“Who’s the money from? The Chinese or the Russians? A crime network like the ones you were investigating? Did you get turned while you were undercover? Who are you working for?”
“No one. No one.”
“You were giving a presentation to a team from Langley on the work you were doing.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about it.”
I tried not to laugh. My notes for my talk were still vivid in my mind because of the terrible thought that maybe my work had gotten our office targeted. “We’re looking for a Russian criminal I call the Money Czar. He cleans funds for various networks. I worked undercover for a few months last year, making contacts in these networks, mostly posing as an ex-Canadian soldier based in Prague who could provide smuggling routes for everything from knockoff cigarettes to guns bound for warlords in Africa. An informant in our employ in Budapest got the job to courier cash and gold from the Money Czar to a Russian scientist. Five million equivalent.”
“What was the scientist being paid for?”
“We don’t know. This scientist was kicked out of the Russian military’s research programs because of his heroin addiction; he set up shop as a brain for hire in Budapest, doing contract work. The informant was the one who told us that this Money Czar had a Russian accent.” I paused. “The informant and the scientist were both found dead a week later.”
“What kind of scientist was this man?”
“He used to work on nanotechnology.”
“Nanotechnology?”
“Yes. The study of the control of matter on an atomic or molecular level. Most of the research today has beneficial commercial applications-such as more effective means of delivering medicines into the body, or to specific organs. It could have huge implications, for instance, in the fight against breast cancer or brain tumors. Or we could create medicines geared to specific people’s DNA, or much more sophisticated sensors to detect serious illnesses in our bodies, or we could vastly expand the number of hours a computer battery can be charged.”
“And there are military and weapons applications to this?”
“Absolutely,” I answered. “Nanotech builds machines or materials on an incredibly small level and makes them powerful. Theoretically. Creating new kinds of armor to repel bullets, or much stronger tanks, or much more efficient guns. Creating bullets that could self-correct on a course once fired. Smaller nuclear weapons that have incredible guidance systems and produce virtually no fallout. Or imagine a bomb that releases a swarm of miniaturized robots that aim for human flesh or body temperature and inject a fatal toxin into every person in a two-mile radius.”
Howell swallowed and his throat made a dry click. “So this Money Czar could have been financing weapons research?”
“Yes.”
“And maybe whoever killed the scientist and the informant to protect your Money Czar came after you.”
“Yes.”
“Or, more likely, you got turned by the people you were chasing. You’re good at your job, Sam. You could have found this Money Czar. And maybe he offered you and Lucy all that cash in this Caymans account.”
“No.”
“They didn’t want you and Lucy talking and they’ve taken her and you decided to keep your mouth shut, maybe to protect her. I can see the thoughts going across your tired, beat-ass face, Sam.”
“No.” I wanted to drive Howell and his insane theories through the stone wall.
“Your only hope, Sam, is to deal with me. Tell me everything.” Howell leaned in close to me and he put a large hand on my shoulder. “Think how easy it will be. All the weight will be gone, Sam. And then we can work on finding your wife. Your child. You want to be there when your child is born, don’t you? Lucy’s due date is in six weeks’ time. Tell me where we can find the people you work for and we’ll find Lucy. You can see your wife, hold your child.”
He leaned back. “We checked with her doctor. You and Lucy didn’t want to know what you’re having but I know. It’s a boy, Sam. Don’t you want to see your son?”
My son. I was going to have a son, if Lucy was still alive. Howell was laying brutal trumps on the table, one after another: this unknown money, my child. Maybe Lucy… No. I could not believe it of her.
Each word felt like a pebble in my mouth, spit out one by one. “I can’t tell you anything because I am not a traitor.”
Howell studied me in the long silence. “Then you’re a fool, because your wife is the traitor and she’s left you to take the blame.”
“No. No. She wouldn’t. She loves me.” The words sounded weak in my throat but I remembered that last morning with my Lucy, her shuddering atop me, my hands on the curve on her bottom, her breath warm against my throat. Talking to me about not taking chances running parkour, and telling me she loved me, and reminding me of dinner with the nice couples. Calling me monkey, to soften her criticism of my running. That was not a woman preparing to vanish from her own life.
He looked at me as though he were a teacher disappointed with his student’s performance. “She doesn’t love you. She left you holding the bag. Happy Thanksgiving.” Howell got up and left, the lights went out, and I sat in total blackness.
6
Time,unmeasured, passed. My throat was molten, parched, like I’d reached in and raked the flesh with my own fingernails. A knot of hunger tangled my stomach and I felt like I had fever. I slid from the chair and lay on the cold floor. I ate bread and water when it was brought to me. I slept and I awoke, unsure if minutes or hours had passed, shivered against the stone. I dreamed I was running parkour, vaulting over walls, flying between buildings, every muscle afire with glory, my mind clear and clean and precise. Then the wall where I was to land was gone, and I plummeted toward a pavement covered with burning wreckage, helpless, out of control.
The lights snapped back on and Howell was sitting in his chair, as though he’d been there the entire time in the dark. But the suit was different. I looked to see if he had any water for me to drink. He didn’t.
“Help me, Sam.”
I looked at him. “How?”
“Help me understand this most interesting information I’ve come across,” he said.
“Did you find Lucy?” Confusion clogged my brain; my head felt thick with sleep. “The baby. Lucy is due soon. You have to find her.” My voice grated like rock against sand.
“The bomb,” Howell said, as though I hadn’t spoken. “I have the forensic analysis of the blast pattern, Sam.” He pulled out a photo of the London office, after the explosion. The desk arrangement had our names on it. S. Capra. Brandon. Gomez. McGill. The conference room, with the names of the three suits. In the computer room, a desk labeled L. Capra. Lucy’s desk. My dead friends. The photo painted a horror: the smears of gore, viscera blasted and cooked on the walls, the blackened, gaping holes in the floor, in the center.
The smallest circle, painted in red, marked my desk, in the center of the office.
“The bomb was planted right under your desk. It was disguised to look like a small external hard drive, plugged into your system.”
I stared at the map of destruction.
“Lucy handled all the hard drive installs in the office.”
“No.”
“How easy it must have been for her. Did she set up the bomb right under your boss’s nose, James’s nose, Victoria’s nose? Your nose?”
Each word felt like a knife sliding under my skin.
“The bomb is placed where Lucy can most easily hide it without anyone noticing. Did she feel some guilt, sentencing her husband, the father of her child, to death? So she warns you. You walk out right before the explosion.” In case I didn’t understand the implication.
“Shut up,” I said. I had not snapped or growled at anyone. I had focused and kept my calm while pleading my innocence. But this. Now. I couldn’t take it. “Shut up, shut up, shut the hell up.”
“Help me prove this woman a traitor. Think. Think of what you must have known. Try to remember.” This woman. Not calling her Lucy, not calling her my wife. Trying to establish an otherness for her, a separation between us. No.