Despite Julian’s warning, John still sets to work. He flips open a terminal and remotely accesses the CPU of Marco’s computer so it won’t leave any traces of log in. The remote terminal hacks the hard drive and retrieves Marco’s profile by means of a virus that self destructs upon completion of its task. It bypasses the computer’s firewalls in seconds and logs into a secured network. From there he clicks a nine-pixel-large corner of a police emblem and enters a Cloud. Another inconspicuous cluster of pixels inside the frame of a dialogue window brings him to a password-encrypted cache titled “Templog.”
It is one of many CODEX profile repositories, and one to which Marco belongs. John navigates to a folder and browses through a list of names and serial numbers that would make no sense to the untrained eye. He accesses one of them and a mugshot of Landon appears, taken perhaps in the sixties. In a section of text he sees the name Qara Budang Tabunai, as well as a link to the profile of someone named Alpine-One. He clicks on Alpine-One and the borderless screen of the terminal fills up with a monochromatic picture of a beautiful young woman. She is looking into the camera with a pensive, lugubrious smile that John had frequently encountered in suicidal victims.
It is her.
Fear prickles his skin. The recognition is unsettling and ghostly. It’s the same woman at the café, and most recently outside his hotel room. Death had been that close. Inwardly he shudders at the date of the photograph—May 1955.
His mobile vibrates and he dons an earpiece, and an urgent sounding voice cackles through. “Moonbeam! Tracker dispatched!”
He plugs in a thumbdrive and works as he speaks. “We’re bringing the Chronie in, but I need time to get to you.”
“Tracker is inbound I tell you! They’re going to do him. The residence. Come quick!”
John checks his watch and looks at the download status. “Stick to the protocol; get him out and leave a message the usual way. I’ll get to you as soon as I can.”
The voice replies with something inaudible and the line goes dead.
John unplugs the drive, shuts down his terminal and berates himself for failing to download all the data he is supposed to. Marco’s computer stalls during shutdown. He waits, tapping his fingers impatiently on its cold, steely surface. The CPU indicator light flashes alive as the shutdown resumes. From the lobby he hears the ring of an arriving lift.
He shuffles out of the cubicle and plants himself against the opposite wall, his chest constricting with the familiar grip of panic. The light on Marco’s CPU goes off and a long, slow breath calms him. Good. All he needs now is a good reason for snooping around an hour before midnight. He grabs a stack of files and walks to the glass door. He turns the corner of the wall separating him from the lobby and comes right up to Marco’s little pirate grin.
They regard each other at eye level, both being of considerable size and height. Denied of audible speech, John questions Marco’s arrival by lifting his eyebrows. Marco keeps up his grin, waving and pointing towards something. John takes a moment to comprehend Marco’s gesture, then reaches over and tapping the door-release switch. The glass door between them hums open.
“Thanks.” Marco winks his good eye. “Left my pass in the car when I got back from a meeting and the car keys are in my drawer.”
John smiles politely.
Marco holds out his hand. “I don’t think we’ve met.”
They shake hands. John pulls out his pass from his breast pocket. “SCD,” he says.
Marco squints at the name. “Bowen? I’m Marco. Thought you look familiar.”
“We work in the same building.”
“On a tough case?” asks Marco, his toothy grin melting into an expression of concern. “Terrible to be working so late.”
“Yeah, the Sheik Didi case.” John holds up the case files. “Setting up a video conference with Interpol. Time zone problem.”
Marco sympathises, shaking his head; his good eye, unblinking, remains fixed on John. “Turn on the lights next time you drop in.
Wouldn’t look good to be seen snooping.” He draws quotation marks in the air at the word “snooping”. “Does umm, whoever you got the files from know you’re coming?”
“Of course.”
“All is well then.” Marco’s grin returns. “Good thing you’re here or I’d be rolling in hot shit.” He guffaws raucously and John joins in as naturally as he can.
The flame in the kerosene lamp is long and still. Landon doesn’t sleep. He sits in bed and riffles through one journal, then he tosses it and picks up another, his eyes travelling, groping for the revelations of a distant past. Vivian, Hannah and Clara are but one woman— that much he now comprehends. She is a relic like himself, one of many lives, and he must confess that the prospect of meeting her now carries a dangerous, irrational thrill.
If she isn’t the one out to kill him then who is? John has assured him that the surveillance is just a precaution, though he isn’t convinced anyone would get here in time if something happens. Unless, he thinks, John wants me right where I am.
The possibility frightens him. It’s like a nightmare where you flee to your parents only to have them turn into the very demons you are running from. But things have taken a different turn. He finds relief in having confided a part of himself to Dr Peck. CODEX alone does not own his secret. Now he has an ally and he intends to keep it because for once he might find the unhidden world on his side. He looks at the slip of paper bearing Dr Peck’s number and enters it into his mobile.
He only has to wait until Friday.
A stuttering honk sends him leaping out of bed and racing down the stairs. He throws open the front door to an arriving Datsun pick-up truck. He jogs across the driveway to unlatch the gates. The truck rumbles in and halts to a screeching jerk.
“Whoa! What’s the rush?” he says, even as he rejoices over the company.
Cheok pushes past him without a word. He marches straight into the kitchen, his short, beefy arms swinging wide from his swaggering stride. He checks the toilet, then the yard, does a quick round along the perimeter and returns to the porch where Landon stands waiting with a frozen half-smile. He then grabs Landon by his sleeve and hauls him into the truck.
“Get in, we’re leaving now.”
“Okay.” Landon lifts his hands. “You’re scaring me, man. Where’re we going?”
Cheok doesn’t answer. He reaches for the ignition, checks the rear view mirror, and what he sees stops him cold.
“What?” Landon asks.
The gate is closed and latched, and its lock isn’t what Landon recognises as his own. Even then there’s a good chance the old hinges wouldn’t stand up to a reversing truck. Cheok twists the ignition. The engine stutters but doesn’t start. He bolts out of the vehicle and finds the dislodged fuel-injector placed neatly on the front bumper.
Cheok draws a pistol. “Back to the house.”
Landon cowers into the corner where two windowless walls meet. Cheok goes to the back of the truck and returns with two heavy, khaki-coloured vests and throws them over Landon. Then he crouches with his back to the wall, breathing deeply and slowly, the air whistling faintly through his nostrils. “I’m not a gardener,” he confesses.
“I figured.” Landon watches him, wide-eyed. “You’ve been very convincing.”
“I didn’t lie about everything.” Cheok swallows and sweeps his gaze across the house. “My wife—she lost her mind; the disease, you know. But we still share the bed, our time together at night. One morning I woke up—she dead already, beside me. Eight years ago.”