‘Big enough,’ she says.
He frowns, not knowing how to take that, but now the computer is up and running. ‘Okay, first things first.’ He plugs the drive into a USB socket, doesn’t attempt to open it, instead running a battery of tests. ‘Okay. All good. No corruption, no viruses. And it’s pretty much chock-a-block. Let’s see what we’ve got.’ But when he tries to open it, two folders appear and are almost immediately covered over by a dialogue box. ‘Shit.’
‘What is it?’
‘Password protected.’
‘Can you get around it?’
‘Let’s see.’ Yev opens some new program, starts punching in code, but not for long. He sighs. ‘No good. The whole thing is encrypted.’
‘You can’t crack it?’
‘No one can crack this. The spooks maybe, if they have months.’
‘Can you copy it? Mirror it?’
Yev types more code, shakes his head. ‘Nup. Not sure why not, but nup.’ He smiles, admiration in his voice. ‘Shit, that’s clever.’
‘So no one can open it, no one can copy it?’ she asks.
‘That’s about it,’ he says. He stares at the screen, brow furrowed, but eventually he shrugs, reluctantly ejecting the drive and handing it to her. ‘What are you going to do with it?’
‘Give it to the cops, of course. It’s still evidence, even if they can’t decrypt it.’
‘Evidence of what?’
‘Who knows?’ She drops the drive into her pocket. ‘I’ll see you soon, Yev. We’ll be in touch. And take care of yourself. Remember, you have done something remarkable—you have helped to catch killers.’
‘You’re leaving Sydney?’
‘Not right away. But Martin needs to get somewhere more healthy. He needs to get back home.’ She leans in, kisses him on the cheek, gives him a heartfelt hug. ‘And thanks for everything. It’s been a pleasure. Working with someone trustworthy.’
‘You too. Take care,’ he says.
She turns to go; Lena is looking daggers at her. She turns back to Yev. ‘We owe you a lot of money for all your time and effort. Add it up and double it.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Absolutely. And while you’re at it, do you have a laptop you can sell me?’
Yev smiles, a big smile. ‘I sure do. A kick-arse Mac. Just came in. Almost brand-new. Better than Martin’s.’
‘I’ll take it.’
Later, she sits at Aldo’s, treating herself to a latte made with full-cream milk and a cake, as she finishes setting up her new laptop. When it’s done, she inserts the thumb drive, using the adaptor Yev has sold her to access the computer’s new-generation ports. She opens the drive. The dialogue box comes up. There are no words, no description of what is needed, just the space for a password. She closes her eyes, and in her mind she re-enters the memory palace. She’s back in her mother’s bookstore in Riversend, the way it was when she was a teenager. She threads her way through the familiar shelves, stopping at each category, extracting favourite books, each with a different letter or digit incorporated into its cover, just the way Tarquin Molloy had taught her to do. She jots the alphanumeric code: thirty-six characters. When she’s done, she again closes her eyes, repeats the route, double-checking. Then, when she’s sure, she enters the decryption key, using the first mnemonic given to her more than five years ago by Tarquin, the one he’d trained her with, the one he knew she would always remember.
And for the next hour she reads, as the thumb drive spews out the secrets of the past and of the present. Only when she’s read enough, when her curiosity is sated and her questions answered, does she close the computer down. It’s time to go to the hotel; it’s time to truly trust Martin Scarsden.
SUNDAY
chapter forty-seven
Martin writes. He writes and doesn’t stop, not for long hours. Not until he has filed nine separate stories to Wellington Smith and the This Month website. The first are going up online, spreading out through the ether, even as he works on the next, with Mandy supplying coffee, moral support and vital information, sitting by his side, her own computer open, trawling through Molloy’s cache of information, directing him to the most significant sections, double-checking facts for him, suggesting storylines.
At one point they pause, while waiting for a story to go through, and check the Herald’s site. Fairfax has a blog running, reporting new information as it comes to hand. Bethanie is writing it, D’Arcy filing a constant barrage of analysis into it, photographs pouring in of police cars outside Mollisons, a raid in progress, a politician with his hand over a camera lens. The Herald team is doing its best, but Martin knows they can’t compete. They can’t compete with his inside story of the Centennial Park shootout, they can’t compete with the trove of incriminating evidence flooding out of the blue thumb drive. With grim satisfaction, he can see where Bethanie has given up and has started lifting material directly from the This Month site, giving full attribution, crediting ‘Sydney Morning Herald Contributor Martin Scarsden’ for the unprecedented flow of exposés.
Wellington Smith calls on the hotel phone. ‘The server has gone again. We can’t keep up with demand. I’m buying more grunt. The big boys are offering more data centre capacity. We’ll be back up in five. Keep ’em coming.’ He hangs up.
An hour and a half and two more stories down the line, he’s back again. ‘We’re starting to cop large-scale denial-of-service attacks. Someone very big and very ugly is trying to close us down. Get it all up. Everything you have.’
‘We can’t,’ says Martin. ‘They’ll sue your arse off, bankrupt you.’
‘Bullshit. Let ’em try. It’ll be the greatest publicity exercise in publishing history.’ There is a touch of manic glee in the proprietor’s voice.
‘You’re kidding.’
‘No, I’m not. Get it all out there, and get it out now, before they crash us for good. Before we get
