by Andrew Grant
I stood, too, dug the stick out of my pocket, and handed it to him. He held it up at eye level for a moment, as if the virus it contained was biological rather than electronic and the light would reveal lethal microbes swimming around inside. Then he nodded and turned toward the door. But he stopped again as soon as he touched the handle.
“Actually, I have a favor to ask.” He turned back to face me. “But please, feel free to say no. This is a genuine, bona fide, no-strings-attached request. Me to you, Marc. Your answer won’t affect how well your wife’s problem gets handled, or anything else.”
“What is it?”
“Here’s the situation. My team—not Peever’s—is within touching distance of putting the whole AmeriTel investigation to bed. There’s only one more task to complete. With good luck and a fair wind, we’ll be done with it before breakfast, tomorrow. But this thing? It’s a little specialized. And it’s something that’s right down your alley. So it occurred to me, maybe you’d help us?”
“I don’t know. What would I have to do?”
“Not much. The job’s pretty simple. We have a thing—I can’t remember the name of it—but it’s a little electronic gizmo. You’d know it if you saw it. Anyway, we need to plug it into the ARGUS node. Wait for a light to go green. And unplug it again.”
“Why?”
“We’ve confirmed the node as the insertion point of the virus. But we don’t know who the guy on the ground was. This gadget will collect the information we need to cross reference with the list of legitimate users and narrow down our pool of suspects. And because it’s a computer system and you’re a computer guy, and it’s in AmeriTel’s office and you used to work there, I’d be stupid not to ask.”
“This has to happen in the morning?”
“It doesn’t have to. But Sunday morning is generally the quietest time to be at an office. I don’t want to be tripping over people while we’re there. Why? Is there a reason not to do it then?”
“No. As long as I can be on the road by eleven. I’m meeting Carolyn. We still have a few fences to mend.”
“Eleven? No problem.” McKenna nodded to me. “I have a good feeling about this, Marc. Sleep well. I’ll pick you up at five.”
——
I GUESS THERE WAS STILL a part of me that was prepared to help a guy do the right thing. And another part that believed in quid pro quo. McKenna had gone out on a limb for me enough times. But the biggest part was the one that was gambling on Carolyn’s reaction, when she heard how connected I’d become to the guys who’d be keeping her safe.
If she agreed to stay.
Sunday. Early morning.
I’D JUST FINISHED SHAVING WHEN MCKENNA KNOCKED ON MY door at a couple of minutes shy of five am. He was wearing a plain gray coverall, stiff, with sharp creases in the arms and legs.
“Here.” He handed me another one, still in its packet. “Slip this on. We’re being mainframe installation contractors today. Should be right down your alley.”
I took the coverall and grunted, which was all the communication I could muster at that hour of the morning.
“I doubted it would fit.” He watched me struggle to fasten the buttons. “They only come in army sizes. Too big, or too small. Still, it’s more convincing than jeans.”
MCKENNA REACHED THE PARKING LOT first and nodded toward his white van.
“You’re riding shotgun, next to me.”
Two more agents were in the back. The woman from the Mercedes, whose nails were now violet, and a guy from one of the other cars. His hair was cropped a touch too neatly for his coveralls, and his shave was a little too smooth, reminding me of the undercover cops who used to show up at the bars near my old college campus. I smiled, and nodded a greeting as I belted myself in. Then McKenna fired up the engine and pulled away, taking the entrance lane because it was closer than the exit.
No one spoke until AmeriTel’s roof was visible in the distance, then a question popped into my head.
“How are we going to get inside? And move around? There are security doors between every work zone, and you need special swipe cards to get through. You weren’t relying on mine, were you? I don’t have it with me. I had to turn it in, when I was fired. It wasn’t authorized for the ARGUS node room. And anyway, it’ll be deactivated by now.”
McKenna pulled four plain white plastic cards from his pocket and fanned them out for us to each take one, then slid his own away again. “They don’t have fancy logos. But don’t let that fool you. They’ll get us through any door in the place. Guaranteed.”
