Interference

by Brad Parks

  Therefore, this was a terrible, terrible deal.

  Probably the worst Plottner had ever struck.

  And yet he had no leverage with which to improve it.

  Michael Dillman held all the cards, the last of them being Sheena. By capturing her, Dillman had effectively cut off the only chance of finding Matt Bronik before the deadline.

  The only way to get Bronik—and, now, Sheena Aiyagari—back safely was to act exactly as Michael Dillman ordered.

  “Yes,” Plottner wrote. “We have a deal.”

  CHAPTER 59

  The last person to arrive at our house was, in so many ways, the last person I wanted to be there.

  Sean Plottner. The devil himself.

  But without him and his money, none of this was going to work. So I invited him inside and directed him toward our farm table, where he set up several laptops.

  One was open to his Facebook account, so he could communicate with Michael Dillman.

  The second one had the Zcash app up on its screen. It showed he owned 34,116 units. A plug-in on the lower part of the screen was converting that into US dollars. Its current market value was $5,010,833.

  The final one was tuned to the webcam feed of Sheena and Matt.

  When Plottner first brought it up, that image—and the shock it gave me—triggered a momentary disconnect between me and my senses. Had Aimee not been nearby to grab my arm, I probably wouldn’t have remained upright.

  It was like tuning in to a horror movie, except there was no maintaining any emotional distance from the screen, no ability to make it go away simply by hitting the power button, no comfort in knowing this was just some Hollywood illusion.

  It was totally real. And the protagonist was the love of my life.

  I could feel it like it was happening to me: the duct tape constraining my arms and chest, the ropes biting my skin, the ache of being pinned in place, the suffocating terror of knowing there was nothing I could do about it.

  Once the sight absolutely overwhelmed me, I finally got the good sense to avert my eyes. From there, I could stomach no more than a few fleeting glimpses.

  The only safe spot on the screen was the timer.

  It was frozen at 3:00:00.

  Three hours. Once the money changed hands, that timer would start counting down.

  That’s if this Michael Dillman guy lived up to his end of this wild deal.

  And I didn’t want to think about the alternative.

  Plottner’s arrival capped a hectic hour and a half, during which we had all gathered in our dining room, which now resembled a bizarre kind of war room.

  I had returned there after my trip to Sheena’s place, and after I finally admitted to myself that perhaps my own quantum compass had mostly been the product of an overly optimistic imagination.

  Aimee had hurried back after delivering Morgan to school.

  Emmett Webster arrived next, having gotten halfway to the Scott Sugden crime scene before his captain told him about the new demands from the kidnapper, then ordered the detective to turn around, head back to Hanover, and stay with me.

  On the way back, Emmett had phoned David Dafashy and told him about Huangpu Enterprises, MAI Holdings, and the telecom engineers.

  David had dismissed any possibility Matt’s research could be used in current cellular communications. The quantum cell phone, while certainly imagined, was still a long way off.

  Then Emmett told us what the state police had learned about Scott Sugden, which wasn’t much. Sugden had been killed by a high-powered rifle. Otherwise, the scene was similar to the one where Yiren Jiang and Langqing Wu were found—a body, dragged off the side of a rural road, discovered by a neighbor. It was near Eastman, farther south of where the first two bodies were found, closer to where the abandoned house was.

  Emmett also provided a full rundown on the lengths to which the authorities were going to make sure Michael Dillman couldn’t get away with this crime.

  They had Dillman’s picture, courtesy of Dartmouth’s security camera, and had distributed it broadly, along with Emmett’s instructions that the best way to spot Dillman was the unusual slope to his forehead.

  Between the state police and the considerable federal resources being mustered by Gary Evans, they were watching every nearby airport, train station, and bus station. Border Patrol agents had been notified, and every Canadian crossing would be on alert.

  There were also observation posts in all directions on Interstates 89 and 91, staffed by officers with binoculars. Unmarked cars could be dispatched to follow any vehicles whose driver looked like Dillman—though they would do so at a distance, mindful of Dillman’s threat to detonate the explosive.

  Other, more noticeable efforts—helicopters, roadblocks, things Dillman might be able to see—were being held in reserve for that reason.

  Half an hour before the deadline, there were more arrivals. One was Beppe Valentino, who was mostly there for moral support.

  The other was the State Police Bomb Squad. The captain was an overexuberant man who was very excited to tell Emmett about the number of feet per second at which the shrapnel from the PVC pipe would be expelled if the bomb was set off.

  I didn’t ask to see his math.

  Mostly, I was relieved when it became clear the Bomb Squad would be waiting outside the house.

  Then, finally, came Sean Plottner, flanked by his constant companions, Theresa and Lee.

  The billionaire had argued the war room ought to have been at his mansion—after all, it had more space. And it had the helipad, which would allow us to fly off somewhere quickly.

  Emmett had vetoed that. A helicopter needed a place to land, and it was unlikely there was a helipad near Michael Dillman’s hideout. And our cars would have to wind all the way down that mountain before we got anywhere.

  So there we all were in our house.

