Viral (12 page)

Outside, he stayed in the shadows—alleyways, awnings, tall buildings—walking past markets and shuttered apartments. The night sky was dark and cloudy. If it took ten minutes to reach 3C Garden Road, that gave him twenty-five minutes to find whatever had been left for him.

GARDEN ROAD WAS SOMETHING
of a misnomer. At the east end was a well-worn dirt field, once a playground, apparently, with a single wood-plank bench and a rusted swing set and a broken whirly-go-round that probably hadn’t been used for years. The next block was a row of rundown apartment houses, some boarded up. Incongruously, a group of old men sat on rusted chairs in front of one, speaking loudly in Swahili as he passed across the street. Jon hugged the shadows and pretended not to notice.

No. 3 was in a five-unit, one-story building, toward the middle of a mostly abandoned block. The apartments were lettered: A, B, C, D, E. Jon opened the screen door to 3C. He tried the knob, felt flakes of rust under his fingers. Locked. He gazed up the street, listening to the hum of electrical wires, the now-distant voices of the men.

He examined the door frame carefully, top to bottom, right side then left. Found that there was a keypad on the left side at just above doorknob level.

Odd.

Or maybe not.

It almost made sense. A rundown, largely shuttered neighborhood. A place his brother wouldn’t have lived but might have been able to access. If this had been installed by his brother, what would he have used as a code? Something simple. Something he would know but other people wouldn’t. Jon Mallory stood in the cooling night air and tried their old house number: 13914. A guess. It didn’t work. Then he thought of another number, which had been their default code as children: 21209. Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.

He heard a click and pushed. The door gave. A simple remote radio transmitter device had been coded to trip the lock. The same principal as car fobs or garage-door openers.

Jon pulled the door closed, letting the lock click back into place. He felt the wall for a light switch, eventually found one. A lampshade
cast a dusty yellow glow across the thin, dirty carpet and mishmash of old furnishings. It was musty and smelled faintly of urine.

On his right was a small kitchen. Jon looked in—dishes in the sink, a pile of papers on the counter.
The New York Times
and the Kenyan papers, all of them weeks old. Bugs scurried away when he lifted one.

In the next room, he found another light switch, lifted it. Nothing happened. Squinting in the darkness, he closed his eyes and then opened them, scanning the room, letting his pupils widen to let in more light, until he began to recognize objects. This was the bedroom: there was a bare mattress on the floor, a crude four-drawer chest beside it, drawers half pulled out, with clothes on the floor—T-shirts, a large pair of jeans. He heard a sound and his thoughts stopped. It came again: water in the pipes?

The bathroom was dark and smelled foul; the glass window was cracked. The porcelain sink and tub showed hard-water stains.

The last room seemed to be a study, with a beat-up antique desk, a dark lumpy armchair, an end table in the middle, and three cardboard boxes lined up against a wall. Jon tried the lamp. No luck. He sat at the desk, taking in the room, which was lit only by the living room lamp. He breathed the dusty air, realizing that the keypad code that had gained him entry to this apartment wasn’t a security measure—it was a breadcrumb, a message from his brother. Somewhere in this apartment there must be another one.

Jon opened the top drawer of the desk, focusing his thoughts on what was in front of him. His fingers traced the edges and found a grip. He lifted it. But there was nothing underneath. It was just a loose square of plywood.

He stood and carefully surveyed the room once more. The end table had a single drawer. He slid it open, found a clutter of newspaper clippings inside—yellowed articles, along with crumpled store receipts, most of them years old. A strange assortment. Could there be a message
here
? He skimmed through them—obituaries, wedding announcements, news stories, seemingly haphazard. Odd. He could take them and check later. But was that really what he was meant to find? As he set them on top of the table, he noticed several thick sheets of cardboard at the bottom of the drawer. Pulling the drawer out all the way, he saw a piece of cardboard taped over a corner. He
lifted it, pulling up the tape. Flush against the wood was a small electronic keypad, this one with the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.

