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“What...” His words stuck in his throat. He licked his lips, as if to grease the way. “What do you want me to do?”
“We want you to set a Trojan inside the Treadstone intranet.”
“Treadstone has electronic safeguards. The Trojan will be found almost immediately.”
Bogs nodded. “Yes, it will.” His eyes glittered ferally. “And, if you’re clever enough not to get caught, your bosses will assign you to neutralize the Trojan.”
Richards didn’t like this; he didn’t like it at all. “And?”
“And you’ll do your job, Richards, in your usual quick and efficient ma
Richards frowned, shaking his head. “What good will that do? I’ll never get to the remote archives off-site. They’re isolated from the servers. The on-site server system will be cleansed. It will re-establish the files from archives. The system will be up and ru
“You must extend the downtime to twenty-four.”
“I...” Richards swallowed. He felt both frozen and as if he had a high fever. “I can do that.”
“Sure you can.” Bogs’s grin looked a mile wide. The better to eat you with, my dear.“That’s the amount of time we’ll need.”
15
PETER HAD EXPECTED Tom Brick to stay in the safe house with him, but following his murderous instructions, he left. Alone in the vast house, Peter wandered for some moments, then sat down in a chair and took out the key he had found in Florin Popa’s shoe as he dragged him into the boxwood maze at Blackfriar Country Club.
Holding it up to the light, he turned it over and over, studying every square inch of it. It was small, with a round plug at the end, covered in a blue rubberized material similar to what had been used on public locker keys, back in the days before 9/11 when there were such things as public storage lockers. This key had no markings whatsoever, but he figured there must be something to distinguish its use.
Utilizing one of the super-sharp razor blades Brick had given him to kill whoever Bogs brought through the door, he slit open the covering and peeled it back. He was immediately disappointed. The plug was blank on both sides. Turning it on end, however, he saw etched into the end:
RECURSIVE.
He looked at the key in a new light and considered that it might not be for a lock, after all.
Now that he had a substantial clue to follow, he was unwilling to stay in the house, trying to figure out how he would get around killing someone he most certainly did not want to kill. He rose and went to the front door, only to find it locked. The same was true for the back door. All the windows were locked. He could see the tiny wires that would raise an instant alarm if any of the panes were broken.
The same was true for the windows on the second floor, but up here in the bedrooms the panes were smaller. Back down in the kitchen, he rooted around in the drawers without finding what he needed, but a closet revealed a tool chest. Inside, he found a glass cutter. Racing back upstairs, he chose a window that looked out on a spreading oak and scored a line between the glass and the sash. The super-sharp blade dug deeply into the glass. He made the same scores on two other sides. Setting down the glass cutter, he crossed to the bed, removed a case from a pillow, then, wrapping it around his left hand, returned to the pane of glass he’d been working on. Slowly and carefully, he scored down the fourth side.
With the fingertips of his right hand on the glass, he struck it with his protected left hand, and it moved a little. He hit it again, harder this time, dislodging the pane from the sash. He grabbed it between the fingers of his right hand before it could fall and shatter. Then he turned it, laying it flat, careful not to disco
Retrieving his mobile from its hiding place in his crotch, he phoned Treadstone for a car to pick him up, giving his approximate location. Then he began to walk out of the cul de sac, toward a road whose name he could recognize and relay to the driver.
It took him three calls to determine that there was, in fact, a boat named Recursivetied up at slip 31 at the Dockside Marina at 600 Water Street SW. By that time, his driver had dropped him where he had left his car outside the Blackfriar Country Club. Forty minutes later, he was pulling up to Dockside, rolling into a parking space.
He sat for a moment, turning the key over and over between his fingers, as the car engine cooled, ticking like a clock. Then he got out and walked down to the boardwalk where the boats were tied up. Most of the boats were battened down for the winter, covered against the weather. Some of the slips were empty, their occupants dry-docked and shrink-wrapped. On a few boats, people were working, stowing fishing gear, hosing down decks, coiling ropes, cleaning seats and brass railings. He nodded to them, smiling, as he ambled past. He had to remind himself that everything slowed down at a marina, that a careful and unhurried ma
It seemed odd to him that Florin Popa, a bodyguard, would own a boat. But then, considering how carefully the key had been hidden, maybe Popa didn’t actually own the Recursive. Maybe he was just using it.
Peter followed the slip numbers until he came to 31. The Recursivewas a 36-foot Cobalt inboard. Judging by the open deck and the seating arrangement, it was a pleasure craft, not a fishing boat. Taking hold of one of the dock’s wooden uprights, he swung aboard. The first thing he did was check to make certain no one was aboard. This was an easy enough task, considering that the Cobalt had no closed cabin or, apart from a minuscule head, belowdeck area.
Taking the key, he slid it into the ignition slot. He could only get it in halfway, however. It would not start the boat. Removing it, he began a thorough search, removing cushions that covered storage areas, opening the small dash box facing the passenger’s seat, pulling on the metal ring that opened another, larger storage area, all to no avail. There was no slot anywhere on the Recursivein which to insert the key.
By this time, twilight was falling on DC, and a chill wind whipped across the water. Peter sat on the rear cushions, staring out at nothing, trying to figure out what he had missed. The key was etched with the name Recursive. He was aboard the Recursive. Why couldn’t he find what the key was meant to open?
He pondered this vexing question for another fifteen minutes or so. By then, darkness had fallen, the lights had been switched on, and he was forced to admit defeat, at least for the moment. He called Soraya at home, then disco
At home, he fixed himself a meal cobbled together from leftovers, but he scarcely tasted a thing. Afterward, he wandered around, touching things absently, while his mind whirred away a mile a minute. Finally, recognizing that he was as exhausted as he was wired, he slipped a DVD into his system and watched several episodes of Mad Men, which calmed him somewhat. He fell into a reverie where he was Don Draper, only his name was Anthony Dzundza. Roger Sterling was Tom Brick, Peggy was Soraya, and Joan was the strength-training guy at the gym Peter had been trying to approach for months.