Need You Now

brain on drugs? That’s pretty much Connie’s hard drive.”

“Can we recover Evan’s file?”

“I’ve run every diagnostic test I can run,” said Zach. “The file is not there to recover, is what I’m telling you. The download failed, and in the process it fried the hard drive. I could recover Connie’s address book and probably 80 percent of whatever data was there when you attempted the download. But I can’t recover a file that never made it to the hard drive.”

“There has to be a way to recover that file,” said Scully. “People are always saying that e-mails never really go away.”

“Normally the surest route would be to access Evan’s e-mail account and retrieve his sent messages.”

“Then let’s do that,” said Scully.

“Already tried,” said Zach. “Not only has the account been shut down, but there’s a monster security wall around it. No doubt that’s part of the homicide investigation.”

“Or part of the continued cover-up of Operation BAQ,” I said. “There has to be another option.”

“Just to make sure we’re not overlooking the obvious, is there any way for me to get my hands on Evan’s actual computer?”

“Gone,” I said. “Whoever killed him took it.”

“That’s what I figured,” said Zach. “The other possibility is that even though the message is no longer in your in-box, we could recover it from the bank’s server. Do you think the bank’s IT people would work with us on that?”

“I wouldn’t even ask,” I said.

“I get paid to do things the hard way, but it would be a whole lot easier if I had the bank’s cooperation.”

“That’s not possible,” I said.

“Why not?” asked Zach.

I glanced at Scully, who gave me a little nod that said Zach was cool and that it was okay to share my theory with him. “You said before that the BlackBerry is a highly secure smartphone, less vulnerable to spyware than most. And my BlackBerry was made even more secure by enhancements from BOS security.”

“That’s right,” said Zach.

“Someone still managed to load spyware without ever having touched my phone. It was a remote implant, which makes me think it was the bank that put it there.”

Zach said, “That would be a likely source, at least from the standpoint of technical ease and opportunity. But ‘the bank’ is a big place.”

I didn’t see a reason to be more specific, but Scully overrode me.

“We think Joe Barber authorized the spyware,” said Scully.

Zach was like a walking computer, and I could almost see his mind working as he processed the various puzzle pieces we’d fed him: the phone call from Evan telling me that he’d decrypted the Treasury memo; the e-mail with his decrypted attachment sent minutes later; Evan’s body in the Dumpster minutes after he’d hit Send.

“You’re saying that Joe Barber killed your friend and stole his computer to stop you from getting a decrypted copy of the Treasury memo on Operation BAQ?”

“To keep the world from seeing that memo,” I said. “I’m not saying he physically pulled the trigger. But, yes, I believe he’s behind it.”

Zach glanced at Connie, as if he were suddenly interested in the family consensus. “You agree with him?”

“That depends,” said Connie. “I would need to know more about how that spyware you found on Patrick’s BlackBerry actually works. It’s just hard for me to imagine someone-especially someone like Joe Barber- eavesdropping on Patrick’s BlackBerry in real time, twenty-four hours a day, just in case something of interest came along.”

Zach smiled, as if the statement were naive. “That’s not the way it works. Virtually all spyware is programmed to alert the master when the target-in this case, Patrick-is actually using his telephone.”

“But I use my phone a lot,” I said. “Someone would have to listen to hours and hours of crap in the hope of getting ten seconds of meat, unless there’s a way to refine it further.”

“There is,” said Zach. “More sophisticated spyware can be programmed to alert the master only when you communicate with certain phone numbers.”

“So it’s possible that when Evan called to tell me about the decryption, the ‘master,’ as you call him, received an automatic alert that I was on the phone with Evan.”

“That’s right.”

“Can you tell by looking at my phone if that alert system was, in fact, part of the spyware?”

“No. That would only be in the master’s equipment.”

“Damn. Nothing’s ever easy,” I said.

“You got a plan to deal with someone like Joe Barber?” Zach asked.

“Is that spyware on my BlackBerry still active, even though you’ve analyzed it?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure,” said Zach.

“Then the answer to your question is yes,” I said. “I do have a plan.”

50

L illy didn’t like what she was hearing. Too much scheming, Too much at stake, too much former FBI involvement.

Ex-FBI, ex-lover, ex-anything. They all have an ex to grind, pun intended.

“Excuse me,” she said as she pushed away from the kitchen counter. Her smartphone was fully charged, so she unplugged the cord and took everything with her. Patrick didn’t even notice her get up. Scully and his tech buddy were talking over each other, and Patrick was in the middle.

“You’re not going to bed, are you?” asked Connie, surprised.

“Bathroom,” said Lilly. She left the kitchen, taking little steps. The official Boy Scouts of America 100th Anniversary sweatpants that Connie had loaned her for the night were long enough to cover her feet like footies. She was virtually sliding across the tile floor to the master bathroom off Connie’s bedroom. She could hear the strategizing in the kitchen right up until she switched on the light and closed the bathroom door.

Lilly went to the sink and looked in the mirror. Frightful. Weeks of worry had left bags beneath her eyes that were way beyond the miracle of any concealer. But that was merely the superficial toll. The youthful gleam in her eyes, the sparkle from within, had completely vanished. Fear had replaced it, the fear of being trapped. It had been a while since she’d heard from her source-the ex-federal agent who wanted to protect her. Another ex. Another ax to grind. Lilly knew it was just a matter of time before he gave her another assignment.

A sharp pain gripped her abdomen. It was her “funny tummy,” as she called it, but there was nothing funny about it. This episode was so bad that she doubled over, unable to stand, and sat on the tile floor. Leaning against the wall was the only way to hold herself up. She breathed in and out until the pain subsided.

I can’t do this anymore.

Lilly closed her eyes to consider her options. There weren’t many-and the really good ones totaled zero. She chose the least of the worst. She powered on her telephone: 2:13 A.M. That didn’t matter. The invitation had been to “call me anytime.” Lilly had committed the number to memory. She dialed and counted the rings until she heard the voice on the line. A sleepy voice that simply grunted out the word “hello.”

“It’s Lilly Scanlon, please don’t hang up.”

There was a pause on the line, perhaps a moment to check the clock on the nightstand and see what godforsaken time of day it was. “Lilly, is everything okay?” asked Agent Henning.