She glanced at her watch. “Why don’t you let me see what I can do tomorrow and I can come by, say, around six and let you know how it looks?”
He pressed her hand warmly as he got to his feet. “Thank you, Claire. I knew I was right to call you. Tomorrow, then.”
* * *
Jordan checked his Gmail account.
William,
Confirming pickup at the relais on Wednesday morning at eleven. We will rendezvous with Pat outside of Calais and continue on to Dover on the 21:35 ferry.
Regards, Neil
Good. He typed a quick reply.
Neil,
Confirmed.
William
Sent.
* * *
“I know how it sounds,” she said. “I’m sure you think I’ve lost it, rampant denial or something, but humor me for a minute.” Simon had a pained expression.
“Listen, you know him. Can you really imagine him inserting a vector permanently into his own DNA with the start codon misplaced?”
Simon just looked at her with an expression Stephanie took as pity for the crazy lady.
“All right,” she said, exasperated, “let’s just say, for the sake of argument, I’m right. If you were Jordan and were trying to send me a message, how would you do it? You’d wave a flag you know I’d recognize and be able to read. But then what? Come on, Si! Where do we look? He wants us to find it but no one else. Something in the procedure... I don’t know. Obviously he doesn’t expect us to randomly sift through millions of bases. Damn it, Si, help me. I’m not fucking crazy. He’s alive. I know it. And he needs help. Help me!” Tears ran down her cheeks but she ignored them, staring fixedly across her kitchen table at the struggling Perry.
He searched her face, for what? Madness, he supposed. She looked rational, but then crazy people usually did. He took a deep breath, unable to withstand the force of Stephanie’s will. “Okay, listen. I’ll do whatever you want but promise me you’ll stop this and let him go when there’s nothing there and all this turns out to be an artifact of a decade-old experiment in vector uptake. I need you to promise me. Otherwise, I’ll be guilt-racked forever for bringing anything up in the first place.”
“I promise, Simon.” She smiled and took his hand between hers. “I knew I could count on you.”
“A better friend would have nothing to do with this.”
“Not true. I couldn’t ask anyone else. I need you, Si, and you’re coming through like you always do.”
“What does Alex think?”
She paused. “I haven’t said anything to anyone else yet. I think we should leave it between us for now, don’t you? You don’t want everyone thinking we’re nuts.”
He nodded.
She plowed ahead. “Come on, it’s a puzzle. You love a good puzzle. Imagine you want to hide something in plain sight for someone who knew to look. How do you do it?”
He sighed, knowing when he was beaten. “I’d use a marker.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for example, in your crazy scenario I would use the bit we found—the ATG, GTG, CTG sequence—to flag any other sequence I wanted to be found.”
“And is there a way to search for that string in the sequence?”
“Of course,” he said. “You’d make a probe, an oligo of the complementary sequence with a radioactive marker. The probe would stick to the sample DNA wherever that exact sequence occurs.”
Her eyes bored in on his. “How hard is that?”
“Not hard, we do it all the time.”
Her eyes asked the question.
“Slow down,” he said, “our DNA is around three billion bases long. A sequence that short is going to turn up all over the place. Even assuming there’s anything to your theory and we’re right about the marker, it’s still a needle in a haystack, a haystack full of other needles. There’s no way.”
“But you’ll try,” she said. “Thank you.”
“No expectations.”
“You’ll see.”
59
NEEDLES
God bless the interwebs. Jordan signed off on the deal with Claire’s tenants, an English couple, newly empty nested, arranged to buy a Chicago PD Taser (only used once!) and took a Streetview walk through Hoxton Square, familiarizing himself with every inch of the neighborhood around the Exit Strategy office, all from a seedy little internet café in Brittany. He had really wanted a gun, but with French firearm laws the way they were, it didn’t seem worth the risk. The Taser would do.
