The Congressman chuckled wryly. "Sorry, I’ve been hogging all the sympathy. What’s wrong in your world?"
"Nowhere near the same scale as your problem, Mike, but one of my guys died yesterday."
Vincent’s eyes went wide. "One of your employees? That’s really serious. What happened?"
"Guy goes up to the roof every single day to smoke. He’s been doing it for the whole year I’ve had him on board. And yesterday he falls off." Tilman made a dropping motion with his hand. "Just like that. Coders," he sighed. "Always in their own intellectual world, seeing the numbers and the logic but not the ground in front of them apparently."
Nathan spoke up. "Wait a minute… heavy smoker? It’s not Krupotnik, is it?"
"Yeah, but don’t worry, Nate. GigaStar is OK. The code’s all written already."
Nathan didn’t push the matter, but he didn’t like it much, either. Trouble on the GigaStar project would be bad news if Congress got wind of it. And since Tilman just told Mike, Congress now had wind of it. Mike was on their side, to be sure, but he was still part of "The Hill," and letting him know about that wasn’t smart. Their lunch broke up without much more conversation.
***
John and Kathy made the walk back toward their hotel. The cobblestone streets of Georgetown felt surreal to her. This was Kathy's normal life – the place she lived and played each day. This area was ordinary to her. And yet last night hadn't gone away, it was still real. She kept hoping she’d somehow wound up in the twilight zone, and any minute now she’d get zipped away back to normality. Being in Georgetown made it clear, that was not going to happen.
Back at the hotel, she and John took an elevator to their floor. Maybe John had been feeling the same chill she had, Kathy thought. Whatever the reason, neither of them seemed inclined to talk a lot as the elevator carried them up.
The doors opened with a bell and they started down the hall.
As they did, a man closed the door to a hotel room midway up the corridor and turned a corner into a maintenance stairway.
Kathy froze, and grabbed her friend’s arm. "John, did that look like our room to you?"
He only nodded, and took another tentative step forward, wrapping an arm around Kathy’s back. As they neared the door they’d seen the man come out of, they could see their own room number on it. Kathy’s hand flew immediately to her mouth, but she managed to stifle her scream.
Simultaneously, their heads swiveled to trade glances. Waving at Kathy to stand back, John got the door open and stepped in, scanning around the room for an intruder. He found none, and wasted no time in taking advantage of the fact that they’d been lucky and missed the pursuers. "We need to leave," he said. "Now."
Kathy thought, This isn’t going to just go away, she thought. I’m not getting zipped away to the real world. If we want it to end, we’ll have to do it ourselves. "Wait, John," she said aloud. "That guy who just went down the stairs is probably one of them."
"Exactly why we need to leave now."
"No, don't you see? He's got a head start on us, he's probably waiting in the lobby for us to come back. If we go back down the elevator, he'll catch us."
"OK, so we pick a creative way out."
"No! Listen, this is our chance to take control of this situation. He doesn't know we're here – for once we have the advantage over them. Let's see if we can sneak up on him down the stairs, and find out what's going on."
"Kathy, that's crazy! What are you planning to do, torture him and make him talk? That ain't happening."
She shook her head. "No, listen: every time they've come after us, they've done it as a group. I'm sure there's more than one of them this time, too. So maybe they'll talk amongst themselves. Since they don't know we're here, it's worth a shot. John, if we don't start learning some things, we're never going to get out of this alive. We need to find a way to take the upper hand."
John looked back and forth between their room and the girl he had promised to look after. After a moment of thinking, he couldn’t avoid the fact that she was right. One thing he remembered from football: never playing anything but defense was a good way not to win. "OK, Kathy," he said. "Just be careful."
Kathy replied, "Stick with me, we’ll both be careful." They hurried off after their mysterious visitor. They paused for a long moment outside the door, then carefully eased the door open and went through.
Guessing the man had gone down, Kathy tiptoed in that direction with John close at her heels. At each landing they paused to listen, hoping to catch some advance warning if their quarry was right ahead of them.
Near the bottom, they began to hear it.
Kathy had been tiptoeing before. Now she placed every step with microscopic precision as she tried to get close enough to hear. Her terrified heartbeat sounded so loud in her ears, she worried she wouldn’t hear the people when they found them.
She needn't have worried. Quietly, the voices drifted up from the next landing below them.
"We know she’s in this hotel, that’s what the location data on that last cell phone call showed. She can't have gone far, she doesn't have a vehicle. They left that SUV in Leesburg, I checked. That means they only have the one car they drove out in. She must have walked somewhere," said one voice.
"I thought it was the roommate who has the flash drive. Why do we even need her?" asked a second.
"Yes, but as I told you, we don't know where the roommate is. We need her to lure the roommate to us, with the flash drive."
Kathy clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out in recognition. The first voice was the very same man who'd attacked them at Michael's house.
The second spoke. "I think you're going about this all wrong. They obviously don't know what they have yet. If they did, we'd definitely be in far more trouble than we are now. So since they don't know what it is, why not plant one on them? That way we can find out where the roommate is and go get the flash drive from her, all without Miss Kelver and her friends ever knowing. It certainly can't produce any worse results than the methods so far have."
