“So that’s what I’m saying. Killing that asshole was your way of defending your family.”
Sal had mined her deepest vein. She had no secrets left.
“Do I have that right? It was about Nick. At least a little bit.”
A single nod. Yes, by god, he had it right.
“You ever tell your husband about it?”
She said no. The only secret she’d never shared with Ross.
“Nobody knows?”
“Just you.”
“Well, it stays here. You and me, our secret.”
“It better.”
“Don’t know why it upsets you. You should be proud. That was one bad cocksucker.” He gave her a long, appraising look. “And I’m sorry to say it, sweetheart, but from the looks of what you’re into now, these guys, Naff and Spider, you’re going to need to get yourself another knife. With a very sharp blade.”
Outside the window, the street cleaner was making another pass. The rumble of its brushes no longer calling up the image of tanks.
“Can you hack Albion’s computer network, see what they’re hiding?”
Sal said he had tried. Secure beyond anything he could breach. Kong was off at a gamer conference, so the forecast wasn’t good.
“You broke into the Defense Department but not Albion?”
“Kong did that, not me. And anyway, private corporations buy the best encryption. They build walls, put more walls behind those, walls and walls and walls. All it takes is money, you get all the walls you want. If I had a month, maybe Kong and I could work our way inside.”
“We don’t have a month.”
“So what do we do?”
“Go old-school,” Harper said. “Walk in the front door.”
“A break-in?”
“Nick says you have connections everywhere. All over the world.”
Sal shook his head, a sad smile forming on his lips. “Nick exaggerates,” he said. “But sure, I know a few people who know a few people. What exactly do you need?”
She told him what she’d been thinking about, and after she was finished, he looked at her in silence for several moments. His eyes the sharp blue of the early-morning Zurich sky.
“You’d do that, all by yourself?”
“Nick will help.”
“Sounds dicey,” he said.
“Not if we do it right.”
Sal rose from the laptop, came over to her, laid a hand on the meat of her shoulder, and took a solid grip.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll get on the horn, see what I can arrange.”
PART THREE
TWENTY-SEVEN
Mid-March, Zurich, Switzerland
For two days Harper and Nick rehearsed the scheme while Sal worked the phone, arranging details. She and Nick studied the floor plans Sal had managed to secure. Traced their route through the maze of offices, conference rooms, and administrative suites until both had the layout memorized. They targeted the two offices most likely to produce the results they were after. Gamed out every contingency they could imagine, picked apart the plan, found soft spots, worst-case scenarios, and came up with plausible work-arounds.
Nick unboxed the Apple computer they’d overnighted to the hotel room. Same model used throughout the Albion offices. Sal laid out the tools, a plastic spudger to jimmy loose the frame, a pair of suction cups to pull away the LCD screen, a T6 torque screwdriver. He demonstrated the method for removing the RAM access door, opening the magnetized glass to reveal the screws that held the bezel in place. He guided her, layer by layer, to the hard drive, showed her how to free it from the nest of cables and wires.
According to Sal, it should take no more than five minutes, but the first few times she tried, Harper couldn’t break ten. Slowly, by repetition, she shaved away the minutes, got it down to four.
The plan was not without risk, but if they didn’t draw attention, there was a chance they might unearth enough evidence of Albion’s African crimes to expose the architect of the massacre at Soko. That person, Harper was convinced, would be the brains behind the murders of Ross and Leo.
Across the room, Sal said, “I don’t know if this is the right time, but I found something you need to see.”
Nick had just left for the neighborhood deli to pick up sandwiches.
Sal got up from the desk, his laptop frozen on an image that at first she didn’t recognize. She sat in Sal’s seat and stared at the screen. It came to her in slow and painful stages. The doorway leading to the kitchen. The gas range with a pot on a burner. The clock on the far wall. All of it from their cottage on Margaret Street in Coconut Grove. The house where she’d fallen in love, the house where Leo was conceived, the house that burned to the ground.
