hadn't checked in. He was starting to get seriously worried.
He didn't know what to do. Maybe if he could figure out some of Obsidian's other applications, the ones the government seemed so eager to exploit? But he didn't have time.
What if they'd grabbed Ben? He'd seen the way Ben had been ready to trust his commander, seen that he wanted to trust. Alex knew the look. He'd seen it a hundred times in the eyes of clients who wanted the deal so badly that they caved on critical provisions, telling themselves the provisions wouldn't matter because everything was going to go smoothly, everyone would be making so much money there'd be no time and no reason for recrimination or regret. Probably it was the same look a rich man got right before his second marriage. What the hell, we don't need a prenup. We're in love.
Damn it, what was he going to do?
His cell phone buzzed. He looked down and saw it was Ben. Thank God.
He grabbed the phone, pressed the Answer Call button, and brought it to his ear. “Ben? Where've you been? I was getting worried.”
“Ben's fine,” answered a low baritone voice with a Southern accent. “You must be Alex.”
Fear seized Alex's heart and throat. He felt it with horrifying total recall- Oh no. Oh Please God no -and he started shaking so badly he had to pull over to the side of the road.
“Who is this?” he managed to say.
“I'm someone who knows your brother well and doesn't want him to come to any harm. And you can help with that.”
“How?”
“Hand over Obsidian, son. That's all we want. And everybody walks away. Ben, Sarah, everyone.”
Jesus Christ, they had Sarah, too? He pressed the back of his phone hand against his mouth and hugged himself with the other, rocking back and forth in the seat, struggling to hold back tears. He was dead. They were all dead. If these guys could outwit Ben, with all his training and experience, what the hell kind of chance could Alex possibly have?
Stop it. Think. Use your brain.
Right. He still had Obsidian, didn't he? And if he had something they wanted, he could negotiate.
Framing it that way calmed him a little. It put him back on more familiar ground.
He took a deep breath and let it out. Another. Then he brought the phone back to his ear.
“I don't think we have a problem here,” he said. “You want Obsidian, and I want Ben and Sarah.”
“That's exactly right,” the voice said. “No reason for this to be complicated. It's gotten too complicated as it is.”
See? Just like a negotiation. You can do this.
Alex took another long, deep breath and slowly let it out. “What do you propose?”
“There's a parking garage on Bryant Street in Palo Alto, between University and Lytton. Meet me on the fourth floor in one hour.”
“Let me talk to Ben.”
“I'm sorry, son, I can't take that chance. I don't want the two of you passing messages to each other.”
A good negotiator knows not to confuse means with objectives. The objective here was to make sure Ben was all right. Talking to him was only one way to do it.
“Ask him what was the name of the family dog,” Alex said.
“I'm sorry?”
“I want to make sure he's all right. I understand why you don't want me to talk to him directly, but presumably you don't object to another way of my verifying that's he's okay?”
There was a pause. The voice said, “No, I don't object.” Another pause, then, “Arlo.”
“All right, good. And now…” He stopped. He didn't know a single personal thing he could ask about Sarah. Bizarrely, he considered, What did you do to Bens shirt? But thankfully he came up with something better.
“Ask Sarah what brand of workout clothes she wears in the gym,” he said.
There was another pause, longer this time. Alex thought he heard something in the background… a choking noise? He wasn't sure.
The voice said, “Under Armour.”
All right. They were alive.
“I'll meet you,” Alex said. “But there's something you need to understand.” He fed the voice the same bluff he'd used with Osborne. Obsidian was encrypted and cued up to publish to a dozen Usenet news groups. If anything happened to any of them, Obsidian and everything else would be public domain.
“You're being careful,” the voice said. “I understand that. I respect it. Just bring me what I want, and I promise everyone's going to be fine.”
The line went dead.
Alex crossed his arms and rocked back and forth, fighting panic.
Think. Think. Think.
But he couldn't think of anything. If they'd only had another copy of the source code, they could have just published it.
Wait. There had to be another copy. Hilzoy wouldn't have given the PTO the source code with the hidden functions. There were effectively two versions of the executable, which meant there had to be two versions of the underlying source code. Hilzoy was always careful about backing up the executable; he must have backed up the second version of the source code somewhere, too.
But where? There was nothing more in Hilzoy's notes, or if there was, Alex was never going to find it in time. And there was nothing more on the disc. Alex had been through it again and again, and the only extraneous thing had been that MP3. What was the name of the song? Sarah had recognized it. “Dirge,” that's right. Christ, Hilzoy couldn't have picked a more appropriate title.
But there was nothing in the song. He'd been over it. It was just And then he had an idea. It was a long shot, a long, long shot. But he didn't have anything else, and in his near terror and despair, he clutched at it with fierce devotion.
He looked at his watch. There was time. He could make this work. All he needed was an Internet connection.
And a hell of a lot of luck.
34
DEAD MAN'S SWITCH
Ben listened to Hort from the back of the van, his frustration and rage growing. Alex didn't know what he was doing. He was coming to Hort like a fly into a Venus fucking flytrap.
They were in a seven-seat passenger van. Sarah and Ben were in the middle row, Sarah on the driver's side, Ben on the passenger's, their hands cuffed behind their backs. The Asian guy was driving and Hort was in the passenger seat. The two guys who'd flanked him outside Coupa Cafe were in back.
When Hort had asked him the name of the family dog, Ben had understood immediately what Alex was doing. Tactically, it was smart. Strategically, it was a disaster. What good was it going to do him to confirm that Ben and Sarah were alive, if the confirmation made Alex do something that would result in all of them dead a half hour later?
But he'd given up Arlo's name anyway. He might have been able to stand up to their trying to beat it out of him, but he didn't see what good it would do. They'd kill him and pick up Alex eventually anyway. He needed to bring this all to a head.
When Hort had asked Sarah about her workout clothes, she'd answered, “SourceForge.” Ben recognized the name of the tech site from their earlier discussion at the hotel. She was trying to tell Alex fuck it, just disseminate the executable of Obsidian, it's better than nothing. Her instincts were good, but Hort didn't buy it. He nodded to one of the guys behind Ben, and the guy had slipped a sleeper hold around Ben's neck and started to strangle him.
