by Glenn Cooper
He cupped his eyes and looked through the glass. Nancy’s car was there but Phillip’s wasn’t.
He ran inside the house.
“Nancy, Phillip’s car is gone!”
She came out of the bedroom. “It can’t be!”
“Why not?”
“I was up early. I didn’t see him leave.”
Will was already heading to Phillip’s bedroom. He didn’t bother to knock.
“Christ . . .” he muttered. The bed hadn’t been slept in. He felt his knees go weak. Nancy was behind him and instinctively reached out to steady him. When Will spoke his voice was frosted with fear. “He’s gone.”
Chapter 6
Yi Biao was notorious for keeping an uncluttered desk. As an ardent supporter of technology, he had all but banned paper from his office and he demanded that e-mails and reports be kept to a minimum of verbiage. Though he had a voracious appetite for information he liked to receive it crisply and concisely with no more than three action items per issue. And he banned the use of PowerPoint presentations from members of his staff. “Stand up and tell me what you have to say,” he would demand. “I want to see your face and your heart, not a list of bullet points.”
So his large desk was sparsely populated with objects—only a small collection of framed photos, a platinum- and diamond-encrusted Montblanc pen for signing state documents, a leather blotter and a pop-up computer screen. The photos told his story. His parents, both hardworking party members at his boyhood house in the countryside. His wife, a former actress who used to be more famous than he, his son, a graduate of Yale and Oxford who was now a rising star in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a stiffly posed shot with General Secretary Wen Yun and his favorite, his induction ceremony as Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission.
That was the penultimate stepping-stone in a long and calculated career stretching from his first job as a minor provincial official in Gansu to the highest seat in the land. He was the heir apparent to Wen, and it was only a matter of time before his turn would come as the next General Secretary and President of the People’s Republic of China.
The transition would probably have occurred already if it weren’t for the Horizon. Although it was the official policy of the government to disavow the significance of February 9, 2027, there were enough Politburo members who were concerned about a coming cataclysm that Secretary Wen had decided to postpone his retirement until later in 2027, assuming that the Horizon skeptics were correct and China and the rest of the world still existed!
For Yi, the Horizon was a burr under his saddle, a constant annoyance. He counted himself in the skeptics’ corner, not that he didn’t acknowledge that the Groom Lake database was unfailingly accurate. He simply asserted that it was a bridge too far to believe that the last book in the Library equated to the earth’s last day. It was his strongly held position that the most populous and complex nation in the world should orient its planning functions for a long and glorious future far beyond the Horizon, which was precisely why he was incensed that Wen Yun had delayed his ascension.
He looked out his office windows over the skyscrapers of smog-blanketed Beijing. He was high up, on the top floor of the August 1 Building, the vast headquarters of the Central Military Commission. It was early and the sun was just rising. He waved his hand at his screen and asked for his secretary. She immediately entered from the anteroom.
Yi noticed a cat hair on his suit jacket and irritably plucked it off. He didn’t like his wife’s cats but he had to live with them. “When General Bo arrives, send him in and make sure his visit isn’t logged into my official diary.”
General Bo Jinping arrived precisely on time, sat across from Yi and accepted a cup of tea. He had been Yi’s handpicked choice to head the Ministry of State Security though it was a choice that hadn’t been without controversy as the position traditionally went to a civilian. But Yi wanted a military man heading up the spy services. He’d always found PLA officers more straightforward than civilians, less Machiavellian, more apt to accept orders without pushback. And Bo was an appreciative acolyte.
“You’re looking well, General.”
“Thank you, Vice Chairman.”
“I understand your son was promoted to captain.”
“Yes, we are very proud of his accomplishments.”
Yi put down his teacup, signaling that the small talk was over. “General, I would like an update on the postcard affair in the United States.”
Bo was in command of the facts and didn’t require notes. “As of yesterday, thirty-six postcards were received. The most recent six were in San Francisco.”
