by Andrew Post
He took the ordi in his hands and asked the Hark Telecom company profile still on screen, complete with picture of their glass and granite lobby, “What, only a matter of time and you’d phone me up too?” He wiped away tears.
His fingers took a moment to cooperate, but when they did, he continued to dig. The Probitas packet had been requested by Hubert Ward. The name rang no bells to Thorp, so he quickly closed down the hack window and jumped online.
He dropped Hubert Ward’s name into the search engine, and fifteen pages of the man’s life came on screen, mostly accolades for his technological achievements. He’d worked with several well-known companies, had been a developer of many now commonly used products, having gotten his start in Silicon Valley. He was relatively new to Hark Telecom, an online article from Popular Mechanics read, and barely upon being hired as the head of research and development, he caused a stir by having his entire department brought up on charges of corporate espionage. The accuser was Thomas Lake, president of DRN Engineering, who claimed that Hubert Ward and his team had planted employees inside DRN to steal prototype schematics.
Nectar and Abby were right. Elizabeth Lake was the key to all of it.
The article had been expanded last month in October when Elizabeth Lake had been slain. Thomas Lake, in the wake of his wife’s death, was labeled by his colleagues as emotionally compromised and was subsequently removed from his position. They feared he’d make a wrong call and end up driving profits into the ground. His final request before his involuntary sabbatical was shocking: drop the suit against Hark, despite the fact that he was the one who had initially launched it. He was asked why he wanted to drop the multibillion-dollar suit against Hark if he and DRN had good reason to believe they’d been the victim of corporate espionage. His cryptic reply was that he had to think about his son, Joel. When asked if he thought his wife’s death and DRN’s lawsuit against Hark were connected, again Thomas said he had to think of his son, adding only: “Family comes first.”
Thorp started the engine, dropped it into gear, and tore off.
Fortunately, the drive to Hark Telecom took him a while. He had time to cool off and collect his thoughts. Just because Nectar had gotten cease and desist letters on behalf of Hark Telecom didn’t necessarily mean they were behind it. He had to take things one step at a time like Brody was always telling him. Jumping to conclusions could only lead to unfavorable results, but he couldn’t turn off the investigative part of his brain now. He glanced at the Fairlane’s clock. He had time, if he made it quick.
At red lights, he navigated the Gizumoshingu’s list of programs until he found the one called Freq-finder, an application that promised to pick up mobile phone activity or CB radio chatter anywhere in a square mile’s vicinity. He’d downloaded it after seeing a late night infomercial, sure there were people on the edge of his property, crouched like insects, watching him from the dark, and hadn’t used it since.
Of course, now that theory didn’t sound so out there.
The program patched itself, started, began checking the area.
Hitting another red light, he pulled the ordi into his lap. It was picking up a bevy of activity from a place just up the street. He looked. Despite the snow and natural distortion of the sandwich wrap, he could still see Hark Telecom’s tower that stood noticeably taller than the other structures, the gleaming, white spire jutting to the sky. It seemed to bend and loom over the car, like a smirking colossus watching a challenger race toward its feet.
Glass and steel, occupying the entire block. Massive in the other bearing as well, stretching up beyond the low and heavy snow clouds, seemingly stabbing into the heavens themselves. A dagger big enough for God killing, rising out of the crust of the city, a proud proclamation of mankind’s uncontested victory over everything on the earth—and soon—everything above it.
He had to admit it was quite the sight, but he had work to do.
Thorp parked on the opposite side of the street, nuzzled up behind a pickup that had been left out to suffer the wrath of the snowplows. The brown slush and fluffy white had been shoved, like a glacier through hills, up around the truck. It made for a decent hiding spot.
He slid down in the seat of the Fairlane, adjusting the dials of the radio until all the squelching white noise was removed from the nearby signal he was picking up. Thorp glanced across the street to the watch station. The security guards, two young guys with greased-back hair, stood languidly, leaning on the counter, laughing occasionally. Neither watched the security camera feeds just off to their right. They seemed to be swapping stories that involved drinking—or women—or both, guessing by their gestures.
