the 13th Hour (13 page)

"Well, is it him?"

"Now it wouldn't be anonymous if I knew, would it?" Julia smiled.

"Does he know he's been robbed?"

"It was my first call after I saw what was stolen. I spoke to his assistant, who said she'd tell him, but they were crazy dealing with other matters."

Nick became lost in thought for a moment before getting angry. "You went inside this place? How did you know the thieves weren't still in there?"

"Well . . ." her face couldn't hide her answer.

"This isn't part of an attorney's job, you never told me this."

"He pays us a retainer of twenty five thousand a month in addition to what we bill them. I never thought this would happen. Besides, I'm fine."

"Yeah, but . . ." he didn't finish the statement, not knowing what to say.

"Look, I'm fine. And besides, you've seen that crazy eight-faced key in my purse and I know you've seen the security card. I told you what it was for."

"You said a client's home. You never mentioned you were playing security guard."

"Client confidentiality," Julia said.

Nick brushed off her response. "If the key and the card are the means of access to a place of such wealth, why do you carry them around so nonchalantly?"

"The key is special. It's marked with eight letters, each corresponding to a specific date. Today happens to be a D-day. If you don't know the algorithm to get the date you've got a one in eight chance of its working, that coupled with the magna-card being passed before the reader three times plus you need to input your Social Security number . . . the key alone is pretty worthless."

"Julia, you said it was an extra key to someone's home. Not a place filled with weapons."

"Not this kind of weapons. You wouldn't use these to kill someone."

Nick didn't dare contradict her. "With all the great security, how'd they get in?"

"Not sure, but they knew what they were doing, they had definite inside knowledge, they knew the security system, destroyed the server, the whole magilla, but they forgot about one thing--we hired a separate firm to set up a remote backup."

"What?"

"Never put all your eggs in one basket for security or you're beholden to the integrity of one protector. Two separate firms for two separate aspects. The security server in Hennicot's building has a remote live backup to the computer in my office. Any time there's a security breach it sends the files to my computer for this exact reason."

"So everything, images of whoever broke in, is on the computer in your office?"

"Yeah, and here." Julia held up her Palm Pilot PDA. The hand-held personal data assistant she carried in her purse stored far more than her contacts, calendar, and email, its large memory capacity far surpassing that of her BlackBerry and smart phone.

"What?"

"When a blackout hits, we have backup batteries that allow our computers to save and shut down so you don't lose the data you're working on. When the plane crashed, knocking out the lights, it initiated a backup and shutdown."

"And . . . ?"

"As a precaution, sensitive files are emailed to my PDA, so I'm not impeded in critical work. All of the security files for two hours prior to shutdown are on this."

"Can I see?"

"Why would you want to see?" Julia said, confused. "The police will handle it after they deal with the plane crash."

"I just want to take a look."

"Even if we wanted to, I need a computer, and we have no power unless your notebook still has battery."

Nick shook his head.

"The file is unviewable on the Palm. It's a host of video and secure data files."

"I can't believe you put yourself at such risk." Nick couldn't hide his anger.

"When you think about it," Julia said, "that robbery saved my life."

Nick knew she was right, but it was only a temporary save; It actually cost her her life. He couldn't help thinking that no matter what he did, fate was going to take her away.

Nick pulled on a light-blue, button-up shirt. He reached out and took Julia's hand. "Listen to what I have to say, hear me out without interruption."

"You're freaking me out," Julia said.

"I don't mean to."

"Then reduce the drama factor," she said with a serious smile.

Nick took a breath. "There are no cops around, everyone is at the crash site."

"Yeah--" Julia shut her mouth as Nick held up his hand.

"Whoever pulled that robbery is trying to erase their tracks." Nick paused.

Julia looked into Nick's concerned eyes before turning her attention to the Palm Pilot in her hand, her thoughts churning, until realization washed over her face.

P
LUMES OF WHITE
smoke billowed up from the crash site two miles away; an all-day battle with no victors, no winners, but countless victims. And while the fight to contain the fire had neared its end, the mental battle would go on for days, weeks, years. Though the scar in the ground would heal, nature filling in the scorched earth with a green blanket of growth in mere weeks, the town would never be the same again.

As Nick drove his Audi A8 toward the village of Byram Hills, he glanced at Valhalla, their favorite restaurant, thinking how much the area had changed.

Byram Hills had once been a town right out of Mayberry: dirt roads and a single street light, a police station with three jail cells, a fruit and vegetable stand that sold fresh doughnuts and cider on the weekends. Houses were modest despite incomes, no one judged his neighbor on square footage. Children of firemen and janitors hung out with the children of CEOs and real estate tycoons, playing and fighting as kids do without the word lawsuit ever being uttered. High school coaches remained in place for the season, while parents had no illusion that their child was the next Michael Jordan. Marriages lasted longer, couples working together to make their commitments endure despite the hardships they faced. But over time, as with much of America, some of the town's character was sold off for higher returns, people became caught up in appearances, in perceptions, in keeping up with the Joneses.

