Run: A Novel (30 page)

Very gingerly he lined up the plug and socket and pushed. It slid easily into place. And nothing happened.

“What now? Is it broken? Or did I do it wrong?”

“Neither. I think I know what the problem is. With systems like this the USB ports look normal, but you often have to activate them before you can use them. It’s a security thing, to stop unauthorized people plugging stuff in. That’ll be what that writing is, on the bottom of the device. The user name and password. Let me see?”

McKenna disconnected the box and passed it to me. I switched on the monitor, keyed in the details, and within a few seconds I was logged on. The procedure was the same as with any of the dozens—hundreds?—of systems I interrogated every year. But this was no ordinary network. This was ARGUS. The electronic equivalent of the all-seeing, hundred-eyed giant. It constantly monitors every detail of every kind of communication between every citizen in this country and beyond. And it had given me administrator-level access. The IT geek in me was drooling at the possibilities, but McKenna was watching. So, reluctantly, I had to restrict myself to the couple of minutes’ searching it took me to find the option to enable the USB port.

“OK.” I handed the box back. “Try it now.”

McKenna plugged the box back in. This time, a little light on its top surface glowed red.

“Marc, you’re a genius. All we’ve got to do now is wait for the green light. Literally.”

——

IT WASN’T UNTIL MCKENNA’S
words had died away that the full weirdness of the situation hit me. Locked in that small space with nothing to distract me and only the red light to stare at—on a piece of IT equipment I’d never heard of, attached to a top-secret government database I should never have had access to—I was close to walking away and telling McKenna to unplug the thing himself. Another thirty seconds, and I might have done that. But then the light changed to green. It took a few more keystrokes to close the USB port down, and we were finally free to get out of there.

McKenna tucked the box safely into his coverall pocket and gestured for me to lead the way as we reversed our path from earlier. The upper floor was still deserted, and my thoughts had run ahead of me by the time we reached the door to the engineers’ area. The prospect of seeing Carolyn was foremost in my mind so I swiped the access card and pushed the door open without thinking to peep through the observation window first. I took a step inside. And saw the security guard. He was on the other side of the room, stretching up to touch a shiny metal fob against a small circular pad on the wall. Instinctively I started to turn, but McKenna had read my mind and he took a firm hold of my arm.

“No,” he breathed into my ear. “He’ll see, and that’d be way more suspicious. If word spreads, the inside man will disappear. We’ll never catch him. You’ll have to bluff this out.”

I was about to object when the guard saw us and waddled across in our direction.

“Pete!” I tried not to make it obvious I was squinting at his name badge. “How’s it going? Weekends again? You and me—we always draw the short straw.”

“I’m good, thanks, Mr. Bowman. And I have no problem with weekends. Less work. More pay. What’s not to like? I’m pulling a double today.”

“You’ve got a point, Pete. More pay’s never a bad thing. But look, I’ve got to dash. These guys I’m with have got another job to get to.”

——

I DON’T THINK I
breathed again until we reached the parking lot, and I was just turning to ask McKenna if he thought we’d pulled it off when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. It was the other two agents, walking down the path toward us.

“I beeped them.” McKenna responded to the question on my face. “In case we had any trouble with that security guy.”

“You doubted my bluffing skills?” I was still buzzing a little from the encounter.

“Maybe. At first. But not any longer. You’re a natural.”

I watched as his guys strolled closer, wondering if that’s how McKenna and I had appeared in our matching outfits, when I noticed the others’ coveralls weren’t quite the same as ours. They looked older and scruffier, like they’d been worn before. And there was a logo on their chests, while ours were plain.

And then I knew.

Look at those IT guys. They’re here again
.

I’d seen that logo before. On Monday, when I was leaving the building after being fired. Two unfamiliar contractors had been walking in, carrying a degausser. I’d assumed they’d been summoned to clean up my old machines. But could McKenna have picked the exact same uniforms for our cover, today? There was no way I’d buy that as a coincidence. Which meant it must have been McKenna’s guys on Monday, sneaking in to remove the virus.

