The Pandora Key (21 page)

“Tell me where you got this,” I said, waiting for my programs to load.

“I told you, I copied it from the laptop that belonged to Roger Fratello, then erased it from the hard drive. As long as that was the only one, this is now the only one.”

“Where is the laptop?”

“I’m not saying.”

That was a problem. I had been around Felix long enough to know that just erasing a file didn’t really kill it. But I was hoping that Roger being dead might buy me some time on full eradication. Theoretically, no one would be looking for the video but me.

I pulled up Explorer while he bounced up and down…checked the window…wound his watch…went to the sink to throw cold water on his face…. He had a point about the software thing. If my machine couldn’t recognize the drive, I had problems. I opened the small device, inserted it into the USB port, held my breath, and…nothing happened.

Shit.

I sat for a moment, considering the options. I could go online and search for the necessary software and download it, but I had never tried to access the Internet in France. I got out my cell phone and started to dial my best option.

Kraft rushed over. “What are you doing?”

“It doesn’t work. I’ll have to go to plan B.”

“Forget that.” He ripped the drive from the port. Arrogant prick. Time for a bluff. I signed off, closed down, and started packing to go.

“Wait a minute. I delivered. You owe me that contact list.”

“If I can’t verify that you delivered, I can’t give you the list. Sorry.”

“Just…just slow the fuck down here.” He put his hands on either side of his head as he paced around the small room, eyes to the ceiling. He looked as if steam might start issuing from his ears at any second. “Okay, stop. Let’s just stop right here.” I hadn’t even moved off the bed. He had a way of saying things to me that mostly applied to him. “What can I do to convince you?”

I thought about that. Maybe he was onto something. I spied an unopened bag of pretzels on the dresser. Except for breakfast a few hours earlier, I hadn’t eaten much in the past few days. “Can I have those?”

“They’re stale. Here…” Suddenly very accommodating, he went over to a Styrofoam cooler on the floor, pulled out a full-size bag, the kind you get at the grocery store, and tossed it over. His generosity, though, seemed to go only as far as snack goods, because, when he went in again, he came out with only one bottle of beer. I would have berated him, but I didn’t need to be drinking anyway.

The plastic wrapping on the pretzels was still cold from being stored in the cooler. I opened the bag and stuffed a few of the salty delights into my mouth.

“Where did you get Roger’s laptop?”

“Bought it from a kid with a goat.”

“Where?”

“Afghanistan. What is this? Twenty questions?”

“This is plan C. I need to know more about Blackthorne. You seem to know about them, so let’s talk for a while and see if we can find some common ground.” If I was right about Max Kraft, Investigative Journalist, he was itching to tell someone his story.

He twisted the cap off the bottle and took a swig, then moved back to the chair, set the bottle on the little, round, fake-wood-grain table next to it, and seemed to settle in.

“The story of a lifetime cost me fifty bucks and an Elton John CD.” He savored the thought, much like he savored his cold beer.

“What’s the story?”

“I won’t tell you that.”

“It’s Blackthorne, isn’t it? Something about the private army? The CIA? Stephen Hoffmeyer.” I threw everything out there. Something had to stick, and I knew I was on the right track. The last guy I’d seen nervous enough to be peeking through the curtains was Lyle Burquart.

“I don’t think you need to know. You don’t want to know.”

“How did you know the computers were in Zormat?”

He squeezed one eye shut and looked at me with the other. “I never said Zormat.”

“You haven’t mentioned Salanna 809, either. But I know that’s where you got the machine, from the hijacking victims’ stuff in Zormat. Roger Fratello was on that flight as Gilbert Bernays, who seems to be dead. That’s how his computer got into the closet.”

He stared at me, seemingly confused about whether to view me as a threat or a source. “The locals got into the house before the CIA ever showed up. They stripped it clean. My contacts got word to me. I have a lot of contacts. I went there, I checked out the merchandise, and I bought it.”

“Just Roger’s?”

“No comment.”

That meant there were more, and he had them. “One of the hostages said Roger claimed to have a billion dollars on his laptop.”

“A billion dollars? What, are you kidding?”

