by Bapsy Jain
“Just don’t,” Lucky said. “Let’s GO. I’ll explain!”
“They may be in on it,” Collette said.
“The cab company?” Amay asked.
“The cops,” Collette replied.
“Please let’s get out of here.” Lucky was near to tears.
Amay shut the door.
“Just a minute!” Collette shouted. She ran around the side of the house and returned a moment later with her My Little Pony backpack. She threw it in the back seat, then ran in the house for Lucky’s suitcase, and threw in the back seat, too. She climbed in and they drove away. “Where are we going?” Amay asked.
“Anywhere,” Lucky said. “No, wait. Someplace where nobody will find us for a while.”
“I can take you to the gallery.”
“No,” Collette said.
Amay said, “I’ve got some friends upstate. They have a country house by Bear Mountain.”
“Where’s Maria and the kids?” Lucky asked.
“They just got home.”
“You have to get them out of there,” Lucky said.
Collette said, “I’ve got some friends in Waterbury. We can hole up there.”
“Who is she?” Amay asked, turning to look at Collette.
“She’s my babysitter,” Lucky replied.
“This isn’t making any sense.”
“You’re telling me!”
“Just drive north,” Collette said. “Trust me.”
Lucky dug into Amay’s coat pocket for his phone, found it, and dialed. Maria answered. “Maria, it’s me. Don’t say anything. Take the kids, all the kids, now, and get out. Go to your uncle’s house. Go to your uncle Juan’s and stay there until I find you. Don’t ask any questions. Turn off your cell phone and don’t call anybody you know. Do it now. I’ll get word to you somehow at your uncle’s when it’s safe.” She hung up, then threw the phone out of the window.
Amay looked at the open window. “That was —”
“Good move!” Collette said.
“What did you do with Bolton?” Lucky asked Collette.
“I didn’t do anything,” Collette said. “Well, not with them. Not exactly. When you told me to run, I ran. I ran to your house. I was waiting for you, hiding over there, but then this older guy showed up, and he started poking around, trying the doors and such, and I didn’t know who he was or anything.”
“That was Alec,” Lucky said.
“Okay. Anyway, he didn’t look dangerous, but I wasn’t taking any chances. So I just hid in the bushes until you came home with that psycho cop. I sure wasn’t going to come out with her around — she hates me. So when she left, and that first guy left, I was just about to come up to your porch when that other car pulled up. I thought, Uh-oh. I went around the side of the house, but that tall dude was still there—the one whose photo I sent you.”
“Bolton…,” Lucky said. It came out almost like a question.
“How did you get mixed up with that guy?” Collette asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Lucky said. “I saw him on a train and the little cabbie driver too when I was on my way to work.”
“Anyway,” Collette continued, “I almost walked right into him, but he didn’t see me. He was looking around the front of the house. Then I heard you talking to somebody. I wanted to warn you, but what could I do? The back door was still locked.”
“They had another car, a big black limo,” Lucky said. She looked around anxiously. “I wonder if they’re following us.”
Amay cleared his throat. “What is this all about?” he asked. “Lucky, what have you got yourself into?”
“I’m not sure,” Lucky said, “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m sure as hell going to find out.” She ran Amay through the events of the past few days, starting with Coleman hacking her computer to send her data to the mirror site, telling Coleman she could not work for him, the lost bag, Bolton being on the train and in Collette’s backyard, the police officer, the cabbie, the syringe, the blood threat, and the message. She shivered.
Amay listened, then asked, “But why do we need to run?”
“I just want to be in a safe place, Amay. I need to sort this out. If I don’t go to Mumbai, I’ll wind up in the same prison where I teach. I see it clearly. You see, it is all so complicated. The train ride, Gordon Bolton the criminal, the computer, the programs, the magic mushroom, Dr. Vakil giving me Lobsang’s whereabouts, and Coleman determined to get Lobsang. Maybe he feels I can do the job being from Mumbai, but I have to go on my own, not as Coleman’s employee. That’s my best chance to find out anything there. And then I can come out clean and clear up this whole computer mess. Besides, if I don’t go, I guess Bolton will have me for dinner!”