“No other cities?”
“Not yet.”
“And the American response?”
“There are extensive resources being allocated to the problem involving the FBI, CIA, Department of Defense, and the internal security service at Groom Lake.”
“And what do they think they are dealing with?”
“There is dissension among the various departments. However, the Groom Lake security group has cast suspicion upon one of their analysts who is Chinese and has family in Taiwan.”
Yi smiled broadly. “Excellent news. And tell me how they are reacting to our protestations.”
“There is a high level of concern, Vice Chairman. In general, they believe we are overreacting and being opportunistic, but they cannot deny that it is a legitimate issue for us. They continue to insist that we should not see this as a provocation against Chinese people or the PRP, and they are further taking the position that there is no evidence of any US government involvement in these mailings. They wish to send over a delegation of FBI and CIA officials to reassure us of their innocence.”
“Ha!” Yi exclaimed. “A waste of a meeting if ever there was one.”
“Shall I accept their offer?”
“Go ahead. Why not? What I’m more interested in, General, is where this affair is heading. When do you think we will see the next wave of postcards?”
Bo smiled. “I think it could be soon, Vice Chairman.”
“Very well,” Yi said. “Keep me informed so I can keep the General Secretary informed. You know my views on this. Wen Yun is a little old and a little stubborn.” Yi leaned forward and raised his voice to match his rising emotions. “He fails to appreciate that the time has come to declare ourselves as the one great superpower in the world. He fails to recognize that the Horizon is a distraction and that the time is right to settle Taiwan once and for all and assert ourselves across the globe. We must convince the General Secretary that this postcard affair is indeed an intolerable provocation. He must understand that it is a deeply offensive and symbolic threat to the Chinese people and that it flaunts the geopolitical advantage that the United States has long had by possessing the Vectis Library. Ever since I was a boy everyone was worried about challenging the United States too directly or too harshly and risking a world war. Let me tell you something, General,” he said, thumping his palm repeatedly with his fist for emphasis. “I have no worries about a world war. If we push America to the brink, I believe they will back down. And if I am wrong, then we will defeat them. In either scenario, we will fulfill our rightful destiny.”
Chapter 7
Nancy spent the first frantic hour after their discovery calling all of Phillip’s friends and their parents. No one knew anything or had seen him the night before.
Will called the Reston Police and the local hospital. They knew nothing about a Phillip Piper. A police sergeant recognized Will’s name and helpfully offered to initiate a missing person’s protocol if the boy hadn’t surfaced by the afternoon but he reassured Will that 99 percent of kids who didn’t come home one night were safely in their beds the next.
“I don’t buy it,” Nancy told Will. “A mother knows. You know. Phillip doesn’t do this kind of thing.”
“We had something of an argument yesterday,” Will said quietly.
She jumped on him angrily. “Why didn’t you tel
l me? About what?”
“About dropping wrestling. But things with Phillip are always about something else.”
“What did you say to him? I swear, Will, if you said something to make him run away, I’ll never forgive you.”
Will sighed. He was always the bad guy, wasn’t he? But Nancy was traumatized, so he wouldn’t take umbrage. “It wasn’t much of an argument, Nance. I shouldn’t even have called it that. I’d be shocked if it was the reason he pulled this stunt.”
They were in Phillip’s bedroom. She was rummaging through his desk and drawers.
“Is anything missing?” he asked.
“Plenty. His NetPen, some jeans, shirts, maybe some underwear, a backpack.”
“Did he have any cash?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. He uses his NetPen for charging things.”
“How much was in his account?”
“A few thousand. He’s saved all his money from jobs, birthday, and Christmas presents. For years.”
“You’re on his account, right? I mean he’s still a minor.”
She nodded vigorously, pulled out her own NetPen, unfurled the screen, and started issuing voice commands. As he watched her a lump formed in his throat, and the years dropped away. It was as if they were working a case together again, but this wasn’t a case. This was their son.
