“I suppose it’s because of this other death at Cinasat. Remember I told you he was wondering if there was a connection with Angie? It’s not that surprising.”
“Well, he also asked Katherine if Angie had been doing any reporting on Cinasat.”
“Really?” Grace frowned. Could it be that Mo was actually right about his crazy theory?
“Maybe Mortensen has Angie’s computer,” Mo said. “Maybe he’s found out that she was doing a report on Cinasat.”
“Then why would he ask Katherine if she was doing one?”
“I don’t know—maybe to see whether Katherine knew anything? Or maybe Mortensen only suspects. Maybe the info on the computer doesn’t say enough.”
“We don’t even know if he has her computer,” Grace said.
“That’s why we need to contact him, to find out,” Mo said. “Although I don’t know if he’ll tell us. He’s pretty cagey. I’ve left him a message. I’m waiting for him to call me back.”
They sat in silence for a while. Grace wasn’t sure why she felt uneasy. Maybe because she didn’t know what Duncan would say about all of this. It was his employer they were implicating, after all. And the thought of the questions Mortensen had asked made her uncomfortable. She had told Mortensen that Duncan had been home all night before he left, but he hadn’t. It was probably nothing, but she wished she knew where he’d gone.
They swerved off the freeway and paused in traffic. Mo was hunched over the wheel, his head thrust forward as if he were watching an invisible scenario unfold on the street before them, although all that was in his view was the back of a large white SUV.
“I wish you had told me before you called Mortensen,” Grace said as they lurched forward, the unicorn ornament swaying back and forth.
Mo turned to her, his eyebrows drawing together. “Why? Did you not want me to call Mortensen? I thought you’d want to know what he’d say.”
“I just want to talk to Duncan first. If all this has anything to do with Cinasat, that’s where we should start. He could probably tell us a lot.”
“Well, can you call him? He’s probably reached Colombo by now.”
“I tried earlier. He hadn’t registered at the hotel yet. I’ll keep trying.”
Mo pulled into a garage, and they went out onto the street, tramping past a dusty construction zone bracketed by orange barrels and temporary barriers of plastic netting. “Right over here,” Mo said, shouting over the jackhammer throbbing in the muscled grip of a man wearing a hard hat. They turned onto Market Street. Mo stopped in front of a white high-rise building with BELLFIELD TOWER emblazoned above its revolving door. “Come on,” he said.
Inside, Grace followed Mo as he approached a young black man sitting at a counter. The man straightened the collar of his navy-blue uniform and smiled invitingly.
“I’m looking for Wayne Durant,” Mo said.
“Yeah. That’s me,” the man said, nodding, a question in his eyes.
“Doug Bratton sent me?” Mo said. “From the Cinasat building? He said you could help us.”
Recognition dawned on Wayne’s face. “Yeah. Yeah. Sure. He said you wanted me to look at a picture?”
“It’s just a quick question,” Mo said. He pulled the photo of Angie out of his envelope and handed it to Wayne.
Wayne glanced at it for only a second before he said, “Yeah. What do you want to know about it exactly?”
“You worked at Cinasat?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you see that mask in the lobby there?” Mo said.
Wayne nodded. “Yeah. Would’ve been hard not to. It was right there in front of my eyes every day.”
“Are you sure it was that mask? Not just one that looked like that? Did it have three snakes like that? Two at the sides, not just the snake head at the top?” Grace said.
Wayne nodded again. He ran his fingers along the photo. “Yeah, three. And that tongue hanging. I used to look at those teeth and that tongue and wonder who put that up there. Not too friendly.”
Mo looked at Grace triumphantly. “See?” he whispered.
To Wayne he said, “When was the last day you worked there?”
“Man, I don’t know. Been a while,” Wayne said. He scratched at his wiry hair. “Don’t know the exact day. Less than a year, though. Maybe six months?”
“What . . . ,” Mo said. “Doug said . . .”
“Early November,” Wayne said. “Then I was at the Liberty building in Jersey City, then 231 Market, and since then, here.”
“But I thought . . . ,” Mo said. “Doug said you worked there right before he started.”
“Nah,” Wayne said. “He said you just wanted to talk to someone else who’d worked there.”
