83

3 E 70th St, New York

Carl Barnaby loosened the bow tie of his tuxedo as he rode the elevator to the second basement level of the Hermitage headquarters. His computer forensics department had hauled him out of the Audubon Society dinner with a single-word text: pink. The code word indicated they had found information on the Underground and that it was urgent. Barnaby hoped it was the positive kind of urgent. Gina Hayes’s condescending “audience” of him, where he had to plead his case like a supplicant, had left a bad taste in this mouth.

He was of a generation that didn’t call women names, but he believed his son would refer to Gina Hayes as a class-A bitch. Barnaby wouldn’t miss her when she was gone.

The elevator stopped at -2. The door slid open, revealing a billiards room. Barnaby inserted a plastic card into a slot, and the elevator’s back panel slid open directly onto the forensics lab. Abhay, head of computer forensics, rushed toward the elevator. Barnaby couldn’t tell if the sheen on Abhay’s face was triumph or worry.

“Sir!”

Barnaby’s mind was still rolling over the Audubon event. Hayes hadn’t seemed intimidated. In fact, she’d acted confident. “What did you find?”

“Over here.”

Abhay led him to the north side of the lab, where a white LCD screen was set up. “Blake, pull it up.”

Barnaby didn’t recognize Blake. He must be a new hire. Whatever he had on his screen was coming into focus. “What am I looking at?”

Abhay cleared his throat. “We believe you are looking at the same computer screen Salem Wiley is currently looking at.”

Barnaby stood straighter.

“We’ve been monitoring all of her online activity. She logged into her University of Minnesota Dropbox account approximately twenty-four minutes ago.”

“She’s back in Minnesota?”

“No. San Francisco.” Abhay paused for Barnaby to get his bearings.

“Chinatown?”

Abhay smiled. The Hermitage’s computer forensics staff had been lurking on the Golden Lucky Fortune Cookie Company server since one of their best men had discovered it at the beginning of the year. They assumed the server belonged to the Underground, maybe was their technological hub, but it had so far served them better to monitor it than shut it down. “Yes sir.”

“What’s she doing?”

“We believe she’s modifying a decryption software that she developed while a grad student. It’s quite good, actually. NSA is using a version of it on most of their computers. It works by—sir, are you all right?”

Barnaby had gone the color of tapioca pudding. “The Beale Cipher.”

Abhay glanced at the screen. “Yes sir. She appears to be trying to crack it. We don’t know why, maybe to access the rumored treasure to fund the Underground? But there’s no way … ”

Barnaby was no longer listening.

His body was ice-bath cold.

It wasn’t the docket these women were after.

It was the destruction of the Hermitage.

His voice sounded froggy. “We need it all.”

“Sir?”

“Every word she types.” He gained volume. “Save it, store it. I want the directions to Beale’s vault the very minute that Salem Wiley discovers them. Understand?”

“Sir, there’s no way she can, that anyone can, solve—” Abhay saw Barnaby’s expression and gulped. “Yes sir.”

Barnaby turned toward the elevator. His legs carried a slight tremor. Jabbing the elevator button, he pulled out his cell phone and was unsettled to see an incoming call from his counterpart in Europe. The man would not be pleased with how the US branch of the organization was faring. He ignored the call and punched in the number to the guard station one level below him. “I want the woman from Minneapolis taken out of her cell, bathed, fed, and sent to Jason. The two of them are going to Virginia.”

So much was at stake.

He needed all boots on the ground, every chip on the table.