  Once Plottner had the computers working to his liking, he smoothly introduced himself to Aimee, then nodded grimly at Emmett and Beppe. He made all the right noises of concern. Still, there was nothing about Plottner’s oily entrance that convinced me of his innocence.

  The Zcash was only the latest log on that fire. How convenient that in the end the kidnapper asked not for real cash, but an untraceable cryptocurrency, with which he could do anything.

  Including return it to the very account that had been used to fund it originally.

  Then there was the room in which Matt and Sheena were being held. It didn’t look like a rented warehouse or an abandoned cabin or any of the other kinds of places that might be available to a Chinese national who was improvising an abduction on foreign soil. There was something about it that seemed like it was in a rich person’s house. The large closet for the fourth guest bedroom that no one used. Just remove the shelving and hanger bar and, voilà, instant hostage room.

  Beyond that, why did Plottner keep documenting every interaction he had with Michael Dillman? It’s like he was anticipating an accusation and wanted to have his defense well prepared.

  Lastly, there was the final result: Matt Bronik working as a paid employee of Plottner Investments.

  And, sure enough, once Plottner got his computers set up, his next move was to shove a contract in my face and ask me to sign it.

  I did so without really reading it, then risked another glance at the webcam feed.

  According to the large digital clock, the time was now 8:54:23. Less than six minutes to go until the deadline.

  I hated that we were even cutting it this close, but Emmett’s captain had insisted state and federal authorities needed more time to mobilize, to cover this port of call and that.

  And whatever. Maybe they’d catch this Michael Dillman guy, and maybe they’d link him to Plottner, and maybe there would be punishments to fit the many crimes committed.

  Revenge, retribution, and recriminations felt like secondary concerns.

  First, get Matt back safely.

  After tinkering with the three laptops a li
ttle more, Plottner announced, “Okay, I’m ready.”

  8:55:19.

  Get on with it. Get on with it.

  I was standing just to the side of Plottner, with a view of all three screens and his mouth. Emmett had stationed himself on the other side.

  “Why don’t you tell Dillman he’s about to get the money,” Emmett said.

  Plottner began typing.

  “Zcash soon to be inbound. You ready to receive?”

  Eight seconds ticked away.

  Then, from Dillman:

  “Yes.”

  And:

  “You are nearly out of time.”

  “All right,” Plottner announced, turning his attention to the laptop with the Zcash app. “As soon as I hit this button, the transfer gets made.”

  “Hit it at 8:58,” Emmett said. “My people are still getting in place. Right now, every minute matters.”

  I moaned. The detective shot me an apologetic look before returning his attention to the screens.

  The room was silent, still. I barely dared to breathe.

  The time ticked ominously onward.

  8:57:09.

  8:57:31.

  Plottner’s finger hovered over the button. Less than thirty seconds.

  Then Emmett’s arm shot out. He shouted something that overwhelmed my hearing aids, but he was pointing to the screen with the webcam feed, so that’s where my gaze went.

  And then I saw what had him so excited:

  Matt’s lips were moving.

  His eyes were closed, but his face was lifted so it was square to the camera, giving me the best possible chance to hear his words, even though there was no volume on the web feed.

  Then Emmett’s frantic question finally reached me: “What’s he saying? What’s he saying?”

  “Shh,” I said sharply, and he quieted.

  I poured all my concentration onto Matt’s mouth—all my years of having been forced, by necessity, to know what people were saying by sight rather than by sound.

  And suddenly it was like he was in the room with me, talking to me in such a normal tone of voice I could practically hear his twang.

  I began repeating the words as they fell from his lips:

  “ . . . by a lake. It’s a large lake. Sunapee. Newfound. Winnipesaukee. I’m on the west shore. The lake is at least a mile across, and several miles long. I love you, Brigid. I love you, Morgan. I’m in a house by a lake. It’s a large lake. Start looking for us on the west shore of a large lake.”

  He stopped.

  The atomic clock had not.

  8:58:08.

  8:58:23.

  8:58:34.

  Plottner still hadn’t sent the money.

  “What do I do?” Plottner asked, apparently frozen. “Do I hit the button?”

  “Yes,” Emmett said. “Hit the button.”

  Plottner brought his finger down on the laptop’s touch pad. The app made a noise, then popped up with a dialogue box saying the units had been sent.

  The Zcash app was now showing Plottner’s wallet was empty. The plug-in lagged for a moment, then flipped to $0.00.

  No one spoke.

  I looked back at the webcam screen, in particular that 3:00:00. It hadn’t moved. Dillman now had the money. When would the countdown begin?

  I took a deep breath, feeling like I wouldn’t be able to release it until that number started ticking down.

  “Well,” Plottner said, “I guess that’s—”

  He didn’t finish the sentence.

  The webcam feed had gone black.

  CHAPTER 60

  Sean Plottner frantically swiped at the touch pad of the laptop.

  As if this was merely some kind of technical issue. A screen saver switching on or something.

  Except no. The cursor was there, floating across the dark screen like a small triangular ghost in the night.

  A light-gray X had appeared at the top of the screen. At the bottom was a light-gray bar. Just above that were the words HIT ESC TO EXIT FULL-SCREEN MODE.

