Killfile

by Christopher Farnsworth

  “There’s just the matter of my bill,” I tell Sloan. This is why I’m here.

  He nods, and I feel the relief like a cool breeze. “Of course,” he says out loud. “I will honor our agreement.”

  “I know you will,” I say. “I expect the contract for Ward Island and the residence to be signed and delivered to my attorney before end of business today. But I’ve added something to my fee. For the inconvenience.”

  The thought escapes him before he can lock it down. “I’m sure we can come to an arrangement. I know this job took some turns neither of us expected, and we can compensate you for that.”

  I have to marvel at his cool. It’s like he’s reading from a script a lawyer prepared for him. “I’m glad to hear that,” I say. “Would you call Mr. Gaines in here, please?”

  Sloan’s a little surprised by that, but he does it anyway. Gaines has been eavesdropping the entire time. I can sense the anxiety coming off his thoughts like sweat. He enters immediately when Sloan says his name.

  “Mr. Smith,” he says, not waiting for anything. “I want you to know how deeply sorry we all are—how sorry I am—that things got so, well, fucked up, pardon my French. Obviously, I didn’t know or understand the depth of the issues here—”

  “No,” I cut him off. “You didn’t.”

  “I want you to know that we’ve had Kelsey moved to a top-flight facility. And of course we’re taking care of all her bills. She’ll receive only the best of care.”

  “I didn’t ask.” That sits there for a long moment.

  I focus on Gaines. “How much are you worth?

  That catches him off guard, and I get a nice shot of his financial status. A guy like this, his portfolio is never far from his thoughts anyway. Assets versus liabilities all tallied up in big black letters; the total at the bottom when he adds up all his bank accounts and stock holdings and even the cash in his wallet.

  Plus one more big debt, as of right now.

  “About three-point-two million,” I say. “That’s fine. We’ll round it off.”

  He’s baffled.

  I turn to Sloan again. “Here’s my last condition. Three-point-two million.”

  “Now just a moment. There was some unpleasantness, yes, but you’re paid to assume certain risks—”

  “I’m not finished.” I point at Gaines. “I want his three-point-two million. Everything he has. All of it. He writes you a check, you write me a check.”

  The blood drains out of Gaines’s face. “What?”

  “What?” Sloan echoes.

  “Your employee’s incompetence nearly cost me my life. Several times. All of this could have been avoided if he had fulfilled your obligations to me. Or even made a simple phone call to you.”

  Gaines is squealing inside.

  “Yes, it is, Lawrence,” I say. “You think I really believed that there was no way to get hold of Sloan? There’s always a phone number. Kelsey didn’t know it. You did. But you got scared. You thought it would be better to cut us off.”

 

  “I don’t care,” I say. “You had an obligation. You failed. This is how you pay for it.”

  Sloan snaps his fingers so I look at him. He’s able to hear only one part of this exchange, and he hates being out of the loop.

  “What makes you think I’ll bankrupt one of my most loyal employees for you? You’re asking too much.”

  “I don’t particularly care if you keep employing him. I’m not asking you to fire him. I simply want everything he’s got. Because he cost me everything I have. Or do I have to remind you that everything I owned is now the property of OmniVore? We both know that I’m not going to be on the list of creditors when they go into bankruptcy.”

  “That is unfortunate, but there are other ways to make you whole,” Sloan says. “We can reimburse you.”

  “No,” and I let him know with a sharp prod that I am not budging on this. I point at Gaines again. “He pays.”

  Gaines looks to his boss.

  “No,” Sloan says, shaking his head. “I will not do that. You can’t bully me. I realize this must seem foreign to someone like you, Mr. Smith, but I have principles.”

  Cheap shot. That makes it a little easier to pull out the big gun.

  “That is, of course, your choice,” I say. “And, of course, I can always go back to the NSA and let them know you’ve been using classified software for private gain.”

  That hits him like a heart attack. His blood pressure jumps so fast I’m afraid I did some real damage there.

  One thought echoes in the sudden stillness in his mind:

  “Preston never stole anything from you. He was given your algorithm by the CIA. Who got it from the NSA. The ones you made it for. The ones who paid for it.”

  He doesn’t say anything. He’s waiting to see how much I know. Which is not smart, because I’m psychic, remember? I know it all.

  “All those years ago, the NSA hired you to make something that could break Soviet codes. That’s when you found your algorithm. Then you realized you could make more money with it in the private sector. You gave them an early version of your work; then you resigned, waited a decent interval, and began trading with it. You turned it into Spike. And your old bosses at the NSA, they never knew it was the same program. Back then, nobody understood algorithmic trading. You were so much smarter than they were. You thought they’d never catch on. And you were right. Since then, there’s been so much turnover, so many changes of administration, nobody even remembers where the original software came from. Who would put code breaking and stock trading together? Only a genius like you, right?”

  Sloan’s face is slate gray, but he’s recovering. He’s glaring at me, letting me spin this out as far as I want to go while he desperately tries to come up with an answer. It’s not going well.

