by Lee Child
Then she said Peter McCann had lived in her building for a good many years, and they had grown close, in a gruff and occasional and good-fences kind of a way. She said she had last seen him three or four weeks ago. Which often happened. Which was not a cause for concern. She went out very rarely, and it would be a matter of sheer coincidence if she met him in the hallway. And he was gone a lot, anyway, often for days at a time. She had no idea where. She had never inquired. She was his neighbor, not his sister. Yes, he was an unhappy man. Things often turned out badly.
The TV on the coffee shop wall was tuned to local news. Reacher watched it in the corner of his eye. Mrs. Hopkins ordered coffee and a slice of cake, and Chang told her it was possible Mr. McCann had gotten himself into some kind of trouble. Of a sort no one knew. Did she?
She didn’t.
Reacher asked, “Did he seem obsessed about something?”
Mrs. Hopkins asked, “When?”
“Recently.”
“Yes, I would say he did.”
“For how long?”
“About the last six months.”
Outside there were distant sirens, and the dull beat of helicopter blades, maybe a mile away. Reacher asked, “Do you know what Mr. McCann’s problem was?”
“No, I don’t. We spoke very little of personal matters.”
“Was it connected to his son?”
“It might have been, although that tended not to be an up-and-down situation.”
The TV screen showed a helicopter shot of green lawns. Trees. A park.
Reacher asked, “What was the issue with his son?”
Mrs. Hopkins said, “He didn’t talk of it in detail.”
“Did you know he hired a private detective?”
“I knew he intended to take concrete steps.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you and he talk about technical matters? Given your background and his evident interest?”
“Yes, we talked frequently about technical matters. Over coffee and cake, sometimes. Like this. We explored the issues together. We rather enjoyed it. I helped him grasp the basic structures, and he helped me understand the uses to which they are now often put.”
“Was his obsession a technical obsession?”
“I think not at its core, but there were technical aspects.”
“Was it something to do with the internet?”
On the TV, under the unsteady green picture, was a ticker-tape ribbon, with the words Shooting Victim Found in Park.
The old lady looked up and said, “By a dog walker, I expect. That’s how it usually happens, I think. In parks.”
Reacher said, “What was McCann’s interest in the internet?”
“There were aspects he wanted to understand. Like most laymen he thought of things in physical terms. As if the internet was a swimming pool, chock-full of floating tennis balls. The tennis balls representing individual web sites, naturally. Which is wrong, of course. Web sites are not physical things. The internet has no physical reality. It has no dimensions, and no boundaries. No up or down, no near or far. Although one might argue it has mass. Digital information is all ones and zeroes, which means memory cells are either charged or not charged. And charge is energy, so if one believes Einstein’s e=mc2, where e is energy, and m is mass, and c is the speed of light, then one must also believe that m equals e divided by c2, which is the same equation expressed differently, and which would imply that charge has detectable mass. The more songs and the more photos you put on your phone, the heavier it gets. Only by a trillion-billionth of the tiniest fraction of an ounce, but still.”
On the TV screen the helicopter camera zoomed tight on a group of low bushes. There were uniformed cops standing around, and police tape, and a suggestion of a half-concealed figure on the ground, black shoes and black pant legs, under leafy branches. The ticker still said Shooting Victim Found in Park.
Reacher asked, “What exactly did McCann want to understand?”
The old lady said, “He wanted to know why some web sites can’t be found. Which was fundamentally a question about search engines. His image of the swimming pool became useful. He imagined millions of tennis balls, some bobbing up on the water, some trapped deeper down by the weight of the others. So I asked him to imagine a search engine as a long silk ribbon, being pulled up and down and in and out, weaving through the balls every which way, sliding over their wet fuzzy surfaces at tremendous speed. And then to imagine that some balls had been adapted, to have spikes instead of fuzz, like fish hooks, and that other balls had been adapted to have no fuzz at all, to be completely smooth, like billiard balls. Where would the silk ribbon snag? On the spikes, of course. It would slide over the billiard balls completely. That’s what Peter needed to understand about search engines. It’s a two-way street. A web site must want to be found. It must work hard to develop effective spikes. People call it search engine optimization. It’s a very important discipline now. That said, it’s equally hard work to be a billiard ball. Staying secret isn’t easy either.”
Chang said, “Secret web sites imply illegality.”
“Indeed,” the old lady said. “Or immorality, I suppose. Or both at once. I’m naïve about such things, but one imagines pornography of the most unpleasant sort, or mail-order cocaine, and so forth. It’s called the Deep Web. All those smooth billiard balls. Millions of them. No spikes, no hooks, nothing but going about their business with no one watching. The Deep Web might be ten times bigger than the Surface Web. Or a hundred. Or more. No one knows. How could they? Not to be confused with the Dark Web, of course, which is merely out-of-date sites with broken links, like dead satellites whirling through space forever. Which makes the Dark Web more like ancient archaeology, and the Deep Web more like the wrong side of the tracks. Not that either one is actually dark or deep or either side of any actual tracks, you understand. The internet is not a physical place. There are no physical characteristics to it at all.”
