Secret of the Seventh Son (30 page)

"About you."

"What about me?"

There was another long pause, the whooshing sound of an eighteen-wheeler passing. "I think I'm in love with you."

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them she was still in lower Manhattan. "Come on, Will, why are you saying something like that? Sleep deprivation?"

"Nope. I mean it."

"Please find a motel and get some sleep."

"That's all you have to say?"

"No. I think I might love you too."

Greg Davis was waiting for the kettle to boil. His relationship with Laura Piper was only a year and a half old and they were facing their first significant crisis as a couple. He wanted to step up to the plate and be a great guy and a supportive boyfriend, and in his family you dealt with a crisis by brewing tea.

Their apartment was tiny, with minimal light and no views, but they'd rather have a garret in Georgetown than a nicer place in a soulless suburb. She had finally fallen asleep at 2:00
A.M.,
but as soon as she awoke, she turned the TV back on, saw the crawl on the screen informing that her father remained at large and began crying again.

"Do you want regular or herbal?" he called out.

He heard sobs. "Herbal."

He brought her a cup and sat beside her on the bed.

"I tried calling him again," she said weakly.

"Home and cell?"

"Voice mail." He was still in his boxers. "You'll be late," she said.

"I'm calling in."

"Why?"

"To stay with you. I'm not leaving you alone."

She wrapped her arms around him, and his shoulder got wet from her tears. "Why are you so good to me?"

"What kind of question is that?"

His cell phone began to vibrate and move on the bed table. He lunged for it before it fell off the edge. It read:
UNKNOWN CALLER.

A woman was asking for him.

"This is Greg."

"It's Nancy Lipinski, Greg. We met at Will's apartment."

"Jesus! Nancy! Hello!" He whispered to Laura, "Your dad's partner," and she sat bolt upright. "How'd you get my number?"

"I work for the FBI, Greg."

"Yeah. I see that," he said. "Are you calling about Will?"

"Yes. Is Laura there?"

"She is. Why'd you call me?"

"Laura's phones could be tapped."

"Christ, what did Will do?"

"Am I talking to his daughter's boyfriend or a journalist?" Nancy asked.

He hesitated then looked at Laura's pleading eyes. "Her boyfriend."

"He's in a lot of trouble but he didn't do anything wrong. We got too close to something and he's not backing down. I need you to promise me you'll keep this confidential."

"Okay," he assured her, "you're off the record."

"Put Laura on. He wants her to know he's all right."

The Realtor was a platinum blonde entering her Botox years. She talked a mile a minute and bonded with Kerry in an instant. The two of them were yapping away in the front of the big Mercedes while Mark sat in the back, anesthetized, his legs straddling his briefcase.

He was aware on some level that there was chatter going on and that they were passing cars and people and shops along Santa Monica Boulevard, that it was cool in the sedan and hot and sunny outside the tinted windows, and that there were two clashing perfumes in the cabin and a metallic taste in his mouth and a throbbing behind his eyes, but each sense existed in its own dimension. He was no more than a series of unlinked sensors. His mind wasn't processing and integrating the data. He was somewhere else, lost.

Kerry's squeal penetrated his veil. "Mark! Gina's asking you a question!"

"Sorry, what?"

The Realtor said, "I was asking about your time frame."

"Soon," he said softly. "Very soon."

"That's great! We can really use that as leverage. And you said you wanted a cash deal?"

"That's right."

"I mean, you guys are so totally with it!" the Realtor gushed. "I get out-of-towners coming in and all they want to see is Beverly Hills or Bel Air or Brentwood--the three B's--but you guys are so smart and focused. I mean, did you know that the Hollywood Hills in your price range with your aggressive attitude is the single best luxury value in L.A.? We're going to have a great afternoon!"

He didn't respond and the two women picked up their conversation and left him alone again. When the car began its climb into the mountain range, he felt his back pushing against the seat. He closed his eyes and was in the rear of his father's car, driving into the White Mountains to their rental cabin in Pinkham Notch. His father and mother were droning on about something or other and he was on his own with the numbers swimming in his head, trying to arrange them into a theorem proof. When the theorem yielded and QED started flashing in his mind, he was suffused with a gush of joy he wished he could summon now.

