“Dad—”
“I’m happy to see that you weren’t hurt,” the old man said. He certainly didn’t look happy, but the words seemed sincere enough considering their source.
“How did you find me?”
“The same way I found you last Friday night, at the police station,” Charlie said. “We found your cell phone. They’d taken out the battery, but someone put it back in and turned the phone on about an hour ago.”
Noah thought about that for a moment. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand—you tracked my cell phone? How did you do that?”
Landers finessed right past that question. “The first piece,” he said, “was that we figured out who leaked that government document to the press last week.”
“Who was it?”
“It was scanned and sent out from right here. About two hours after it came into the mailroom.”
“I don’t believe it,” Noah said.
Landers picked up a manila folder from the desk and put it in Noah’s hands. “Take a look for yourself,” he said.
The tab on the folder wasn’t labeled and the paper inside was still warm from the copier. The top document was the cover page of a dossier, and the bold heading was just a name: Molly Ross.
He flipped the page to find a breadcrumb trail of computer activity sent up from the IT department. There was her log-in and some fairly cagey attempts to hide the suspicious actions through a proxy mask, along with the e-mail message in question, addressed to a list of a few hundred recipients outside the company firewall. And there was the attachment that contained a digitized version of the formerly secret DHS memorandum.
No question that she’d done it; no question that she’d tried to hide what she’d done.
Charlie brought him some water from the pitcher on the sideboard, and he needed it. His hands were unsteady as he retrieved another of the little pills from his pocket. He swallowed it along with the remaining water in the glass.
“Keep going,” Landers said. “It gets better.”
The next page was a photo of her in some academic environment, and it took Noah a few seconds to recognize all the things that were different. She wore glasses, thin half-rim frames and subtly tinted lenses. Her hair was longer and lighter, almost blond. But the changes went beyond her appearance. There was a sophistication about her in this photo, a style and a seriousness that he’d either overlooked or that she’d somehow hidden in their short time together.
In another shot she appeared to be at a rally of some kind, with her mother on one side and the ubiquitous Danny Bailey on the other, his arm around her waist and hers around his as they all pressed together for the camera.
The next picture seemed more recent. Molly was alone, wearing aviator sunglasses, a backward baseball cap, cut-off Daisy Dukes, and a camouflage tank top. In her hands was what looked like a military-grade automatic rifle with a drum magazine, held as if it were the most natural accessory a pretty young woman could be sporting on a bright summer day at the gunnery range. For whatever reason he was reminded of that famous shot of Lee Harvey Oswald in his backyard, holding his radical newspapers in one hand and his murder weapon in the other, just a few months before his appointment with JFK at Dealey Plaza.
“The way we figure it,” Landers said, “these people wanted to get some dirt on the government, our new clients, specifically, and they identified our company as a weak spot in the security chain. So they sent this girl to a temp agency we use, and you can see right there”—he tapped one of the papers in the open folder—“she wrote up a résumé that made her look like a perfect fit for a job here, and talked her way in. This Ross girl, she can be a charmer, I understand.”
Noah felt his face getting hot.
“But it wasn’t enough just to get into the mailroom,” Landers said. “Oh, it gave her some limited access, but to do the kind of damage they wanted to, they needed some inside help.”
“Just say what you’re trying to say,” Noah said. “Do you really think I set out to help these people? I met her on Friday, totally at random, and then I brought her here on Saturday night, and that was a terrible mistake and I know it and I deserve whatever happens to me for that. But don’t stand there and insinuate that I was in on this whole thing.”
Landers took another folder from the desk, and at a nod from the old man he handed it to Noah. “What I’m saying is, there was nothing random about how you met her, and this all started a long time before Friday.”
When he opened the new folder the picture clipped to the left inside cover was an enlargement of Molly’s company ID. It featured the same photo he’d admired so much when it was pinned to that flattering sweater she’d worn—the one that was knit in his favorite shades of blue. She was beautiful, of course, with a look that seemed put together to conform precisely to his personal checklist of attractive feminine qualities. But he’d missed something important the first time he’d seen this picture: she also looked awfully clever.
