He turned to Caitlin. “Now then, where were we?”
She stared at him for a moment. “Have you done that before?”
“A couple of times. It’s quite a rush without the goggles.”
“Without the goggles?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t want to take the chance of them hearing anything. The last time I did it without the goggles I had to have the paint touched up on your side.”
John took a left and turned toward one oh one.
***
Dewatre munched on a sandwich as he watched Blalock maneuver to elude his pursuers. He admired the man’s forethought. Such careful planning explained how Blalock was able to do so much damage to French recherché operations. Perhaps such a formidable antagonist would have to be neutralized even as one of his compatriots was moving to neutralize the competition from the Japanese.
Dewatre had already called in a support team. They would arrive within twenty-four hours. Until then, he’d have to keep Maxwell and Blalock under surveillance to make sure they didn’t pass the material to someone else. He might also have to look at having a false trail laid down to lead the men of NCIX away from their mutual quarry.
CHAPTER 19
Caitlin watched the traffic flowing along the northbound lanes of one oh one. It still amazed her that even near midnight the freeway was as crowded and possibly even more crowded than Albuquerque’s at rush hour.
She didn’t say much to John on the thirty-minute trip down the peninsula. Occasionally she found herself staring at him. Although the scar wasn’t visible from this side, he hardly looked like the same John Blalock she’d known. He was too young to have developed crow’s feet, but there were the first signs of them around his eyes. He was always squinting, could he need glasses? Somehow, she didn’t think so. Something in the way he had changed had given him a perpetual squint. It was as though he was suspicious of everyone and everything.
Strangely enough, she was still attracted to him. It wasn’t his physical appearance although he was still handsome, even with the scar and the squint. No, the attraction was on a deeper level. Could it be just because he had saved her life once and was doing a good job of repeating the deed?
Stop trying to analyze your feelings. You’re not some kid on an adventure. You’re a grown woman whose husband was just killed, and if you don’t keep your mind clear, you may follow him down that path sooner than you want.
Caitlin felt the car slowing and saw John was taking the exit. “Who are we going to see?”
“Louie Grayson.”
“And you think he can decipher the encoding on this disk?”
“If anyone can.”
They went over a couple of streets, then turned south on Camino Real. A few blocks later they turned into a neighborhood of older apartments and few houses. The few houses there looked much older than even the apartments.
“Not exactly the cutting edge of development,” Caitlin said.
“No, Louie’s grandparents left him the house they bought when they moved out to the Bay Area after the Second World War. These apartments were built in the seventies. Students at Stanford take up most of them.”
“Really.”
“Yeah, you ought to see this neighborhood on the weekends. Drunken parties everywhere.”
He slowed and turned into a driveway. As he killed the lights and the engine, Caitlin looked around.
“Not exactly pretentious,” she said.
The yard was nearly dark, and the nearest street light was a half block away. Even in the dim light, she could tell the yard needed mowing, and she could see the darker shadows of various sized clumps of leaves. The trees and shrubbery hadn’t been pruned in years. From all appearances, the house may have been vacant for months.
“Louie has never been one to care much about appearances,” John said.
They got out of the car and John walked toward the rear.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ve got to get something from the trunk.” He unlocked it, reached in, and pulled out his overnight bag.
“We’re staying here tonight?”
“No, I just need some of my things.”
They left the car and walked toward the porch and stopped beneath the single yellow light that glowed above the front door.
“You think he can help us?”
John rang the bell. She could hear its distant chime.
“Yeah, he can help us. Smile at the camera.”
Caitlin followed his gaze and saw a security monitor mounted in the corner of the ceiling.
“Louie, it’s John with a friend.”
A few seconds later, she could hear footsteps. The door opened, and a man stepped into view. Louie was a balding, middle-aged man with the physical stature of a fourth grader. His large nose and long beard gave him the appearance of a Tolkien dwarf, but his garish Hawaiian shirt, knee-length purple shorts, and orange and blue sneakers spoiled the illusion making him look more like a David Dorman rendition of a Tolkien dwarf.
Caitlin had to suppress a chuckle. He did dress like a software nerd.
“Hi, John. Who’s the lady?” he asked.
“Louie, let me introduce Caitlin Maxwell, a friend from way back. Caitlin, this is Louie Grayson, the best computer man in the Bay Area.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
“Charmed,” said Louie with a perfunctory bow.
“Mind if we come in? We have some business to discuss.”
“My door is always open to you or your friends, John,” Louie replied and stepped back from the door.
John motioned for her to go ahead. She took a brief look around the street, more out of nervousness than because she thought they might have actually been