Which meant McKenna was working for whoever had created it.

And then another one-two combination landed. Carolyn’s protection was in McKenna’s hands. And McKenna knew she’d found out about the virus.

Both because of me.

I’d trusted him with one, and told him the other.

A
WEEK EARLIER, I WOULDN’T HAVE KNOWN WHAT IT WAS. I
still couldn’t tell you the brand. Or model. Or what caliber of bullet it fired. But by then, I at least recognized a gun barrel when one was jammed against my neck.

My fingertips froze, an inch from the van’s scuffed plastic door lever. McKenna completed the turn through AmeriTel’s fancy gate, then hit the gas. I drew my hand back onto my lap. My chance to jump out and run back to the safety of the building had gone.

No one spoke for the rest of the journey, but inside my head I was cursing myself. These guys weren’t Homeland Security agents.
Peeper’s
guys were. And it wasn’t like I’d been kidnapped and locked in a hidden basement. Peever had been in my home. I had his phone number. I’d been two feet away from him yesterday, hiding in the kitchen at the supermarket. But instead of throwing myself on his mercy, I’d run from him. And then set that stupid test. So what if he’d tracked the cell phone to Valhalla train station? All that proved was he had Homeland Security’s resources behind him. As an agent—and only an agent—would. My reasoning had been completely back to front.

I was an idiot.

Or was I? McKenna had been polite. Helpful. He’d kept rescuing me. Sharing information. Making me feel valued. That’s how he’d dug the trap. But I hadn’t walked into it on my own. Peever had tripped me, with his macho bullshit. He never missed a chance to push me around, or put me down, or try to throw me in prison for something I
hadn’t done. He was an asshole. And if he’d kept his word and met me at the hotel, the mess would be swept up by now and Carolyn would be safe.

I’D ASSUMED WE’D HEAD BACK
to the hotel, but it soon became obvious we were making for my house. My stomach turned over at the thought of the body I’d left in my bathroom, the last time I was there. I was still feeling queasy when we turned into my street and I saw my driveway was now sealed off with a lone, drooping strand of police tape.

“Come on, Marc.” McKenna pulled over to the curb and opened his door. “Time to get out.”

I climbed slowly down onto the sidewalk and was surprised when the van pulled away and continued down the street.

“Where are they going?”

“They have other things to do.” McKenna lifted the police tape and gestured for me to duck underneath. “It’s just the two of us now.”

I followed him down my driveway and saw that my Jaguar was still there, with remnants of gray powder around the door handles, the trunk, and over most of the interior. The fragments of broken license plate light were gone. And beyond the car, more police tape had been stuck across my front door, zigzagging its way from bottom to top.

“Have you got your keys?” McKenna asked.

“Only Carolyn’s.” I dug into my pocket and handed them over. “We’ll have to go around the back.”

MCKENNA UNLOCKED THE DOOR
, pushed it open, and ushered me into my kitchen.

“The hiding place.” He stayed by the doorway. “Where you put the memory stick. Show me, please.”

“Here.” I stopped next to the loose section of counter. “This piece lifts up. The stick was underneath.”

“Show me.”

I pried the moveable part up about twelve inches, hinging the rear edge of the slab against the wall, and McKenna took a step forward so he could see the space underneath.

“Perfect.” He handed me the black box we’d used in the node room at AmeriTel. “Take this. Put it in. Then lower the countertop, but don’t let it go down all the way. Make sure it stays wedged up a little. I want anyone searching the room to see it. Don’t make it too obvious, though. I don’t want a neon sign pointing to it.”

I did what McKenna asked, then turned to face him.

“Thank you, Marc. Nicely done. Now please join me in the study.”

“Why?”

“We have some writing to do.”

I’D SAT AT MY DESK
a thousand times, but always to use my computer. Not a pen and paper. And never with a gun trained on me.

“You know what?” I threw the pen down and turned to face McKenna. “I’m not doing this. If you’re going to shoot me, go ahead. I won’t make it easier for you. And it won’t work, anyway. No one will believe I’d ever kill myself.”