Collette piped in, “I’m sure they’re looking for your laptop now.”
Lucky turned to Collette. “How far is it to your friends’ house?”
“About an hour,” Collette said, “if this guy doesn’t drive like a wimp.”
“I don’t want to get a ticket,” Amay said. “Or in an accident.”
“You’re already in an accident,” Collette said, “and the cops are probably looking for you, anyway.”
“Why would…I just don’t get it….you both seem to be hallucinating!”
“Please just drive, Amay. Besides, she might be right,” Lucky said. “We have to ditch the car.”
Amay took a deep breath. “Why so dramatic, Lucky?”
“Can’t you see? I don’t want Coleman hounding me. I need to go on my own terms.”
“Who is she again?” Amay said turning his head.
“My babysitter.”
“That nutty kid you’re always talking about?”
“Collette,” Collette said, “Not that anybody’d care. After all, teenagers are to be seen and hot nerd.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” Lucky smiled.
Chapter 12
They stopped at a little mom-and-pop store in Darien for some snacks. Amay ran inside and paid cash — at Lucky’s insistence. “For God’s sake, will you listen to me just once! Do not use a credit card! Just do what I say, will you? Please! Without arguing?”
“Look at him run,” Collette said, as Amay looked left and right before ducking inside the store. “Does he look suspicious, or what?”
Lucky scanned the building and the street.
“Whatcha lookin’ for?” Collette asked.
“Cameras.”
“You’re paranoid.”
“A few days ago you said I wasn’t paranoid enough.”
“Well, don’t take it too far.”
“You know what Coleman put on my computer, but I know what was on my computer before he put anything on it.”
“Are you talking about Bloodsucker?”
Lucky paled. “Bloodhound?” she said. It was almost a whisper. The words caught in her throat.
“Yeah, something like that.” Collette squirmed in the back seat.
Lucky glared at her. “Tell me. You might as well tell it all.”
“I didn’t do anything. Yazma found it. He read your hard drive, remember?”
“Yes,” Lucky sighed. With time off for good behavior, she thought, I might make parole by the time I turn forty.
“The thing is,” Collette said, “Yazma told me you were in some deep shit.”
Amay climbed into the car and dropped bags of Trail Mix in Lucky’s lap. He peeled out in a cloud of burning rubber.
Still later, they found a pay phone, and Collette called her friends to come and get them at the gas station near the freeway. They munched on hamburgers at Denny’s at the station while they waited.
Lucky looked at Collette. “What did Yazma say?” Lucky asked.
“He didn’t say anything about you.”
“You said he said I was in deep shit.”
“Oh, that.” Collette put down her hamburger. “He was talking about your boss—what’s his name?”
“Coleman.”
“But what did he say?” Lucky asked.
“He just said this guy was spying on you.”
Lucky thought about this. “Well,” she said, “it isn’t right, but sometimes companies do that. Even governments. Especially if they’re dealing with some sensitive information — if there’s a security issue.”
“This wasn’t a background check, Lucky. And this guy wanted more than information. He wanted to know everything about you—who you talk to, what you say, where you shop, what you think, who you know, everything. That’s not about information, it’s about control. If he wanted, he could send e-mails from your account. Deposit money. Take money. Put up pictures of you. Anything.”
“Well, he is in the government.”
“And that makes it right?”
“No,” Lucky said, “but it makes it plausible.”
“That’s just it,” Collette said. “There’s no reason for somebody to want that kind of control over you.” Collette opened up her backpack and handed Lucky the little Netbook.
“You brought it!” Lucky exclaimed.
“I figured it was important,” Collette replied.
Amay asked, “What’s so special about it?”
“I took something I shouldn’t have from the Department of Corrections, but then Coleman did something he shouldn’t have done to my computer. He put a program on it—what was it?—a magic mirror. Maybe they know I have it.”
“What’s that–exactly how does it work?” Amay asked.
“Tell him, Collette.”