Thorp adjusted the radio some more, getting a hit on a conversation between two guards in the upper floors. They were too far away, so it came out garbled and rife with crashes of static. When he looked up to ensure he wasn’t going to get made, Thorp spotted one of the guards at the kiosk right inside the Hark Telecom entryway staring directly at him.
The guard cocked his head and spoke into the radio clipped to the shoulder strap of his bulletproof vest. Thorp heard the guard through the Fairlane’s speakers. “Dispatch. Got a vehicle here. Light brown Ford Fairlane—older model. Appears to be a white male inside. Want us to do anything about it?”
Thorp’s first instinct was to flee. But he knew as soon as he got a block away, he’d lose the signal and possibly some information. He could have firsthand experience of how the Hark Telecom security team dealt with a possible threat. All he would have to do is know precisely when to leave. Here was an opportunity to give Brody good news, evidence he could serve a purpose, not fuck things up. He forced himself to wait, to listen. He slid down farther in the seat.
“No,” another guard answered. “Unless they stop or come in to ask questions, there’s no reason to leave your post. Mr. Ward wants us to keep the lobby top priority.”
Thorp dared a glance.
“Roger.” The guard lowered his hand from the radio but continued to watch Thorp.
Thorp faced forward and wondered how long it would take before the ground-floor guard asked the other unseen guard if he was positive that he shouldn’t do something about the man across the street—sitting in his thirty-year-old beater at this ungodly hour.
The second guard, speaking in a way that said he was in charge, continued. “Once he’s gone, make your rounds. Don’t bother with the upper floors. Keep your squad on the lower half. Floors one through forty only until further notice. I’m going to take my dinner break.”
“Sounds good. Over,” the second guard answered.
“Good enough.” Thorp started the Fairlane. He had gained a tidbit of information about the Hark Telecom building and could report back to Brody with it. He wasn’t sure how much use it could be, but when it came to recon, any knowledge gained was a step in the right direction. He attempted to pull forward and felt a slight slippage under the front tires. He braked, paused, wrung his frozen hands. Be casual, he reminded himself.
“You know, something about this guy’s face rubs me the wrong way. I might hop outside for a sec, see if I can spook him off. Jake is down here with me. No need to worry.”
“Go ahead,” said the second guard, who was upstairs or miles away.
Thorp could stand it no longer. He put the car into reverse. He backed up and felt the back tires rise over an incline in the snow—and then the whole back end of the car slammed down, successfully finding a deep rut in the snow. He dropped it into gear and mashed the accelerator, but all he got was the constipated whirring of the tires spinning, unable to find decent grip.
On the radio in the passenger seat, “Okay, so I think there is something of a genuine concern here. I’m heading out there.”
Thorp cursed, swinging the wheel left and right to try and get the car to dislodge from the snowbank. He began narrating for himself as he often did when he plunged into an anxiety attack. “I know now that they’re only guarding the bottom half of the building.”
“The facts,” one self-help TV guru once said during an hour-long advertisement for his set of book and audio lessons, “are always something good to list to yourself when feeling uptight or frightened. The things you know for sure.”
“I think he’s stuck,” the guard still inside commented with a chuckle.
Into third gear, the Fairlane’s engine screamed. Thorp downshifted, tapped the clutch, pumped and shifted with all four of his limbs in a frantic dance.
The security guard, dressed in a heavy black jacket and cap with the Hark Telecom logo stitched into it, clicked on a flashlight. He was halfway to Thorp, walking the ice-slick asphalt in short, eager strides.
“I know they have only two men watching the front doors overnight.”
“Sir?” the guard shouted over the Fairlane’s agonized shrieks. “Can I help you?” He tapped on the window with the end of the flashlight. “Sir, this is private property. It may look like just a street, but Hark Telecom owns this corner here to that corner down there. You’re in violation of—”
“I now know they own the fucking street.”