Mo slapped the counter, looking exasperated. What did he expect when he offered a hundred bucks? Grace thought. Of course he was going to get someone’s contact information.
“What’s it about anyway?” Wayne said. “Something to do with Ms. Costa?”
“What?” Mo said at the same time as Grace.
“Her,” Wayne said, pointing to the woman with Angie. “She was nice. Always stopped to say a few words. Not hoity-toity like some of them.”
“You know her?” Mo said, just as Grace said, “What did you say her name was?”
“Minowa Costa,” Wayne said. “She was in the research division.”
Mo was looking from him to Grace, his mouth open. Confusion was clouding Grace’s mind. She couldn’t make sense of what the man was saying. What was going on here?
“Are you sure that’s this woman’s name?” Mo said.
Wayne nodded, looking puzzled. “Yeah. Why? She do something?” His eyes widened. “She had something to do with stealing the mask?” He shook his head. “No way, man. She wouldn’t have done that. Real straight person, she was.”
“No, no,” Mo said. “No one stole the mask. That’s just . . . Never mind.” He ran his hand through his hair. He pointed to Angie. “Do you know this other woman?”
Wayne shook his head. “Never seen her. What’s this about?”
“Just something . . . something we’re trying to figure out.”
“You police?” Wayne said.
“No, no,” Mo said again. He pulled out his wallet. “Thanks for your help,” he said, pushing a twenty-dollar bill over the counter.
Wayne’s eyes widened. He slid his eyes around the lobby before pulling the bill under the counter.
“Now you see,” Mo said, when they emerged onto the street. The noise of the traffic seemed very loud, and the number of pedestrians on the sidewalks seemed to have increased. Grace struggled to process what had just happened.
“Do you believe me now?” Mo continued. “It’s all connected to Cinasat. Something has to be going on. Mortensen must already know that Minowa worked at Cinasat. He’s onto this.” He gazed at Grace, his eyes feverish. “Bent is involved in this somehow.”
“What’s the connection to Bent?” Grace said. “That guy just said the mask was there last November. Bent didn’t contradict that.”
“Bent works at Cinasat,” Mo said. “And something’s rotten there. Look, I’m going to call Mortensen again.”
While he made the call, Grace walked beside him, trying to make sense of it all. What did this all mean? Duncan would know.
“Not there still,” Mo said as they got back to the garage. He looked at his watch. “Damn. Look, I have to get to a dinner meeting. I’ll drop you back at your office, and I’ll get back to you.”
27
DUNCAN
Sunday
It was close to dawn, Sri Lanka time, when Duncan wheeled his bag out of the airport. Beyond the bright lights of the covered porch outside the arrival lounge, a waxing moon hung in a black sky. The humid air enveloped him like a long-awaited friend. Janie’s hand was in his, still dry and cold from the air-conditioning inside. The grogginess of jet lag made the surroundings seem oddly far away.
Bent had been preoccupied since t
hey had landed. In the baggage area, he had stood in a far corner, his phone to his ear, his brow furrowed, deep in an animated conversation. Since then, he had been texting incessantly on his phone, pacing about agitatedly. Just something he needed to sort out, he had told Duncan. Duncan had been unable to get his own phone to work since leaving New Jersey, despite repeated attempts.
When the Cinasat car, a shiny white Subaru station wagon, arrived and they had piled in, Janie leaned her head against the backpack she’d plumped down on the seat and promptly fell asleep. Duncan, sitting in front with the driver, found that he could barely keep his eyes open. Turning back, he saw that Bent was still texting in the back seat.
“Anything wrong?” Duncan said.
Bent looked up, frowning. “I’ll tell you when we get to the hotel,” he said. “Nothing that can’t be handled. And Cinasat’s tech support is still working on your phone problem.”
Duncan tried for a while to take in the familiar landscape, but in the feeble moonlight, not much was visible other than silhouetted coconut trees waving their heads by the side of the expressway. The effort to stay awake became too onerous.
When he awoke, with an ache in his neck, he realized that he had slept all the way from the airport into the city. They were already in the colonnaded porte cochere of the Taj Ocean Hotel. The driver was unloading the bags, and Bent was shaking Janie awake. Through the open car doors, Duncan could hear the roar of the ocean nearby.
