Simon Sees (An Art Jefferson Thriller Book 5)

by Ryne Douglas Pearson

  She held the phone close to his face where he lay on the bench seat, its glow painting his already sickly face with a ghastly pallor. His eyes fluttered, struggling to stay open and fix on what she held before him.

  “It’s code, Simon. I need you to read it.”

  It wasn’t that. Not as she specified it. It was an image of cyphertext. KIWI cyphertext. He knew that much.

  But no more.

  “I don’t…remember.”

  Emily thought for a moment, then eased an arm under Simon and helped him to a sitting position, taking the spot next to him.

  “This is the code you broke, right?”

  Simon nodded as he continued to stare at the image on the screen.

  “You can break it again,” she said. “I know it’s hard for you right now, but I believe you can still do it. You can see through this.”

  It wasn’t that way, he knew. But he also couldn’t explain it to her. The mix of 50 numbers and letters at the beginning of the message, in combination with the 50 letters at the end, told him what to do with the 1450 numbers that made up the body of the cyphertext.

  But they weren’t just numbers. In there somewhere were…

  “Keys,” he said.

  “Keys?” Emily pressed him. “You see something, don’t you?”

  He did. But it was like he was groping toward the solution through a memory. A memory of how easy it had been to decipher the code the first time he’d seen it in the puzzle magazine. He was different now, though.

  I’m not me…

  He wasn’t the ‘me’ that had broken KIWI twenty years ago. He was older, and free of most of the restraints his condition had placed upon his mind. That freedom, though, had also robbed him of one thing that had allowed such rapid solution of problems presented to him—focus.

  Now there were distractions. Worries. Fears.

  Am I going to die?

  That was the newest one that had begun to rise in his muddied thoughts. His body seemed to be resonating the effects of his mind slowly circling a drain. All that he’d known, or learned, felt as though it was slipping away toward an internal abyss. What Emily wanted from him would require salvaging bits of knowledge and ability that might not be there anymore.

  Might not…

  In a very non-linear, wholly unscientific way, that spoke to hope. A chance that he still could do what he had done. That the spark of knowing still existed within. Somewhere.

  Look, Simon…

  “Simon?”

  He shut Emily out. Shut out even what she held before him. The cyphertext was not important—the process was. The cascade of processes, one before the next, which would lead him to…

  Keys…

  There were three keys, each derived from the first and last lines. Those keys, in sequence, were used to extract and identify number groups.

  Three digits…

  Yes!

  Each number group had three digits. He was remembering. A key would also tell him which groups to discard. Nonsense bits of code which were brilliantly embedded to make decryption that much harder.

  But not impossible.

  I’m remembering…

  It was as if the swirl of knowledge which had been circling the drain had reversed course, those lost morsels of who he was bursting inward like fireworks, dazzling sparkles popping off in his head. In each, his mind’s eye glimpsed a lifetime of puzzles, and an equal number of solutions. In between, connecting each like ribbons of fire, were the processes used to reach each answer. It was a visual representation of the brain’s magic, and its horror. A life trapped amongst a blinding cacophony of brilliance.

  Simon Lynch, for that moment, was Simon Lynch again.

  I’m me…

  “We have to go to Arlington,” Simon said, drawing a deep, tiring breath. “Virginia. Fairfax and Stafford. Southeast corner.”

  “Arlington?” Emily asked, not understanding. “Right across the river from D.C. That’s the damn lion’s den, Simon.”

  “We have to pick something up and take it with us to West Hickory, Pennsylvania,” he told her. “One Eight Zero Zero Nine Preacher Hill Road. That’s where we’re going. That’s the end of the line.”

  Emily eased the phone away from him and looked at the nonsense on the screen herself, trying to make sense of what he’d just told her. The final destination she understood, but why would Sanders have them detour? Why would he route them close to the bastion of power that wanted Simon back?

  “That’s it?”

