The Cloud (29 page)

And I’m not sure I even want to know this about him, or for that matter, about anyone else. It’s like this document is letting me look into his soul, his digital soul.

I’m about to close the challenger’s file and shut the machine when something catches my eye. Atop the challenger’s file is an icon that looks like his face. Beneath it is a file name with the extension “.mov”. Now that I think about it, I realize I’ve seen similar links inside the files of the other candidates, but with their own faces as icons.

.mov—isn’t that a movie file?

I click on it, feeling a sense of dread. Am I going to see images from the sex sites the candidate thought he was surreptitiously surfing?

The file opens. The grainy movie starts to play. It’s an image of the candidate himself, from mid-breast up. His hair looks tousled, the slick look distinctly absent; he’s got stubble, wears a white V-necked shirt. He’s facing the camera but seemingly not aware of it. He’s looking a few inches below at something that has him rapt. He doesn’t blink. He swallows hard.

On the right of the movie screen, there’s an information box. It shows a time stamp, indicating this home movie was shot about five months ago, just before 2
A.M
. And there’s a web site: Barebackbabes.

No, I realize, not a home movie. The candidate didn’t realize he was being observed.

“No way,” I mutter.

I scroll back through a couple of other candidates from across the country. Most have similar movie attachments, 95 percent at least. “No fucking way, Fred,” I repeat. “How?”

I look at the laptop, near the top, the innocuous little opening that houses a camera, standard in most computers these days, used for Skype or video conferencing or whatever. “Jesus, Fred.”

But better to confirm what I’m looking at than do a wild conclusion leap.

Less than two minutes later, I’m back at the alley behind Pastime. I poke my head in and ask one of the regulars playing pool in the back if she might tell Nat I’ve got his laptop. Not long after, Nat appears. I give him his laptop.

“Pickwick is back,” he says.

“Hearty?”

“Who?”

“The big guy from before.”

He nods. I think over why he might be at the bar, even though we’re not supposed to meet for another twenty hours.

“Is this guy a source?” Nat asks.

“Not yet.”

“Is he following you?”

I don’t answer but shrug in a way that suggests affirmation.

“You have a cell phone, Z?”

“I nod.” Not mine. Fred’s.

“You might want to turn it off,” Nat says. “It’s an easy way for someone to track you. They triangulate the signal, et cetera, et cetera.”

“I miss being subject to a good old-fashioned physical stakeout.”

He laughs. “Cell-phone surveillance is standard operating procedure for the 21st-century bad guy or cop. They can track you to a general area, within about three hundred feet, but not to a precise location . . .” He pauses. “This sounds serious.”

I think about it. Maybe Hearty figured I’d be back here at some point and he wants to keep the pressure up. Or maybe this tough guy and his henchman tracked Fred’s phone. So they know I’m in the area. I feel Fred’s phone in my pocket. It’s got a sticky smudge along the bottom. Blood.

“Tell Pickwick you just saw me out back and I’m reachable on Fred’s phone.”

“Fred?”

I look away and exhale, lightly shaking my head. Not talking about it.

“You want me to call the cops?”

“I got this.”

He cocks his head, takes it in. “You want someone to ride shotgun?”

“You’ve got a pregnant gal. How’s she holding up?”

“Pauline. Polly. She’s showing. She’s tired as hell but I can’t wipe the grin off my face.”

“You looking forward to having a kid?”

“You’ve got no idea, Z.”

I love the look in his eye. I wonder if I’d have ever felt like that if I knew I was going to be a dad.

“You need a head start—before I give a heads-up to that thug?”

I shake my head.

Nat says: “I’m not sure what his medical condition is, but he’s got one. It’s going to cost him agility, leave him short of breath. Aim for the kidneys.”

It seems like he’s mostly joking. But I’m taking the counsel to heart. I head back to my car. I feel the sordid thumb drive in my pocket. I’m a tinderbox.

6

N
o sooner have I climbed into the smart car and revved the engine than the sedan with the dented hood—the one I pounced on hours earlier—comes around the corner. Hearty and his muscle. Just like I’d hoped.

They follow a half block behind me, keeping a respectful distance. I can imagine what they’re thinking: I’m not likely to do something too rash as long as there’s a possibility that they might kill some kid named Ezekiel who may belong to my bloodline.

I wonder if they know about Fred. Dead Fred.

I lead them down the peaks of Potrero Hill into the Mission flatlands. I’m waiting for something, an idea, a strategy. And then a wrinkle appears, wrapped in an industrial-strength pickup truck. I see it on the corner of Van Ness as I pass through on Sixteenth. I can’t believe my eyes. It’s being driven by the guy who killed Fred.

