A Wild and Lonely Place

by Marcia Muller

  “Please try. The bomber’s aware that Hamid wasn’t in the consulate this afternoon. He’s been posting on the Techno Web—do you know what that is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he’s been posting that he’ll make his demands known soon. One of those is sure to be Hamid, in exchange for the policewoman he’s holding.”

  Newton glanced nervously at his front door. “You’d give him over in exchange? Just like that?”

  “In a heartbeat. The policewoman’s a friend of mine.”

  “But it’s like…cold-blooded murder.”

  “No, Mr. Newton, it’s more like justice.”

  He seemed to think about that, and after a moment he nodded. “All right, I’ll keep Hamid here by the method you suggested—or barring that, any other I can come up with.”

  “Thank you.”

  He turned, then paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Do you have any idea who the bomber is?”

  “I think so: Kahlil Lateef, trade attaché at the consulate. He’s a consummate actor, has hidden his true emotions extremely well.”

  “I should take a lesson from him,” Newton said. “After what you’ve told me tonight, I’m going to have to keep my own feelings on a very tight rein.”

  Twenty-eight

  I retreated to the eucalyptus grove and watched Newton’s bungalow. There was no sign of activity in the back room where Hamid was staying, and after a while the light in the parlor went out. I stayed put for about fifteen minutes, but the house remained dark and no one came outside. Finally I cut through the grove to the MG and checked in with Mick. Nothing further had been posted on the Techno Web.

  “It’s weird, Shar,” he said. “I’m sitting all alone in front of this screen in the middle of the night, and I can feel hundreds of thousands of other people doing the same thing out there. We’re all waiting to see what he does next.”

  “You really think that many people are following what’s happening?”

  “Oh, sure—and not just law enforcement and the press. The boards’re buzzing. Nighttime’s when they get heavy use, anyway; people are lonesome and it helps them feel connected.”

  I thought of our cross-country flight and the long, dark leg between Phoenix and Mirage Wells. The mutterings across the nighttime radio waves had helped me feel connected while Hy and Habiba slept.

  “Well, keep monitoring the boards,” I told Mick, “but I need you to do something in addition to that: locate Kahlil Lateef. The operator at RKI can probably tell you where he is, if you don’t let on that you’re asking for me.”

  Mick said he’d think of some way to get the information, and I settled down for a long surveillance. Stakeouts were just a notch below paperwork on the list of things I didn’t like about my work, but I couldn’t lose track of Hamid and I needed Mick at the computer, so the tedious task fell to me. God, how I wished I could afford to hire another operative! Rae had been making noises lately about leaving All Souls; she’d be perfect. But how to manage it? The reward money the feds had posted for the bomber? If I could claim even a portion of that—

  Don’t get ahead of yourself, McCone.

  Time dragged. The fog began to drift, fooling me more than once into thinking I saw a person slipping through it. It grew cold in the car, and I discovered that the blanket I usually kept in the trunk had mysteriously disappeared. I desperately wanted a cup of coffee, but had to content myself with some stale chocolate I found in the glove box. Over the past couple of years my passion for chocolate had waned; the Hershey Bar looked and tasted as if it had been melting and solidifying in there for at least that long. I threw half of it out the window and continued to watch the edges of the grove and the plank bridge. No one came or went by either route, and by one-fifteen I was half crazed with boredom.

  The phone buzzed, a welcome diversion. “Yes, Mick.”

  “Shar, brace yourself! The bomber’s posted again. He wants to communicate with you, personally!”

  “What! How?”

  “He’s switching from the boards to the Web’s live discourse. And he wants you on-line at quarter to three. The task force called here; they’re setting up for you at their headquarters. Parkhurst wants to see you right away.”

  “Jesus.” I glanced at the plank bridge. “This surveillance—we can’t let Hamid go anyplace, and I don’t know if Newton can hold him if he gets it into his mind to leave. I’ll need you to take over down here.”

  “I’m already on my way; I’m talking to you on a cellular unit I borrowed from a friend this afternoon.” He recited its number, and I scribbled it down. “You better leave now. It won’t hurt if the place is uncovered for a few minutes. Now listen: the press is already onto what’s happening, and they’re massing outside the Federal Building annex. You’re to go to the back of the building, down the alley that opens off Larkin Street. Park by the red dumpster. Craig Morland’ll be waiting to take you upstairs.”