  Simon nodded, then his body tipped toward Emily, the momentary burst of energy and awareness he’d enjoyed gone, the drain within open again. Sheer will could only stop the steady outflow for so long. He was not strong enough to keep both parts of himself tethered, the old and the new. The latter might not be able to exist without the former, he was beginning to believe.

  “Simon,” Emily said. She put the phone aside and helped him lie down, adjusting the blanket and down sleeping bag to cover him fully as his body began to shiver again. “Simon, what is it?”

  He could try to summon the energy again to offer some words as to what he was feeling, what he was sensing, but that would be a waste of time. There was only one thing he needed to say right then.

  “Go,” he told her.

  Emily hesitated, watching him drift off, his eyes fluttering madly behind closed lids, some hellish fit of REM sleep taking hold of him.

  “Simon,” she said softly.

  He didn’t respond.

  Go…

  Emily backed away. He was right. They had to go. She had hours to drive just to get to Arlington, and another five, six, seven hours beyond that to get to West Hickory, wherever that was in Pennsylvania. She couldn’t chance using the phone she now held to look that up, and Simon was in no shape to offer any direction. At some point soon she would have to find a gas station that still had a collection of plain old paper maps. First, though, she had to do just what her companion had said—go.

  She returned to the driver’s seat and started the car, pulling out of the lot and returning to the interstate. Traffic was sparse. Enough so that when she rolled her window down and let the phone drop to the pavement below at seventy miles per hour there was zero chance anyone would hit the device as it tumbled along and shattered into thousands of pieces.

  Arlington…

  Emily considered that stop to come as she drove. Something awaited them there. And someone.

  Fairfax and Stafford…

  That was their first destination. She’d committed it to memory, as she had the location in West Hickory. Now all she had to do was drive through the night and into the morning on less than two hours sleep without drawing some cop’s attention as she drifted over the lane dividers.

  “Focus, Em,” she urged herself softly. “Focus.”

  She did, though every ten minutes or so she found herself needing to glance behind, to Simon, to assure her that he was still breathing. That he was still with her. Because, without him, none of this mattered. At all.

  * * *

  Here she comes…

  Michael Lane told himself that as the night housekeeper walked briskly up the sixth-floor hallway, a small stack of white towels in hand. He stood at the door to room 613, opposite and down the hall a bit from 608. The soft sound of water running had just begun as the elevator dinged and the door opened, the housekeeper appearing. Now, he had to deliver. He had to sell a lie.

  “Damn…”

  He muttered the mild curse as he leaned against the wall next to the door to Traeger’s room, the mangled room key card in hand. Again and again he stabbed it at the slot for the electronic reader in the door, missing and bending the plastic rectangle more with each missed attempt at entry.

  “Sir, are you all right?”

  Play drunk…

  “I’m…” Lane hesitated, his eyes slits, a goofy grin plastered on his face as he looked to the housekeeper. “My girlfriend is in the shower and my key…” He held the card o
ut for her to see. “It’s not working.”

  The housekeeper smiled past an upturned nose and stepped toward the door. “Let me help you, sir.”

  She pulled a master key card from her pocket and slipped it in the lock’s slot. The latch clicked and the door opened inward a quarter of an inch.

  “Take your card to the front desk in the morning and they’ll replace it for you,” the housekeeper said.

  “Thank you,” Lane said, then watched as the housekeeper continued on to deliver the towels to room 608 where Sheila was waiting. He could not wait, though. He was on a very real, and very finite clock.

  He eased the door open and closed it as quietly as he could. Ahead and to the left he could hear the shower running, quite loudly. In a mirror ahead he could see why—the bathroom door was open.