I recognize the long features, a mullet, upturned jacket collar and absence of any worldly conscience. In the streetlight glow, I see him catch my gaze, and then his dull black eyes widen. He’s noticed the sedan behind me, and its driver and passenger. He clearly didn’t expect to see them in the picture.

Interesting.

So maybe these guys aren’t pals after all. If not, what’s their relationship?

The pickup tries to turn behind me, but the sedan speeds ahead and cuts it off. No, definitely not pals. So it’s me, Hearty and his muscle, and then the pickup.

I pass a taqueria and a late-night Mexican bakery and hear my stomach growl. I glance in the rearview mirror. I see the passenger in the sedan craning his neck back to eye the killer in the pickup. He turns back to the driver, looking wary. This slow-speed chase is looking more and more like a three-way standoff, not two against one.

But how did the guy in the pickup know to find me, or us, if the group isn’t in cahoots? Could he also be tracking Fred’s phone?

I look at the clock. It’s 11:25. I glance again in the rearview mirror. I see the thug in the passenger seat glance behind him, then put something on the dashboard. A gun.

Near the freeway underpass, I slow down at a red light. Wondering just how much trouble I’ve gotten myself in by working under the assumption that I simply must be smarter than these meatheads. But these meatheads have guns and some killer motivation. Fred’s phone rings.

I look down. Private caller. The light turns green. I open the phone to answer the call and hit the button to put it on the speaker setting.

“Clock’s ticking.” It’s Hearty.

“Nifty plan,” I say.

“What’s that?”

“Call me while I’m driving so that I get distracted and crash into a truck.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t allow you to die until I get the thumb drive. It’s nonnegotiable. The information on it is irrelevant to you but is important to very important, and powerful, people. The technology can’t fall into the wrong hands.”

Technology. Interesting word choice.

“Whose hands would that be?” I ask.

In the second I wait for him to respond, the phone beeps. Another incoming call. Private number.

“Hold on.”

“What?”

On the phone, I click to take the other call.

“You took Mr. Sandoval’s phone.” It takes me a second to recognize the voice of Fred’s killer. But I’m not surprised to hear from him.

“Do you always refer to the people you kill with such formality?”

He grunts.

“I could use it to dial the cops right now,” I say.

“But you haven’t. You should. I’m sure they’d like to know the whereabouts of the guy who took that poor dead guy’s phone, same guy whose fingerprints are all over his office.”

I want to kill him.

Behind me, someone honks. Then another honk. I look up. I’m cruising too slowly as I pass the Opera House. But I’m lost in a thought, an idea, the outlines of one, fueled by my intensifying hatred for all these guys, and what I saw on that thumb drive.

I say: “Fred’s phone isn’t the only thing I found in his office.”

“Meaning what?”

I punch the accelerator, the car pushing forward like my thoughts. The guys following me don’t seem much like they like each other. Maybe they’re competing for this thumb drive. Willing to do anything to get it. I need to up the stakes.

I take a flyer, vaguely remembering something I read on the thumb drive, a couple of the searches.

“Colorado Springs.”

“What about it?”

“A guy in a tight house race. He seems to have a thing for watching the rough stuff. The kind of videos where women really do not seem to be enjoying themselves. At least, that’s what I infer he’s into from his Internet searches.”

“You’re bullshitting.” It’s not clear if this terrifies or thrills him.

“Maybe he doesn’t hurt anyone himself. Just watches the videos. No biggie, right? Everyone’s got their deal. The thing is, it’s not just him.”

“What?”

“Another guy out of Denver. Similar tastes. Probably just a coincidence. Though they do come from the same party.”

No response. Heavy breathing. I’ve got him, even if I’m not sure how.

“It could throw the whole election,” the horse-faced killer finally blurts.

Now I’ve got it, or I’m pretending to. “Craters the party in Colorado.” Which party, I don’t know. I’m riffing. “At least with the female voters. And it’s just the beginning. It could cost an entire party the house, the senate, who knows? Everything.”

“Who knows about this?”

“Fred, me . . .” I pause, just for an instant. “That guy in the sedan behind me.”

“You gave it to
him
?!”

“You killed Fred.”

“He was threatening me, this country. It was self-defense. This is bigger than you, bigger than me. It’s about the country.”

“Save it for Oprah when you get out of prison. Hold on.”

“What?”

I click back to Hearty, my brain racing.