"Was that criticism?"
Kathy cringed at the menace in that voice. She'd been on the receiving end of it all too recently.
"Carlos, look, we're rational men. We're in this together, and we both want it solved. It's not a criticism of you, it's just an objective observation. We haven't neutralized her so far, and this way might work. I say we try it."
There followed a long silence. Every second it dragged on, Kathy's feet itched to flee back up the stairs. But she had to learn more if she could. Already she'd picked up some very valuable information, not least of which was the name of the man who'd so violently tried to get the flash drive from her.
Finally, the first voice – Carlos – spoke again. "You're right, it might work. I'll go back to their rooms and see to it."
The slapping sound of his footfalls on the stairs came next.
Kathy looked at John, and John looked at Kathy. The two men were at most a floor below them. There was no way they could run all the way back up to their floor without making so much noise the whole hotel would hear it.
The footsteps came closer.
Finally John just turned, threw open the door to whatever floor they were on, and dashed out of the stairwell, tugging Kathy behind him. She could still hear the man coming closer. John eased the door shut, wincing at every extra second involved, but knowing that if he let it slam the noise would give them away. The latch snicked into place, the door closed. Seconds later, they heard the footsteps pass the door.
They continued on up the next flight of steps.
After two full minutes to let their hearts slow down, John said, "OK, taking the initiative or not, that was just too close. We need to get out of here, Kathy."
She nodded. "I'm ready to agree to that," she said. "That was a bit too scary for me, too."
The problem remained, though, how to get out. This staircase was obviously out, and they didn't trust the elevator
either. Anything that led to the main lobby was probably being watched.
"Maybe we can just wait them out?" Kathy suggested.
"Well, if we don't think of something, sooner or later we'll end up doing that by default. I'd rather think of something if we can."
A maid picked that moment to come down the hall pushing a big laundry cart.
The two shared a look again, and Kathy walked up to the maid. "Excuse me," she began.
The maid looked at her. Her thick accent made her hard to understand, but Kathy thought she said, "Can I help you?"
"Could you…" Kathy stopped. She realized right after she opened her mouth how crazy this would sound.
The pause grew long enough that the maid looked at her curiously. Finally Kathy reached into the pocket of her jeans – which were starting to feel grungy on the second day of wear – and came out with a wad of bills representing part of her tips from the night before. She counted them and found about $100 in total. She set the money on top of the pile of laundry. "We need to ride down to the first floor and to a service exit in your cart, under the laundry."
The maid looked at them, rolled her eyes, pocketed the money and shrugged.
Three hundred fifty pounds worth of John and Kathy was a chore for anyone to push, but the wheeled cart made it doable. A few minutes later, Kathy and John were back on the streets of Georgetown, courtesy of the hotel's service door.
CHAPTER 5
They walked to the corner of Wisconsin and M streets, figuring that since hiding wasn't working, maybe a crowd would offer some kind of protection.
"So," John said. "Where to now? I guess I could take you to my place, but I don't want it to get shot up like Mike's."
"Let's not do that yet," she replied. "Instead, let's go down to Mike's office."
"Um… I've never just walked into a Congressman's office before. Do you need a pass or something?"
"I don't think so, my school is riddled with political science students who go down there for one reason or another. Let's try it."
John scratched his head. "Mike's not gonna be real happy about us wandering into his office. He seems to want to keep this whole thing separated from his reputation."
Kathy thought about that for a minute. "OK, let's just call him and tell him we're coming."
John nodded, and Kathy pulled out her phone. After a quick search to locate the number of Mike's office, she called it only to learn he was in a committee meeting and not available.
Kathy turned to John and shrugged. "I guess we just go down there, then."
John shuffled his feet nervously. "OK, but if he gets pissed I'm blaming you."
A cab ride later the two arrived on Capitol Hill. It took a few different directories and questions to security guards before they finally figured out that they had to leave the actual capitol building to find the right place, and go to something called the Longworth House Office Building. Once there, they tried a few more security guards until they got to the right room.
Her first impression upon entering the office was shock at the size. Kathy had envisioned Mike working in a big, luxurious office. But this reception area was not much larger than her dorm room. And it was separated from the work area by nothing more than a cubicle divider. The walls were crowded with various memorabilia of Mike's home state.
"I need to see Congressman Vincent, please," she told the girl at the front desk.
"I'm sorry, the Congressman is in a committee meeting right now, is there a message I can give him?"
"It's very important to see him in person, may we wait?" Kathy punctuated her sentence by sitting down.
The receptionist looked only slightly older than Kathy. She wore long blonde hair and a bit too much blush on her cheeks. Unlike Kathy, though, she wore a dark gray business suit.
"I'm… not sure when he'll be back" the girl replied, glancing around the front office for someone with more authority than her. She was receptionist and scheduler to Congressman Vincent, and as such limiting access was her job. But it was a difficult balancing act between keeping his schedule reasonably intact on one hand, and keeping him available to constituents on the other. Mike tended to come down on the availability side of the scale when he could, but only because she and his chief of staff together weeded out all the obnoxious visitors.
