The Pandora Key

by Lynne Heitman

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Think about it. A computer has something on it worth a billion dollars. Wouldn’t you encrypt it or protect it somehow, just in case someone boosted it? And whatever that protection was—the password or the code or the key—wouldn’t you be likely to keep that on you?”

  “Yes on both counts. So what?”

  I had a few pretzels. They were good and fresh. “This e-mail that accidentally fell out of Roger’s out-box when you signed on, it was to Rachel, and it was asking for the location of Vladi’s grave.”

  “Vladi, the dead Russian?”

  “Yep.”

  “What, you’re thinking the dead Russian still has this…this code or key or whatever it is on him?”

  “Well, it would have been more viable four years ago, I would think, when Roger actually intended to send the message.”

  “Hey,” he said. “Here’s what I want to know. How the hell is this guy’s account still active if he’s dead?”

  I thought about that. If it was a business account, it would have been paid for through Betelco. Since he’d been on the lam at the time he sent it, that wasn’t likely. “His wife,” I said, remembering the look on Susan Fratello’s face when I’d asked her if she would want to know if Roger were alive. “His wife might have kept it open all these years.”

  He smiled for the first time and pointed the longneck at me. “Grave robbing. I like it. A little creepy but a good angle. Too bad I’m not doing that story.” Then he shrugged. “But who gives a shit? Russians…obscene amounts of money. It’s been done.”

  “Was Vladi’s one of the computers you bought from the kid with the goat? Do you have the billion-dollar treasure map?”

  He sat back and stretched with his hands over his head. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  I did want to know. I wasn’t sure I needed to know, because I had no plans to dig up Vladi, not even for a billion dollars. But when I didn’t jump all over his idea, he got agitated.

  “You do, don’t you? Don’t you want to know if I have a computer worth a billion clams?”

  Kraft was a unique personality, to be sure. He was either flush with confidence to the point of overbearing arrogance or anxious and needy to the point of mewling. He didn’t seem afraid to be either.

  “Why? Are you interested in a trade?”

  “You told me you had information to give me on Blackthorne. I need to know what you have and where you got it.”

  “Yeah, I made that up.” I rolled up out of my tilt and pulled my notebook from my backpack. “I don’t have much. I heard something about them from another guy who is also scared to death of them.” I glanced up at Kraft. “Same as you, right? Isn’t that who has you peeking out from behind the curtains? Mr. Black and Mr. Thorne?”

  “Tony Blackmon is dead, Cyrus Thorne is running the show, and I have good reason to be careful.”

  Kraft stood up and started pacing around the room again. He forgot his beer, went back for it, looked in the mirror, then finally turned and sat sidesaddle with one foot on the floor and one dangling. “This guy you talked to, who is he? What’s his name?”

  “He was a reporter. He said he dug too deep into Blackthorne. Now he’s a—” Kraft was about to fall off his perch waiting for my answer. “Now he’s not.”

  “What’s his name? I’ll bet I’ve already talked to him.”

  Max Kraft was a tricky guy, but Lyle had made it pretty clear he wanted nothing to do with Blackthorne. It wasn’t for me to be throwing his name around. “All I can tell you is he was doing a story on the 809 hijacking. Somehow he ran into Blackthorne. He told me to steer clear of them. I’m trying to take his advice.”

  He wet his lips. “I can tell you what he wouldn’t.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I want to talk to him. I want his name.”

  “I won’t give it to you.”

  “If he dropped the story, he doesn’t deserve your protection.” He took another swig of beer. Judging from the face he made, either the beer was flat, or he had a deep and genuine contempt for Lyle. “No journalist worth his ink would or should ever drop a story like this. People need to know. But it’s his loss. This is Pulitzer time, baby. You watch. My story will blow the doors off.”