  So I keep telling the story.

  “Then Preston came along. He’s not as smart as you are, granted, but he’s still pretty smart. Or he was, anyway. Once he saw how you’d used algorithms to find patterns, he figured out another business model. He knew he couldn’t get your code, though. It was locked down too tight. And he didn’t have time to build something so brilliant from scratch. That kind of research takes years. It’s for the losers in academia. He wanted to get rich quick. Fortunately, he knew just where to find some really serious, brain-busting algorithms. He used to do code breaking too. It was one reason you hired him. So he went to the CIA and offered them a deal: give him some code-breaking software, and he’d turn it into a Trojan horse and smuggle it inside every big corporation in America. It was sort of brilliant, really. So the CIA gave him your original work, and he turned it into Cutter, his data-mining engine. They had no idea you’d think he stole it from you. Because they didn’t know you’d stolen it from them in the first place.”

  Everything I’m saying is true. For Sloan, hearing it out loud is like seeing his own name on a tombstone. He’s churning inside, trying to manage the sudden rush of fear. He never thought anyone would figure it out. It’s been years.

  Sloan musters some dignity. “I did not steal it. I created it. You can’t steal your own property.”

  “I’m sure your attorneys will say that. Still, I don’t think the government will agree. You were being paid by the feds when you wrote the original source code for Spike. I’ll bet you even signed something that said anything you made was their intellectual property. They’re probably going to want a cut of every dollar you’ve earned since then.”

  Sloan recovers from the shock fast. He opens his mouth to argue with me. Dozens of excuses and reasons fly through his head. But none of them masks the truth as we know it. If I take this knowledge to our perpetually cash-hungry government, Sloan is going to find himself on the receiving en
d of a very big bill from Uncle Sam.

  He could fight it out in court, spend years and millions of dollars, and still lose. Or he could give me what I want for a fraction of the cost. Sloan’s decision is easy. He really is a smart guy.

  He closes his mouth. Swallows. Then he smiles at me.

  “I thought you said you didn’t believe in blackmail,” he says.

  I shrug. “I make an exception, every now and then.”

  Sloan uses some words in his head that he’d never say out loud, and then turns to Gaines. “Lawrence,” he says. “Please leave the room. We’ll work this out.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not the end of the world, Lawrence. You’ll still have a job.”

  Gaines hears it. He just can’t believe it. He thought he’d do anything for Sloan. He was willing to throw himself on his sword for his king.

  He didn’t realize that loyalty went only one way.

  “You can’t,” Gaines says. “You can’t make me. That’s my money. I earned it. I’ve given you years, given your company the very best I have—”

  Now Sloan has a place to focus his anger: an employee who won’t do as he’s told. The blast furnace opens. “I gave you that money,” he shouts, voice suddenly huge, echoing off the walls. “I have all of your assets in my fund, under my control, and I can do whatever the hell I want with them. Now, if you want there to be a company for you to work for, you will listen to me and leave the goddamn room!”

  Gaines trembles. He considers rebellion. He could screw this up for Sloan in a dozen ways. He could go public and fuck up Sloan’s life considerably. He’s got better secrets about the company than the ones I know.

  But in the end, he folds. He goes out the door, his mind hollow. He’ll do what he’s told. He doesn’t know anything else.

  As he closes the door—carefully, trying very hard not to slam it—he wonders what he’s going to tell his wife.

  At least he doesn’t have kids. I wouldn’t have done this if he had.

  Sloan watches him go. He turns back to me. “There,” he says. “You have a deal.” “Happy now?”

  “Getting there,” I tell him. I take the lease drawn up by my lawyer from my suit jacket and place it next to the hard drive. “Close of business today,” I remind him.

  He snorts. He’s not bothering to hide his contempt or anger anymore. That’s good. Starts the healing process.

  I stand up. “I’ll skip lunch and head straight back to the airport, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Why did you do that?” Sloan asks when I’m at the door. The intellectual in him is already taking over, rebuilding the ice wall. He looks at what just happened like a math problem. “Why would you ruin a man like that?”

  I could say something about accountability. Or Kelsey. Or the carelessness with which people like Sloan and Gaines make decisions, and the costs they never see. Instead, I opt for the truth.

  “I really, really, really hate being shot at,” I say.

  That raises a small smile. “Be serious,” he says.

  “Oh, I am. But you already know the real reason. Somebody always has to pay. Always. Would you rather it was you?”

  He shakes his head. “You’ve made an enemy out of Lawrence, you know.”

  “But not you.”

  “No,” he admits. “Not me. Just business.”

  “Just business,” I agree.

  I close the door behind me.

  Epilogue

  The boat is late. I can see it cutting across the waters from the beach. I’ve been here for a bit, drinking my coffee, watching the sun burn through the morning clouds.

  No Vicodin. No Oxy. Because no migraines. I don’t even have any whiskey in the coffee.