“Sir?”
The tires had ground down far enough into the packed snow and ice and found traction deep within. The car leapt out of the spot, Thorp twisting the wheel to avoid running headlong into the back of the snowed-in pickup, and skidded and squealed down the blacktop. He turned to give the guard one last winning sneer and saw he had something in his hand. There was a flash and Thorp convulsed as if shot. From the bulb at the end of the device in the guard’s hand came a spiral of what appeared to be a pitched fistful of chopsticks, all glowing white, darting toward his face.
Momentarily blinded, Thorp swore and fought to see the path ahead of the car around the clustered streaks spiraling before his eyes.
The radio in the passenger seat called triumphantly, “I got a face-map of him.”
Driving with eyes blasted blind, he left the guy standing in the middle of the street, growing smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.
Thorp realized he was safe. All they had were the results from the face-cartographer, and since he rarely spent any time in the city and hadn’t been arrested in a while, there was a good chance there wasn’t a current face-map on him anywhere. His self-disappointment leapt away, and he hollered and punched the roof of the car.
He’d done something, possibly been of use.
“We’ll find you, Nectar. Just wait and see. We’re coming for you, Sis.”
25
Brody stood on the corner outside the YMCA, having watched the traffic lights go through ten revolutions. He shifted Alton’s ordi under his other arm and checked his phone for the time. Thorp was fifteen minutes late.
Across the black asphalt that looked oiled in its reflectivity, the first car in some time approached. Brody identified it as the Fairlane by the shape of the headlights. He stepped onto the curb. As it pulled up, Brody heard the car struggling, the supple rumble of the long-in-the-tooth engine now issuing a shrill whine.
Brody opened the door. “Everything all right? And why is the car making that sound?”
“I know who did it.” Thorp made eye contact with Brody. “I know who got Nectar.”
“All right. One thing at a time. Hop out. Let me drive.”
Thorp and Brody orbited around the car to switch sides, then set off.
“What do you mean?”
“I hacked the Probitas website and found that Hark Telecom is their leading client. The letter sent to Nectar had been requested by Hubert Ward, the head of R&D at Hark. She was onto something, the whole bit about Elizabeth Lake being murdered. Her husband was trying to sue Hark for stealing his ideas. And it just so happens that Alton drives four hundred miles and kills her of all people? It’s not solid proof or anything, because as Mateusz said, she and Abby had protested at a lot of different places over the years and … and with Alton, who knows if that’s why he did it. Hey. What’s with the face?”
With both hands gripping the wheel, Brody said, “I pretty much came to the same conclusion. Alton Noel installed electronics on base while stationed in Malaysia. Electronics from Hark Telecom.”
When the car sounded like it might call it quits, Brody halted his story. He pulled over to let the Fairlane work out whatever bout of discomfort it was suffering and pleaded with it to delay its death rattle until they at least got out of the city. It agreed, the engine returning to a normal idle. After a couple of backfires as loud as gunshots, they continued.
“And that’s not all. The guy was in one hell of a hard place. He was wracked with guilt over what he’d done.” Brody glanced at Thorp, whose expression had darkened faintly. He ground his teeth and scrambled for a way to move the subject along quickly. “But what we have here is proof that he was a decent person that didn’t want to murder those people but he had been put up to it.”
“He could’ve just been saying that stuff for the benefit of the camera,” Thorp pointed out.
“No one’s that good of an actor,” Brody said. He highlighted the videos from top to bottom with one pass of his finger and copied them to the e-mail he was preparing. “Not only does he say it was Hark that had him install the base’s tech that made everyone sick, but when he got back stateside, he was visited by someone who carried a lot of knives, cautioning him to be available on ten-twenty. Said he shoved the guy down, demanded his name.”
“Titian Shandorf?” Thorp asked.