Jon studied the room. What could it open? He felt along the walls for any hidden panel or recession. He walked back through the apartment, then, checking in each of the dimly lit rooms again before returning to the study. Time was running out. It was probably here, in this same room, he sensed. He looked at his watch: five minutes now before he needed to leave. He knelt beside the cardboard boxes, which were flush with the wall, and pulled them away. Behind the one in the corner was a small square of plywood. Jon lifted it, saw where a section of the wall was indented. A wall safe.

He returned to the keypad and began to type—what letters would his brother have chosen, letters no one else would think of? Reflexively, he stopped and listened: voices, coming up the alley behind the apartment. He ducked down, below the desk.

Teenage boys, it seemed, talking in Swahili, stopping behind the apartment. Then silence. Jon counted the seconds. Twelve, thirteen … They began walking again, their voices becoming less distinct.

Jon went back to the keypad. Tried “Marianna.” The street where they had grown up. Too obvious. Then he remembered another code word they had used as a fallback: “Gymnopedies.” One of their mother’s favorite pieces of music.

He heard a click. Again, a simple remote control radio signal, triggering a lock. He knelt and pulled the knob on the wall safe. The door opened.

As he reached inside, Jon heard voices again. Outside, maybe a block over.
Concentrate. Figure this out. Get out of here
. The safe was full of junk: wires, Styrofoam “peanuts,” pens, paper clasps, candy wrappers. And then, at the back, a letter-sized envelope. That was it.
It must be
.

He looked quickly at what was inside, then replaced the sheet of wood and the boxes in front of it. He shoved the envelope inside the waistband of his pants and checked the time. He was due back in less than five minutes—although Sam probably wouldn’t mind if he was late. Jon had another breadcrumb now, another message from his brother.

As soon as he pulled the door closed and stepped out onto the sidewalk, though, he heard footsteps—from an indeterminate
direction at first, and then clearly behind him, a sound of rubber on grit, coming from the alley. Then another set. There were two of them, one taking shorter steps, the other longer, a little awkwardly. Jon strode toward the streetlight, crossing from the sidewalk into the road. The footsteps shifted, too, coming faster. The city was several blocks away. He could see its lights and hear the traffic and voices from the streets. But it was the end of a dark tunnel. If he ran, it would happen sooner, probably. Jon quickened his pace, tuned to their sounds; the others did, too. Two sets of footsteps, left, right, left, right, gaining on him.

Jon looked back quickly and saw two young men in dark clothing, the heavier one wearing white athletic shoes. Blurs in the shadows. Shifting again. Jon broke into a run toward the city lights, his heart pounding, gaining a momentary lead through the element of surprise. But the men were right there, their feet scuffing urgently on the pavement.

The smaller one shouted something, in a tone that was surprising, in Kiswahili.
“Habari za jioni.”

The man was saying “good evening,” asking him how he was doing.

Jon Mallory made a half turn, and that was all they needed. He ducked a moment too late. A fist slammed into the side of his face. He fell to the street and lay there, pretending to be hurt more than he was. He smelled their soiled clothes as they leaned over him.

The bigger man displayed a gun. “Give us your money,” he said, in halting English, out of breath.

Jon Mallory looked up at the men, both veiled in darkness, his head suddenly throbbing. He pulled the remaining cash from his pockets and handed it to the man. Then he yanked out his pockets to show that there was nothing more.

The smaller man slammed a foot into his belly, and they turned and ran into the shadows.
It was over
.

Jon lay still, his face against the rough asphalt, listening to their sneakers as they sprinted away. He breathed heavily, waiting, a ringing in his ear against the cool pavement. Then everything began to come back—the muted sounds of traffic, voices, normal life just a few blocks away. He sat up, staring down the empty street. The side of his face felt tender; his elbow was bruised and bleeding a little. His ribcage was sore. But it was okay; they had
just been street punks, after money. He felt a little disoriented. But it was all right. They hadn’t taken the envelope.

SAM SULLIVAN WAS
sitting at a corner table in the lounge with two empty bottles of Tusker in front of him. It was 8:29. Soca music played in the background, and two tourist couples were dancing drunkenly beside their table.

“I thought you weren’t coming, mate.”

“I thought the same for a few minutes.”

Sam signaled the bartender for another round, then stared at Jon as he sat.

“My God. What the hell happened to you?”

“I just got mugged.”