He says: “You have the drive. What are you proposing?”

“Slow down. Two words for you: Colorado Springs.”

On my right, I’m passing the Tenderloin, my apartment a few blocks to the right, then a mattress store that has been offering the same grand-opening prices for a decade.

“What about Colorado?”

I give Hearty the same spiel I gave the other guy, but with a twist. I tell Hearty the other guy already knows the story, all the info. I lay it on thick. “And Colorado is just the beginning,” I explain. “One state after the next, one race after the next. Could change everything.”

“You’re bullshitting,” he says. I nearly laugh. These guys sound like parrots. Parrots who are frothing at the mouth, carrying heat. Hearty protests: “How could you give it to that guy? He’s a killer.”

“Not of kids. Gotta run. Battery’s low.”

I hang up, just as I reach Bay Street, a fork in the road. To the right, downtown. To the left, the marina, the Golden Gate Bridge. I see the light in front of me start to turn yellow. I slow down to let it turn red. I squirm around in the tiny cockpit so I can open my window and pull the thumb drive from my pocket.

I hold the drive out the window, extending it high with my long ostrich wing. Showing it to my trackers. Look, guys, the most dangerous secrets in America. Come and get it.

I peel through the red light and turn left.

My dutiful trackers follow: continuing our cartoonish caravan; the putt-putt smart car valiantly peaking at 45 miles an hour, the dented sedan, the ominous pickup. I am trying to leave the impression that I’m trying to get away. But I’m not really. I’m just getting the last of the choreography together in my head. Pick the right location. Somewhere dark, shrouded, free of innocent bystanders.

I take a right toward the water, heading to the marina, reminding me of Santa Cruz, those idyllic days by the water with Meredith. I put her out of my mind with a glance in the rearview mirror, see the attentive thugs.

Looming above me, the Golden Gate Bridge. Its bottom half gleams in the moonlight, the upper spans splotched with fog. I’ve seen a million pictures taken of moments just like these, aiming to capture the swirling beauty of man’s attempt to triumph over nature, a gorgeous engineering feat, but with nature, in the way of the fog, getting the last word.

That’s it. Just what I’m looking for. Not the bridge, the view. It’s given me an idea of a place where I can get a tactical advantage, if there is even one to be had.

I’m pushing the accelerator as I putt-putt my tin can up and through the Presidio. I’m trying to get some distance between me and the thugs, but manage just fifty yards or so. Within a few minutes, I’ve powered through the ritzy Sea Cliff neighborhood and found myself in the quiet, tree-shrouded edge of the public golf course that hovers along the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Without warning, I pull my car over in a spot along the seventeenth hole. I unfurl myself, climb out, and start ostrich-loping.

7

I
don’t turn around until I’ve nestled myself behind a tree along the cliff. It’s desolate, a low wind sweeping across the short, three-par hole, and it’s beautiful. Behind me, I can see the bridge reflecting moonlight.

I’m being followed by the parade of killers and would-be killers, the puffy guy from the bar and his pal in the lead, the horse-faced guy bringing up the rear, all huffing, just like me. But there’s a difference: all three have their guns drawn. This is going to be tricky.

They’ve stopped, and spread out a bit, Hearty to the far right, his henchman just to his left, Fred’s killer farther over still. They’re all crouched. Battle positions.

I yell: “Promise you won’t kill Zeke.”

The three pause. They can’t tell my precise location. I’m north of them, behind the tree, bushes surrounding, a good place to lose a golf ball, an impossible place for me to get shot, at least at this angle.

“You have my word.” It’s the puffy guy from the bar.

I hear a dark purring of low-level laughter. It belongs to Fred’s killer. “Your word?!” he exclaims. A terse wind gusts across the fairway. “You’ll say anything to get what you want. Don’t listen to him. Give me the computer drive and I’ll make things right.”

Now it’s Hearty’s turn to guffaw. “
I’ll
say anything?! Look in the mirror. You’re in this for yourself, period. You want one thing: power. You’ll do and say anything to get it.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up!” That voice belongs to the third guy, the one closer to the middle, the guy who whacked me in the leg. “You two are ridiculous. Birds of a fucking feather.”

The birds begin to squabble. I see guns pointed. I’ve got them plenty heated up. This just might work.

“I’ll give it up, the thumb drive,” I shout. “First I want answers.”

They’re paused. They look in my direction. I hear a foghorn in the distance. I work up some energy to spout out my theory. I say: “Fred figured out how to tap into the computers of all the candidates for higher office. He’s got their Internet searches. He can expose their digital secrets, their secret desires and queries.”

