to dubiousness.
“I, uh, forgot my cell phone—”
Cooper cocked his head as though this visit was getting less plausible by the minute. A suffocating sense of despair started to close in on her. Everything she was doing was so transparent. If a drunken motel clerk and a tired nursing home orderly could see right through her, what the hell chance did she have against NSA?
But she forced the feeling away. She had to stay focused. She had to get through this. For Dash. For Dash.
“I know,” she said. “It’s a long story and it’s been pretty crazy. But . . . if I could use your phone to call a cab? I’d really, really appreciate it.”
“It’s no trouble. I just hope you’re okay.”
“We’re fine. I just need that cab.”
“Hang on.” He leaned forward for a closer look at something behind his monitor—a list of frequently called numbers, she guessed—punched some digits into the desk phone, and handed her the receiver. She told the person who answered that she needed a cab from the senior center in Columbia to Baltimore/Washington International Airport. As soon as possible. Oh, there was one right in the area? Five minutes? That would be perfect.
She handed the receiver back to Cooper. “Thank you. We’ll wait outside, okay? I don’t want to cause you any more trouble than we already have.”
“Hey now, listen, it’s no trouble. You can—”
“No, no, it’s really okay. It’s starting to get light, and we don’t get to see that many sunrises. Besides, they said it would be just a few minutes.”
“All right, if you really don’t mind waiting outside. If you change your mind, though, I’m right here at this desk. Just knock on the glass again.”
Dash signed, I need to use the bathroom after all.
She nodded. Okay, but hurry up. Cab’s coming in five minutes.
She made a little small talk with Cooper while Dash was gone. There were so many nice people around her. She didn’t know why she’d never really appreciated that before. She was going to change that.
If she got through this.
Dash came back, and Cooper came around and let them out. The sky was pink in the east, she was pleased to see, and it really was lovely. It had been a long night. She was glad it was almost morning.
Manus sat in the pickup, watching from a parking lot across the street as Evie and Dash emerged from the senior center. For a cab, no doubt, the same way they had arrived. She would know not to use Uber or Lyft; the services tracked user movements so closely it was hard to imagine NSA hadn’t found a way into their systems, covertly or with their cooperation.
He’d thought she would go to the senior center, and it had been easy enough to take an alternate route and arrive before they had. He’d watched them go in, and now that they were out, he could tell from the relief in her expression that she’d retrieved the thumb drive. He hated what he had to do next, but there was no other way. He started to get out of the truck.
A cab pulled up. He paused, his hand on the door handle. Rush the cab? No, they were already getting in, it was too late. Damn, he should have waited somewhere closer to the entrance. But he hadn’t wanted to take a chance on being seen, and he hadn’t expected to have so little time to move in.
He considered running them off the road, but was concerned someone could be injured. Maybe a fender bender? The driver would stop to exchange information. But it would be a lot to manage: the woman, making a hell of a fuss; the driver, growing increasingly concerned, possibly intervening. Manus didn’t want a scene in front of the boy. Didn’t want to hurt him in any way. Better just to follow them for the moment.
He’d get another opportunity. And this time, he wouldn’t wait.
CHAPTER . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . 47
Evie looked around as the cab pulled away, fighting the feeling they were being watched. It was true that the senior center was a “nexus,” as Marvin had put it, and they might be able to connect h
er to it. But so what? Even if NSA was monitoring taxi dispatches—and at this point she assumed they were monitoring everything—they’d have to parse a lot of data if all they had to go on was that she had taken a cab to BWI. And tracking her in a new cab from the airport, where she planned to catch another one at the curb, would be even harder.
What about Marvin? Could he have followed you?
No. Marvin had been asleep when they’d left. And she’d checked behind them on the way to the senior center, more than once. There had been no one. All right, she was just feeling jumpy. Not exactly a surprise.
What about your camera network?