The Mercedes snaked up narrow winding roads and houses hidden by gates and hedges. It came to a stop behind one of the ubiquitous landscaping trucks they had been passing, and when Mark opened his door he was blasted by furnace heat and the roar of a leaf blower. Kerry sprinted to the gate clutching a listing sheet, looking like a skipping child.

The Realtor told Mark, "She is so cute! You guys better pace yourself. I've got a lot of appointments lined up!"

Frazier was motoring on black coffee and adrenaline, and if he could persuade someone in medical to give him amphetamines, he'd throw those on board too. The facility was in normal day-mode, filled to the gills with employees doing their regular geek jobs. He, on the other hand, was doing something irregular and unprecedented, juggling an internal investigation and three field ops simultaneously while briefing his masters in Washington every few minutes.

One field team was in New York, pursuing the Will Piper angle; the second was in Los Angeles, in if-and-when mode, in case Mark Shackleton materialized in California; the third in Las Vegas, working the Nelson Elder situation. All his men were ex-military. Some had served in CIA field ops in the Middle East. All of them were effective sons of bitches, performing coolly despite the impotent panic in the Pentagon.

He was feeling better about Rebecca Rosenberg, although her eating habits disgusted him and spoke to a lack of personal discipline. He watched her gorge on nougat and caramel all night, and she seemed to be getting lumpier in front of his eyes. Her trash bin was filled with wrappers and she was ugly as hell, but he was concluding with grudging admiration that she wasn't just a geek supervisor but a damned good geek in her own right. She was breaking through Shackleton's defenses stone by stone and laying it all out in the open.

"Look at this," she said when he swung by. "More Peter Benedict stuff. He used to have a credit line under that name at the Constellation Casino, and there's a Peter Benedict Visa card."

"Any interesting charges on it?"

"He hardly used it but there were a few transactions with the Writers Guild of America. For screenplay registration or something."

"Jesus, a fucking writer. Can you get ahold of them?"

"You mean hack them off their server? Yeah, probably. There's something else."

"Hit me."

"A month ago he set up an account in the Caymans. It got kicked off with a $5 million wire transfer from Nelson G. Elder."

"Fuck me." He needed to call DeCorso, the Las Vegas team leader.

"He's probably the best programmer the lab's ever had," she marveled. "A wolf watching the chickens."

"How'd he get the data out?"

"I don't know yet."

"Every employee's going to have to be rescreened," he said. "Forensically."

"I know."

"Including you."

She gave him a sour-ball look and handed him a dollar. "Be a dear and get me another candy bar."

"After I call the goddamn Secretary."

Harris Lester, Secretary of the Navy, had an office suite at the Pentagon deep in C Ring, about as far removed from fresh air as any of the complex's interior spaces. His path to the highly political position was fairly typical--navy service during Vietnam, years in the Maryland Legislature, three-term congressman, Senior VP Northrop Grumman Mission Systems Division, and finally, a year and a half ago, appointment by the newly elected President as Secretary of the Navy.

He was a precise, risk-averse type of bureaucrat who disdained surprises in his personal and professional life, so he reacted with a mix of shock and irritation when his boss, the Secretary of Defense, personally briefed him on Area 51.

"Is this some kind of fraternity initiation, Mr. Secretary?"

"Do I look like a goddamn frat boy?" the SecDef had barked. "This is the real deal, and by tradition it belongs to the navy, so it belongs to you, and God help you if there's a leak under your tenure."

Lester's shirt was so starched it crackled when he sat down at his desk. He smoothed his black and silver striped tie, then ran his hand over what was left of his hair to get the strands all going in the right direction, before reaching for his rimless reading glasses. His assistant came over the intercom before he could crack his first folder. "I've got Malcolm Frazier calling from Groom Lake, Mr. Secretary. Do you want to take him?"

He could almost feel the acid squirting into his stomach. These calls were killing him but they couldn't be delegated. This was his issue and these were his decisions. He glanced at the clock: it was the middle of the night out there. The usual time for nightmares.

