My conscious brain kept insisting it was a coincidence, the three of them all going the same way as me. But my heart rate accelerated, anyway, and I could feel the muscles around my stomach clamping down tight. I leaned a little harder on the gas, anxious to prove my paranoia wrong, but as I rounded the next bend that became much more difficult. A plume of thick, black smoke was rising from the heart of Weimann’s subdivision. And a moment later, denying my suspicions became impossible.
Two fire trucks were parked on the street outside Weimann’s house. Thick hoses snaked down his driveway, past the blackened skeleton of his Jaguar and on toward the burning shell of the building. And to extinguish any last shred of hope, I saw the paramedics loading a gurney into the back of the ambulance that had passed me, minutes before.
A gurney with a body bag strapped to it.
Friday night–Saturday morning.
IN THE MOMENTS AFTER I PASSED WEIMANN’S HOUSE I FELT PROUD of myself for mastering the panic and continuing to drive, slowly and evenly, not drawing attention to myself, not giving the watching cops the slightest clue that a wanted man had just slipped through their fingers. I told myself it was a sign of growth. Of change. Of increasing competence and self-reliance. And then I turned the rearview mirror all the way to the side to make sure I didn’t catch sight of my face.
Because if I was honest, I wasn’t sure exactly what I’d become. But I had a feeling the truth would be far less flattering than the self-deception.
THE TV WAS STILL flickering in the corner of my room on the seventh floor of the Buckingham when the sun finally rose. I’d spent most of the night pacing, hoping for something to show up on the local news that would break the endless circle of questions in my head. Could the fire have been an accident? Or had Weimann been murdered? Who’d want to kill him? Why? Had anyone told Renée, now that they were separated? How had she taken it? Where were the police?
And how long until the blame came crashing down on me?
In the end, though, there was only one thing I could be sure about. I wouldn’t find any answers—or make sure Weimann hadn’t died in vain—if I was in jail. I needed proof of my innocence. I had to follow my one remaining lead.
——
I KNEW THE RENDEZVOUS with Weimann’s virus expert was set for Valhalla station, sometime in the morning. I found my way there easily enough and parked without any trouble. But when I put on my baseball cap and glasses it hit me how thin my disguise was. The whole area was crawling with people. How many of them had seen my face on the news? Had there been more stories, since I left the hotel? I wished I could get online to check. Or call someone and ask. But I had nowhere to go. And no one to turn to. Weimann’s contact was the last iron I had in the fire. If I couldn’t find him, I’d be on the run for the rest of my life.
No one recognized me as I hurried toward the station concourse, but the first thing I saw when I stepped inside was my own face. It was front and center on all four papers on the newsstand. My plan to hole up somewhere and watch the passersby, hoping to latch onto the fellow IT-geekiness of the virus guy suddenly seemed like madness.
“Hey!” The voice was behind me. “Stop!”
I dived around the back of the coffee cart, whipped off my hat and glasses, and shoved them behind its oversize ornate wheel, desperate to change my appearance. Then I crept to the giant barrel of ferns next to it and peered into the crowd, frantically trying to spot my pursuer.
I could see maybe fifty people, but only one likely candidate. And he wasn’t pursuing me. The guy had been calling to his teenage son. The kid had forgotten his lunch box. The dad had brought it for him. And I’d jumped like a scalded cat. It was a wake-up call. I had to accept the inevitable.
I retrieved my hat and glasses and waited for my moment to slip out from behind the cart. Then I slunk back to my car, feeling the gaze of everyone I passed boring into me like they all knew who I was, and were only delaying turning me in to draw straws for the honor of making the call.
IF I’D HAD A COIN with me when I slid back into the car, I’d have tossed it. Heads, stay in the parking lot and hope for a miracle. Tails, run for cover and try to come up with a plan that had a prayer of succeeding. But as things turned out, the choice was taken out of my hands.
“Marc Bowman!” A man opened the passenger door and jumped in beside me. “I was expecting you, now your buddy Weimann’s dead.”
I was half out of my seat, my heart accelerating so fast I could hear my blood bouncing off the inside of my eardrums, before I registered who it was.
“Sweet heaven above, Agent McKenna. I thought I was getting arrested! Or lynched!”
“Nothing that dramatic. I’m just waiting for a friend.”
“Wait. There’s no way. You’re the virus guy?”
“Of course not. I’m here to meet him. Just like you.”
“I don’t understand. How do you know him? I don’t even know his name.”
“His name’s not important. He probably can’t even remember it, he uses so many aliases. But he’s the top of his field. A morally confused field, granted, but that’s how the world works, these days. Most of the time we turn a blind eye. And in return, if he finds anything of interest to us, he drops a dime.”
“He told you about the virus?”
“He told me someone—Weimann—gave him a memory stick with the virus on it, along with a bunch of AmeriTel data. Which leaves me puzzled. How did your friend Weimann get his hands on such a thing when he didn’t work at AmeriTel? But you did. And you specifically told me you didn’t have any of their data.”
I didn’t answer. This was exactly what I’d hoped to avoid when I found the memory stick in the box with the fresh tequila bottle, but it was too late now to go back and undo all the mistakes I’d made.
“Never mind.” McKenna glanced over his shoulder. “We’ll talk about that later. In the meantime, start the car. I’ll give you directions. This is no time for you to be seen in public.”
MCKENNA DIRECTED ME BACK to the highway, and from there toward a hotel his team was using as an HQ while they were working the case. He told me it would take the best part of an hour to get there, then leaned against the side window and stared at me, unblinking, and in silence.
“What?” I caved after a couple of minutes. “Could you stop that, please? You’re making me uncomfortable.”
“OK. I’ll stop. The moment your comfort becomes important to me.”
“Are you pissed at me?”
“You lied to me, Marc. About the memory stick. And the prison van thing? I saved your ass for what, the second time? The third? And you ran out on me. You made me look like an idiot. Things like that don’t help build careers. This is a temporary thing for you. An adventure you’ll brag about to your grandkids. But it’s my life and my livelihood you’ve put on the line.”
“It’s no adventure. It’s a nightmare. I was terrified. The guy cornered me, and told me to run, and—”
“You went back to your house?”
I nodded.
“You’d hidden the memory stick there? The one you denied having?”
“I wasn’t lying. I didn’t know I had it when I told you that. I found it later. Then I put it somewhere safe.”
“Where?”
“In my kitchen. Under a section of countertop.”
“OK.” McKenna frowned. “We tossed the place twice, and never got a sniff. Did you have the countertop built that way specially?”