by Drew Chapman
“We didn’t even call,” Jenny said. “How’d you know our service went out?”
“The office beeped me five minutes ago, and I was in the neighborhood. They got an emergency alert from our system. They said you guys had a service guarantee. That puts you top of the list.”
“Wow. Cool.”
“I’m new though. Can you show me where the uplink box is?”
Jenny called the IT department, and Luke—company wags called him the Great Bearded One—waddled up from in back to show Mullins the small server farm and Internet connection box. Luke brought Mullins to a glorified maintenance closet that was stuffed with racks of computer servers and had coaxial cables running every which way out of a large, black junction box. Cool air blew down from a ceiling vent in a steady gust, and LED lights blanketed the room in a crystal-white glare.
“I shouldn’t have to log into the system,” Robert Jacob Mullins said. “Everything should be outside of your firewall. But if it isn’t, and I need to log in, could you just give me a temporary admin password?”
Luke stared at the Infinity repairman. “How come I’ve never met you before?”
“I just started last week.”
“And you might need to get inside our firewall? I’ve never done that before.”
“Temp password is all. To make sure your speeds are maxing. You can lock me back out again five minutes later.”
Luke stroked his red, unkempt beard.
Mullins shrugged. “You know what, I don’t blame you. Security first. No problem. I can do it back at the office—it’ll just take me a little longer. I’ll be back in forty-five minutes.” Mullins grabbed his work box and started for the door, but bearded Luke put his fleshy hand in the air.
“I’ll get you a temp password. Just get us back online. Everyone’s going batshit crazy right now.”
“Okay, will do,” Mullins said with a generous smile. “Much appreciated.”
Luke went off to create a temporary password, and the man who claimed to be Robert Jacob Mullins popped open the uplink box for the company’s Internet connection. Instead of working on the cables, he simply switched on the timer on his wristwatch and stared off into space. He thought about how soul killing it would be to work in an office such as AmeriCool’s, surrounded by dull careerists and striving executives. These people were beneath his regard. His mind wandered to Garrett Reilly and the events of yesterday. The bomb hadn’t killed the young army officer in Arlington, that much the TV had told him, but it, along with the Newark police raid, had sent a powerful message: I know you, know all about you, and can find you anywhere.
He wondered how Garrett Reilly was feeling right at this moment, as events encircled him and began to choke off his options; he hoped that Reilly was thinking of him as well. He hoped that Reilly was obsessed with him, spending all his waking hours figuring out how to stop him. And while Reilly struggled to stay free, to stay alive even, the main purpose of the plan would gain speed and would soon become unstoppable. There would be a pleasing symmetry to that. With that happy thought, and the passing of 180 seconds, he stepped out of the maintenance room and hunted down Luke.
“Actually, I am gonna need to get into your system. I gotta restart our download-speed monitoring program.”
Luke handed the repairman a printout with a username and log-in password. Luke pointed to an unused port on the back of a server computer. “Use that port on the network switch.”
“Five minutes, tops,” Mullins said.
Luke grunted something unintelligible and disappeared back into the IT offices. Mullins removed his laptop from its carrying case, plugged an Ethernet cable into the server, and logged on to the AmeriCool computer network. He didn’t bother pretending to do any cable repair work; now he just needed passwords and access codes. He ran a search for a specific client company—Advanced Worldwide Credit Processors—that used AmeriCool to regulate the climate of their server farm in Hoboken, New Jersey. AWCP—as industry insiders called it—was responsible for 27 percent of all credit-card transactions on the East Coast of the United States. Anyone who could hack into AWCP’s servers could potentially bring all those transactions to a halt—every single one of them.
Mullins found everything he needed in a file named “AWCP—PSSWDS+USRNMS” and copied the information onto his laptop. The whole process took three minutes. Then he unplugged his computer from the network and waved good-bye to Luke.
“All good,” he said as he walked toward reception. “You’ll be back online in two minutes. Just gotta go outside and flip a switch.”
He stopped briefly at the receptionist desk and asked Jenny if she was single. She said she had a boyfriend, sadly, and she seemed to blush again, ever so slightly. Mullins shrugged, said, “Okay, maybe next time,” and ambled out of the lobby.
• • •
Ilya Markov walked out of the AmeriCool offices, took the elevator to the first floor, then walked across the parking lot to the cable switch box, a six-foot-tall, green steel rectangle plopped onto a base of beige concrete. He opened the box—he’d cut the padlock half an hour earlier with a bolt cutter—and simply reconnected a single coaxial cable to the line that fed AmeriCool. That was why their Internet had gone down, and that was all it took for it to start working again. They would be up and running immediately.
Ilya preferred that nobody at the cable company know that their systems had been compromised, so he yanked out a handful of copper wiring that appeared to connect phone service to a separate building in the business park. Copper wire was still big with thieves, and stealing some would help explain why the junction-box padlock had been snipped, diverting attention from what he had actually done.
He stuffed the copper wire in his pocket, closed the junction-box door, and walked casually back across the parking lot, lighting a cigarette as he went. The smoke was fine and slightly gritty on his throat. He felt calm, and satisfied. Now he needed to get to a separate Internet connection and log on to those servers in Hoboken.
