by Eden Sharp
I felt like running far away and not looking back. I sat on the edge of the bath and stared at myself in the mirror. Everything had changed and I no longer had a home to go to.
I had to call in at my locker so decided I’d grab a bottle of Jack along with my stashed hooker gear on the way back to the hotel to ensure I got a good night’s sleep. In the light of day, everything would seem so much better. I was counting on Dinah Washington being right.
When I came out, Charlie had opened a bottle of wine. I ignored it and checked the couch for my purse while making my excuses and getting anxious about getting the hell out of there. Charlie had the ability to make everything feel completely natural and have me flustered and ill at ease simultaneously. He handed me my purse from the table.
‘See you Monday for the big day,’ he said.
42
John Knox
Knox heard his phone chirp and reached over to the nightstand to retrieve it. He tapped on the lamp and squinted at the screen to see a text from McGlynn.
I called it in so you don’t need to. Called in what exactly? That she was somehow involved with Lau? And who was surveiling her if not the FBI? Did they really believe she was involved? Was she? Was keeping quiet about what he’d seen the same as lying to the FBI? What had he seen? Had he now condemned himself to a prison sentence when all he wanted was a shot at a new career?
He turned off the lamp, rolled back over on to his side and tried to settle his mind and get some sleep. He sat back up and switched on the light. A line played over and over in is head. I need to check up on an old friend I’m trying to help out and I have to go buy a new laptop. What the hell? That had been days before the official start to all of this.
He ran through the timeline in his head. McGlynn had stayed the night at his apartment. A first. Then she’d supposedly had a call from Paul Harding which had set events in motion. But had she been lying all along? Had the whole thing been in play before then? Who did he trust more? McGlynn or his old task force commander, a man he admired? Harding had given him a new and specific task. Keep McGlynn out of trouble. But what if it was too late? Had always been too late? Shouldn’t he be putting in a call to Harding right now?
Something else McGlynn had said stuck in his mind. Actions before words. Hadn’t her actions up until now been pretty damning? Avoiding him. Not telling him what was going on. Spending a lot of time with Lau even though she was just meant to be picking him up and dropping him off at the FBI meets. The way she looked at Lau showed a real connection. Then there was the accessing of a computer at Sytectronic’s headquarters and lying to the FBI.
The Feds suspected she’d tipped off a member of the Infinite 9. They actively suspected her of being part of the group. What if they had let her have access to the computers at Sytectronic just to see if she would incriminate herself? And what were the Feds doing there anyway?
Why had Harding asked him to attend with them at the last minute? Were his loyalties being evaluated? McGlynn’s reaction to the two new guys from the Department of Defense had been extreme. Had they been sent by Harding to keep an eye on proceedings because he was worried that things might be going south and he was not getting enough feedback? After all, he was only hearing a one-sided story from McGlynn.
Maybe he should have been calling in his own reports. He thought about the time difference in Maryland. They were three hours behind. A little after nine. Too late? Probably not. So why was he so reluctant to report on McGlynn? Because he so badly wanted the job? Because of the sex? Because deep down he trusted her? Did he? He hadn’t before and yet it had turned out she’d been telling the truth. And she’d promised him there would be no more hacking and she’d keep things legal. But this time it felt different. Lau was in the mix. Was he being dropped because of Lau?
Something nagging deep in his gut told him now was still not quite the time to pull the trigger. He’d wanted this shot at gaining his private investigator’s license to work, so it was time to ramp up his own private investigation. McGlynn wanted trust. He wanted the truth. Time to see what answers she gave to some telling questions, then he’d decide.
Saturday May 20th
Angela McGlynn
I woke up hangover-free having chugged a good few ounces of water in the middle of the night. I didn’t feel too bad all things considered. Maybe Dinah Washington was some kind of prophet.
I was brushing my teeth when my cell rang and I jumped, poking my gums hard with the toothbrush. It hurt. I wondered what kicks Chair Man got out of it. I checked the screen. Lucy. My chest went tight.
‘Hi,’ I said. Willing her not to say anything I might not want to hear.
‘I need to talk to you,’ she said. ‘Same place as before,’ then she hung up.
Meeting an outreach worker in an area notorious for street prostitution in my hooker outfit allowed me to blend in but I seriously hoped Lucy wasn’t going to be in any line of fire.
I waited while a couple of girls picked up provisions from the project team’s van which distributed bags containing condoms, bottles of water, anti-bacterial wipes and leaflets about useful services. There was no one with eyes on either of us as far as I could see but I couldn’t exclude anyone looking out at us from surrounding buildings.
I strolled over and Lucy motioned for me to head over to the van. I caught up to her while she sorted through things inside. She reached for a slightly bigger bag from the back and placed it just inside the back door.
‘That one’s for you. It was dropped off by a friend,’ she said.
I knew it was the tricked out laptop I’d asked Karim to supply and was angry with myself for not cluing him in that my friends were vulnerable. She left it where it was. Didn’t hand it over. I knew something else was wrong.
‘Chrissie checked herself out,’ she said. ‘One of the girls told me she’s back with Lunnun. You did what you could.’
