Howard’s eyes are clearer, his demeanor completely different from what it was yesterday at the diner. He kneels by the lake and splashes water on his face.
“I remember calling you from the hotel room in Manchester.”
“You told me you discovered some information about my father. The last thing you said was that The Program had contacted him.”
“That’s right!” he says, his eyes widening. “There was communication between The Program and your father. But it was backward, as if your father had been initiating, and The Program was responding.”
I glance at Tanya. She’s following the conversation.
Should I send her away?
If I allow her to hear this, I’m putting her in grave danger. On the other hand, she was already a prisoner of The Program. How much more danger can she be in?
I say, “What was my father talking with them about, Howard?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Because you don’t remember?”
“Because I didn’t get a chance to sort through the data. There was a string of secure e-mails. I could follow the chain of communication, who initiated and who replied, but the contents were encoded. I downloaded everything to my laptop so I could spend some time decoding them later. Unfortunately, later didn’t arrive. The Program did. And you know what happened after that.”
“So the data we need is on your computer.”
“Right. And they have my computer.”
“They have it, but they haven’t been able to crack your encryption software, so they don’t know what you have.”
“That’s awesome,” he says. “I wish I had installed a booby trap so it would blow up in their faces.”
“Did they have your computer at the holding house?”
“I don’t think so,” Howard says. “They never brought it into the room to try to force me to log in. That would have been the smart thing to do. Which means they probably sent it to a lab.”
I wonder where computers would be sent and how I might access them. I try to imagine some scenario in which we retrieve Howard’s laptop, but I don’t know the location of any Program facilities, and it’s not like I can ask Mike to bring it to us.
“I think we’re out of luck getting the computer back,” I say.
Howard sighs. “I’m sorry, Zach. I blew it.”
“Not your fault,” I say.
“I’m not following this,” Tanya interrupts. “Your father worked with the people who kidnapped us?”
“There’s reason to believe so,” I say, “but I need real evidence. Howard, what did they ask you about at the house?”
“They wanted to know about the chip,” he says, and he points at my chest, the location of the neurosuppressor that removes my fear.
I think of Howard on my last mission, walking into the bathroom to find me with a knife in my hands, my body covered with self-inflicted wounds as I searched for a chip I wasn’t sure existed.
“Did you tell them you knew about the chip?” I ask him.
“No,” he says. “I thought it was better not to discuss you at all.”
“Good job. Anything else I need to know?”
Howard struggles with the question but doesn’t come up with anything.
“You told me they were asking you about a facility of some kind,” Tanya says, trying to help him remember.
“That’s right!” Howard says. “They wanted to know about a research facility. I kept telling them I had no idea what they were talking about, but they didn’t believe me. They wanted to know if you’d said anything about it.”
A research facility.
The secretary at the University of Rochester said the psych department had a special research facility downstate.
“Did they mention Corning by any chance?”
Howard’s eyes light up. “Corning. Yes! They asked me if I’d been there.”
One weekend after my twelfth birthday, my father drove me to Corning from Rochester. He said he’d be working there in the future, but I couldn’t tell my mother that he was showing me the place or we’d both be in trouble.
“Your mother doesn’t understand that things are getting better,” he said to me.
“Better how?”
“More money, more opportunities to do the things I love.”
“Why doesn’t she understand?”
“She’s afraid,” my father said. “She doesn’t want anything to change.”
“I don’t want anything to change, either.”
“My father took me to Corning once,” I say. “A long time ago.”
That was a short time before Mike came into my life and things changed forever.
The memory gives me an idea.
“Howard, what would it take to get into the computer again?”
“My computer?”
“No, The Program’s computer.”
“You mean the server. They have the most complex security protocol I’ve ever seen. I’d need a week in a secure location with all my equipment. Then maybe I could hack through their firewall.”
“What if I could get you access directly into the server?”
“If you can get me in, I can retrace my steps. If I get a little time, I might be able to retrieve the information, and we could sort through it together.”
“All right, then,” I say. “I have a plan.”
I reach into my pocket and pull out the white security badge I took from Silberstein’s jacket.
I pass it to Howard. He flips it back and forth in his hand.
“It’s a mag-stripe security pass card,” he says.
“Can you get the information off it?”
“I need some equipment,” he says. “A mag reader of some kind. I might be able to adapt a POS system.”
“Too many initials, Howard.”
“Point of sale. You know, like a credit card reader or a payment system in a restaurant.”
“Let’s get going,” I say. “I’m sure we can find one on the way to Corning.”