  “Good for you.” I stood.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t need a billion dollars, if it even exists. I’m not giving you the name of my Blackthorne source. But I do have this.” I pulled out the 809 manifest and held it up. “The names and contacts of most of those people from Salanna 809 are on here. I’m violating all kinds of confidences by giving it to you, and I’m taking your word on the video, but I’ll still make the trade.”

  He opened his hand, looked at the flash drive, and tossed it over. I flipped the manifest onto the bed. Then I thought of one more question. “Do you know why Blackthorne would be tailing Rachel?”

  He had been reaching for the manifest. He stopped. “Rachel, the one who got the message from my computer?”

  “Well, technically, Roger’s computer, but yes. They tried to scoop her up last night. We just got away, and they weren’t nice.” I brushed away my bangs to show him my forehead. “What would they want with her?”

  “Shit.” He went back over to the window and peeked out. “Blackthorne is trying to kill me. They’ve been chasing me all over the world trying to get to me, and you’re just telling me this?”

  “Why is Blackthorne trying to kill you?”

  “Because my story is going to blow—”

  “Blow the doors off. You told me, but you won’t tell me why. It’s a little vague for me to really connect with. What I heard is that it’s a private military firm out of Virginia that contracts with the U.S. government and others to provide services up to and including combat. Also intelligence.”

  “That’s how it started, and that’s what it looks like, but that’s not what it is now. Blackthorne is the CIA on steroids. What the CIA would like to be if it weren’t for the Constitution and government oversight and diplomacy and international laws and political infighting and lots of ass-covering.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “All you need to know is they don’t want anyone to read what I’m writing, and the only reason they would be tailing her would be to get to me.”

  My backpack was getting heavy, so I sat down on the edge of the bed again to try to think that through. Something about it didn’t work. “If you’re the only thing that connects Rachel to Blackthorne, how would they have known about her? Until an hour ago, neither one of us knew who you were.”

  “The e-mail. That goddamn e-mail that I didn’t even send.” He was starting to move around the room with purpose now, collecting his dirty clothes from the floor and throwing them into a canvas bag. “I told you I was using translators? I had one who found out Thorne was looking for me. He copied a bunch of my files and sold them to him behind my back. That has to be it.” He tossed his kit bag into the larger canvas bag. “But it doesn’t matter. If they know about her, then they know about you, and if they know you’re in Paris, then I’m fucked.”

  Interesting wording. It was exactly what Lyle had said. So far, everyone I knew who was connected to Blackthorne was fucked. But I had to get back to an earlier point. “Did you just say that Thorne had copies of some of your files?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

  I pulled the USB drive from my pocket. “From before or after you erased Rachel’s video?”

  “I don’t know. I guess…uh…” He leaned over to stuff one of the hotel’s fresh white towels into his bag, which was the only reason the round that crashed through the window, twitched the curtains, and flew past my ear missed his head and lodged instead in the cheap hotel wall behind him.

  22

  MAX KRAFT WAS OBVIOUSLY USED TO BEING SHOT AT. HE hit the deck loudly and promptly.

  “Motherfucker.”

  I was rig
ht behind him. Another round came through the window and punched through the drywall, this time around bed height. The window must have been shatter-proof, because it popped with the sound of each shot but didn’t break. With the heavy curtains drawn, whoever was out there had to have been firing blind, which was to our advantage.

  I reached instinctively for my Glock, which wasn’t there. I hadn’t even tried to bring a firearm through French customs. Kraft apparently hadn’t had the same issues. He was holding what looked like some kind of a compact Beretta, maybe nine-millimeter.

  “Can you shoot that?”

  “I can shoot.”

  “How many rounds do you have?”

  “Two clips,” he said. “Ten each. You know, don’t you, that that’s the only way out.” He pointed at the front door. The booming quality of his voice came out under stress, even when he was whispering. “I can’t believe you brought these people.”