  “Okay.” Heart racing, I reached for the ignition. “Oh, Mick, did you locate Lateef?”

  “Nobody knows where he is. I spoke directly with Gage Renshaw, pretending to be a worried relative. Lateef walked away from Jackson Street this afternoon and nobody’s heard from him since.”

  Nobody except the authorities, the press, and half a million hackers.

  * * *

  When I got to task force headquarters I met with Ed Parkhurst in his office and briefed him on the bomber’s probable identity. Although I hadn’t intended to, at the last minute I kept RKI out of it, citing instead an “anonymous source” at the consulate. It wasn’t that I was trying to protect Renshaw, or even the firm in which Hy held a substantial interest. What it boiled down to was a clear-cut matter of ethics: I’d signed a contract with them guaranteeing confidentiality. Once I’d given my word, I wouldn’t retract it.

  Besides, my fit of moral purity made me feel several steps farther removed from the thin line that separated them from me.

  Parkhurst called in two of his people and assigned them to tracing Lateef. “If he is our man, he’ll be stuck at his computer for a while,” he said. “You get a quick fix on the son of a bitch, and we might take him unaware.”

  The pair didn’t look any too optimistic as they filed out, and I couldn’t say as I blamed them. They’d been handed a near impossible task.

  Parkhurst remained at his desk, rubbing his stubbly chin and regarding me with thinly veiled dislike. “I thought of keeping you out of this, Ms. McCone,” he finally said. “I don’t like involving outsiders, especially ones who don’t play by my rules. The bomber isn’t going to be able to see you; any member of this task force could deal with him—and much more effectively.”

  I bit back a sarcastic remark about the task force’s effectiveness up to this point and asked, “So why did you bring me in on it?”

  “Two reasons. One, he was adamant that he would communicate only with you. There’s a reason for that and until we know what it is we can’t risk noncompliance. Two, he may ask a question that only you can answer, as a means of identifying you. And now, if this Lateef is really our man, we have a third reason: he’s personally acquainted with you and thus equipped to pick up on some nuance of phrasing that might tip him if we used a ringer.”

  “How do you know it’s actually him you’re dealing with, rather than someone who’s fooling around?”

  “All along he’s revealed details that we’ve never made public—but that doesn’t concern you. Now, a few pointers on how to play this: Don’t let on that you think you know who he is. Don’t antagonize him. Don’t ask questions unless absolutely necessary for clarification. Feed into his game, agree to all of his demands, no matter how outrageous. Get instructions, and we’ll take it from there.”

  “Won’t he be afraid you’re trying to trace him by keeping him on-line?”

  “Communication by computer can’t be traced like a phone call, if that’s what you’re thinking. Posting on the boards creates a paper trail; he left one, of course, bu
t once we got our court order we found he’d been using a password belonging to a woman in Tennessee who’d never heard of the Diplo-bomber and hadn’t logged on to the service in six months. Since then he’s been using other borrowed passwords. Now that he’s moved to live discourse, he’s selected the perfect method of communicating undetected; it doesn’t create any trail at all.” Parkhurst looked at his watch. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

  He led me to the office Adah had occupied only ten days before: a small high-ceilinged room rendered claustrophobic by the two women and seven men assembled there. They all looked tired and on edge; the air was thick with cigarette smoke, and Styrofoam cups littered every surface except the desk. Craig Morland sat there, a Macintosh PowerBook in front of him. When Parkhurst and I came in, he motioned for me to take the chair next to him.

  The flashing numerals at the top of the Mac’s screen said 2:40 A.M.

  As I sat down, Morland was scrolling through a menu: eco-freaks; lesbian forum; writer’s heaven; post divorce; over thirty; badass males; feminist backlash; stressed out; looking 4 love—the list seemed endless.

  “What’re those?” I asked.

  “Conversation rooms.” Morland moved the cursor to an item near the bottom of the window.

  DIPLO-BOMBER.

  “That’s ours?”