  But where there had once been a brightly lit room, two captives, three pipe bombs, a clock, and a timer, there was now just an inky gloom.

  “What’s happening?” Plottner demanded. “Why did it cut off?”

  He punched the ESC button. All that accomplished was to make the black square smaller and put more graphics around it.

  The important part, the middle, was still a void.

  Brigid Bronik, who had let out a small shriek when the feed cut out, was just behind Plottner. She had covered her mouth with her two clenched fists.

  From in front of her laptop at the head of the table, Aimee said, “I don’t have anything either.”

  “The feed is just . . . gone,” Plottner announced.

  Brigid groaned.

  She staggered toward the table and flopped in a chair. She had a hand across her heart.

  “I can’t,” she mumbled, but couldn’t seem to get anything else out. She just kept repeating, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t . . .”

  Aimee came around behind her, shushed her, and rubbed her back.

  Plottner crossed his arms. He was attempting to shift into that sixth gear of his, to find the brilliant solution, to think this problem through to some heretofore unseen logical solution.

  No fortune had ever been made by panicking when a plan seemed to be falling apart. But a lot sure had been lost that way.

  “He’s just toying with us,” Plottner said. “We can’t allow ourselves to get rattled. This doesn’t change anything. We need to start focusing on lakes. Which lake? Can we at least start narrowing down lakes within, say, a two-hour drive that loosely fit the parameters Matt has given us? We need to stop thinking about the webcam. It wasn’t really telling us anything anyway.”

  “It was telling us they were still alive,” Emmett said, his voice a low growl. “How do you know he didn’t just set off the explosives?”

  “Because he’d be giving himself away,” Plottner said. “An explosion like that would get called in, maybe even start a fire. We’d be able to zero in on his location almost instantly. Plus, he’d no longer have Drs. Bronik and Aiyagari as a shield. Nothing would stop the authorities from going full-court press with helicopters and everything else they could put in the air and on the ground. He’s got to keep us believing they’re alive.”

  “Then why not keep the feed going?” Emmett asked. “It would give us that much more reason to think he was going to be a man of his word and reveal the location in the end. Does this mean he doesn’t plan to do that?”

  “It’s unclear,” Plottner said. “Maybe yes. Maybe no. I’d just be guessing.”

  “I hate to say this, but even if he didn’t set off the explosive, he could have shot them. It’s quieter,” Emmett said.

  “True,” Plottner conceded. “But I don’t think so. His main focus is getting away, not leaving two more bodies. When he first directed me to the feed, he was insistent on demonstrating that the feed was real, and happening in real time. He didn’t want anyone to make an issue out of it later, because he wanted to be able to take off the moment I agreed to the deal, to give himself a head start. He knew the hostages were secure, so it’s not like he needed to stick around for anything else. He was giving himself an extra hour and a half to run, and he was doing it before the authorities could put up roadblocks or anything like that. He could be a long way from here already.”

  “Even if that’s true, why make the screen go black?” Emmett asked.

  “Maybe because he saw Professor Bronik’s lips moving?” Plottner said. “Or maybe it’s just to distract us, to make us waste time and energy by having this very conversation. At this point, it doesn’t matter. Is there some kind of database of lakes? An environmental nonprofit that catalogues them by square mileage so we can home in on the larger ones? Something like that?”

  No one answered. Brigid was still barely holding herself together. Aimee was mostly soothing her sister. Detective Webster was quiet t
oo.

  It was Beppe Valentino, who had been sitting quietly in the corner, who broke the silence.

  “It’s Schrödinger’s cat,” he said.

  Plottner turned toward him. “What do you mean?”

  “The kidnapper. He’s recreating Schrödinger’s cat,” Valentino said. “We have a closed box. We have a death mechanism. We have a certain chance that mechanism has been triggered and a certain chance it hasn’t. I don’t mean to sound so clinical about it. But right now, according to the logic of quantum physics, Matt and Sheena are both alive and dead.”

  CHAPTER 61

  Emmett hadn’t liked anything about this setup.

  The Facebook messaging.

  The webcam.

  The Zcash. (What, exactly, was a cryptocurrency again? And how was it people were willing to pay real money for it?)

  Then that screen went black, and it was almost like it jolted him out of a bad dream—one where the machines had taken over—and back into a simpler world, the one he was comfortable in all along.

  He needed to stop trying to rely on Facebook messaging, Zcash, and Schrödinger’s cat to tell him who his perpetrator was.

  How did they really know that Michael Dillman was the man with the Neanderthal forehead?

  Be honest: they didn’t.

  The third Chinese man could have been killed, just like the other two Chinese men. Except the body was tossed down a well or stuffed under a log or stashed someplace where no one would find the body until spring—or ever.

  The person pretending to be Michael Dillman might have even planned it that way, making sure two bodies would be easily found and the other wouldn’t be. Just to make everyone think it had been the third guy doing the killing.

  What could Emmett say for sure about Michael Dillman?

  He was someone who had it in for Matt Bronik and Sheena Aiyagari.

  He used fancy words.

  And he was damn, damn smart.

  All of which neatly described David Dafashy. Who else, besides a physicist, would turn a hostage exchange into a real-life Schrödinger’s cat?