  “I’m not the one in trouble with Blackthorne, so be quiet and let me think.” I pulled out my phone, but the phone in the room rang before I could dial. I picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “We’re not interested in you.” It was a man’s voice, soft and a little seductive. I looked at Kraft, who seemed alarmed that I was taking calls.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “You can come out alone. Leave the reporter inside. If there are weapons in the room, bring them out with your hands in the air.”

  “Uh-huh. Then what happens?”

  “You can walk away. We’ll take it from there. I’ll hold fire for five minutes.”

  I checked my watch and marked the time. “Can I confer with my colleague and call you back?”

  “You have five minutes. If you don’t come out, we’ll come in.”

  The line went dead, and he didn’t leave his number. I had to count that as a no. I scrolled to the number I had preprogrammed into my cell and dialed it. As it was connecting, I looked at Kraft. “Get ready. We’re leaving right now. I’d stay low if I were you.”

  “Leaving? What? Who was that?” To his credit, he didn’t just ask questions. He started moving around in a low crabwalk and grabbing his stuff while he asked questions. “What’s going on?”

  I was busy with another phone call. “They’re here,” I said when Frank picked up. “Are you sure you can do this?”

  “I lived through a hijacking. This is nothing.”

  “Good.” I moved on my belly to the wall Kraft’s room shared with the next. I stood up long enough to grab the end of the dresser and swing it away from the wall and toward the door, the direction that would provide the most cover, at least as much as we would get in that flimsy room. I found a good spot low on the wall and knocked on it quietly. “Right here,” I said into the phone.

  “Stand back,” he said, and hung up.

  The second I clapped my phone shut, the banging erupted, and it was loud. Kraft stared at the wall. He was still staring when the sight of the ax blade coming through the wallpaper knocked him backward into a graceless sprawl. “Holy mother of God. They’re coming through the fucking walls?”

  “He’s with me,” I said. “I lied about coming alone. Give me your jacket.”

  “What?”

  Kraft had on a lightweight olive-green jacket, the top half of the running suit he was wearing. “Give it to me, now.”

  He unzipped it and pulled it off. I put it on, then reached into my backpack for my Red Sox cap. By the time I had it on, Frank had broken through, making a passable hole at the base of the wall. When the banging stopped, his face appeared through the drywall dust, then his hand. I put my backpack in it, and he pulled it through by the straps. Kraft still hadn’t moved. I grabbed his big canvas bag and shoved it through, but when I reached for his laptop case, he wouldn’t let it go.

  “Give it to me, Kraft.”

  “No.”

  It wasn’t a big hole. I was pretty sure I could squeeze through, but Kraft was stouter than I was, and it would be a tight fit for him, even without a laptop clutched to his chest. “Then hand it through to Frank.”

  “Who’s Frank?”

  “A concerned citizen who wanted to help.” Had insisted on helping, in fact. He had overheard me asking Tim about Kraft and then followed me out to the curb. He had wanted to meet Kraft and set the record straight on Salanna 809 and Hoffmeyer. He was about to get his chance. On the way over, he’d told me he was a volunteer firefighter back in Norfolk, and we had formed a plan in case there was trouble.

  “Come on,” Frank said. “What the hell’s going on in there? Get your ass moving, Kraft.”

  Kraft looked at me, and he looked at the front door. Then he crawled to the opening.

  “Give me your gun,” I said. He handed it over, then, still holding his computer, dove through headfirst. Frank must have grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled, because Kraft’s top half disappeared into the wall. Then he got jammed.

  “Dammit, Kraft, are you willing to die for what’s on that laptop?”

  “Yes, frankly, I am.”

  “I’m not.” I reached up and grabbed the case with both hands. I had the better angle and could brace my foot against the wall. He was breathing hard, so I waited for him to inhale and gave it a big yank. When it came loose, I fell flat on my back with the case in my arms. But I knew Kraft had slipped through. I could hear him yowling.

  Sounds coming from just outside the front door told me they were setting up to come in. I checked my watch. Ninety seconds. That’s when I noticed the sirens, the wailing kind that you hear in Europe when the police are on the way. Frank might have called them, or someone might have summoned them when they heard the shots. Either way, it was probably a good development for us.

