That’s when she shot me. Twice, actually. Right in the chest. It hurt, but it would have been a lot worse if I hadn’t been wearing Conroy’s vest.
“Damn it, Mrs. Graham,” I shouted. “Get back in your fucking bedroom!” I don’t usually swear at old ladies, but Mrs. Graham was going to get us both killed. Suddenly wide-eyed, she backed into her bedroom and slammed the door.
Too late, I turned to see that Conroy had gotten to his feet and opened the front door.
“Conroy!” I shouted, pointing the Glock at him. “Close that door and—”
There was a flash and, for a moment, I saw Conroy engulfed in flames. Then the shock wave hit me and everything went black.
EIGHTEEN
I had a vague memory of Mrs. Graham standing over me and shouting, and then somebody carrying me downstairs. The next thing I knew, I was strapped into the backseat of a car. From the motion of the vehicle, it seemed we were airborne. My head hurt, my ears were ringing, and my hands and face felt like they were on fire. All I could smell was burning hair. The only other person in the car was the driver, who was wearing a Green River medic’s uniform. Next to me on the seat were Conroy’s Glock and helmet.
“Where are we going?” I asked blearily.
“Memorial Hospital,” said the driver. “How you feeling?”
“Not great,” I said, feeling my face. Touching my forehead made it hurt more. Also, my eyebrows were missing.
“You’re lucky to be alive. Some asshole rigged a methane explosion in one of those apartments. Couple of civilians dragged you out.”
“Was there an old lady?” I asked.
“Don’t know about that,” said the driver. “Your buddies are in the ambulance ahead of us. They’ll be surprised to see you, I’ll bet. They swore you were dead.”
I nodded dumbly. One of the Green River guys must have seen Conroy’s body and somehow not noticed me lying a few yards away in his clothes. They were definitely going to be surprised to see me.
“I don’t think we’ve met,” said the driver. “Name’s Harper. I just transferred in from Johannesburg. You’re Conroy, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Look, Harper, you need to set this thing down.” I saw lights below us, but couldn’t make out where we were. All I knew was that I needed to get out of this car before it got to the hospital.
“We’re almost there, buddy,” said Harper. “You feeling okay? Lie down and take it easy. We’ll be there in two minutes.”
“No, you need to land,” I said. “Now.”
“You need to puke or something? Just try to hold on. If you puke in this car, I have to clean it up. Shit, I knew I should have waited for an ambulance.”
I picked up Conroy’s gun and pressed the barrel against Harper’s neck. I was getting a little tired of threatening people with guns, to be honest, but I was too dazed and desperate to think of anything else. “Land,” I said.
“You’re not Conroy, are you?” said Harper after a moment.
“No, I am not,” I admitted. “I’m just a guy having a shitty day who happens to be wearing Conroy’s uniform.” Admittedly, though, my day was going better than Conroy’s.
“All right,” Harper said. “There are no landing zones in this area, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Any street will do,” I replied. “Don’t get cute.” Technically, he was right. I could see we were in a residential neighborhood, presumably outside the DZ. You couldn’t legally land an aircar in such a neighborhood. Practically speaking, you can land an aircar on just about any hundred-foot-long strip of pavement. Less, if you went full vertical, but that wasted fuel and attracted a lot of attention.
Harper set the car down on a quiet street, like a pro. I kept the gun on him as I got out, taking the helmet with me. “Thanks, Harper,” I said. “Take the rest of the night off.”
“Fuck you,” said Harper. I shrugged and closed the door. I held the gun on the car until he took off. Then I checked my location on my comm and took off running. I didn’t know what Green River’s relationship was with the LAPD, but I suspected Harper called them as soon as he was in the air. I needed to get as far away from here as I could before they showed up.
According to my comm, I was just a few blocks north of the motel where I’d left Keane and Olivia. Doing my best to keep to the shadows, I jogged there and then walked to the door of room 17. I knocked and said, “Hey, it’s me.” After a few seconds, Keane came to the door. He was wearing a plain white T-shirt and boxer shorts.