  “No. It’s just a public room; there’re eighteen people in there babbling about the case. I lurked, checked out what they’re saying. None of their theories is as improbable as what’s really happening.”

  “Explain this ‘room’ business, would you.”

  “I take it you’re not familiar with the boards or live talk?”

  “My computer’s strictly for business purposes, and I only use it when my assistant’s unavailable.”

  “Then I’m glad I waited for you before setting this up.”

  The words WELCOME TO LIVE DISCOURSE appeared on the screen. Below them were listed two options: PUBLIC ROOMS and PRIVATE ROOMS.

  “Imagine a large house,” Morland said. “A mansion, actually. It contains hundreds of rooms, each devoted to a different topic of conversation. Right now we’re only in the foyer.”

  The other agents had been milling around and talking, but as he spoke they grew silent and crowded behind us.

  “Most of the rooms in the house,” Morland went on, “are public. Any subscriber to the service can select and enter one, and either converse or lurk—just listen. Anyone can also set up a private room dedicated to any topic he wants, simply by selecting that option.” The cursor moved to it. “You name the room with a password of your own choosing, but the name doesn’t appear on the menu. The only people who know it exists are those you give the password to. I’m now going to set one up, using the name the bomber specified when he last posted on the boards.”

  “Wait a minute—if he posted it, don’t all the people using the service know what it is? What’s to stop them—”

  “Our guy’s too clever a bastard by far.” Morland smiled grimly. “He told us to use the last two words of his last note to the Azadis. We’ve never made that public.” He began to type.

  REMEMBER C.L.

  I glanced at the top of the screen. 2:42 A.M.

  “That’s all there is to it,” Morland added. “We’re now in the room and waiting for him to arrive.”

  In my mind’s eye I visualized a shadowy room and Craig standing beside me, his features barely distinguishable in the gloom. There was a door, open just enough to let in a thin stripe of light. Any moment now I’d hear footsteps—

  I pulled myself back from the scene, gripped the desk with cold fingers. Was that what they meant when they talked about getting lost in cyberspace?

  Morland hadn’t noticed my absence. He said, “This particular service is a very fast one; it’s about as close to actual conversation as you can get on-line. When our guy logs on and enters the room, he’ll type and send his first message. You’ll hear a chime, and his words’ll appear on the screen. You’ll then tell me how to reply, and I’ll enter it word for word. If you don’t know what to say, consult with Special Agent Parkhurst. Take your time; delays are normal.”

  2:43.

  In a low voice I said, “I just briefed Parkhurst on what I’ve been able to find out. I’m reasonably sure that the bomber is Kahlil Lateef, the Azadi trade attaché.”

  Morland looked sharply at me, then shook his head. “You did know something we didn’t. What’s Lateef’s motive?”

  “It’s complicated and, frankly, I’m too nervous to go into it. What if I screw this up?”

  “You’ll be fine. Just bring him along easy, let him enjoy his game.”

  “And it is a game to him.”

  He nodded. “I’ve got a theory about players like this guy. Something happens to them—a shock, a loss, or just an irresistible impulse to go against the acceptable norm. So they start to alter their behavior a little at a time, moving farther and farther away from society’s standards until they’re finally free of all the emotions the rest of us feel: guilt, pity, remorse, empathy, even love. Eventually only one emotion remains: the fear of being caught out. You’ve lived with fear, I assume. So have I. We both know what happens after a while.”

  I thought back to the tremendous rush I’d felt while sitting in the sidewalk café in Marigot, before I’d pulled my trick on Cam Connors and gotten Habiba off Jumbie Cay. Intoxicating stuff—effective if used wisely, dangerous if it got out of hand. “Fear can become how you get your kicks.”

  “Yeah. And tonight our guy is getting the biggest kick of all.”

  I studied the staid-looking FBI man, surprised to find a kindred soul lived within his conservative facade. Adah could do far worse; Craig, like Hy, understood and accepted the darkness that inhabited us all.

  2:44.

  The room was very quiet now. The flick of a cigarette lighter made me start; a cough set my heart to pounding. Tension connected all of us like an intricate web of electrical current. I thought I imagined the hair on my arms bristling, looked down and saw that it was.

  Still 2:44.

  Come on.

  2:44.

