Outrage (3 page)

“You know her better than I do,” Sync said. “If she knew there was a Dash double out there, how would she react?”

Cartwell rubbed the side of his face, thinking, then said, “I don't know. She's got half a billion dollars with us so far, and she's already had two rounds of chemo, so she knows we're working on her as a priority. But the reality of what that means—”

“Is she stable?” Sync asked. “Mentally stable?”

“She's got a lot going on. The cancer, the stink from her husband's hedge fund, and trying to work out his estate…” He did the lip-scraping thing again, then: “Maybe we'll let it go for now. Admitting we lost the girl won't inspire a lot of confidence.”

They were still talking about it when Harmon came in from the bedroom and handed Cartwell his phone back. “She's in Reno,” he said. “The Bones Motel and Casino. Some kind of low-rent place on the edge of town.”

Sync: “The Bones?”

“Like in ‘rolling the bones'—rolling the dice,” Harmon said.

Thorne punched the air with his fist, then looked past Sync and Harmon at Cartwell. “Give me the jet, Micah, I can have a team there in two hours.”

“You've got it,” Cartwell said. “Let's get this done.”

“We will,” Thorne said, and walked away, already on his phone.

The seizure on the bathroom floor lasted ninety seconds, with Twist holding Fenfang's wire-plaited head in his lap and twice taking a bony elbow to the windpipe: like getting hit with a fire poker. Both jabs hurt, and when she finally went still and her eyelids fluttered, he croaked, “What'd you tell Singular? Are they coming?”

“I…What?” she said. Her eyes were cloudy, dazed. “How am I here?”

Odin, crouched to one side of her with the spit-soaked washcloth, looked back and forth between Twist and his sister, who'd held down the young woman's legs, and said, “She didn't make the call, okay? It's not her fault.”

Shay said, “Hey! Odin! Singular murdered our friend. They tortured you, and you almost died. I don't want to hear any crap about whose fault is whose. If she's on their side, we're gonna drop her in a ditch and keep going.”

“I am on
your
side,” she said softly.

Shay glared at the Chinese girl and held out her recovered knife. “Yeah? Who used my phone? Who tried to stab me?”

Cade and Cruz came crashing through the door, called back by Shay during the seizure. Fenfang struggled with her question and said, “I do not know about a knife. I would not hurt you; it is my promise. This must be Charlotte. I am Fenfang.”

Odin, his face reddening, tried again. “It's like when that beaten-down Asian guy on File 12 says he's Robert G. Morris of St. Louis—that's who he is. Whether he exists as himself anymore, or they killed those memories, we don't know. One thing we do know”—he touched the center of the young woman's forehead—“Fenfang from Dandong is still here.”

Fenfang clasped his hand in gratitude. “Yes,” she said.

Twist said, “All right. But…who is Charlotte?”

Fenfang turned toward him. “I do not know. I know Charlotte. I know some things about her, but they are more facts than memories. Names…and many numbers…she is one hundred thirty-six pounds, her house is 524. I know her house security codes, her business security codes; she has passwords, she has telephone numbers.”

Odin took Shay's phone out of her hands, found the last outgoing call, and showed it to Fenfang: “You know this number?”

She squinted at it and said, “I know the name with it: Cartwell.”

Twist said, “Cartwell is Singular's CEO. She went right to the top.” Cade glanced at the door and said, “We gotta get out of here.”

“Yes, but not in two minutes,” Cruz said. “We have a little time before he could do anything.”

Twist said, “If she's got all these security measures, if she's talking to Cartwell, she's probably one of Singular's backers.”

“I do not know this Cartwell, only the number,” Fenfang said. “I know another important number has the name White. Another important number is Jackson. I know eight of these numbers with names.”

Cade opened his laptop. “Fenfang, give me those phone numbers.”

She was getting some strength back and pushed herself up on her elbows and rattled off a string of eight phone numbers. Cade typed them, and Odin went to stand over his shoulder. Odin asked, “Where are you?”

“Twenty-two Hornet,” Cade said.

Odin patted his shoulder. “Okay.”

A minute later, as Twist and Shay got Fenfang to her feet, Cade said, “That White number? That's the office phone for Harry White, the U.S. Senate majority leader.”

“Shit,” Twist said.

“Got her,” Cade said. “Charlotte Coulter Dash…”

“Holy cats,” Twist said. “
Senator
Dash?”