“What the hell happened to you?” Keane asked. “You look like you got shot out of a cannon. And what’s with the storm trooper getup?”
I pushed past Keane into the room and sat down on my bed, letting the helmet hit the floor.
Keane closed the door. “You have the coin?”
I reached into my pocket and held it up. Keane grabbed it out of my hands. “Looks just like the one in the book,” he said. “Except for the serial number.”
I started unlacing my boots. More than anything, I needed a shower. “I just risked my life half a dozen times to get that goddamn Cracker Jack box toy,” I said. “Gerard Canaan’s army is tearing apart the whole DZ looking for that thing. So I sure hope you can tell me more than that.”
“The only thing I can figure,” said Keane, examining the coin, “is that it somehow carries information.”
“Like those fake coins in spy movies.”
“Yes,” he replied. “Except that this coin is clearly solid. So the information is somehow embedded in the coin itself.”
“Embedded by whom?” I asked. “What kind of information?”
I’d finished getting undressed and went into the bathroom to turn on the shower. Keane followed.
“Whoever minted the coins, I would imagine,” said Keane. “I did some digging while you were gone to see if I could determine who made them, but didn’t come up with much. As far as I can tell, they were minted by a privately owned company in Hong Kong that no longer exists. Regarding the sort of information, that’s another excellent question.”
I got into the shower. The cold water felt good on my face. I scrubbed my scalp and felt the burnt ends of my hair breaking off. “Maybe it’s imprinted inside the coin,” I shouted. “Like you need an X-ray machine to see it.” I turned off the shower and grabbed a towel.
“That would be a pretty good trick to pull off, even with a copper coin. Creating a void inside the coin somehow. And titanium is much harder to work with than softer metals.”
“What about weight?” I asked. “Maybe each coin has a slightly different weight, and if you put all the weights together, you get a code or something.” I peered into the mirror. I really did look like shit. My eyebrows were completely gone and my face, neck, and backs of my hands were bright red. Blisters had formed on my right cheek.
“Could be,” said Keane. “But frankly it seems too obvious. And you certainly wouldn’t be able to transmit much information that way. Let’s suppose you can control the variation of the weight of the coin to one one-thousandth of a gram, which is about the weight of a grain of table salt. That’s pretty fine. This coin weighs about as much as a quarter, which is five-point-six grams. Unless the person encoding this information wanted to be really obvious, they’d keep all the coins within a tenth of a gram of each other. So every coin is between, say, five-point-six-zero-zero grams and five-point-six-nine-nine grams, with a margin of error of just less than one milligram. That really only leaves the hundreds place and the thousands place to work with. Two digits. Hell, you get one digit from the serial number. Hard to see why anyone would go to all that trouble to hide a two-digit number.”
I had finished drying myself off and wrapped a towel around my waist. Keane, obviously relieved, opened the bathroom door and walked out. I followed him. I sat down on the other bed. “Then what?” I asked quietly. “The balance is off? Maybe if you flip the coin, it lands funny?”
Keane shook his head. “Even if you could get it
to land on the same side every time, that’s one bit of information. Your varying weights idea was much more practical, and that was idiotic.”
Keane tapped something into his notebook. I saw that he had brought up a magnified image of an iota coin that had sold on eBay a few days ago for $800. Two of the coins had been sold on eBay in the last week—serial numbers 1 and 8—to the same anonymous bidder. The bidder was presumably Canaan or someone working for him. Keane was comparing the coin I’d given him to the one on the screen. I lay on the bed and closed my eyes while he did this. I was almost asleep when he muttered something under his breath.
“What?” I asked.
“There’s no difference,” he said. “The front and the back are both exactly the same, except for the serial number.”
“Isn’t an image information?” I asked. “Maybe the image is the message.”
“But then why are there nine different coins, with nine different serial numbers? And why is Canaan so dead set on getting every last one?”
