Viral

“Yeah.” Hebron grinned. “Still writing, I guess?”

Jon nodded.

“And what prompted you to look me up?”

“Trying to find my brother, as I said.”

Hebron sat on the edge of the sofa, reached for the bowl and popped some of the Chex mix in his mouth, keeping a reserve in his hand. “Why call me?”

“I have a pretty limited number of options at this point.”

“Well. The first question I’d ask is whether or not he wants to be found. If Charlie doesn’t want to be found, you’re wasting your time looking for him.”

“I’m not sure if he does or not,” Jon said. Both men sipped their beers, watching each other. Gus’s face became expressionless, but Jon saw that he was still looking at him. “I’m really just seeking some direction. If you needed to find him, who would you go to?”

“Well. I’d set up an investigation,” Gus said. “I’d have him tracked. And, of course, I could do that, for a price. Why are you so concerned?”

“Just a hunch. He was supposed to call me this morning. He didn’t.”

Gus nodded, then moved his jaw from side to side. Something about him wasn’t quite right, Jon sensed, though he couldn’t figure just what it was.

“Can I ask what the nature of the call was?”

Jon shrugged.

“Do you have a number for him? An e-mail?”

“Nope.”

“Street address? Any way of reaching him?”

“No. He contacted me.”

“What I thought.” He drank his beer. “You two haven’t been particularly close for a while, have you?”

Jon raised his eyebrows but said nothing, surprised that Gus would know this.

“Falling out?”

“I can’t really give you a good reason.”

“Other than Charlie.”

“Right.”

He feigned a laugh. “Well. Look. If you think I’ve got a pipeline to him, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Jon. In fact, to be honest with you, I think the reason I invited you over was because of what you might tell me.”

Jon Mallory frowned. “Really. Does it matter to you?”

Gus’s face became very serious, an expression Jon hadn’t imagined was in his repertoire. “Your father mattered to me. Your family does, sure.” He gazed at his beer can, tilting it for a moment as if reading the letters. “When I worked with your dad, we were part of an exclusive community. Weren’t allowed to discuss the shit we were working on with anyone. A lot of it, we weren’t even allowed to tell our spouses. I guess it goes back to that. And, I mean, I knew you and your brother when you were kids, after your mom died.” He grinned, and it made Jon feel like an outsider, as he sometimes had as a teenager, unable to enter the closed world where his father and brother lived. “Couldn’t have been two kids more yin and yang than you two, could there?”

Jon Mallory allowed a quick smile. It was true, he supposed. Jon had been the more predictably rebellious one, interested in rock music and TV shows that Charlie and their father thought frivolous. But he’d also wanted to live a different sort of life, a life out in the open. Charlie had stayed close to the more concealed path cut by their father. “But I understand you may have had some contact with my brother recently,” Jon said. “That you may have even worked together earlier this year.”

“Why do you say that?”

Jon shrugged. “Source told me.”

“Yeah?” Hebron drank his beer, then ran a forefinger in a semi-circle over the rim of the can. “You know, it’s funny. I’m older than Charlie and younger than your dad. And there was a big gap there, between those generations. Your father was a gifted man, but he was old school. He drank the Kool-Aid like a lot of the brightest people of that generation. He said his prayers to the government each night because back then the U.S. government really was the almighty. The leading edge in science, space exploration, weapons systems. Charlie’s more like me, I guess. We saw opportunity shifting elsewhere. Did you know seventy percent of intelligence work is subcontracted out now?”

Jon nodded. He sipped his beer.

“Both of us got out of government, graduated to the real world. Taking what we were doing for the government and doing it better on the outside. And, in some cases, selling it back to them.” He winked, pulling his right leg up.

“Satellite imaging, in your case.”

“Yeah. Source tell you that, too?”

Jon smiled. “Nope, all I had to do was Google your name and the company came up. It’s hardly a secret. Big business now, isn’t it? Satellite imaging.”

“Has been, sure. Ten, twelve years or more.”

“You changed the subject, though.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah.”

He made a snorting sound, let his leg go, and leaned forward, as if gathering his strength to stand. “Here. Let me get you a cold one.” He took Jon’s can, which wasn’t empty. Returned to the kitchen. Jon heard him open the refrigerator, pop two more beers, pour out and crunch the old cans. He took inventory of the room, trying to figure what was wrong. For one thing, the house wasn’t lived in. He was pretty sure of that. No, this couldn’t be Hebron’s home.

“What changed ten or twelve years ago?” Jon asked, as Gus returned.

“What?”

“You said satellite imaging has been big for ten or twelve years. What changed ten or twelve years ago?”

“Oh.” He reached for a handful of Chex mix and leaned back. “Well. The law changed. Back in the early ’90s, actually.”

“Did it? How so?”

“It’s sort of an interesting story. Government started to get a little worried back then, afraid that foreign competition for satellite technology was going to knock the pegs out from under us. So, in ’94, Washington decided it would allow private companies to launch satellites with high-resolution sensors—stuff that was available only to the intelligence community before then. That changed it, opened it up. After that, you could provide information to anyone who was able to pay for it. That’s how our company got started.”

“And my brother was working with you on something recently.”

Hebron turned his head, seeming to fend off the question. “The thing about your brother: he sees things that other people don’t. Sometimes, it almost resembles paranoia. Although in a funny way, I understand it.”

“When did you last talk with him?”

“Last winter. Not long after your dad died.” He took a slow drink, his face impassive. “He was here, in the city, for a few days.”

“Really. Business?”

Hebron snorted. He ran his finger again in a semi-circle over the top of his beer can. “We never had any dealings that weren’t business, Jonny. Okay? He was helping you on those stories about Africa, wasn’t he?”

“Possibly.”

“Thought so. Well, as I say: If Charlie doesn’t want to be found, I really don’t think you and I are going to find him.” He stared at Jon as if to underline a point, then went back to his beer, finished it. “I was surprised he wasn’t here for your dad’s funeral.”

“I was, too. He must’ve had good reason.”

“Must’ve.”