The Pandora Key

by Lynne Heitman

  “Is it the right computer?”

  She turned it over and checked the back of the laptop against the back of a business card Cyrus handed her. It took me a few seconds to realize where he’d gotten the serial number. I had read it to Kraft over my phone. There wasn’t much I knew that they didn’t.

  “The computer is fine,” Kraft said. “If there’s something wrong, it has to be the key.”

  Everyone turned, and now the spotlight was on me. “I dug the key out of Vladi’s grave. It can’t be the wrong key. It might be old or damaged, but it’s the right key.”

  Kraft started to bat that one back, but Harvey interrupted. “It requires a password.” The room went quiet. Now everyone was focused on him.

  Thorne walked over and gave Harvey his best commander’s stare. “What did you say?”

  “My ex-wife knew how to get into it. She and Roger Fratello believed the password would be enough. They did not understand that it required both the key and the password. She told me the password.” He took a breath and set his shoulders. “Let my partner and Mr. Kraft go, and I will give you what you need.”

  “Is he telling the truth?” Thorne looked at me, and so did Harvey, and I knew what was happening. Here was the chance he had spoken of. Here was the opportunity that I was supposed to take.

  Tendrils of panic made their way up from my gut and started to wrap themselves around my heart and my lungs. I didn’t know if what Harvey was claiming was true. I knew this. If I contradicted Harvey, Cyrus had no reason to keep either Harvey or me breathing. If I supported his story, it at least bought us some time.

  “Yes…he’s right. Rachel was supposed to call back with the password once she felt safe. She must have given it to him before she left. I didn’t know.”

  Thorne looked to Tatiana. “Is that possible?”

  She shrugged. “It could be configured that way.”

  Thorne knelt again in front of Harvey so they were eye-to-eye. “Give me the password.”

  “First, let them go.”

  “You know, I’ve learned a few things in my time about how to make people talk, a few interesting techniques.”

  “I am already a dying man, and I have learned to live with pain.”

  Thorne rose slowly and wandered over behind my chair. I felt his hands on my shoulders. “I’m not talking about physical pain.”

  “If you hurt her, you will never get the password. Never.”

  Harvey sounded less afraid than I felt. He was playing his last hand, and he was all in. The moment was both thrilling and devastatingly sad, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to feel.

  “You let them walk away, and I will give you the means to open the files. Whatever else is there, there is more than a billion dollars available to the one who gets there first.”

  Thorne didn’t move. Harvey kept going, more anxious this time. “I know of no cause that would not benefit from the infusion of a billion dollars in cash that is free and clear. No one knows about this money.”

  Again, the heavy silence. I didn’t think Thorne would let Kraft go, a situation that had its own implications, but it seemed he was considering some kind of deal.

  Tatiana broke the silence. “He’s lying.”

  Harvey looked stunned. He tried to stutter a response, but Tatiana rolled over him.

  “There’s nothing here that looks like money. No hidden files. No encrypted files. No account numbers or serial numbers or passwords. I looked for anything in English or Russian. There’s nothing like that on here.”

  Cyrus was crunching cough drops like mad, one after another. He probably wasn’t used to dealing with something as frustrating and mundane as computer problems. “But the serial number matched.”

  “I think someone must have swapped out the hard drive. The one that’s in there now is not even encryption hardware. It doesn’t need the key. There’s nothing on the drive except the Martyrs’ documents, and those were moved onto it a couple of days ago.”

  I looked at Kraft. “You swapped out the drive?” Drazen had said the files could not be removed from the drive without the key. He had said nothing about the drive being removed.

  “No. Fuck, no.” He squirmed to sit up straighter. “That can’t be right. Those files should be three and a half to four years old. It’s the key. It’s the damn key. If it’s been buried for four years with a decomposing body, it’s got to have gone bad.”

  We stared at each other, and Thorne stared at us, and Harvey just looked lost. Someone had pulled the stopper out of the floor, and we were all fighting to keep from swirling down the drain.

