He worked out of a home office in Morrison, Colorado, a quaint tourist town in the Rocky Mountain foothills west of Denver. She pictured him there now, playing his computer keyboard with the vigor of a virtuoso pianist. In fact, he bore a fair resemblance to a young Beethoven: wild hair, fiery eyes, stern mouth. She assumed the acne had cleared up by now. When he typed, fingers blurring over the keys, his head bobbed spastically to a tune only he could hear.
A minute later she wondered what she was waiting for, if a glitch would keep her waiting forever. Not like Bonsai, but nothing was sure with computers or the Internet, regardless of the skills of the person trying to tame it.
Then a voice came through the speakers. "Julia?"
"Bonsai! Did you crack Vero's code?"
"Nope."
Her stomach lurched nauseously.
"Nothing to crack," he continued.
"What?"
"It's not encrypted. It's a new type of digital media, very cutting-edge. High-resolution, lightning-fast rendering, incredibly dense code. It requires an unholy amount of computing power to drive it. What compact disks are to eight-tracks, this thing is to anything on the market today."
"So what, I need special hardware?"
"Not anymore. I linked with some buddies at MIT's computer lab. After some trial and error, they were able to supply me with a program that converted this code to one that a top-of-the-line Pentium can handle."
"So what's on it? What kind of files?"
"Mostly video. You lose quite a bit of resolution in the conversion process, so it's grainier than the original, and the image stutters a little, but you can see it okay. What kind of brain you running?"
"The Bureau's best. Custom configured to power some pretty incredible satellite communications software."
"The clock-speed has to be fast, Julia. Nothing you can pick up at Sears. I mean—"
"Prototype Athlon two-gig processor, two gigs of RAM, a gig dedicated to video rendering, and a half-tera hard drive."
"Yow! Okay, then. I'm ready to send when you are."
"I need another favor first."
"What do you have in mind?"
"Hack into the Knoxville Police Department and the Tennessee State Criminal Investigation Division for any pending investigations of clone-phone dealers in the 423 area code. Make sure it's not a sting operation, just an investigation. I also need the name of one of the dealer's customers. Cross-reference it with recent busts; I don't want the dealer talking to the guy. Doable?"
"Consider it done. VOIP me in thirty minutes."
fifty
Atropos considered the possibility that his prey had changed hotels, but dismissed it. They probably thought the Oak Ridge ruse was evasive enough. If they had gone somewhere else, the chances of finding them without his employer's help was slim. This place was the best lead he had.
He turned right onto Houston Street, which intersected Broadway Avenue at the Motel 6 where the cabbie said he'd dropped them off. His eyes darted over the L-shaped structure, taking in the ground-level breezeway and housekeeping cart parked in front of an open door on the second-floor walkway. Continuing past, he noted the alley that separated the motel from residential backyards. The small, opaque windows of bathrooms dotted this side of the building: each a point of egress. He'd watch for one of them to come out for ice or snacks or to use a pay phone. But if he had to hit the room, he'd have to move hard and fast: no return fire, no retreat.
He made a U-turn at the next intersection, pulling to the curb when he came abreast of the motel. The office was visible through the glass of a station wagon parked in front of the room closest to him. He could barely make out what appeared to be vending machines in the shadowy breezeway. A bright square of sunlight glowed like a movie screen where the breezeway opened up on the other side of the motel. He stared for a long time, looking for the silhouette of a head to break out from the sharp lines of the machines. Satisfied that the three had not posted a sentry there, he shifted his gaze to the cars in the parking lot. One of his prey could have broken into a car to keep watch. That it appeared they had not taken such precautions confirmed his suspicion that he was dealing with amateurs, despite the woman's position as a federal agent. She was accustomed to hunting, not hiding.
Approaching the office from the front seemed safe, but first he would inspect the surrounding area: Where were the nearest police cruisers? The likely avenues of escape? Places where his quarry could hide should they evade his attack, and where he could hole up if something went wrong?
He reached for the gearshift lever on the steering column, and a glimmer against the matte of his gauntlet caught his eye. Instantly he knew the cause and reached for a handkerchief in the leather pouch around his waist. In his anxiousness to get to Maryville after interrogating the cabbie, he'd neglected routine maintenance. He wiped at the glimmer first, then rubbed vigorously over and between each spike and each finger. He tossed the cloth into the passenger seat, where it landed soiled-side up: thick red smears against the sun-brightened white.
He rolled away from the curb with one last look at the motel. As he turned onto Broadway, he began scrutinizing every person, vehicle, building, and passageway he saw.
Bonsai came online as soon as Julia selected the click me
button.
"So, anything for me?" she asked.
"Do hackers like computers?" He explained the information he'd found in the Knox County Sheriff's Department database.
She wrote two names and a phone number on a notepad. "You're brilliant. I'll get back to you when I'm ready to receive the data from the memory chip." She shifted on the bed and tucked a bare foot under her bottom. She caught a whiff of something unpleasant in her dirty clothes and ignored it. It would have to be good enough to have clean hair, dry now and brushed loosely back from her face. She pulled the room's phone off the nightstand and dialed the number Bonsai had supplied.
"Sky Signs," a male voice announced.
"I need some phones."
"We do skywriting, lady. Weddings, birthdays, something to cheer—let Sky Signs write it in the stratosphere."
"Cute."
"Thanks for calling."
"Whoa, I still need some phones."
"I told you, we don't do phones."
She glanced at the notepad. "That's not what Aaron Horvitz told me."
A pause.
Bingo.
"Who?" the man asked flatly.
"Thought Aaron mentioned he was a good customer of yours . . . Colin, right? Maybe I heard wrong."
"Gimme your name and number."
She did, and the line went dead. She shot out the door and across the parking lot to the pay phone she'd visited before checking in with Bonsai. It was one of those boothless phones, encased in a blue egg-shaped shell. She tucked her head close to the phone, hiding from passersby on the street behind her. Mr. Colin Dorsett was undoubtedly trying to reach Aaron Horvitz to vouch for her. Sad thing, though: according to Bonsai, police had taken Horvitz into custody two nights ago for discharging a firearm into the foot of a rival drug dealer during a bar fight. She was betting that Horvitz had more pressing concerns than apprising his supplier of stolen and reprogrammed cellular phones of his new residence in the county clink. The pay phone began ringing.
"Yeah?" she answered.
"Aaron ain't answering."
"So?"
"So I don't do business with strangers."
"Look," she said, sharp. "Aaron said his name was good as gold with you. He's not going to be too happy to find out it ain't."