“Called himself Uncle Titian.”
Thorp blew all the air from his lungs. “Christ.” And, “It’s green.”
Brody handed the ordi over to Thorp.
He took it, peered into the monitor to see the twodimensional version of Alton’s video freeze-framed. “What’s ten-twenty?”
“The twentieth of October.”
“Shit.” Again, he exhaled in a quick puff. “Well, that clinches it, then, right? If some guy came to him and said something about ten-twenty and that was the date he killed those people—and Elizabeth Lake, the wife of Hark’s enemy. He must’ve been put up to it. Doesn’t that make sense?”
“It does to you and me, but we really need some good honest facts, genuinely solid evidence. We can’t take what we got so far to the cops and expect them to do anything other than point us in the direction of the bughouse. We’ve got to link Hark and Titian.”
They turned onto the interstate. Morning commuters surrounded them on all sides, and despite Brody trying to dodge around them before the inevitable jam was encountered, they weren’t so lucky. Thankfully, the accident that had occurred up ahead was quickly shuffled to the shoulder, and shortly after the blinking cones and the cops in their reflective vests were out of the way, traffic continued unabated.
While passing the wreck and the crowd of officers, Brody noticed Thorp sink down in his seat. He was about to ask what was the matter, then pieced it together on his own. Through gritted teeth, Brody gave his opinion on Thorp’s failure to get rid of Spanky.
Thorp apologized profusely, quietly, and when they got beyond the flashing red and blue lights, he sat up in his seat and checked his mirror. The cops were preoccupied with the wreck, and besides, out of all the cars on the highway, how could they possibly know one of them had a dead body in the trunk? This was Chicago. There were probably a few cars out this morning with bodies in the trunk.
Thorp broke his stare with what was going on behind them and asked, “Anything on Nectar?”
“She was in the first video,” Brody said.
“How’d she look?”
“Good. Pretty.” He added, “She got tall.”
Thorp nudged a pocket of snow in the plastic wrap to the edge. It scattered away alongside the windows as a flashing, pitched handful of glittering white. “Yeah, she always was quite the beanpole, wasn’t she?” He started to say something more, but his voice tapered off into a squeak.
Before Brody could scold him about what tense he should be using when talking about his missing sister, Thorp grab
bed his Gizumoshingu from the floorboard and said, “Would you mind some music? I could use the distraction.”
“Go for it.”
Thorp started a playlist and muttered the lyrics.
Brody watched the road ahead as the jagged city shapes fell away in favor of storage units, sports bars with dead signs, boat and RV outlets, and hunting supply shops. The emporiums people who lived out in the sticks came in for but far enough from the urban fringe that they’d never have to set foot in the city proper.
The streetlights became less frequent, just a dotted line spaced far enough apart that the circles they painted on the asphalt barely touched the edges. He yawned, watched as one of the farthest lanes melded in with the others. The traffic thinned out to a trickle, and before long they were alone on an empty two-lane road once more.
Snowflakes began charging the shine of the Fairlane’s headlights in an antagonistic flood. Brody was suddenly very glad Thorp had been so resourceful with the plastic wrap and tape. Haloing everything that dared to glow, Brody noticed, was the same constant flow of passing flakes. For a splintered fragment of time, he dreamt of sandstorms.
“This takes me back,” Thorp said after “Commando” had come around for the third time on the shuffled playlist.
Brody invited conversation to keep himself awake, even if it meant talking about the old days. He said, “Oh yeah?” and forced his orange eyes open as far as they’d go. “Listen, you might have to drive in a minute because I think I’m just about out on a—”
00:00:59.
“—charge.”
They pulled over, switched places. Back on the passenger side, Brody hoped that the stop had sidelined Thorp’s desire to talk more about the past, but it wasn’t so. Thorp had barely dropped the car into drive before he started again.
Thorp said, “Do you remember when we did Operation Ceramic Groom?”