“You’re not what?” said Jack.
“You think I’m enjoying this.”
Jack felt chills. He was dead-on. The guy really is a genius.
“Truth is,” said Mays, “I haven’t enjoyed a damn thing in three years.”
Jack couldn’t imagine ever being friends with Mays, but it was impossible not to feel sorry for a man who’d lost so much. Even though Jack knew he was risking a punch in the nose, he could think of only one response.
“Jamal didn’t kill your daughter.”
Mays narrowed his eyes, and Jack braced himself for that punch.
“I guess we’ll never know,” said Mays.
“I think his killer is the same person who killed your wife. And I think whoever killed your wife also killed your daughter.”
The fire hissed, and the last remnants of Jack’s marshmallow burst into flames on a charred log.
Jack continued. “Technically, the attorney-client privilege survives the death of a client, but there are things about his detention in Prague that would have come out at trial, and that Jamal wanted you to know. For one, Jamal’s interrogators threatened to kill McKenna if he didn’t talk.”
That drew a slight reaction—enough for Jack to discern that it was the first time Mays had heard it.
“What did they want to know?” asked Mays.
“The questions were all about the work he was doing for you. Project Round Up, to be specific.”
“I don’t talk about that.”
“Neither did Jamal—which got him killed. So tell me: Why would someone in Prague interrogate him about Project Round Up?”
No response. A burning log shifted, sending sparks fluttering upward like a swarm of fireflies.
“Does it have to do with national security?” Jack asked. “Rounding up terrorists?”
Mays stared into the fire, apparently unwilling even to consider the question.
“I know much more than you think I do,” said Jack, though he was careful not to use Andie’s name. “I know that the FBI seized Jamal’s computers after McKenna was murdered, and that they found encrypted messages that related to terrorist organizations.”
Mays leaned forward, poking at the ashes with his stick. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“Did you know his father was a recruiter for al-Shabaab?”
“I wouldn’t know al-Shabaab from shish kebab.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Nobody told me anything about his old man until after Jamal was indicted for murder.”
Jack hesitated, but this was getting frustrating. “We’re tap dancing here,” said Jack, “so let me just say it straight: I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will. Because I’ve got a theory, and I think it’s a good one. Like everyone else in your business, you want to be the go-to guy for technology and homeland security.”
“Is that a crime?”
“No. But it’s not merely patriotic. It’s profitable. I think you and Jamal were working on a supercomputer that could find and tap into encrypted messages between suspected terrorists. I think Jamal was using his father to get access to those messages so that you could test your decoding algorithms. Maybe Jamal even pretended to be sympathetic to his father’s cause. That’s what got him on somebody’s terrorist watch list. That’s what got him abducted and taken to a black site in Prague for interrogation. And that’s why his father was willing to help him when he ran to Somalia.”
Mays mocked him with a round of slow, hollow applause. “You’ve given this a lot of thought, haven’t you?”
“Am I right?”
“Not even close. But let me know when you sell the movie rights. I’ll pop the popcorn for you.”
“I can handle that on my own,” said Jack. “But there’s something else you can help me with.”
“Yeah, there’s something you can help me with, too,” Mays said, his hand moving up and down in a vulgar gesture.
Jack ignored it. “After your wife disappeared, a Miami-Dade homicide detective questioned Jamal’s mother. He told her that Shada was following her own leads, trying to find McKenna’s killer. She had some online communications—possibly with the killer himself. Do you know anything about that?”
“Nope.”
“The cops thought it was Jamal she was in contact with, but I don’t believe it was. Like I said, I think there are three victims here—McKenna, Shada, and Jamal—but only one killer. I’d love to get my hands on those online communications.”
“I can’t help you there.”
Jack could have recited the man’s résumé to dispute it. “Here’s the thing,” said Jack. “If your supercomputers can search eight billion files in an instant—which is what you told me yours can do—then you most certainly can help me. What you’re telling me is that you won’t.”
“Same bottom line,” said Mays.
Jack rose. He knew that Mays was the key to any computer-related evidence involving his wife, but it was clear that tonight was not going to be the breakthrough. He just needed to plant the right seed.
“You’re right: McKenna’s killer remains unpunished, free to kill again. Same bottom line.”
Jack grabbed his jacket and headed back toward the house, feeling a surprising chill in the night air as he distanced himself from the fire.
“Swyteck,” said Mays.
Jack stopped and turned. He was halfway through the garden.
“You got a few more minutes?” asked Mays.
Jack shrugged. He had all night, if that was what it was going to take. “Sure. What’s up?”
Mays pushed himself up from his seat on the log and started toward him on the footpath. “There’s something I want to show you.”
Chapter Thirty
Jack was awake half the night thinking about Shada Mays’ text message.
Last week’s tip from Jamal’s mother had been slightly off the mark. The police didn’t have any e-mails. It was a text-message exchange—just one—between Shada and someone using a pirated cell phone (owner unknown). Shada’s cell phone had disappeared along with her, so it had taken a subpoena from law enforcement to turn up the day-old text message on the carrier’s server. There were also records of phone calls to and from the same pirated cell, but there was no way of knowing what was said in those conversations. The single text was chilling enough, starting with a question from the man suspected of being McKenna’s killer:
“Are you afraid?”
