by Alton Gansky
Judith reached across the table and took the paper. “No, but the map makes it clear how to get there. It isn’t far. Five or ten minutes maybe.” There was a note at the bottom: Golden Oak Park. 11:25. Visitor’s side.
“The first part is clear enough, but I don’t understand ‘visitor’s side.’ ”
“The park must have a baseball field. If so, ‘visitor’s side’ might refer to the visiting team’s dugout. It’s probably nothing more than a simple bench in a public park.” Luke looked at his watch. “We don’t have much time.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t go. Meeting in a public place like a restaurant is bad enough. Going to a place with fewer people might be dangerous.”
“How do you know there will be fewer people at the park?”
Judith frowned. “It’s the middle of a work day which means it’s also the middle of a school day. Maybe there will be a few moms with toddlers, but they won’t be much help if things go bad.”
“I’m going.” Luke stood.
“That must be some secret you have.” Judith pulled a ten-dollar bill from her purse and dropped it on the table next to the uneaten chili.
The phone in her handbag sounded and Judith jumped. Several patrons looked her way, then, immune to the ringing of ever-present cell phones, returned their attention to their food. Judith snatched the phone from her purse and glanced at the display. She scowled.
“It’s not …”
“No, it’s not.” With the push of a button, Judith silenced the phone and replaced it in her handbag. She looked at Luke. “My stepson.”
“You don’t want to talk to him?”
“Not lately, I don’t. Let him talk to the message manager.” She led the way through the eatery.
Once outside she stepped to her vehicle.
“Wait a sec.” Luke moved to her side. “Let’s take my car.”
“Why?”
“Because I want us to be able to talk freely.”
“We can’t talk in my car?”
Luke looked at the Lexus. “It’s not about the car … Look. Earlier you asked if the cell phone I received came to my office.”
“Right; and you said you didn’t have an office and were a day trader.”
“Not a day trader … Never mind that. The package was in your office, right? Not outside?”
“Correct.”
“Someone had to arrange for that. Did he seem to know more about your office than you would expect?”
Judith thought of the fireplace. “Yes. I even wondered if there were cameras or listening devices.”
“For now, we had better assume that there are. Where do you park at work?”
“At the front of the building.”
“Is your spot marked?”
Judith felt a touch of embarrassment. “Yes. You’re thinking someone could have done something to my car.” She looked at her vehicle.
“I don’t know, but anyone can walk into the parking lot, right?”
“I suppose.”
“I keep my car locked in my garage. It’s less likely that someone could tamper with it.”
“But not impossible.”
“No, not impossible. But they would have to be good — CIA, NSA good, if you know what I mean.”
“But you said you went out most mornings.”
“I go to a Starbucks. I park where I can see my car and anyone who approaches it. Is there someone you can call to pick up the car?”
“My assistant. I’ll leave a key with the hostess.”
“That’s a good idea.”
Judith studied the man named Luke Becker again. She didn’t believe much in intuition, but she had sensed no danger from him. Still, he was a stranger. To trust or not to trust? “Okay. Where did you park?”
“Right where I could keep it in view.”
Luke pulled the steel blue Volvo C70 onto Fourth Street. He drove fast and made his turns with sharp jerks of the steering wheel.
“I bet you have a glove compartment filled with speeding tickets.”
Luke released a polite laugh. “I’m not speeding.”
“It feels like it.”
“You’re in good hands.”
Judith looked at Luke. A thin smile dressed his face but it didn’t look genuine. From the moment she had met him, he had been calm and confident, but his forehead wore more wrinkles than it should and his eyes narrowed repeatedly. He was worried and doing his best not to let it show.
“It should be on our left,” Judith said. They had traveled north on Archibald Avenue then west on Sixth Street. The park filled the southeast corner.
Luke kept driving.
“You missed it.”
“No, I didn’t.” He drove several blocks, found a convenient place to pull a U-turn, then headed back toward the park. “I’m going to make a right and drive past the park again. I want to see who and what’s there before I pull in.”
“You are a cautious man, Luke Becker.”
“I’m more than cautious. I’m paranoid.”
Judith expected a dismissive laugh, the kind of a chuckle someone makes when exaggerating a truth. It didn’t come.
Slowing as anyone would when entering a residential side street, Luke gazed through his window at the park. Judith did the same, seeing a gray-black stretch of macadam that made up the parking lot. She guessed it could hold maybe thirty cars. A small building with a pitched roof rested just beyond the parking lot. Restrooms, she assumed. Beyond the building was a basketball court and beyond that a baseball field. She also noticed a play yard with a jungle gym. A mother watched as her two young children scampered on the bars.
“See, there are children here. You said they’d all be in school.” Luke drove down the street.
“They look like they’re kindergarten age. Some schools run half-day kindergarten programs.”
“Oh.”
“I take it you don’t have kids.” Judith turned as much as her seat would allow and stared back at the park. She saw no one else on the grounds.
“Never married.” Luke turned the vehicle around. “I only saw one car in the lot, a minivan. It must belong to the woman with the kids.”
