Mulberry’s hand comes up, tangling in my hair, holding me close, taking control of the kiss. Not letting me go. Never letting me go is the promise on his lips.
But when I pull back he reluctantly releases me, his attention turning back to James who drives his Corvette off the tip of Frank’s nose and starts to navigate it across the carpet toward Mulberry’s booted foot.
“Tell me more about the zero days,” I say.
“Dan has access to a lot of systems, you know that.”
“Yes.”
“From my understanding, he’s outdone his tech wizardry with his zero days. The man’s capability is legendary. He could bring down a fighter jet, shut down power grids, destroy oil rigs, explode nuclear plants. As Dan uncovered his various zero-day hacks, he hands over the most dangerous ones to the creators of the software so they can fix the vulnerabilities—at the end of the day Dan is a white hat.”
“A good hacker is a white hat, right?” James reaches Mulberry’s boot and drives up with a loud vroom. Mulberry turns so that he is fully facing James as the little car crests the tip of the boot and starts down the laces.
“Dan is more of a gray hat, really,” Mulberry says, “since he keeps a lot of the discoveries of flaws for his own purposes. They are worth a fortune. But beyond the money you could sell them for, the power they offer is unfathomable. It’s one of the keys to Joyful Justice’s success. It’s a huge part of how we can help so many groups exact their own justice. We have to get that fob back from Peter.”
“Dan must have protections on the fob to keep the zero days safe,” I say as James reaches Mulberry’s stomach. Mulberry opens his arm so that James can keep driving up his chest. “He’s not an idiot. Rebecca must have access to them too.”
“I’m sure you’re right, but if smart people get hold of that fob, they can figure out how to access them,” Mulberry says, his focus on James as he reaches Mulberry’s shoulder. “And while we wouldn’t shut down the power grid of a city, a lot of groups would, including intelligence agencies of many nation-states—we’re not just talking about terrorists here. Cyber warfare is totally unregulated. Countries are constantly attacking each other.”
My chest feels tight with all the things I don’t know, all the way humans are hurting each other we can’t even see.
“After Robert figured out Peter had them,” I say, “he made some calls, to enter the bidding, but he said that Peter wasn’t trying to sell them. At least not yet. When I saw Peter…he said he would bring them to me. That he’d do whatever I wanted.”
Mulberry cocks his head. “Did you believe him?”
“I did, but I can’t trust my instincts with him.”
“You’ve got the best instincts of anyone I know, Sydney.” James starts down Mulberry’s bicep.
“Then you must know a lot of people with horrible instincts. I thought he—” I can’t finish the sentence.
“I think he did…really.” Mulberry’s voice is quiet, and I lean closer to hear him. James reaches Mulberry’s fingers, pressed against the carpet, and vrooms off them, headed for Blue’s paw. Mulberry turns to look at me and our faces are close, our eyes lock. “I mean it, I know he lied. But I don’t think he was lying about that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, sitting back. “Whether that part of our relationship was real or not isn’t the point. Sitting around and waiting for him to bring me the fob isn’t a solid plan.”
“I’ll get in touch with Rebecca and let her know what’s going on,” Mulberry says, shifting to pull his phone out of his back pocket.
“Okay, I also need you to tell me about Dan in prison.”
Mulberry sighs but doesn’t speak until he’s done typing out a message. I wait, watching James as he drives his car down Blue’s back. Frank’s tail thwaps the carpet; he’s clearly hoping to be next on the course.
“Okay,” Mulberry says, putting the phone down. “After we evacuated the island, we brought almost all the staff to Costa Rica. Dan didn’t like that as a setup for lots of reasons, and everyone agreed it was too many key players in one location. Too many parts of our organization and also just not big enough. I was in recovery at the time,” Mulberry says.
“In Costa Rica?” I ask.
“No, I was in Australia. In Sydney.” Mulberry lets out a small laugh at the name. “I needed,” he repositions, as if talking about his injuries brings them back to the surface of his mind, “more serious medical attention—I was in a specialty burn unit. One of the best in the world.”
“Were you alone?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No, Mo-Ping, Merl’s wife, came out, she stayed with me for the first few weeks. I don’t really remember her being there.” Mulberry’s eyes unfocus as though he’s seeing into the past. “I just knew I wasn’t alone.”
I swallow a lump in my throat. I should have been there.
“Merl and Mo-Ping got married?” I ask.
Mulberry nods. “Yeah, two months ago.” A smile ghosts across his lips. “It was really sweet. Those two are a great couple.”
“Yeah, they are,” I agree. I’d met Mo-Ping years ago in China when Merl went looking for her and got himself captured. I helped free them and Mo-Ping’s fellow practitioners of Falun Gong—a religion outlawed in China whose followers are persecuted. She’d moved to Costa Rica with Merl afterwards, and they’d been together ever since. “Sorry I missed the wedding.”
Mulberry turns to look at me more fully. “You’ll see them soon.”
