CHAPTER 20
VENICE HAD NO IDEA HOW THE CLOCK HAD SPUN ALL THE WAY AROUND to one, but such was the nature of things when she lost herself in research. Jonathan’s revelation that there was a network of tunnels under the Crystal Sands Resort posed some interesting opportunities for research. She was looking for anything on the construction project—any small detail—that could lead to other small details. Those tidbits, when stitched together, could provide invaluable intel. The fact that she didn’t know exactly what she was looking for made the problem infinitely more challenging and deepened her mental rabbit hole.
When her phone rang—the landline, which she almost never used—the noise startled her. It was one of those old-fashioned rings, too, the kind with an actual bell. She lifted the receiver before it could split her concentration a second time.
“Hello?”
“Um, Ms. Alexander, this is Rick Hare at the security station.”
Venice’s insides tightened. While the phone rarely rang, the security station at the entrance to the office had never called her. She waited for the rest.
“There’s a visitor here who says he has to meet with you.”
“What does he want?”
“He says he can speak only with you.”
“Why?”
“Um, he said he’d only speak with you, ma’am.”
Venice chuckled. “That was kind of a stupid question, wasn’t it? Does he look threatening?”
“No, ma’am. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be calling you.”
Another stupid question. “Did he give you a name?”
“Yes, ma’am. His name is Derek Halstrom. He said he talked with you this morning.” Hare lowered his voice to a whisper. “But he doesn’t know how to pronounce your name properly. Do you want me to tell him to go away?”
A chill rattled Venice’s whole body, leaving her feeling light-headed and nauseous. Derek Halstrom was TickTock2. She’d screwed up big-time. This was a power play, and it scared the daylights out of her.
“Ma’am? Are you there?”
Venice shook herself back into reality. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m right here. Tell Mr. Halstrom that it’s inappropriate to meet here in the office. Tell him to wait on the bench outside and that I’ll join him in five minutes.”
She listened as the guard covered the mouthpiece and delivered her message. It took longer than she expected. There clearly was some back-and-forth between the two of them. When Hare returned to the phone, he sounded agitated. “Yes, ma’am, I told him. He wasn’t happy about it, but he’s on his way outside.”
Venice closed her eyes. “Okay, thank you, Rick.”
“Ma’am?”
“Yes?”
“He told me to tell you that five minutes means five minutes. At six, he said, and I’m quoting here, your life will get very difficult.”
The chill returned. “I understand.”
“Perhaps you’d like me to go with you?”
Venice smiled, touched by the loyalty and commitment to duty. “No, Rick, that’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
“You can’t stop me from keeping an eye on you,” he said. “You need something, you just give a wave and I’ll be there.”
“I know you will, Rick. Again, thanks.” She hung up before there could be more conversation. This was bad. No, it was beyond bad. This could be catastrophic. She’d overextended her hand to exactly the wrong person. She’d allowed herself to fall victim to the same hubris for which she’d chastised so many others, so many times.
With the clock ticking, she realized that she had exactly zero control over what would transpire next. TickTock2 had invaded her space because she had invaded his. She didn’t know how he’d been able to find her, but at this point, the how of it really didn’t matter much. He was here, and she was vulnerable to the point of being defenseless. And she had two minutes to get downstairs.
She needed to settle her thoughts, to push the fear away and to rejoin the moment. She was about to embark on a live-action chess game, the stakes were unspeakably high, and her opponent had had at least the length of a long car ride to figure out his plan. He worked for one of the most secure, secretive agencies in the world. He could make her disappear and in the process erase all traces that she had ever been born.
But to do that would require him to kill Roman, as well, and maybe even Mama.
“Computer geeks are not killers,” she told herself aloud, but she didn’t find her voice all that convincing.
“Stop it,” she said. “Just stop it. It is what it is. In about a minute and a half, you’ll know just how awful it is.”
She’d discovered many years ago that the act of speaking thoughts aloud made them more real. The phrase just how awful resonated louder to her ears than any other.
She slipped her cell phone—the one that linked her to Jonathan—into her pocket and left everything else on her desk untouched. As she headed for the door, she stopped and returned to the top right-hand drawer. Years ago, Jonathan had given her a little .22-caliber pistol with the instruction to carry it with her all the time. It was a tiny thing with a Beretta logo on the grip and a weird tip-up barrel for easy loading. Jonathan said it was a girly gun that would make a lot of noise, and was better than going through life unarmed.