“Yup,” said Cade, who was already skimming her Wiki page. “Charlotte Coulter Dash is the senior U.S. senator from New Mexico. Second-term Democrat, age forty-eight. Her husband, Huck Dash, ran a hedge fund called Hondo Investments until last December, when he croaked. Dude was like the forty-ninth-richest human on the planet. Says she's a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; there's a photo of her on Fox News.”

Twist slapped his forehead. “She's in charge of our spies.”

“Merry Christmas and happy birthday,” Cruz said. “Now let's get out of here before the FBI arrives.” He surveyed the room. “If you guys pack, I'll wipe everything down.”

Fenfang: “Wipe?”

“Fingerprints,” he said. He turned to Shay and asked, “Where's the phone she used?”

“It's the one I bought this morning,” Shay said.

Cruz took it from her, got the steel bolt cutters, and used them to snap it in half. The others watched, caught a little off guard by the destruction, though X, standing next to Cruz, seemed completely calm about it. Cruz said, “We won't make the mistake of using it again.”

“Where we going?” Odin asked.

Twist was already on the iPad, looking at maps. “Las Vegas. We can be there in seven hours.”

“Why Vegas?” Cade asked as he began gathering up computer gear.

“Because it's big and it's full of tourists coming and going and it has about a million motels,” said Twist. “Plus, it's only about four hours from L.A., where we've got help if we need it.”

“Maybe we should dump the Jeep,” Cade said. “West's plates could give us away.”

“I'd like to keep it if we can,” said Shay, and Twist heard the slight choke in her voice. “It's got some capabilities you don't have in a Camry. No offense, Toyota.”

Cruz caught Shay's eye and spoke to her directly: “Plates won't be a problem. I'll take care of it.”

They were ready to go in ten minutes. Cruz, the tattooed, muscular ex–gang member, sounding like a mom—“Don't touch that. Don't touch that,
Jesucristo,
don't touch that!”—and wiping behind them.

“Fenfang's awfully visible,” Odin said. The Chinese girl was watching them all from the bed, still barefoot and wrapped in the dead-gray hospital smock.

“Wig shop,” Shay said. “I'll go in; her head's about the same size as mine. Then we'll stop at a mall—I saw one on my way here. Anybody needs anything, we can get it there.”

“I'll need to swing by the airport,” said Cruz.

Shay tilted her head at him, but Twist understood the purpose right away and answered: “Plates.” Cruz nodded and Twist said, “Okay, then, who's driving what?”

Cruz, X, and Shay took the Jeep, headed for Reno-Tahoe International, while the others, in the sedan and the pickup, drove to the mall.

The second level of the airport garage was long-term parking; Shay cruised it until they spotted another Jeep Rubicon, but Cruz said, “Keep going.”

“Why?”

“Because it has Nevada plates. If we look, we'll find one from California.”

“Why California?”

“Because we've got California plates,” he said. “If we stick with the same state, it'll take the owner of the other car longer to notice the change.”

They found a California Rubicon in the next row. Cruz changed out the plates and climbed back in.

The next stop was fast and expensive. They paid four hundred dollars for a jet-black natural-hair wig that fit snugly over Shay's thick, chin-length hair. Shay said that her mother had lost her hair to chemotherapy and didn't want to go anywhere until she had some hair back.

“She doesn't have to be embarrassed, honey,” said the nice lady who ran the shop. “We deal with this all the time. We've put wigs on the showgirls here, and nobody ever knew.”

When they got to the shopping center, they found Cade, Odin, and Twist leaning against the pickup. Cruz pulled into a parking space as close as he could, and Shay and X climbed out, with Cruz a few steps behind them. “Where's Fenfang?” Shay asked.

Twist poked a thumb toward the Camry. “Trying her new clothes.”

Shay leaned toward him. “There're no phones in there?”

“No. We made sure of that.”

Behind them, the back door of the Camry opened, and Fenfang, wearing a yellow shirt, khaki pants, and red high-tops, struggled to get out. Odin hurried over to help, and she told him, “My legs…the nerves…something is not correct.”

“Hey, don't get out yet,” Shay called. Fenfang sat with her legs dangling out of the door, and Shay helped her with the wig. After a few twists and tugs, they got it in place, and Fenfang, straight, shiny hair falling to her shoulders, said, “Yes?”

Shay stepped back. “Yes.”

Fenfang rubbed a lock between her fingers and said, “It is only a costume, but…I feel better.”

“I'm glad,” Shay said.

Odin gave a thumbs-up over Shay's shoulder, and for the first time, Fenfang smiled.