  Come on!

  2:44…2:44…2:45.

  The Mac’s chime was incongruously whimsical for such a prosaic piece of equipment. Words appeared on the screen.

  GREETINGS, MS. MCCONE. YOU THINK YOU KNOW WHO I AM, DON’T YOU?

  I stared at the message, as if somehow I could bring his face into focus.

  “What do you want to say?” Morland prompted.

  “…Say ‘You have me baffled. Why do you want to talk with me?’”

  Morland typed and pressed the send key. The reply came quickly.

  AS TO YOUR STATEMENT, YOU ARE LYING. AS TO YOUR QUESTION, I THOUGHT YOU WOULD ENJOY MATCHING WITS. DO YOU KNOW WHERE DAWUD HAMID IS?

  Right to the crux of the matter. “As of an hour ago, yes. I spoke with the man he’s staying with.”

  AN HOUR AGO ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH. WHERE IS HE NOW?

  I snapped my fingers, motioning for the phone. “Give me a minute and I’ll find out.”

  Morland pushed the phone toward me before he entered my words. I punched in the number Mick had given me for his borrowed cellular unit. When he answered, he sounded agitated.

  “Thank God you called, Shar! Has he—”

  “I need Hamid, Mick. Is he still at the bungalow?”

  “No. Newton’s car was gone and the place was empty when I got here. But listen—I checked the office machine. Blanca Diaz called; Hamid’s at her house.”

  “What!”

  “I guess Newton drove him to Ronquillo’s condo; he got there around two, drunk and raving about the bombing. Ronquillo wouldn’t let him stay, so Leila asked Blanca to take him home to her place in the Mission. I’m on my way there now.”

  “Okay, Mick, call Blanca and tell her not to let him out of her sight and not to turn him over to anybody but me. Get there as fast as you can, so you can help her in case he tries to t
ake off.”

  “Will do.”

  I broke the connection and said to Morland, “Tell him, ‘I’ve located Hamid.’”

  JUST LIKE THAT? MY, MY. THEN YOU MAY BE ABLE TO HELP ME—AND YOUR FRIEND INSPECTOR JOSLYN.

  “How?”

  DON’T BE SO TERSE, MS. MCCONE. TRY TO ENJOY THIS. I AM.

  “I’m very concerned for Adah Joslyn.”

  YOUR FRIEND IS FINE, ALTHOUGH SHE COULD DO WITH A MORE PLEASANT DISPOSITION. I AM WILLING TO EXCHANGE HER FOR DAWUD HAMID.

  I glanced at Parkhurst. He nodded.

  “It’s a done deal,” I said. Quickly Morland entered and sent the words.

  I LIKE A DECISIVE WOMAN. BUT WILL THE FEDS ALLOW YOU TO MAKE THE EXCHANGE?

  “You have my word on it.”

  I TRUST YOU, BUT I DO NOT TRUST THEM.

  “They will make good on this.”

  I DON’T SUPPOSE IT MATTERS.

  Now what could that mean?

  HOW SOON CAN YOU GET HOLD OF MR. HAMID?

  “Within the hour.”

  THEN I WILL RETURN TO THE ROOM AT FOUR O’CLOCK.

  “I’ll be here.”

  Morland said, “He’s logging off now.”

  Parkhurst put his hand on my shoulder. “Well done,

  Ms. McCone.” He sounded as though it pained him to

  acknowledge it. “Now where’s Hamid?”

  Blanca’s address was in my notebook. “I’ll take you there.”

  “You’ll give me the location and we’ll—”

  “No way.” I wanted to be there when they hauled Hamid downtown.

  Morland interceded quickly. “Sir, what’s the charge for picking him up to be?”

  “Material witness in a federal investigation. And you get that ambassador who arrived from D.C. a few hours ago— what’s his name?”

  “Jalil.”

  “Get Jalil over here. Tell him…ask him to exert pressure on Hamid to play it our way.”

  “Yessir.”

  “And you, Ms. McCone—”

  “Mr. Parkhurst,” I said, following Morland’s tactful lead, “you’re going to need me. As I was about to say before, there’s no way the woman who’s sheltering Hamid will turn him over to anyone other than me.”