Number 7, Rue Jacob

by Wendy Hornsby

  “I’ll hold the tape,” Roddy said. “But you have to promise me the scoop on this story when all is over and done with. And if you do manage to elope, I get the story first. Deal?”

  “Sure,” I said. “But, Roddy, I’m not much of a celebrity. I doubt anyone but our mothers will pay much attention. Or care.”

  “I can make it as big a story as I want to,” he said with a resigned sigh. He studied the carpet at his feet for a moment before he looked up and caught my eye. “Was Laos wonderful?”

  “It was. Very wonderful.”

  “That’s a trip I should make.”

  “You couldn’t get there on this bathtub, you know. It’s a landlocked country.”

  “My tenure on this bathtub, as you call it, expires on the morrow. No, I was thinking more along the lines of trekking out with a camera crew.”

  “Are you after my job, Roddy?”

  “I am certainly bored with my own.” With effort, he pushed himself out of his chair and moved toward the door. “Whistle if you want anything. I need to go summon water taxis to carry my guests away. It’s bedtime for this old fart.”

  I heard his heavy steps on the stairs leading up to the main salon.

  Jean-Paul went to the computer on the desk and plugged in the USB memory drive his hacker had dropped into my pocket on the Rialto Bridge. While he pored over the report, I curled up in a deep leather chair, sipped the wonderful wine, tried to stay awake, and enjoyed the first truly peaceful moment I’d felt for a very long time. After a few minutes, I set my feet on the floor, yawned, stretched, and asked, “What are you finding out?”

  “Exactly what I suspected. We were both hacked: credit cards, ATM use, emails, social media sites. And there was a tracker app placed on our phones. Your trail went cold in Paris this morning, and mine went cold in Greece on Sunday.”

  “Who’s doing this to us?”

  “My little juvenile delinquent says our hacker is a kid he knows in Taiwan.”

  “He knows him?”

  “Knows his work, anyway. These hackers are usually really young guys. For them, hacking is a sport, something like a real-world version of online video gaming. They set up challenges for each other, and when they score, like taggers they sign their work. Then they brag online to each other. Skillful, yes. Wise, no.”

  “I thought my mobile phone was secure,” I said.

  Jean-Paul shook his head. “When the American intelligence agencies couldn’t get into the mobile phone of a dead terrorist and the manufacturer wouldn’t help, who did they turn to?”

  “Some kid,” I said, dismayed. “I can’t believe, though, that this little asshole in Taiwan would send a loaded drone after you, or slit a woman’s throat, or follow me across Europe. So, who hired him?”

  “Don’t know that yet. Our own little Venetian asshole, whose online moniker is AnoNino, put a RAT, a Remote Access Trojan, on the computer of the hacker in Taiwan, who calls himself crouchingdragon. Before the crouching dragon discovered the RAT on his system and removed it, AnoNino was able to find a recent series of electronic cash transfers to a credit card the boy apparently has access to; the kid is too young to have his own bank account. The routing numbers trace back to a bank in London.”

  “Can AnoNino attach a name to the transfers?”

  “He’s working on it.” Jean-Paul pulled the memory drive out of the computer’s USB port and set it on the desk. “He found the bank, but hacking into a bank’s database to find the name on an account might be beyond him. Good little spook that he is, though, he managed to trace the tracker app backward, so now we have a phone number.”

  “Do you want to call the number?”

  “Not yet. As soon as we do, they’ll just toss the phone, if they haven’t already. The good news is, the only interest seems to rest on you and me.”

  “That’s good news?”

  He shrugged, meaning yes. “They aren’t hacking or tracking our children, chérie. Or anyone in our families. Guido: no trail. No one is following Eduardo Suarez, or anyone else in the EU consortium that sent the two of us to Greece. Knowing that is important to me. If whatever this is, is only about me, or about you, maybe it will be easier to figure out.”

  “If we live long enough.”

  He laughed softly. “If that, yes.”

  “So, if no one is monitoring friends and family, it should be okay to make some calls, right?”