That might be more of a problem. She assumed they had made it a priority to get someone else up to speed on the network’s operation so they had as many tools as possible devoted to running her down. She knew she couldn’t stay ahead of them forever, or even for long. In the twenty-first century, people threw off data like dead skin cells. And sooner or later, some of those dead cells would get sucked into the maw of the colossal vacuum the director’s “collect it all” fever dream had conjured into being. But “collect it all” entailed one weakness—one Achilles’ heel amid all those torrents of raw data. And that weakness was latency.
You could collect it all, yes. But understanding what you’d collected took time. Maybe not a lot of time—look how fast she’d discovered Hamilton and Perkins, after all, and how fast the organization had acted on that discovery—but a little time was all she needed. The trick was to keep moving, and be careful, and most of all, to get the thumb drive to Leed as soon as possible. So that by the time the director’s God’s Eye saw what was happening, it would already be too late to do anything about it.
Fifteen minutes later, they were getting out of the cab in the BWI departures lane. She tipped the driver well, but not so well that the tip itself would make her memorable. She was starting to get low on cash, which wasn’t good. It wasn’t like she could go to an ATM, after all, or use a credit card. But with luck, this would be over very soon.
They went inside. Dash looked around and signed, Mommy, I don’t get it. Are we flying somewhere? Where’s Mr. Manus?
She ruffled his hair. There’s so much to explain, hon, and I don’t have time right now. It’s a kind of scavenger hunt. And Mr. Manus is helping.
A scavenger hunt? I thought that was just a kid thing.
She smiled. Grown-ups do different kinds of scavenger hunts. For this one, it’s really important that I win. And if we hurry, I think I could.
There’s a prize?
A big one.
What is it?
Well, remember how happy you were when Mr. Manus gave you the game ball?
Dash nodded, smiling at the memory.
Well, it’s worth at least that much.
What?
I need to make a call first. Tell you in just a little while, okay?
He nodded and looked around again. Mommy, I’m tired.
She kissed the top of his head. I bet you are. You are doing so well and being such a big help.
How am I helping you?
For a moment, she had to fight back tears. Hon, you help me in ways I don’t think I could ever explain. But you’ll understand one day.
He gave her an affectionate scowl. You always say stuff like that.
She kissed him again. Only it’s because it’s true.
They walked over to an unused baggage carousel. Dash sat on the floor and settled into one of the comics she had bought him. Keeping her back to the wall, Evie activated the prepaid phone and called the number Leed had given her via SecureDrop. One ring, then a woman’s voice, slightly husky and reassuringly confident: “Hello?”
She suddenly realized she didn’t know what to say. “I . . . got your message.”
“Do you have the item we discussed?”
“Yes.”
“And can you meet as we discussed?”
“Yes.”
There was a pause. “I wish I had some way of knowing you are who you say you are.”
“I gave you the bona fides in my message. About your daughter. Our friend told me that would be enough.”
“I would describe those bona fides as necessary, but not sufficient. I have a whole team of smart lawyers here telling me not to take this meeting. Warning me this could be the government, trying to entrap me into accepting information it will then claim is stolen, so they can do a Julian Assange to me and the organization I work with.”
“And what did you say to them?”
“That I owed it to our employee to take that chance. That I wouldn’t be worth a damn as the head of the organization if I played it any other way.”
“They probably told you the government would know you’d feel that way, and exploit it.”
“That’s exactly what they told me.”
It was frightening. Could this woman really blow her off, when they were so close? “Look,” she said, “if you won’t meet me, if you won’t take the item I have, your employee . . . I don’t think he’s going to make it. And I don’t think I’m going to make it, either. And I have a child who depends on me. So, apologies for playing the guilt card, but I want you to know that when you read about my having been raped and murdered in some apparently ‘random’ crime, that’s one of the things you could have prevented.”
No response. Evie tried to wait, but couldn’t. “You know,” she said, “I’d really like to do this in whatever way most keeps me out of it. I never intended to get mixed up with any of this, and all I want to do right now is get you what your employee wanted to get you himself. But if you won’t meet me securely, then fine, I’ll take my chances marching into your damn offices.”