“Sit inside with her, would you?” Bent said. “I’ll check us in.”
Duncan took Janie into the splendid lobby, admiring its gleaming floor of pale marble, its ornate rugs and opulent chandeliers. He checked his phone. Still no connection.
“This is like a palace,” Janie said, slumping onto a cream velvet sofa.
“Hotels in Colombo are pretty grand,” Duncan said. And such a far cry from the way the people in the villages lived, he thought. Still feeling hazy, he watched Bent register at the reception desk, and then have another long, animated conversation on his phone. Janie had already fallen back asleep, he saw. He could feel his own eyelids drooping. He stretched his legs out and relaxed against the cushioned comfort of the sofa back.
“Duncan!” Bent’s voice roused him from his sleep. He put his glasses on, wondering how long he had been sleeping. Not more than a few minutes, surely.
“I need to talk to you,” Bent said. “But let’s move over here.” He gestured to a nearby cluster of chairs. “I don’t want to risk Janie overhearing if she wakes up.”
Duncan blinked, confused. He moved with Bent to a nearby armchair and sat down heavily. “What’s going on?”
“Look, something has happened,” Bent said, sitting down across from him. He ran his hand through his hair. The bags under his eyes looked puffier, and his face was flushed. “I’ve had to make another change in our plans.”
“What happened?” There was a dull ache in Duncan’s head. He rubbed his temple with his thumb.
“As I told you, we think a competitor is trying to sabotage the Symb86 project.” Bent paused. “I might as well tell you. The competitor is Novophil—I’m sure you’ve heard of the company, yeah? We know we’re being sabotaged. There have been leaks . . . and some of our people . . . I don’t think I can tell you all the details yet.” He eyed Duncan’s empty hands. “I assume you haven’t contacted Grace yet?”
Duncan tried to suppress his irritation. “How? My phone’s still out. I’m not sure whether my laptop will connect now. It didn’t when I tried in the airport. I’ll try when I get to my room,” he said. “I’ll need to get a new phone.” He scanned the lobby. “There must be a shop in the hotel where I can get one.”
“You won’t have time for that. I need you to take Janie and go to a safe place. A car is coming—”
“Whoa, what?” Duncan interrupted. “What safe place? What for?”
“I don’t want to frighten you,” Bent said. “But the situation has become dangerous.”
“What situation?” Duncan said. “What are you talking about?”
“There’s been a death at Cinasat,” Bent said. “The intern who was working on the coding.”
“Whoa. She’s dead? How?”
“It’s being investigated,” Bent said. “There seems to be some question of foul play. She may have been involved in the leaks. We don’t know. At any rate, it looks like Novophil is willing to go to any lengths to get the information they need. We have evidence that we are all in danger of being abducted here . . .”
“What the hell?” Duncan said, getting up from his seat. What was Bent saying?
“Sit down,” Bent said. “We don’t know yet who is to be trusted and who is being paid off by Novophil. I’m afraid that Janie might be in danger—if she’s kidnapped, they could use her as leverage to get information from me. And I’m afraid you know enough about the project to be valuable to them.”
“I don’t understand,” Duncan said. He had sat back down. The edge of the chair was digging into his thigh. This was going too fast. His head had begun to pound.
“Our security department has worked out a way to keep everyone safe,” Bent said. “But time is of the essence here. I need to go and talk to the people here who have been involved in the project, to make sure nothing more is leaked. It’s been decided that you and Janie would be safest if you stayed elsewhere, secretly, for a few days, until everything is sorted out. I’ve called for a car. You’ll be taken to a guesthouse in Hikkaduwa. A quiet place, very low-key. I know the manager there, someone I can trust. No one will know you’re there. Just lie low, act like a tourist. I’ll contact you in a couple of days. Don’t tell Janie any of this, of course.” He started to rise from his chair.
“Whoa. Wait a minute, Bent,” Duncan said. “This makes no sense. I don’t understand how the intern died, how that’s connected to a leak, what makes you certain we’re in danger . . . I don’t get any of this. And I can’t just go off somewhere right now. I need to call Grace. I have to let my in-laws know I’ll be away.”
