Was I destined to become collateral damage myself?
It was a holding cell I’d been thrown in after the interrogation had come to an end, rather than a desert hideout. And they were accusations that were being fired at me, rather than bullets. But I was boxed in tight. I had McKenna on one side, sniffing around AmeriTel. Brooking on another, chasing down this insane plot. Then there was Peever—wherever his loyalties might lie—and the mystery guys on motorcycles completing the square. Carolyn had abandoned me in favor of her precious career—maybe even helping to jam me up in the first place—so she wasn’t about to raise the alarm. No SEAL team was about to swoop down and rescue me. And how could I free myself, with the damn computer virus linking me to all of them like an unbreakable chain?
Worst of all, it was my own fault I was in that cell. I couldn’t believe my plan had gone off the rails. What kind of idiot was I? I’d been certain the virus had come from AmeriTel. Nothing else made any sense. How could I have been so wrong?
I ran through the possibilities again, but nothing had changed. I was still convinced. It had to be AmeriTel. Unless—could Brooking have been lying to me? Could she have not sent the other agents there, after all? Or could they have missed it? If they were regular field agents, would they even know how to search for a virus? Particularly a new kind. One that everyone outside a specialized lab had missed. I was kicking myself for not questioning her more closely about that, but she’d thrown me for a loop with all her accusations.
I lay down on one of the benches that were bolted to the cell walls and tried to think. My performance in the face of Brooking’s onslaught was spilled milk. There was no point crying over it. I’d just have to try to do better next time. That was my mantra with my work. Always make the next thing better than the last. Like my new project. It was going to—It was going to do nothing. Not for me, anyway. Not after the prototype had been stolen. My only copy had been deleted. And I was locked up, instead of sitting at my keyboard rebuilding it.
Wait. Deleted. Was that the answer? The prototype had been deleted from my computer by the time I came downstairs on Tuesday morning. Could the virus have been deleted from AmeriTel’s system by the time the agents went there today?
If the virus was designed to attack the White House, there was no point in it being on AmeriTel’s corporate network. But Peever had mentioned the ARGUS node that was in the same building. Maybe someone was planning to use that as a conduit? I didn’t know how it was all connected—the topology was top-secret—but it was reasonable to assume that the President would want access to the most sophisticated intelligence system in the world. So if the ARGUS system was infected, could the President’s own systems—at the White House, and wherever else he may be—also be infected?
Whoever was behind this must have known the virus had spread to my home computer. Which is why they’d had it stolen. They never wanted that particular computer to see the inside of a police lab. They couldn’t risk someone finding any signs of infection. But my laptop had slipped through the net. It had already disappeared into the parcel carrier’s system. It had accidentally become invisible in exactly the way I’d been accused of hiding it.
It made perfect sense.
I was off the bench and halfway to the bars at the front of the cell, ready to yell for Brooking, when my heart sank again. My theory wasn’t enough to put me in the clear. It only accounted for what had been done. Not who had done it. She’d still believe I was involved.
I sat back down, and another sickening possibility hit me. Another reason for the agents not having found the virus at AmeriTel. Who’s to say they actually looked for it? They might have ignored it on purpose. Or they might have found it, and covered it up. The dominoes of suspicion were tumbling in my head now, one after the other. Brooking could be behind everything. And Brooking could be working with Peever. They could be lining me up to take their fall.
No. Brooking and Peever couldn’t be behind everything. They could be framing me for the virus. They could be pulling the strings at AmeriTel. But they couldn’t be betraying my work to Karl Weimann. And they hadn’t sold me out to boost their own careers.
Only one person had done those things.
Carolyn.
But what the hell kind of game was she playing? And who was she playing it with?
Thursday. Afternoon.
THERE WERE NO WINDOWS IN THE CELL. THERE HADN’T BEEN ANY in the interview room, either. That meant I hadn’t seen daylight since I stepped inside the building.
I didn’t have a watch. Or a cell phone. And I couldn’t see a clock, even if I went to the front of the cell and peered all the way down the corridor in both directions, craning my neck around so far it hurt.
I knew because I’d tried four times.
I understood, rationally, that I could only have been at the station house for a matter of hours. But emotionally, not knowing the time was killing me. There was too much I didn’t know. All the unanswered questions were multiplying and combining and braiding themselves together like a rope around my chest. It was wrapping itself tighter and tighter around me, so hard I was struggling to breathe. I’d never been claustrophobic before, but all of a sudden I was desperate to leave that cell. I wanted a lawyer. I wanted answers from my wife. But more than anything, I wanted out. No amount of school or college or work experience or marriage can prepare you for getting locked up, on your own, for something you didn’t do.
After twenty minutes I heard a sound in the distance. An alarm. I sat up, and for a moment I thought I could smell smoke. Then I was sure I could. Smoke. Which meant fire. In a building I was locked inside.
I grabbed the bars at the front of my cell and heaved against them with all my strength, but they wouldn’t budge. I yelled for help, but the only answer that came was from a disembodied, automated recording:
Attention. The fire alarm in this facility has been activated. This is not a drill. You are in no immediate danger. Go to the back of your cell and stand by for further instructions. You will soon be evacuated in accordance with police department emergency procedures. I repeat, you are in no immediate danger. Atención …
The message alternated between English and Spanish, and seemed to be on a perpetual loop. It was never reassuring—not even the first time I heard it—and before long it had become so annoying I was almost more eager to get away from it than I was to escape any flames.
Then, without warning, the announcement died mid-sentence and a uniformed officer appeared on the other side of the bars. A huge, stocky guy with the kind of overdeveloped chest muscles that prevented his arms hanging straight down at his sides.
“Turn around,” he ordered. “Face the wall. Walk forward till your nose is touching the bricks. Good. Hands behind your head. Lace your fingers together. Good. Now, do not move until I tell you. Try anything cute, and I’ll knock you out and leave you to burn. Are we clear?”
“Crystal.” The smell of the smoke was getting stronger by the second, so I wasn’t about to waste any time.
I heard the cell door open, then the officer cuffed my hands behind my back, spun me around, and drove me forward by jabbing something hard into my ribs. Then he steered me along the corridor, out through an emergency exit, and into the parking lot.
It was a relief to be outside, away from the cramped cell, but I didn’t have much time to enjoy it. The air wasn’t exactly fresh—exhaust fumes from dozens of vehicles were mixing with a plume of oily smoke that was rising from somewhere near the center of the building and blowing in our direction. And the whole area was a frenzy of activity. Scores of people—civilian aides as well as uniformed officers and plainclothes detectives—were heading to their designated assembly zones, and the crews from half a dozen fire trucks were hurrying in the opposite direction, loaded down with hoses and other pieces of equipment.