by Barry Eisler
The doorknob rattled.
God, oh God …
He backed away, shivering violently, and somehow managed to get most of the mildew cleaner into the mug. He set down the empty container as quietly as he could and took hold of the wall that divided the bath from the toilet, steadying himself. He held the mug in his right hand at waist level and ground his teeth together to keep them from chattering.
A second went by. Ten. Ten more.
Maybe he’s gone. Maybe when he figured out someone was home—
The lock popped. The door crashed open and slammed into the wall. A dark figure stepped through. Alex saw a flashlight and maybe a gun, and then the light was in his eyes, blinding him. With a wild yell he flung the contents of the mug forward toward the figure’s head. A long blob of liquid cut through the beam of the flashlight. The man cried out and stumbled back. Alex shot forward and slammed his shoulder into the man, knocking him on his back. He leaped straight over him and onto the stairs, taking the six steps in another leap. He grabbed his keys from the table in the foyer, yanked open the front door, and went tearing down the flagstone walkway to the driveway, where his car was parked, barefoot, naked, and still dripping from the bath. Somehow he had the presence of mind to hit the unlock button on the fob on the way. He practically dove into the car, slamming the door behind him and locking it. He was shaking so badly he had to use both hands to get the key in the ignition. He pushed the clutch in and turned the key. The engine growled to life. He popped the gearshift into reverse and used every ounce of rational thought he still had to force himself to let the clutch out slowly. He made it out of the driveway, shifted into first, and didn’t think to shift again until he was doing forty at the end of the street and the engine was screaming so loudly it sounded like it might tear right through the hood of the car.
He got on 280 and at 120 miles an hour made it to San Jose Police headquarters in under fifteen minutes. By the time he arrived he had calmed down a little and was starting to think. Weirdly, the thing he was most grateful for was that he had a set of workout clothes in the trunk. Otherwise, what the hell would he do, barge into the police station stark naked in the middle of the night?
The parking lot that had been nearly full a day earlier was empty now, and he was able to scurry around to the trunk of the car and dress without anyone seeing him. It couldn’t have been more than forty degrees out and he could see his breath fogging. By the time he walked through the lobby doors his teeth were chattering and he was completely broken out in gooseflesh.
He walked up to the information window, rubbing his palms furiously against his arms and shoulders to generate a little friction heat. “I want to report a burglary,” he said. “Someone just broke into my house.”
The woman behind the glass asked, “What is your address, sir?”
Alex gave her his Ladera address. The woman said, “Sir, that’s San Mateo. You need the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.”
Jesus, what had he been thinking? San Jose had just been on his mind because he’d been here recently; he hadn’t even thought about the jurisdiction.
“Right,” he said. “Look, I surprised this person in my house. He had a gun and I just ran out. I got confused. Can you … I don’t know what to do. Can you call the San Mateo police for me?”
The woman nodded and picked up a phone. She gave Alex’s information to someone and hung up.
“Sir, the Sheriff’s Office is sending a patrol car to your address right now. They’re going to wait for you outside the premises and escort you in when you arrive. They’ll ensure the premises are secure, take your statement, and collect any evidence.”
Alex thanked her and went back to his car. When he got home, there was a police car waiting in front. He parked in the driveway and walked over. Two uniformed cops got out, one a tall skinny guy, the other with shoulders as wide as a refrigerator.
“Alex Treven?” the skinny one said.
“Yes, I’m Alex. Thanks for coming.”
“No problem. I’m Officer Randol, and this is Officer Tibaldi. We understand you had an intruder in the house this morning?”
This morning … right, it was morning, technically. “Yes, that’s right. I think he had a gun, but I didn’t see that well.”
“Okay. We’d like you to wait here while we go in and ensure the house is secure. Once we’ve done that, we can take your statement inside.”
“Uh, yeah, sure, of course.”
