The Buck Stops Here (34 page)

“Well, I don’t like to speak prematurely,” I replied, tucking my paperwork away in my briefcase, “but everything is looking very good thus far. Veronica’s work is especially impressive.”

“She’s something, isn’t she?” he replied proudly, and I realized I might be able to seize this opening to take the conversation where I needed it to go.

“Veronica was telling me a bit about your past together,” I said, making myself comfortable. “That’s really neat, that you were friends first and then fell in love.”

“Oh, that’s how it happened for her. I was always in love with Veronica. From the day I met her.”

“You mean before she went to Europe? Back when she was engaged to Tom?”

“Yep,” he smiled, intertwining his fingers and resting them on his desk. “She used to come down to the office almost every night. We would eat pizza and debate encryption ethics.” He laughed. “Doesn’t sound very romantic, does it?”

“Not really.”

“I thought she was smart and beautiful and capable of so much more in her life than she had planned. I felt bad for Tom when she left, but I couldn’t have been happier for her. I never thought the two of them were right for each other anyway, and at least she had broken free from her family’s well-laid plans.”

I sat back and studied him.

“How about you?” I asked. “You’re working in the family business. Didn’t you follow your family’s well-laid plans?”

“I did it backward,” he said. “I thought I wanted to break away and do my own thing. In the end I realized this was my true calling.”

“From what I understand, you’re very good at what you do.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I enjoy it.”

“So what was your function when you worked for Tom?” I asked.

“I was the network guy. TCP/IP. Hardware.”

“Sorry, I’m not very computer literate.”

“I took care of the machines themselves,” he said. “The computers. I kept them functioning and made sure they could talk to each other.”

“Sounds interesting. Do you use those skills nowadays?”

“To an extent. We’ve got plenty of technicians, of course, but I stick my hand in now and then. When you have an international network, it’s a good knowledge base to have.”

I thought about that, about him having access to an international network. Did that also give him ties to terrorists?

“Don’t you find it interesting that of the Cipher Five, only one of you still works with computers full-time?”

“Who, Tom?”

“Yes.”

He shrugged.

“We were kids then, fresh out of school, still finding our way. I don’t think it’s unusual that we ended up in different fields. Except for James, I think we’re all quite happy.”

“What about James?” I pressed. “Do any of you ever have any contact with him?”

He shook his head.

“Not since the day he confessed to selling our encryption program to terrorists,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, the sentence he got for that act was far, far too light.”

Forty

My talk with Phillip had been thorough, but I left his office feeling more confused than ever. One question kept pounding through my head:
Did James have a secret accomplice down here?

I had now talked extensively with every member of the Cipher Five, and I had to admit that I was stumped. They all seemed like lovely people. I had a hard time believing any of them could be involved with someone like Sparks. Then again, if he were blackmailing them, maybe they didn’t have any choice.

I checked my voice mail as I left the building, surprised to hear that two calls had come in during my meeting, both from Paul Tyson, the computer hacker in Seattle who had connected me with the kid in Hammond who was analyzing the asthma inhaler. I called Paul back immediately.

“Are you on that scrambled phone of yours?” he asked me.

“No. It’s at the hotel—”

“Get it. Then call me back.”

He hung up, leaving me standing there on the curb, my heart pounding furiously in my chest. What did he have to tell me?

There were no cabs in the area, so I used my cell phone to call for one. I was back in my hotel room within 15 minutes, my hands shaking as I dialed Paul’s number.

“It’s me,” I said when he answered.

“Girl, are you ever in deep.”

“What is it?”

“That inhaler. My boy in Hammond is beside himself. He’s ready to call the CIA, the FBI, and anybody else he can think of!”

“Why?” I whispered. “What is it?”

“It’s a poison known to be used by terrorists. It’s called ricin, and apparently it’s an extremely deadly substance. If anyone had taken even a single puff on that inhaler, they would be a goner by now.”

“Ricin,” I echoed. I had heard of that before. “Is that like anthrax?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything except that you’ve got to get to Hammond
now
and take that inhaler off that boy’s hands. He sounds like he’s flipping out.”

“Paul, you promised me he was safe.”

“What can I tell you, Callie? He thought you were testing for heroin or something. This is a whole different ball game.”

“Is he going to set me up? How do I know I won’t be arrested the minute I show up there to claim the inhaler?”

“I’ve got him calmed down for now. But you need to hurry. He wants his money and he wants to be done with this.”

“Paul, I—”

“Look, Callie, I don’t know what to tell you. Call the kid and set up a time and place now. He’s not going to do anything fishy as long as you hurry.”

I flipped through my notebook, looking for his telephone number.

“You said you’ve got him calmed down for now. How?”

“I told him you were FBI.”

“FBI?” I asked.

“He said he wanted to call the FBI. So I told him, ‘She
is
the FBI, man. It’s an internal affairs investigation, which is why she needed to use an outside source.’”

I closed my eyes, feeling myself sinking deeper and deeper into deceit. Still, what choice did I have? Paul had already laid the groundwork. I just needed to keep my mouth shut, pick up the inhaler, and get out of there.

“You’ll take care of this?”

“I’m on it, Paul.”

My call to the kid I knew as Hydro was tense and brief. I said I had heard from our mutual friend and that I would come to town now and retrieve the inhaler, but that it would take me about an hour and a half to get there. He told me to meet him under the Friendship Oak again, so I agreed, even though my plan was to call him back once I got to Hammond to give him a new place to meet—just in case I was being set up.