“Where did you get them from? A sales guy tried to copy his once—so he could sneak his girlfriend in on weekends—but he was told it was impossible.”
“Marc, do we look like sales guys?” McKenna turned in through AmeriTel’s gates. “You really don’t know who you’re dealing with, do you?”
We looped around the back of the building, and I saw the exuberant pink Cadillac exiled in its usual spot.
“Look.” I pointed to it. “That’s good news. The security guard who drives it? I know him. He’ll be asleep right now. In Reception. If we go in the side, through the engineers’ entrance, he’ll never see us.”
“Good to know.” McKenna nodded. “Anything else?”
“Yes. Park over there. The space that’s straight in front of us now. It was my usual place. It’ll bring us luck.”
McKenna gave me a sideways look, but he did what I asked and then turned to the agents behind us. The woman was sipping a coffee she’d produced from somewhere, and the guy was polishing a pair of mirrored Aviators.
“Everything looks quiet, so I want you two to stay here for now. Keep your eyes and ears open. Marc and I will go in. Marc? Are you ready?”
I nodded, then we got out and hurried toward the side entrance. It made sense to me to be in the open for as little time as possible, but McKenna took my arm and slowed me down.
“Do you always walk this fast, Marc? Relax. You’re just doing your job. It’s boring. You’d rather be home, in bed, but you can’t be. So you’re at least going to milk the overtime. Get the idea? We can’t control whether anyone sees us. But if they do, we want them to think, Oh, look at those IT guys. They’re here again. Not, Wow, look at those really suspicious uptight guys who are obviously pretending to be IT contractors. I better call 911.”
I listened, and I tried to do what he told me. Moving slowly was like torture, but we did reach the entrance without incident. The access card he’d given me worked fine, and it was a relief to hear the door click back into place behind me. From there it was plain sailing—across the engineers’ area, up a flight of stairs, and along a corridor all the way to an innocuous-looking, unmarked wooden door at the far end of the building.
“Is this it?” McKenna asked.
I nodded.
“OK, then.” He swiped his card. “In we go. I was expecting something a little more impressive for the money, is all.”
McKenna was already disappointed with the outside of the node room so there was little scope for his face to fall further when he saw the inside. It was really a closet rather than a room—six feet by six feet, pale green paint, scuff marks on the walls near the door frame—and there was no furniture or fittings other than a pair of standard equipment cabinets and a heavy-duty air-conditioning vent in the ceiling.
McKenna pulled the door closed and produced a black box about the size of a cigarette packet from his pocket. It had a USB plug protruding from one side, and a label with two lines of printed characters stuck to the underneath. I’d never seen anything like it before.
“I know we have to plug this in. But where? Does it even matter?”
“In there.” I pointed to the right-hand cabinet. The glass in the door was frosted, but if you looked closely you could see the space above the middle shelf was much taller than the others. A monitor and keyboard sat there, and a USB port was visible in the piece of equipment below it. “See? That’s the interface.”
&nbs
p; “Well spotted.” McKenna pulled the handle on the cabinet door.
It didn’t move.
“What now?” He looked at me. “Can we break in?”
“Probably. But we might not have to. Give me a second.”
I reached up to the top of the cabinet, slid my fingers across to the side, and sure enough I felt them brush against something small and loose. I took it down and showed McKenna.
“A key? You’re kidding me. This place is supposed to be secure.”
“It doesn’t surprise me.” I shrugged. “You wouldn’t believe what you come across in secure buildings. I had a government contract once where I had to wait six months to get clearance for one particular site. I turned up, and walked straight in. No lock on the door at all. But when I went to the kitchen to get a coffee, the fridge was locked up tighter than Fort Knox. It’s just how people are.”
“Ridiculous.” He worked the lock and opened the cabinet.
“Go ahead.” I passed him the box.