I nod, not counting any happy reunions before they hatch, but there is a spark of hope in my chest—a flickering flame of excitement to see my friends again. “You said Mo-Ping was there for the first few weeks. What about after?”
“Loki Falk took over—he was head of Lenox’s head of operations in China when you met him.”
“Yeah,” I say, remembering the man who’d run Lenox’s male escort service in China and had been integral to helping me free Merl and Mo-Ping. “He was born in China but grew up in Australia mostly, right?”
“Yes, and moved there after he helped you and Merl. It wasn’t safe for him to stay in China.”
“I didn’t know that.” The man’s kind brown eyes come back to me. He was smart, brave, forthright, and willing to risk himself for others. The fact that he looked after Mulberry gives me some solace.
“We became good friends,” Mulberry says.
“Does he still work for Lenox?”
“Yes, and Joyful Justice. He’s on Lenox’s team and handles all requests around sex working and trafficking in his region.
“Anyway, in response to the concerns about moving the entire Pacific operation to Costa Rica, Rebecca found a location in Laos she thought would work. And we’ve actually moved a lot of the tech side of Joyful Justice to that location. But when Dan went to go check it out—he didn’t make it.”
“Didn’t make it?”
“He disappeared for a week—Rebecca lost him entirely—and then she found him in a federal data base. He’s basically in a black box. He’s not going to get a trial. But we’ve got his location and we are working on an extraction plan.”
“Okay…that’s confusing.”
“It is. But it’s why I never connected with him after I recovered. I mean, why he couldn’t tell me about you.”
“So he’s been locked up for close to a year.”
“Yes, about ten months. But,” he shakes his head. “it’s not like he’s in lockdown. Rebecca theorizes he’s working for the US government in some capacity and will extract himself when he gets the chance.”
“But we’re not waiting for that to happen?”
“No. We’re not.”
“I may have an avenue—”
A phone rings from the bedroom—it doesn’t sound like the burner phone. Must be the one Consuela gave me, which is perfect timing. She’s our best bet to get Dan freed. “Hold on a second,” I say, leaving Mulberry and James in the living room to go grab the phone.
“Sydney.” The warm voice on the other end is Senator Eunice Jackson.
“Senator, how are you?” I ask, a knot of tension tying in my stomach. Something about this woman scares me.
“I’m very interested in continuing our conversation. Do you have a moment now?”
I look at the clock on the bedside table. It’s late afternoon, and I’d planned to go to the hospital again after dinner. James is in a good mood, so this would be the time to leave him with Mulberry for a little while. “I could give you about thirty minutes.” James can survive Mulberry’s care for that long.
She tells me a hotel room number and we hang up. I slip the phone into one of the pockets of my cargo pants.
In the living room I find Mulberry on the floor with James and Frank, the few cars we’ve amassed since landing in Arizona spread out on the floor. Mulberry looks up, smiling. “Who was that?”
“Senator Eunice Jackson.”
Mulberry’s brows shoot up.
“She’s offering me immunity to testify against Robert.”
“About what?” Mulberry asks, blinking hard, trying to catch up.
“A laundry list of crimes. I’m going to fit Dan into the negotiations.”
“Wait, you’re going to testify against Robert Maxim?”
“Maybe. Can you watch James for a half-hour while I go talk to her?”
Mulberry pales slightly but he nods, as if I just asked him if he could guard the most precious object on earth…which is basically what I did, so I appreciate the seriousness of his expression.
“I’ll leave you Blue,” I say.
Mulberry nods again and looks over to Blue, who’s laying with his giant head between his paws, watching James crash the Corvette into a Range Rover. “Good, that will help.”
“You can give him some food; our schedule is all screwed up, but I’m sure he will be hungry soon. He likes jelly omelets.” I step into the kitchen, opening the grocery bags and pulling out the jam and eggs. I find a nonstick pan about the right size and put it on the stove.
“I can do it,” Mulberry says as he stands. He joins me in the small kitchen. “Just as soon as you tell me what a jelly omelet is.”
I laugh. “It’s something my dad used to make when I was kid. I hadn’t eaten one in years until I started cooking for that cookie.” I’m grinning, remembering my dad’s jam-filled omelets and the smile that lights up James’s face when he eats them. “It’s exactly what it sounds like, an omelet filled with jam.
Mulberry cocks his head.
I shrug. “It’s a thing, trust me. It’s a super yummy thing.”
“Okay.” Mulberry’s brow is furrowed as he looks at the ingredients.
“You should probably call down and have them bring you a high chair.”
“Right, good call.”
I stretch up and kiss him on the cheek, right on the scarring that softens his jaw line. He turns quickly, and his lips brush mine. But he’s not satisfied with that. His hand comes to my lower back and pulls me against his side, pressing his mouth to mine more firmly. I let my fingers dig into the strength of his shoulder.
“I love you,” he says against my lips.
“I love you too; take good care of our son.” I echo back the words he spoke to me in the cement stairwell in that moment we both thought was our last kiss, our last everything together.