Collette said, “It makes it look like you’re online doing whatever you are doing, but it’s actually exporting everything you do to another website. It records everything. Keystrokes, passwords, sites, e-mail, everything. It’s a hacker’s dream. And this one was good. I mean, the government made it.”
“The GWC?” Amay asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know,” Lucky said.
When they reached the gas station, Collette’s friends were waiting, and after they high fived, Lucky and Amay shook their hands, Derrick, Sunny, Cleo, and Kink. Derrick was middle aged, short, balding, with a salt-and-pepper goatee. He wore a black tee shirt under a brown sports jacket, Levis, and neon green Nike sneakers. Sunny was in his late teens or early twenties, also short, black, and wearing jeans and a black muscle shirt. Cleo was in her late teens, a blonde, and tall, nearly six feet. She wore pink pants and a fake-fur leopard print jacket. Kink was in her early twenties, very short, a honey blonde, and she wore a green tee shirt over black spandex tights.
“Nothing like traveling inconspicuously,” Amay said.
“It’s my mother’s car,” Cleo said.
“I was talking about you,” Amay replied.
“What the f–k?” Collette asked. “How the hell are we all supposed to fit in that?”
“Three in the front, four in the back,” Derrick replied.
“And you know what’s really cool?” Cleo asked.
“What’s that?” Collette replied.
Derrick held up his Blackberry. On the screen was a photo of Collette. “There’s an Amber Alert for you, girl.”
They drove to Waterbury. It was past midnight when they arrived. The house was a McMansion in a gated community just north of town. They spread out on the floor of the living room. Lucky looked at the little Netbook. Kink hovered over it. “So, can you show us that cool program you were talking about? Bloodsucker?”
Collette winced as Lucky shot her a glare.
Kink reached for the On button but Lucky shouted, “No! If you turn it on, they’ll know right where we are.”
“Too bad,” Amay said. “I’d like to see that myself.”
“We could change the computer’s ID,” Derrick suggested. “Of course, we’d have to jerk the hard drive.”
Collette looked sheepishly at Lucky. “If I told you something,” she said, “would you promise not to get mad at me?”
“I’m beyond getting mad right now,” Lucky said.
“If all you wanted was to use Bloodhound, I sort of made a copy, too.”
“You ‘sort of’ made a copy. As in, accidentally?”
“Well, after what Yazma said, it kind of sounded interesting. Maybe even useful. So he made a copy for me. I was thinking maybe that was why they came to my house. Anyway, that might explain how they found me.”
Lucky arched her eyebrows. “But you have a copy? A copy of Bloodhound! On your computer?”
Collette nodded.
Lucky held out her hands. “Give it to me.”
Collette fetched her laptop from her backpack and they fired it up. Lucky found Bolton in the state public records, and once she had the photo she went to work. Ten minutes later they were all staring at the screen at a photo from 1984. Two brothers, side-by-side. A going-away party. One of the brothers was thin and wore glasses, a button-down shirt and slacks. The other brother was tall and muscular. He wore jeans, a blue ball cap, and a gray tee shirt that read: UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA GRIZZLIES. The smaller of the two was Coleman. The other, the records stated, was his half-brother—Gordon Bolton.
“So he’s got his own little crew of home-grown plumbers,” Amay said. “He’s a politician. But if we were to sit and analyze, he just has two goons running around. It’s not like the FBI you know.”
“There’s more to this than fixing leaks,” Lucky said.
“What then?”
“I need to check my e-mail.” Lucky opened her Hotmail account. It was entirely empty but for a single new e-mail marked SENDER UNKNOWN. “Here we go,” Lucky said. She opened the e-mail. In it was a single blue hyperlink. The article led to an article on the website of an Indian news service. Lucky read out loud to the group. “Mumbai police are investigating the break in and robbery of a local physician’s apartment, Dr. Eruch Vakil, in Madhuri building at Worli Sea Face…the robbery included cash and electronic items including a desktop computer.” Lucky stopped. “For the love of God,” she said. “What have I got myself into?” She closed out the browser.
