“Kevin Pryor,” Ash said. “Ex-Army, Intelligence Corps.”
“What happened to him?”
“He wasn’t alone. Colleagues got him off the scene before police or the ambulance arrived. We assume he regained consciousness immediately, no injury when he collapsed. One of Eunice’s branch plants has quite a bit on him. He isn’t part of Cursion, but a freelancer they’ve used before. None of the principals at Cursion has an intelligence background, though neither do they assume they need one. They do, however, which is why they’ve repeatedly hired him. Lowbeer regards him as more dangerous than they are.”
“Why?”
“Intelligence background, of course, but also he’s differently ambitious. He isn’t wealthy, and she assumes he’s not satisfied with being a freelancer. She thinks he likely poses as much of a threat to them as he does to us.”
“Would he know what even hit him, back there?”
“Not necessarily, but we assume he knows quite a bit about you, given his current assignment. So we’re keeping an eye out for him.”
“Where are we going now?” Verity asked. Sevrin had showed her the van’s new decals on his phone. Logo of a vegan wholesaler in Chico, stylized vines and swirling leaves, the roof entirely green.
“Dogpatch, according to Sevrin,” said Ash. “Which may change, now that he thinks he’s spotted someone following the van on a motorcycle.”
“Shit,” said Verity.
“Best get used to it,” said Ash. “Would you like to go back to the van now?”
“Yes,” said Verity, and instantly was.
68
Dogpatch
Netherton was watching Verity in the drone’s left peripheral display as she turned to look back.
“Where are we?” she asked. “Where’s the motorcycle?”
“Dogpatch,” said Sevrin, which meant nothing to Netherton. “They’re four cars back.”
Verity unfastened her safety belt and turned completely around, to kneel on the seat. Netherton watched her profile. Virgil, he saw in the opposite display, was similarly kneeling, peering back.
“We stop for red,” Sevrin said, “they get closer. Like now.”
Netherton reflexively squinted at the display’s narrow rearview band as the van came to a halt, producing, to his surprise, the sudden enlargement of a motorcycle, coming up behind them along the street’s centerline, its driver’s face hidden by a white helmet.
“Slows, when getting closer,” Sevrin said. “Never right behind us. Technique.”
“I may know who that is,” Verity said.
“Sit down,” Sevrin said, “buckle up.” The light changed and he drove on.
Verity and Virgil, on either side of the drone, turned back around and fastened their belts.
“How do you know the person you think this may be?” Ash asked.
“Maybe drove me to Oakland,” Verity said. “Eunice arranged it. I got an e-mail as soon as she was gone, written earlier, telling me to go with him. He works in 3.7, the coffee place on Valencia, not that we knew each other.”
“Did he tell you anything about his relationship with Eunice?” Ash asked.
“He never spoke. Assume he can’t.”
“Now,” Sevrin said, taking a sharp right, almost simultaneously braking, hard, into a paved space. A car passed, a second, and then the motorcycle, one of the largest Netherton had seen, swung smoothly into what free space remained, stopping about three meters from their sliding passenger door.
The rider put his booted feet down and sat on the motorcycle, wearing a black leather jacket and an immaculately white helmet.
“That your man?” Conner asked.
“I think so,” said Verity.
The rider raised a hand, flipped up the helmet’s visor. He wore a white filtration mask. Above its upper left edge, Netherton saw a glint of metal.
“That’s him,” Verity said.
Netherton flinched, as the drone suddenly shifted position to his left, putting more of its torso between Verity and the man on the motorcycle. Its arms, no longer handless, were extended now as well, though Netherton had scarcely seen that happen, the left grasping the back of the front passenger seat, the right the end of the bench. Virgil, finding himself between the drone and the stranger, unfastened his seatbelt again.
The rider gestured, twice, with his fingers. Come.
“Your call,” Conner said.
“I’ll speak with him,” Verity said.
“I let you past,” Conner said, “Sevrin opens the door, you get out. I’m behind you but at the open door. You good, Sevrin?”
“Good,” Sevrin said.
“Say go,” said Conner.
“Go,” said Verity, already moving forward, as the door began to open.
69
Heathkit
Stepping down, in front of the barista on his Harley, it occurred to Verity that she should probably have the hoodie up, because people in the building whose parking lot this was might be getting pictures or video of the encounter, particularly if they could also see the drone. This rare and temporary patch of fall sunlight felt great, though, so she left it down.
The barista reached up and pulled his mask away from his face, then down. Releasing it, it rode beneath his chin like a white plastic voice box.
“Is Eunice dead?” she asked him.
He briskly mimed the emoji she thought of as amazement at another’s cluelessness, his open palms turning briefly up, with a simultaneous shrug and eye roll. Then he raised a forefinger, reached into his jacket pocket with the other hand, and produced a folded paper bag, handing it to her. Stamped in brown, she saw, with 3.7-sigma’s logo.
There seemed to be nothing in it. She unfolded it. The all-caps message was in fluorescent pink industrial paint pen:
GRIM TIM HERE THO WEVE MET. BET YOU WANT TO KNOW WHATS HAPPENED TO E I DONT KNOW. SHES NOT AVAILABLE BUT SOME PIECES SEEM TO BE & AND I EXPECT YOULL BE HEARING FROM THEM. ONE TOLD ME YOU WERE LEAVING THE HOTEL & TO FOLLOW YOU & RETURN YR GEAR MODDED FOR SECURITY. PHONE AND GLASSES BOTH REENCRYPTED BY EUNICES PIECES SO THATS IT.
“Grim Tim,” she said, looking up from his note.
He was opening a black mesh bag, bungeed to the top of the Harley’s tank. He looked up, flashing her a version of that look of somehow agreeable contempt she knew from 3.7. From the mesh he produced what she assumed was the Faraday pouch she’d seen before. When she’d accepted it, he pulled up his mask, lowered the visor of his helmet, took his pink-lettered message from her, crumpled it one-handed, stuffed it back into his jacket pocket, and gunned his engine slightly.
“Thanks,” she said, taking a step back, uncertain how she felt about communicating with some sort of partial Eunice.
He turned the Harley, waited for a gap in the traffic, and was gone, a single sharp backfire ringing in his wake.
“Get in,” Conner said, from the drone behind her. “Time we go.” She turned, to find it standing in the open passenger door, arms braced. “Let me sniff that first.” And one arm was there, that quickly, long and thin, with three different kinds of retractable device, sensors she supposed, in various proximities to the bag. “Seems clean,” he said. “Get in. I’ll open it.”
“I’ll open it myself,” she said, climbing up, past the drone and into the van, where Sevrin remotely closed the door behind her.
Taking her seat behind Sevrin, she held the pouch on her lap in both hands. Sevrin was turning the van, then waiting for an opening in traffic. When one arrived, he pulled out. She undid the pouch’s folded lips and looked down into it. Against its white lining, she saw the Tulpagenics phone, the case for the glasses, the headset, and their three chargers.