Sadly, tragedy is the great equalizer, Nick thought. It knows no ZIP code, has no country club membership or two-room cold-water flat. It strikes without prejudice, reminding us of the fragility of life, of what truly is important when all
things
are stripped away. For sorrow and loss, pain and suffering are innate in our hearts, and while they may lie dormant they are quickly remembered when death fills the air.

And with an event of the magnitude of a plane crash, when 212 people are collectively ripped from this world, from your own backyard, life is reset, priorities falling back into their proper order.

Within moments of the crash, stores and businesses closed, summer camps were shuttered. Families came together. Churches and synagogues opened their doors for prayer. Volunteers arrived by the busful in the open fields less than a mile outside town where friends and strangers had departed this earth.

Julia rode in the seat beside Nick, her eyes fixed on the smoke on the horizon, unable to shake the thought of death and how it had passed her by today.

"You sure we can get a computer in your office to work?" Nick asked.

"Why do you need to see the security files? Let's just turn my PDA over to the police. This is none of our--and particularly none of your--business, Nick."

"When it concerns you, Julia, it is my business."

"Nobody is after me; you're being ridiculous."

"No, trust me, I'm not."

"You're not telling me something." Julia was getting upset.

Nick didn't respond.

"What aren't you telling me?" She grilled him as if she were in court.

"Julia," Nick said, losing patience. "Just answer the question."

"We don't have a generator," Julia snapped. "But we do have battery backups for the computers, they're good for a half hour."

"And we'll be able to view the files on your PDA?"

Julia nodded, suddenly distracted by the sight of the town as they drove down Main Street.

The village was eerily empty, stores closed, gas stations shuttered, a virtual ghost town. Not a soul on the sidewalks, not a car in the streets. Shop windows were dark without electricity to light their window displays. The pizza parlor, the barber shop, even the banks and post office, locked tight on a Friday afternoon in the middle of summer for the first time in their history.

The National Guard, the usual responders to disasters, were at a quarter capacity as a result of the war, so volunteers were needed. It didn't matter if you were a grandmother or an eighteen-year-old college student. You were put to work either directing traffic, filling out paperwork, or if you were a hardy soul, sifting through the crash site.

Julia's eyes returned to the smoky plume rising over the hill at the far side of town. Nick couldn't imagine what was going on inside her head, looking at a funeral pyre that she had escaped through a twist of fate.

But Nick had witnessed his own horror. He had watched Julia die, mourned her once, and he refused to do it for a second time. He would somehow find the man who pulled the trigger and would stop him. He felt the lump of the Sig-Sauer at the small of his back, fully aware that he would, in all likelihood, have to use it. No matter the consequence of his actions, even though he might lose his own life in the process, he would save his wife.

He made no mention of the gun he was carrying and was sure to keep the bulge of the weapon out of Julia's sight. She hated guns with a passion, an irony that was not lost on Nick. He rarely removed the gun from the safe and had never carried it. He was actually finding it awkward now as it rubbed against his skin under his hastily put on sport coat.

A
ITKENS
, L
ERNER
, & Isles was considered one of the top firms in the country, specializing in finance and tax law. The sixty-partner firm had the luxury of locating wherever they saw fit, which was naturally at the nexus of its three senior partners.

The firm had a three-building campus on North Castle Hill, its three hundred employees swelling the town of Byram Hills during the week, but that couldn't have been farther from the case today.

The four parking lots were entirely empty as Nick pulled his Audi up to the circular drive in front of the central building.

He and Julia hustled up the fire stairs two steps at a time to the darkened second floor, the emergency light's batteries already depleted. They raced to Julia's office in the rear. It was a typical senior associate suite, a large desk and a seating area with a couch and armchairs. But her usually fastidious work area had been destroyed: her desk tipped over, her computer missing, wires torn from the walls, the monitor shattered on the floor.

"My God! When I find the son of a bitch who did this . . ." Julia's temper was approaching its boiling point.

"Where's your server?" Nick said, without acknowledging her raging mood.

"You knew this was going to be like this, didn't you?" Julia said with a mix of anger and confusion.

"Where's the server?"

"End of the hall," Julia said, leading the way. "This is all about the robbery. What the hell?"

They arrived at a nondescript door that sat between the auxiliary kitchen and the office of the managing partner, Sherman Peabody. Julia punched the code into the keypad, tore open the door, and immediately saw what they both dreaded. The server towers within the computer room had been stripped of their hard drives; wires hung useless from the racks, looking like dead snakes.

"Midnight backups?" Nick asked

"Everyone's computer and all the servers back up on three separate nodes once a day at 2:00
A.M.
"

They both looked at the large computer room, now rendered useless, hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage inflicted, all in an effort to erase what had occurred earlier in the day at Shamus Hennicot's large white house on Maple Avenue.

"Now do you believe me?" Nick looked at the Palm Pilot in Julia's hand. "That's the only thing pointing at whoever ripped off your client."

"We've got to get this to the police--"

"There are no police to give it to."

"Let's just bring it to the crash site, give it to someone there."

Nick knew that would only serve to delay his finding Julia's killer, and the only way he was going to do that was to see the face on that PDA.

"How did you know this was going to happen, Nick?"

Nick took the Palm Pilot out of her hand.

"Answer me, dammit, what's going on?"

Nick pulled the pocket watch and looked at the time: 5:40.