“Don’t you think I wish we could just bring you in? We can’t. We’re heavily watched. On any given day, we have one to three ‘maintenance’ vans parked in the area. Well, for the last forty-eight hours, it’s more like six. Not to mention all the new gardeners, and telephone-line repair people, and delivery people. Maybe you could just pull up and try to sprint inside. And maybe they’d tackle you en route. Or just follow you in and arrest you on the premises. It’s not a high-percentage option.”
Evie felt a jolt of hope. “Then you believe me?”
Another pause. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to.”
Evie blew out a long breath. “Okay. Good. Look, traffic is light right now. I can be at the meeting place in an hour.”
“It’ll take me a little longer. I have to take some pretty elaborate precautions to ensure I’m not being tailed. You need to do the same. There are some quiet neighborhoods not far from where we’ll be meeting. Use them. It’ll be hard for anyone to follow you when there isn’t any traffic to hide in.”
“We don’t have that much time. Your guy is going to call you soon, remember? And you need to be able to tell him you have the item or he won’t tell you what you need to use it.”
“Okay then, let’s meet in ninety minutes. That should give us a few minutes extra just in case. If you’re followed, if you see anything or anyone that doesn’t feel right, abort. We’ll go back online and figure something else out.”
“Okay,” Evie said, feeling an odd combination of relief and nervousness. “Oh, and that child I mentioned? He’ll be with me. Just don’t want you to be surprised. I guess that’ll make it easy for you to know who I am.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“I’m not leaving him alone until this is done.”
“Up to you. The phone you’re on now . . . can you take out the battery?”
“I’m just going to leave it here. Probably someone will pick it up and carry it off. And hopefully take anyone who might be geolocating on a long, wild goose chase.”
“Good idea. You won’t be able to reach me at this number, either.”
Evie felt a sudden surge of nervousness and blew out a long breath, trying to manage it. “Okay. See you in ninety minutes. Let’s get this done.”
Manus kept the truck
idling at the curb in the arrivals lane, at the end of a long row of incoming and outgoing cars and taxis. He hadn’t anticipated that the woman would come to the airport. She had good instincts. He had no way to follow her in without abandoning his truck in the departures lane. And once she was inside the airport, she had a lot of options. There was Amtrak, the MARC train, and the light rail train. Not to mention numerous buses, sedans, and taxis.
He didn’t expect her to fly anywhere—there was too much scrutiny of passengers for that to make sense. And a rental car would require identification, as well. So he was left to try to get in her head again, to anticipate her next move. She was smart, but not experienced. She was in a hurry. She was afraid of cameras. And he doubted she wanted to be around lots of other passengers—a woman with a small deaf boy would be too easy a description to follow.
She’d taken two cabs already. She was clearly comfortable with that mode of transport. His gut told him she was going to use it again. So he drove around to the arrivals area and waited, hoping his intuition was sound. If it wasn’t, he’d lost her.
A traffic cop came by and knocked on the window. Manus rolled it down. The man said, “You can’t park here, sir. Passenger pick-up only. No waiting.”
Manus was prepared for this. He pulled out government-issued FBI identification. He’d used it many times in similar circumstances, and always to magic effect.
It worked this time, as well. “Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” the traffic cop said, instantly deferential to the big, bad Bureau. “I didn’t realize. I’ll, uh, make sure you’re not disturbed.”
Manus nodded his thanks and the man went away. But as it happened, it made no difference. Because there they were, Evie and Dash, getting into a cab at the front of the line. Manus nodded grimly to himself and pulled out a moment after the cab did.
When they got out of that cab, Manus would move in. He hoped he wouldn’t have to hurt anyone. But he was going to get that thumb drive. They were all dead if he didn’t.
CHAPTER . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . 48
Remar felt like a man who’d stepped on a merry-go-round that was now spinning so fast and wobbling so hard he couldn’t get off it. He and the director hadn’t left the building all night. Hadn’t slept. An aide was funneling in food and coffee while they ran the director’s office like some kind of wartime command center.