What did that mean
Brent Stover left work at six, Tanner remembered him saying.
At quarter of six, Tanner was standing outside the glass doors to a small lobby area and a bank of elevators in One Center Plaza. There was a constant surge of people, mostly government workers, leaving work for the day. Some looked bedraggled and unhappy; some were voluble and boisterous.
At five minutes after six, Brent Stover came out of a crowded elevator.
This was sort of like stalking, Tanner knew. But it was justified.
He waited for Stover to emerge from the glass doors, saw he wasn’t talking to anyone, and approached him.
Stover saw him. A flash of panic on his face. Subtly, he shook his head.
Tanner came closer, and Stover said, quietly, “Not here.” His eyes darted upward and to his right. Tanner saw a surveillance camera mounted on the building face high above, and his stomach twisted.
Stover kept walking, Tanner following at a distance.
Stover crossed the street in the direction of the sandwich shop where they’d met the day before. Tanner waited a few seconds and then crossed. Stover was still within view, walking past the Starbucks and down the street. He seemed to be leading Tanner. He certainly wasn’t trying to lose him.
Stover rounded the next corner and then turned into an alley. He stopped beside a Dumpster. As soon as Tanner came up to him, Stover spoke to him quietly and quickly. “Do me a favor, Tanner, and turn off your phone.”
“What the hell is going on?” Tanner said.
“Here’s what’s going on. I got a wife and four kids who depend on my salary. I got a pension. I got a career. I got a life. And they’re shutting me down.”
“Who’s shutting you—”
“I cannot touch this. Please, just forget my name and never call me again.”
“Will you explain to me what you—”
“I don’t know what you did, but please — just stay away from me. This conversation never happened. Don’t contact me again. Please.”
42
There was something deeply unnerving about seeing a man like the normally stolid Brent Stover so visibly frightened.
This conversation never happened. Don’t contact me again. Please.
What the hell had the FBI agent discovered? What had he been told?
And what was this about turning off his phone? Tanner wondered whether it was true that you could be tracked via your mobile phone. He’d heard that somewhere but had never given it much thought.
But he kept his phone turned off just in case.
He stopped at a convenience store and bought three prepaid cell phones. He had to be reachable, had to stay in touch with the office, yet he couldn’t use his iPhone any longer. He returned to Carl’s house in Newton, warily — parking down the street and around a corner and walking back to the house. Was he being followed? He didn’t think so. Not that he could tell, anyway.
He unlocked the front door, couldn’t help noting the house smell. Every house had a different one. Carl’s was a blend of faint mildew, mothballs, old vacuum cleaner bag, and coffee. Tanner was like a bloodhound with a highly specialized skill, or maybe more like a truffle hound: he could detect the odor of coffee anywhere.
Carl wasn’t home — Tanner called out — so he switched on the lights in the living room and opened one of the disposable cell phone’s blister packs using a pair of scissors, though a hacksaw would have been a lot easier. The phone’s battery came with a minimum amount of charge, but enough to call Lucy Turton, Tanner Roast’s office manager. While they talked, he plugged the phone in to charge, then set up and plugged in the other two phones in the outlet on the kitchen wall.
“I’ll be away from the office a few more days,” he said.
“Okay...” Lucy sounded like she wanted to ask why but it wasn’t her place.
“And I’ll have a different phone number for a while. My iPhone died.”
“I see the number... Okay. Hey, a couple of guys came by here looking for you.”
“When was this?”
“Just a couple of hours ago. Serious-looking dudes. They said they were from Homeland Security.”
“What’d they want?”
“They wouldn’t tell me what it was about. They said they’d only talk to you, and they said they’ll be back.”
“Thanks.” Tanner ended the call. They’d probably tried his house, too. And it wouldn’t take them long to determine the names of his employees and friends, and soon enough they’d find him here, at Carl’s house.
Which meant he had to leave here as soon as possible.
At the same time, Tanner couldn’t help but think: Is this all about the goddamned senator’s laptop? What if I just give it back? What would happen if he simply handed it back to the senator’s office? If he called that guy, Will Abbott, and said, You know what, you’re right, I have it, and here it is, and let’s end this.
Lanny had insisted that the laptop was his life insurance policy, that once he surrendered it, he was disposable; he could be killed. Because the real issue was what was on that laptop: the top secret documents. Lanny had them, on a thumb drive; he let people know he had them, and he was killed. Before he had the chance to publish a story. Maybe Lanny was killed because he knew about these documents — to stop him from making them public.
Whereas Tanner was still alive. Maybe that was because someone wanted to get that computer back. And once they’d gotten it, they’d surely kill him too.
So: no. The computer had to stay hidden, held as a hostage.
But it occurred to him, with a spasm of terror, that maybe things had changed. Maybe things weren’t so simple anymore. Maybe having the laptop hidden away wasn’t enough to keep him safe.
After all, he had killed a man.
Maybe that had marked him. Maybe he was in a different category now. Maybe they knew he’d done it. They — whoever sent the tattooed guy after Tanner — would have a pretty good idea of who must have done it, a couple of blocks from the Tanner Roast office and roastery.
He heard a key turning in the front-door lock and for a moment he froze. He looked around for a weapon, something he could use if it came to that. A lamp? Then his eyes lit upon the fireplace and the metal tools next to it, including a fireplace poker. That would do nicely. He grabbed it and took a few steps toward the entry hall, poker up in the air, ready to swing, in case—
“Whoa there, dude,” Carl said.
“Sorry.” As he lowered the poker, he realized his hand was shaking.
Carl frowned. “Did something happen?”
Tanner shook his head.
“Someone try to get in?” Carl was maybe twenty feet away, but Tanner could smell the funk of his sweat. He was just back from a day of lessons and classes and he hadn’t taken a shower.
“No. But it’s only a matter of time. They’ve already been looking for me at work. I’m sure they looked at my house. Now I’ve gotta move.”
“But who’s been looking for you?”
“I have no idea who. They say Homeland Security. But I don’t know.”
Carl crinkled his brow. “FBI, maybe?”
“I don’t think so.”
“CIA? Some other three-letter agency?”
Tanner shrugged.
“Where are you gonna move to? Come on, man, I’m worried.”
“I don’t know, but I have an idea. I need to see my wife.”
“Can we talk?” Tanner said.
“Uh-oh. Now it’s your turn,” Sarah said.
“This is really important.”
Her tone changed suddenly. “What is it?”
“I can’t talk on the phone.” Maybe he was being unduly paranoid, but he assumed that they had the ability to listen in on Sarah Tanner’s mobile phone and that they might in fact be doing it. He didn’t want to take the chance.