It just didn’t fit together. I couldn’t reconcile a geek like Keith, however talented a programmer he might be, playing any role vital to national security. Nothing that would explain armed men being sent out to try and kill his son, at any rate. I saw again the man in the Buick falling. I pushed it away.
“Try another search for me, would you?”
“OK,” Scott said, sitting forwards again, “but we’ve been through just about everything I can think of.”
“This one’s just for any reports on a man’s body turning up in the last twenty-four hours. He’ll have been shot.”
Scott glanced at me and his eyes gleamed as the realisation hit of exactly who I was looking for. He bent over his keyboard with fresh vigour, his fingers rippling across the keys. He went back and checked most of the same places where he’d just been looking for any sign of Trey’s mother. We came up with the same result. Nothing.
“He’s probably ‘gator food by now, man,” Xander said with a certain amount of relish. “Plenty of places in Florida to get rid of a body, if you know where to go.” He glanced at me sideways. “That’s if you’re sure you really wasted him, huh?”
“I’m sure,” I said. I’d known instinctively as soon as I’d shot the man in the Buick that he was dead. There was something about the way he’d dropped, the sound he’d made. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I’d known, nevertheless. Now it seemed that whoever he’d been working for was big enough, or powerful enough, to dispose of the body without leaving a trace.
Did that just make them organised?
Or did it make them federal?
I looked at the boys, found them watching me expectantly. “Maybe,” I said slowly, “we can’t discount some kind of government involvement after all.”
“All right!” Scott whooped, punching the air and grinning. “I just knew this was a big conspiracy.”
Aimee reappeared at the top of the stairs at that point, with Trey trailing behind her. He wasn’t quite dragging the toes of his scuffed trainers along the carpet as he came, but it was a pretty close-run thing.
“Hey, man,” Xander said, clapping him on the shoulder, “looks like this is all part of some major cover-up. You know what that means, huh?”
The four of them looked at each other with the air of cartoon characters who are just about to rip off their shirts to reveal they’re all wearing different coloured superhero costumes underneath.
“We need Henry,” Trey said. He even managed to raise a smile.
“Who the hell is Henry?” I demanded.
For a moment none of them spoke, just stood and grinned inanely at each other. The way kids do when there’s an in-joke on the go and you’re firmly on the outside of it.
Finally, it was Scott who took pity on me. Maybe he was just a better judge than the others of how far I could be pushed without exploding.
“Henry’s this really cool guy who moderates a site about conspiracy theories – y’know, who shot JFK, are the government covering up the existence of aliens, all that kinda stuff.”
“Henry will know what’s going on,” Xander put in firmly, “He’s the man.”
I shrugged. I didn’t like it, but still there was no word from Madeleine. What other choices did I have?
***
Scott sent a cryptic e-mail to the mysterious Henry asking only if he could shed any light on events currently in the news. Whatever my personal doubts about contacting a stranger, at least he was paying more attention to his e-mail than Madeleine.
A reply came winging straight back. It was misspelt and curiously constructed, but at least it was prompt.
scott, if told u evrything i know about wots going on behind evry news story, wed be hear forevr, it said. specifics?!
“Hang on a moment,” I said as Scott reached for the keyboard again. “What exactly do you know about this guy?”
“Oh he’s, like, ex-CIA,” Scott said airily, trying to be ultra casual. “He worked in Iraq and the Middle East and he was in Kuwait during Desert Storm.”
“So says he,” I muttered under my breath. I had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind about this. I didn’t know much about the CIA, but I’m sure they at least require their personnel to be able to pass a basic literacy test.
Scott was waiting, expectant, his hands hovering over the keys. “Well?” he said. “Do I tell him, or what?”
Trey flashed me a defiant glance. “Yeah,” he said. “What have we got to lose?”
So Scott typed in, Trey and Keith Pelzner.
Almost as soon as he’d sent it, Henry was back again. both been kidnapped, he’d put, keiths work v intresting. i no lot of hi up folk love to see him fail. software co in big truble without him!
“See?” Trey said as soon as he’d read the message. “He’s plugged right in, I’m telling you.”
“Not quite,” I said. To Scott I added, “Try telling him that Trey hasn’t been kidnapped. Tell him that he’s right here.”
I glanced at Trey while Scott tapped in the words. The kid was looking even more morose than usual, head down, hands stuffed into his pockets. Mind you, the way Aimee was clinging on to his arm and murmuring in his ear, maybe he didn’t have a reason to drop the troubled teen act.
It took Henry longer to reply this time and when he did his e-mail seemed to have more attention to it.
u r in big truble. i can help. i can negotiate on yr behalf. MUST meet with u! trust nobody!
He didn’t say if this last was himself included, but I was way ahead of him on that one.
“He’s never suggested a meet before – like, never,” Scott said, sounding slightly awed. “What you wanna do?”
Trey sighed and rolled his eyes, as you would if someone’s just asked a stupid question to which the answer is obvious. “Like, yeah,” he said. He didn’t even glance at me for confirmation.
Where and when? Scott sent.
Henry must have been poised over the keys waiting for an answer. He came back right away, naming a small bar near the Port Orange Marina, on the Atlantic side of the Intracoastal Waterway that separated the Beach Shores from the rest of Daytona. be in parkng lot in 27 mins, he’d added. i in red vette. come alone.
“No way,” I said. For the start, specifying such an exact time smacked of pretension. Like someone who’s watched too many spy movies, rather than someone who’s ever been involved in the real thing. Secondly, if you’re involved in the undercover world you don’t drive round in a red Corvette. You have some sludge-coloured invisible saloon. And as for the ‘come alone’ bit, he must think Trey was even more stupid than he . . .
“I gotta go!” Trey said, his voice whiny. “Your people never even got back to you, so how can—?”
“Trey, I’m not trying to stop you going,” I said, cutting him off in mid-whinge, “but no way are you going on your own. I’m coming with you.”
“He told me to come alone,” Trey muttered, sulky.
I moved across to him and linked my arm through his on the side that wasn’t already attached to Aimee. “You’ll just have to tell him you’d got a hot date then,” I said, “won’t you?”
Aimee pointedly disengaged herself. “That might work,” she told him, smiling sweetly. “If he believes you go for much older women . . .”
***
Scott dropped us off just outside the marina twenty minutes later. Xander wanted to lurk nearby to catch a glimpse of their mysterious hero but Trey was against the idea.
“He’ll spot you right off,” he complained, “and then he won’t show.”