The plan was coming together, and it would soon unfold in locations up and down the Eastern Seaboard, all at the same time, in a finely tuned choreography. He paused for a moment and hoped that Garrett Reilly would appreciate that choreography as much as he did.
• • •
Inside the offices of AmeriCool, cheers went up from IT and scheduling, and sighs of relief were breathed in the executive suites. Vice President Michaels told everyone to get on the phone to clients and make sure all their systems were running smoothly, and he even stopped by Luke’s office to pat him on the back and congratulate him for getting them up and running so quickly.
“Not a problem,” Luke said. “Easy as pie.”
GRANT PARK, ATLANTA, JUNE 21, 1:11 P.M.
Congressman Leonard Harris felt as if he were on autopilot: he was no longer in control of his arms or legs. He was walking down the street, one foot in front of the other, the hot Georgia sun beating down on his shoulders, yet he was simultaneously floating above the sidewalk, propelled by a force he didn’t understand. It was the strangest feeling. Of course he did understand the force behind it, but his brain refused to acknowledge it. What his brain said was—he was going to see her science-fiction collection. That’s all. Just look at the books. Nothing wrong with that.
They had met yesterday, at the food trucks, just like the day before, and the day before that. At first, Harris had looked for the girl with the wonderful lips out of the corner of his eye, pretending to be looking for an open seat, a place to eat his lunch undisturbed. He had sighted her across the tables, then made a show of surprise when he happened to sit nearby and looked up from his food, staring into her smiling face. They talked about books mostly, politics a bit, where she’d gone to school—Emory University—and even the Braves and their pitiful pitching staff.
He felt that he’d been charming at that second meeting because she
laughed at every joke he made. He’d walked away from the encounter feeling as good about himself as he’d felt in the last ten years. Of course he went back the next day, and made no pretense of surprise when he sat next to her with a tray laden with barbecue ribs. They talked and talked—he couldn’t even remember about what—and they agreed to meet again today, same place, same time.
Rachel Brown said she was twenty-nine, had grown up in Florida in a broken home, with a father who left and a mother who was too busy raising three other children to pay much attention to what Rachel did. Harris had been moved by her story—she was exactly the kind of person who could pull herself up from poverty and make something of her life. She was a model constituent, even though he noted that she did not live in his district. That was a shame.
He’d showered that morning with special attention to his underarms, and he’d shaved carefully, slowly scraping away the night’s growth of facial hair. He’d dressed more casually as well, in a short-sleeved shirt that hugged his waistline. He was proud that he had not grown paunchy with age. He’d spent the morning thinking about what they would talk about, laying out possible topics, trying to see if they could branch out into something new—her past, his family background, places they both had visited.
He didn’t feel that anything was wrong with the relationship. She was a single woman, and he was a married man, and that was how it would stay. He was faithful to his wife, a good husband and father, and she would undoubtedly soon find a young man to spend her life with. She had let drop yesterday that she was on the rebound, relationship-wise, and was disenchanted with all the boys who wanted to date her.
“So frigging immature,” Rachel Brown had said. “Like children.”
He had shaken his head knowingly at that. “Around you they probably lose their sense of propriety.”
She murmured quietly when he said that, and that sound had stirred his loins with a powerful jolt of sexual energy. He fought mightily to push that notion from his brain, but once the conversation had gone there, everything she said seemed to have a double meaning. Was he imagining it, or was sex the idea behind each sentence?
“I get bored in the afternoons, just lying around my apartment,” she said.
“You should get out more, see some people.”
“I’m seeing you.” She smiled that amazing smile. “Does that count?”
More was stirring where there definitely should not have been any.
“When it’s hot like this, I just can’t sleep. I toss and turn,” she said.
He pictured her naked in bed. “Me too.” That was a lie. He turned the air conditioner on, full blast, all summer long.
“In the middle of the night, I read my sci-fi novels. I feel like I’m escaping to another world.”
“Sure.”
“Where are you headed this afternoon?”
“I have a staff meeting at four. Nothing until then.”
“You want to take a walk? My apartment is five blocks from here. I could show you my collection.”
At that exact moment his autopilot kicked in. Some part of his brain, some grown-up, married, middle-aged part of his frontal cortex, said no, do not take a walk with Rachel Brown, do not see her science-fiction collection at her apartment five blocks from the food trucks. That is a mistake. A huge mistake.
But some other part of his brain—some primitive, hungry, aggressive region that he didn’t even know the name of, disengaged his frontal cortex—turned it off completely. No matter how obvious the consequences of what he was doing, he did it anyway. He walked out of the food-truck parking lot, following behind this young woman, talking to her about the weather, how the Grant Park neighborhood had changed, how he hated neckties. It was as if she had thrown an invisible lasso around his neck and were dragging him, like a steer to slaughter—only the slaughterhouse was her apartment.
He knew what was coming next, and he wanted it, possibly more than he had wanted anything else in his entire life. It reminded him of the old joke he’d once heard from a fellow sci-fi geek—vagina was the fifth fundamental force of the universe. You could not fight it.