“Oh crap,” she said with a rasp. “He withdrew $2,800 last night at 6:05.”
“From where?”
She looked like she was going to lose it. “From an ATM. At Dulles Airport. We can’t do this alone, Will. I’m calling the Bureau.”
Director Parish authorized an all-out push on Phillip’s case on the theory that any suspicious disappearance of a family member of one of his top officials was a potential act of terrorism until proven otherwise. And as far as he was concerned, the timing with respect to the Chinese Doomsday case was a coincidence he couldn’t ignore.
By midafternoon, their house was crawling with agents from the Washington field office. Special Agent in Charge Linda Ciprian was a woman Nancy had personally mentored for over a decade and the two of them talked in the living room, trying to strike the right blend of personal concern and professional conduct.
Will stood in his son’s bedroom like a big statue, mutely watching a couple of young clean-cut agents picking through Phillip’s belongings.
One of them found a hash pipe in a sock.
“Your son into drugs, Mr. Piper?”
He shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you.”
The agent sniffed it. “There’s residue.”
“Shocking,” Will said.
“You never smelled it coming from his room?”
“I live in Florida. I’m not here much.”
The agent looked down his nose. “I see.”
The other agent asked what SocMedia sites the kid used. FB? Socco? Light Saber?
Will asked him which ones had 3-D images.
All of them, was the incredulous reply, as if he were a caveman for asking.
Through a Q&A process about Will’s recollection of sites from the times he’d seen Phillip online, the agent decided he used Socco. He unfurled his own NetPen to find Phillip’s public page. After Nancy confirmed she hadn’t a clue about his logon ID, the agent obtained an e-summons from a federal duty judge and shot it to Socco security. The whole well-worn judicial process took less than an hour before the agent was on Phillip’s private pages.
“Bingo!” he said with brass in his voice. “He was chatting with someone new to him named Hawkbit yesterday afternoon at 2:35. At 2:42, they were tunneling.”
“What the hell is that?” Will asked.
The agent showed him little deference and less patience. “You haven’t kept up with things, have you, Mr. Piper.”
“I try not to, Special Agent—are you Finnerty or Johnson?”
“Johnson,” he replied sharply.
“You need name tags. You look like twins.”
“Tunneling is a hacker term for using a key-management-encryption system for ultraprivate NetChats. Using anything more than a 604-bit-key elliptic-curve algorithm is illegal since we can’t break it.”
“Oh,” Will said blankly.
“Hello!” Agent Johnson said suddenly. “He used a 620-bit key. That’s a potential crime, Mr. Piper. It’s a big no-no, and I suspect your son knew it.”
“Whatever you say, pal. Are you telling me you can’t decipher it?”
“Not a chance.”
“And any fifteen-year-old can get it off the Net?”
“The world we live in,” the other agent said. “The terrorists are like pigs in shit with tunneling. We break the keys, the hackers keep coming up with longer ones.”
“Show me the stuff you can read. From this Hawkbit.”
Will read the chat transcription. Hawkbit was a girl. Huge surprise.
Nancy burst in with Linda Ciprian. “They found his car! It’s at the long-term parking garage at the International Terminal at Dulles.”
“Is anyone checking the airlines?” Will asked.
“We’re all over it,” Ciprian said.
“Nancy, he was online with someone he met yesterday who called herself Hawkbit,” Will said. “She read his essay and told him he was the only one she could trust. Then they tunneled, which I just learned is . . .”
“I know what tunneling is,” Nancy said.
“Looks like I’m the odd man out. My guess is this Hawkbit called, and our Phillip answered.”
Nancy was surfing her Pen. “Find Hawkbit.” She held up the thin screen and showed him a picture of a yellow, daisylike wildflower. “They grow in Europe, parts of Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.”
Will sighed. “Well, twenty-eight hundred bucks will get him just about anywhere in the world, at least one way. He didn’t even leave us a note! When I find him, I swear, I’m going to beat the stuffing out of him.”
