Richard listened in silence until a certain point in the story when he said, “So Peter is dead.”
“Yes,” Csongor said gently.
“You’re sure of this.”
“Absolutely sure.”
“Well, that is a shame,” Richard said, “and sooner or later I’ll get around to feeling like crap about it. But right now — focusing on practical matters — it is a problem for me because it prevents me from pursuing the only independent lead I have.”
“What lead is that?” Seamus demanded.
“Peter had surveillance cameras in his apartment. They probably recorded video of what went down there the night Wallace was killed and Peter and Zula were abducted. Unfortunately, those files were erased. Later, though, someone came back — probably an accomplice to the original crime — and got caught on video. I have a copy of the file. Unfortunately, it’s encrypted. I was hoping I could get the decryption key. But if Peter’s dead — ”
“Hold on for a moment,” Csongor said. For Ivanov’s leather man-purse was sitting on the floor between his feet. The money had been stolen from it, but Peter’s and Zula’s wallets and other personal effects were still in there, sealed up in Ziploc bags. In a few moments, he was able to get Peter’s wallet out and find a certain compartment, sealed behind a tiny zipper, with a scrap of paper inside.
Something moved on the screen, and he noted that they had been joined by another character named Clover — apparently an invited guest of Egdod’s.
Five lines had been written on the paper. Each began with what was apparently the name of a computer and ended with what was obviously a password.
“Do you have a hostname or something for the system you are trying to crack?”
Clover answered: “This was not a server per se, just a backup drive on a network.”
“Brand name Li-Fi, by any chance?”
“The same.”
“Then here is the password,” Csongor announced and read out the corresponding series of symbols.
“On it,” said Clover, and then became still, a sure sign that its owner — whoever he was — was tending to something other than playing T’Rain.
“Pray continue,” Richard said, and so Csongor went on telling the story. He got some assistance now from Marlon, who was able to relate parts of it that Csongor had not seen or during which he had been unconscious. But just as they were trying to explain the explosion, and Marlon’s rescue of Csongor from the cellar, Clover woke up and interrupted: “That was the correct password. I was able to decrypt the file.”
“Can you email it to me?” Richard asked. From which Csongor inferred that Richard and whoever was playing Clover were not in the same place.
“I did it on your server,” Clover answered. “The files were already there. All I had to do was send the command.”
He rattled off the name of a directory.
Csongor and Marlon now resumed the narrative, a bit uncertainly as they sensed that they no longer had Richard’s full attention. This suspicion was borne out a few minutes later when Richard broke in: “I can see him.” His voice was husky and he spoke slowly, as if mildly stunned. “This guy finds a way to break in. I can’t hear anything — it’s all just body language — but let me tell you that I have hired a lot of guys in my time, and this guy is a schlub. A palooka. An epsilon minus.”
Csongor did not know the meaning of any of these terms, but Richard’s tone of voice was easy enough to read.
“I was half hoping it might have been Sokolov,” Richard explained. “But I guess that’s impossible — you guys were all in Xiamen by this point. A day later he goes missing off Kinmen.”
Csongor looked at Marlon and Yuxia, who both threw up their hands. “You think Sokolov survived the explosion?” he asked.
“We know he did,” Seamus announced.
“That is hard to believe,” Yuxia said. “If you had been there — ”
“We have the most direct and convincing possible testimony that he lived through it,” Seamus assured her, with a little wiggle of the eyebrows that made Yuxia blush.
“Sokolov is still alive,” Csongor repeated, trying to make himself believe it.
“I didn’t say that,” Richard put in. “He was involved in a gunfight off Kinmen the next day.”
“Let me tell you something,” Csongor said. “If he was in a gunfight, I am more worried about the people he was fighting against.” This drew an approving look and a nod from Seamus.
Richard continued, “The palooka comes in the front door carrying a piece of equipment that, based on other research I’ve been doing, matches the description of a plasma torch. He takes it upstairs and sets it up next to Peter’s gun safe and runs a huge extension cord down the stairs to Peter’s shop where he plugs it into a big-ass industrial outlet.”
“Gun safe?” Csongor asked wonderingly.
“Not from around here, are you?” Richard asked. “Believe it or not, they are as common in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave as, let’s say, bidets are in France. Anyway, the picture now gets completely fucked up as this guy turns on the torch and slices the safe open. Just takes the top right off. Fast-forwarding here — I think he’s waiting for the metal to cool down. Then he reaches into the top and pulls out — oh, for goodness’ sake. Who knew that our Peter was a gun nut?”
“What are you seeing?” Seamus asked.
“A nice metal case. Inside of it, a really tricked-out AR-15,” Richard said, and then he rattled off a lot of verbiage that seemed significant to him and to Seamus but meant nothing to Csongor: “Picatinny rails on all four sides, mounted with Swarovski optics and what might be a laser sight. Tac light. Tactical bipod. Yes, whatever other shortcomings he might have had, Peter was very good at adding items to his shopping cart.”
“So this goon must have noticed the gun safe during the snatch and made up his mind to come back later and see what was inside.”
“If so, he hit the jackpot. I’m looking at probably four thousand bucks’ worth of rifle. Want to see a picture?”
“Sure.”
There was a brief interlude for clicking and typing, and then Seamus said, “Got it,” and began paying attention to something on his screen. Csongor, having nothing else to do at the moment, got up and walked around behind him to see what it was. Evidently T’Rain contained some sort of facility for mailing image files back and forth, and Egdod had used it to send this JPEG to Thorakks. It was a surprisingly well-resolved picture of a bulky man with a shaved head, holding an assault rifle, sans clip, and examining his action. “Not my cup of tea,” Seamus said after inspecting it for a little while, “but I concur that Peter was a gun nut and that Mr. Potatohead is feeling very pleased with himself at the time this picture is taken.”
“Do you recognize him?” Richard asked.
Csongor was obliged to return to his post and put his headset back on. “No,” he said. “In none of my dealings with Ivanov, in Xiamen or otherwise, did I ever see this man.”
“He’s a local freelancer, Richard,” Seamus pronounced. “A temp.”
“Maybe I’ll send the picture to the Seattle cops, then,” Richard said. “Help them clear up some loose ends.”
“Save yourself the trouble,” said Seamus. “I can get it to the cops, and then some. But it’s not going to help finding Zula now.”
“I know that,” Richard said.
And then there was silence for a few moments. Csongor was unwilling to admit this to himself, but, although the last couple of hours’ machinations in T’Rain had been diverting, and the opportunity to exchange information with Richard had felt, for a few minutes, like an enormous breakthrough, it was all turning out to be a dead end. The most it might lead to was that Mr. Potatohead would be arrested, and the story of Zula and Peter’s abduction, and Wallace’s murder, would be explained to the satisfaction of the Seattle Police Department. But none of this would be of any help in finding Zula now or in stopping Jones.