Before giving a flat out refusal, though, she liked to have someone else backing her up, in case the visitor really did turn out to be important. But the chief of staff was out at the moment, and there wasn't anyone else she could ask.
"Um, couldn’t one of our legislative assistants help you with something?"
Kathy shook her head. "It's very important and private for the Congressman. We'll just wait."
To Kathy's surprise, it took only about fifteen minutes before Michael walked through the door talking heatedly with another man, both of them clad in business suits and single-color ties. The Congressman stopped abruptly when he saw his visitors.
The man next to him stepped up to them as soon as he saw them. "I'm Tom Cassini. Can we help you folks?" he asked, sticking out his hand to shake.
John had already instinctively risen to shake his hand when Mike cut in and said, "Don't worry about it, Tom. Let me talk to 'em. I'm afraid we're going to have to postpone our argument for a while."
Tom shrugged. "Got it, boss," he said.
Mike waved toward a door at the back of the room, beckoning Kathy and John to follow. As they passed the receptionist, he said, "No calls or visitors until I come out and say so, OK?" She nodded, even though he had already passed.
Once they were all three in the office and the door was firmly closed and locked, Mike asked, "What's going on? Why aren't you guys at the hotel?"
"Because they were there too," Kathy replied. She proceeded to tell him about their afternoon adventures.
The Congressman sighed when she finished. "I’m starting to wonder about calling the police."
"Might be a good idea," John said. "We are in pretty deep here. We do need help."
"Yeah, but there’s a whole lot of trouble that comes with the cops," Mike groused.
That remark brought an awkward silence as John and Kathy looked at their feet. Mike spoke first. "OK, we need at least some help, but going to the cops gets me in trouble. I have an idea."
He picked up the phone and dialed, finally saying, "I need to ask a big favor. Can you come over here? Yes, exactly."
Apparently receiving an affirmative answer, he put down the phone and looked at his guests.
"OK, I called for help. You guys wait here until he gets here; I'm going to try to use the time to get some actual work done." He stood from behind the desk and walked out of the room.
Exactly thirty minutes later, Mike walked back into his office, trailing the very definition of a nerd behind him. Kathy almost giggled.
"OK, folks," Michael said by way of introduction. "This is Nathan Jacobs. He's a friend of mine, but he also has some experience in this kind of thing. Well, close, anyway. I want you to tell him the story starting from the beginning."
"Didn’t I already hear most of it from you at lunch, Mike?"
The Congressman nodded. "Yeah, but I skimmed a bit, and Kathy can give you all the details. And I think it’s time you heard them."
Jacobs nodded, and Kathy began her tale, going all the way back to the dead man – Eric Harrison, apparently – who'd given her the flash drive. It took her nearly an hour – with occasional interjections from John to correct minor details – to get through the whole story. When she did he exhaled loudly.
"Wow, Mike," he said. "You weren’t kidding about being in serious trouble."
The Congressman nodded. "Yeah, I noticed. What I want is help dealing with it without getting my name on paper anywhere if we can avoid it. I was thinking ahead and didn't put my name on those hotel rooms, but I don't figure I can get lucky forever."
Jacobs replied, "Well, this is not something I get to practice a lot in my department. But mayb
e I can give you the cliff notes. Everyone get comfortable and I'll give you the short course in how to survive in the field.
"First of all, judging by their success at following you and finding out where you are, I'm going to assume we're dealing with a first class operation here. This is no street gang, it's a well-funded organization with people who are trained in paramilitary operations."
Jacobs leaned against the wall as he talked, burying his hands deep in his pockets. "First thing is, a paper trail is your enemy. Every time you use a credit card, give a hotel clerk your name, or show up in a police report, you are creating a record of your location. Going by their past successes, your enemies can read those records. So rule number one is no credit cards and no real names given out. If a place requires you to show ID, don't go there."
He took a tissue out of his pocket, wiped his nose, then went on. "Rule number two is: you’re going to have to give up your phones for as long as you need to hide."
When both Mike and Kathy started to protest at once, he said, "I know, believe me. I know. But let me tell you about your phones.
"Right now, your phone company knows where you are, thanks to the GPS in your phone. Because they know it, the government knows where you are – or, to put it in more personal terms, my bosses and coworkers know where you are. And the NSA is not the only agency with this capability. Everything that’s happened to you sure looks like the work of a foreign intelligence agency to me, and the safe bet is that they can do what we can do. You need to assume the bad guys can track your phone."
Kathy said, "That's just creepy. I mean, me? The government knows where I am? Why? I'm nobody. You read in the papers how everyone's ticked off about the NSA, but I never thought about what it meant before."
Jacobs shrugged. "Look, I'm not here to talk about politics. I don't claim to have all the answers. I just want to help you two out a bit."
He took a deep breath and said, "When we leave here, you can all leave your phones in the Congressman’s office. I brought you a couple pre-paid ones. They’ll get you through the next couple days, and they’re not linked to you in any way.
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