He’d have to see Claire to get the money; she’d been chilly since he’d failed to capitalize on her celebratory mood Saturday night. She’d come late, bearing champagne and a faxed letter of intent from the empty nesters. She popped the cork as she slipped out of her pumps and into the depths of the fire-facing sofa. When her stockinged foot teasingly nudged his thigh for a second refill he got a generous view up her skirt. Her face fell when he got up minutes later with vague apologies about the hour. Probably for the best, though, he thought. Less likely to gossip about a transaction with such an anticlimactic ending.
* * *
Checklist getting shorter. Tomorrow he’d see Claire, drive to Laval to pick up the Taser and figure out how to lose the car. T minus thirty-six hours and counting. He prayed Stephanie had found the message. And understood it. He couldn’t think about that. It was too late to stop now; the Rubicon was far behind. They’d be there.
* * *
Herron slammed down the phone. Both computers were squeaky-clean. The histories had been selectively purged. The weenies had managed to follow the IP trail as far as some Russian server that had been used as a proxy and no further. Trahon had said there was heat from undisclosed heights to back off if nothing turned up. Probably related to the DC phone. Smug son of a bitch was going to get away with it all. He didn’t give a fuck about the insider trading—that was a circle jerk, rich stealing from the rich—but Prenn was going to get away with murder.
Herron shook his head. What kind of people were these? Prenn is fucking his partner’s wife and making a fortune by torpedoing his own company. That’s not enough so he finally kills the partner who’s off banging his own mistress—win-win for Prenn and the merry widow. Hell of a neighborhood. He stood up and grabbed his coat off the back of the chair. He’d return the laptop himself.
* * *
Simon had been right about one thing, lots of needles. The probe was picking up dozens of matches. He had to isolate each one and sequence it individually. Stephanie had written him out a copy of her college code with the consonant equivalents for each of the twenty coded amino acids. Simon ran each sequence just until he hit a string of bases that didn’t correlate to any amino acid. It usually didn’t take long; by the seventh base he was usually looking at intron junk.
The twenty-third hit was different.
After the key sequence it read “ATG, TCG, TCG, AGG, AGG, TCG.” This sequence repeated sixty times before giving way to random bases. Methionine, two serines, two arginines and another serine. Simon grabbed the list and scribbled on a blank sheet “mssrrs.” Jesus Christ. He dropped the pen. “I’m so sorry, S.” Fuck, fuck, fuck. It could be true. Or it was a coincidence and he was losing his mind, too?
It took him two hours to find the next one. “Dnttrstnbdy.” Again, sixty repeats.
“Don’t trust anybody.”
He called Stephanie.
60
SHEEP
When Jordan pulled into the parking area behind Le Vieux Puits, he saw Neil’s truck idling. The exhaust billowed in the frigid early-morning damp. Jordan could smell the sea. The coast was just a mile or two to the northwest. Neil was on the phone, sitting in the open door of the cab. He nodded in greeting as Jordan pulled up and snapped the phone shut.
“Mornin’, Billy. Ready to hit the road?
”
Jordan nodded. Neil climbed down and walked around to the back of the truck. He raised the door and pulled the ramp out with a metallic clatter, startling a cote of doves nesting under the eaves of the shuttered hotel. Jordan drove the rented silver Peugeot up the ramp and into the truck. He climbed out. Neil had already stowed the ramp and was sliding wedge-shaped blocks behind the wheels. Moved fast for a big guy.
“Put the parking brake on, mate,” the trucker snapped. Efficient, calm, reassuringly professional. Jordan pulled up the brake and shouldered the black duffel. It was heavy and awkward. Besides the Taser, the surgical supplies and a couple changes of clothes, it was almost entirely cash. With the year’s sublet from the empty nesters and his combined poker losings he had a little over 250,000 euros in tightly wrapped bundles. Enough to get them somewhere safe.
“You can put your gear up front, then give me a hand with the car, all right? Cheers.” Jordan wedged the duffel under the glove box in the cab and came back to find Neil struggling to wriggle his substantial torso under the Peugeot’s front end to attach a hook and chain.