Cruz said he needed to grab something inside the mall. Cade nudged Shay and asked, “When was the last time you ate anything? Like, maybe, yesterday morning?” Shay shrugged: since losing West, she hadn't thought about food except to get a burger for her dog.

“C'mon,” Cade said. “You won't be any good to us if you don't put something in your stomach.” Shay reluctantly agreed to go to the food court with him, they'd get sandwiches for everybody. Odin said he was coming, too, that Shay wouldn't know a vegetarian sandwich “if it bit her in the butt.”

Twist said he'd keep Fenfang company and took charge of X's leash.

“You wanna sit or you wanna practice walking a bit with a gimp and a mutt?” Twist asked Fenfang. Fenfang pushed herself off the backseat and said she'd like to walk. Twist worked the leash and cane in one hand and offered her the crook of his other elbow. She held on lightly and asked, “What is your problem for this cane? You had it when you saved us, so it is from before, yes?”

“Yes, but it's nothing, really. An old…sports injury,” he said. “Now let's talk about you.”

They took a lap around the parking lot, with Twist gently probing about her life back in China. She told him that she'd grown up working seven days a week with her parents on the family rice farm, that they'd never been more than a few months out of debt. There'd been a brother, the firstborn, but he'd died as a toddler. She'd been studying computer science at university and hoped to get a “dream job” with an American-based company in Dandong that would pay her enough that her parents could retire.

“We live with my grandparents, my other relations, too. My best friend from when I was little is always Liko. We were born on the same day.”

Twist had been preoccupied with so many details about the raid and their escape over the last few hours, it hadn't occurred to him that Fenfang might have family back in China that they should contact. He stopped and turned to her.

“Your parents—is there a way to contact them? Email? Phone?” He held up his phone. “We'd have to get you a different phone, one that allows international calls.”

Fenfang let go of Twist, and after some serious thought, she said, “My family will think I am dead, it has been so long. If I contact them now…I do not want to make danger for them.”

Twist nodded. “I understand. But…think about it. You might send them a message of some sort to ease their minds. Let them know you're alive.”

Fenfang looked at him and said, “We will see how my life develops.”

She took his arm to walk again, and turned the conversation back on Twist. “It is very strange that you should be with Shay and Odin. As if they are
your
family. But you do not know each other long.”

Twist was taken aback by Fenfang's directness—but liked it.

“You're right. It is very strange, but Shay isn't somebody you brush off. Never met anyone quite like her. She's got a nose like granite.”

“Granite?”

“It's a rock.”

“I do not understand your idiom,” Fenfang said.

“She's tough. She's made herself tough. Odin…he's what is called a high-functioning autistic. That means—”

“I know this,” Fenfang said. “That may be true with me, also.”

“Okay. Well, their parents got killed, and they were taken in by their grandmother, and when she died, they were moved along to a state agency that takes care of orphans. Odin got involved with computers as a child, and with that peculiar focus that autistic kids can bring to their interests, he's…sort of a genius, I guess. But he's not very socially adept. Shay had always looked out for him, you know, and when he took off after the raid on the lab, she worried he couldn't handle it out in the world, especially not in hiding from Singular. She followed him to L.A., and that's where I met her. They are very unusual people. Both of them.”

“I think you are, too,” Fenfang said.

“Weird's more like it,” said Twist. “I don't try to be, but that's just the way it is. If you're weird, you gotta live with it.”

“I think I am also weird.”

“Good,” said Twist. “Because you know what? When any worthwhile thing is done in the world, it's usually done by somebody weird.”

Fifteen minutes later, Cade, Cruz, Shay, and Odin were back at their cars with bags of food, a pillow, and an evolving plan. Cade would leave the group and drive to Salt Lake City, where he would send a reply to the message on the BlackWallpaper Facebook page. Singular's security experts would track it and, with any luck, conclude that the Rembys, the artist from L.A., and the girl with two brains were hiding out in Salt Lake.

“Need to decide exactly what we want to say,” Cade said.

Shay scowled. “What's there to say besides ‘Go to hell'?”

“I'm not sure it matters what we say,” said Twist. “The point is just to ping them from a state we're not in.”

Cade said, “They were careful and cryptic in their note to us because they're afraid we'll go to the police, and they want deniability. We should think the same way.”

“No. Tell them the truth,” Odin broke in. “Tell them I'm going to crack all the flash drives and spam the FBI and the CIA and the networks with them.”