  Crap…

  He took three steps forward and surveyed the room. The shades beyond the bed were drawn, no view of the Potomac to impress at the moment. The bed itself was untouched. Not even a crease along any edge to signal that the man had taken a seat on it to relax. The nearest nightstand was empty but for a lamp. The far one, though…

  There it is…

  Two cell phones lay there. One was an obvious iPhone. The other was not. It looked like the one Sanders had told him to pick up from an off-brand supplier. He’d done so on his way to make contact with Sheila, and that Bhozarj device now waited in his jacket pocket, ready to be swapped out.

  First, though, he had to get close enough to do so.

  Lane looked to the left. Toward the open bathroom door. He would have to cross directly in front of it to move around the bed. Crawling across that and disturbing the covers was not an option. He had to risk being glimpsed from the shower to complete this task.

  And he had to do it now.

  He moved, not even looking into the bathroom as he crossed the space and reached the nightstand. There was no hesitation as he picked the device up and replaced it with the identical Bhozarj cell phone.

  Almost identical.

  Holy Jesus…

  What he was holding hit Lane as he moved back across the room and slipped out the door, once again closing it as softly as he could manage. In the hallway he drew a fast breath and looked to what he held. If what Sanders had told him was true, it was a nuclear weapon. One unlike any the world had ever seen—not counting what had happened in Baltimore.

  “Michael…”

  He looked up. Sheila had come out of their room and was eyeing him, confused at his hesitation.

  “We need to move,” she said. “Now.”

  That had been the plan. Get it and run. Then wait for the handoff.

  “Okay,” he said.

  He slipped the device in his jacket pocket where its twin had been and hurried to follow Sheila. They took the elevator to the parking level below the hotel and drove out into the night.

  Forty Three

  Emily circled the block once in the dead of night, and then pulled into the parking lot of the all-night pancake restaurant in Arlington, Virginia. A half-dozen cars were scattered about, their owners inside enjoying short stacks or plates of chicken-fried steak. Maybe even hash like Schur, the man from Justice, had wolfed down in front of her during their diner meeting in Minneapolis. That was where this had started. With him. With the message he delivered.

  Now she cruised slowly past the restaurant, peering through the glass front to the bright interior, immediately noticing the man and woman at a booth near the window. Both were staring out at her.

  She nosed into a spot so that she was looking almost directly at them and killed the minivan’s headlights. A few seconds later the man, an officious sort trying not to look that way, stood and made his way out the front door and approached the minivan. Emily eyed him for a moment before stepping out.

  “Sanders sent me,” Michael Lane said.

  Emily looked past him to the woman still staring at her.

  “Did he send your lady, too?”

  Lane glanced behind, slightly embarrassed. “She’s not…we’re not…”

  “You have something for me?”

  “Yes,” Lane nodded. He reached into his pocket and retrieved the cell phone.

  “I keep throwing phones away,” Emily said, eyeing the device. “Why do I need—”

  Then she understood. Lane held it out to her.

  “I’d try to not drop it,” he said.

  Emily hesitated, then took the cell phone from him. She stared at it, then looked to the man who’d handed her the incredibly compact nuclear device.

  “Why would he want me to bring this?”

  “I don’t know,” Lane said. “But we’re starting to look like drug dealers, so I’d get moving if I were you.”

  Emily nodded and stepped back to the minivan, sliding in the driver’s seat, the device still in hand.

  “Is that it?”

  The question came from behind her. She looked and saw Simon’s fading gaze fixed on the device in her hand.

  “Yes,” she answered, slipping it into the nearest cup holder on the dash. “Get some rest. We’ll be there in the morning.”

  Simon didn’t respond. Instead, he let a memory rise. A memory of his friend. It was the time Art had saved him. He’d been taken on a helicopter, and then he’d left it under a parachute attached to a man named Sean. The helicopter had blown up soon after, making a huge fireball above Lake Michigan. That entire operation he’d come to understand was intended to leave the impression that he’d been killed. Who, after all, would chase a dead man?

  It appeared to him that something similar was being planned, only the fireball this time would be substantially larger, and the margin of error likely razor thin. Whoever was planning to fake his death yet again might actually end up accomplishing that very thing while trying to prevent it. If that was to be, Simon had only one wish—that Emily LaGrange be spared.

