Ben unwrapped a piece of chewing gum and put it in his mouth. He extended the pack to Alex. Alex wanted to slap it out of his hand.
“Anything seem out of place here to you?”
Alex stared at him for a moment, then decided to drop it. “Let me see,” he said.
As soon as he started looking, he noticed it. There had been eight stacks of paper on his worktable. One of them was missing now. The one on Hilzoy.
“What the hell?” he said. He started poking through the piles, confirming what he already knew. It was as though the Hilzoy paperwork had just been … deleted.
“What is it?” Ben asked.
“My file on Hilzoy. Obsidian. It’s gone.”
“You sure?”
“It was right here on this table. This is where I keep active matters.”
He looked through his filing cabinet. “Yeah, it’s gone.”
He sat down and called Osborne. “David, you didn’t borrow any files from my office, did you?”
“Why, is something missing?”
“David, is there a reason you can’t just give a straightforward answer to a question?”
The second it came out, he couldn’t believe he said it. Even Ben was looking at him with surprise.
There was a pause. Osborne said, “No, I didn’t borrow your files.” And hung up.
Ben said, “I wouldn’t worry about him thinking I’m a zealot. You can probably piss him off all by yourself.”
Alex didn’t answer. It had felt good to snap at Osborne. He’d half expected Ben to be impressed by it, too … except now Ben was criticizing him, or mocking him.
Well, whatever. He had a right to be cranky. And he was getting tired of taking shit.
“Could anyone else have borrowed that file?” Ben said.
“Well, there’s Alisa, my secretary, but she never takes anything without putting it back before she goes home.”
“Why don’t you take a look around her station to make sure?”
Alex got up and checked. No documents. He came back and sat down, shaking his head.
“Anyone else?” Ben said.
Alex thought for a moment. “Sarah, I guess, the associate who was helping me on it. But she wouldn’t take something from my office. Or if she did, she would have left a note or a message, or something.”
“Check with her anyway.”
Alex called Sarah on her mobile. “Hey,” he said. “Sorry to bother you so early.”
“No problem. I’m just pulling into the parking lot. What’s up?”
There weren’t many people who got to the office earlier than Sarah. Alex was one of them.
“I can’t seem to find some of my files on Hilzoy. You didn’t borrow anything, did you?”
“Of course not. I would have told you if I had.”
“Yeah, I figured. Just wanted to be sure. Thanks.”
He clicked off and shook his head at Ben. Ben said, “We still doing things for the sake of argument?”
Alex swallowed. First his house, then his office … what the hell was this?
“No,” he said. “Something is going on here.”
“What would they get by taking your paperwork?”
Alex thought for a moment. “Nothing. We still have chron files, there’s tape backup … and I could probably duplicate a lot of what’s missing from e-mail correspondence, if it came to that.”
“Have you checked your e-mail?”
Alex fired up his terminal and went through the correspondence. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “It’s all missing. All my files of the Obsidian source code.”
He went out and checked the chron file. He couldn’t find it. He double-checked, cross-referenced. Nothing. Obsidian was gone.
He came back to his office. “Someone took it all,” he said. “Everything. It’s all missing.”
“What about the tape backup?”
“I don’t know how to check that. I’ll have to talk to someone in IT, when they get in.”
“Trust me, the tape backup is gone, too,” Ben said.
“How do you know?”
“Someone came in here in the last couple of nights and ran a professional black bag op. They’d done their homework. They knew to scrub your working files, your chron files, and the relevant e-mail correspondence. You think they overlooked something as obvious as tape backup?”
Alex sat silently, dumbfounded. He had no idea what to do.
“Here’s the question, then,” Ben said, looking at him. “Why are you getting a pass?”
“What do you mean?”
“They killed two people on two sides of the country. One of them, apparently, in a very sophisticated way, so that it looked like a heart attack. They could have killed you anytime. Why haven’t they?”
“Well, I’d sure like to know.”
Ben drummed his fingers along his thigh. “I think they made a mistake.”
“What do you mean?”
“The perfect is the enemy of the good. And they were trying to be perfect.”
“Hey, Ben? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Somebody wants this invention. No, that’s the wrong way to put it. They don’t want anyone else to have it, meaning they don’t want anyone else to know about it. Now put yourself in their shoes. Disappearing the invention is your goal. What do you do?”
“Well, you can’t, it’s too—”
“If you had to. What do you do first?”
Alex thought. “The inventor,” he said after a moment.
“Okay. In the current sequence of events, who died first?”
“The inventor.”
“What next?”
“I’d say it’s a toss-up between the patent office and the lawyer prosecuting the patent.”
“They did the patent guy before you. Maybe they got to talk to him before he died. They wanted to talk to you, too.”
“What the hell is this about?” Alex said.
Ben ignored him. “But you got away. They were watching you, and suddenly you’re not at work and you’re not at home. What do they conclude from that? That you’re lying low. And when they realized that, they shifted priorities. What would you have done in their shoes?”
“I don’t know … paperwork, I guess. Documentation.”
