With traffic it had been nearly five-thirty by the time Chip and Ben got over to Brighton Beach, and after a quick tour of the small Brooklyn neighborhood, the bars already filling up with the afterwork crowd, they drove over to the nearby Best Western on West Thirteenth Street and got a room for the night.
By midnight they still hadn’t got a hit from the NSA telephone search, and Ben was going crazy.
“This could take all night, and we still might not come up with anything,” Chip said.
Ben had been at the window looking down at the parking lot. He turned around. “What else can we do?”
“Going back to the bank won’t help; even if we got past security again, they’d just call the cops, and I don’t know if Huggard would be able to convince the mayor to let you go a second time.”
“Someone there had to have hired the Russians to kidnap her for the flash drive, and they’re going to want it back.”
“Even if you’re suggesting a trade—Cassy’s location for the flash drive—what would be in it for them? Again, they’d simply have you arrested and take the thing.”
“And we still don’t know what’s on it?” Ben asked.
“I think it’s some kind of a program, but to do what, I have no way of knowing. The thing is encrypted with an algorithm that could take months to crack. But we’ve got the password taped to the bottom.”
“If Cassy gave it to Imani and told him to run, then it’s her creation. And she’s damned good.”
“She’d have to be, to work for a place like Burnham Pike.”
“Imani gave his life to keep the thing away from them, and they know Cassy doesn’t have it, so there’d be no reason to keep her alive,” Ben said. It was the one thing that kept running around inside his head, gnawing at his gut.
“But that’s just the point,” Chip said. “If whatever’s on the flash drive is Cassy’s work, then they’ll need her alive to decrypt it.”
“So a trade might work.”
“They need her alive, but there’s no way they’d let her ride off into the sunset with you.”
“Then we have to find out where they’ve taken her,” Ben said, and he turned back to the window.
“I have another idea,” Chip said.
Ben turned back again. “I’m all ears.”
“It’s dangerous, and you’d definitely need backup.”
“Get on with it, goddamnit.”
“You said the bank’s chief of security, the one who made the landline call to a Russian in Manhattan, is a tough guy.”
“Ex-cop, and pals with the cop who arrested me at LaGuardia.”
“Maybe you can make a trade with him.”
“You just said they won’t be willing to trade the flash drive for Cassy.”
“No, but it’s almost a hundred percent bet that he hired the Russians who snatched her off the street.”
“You said he called a Russian in Manhattan.”
“Different guy,” Chip said. “Maybe an intermediary who hired the Brighton Beach people, if that’s who took her.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Maybe he’d be willing to trade Cassy’s location for the flash drive.”
“That’s it,” Ben said, hopeful for the first time since they’d left Washington.
“And that’s why you’d need some muscle to back you up.”
“Hardy’s an ex-cop, so the police wouldn’t do us any good. Anyway, I have my own idea.”
“Listen to me for a second, would you?” Chip said. “I’m not talking New York cops, I’m talking the FBI.”
“Why the hell would the Bureau want to get involved?”
“Think it out. Cassy works for the largest or maybe second largest investment bank in the country. She works in cybersecurity. She developed some program which she recorded on a flash drive, and yet she probably didn’t tell anyone in management. She and her friend just took off running with it.”
“Running where?”
“Doesn’t matter. What does matter is that she thought it was so important she not only had to get out of the building with it, but when she realized that she was about to be kidnapped, she gave it to her friend and probably told him to run. Which he did, and which got him killed.”
“So BP was up to something illegal,” Ben said.
“It’d be my guess. Now we’re talking about a federal crime, something the Bureau would be interested in.”
“Not yet.”
“First let me get ahold of someone in the Bureau’s office here, see if we can get some intel. They’re going to have to run it through channels, but it might be faster than waiting for a hit from NSA.”
“We’re not getting the Bureau involved.”
“Have you finally lost your mind?”
“I’m going in alone.”
“No way in hell,” Chip said.
“Alone,” Ben said. “Can you copy whatever’s on the flash drive to your computer?”
“Already done, thanks to the password.”
“Good. Give me Hardy’s telephone number.”
“Goddamnit.”
“If something goes south, then you can call the Bureau. But first you’re going to let me handle it.”
“Two problems,” Chip said. “If he agrees to the trade, you and he will have to meet so you can hand over the drive. And he’ll probably have some muscle of his own standing by, unless he’s as dumb as you are.”
“And the second problem?”
“If he gives you the actual location, he’ll tip off the people holding her so they’ll know you’re on your way.”
“Fine.”
“Bullshit, fine. There’ll be more than one of them, at least the two we know about. And you said the guy who snatched her sounded ex-military.”
“Spetsnaz,” Ben said. “Give me Hardy’s number.”