“It’s a video,” Sal said. “Kong sent it. As a favor to me, he’s been working this thing, digging around. I don’t know how he found the damn thing. Snatched it out of the cloud somehow. Those cameras spying in your house, what they recorded was sent on the wireless signal. It’s there, then gone. No way to access it later unless some idiot decided to save all those hours onto a hard drive, then what they saved got backed up. Kong tracked it down, found the ISP then the IP. That’s all I know. He’s not big on details, explaining how he does what he does. You want me to leave you alone?”
Steam rose from the pot on the cottage’s kitchen stove. The clock showed six. A bird on the bird feeder outside the window. Morning in South Florida, another day dawning at the McDaniel house.
“You can stay,” she said.
She pressed the “Start” arrow, and the life she’d been living a few weeks earlier resumed, the life she’d treasured, the life she’d lost forever.
It was her family’s last week together, Ross and Leo and Harper, their daily habits in the wood cottage on Margaret Street, every slow hour recorded from three angles. Bathroom, bedroom, living room. Somebody had pieced it together in one continuous stream. Crystal-clear audio, high-definition black and white.
The McDaniels woke, they dressed, ate, talked, performed their household chores. Harper breast-fed Leo. Ross used his cell, set his laptop up on the dining table, and typed. They laughed, Ross brushed her long black hair, something he enjoyed, something Harper found strange and wonderful and quietly sexy. They undressed, they touched each other, they kissed, slid into bed, pulled up the sheets, made love.
They showered, brushed their teeth. The two of them gave Leo a bath. Laughed some more. Leo giggled, Leo wailed, Leo slept at her breast. Harper sat in the wooden rocker Deena had given her as a baby-shower gift, back and forth, back and forth, a look of utter contentment.
With talons clawing her heart, Harper fast-forwarded through the long nights, the dark patches, the house empty. Then one morning, Jackson Sharp appeared in their living room.
Harper paused the video and drew a breath and looked over at Sal. His head was bowed, staring down into his lap.
She unpaused the video.
Leo was in his crib, Harper off somewhere, probably the grocery. Harper turned the volume all the way up and had to replay the three-minute segment several times to be sure of what she heard.
Jackson Sharp stood stiffly just inside the front door, as if preparing to bolt. He asked Ross if he’d made any progress.
“Some,” Ross said.
“Well, I dug up a couple of names for you,” Sharp said. “The man in charge of Albion’s entire security staff. Adrian Naff. And his boss in Zurich, she’s a woman named Bixel, Larissa Bixel. These are the ones you should go after.”
“I don’t go after people,” Ross said. “Apparently you’ve got the wrong idea about what I do.”
Sharp backpedaled, apologized, said he was only trying to help, speed things up. He didn’t understand the investigative-journalism game.
“Obviously not,” Ross said. “By the way, let me ask you something, Jackson.”
Harper leaned close to better see the look on Ross’s face. One she didn’t recognize. A steely clamp to his jaw, eyes flickering, bulld
og tough.
“What’s really going on here?”
“What do you mean?” Jackson said. “Like what?”
“Something you aren’t telling me. An ulterior motive, the real reason you wanted me to go after this story.”
“My wife’s murder isn’t enough reason?”
“Was the woman in the video actually your wife?”
“Damn right she was.” Jackson drew back a step, glanced around the room. A man ready to flee.
“The reason I ask,” Ross said, “I can’t find any evidence you were married. None at all.”
“Okay, maybe not legally, no marriage certificate, all that garbage, but we lived together for years. What’s the problem, man?”
Ross said, “There’s another thing. You said you quit your job teaching history at Gables High. There’s no one named Jackson Sharp on the Dade County teachers’ rolls. In fact, your actual work history, what I could find, is very intriguing. A stretch in the army, then a consultant with an international security outfit.”
Jackson swallowed, took a breath, face going hard. “Okay, I stretched the truth a little. I was protecting myself.”