  His little shrug said, Bien sûr. “That might change once Qosja and company discover they’ve lost track of us, but yes, do it while you can. I’d like a word with a friend who has better access to bank information than AnoNino. Maybe he’ll be able to find something useful for us.”

  “You trust him?” I asked.

  “As much as anyone.” He opened the backpack, gave me one of the phones, took another for himself, and fished a credit card out of the bank pouch. As I dialed Mom’s phone, he was thumbing keys on his phone with impressive agility for a man with one hand.

  It was after one in Venice, so it was late afternoon in Los Angeles. Mom answered on the second ring.

  “Maggie? Whose phone are you calling from? Where are you? Your grandmother called from Normandy hoping I knew where to contact you. Everyone seemed to be calling her, looking for you. Then Guido called. Promise me someone didn’t knock you over the head and leave you for dead in a dark Paris alley.”

  “I’m fine. I’m with Jean-Paul, and he’s fine, too. How are you?”

  “Me? Worried sick. I know something is going on, Maggie.”

  “What if we’re just lounging in some fleshpot, sun on our bellies, rum drinks with little umbrellas in our hands?”

  “What if you’re not. Don’t schmooze me, young lady.”

  I laughed. “The last person who called me young lady was a shoe salesman who tried to give me an ankle massage.”

  “Age is relative, my love. Now, where the hell are you?”

  “Truthfully, I’m on a yacht in the Adriatic with Jean-Paul. I’m only telling you this so that you don’t call out a search party. Do let folks know we’re fine. But please don’t broadcast where we are: not Casey, or Grand-mère, or Gracie Nussbaum, or the six o’clock news team. If anyone asks, please just say that you heard from us, and everything is just peachy. We’ve both been working crazy schedules so we’re taking a well-earned break, staying under the radar, just resting up.”

  “How much of that is true?”

  “Enough of it so you won’t have to go to confession if you repeat it.”

  “You know very well that I haven’t been to confession for over twenty years.”

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, dear. Your secret is safe with me.”

  “I love you,” I said.

  “A good damn thing you do. Kisses to you both.” And she hung up.

  Jean-Paul had finished with whatever he was doing on his phone and was eavesdropping on the end of my call; he adores Mom, and it’s mutual. “How is Elizabeth?”

  “Mom is just fine,” I said. “Learn anything?”

  “My friend is working on the bank routing number. And I have an update from AnoNino,” he said. “Monsieur crouchingdragon has sent out a challenge to his network of hacker friends. The first to spot the two of us and identify our location will get some sort of prize.”

  “Spot us how?”

  “That is the game, yes? They are invited to be creative.”

  “What are we going to do about it?

  “We’re going to wait until we hear back from our little criminal. That means we have to keep this phone turned on so he can get in touch with us. He’ll let us know if someone puts a RAT on the line.”

  “There must be something more we can do.”

  He sagged back into his chair. “My head is swimming. Right now, all I want to do is take another pain pill and go to bed. Tomorrow will start early, I’m afraid.”

  Bed sounded like a good idea. We gathered our things and headed for the door. Immediately, a steward appeared. With
a little flourish and bow, he said, “Your stateroom is just along here.”

  I slung the backpack over my shoulder and waited for Jean-Paul. We had only gone a few steps down the passageway when someone called my name. A soft female voice. We all turned. A young woman wearing full on-camera makeup, shiny form-fitting pants, and a shoulder-baring silk blouse, stuffed her mobile phone under her waistband as she rose from the top of the stairs leading up into the main salon; clearly she had been waiting for me to appear. On very tall heels, she took a tentative step toward me.

  “Maggie,” she said. “Do you remember me?”

  I did, sort of. I had to look past the clothes and makeup before I recognized her, though her name eluded me. She had been an intern on a project Guido and I worked on together maybe a year and a half earlier. Guido had recruited her from among his acolytes at the UCLA film school. Like all the student interns Guido brought into our projects over the years, she was bright, talented, beautiful, young, female, and ambitious. For many of his recruits, and certainly for this one, Guido was a potential rung on their ladder to film greatness, and they were, too often, notches in his belt. What set this young woman apart was that she hadn’t stayed with us for very long. Without giving notice, she dumped Guido and our project for something shinier. Now, as she walked toward me, for all the painted-on veneer labeling her as an entertainment-world insider, a member of the film cognoscenti, or wannabe of same, she reminded me of a street urchin; all hope abandoned.