What I’d done was potentially sentence her to death. Two weeks of getting clean could mean the next hit might kill her even before he did.
I told Lucy to take care of herself and Ollie and took the bag in a daze, making for the nearest crowded area before taking a circuitous route back to my hotel to piggyback off their wifi. In my room I booted up the machine. Karim had done a fine job in bulletproofing it and I powered through a series of protocols.
I found Charlie’s site. By clicking on a link, a script executed and a dialog box showed an upload bar progressing from left to right as the code was extracted from my hand. The sooner he received it the sooner he could neutralize Guzek’s malware and I could nullify the data chip that made me a walking felon.
Knox rang. ‘You’re not at home,’ he said. ‘Haven’t been for a few days.’
‘No.’
‘Where are you?’ he said.
I didn’t know if the phone line was secure.
‘In a hotel.’
‘Where?’
‘I can’t say.’
There was a pause. Then he said, ‘Even on that morning after you stayed at mine, you wanted to work this alone right from the get-go.’
‘That wasn’t connected to this.’
‘So who’s the other old friend you were so concerned about?’
My breath caught in my throat. ‘I can’t talk about that right now,’ I said.
‘Oh you’re going to have to,’ he said.
The idea of Chrissie going cold in Lunnun’s apartment was too much for me to consider. I’d run out of ways to help her besides taking her prisoner and locking her up until she got clean. In any event, what difference would it make? She’d only go right back to him again. I wasn’t in any position to do anything about it right now anyhow and if I didn’t tell Knox what he needed to know he’d probably have me locked up. I thought about a story Lucy had once told me.
‘The girl who took you out for Chinese for your birthday? Ask her where her partner thinks is the best place in town for guys to indulge in very unusual fetishes. In person. Not over the pho
ne.’
I knew about the hotel because of the story about the service one of its regular residents had once offered. Out of all of Lucy’s anecdotes about street life, this one was so extreme it made the Chair Man’s mouth pain fetish seem tame. I figured if Knox started out from home, it would take him twenty minutes to reach Ollie’s garage and another twenty to get back here.
Forty-one minutes later, there was a knock at my door.
‘It’s Knox,’ he said.
When I opened the door I was glad to see he was alone.
He looked me up and down and raised his eyebrows. ‘Okay,’ he said.
I realized I hadn’t changed into my normal gear. At least his tone seemed calmer.
‘I would never have put money on seeing you dressed like that,’ he said.
‘I’m not as classy as you think,’ I said.
I motioned at the bed, the only piece of furniture bar the nightstands, in the room. I sat on the pillows and he lay across the end.
‘My gut says one thing McGlynn, my head says another. Put my mind at rest. I need to know things are righteous.’
‘The CIA have come at me again and threatened me directly. I just need to lay low until Monday. I don’t want any of their attention spreading toward my friends.’
‘Tell me about why you closed me out from the beginning.’
‘That was in no way connected with me running into Charlie or any of this.’
‘Convince me.’
‘You remember when we were looking for that missing girl?’
‘Amber Grigson.’
I nodded. ‘You remembered her name. There’s so many of them. It’s different when they’re someone close to you though. We went to that massage parlor above the Japanese restaurant to put the word out. You were so new to this, you never even asked why it would be hidden away when massage is legal, even when everyone knows about the extras.’
‘Why was that place so undercover?’
‘It has a fusion menu that’s too creative even for California. But you see, now you’re asking all the right questions. It took me a while to catch on you were tailing me. You’re doing great Knox. I just need to keep you away from all the rest of this crap. You need distance from me, trust me on that. While we were there I asked one of the girls about a friend of mine called Chrissie.’
‘I remember.’
‘She’s an addict. I got her away from her pimp and had her over at my place that night I ended up at yours. I was taking her to rehab the next morning but she stole my laptop and took off. It was entirely personal. Nothing to do with skip traces or any other investigative work.’
‘Then why bother? She sounds like a bit of a bitch.’
I smiled. The word was significant. ‘By being a bitch to me she saved me once,’ I said. ‘I owe her. She’s the way she is because of me.’
‘How so?’
‘I didn’t do so well in foster care. Kept getting sent back. Going back into a care home when you’re twelve and hitting puberty and all the other stuff is tough. Chrissie was the same age as me. A kindred spirit. She was my best friend for a while. Then she got adopted.
I used to go over to her new place to see her. She was happy for a while. I was happy for her. But she changed. She didn’t want me to come over anymore and told me she’d made new friends, that she didn’t need me. I was hurt. But not as much as she was. There was a reason for it. She’d been doing her best to protect me.’
I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I took a few breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth. ‘I owe her,’ I said. ‘I always look out for my friends.’
Knox nodded. ‘I get it,’ he said. ‘Good talk. We needed it. But McGlynn? Just don’t do anything stupid, please.’
My cell rang. The caller ID said it was Saul.
‘I have to take this,’ I said.
‘I was able to move the date of the march okay,’ Saul said. ‘We’re good to go on Monday.’
