“Venn sought access to the NSA’s scientific exchange program, but he was denied,” Goldov said. “Twice. We could help him no more.”
“And then…”
Goldov slid his wine glass aside and leaned forward, forearms planted on the table.
“And then you tell me something, Arthur,” the Russian said.
Sato nodded and set his wine aside. “Venn had a benefactor. Someone outside government. We believe they may have facilitated his access to the NSA program.”
“Is that so,” Goldov commented more than asked. Once more he was stalling as he processed the information he’d just been given. If true, it meant that Stanislaw Venn had gone behind the backs of his government right under their noses.
Right under my nose, Goldov thought.
“Who approved Venn’s access, Mikhail?” Sato asked, laying the reason for this meeting on the figurative table.
The Russian was taken aback by the very direct question. He could provide the answer, of course, but that Sato was seeking it at all was…curious. The Americans had compartmentalized the knowledge of and access to the NSA program, but was the approval process encumbered by the same secrecy? Probably, the Russian thought. But was that secrecy so enforced that the American diplomat, who was acting every bit like a spy on a mission, was unable to secure such information through friendly channels?
What if there are no friendly channels for him?
The answer to that wondering led Goldov to another possible realization—there was some friction within the American intelligence agencies. Some blame, perhaps, was being leveled for what had happened in Baltimore. Perhaps trust had been eroded, leading to the employment of a relative outsider such as Sato to seek confirmation of a suspicion.
“Arthur, such a question…”
The veteran intelligence operative was delaying, Sato knew. Using the pressure of resistance to shift the next move from himself. This created the ultimate instance of trust. One of them had to give before the other would.
“I was hoping it was a question you could answer, Mikhail,” Sato said. He raised his hand to wave the waiter over. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
“Arthur, Arthur,” Goldov said, reaching to gently guide the American’s hand down. “Haste is not a helpful trait when conducting business.”
“I have no more time, Mikhail. Who approved Venn’s access?”
Goldov sat back in the booth and let his hands rest on his lap again. His gaze shifted, taking in the sight of those who would be within earshot. There was little chance that he would be heard in this place, but the habit was impossible to break.
“Your Justice Department,” Goldov told Sato. “From the very top.”
There. He had it. Confirmation of what Sanders suspected. He’d been dispatched to this meeting for this exact information. What the leader of their group would do with the certitude it affirmed he did not know. But something would be done. Something most certainly would be done.
“Now, Arthur, I believe there is a name you can give me,” Goldov said. “The benefactor.”
Sato gave the Russian the name. The name that had been passed to him by Sanders. The man was deep into the connection between Stanislaw Venn and Simon Lynch. That relationship, at the very least, would be troubling to the Russians, who were facing blistering scrutiny over their physicist’s possible connection to the Baltimore incident.
Attack…
Call it what it was. That was Sato’s opinion. An attack, likely by the same man whose name he had just handed over. No law enforcement agency had yet connected Damian Traeger to Baltimore, but his arrival in the States just prior to the devastating explosion, when coupled with what their group had already learned about his activities, was enough to confidently assign its blame to him.
And enough to understand that dealing with the man through normal channels of justice was the least desirable path to take. His motives for the attack were unknown, but could be nothing more than the desire to send a message. To prove to someone, maybe everyone, that what Venn had conceived he now possessed. A man like that required special handling.
His meeting with Mikhail Goldov would, hopefully, ensure that very thing happened.
Thirty Nine
This is crazy…
Kirby Gant could not help but think that as he stood in the back bedroom of the hideaway six miles from the Allegheny River. The reality of the place had seemed so perfect as a concept, but that almost quaint appraisal of the off-grid paradise which Jefferson had come to him to make possible suddenly seemed…real.
Floor to ceiling in the space surrounding him were carboard boxes containing cans of dehydrated food, with labels identifying the contents as peas, powdered milk, powdered eggs, white rice, and a dozen other staples that the retired FBI agent had chosen. He’d shared that he thought they might have to spend a year completely free of any contact with the outside world once Simon was tucked away there with them. Twelve months to let the trail go cold. Three hundred and sixty-five days to let the vigor of the pursuit wane. Time so that Art could figure out his next moves.
Because this was all he’d planned out, Kirby knew. Getting Simon to safety was the imperative. What came next was going to be an unknown. Could he keep the savant squirrelled away for years? Would some avenue to a better life be found through friendly faces? Art had seemed to hint at the latter without offering any detail beyond some association from his past. Whether that was real, or just a hope, Kirby Gant had no idea. And now he would never know.
But those same questions and fears which had weighed on Art Jefferson now were his to bear. Could he stand the rigors of the isolation sure to be in his future? Could Simon Lynch? Or the FBI agent who would bring him to this place? There was even less of an endgame in sight now than there had been when it was Art Jefferson’s cross to bear.