  But what was her name? A place name, I thought, running through some possibilities—Dakota, Nevada, Atchison, Topeka, or Santa Fe?—before it came to me. “Sierra?”

  She smiled, relieved, it seemed, that I did remember. “It’s been a while,” she said, venturing further down the stairs.

  I handed the backpack to the steward, told Jean-Paul to go ahead, and promised that I would join him very soon. He kissed my cheek and with a skeptical backward glance followed the steward to a stateroom a few doors along the passageway.

  Sierra’s first question: “How’s Guido?”

  “Last time I saw him, he was fine.”

  “He was with you in Laos?”

  “He was.”

  There was an uncomfortable pause while she decided on the next thing to say and while I tried to figure out her angle. Finally, she said, “He must hate me.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” And I wouldn’t. I was so thoroughly fed up with Guido’s often messy sexual pursuits that he knew better than to bring them up around me. He was my age, forty-three, and his conquests were rarely less than twenty years younger.

  “I’m sorry I just walked out on you the way I did. It was wrong of me. Immature. I hope I didn’t leave you in the lurch.”

  “We managed to muddle through. The program aired last May.”

  She acknowledged the truth of that with a sad bob of her head before forcing up a smile. “I saw it. It was wonderful. I was hoping for a screen credit. Guess I didn’t stay around long enough to earn one, huh?”

  I stifled a yawn. “It’s late. Was there something?”

  “Sorry to keep you,” she said. “I just wanted to say hi.”

  “Good luck to you, Sierra.” I turned and walked toward the stateroom where Jean-Paul was waiting.

  “Maggie,” she said. I looked at her over my shoulder. “Give my best to Guido.”

  “Will do.” I turned again and walked away, feeling like a hard-hearted bitch. She was just a kid, trying to make amends. Maybe she had learned something useful after leaving us, as she said, in the lurch. And maybe not.

  I was snuggled up in a very luxurious bed, dreaming about something I can’t remember, when I became aware of the thrumming of the yacht’s huge engines. I rose enough to look out the porthole next to the bed and saw that we were moving. My first thought was to wake Jean-Paul, but he looked so peaceful that I disentangled myself from him as quietly as I could, pulled on my jeans and a sweater, and slipped out of the stateroom into the passageway outside. I had gone only a few steps before the steward appeared.

  “Signora,” he said, gesturing for me to precede him. “Signore Combes wishes to see you on the bridge.”

  The bridge looked like the control center at NASA Houston. The man I assumed was the captain by the amount of gold braid on his uniform, stood with his first mate in front of a multi-tiered flashing, blipping digital console, absorbed by the complexities involved in powering up and piloting the vessel they commanded. Roddy and his musclebound security man were to one side, in front of a bank of security camera monitors.

  “Gentlemen, Signora MacGowen,” my escort announced when we walked in.

  The captain and the first officer glanced away from their posts just long enough to tip their caps to me before turning back.

  “Jay-zuss, Maggie,” Roddy said, waving me over. “I was about to blow a whistle to rouse you. You must sleep the sleep of the dead.”

  “Not yet,” I said, hesitating near the door. “We’re moving.”

  “Yes,” Roddy said with feigned enthusiasm. “How does breakfast in Ravenna sound?”

  “I thought you were headed for Munich next.”

  “I’m sure I can find my way to Munich from Ravenna. Maggie, luv, come have a look.”

  Roddy and the security man made room for me between them. There were six screens flashing images from security cameras that were strategically placed around the entire perimeter of the yacht. The cameras followed Sabri Qosja, this time sans telephone, piloting a quiet, ten-foot wave-eater motorboat along the yacht’s starboard side. At mid-ship, he pulled in close enough to stick something to the hull before he motored into the darkness of the marina beyond camera range.

  “Is this live?” I asked.

  Roddy shook his head. “Fifteen minutes ago. That’s the fella, Qosja, is it?

  “It is.”