“You can’t call them even when your phone is fixed,” Bent said. “This is serious, Duncan. Things are happening fast. They’re going to try to stop us from getting to market first. We have to assume any communication you have with Grace could be used to track where you are.”
“This is crazy. No one is going to be tracking my calls, my emails to Grace!”
“Look, I’m not fucking with you here!” Bent’s voice rose sharply. “Listen to me.” Duncan saw that he was making an effort to control his volume. “What we are seeing is an effort to get this information at any cost. They have massive resources. Don’t forget we are talking about a drug that could be profitable beyond anyone’s expectations. Just trust me and go. I’ll contact Grace and let her know you’ll be down south.”
“How do you know she’s safe? If there is really this level of interest in getting ahold of me or you . . . why wouldn’t they try to abduct her to get to me?”
“We’ve already thought of that,” Bent said. “I didn’t want to worry you by mentioning it. We won’t tell her, but she’ll be under watch to make sure she’s fine. It’s very important that you not contact her in any way. That might put her in danger.”
“My God,” Duncan said. He wondered if this was all a dream he was having. A nightmare. Everything felt unreal, much more unreal than was usual for jet lag. He looked out through the wide windows that encircled the hotel lobby. The sun was well up, and the sky was blue, cloudless. There were palm trees outside, surrounding a fountain. Pompous doormen were standing around in their ridiculous livery, and skinny porters with faces burned dark by the sun were scurrying around helping hotel guests with luggage. This was no dream.
“Time to go,” Bent said, his voice urgent. He was already standing. He went over to Janie, still asleep on the sofa, and shook her shoulders. “Come on, Janie.” When she sat up, he said, “Listen, Janie.” He crouched before her. “I just found out that I have to go to a very important me
eting. It’ll be too boring for you to just stay here. So Duncan is going to take you to stay at a special place at the beach. That’ll be fun. I’ll see you soon, in a couple of days. Until then, you stay with Duncan, okay?”
Janie rubbed her eyes. Half-asleep, she seemed much younger than her nine years. “We aren’t going to stay here in the palace?”
“You can come back later and stay here. But this other place is much more fun. This hotel isn’t right on the beach, but the other place is. And it’s only for a day or two. Come on now.” He tugged her up and beckoned to Duncan.
“The car should be waiting,” he said to Duncan, before hurrying off, his cell phone already in his hand.
Duncan picked up their bags and shouldered Janie’s backpack. “Come on,” he said to Janie. As they neared the doorway, he saw that a young man in a checked shirt and brown pants was waiting by a nondescript black sedan, holding a piece of paper with the word Cinasat scrawled in uneven lettering.
28
GRACE
Saturday
Grace called her parents in Colombo. They had found out that Duncan’s flight had arrived, but Duncan had not yet got in touch.
“May not be at the hotel yet,” her mother said. “Everything takes longer, no, if they are traveling with a child.”
“True,” Grace said, trying to sound casual. “Could you tell him to call me if he gets in touch with you first? I really need to talk to him about something.”
When Grace called the hotel half an hour later, a polite young woman said that Mr. McCloud had checked into room 352. She connected Grace to the room, but no one answered the phone. Grace left a message for Duncan. She called again, at half-hour intervals, with no success. He probably went directly to some meeting, she thought. They must have had to take Janie. She probably would not hear from him until the evening, Sri Lanka time. That meant she would have to wait until the morning to talk to him.
She heated the leftover Thai food from the night before and ate dinner with CNN on. A story about another corruption scandal dominated the news. A senior police official had been arrested on federal corruption charges relating to a local political campaign. She sighed, listening to descriptions of the gifts the official had received in exchange for looking the other way as laws were broken in plain view. She flipped the channel, looking for something more positive, but it was the top of the hour, and commercials were on every major channel. A woman dancing through a field of butterflies after taking an antidepressant medication, an elderly man enjoying a romantic date by the ocean after taking a drug to combat erectile dysfunction, a young dad able to play with his infant daughter after taking a decongestant. Then it occurred to her that soon Symb86 would be on these channels too. She’d feel differently about the ads then. She turned back to CNN, where a reporter was describing terrible flooding in Texas.
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