“Not at all.”
“Maybe you should be.”
“No way. Never. I will see you tomorrow.”
Jack probably would have guessed it, but the date on the message confirmed as much: “Tomorrow” was the day Shada had gone missing.
Still, Jack wasn’t sure how to read it. Was she being defiant? No way, you killed my daughter, but you will never intimidate me, you son of a bitch. Was she playing the role of the “good cop”? Don’t worry, accidents happen, I’ll see you tomorrow and you can tell me your side of the story. They were merely printed words—no voice inflection, no context, no way to know for sure. The first line—Are you afraid?—was intriguing, and the addition of just three more words—of The Dark—would have all but confirmed in Jack’s mind that McKenna, Shada, Jamal, and Ethan Chang were all killed by the same man. As it was, that was still a distinct possibility.
Or someone was trying very hard to make it look that way.
The telephone rang on his nightstand, and Jack shot bolt upright in bed. His room was dark, but he hadn’t really been sleeping. A call at 3:40 A.M. was never a good thing, and his first thought was of his grandfather in the nursing home.
“Hello?” he said.
There was no answer, but Jack sensed that someone was on the line.
“Who is this?” said Jack.
“Is this Mr. Swyteck?” The voice was beyond tentative. It sounded like a teenage girl—a frightened teenage girl.
“Yes,” said Jack. “Who’s calling?”
“You don’t know me, but . . . you were the lawyer for Jamal, right?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“I—I can’t tell you that.”
Her English was good, but she spoke with an accent. German, maybe. “Where are you calling from?”
“I can’t really tell you that, either.”
Jack heard the sounds of a city over the line—the echo of a car horn, the grumble of a bus or a diesel truck. She was obviously calling from outdoors, perhaps on a busy street corner, either a cell or a pay phone. Wherever she was, the business day had already begun; it definitely wasn’t 3:40 A.M.
“Did you know Jamal?” asked Jack.
“Uhm, not really. I spoke to him. Once.”
“When?”
“A couple of days ago,” she said, her voice quaking. “He gave me your number and begged me to call you. I told him he’d never hear from me again if he told you or anybody else we talked but . . . is it true that he’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my God,” she said.
Jack jumped out of bed and started pacing. He wasn’t sure where to go with this, but it sounded important. “What did you and Jamal talk about?”
“Was he . . . killed?” she asked.
“It looks that way,” said Jack.
“Oh my God,” she said, and this time Jack thought she might hyperventilate.
“Calm down, okay?” said Jack. “If you know something about this, I can help. You just have to tell me what you know.”
A siren blasted in the background. She was definitely in a city.
“It’s like I told Jamal,” she said. “I think . . . I know who killed his girlfriend.”
Jack stopped pacing, frozen in the darkness of his bedroom. “McKenna Mays? You know who killed McKenna?”
“I think so.”
“Who was it?”
She didn’t answer.
“I need you tell me who did it,” said Jack.
“I’m afraid!”
Jack didn’t want to push too hard and lose her. “It’s okay. Have you gone to the police?”
“Yeah, right,” she said, and Jack could hear the struggle in her voice. “I can’t do that. No way.”
“Why not?”
Jack heard more of the sounds of the city, but she was silent.
“Why can’t you go to the police?” Jack asked.
“Because he would—”
She stopped herself. There were more urban sounds in the background, and Jack thought he heard her breathing. No, she was crying.
“Are you all right?” Jack asked.
The crying continued, stronger but more distant, as if she had taken the phone away from her face.
“Don’t hang up,” said Jack. “I need to know: Are you all right?”
The crying stopped, and Jack heard her take a deep breath.
“No,” she said, sobbing, “I’m not.”
Before Jack could respond, the caller was gone.
Chapter Thirty-one
Her heart was pounding as she hung up the pay phone at the street corner. One thought consumed her, but she could barely get her mind around it. The gruesome photographs she’d seen weren’t staged. Jamal was dead, his foot cut off.
OMG!
She was shivering, partly from the cold but mostly with fright. This time of year, sunrise didn’t come to London until almost eight o’clock. Thirty minutes past dawn, the chill of night was still in the air, and the morning fog was so thick that she could barely see the top of the three-story redbrick buildings that defined the beaten-down neighborhood. She was in a place she knew well, near the Tayo Restaurant, the Hilaac Superstore, and the all-important Internet café. Neighborhood shops were opening for another business day, buses were running, and streets were lined with morning commuters. None of it put her at ease. There was no doubt in her mind that gangs like the Money Squad and African Nations Crew were still on the prowl, searching for young girls like her who were stupid enough to venture out alone. Gang violence terrified her. It had taken all the courage she could muster to head out before daybreak, and the brief telephone conversation with Jamal’s lawyer had only heightened her fears. Creepy blokes were everywhere. Like that man sitting on the curb and talking to himself.
Why is he looking at me?