Alex waited while Randol and Tibaldi walked up the path to the front door, which Alex noticed for the first time was closed. He was surprised to see them draw their guns, then realized, of course, they had to assume someone was still in there, no matter how unlikely.
Tibaldi tried the door, then called to Alex, “You’re going to have to unlock it.”
Alex walked up and unlocked the door. Tibaldi opened it, waited a moment, then went in, followed by Randol.
The house wasn’t huge, and in five minutes they had turned on every light, opened every closet, and looked under every bed. It was empty.
Alex told them exactly what had happened. He showed them the bathroom. The tub was still full of water. They examined the door and the lock, but there was no evidence that it had been picked. The room stank of bleach and the cleaner had gotten all over the walls and floor.
“We’re going to check the front door and have a look around,” Randol said. “Why don’t you inventory the house and see if anything is missing?”
Alex did. Nothing was gone or even out of place. Even his wallet and cell phone were where he always left them when he was home, on the table in the foyer. He’d been so batshit scared when he ran out that he’d grabbed only his keys and nothing else.
“The front door is intact,” Randol told him. “No sign of forced entry.”
“Well, someone got in here,” Alex said, feeling foolish.
“I can see that. Is anything missing?”
Alex shook his head.
“Do you have any enemies, sir?”
“Enemies?”
“You know, were you doing something that made a husband jealous, or maybe you took something you weren’t supposed to from someone you shouldn’t have taken it from.”
“No, nothing like that. Nothing. Are you saying this guy was looking for me personally?”
Randol shrugged. “Most burglars are pretty inept. The ones adept enough to break in quietly and without damaging anything are too smart to carry a gun. It ups the penalties if they’re caught.”
“Well, I’m not sure he had a gun. I told you, I didn’t see that well. It was dark, there was a flashlight in my face, and I was pretty damn scared.”
“All right. No gun, my guess is, someone broke in here hoping to burglarize the place, and when you surprised him, he got the hell out.”
“And closed the door as he left?” Alex asked.
“Sure,” Tibaldi said. “You’d be amazed at the weird things perps do. He probably thought if he closed the door, no one would notice he’d been inside.”
Alex wasn’t persuaded. If the guy had bolted out in such a hurry that he’d missed the wallet he’d gone right past on his exit, what had possessed him to take the time to close the door?
“Why would he break in if he knew someone was home?” Alex asked.
“How would he have known you were home?” Tibaldi asked.
“My car was right in my driveway.”
Tibaldi nodded. “I noticed you’ve got several newspapers at the end of the walkway. Burglar thinks, ‘This guy’s not home—he caught a taxi to the airport.’ Or whatever. Point is, he thinks the newspapers trump the car. You have to put yourself in the perp’s shoes. They look for things like that. Newspapers in the driveway, mail in the mailbox, packages in front of the door.”
“Why pick the bathroom lock, then? By then he knew someone was home.”
Tibaldi shrugged. “At that point, he’s committed. He’s already made his decision, already committed a crime. Some
mentalities, they’d rather double down than back off. Look, you have to accept that in all crimes, there’s a certain random element. It’s why conspiracy theorists love JFK’s assassination and nine-eleven so much. You can’t ever get all the threads to tie up neatly. There’s always something that doesn’t make sense.”
Randol asked, “Did you get a good look at him? Could you describe him, pick him out of a lineup?”
Alex tried to picture what he’d seen. “It was dark. I …” What had he seen? Suddenly, he wasn’t sure about any of it. He felt drained and useless.
“Black? White?”
Alex shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Well, at least you scared him off,” Tibaldi said. “Nice move, with the bleach. And you didn’t lose anything.”
Alex looked at them. “So you think this was just a random break-in?”
Randol didn’t answer, and Alex realized he was assessing his own confidence in Alex’s responses. After a long moment he nodded and said, “If he didn’t have a gun, and you don’t have enemies, that’s what it looks like. I think you had a bad guy casing the neighborhood, he saw those newspapers, he took a closer look, he saw the door has only one lock, not even a deadbolt, which looks to be what, forty years old, I’m guessing?”