“It’s what I heard.” I got out my notebook and flipped to the Frank pages. “He said Roger used the machine to try to ransom himself off, but he couldn’t access the money. Something was missing. Maybe a password?”

I looked up at him. This didn’t seem to be something he already knew about, which meant he was interested. “Where would he get a billion dollars? Is that what he embezzled from that…that—”

“Betelco. I don’t think so. Roger told this other hostage he’d stolen it off a dead Russian, the one on the video.” I pointed to the drive he’d ripped from my machine. It was still in his fist. He looked at it.

“The one Rachel killed.”

“Yeah. I know that she took cash belonging to Vladi.” She and Harvey had pulled it from the trunk of the car. “It ended up in a safety deposit box in Brussels. So far, she hasn’t mentioned any billion-dollar computer.” That she hadn’t mentioned it, of course, did not preclude the fact that she knew about it.

He held up the drive. “This video came off a machine belonging to Roger Fratello. It had an e-mail program, a bunch of files with memos and business-related stuff he wrote. I didn’t see anything that looked like a billion dollars, and I looked all through it. It was one of the few I didn’t need a translator for.”

I leaned back on the bed, bracing myself with my arms behind me. “I wonder what it would look like. What do you think? Secret accounts? Treasure map?”

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s probably it. A treasure map. Yo-ho-ho.”

“Whatever it was,” I said, “I don’t think Roger could get to it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Think about it. A computer has something on it worth a billion dollars. Wouldn’t you encrypt it or protect it somehow, just in case someone boosted it? And whatever that protection was—the password or the code or the key—wouldn’t you be likely to keep that on you?”

“Yes on both counts. So what?”

I had a few pretzels. They were good and fresh. “This e-mail that accidentally fell out of Roger’s out-box when you signed on, it was to Rachel, and it was asking for the location of Vladi’s grave.”

“Vladi, the dead Russian?”

“Yep.”

“What, you’re thinking the dead Russian still has this…this code or key or whatever it is on him?”

“Well, it would have been more viable four years ago, I would think, when Roger actually intended to send the message.”

“Hey,” he said. “Here’s what I want to know. How the hell is this guy’s account still active if he’s dead?”

I thought about that. If it was a business account, it would have been paid for through Betelco. Since he’d been on the lam at the time he sent it, that wasn’t likely. “His wife,” I said, remembering the look on Susan Fratello’s face when I’d asked her if she would want to know if Roger were alive. “His wife might have kept it open all these years.”

He smiled for the first time and pointed the longneck at me. “Grave robbing. I like it. A little creepy but a good angle. Too bad I’m not doing that story.” Then he shrugged. “But who gives a shit? Russians…obscene amounts of money. It’s been done.”

“Was Vladi’s one of the computers you bought from the kid with the goat? Do you have the billion-dollar treasure map?”

He sat back and stretched with his hands over his head. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

I did want to know. I wasn’t sure I needed to know, because I had no plans to dig up Vladi, not even for a billion dollars. But when I didn’t jump all over his idea, he got agitated.

“You do, don’t you? Don’t you want to know if I have a computer worth a billion clams?”

Kraft was a unique personality, to be sure. He was either flush with confidence to the point of overbearing arrogance or anxious and needy to the point of mewling. He didn’t seem afraid to be either.

“Why? Are you interested in a trade?”

“You told me you had information to give me on Blackthorne. I need to know what you have and where you got it.”

“Yeah, I made that up.” I rolled up out of my tilt and pulled my notebook from my backpack. “I don’t have much. I heard something about them from another guy who is also scared to death of them.” I glanced up at Kraft. “Same as you, right? Isn’t that who has you peeking out from behind the curtains? Mr. Black and Mr. Thorne?”

“Tony Blackmon is dead, Cyrus Thorne is running the show, and I have good reason to be careful.”

Kraft stood up and started pacing around the room again. He forgot his beer, went back for it, looked in the mirror, then finally turned and sat sidesaddle with one foot on the floor and one dangling. “This guy you talked to, who is he? What’s his name?”

“He was a reporter. He said he dug too deep into Blackthorne. Now he’s a—” Kraft was about to fall off his perch waiting for my answer. “Now he’s not.”

