“Okay,” he said.
Relief flooded through her like cool water. She turned off the camera, replaced it in the Hadley bag and zipped up the ruck. Grabbed her hoodie and started slipping on her espadrilles as she waited for the iPad and tote to emerge on the conveyor belt.
iPad. She picked it up. Tote.
“Ma’am?”
Oh, fuck. “Yes? Do you need me to… to…?”
“You don’t have to put your tablet through separately. Just laptops. That’s a tablet, right?”
“Right,” she said. She managed a smile. “Thanks for letting me know.”
She sat in the small waiting room on the other side of security and wondered: What should she do with Danny’s logbook?
What had he said that last time in jail?
I wish I could protect you. I don’t have a lot of options.
Maybe this book was one of them. A weapon she could use.
There was no place she could think of that felt safe to hide it. If she kept it with her at all times, that carried risks as well.
She had the one flash-drive copy, on the same drive to which she’d copied the Safer America tax-disclosure documents.
Maybe I should make another copy, she thought. Mail it to someone before I get to Houston. Gary might be watching her, might be watching mail going out of her apartment or Safer America, but dropping something in a mailbox while in transit between two terminals in an entirely different city seemed like a pretty good bet.
There were all kinds of electronics stores at San Francisco International. Surely she could buy another flash drive and maybe a cheap tablet to use to copy it. Maybe the iPad she carried was safe, if she turned off the WiFi. But maybe it wasn’t. She couldn’t be sure.
Who to mail it to? Who did she trust?
The problem was, anyone she trusted-her sister, for example-there was no way she wanted to put them at risk by sending them this thing. She had to assume that Maggie was monitored anyway.
Sam?
Danny might trust Sam, but she didn’t. Since she’d gone to him for help, he’d done exactly nothing for Danny or for her, at least so far as she knew.
And thinking of that last jail visit, it wasn’t until she’d said she hadn’t heard back from Sam that Danny told her to get the book.
Maybe Danny didn’t trust Sam either.
There was no way she was going to pull that trigger until she talked to Danny.
Who, then?
Derek?
He’d always done a good job for them. He seemed to be representing Danny to the best of his ability. But he was so close to it all. She didn’t know who else he worked for, where his ultimate loyalties lay. The information in that book might be more than enough to make a deal to get Danny out. Or it might be something he wouldn’t want anyone ever to see.
There were plenty of people who wouldn’t want anyone to see it.
Maybe Danny wanted to come clean, let the world know all about what he’d done. But the logbook was also a bargaining chip. One that might get them both out of this mess.
What if she tried to make a deal with Gary?
The thought made her shudder. If he knew she had the logbook, he’d kill her. He’d kill Danny, too.
If he thought he could get away with it.
When she’d met Gary in Houston, she’d tried that bluff, that Danny had valuable information, that they’d made “arrangements” to get it out there if something happened to either of them. Gary hadn’t bought it then, but it seemed that he was still worried enough about what they knew to make a better deal with her.
Now, she really did have the goods. If she could actually make those arrangements…
She shivered again. Pulling that off with Gary would be like swimming up to a hungry shark with a bucket of bloody chum and hoping she could get out of the water fast enough.
First things first. Make another copy. Figure out who to send it to.
There was a Best Buy vending machine not far from her gate at SFO’s Terminal 3. It actually dispensed iPads, iPods, cameras, chargers, smart phones, noise-cancelling headphones, gadgets costing hundreds of dollars.
And flash drives.
She used her Emily ATM card and bought an iPad, two flash drives, and a portable charger. There was a United Club in this terminal, and she had a pass from a credit card. Gathering her purchases and luggage, she made her way there.
The club didn’t have great food, but it had bananas and bagels and coffee, views of the airplanes and runways, and plenty of electrical outlets. “Do you have any stationery, anything I could write a quick letter on?” she asked one of the agents at the club counter.
Airline logo stationery in hand, she took a seat in a club chair by the window.
As the iPad charged, she sipped her coffee and thought about who she should write.
Maybe her Michelle lawyer in Los Angeles, Alan Bach. She’d found him to be honest and straightforward, and he’d done what he could for her. And he wasn’t involved in Tom’s business, so she had to hope that when Gary had cleaned up her late husband’s mess, Alan hadn’t been on his radar.
She liked him enough that she almost didn’t want to send trouble his way.
Too bad she didn’t know anyone she hated whom she could also trust.
Finally, she started writing.
Dear Alan,
It has been a while since we spoke. You handled my situation after the death of my husband, Tom Mason, 2 ½ years ago. I’m
She stopped writing. She really couldn’t say she was “doing well.” She crossed out “I’m” and wrote:
I’ve had a number of changes in my life. The enclosed is something that I’d like you to hold onto for two weeks. Please don’t open it before then. Sorry to sound mysterious, but I’m in transit and it’s complicated to explain. I’ll be contacting you shortly and will send you a retainer for your trouble within the next few days.
Many thanks-I’ve always appreciated how helpful you were to me during a very difficult time.
If that first note came across as melodramatic, she could only imagine what he’d think of what she had to write next.
Dear Alan,
If you are reading this and you haven’t heard from me otherwise, the flash drive contains very sensitive information. I know for a fact that it’s all true, and that it’s dangerous information to have. I’m sorry to have put you in this position but I couldn’t think of anyone else to give it to. For your own safety please send this information to as many news outlets as you can. Use a VPN if you email it. Send it to some hackers if you know any, to those sites that publish classified information. The best way for you to be safe is for as many people as possible to have this information too. I know how crazy this sounds but please believe me and do what I’ve said as quickly as you can.
All it needs is a tinfoil hat, she thought.
The airport post office was about a mile from the airport; a bus ran every half hour from the BART station, she was told, or she could walk from the BART in 15 minutes. Normally, she would have liked to walk, to get some air and stretch her legs, but she was afraid of being seen, afraid of being followed. Maybe it would be safer to try and hide in a crowd than on a frontage road where hardly anyone was likely to be walking.
She hadn’t noticed anyone following her. The Embraer turboprop from Arcata only held about twenty-five passengers, and she’d scanned them as carefully as she could during the flight. If any of them had tailed her through the airport, followed her into the United lounge, she hadn’t spotted them.
That didn’t mean no one was watching.
Maybe she should wait and mail it in Houston.
Standing by the entrance to BART, watching the people drag their suitcases up and down the long escalators, she thought, this is pointless.
All of it. Switching identities, putting phones in signal-blocking bags, trying to calculate risks, not knowing if anyone was watching… it was impossible. Hopeless.