“There you have it.”
“But what would that get them? Patent applications are electronic now, the entire recipe is in PAIR, the Patent Application Information Retrieval system. To access it, you need a digital certificate and password. I mean, it’s—”
“Check it.”
Alex brought up the PAIR Web site, logged in, and entered the patent application number. There was nothing for that number.
“What the hell?” he said.
“Gone?”
Alex tried again, this time by docket number, and then by customer number. Nothing. He looked at Ben and shook his head wordlessly.
“See?” Ben said. “They were going after the people before they went after the documents. You interrupted the sequence of their op, so they shifted priorities. And the fact that they were able to instantly vacuum up the paperwork means they were ready to do it—they just preferred to delete you first if possible. You get it? It’s like trying to clean up a mess. If you can’t reach one spill, you take care of something else and come back to the part you couldn’t reach later.”
He paused, then said, “That girl, Sarah. You said she was helping you with this?”
“Shit, yes. You don’t think—”
“Is she mentioned anywhere in the patent application? Are there other ways people could know she was involved?”
“Yes to both.”
“Is there an attorney of record or something like that listed in a patent application?”
“Yeah, that would be me.”
“Well, if they know she’s junior, it means for targeting she’s tertiary.”
“You mean—”
“Every element of an operation carries potential rep
ercussions, things that could go wrong and abort the op. So you want to start with the most critical targets. Like you said, that means first the inventor, next the examiner, next you. It’s only after you’ve taken out the primaries that you’ll risk complications by going after the junior associate who helped apply for the patent. Understand?”
“Yeah. You think she’s in danger now.”
“She would be if I were running this thing.”
“Well, we have to warn her.”
“Who ‘we,’ white man?”
“I don’t know this stuff. I’ll sound like I’m out of my mind. She won’t listen to me. She’s … stubborn.”
“That’s her choice.”
“Damn it, at least help me talk to her. How are you going to feel if something happens to her?”
“I’m not going to feel anything one way or the other. It’s not my problem.”
Alex couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Wow, how did you get so cold?”
“You give any money to charity lately, chief?”
“What does that have to do—”
“You know, the Smile Train, for kids with harelips? Malaria No More? Care.org for childhood malnutrition? How about SaveDarfur.org? Just a few dollars a day, Alex, no more than the price of your daily latte habit, and you could be saving hundreds of lives.”
“It’s not the same.”
“You’re right about that. Because what you’re asking me to do involves possible danger to myself. What you refuse to do on your own wouldn’t even inconvenience you.”
“How do you know so much about those charities?”
“I study up on them so I can point out hypocrisy when I meet people like you.”
Alex sensed he was onto something and wasn’t going to let it go. “You donate to them, don’t you?”
“What if I did?”
“Why? To atone for other things you do? Trying to rejigger the cosmic ledger?”
Ben laughed. “You’re like a little kid trying to understand adult experience. Just go back to the pencil pushing and leave the burden of the real world to grown-ups.”
“Yeah, I’d really like to do that, Ben, except one of the grown-ups seems to have taken it into his mind to kill me. But right, that’s not your problem. Sorry to bother you.”
“That’s right, it’s not my problem. You’re just another of my charities.”
Alex stared at him, amazed. The really amazing thing, though, was that after all this time, his callousness could still be shocking. But why would it be? When had Ben given a shit about anyone but himself?
“So let me make sure I understand. You give money to charity organizations for the benefit of remote people you’ll never have to know or touch. But when someone right in front of you needs your help, you can’t be bothered. Is that the way it works?”
They stared at each other for a long moment. The hell with it, Alex thought. He picked up the phone and dialed Sarah’s extension.
“Sarah? Can you come down to my office right away?”
“This is bizarre. I can’t find—”
“Just come now. We’ll talk about it here.” He hung up and looked at Ben. “She’s on her way. If you can’t be bothered to even talk to her, you better leave now—unless you want to use my computer first, to donate money to one of those organizations you like. You know, so you won’t be out of karmic kilter.”
Ben said nothing. He watched Alex and chewed his gum, his cheek muscles jumping.
17 EXACTLY WHAT I TELL YOU
It was the weirdest thing. After Alex had asked about his Hilzoy file, Sarah thought to check hers, too. And it was gone. She was just going to call him when he beat her to it.
She grabbed her coffee and walked down to his office. She knocked, then went to let herself in. The door was locked. That was odd, especially because Alex had just called her to tell her to come.
“It’s locked,” she called out.
“Sorry,” Alex called from within. A second later, he opened the door. Sarah walked in, and as Alex closed the door behind her, she noticed a man standing against the wall. “Oh,” she said, with a start.
The man looked like a bigger, tougher version of Alex. The same blond hair, the same attractive green eyes. He was chewing gum and watching her, and there was something edgy about him, something that made her uncomfortable.
“Sarah,” Alex said, “this is my brother, Ben. Ben, this is Sarah Hosseini.”
His brother. Of course—she should have realized immediately from the resemblance. But why was he looking at her that way? As though he was … assessing her. Not sexually, either, she didn’t think. His gaze was too dispassionate for that. Too tightly controlled.
