by Ken Follett
“Good-bye, Will.”
“Good-bye, Jeannie.”
She watched him walk down the stairs and out the door.
Her phone rang.
She picked it up. “Hello?”
“Getting fired is not the worst thing that can happen to you.”
It was a man, his voice slightly muffled as if he were speaking through something to disguise it.
Jeannie said: “Who is this?”
“Stop nosing into things that don’t concern you.”
Who the hell was this? “What things?”
“The one you met in Philadelphia was supposed to kill you.”
Jeannie stopped breathing. Suddenly she was very scared.
The voice went on: “He got carried away and messed up. But he could visit you again.”
Jeannie whispered: “Oh, God.…”
“Be warned.”
There was a click, then the dial tone. He had hung up.
Jeannie cradled the handset and stood staring at the phone.
No one had ever threatened to kill her. It was horrifying to know another human being wanted to end her life. She felt paralyzed. What are you supposed to do?
She sat on her couch, struggling to regain her strength of will. She felt like giving up. She was too bruised and battered to carry on fighting these powerful, shadowy enemies. They were too strong. They could get her fired, have her attacked, search her office, steal her E-mail; they seemed to be able to do anything. Perhaps they really could kill her.
It was so unfair. What right did they have? She was a good scientist, and they had ruined her career. They were willing to see Steve sent to jail for the rape of Lisa. They were threatening to kill her. She began to feel angry. Who did they think they were? She was not going to have her fife ruined by these arrogant creeps who thought they could manipulate everything for their own benefit and to hell with everyone else. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. I won’t let them win, she thought. I have the power to hurt them—I must have, or they wouldn’t feel the need to warn me off and threaten to kill me. I’m going to use that power. I don’t care what happens to me so long as I can mess things up for them. I’m smart, and I’m determined, and I’m Jeannie Fucking Ferrami, so look out, you bastards, here I come.
41
JEANNIE’S FATHER WAS SITTING ON THE COUCH IN PATTY’S untidy living room, with a cup of coffee in his lap, watching General Hospital and eating a slice of carrot cake.
When she walked in and saw him, Jeannie lost it. “How could you do it?” she screamed. “How could you rob your own daughter?”
He jumped to his feet, spilling his coffee and dropping his cake.
Patty followed Jeannie in. “Please, don’t make a scene,” she said. “Zip will be home soon.”
Daddy said: “I’m sorry, Jeannie, I’m ashamed.”
Patty got down on her knees and started mopping the spilled coffee with a clutch of Kleenex. On the screen, a handsome doctor in surgeon’s scrubs was kissing a pretty woman.
“You know I’m broke,” Jeannie yelled. “You know I’m trying to raise enough money to pay for a decent nursing home for my mother—your wife! And still you could steal my fucking TV!”
“You shouldn’t swear—”
“Jesus, give me strength.”
“I’m sorry.”
Jeannie said: “I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.”
Patty said: “Leave him alone, Jeannie.”
“But I have to know. How could you do such a thing?”
“All right, I’ll tell you,” Daddy said with a sudden access of force that surprised her. “I’ll tell you why I did it. Because I’ve lost my goddamn nerve.” Tears came to his eyes. “I robbed my own daughter because I’m too old and scared to rob anyone else, so now you know the truth.”
He was so pathetic that Jeannie’s anger evaporated in a moment. “Oh, Daddy, I’m sorry,” she said. “Sit down, I’ll get the Dustbuster.”
She picked up the overturned cup and took it into the kitchen. She came back with the Dustbuster and vacuumed up the cake crumbs. Patty finished mopping up the coffee.
“I don’t deserve you girls, I know that,” Daddy said as he sat down again.
Patty said: “I’ll get you another cup of coffee.”
The TV surgeon said, “Let’s go away together, just the two of us, somewhere wonderful,” and the woman said, “But what about your wife?” and the doctor looked sulky. Jeannie turned the set off and sat beside her father.
“What do you mean, you’ve lost your nerve?” she asked, curious. “What happened?”
He sighed. “When I got out of jail I cased a building in Georgetown. It was a small business, an architecture partnership that had just reequipped the entire staff with fifteen or twenty personal computers and some other stuff, printers and fax machines. The guy who supplied the equipment to the company tipped me off: he was going to buy it from me and sell it back to them when they got the insurance money. I would have got ten thousand dollars.”
Patty said: “I don’t want my boys to hear this.” She checked they were not in the hallway then closed the door.
Jeannie said to Daddy: “So what went wrong?”
“I reversed the van up to the back of the building, disarmed the burglar alarm, and opened the loading bay door. Then I started to think about what would happen if a cop came along. I never used to give a damn, in the old days, but I guess it’s ten years since I did something like that. Anyway, I was so scared I started to shake. I went inside, unplugged one computer, carried it out, put it in the van, and drove away. Next day I came to your place.”
“And robbed me.”
“I never intended to, honey. I thought you’d help me get on my feet and find a legitimate job of some kind. Then, when you were out, the old feeling came over me. I’m sitting there, I’m looking at the stereo and thinking I could get a couple hundred bucks for that, and maybe a hundred for the TV, and I just did it. After I sold it all I wanted to kill myself, I swear.”