“Oh.” He frowned at length, then tried a different expression, clearly uncertain how to respond. His eyes seemed glazed. “What did they get?”

“A few shillings.”

“That’s all?”

“I’d given all the rest to you. I think they expected more.”

“No doubt.”

The beers arrived; Sam touched the necks in a tentative toast. His ball cap was off, and Jon was surprised how little hair he had. “Well. I mean, I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

“Didn’t do much good, then, did it, losing the tails?”

Jon took a long drink, draining a third of the bottle. “Were you followed?”

“Yeah. Not terribly subtle, are they? Hired hands, no doubt.”

“A Renault?”

“There were two, actually. A Renault and a Fiat.”

Okay
, Jon thought, the beer steadying him a little. “Who are they, do you think?”

“Haven’t a clue.”

“You just said, ‘Hired hands, no doubt.’ For whom?”

“Well, I mean, I couldn’t say. In my work, I hear things sometimes, you know. That’s all. At the hotel, you hear things.”

“Okay. So what do you hear?”

“Well.” He fidgeted with his beer bottle. “That there are these
gangs out there. Like armed brigades. They say there are training camps for them out in the Rift Valley now. Land that’s been purchased supposedly by private investors. Some areas you can’t travel to anymore. Just not considered safe. Those are the stories anyway.”

“Who’s hiring them?”

He drank again, wanting to change the subject, Jon could see. “Don’t know. Someone who’s bought up a lot of property. That’s speculation. You ought to take care of those cuts, mate. And anyway, I’ve got a driver coming to pick me up in about ten minutes. Better get going. It was interesting to see you again.”

He stood and shook Jon’s hand. Then his face creased as if he were recalling something unpleasant. “Can you charge the beers to your room, mate?”

“Sure.”

“Good. Your bag’s in the men’s room. Take care.”

“Likewise.”

Sam Sullivan turned and walked out. Once again, he didn’t look back.

IN HIS ROOM,
Jon Mallory washed the cuts on his face and elbow. The bruise on his right cheek was already swollen from broken capillaries. In the next several days, it would probably change to purple and black. He wouldn’t look pretty, but it wasn’t a serious injury. It was a good thing he hadn’t tried to fight back.

Jon latched the door. He emptied two airline bottles of Jim Beam over a cup of ice and poured in Diet Coke. He was anxious now, and ready for whatever came next.

He pulled the envelope from the front of his pants, opened it, and examined the contents, this time more thoroughly.

LIKE MANY SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE,
Russell Ott had structured his life in ways that prevented unnecessary intrusions in his day-to-day routines. This enabled him to stay focused on the highly specialized work that he did, to fulfill the lucrative contracts that his satellite surveillance business had secured. Routines served a useful function, but routines were also vulnerabilities and they provided advantages for attentive adversaries.

Charles Mallory understood this. And he knew other, more specific things about Russell Ott now, as well. He had spent two days in the Bay Area working surveillance. Following him. Learning his habits. Running database searches on him through his company. He knew Russell Ott’s habits, his strengths and weaknesses, his quirks.

It was ironic, Charlie had found, that many people who were experts at surveillance structured their own lives in ways that made them easy to find. Ott was one of them.

He had been born Radek Otradovec in the former Czechoslovakia, but he grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where his parents changed his name before he entered grade school. His mother was originally from Yemen, his father from Prague. His limp came from a badly broken leg that had ended his football career in the eleventh grade. For a while, Ott had served as a government intelligence agent, but he’d never been a good fit with the culture of Washington. What distinguished him were his contacts with rogue foreign operators, including alleged terrorists and arms merchants in the Middle East, including the Hassan Network.

He was an unmarried man, obsessive, and secretive. In the Bay Area, where he had lived for the past two years, Ott stopped twice a week at the Wayside Grille and Donut Shoppe in Sunnyvale, a breakfast/lunch diner that made fresh-baked doughnuts every morning. It was less than two blocks from a software business known as G-Tech, which provided a front for Ott’s company. Every Monday
and Wednesday, for some reason, he came in between 7:30 and 8 in the morning, waited in line, chatted inconsequentially with the manager, and ordered a half dozen doughnuts.