  He tipped his chin toward the security man. “By the time Horst here got a skiff into the water to give chase, he was gone.”

  “What did Qosja put on the hull?”

  The security man, Horst, picked up a gray rectangular box about the size of a deck of cards. An antenna stuck out of the top, next to a flashing red light.

  “Is it ticking?” I asked.

  “Yup,” Roddy said. “Horst has seen this sort of device before. It’s a radio-activated detonator. Someone can send a signal by phone or by radio from as far as a hundred miles away. Maybe more. The call comes in, activates the detonator, detonator sets off the attached explosive, and boom.”

  “You’re just going to let it tick?” I was ready to go grab Jean-Paul and bolt.

  “Ja,” Horst said. “If we block the signal before we get out to sea, he’ll just come back and try again. Or try something else. But I disarmed the detonator. See?”

  He turned the box on end and flicked a little button. “Fail-safe switch. The device can still receive, but it won’t go off. This model is used in construction, not warfare. Cheap. Easy to come by.”

  “It isn’t very big. How much damage—” was as far as I got before Horst handed me a plastic-wrapped block of stuff, about the same shape and weight as a pound of butter, but that looked and felt like modeling clay. I smelled it before handing it back. “Is this gelignite, or something like it? Plastic explosive?”

  Horst nodded. “Enough to blow a damn big hole in the hull.”

  “But it’s harmless, right?”

  “Without a detonator, yes,” Roddy said. “Horst wants to know how this Qosja fella knew you were on the boat.”

  “I told you earlier, someone was tracking us. But we found the locator thingy and tossed it into the canal. We thought we were in the clear.”

  “Maybe there’s a second transponder,” Horst said. “Or many. Mind if I take a look?”

  “Please do,” I said, gesturing toward the door.

  We were walking down the stairs, me, Horst, Roddy, in that order, when the door to one of the staterooms opened and Sierra, bed hair, barefoot, clothes clearly put on in haste,
stepped into the passageway.

  “The boat’s moving,” she said, clearly not happy about the obvious. She had a phone in her hand, her thumbs moving furiously. “Where the hell are we going?”

  I reached out and snatched the phone out of her hands. She was typing a Tweet: “WTF, yacht’s moving. Where are we—”

  I handed the phone to Roddy.

  “A better question,” Roddy said after seeing the Tweet, “is who the hell are you and how the hell did you get onto my boat?”

  “I’m a guest,” she answered, not the least chagrined. “Give me my phone.”

  “Guest of whom?” he demanded, passing the phone to Horst.

  “Mitch,” she said. “Mitch invited me. My phone, please. Now.”

  Roddy pushed through the ajar stateroom door behind her and shouted in his great big voice, “Mitch, you perv, front and center.”

  There was a rustling inside the darkened stateroom before a very rumpled Mitch appeared wearing only boxer shorts. I knew him. Mitchell O’Meara was a line producer at the television network that employed both Roddy and me. I had worked with him several times, and now and then ran into him at the studio or on film shoots. His wife, Ellen, worked in the editing bay. Nice lady.

  Mitch stood leaning on the door jamb, sleepy, probably either still a little drunk or already suffering from a hangover. He rubbed his eyes, yawned, sniffled, scratched before seeming to come to. When he looked up, finally, he spotted me.

  “Hey, Maggie. What’s up? Saw you come in earlier, but you disappeared before I had a chance to say hi. It’s been a while. Heard you were out of the country working on something.”

  “Hey yourself, Mitch,” I said. “How’s Ellen?”

  He quailed, said, “She’s good.”

  “Mitchell, tell this guy to give me back my phone.”

  “What?” he said, eyes all squinty.

  Horst paid no attention to Sierra as he scrolled through her Tweets. He stopped at one, tapped my shoulder and showed me. “OMG my former boss Maggie MacGowen is here now. Love this yacht. #veniceCarnevale #roddycombes #santelena ­#mmacginvestigates.” A grainy photo followed of Jean-Paul and me as we took off our coats when we arrived. He scrolled to another: “Big chat with former boss Maggie MacGowen on the yacht. Hope to work with her again. She’s sleeping over, too. Yayy!”