by Ray Daniel
“It looks simple. There’s a lot going on in there.”
“I can imagine,” said Dana. “It took you all afternoon.”
“Yeah, well, it’s hard to make things simple.”
“Thank you, Tucker,” said Dana. “You’re a sweetie. You should get some rest.” She reached up and pecked me on the cheek, picked up my burrito and handed it to me. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
I said, “I wrote you some documentation.”
Dana said, “I saw. I’ll look at it tomorrow. It’s late now.”
“Late? It’s only six o’clock.”
“I’m bushed. Are you heading home?”
“I’m staying at a hotel. My kitchen flooded. Do you want to get a drink?”
“Oh no,” said Dana. “I’m pooped.”
“Well, OK. Good night.”
“Good night.”
With that I was standing in front of room 804 holding a cold burrito, but now I knew that Dana was not who she said she was.
thirty-eight
I called Jael from the glass elevator as I headed down to the lobby. As I talked, I watched exhausted show attendees get free beers at the Boylston Suites’ daily happy hour. Jael picked up on the first ring.
“I’m out of her room,” I said.
“I know.”
I looked around from the glass elevator trying to spot Jael. Where was she?
Jael said, “Stop that. Do not look for me.”
“Sorry.”
“And if you ever see me, look the other way.”
“OK. OK. What should I do now?”
“You should go to the lobby bar and wait. Remain in a very public place, and be ready to leave. We are going to follow the woman.”
“Follow Dana? She’s not going anywhere. She said she’s tired.”
“She lied.”
The phone went dead.
The lobby bar was bordered by a low wall of potted plants. I walked around the pots and entered the line for free happy-hour beer. The choices were limited to Bud and Miller Lite. Not such a happy hour after all. I flashed Dana’s room key, and the bartender placed a blue metal bottle of beer in front of me. As I grasped the cold bottle by the neck, I felt a gentle hand snake around my waist.
I turned, expecting to see Dana, but instead saw Margaret. She was dressed for business and held a clear drink in a rocks glass.
I said, “Oh, hi!”
She said, “Tucker, you are such an eloquent young man.”
I said, “Um …”
“Why of course dear, I would love to have a drink with you. Let’s sit.”
Margaret put her arm through mine, her breast pressing against me. She led us to a table where two broad-faced Russians were engaged in an animated, unintelligible conversation. They both wore Bronte shirts. When they saw Margaret, they stood, offered their seats, and left.
I said, “The Brothers Karamazov didn’t want to join us?”
Margaret said, “They don’t speak much English. But they are excellent engineers.”
I said, “You’re outsourcing your engineering?”
“Russians need to eat too, dear. Also, I can hire five of them for the price of one American.”
I started to answer but was distracted by movement behind Margaret. It was Carol. This was new behavior for her. She usually appeared only when I was alone. I looked at Carol and she said, “Baby, why are you talking to this woman?”
Margaret noticed my eye movement and looked over her shoulder. Of course, she couldn’t see Carol. She turned back at me, her eyebrows arcing in a question. She sipped her drink and asked, “Are you enjoying SecureCon?”
I said, “I’m not seeing much of the show. I’ve been to your booth and the MantaSoft booth, but that’s it. I spent all day today coding.”
Carol said, “Shut up. Why can’t you shut up?”
Margaret leaned forward and patted my knee. “Nate is such a slave driver. He’s got you working for Roland already?”
I said, “Shit no. I’d never work for Roland. I was helping Dana pull the source code together.”
Carol was pacing behind Margaret, her thumb and forefinger pressing against the bridge of her nose. She said, “You are such a fucking moron.”
Margaret left her hand on my knee and said, “What do you think of the MantaSoft code?”
I took a swig of beer and realized that I had stepped into a pile of shit. Jack had specifically told me not to mess up the deal with Bronte, and yet here I was discussing the quality of source code with Margaret. I sipped more beer, stalling.
Margaret continued. “I just ask because I want to know if I’m making the right decision selling to MantaSoft.”
I said, “Absolutely. The code is in great shape.”
Margaret took her hand off my knee and sipped her drink. “That’s not what I heard.”
“It definitely is because I fixed it today.”
Carol spun and glared at me. She said, “Don’t blame me when you get killed! This is not my fault!” She disappeared.
Margaret said, “You did? I heard it was beyond repair.”
“Who told you that?”
“I have my sources.”
My cell phone rang. It was Jael.
I said, “Sorry, I have to take this.”
Jael said, “You can see me now at the front entrance to the hotel.”
I stood up, and sure enough, there she was. A tall, trim figure in a gray cotton top and black jeans with a large black handbag. She wore a Borg-like Bluetooth headset, and I half-expected to see a red laser shooting out of it. I waved.
Jael said, “Don’t wave. I am following Dana. You follow me.” Then she hung up and left the hotel.
I said to Margaret, “I’ve got to go. See you soon.”
Margaret didn’t say anything. She was lost in thought as I left the lobby bar and followed Jael into the early-evening humidity.
thirty-nine
By the time I got to the lobby, Jael was across the street and turning down Dalton. I timed my run and scooted through the traffic. No cars honked, nobody complained. I was in Boston, where pedestrians might not get the right of way but also didn’t need to contend with jaywalking citations.
