Smith hauled himself to his feet. He was shirtless. A white gauze bandage was wrapped around his left bicep. In the gloom he saw that he was next to a billiard table. He went to the wall and switched on the overhead light, blinking in the sudden glare, and was happy to see his jacket and a shirt lying on the ground next to the pillow. He went back and retrieved both. The shirt wasn’t his, but was a man’s dress shirt in light blue chambray that buttoned up the front.
Thank God I don’t have to lift it over my head, Smith thought. He shrugged into it and headed to the hallway. He moved quietly, glancing into each doorway that he passed. He kept going to the kitchen, glanced around, and retraced his steps to the front door. The apartment was dark, quiet, and empty. Nolan was gone. The alarm display read OFF.
Smith hated the idea that he’d been lying unconscious in the vast apartment with an unarmed security system, but he supposed that she had no choice but to disarm it. Either that or leave him a note with the code and instructions. He already knew enough about Nolan to determine that she would never trust him to such an extent. He hit the elevator button and stepped onto it. While he rode the elevator down, he called Klein.
“I know why Dattar’s after her,” Smith said. “She stole his money.”
Klein was silent for a moment. “How ingenious. He was sentenced to life in prison. Had he not escaped, it would have been unlikely that he would have ever been able to regain the funds.”
“And now he’s gunning for her.”
“Whatever he’s doing about her, it sounds as though it has nothing to do with the coolers. Do you have any further ideas on where they might be?”
“I still think that Dattar has them. Russell and I are using her as bait to flush him out. When we do, we’ll get that information.”
“Excellent,” Klein said.
“Also, I’m a person of interest in the NYPD’s investigation of the Landon Investments killing. I’ve been able to dodge them so far.”
“Let’s see if they issue a warrant. If they do, then we’ll deal with it. I’ll monitor the situation until then.”
He found Jana Wendel pacing outside the hospital’s loading dock, holding a cigarette that she put to her lips. Smith strolled up to her, doing his best to appear relaxed and nonchalant. She spotted him and took another puff.
“You need to inhale if you intend to look like a real smoker,” Smith said. “Are you Ms. Wendel?” Wendel nodded and gave him a rueful look.
“I hate them, but it was the only thing I could think of that would allow me to hang out here without appearing to lurk.”
“How’s Russell?”
“Sleeping. They have her on an IV drip for dehydration.”
“Is it cholera?”
Wendel shook her head. “No. She asked them to check for that first and the avian flu virus second. Quick results showed that it’s not E. coli or salmonella, but indicated a possible variant of bird flu.”
Wendel’s words hit Smith in the gut, but he did his best to keep his face impassive. He must have failed because Wendel gave him a piercing look filled with worry.
“You looked grim just then. I know bird flu is dangerous, but I haven’t had time to check the statistics. What are her odds?”
“The average virulent pandemic virus can kill up to fifteen percent of those infected.”
Wendel looked thoughtful. “That’s bad, but I imagine we’re talking about the very young and the very old, right? She’s neither, and really strong.”
“Bird flu is not the average virulent virus. It’s like a terrible virus on steroids. It kills fifty percent of infected persons, and the age of the victim doesn’t seem to be a mitigating factor.”
Wendel swallowed. “So far they’re not ready to confirm that it’s the bird flu, but she seems to be getting sicker. They’re running some more tests, and she’s in isolation in the infectious disease area until they figure it out.”
“Currently bird flu isn’t easily transmitted from human to human.” Unless she has the mutated version. Smith had the thought, but didn’t voice it.
“Where is she?”
“Fourth floor. Room 422. No visitors allowed.”
“Why did you need to see me?”
Wendel gave both sides of the street a quick glance. “Come with me into the hospital lounge. I need a Wi-Fi connection to show you.”
Wendel tossed her cigarette into a sand-filled ashtray placed against the wall and headed to the hospital’s rear door. They entered to a rectangular room with a bank of windows at the far end. The near side contained rows of vending machines offering snacks and drinks. Smith detoured straight to the one that held sandwiches. He fed some money into the machine, grabbed the sandwich that dropped into the vending tray, and joined her at a far table. She had a laptop open to the home page of a software application. He unwrapped the sandwich and nodded for her to begin. She took a deep breath.
“First, you need to know that what I’m going to tell you is confidential. Highly confidential. The only reason I’m showing you this is because Ms. Russell asked me to.”
“Okay,” Smith said. He watched the screen. It appeared to be a dashboard of a software aggregator for social media sites. Updates for the sites appeared in each column assigned to them. Wendel pointed to the updates for BLACKHAT254.
“These are from one of our agents. This column is the public site, and this column is the proprietary CIA site. I’ve previously told Ms. Russell that there’s something wrong with the CIA site. It’s lagging behind the public site.” Smith watched the screen and saw that she was correct. BLACKHAT254’s updates appeared on the public site but not immediately on the proprietary site.
“Is that a problem? You can always look at the public site.”
“It seemed benign, and I didn’t really worry until Jordan got shot. After he did, I went back and looked at the feed and saw something shocking. I have a screen shot of it.” Wendel switched screens. The same dashboard appeared. She pointed to a line.
“This is what Jordan updated publicly ten minutes before he was shot and this is what appeared on the proprietary site seven minutes later. Moneywoman is our code name for Nolan and ‘friend’ is anyone that we think may be suspicious.”
Smith read the public first. Jordan had written “Watching Moneywoman and see friend on corner of 72nd and Lexington.” The proprietary site’s line was dated seven minutes later and said, “Watching Moneywoman and see friend on corner of 72nd and Central Park West.” Smith stopped chewing.
“They switched up the location. Put him all the way on the other side of the park.”
Wendel nodded. “Most of the time on stakeouts the agents will only use the proprietary site. The display is almost instantaneous, so faster than a phone call has the advantage of silence. The agents can update each other without bystanders hearing them. I had asked Jordan to use the public site too until I could figure out what was causing the lag. We had another agent as backup for him around the corner, but he was only screening the proprietary site. Not only did that second agent get the information late, but once he saw the code ‘friend’ he took off across the park.”
“And Jordan got shot. Is he still alive?”
“He is. They have him in an induced coma while they wait for the swelling in his brain to go down. Once it does they’ll be able to assess the damage.” Wendel swallowed and Smith noticed that her eyes gleamed with tears. She blinked them away.
“What did Russell say when you showed her this?”
“She told me that under no circumstances was I to take this to anyone at the agency. She said to find you, tell you about it, and said that you know someone who can search for the source.”
She means Marty, Smith thought. “It isn’t necessarily happening from within the agency, is it? Can someone from the outside be intercepting the feed and altering it before it gets to your proprietary site?”