  Thorne turned to Harvey. “It was a noble effort, friend. As a soldier, I appreciate what you tried to do. But I don’t believe you.”

  Harvey seemed genuinely confused. He studied the floor as if he could read the answer there. “No. I am telling the truth. Please—”

  Thorne picked up the radio and called for Red. The eager soldier came quickly and stood, waiting for orders.

  “Red, start packing the gear. We’re going.” He looked at Tatiana and nodded in our direction. “Take them down to the basement.”

  I could see in the way they looked at each other what that meant. We were going down to the basement and never coming back up.

  “Wait.” Harvey tried to stand and almost pitched straight forward. Thorne pushed him back with one hand.

  Tatiana hadn’t geared back up since coming back from Staples. She did it now, slipping into her vest and throwing her rifle strap over her head. She swung the rifle around to free her hands, then she lifted Harvey out of his chair. As she carried him in her arms, she made a face. “You stink, old man.”

  I could hear Harvey wheezing all the way down the basement stairs, and I was afraid Tatiana would kill him and I would get down there and find his dead body.

  “Cyrus…” I tried to climb out of the chair, but Red pushed me back. “You’re talking about a billion dollars. Probably more.” I tried to look around Red so I could see Thorne. “Isn’t that worth a few more hours? No one would ever come looking for it. We can figure this out. Harvey is telling the truth. He never lies.”

  But the truth was, I didn’t know if he was lying or not. He was certainly clever enough to have made up the password story. Rachel was also clever enough to have kept one last secret for herself. It didn’t matter either way, because Thorne and Red were talking as if I didn’t exist.

  Tatiana took Kraft next, easily hoisting him over her shoulder and carrying him the way a fireman would. He spewed venom at her all the way down the stairs, using his best weapon—words.

  When she came for me, I fought her, at least as much as I could with my hands tied. I couldn’t stand not to at least make it hard for her. I fought her all the way down to the basement. At the bottom of the steps, she dropped me onto the concrete. With no hands or feet to break my fall, my hipbone and the side of my knee took the worst of it, hitting the concrete with blunt force. It hurt like hell, but at least I managed not to land on my head.

  Harvey was on the ground on his left side facing me. I hoped he hadn’t been dropped. The only evidence that he might have was that his glasses were somewhere beside his face. His breathing was level. His wheezing had stopped. He was calm, which meant he’d already given up. That pissed me off.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “I could not even do that right.”

  Tatiana was checking her weapon.

  “Don’t shoot us like this,” I said, trying any means of delay. “At least let us up on our knees. Let us go out with a little dignity.”

  All I heard was the sound of her cranking the rifle, getting ready to finish us off. I twisted around so I could look past her. When I rolled up to a sitting position, I saw something, or thought I did, in the dark corner behind her, something moving. “Come on, what do you care? What difference does it make how you kill us?”

  “Exactly. You’re going to hell just the same whether you’re lying on your back or up on your knees, so s
ay your last, and—”

  She dropped her rifle. Her eyes flew open. Both hands went to her throat, and even though her mouth was opened wide, no sound came out. I couldn’t see what was around her throat, but it was killing her, and she knew it. She tried to twist around, to shove her elbow into the midsection of her attacker. She tried to kick backward. With rising panic, she tried to grab the rifle hanging by the strap around her neck. She tried everything a dying woman would try to save her life, but her legs shuddered and twitched. It took a long time for her to die, and even though she had been on the cusp of killing me, it wasn’t easy to watch. She went limp and fell to the floor. The man who had garroted her came out of the shadows. With his finger to his lips, he signaled me to be quiet.

  “What…what is happening?” Harvey asked. “Who is there?”

  “Harvey,” I said. “Be quiet.”

  “What?”

  “Shut up, Harvey.”

  The attacker crouched next to the woman he’d just killed, pulling weapons and ammo from every pocket. Her radio crackled. Cyrus was calling to her.