“Could be he’s afraid of somebody else getting the information. He wants to get every copy to hide them.”
Keane shook his head. “If the image is the information, then the information is all over the place. It took me three seconds to find a six-hundred DPI image of the damn thing.”
“Well, hell,” I said. “Should we try tossing it, just to see what happens? Maybe it will do something crazy, like landing on its side.”
Keane cocked his head at me, a very strange look on his face. “Landing on its side,” he said.
“I wasn’t serious,” I said. “I’m pretty sure it’s not going to land on its side.”
“No,” said Keane. “But what if it did?”
“Uh,” I said. “Then it would be time for a trip to Vegas?”
But Keane wasn’t listening. He was frantically searching the desk and surrounding areas for something. “I need a pencil, Fowler!” he cried. “Find me a pencil!”
Just then, there was a huge crash and the door to the room flew open. Two men in full Green River gear stood at the doorway with a battering ram. I looked around frantically for the Glock and realized I’d left it in the bathroom. The men stepped aside and two others, also in full combat gear, strode into the room, pointing their rifles at me and Keane. We put our hands up. My towel fell to the floor.
“Where is it?” one of the men asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied.
“The coin, smart guy. Don’t think I won’t shoot you. I don’t give a shit.”
Keane opened his hand, revealing the coin.
“Thanks,” said the Green River man, taking the coin. “Now get dressed. You’re coming with us.”
NINETEEN
I got dressed and Keane and I were prodded into the back of a heavy-duty utility aircar. I didn’t see Olivia; I’d nearly forgotten she was still in the adjoining room. Either she was blissfully unaware of our situation or she was behind it. I’d have bet heavily on the latter. Keane and I had let our guard down, and we were paying for it. Olivia had sold us out to Green River.
The aircar lifted off and headed northwest. Ten minutes later we descended to a pad behind a luxurious cliff-side house in Malibu. Keane and I were escorted to a room overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Sitting in a chair, a tablet cradled on his lap, was a short, gray-haired man with a taut, expressionless face. I recognized him as Gerard Canaan.
“Gentlemen,” said Canaan, glancing in our direction but not getting up. “Please have a seat.”
We sat. One of the Green River guys handed the iota coin to Canaan, who nodded and clutched it against his chest as if it were a crucifix. The Green River guys left the room silently, leaving only a single bodyguard at the door.
“I trust you know who I am,” said Canaan, peering at us from under bushy gray eyebrows. “Thank you for retrieving the final iota coin.”
“We don’t work for you, Mr. Canaan,” I said.
“No,” said Canaan. “You work for Selah Fiore, who is sadly going to be unable to fulfill her contractual obligations. Being an honorable man, however, I am happy to pay you for your services rendered thus far. How does twenty thousand iotas sound?”
I had been about to tell Canaan to go fuck himself, but twenty thousand iotas was a hell of a lot of money. Dollars or iotas, that much money would bring us current on our lease and then some.
“Iotas, eh?” said Keane. “Interesting choice.”
Canaan shrugged. “I do business in iotas when I can.”
“I’m sure you do,” said Keane. “Completely untraceable. No reporting requirements to deal with. You could have billions in iotas stashed away, and no one would know.”
“I’m no longer as wealthy as I once was,” said Canaan, “but I get by.”
“So I see,” Keane said, staring out the window at the waves crashing against the cliff far below. “Did you buy this house with iotas as well?”
Canaan scowled. “My finances aren’t your concern, Mr. Keane. As for my affinity for iotas, I’ve been involved in the effort to mainstream iotas for years. I’m sure you know I was on the board of the Free Currency Initiative.”
“And as I’m sure you’re aware,” Keane replied, “Fowler and I are wanted for Selah Fiore’s murder.”
“I can take care of that,” said Canaan. “It will take me a few days, so try not to get arrested unless you want to spend that time in prison.”
