75

Chinatown, San Francisco

Salem hurried out of the bathroom after Bel. “What is it?”

“I can’t even describe it to you. You won’t believe it.”

Salem followed her across the apartment, weaving around the old couch, to the north end of the building. She noticed, for the first time, that Lu had pasted a strip of wallpaper imprinted with a photo of molding just below the ceiling in every room. They reached a door, its paint chipping, a red scroll emblazoned with gold lettering covering the worst of it. Bel tossed Salem a loaded glance, grasped the rusted door knob, and turned.

Salem felt the heat of the computers before the door was fully open.

Inside the room, the familiar smell of charged ions and stationary people greeted her. A tower of green lights to her left told her that Lu had her own server, which made sense given the ten computers inside, each one with its own person typing furiously. The space was dark except for the glow of ambient lights, quiet but for the sound of fingers clacking on keyboards and the hum of a heavy-duty air conditioner near the server. The windows must be painted on the inside to keep any natural light—or prying eyes—from leaking in. Salem thought she heard music outside the building, but there was no way to know.

She felt like a conductor walking into an acoustically tuned concert hall.

“If this doesn’t teach me once and for all not to judge someone by how well they speak English, then nothing will,” Bel whispered into Salem’s ear. “See the ID maker over there, by the camera? This is a full-service lab.”

“Out of my way!” Lu pushed past Salem to stand over the shoulder of a portly Asian man wearing round glasses. She commanded in Chinese that he do something. At least that’s what it sounded like.

Salem coughed to get Lu’s attention. “I thought you weren’t going to show us the computers until we returned from the Mission.”

“We get new information,” Lu said without looking away from the man’s computer screen. “Make it extra urgent that you get the code before Gina Hayes come to Alcatraz. Hermitage plan to kill her there. I’m eccentric, not stupid. I need to know if these computers work to break Beale’s code so we don’t waste time.”

“You have to tell the police,” Bel said.

Lu rolled her eyes. “No idea whose side they on. I tell Hayes, and she not even care. She said they trying to kill her all the time, what make Alcatraz special?”

Salem cocked her head. “You know Gina Hayes?”

“Duh. Now you tell me—these computers good for you?”

Salem walked over. The man was working on an HP Spectre laptop. It appeared to be the old model but running quickly. Next to him, a woman with her hair tied up in a pink bandanna was typing on a Mac. “I can’t be sure until I see the keytext, but if it has access to the Internet and is fast, I’m sure it’ll work fine.”

If the cipher is even crackable. People have been trying for 150 years. But she didn’t see a reason to express her doubts. Instead, she tried to see what the man was typing, but he had a privacy screen that made it impossible to read his screen unless she looked at it dead on. “Is everyone here working for the Underground?”

Lu’s eyes were sharp and black. “Yes.”

Bel stepped next to Salem. “What are they doing?”

Lu sighed. She was wearing a 49ers t-shirt, sweatpants, and men’s slide sandals in a camouflage pattern over Christmas socks. “Depends. Sometime, we intercept messages. Other day, we move groups of women and children to hiding, lobby for women’s causes, deliver crisis supplies where needed. Mostly cleanup. We’d like to be in front of horse rather than behind one of these days.” She smiled. It creased the corners of her eyes.

Salem indicated the computers. “Who pays for all of this?”

“Bad guys not only ones with money.” Lu full-on cackled this time. Then her switch flipped, exactly like it’d done earlier that day in the kitchen. “You know someone try to kill Hayes in Iowa?”

Salem nodded. “We heard it on the radio driving here. Was that the Hermitage?”

“We don’t think so. If it Hermitage, they don’t fail. We think they going to try something else. We get text.”

What was it that Salem saw behind Lu’s eyes? “Who was the text from?”

Lu glanced away. “No matter. You have your plan. If computer okay, you go to Dolores Mission. Now.”

“All right,” Salem said. “Should we—”

The commotion outside the painted-over windows became louder. At first, Salem thought it was more music, but then she realized it was coming from inside the fortune cookie factory.

“SFPD! Come out with your hands up!”