Amay put his arm around her. “We’ll go to the police,” he said. “They can protect you.”
Lucky shook her head. “This is the police, I mean the GWC. So they are not going to protect me. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s not me I’m worried about.”
He looked at her. “What, then?”
“I have to dodge Coleman. He’ll follow my every move.”
She looked at the Netbook, then turned to Collette. “It’s working again?”
Collette nodded.
“And if I turn it on, they’ll know?”
“They’ll know,” Collette said
Lucky opened the Netbook and turned it on. She went straight to a travel website and bought a ticket in her name for the next day from Boston to London, England.
Amay looked at her. Collette said, “But they’ll know…”
“Of course they’ll know,” Lucky said. “I even used my credit card.”
Lucky then bought another ticket from Hartford to Houston to Buenos Aires.
“But Lucky,” Collette said. “They’ll still know where you’re going. You used your computer.”
“That’s right,” she replied. “But I’m not going to Buenos Aires, either. We’re going to use Derrick’s computer and I’m buying a ticket from Montreal to Mumbai, with Amay’s credit card. I need to go to Mumbai to find Lobsang. And if I don’t, Coleman may kill him and then hang me. I have inadvertently told him where Lobsang could be. And I don’t want to be hanged or live with his death on my conscience.”
“But doesn’t Coleman want you in India?”
“Of course he does, and that’s why I have to convince him I’m somewhere else. I need to work on my own. Lobsang will run for miles if he thinks I am on Coleman’s team!”
Amay shook his head. “Sounds thin.”
“What else can I do?” Lucky asked. “Maybe I
can find this guy first. Who knows? Maybe I can persuade him to give me the mushroom. And if he does, then Coleman will have what he wants and leave us all alone. If I stay, Coleman will hang me on charges of stealing Bloodhound. If I go alone and convince Lobsang, along with my Mumbai friends, he may listen and I may get back my life. Coleman knows I can find Lobsang. I’ve proved it with poor Dr. Vakil!” She shivered.
She turned to Amay and touched him on the cheek. “Amay, promise me you’ll take care of Sean. Once I go, Coleman will be too busy tracking my whereabouts to worry about Sean and Collette.”
“But Lucky, do you really need to go all the way to India? He is smart making you run around to get his job done. I mean, what are the chances of finding Lobsang? And why hide all this from Coleman? It’s his job, why not get his support?”
“Like I keep saying, Amay, till I find Lobsang, I am not safe, and neither is Lobsang. Or you. Or Sean. Coleman will do anything to get what he wants. This is the only way. And again, I can only hope to get Lobsang if I go alone. I’ve studied the man and I know with Coleman’s people around, I wouldn’t even see his shadow.”
Amay looked confused.
Lucky smiled and said, “Please, Amay, drive me up to Montreal tomorrow.”
“But they’re looking for you,” Amay stammered.
Lucky smiled. “I work for the government,” she said. “I work for the Department of Corrections. You think I don’t know how they work?” She opened her suitcase and took out her travel wallet, then pulled out a dark blue-jacketed passport. “They’re looking for Lucky Boyce,” she said. “This is my old passport. From India. It is still current. They can look for Lucky Boyce till their eyes fall out. Tomorrow morning, I’m Mizz Leela Singh.”
“Leela?” Amay quizzed.
“Yes, the Singhs changed my name when we got married to Leela Singh. I hated it then but I guess it works now. We never know the outcomes in this grand design called ‘life’.”
Chapter 13
Eighteen hours later, Ms. Leela Singh was gliding through traffic in an air-conditioned Benz, sipping a bottle of ice-cold Seven-Up and thinking, I bet this isn’t what Coleman had in mind. She flew first class, on a $7,000 ticket from Montreal. And she stayed at the Taj. Sure, why not. Hiding in plain sight. All with Amay’s credit card. They might be watching the airports in Boston and Hartford, London and Buenos Aires, but she was pretty sure they weren’t looking for her in Mumbai and definitely not at the Taj Hotel.