“Do you have the IP address of Hawkbit?” Nancy asked Johnson.
“We’re working on it,” he said. “It looks like it’s offshore. We’ll need an international warrant.”
“Get a judge and get a signature,” she barked.
In short order they learned that Phillip had boarded United Flight 57 from Dulles to Heathrow which had departed at 8:20 the previous night. He’d paid for a round-trip open-return ticket with cash. The flight had landed at 8:30 A.M. in London so he had a nine-hour head start on them. It didn’t look like he’d taken a connecting flight so the presumption was that he was still in the UK though a dash to the Continent via the Chunnel or ferry couldn’t be ruled out.
“How does a minor just buy a ticket and get on an international flight?” Will had asked incredulously.
Johnson (or was it Finnerty?) had the answer. Phillip had downloaded a parental authorization form from the United Net site and forged Nancy’s signature.
Nancy and Will withdrew to their bedroom and closed the door.
“I just talked to him. Parish won’t let me go,” Nancy said, shaking with anger. “He said that he couldn’t spare me.”
“Screw him,” Will spat.
“He also told me that the field assessment was that this wasn’t a kidnapping or a terror snatch, just a runaway kid with social issues.”
“Those two clown twins downstairs. I’m going to bust their heads together,” Will said, heading for the door.
She stopped him. “Will, calm down. Parish did offer to ask for help from MI5 as a favor to us. They’re going to put an agent on it to see if they can figure out where he is. Check CCTV feeds, track his NetPen, things like that.”
“Damn it, Nancy,” he seethed, “I’m not going to sit in the living room and wait for my phone to ring! This is Phillip we’re talking about!”
“I know, I know,” she said mournfully.
“I’m getting on the next flight to London.”
“You can’t, Will! You almost died two and a half months ago!”
“I’ll be fine. I can do this Nancy,” he
said, opening the closet and pulling out a suitcase. “I’m going to find our son and I’m going to bring him home.”
Chapter 8
The economy cabin of the Boeing 807 was darkened for sleeping and most of the passengers were at least trying to get some shut-eye. Will was an exception, uncomfortably shifting his large frame in his middle seat, staring at the plane’s flight path on the chair-back screen.
The last time he’d been to England was when Phillip was an infant. He’d taken Nancy and the baby to the Isle of Wight to have a look at the ruins of Vectis Abbey. They’d strolled on the grassy field among grazing sheep and looked out over the rolling waves and chop of the Solent. Beneath their feet was the ruined vault of the Library, destroyed by army demo men after the books had been cleared out in 1947 and turned over to the Americans. At the time he’d felt he had to go there, to see it for himself, but when it was done, he moved on and didn’t dwell on it. He had a life to live. He’d resisted the pleas to lecture and do TV appearances, and decided to tell his story once, and once only in a book. And when the book finally faded from the best-seller lists, he faded too, onto his boat, into the blue-green waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
On the flight fifteen years earlier, Phillip had irritated Will by crying his way from Newfoundland to Ireland. Now the boy was irritating him again. He stewed fitfully: Why had he run off? What was he trying to accomplish? Was it rebellion? Was Phillip so angry at him for being a lousy father that this was the way he chose to express himself? Had he met a girl on the Net who snake-charmed him across the Atlantic? Or was something more ominous afoot?
When he had mulled over every conceivable scenario, he started to fret over his heart. Sure he’d told Nancy he was fit enough for the journey, but truth be told, he wasn’t convinced. He had lied. He never called his cardiologist for clearance. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, he had told himself. Mind over matter.
At Heathrow’s Terminal Six he cleared customs, picked up some currency and rolled his bag to the meeting point. A man in an overcoat held a paper sign with his name. He followed the driver outside and waited while he retrieved the car and brought it around. It was chilly and damp; the sky was dull and monochromatic, just like his mood.