“I’m so tired of people like you. Of twists like you. Schneider claimed six months of your life on nonsense, and you just laid down and took it. Okay, fine, your choice. But then an angel bought you that time back. And what’s your first thought? He must want something. He can’t just be trying to bear his neighbor’s burden. He can’t just be an abnorm who doesn’t like seeing another one treated that way.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Nobody does nothing for free. Abnorm or not.”
“Yeah, well, no wonder we’re losing.” Cooper turned away and walked for the door. Over his shoulder, he said, “I don’t want you to be my slave. I want you to not be one at all.”
Then he yanked open the door and stepped inside. Behind him, Shannon chuckled. “You’re a piece of work, Cooper.”
“Let’s go find Schneider.”
The forger saw them coming, gestured for them to follow without waiting to see if they would. Cooper felt his irritation growing. Just get what you came for and get out. Time to head for Wyoming, find John Smith, and finish this. Maybe it wouldn’t solve all the problems in the world. But it would solve one of them. And it might buy a little time for the world to grow the hell up.
For a man of his means, Schneider certainly hadn’t spent much on his office. Cinderblock walls painted white, a chipboard desk with a lamp and a phone. The only expensive item was a custom-looking newtech datapad, sleek and machined. The forger sat down, opened a drawer, and took out an envelope. “Passports, driver’s licenses, credit cards.” He tossed the packet on the desk.
Cooper opened it, pulled out a passport, and saw his picture above the name Tom Cappello. He flipped the pages, saw that he had traveled extensively, mostly in Europe. The document was faded and worn soft. “The microchip matches?”
“What do you think I am?”
“I’m getting tired of that question. The microchip matches?”
“Of course.” Schneider leaned back, crossed his ankle over a bony knee. “More important, your information has been hacked into all of the relevant databases. A complete profile—spending habits, mortgages, voting record, speeding tickets, all of it.”
Cooper opened the other passport, saw Shannon’s picture. It must have been from a security camera somewhere in the building, but the shot was clean, the background suitably bland. Then he saw the name. “Are you kidding me?”
“What?” Shannon moved beside him, took the document. “Allison Cappello. So what?”
“He made us married.”
Schneider smiled his dental horror show. “That a problem?”
“I didn’t ask for it.”
“The profiles support each other. Minimizes the risk of the data insertion.”
“Yeah, for you. For us, it means we have to be able to play a married couple.”
Schneider shrugged. “Not my problem. Now listen. You both exist, but only at a superficial level. Your new identities have been implanted into the baseline systems. But it will take time for it to propagate. That’s the only way to do it. No way to modify every computer that would have a record. Instead, I plant your identities like a seed, and they grow.”
“How long?”
“You could probably clear a basic New Canaan security check now. But in a few days you’ll have recursive backup, with your identities spread throughout the whole system. Wait till then if you can.”
Cooper didn’t answer. He put the passport back in the envelope and turned to go.
“And Poet?”
“Yeah?”
“Come back anytime. I can always use your money.” The forger laughed.
When they walked back through the loading dock, the big man was gone. Just as well. In his current mood, Cooper might have used him as a practice dummy.
“We could probably stay with Lee and Lisa for a few days.”
Cooper unlocked the car, shook his head. “Let’s get on the road.”
“You want to drive to Wyoming?”
“Might as well. We need the time, and it’s safer than an airport.”
“All right.” Shannon thumbed through her passport. “Tom and Allison Cappello.” She laughed. “If that’s your way of trying to get me into bed, you get points for originality.”
“Cute.” He started the car and pointed it east. “So how did we meet?”
“Hmm?”
“We’re married. If we get questioned, we need to be able to look married.”
“Right. Well, at work, I suppose. It’s true, after all.”
The layers of irony in that made him smile. “Maybe a different job, though. Something boring, so no one asks follow-up questions about it.”
“Accounting?”
“Anybody asks me about their tax return, we’re done. How about…logistics. For a shipping company. No one wants to know how things get from place to place.”
“Okay. I worked there first. We met when you were transferred to Chicago. No, Gary, Indiana. No one wants to know about Gary, Indiana, either,” she said. “You were smitten with me, of course.”
“Actually, I think you chased me. I played it cool.”
“It was totally obvious. You kept pulling puppy-dog faces. And making excuses to come by my desk.”
“You ever actually have a desk?”
“Sure, in my apartment. It does a great job of holding up my fake plant.” She leaned back and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “We went to the movies for our first date. You were a gentleman, didn’t try anything.”
“But you were hot to go. You kept touching my arm and tossing your hair. Fiddling with your bra strap.”
“You wish.”
“And panting. I remember a lot of panting.”
“Shut up.”
Cooper smiled and merged onto the highway. Their rhythm was easy, natural. He wasn’t flirting, exactly, but the banter was fun. They kept it up, kept it light, as he drove back to Chinatown. Lisa had made them promise to have lunch before they left, and it seemed as though they had the time to spare now. He pulled up a mental map of Wyoming. The Holdfast spanned a good chunk of the middle of the state, an ugly sprawl of desert and badlands cobbled together in a thousand real estate transactions, with a border like a gerrymandered congressional district. He figured it was about a twenty-five-hour drive. They could take it slow, get some rest along the way. Stop somewhere and buy a couple of wedding rings. And he could use the time to make a plan. Getting to Erik Epstein wouldn’t be easy, and that was only a stepping-stone on the way to John Smith.
“The Amalfi Coast of Italy,” she said. “That’s where we honeymooned. We rented a room on the side of a cliff, with a balcony where we drank wine. Every day we swam in the ocean.”
“I remember. You looked dynamite in that suit.”
“The red one?” She looked at him through dark lashes. “You always liked me in red.”
“It’s good with your body,” he said, the words spilling out before he could stop them. The memory of last night flashed back, the soft whisper of her shirt sliding off, and the image he’d invented. He felt a little heat in his forehead, glanced over at her.
She wore a half smile. “My body, huh?”
“Your skin, I mean. You said your dad is Lebanese—what’s your mom?”
“French. All burgundy lips and flowing hair. They were quite the couple. He was a businessman, a very sharp dresser with a pencil moustache. The two of them were like something out of an RKO flick.”
“Were?”
“Yes,” she said simply.
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” She set her shoulders, and he read the active change in topic there, marked it to the pattern that she was becoming in his mind.
He was just about to ask where they lived when he saw the Escalade. Traffic had been getting steadily worse as they’d drawn closer to Chinatown, which he’d chalked up to tourists and the lunch crowd. But the truck—