She’d never carried it, and frankly, she objected to having it in her desk. Until today. She shifted her cell phone to her left pocket, and slid the pistol into her right. For all she knew, she couldn’t hit within three feet of anyone she might shoot at, but for the first time, she understood where Digger was coming from. It felt better to have it than to not.
Venice exited the Cave, passed through the main work area, and then exited out onto the hallway and the stairs.
Rick Hare was waiting for her. He rested one hand on the pistol in his belt, and the other on the array of spare bullets he carried on the other side. “I really think I need to go with you.”
Venice smiled and touched his cheek with her fingers. “You’re sweet,” she said. “But I’ll be okay. I know who he is.”
“Then why does he pronounce your name like the city in Italy?”
Venice decided that it made no sense to continue the conversation. Rick Hare had his orders, and he would follow them. She had no doubt that he would try to position himself so that he could watch them from afar, but she also had no doubt that TickTock2 was way too smart to allow that to happen.
With a blossoming sense of dread, Venice descended the long stairway, and stepped out into the heat of the day.
When Jonathan Grave converted the Fisherman’s Cove firehouse to his personal residence and office space, he’d gifted the patch of ground at the corner of Church and Water Streets to the town, where he’d planted some trees and installed a bench that walkers or runners could use for respite. He’d also installed a marble pedestal-style drinking fountain. The space was rarely visited, so far as Venice could tell, but it was beautiful.
A thin African-American man sat in the shade on the bench. He appeared to be within a couple years of thirty and he wore close-cropped hair and beard. Wearing a gray sport coat with a blue shirt and a maroon tie, he looked more like a lawyer than a hacker. Not that she had any idea what a hacker should look like. He stood as she approached.
“Hello, Venice,” he said.
She corrected his pronunciation.
“How very pretentious,” he said. His smile took the insult out of the words. “Do you mind if we walk while we talk?”
“May I ask what we’re going to talk about?”
Derek extended his hand. “Let’s meet properly. Derek Halstrom.”
Venice hesitated, then shook his hand. “You’re confusing me,” she said.
Derek smiled. “I don’t think that’s true. It was your security guard who confused you. He’s the one who made you nervous.”
“Because you said my life would get difficult if I didn’t hurry.”
He conceded the point with a twist of his neck. “I didn’t want you doing something desperate that would get me in trouble before we had a chance to talk.”
“Again, what’s the topic? I’m busy here and I have a job—”
“Your coworkers are in more trouble than you know,” Derek said.
And he started walking up the hill toward St. Kate’s and Resurrection House beyond it. Venice wondered if he knew the significance of either one of those buildings and the roles they played in her life—and, by extension, in Digger’s life. She quickstepped to catch up.
“Officer Hare is not going to be happy to lose sight of you,” Derek said.
“This would be a good time to tell you that this is a small town,” Venice said, “and I’ve lived here my whole life. I am what you might call connected, so if you think—”
“I’m not a killer,” Derek said, cutting her off. “I’m not even a beater-upper. You can relax.”
Something about Derek impressed Venice as honest. She’d been wrong before—had the ex-husband to prove it—but not in a long time. She found herself liking this guy. “What are you, then?” she asked. “If not a killer or a beater-upper?”
He looked away from her, and down at his shoes, as he said, “Mostly, I’m a fanboy.”
Venice coughed out a laugh. “A what?” This was not at all what she was expecting.
“Come on, are you kidding me? You’re FreakFace666, for crying out loud. There wouldn’t be any Gloomity without you. Though I was a little freaked when I found out you’re a girl. A woman, I mean.”
This guy was acting like a high schooler with a crush. If it wasn’t so scary, it would have been charming. “So, what did I do wrong?”
He cocked his head. He didn’t get the question.
“How did you find me?”
“After you and I disconnected, you made a phone call and used some of the same phraseology I gave you. And I have access to limitless NSA resources. I guess you could say I misappropriated some taxpayer dollars.”
In retrospect, she realized that she should have expected that. “So, are you here on official business?”
“Oh, hell no. I took a day off.”
“To come and do what?”
“To meet you. Well, okay, that’s not true. At least it wasn’t at first. I wanted to get even somehow. You’d scared the shit out of me, and I wanted to do at least as much to you.”
