Ground Zero

2

For an instant her fingers froze over the keyboard—surely no more than a heartbeat—before she forced them to keep typing. But they were typing gibberish now.

The man seated by the door was watching her, she was sure of it.

The cybercafé was small but tended to be only half full at this hour—the reason she timed her visits for this time of day. She didn’t want anyone too close while she typed.

She made a practice of rotating among a long list of cafés, coffee shops, and libraries that offered laptops and computers for public use. The list was numbered and she used a random integer generator to choose which one she would visit on any given day. The only time she did not follow the generator’s choice was if it happened to produce the same number twice in a row.

On some visits she would simply surf through her list of blogs and Web sites, blocking and copying pertinent passages and storing them on her flash drive. She never posted on surfing visits. And she never surfed on posting visits.

Today was a posting visit. She’d typed out her posts last night and this morning, then stored them on her flash drive. That way, when she reached a computer, all she had to do was plug in her drive, block and copy the posts onto the various forums or into the appropriate blog comments sections, then be on her way.

She was just finishing up—no more than ten minutes at the keyboard so far and maybe two to go—when she noticed the man get a call. He spoke briefly on his cell, then began sca

She kept her face toward her screen but watched out of the corner of her eye. He had a bit of a Eurotrash air about him. Maybe it was the hair—bleached blond and short, combed forward for a Caesar look. A well-preserved fifty, ta

He was discreet, pretending every so often to stare off into space as if composing his thoughts, but she’d caught him eyeing her. Certainly not because she was attractive. She had no illusions about her appearance. After Steve’s death, it had ceased to matter much. She’d let herself go somewhat—gaining weight, dressing in baggy warm-ups designed for comfort and little else, letting her hair grow out and wearing it in a styleless ponytail. In fact, if her frumpy looks deflected attention, so much the better.

No illusions about her mental state either. Maybe a bit paranoid. She might have been pushing evasive measures to the extreme.

Or not.

You weren’t paranoid if people were really out to get you, but she couldn’t be sure. If the wrong people were reading her posts, they might—might—care. And if they did care, they might—might—want to stop her.

If they thought she was a threat.

A big if. Who frequented these Web sites besides weirdos and nutcases? But the weirdos and nutcases were on to something. They were ninety percent right about everything except who and why. They were pointing fingers in the wrong directions.

Everything was either political or religious or cultural to them. They couldn’t see that the real reasons were much darker, more sinister, and more dangerous and threatening than their wildest nightmare scenarios.

Only one man was listening—or at least not dismissing her as a kook as were most of the others.

When the kooks think you’re a kook, maybe it’s time to reassess your position.

No. Not when you’re sure you’re right.

And she was sure. Well, pretty sure. As sure as you could be about these things when—

There. He’d looked at her again. Her gut tingled with alarm. No question: He was watching her.

How could they have found her? Her practice of switching log-in locations guaranteed a different IP address every time, and her random choice of location made it impossible to predict where she’d be.

Well, not literally impossible, but virtually impossible.

She’d sensed they might be looking for her, but never dreamed they were this close.

The café, already small and cramped, seemed to shrink.

Her practice was to situate herself in a rear corner with her back to a wall so no one could read over her shoulder. But that was working against her now. She wished she were closer to the front, nearer the door.

Keeping her fingers moving and her head perfectly still, she flicked her gaze back and forth. The coffee bar sat against the far wall; to her right, the restroom—“Customers Only”—and an “Employees Only” door leading who knew where; the front door to Amsterdam Avenue lay all the way across the café to her left. Through the windows she could see people whisking by in the bright July sunshine.

“Another?”

She jumped at the voice, then realized it was the waiter. Where had he come from? She glanced up at him—certainly no older than his late teens. He looked underfed and overtired. A college kid maybe?

She forced a smile as she nodded. “Why, yes. I do believe I will.”

She liked to indulge herself in these cafés, usually with a mocha latte—she was expected to buy something, so she might as well enjoy it—but only one. But today a second cup might prove useful. Make it look as if she intended to stay awhile.

While she waited, she put the time to good use by uploading the rest of her posts. She’d just hit ENTER on the last when the waiter returned.

“Hang on,” she said as he placed the cup on the table. She handed him a bill. “Here. I may have to leave on short notice. Keep the change.”

He looked at it, then her. “This is a twenty.”

“I know.” She understood his confusion: The tip was more than the coffees. “You look like you could use it.”

He gave her a self-conscious smile. “Yeah. Thanks.”

As he wandered away, she glanced into her virtually empty bag. She kept no ID of any sort on her person. Cash, a few toiletries, a pay-as-you-go cell phone, the keys to her three front door locks—that was it. No one could be allowed to know where she lived, because that was where she kept her proof, all the documentation for what she knew to be true. It had taken her years to assemble it and she doubted she’d ever be able to do so again. She couldn’t allow it to fall into the wrong hands.

With a start she noticed her stalker rise from his seat and amble her way. She stiffened as her heart rate jumped. What was he doing? Was he going to speak to her?

No, he passed without a look and stepped into the restroom.

The not-looking was a giveaway. A casual patron would have glanced her way. Or would he?

She sighed and slumped in her seat. Maybe this was all in her head. God knew she’d been told often enough she was crazy—starting in her teens and continuing through the rest of her life. Maybe they were all right. Maybe—

No. She couldn’t allow herself to think like that. She knew some of the truth and had to put what she knew out there, to stimulate others to help her look for the rest of it.

She also knew that blond man had been watching her. Her second cup of coffee had lulled him into thinking he could take a bathroom break.

Wrong.

She straightened and rushed through her routine of deleting cookies and erasing her browser history. It wouldn’t stop anyone really serious about finding out what she’d been up to, but would foil run-of-the-mill snooping. She pulled her flash drive from the USB port and shoved it into a pocket. Normally she’d delete everything, then fill the drive to capacity with junk—overwriting all the memory—then delete all that to make sure none of her original files were recoverable, but no time for that now.

She rose and hurried toward the door.

Outside she paused and looked around. The air-conditioning in the café had been set a little too low for her and the hot air on the sidewalk felt good. The nearest corner lay to her right so she headed that way at a trot. The sooner she was out of sight of the café, the better.