‘But why would Tony DeMarco put a hit out on himself and then make it look like you and I are responsible for it? He got shot, Tina. He’s in the hospital.’
Exactly what I was thinking before we went on the open source wild goose chase. I don’t want to say I told him so. ‘So say it’s someone who wants to get all three of us. This goes back to the bank job. It has to.’
I don’t have to see the look on his face to know what he’s thinking. There is only one person who has any motive to go after all three of us: Ian Cartwright. Ian still thinks I owe him because he never got the money we stole; Tony DeMarco forced him to work for him to pay back the money we stole; Zeke and I were lovers. And it’s more than possible that Ian knows about Adriana. She resembles the younger version of me – we both look like our father; he couldn’t possibly not see it. Yet …
‘I don’t want to think it,’ I say. ‘Ian and I, well, we were pretty complicated back on Block Island, but he went back to his wife, his family.’
‘He also went back to DeMarco.’
‘I transferred money to Tony’s account to help him.’
‘It wasn’t enough.’
‘I didn’t know that we stole from Tony. I only had account numbers, no names.’
‘I knew.’
My head snaps back so I can look at him. ‘When?’
‘Back then. I knew who the victims were.’ His voice is barely audible. Of course he knew. He was FBI; he probably had a list of names from the get-go.
‘But didn’t you say that the money didn’t really go anywhere? So we really didn’t steal from him, did we?’
He chews on his lip for a second. ‘I told you it was complicated.’
I don’t like the sound of this. ‘So we did steal from him? What happened?’
He sighs. ‘The money transferred; you saw it yourself. I had to make it look good for you. But I couldn’t get it all back.’
‘What do you mean, you couldn’t get it all back? You knew where it was going.’
Zeke narrows his eyes at me. ‘You had another account set up.’
‘The one I gave you access to – to pay you and anyone else who helped.’
‘No one else helped. It was just me. And it didn’t work.’
I don’t understand what he’s saying. What didn’t work? I don’t have to ask, though, because he knows what I’m thinking.
‘You transferred two million dollars into that account,’ he reminds me. ‘That was Tony DeMarco’s money. And it’s like it went into a black hole. The account never existed.’
‘Of course it did.’ I am really confused now.
‘No, Tina. When I tried to get to the money, I got a dead link. And then you were gone. Just like Tony DeMarco’s two million dollars.’
I don’t know how to wrap my head around this. The account was real. I did some of my best work setting it up.
‘The shadow knew about the account,’ I say, thinking out loud. ‘He said the FBI couldn’t find it. Who did you tell?’
‘No one, Tina. I didn’t tell anyone. I figured you had the money somewhere. That you had transferred it out before I could get to it, that you were living on it all those years.’
And if I had really done that, then I betrayed him by running.
I study his face to see if he believes this, if he thinks I’ve been lying to him, but I can’t tell. I can’t read him. I find myself wishing desperately again that he is merely Tracker, the person on the other side of the screen. Tracker and I trust each other. Zeke – well, I’m not so sure about where his trust lies.
‘Did Ian—’
I hold my hand up to silence him. ‘Ian doesn’t know anything about computers,’ I say. ‘You know that. Ian didn’t do it. He came looking for me last year. He wanted me to steal for him again. He wouldn’t have bothered if he’d gotten even two million back then, and if he’d somehow gained computer skills in fifteen years, he wouldn’t have needed me to help.’ Something changes in his expression, but I don’t have the energy to interpret it. I am suddenly so tired that I can barely think, much less put it all together. ‘I think I have to go to bed.’ I say it before realizing the effect my statement might have, and I worry that he’s going to make another move, but he just nods.
He closes the laptop cover. ‘Go in and get some sleep. We can get a fresh start in the morning. It’s been a long day.’
I stand up. ‘What about—’
‘Don’t worry about them.’
But I do worry. I worry that one of his team will be lurking around online tonight and find out who Tiny or BikerGirl or p4r4d0x really is while I’m sleeping.