“But you didn’t.”
Patty said: “Jeannie!”
Daddy said: “I had a few drinks and got into a poker game and by the morning I was broke again.”
“So you came to see Patty.”
“I won’t do it to you, Patty. I won’t do it to anyone again. I’m going to go straight.”
“You better!” Patty said.
“I have to, I got no choice.”
Jeannie said: “But not yet.”
They both looked at her. Patty said nervously: “Jeannie, what are you talking about?”
“You have to do one more job,” Jeannie said to Daddy. “For me. A burglary. Tonight.”
42
IT WAS GETTING DARK AS THEY ENTERED THE JONES FALLS campus. “Pity we don’t have a more anonymous car,” her father said as Jeannie drove the red Mercedes into the student parking lot. “A Ford Taurus is good, or a Buick Regal. You see fifty of those a day, nobody remembers them.”
He got out of the car, carrying a battered tan leather briefcase. In his checked shirt and rumpled pants, with untidy hair and worn shoes, he looked just like a professor.
Jeannie felt strange. She had known for years that her daddy
was a thief, but she herself had never done anything more illegal than driving at seventy miles an hour. Now she was about to break into a building. It felt like crossing an important line. She did not think she was doing wrong but, all the same, her self-image was shaken. She had always thought of herself as a law-abiding citizen. Criminals, including her father, had always seemed to belong to another species. Now she was joining them.
Most of the students and faculty had gone home, but there were still a few people walking around: professors working late, students going to social events, janitors locking up, and security guards patrolling. Jeannie hoped she would not see anyone she knew.
She was wound up tight like a guitar string, ready to snap. She was afraid for her father more than he
rself. If they were caught it would be deeply humiliating for her, but that was all; the courts did not send you to jail for breaking into your own office and stealing one floppy disk. But Daddy, with his record, would go down for years. He would be an old man when he came out.
The street lamps and exterior building lights were beginning to come on. Jeannie and her father walked past the tennis court, where two women were playing under floodlights. Jeannie remembered Steve speaking to her after the game last Sunday. She had given him the brush-off automatically, he had looked so confident and pleased with himself. How wrong she had been in her first judgment of him.
She nodded toward the Ruth W. Acorn Psychology Building. “That’s the place,” she said. “Everyone calls it Nut House.”
“Keep walking at the same speed,” he said. “How do you get in that front door?”
“A plastic card, same as my office door. But my card doesn’t work anymore. I might be able to borrow one.”
“No need. I hate accomplices. How do we get around the back?”
“I’ll show you.” A footpath across a lawn led past the far side of Nut House toward the visitors’ parking lot. Jeannie followed it, then turned off to a paved yard at the back of the building. Her father ran a professional eye over the rear elevation. “What’s that door?” he said, pointing. “I think it’s a fire door.”
He nodded. “It probably has a crossbar at waist level, the kind that opens the door if you push against it.”
“I believe it does. Is that where we’re going to get in?”
“Yes.”
Jeannie remembered a sign on the inside of it that read THIS DOOR Is ALARMED. “You’ll set off an alarm,” she said.
“No, I won’t,” he replied. He looked around. “Do many people come around the back here?”
“No. Especially at night.”
“Okay. Let’s go to work.” He put his briefcase on the ground, opened it, and took out a small black plastic box with a dial. Pressing a button, he ran the box all around the door frame, watching the dial. The needle jumped in the top right-hand corner. He gave a grunt of satisfaction.
He returned the box to the briefcase and took out another similar instrument, plus a roll of electrician’s tape. He taped the instrument to the top right-hand corner of the door and threw a switch. There was a low hum. “That should confuse the burglar alarm,” he said.
He took out a long piece of wire that had once been a laundry shirt hanger. He bent it carefully into a twisted shape, then inserted the hooked end into the crack of the door. He wiggled it for a few seconds, then pulled.
The door came open.
The alarm did not sound.
He picked up his briefcase and stepped inside.
“Wait,” Jeannie said. “This isn’t right. Close the door and let’s go home.”
“Hey, come on, don’t be scared.”
“I can’t do this to you. If you’re caught, you’ll be in jail until you’re seventy years old.”
“Jeannie, I want to do this. I’ve been a rotten father to you for so long. This is my chance to help you for a change. It’s important to me. Come on, please.”
Jeannie stepped inside.
He closed the door. “Lead the way.”
She ran up the fire stairs to the second floor and hurried along the corridor to her office. He was right behind her. She pointed to the door.
He took yet another electronic instrument out of his briefcase. This one had a metal plate the size of a charge card attached to it by wires. He inserted the plate into the card reader and switched on the instrument. “It tries every possible combination,” he said.
She was amazed by how easily he had entered a building that had such up-to-date security.
“You know something?” he said. “I ain’t scared!”
“Jesus, I am,” Jeannie said.
“No, seriously, I got my nerve back, maybe because you’re with me.” He grinned, “Hey, we could be a team.”