“Marc, you’re wasting time. Pick up the pen. I can dictate, if—”

McKenna’s phone beeped. He glanced at the incoming message, and a flash of annoyance crossed his face.

“What’s up?” I felt a flutter of hope. “Change of plan?”

“No. Just a delay with my ride out of here.”

“So we have some time? Long enough for me to see Carolyn? And say goodbye, properly? If you could let me have, maybe, a couple of hours—”

“Don’t insult me. And don’t ask for more time. You’ve had more, already. When I broke you out of jail? That’s when this was supposed to happen. And even then, it was your fault. I tried to help you. I gave you chance after chance to cooperate. But your greed wouldn’t let you, Marc. All this—your house, your car, your paintings, your marriage—it wasn’t enough for you. So you lied. You meddled. You pushed your luck so far my people lost patience with you.”

“Why not kill me yesterday, then?” I was desperate to keep him talking. “Why wait, to make it look like I planted the virus?”

“Because when Homeland Security checks ARGUS, they’ll find a ton of evidence—a
ton
, more than you could ever outrun, even if we let you live—linking you to half a dozen Syrians. Sleepers. They’ll be neutralized. And the United States will go on the offensive against the people they think tried to kill the President. You’re the last link in the chain. Now, write.”

I turned away from him, but left the pen where it was. The harder I tried to think, the slower my mind seemed to work. My last hope was fading away. Then I looked up at my Lichtenstein, and the spark of a new idea took hold.

“One last question.” I spun around in my chair. “Just out of curiosity. You know how your guys searched the house but missed the memory stick hidden under the countertop? I was wondering. Did they find the other one? Upstairs?”

“What other one?”

“The one I hid in the attic. In case the one in the kitchen was found.”

“What crap are you trying to pull here, Marc? You told me your wife handed over the last one.”

“I had some insurance, too.” I shrugged. “And now I’m curious. I thought I’d found a secure spot, but you can never be sure.”

“In the attic?”

“Your guys aren’t back yet. We’ve got time. I could show you …”

CRUSTY DROPLETS OF DRIED BLOOD
were still visible near the bottom of the stairs, reminding me not to be too clever this time. I stepped over them, and led McKenna up to the second floor. And as soon as we turned toward my bedroom, I made sure I stayed between him and the wall.

“There it is.” I pointed to the trapdoor in the ceiling. “Do you want to do the honors, or shall I?”

“I’ll do it.” He reached up, grabbed the cord, and pulled. The catch
released. The door dropped down and the ladder shot out of the darkness, metal shrieking against metal. McKenna leapt out of its path. And I launched myself off the wall, slamming against his shoulder and sending him spinning into the banister rail.

The same banister rail I’d been thrown against myself, on Thursday. It had been three-quarters wrecked then, so it was no match for McKenna’s weight and momentum. Pieces of wood broke free and scattered in all directions, and for a moment McKenna’s body seemed to pause, frozen at an impossible angle.

I could have reached out and saved him, if my arms had been longer.

And he hadn’t just tried to kill me.

I
T LOOKED LIKE JACKSON POLLOCK HAD BEEN TO WORK ON MY
hall floor.

I went to the linen closet and pulled out all the sheets and blankets I could find. I kept one back, and threw the others down until they’d formed a cover over the worst of the bloody mess. Then I ran down the stairs and along to my study. I grabbed the spare keys to my Jaguar. Fished an old cell phone out of a drawer. Took my Lichtenstein off the wall. Wrapped it in the sheet. Made doubly sure the canvas was well protected. Moved to the kitchen to recover McKenna’s black box from under the countertop. And then left my home for the last time.

WHEN CAROLYN’S DESPERATE FOR
something to happen a particular way, she visualizes the outcome she wants. A new contract. A raise. The Mets to beat the Yankees. I’d never been convinced, personally. But that morning I needed all the help I could get. So, as I reeled in the miles between my house and LeBrock’s—and the hands on the clock crept ever closer to noon—I conjured an image into my head. His driveway. With Carolyn’s car on it. Just like it had been on Friday night.