“Son of a bitch…”
Kirby swore softly and turned toward the open bedroom door, but stopped when he heard the sound of the front door open and then close, the footsteps that followed indicating that someone had entered and then stopped.
“Mr. Gant…”
Kirby’s heart raced and a breath froze in his throat.
They know my name…
That someone had shown up was bad enough, but that act could be explained away as the actions of a neighbor, unlikely as that was considering the nearest house was almost a mile away. But the utterance of his name was not something that was explainable in any innocuous way.
So he believed.
“Can you please come to the front room and talk to me?”
What was he going to do? Run? Kirby Gant dismissed that reaction without hesitation. There was no way he was going to outrun the law.
Except, this man speaking to him from near the entrance to the house did not sound like any lawman he’d ever encountered. He sounded almost collegial. As if he was summoning him to a meeting which had been forgotten.
“Who are you?” Kirby asked from the back bedroom.
“Not someone here to arrest you. I’m here to help.”
Help? Help with what?
Kirby considered that question, and what any possible answer might be, then, knowing that he had to make some sort of move, he did, leaving the bedroom and making his way up the hall toward the voice.
“I’m not armed, Mr. Gant,” Ezekiel Sanders told the felon on the run as he appeared where the hallway spilled into the living area of the house.
Gant eyed the stranger from the hallway of the hideaway he’d helped Art find and secure. He wore a long coat and had a largish backpack slung over one shoulder.
“I’ll ask again, who are you?”
Sanders slipped the backpack from his shoulder and let it rest on the floor near a couch that faced the cold fireplace.
“I know about Simon Lynch,” Sanders said. He watched Gant shift in place, like an animal that knew the futility of bolting. “And Emily LaGrange. And Art Jefferson.”
Kirby processed the
impossibility of what he was hearing. The man couldn’t know about those people. Not all of them. And there was no chance in hell to know about the house in which they both stood.
Yet he did.
“That didn’t answer my question,” Kirby told the man.
“My name is Sanders. By telling you that I’ve taken you into a confidence that could get me killed.”
“Well, I’m not feeling all that secure right now either, to be honest,” Kirby told him.
“That’s a good thing,” Sanders said.
“How did you…”
Gant never finished the question. The look Sanders gave him was enough to knock him from his high horse.
“I guess I’m not the only one with mad skills,” Gant said.
“You are not.”
Gant nodded. At one time he’d been the best of the best. Hacker extraordinaire. He’d had no equals.
His time had come and gone, it appeared. A field he’d entered in its infancy, black hat hacking and cracking, had matured. New players ruled the game now.
“Simon Lynch can’t stay here,” Sanders said. “Neither can you.”
The man didn’t even have to explain. Kirby Gant understood implicitly.
“If you found this place…”
“Others are already trying, Kirby.”
A chill raced up the old hacker’s spine. He wasn’t cut out for being hunted. Not in the real world. It was one thing to hide behind electrons bouncing between satellites or racing along cables. Doing so beyond the border of the virtual world was another thing entirely.
“Agent LaGrange and Simon are coming here,” Sanders said. “Yes?”
Gant shook his head. “Not directly.”
Sanders smiled. He’d suspected as much in his last conversation with Porter. “You’re being careful. That’s good.”
“I could trust Art completely,” Gant said. “I was going to get here ahead of time. He’d find a safe phone once he was near with Simon and call to verify that the place was secure.”
Sanders nodded, a hint of doubt in the gesture. Kirby Gant picked up on that immediately.
“I’d answer on a phone that’s never been used,” Gant said, retrieving the basic smartphone from his pocket.
“That was how it would work with Jefferson,” Sanders said. “How about Agent LaGrange?”
Gant slipped the phone into his shirt pocket. “There’s another one just like this. I paid someone to hide it behind a church where I grew up.”
“So she goes there, calls you on a preprogrammed number, I presume,” Sanders said. “And you tell her everything’s a-okay, she tells you everything’s a-okay, and you direct her here.”
“You have a problem with that?”
“What if someone is listening, Kirby?”
Gant didn’t appreciate the challenge to the alterations to the plan he and Jefferson had worked out. Nor to his ability to anticipate just what Sanders was suggesting.
“The phones are secure,” Gant said.
Sanders was quiet for a moment, then shook his head slowly. “And if they aren’t? If one of the NSA’s voice recognition bots tags her while she’s calling, or you, then what?”
“Look, mister, there’s no total security,” Gant said. “I know that more than anyone, because I trusted machines to keep me safe when it was a plain old carbon-based life form that turned me in. There’s risk in anything.” He quieted for a moment, studying the stranger. “Why are you concerned about how I’m getting them here? You basically said this place isn’t safe.”
“It isn’t,” Sanders confirmed. “But they have to get here before I can take you all to a place that is safe.”
Gant’s interest piqued at what the man had said. “How safe?”
“I’m the only one who knows it exists,” Sanders said.
One point of failure. People could look, and they probably would, Gant knew, but reducing possible leaks to a single person was about as secure as a piece of information could get.
