Paul Conway, formerly Leroy Craven, was dressed in shorts and T-shirt. Five-seven, 170 pounds, hair tucked behind his ears and ending just above his collar, beard grown out a little beyond neatly trimmed. Wired eyes like he hadn’t slept in a while.
“I can’t have this!” He ran inside, leaving the front door open. He opened the door to a coat-room-cum-cupboard, and reached inside.
Walker took two strides inside and caught Paul’s wrist. He held it tight. Walker had it in him to squeeze hard enough to crush bones and tendons and split muscle and skin; if the guy struggled and tried to pull another firearm, he just might do that.
But Paul wasn’t reaching for a gun. He pointed with his free hand.
The junction box. Tucked inside the cupboard.
“The cameras,” he said. “This house is wired up the wazoo. Everything gets recorded. Security.”
Walker let him go and watched as Paul flicked the mains switch. The television Walker could see from the entrance went black.
“You’re on the run?” Paul said to them.
Monica opened her mouth but then stopped and looked to Walker.
“We’re working off the grid,” Walker said.
Paul shook his head. “Grid? What—you think not carrying a phone will keep you dark? That it will somehow save you? When’s the last time you stopped and paid for gas or bought a coffee?”
Walker looked to Monica.
“In town?” Paul said.
He could see the answer in Walker’s eyes.
“Shit.”
And with that, Paul was on the move. He spoke as he ran upstairs: “We’ve got minutes, not hours, until they’re on to you!” Paul shouted. “Until they’re here!”
Walker turned to Monica. She seemed no less tense as she crossed her arms and entered the house. She looked about, poked her head into the rec room and took in the big-screen TV, surround sound, massive leather recliner in pride of place for serious gaming time, a couple of couches against the walls, bookshelves full of paperbacks and movies and games. No photos. Walker followed her through to the kitchen and watched as she opened the refrigerator, inspected it, closed it. Finally she seemed part-way satisfied.
At the sound of noise out the front, Walker moved up the hallway, his boots squeaky on the polished flagstones. He saw the car: an SUV; huge thing—a Tucson, an off-white color. It sped by and pulled into a driveway halfway down the street. A woman got out, went to the rear door and lifted an infant out of a capsule.
“Okay, let’s move,” Paul said, coming down the stairs, dressed in jeans and sneakers and a sweater, a small backpack over his shoulder. “Like, now.”
Walker was already out the door, the keys to the Cuda in his hand.
“Nope,” Paul said, heading to the side door of his garage. “That car’s burned. They’ll have images of it, and of you two in it, from all over the place. We’ll take mine.”
Walker looked at the car that he’d driven from Mexico the day before. He paused and considered pocketing the keys. He looked at them in his hand, the single key on the NASA key ring—and then he tossed them into the tall prairie grass under Paul’s front windows.
“Sad to see it go?” Monica asked him as they went through to the garage.
“I’ll come back for it, soon enough,” Walker said.
“I’m not a betting man,” Paul said, walking through his garage past a Toyota Prius and toward a big truck covered in a tarp. “But if you guys are being pursued by the NSA, as I’m suspecting you are, then they’re going to have that car impounded. And they’re going to be coming after you with what might as well be the eyes and ears and wrath of God.”
Paul pulled the tarp off to reveal a jacked-up twin-cab truck that had seen far better days. The tires were big off-road things. The windows were after-market tinted and were bubbled with age and a job done cheaply. It had a snorkel air intake, a winch on the front nudge bar, and Nevada plates.
“This vehicle’s registered in another name,” Paul said, chucking his backpack in the back passenger cab seat. “You two get in there, and stay down until we’re well out of town.”
“Trapwire,” Walker said.
“That’s right,” Paul replied. “And I’ve heard rumors about some other mass-surveillance program too. You two will be lit up like Christmas trees right now, got it?”
He went to the driver’s seat, got in and started the engine. It turned over straightaway and had the unmistakable sound of a big diesel. But a modern diesel, not original to the truck. Again, after-market drop-in. Maybe one of the VW diesels that got sold super cheap after their emissions cheating scandal. A bug-out car, ready to roll. Walker saw in the back of the truck another gas tank. Long range—they could probably get over a thousand miles if they had to.
“Twelve hundred miles,” Paul said, seeing Walker calculating. “Far enough to get anywhere I’d need to.”
“Where are we headed now?” Walker said as he and Monica climbed in the back.
Paul hit the gas, drove out of the garage and down the drive and then headed north. “As far as I need to go to drop you guys out of town and let the heat die down.”
“We need your help to find Jasper,” Monica said. “You can—”
“I can’t get involved. Just let this play out,” Paul said. “Maybe it won’t be as bad as you think.”
“This is legit,” Walker said. “And your reaction to us turning up, and now bugging out, proves that you think it’s worse than you’re trying to tell yourself.”
“It might not pan out like the news outlets are suggesting,” Paul said after a few moments of contemplation. Walker could see that he was conflicted in all kinds of ways. “It’s basically whoever has Jasper versus the world. It can’t end as big as they think.”
“Why do you say that?” Walker asked.
“These hacks? A lot of the most vital systems in this country are near-to impenetrable,” Monica said. “Especially to one guy, in this case Jasper, working over thirty-six hours.”
“They’ve probably planned this for a while, whoever has him,” Walker said.
“Impenetrable,” repeated Paul. “Nothing is. Humans are behind it. Once things go Quantum AI, sure, but that’s not here yet, so there are ways in and around. You hack the right person, they become the malware. And if they’re the person you need, then you’re in the system you need. Right?”
Monica said, “Then who can we hack to find Jasper?”
“No one. I’ve hacked a bunch of people. Not lately, but they’re still in there, in the system, higher up the food chain now. Whatever we want, I can get in. But not from back there,” Paul motioned over his shoulder toward home. “Here’s too hot. If you’re here, they won’t be far behind.”
“Who’s they?” Walker said.
“The men in black. They go around in black cars and black helicopters. They own the night and they can make the day night too. And we can’t do it in town.”
“Then where?”
Paul checked his rearview mirror and kept his foot firmly planted on the gas pedal. “I know a place.”