describe Meizi. “She didn’t realize until the other night.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” There was silence on the other end. “Where’s the diagram, Monsieur Cho?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who else knows?”
“No one.” Pause. “I’m telling you because Monsieur Colles helped me. And I think you’re the only one who can protect her.”
“Why?”
“Tso’s men are on the streets looking for her.”
IN THE TOWER, she handed Saj the microcassete. “Can you clean this up and try isolating a voice from the background sounds?” Tired, her shoulders heavy, she stood in Pascal’s tower atelier. “It’s a garbled recording from either Samour’s or the killer’s phone. We need to hear it.”
“Rene’s grabbing a scanner at the office,” Saj said, sitting up and punching his cell phone. “I’ll tell him to pick up a sound-tracking program.”
While he did that, she scanned the laptop screens. “But that was on Coulade’s screen saver.” She cleared the papers and diagrams aside on the trestle table.
“Samour used the trebuchet picture for his screen saver,” Saj said. “Hiding his message under multiple layers of encryption. See how the computer assigns every pixel three numeric values? They correspond to the amount of red, green, or blue in the color the pixel displays. By changing those values by a shade, Pascal hid the ones and zeroes of computerese in the picture’s pixel numbers, but without altering the picture’s appearance.”
Hiding it in plain sight.
“It’s steganography, embedding messages within images. The point of encryption is to hide the content of the message. Using his great-aunt’s password, I found the key to unlock the encryption program.
“The ingredients, you mean?”
He nodded. “Sulphur, lead, sand, and it goes on.”
Her eyes locked on the emblem above the formula: letters intertwined in a symbol. Her mind raced. She’d seen that before.
“Hold on.” She pulled out Pascal’s book. Found what she was looking for. “
“This portion.” Saj clicked the screen to reveal a modern diagram. “According to my postmodernist programmer, that’s part of a fiber-optic formula. One of incredible strength and clarity. So strong that information could go hundreds of thousands of kilometers without repeaters, like relay stations, in one piece.”
That echoed what Cho said.
“Worth millions,” Saj went on. “The military, governments, private sector, everyone wants this. Didn’t he contract with the DST?”
She still had doubts. “Could he have stolen a trade secret, incorporated and refined it?”
“Intellectual property from the guild expired a few centuries ago,” he said. “But trade secrets? I don’t know.”
So close. They were so close, except for this missing piece.
She hit Rene’s number. “How soon will you get here, Rene?”
“Just left Meizi. I’m grabbing a scanner and sound program from the office,” he said.
“Tso’s men are looking for her.”
Pause. “Didn’t you take care of him?”
“Thought I did. The snake wiggled out.” Aimee paused. “Meizi told you about the diagram she found,
“What?”
A sinking feeing hit her.
“Samour put a diagram in her pile of sweatshirts.”
“How do you know that?”
“Cho the metallurgist.”
“Who?”
Worried, she pulled on her coat, headed to the door. Meizi had kept the information back from her and Rene. She grabbed her bag. “Prevost’s informer. But she didn’t say anything?”
Green light from the laptop screen smudged the tower’s walls.
“You’re implying Meizi thinks it’s valuable, that she’d use it as a bargaining chip with Tso?” Rene said, his voice rising. “But you’re wrong, she trusts us to help her.”
Then why hadn’t she called? Right now a terrified Meizi wouldn’t know the deal Aimee had made with Prevost. She might give Tso any information to protect her family. Get caught in the raid.… Aimee hoped it wasn’t too late. She had to convince her, get the diagram.
“Let me know the minute you isolate the voices, okay?”
She slammed the tower door.
AIMEE IGNORED THE hotel elevator and took the stairs two at a time. She knocked on Meizi’s door. No answer.
“Meizi, it’s Aimee.”
A maid pushed a cleaning cart down the hallway.
“Forgot my key,” she smiled. “Mind letting me into my room?”
“Who says you’re a guest here?” The maid’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “People pick up their keys at reception.”
After a tip, Aimee figured. Aimee gestured to the room list hanging from the cart.
“See room number 32, Sitbon,” she said, flashing Martine’s press card. “My friend’s asleep. Do me a favor and open the room.”
The maid shrugged. With a ten-franc tip, she unlocked the door.
The duvet was ruffled and soap stained the mirror over the lavabo. Meizi had forgotten a red sock.
What did she expect? Tso’s men were after Meizi. She had to find her before they did. Before the raid. If only Meizi had confided in her or Rene. Trusted them and just stayed here safe.
She rooted in her bag for Tso’s cell phone. Scrolled down the list of numbers he’d called. She’d work from that. First she needed a Chinese speaker.
But Monsieur Cho didn’t answer his phone. Panicked, she ran out of the hotel room and down the stairs, narrowly missing an elderly couple in the hallway.
• • •
“
The receptionist stood with her back turned at the whirring fax machine. Aimee scanned the lobby for watchers. It was deserted.
“Madame?” Was the woman ignoring her on purpose?
“Your friend’s gone out,” she said.
“How long ago?”
“Said to tell you she’s getting a cell phone.”
And walking into danger. But not if Aimee could stop it. She stepped out the front door, and at a glance took in parked cars and pedestrians but no vans. As she passed the Metro at Arts et Metiers she noticed a parked van on the boulevard. Wires and antennae. A surveillance van. Minutes later she reached Chez Chun’s fogged-up windows, caught her breath and entered.
“Madame Liu,