‘Thanks.’
I gave Knox my best reassuring smile. He asked me if I wanted him to get me takeout before he left. It was a nice gesture but I declined. I wasn’t hungry but I was keen to spend the rest of the evening working through a few more obstacles. I had scratched three things off my to do list today and only added one. Guzek was still at the planning stages. After that, I’d get to Lunnun.
43
Sunday May 21st
Thoughts of what to do about Guzek kept me awake until the small hours. Charlie had warned me off hacking him, and kicking the butt of someone religious about martial arts, while satisfying, would be challenging if he was really proficient in as many forms as he said he was. It was probably best not to underestimate him. Problem was I didn’t have enough intel on him.
By 5am I still couldn’t sleep and knew that Paul would be up, ready to start his day, so I gave him a call.
‘I’ve done everything you’ve asked,’ I said. ‘Real friends don’t keep each other in the dark. Especially when they have security clearances no matter how low-level they might be. Frankly, this isn’t worth dying for and threats have been made to the people I care about, not just me. How do I keep myself and others from ending up at some black site? Do I still have friends in high places?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
First with the guilt trip now with the ask. I hoped my powers of persuasion were up to the task.
‘I feel like all this time I’ve been working blind. That I should have had a better map of the terrain. I know I’m just boots on the ground, that there’s a bigger picture, but there are things I do need to know. Like what happens to Guzek? It’s starting to appear that he’s no angel so what’s his story?’
What I needed was a green light.
‘He shouldn’t concern you.’
‘But he does. The fact that he shouldn’t, concerns me more.’
‘A battle plan is out of date the minute it’s created. Intel is often useless. It’s evolving not static.’
‘That’s a politician’s answer,’ I said. ‘Where are we at right now?’ The we-teaming was probably a stretch.
‘Where you’re at is to ignore him.’
‘I can’t.’
‘I get Lau,’ he said. ‘I don’t get everyone. As much as I’d like to. Sacrifices, remember?’
‘What if I could nail him?’ I said.
‘As much as I wish you could that would be difficult,’ he said. ‘The CIA get Guzek and he has immunity from prosecution.’
‘That’s why you told me to forget about him at the beginning. You knew all along.’
‘Not at all. Like I said, the intel is evolving. And I’ve told you this in good faith as someone in a position of trust. But Angela? Know this. Whatever you do, do not tell Charles Lau or things will have a real chance of going bad fast.’
The handover plan had always been for me to pick up Charlie from his workplace and drive him to the FBI field office so Guzek wasn’t alerted. Our own plan depended on it. If things had evolved, I couldn’t have the Feds collect Charlie themselves in the morning or we’d have to adapt quickly.
‘So does Guzek know about the plans for Charlie? Do I still pick him up from Hudson and take him to the handover?’
‘Guzek’s a nobody as far as intel is concerned. Everything stays the same. And you will, no doubt, appreciate some time with Lau to say goodbye.’
I put together a day pack with a change of outfits and went out for breakfast. Eating alone wasn’t any fun. Neither was being alone. I had one more day to make it through. One more day to keep away from the CIA. Everything was in place. Just twenty-four little hours. Until then, the inactivity and waiting was driving me crazy. I needed to be with the one person who was in the exact same situation. I checked I wasn’t being followed, changed back into my own clothes and headed over to Charlie’s.
We ran through everything together. The kill code to stop the software being jacked was written and ready for me to give to Paul once Charlie was out of the city and on his way abroad. Th
en I’d tell Paul everything. Almost everything. I knew we’d got the rest nailed down tight to the last detail or nearly every detail. There were loose ends as far as I was concerned, like Guzek for one, but he was untouchable and the escape plan was good.
Charlie’s mood though was different somehow. Not as buoyant. Like something had changed. I realized he was thinking this would be our last time hanging out together. Maybe it was time to come clean. Reveal what I’d learned about Guzek being an asset and also tell him about the threats made and the deadline for the return of the files. I remembered the piece of paper the guy in the elevator had stuffed in my pocket with an upload link.
‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ I said. ‘I have some more information which could be useful.’
I reached inside my jacket pocket and felt around for the piece of paper. My fingers brushed something metallic. At first I thought it was a coin. I pulled it out. It was the Catholic medallion Jo Harding had given me a decade earlier. When I'm no longer here, I'm going to use this to send you my love whenever you need courage. Keep you safe.
Keep you safe. It was like she was giving me a message all over again. A sign I needed to heed. Maybe I should be taking Paul’s advice and keep quiet about Guzek to keep Charlie safe. I put it back and took out the piece of paper showing it to him.
‘A guy from the CIA told me I had until today to upload the files here.’
‘It’ll be a trap. Some way to back hack whoever’s sending the information. Probably in real time. Cache like that, the upload wouldn’t be quick.’
‘I know that but it might be useful. I’ll keep it for future reference.’
Even if the files had been uploaded, there would have been no way for them to know whether any copies had been kept. It would have been pointless and bought me nothing in return. Hackers however, collected information that might be useful at a later date. Static intel but options forever evolving.