“Let me do that,” Jordan said.
“Yeah, better idea,” Neil said with a husky laugh. “I’d probably get stuck and then where’d we be, eh?”
Jordan worked his head and shoulders under the car and Neil passed him the hook. “Try and get it ’round a solid bit of frame, yeah?” Jordan did and Neil tugged and grunted his satisfaction before taking up the slack in the chain and locking it down. “She ain’t going anywhere,” he said with a firm push on the fender. “Let’s make a move.”
For three hours they drove in silence. Jordan was lost in his own thoughts and only vaguely registered the small towns they drove through—Verson, Pont-l’évêque, the outskirts of Rouen—places that conjured up cheese and cathedrals in Jordan’s memory. They had a simple sandwich of ham on a buttered baguette and an espresso at a medieval stone inn with a faded Stella Artois sign.
As they turned onto the E402 just north of Abbeville, Neil said, “Reckon I got to ask. None of my business, I know. Feel free to tell me to fuck off.”
“No, it’s okay,” Jordan said. He felt light, almost euphoric. What he was doing was crazy, impossible, but he was doing it. And it could actually work, couldn’t it? It had to. Stephanie would have to find the message; she was the only one who could. She would know what to do.
His feet rested on the lumpy duffel, so his shins bumped on the glove compartment when the lorry bounced. They were driving through immaculately groomed farmland now. Pastures as far as the eye could see on either side of the narrow two-lane road. You knew you weren’t in Kansas. Farms in the states had a symmetry, rectangular fields with tight, even furrows, efficient like a GI’s flattop. Here, there was a casual charm, a sweep to the rows and a little wild growth, like graying locks peeking out from under an artist’s wool cap. The French, raised on Monet and van Gogh, knew a thing or two about bucolic beauty; even the most functional barn or silo was situated for maximum aesthetic effect.
“Shitty divorce,” he said. He saw Neil’s eyebrow arch a little higher. “No, really. Very, very shitty. Kids, money, unpleasant. I don’t want to go into too much of it but it’s bad. Bottom line is I need to get back into England and my ex can’t know I’m there. That’s the big thing. And she’s the kind who’d know. It’s her money.”
Neil nodded. “So you got kids in England?”
“Yeah.”
They drove in silence. Jordan leaned his head against the window. The low hum of the road filled his ears and he drifted until Neil’s voice brought him back. “And the sheep?”
Jordan sighed. “You’re not going to believe it. This is where it really does get crazy.”
“Try me.”
“Okay.” Jordan reached over and showed the trucker the scar on the back of his hand.
“And...”
“I had a skiing accident a while back and broke my hand. Had to go to the hospital. While I’m under, the crazy fucking bitch gets the doctor to implant something in me, like a tracking device or something.”
“Fuck you.” Neil laughed, shaking his head. “I was going to believe you, too. Now I know you’re full of shit.”
“I know, it sounds insane but it’s true. You can feel it. There’s this hard little bump in there and ever since that happened she’s always known exactly where to find me. It’s fucked up.”
“That’s paranoid crazy bullshit.”
Jordan shrugged. “Maybe, still.”
Neil thought a minute. “I still don’t get the sheep.”
“Well, if I just take the thing out, she’ll know I’m onto her, right? So I’m going to cut it out and put it in the sheep. That way she’ll think I’m still in France. Get it?”
Neil abruptly swerved the truck onto the narrow shoulder and put on his hazards. “Get the fuck out!”
Jordan put his hands up. “What are you talking about?”
“How fucking stupid do you think I am? You’re either completely full of shit or completely out of your mind. I don’t know which and I don’t care. I want nothing to do with you. Someone’s after you, I believe that. Americans, French police, whatever, it’s too big for me. I get caught with some Syrian kid it’s a fine, maybe just a wrist slap. I think helping you could get me killed. Take your shit and get out. I’ll leave the car up the road.”
“No, wait,” Jordan said. “Listen, please. It’s nothing like that. I promise. I’ll pay double. I told you she was rich.”