Very gingerly he lined up the plug and socket and pushed. It slid easily into place. And nothing happened.
“What now? Is it broken? Or did I do it wrong?”
“Neither. I think I know what the problem is. With systems like this the USB ports look normal, but you often have to activate them before you can use them. It’s a security thing, to stop unauthorized people plugging stuff in. That’ll be what that writing is, on the bottom of the device. The user name and password. Let me see?”
McKenna disconnected the box and passed it to me. I switched on the monitor, keyed in the details, and within a few seconds I was logged on. The procedure was the same as with any of the dozens—hundreds?—of systems I interrogated every year. But this was no ordinary network. This was ARGUS. The electronic equivalent of the all-seeing, hundred-eyed giant. It constantly monitors every detail of every kind of communication between every citizen in this country and beyond. And it had given me administrator-level access. The IT geek in me was drooling at the possibilities, but McKenna was watching. So, reluctantly, I had to restrict myself to the couple of minutes’ searching it took me to find the option to enable the USB port.
“OK.” I handed the box back. “Try it now.”
McKenna plugged the box back in. This time, a little light on its top surface glowed red.
“Marc, you’re a genius. All we’ve got to do now is wait for the green light. Literally.”
——
IT WASN’T UNTIL MCKENNA’S words had died away that the full weirdness of the situation hit me. Locked in that small space with nothing to distract me and only the red light to stare at—on a piece of IT equipment I’d never heard of, attached to a top-secret government database I should never have had access to—I was close to walking away and telling McKenna to unplug the thing himself. Another thirty seconds, and I might have done that. But then the light changed to green. It took a few more keystrokes to close the USB port down, and we were finally free to get out of there.
McKenna tucked the box safely into his coverall pocket and gestured for me to lead the way as we reversed our path from earlier. The upper floor was still deserted, and my thoughts had run ahead of me by the time we reached the door to the engineers’ area. The prospect of seeing Carolyn was foremost in my mind so I swiped the access card and pushed the door open without thinking to peep through the observation window first. I took a step inside. And saw the security guard. He was on the other side of the room, stretching up to touch a shiny metal fob against a small circular pad on the wall. Instinctively I started to turn, but McKenna had read my mind and he took a firm hold of my arm.
“No,” he breathed into my ear. “He’ll see, and that’d be way more suspicious. If word spreads, the inside man will disappear. We’ll never catch him. You’ll have to bluff this out.”
I was about to object when the guard saw us and waddled across in our direction.
“Pete!” I tried not to make it obvious I was squinting at his name badge. “How’s it going? Weekends again? You and me—we always draw the short straw.”
“I’m good, thanks, Mr. Bowman. And I have no problem with weekends. Less work. More pay. What’s not to like? I’m pulling a double today.”
“You’ve got a point, Pete. More pay’s never a bad thing. But look, I’ve got to dash. These guys I’m with have got another job to get to.”
——
I DON’T THINK I breathed again until we reached the parking lot, and I was just turning to ask McKenna if he thought we’d pulled it off when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. It was the other two agents, walking down the path toward us.
“I beeped them.” McKenna responded to the question on my face. “In case we had any trouble with that security guy.”
“You doubted my bluffing skills?” I was still buzzing a little from the encounter.
“Maybe. At first. But not any longer. You’re a natural.”
I watched as his guys strolled closer, wondering if that’s how McKenna and I had appeared in our matching outfits, when I noticed the others’ coveralls weren’t quite the same as ours. They looked older and scruffier, like they’d been worn before. And there was a logo on their chests, while ours were plain.
And then I knew.
Look at those IT guys. They’re here again.
I’d seen that logo before. On Monday, when I was leaving the building after being fired. Two unfamiliar contractors had been walking in, carrying a degausser. I’d assumed they’d been summoned to clean up my old machines. But could McKenna have picked the exact same uniforms for our cover, today? There was no way I’d buy that as a coincidence. Which meant it must have been McKenna’s guys on Monday, sneaking in to remove the virus.