As I passed Bukowski Tavern, I wondered if Dana was retracing our walk back to the Mary Baker Eddy Library. I gave up on that idea when Jael, following Dana, took a left at the Sheraton Hotel and started working her way toward the shops at the Prudential Center. My phone rang as I was passing the huge concrete horses that guarded the entrance to P. F. Chang’s, ready to attack if General Gau came back for his chicken.
It was Jael. She said, “Do not try to catch up to me. Dana will see you.”
“Well, I’m not used to following people,” I said.
“That is obvious,” she said. “Keep your distance.”
“Where is she going?” I asked. But Jael had hung up.
Jael stopped at Huntington Ave in a crowd of people waiting for the Walk signal. Dana was in the crowd, but she was ignoring Jael, who was hiding in plain sight. I ducked into a Cold Stone ice cream place, thinking about the ice cream I’d bought for Dana a hundred years ago, back when I thought she was just a cute programmer. What was she doing?
I peeked out of the store and saw Dana and Jael crossing the street. Dana was walking quickly, pulling ahead. She stopped at the corner, looked around as if expecting to see someone, and then continued down the street into the South End. I was getting an idea of where we’d end up.
I crossed the street and walked down West Newton to the corner of St. Botolph. I knew where we were going now, and I called Jael.
“I’m thinking that I should hang back,” I said.
“That is unnecessary,” said Jael. “Dana has entered your house.”
“How did she
do that? The front door is locked.”
“She had a key.”
“How did she get a key?”
“That is unimportant now.”
I turned the corner at Follen Street. Jael was standing in front of my apartment with her back to the door. I took her cue and hugged the building to avoid being seen from my windows.
When I joined Jael on the front step, I said, “What’s she doing?”
Jael said, “There is no use speculating. We will know soon.”
I unlocked the street door and followed Jael up the stairs.
Jael was carrying only her large purse. I said, “Shouldn’t you have a gun?”
“It is unnecessary.”
We reached the top step, stopped in front of my door, and listened. My apartment was silent. I moved to the staircase that led to the roof and flattened myself against the wall. Jael stood in front of the door, her right hand resting on her handbag. She looked like she was waiting for a bus.
Jael motioned me closer and whispered in my ear. “I suspect an ambush,” Jael said. “We need to go in now.”
I whispered, “Wouldn’t we want to avoid entering an ambush? Why don’t we wait for her to come out?”
“If she is patient, we would be waiting for hours. If it were I, you might wait days. She has food, water, and a toilet. She can out-wait us. If we enter now, we will surprise her.”
I shrugged. “You’re the expert.”
Jael said, “Unlock the front door normally, as if you are coming home. Let me enter first.”
I took out my key, the only key on the USB drive keychain. It rattled as I pushed it into the lock and turned. I opened the door wide and Jael walked into the apartment, looking right and then left. I followed closely into the small hallway between the kitchenette and living room.
Dana came out of the office opposite my kitchen, the office where the amateur garrote assassin had hidden. She saw Jael. She gasped, and her right hand went behind her. She pulled out a small, boxy black gun, pointed it at Jael, and said, “Don’t move!”
Jael and I had completely different responses to the gun. Mine was to raise my hands up in the air and say, “Oh Jesus!” Jael’s was to step forward. The apartment was small and Jael covered the distance in two steps. When Jael was close enough, she grabbed Dana’s wrist behind the gun, pivoted, and drove Dana toward the front of the apartment. I got out of the way, dodging into the hallway as the women hurtled past.
When I looked back inside, Jael had disarmed and pinned Dana. The gun lay on the floor and Dana’s arm was bent back. Dana grunted and pulled on her arm, struggling to free it. She twisted her legs trying to get them under her, but Jael had a knee in Dana’s back. Dana’s left arm flailed back trying to get hold of Jael, but she only found air. Jael ground Dana’s face into the rug. While Dana made angry grunting sounds, Jael was silent. The thought This is so hot! wormed its way into my head. I pushed it down as I shut the door to the apartment.
Jael twisted Dana’s arm and said, “I will break it.” Dana winced and lay still.
Jael reached into her big purse with her free hand and produced white plastic zip ties. She slipped one over Dana’s wrist with a zipping sound. When Dana heard it, she tried to pull her hands under her and roll, but she was pinned. Jael grabbed the other wrist, with another zipping sound. With Dana’s wrists bound, Jael used another twist tie on Dana’s ankles, then a piece of tape over her mouth. What else did Jael have in that purse? It probably wasn’t mints.
Jael pulled Dana to her feet and hopped her over to the galley kitchen. She sat her on one of the barstools and used zip ties to fasten Dana’s hands to the chair behind her and Dana’s ankles to the chair’s footrest. Dana, resigned to this treatment, looked at me with cold eyes.
I said, “Well, what do we do now?”
Jael said, “We find out who this woman is working for. Where is your stove? I need to heat instruments.”