The other runaways at the train station had called her paranoid. “Chill out,” they told her. “Bethnal Green has a reputation, but it’s not that bad these days. Lots of kids and parents with babies. Certainly not the worst area in London.”
Chill out? People who said that were the same morons who would tell someone in a coma to “cheer up.” She knew better. You didn’t stop for a cigarette, didn’t load your iPod, didn’t even answer your mobile on these streets. She’d read about the girl who’d disappeared outside King’s Cross railway station—blond and sixteen, just like her. Scotland Yard found her on the other side of Euston Road, her throat slit and panties stuffed in her mouth. Things were no safer in Bethnal Green, even if the tube stations weren’t nearly as big. There were still creeps begging for money, bumming cigarettes, asking if you’re selling, tagging along, talking nonstop to you, refusing to go away, looking for runaways and teenage girls who bit their fingernails and tugged at their hair in ways that made them ripe for appropriation to whoring exercises. “Those are just the flavors of London’s northern lines,” people told her.
Flavors? Ha!
Sure, once you knew an area, you could spot trouble and steer away from the dodgy bloke. She knew the difference between a normal person and those who broke the conventional rules of social engagement—the skanks who stood too close, rubbed up against you, grabbed a feel. But, realistically, what could a girl do? A man might think nothing of standing alone at a bus stop two blocks away from the scene of the latest stabbing. A girl doing the same thing would quickly be asked how much she charged for a blow job. Having a dally with a creepy bloke, being half nice in case he demands money, but also trying to get rid of the unwanted visitor without offending—diffusing a potentially aggressive situation—required a bit of sharp thinking. Even a bit of paranoia.
Just a bit. I’m not PARANOID!
It was a safe bet that the jerks who’d teased her and called her chickenshit had never been dragged along by the hair on London’s sidewalks. Who the hell were they to go slagging her off as paranoid? If those losers started up again, then she was going to treat them back to the playground crap they dished out.
You want war, then this is war, you shits!
She drew a deep breath, then glanced across the street. She had to focus. Jamal was dead.
Double OMG!
Her mobile rang. She was afraid to answer, but the incoming number was enough to make her shudder. It was him. He knew her every move. Sixteen years old, and her life felt like prison.
I am a prisoner.
Her mobile continued to ring, but she let it go. There would be hell to pay for not answering, but she wasn’t prepared to explain what she’d been doing. And she would need a damn good explanation. He kept track of every penny he gave her, and five pounds for an international calling card from the Internet café was not an allowable expense. She ducked into the convenience store, grabbed a banana from the bin, and asked the clerk for a receipt.
“Can you make it out for five pounds?” she asked.
“What?”
“The receipt,” she said. “Can you make it for five pounds?”
“You bought a banana.”
“I know. But I need a receipt that says I paid five pounds.”
“Then buy ten bananas.”
“I just need the receipt. Can you do that?”
“Sure.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he said, and then he grabbed his crotch. “Have this banana.”
Her mobile rang, and she didn’t even have to check the incoming number. She was suddenly all too aware of the bracelet on her ankle. It was a
lways there, twenty-four hours a day. It was probably a lot like Jamal’s—except that hers hadn’t been put there by the police. She wanted to rip it off, but that would be a very foolish move. There was a reason he had shown her those photographs of Jamal.
“He’ll cut my foot off, too!”
“You want the banana or not?” asked the clerk.
She was almost too flustered to answer. “Forget it.”
She hurried out of the store, her mobile still ringing, not sure what she was going to say when she got back to the flat and he grabbed her by the hair and said, “What the hell have you been up to, you little slut?”
Chapter Thirty-two
I’m sorry for the loss of your son,” said Jack.
Neil echoed Jack’s sentiment, and Maryam Wakefield expressed her appreciation quietly. She looked physically and emotionally drained, and with good reason.
Wednesday morning marked three days since Jamal’s death—the end of the traditional Islamic mourning period for any relative of the deceased other than the widow of a married man. On Sunday Jamal’s uncle flew down from Minneapolis to be with Maryam, but the medical examiner didn’t complete his autopsy and release the body until early Tuesday. Islamic law called for a quick burial and disfavored transportation of the body. Jamal’s uncle washed and wrapped the body in a shroud, a brief funeral service was held on Tuesday afternoon, and Jamal was taken directly to the cemetery and laid to rest (on his right side, facing Mecca) in Miami, the community in which he had last lived.
Jack could see in Maryam’s eyes that she had slept not a wink last night.
“Come in, please,” she said.
Jack was respectful of her loss, and he wouldn’t have come if Maryam had not extended an invitation. Her suite had a kitchenette and spacious seating area, but it was the kind of low-budget hotel that any last-minute traveler could pick up on the Internet for the price of dinner for four at McDonald’s: well within earshot of both the airport and the expressway, and last updated when fluorescent tube lighting and shag carpeting was all the rage.
Maryam introduced Jamal’s uncle as Hassan. His dress was not as Western as Maryam’s, and he had the full beard of a traditional Muslim male. It was Jack’s quick impression that he was more religious than Maryam, and that he’d been a tremendous help with the necessary arrangements.
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