On the TV screen an ambulance rolled into the overhead shot, slowly over the grass, lights flashing forlornly, being followed by what looked like a coroner’s wagon. People got out, and joined the cops.
Chang asked, “So how can a person find secret web sites?”
“A person can’t,” the old lady said. “Not from the outside, anyway. You can’t use a search engine, because the sites are smooth. You need the exact address. Not just CoffeeShop.com, but something like CoffeeShop123xyz.com. Or much worse, of course, in reality. A unique resource locator combined with a super-secure password, all rolled into one. Apparently such addresses circulate through certain communities by word of mouth.”
On the TV screen a dark blue Crown Vic bumped over the grass and parked. Two men in suits climbed out. Detectives, presumably. The ticker changed to Lincoln Park Homicide. Reacher could hear more helicopters in the air, about a mile away. Rival channels, late to the party.
He asked, “Did McCann tell you what kind of a web site he was looking for?”
The old lady said, “No.”
On the screen men squatted by the black-clad figure on the grass. Detectives and the medical examiner, Reacher supposed. He knew the drill. He had squatted by horizontal figures many times. Some had been alive. This one wasn’t, he knew. There was no urgency. No hustle. No shouting voices. No backboards, no IV lines, no breathing tubes, no chest compressions.
Lincoln Park Homicide.
The old lady said, “That’s Peter, isn’t it? Why else would you be asking me about him? Why else would the FBI be interested in me?”
Chang didn’t answer either question, and Reacher said nothing, because as the old lady spoke the TV picture changed. To a house. An undistinguished brownstone, on an undistinguished street. Peter McCann’s brownstone. The old lady’s house. Where they had been, moments before. It was recognizable. It was familiar. The front of it was all lit up by flashing red lights. Cops were running up the stoop.
Much too soon for a connect
ion to have been made. The cops in the park hadn’t even looked in McCann’s pockets yet. They hadn’t found a wallet, hadn’t checked the driver’s license, didn’t know who he was, and didn’t know where he lived. They were still waiting for the all-clear from the medical examiner. Reacher knew how it worked. He had sat back on his heels many times, just waiting. Death had to be pronounced, before the body became evidence.
Not yet connected. A separate investigation. The ticker changed to Anti-Terror Cops Storm Chicago Dwelling.
Reacher turned back to the old lady and asked, “Did you call 911?”
The old lady said, “Yes, I did.”
“When?”
“As soon as I closed my door on you.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t like the look of you.”
“Neither one of us?”
“You especially. You don’t look like what you say you are. Not like an FBI agent on the television.”
“I was undercover. Pretending to be a bad guy.”
“Your act was convincing.”
“So you called 911.”
“Immediately.”
“What did you say?”
“I had armed terrorists in my house.”
“Why that?”
“This is Chicago. That’s the only way to get a response in less than four hours.”
Chang said, “We should probably get going.”
Reacher said, “No, let’s stay a little longer. Five more minutes can’t hurt.”
They got refills of coffee, and the old lady wanted more cake, so Reacher and Chang got more too, to keep her company. The TV changed to a split screen, with the park on the left, and the house on the right, over individual labels saying Lincoln Park Homicide and Terror Alert, both of those labels centered over the main ticker, which said Busy Day for Cops.
The second cup of coffee was as good as the first. As was the cake. A body bag showed up in the park, and an ambulance arrived at the house. The body bag was zipped up and carried to the coroner’s wagon, and EMTs came out of the ambulance and ran up the stoop and in the house. Later they came out again with an injured man on a gurney. Hackett, presumably, although it was hard to be sure. The guy’s face was bandaged from the neck up, like an Egyptian mummy, and his clothes were covered with a sheet.
Then like a slow-burn visual effect in a movie the cops drove out of the park, and four long minutes later they showed up at the house, in the same cars, all the way from the left of the screen to the right, a short electronic hop but a circuitous real-world route. The same detectives got out and rushed up the stoop and went inside the house, and a minute later they came back out again, talking urgently on their cell phones.
The ticker changed to Official Says Cases Are Connected.
Reacher said, “Ma’am, I’m very sorry for your loss, and I’m very sorry for the intrusion you’re about to suffer. The Chicago PD will want to ask you questions. And it’s not like it is in the television shows. The FBI can’t come in and take over their case. We have to leave them alone. So we’d appreciate it if you don’t even tell them we’ve talked. There are all kinds of sensitivities there. Better not to tell them about us at all. Even about us being at the house earlier. They don’t need to know we beat them to it.”
“Are you asking me to lie to them?”
“I will, if they ask me who told them terrorists, and why.”
“Then very well, I will too,” the old lady said.
“Do you really have no idea what McCann’s problem was?”
“I told you, I’m his neighbor, not his sister. You should really ask her.”
“Who?”
“His sister.”
“He has a sister?”
“I told you before.”
“I thought it was a figure of speech.”
“No, she’s real. They’re very close. She’d be the one he shared secrets with.”