She shook her head. “Forget it. I couldn’t stand the tension.”
It occurred to her that Berrington might have come in here and carried away her computer and all her disks. It would be dreadful if she had taken this awful risk for nothing. “How long will this take?” she said impatiently.
“Any second now.”
A moment later the door gently swung open.
“Won’t you step inside?” he said proudly.
She went in and turned on the light. Her computer was still on the desk. Jeannie opened the drawer. There was her box of backup disks. She flipped through them frenziedly. SHOPPING.LST was there. She picked it up. “Thank God,” she said.
Now that she had the disk in her hand she could not wait to read the information on it. Desperate though she was to get out of Nut House, she was tempted to look at the file right here and now. She did not have a computer at home; Daddy had sold it. To read the disk she would have to borrow a PC. That would take time and explanations.
She decided to take a chance.
She switched on the computer on her desk and waited for it to boot up.
“What are you doing?” Daddy said.
“I want to read the file.”
“Can’t you do that at home?”
“I don’t have a computer at home, Daddy. It was stolen.”
He missed the irony. “Hurry up, then.” He went to the window and looked out.
The screen flickered and she clicked on WP. She slid the floppy into the disk drive and switched on her printer.
The alarms went off all at once.
Jeannie thought her heart had stopped. The noise was deafening. “What happened?” she yelled.
Her father was white with fear. “That damn emitter must have failed, or maybe someone took it off the door,” he yelled. “We’re finished, Jeannie, run!”
She wanted to snatch the disk out of the computer and bolt, but she forced herself to think coolly. If she were caught now and the disk taken from her, she would have lost everything. She had to look at the list while she could. She grabbed her father’s arm. “Just a few more seconds!”
He glanced out of the window. “Damn, that looks like a security man!”
“I just have to print this! Wait for me!”
He was shaking. “I can’t, Jeannie, I can’t! I’m sorry!” He snatched up his briefcase and ran.
Jeannie felt pity for him, but she could not stop now. She retrieved the A-drive directory, highlighted the FBI file, and clicked on Print.
Nothing happened. Her printer was still warming up. She cursed.
She went to the window. Two security guards were entering the front of the building.
She closed her office door.
She stared at her inkjet printer. “Come on, come on.”
At last it ticked and whirred and sucked up a sheet from the paper tray.
She sprung the floppy out of the disk drive and slipped it into the pocket of her electric blue jacket.
The printer regurgitated four sheets of paper then stopped.
Heart pounding, Jeannie snatched up the pages and scanned the lines of print.
There were thirty or forty pairs of names. Most were male, but this was not surprising: almost all crimes were committed by men. In some cases the address was a prison. The list was exactly what she had hoped for. But now she wanted something special. She looked for either “Steven Logan” or “Dennis Pinker.”
Both were there.
And they were linked with a third: “Wayne Stattner.”
“Yes!” Jeannie shouted exultantly.
There was an address in New York City and a 212 phone number.
She stared at the name. Wayne Stattner. This was the man who had raped Lisa right here in the gym and attacked Jeannie in Philadelphia. “You bastard,” she whispered vengefully. “We’re going to get you.”
First she had to escape with the information. She stuffed the papers into her pocket, switched out the lights, and opened the door.
She heard voices in the corridor, raised against the noise of the alarm which was still wailing. She was too late. Carefully, she closed the door again. Her legs felt weak, and she leaned on the door, listening.
She heard a man’s voice shout: “I’m sure there was a light on in one of these.”
Another voice replied: “We better check each one.”
Jeannie glanced around the little room in the dim light from the street lamps outside. There was nowhere to hide.
She opened the door a crack. She could not see or hear anything. She poked her head out. At the far end of the corridor light streamed out of an open door. She waited and watched. The guards came out, killed the light, closed the door, and went into the next room, which was the laboratory. It would take them a minute or two to search that. Could she slip past the door unseen and make it to the stairwell?
Jeannie stepped out into the corridor and closed the door behind her with a shaky hand.
She walked along the corridor. By an effort of will she restrained herself from breaking into a run.
She passed the lab door. She could not resist the temptation to glance inside. Both guards had their backs to her; one was looking inside a stationery closet and the other was staring curiously at a row of DNA test films on a light box. They did not see her.
Almost there.
She walked on to the end of the corridor and opened the swing door.
As she was about to step through, a voice called out: “Hey! You! Stop!”
Every nerve strained to make a run for it, but she controlled herself. She let the door swing closed, turned, and smiled.
Two guards ran along the corridor toward her. They were both men in their late fifties, probably retired cops.
Her throat was tight and she had trouble breathing. “Good evening,” she said. “How can I help you gentlemen?” The sound of the alarm covered the tremor in her voice.
“An alarm has gone off in the building,” said one.
It was a stupid thing to say, but she let it pass. “Do you think there’s an intruder?”
“There may be. Have you seen or heard anything unusual, Professor?”
The guards assumed she was a faculty member; that was good. “As a matter of fact, I thought I heard breaking glass. It seemed to come from the floor above, although I couldn’t be sure.”