The Mercedes arrived at their last appointment in the late afternoon, pulling into a semicircular drive at a Mediterranean-style property.

"I think this is going to be the one!" the Realtor exclaimed with boundless energy. "I've saved the best for last."

Kerry was dazed but happy. She checked her hair with her compact and said dreamily, "I loved all of them."

Mark dragged himself behind them. A prissy looking listing agent was waiting, tapping his watch in admonition.

Mark was reminded to check his own.

Nelson Elder was making the loop with a marketing VP from the Wynn organization, the city fire commissioner, and the CEO of a local medical device company. He was a fair golfer, a fourteen-handicapper, but he was having an outstanding round, which was tipping him toward elation. He made the turn at forty-one, the best nine he'd shot in years.

The freshly sprinkled Bermuda fairways were the color of moist emeralds in the brown desert. The bent-grass greens were rolling true, and blessedly, he could do no wrong. Even though there was water galore on the course, he was keeping the ball straight and dry. The sun was dancing off the glassy surface of the Wynn Hotel, which towered over the country club, and as he lounged in his cart sipping a bottle of iced tea, listening to an artificial brook flowing and gurgling, he felt more satisfied and tranquil than he had in a very long while.

The Mediterranean villa on Hollyridge Drive was making Kerry crazy. She ran from room to glorious room--designer kitchen, step-down living room, formal dining room, library, media room, wine cellar, huge master suite with three other bedrooms--saying, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" and the Realtor at her heels cooing, "Didn't I tell you! It's all redone. Look at the details!"

Mark didn't have the stomach for it. Under the suspicious gaze of the listing agent, he headed for the patio and sat down beside the sparkling water of the vanishing pool. The patio was flanked by manzanita bushes, and hummingbirds flitted on delicate baby-blue flowers. The vast canyon stretched below, the grid of streets indistinct in the afternoon light.

Over his shoulder, above the roofline, high on a distant ridge, the tops of the letters of the Hollywood sign were visible. This is what he'd wanted, he thought ruefully, what he dreamed he'd be doing when he made it as a writer, sitting by his pool, in the hills, under the sign. He just thought it would last longer than five minutes.

Kerry rushed out the French doors and almost wept at the view. "Mark, I love this one so much. I love it, I love it, I love it!"

"She loves it," the Realtor added, coming up behind.

"How much?" Mark asked woodenly.

"They're asking three-four, and I think that's a good price. There's a million-five in renovations..."

"We'll take it." He was expressionless.

"Mark!" Kerry screamed. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him a dozen times.

"Well, you've made two women extremely happy," the Realtor said greedily. "Kerry tells me you're a writer. I think you're going to write a lot of great scripts sitting right beside this gorgeous pool! I'm going to submit your offer and call you tonight at your hotel!"

Kerry was snapping photos with her cell-phone camera. It didn't sink in right away, but when Mark realized what was happening he sprang up and snatched it out of her hand. "Did you take any pictures before?"

"No! Why?"

"You turned the phone on just now?"

"Yes! What's the big deal?"

He hit the off button. "You're low on power. Mine's dead. I'm trying to conserve in case we need to make a call." He handed it back to her.

"Okay, silly." She looked at him reproachfully, as if to say:
Don't be acting weird again.
"Come and look inside with me! I'm so happy!"

Frazier was dozing at his desk when one of his men tapped him on his shoulder. He awoke with a thick snort.

"We got a ping from Hightower's phone. It was on and off, real quick."

"Where are they?"

"East Hollywood Hills."

Frazier clawed his unshaven cheek. "Okay, we caught a break. Maybe we'll get a second one. What's DeCorso's status?"

"He's in position, waiting for authorization."

Frazier closed his eyes again. "Wake me up when the Pentagon calls back."

Elder was lining up his drive on the eighteenth hole. Back-dropping the green was a thirty-seven-foot-high waterfall, a magnificent way to finish a round. "What do you think," he asked the Wynn exec. "Driver?"

"Oh yeah, let the big dog play, Nelson. You've been crushing it all day."

"You know, if I par this, it'll be the best round I ever shot."