Viral

the left side at just above doorknob level.

Odd.

Or maybe not.

It almost made sense. A rundown, largely shuttered neighborhood. A place his brother wouldn’t have lived but might have been able to access. If this had been installed by his brother, what would he have used as a code? Something simple. Something he would know but other people wouldn’t. Jon Mallory stood in the cooling night air and tried their old house number: 13914. A guess. It didn’t work. Then he thought of another number, which had been their default code as children: 21209. Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.

He heard a click and pushed. The door gave. A simple remote radio transmitter device had been coded to trip the lock. The same principal as car fobs or garage-door openers.

Jon pulled the door closed, letting the lock click back into place. He felt the wall for a light switch, eventually found one. A lampshade cast a dusty yellow glow across the thin, dirty carpet and mishmash of old furnishings. It was musty and smelled faintly of urine.

On his right was a small kitchen. Jon looked in—dishes in the sink, a pile of papers on the counter. The New York Times and the Kenyan papers, all of them weeks old. Bugs scurried away when he lifted one.

In the next room, he found another light switch, lifted it. Nothing happened. Squinting in the darkness, he closed his eyes and then opened them, scanning the room, letting his pupils widen to let in more light, until he began to recognize objects. This was the bedroom: there was a bare mattress on the floor, a crude four-drawer chest beside it, drawers half pulled out, with clothes on the floor—T-shirts, a large pair of jeans. He heard a sound and his thoughts stopped. It came again: water in the pipes?

The bathroom was dark and smelled foul; the glass window was cracked. The porcelain sink and tub showed hard-water stains.

The last room seemed to be a study, with a beat-up antique desk, a dark lumpy armchair, an end table in the middle, and three cardboard boxes lined up against a wall. Jon tried the lamp. No luck. He sat at the desk, taking in the room, which was lit only by the living room lamp. He breathed the dusty air, realizing that the keypad code that had gained him entry to this apartment wasn’t a security measure—it was a breadcrumb, a message from his brother. Somewhere in this apartment there must be another one.

Jon opened the top drawer of the desk, focusing his thoughts on what was in front of him. His fingers traced the edges and found a grip. He lifted it. But there was nothing underneath. It was just a loose square of plywood.

He stood and carefully surveyed the room once more. The end table had a single drawer. He slid it open, found a clutter of newspaper clippings inside—yellowed articles, along with crumpled store receipts, most of them years old. A strange assortment. Could there be a message here? He skimmed through them—obituaries, wedding announcements, news stories, seemingly haphazard. Odd. He could take them and check later. But was that really what he was meant to find? As he set them on top of the table, he noticed several thick sheets of cardboard at the bottom of the drawer. Pulling the drawer out all the way, he saw a piece of cardboard taped over a corner. He lifted it, pulling up the tape. Flush against the wood was a small electronic keypad, this one with the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.

Jon studied the room. What could it open? He felt along the walls for any hidden panel or recession. He walked back through the apartment, then, checking in each of the dimly lit rooms again before returning to the study. Time was running out. It was probably here, in this same room, he sensed. He looked at his watch: five minutes now before he needed to leave. He knelt beside the cardboard boxes, which were flush with the wall, and pulled them away. Behind the one in the corner was a small square of plywood. Jon lifted it, saw where a section of the wall was indented. A wall safe.

He returned to the keypad and began to type—what letters would his brother have chosen, letters no one else would think of? Reflexively, he stopped and listened: voices, coming up the alley behind the apartment. He ducked down, below the desk.

Teenage boys, it seemed, talking in Swahili, stopping behind the apartment. Then silence. Jon counted the seconds. Twelve, thirteen … They began walking again, their voices becoming less distinct.

Jon went back to the keypad. Tried “Marianna.” The street where they had grown up. Too obvious. Then he remembered another code word they had used as a fallback: “Gymnopedies.” One of their mother’s favorite pieces of music.

He heard a click. Again, a simple remote control radio signal, triggering a lock. He knelt and pulled the knob on the wall safe. The door opened.

As he reached inside, Jon heard voices again. Outside, maybe a block over. Concentrate. Figure this out. Get out of here. The safe was full of junk: wires, Styrofoam “peanuts,” pens, paper clasps, candy wrappers. And then, at the back, a letter-sized envelope. That was it. It must be.

He looked quickly at what was inside, then replaced the sheet of wood and the boxes in front of it. He shoved the envelope inside the waistband of his pants and checked the time. He was due back in less than five minutes— although Sam probably wouldn’t mind if he was late. Jon had another breadcrumb now, another message from his brother.

As soon as he pulled the door closed and stepped out onto the sidewalk, though, he heard footsteps—from an indeterminate direction at first, and then clearly behind him, a sound of rubber on grit, coming from the alley. Then another set. There were two of them, one taking shorter steps, the other longer, a little awkwardly. Jon strode toward the streetlight, crossing from the sidewalk into the road. The footsteps shifted, too, coming faster. The city was several blocks away. He could see its lights and hear the traffic and voices from the streets. But it was the end of a dark tunnel. If he ran, it would happen sooner, probably. Jon quickened his pace, tuned to their sounds; the others did, too. Two sets of footsteps, left, right, left, right, gaining on him.

Jon looked back quickly and saw two young men in dark clothing, the heavier one wearing white athletic shoes. Blurs in the shadows. Shifting again. Jon broke into a run toward the city lights, his heart pounding, gaining a momentary lead through the element of surprise. But the men were right there, their feet scuffing urgently on the pavement.

The smaller one shouted something, in a tone that was surprising, in Kiswahili. “Habari za jioni.”

The man was saying “good evening,” asking him how he was doing.

Jon Mallory made a half turn, and that was all they needed. He ducked a moment too late. A fist slammed into the side of his face. He fell to the street and lay there, pretending to be hurt more than he was. He smelled their soiled clothes as they leaned over him.

The bigger man displayed a gun. “Give us your money,” he said, in halting English, out of breath.

Jon Mallory looked up at the men, both veiled in darkness, his head suddenly throbbing. He pulled the remaining cash from his pockets and handed it to the man. Then he yanked out his pockets to show that there was nothing more.

The smaller man slammed a foot into his belly, and they turned and ran into the shadows. It was over.

Jon lay still, his face against the rough asphalt, listening to their sneakers as they sprinted away. He breathed heavily, waiting, a ringing in his ear against the cool pavement. Then everything began to come back—the muted sounds of traffic, voices, normal life just a few blocks away. He sat up, staring down the empty street. The side of his face felt tender; his elbow was bruised and bleeding a little. His ribcage was sore. But it was okay; they had just been street punks, after money. He felt a little disoriented. But it was all right. They hadn’t taken the envelope.

SAM SULLIVAN WAS sitting at a corner table in the lounge with two empty bottles of Tusker in front of him. It was 8:29. Soca music played in the background, and two tourist couples were dancing drunkenly beside their table.

“I thought you weren’t coming, mate.”

“I thought the same for a few minutes.”

Sam signaled the bartender for another round, then stared at Jon as he sat.