  “Unit two, unit one, come in. Unit two, come in.” There was a short space for a response, then “Unit two?” Another pause, then “Tatiana, come in.” The radio went silent.

  Our savior continued digging through his victim’s gear and came out with a gas mask, and none too soon. I heard the door upstairs open, and Cyrus’s voice came floating down.

  “Tatiana?”

  After a pause, I heard the sound of a canister clattering down the steps and the door slamming shut. My eyes immediately began to water. I squeezed them shut and tried not to breathe in as the musty basement filled with gas. I heard things going on around me. I knew I had to get out, but I couldn’t think of anything except trying to keep that gas out of my lungs.

  Harvey was hacking and coughing and sounding as if he were dying. Someone cut my restraints. I felt a weapon and a mask in my hand and heard someone yelling at me to put the mask on Harvey and take him upstairs. I was so lost I needed someone to tell me what to do.

  I felt my way across the floor to Harvey and fit the mask over his face. I felt for Kraft where I thought he had been. I couldn’t find him, so I went back to Harvey. Without bothering to cut him loose, I pulled his arms over my head. With my back to him, I started to lift. My thigh muscles screamed, my hip felt as if it might pop right out of its socket, but I kept pressing and managed to stand up with him draped over my back. I staggered to where I thought the stairs might be, one hand in front, feeling my way. Halfway up the stairs, my foot caught on something. A body. It was either Red or Thorne. Two down. At least one left upstairs. I leaned one shoulder into the wall and pushed my way up, one step at a time. My hand finally reached the door. I pushed on it, and we fell through the doorway to the relief on the other side.

  The two of us lay there for a few seconds. I knew we weren’t alone in that house, but I couldn’t move. Except for my ears, every orifice in my head was leaking. My eyes were tearing, my nose was running, I was drooling and coughing. I pulled myself up, grabbed Harvey, and dragged him to a kitchen chair. Then I went straight to the sink, turned on the water, and splashed my face with handful after handful. I slid down to the floor and sat with my back against the cabinet, half hacking and half crying. If I’d had a third half, it would have been dying.

  It was the voices from the other room that got me moving. I pulled myself to my feet. The pistol was still in my waistband. The knife I’d used in the basement was nowhere to be found. I used kitchen cutlery to free Harvey’s hands and feet.

  “Should I take the mask off?”

  He nodded, so I did. I got him a damp dish towel and told him to wipe his face, then weaved my way back into the living room to see what was going on.

  Kraft was on the couch, hands and feet still tied. He looked like a big cat with his face in a throw pillow, trying, no doubt, to keep his eyes from dripping out of his head.

  Our anonymous rescuer was standing over Thorne, who was unconscious in a heap on the floor.

  “Is he dead?”

  He shook his head.

  I raised the weapon and took aim. “Put your hands up and turn around.”

  He didn’t say anything, but then he had a gas mask on.

  “Do it.”

  He did. I stepped forward and took the semiautomatic sticking out of his waistband. I popped out the mag, and it dropped to the floor. I tossed the empty pistol onto a chair. I searched him and took away everything he had scavenged off Tatiana’s body and threw it onto the chair, hoping he didn’t notice my clammy, sweaty palms. Then I took a step back. “Take off your mask.”

  He did that and turned around. He seemed familiar, though there was no reason he would. I had never seen his picture. No one had.

  “Mr. Hoffmeyer, I presume?”

  38

  IT WAS BEGINNING TO DAWN ON ME THAT BLAND WAS THE look of choice for spies, and Stephen Hoffmeyer, or whatever his name was, was no exception. He had on a white open-collared shirt, tan pants, and a well-used black leather jacket. Everything else about him was average. Sandy hair, blue eyes, average build. I didn’t know if I could pick him out of a lineup, and I was looking right at him. He did have a nice tan.

  “Stay cool,” he said. “I didn’t come here to do harm.”

  “What did you come here to do?”

  “You have something I need. I have something you need. I came to do business.”

  “Take off your jacket.”