“What’s his name? I’ll bet I’ve already talked to him.”

Max Kraft was a tricky guy, but Lyle had made it pretty clear he wanted nothing to do with Blackthorne. It wasn’t for me to be throwing his name around. “All I can tell you is he was doing a story on the 809 hijacking. Somehow he ran into Blackthorne. He told me to steer clear of them. I’m trying to take his advice.”

He wet his lips. “I can tell you what he wouldn’t.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I want to talk to him. I want his name.”

“I won’t give it to you.”

“If he dropped the story, he doesn’t deserve your protection.” He took another swig of beer. Judging from the face he made, either the beer was flat, or he had a deep and genuine contempt for Lyle. “No journalist worth his ink would or should ever drop a story like this. People need to know. But it’s his loss. This is Pulitzer time, baby. You watch. My story will blow the doors off.”

“Good for you.” I stood.

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t need a billion dollars, if it even exists. I’m not giving you the name of my Blackthorne source. But I do have this.” I pulled out the 809 manifest and held it up. “The names and contacts of most of those people from Salanna 809 are on here. I’m violating all kinds of confidences by giving it to you, and I’m taking your word on the video, but I’ll still make the trade.”

He opened his hand, looked at the flash drive, and tossed it over. I flipped the manifest onto the bed. Then I thought of one more question. “Do you know why Blackthorne would be tailing Rachel?”

He had been reaching for the manifest. He stopped. “Rachel, the one who got the message from my computer?”

“Well, technically, Roger’s computer, but yes. They tried to scoop her up last night. We just got away, and they weren’t nice.” I brushed away my bangs to show him my forehead. “What would they want with her?”

“Shit.” He went back over to the window and peeked out. “Blackthorne is trying to kill me. They’ve been chasing me all over the world trying to get to me, and you’re just telling me this?”

“Why is Blackthorne trying to kill you?”

“Because my story is going to blow—”

“Blow the doors off. You told me, but you won’t tell me why. It’s a little vague for me to really connect with. What I heard is that it’s a private military firm out of Virginia that contracts with the U.S. government and others to provide services up to and including combat. Also intelligence.”

“That’s how it started, and that’s what it looks like, but that’s not what it is now. Blackthorne is the CIA on steroids. What the CIA would like to be if it weren’t for the Constitution and government oversight and diplomacy and international laws and political infighting and lots of ass-covering.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“All you need to know is they don’t want anyone to read what I’m writing, and the only reason they would be tailing her would be to get to me.”

My backpack was getting heavy, so I sat down on the edge of the bed again to try to think that through. Something about it didn’t work. “If you’re the only thing that connects Rachel to Blackthorne, how would they have known about her? Until an hour ago, neither one of us knew who you were.”

“The e-mail. That goddamn e-mail that I didn’t even send.” He was starting to move around the room with purpose now, collecting his dirty clothes from the floor and throwing them into a canvas bag. “I told you I was using translators? I had one who found out Thorne was looking for me. He copied a bunch of my files and sold them to him behind my back. That has to be it.” He tossed his kit bag into the larger canvas bag. “But it doesn’t matter. If they know about her, then they know about you, and if they know you’re in Paris, then I’m fucked.”

Interesting wording. It was exactly what Lyle had said. So far, everyone I knew who was connected to Blackthorne was fucked. But I had to get back to an earlier point. “Did you just say that Thorne had copies of some of your files?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

I pulled the USB drive from my pocket. “From before or after you erased Rachel’s video?”

“I don’t know. I guess…uh…” He leaned over to stuff one of the hotel’s fresh white towels into his bag, which was the only reason the round that crashed through the window, twitched the curtains, and flew past my ear missed his head and lodged instead in the cheap hotel wall behind him.

22

MAX KRAFT WAS OBVIOUSLY USED TO BEING SHOT AT. HE hit the deck loudly and promptly.

“Mother
fucker.”

I was right behind him. Another round came through the window and punched through the drywall, this time around bed height. The window must have been shatter-proof, because it popped with the sound of each shot but didn’t break. With the heavy curtains drawn, whoever was out there had to have been firing blind, which was to our advantage.