Keane nodded. “Also, Mag-Lev is holding a woman named Gwen Thorson against her will. I’d like her released.”
“Mag-Lev doesn’t report to me,” said Canaan.
“No,” said Keane, “but if I’m not mistaken, you’re in the process of taking over the DZ, so pretty soon he’s either going to be reporting to you or dead.”
Canaan nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“I want a pledge that you’ll see to it that Gwen is returned to us unharmed. You’ll need to act quickly.”
I nodded, acutely aware that we were within two hours of Mag-Lev’s deadline.
“This is in lieu of payment, then?” Canaan asked.
“This is in addition to payment.”
“Fine,” said Canaan, without even taking a second to think. “But I need one more thing from you.”
“I know,” said Keane. “That’s why I’m not budging on the price.”
A smile cracked Canaan’s face. “Good. Then we are on the same page. I understand you need a pencil?”
“Yes,” said Keane. “And paper.”
“You should find both in that desk.” Canaan gestured toward an oak desk in the corner of the room. As Keane walked to the desk, I realized Canaan was asking Keane to reveal the secret of the coins. And Keane apparently intended to do it, for a mere twenty thousand iotas.
Canaan got to his feet as Keane found a pencil and a sheet of paper in a drawer. Keane set the paper on the desk and held out his hand to Canaan. Canaan came closer, handing him the coin. I approached as well, curious as to what Keane intended to do.
“As much as I’d like to take credit for cracking the code,” said Keane, rubbing the tip of the pencil on the edge of the coin, “it was Fowler who gave me the idea.”
“I did?” I asked.
“I fell into the trap of binary thinking,” said Keane. “We are conditioned to think of a coin as having two sides, but of course that’s incorrect. It has three: the front, the back, and the edge. When you suggested looking at the edge of the coin, I realized that had to be the answer.” As he spoke, he rubbed the lead of the pencil on the grooves on the edge of the coin. When he’d gone all the way around the coin, he set the pencil down and then pressed the edge of the coin against a paper on the desk. He rolled the coin one complete turn.
“Ha!” he cried, holding up the coin triumphantly. All I saw on the paper was a series of tiny lines.
“What is that supposed to be?” asked Canaan.
“A nonbinary binary solution,” said Keane, with a grin. “Take a lo
ok.” He held the coin before Canaan’s eyes. “These ridges around the edge of the coin are called reeds. Some of the reeds have slight indentations in them. The difference is almost imperceptible when you look at the coin, and you can’t see it at all if you’re looking at a photo of the front or the back. But if you roll it on paper, the reeds with the indentation leave a gap.” He set the coin on the desk and tapped the paper with his finger. “The solid lines are ones. The lines with gaps are zeros. All I’ve got to do is convert this to decimal.” He did some furious figuring on the bottom half of the paper, finishing by writing a very long number on the bottom. He picked up the paper and handed it to Canaan, who frowned.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
“Beats me,” said Keane. “I’d need the other coins to make sense of the code. Presumably if you put them all together, it means something.”
Canaan nodded, seeming satisfied.
“Why do you want the code, Mr. Canaan?” Keane asked.
“Divulging that information was not part of our deal,” said Canaan.
“No,” said Keane, “but I think you have to agree that Fowler and I have been very understanding, considering that you stole the coin from us and forced us here at gunpoint. I’d like to think that we’ve earned some goodwill.”
“You’re already pushing it, Mr. Keane,” said Canaan. “I don’t have to give you anything. Fortunately for you, I’m a man of my word. I’ll have the iotas transferred to you within the week.”
“So that’s it, then,” I said. “I risk my life to get that damn coin and you just buy us off—with iotas, no less.”
“If it makes you feel better, Mr. Fowler,” Canaan said, “you’re not the only ones being manipulated here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“It means that if you’re smart, you’ll take your twenty thousand iotas and get the hell out of this city while you still can. There are forces at work here beyond your understanding.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” I said. “Not without Gwen.”
The Last Iota Page 17