  He shrugged the leather jacket from his shoulders and let it slide down his arms. In one smooth move, he caught it in his right hand and offered it to me.

  “Drop it on the floor, get down on your knees, and put your hands back on your head.”

  Harvey appeared in the doorway. He had made his way down the hall, using the kitchen chair as a walker.

  “What is this?” He looked, as I probably did, as if he’d been weeping for a week. “What is happening? Who is this man?”

  “This is Hoffmeyer.”

  “How do you know?” With one arm, I helped him to his wheelchair.

  “It’s the only person it could be. Isn’t that right, Kraft?”

  Kraft didn’t bother to answer. He had managed to get himself to a sitting position. I had no reason to untie him. For the moment, I had enough balls in the air.

  “Check this.” I picked up Hoffmeyer’s jacket and laid it across Harvey’s lap. Hoffmeyer didn’t move, but something told me he was humoring me, letting me keep him under control. I stepped back and positioned myself so I could watch both him and the doorway.

  Harvey pulled a long, flat wallet from the pile of leather and opened it. Without his glasses, he had to hold it at arm’s length to head it. “Joseph Hildebrandt of Tucson, Arizona.”

  “Where did you come from?” I asked him. “Don’t say Arizona.”

  “Check my bag.” He nodded to a black gym bag on the floor near the door.

  I went over and got it and put it on Harvey’s lap. “Take a look.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “Take out the Mylar envelope,” he said, “and open it.”

  Harvey reached in and pulled out a silver bag. It rustled and crinkled as he handled it. Then he opened it and pulled out a hard-drive unit that looked as if it would slide right into the computer Kraft had brought us.

  “That’s the lock,” he said. “All I need is the key.”

  Vladi’s laptop was still on the coffee table. It had been powered down and unplugged. Thorne or Red must have been packing it up to go.

  I looked at Hoffmeyer, still on his knees in the center of the room. “What happened to Red?”

  “Was he the second man down the stairs?”

  “Yeah, he must have been.”

  “I broke his neck.”

  If he was psychologically scarred by having done it, he hid it well. That made two dead in the basement—Tatiana and Red—and Cyrus, still breathing but not moving, next to Hoffmeyer. Dead bodies�
�spies…tear gas…How would we explain all this? I couldn’t think about it. I had to think about what was right in front of me.

  “Let me have the drive, Harvey.”

  He gave it to me, and I went to the couch and sat down. Kraft must have felt the shift. “Cut these goddamn things off of me.” He was fighting the cuffs, which only made it worse for him. “My eyes are killing me.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Hang on for just a few more minutes.”

  “Goddammit. You are such an amateur.”

  It was so tempting to reach over and smack him across the face, but it would have been bad form to do that to a man with his hands tied behind him.

  I had never swapped out a hard drive before, though I had watched Felix do it once. To get to it, I would have to take apart the laptop’s housing.

  “Harvey, I need you to go to your desk and get a—”

  “Phillips-head screwdriver?” Hoffmeyer was still down on his knees with his hands on his head. “I’ve got everything you need in my gear.”

  “Where’s your gear?”

  He pointed to a corner, where a black backpack was nestled in a basket of magazines. He must have tossed it there in the heat of the moment. Harvey had maneuvered his chair closer to the couch. I checked with him for his input. “He did save us,” he said. “In rather dramatic fashion.”

  He had also killed two people in rather dramatic fashion. Had he wanted us dead, though, he could have waited five more minutes, and Tatiana would have done the job for him.

  “Okay. Go ahead.”

  Hoffmeyer stood up and took a moment to shake out his left shoulder. He kept rotating it as he stepped over Thorne. He brought the pack over and dug around until he found something that looked like a manicure case. He unzipped it, and it turned out to be a case full of small tools, one of which was exactly the one I needed. He extracted it and handed it to me.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. What do you want to do about Cy?” Thorne had begun to stir.

  My nose and my eyes were still running, causing the scene to go blurry every few minutes. I used the sleeve of my shirt to dry my eyes.