She took one of the phones. It was already damp from the brief time in his clutch. “Okay.”
Mark was dreaming about lines of software code. They were forming faster than he could type, as fast as he could think. Each line was spare, perfect in a minimalist way, without an extraneous character. A floating slate was filling fast with something wonderful. It was a fabulous dream, and he was appalled that it was being zapped by ring tones.
It jarred him that his boss, Rebecca Rosenberg, was on his mobile. He was in bed with a beautiful woman in a magnificent suite in the Venetian Hotel and the Jersey voice of his troll-like supervisor was stomach-churning.
“How are you?” she asked.
“I’m fine. What’s up?” It wasn’t lost on him that she had never called like this before.
“I’m sorry to bother you on your vacation. Where are you?”
They could find out if they wanted from his mobile signal so he didn’t lie. “In Vegas.”
“Okay, so I know it’s a real imposition, but we’ve got a code problem that no one can fix. The lambda HITS went down and the watchers are freaking out.”
“Did you try rebooting it?” he asked blearily.
“A million times. It looks like the code got corrupted.”
“How?”
“No one can figure it out. You’re its daddy. You’d be doing me a big favor by coming in tomorrow.”
“I’m on vacation!”
“I know, I’m sorry to have to call you but if you do this for us, I’ll get you three extra vacation days, and if you finish the job in half a day, we’ll get you Lear-jetted back to McCarran at lunchtime. So what do you say? Deal?”
He shook his head in disbelief. “Yeah. I’ll do it.”
He tossed the phone onto the bed. Kerry was still sound asleep. Something was fishy. He had covered his tracks so flawlessly, he was certain the Desert Life business was undetectable. He just had to bide his time, wait a month or two before starting the voluntary resignation process. He’d tell them he’d met a girl, that they were going to get married and live on the East Coast. They’d gnash their teeth and lecture him about mutual commitments, the length of time it took to recruit and train him, the difficulty in finding a replacement. They’d appeal to his patriotism. He’d hang tough. This wasn’t slavery. They had to let him go. On his way out the door, they’d give him a good hard scrub and find nothing. They’d watch him for years, maybe forever, as they did with all past employees, but so be it. They could watch him all they wanted.
When Rosenberg hung up, the watchers took their earpieces out and nodded their approval. Malcolm Frazier, their chief, was there too, stiff-necked with an inanimate face and a wrestler’s body. He told her, “That was good.”
“If you think he’s a security risk, why don’t you pick him up today?” she asked.
“We don’t think he’s a security risk, we know he is,” Frazier said gruffly. “We’d prefer to do this in a controlled environment. We’ll confirm he’s in Nevada. We’ve got people over at his house. We’ll keep tabs on his mobile signal. If we think he’s going to be a no-show tomorrow, we’ll move.”
“I’m sure you know your jobs,” Rosenberg said. The air in her office was permeated with the scent of large athletic men.
“Yes, Dr. Rosenberg, we do.”
On his way to the airport it began to drizzle and the taxi’s wiper blades beat like a metronome keeping time for an adagio. Will slumped in the backseat, and when he nodded off, his chin came to rest on his shoulder. He awoke on the LaGuardia service road with a sore neck and told the driver he wanted US Airways.
His tan suit was speckled with raindrops. He caught the ticket agent’s name, Vicki, from her name tag and engaged her in small talk while he presented his ID and federal carry license. He absently watched her as she typed, a chunky, simple girl with long brown hair clipped into a pony tail, an unlikely nemesis.
The terminal was awash in gray light, a clinically sterile concourse with little pedestrian traffic since it was mid-morning. That made it easy for him to scan the hall and isolate persons of interest. His antennae were up and he was tense. Nobody but Nancy knew he was taking a walk on the wild side but he felt conspicuous anyway, like he had a sign around his neck. The passengers waiting for check-in up and down the hall looked legit, and there were two uniformed cops chatting near the ATM machine at the far end.
He had an hour to kill. He’d grab a bite and buy a paperback. When he was airborne he’d be able to relax for a few hours, unless Darla was working this leg, in which case he’d have to wrestle with the quandary of cheating on Nancy, though he was pretty sure he might succumb to the “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” slogan. He hadn’t thought about the big blonde for a while, but now he was having a hard time getting her out of his thoughts. For a full-bodied gal, she had the tiniest, most weightless lingerie-
Vicki was stalling, he realized. She was shuffling a few papers, staring at her terminal with frightened eyes.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. The screen’s frozen. It’ll clear.”
The cops by the ATM were looking his way, talking into their radios.
Will snatched up his IDs from the counter. “Vicki, let’s finish this up later. I’ve got to hit the restroom.”
“But…”
He sprinted. The cops were a good sixty yards away and the floors were slippery. He had a quick shot straight out the door to the curb, and he was out of the building in three seconds. He didn’t look back. His only chance was to move and think faster than the cops following him. A black Town Car was dropping off a passenger. The driver was about to pull away when Will opened the back door and plunged through it, tossing his travel bag onto the seat.
“Hey! I can’t pick up here!” The driver was in his sixties with a Russian accent.
“It’s okay!” Will said. “I’m a federal agent.” He flashed his badge. “Drive. Please.”
The driver grumbled in Russian but smoothly accelerated. Will pretended to search through his bag, a ruse to lower his head. He heard shouts in the distance. Had they made him? Did they get the tag number? His heart was pounding.
“I could get fired,” the driver said.
“I’m sorry. I’m on a case.”
“FBI?” the Russian asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“I got son in Afghanistan, where you want to go?”
Will quickly ran through scenarios. “Marine Air Terminal.”
“Only other side of airport?”
“You’re a great help. Yeah, only there.” He switched off his mobile phone and tossed it in his bag, swapping it for the bulkier prepaid.
The driver wouldn’t take any money. Will got out and looked around: moment of truth. Everything looked normal, no blue lights, no pursuers. He immediately joined the short taxi rank in front of the terminal and hopped into a yellow cab. When it drove off he used his prepaid phone to call Nancy and fill her in. The two of them urgently hatched a small plan.
He figured they’d be motivated and resourced, so he had to put on a good effort, multiple transfers, zigzags. He had the first taxi drop him off on Queens Boulevard, where he stopped at a Chase Bank and withdrew a few grand in cash from his account and hailed another cab. The next stop was 125th Street in Manhattan, where he boarded a Metro North commuter to White Plains.
It was early afternoon and he was hungry. The rain had stopped and the air was fresher and more breathable than earlier. The sky was brightening and his bag wasn’t heavy so he set off on foot in search of food. He found a small Italian restaurant on Mamaroneck Avenue and holed up at a table away from the window for a languorous three-course time-killer. He stopped himself from ordering a third beer and switched to soda for his main course of lasagna. When he was done he paid in cash, let his belt out a notch and walked into the sunshine.