  The house is everything Sloan promised and more. There are moments, when I stand here on the beach and watch the waves and the sun, when I wonder if this is what it’s like to be content.

  I’m not an idiot, of course. I know this is not permanent. And even if I didn’t, I got a call last week to remind me.

  Cantrell’s accent was thick. He was in a good mood. “Nice to see you can still perform when your back’s against the wall, son,” he said.

  I didn’t bother asking how he got my new number.

  He wanted me to know that behind the scenes, the CIA had withdrawn its support completely from OmniVore. Government contracts were canceled, and the entire investment written off as a loss.

  “So do I need to look over my shoulder?” I asked.

  “I thought you never needed to look over your shoulder,” he said.

  “Figure of speech.”

  “Nah,” Cantrell said. “That Preston kid is still gibbering in a rest home. He’s done. No point in coming after you now. Nothing valuable left to protect.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I said. “Bureaucracies don’t really hold grudges.”

  “Oh, but they do have long memories, John,” Cantrell said. “You might want to keep that in mind. After all of this, I wonder if maybe you’d be safer back on the inside. You know. With a responsible adult looking after you.”

  “I’m taking a long vacation,” I told him. “I’ve got a pretty large cushion in the bank right now. Maybe I’m even retired.”

  Cantrell laughed. “That’s a good one, John. You always did crack me up.”

  Then he hung up.

  Aside from that call, it’s mostly been blessed silence for a month.

  The one exception is when the boat comes out on Friday mornings with the groceries and the housekeepers. A nice couple. Very quiet, inside and out. I barely even have to avoid them. The wife cleans the house, the husband brings his gardening tools and keeps the forest from swallowing the place completely. Last week, we repaired the pump that feeds the sprinkler system from a century-old freshwater cistern. We hardly spoke, just handed tools back and forth and worked.

  I was almost sorry to see them go.

  Today, there’s someone else with them when they pull up to the dock. I felt the new presence long before they got close enough to cast the line.

  She hops off the boat before I finish tying it up.

  Kelsey has lost some weight, and she’s pale. Hospital food and a lack of sun. But very little pain. She’s healing.

  “How’s it going, Gilligan?” she asks.

  “I like to think of myself more as Robinson Crusoe.”

  “You don’t have the beard for it. Maybe the Professor, on a good day.”

  My face hurts. Unfamiliar muscles moving. I’m smiling. I try to wipe it off my face.

  “Sloan send you?”

  He didn’t, but I can at least pretend to have a conversation.

  “No. I’m still on vacation. Getting used to it, actually.”

  “Me too.”

  She looks around. “Yeah. Seems like you have everything you need.”

  “Pretty much,” I say.

  An awkward pause follows. “So what are you doing here? We don’t get many tourists.”

 

  She looks in my eyes and says, “I thought you might need a friend.”

  Something happens. For the first time in years, I see blue, all around her. And I feel at peace.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Why don’t you stay for a while.”

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks are due:

  As always, my brilliant agent, Alexandra Machinist; my peerless editor, Rachel Kahan; Alexander Maldutis, who explained algorithmic trading and quantitative analysis in terms so simple that even I understood them; Laura Hiler, who served as my long-distance tour guide to Dubai; Jonathan Sander, strategy officer at STEALTHBits, who helped me figure out how to steal data from a secure server network; Dan Chmielewski, who continues to teach me about security, as well as friendship; the legendary Beau Smith, my personal armaments consultant; Phil Roosevelt, who served as a first reader and gave valu
able feedback; Levi Preston (no relation), who gave me information on the military as well as notes on the story; Britt McCombs, who gave me great advice and ideas for Kelsey Foster.

  And to Jean and Caroline and Daphne, for being the reason why.

  The quote from Allen Dulles about mind warfare is from Jon Ronson’s brilliant and invaluable The Men Who Stare at Goats, about the American military’s and the CIA’s real-life efforts to harness psychic powers. I also relied on my friends John Whalen and Jonathan Vankin’s massive and massively useful The 80 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time. (Again. It’s a really great book.) I used Will Storr’s ridiculously smart The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science as a reference for all the ways our brains work and the ways they don’t. The stories about Wolf Messing originated from several sources—I first read about him in my junior high library, in a book I have never been able to track down since. But you can learn more about him in the biography Wolf Messing: The True Story of Russia’s Greatest Psychic by Tatiana Lungin. I also quoted reporting from Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele’s article on American cash in Iraq (“Billions over Baghdad,” Vanity Fair, October 2007).

  Any mistakes are mine, despite the best efforts of everyone listed here.

  About the Author

  A former journalist and screenwriter, CHRISTOPHER FARNSWORTH is the author of the Nathaniel Cade/President’s Vampire series of novels, which was optioned for film and TV and has been published in nine languages. Born and raised in Idaho, he now lives in Los Angeles with his family.

  chrisfarnsworth.com

  /AuthorChrisFarnsworth