I moved the mouse and the computer woke up. It wasn’t passworded. The screen background was a picture of Jack and his father. A click gave me the most recently used applications: Word, Firefox, Excel. I started them, went to the histories of each, opened the most recent files. The Excel spreadsheets were over a year old, and had been created by Russell Ming as part of his business. The Word documents were also all Russell Ming’s – mostly related to his business but one that was a letter to his son Jack.
Reading this felt like peering into a grave. I didn’t want to see it but you couldn’t help it, it was like a diary falling open to a page.
Dear Jack: First of all, you know this, but it bears saying. I love you. There is nothing you can do, or could ever do, that will lessen my love for you. I want you to tell me what it is that is troubling you so. And I want the truth, as much as it could hurt, I want to know what you think you’ve done. I want you to tell me. Not your mother. Let’s have this be between us. Because I don’t think that she will
And there the letter stopped, as though he’d decided not to continue with an unspoken, unspooled thought. What had he not wanted to say about his lovely diplomat wife? Did the heart attack take before he’d finished the sentence? I checked the date on the document. The day that he’d died. These might have been Russell Ming’s final writings. Or maybe this was when Jack came into the room, and it was better to talk to his son than to write him a letter. Daniel, if I find you, I promise my last word to you will not be an unfinished sentence.
I checked the browser history. The last website visited had been about a property in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg. It was on Ming’s company website. Seven commercial properties were listed and this one was empty, unrented. The browser showed the previous six entries were all for other Ming properties. Jack had checked all his father’s holdings, found one that wasn’t in use.
Maybe a good place for him to hide? I memorized the address. It was the only vacant property belonging to the management company.
I started to search the desk. Very little here: Russell Ming’s expired passport, pens and pencils, a legal pad with a faded pencil sketch that said Jack’s options. 1. Surrender to the police 2. Let Jack… and then nothing else written, as though the thought had been interrupted, like the Word document. In one drawer was a nest of keys, with tags on them, addresses marked in a careful blue pen. I searched through them. The keys for the Brooklyn property were gone.
An empty building, where he controlled access. The perfect place for him to surrender to the CIA and make his deal with August. He’d come home for the keys.
I looked through the rest of Russell Ming’s computer quickly. Jack Ming was a hacker, the kind of kid whose fingertips felt lonely without a keyboard. He had evidence against Novem Soles, and maybe he’d backed it up here. But in the machine’s history there was no sign of new files, or of downloaded or uploaded files on this system, no emails sent. He hadn’t even bothered to clean out the browser history. Maybe Leonie could make sense of it. I unhooked the laptop from the external keyboard and monitor.
Maybe – a thought rumbled in my ear. Maybe what he’s got on Novem Soles isn’t on a computer. Maybe it’s physical. Something he’s carrying. Maybe a hacker who knows just how vulnerable most computers are won’t trust this information to a machine.
I had to find him. Now.
He’d taken the keys to the Brooklyn building. Maybe that’s where he intended to hide, maybe where he would go right this moment.
27
Morris County, New Jersey
If there was something worse than feeling helpless, it was feeling useless.
Leonie gripped the steering wheel as she followed the limo. Sam had found Jin Ming, or, rather, Jack Ming, and she had done, what? Frittered her time away trying to delve into databases, bribing hackers to unlock the secrets of the man who had snuck into the country. Sat typing while these murderous freaks had her child, and… Now what? She didn’t know how to tail anyone. She kept expecting the limo to pull over to the side, the driver to watch her glide past with a knowing sneer, that he knew she was there and that he could lose her at any time. Or worse. Maybe he would kill her to protect Mrs Ming.
Was he CIA? Was he Nine Suns? If he was, why didn’t he just hand Mrs Ming over to her and Sam?
The limo headed west, into suburban New Jersey along Highway 80, finally turning north on 206 toward Lake Hopatcong. The rain parted like a curtain; the sky showed elusive patches of gray-blue, weak sunlight fell in rays among the breaks like a handful of sand sifting through fingers. She kept two cars between her and the limo, and every time another car tried to edge in she would grit her teeth and stand her ground and think, God, don’t let me lose them. She nearly wrecked twice driving through Parsippany, cars trying to get across lanes and her not yielding an inch. Her hands trembled on the wheel.
The limo turned off the highway into a stretch of parkland. She hung back; it was more dangerous to get too close to the limo. She craved a cigarette.
The limo whipped around a turn, shaded by oaks. Signs indicated this was private property and warned against trespassing in the strictest terms. She drove past and if the limo driver was watching her, was suspicious of her, he would think he was wrong.
She hoped.
She pulled the car off to the side of the road, nosing it into a thick grove of oaks. She could wait for Sam. That would be best.
And if the driver’s job was to eliminate Mrs Ming? Or to question her about Jack’s whereabouts? Then all was lost. She and Sam had to find him first, had to eliminate him before he could betray Novem Soles. She shivered.
She tried calling Sam. The call rolled to voicemail. She told him where she was and that she was going to follow the road the limo had taken on foot. She kept the tremble out of her voice.
If you stay in the car your baby could die. Don’t be afraid. You can do this. It’s up to you.
And a strength flooded her. She could do this.
She got out of the car and she started to walk through the dense woods. She could see the thin line of paved road the limo had taken. She reached a fence, eight feet tall. Another big NO TRESPASSING sign. She clambered over the fence, using the sign for leverage. She dropped down into high grass.
She ran parallel to the road, staying in the heavy growth of trees. Mud sucked at her shoes; the air felt stitched with the damp. Rain, lingering on leaves, fell onto her shoulders and her head.
The road turned again. She climbed over some rain-slick rocks, feeling breathless. She would see what the driver and Mrs Ming were doing. If she could she would get the woman away. Because if Mrs Ming was the key to knowing what Jack was doing next, then she must belong to her and Sam alone.
Nature, she thought. The air smelled heavy with moss and an underlying scent of heat-hurried decay. It wasn’t so bad out here. Maybe she should get away from the computer more. She imagined going for a long hike – although she hadn’t gone hiking since long childhood walks – with Taylor secure on her back, the sun warm on their faces. Not in Vegas. Too hot. She could take Taylor to Lake Tahoe for a long weekend, soon, when all this was over. Stroll in the shade of the trees, point out the flowers, imprint good memories. Do the things she’d said she’d do if she ever had a child… if she ever had another chance.
Grief prickled her face.
You can do this.
In the distance Leonie heard a woman scream, short and sharp. It was as though the wind carried the noise, dropped it into her lap like a gift.
For a moment she froze. Then she bolted, dodging through the trees. She slipped and skidded down a muddy incline. She’d slid down to the road, which curved hard and fed directly into an old house ahead of her. She saw the limo parked there, and no other car. The house needed paint, it needed a carpenter: odd impressions that flickered across her mind. Between her and the house there was a big square of clear lawn she would have to cross.
No sign of the driver, or of Sandra Ming.
