John toweled dry, pulled on fresh clothes, and added a vest beneath his trench coat. The heavy vest’s multiple layers of Kevlar II were protection from most bullets. It’d also prevent a stunner’s electrodes from reaching his skin.
John had never been a Boy Scout, but he was a fast learner when it came to being prepared.
He grabbed a snack out of the fridge and called up the messages on the computer. The monitor displayed a short message concerning some hardware he’d ordered. It was signed simply, T.V.
T.V. was a good friend in the black market world of electronics. If he couldn’t purchase it somewhere, he could jury-rig it out of a couple of chips and a battery. The man had a genius for gadgets and only his dislike for established corporations and the world, in general, kept him from great wealth.
He also happened to be one of the few people in the Bay Area John could count on.
The other message was more confusing. It was encrypted. That someone had taken the trouble to encrypt a message implied they either didn’t trust his account’s integrity or else the Web’s integrity. The return address was a Yahoo account, one of the places you could get an email account in various anonymous names.
Caitlin had used a different one to send her query to him last night. Could this message be from her?
Encryption meant he had to have a specific password to decrypt the message. Assuming the message was from Caitlin and since they hadn’t discussed encryption earlier, the password would have to be something they had in common. There was little chance of anyone else knowing they had met before. So it must be something from their past. He had only known her for that brief period twelve years ago, in the canyon...
He called up a decryption program. He’d used Grand Canyon last night and doubted if she would use the same one, but then.
He typed in Grand Canyon. The message unraveled.
“John, I’m sorry I won’t be there when you return, but there was something I had to find out, and I couldn’t do it from the room. I’ll meet you where we met last night at seven tonight. Caitlin.”
So, that explained her absence or did it? He didn’t like this. His gut instinct was always one of caution. Was Caitlin being honest with him? Could he walk away from this case if she wasn’t?
No. He couldn’t. It amazed him that people had the ability to develop attachments in so short a period as they had shared during the rafting trip. It was even more amazing that after all these years he still found himself wanting her.
He checked the clock and did a quick calculation of driving times between the wharf and The Gleaning Cube. He could meet the Japanese businessmen and still make the connection with Caitlin at seven.
John reset the alarms, locked up and went down the back stairs to his car.
CHAPTER 16
In the City by the Bay, taxis, buses, trolleys, and private cars always compete for right of way with thick crowds of pedestrians, especially at rush hour. Twilight stole over the city like some sinister visitor only to be driven off by the bright halogen glow of flickering streetlights. Humanity had feared the dark since it crouched around campfires and shivered at the sounds of beasts prowling the night. Not too long ago some congressman had even suggested placing gigantic reflectors in orbit over cities to provide illumination throughout the night. The suggestion hadn’t shocked John; rather it was the proposal’s defeat. Perhaps homo sapiens were losing their fear of the dark. Then again, perhaps it sounded too much like big brother in space.
He reached the wharf with a little time to spare. He parked in the multistory parking garage and took the pedestrian walkway across the street. The wharf area never lost its special air. A lot of which came from the fish vendors on the west end of the wharves. Since the breeze usually came from that direction, there was always the aroma of dying fish surrounding the wharf. He didn’t mind the smell and apparently neither did the tourists who had flocked to the area for more than a century.
He stayed on the elevated wooden walkway of Pier 34 and moved unnoticed through the crowds of tourists examining the myriad shops that hungered for their money.
Melville’s wasn’t an old bar and had to make up for its newness with an artificial atmosphere. The tourists, however, couldn’t tell the difference. Images of the great whale hunting days of the nineteenth century abounded. Paraphernalia that looked real, but was actually created in a small town in New Hampshire, hung everywhere around the bar. Reproduced photographs showed the struggle of man against the sea. Nowhere did you see the gallons of blood that washed the decks of the whaling ships.
The bar’s owners were not crazy. Japanese tourists particularly loved the bar. Since MacArthur introduced whale meat to their culture back in the forties, they’ve had a sweet tooth for whale flesh. He asked the Japanese businessmen to meet him here only because it was the first bar that came to mind when he thought of Japan.
John was a little early. He wanted enough time to check the bar’s clientele for suspicious persons; namely other Japanese businessmen with armpit bulges. He ordered and paid for a draft ale, then slowly cruised the bar; trying to give the impression that he was studying the paraphernalia. After ten minutes, he was fairly certain that the Japanese hadn’t sent ringers in ahead of them.
He went out onto the deck and took a table by the side railing, away from the main crowd at the railing overlooking the bay, old Alcatraz, and the Gate. There was