Neil searched his face, jaw working furiously. “Seventy-five thousand.”
Jordan nodded. “Okay.”
Neil’s eyes widened. “You have that much?”
He nodded again.
“I want it now before I drive another foot.”
Jordan pulled out the duffel and opened it on his lap. He pulled out a stack of bundles and passed them to the driver. “That’s sixty. I’ll give you the last fifteen in Dover.”
Neil picked up one of the bundles and riffled the edges. His eyes gleamed lupine in the gray light. His smile was cold. “Okay, Billy boy, we have a deal. Do yourself a favor, though. Don’t tell me any more fairy tales. I never liked ’em. Just tell me to mind my own fucking business.” He put the truck in gear and slowly pulled back onto the roadway. He glanced quickly in the rearview mirror before flicking off the hazards. He texted someone. There was no reply.
No one spoke again until they passed a sign for Calais and Neil took out his phone and made a call.
“Oi. You here?”
Jordan heard a muffled voice on the other end. Couldn’t make words out. Then Neil said, “Yeah, five minutes. Cheers.”
He turned onto rue Nationale and then a half mile later onto an unnamed road that ran behind a low brown warehouse. If there was a nowhere between Calais and Sangatte, this was the middle of it. Perfect for what Jordan had to do. There was one other truck in the parking lot, a livestock carrier. Its lights were on. Even though it was only three in the afternoon it was almost completely dark.
Neil pulled around so the two cabs were side by side with the bodies pointed in opposite directions. He rolled down his window. “Pat, Bill. Bill, Pat.” Pat Murphy was a big, athletic guy with thick black hair and a boyish face. Jordan guessed he was pushing forty but he could have been fourteen save the laugh lines around the eyes.
“Nice to meet you, Billy.” His accent was thick working-class Irish. He hopped out of the truck and came around as Jordan opened his door. Jordan climbed down. Something was wrong. It was too quiet. The sheep, he should have heard them. He walked to the back of Pat’s truck and looked in. Black. Empty.
He turned around with a puzzled expression. “There are no sheep.”
Pat shrugged with a funny little smile. “No. No sheep.” Then he hit Jordan. He knew how to fight; his feet were grounded. The blow came out of his legs, short
, efficient movement. Jordan felt all the air go out of him. His eyes popped as he doubled over. He couldn’t get a breath. Then the next blow came. Pat caught him on the cheekbone. It felt like he’d been hit with a hammer. A shock to the jaw, sharp pain, ear and cheek. He tasted blood in his mouth. The left side of his face was numb. Finally he managed to gulp for air. He looked up to see another left coming at his body. He just managed to turn so it caught him in the ribs instead of the stomach. There was a crack and searing pain tore across his side.
“Fuck!” he screamed and rolled to the ground. Pat’s boot caught him in the small of the back. He heard the heavy footfalls as he rolled and caught a glimpse of his attacker’s face. Pat was grinning, his face flushed bright red and his tongue stuck out slightly as if it were too big to fit in his mouth. Jordan rolled toward the truck but Pat grabbed his jacket before he could slide underneath.
“No, you don’t,” he panted, cuffing Jordan’s right ear with an open hand and pulling him to his feet before slamming him back against the truck and pinning him with a steel forearm against his throat. He was pressing against the windpipe and Jordan’s vision started to go dark with bright flashes of light, like little fireworks. He clawed with his free hand at Pat’s face, which just enraged the trucker. He kneed Jordan repeatedly in the groin without releasing the forearm press. Jordan twisted frantically, finally turning his neck enough to suck a tearing gasp of air. His mouth was pressed against Pat’s fist. He bit down as hard as he could.
With a bellow of pain the larger man ripped his hand back but Jordan held on. His neck cracked as it wrenched forward and he felt a pop in his mouth and pain and blood filled it. He assumed a tooth had pulled out. Pat meant to kill him, he was sure. He couldn’t let go.
Exit Strategy Page 21