I changed into shorts and a T-shirt and put my hair in a small ponytail. I needed to look different than I had the last time I had gone there, not to mention younger. I also grabbed some clothes just in case I wouldn’t have time to come back to the hotel before my appointments with the board members.

The drive there felt as though it took forever. As I went, I kept going over different scenarios in my mind for how to make this exchange. The kid had seen my car at our first encounter—a careless mistake I shouldn’t have made. Now I could only pray that he hadn’t memorized my license plate and turned it over to the FBI.

It wasn’t that I didn’t think I deserved some sort of punishment for stealing the inhaler in the first place. I knew that I had been wrong to do that, and I was willing to pay the consequences once this investigation was over. My bigger fear now was that I might be arrested as a terrorist or a potential murderer myself for being in possession of this particular substance.

And though I had no doubt that if I were arrested I would be able to sort things out and prove my innocence of any malicious intent, I also could not spare the time, the trouble, nor the hindrance of an arrest. Now that I knew the inhaler contained a deadly chemical, I had incredible leverage with James Sparks. This new knowledge might be the key to get him to talk to me and tell me what I wanted to know. The last thing I needed was to be waylaid by some college kid’s overexuberance.

When I got to Hammond, I took a different exit than the one before. This time I made a wide circle and came in from the other direction. That way, if any agents were posted at the expected exit, watching for me, they wouldn’t be cued in to my appearance. After I took the second Hammond exit, I stopped off at a thrift store and bought a cheap backpack, hoping I looked young enough to pass as a college student.

Driving slowly through the lovely, very Southern-looking town, I made my way to the campus. I entered it from a different side than before and found a parking spot near a women’s dormitory. Once there, I loaded my cell phone and my binoculars into the backpack, slung it over my shoulders, and then jogged down the sidewalk toward the meeting point, passing other students who didn’t even give me a second glance. So far, so good. As soon as I saw the Friendship Oak ahead, I jogged toward a nearby building and went inside.

From the sounds in the hall and the signs on the wall, I realized I was in a music building. On the second floor were rooms along the front where I might be able to peek out of the window and look toward the rendezvous point. Unfortunately, all of those rooms were occupied, and from the sounds I heard as I walked by, I had a feeling they were individual practice rooms. Inside were soloists, pianists, and one very talented flute player.

What I really needed was to get to the roof, if there was indoor access to it. From there I would be able to look downward in every direction and see what was really going on. I tried to think logically about where I might find roof access, and I quickly tried several different doors and hallways inside the building, to no avail. Finally, I happened upon an auditorium. It was empty, and my heart raced as I ran down the aisle and up onto the stage. Many theaters had roof access from backstage. Sure enough, it didn’t take long to find the metal rungs of a ladder protruding from the wall. Looking up, it was dark, but I gave it a shot anyway, knowing the ladder most likely ended at the roof.

Of course, it was a long climb. As I went I looked neither up nor down but simply straight ahead. When I realized that I was about three stories above the stage and still climbing, I started to get the creeps. But then I used some of the rock climbing techniques Tom had taught me to keep my head clear and my heart rate in line.

I reached the top at last. Squinting in the darkness, I could make out a white square up over my head. I reached up and pushed, and it easily swung free, bathing me in sunlight so bright I had to close my eyes for a minute. I was there. The only problem was that the ladder actually dipped backward in a sort of curve for the last few rungs. If I lost my grip or my footing, I would plummet four stories to the ground!

Still, these were metal rungs. I had done much worse on a sheer rock wall with nothing but tiny crevices for a grip. I felt certain I could handle this.

Focusing on the task at hand, I did it, finally pulling myself through the roof hole and then collapsing backward onto the tar-and-gravel surface, catching my breath. After a few seconds I sat up and looked around, stunned to see that all of my effort had been in vain. The roof was lined on all four sides with a cement wall that must have been seven feet high. I stood and went to the front wall, but there was no way I could see over it, not even if I jumped.

I couldn’t believe I had made that climb for no reason!

Desperate, I walked the perimeter and felt a flash of hope when I discovered a small pile of discarded paint cans in a back corner. I carried them to the front, stacked them, and climbed on top of them. It was a bit precarious, but at least I could see over the wall to the Friendship Oak across the street and far below.

I climbed down from the paint cans, got out my binoculars and my cell phone, and then climbed back up. Using the binoculars, I slowly studied all of the cars that were parked around the perimeter, as well as all of the pedestrians in the area. I didn’t see anyone who looked suspicious, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I dialed the number for Hydro, and when he answered I told him I was so sorry, but I had gotten a flat tire out near the shopping center. Help was on the way, I said, but was there any way he could come and meet me there in the meantime? He reluctantly agreed, so, speaking from memory, I said I was on the left side of the stores, right near the road. He said I was lucky he had brought his car today and not his skateboard.

Once I hung up, I trained the binoculars on the massive tree. After a moment, I saw my purple-haired friend walk out from under it, go to a car, get inside, and drive away.

Now was the moment of truth.

I watched and waited and watched some more, but no one else seemed to spring into action. No cars pulled out and followed him. No people left where they were sitting or standing. The quiet, peaceful campus stayed exactly as it was. He hadn’t turned me in.

As quickly as I could, I climbed down from the paint cans, threw my stuff into my backpack, and ran to the hole. Getting started going down was even more terrifying than coming out had been, but I dried my hands on my shirt, gripped the handles, and simply went. Before long, I was back at the level of the stage. I dropped down onto the plank floor and then jogged from the building. I had just burst out into the sunshine when my cell phone rang.