“A little? Or a lot?”
“This is bullshit. You’ve been investigating me? For christsakes. Hey, just forget it, smart guy. Just forget the whole goddamn thing. I’m sorry I ever came to you.”
Ross said, “I tried to think what possible reason you might have to sic me on this story. Why would you lie to me, why are you still lying? Only thing I can come up with is that you’re using me in some kind of con. I’m your stalking horse. I dig around, make phone calls about Albion, I hit a trip wire, and somebody at the home office discovers their secrets are about to go public.”
“You’re fucking crazy, man. You’re a fucking loon.”
“I put pressure on Albion, threaten to expose their crimes, so you can wring something out of them. Hush money maybe. Am I close?”
“Fuck you, man. Just fucking drop the whole thing.”
“How’s it supposed to work? Once they pay you to keep me quiet, then what? You come to me, say it was all a big lie, I’m supposed to stop what I’m doing? Or were you going to find some other way to shut me up when the time came?”
“Drop it, asshole. You better hear what I’m saying. Drop it now. I’m done with you. Step away.”
“No, Jackson. I’m not dropping anything. Not by a long shot. I’m just starting to dig.”
Jackson stormed off. Ross made notes, made phone calls. She couldn’t hear what he said. Harper came home. Ross cheerful, hiding his encounter with Sharp. The man she’d married was not the simple, transparent Ross she thought she knew. How had she missed this? She loved this man, thought she knew him thoroughly. But she’d missed it badly. He’d concealed this part of himself so well she’d had no idea about the battle he was waging, his toughness, his courage. With her photographic subjects, Harper prided herself on seeing past their veneers, but her special skill had failed her with the one person closest to her. The man she loved beyond all others. Would it have mattered? If she’d seen his worry, confronted him, managed to unearth the truth? If they’d discussed the danger, made some kind of defensive plan, would he still be alive?
She went back to the video of her family’s last week. Day, night, day, night. Then the morning the three of them packed up an ice chest and towels and headed to the beach. The house empty.
Another day, another long afternoon. Leo sleeping. Harper in the kitchen making a big salad for dinner, broiled salmon on top. Ross came in, touched her cheek, she turned and stepped into an embrace. They kissed. They checked on Leo. Ross undressed her. He feathered his hands across her bare breasts. Standing beside the bed, she shivered. She unbuckled his belt. She tugged his jeans down, she stripped off his T-shirt. He was erect. She touched him there, ran her hands along its length, took a grip, tugged him like that toward the bed, a funny moment, suppressing their laughter. Naked together on top of the bedspread, kissing, exploring with both hands.
“Know why I love you?” Ross said, hands still moving.
“My mind?” Harper said. “Or is it my long legs?”
“Both of those,” he said. “And everything in between.”
“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”
“And what a perfect mother you are to Leo. Especially that.”
“Am I?” she said.
“Oh yes. Oh yes.”
His hands on her, his hands on fire.
Spider had viewed all this. Saved it to his hard drive so he could view it again.
Gut twisting, Harper couldn’t watch the lovemaking. She looked out at the Zurich snow beyond the hotel window, coming down harder now, bright in the sunshine, waves of snow.
When she looked back at the laptop, Ross was in the bathroom shaving, a towel around his waist, Leo strapped to his chest facing forward. Their last night. Harper dressing in her black cocktail dress. Heading out to the charity event.
She felt her pulse ticking faster.
She watched herself snapping the three photos through the crack of the bathroom door. Ross nicking himself. Their final conversation. Ross mentioning chocolate. Chocolate, and the strange look on his face when he said it. Worry mixed with resolve. Harper kissed him and kissed Leo on his nose and left.
Only a minute later, Ross went to the front door, answering a knock.
Pistol drawn, Spider Combs pushed inside, forcing Ross backward.
“Take whatever you want.” Ross clutched Leo to his chest. “There’s not much.”
“I’m not a goddamn thief,” Spider said.