  She’d done everything Art would have done to save him. And more. On the other side of this situation there were no promises of freedom for her. No peace of mind. That wasn’t fair. And the thing that left him in awe was that she knew that, and still she was pressing on, unafraid of what she would face.

  Art Jefferson didn’t just have a twin, in some respects—he had an ally.

  “I wish Art could have met you,” Simon said, but his voice was mostly breath, too soft for Emily to hear above the noise of the engine and the tires turning on the asphalt. That didn’t bother him, though. It mattered most that he’d realized how special she was.

  * * *

  Ding!

  Sanders glanced at his personal phone as he drove, the single, sharp tone indicating that a text message had been received. What he was expecting to hear would be either simple confirmation that all had gone as hoped, or that the plan he’d quickly envisioned had suffered a catastrophic blow. Each message could be delivered without specifying what it was related to. Elevated security was not necessary. Success was not guaranteed, but failure could be if the message waiting on his phone was not what he was hoping for.

  He could have asked Harrison to keep her people ready instead of having them stand down. If this plan fell apart, he could have simply reengaged them. But that option was only the worst best possibility. It was hardly better than what had happened twenty years ago. The assurances made then for Simon Lynch’s safety had come with an expiration date. Anything less than his newest plan succeeding would have a similar result.

  Ezekiel Sanders was swinging for the fences. He knew that. And he was willing to accept the consequences should it all fall apart.

  Ding!

  The phone alerted him again. He would wait no more. His thumb tapped the message icon and the incoming text appeared. It was from Lane. There were no words in it—just an emoji.

  A thumbs up.

  Thank God…

  Sanders smiled and breathed as he drove north from D.C. Somewhere along this very highway two others would be traveling. They would be heading to an address just outsi
de West Hickory, Pennsylvania. He was not. He’d visited that house, chosen carefully by Art Jefferson, only once, and would never set foot in it again. His place was elsewhere.

  As he drove, he had one more call to make. Now that the plan would proceed as he’d conceived it, one final piece needed to be put in place. He doubted that it would be difficult to achieve, and it might very well occur as a matter of course, but the request had to be made. A request that had to be passed along by another.

  * * *

  Mikhail Goldov left the house which had been rented for him by the Russian government and walked toward Wisconsin Avenue, his spry Pekingese tugging at the leash he held. The Embassy was a few hundred yards straight ahead, but he was not heading there. He was heading nowhere. In fact, he was waiting.

  His wait lasted only until he reached the end of his block.

  The silver sedan pulled to the curb after approaching from behind. Goldov stopped and picked his diminutive dog up, bending to look through the passenger window as it rolled down.

  “Arthur,” he said.

  “Mikhail,” Sato greeted the Russian. “It’s terribly cold. Let me give you a ride.”

  The spy whose cover was Russian Attaché for Cultural Affairs did not hesitate. He climbed in, his dog yapping at the driver as he rolled the window up and they pulled away.

  “He hates Americans?” Sato asked.

  “I’m embarrassed,” Goldov said. “Asians. If I am ever posted to Tokyo or Beijing, he will have to find a new home.”

  “That’s an ironic reaction considering the breed,” Sato commented.

  “Yes, well.” Goldov quieted the dog with a gentle tap on the snout, the creature curling up on his owner’s lap, eyes fixed on the driver. “This is unusual, Arthur. Particularly considering what you are, and what you aren’t.”

  Sato glanced to the man as he turned and drove south. “There are no listening devices in this car. I don’t even have my phone on me.”

  “Nor do I,” Goldov said. “Though assurances are, shall we say, just words.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “I don’t know you, Arthur. I don’t understand your motives. Try as I might, you are still an enigma to me. Perhaps it is because you have involved yourself in something that shouldn’t concern you.”