“Yeah,” Alex said. “Probably that old.”
“Watch this,” Randol said. He stepped out and closed the door behind him. From the other side, Alex heard a rasping sound, then a click, and then the door opened.
“Damn,” Alex said. “How did you do that?”
Randol handed Alex a thin piece of plastic, hard but flexible, about four inches by four. “Slide it between the door and the jamb, push back the mechanism, you’re inside in less time than it takes to use a key. Get deadbolt locks. Have the jambs and frames reinforced. Make it harder for the criminal.”
Alex didn’t like the rebuke behind the words, but the man had a point.
Alex scrubbed a hand across his face. He was a weird combination of keyed up and exhausted. “Well, thank you very much for coming out in the middle of the night, or, whatever, I guess it’s the morning,” he said.
“Not a problem, sir,” Randol said. “We’re glad you’re okay.”
Alex left every light on after they left. He knew it was ridiculous, but he couldn’t help thinking: What if he comes back?
But come on. A burglar coming back to the same house he got surprised at and ran out of earlier the same night? The police might be there, who knows what.
Ridiculous.
The way Randol had opened the front door, though … that was unbelievable. The miracle wasn’t that Alex had gotten away tonight; it was that no one had tried to rob him until now.
Not that the guy would come back. But if he did, it wasn’t like Alex could stop him. There was effectively no lock on the door, he didn’t own a gun.
He remembered the sound the door had made as it slid stealthily open. How terrified and vulnerable he had felt in the bath.
The hell with it. He’d just stay at the Four Seasons in Palo Alto. He did enough business meals in their Quattro restaurant. Might as well sleep there tonight. If he stayed here, he would lie awake the rest of the night, imagining every joint that settled was a footstep, every whoosh of the gas heater the sound of the front door again.
He grabbed a change of clothes and looked through the front window long and hard before venturing out.
12 EMERGENCY
Alex slept fitfully for a few hours at the hotel. When he woke up, the brilliant Bay Area sun was shining through the windows onto the white bed linens. He scrubbed his face and thought about the night before. At the time, he’d been panicked and confused. He had thought it was just a burglar. But now, he realized he’d been missing something obvious.
The inventor killed, Alex’s contact at the patent office dead, and someone breaking into his house, all in the space of what, thirty-six hours? You didn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to believe coincidences didn’t happen like that.
What were those games he had liked to play in Highlights magazine when he was a kid? What do these things have in common?—that was one of them. There would be a bunch of seemingly disparate pictures, but if you looked closely, if you thought about it, you’d realize they all had right angles, or all began with the letter A, or whatever.
What Alex, Hilzoy, and Hank all had in common was Obsidian. Even if it was a coincidence, the overlap was obvious. The question was, why? What was it about Obsidian that led to someone wanting to kill for it?
No, it didn’t make sense. Companies that wanted to acquire a promising technology or neutralize a threatening one did it with cash. It was easy, and it was legal. Hell, Hilzoy could have been had for under seven figures. That wasn’t even a rounding error for players in the computer security field.
But whoever was behind all this, how did they even know about the technology? The patent application was secret.
Well, something could have leaked. Who knows who Hilzoy might have told? Who knows who saw what in the patent office? And it wasn’t as if Obsidian was for Alex’s eyes only at Sullivan, Greenwald. There was Osborne, for one, and of course Sarah.
He told himself he was probably being ridiculous, but better safe than sorry. He called Detective Gamez on the mobile number on the man’s card. He told him about the break-in. He told him he knew it sounded crazy, but … What if Hank’s death hadn’t been a heart attack? How sure were they? Because the inventor and the examiner—it just seemed like quite a coincidence, no? To his surprise, Gamez didn’t treat him like he was a nut job. He told him he would look into it and call Alex back.