Harper froze the video. She didn’t need to see more. Not now. Maybe never. She didn’t need to hear his final words, didn’t need to see Leo’s face, didn’t need to see Ross trying to shield his son, their last desperate seconds. Didn’t need to watch anymore. Maybe she’d watch it all someday when she was stronger, less emotionally vulnerable.
If such a day ever came.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Mid-March, Zurich, Switzerland
At 4:30 p.m. on Friday, the armored van was delivered to a side street two blocks from the hotel. Wordlessly, a man in a blue banker’s suit stepped down from the cab and handed the ignition keys to Nick.
She and Nick had two hours to familiarize themselves with the equipment and for Nick to practice handling the rig in the downtown Zurich traffic. It was a Mercedes diesel, more van than truck, bulletproof windshield, slits for side windows, and solid panels in the rear. Sleeker than a Brink’s truck but just as armored.
They climbed aboard and, exactly as they’d been told, found the regular driver and his partner trussed up in the back of the van. Gagged and blindfolded, wrapped in duct tape, two husky men. According to Sal, their names were Hans and Roger. The Albion building was the first stop on their regular route for Kintana Destruction Services, a mobile document-shredding company that serviced eight banks and thirty other corporate offices in the Zurich area.
The uniforms Harper and Nick wore came from more of Sal’s magic. Yesterday he’d summoned a tailor to the Widder to take their measurements. Two hours later, the yellow jumpsuits arrived, perfect fits, each with shiny snaps, buttoned pockets, and elegantly embroidered logos, identical to the ones Hans and Roger were wearing.
Their photo ID badges were also exact duplicates. Today Harper would be Sarah Ann Pearson and Nick was Herbert Osle.
Paradeplatz square on Bahnhofstrasse was the headquarters of UBS banks and Credit Suisse and Albion International. In medieval times, it had been a pig market a half mile beyond the protection of the city walls. A few centuries later, the Paradeplatz was one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in Switzerland, and one of the main crossroads for Zurich’s tram network.
At six thirty, with the streetlights flickering on, Nick eased the big van across four sets of tram tracks into the loading zone just outside Albion’s front doors. It was an hour past quitting time, the thoroughfare no longer thronged with workers h
eading home or to neighborhood bars. Only a few stragglers hurrying past. Just inside Albion’s double front doors, a security guard spotted them and stepped onto the sidewalk.
Nick reached over and gripped Harper’s hand. She turned to him, saw the strain in his eyes.
“You’re not nervous?”
“No,” she said. “I’m not.”
“Well, that makes one of us.” He tried to smile.
“In and out. Keep it simple.”
“Now that you know Spider was the triggerman, shouldn’t we be going after him? Is this even necessary?”
She watched the security guard standing stiffly outside the door. A few wispy flakes of snow had begun to swirl down from the gray sky.
“We’ll deal with Spider later,” she said. “I need to know who hired him, who pulled his strings, and who was responsible for the things that happened in Africa.”
At the rear of the truck Nick used the van’s lift gate to lower the sixty-gallon stainless steel bin. From the doorway of the Albion building, the security guard watched Nick attentively as he maneuvered the container onto the sidewalk and swiveled it around to push it before him.
Nick handled the bulky unit exactly as instructed by Angela Giger, former employee of another Zurich mobile document shredder. One more contribution from Sal, Angela had appeared at their hotel door two nights ago. A cousin twice removed of one of Sal’s former partners or something similarly convoluted. The promise of two thousand euros brought her to the Widder, and after accepting the cash and a vodka martini, she mapped out the choreography of a typical document-removal session in a Zurich office building, never asking why they wanted to know such a thing.
Document shredders were scrupulously methodical. For a seven-floor building like Albion, they followed a thirty-minute timetable. Start at the top floor, work back to the lobby. Just barely time enough for Nick to empty the blue bins stationed at the end of each hallway while Harper attacked the two computers they’d targeted.
When They Come for You Page 16