“Hosseini?” Ben said, raising his eyebrows.
“Yes,” Sarah said, looking at him directly, not liking his tone. There was something knowing in it … even accusatory.
“Famileh shoma az shomaleh iran hastand? Man ye zamani yek khanevadeh hosseini mi shenakhtam ke az mashhad bodand.”
She was totally taken aback. He had just asked her in perfect Farsi whether her family was from Masshad, a city in the north. He said he had once known a Hosseini from Masshad.
“Na famileh man tehrani hastand. Hamantor ke khodet midoni hosseini esmeh rayeji ast,” Sarah replied. No, my family is from Tehran. Hosseini is a common name. As I think you must know.
Alex said, “Are you—is that Farsi?”
“Yes,” Sarah said, not taking her eyes off Ben.
“When did you learn Farsi?” Alex asked, looking at Ben.
“Correspondence course,” Ben said, still looking at Sarah.
“Your brother speaks like a native,” Sarah said. “I don’t think he learned through a correspondence course. He’s trying to be cute, although I don’t know why. It’s actually kind of rude on such short acquaintance.”
Goddamn him, the way he was looking at her. She was not going to blink.
“Yeah, he does that sometimes,” Alex said. “I wouldn’t have subjected you to it if it weren’t really important.”
Ben smiled at that and walked past her to one of the chairs. The smile said, Sure, you can win our little staring contest. Congratulations. It was infuriating.
Okay, she told herself. Drop it. She sat down next to Ben.
“On the phone,” Alex said, “did you start to say something was missing?”
“Yes, my file on Hilzoy. It was weird because you had just told me you couldn’t find yours. What’s going on?”
Alex looked at Ben and said, “Oh, man.”
“Do I need to be worried about something?” she said.
She felt Ben looking at her. “Depends on how smart you are,” he said.
She looked at him. “Assume I’m smarter than you.”
He shrugged. “Then you should be very worried.”
“Sarah,” Alex said, “I think you and I might both be in danger.”
Alex talked and Sarah listened, resisting the urge to interrupt him with questions. It was hard to know what to think. She didn’t doubt the things he claimed had happened were true. She knew about Hilzoy, of course, and she could easily confirm the rest. Nor did she doubt Alex really believed there was some kind of conspiracy at work. But there had to be a rational explanation, right? People didn’t kill over inventions in sunny, civilized Silicon Valley. They bought and sold, sometimes they sued, but killing?
When Alex was done, Sarah looked at Ben. “What do you have to do with all this?”
Ben shook his head. “Nothing, really.”
“Ben’s in the army,” Alex said. “He knows this kind of stuff.”
“The army?” Sarah asked, still looking at Ben. “You must know a lot.”
The corner’s of Ben’s mouth moved just slightly, as though he found her terribly amusing and wasn’t quite able to conceal it. “I know a few things,” he said.
“Oh, I’m fascinated. Tell me.”
This time, he cocked his head and smiled. She had never seen a mor
e patronizing look.
“Oh, come on,” she said. “Won’t you at least try to bring me up to speed on how driving a tank, or shooting a rifle, or requisitioning supplies, or whatever it is you do, qualifies you to ‘know this kind of stuff’?”
Ben’s eyes narrowed slightly. He watched her, his gaze as forceful as it was quiet, and Sarah had the sense of tremendous pressure and tremendous control in uneasy equipoise. There was something dangerous about this man and she realized she was foolish to push him. But at the same time, that façade of tight control, and the condescension that so far was all he had permitted her to see … she couldn’t just let it go.
“I don’t drive tanks,” he said, after a moment. “It’s been a while since I shouldered a rifle. And I don’t requisition many supplies.”
“You must be very special, then.” God, what was she doing? Why did she want so badly to … what? Provoke him? Rattle him? Trip him up somehow? Force a crack in that carefully constructed façade of condescension?
“Oh, I’m really nothing special. Not compared to, say, a lawyer. I mean, you guys, you’re the special ones. Top of the food chain. People like me, we’re just humble servants.”
“Guys,” Alex started to say, but Sarah cut him off.
“Tell me then,” she said. “What kind of service do you perform?”
“I just keep people like you safe, that’s all. It’s nothing important, really.”
She caught that. Keeping her safe wasn’t important. “How, then? All you’ve told me is what you don’t do.”
He paused as though considering. “I neutralize threats so lawyers can go on earning big bucks and swilling overpriced lattes. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.”
He wasn’t just showing her condescension, she realized. Condescension was what was he was intentionally showing her. Beneath that, implicit, was an entire worldview in which people like Ben were martyrs and people like Sarah were yuppie sheep, ingrates, whatever. Play to that, she thought, knowing she was being immature and possibly even dangerously foolish, but too fascinated to see what would happen to stop herself.
“How noble of you. What sorts of threats, though? And how do you neutralize them? It all must be very dangerous.” She didn’t hold back on a single iota of the contempt she felt.
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