  I spun around, shoved the laptop through the hole, and followed it. From inside the neighboring room, I reached back through the opening, grabbed the leg of the dresser, and pulled. It was not a lightweight piece of furniture—I had to struggle to move it—but I knew it would cover the hole. It wouldn’t fool a professional army for long, but it might give us the edge we needed.

  I stood up and wiped the drywall dust from my eyes. I looked for Frank and Kraft, but they were already through a door that led to still another room. I hadn’t even known the room adjoining Kraft’s was a connector. Frank had worked it all out on his own. I followed them through, Frank closed that door behind me and locked it. That put us another room removed from our pursuers.

  The sirens were getting loud. If we didn’t want to get picked up, we had to move fast. I started toward the front window to check the scene, but Frank grabbed my arm.

  “Back here.” He led me to the bathroom. I joined him there in time to see Kraft disappear through a window above the toilet seat.

  “This one has a window?”

  He smiled. “Deluxe suite.”

  “Cool.”

  Frank climbed up onto the toilet seat and dove out after Kraft. I was right behind him. I pushed my backpack through and jumped out after it. When I hit the pavement six feet below, Frank was across the alley, banging on an old and rusty slab of a back door to what looked and smelled like a restaurant.

  The sirens were upon us now. I expected police cars to come barreling up each end of the alley any second. It was hard to talk and hard to hear and harder to think. Frank and I decided to split up. We shook hands quickly as Kraft looked on, stunned, confused, and angry. Frank would take Kraft. I would be the decoy.

  Shouting came from inside the hotel and then what sounded like gunfire. Kraft took off, but Frank tracked him down, grabbed him by the arm, and pulled him back to the iron door. Frank stared at it as if it might open magically for him. He was about to bang on it again when it did. The big door swung out wide enough to let the two of them slip inside. Before it closed, a man with a chef’s hat stuck his head out and looked up and down the alley. Frank had turned out to be a very resourceful guy to have on my side.

  I heard a police car coming from one end of the alley, so
I took off in the other direction. I covered the half-block easily to the street, made a left turn away from the hotel, and ran almost directly into a woman standing on the sidewalk. Something about her was familiar. She had on a light raincoat. She was the woman Frank had spotted at the reunion. Without thinking about it, I turned and headed the other way, directly into the path of a van that veered up on the sidewalk in front of me.

  It screeched to a stop. The side door cracked open, and at least four men came rushing out like a black tide. There was a lot of yelling in French and heavy boots on the ground and the sound of gear moving. Also the sound of weaponry—metal against metal. When the assault rifles came out, I dropped my backpack and threw my hands in the air. Someone came up from behind and grabbed my arms. Someone else grabbed my feet, and then I was flat on my belly on the wet ground with my hands behind me, wrists cuffed, and a boot on my neck.

  From my vantage point, I could see the end of the street. There was a lot going on and a lot of people racing around. I looked for the woman in the light raincoat. She was gone.

  23

  A POLICE LIEUTENANT IN BOSTON, WHO HATED ME ANYWAY, once threw me in a holding cell, basically because I ticked him off. My first time behind bars had been a pretty frightening experience, mainly because I wasn’t in there alone. The second was in California, where the highway patrol picked me up on a warrant for check kiting, a charge that turned out to be totally false and a complete misunderstanding. The West Coast lockup was nicer, as were the officers. In neither case was I locked up for more than twenty-four hours, but it made being in jail not an entirely new experience for me. What was new was being tossed into a French jail.

  The guys who had grabbed me were some kind of flying SWAT team. Once they had pulled me up from the wet ground, I had seen Gendarmerie written across their backs. Someone had heard the shots in the hotel and called the police. They’d spotted me running away, and they’d caught me with Frank’s gun in my pocket. I didn’t know much French, but I knew that was going to be a big problem.