Alex drove to the office. The first thing he did there was call a locksmith. It was going to be hard enough to sleep in the house after what had happened. Turning the place into a fortress would make it a little easier. Then he called a gun shop. Apparently, he could buy a gun but would have to wait ten days to pass a background check before picking it up. Shit, he’d always thought background checks were a good idea. But he needed something right now.
Gamez called him back. He said, “All right, I talked to the Arlington cops. They already autopsied Shiffman. The family wanted it— Shiffman was young and healthy, and the family was concerned there might be some genetic predisposition that could affect other members of the family.”
“Well, what did the autopsy show?”
“Inconclusive. They think it might be something called Brugada syndrome.”
“What’s that?”
“Apparently it’s a genetic condition that accounts for sudden death in otherwise healthy males, most of them in their thirties, often while they’re sleeping. It’s not that well understood.”
Alex thought it sounded like something someone made up so doctors wouldn’t have to tell the bereaved, Sorry, we don’t have a clue.
“Do you know … is it likely they’ll have any kind of definitive explanation?”
“They’re doing genetic testing and a family history. But you want my opinion? No one’s ever really going to know. Sometimes people just keel over and there’s no explanation. It happens.”
“So you think this was just … a heart attack?”
“I talked to the homicide lieutenant in Arlington. They examined Shiffman’s apartment, routine for a death like this. No sign of forced entry. No evidence of a struggle. And there were no marks of any kind on the body. If that’s a murder, I’d like to know how it was done.”
“So you think I’m being paranoid.”
“No, I don’t think that. It’s a hell of a coincidence, no doubt about it.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Apart from the break-in, have you noticed anything unusual? Anyone loitering near your car in the office parking lot, anyone following you while you’re driving, anyone outside your house when you leave for work?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Well, you’ve got my number. Be alert, and if anything rubs you the wrong way, call me.”
“Thanks.”
“Not a problem.”
Alex hung up and looked at the phone for a moment. Somehow the fact that Gamez was so sure Hank had just died of a heart attack made him edgy again. Because the truth was, they didn’t really know.
What if none of this was a coincidence? If someone was after him, they knew where he lived. They’d known where Hilzoy lived. They’d gotten to Hank. They would know where Alex worked. They’d know what he looked like—hell, his photo and professional bio were right there on Sullivan, Greenwald’s Web site, available to anyone anywhere. So what was he supposed to do? Stop living in his house? Stop going to work? He thought he’d felt naked in the bathroom that night, but he felt more exposed now.
A thought was trying to bubble up from somewhere deep inside him. It felt more like an instinct, a reflex, than a thought. A single word, a syllable, and it was—
Ben.
No. Katie, then their father … and he’d visited home, what, twice while their mother was wasting away with cancer? She’d been in a coma for three days at the end, and Ben hadn’t managed to get back to be with her even then. Too busy playing army to be with his own mother when she died. Didn’t they have compassionate leave in the military? Jesus, it was a miracle the bastard had even bothered to show up for the funeral.
He blew out a long breath. His useless brother. Football hero. Wrestling star. G.I. Joe. But when the going really got tough, he was the invisible man. And now Alex was supposed to go crawling to him, begging him for his help?
Anyway, help how? What could Ben do?
He had a lot of training, Alex knew that. He’d been a Ranger in the battle of Mogadishu and had won a bunch of medals. Alex had seen the movie Black Hawk Down and couldn’t imagine Ben, tough as he was, doing all that, but apparently Ben had. And after that he’d been a Green Beret or something. So for Christ’s sake, if anyone could help …
The thing was, he didn’t know how to contact Ben. There had been a mailing address at Fort Bragg, but four or five years earlier, the estate stuff he’d been sending to the address had started coming back to him unopened. Apparently, Ben had been posted somewhere new and hadn’t bothered to mention it to Alex. And Alex was damned if he was going to ask.