Zeke stands and steers me toward the bedroom, gives me a chaste kiss on my forehead. ‘Get some sleep.’
I stumble through the dark room and collapse on the bed, vaguely aware that the front door has opened and closed, and I have been left alone.
Heather is sleeping in the bed across the room from me when I awake. Her blonde hair is tousled and her arm is hanging over the edge, but she doesn’t stir even though I accidentally bump my backpack against the dresser, making more noise than I expect. I pull the pack with me into the bathroom, noticing on the way that Zeke’s door is closed.
I turn on the water at the sink and splash some on to my face. I’m having a hard time believing that I’m actually here, back in Miami after all these years. Zeke Chapman made it happen, just like Tracker made it happen sixteen years ago when he arranged the travel documents for Amelie Renaud and I ended up in Paris with Ian. It was Ian’s idea that I take that name, the name of the woman who would become his wife.
I look at my reflection in the mirror. I still have the reddish hair from my makeover in Montreal, but it’s longer now; I haven’t kept it as short and styled. It’s growing out a little funny, and it makes me look sloppy. I wet my hands and try to smooth it out around my ears but the curls keep popping up. I am wearing my glasses for the first time in a few months. When I suggested taking along the contacts and their solution, Zeke overruled me, explaining that I wouldn’t be able to bring it through airport security. It was easier to leave them behind, easier to wear the glasses, as I’d done since Paris.
A knock on the door startles me.
‘You coming out?’
Zeke.
I open the door, realizing that I have been thinking about everything and anything except what I found out last night.
And I know what I have to do to find out the truth and who’s behind it all.
I nod at Zeke. ‘OK, let’s get to work.’
THIRTEEN
Only Jake and Charles are hunkered down in front of their desktops, their eyes trained on the screens, their headphones keeping out any outside sounds. Heather is still sleeping back in the apartment, and I assume Daniel is also getting some much-needed rest wherever his bed may be.
How can Zeke keep an eye on any and all of them? Does he trust them that much that they won’t take off on him?
Of course, I am the only one who is being held hostage by the threat of Tony DeMarco, so I am probably the only one who thinks constantly about escape. The rest of them seem content to do their work. It’s not a bad gig for a young hacker. They get to hack legally and get paid for it.
For a second, I consider that option. The one that’s been offered. And then I dismiss it again. My life is better without this.
Zeke has come with me, and we are carrying the coffees he’d picked up before I got up.
‘What about them?’ I ask, cocking my head toward Jake and Charles.
‘They like something a little stronger.’ He chuckles and indicates the empty cans of Red Bull that clutter the desk area.
I am about to sit when he puts his hand on my arm and looks into my eyes. ‘I’m sorry about last night.’
The kiss. He’s apologizing for the kiss.
‘It’s OK,’ I say, uncertain if it really is, or if I am just saying it to put it to rest.
‘Maybe when this is all over—’
; I shake my head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Of course you don’t,’ he says lightly, but I can hear a disappointment behind the words. I choose to ignore it; we don’t have time for a conversation about it. I honestly don’t know where we’re going to stand when all this is over, and I can’t even begin to speculate.
The computers are lined up, three to each side, on a very long table that stretches across the room. Jake and Charles are on this side of it. I go down to the end, nearer the glass sliding door. I pull the chair out and sit down, hitting a couple of keys to get the computer out of sleep mode. I haven’t used a desktop in a long time. The mouse feels odd underneath my hand, and although the keyboard is only slightly larger than my laptop’s, it feels obscenely big. Not to mention the screen.
I feel as if I’ve entered another dimension.
‘You might want to check out the Waste Land.’ Zeke is across from me, hovering.
I frown.
‘The Waste Land. Like the T.S. Eliot poem.’
I have no idea what he’s talking about.