“Makes sense.”
This time, Luke pulled onto the lot and parked on the south side. A row of houses lined the property to the right. Across the street was a large undeveloped lot.
Judith started to exit but Luke caught her arm.
“Just wait.”
His eyes darted around, studying the homes, the parking lot, and the few buildings on the lot. Judith yanked her arm away.
“Okay,” Luke said. “Let’s do this quickly but try and act natural.”
“I’m a natural at being natural.” Judith opened the door and slipped from the car. The air felt warm, and a slight breeze brought the perfume of green grass to her nose. The sounds of children playing at the other end of the park carried toward them.
A concrete walk led past a planted area and toward the baseball field. Side by side, they walked past the basketball court and followed the path to another walkway that led to the field. Luke had guessed correctly: an aluminum bench rested on metal legs just behind a chain-link fence. A matching bench was situated along the first base side.
“Which is the visiting team’s bench?”
“Typically, it’s the third-base side.” He pointed. “Not a fan of baseball?”
“Can’t say that I am. You?”
“Baseball is a metaphor for life.”
Judith had a feeling that she would regret the question. She had known men who loved nothing more than touting the philosophical benefits of America’s beloved sport. No monologue came. Luke continued down the walk, his eyes fixed to the bench at the south side of the backstop. His stride had lengthened, and Judith had to take a few fast steps to keep up.
The field sat empty, and she could smell the grass of the outfield, which looked recently mowed. Dirt, raked and compacted, made up the infield.
When they arrived at the
bench, Luke looked around again as if he could feel spying eyes fixed on them. Judith did the same but saw nothing. The bench and a chain-link enclosure defined the dugout. There was no protective structure.
Judith followed Luke as he walked along the front of the bench, his eyes fixed to the long seat. Judith saw it at the same time as Luke. A dark brown shape protruded from the underside of the bench. Luke bent, reached, and pulled the envelope free.
He sat. Judith joined him.
The envelope rested on Luke’s lap. Three, two-inch long and one-inch wide white rectangles were stuck to the surface. Double-sided tape. Whoever placed the envelope had used the tape to affix the package to the underside of the bench.
Judith could see no markings on the surface. No address. No instructions. “Anyone could have come by and found this. It seems a careless way to deliver a message.”
Luke disagreed. “You’d have to be looking for it, and as you said, the park is probably empty at this time of day on a weekday. That and …”
“And what? ”
“I’m guessing that someone stood guard until we got here. If our mystery man had an operative watching us at the restaurant, then he could have been alerted when we left. The package doesn’t have any dust on it and it doesn’t look weathered. I’ll bet your next week’s salary that it hasn’t been here for more than thirty minutes.”
“Bet your own money. Are you going to open it?”
“Patience, lady. How do you know it’s not filled with some toxic substance?”
“Too elaborate. If he wanted us dead there are a hundred better ways to do it. Open it or give it to me.” Judith’s patience dissolved like sugar in hot water.
Luke didn’t immediately comply. Instead, he fondled the package, pressing at its corners and middle. He stopped at a spot just down from the center. He found something.
“It’s not very big.” He ran his fingers along the edge of whatever hid in the package. “Certainly not a cell phone.” He set the package on end and ripped the sealed edge open, leaving the excised portion hanging from one corner. Judith could see a thin layer of plastic bubble wrap that provided the envelope’s padding.
Luke peeked in but said nothing. His brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed.
“Are you trying to be a drama queen? What’s in it?”
Reaching in, Luke removed a silver, narrow, thin device. It looked familiar to Judith.
“Is that a — ”
“A USB flash drive. A SanDisk Cruzer Titanium to be exact.”
“How can you know that?”
“It’s printed on the side. It holds a gig of info.”
They gazed at the object. “It’s one of those portable hard drive things you use with a computer, right?”
“Not a hard drive, a flash drive, but that doesn’t matter. Yes, it’s used to back up files.”
“So there are computer files on it?”
“Probably. Only one way to find out.” He stood and started back to the car.
Judith followed on his heels, wondering if Luke was right about someone watching them.
four
The bookstore seemed crowded to Judith even though the clock had yet to reach 1:00. The seductive aroma of books and coffee filled the Barnes & Noble. They had arrived five minutes earlier after taking the most circuitous route from the park Judith had ever traveled. Luke explained that he wanted to know if they were being followed so what should have been less than a fifteen-minute drive up Archibald Avenue to Foothill Boulevard had turned into a forty-five-minute trek through a half dozen side streets, a dozen U-turns, and a short trip up the I-15 and back south again. Normally a comfortable traveler, Judith’s stomach began to complain about Luke’s driving. She breathed a sigh of relief when they pulled into the parking lot of the B&N.
“Why here?”
“Because it’s public, because it has more than one exit, because it’s noisy, and because people in bookstores don’t bother other people in bookstores.”
She wasn’t sure she believed the last part. When they exited Luke’s Volvo, he walked to the trunk and removed a computer bag.
“Have computer, will travel?” Judith quipped.
“Never leave home without it.”