Which meant McKenna was working for whoever had created it.
And then another one-two combination landed. Carolyn’s protection was in McKenna’s hands. And McKenna knew she’d found out about the virus.
Both because of me.
I’d trusted him with one, and told him the other.
Sunday. Mid-morning.
A WEEK EARLIER, I WOULDN’T HAVE KNOWN WHAT IT WAS. I still couldn’t tell you the brand. Or model. Or what caliber of bullet it fired. But by then, I at least recognized a gun barrel when one was jammed against my neck.
My fingertips froze, an inch from the van’s scuffed plastic door lever. McKenna completed the turn through AmeriTel’s fancy gate, then hit the gas. I drew my hand back onto my lap. My chance to jump out and run back to the safety of the building had gone.
No one spoke for the rest of the journey, but inside my head I was cursing myself. These guys weren’t Homeland Security agents. Peeper’s guys were. And it wasn’t like I’d been kidnapped and locked in a hidden basement. Peever had been in my home. I had his phone number. I’d been two feet away from him yesterday, hiding in the kitchen at the supermarket. But instead of throwing myself on his mercy, I’d run from him. And then set that stupid test. So what if he’d tracked the cell phone to Valhalla train station? All that proved was he had Homeland Security’s resources behind him. As an agent—and only an agent—would. My reasoning had been completely back to front.
I was an idiot.
Or was I? McKenna had been polite. Helpful. He’d kept rescuing me. Sharing information. Making me feel valued. That’s how he’d dug the trap. But I hadn’t walked into it on my own. Peever had tripped me, with his macho bullshit. He never missed a chance to push me around, or put me down, or try to throw me in prison for something I hadn’t done. He was an asshole. And if he’d kept his word and met me at the hotel, the mess would be swept up by now and Carolyn would be safe.
I’D ASSUMED WE’D HEAD BACK to the hotel, but it soon became obvious we were making for my house. My stomach turned over at the thought of the body I’d left in my bathroom, the last time I was there. I was still feeling queasy when we turned into my street and I saw my driveway was now sealed off with a lone, drooping strand of police tape.
“Come
on, Marc.” McKenna pulled over to the curb and opened his door. “Time to get out.”
I climbed slowly down onto the sidewalk and was surprised when the van pulled away and continued down the street.
“Where are they going?”
“They have other things to do.” McKenna lifted the police tape and gestured for me to duck underneath. “It’s just the two of us now.”
I followed him down my driveway and saw that my Jaguar was still there, with remnants of gray powder around the door handles, the trunk, and over most of the interior. The fragments of broken license plate light were gone. And beyond the car, more police tape had been stuck across my front door, zigzagging its way from bottom to top.
“Have you got your keys?” McKenna asked.
“Only Carolyn’s.” I dug into my pocket and handed them over. “We’ll have to go around the back.”
MCKENNA UNLOCKED THE DOOR, pushed it open, and ushered me into my kitchen.
“The hiding place.” He stayed by the doorway. “Where you put the memory stick. Show me, please.”
“Here.” I stopped next to the loose section of counter. “This piece lifts up. The stick was underneath.”
“Show me.”
I pried the moveable part up about twelve inches, hinging the rear edge of the slab against the wall, and McKenna took a step forward so he could see the space underneath.
“Perfect.” He handed me the black box we’d used in the node room at AmeriTel. “Take this. Put it in. Then lower the countertop, but don’t let it go down all the way. Make sure it stays wedged up a little. I want anyone searching the room to see it. Don’t make it too obvious, though. I don’t want a neon sign pointing to it.”
I did what McKenna asked, then turned to face him.
“Thank you, Marc. Nicely done. Now please join me in the study.”
“Why?”
“We have some writing to do.”
I’D SAT AT MY DESK a thousand times, but always to use my computer. Not a pen and paper. And never with a gun trained on me.