“You just spoke in the past tense,” Venice said.
“Yeah, I did. After I blow off the initial layer of steam, I’m not a very vindictive guy. You caught me being stupid once, and I paid the price. It’s not your fault that I was stupid.”
Venice gave him a long look. “Is that the polite way of saying that it’s my fault that you’re here?”
He giggled. No, really. He giggled. “A gentleman would never say such a thing.”
She had to laugh, too.
“So, as I was driving out here—what a pretty drive, by the way. And a gorgeous little town. Anyway, as I was driving out here, it hit me that I was going to actually meet FreakFace666. I’ve admired your work for, like, forever.”
Venice pulled up short. “Wait a minute,” she said. “When I touched you this morning, I wasn’t FreakFace666.”
“No, you were BadThings.”
“So, how—”
“You didn’t see the SMS I sent you, then?”
Venice answered with a scowl.
“I was so freaked out by being outed by BadThings and I reached out to FreakFace666 for advice. Then, after I intercepted your phone call, I traced things down and I saw that the Hacker King—excuse me, the Hacker Queen—had a lot in common with BadThings.”
Venice brought her hand to her forehead as reality hit her. “Oh, crap,” she said. “You didn’t know for sure that we were the same person until I just now confirmed it for you.”
When Derek smiled, his whole face lit up. “Weren’t you the one who posted that social hacking is nothing more than one big poker game?”
She felt her ears get hot. “Well, damn,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Derek said. “It’s a good feeling when you know you’ve bested the best.”
Venice closed her eyes and shook her head. She’d been an idiot.
“Take it easy on yourself,” Derek said. “Sooner or later, hubris takes all of us down.”
“Have you told the rest of Gloomity who I am?” She could have danced around the question, but decided to shoot for the heart.
Derek looked hurt. “I wouldn’t do that. I don’t think that you’ve grappled with the fact that I’m not here to hurt you. In fact, I’m here to help you.”
“By telling me how my colleagues are in deeper trouble than we understand.”
“Exactly.”
“So, tell me.”
“Agree to have dinner with me first,” Derek said.
Without thinking, Venice reached out and grabbed the fabric of his sleeve. “Wait. What?”
“I want to take you to dinner.”
“A date?”
He deflated a little. “You can call it whatever you like. But I want to spend time with you.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“But I know about you.”
Another warning bell.
“Oh, shit, I’m sounding creepy. I don’t mean to, but when you’ve got skills like mine, you know how to learn about people. Are you going to tell me that you don’t do the same thing?”
She really wished she could. The fact of the matter was that she’d unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) sabotaged a boatload of relationships over the years by digging into pasts and discovering stuff she wished she didn’t know. “What do you know about me?”
“I’ll tell you over dinner,” he said.
“That can’t happen,” Venice said. “Certainly not tonight. I have work to do.”
“Because Jonathan and Gail are in trouble on the Crystal Sands Resort.”
Data point: Derek didn’t know all that he thought he did. No nicknames, no code names. As she ran through the telephone conversations she’d had with Jonathan today, she was certain that no real names had been mentioned. That meant that while Derek knew that calls had been made, he didn’t know what had been discussed.
“That’s exactly right,” Venice said.
Derek’s eyes narrowed. “I missed something,” he said. “I see it in your face.”
“The essentials are there,” Venice said. “The essentials are spot-on. But I cannot possibly meet you for dinner tonight.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
“We’ll see how this all works out.” She sensed him digging an emotional trench for himself and she launched a peace offering. “But later this week, I promise.”
Derek’s whole being brightened. “You promise promise?”
Again, back in high school. “Yes.”
“Okay, then,” Derek said. “Good. That’s very, very good.”
They strolled up the long hill, past the perpendicular walkway that led to Saint Katherine’s Catholic Church, and soon they would be at the walkway to Resurrection House. Venice couldn’t articulate why, but she didn’t want them to get that close to her home. And her mother. And her son.
“You said that my coworkers are in jeopardy.”
“Yes, I did,” Derek replied. He pulled to a halt and turned to face Venice full-on. “Look, I recognize that you own me, okay? You know about me and Gloomity, and you know that by doing what I have done, I have committed felonies that could end my life. Certainly, life as I know it. I’ll be honest with you. I wouldn’t do well in prison.”
“I’m not sure any of us would,” Venice said.