“Okay,” Gant said. “You don’t like my method. What do you have in mind?”
Sanders took a laptop computer from the backpack he’d brought with him and placed it on the small dining table. Next he retrieved a folding panel antenna and transmitter.
“A satellite connection,” Gant said.
Sanders nodded. “Can you work with this?”
“Work?”
“Do the shit that got you into trouble,” Sanders said.
Kirby Gant smiled and sat down at the table, opening the laptop and powering it up.
“I can do that shit all day long on this.”
“Good,” Sanders said. “First thing you’re going to do is craft a message to send to Miss LaGrange when she contacts you.”
“The first thing?”
“We have more to do, Kirby, and not a lot of time,” Sanders told him. “Let’s focus. Establish a connection to the net.”
“I thought I was writing a message for Emily.”
“She’ll be receiving it,” Sanders said. “She won’t be reading it, though.”
“I don’t—”
Then Kirby Gant did understand. He nodded and connected the laptop to the satellite transmitter. “Just say the word.”
“Kirby,” Sanders began, “please break into the data archives of the National Security Agency.”
* * *
Simon Lynch recalled the feeling of those first moments at The Ranch when his mind was freed.
‘I’m not me…’
That was the truest descriptor of what he felt. It was as if a new person had emerged from the old, but without erasing what had been. The old Simon Lynch seemed to stand behind him now, like a shadow.
And that shadow was screaming at him.
Divide and conquer!
That made no sense to Simon as he lay on the minivan’s seat, shivering as Emily drove them through the most rural parts of West Virginia, following a meandering path which would, eventually, take them north.
‘Genius, tell me this…’
Venn had said that. Among many things during their exchange, the physicist had used that phrase repeatedly when inquiring about specific calculations or measurements.
Divide!
Again the word rose like nonsense from the darkening fibers in his mind. It was a cry. A plea. A…something.
‘Genius, tell me this, to what degree will volume affect the angle of collision?’
Why was this invading his thoughts now? This and the pointless…
Direction?
‘…will volume affect the angle…’
What if it wasn’t nonsense? Or a plea? But a direction. From the old Simon to the person he had become—or what was left of him.
He asked about volume…
Volume implied a quantity.
Divide…
Divide the quantity? Why? There was no more work to be done. The theory had been proven, both in Russia, and in…
“Baltimore,” Simon said.
“Simon?” Emily asked from the driver’s seat. “You’re awake?”
Two events.
Divide…
“The quantity,” Simon said, his voice now rising above a mumble.
‘Genius, tell me, for a factor of three…’
Three…
Divide…
“More…”
“Simon, what’s going on?”
“There’s more,” Simon said.
“More what?”
He pushed his body up off his elbow, forcing himself to a half-sit. “More devices. One more.”
Emily scanned the area. It was mostly residential, weathered farms spread out along a road that should take them into a larger town ahead. She slowed and pulled to the shoulder, putting the minivan in park.
“How do you know that?”
Simon took a breath and summoned the will to focus. To share what he knew he had to. Before it was too late.
“Venn referenced a quantity variable,” Simon told her. “It didn’
t mean anything to me then. I wasn’t even thinking about it after seeing what happened in Baltimore, but part of me was.”
“The old you,” Emily said.
Simon shook his head, unsure. “I don’t know anymore, Emily. I don’t know what’s happening to me.”
She believed she did but telling him would do no good. Distress might worsen the effects of what was happening to his precious mind.
“We have to tell someone,” Simon said. “People are in danger. Another city could—”
“As soon as we get where—”
“No!” he shouted, the reaction almost immediately sapping his strength. He collapsed back onto the seat, lying flat.
Emily left the driver’s seat and crouched next to him. “Simon, you have to rest.”
“No, Emily. I have to warn someone. Everyone. Please.”
She fixed on his gaze. It was murky and pleading. He was fading, but he was also right. And she knew what that meant. What both those factors added up to. There was no 9-1-1 she could call. But there was someone.
“All right,” Emily said.
Simon managed a relieved smile, watching as Emily got back behind the wheel and pulled off the shoulder, driving them toward the town ahead.
Forty
Find a phone not connected to you…
That was what Sanders had said. But how did anyone do that anymore? Pay phones were a thing of the past. Finding one was akin to spotting a jackalope, or a unicorn.
Emily LaGrange spotted neither as she drove north toward the West Virginia border. What she did spot was a sign rising above a shopping center, one business standing out among others—a health club.
“Mountain Crest Fitness,” Emily said.
“What’s…that?”
His words were coming in fits and starts now, as if his brain was too busy with other things to accurately control something so rudimentary as speech. Emily knew it could not be a signal of anything good.
“It’s a health club,” she told Simon as she made the turn into the fairly crowded parking lot. “We can get what we need here.”
Simon Sees (An Art Jefferson Thriller Book 5) Page 37