She lived on the second floor, in a one-bedroom apartment with hardly anything on the walls. Harris thought that was odd, but he was too preoccupied to say anything, and plus, he didn’t want to offend her. There was some furniture, a cheap couch and a dining-room table, and a bookcase for sure, packed end to end with paperback science-fiction novels. She showed him her favorite titles—a few Asimovs, a classic Bradbury, two Zelaznys, more Orson Scott Card books, and a whole shelf full of Neil Gaiman. And then, as she was showing him a dog-eared copy of Frank Herbert’s Dune, their hands touched. It was electric. He stared at her, a deer in headlights, and she dropped the book and held his fingers in hers.
Without another word, she led him into her bedroom. There was a futon in the corner, jammed right under a window and covered with a single sheet. She kissed him once, briefly, then again, and he kissed her back, passionately. Before he knew it, she’d taken his clothes off and was on her knees, and he was in her mouth. The sensation was exquisite. They fell onto the bed and made love for an hour, and every minute of it was ecstasy for Harris.
When they were done, he lay there on the futon in the tiny, empty bedroom, stroking her young skin, like a puppy dog licking the hand of its master. That was a bit how he felt—like he was a dog and Rachel Brown was his master. How else could he explain his behavior?
She didn’t say much, just looked at him with adoring eyes, and then his cell phone rang, his office calling, but he didn’t answer, and the reality of the world came crashing back on him. It was three in the afternoon, and he’d just had extramarital sex with a girl almost half his age. He popped off the bed, breathing hard. He had a staff meeting in an hour and couldn’t show up sweaty and reeking of sex. He excused himself, almost tripping over his feet, and asked if he could use her shower.
“Of course,” she said, and he rushed into the bathroom, but found no soap and no towels either. He rinsed himself quickly, shook himself dry, and threw on his clothes. Rachel Brown was still lying on the bed, curled up in a sexy ball, naked, watching his every move. She seemed oddly amused.
“I have to run,” he said. “People are waiting for me.”
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She got up from the bed, still naked from head to toe, and wrapped her arms around him, breasts pressing up against his chest. She kissed him long and slow, and he could feel himself getting hard again, his brain seizing up with passion. She let out a low groan of pleasure, and he thought that he might have another orgasm right there, just from the sound of it, but he pushed himself away from her, finally regaining control of his body, and staggered to the door.
She followed, catlike, and watched as he unlatched the locks and started for the hallway.
He stopped, midway, and looked back at her. “That was—”
“Amazing. I thought so too.”
He smiled, again involuntarily, and rushed out the door. As he was hurrying down the steps, running as fast as he could back to his old life, he thought he heard a woman’s laughter behind him, and a sudden chill cooled all the sweat on his wildly overheated body.
IRVINGTON, NEW JERSEY, JUNE 21, 7:19 P.M.
Garrett woke on a bed he didn’t know, in a room he didn’t recognize. He wasn’t even entirely sure he was awake. The room was dark mostly, but a Mickey Mouse night-light in a far corner threw yellowish light on the walls. The room didn’t seem to be a child’s room, despite the night-light—there were no toys or blankets or posters of boy bands. The room was depressingly brown, and the striped wallpaper was peeling near the door.
Garrett’s head hurt, severely, as did his shoulder and chin. He felt as if he’d been punched in the mouth, and that somebody had wrenched his arm backward, which maybe they had, he wasn’t sure. He w
as also thirsty and disoriented and sick to his stomach. His throat was raw, as if he had thrown up numerous times, but he didn’t remember doing that either. He didn’t remember much. Just a dark space under some train tracks, and an old homeless man. Garrett tried to feel for his wallet—maybe the homeless guy had tried to take it—but found that he couldn’t move his right hand to reach down to his pants.
He squinted into the darkness. His hand was somehow fixed to a radiator grill that stood next to the bed, just under a closed window.
“What the fuck?” he muttered. He tried to pull his hand away, but couldn’t. When he turned over on his side to get a better look, he could see that his wrist was pinned to a pipe with a length of red flexi-tie. He tugged hard on the flexi-tie, but it wouldn’t budge, and the plastic dug deeper into his flesh. He wanted to yell more loudly, but a weariness washed over him instead. His brain was still fogged in, and that dreamlike feeling began to race through his thoughts.
Perhaps he wasn’t in a strange room, tied to a bed. Perhaps he was someplace else entirely. But where? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t have the strength to reason it out. His eyes slipped shut and he fell back to sleep.
• • •
He woke again, and time had definitely passed. The makings of dawn glowed outside the window: a wash of pink light, a hint of blue in the sky. He was on the second floor, that much he could discern, with a long stretch of grass and fencing beyond the window. More than that, he couldn’t see.
Garrett’s head still hurt, but in a different way—a less generalized hurt now, and more a sharp pain in his skull. He recognized that pain—it was the pain of drugs leaving his system. It was the pain of real life settling back on his shoulders. He tried to move his hand again, but found that it was still attached to the radiator, and it occurred to him that it had been attached that way for a purpose. To immobilize him. But why? Had he been captured? Had Ilya Markov tracked him down? Was he a prisoner?
