Fifty-Eight

“Did you like my present?” asked Talevi. He was speaking through the speakerphone on my Droid, which lay on the kitchen counter once again. Jael listened with her typical impassive stillness.

“You are a sick bastard,” I said. “You didn’t need to cut off her toe. I would have believed you had her with a phone call.”

“That was not proof that I have her, Mr. Tucker. As you say, a phone call would have sufficed. It is my proof that I will hurt her. That toe is almost a vestigial organ. She will survive. She will even be able to run. Assuming that she keeps both of her feet.”

“You sick fuck!”

Jael touched the phone, muting it. She said, “That will not help. Find out what he wants.” She unmuted the phone.

I said, “What do you want? My father’s notebooks?”

“I have no interest in your father’s notebooks. I want what I have always wanted. The plans to the Paladin downlink.”

“Jesus, Talevi, let her go. How am I supposed to get the plans to the downlink?”

“That is not my problem. That is your problem.”

“Why would you even think I could get them?”

“Because your brother thought you could get them.”

“My brother was an idiot. I don’t even work at GDS.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Tucker. Call me tomorrow with the plans, or you will receive another envelope.”

The phone call winked off the Droid’s screen. Talevi had hung up. I pounded the counter. My mother’s mail scattered to the floor. I crouched to the floor, picking up mail and shoving it all into a garbage bag. Fuck the bills. They’ll send more. I knotted the bag and threw it by the front door. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t get those plans. I need to call Bobby.”

“That would be a mistake,” said Jael.

“How can calling the FBI to rescue Lucy be a mistake? This is Bobby’s investigation.”

“Bobby Miller is a good man, but he must prioritize the plans over Lucy’s life. He will not save her.”

Stress pinched the muscles in my neck, driving a pain spike into my eye. I winced and rubbed my temples, my thoughts getting crammed into a desperate corner. “What did JT want from me?”

“If Dave Patterson were not dead, he could have told you.”

I sat at my now-clean counter and watched Click and Clack, willing the stress in my neck to subside. Patterson. What did I know about him?

“All I know about Patterson is that he knew Talevi,” I said.

Jael searched through my cabinets, found the Advil, filled a glass of water, and put four of the orange pills on the counter in front of me alongside the water. “Pain will not help.”

I took the Advil. “And Talevi knew Patterson.”

Jael said, “Patterson was unable to get the plans for Talevi because he was no longer at GDS. Why did he leave GDS?”

“His boss told us that he was fired for sharing his password.”

“Who did he share with?”

“JT. And JT had the deal with Talevi.”

Jael said, “Your brother was a spy. He was buying the plans from Patterson.”

“By getting the password.”

“Yes. GDS mistook the password sharing for simple policy violations. They fired Patterson and changed the password.”

“Those paranoid bastards,” I said. “Their system worked and they didn’t even know it.”

“JT could not get the plans without the password,” said Jael.

“That’s why JT came to me. He thought he had a crooked half brother who could hack the account.”

“Could you hack the account?”

“Probably. If I could get into the GDS building.”

The intercom buzz broke through our conversation. I slipped off the kitchen stool and pushed the talk button.

“Hello?”

“It’s me, Tucker. It’s Walt.”