‘“April is the cruellest month.”’ He’s quoting it, but it doesn’t jar my memory. I never paid attention to anything except my computer when I was in school. I don’t want to admit that I’m impressed. There are more layers to Zeke Chapman than I realize.
He looks disappointed that we can’t connect on this.
‘OK,’ he finally concedes. ‘You’re not a poetry reader. But the Waste Land is a good place to start.’
‘What is it?’ It bothers me that there’s a site I don’t know about, but there are so many sites that are constantly popping up and coming down that I shouldn’t feel inadequate. At least that’s what I tell myself.
‘It’s on the deep web.’ He cocks his head toward Jake and Charles. I am uncertain whether they are even aware we’re in the room. ‘We found Tracker there.’ The way he says it, I can tell that the Tracker he’s talking about is the imposter.
He is giving me a directive. He wants me to see if I can’t find him. Find Tracker.
I turn away from him and back to the computer, my hand over the mouse. I get into Tor, which is easily accessible with its Firefox add-on. Before going to the Waste Land, though, I head to the Hidden Wiki, which lists search engines and links to sites and chat rooms. I haven’t been here in over a month; things change quickly, sites are pulled down or blocked, new sites pop up. The link to the chat room is still here, and I can’t help myself, so I click through. Instead of signing on with any of my usual screen names, I create a new one and begin lurking. The conversations are fairly benign, and this is not what I’m online for, but it’s merely habit. I am about to sign off when I see him.
Tracker. He’s here.
I feel a little jolt in my gut, then think: Is this Zeke or is it the Tracker imposter? Zeke said he hasn’t been online as Tracker, but what if this is a test? What if he is here and wants to see what I’ll do?
I poke my head over my computer. Zeke is across from me. His head is down; he’s concentrating on his own screen. Without another thought, I send Tracker a message, asking to meet him in a private chat. I use one of our French phrases: ‘Le soleil brille aujourd’hui.’ The sun is shining today.
I wait to see if he looks up over his desktop, but he doesn’t. I am playing a stupid game, so I look back at my screen, ready to sign off for real this time. But this very well might be the imposter Tracker. Maybe I should wait around, see if he responds.
A message from Tracker pops up, saying that he’s in the chat room. When I click through, I see the message: ‘Non, le ciel est nuageux.’ No, it’s cloudy. Again I peer over the top of the computer, but Zeke is still immersed in his own world. Since the shadow knew about the French phrases, it could be the imposter. But what if it really is Zeke?
No one here knows he’s Tracker, so he can’t give himself away. If it is Zeke, he can’t exactly leap up and give me a high-five over the computers between us.
‘Did you find anything yet?’ he is asking. The question makes me think that this is Zeke, not the imposter. Zeke would be careful, too, to make sure that he couldn’t be traced. We also have to be as discreet as possible in our conversation.
‘No. I came here first.’
‘Old habits die hard.’
‘Yes. Have you found anything?’
‘Just lurking for now. Maybe you could see what you can find out.’
It’s casually said, but I know what he wants me to do. I’ve gotten into the private chat rooms before.
But my search is futile. I don’t recognize anyone here; there’s nothing suspicious going on. I don’t even see Angel, who’d been a regular in the chat room and was well acquainted with Tracker and a couple of my own screen names. I’d had the idea that I could reach out to him – or her – discreetly, but Angel’s absence seems to be just another sign that I am most likely on a wild goose chase. Until I wonder whether Angel could somehow be connected to what’s going on.
I don’t like that I’m questioning anyone in the chat room, much less Angel. But when faced with a faceless enemy, anyone can be guilty.
There is another message in the private room from Tracker. He’s sent me a link to the Waste Land. ‘Be careful,’ he writes. ‘You don’t know who’s watching.’
I would be willing to bet that he is watching, which means I can have no missteps.