“Always ready to trade a little stock, is that it?”
“Partly.”
He led the way through the parking lot and into the store. In the corner stood a coffee shop. Luke plowed through the other patrons and took up residence at a table in the corner. He sat with the wall to his back. “Vanilla latte, extra shot.”
Judith blinked several times. “Excuse me?”
“We have to blend in. They serve coffee here so we should be drinking coffee.”
“And you want me to fetch it for you?”
“Yeah, that’d be great, thanks.”
She wondered if the flush she felt was noticeable. “Did we get married while we were out? I think I may have missed that.”
“Oh, stop. This isn’t a sexist thing. I have to crank up the computer. You can sit and watch me, or you can contribute to the cause and pick up a couple of coffees. You want me to pay for it?”
“I think I can handle it.”
The line moved quickly, and Judith returned in less than five minutes with Luke’s latte in one hand and a mocha in the other. The latter she considered a concession to the stress of the day.
“You didn’t start without me, did you?” She set Luke’s coffee next to the computer. He took it and sipped.
“No. Come sit next to me.” He pulled a chair to his right. She hesitated. “Do you want to see this with your own eyes or would you prefer I describe everything to you?”
Judith moved to the chair and sat shoulder to shoulder with Luke. On the table rested Luke’s HP laptop; the screen showed a small photo of Theodore Roosevelt, mouth open, jaw tight, teeth bared, and pince-nez eyeglasses perched on his nose. The quote read, “With self-discipline, all things are possible. Without it, even the simplest goal can seem like the impossible dream.”
“Teddy Roosevelt?”
“He preferred TR, and yes, I’m a fan.” Luke inserted the memory device from the envelope into a USB port on the side of the laptop. A moment later, a window opened listing all the files on the flash memory.
Judith bent closer. “A single document file and a photo file. Which should we open first?”
“I’m having second thoughts.” Luke took his hands from the keyboard and leaned back. “I don’t know what’s in those files. There could be something that would destroy all the information on my computer.”
“I’ll buy you a new one,” Judith snapped. “Why go this far only to back out now?”
“I have a lot of work on this machine. For all I know, there’s a worm or virus in those files that will snatch everything and send it to someone over the Internet.”
“Are you connected to the Net?”
“I don’t have to be. The right malware program could log itself on. I mean, we’re dealing with a pretty sophisticated guy here. The cell phones, the computerized voice, the use of who-knows-what-kind of surveillance.”
“Look, Luke, I’m no computer genius, but I use one every day. Designs come to me in computer files. My business is fully wired, so I know a couple of things. First, you’re not on the Net right now. I imagine this place has a wireless hookup, but you’d have to sign in to use it, right? There’s a cost to using the ser vice.”
“True.”
Judith continued. “Besides, I’ll bet you can turn off the wireless device in your computer with that button.” She pointed at a button near the base of the screen with a glowing antenna icon. “Nothing can get out if the wireless is turned off. And you seem far too — ” she started to say paranoid but instead finished with — “cautious to not have everything of importance backed up. Am I right?”
He nodded but said nothing.
“Okay, let’s get down to brass tacks, Luke. You’re not worried about someone sabotaging your computer; you’r
e concerned that the file on the screen has your secret in it.”
“Aren’t you worried about the same thing?”
“Yes, but what are our choices? So far we’ve assumed that whoever is pulling our strings knows our secrets, so if we don’t follow through, word will get out anyway. He’ll see to it. Not to mention that a life is at stake.”
“We think there’s a life at stake. We have no proof of that.”
“Yet here we sit.” She placed a hand on his arm. “Proof or disproof may be in those files.”
Luke smiled.
“That’s a switch. What’s got you grinning?”
“I once read that Noel Coward sent telegrams to a group of well-known members of London society. The telegram read, ‘I know what you did. If I were you, I’d leave town.’ They all left. It was a joke, but apparently, they all had guilty consciences.”
“Everyone feels guilty about something,” Judith said.
“Yeah, but not everyone stands to have their secret told to the world.”
“Just open the file.”
Luke straightened, returned his hands to the keyboard, and selected the document file.
“Uh-oh,” Luke said.
On the screen was a small window that read, “Please Log In.”
Nonplussed, Judith said, “It wants a password?”
“It seems so.”
“Did the caller give you a password?”
“No,” Luke admitted. He punched a single key several times. “It seems the password is six digits long.”
“That could be anything. There must be hundreds of possible combinations.”
“More like millions.”
“Why would he hide the info behind a password?”
Luke sighed. “Maybe he’s being cautious. Hiding this under the ballpark bench left a couple of variables open. There would be a short time between when the package was left and we arrived, otherwise we might have seen who left it.”
“And during those few minutes someone could have stumbled upon the envelope.” Judith thought for a moment. “He’s thought of everything. At least if someone had gotten hold of it, they wouldn’t be able to crack the password. Of course, now we have the same problem.”
“It would be something that we know,” Luke said. “Something that we could figure out but no one else could.” He rubbed his chin. “When you got your call, did the voice mention any names or numbers?”