“So, what I know—what you want to know—is just another lock on my prison door. If I tell you, it’ll be for all the right reasons, so that the people you care about won’t get themselves in trouble that they can’t get themselves out of.”
“Okay,” Venice said.
“So, you won’t rat me out?”
Venice crossed her heart and held her hand up, hoping that there were no witnesses. “I’ll pinky swear if you want me to.”
Derek looked at her for a long moment, then shoved his hands into his pockets and started up the hill again.
“Derek, listen to me,” Venice said. “I’m knee-deep in something very important here. I don’t have time to play games.”
“Are your friends there on the island to steal munitions?” He asked the question quickly, as if it had been burdening him.
Venice recoiled from the thought. “What? No! Good heavens, no.”
“Why, then? Why was it so important for you to know what goes on there?”
It was time to be careful. Derek knew too much as it was, but the genie wasn’t yet entirely out of the bottle. “I can’t tell you that,” she said. “But I swear to you that we’re the good guys.”
“Why was it important for you to know about the storage magazines on the island?” He continued to stroll as he talked, mostly addressing the ground in front of his feet.
“I can’t tell you that, either.” As she heard her own words, she realized how evasive and suspicious she sounded. “You, above all others, should know about secrets. How important it is to keep them.”
Derek stopped and turned to face her. “Do you understand the risk I’m taking by being here? I’m risking a lifetime in prison.”
“And that’s a choice you made,” Venice said. She moderated her tone to be calm, entirely reasonable. “You clearly thought that you could trust me with your secrets. I don’t know that I can do the same. Not yet. We just met. And what’s at risk for me goes far beyond jail time. Lives are at stake. Many lives.”
“You’re not a government contractor,” Derek said. “You’re a private investigation firm. I’ve done the research, trust me. That’s all you do, at least officially. How can a private investigation take you to a Costa Rican island off the coast of Mexico?”
She waited for him to connect the dots for himself.
Derek’s eyes grew wide. “It’s a resort,” he said. “Your friends were vacationing there, weren’t they? And something bad happened.” He started walking again, this time looking at the sky as the pieces fell into place. “I’m guessing some kind of attack.”
Venice followed at a distance, admiring his intensity.
“It had to be an attack,” he declared. At this point, he was engaging entirely with himself. “What else could be so urgent? But how did Security Solutions get the call? Why not the local . . .”
He spun on his own axis and pointed his finger at Venice. “Got it. Your friends are involved in some kind of a fight, and they can’t get any help because Costa Rica doesn’t have any troops or cops to send.” He looked to the sky again, and then back at her. “Your friends figured out that it must have something to do with the old Soviet storage facilities.” He grinned. “Am I right?”
Venice grinned, too. There was a whole lot to like about this guy. “I can’t tell you,” she said.
“Of course you can’t.” Derek laughed. “Damn, that felt good.”
“But if you were right, what is the bad news that you have to share?”
“Let’s go walking back to your office.”
“I can’t let you into my office.”
“That’s okay,” Derek said. “But you have some serious warning to do. There’s a shipment of weapons coming to the island tonight. That’s what I thought your buddies were hunting for, but now I think it’s what their enemies are hunting for.”
“What kind of weapons are they?” Venice asked.
“Agent VX,” Derek said. “You probably know it as nerve agent.”
Venice’s chill returned. “No, I know it as Agent VX,” she said. “That stuff’s been outlawed for years.”
“Yes, it has,” Derek said. “All that means is that our government—and about a dozen others—have been working very hard to hide it.”
“Where’s the shipment coming from?”
“That’s the tricky part,” Derek said. “The cool thing about the Crystal Sands as a weapons depot is that everybody gets plausible deniability for what they do.”
“You’re being obtuse,” Venice said. “Where is it coming from?”
“I actually don’t know the specific port of origin, but I do know that the shipping company is a cutout for the Central Intelligence Agency.”
It was Venice’s turn to stop short. “Our Central Intelligence Agency? Why?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Derek hedged, “but there’s been a lot of chatter in official Washington over the past couple of weeks. President Darmond has decided that the time has come to level the playing field for the Ukrainian rebels.”
Venice couldn’t believe the words she’d just heard. “We’re going to use nerve gas against the Russians?”
Derek looked back at the ground. “We’re not going to gas anyone,” he said. “That decision will be up to the Ukrainians.”