Rachel had barely made it off the property when her phone rang, causing her to slow just as she reached solid asphalt again.
The small screen illuminated the inside of her car, displaying an unknown number with what appeared to be an international code beginning with 44.
She contemplated while still rolling, before pressing the button to ignore. Then dropped the phone on the passenger seat and accelerated.
Less than a minute later, it rang a second time. This one from a different number but still beginning with the digits 44.
Rachel slowed again, this time coming to a complete stop on the edge of the road before checking behind her to see if the police cars were still visible. They weren’t. Only the afterglow of their pulsating blue-and-red lights on the far side of a cluster of ponderosa pines.
She moved the phone to her left hand and put the car into park. Apprehensively, Rachel answered the call.
“Hello?”
“Rachel. It’s Henry.”
“Henry?” She was both surprised and confused. “What number are you calling from?”
“It doesn’t matter. Where are you?”
Another look over her shoulder. “I’m just leaving—” She stopped speaking and gulped, fighting the trembling in her voice. “Perry just died, Henry! He’s gone.”
The other end of the call fell silent. The silence lingered until Yamada finally replied, “Oh, God.”
“I’m just leaving now. The police are there. They’re still—”
“Rachel, stop talking.”
“What?”
“Stop talking,” repeated Yamada. “Listen to me carefully. Hang up and download an app onto your phone called AllinCrypt.”
“What, right now?”
“Yes. Right now.” He spelled out the app name. “Download it and call me back on the number you see me calling from. Do you understand?”
“Yes. But why?”
“Just do it,” he said, and ended the call. Leaving Rachel in complete silence. Alone in her car.
She did not move at first. She merely stared forward, blinking uncomprehendingly, until her fingers began to move by themselves.
Her signal was weak, and it took several minutes to find and download the app. When finished, she copied over the last number he called from and pressed the call button within the application.
Yamada answered on the first ring.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Where are you, Rach, exactly?”
“On the road leading to Perry’s.” She checked one more time. “The police are still there.”
“Okay. We need to meet and talk.”
“Are you even in the country?”
“Yes,” he replied. “I’m in Flagstaff. I’m just rerouting my calls.”
“What for?”
“I’ll explain when I see you. How much gas do you have?”
“Gas?” Surprised, she leaned forward to check. “A little less than half a tank.”
“Okay. That’s plenty.”
“Henry, what the hell is going on?”
“Rachel, just listen. Do you know where the Rogers Lake hiking area is?”
“Uh, I think so.”
“It’s about ten miles southeast from where you are. West on Highway 40 and then south on 231. I think it’s called Wooden Mountain Road or something like that.”
“Okay.”
“It’s a rough road, so go slow. I’ll meet you at the entrance.”
“When?”
“As soon as you can get there. Are you awake enough to drive?”
“Are you kidding?”
When Yamada said rough, he meant it. The road turned to gravel a few miles from the main interstate and then to dirt, where it narrowed and became even harsher. Constant and unmanaged weather-strewn ruts made it feel like she was driving over a giant mile-long washboard. Buffeted by sporadic gusts of wind beneath a star-studded night sky, she could make out the distant reflection of what appeared to be a small lake in the distance and, stretching out before it, a long rolling prairie. By day, the expanse was covered in a thick carpet of brown-and-green scrub brush.
The constant jarring of the road slowed Rachel to less than ten miles an hour, and took forever before the reserve’s large, white-painted sign finally appeared in her headlights. Slowly and steadily, she edged closer until she could make out the largest of the printed letters.
WELCOME
ROGERS LAKE COUNTY NATURAL AREA
When she was within a few hundred feet, a bright flashlight beam appeared next to the sign and motioned to an open space to pull off to.
Turning and applying some gas, she powered up and over a modest hump before bringing her Camry to a stop, immediately ensconced by a cloud of dust billowing forward past the car and into the bright beams of its headlights.
Turning off the engine, she remained inside until the person approached the passenger-side window and shined the flashlight at his face.
She quickly opened and pushed her driver’s door open, stepping out onto the hard, arid ground.
“Henry, what the hell is going on?” she called over the wind.
He put a finger over his lips and turned off the light. “Turn off your headlights.”
She reached back inside and complied before Yamada circled the front of the vehicle and took her hand. Guiding her away and toward a row of trees.
“We’re in trouble, Rach,” he said, turning around. “Serious trouble.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
“First, tell me about Perry.”
She gazed through the darkness, still distraught. “It was horrible, just horrible. I went to his house. Late. And when I got there, none of the lights were on. I should have known something was wrong. But for some reason…” She let it go with a shake of her head. “I got in through the side door and found him. Sitting at the table. Slumped forward. I almost jumped out of my skin.”
She inhaled and continued more slowly. “I called the police as fast as I could. And tried to search for a pulse…”
Yamada’s voice was low and patient. “What happened?”
“I-I don’t know. It looked like he had a heart attack. Just sitting there at his table. Waiting for me. But the police…”
“The police what?”
“They don’t think so.”
“Meaning what?”
Her voice trembled. “They think someone killed him!”
“Why do they think that?”
“They said they found signs of a struggle. I don’t know what it was. I didn’t notice anything. But they think it might have been strangulation.”
“Did you see any signs of that?”
“Like what?”
“Like marks.”
“I’m not an expert. And I wasn’t looking for anything at the time. The police said there wasn’t any bruising on his neck, but there were ways around that. Like with a cloth or something.”
“So, they think he was murdered.”
“Yes,” she exclaimed, “and the detective was asking questions like she thought it was me.”
“But they let you go.”
“Only after they found some large footprints in the grass.”
Yamada looked down at her sneakers. “Lucky for you.”
“Henry, what is all of this? What is going on? And where the hell have you been? I haven’t seen you for two days.”
“I was at home,” he answered. “Working. Looking into some things. Things that didn’t feel right.”
“Nothing feels right anymore!”
“It was the stuff Nora was having me do. With all the code and all the data. Asking for things that didn’t make sense. And then Perry. Asking me to put him in touch with some hackers.”
Rachel pulled strands of whipping hair from her face. “He told me this morning. He said they found a bunch of stuff about the project’s funding. Through the NIH.”
“It’s true. A lot of shit, Rach. A lot of grants that look like they might be fake. Or fraudulent. Along with a bunch of secret payments.”
“Payments? Perry didn’t say anything about that.”
“Maybe he hadn’t read that far. They found a lot of stuff.”
She peered at him, crossing her arms in the darkness. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I think the police are right. About Perry.”
“That he was murdered?”
Yamada raised his hands, covering his face momentarily before letting them fall. “I put Perry in touch with my cousin, who works at a security firm. And he put him in touch with the guys who broke in and did the digging. The hackers.”
“And?”
“My cousin is dead, Rachel. I just found out. And maybe those hackers are, too.”