I pause.

“It’s private,” one of the thugs says. “It’s stolen. Besides, it doesn’t necessarily say anything about their core values.”

I ignore him. “He stored it all on some Google server somewhere, in one of those massive data warehouses. Someplace you couldn’t possibly find. And he made a copy for himself, the one in my pocket. You guys pieced it together. How? Did he start threatening to go public?”

Another silence. Then: “You hear about the Republican in Macon who pulled out of the twelfth-district race?” It’s the third guy, Hearty’s henchman.

“Enlighten me.”

“The local paper got tipped off to the fact she’d been shopping around to find a discreet place to get her daughter an abortion. She was ardently pro-life.”

“Fred gave it to them.”

“It was his test case. We figured it out. Realized he’d put together a dossier.”

“We?”

They start squabbling.

“And the movies,” I shout over them.

I prompt a silence, the low wind coursing through it.

“He managed to get video of the candidates, in real time, as they did their searches.” I’m musing, guessing. I’m picturing the image of the presidential challenger, hair tousled, sitting at his desk doing some lurid search. Most of the search logs on the computer drive had attendant movie files. This part I can’t quite figure.

“He used the cameras built into their own laptops, in a few cases, on their phones.” It’s Hearty’s pal again, the muscle, sensing my uncertainty, filling in blanks. “Everyone has a camera these days, for videoconferencing or whatever. He just programmed the devices to record every time there was an Internet search. It’s basic stuff. Think of all the Internet searches you’ve done. You really think those are private. You think Google or Yahoo doesn’t know. It’s their business to know. Fred figured out a wrinkle, pairing the searches with video; I’m sure lots of bad dudes have been working on developing the same technology, or have it. More than these two turkeys want the disk, they want Fred’s IP.”

“Not true,” Hearty protests.

“I’d absolutely deny it,” exclaims Fred’s killer.

“You really think your data is
that
secure. Jesus, the Pentagon can’t keep people out of its servers.” The third guy inserts himself over them. “What makes you think you can keep people out of your MacBook Air?”

“I’ve got a desktop.”

No response. Maybe we’ve hit an impasse, or this Luddite revelation is truly a conversation-deadening admission. In the void, I have a realization.

“Which one of you guys is the Republican?”

No answer.

“One of you guys is a Republican, and one is a Democrat. You’re party honchos. You were working together to try to track down Fred and his computer drive. But then you turned on each other.”

“Guy’s a hypocrite,” shouts one. “Oh that’s rich,” shouts the other. “You’re destroying this country with your lies.”

“Hey! Enough!” My voice cuts through the squabbling. I look up and see the rogue’s moon; full, shadowed by high clouds, just the way the old-time pirates liked it so they could sneak up on the galleons.

“Come and get it.”

I toss the thumb drive out into the middle of the fairway, almost equidistant from the killers. I can see it bounce in a patch of moonlight and settle somewhere in the darkness.

There’s a moment of silence.

A gunshot rings out.

I peer into the darkness. A muzzle flash, then another. A blaze of gunfire. I see the puffy guy fall, then Fred’s killer. I tuck myself against the tree. The flurry of firing slows. I peer out again. The henchman still stands, wobbly but walking. The guys on the ground are moaning, bullet-riddled, moribund.

The guy walks over to the area of the thumb drive.

“Help,” he mutters.

“Who are you?” I shout.

“This is not my problem. These guys are crazed hypocrites. I’m independent.”

“Who?”

“Swing vote.” He reaches down to pick up the thumb drive.

Two shots ring out, from the fallen, writhing killers. The guy in the middle goes down in a heap.

I hear sirens, distant, approaching. I crouch, listening. The thugs’ moaning has stopped, the writhing ceased. I scramble back across the fairway. I pause to look at the bodies. The puffy guy, the one who threatened me, totally dead, looks to have dented the grass with his heavy body. I’ll have to ask Nat, but I wonder if he could be suffering elephantiasis.

I turn to the other guy, the one who killed Fred. Equally deceased. With his mane of a mullet and long face. I make a note to figure out what medical condition makes you look like a dead donkey. I thoroughly wipe down Fred’s phone and slip it, fingerprint free, into the dead guy’s shirt pocket. The cops can make the connection.

I pick up the thumb drive.

I hustle to my car and jam myself inside. I drive back out through the Presidio. When I reach an overlook, I stop. I yank myself out of the car. I throw the drive into the ocean.