“All right,” he said. “How do you want to play this? Shall we get started?”
“Why wait?” I pulled the newly replicated memory stick out of my pocket. “Only, be careful with this. It’ll infect anything it comes in contact with.”
“No problem.” He took the stick, crossed to his smaller desk, and lifted the lid on a laptop computer. “This is an old machine. I dug it out as soon as I got home. It doesn’t have Ethernet hooked up, and the Wi-Fi’s switched off. We can keep it completely quarantined until we know for sure what we’re dealing with.”
WEIMANN WORKED WITH THE STICK and the laptop for thirty minutes, then spun his chair around to face me.
“You’re making me earn my money with this one, Marc. I’ve tried everything. Every virus detector on the market, plus a couple that aren’t, and all the other tricks I know to make a naughty little program show its face. Nothing worked. If you hadn’t told me otherwise, I’d have sworn the stick’s clean.”
“Clean’s the last thing it is. Whatever’s on there is new, and it’s clever. And we need to find out about it, or I could end up in jail.”
“Don’t worry. It won’t come to that. I know a guy who can help.”
“Oh? Who?”
“Best you don’t know too much. We hooked up years ago. I can vouch for him. He owes me a couple of favors. OK, now, I’ve copied all the data onto the hard drive, just in case we need it, and I’ll run the stick over to him now. He’ll have something for us in a day or two, I would hope.”
“Where is he?”
“Not too far away.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Better not. If he sees anyone he doesn’t recognize, he’ll bolt. You know how edgy these cyber nuts are. And he won’t be able to help us if he goes underground. Look, I won’t be gone long. In the meantime, make yourself at home.”
“What if Renée gets back and finds me here? Won’t she think that’s weird?”
“Renée left me, Marc.” He paused for a moment. “Seventeen months ago. I thought you knew. If anyone comes back and finds you, it won’t be her.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, Karl. I didn’t know. What happened?”
“Remember that theater company she joined? Well, she ended up screwing the director. I found out. Confronted her. And she chose that long-haired ponce over me.”
“That’s awful. I’m truly sorry.”
“Water under the bridge.” He shrugged. “Occupational hazard. We may rake in the dough, but it’s hard to compete with glamour, right? And power.”
I was about to disagree, then I thought about my situation with Carolyn. And the photo of her and Weimann.
“Karl, did you know that Carolyn had wanted to join that company, but Renée took her spot? Right back when it was getting off the ground?”
“Of course. Everyone knew. But you didn’t want to lose her fat paycheck from AmeriTel. So you fixed it for Renée to get the job instead of her.”
“I’m sorry. I never would have done it, if I’d known what would happen with her and this asshole director.”
“Bygones.” He shrugged again. “Anyway, I’d have done the same thing, in your shoes.”
“One more thing, Karl. Did you tell Carolyn about it? What I did?”
“No. But, Marc? I didn’t have to. She’s not stupid. She’s known all along.”
TIME HAS NEVER SAT easily on my hands. Being cooped up alone in a stranger’s house was no exception and before long, like a pianist in a room with a Steinway, I gravitated to Weimann’s laptop. I was desperate to find out what was happening in the outside world. Had the body been found in my house? Did the police have any leads? How hard were they looking for me? But the computer wasn’t online. I couldn’t risk hooking it up, because of the virus. So I moved on to the next best distraction. The AmeriTel data.
I found the files Weimann had copied from the memory stick easily enough. But that wasn’t all. He had a prototype of a product I’d abandoned mid-way through its development. The Dreadnaught. No one should have it but me. My first reaction was anger. But my second was more worrying. Weimann had a stolen version of an older program. The thieves who broke into my house had stolen my newest one. What if there was a connection?
For every suspicion I quashed, another sprang into my head. It was like mental whack-a-mole, so to distract myself I fired up the Dreadnaught and used it to run some simple reports on the AmeriTel data. Nothing too profound—there wasn’t time—but the type of simple toe-in-the-water routines I usually did at the start of a consultation.
Some clients are easy pickings. They have lots of closets, with lots of skeletons waiting to burst out. With others, I have to work a little harder to sniff out the juicy stuff. AmeriTel’s data put them in the second category. But well-hidden secrets are no less tasty than the low-hanging fruit. Often, it’s the reverse. And with my former employer, that certainly turned out to be true.
It took time to dig it out, dust it off, and make sense of what I was seeing. But there was one tiny, innocuous entry amongst the tens of millions that—put in context—turned my understanding of recent events completely on its head.
Friday. Late afternoon.
WEIMANN GOT HOME NINETY MINUTES LATER AND CAME straight to his study with a bottle of Moët & Chandon in his hand.
“The other side of my bargain.” He held up the champagne. “No virus in this baby.”
“Did you meet your contact?” I didn’t feel like celebrating with a guy who’d been stealing from me, even if he was my new partner. And my head was still spinning from what I’d found in the AmeriTel data.
“I did. I told him we’re in a hurry, and he promised to get right to work. I’m checking in with him tomorrow morning for an update.”
“Quicker than you thought. That’s good. What’s the guy going to do? Call? Email?”
“Hell, no. He only does face-to-face.”
“I’m sorry you have to go schlepping around again, then. Where are you guys meeting?”
“At the train station, in Valhalla. He feels safe there. Lots of people moving around. Lots of ways in and out. Lots of places to hang out where you don’t look suspicious.”
“What time?”
“You still can’t come, Marc. He’d run if he saw you.”
“Is my leprosy that obvious?”
He didn’t answer, and I realized he hadn’t come within ten feet of me since he’d walked back into the room.
“Are you having second thoughts, Karl? Because you don’t sound like the guy who was here earlier. Did you have a change of heart when you were out?”
He moved across to the window, still keeping his distance.
“I have a question, Marc. The car you came in. Is it yours?”
“No. It’s a rental.”
“What’s wrong with your Jag?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s at home. Why?”
“So why drive that piece of crap outside?”
“I was delivering something for a friend. It wouldn’t fit in the Jag’s trunk. You know how shallow they are.”
“What were you delivering?”
“Why does that matter?”
“And the hotel, Marc. Why have me meet you there? Why not at your house?”
“Why does it matter where we met?”
Weimann plonked the champagne bottle down on the windowsill and looked out into the yard. He didn’t move for two minutes. Then he turned and came across to me, holding out his BlackBerry.
“Here. Read this.”
The phone’s browser was open to a news page. The story Weimann had found was about me. It told how I’d escaped from jail. How I was wanted for murder. And how my wife, Carolyn Clark—note their use of her maiden name, to distance her from me—was missing in suspicious circumstances.