Chapter 37
They sent Mrs. Hopkins home in the Town Car, and told the driver that was the last of his engagements for the day, and therefore he was off-duty thereafter, free to go home, or back to the garage, or wherever else it was he was supposed to go. The guy took the news cheerfully. But Reacher figured his last engagement wouldn’t be his finest. He figured they wouldn’t make it all the way. They would get within a couple of streets of the old lady’s house, and then they would hit the roadblocks. If the old lady could produce proof of name and address, she would be allowed to continue on foot. Or in the back of a real government car, depending how much sooner or later they wanted to talk to the neighbor. Either way she would end up cool and comfortable, plied with water and coffee, talking to polite young women.
Safe enough.
Chang switched on her cell phone. Also safe enough. Hackett’s tracking operation was out of business, at least temporarily. And they needed maps, and satellite images, and flight schedules, and search engines. Mrs. Hopkins had told them Peter McCann’s sister was a woman named Lydia Lair. She was younger by a number of years. She had married a doctor and moved away, to a tony suburb outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Her husband was rich, but McCann had asked for nothing except her time and her ear. There was a street address for her, a scribbled note intended for the old lady’s Christmas card list, still wedged in a pocket diary in her purse. But there was no phone number. Chang found the husband’s practice on-line, but the medical receptionist wouldn’t give out a home number. The phone company database said it was unlisted. Neither husband nor wife showed up anywhere in Chang’s secret databases. Google brought nothing back either, except one anodyne image of the couple at a charity event. Dr. and Mrs. Evan Lair. A kidney foundation. He was in black tie, and she was in an evening gown. She looked in good health. She glittered with diamonds, and her teeth were very white.
Then it became a three-way decision, between how soon they would need to get to Phoenix, and how long they could wait for a gold card flight, and how long the police would wait before notifying the sister. If they ever did. She was not the next of kin. That would be the son. He would be their primary focus. They would want to tell him first. And if they did, they would leave it to him to call his aunt. They would see that as his responsibility. Which he might or might not discharge, depending on his challenges.
All of which meant one way or the other she might or might not be getting the call just as they touched down in Phoenix. Which was still OK, either way. Bad news was bad news. Didn’t matter when you got it. As long as she didn’t have time to start up with a scheme whereby she should fly to Chicago and take charge of everything personally. She had to be gotten to well before that happened. Before she was coached into nothing but bumper stickers, by victim support officers, or well-meaning friends.
The best travel bet was outside Chang’s comfort zone, on an airline she didn’t have a card for. But it was the first and most satisfactory option. It gave them just enough time to stop by the Peninsula to dump the P7 and grab Chang’s bag. And one other thing. They fired up Hackett’s captured phone and checked the call log. All incoming traffic was from one number alone. Its area code was 480.
Chang checked her computer.
She said, “That’s a cell phone in Phoenix, Arizona. Where we’re going.”
A very expensive quickie with her phone company guy told them the Phoenix number was a burner cell bought from a local Arizona Wal-Mart just a week ago, and registered immediately, right outside in the Wal-Mart parking lot. Bought with cash, and as one of six at a time, which were purchasing behaviors suggestive of a customer who was comfortable with the theory and practice of untraceable communications.
Reacher said, “He’ll dump that number soon. He’ll move on to the next.”
Chang nodded. “As soon as Hackett doesn’t call him when he should. Or as soon as he turns on CNN and sees what’s going on here.”
“So maybe we should call him first. While we still can.”
“And say what?”
“Whatever might produce an advantage
. We need to keep him off balance. We need all the help we can get.”
“You want to upset him.”
“Can’t hurt. Whatever stray emotions we can bring to bear.”
“OK, try it.”
He lit up Hackett’s phone, and found the right screen, and pressed the green button. He heard the numbers spooling outward into the ether, and then he heard a short hissing silence, and then he heard a ring tone.
And then he heard an answer.
A voice said, “Yes?”
It was a man’s voice, from a big chest and a thick neck, but the syllable was snatched at and the full boom was bitten back short, because of breathy haste and enthusiasm. And anticipation. Like a gulp or a gasp. This guy had caller ID, and he wanted Hackett’s news, and he wanted it bad, and he wanted it right then. That was clear. So the celebrations could begin, presumably.
Reacher said, “This is not Hackett.”
The voice paused, and said, “I see.”
“This is Jack Reacher.”
No answer.
“Hackett got McCann, but he didn’t get us. In fact we got him. He was good, but not good enough.”
The voice said, “Where is Hackett now?”
Some kind of a flat, monotone accent. Eastern European, maybe. A big guy, for sure. Probably pale and fleshy, maybe short of breath.
Reacher said, “Hackett is in the hospital. But handcuffed to the bed, because the police found him before the doctors. Right here in Chicago. We took his phone and his back-up weapon, but we left him with the gun that killed McCann. Unconscious, in a suspected terrorist den. The cops found him there. I know, don’t ask. Bad data. They were misinformed. But because of it they’ll be sweating him hard. They’ll be telling him Guantanamo is in his future. Or rendition, to places where bad things happen. He’ll be so desperate for a deal he’ll give you up in a heartbeat. Nothing you can do to him the government won’t do worse. So you have that to worry about. Plus you have us to worry about. You started a war. Which was dumb. Because you’ll lose. And it won’t be pretty. We’re going to beat you so hard your kids will be born dizzy.”