At that, Dana began a new round of muffled sounds and tugging at the plastic ties. She pulled on her arms and flailed with her legs, rocking the tall chair. Jael watched her and said, “She will injure herself.” Then she added another tie around Dana’s knees, pinning her legs together. The chair stopped rocking despite Dana’s struggles.
Jael went into the kitchen and turned on the stove. Then she rooted around in the drawers and came out with knives from the silverware tray.
“What are you going to do with those?” I asked.
“I’m going to heat them,” Jael said.
“Why don’t you just ask her what you want to know?”
Jael looked at me. “You may ask her. Find out who she is working for.”
I went and stood in front of Dana. Her T-shirt, stretched tightly across her chest with her arms behind her back, read, “Silly boys. Trucks are for girls.” I took the tape off Dana’s mouth.
Dana said, “Aloysius Tucker, you are in so much trouble. You untie me right now!”
Aloysius? Dana knew my first name. I never told her my first name, for obvious reasons. This was getting scarier and scarier. Who was this woman?
I said, “What were you doing here? How did you know my name?”
Dana said, “I wanted to make sure I could trust you.”
Jael emerged from the galley kitchen. She stood behind Dana and put another piece of tape over her mouth.
Jael said, “You are wasting time by allowing her to lie to you.”
I said, “How do you know she’s lying?”
“You spent the afternoon working on her computer, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Would she have allowed that if she didn’t trust you? She is lying. The instruments are almost ready. Ask her again who she is working for.” Jael pulled the tape off again with a ripping sound and Dana winced. The skin around her mouth was red.
I said, “Who are you working for?”
Dana said, “MantaSoft. You know that.”
“You broke in here for MantaSoft? You know, Jael’s right, I’m tired of you lying to me. For example, what the hell do you really do for a living? Because I’ve seen your work, and you are not a programmer.”
Dana pulled at her arms and said, “Of course I’m a programmer. Just because I’m not as good as you doesn’t mean I’m not a programmer.”
“You’re beyond not being as good as me. Watching you trying to program is like watching a monkey work a backhoe. I wrote all that code for you and you didn’t understand a line of it. Why did Roland bring you in? Who are you really working for?”
“Roland didn’t bring me in. Alice brought me in. Roland signed off.”
Jael came up and slapped the tape over Dana’s mouth again. She handed me a purse and said, “I found this in your office. It is hers. Look for identification.”
I took the purse into the front living room. Dana was trussed in the little hallway facing me. Behind her was the kitchenette where I had talked to Kevin, the office where someone had hidden to try to kill me, the bathroom, and the bedroom where I had slept with Margaret so long ago.
While I fumbled with the clasps on the purse, Jael began working. She waved a hot butter knife in front of Dana’s face and said, “One last time. Who are you working for?”
Dana said “MantaSoft” through the tape and began struggling harder. She watched the hot knife go behind her.
Jael said, “I’m going to burn you, unless you tell me. Who are you working for?”
Dana bucked and pulled on her ties; tears squirted out of her eyes and down her face as she tried to say “MantaSoft” again through the tape. Jael brought the knife down. Dana’s arms were pinned behind her. She screamed into the tape, her head thrown back.
I couldn’t stand watching this. It was horrible. I dumped Dana’s bag onto the floor and pawed through the pile. I found a brush, a little plastic box of Kleenex, Advil, a femini
ne product of some sort, a wad of receipts. Nothing that would stop this torture.
The bag felt heavy, so I felt around inside it and found a pocket. I opened it and pulled out Dana’s wallet. The wallet contained a Maryland driver’s license, some credit cards, a Starbucks card, and a picture of a fluffy dog that looked up at the camera with its head tilted to the right. I looked back at Dana, who wept and pulled at her ties.
“Jael, stop it!” I said.
“You still don’t understand. This woman would have killed you.”
Dana shook her head and looked at me with pleading eyes. She muffled, “No! No!” through her tape gag. Jael left her and went back into the kitchen. She came out with another hot butter knife.
“Again,” Jael said, “who do you work for?”
Dana wailed and shook her head. The knife disappeared behind Dana, and she screamed into the gag. I began scraping through the purse. There had to be something. Something heavy clunked in another pocket. I opened it and pulled out a clip of bullets that must fit Dana’s gun, and another small wallet.
The wallet contained an ID card with a picture of a younger Dana with cropped hair. She was looking grimly into the identification camera. I looked at the card and called to Jael.
“Stop it! Stop it! I know who she works for!”
I shoved the ID at Jael. Next to Dana’s grim picture were three letters: F-B-I.
forty
Jael looked at the ID, said “Interesting,” and went back into the kitchenette.
I pulled the tape off Dana’s mouth as she wept softly in the chair, her bound arms held limply behind her. I wanted to comfort her, but didn’t have the right.
Jael returned with a pair of scissors and cut the ties that held Dana’s knees and ankles. When she cut the ties that held Dana’s wrists, Dana whipped her arms forward to survey the burns. She stared at the sources of her pain in wonder. The skin was undamaged. She looked at Jael.
Jael said, “I used an ice cube. The body cannot tell the difference between extreme heat or extreme cold. It is a useful technique.”
“You bitch!” Dana screeched. She launched herself at Jael, trying to land a punch.