I glance over at Jake and Charles, who are still concentrating on their own work. Since neither of them seemed to react when Tracker showed up in the chat room, I can only surmise that they’re not watching the site at the moment – which bothers me a little. If this team is supposed to track down Tracker and p4r4d0x, they’re not exactly doing a great job, even though Zeke said they’re the ones who found the conversations in the first place.
I navigate to the Waste Land, and I have to set up a sign-on. Since I’m using Tor and I’ve also got VPN – and I assume everyone else on the site is taking the same precautions – the sign-on seems a little ridiculous, but I do it anyway. Again, I choose a username and password that have nothing to do with any others I’ve ever used, which also underscores the redundancy of the process.
When I finally get in, the site is remarkably like any other that has items for sale, but there are categories for drugs and weapons and sex. I click on ‘miscellaneous.’
If Zeke hadn’t already gotten me documents, this would be the go-to place for them. Passports, driver’s licenses, credit cards – I could create yet another identity for myself if I wanted to. For a moment, I consider it. Susan McQueen is a known entity. But I could pick another name at random and disappear completely.
And then I remind myself that I don’t have to.
The idea of being free, not having to hide, is still so foreign to me. I feel almost silly for not knowing about this myself. Granted, I spent fifteen years without a computer. But when I did get one, I could have gotten the answers I needed with just a few keystrokes. I never even considered that this was a possibility, though, so why would I do a search?
I can’t dwell on it now. I have a job to do, and then I can ruminate and figure out what exactly my next step will be.
I could turn to the deep web for that next step. Spirits of aborted babies and ghosts that will tell me my future are for sale here. ‘Miscellaneous’ is right.
Everything for sale must be purchased with bitcoin, the virtual currency. To get it, you have to link an actual bank account to a bitcoin wallet. I have no bank account. But I do have the FBI, and I’m sure that Zeke’s got a wallet just for this purpose.
I skim through the occult listings that would allow me to buy spells to put on people, and I wonder how many of those are sold. Probably a lot more than most people would think.
There must be a chat room here somewhere. But pride prevents me from asking. I want to find it myself, or at least give it a little more time before I concede defeat.
And I’m glad I do, because when I turn back to the screen, it’s staring me in the face
.
FOURTEEN
It’s a link for a chat room. This must be the one where our alter egos had the conversation about putting the hit out on Tony DeMarco. I peer over the computer at the top of Zeke’s head.
All of my instincts tell me that whoever is setting us up is playing games. Although Zeke’s team found the conversations here that led them to the laptop, it is too pat, too easy. This seems like the logical place for something so criminal, but maybe it’s a little too logical.
My first impulse had been to look at the laptop, but I abandoned the idea when I second-guessed it. Maybe I wasn’t wrong. Maybe we need to go back to the laptop and go backward, not start here and go forward.
I stand, and Zeke looks up.
‘Where are you going?’ He’s not admonishing me; he is merely curious.
‘I need to get the laptop.’
He nods. ‘OK.’ He stands, too, and it’s clear I’m not going alone.
‘I’m only going back to the apartment. I’ll be right back.’ I don’t want him to follow me everywhere, but it seems as though he really is concerned that I’m going to take off because he shrugs me off.
‘I need to get something anyway.’
Jake and Charles still don’t seem to notice us as we head out.
‘What’s going on?’ Zeke stops me when we get outside.
‘It’s not in the deep web.’
‘What’s not?’
‘Where this started.’
He frowns. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Someone wants us to think that they’re messing around on the deep web.’
‘You don’t think so?’
‘I think whoever did this is sending us in circles. He knows me. He knows you. He knows what we can do. It seems simple. Too simple. But still we can’t trace it. You’ve got IP addresses, right?’
He nods.
‘They go from that site to the laptop?’
‘And back again,’ he says, getting it now. ‘It does go in a circle.’ He pauses. ‘So what’s the plan?’
‘Start with the laptop. The IP addresses are key. He had to have left a trace, but it’s not going to be easy to find, because he’s smart.’
Betrayed Page 6