In the right-hand pocket was a sheaf of printouts, and these pages weren’t about Molly, but from their markings they belonged to her. It was everything anyone could ever want to know about Noah Gardner, much of it unwittingly supplied by the subject himself. His Facebook profile, his Twitter history, his full set of responses from a variety of questionnaires at his online dating sites, the rambling, soul-searching posts from his personal blog, even his browser history from a number of recent consecutive weeks—much of this was openly available, but some of it would have required some minor identity theft or targeted hacking skills to obtain.
He had a brief impulse to ask how Landers had managed to gather all of this, presumably from Molly’s home computer, but then he remembered where he worked. Noah had seen the same sort of digital thievery performed many, many times in the course of corporate espionage and political dirty-tricks campaigns. The pages were stamped with evidence registers, as though they’d been sent over from Molly’s Internet service provider through some shady collusion with law enforcement. As fast and loose as everyone was playing with privacy regulations these days it was probably as simple as knowing the right person to call and paying the standard fee.
Noah turned over another page, and the next item hit him like a blow to the midsection. He’d thought for the first second that it was another picture of Molly, and it seemed that was exactly the point.
It was a photo of Noah’s mother that he’d posted on his blog a while back on some anniversary of hers. It might have been her birthday, or the date she’d died, or just one of the many late nights when he was missing her more than usual. She’d been in her mid-twenties in the picture, about Molly’s age, a carefree young rebel with a smile that would almost break your heart. She was dressed in faded jeans, sandals, and a powder-blue knit sweater, and she wore a little flower in her dark, curly hair.
“You didn’t stand a chance, Noah,” Charlie said. “She came here specifically to get close to you and then make the most of it. This Ross girl was so far into your head you never would have seen her coming. Nobody would have.” He pulled up a chair and sat down. “Now why don’t you tell us what happened with this woman. Start from the beginning. We’re in full damage control mode now, so don’t leave anything out.”
So he told them. In hindsight it was all painfully clear, but Mr. Landers still occasionally chimed in to underscore the more subtle features of the betrayal in case anyone might have missed them.
He’d first met Molly in the break room—this was obviously meant to seem like an accidental encounter but it was nothing of the kind; he visited the snack machine like clockwork practically every day at that time. Her look was subtly put together to hook him in the defenseless depths of his unconscious mind. Then she’d acted completely uninterested, which served only to put him instantly under her spell.
He went downtown after work to see her again at her meeting; Charlie had already supplied the other two men with those details. He took her home to his place, and she’d gone out while h
e was sleeping—that’s when she’d duplicated his keys, Landers said, and she’d also paused to whisper to the doorman that she might be coming back later with some of Noah’s friends for a surprise.
Then Noah brought her to the office and showed her that presentation—and in doing so he also showed her how to access those protected files when she returned with her accomplices to try to steal them that same night.
Shortly after this point his recollection ended, of course, so Landers took up the reconstructed story. At her apartment she’d evidently given him some kind of short-acting drug to knock him out, and then they’d applied a fentanyl patch in hopes of keeping him unconscious for the duration of the weekend. The doctor had made it clear that this was quite a dangerous thing to do to a person, and it showed a callous disregard for Noah’s safety.
On Saturday night Molly had come back to the office with three men and used her prior experience and Noah’s keycard to get access to the floor. They’d tried to copy the electronic files from the conference room, but the network’s security system was alerted and the servers locked themselves down before everything had been compromised. What they’d managed to steal was significant, though, and it was still unclear how much of the damage could be contained.
“They cleaned out that squatter’s apartment where we found you,” Charlie said, “but they left some conspicuous incriminating evidence behind: some radical wing-nut literature, a couple of weapons, and some other assorted contraband. They were probably going to call the police to the place with an anonymous tip.”
“Why would they do that?”
“We think they wanted you to be found there with that stuff, so you’d be implicated as an accomplice in this whole thing. That way we’d want to keep it quiet to protect you, and we’d be less likely to make a federal case out of it. We know they went back to your apartment that night. We’ll know pretty soon if they planted something there, but it doesn’t look like they took anything.”
The pounding in his head was worsening, and reliving the weekend’s ordeal wasn’t helping him feel any better. “So what are you going to do?” Noah asked.
“We won’t involve the authorities.” It was the first time the old man had spoken in a while. “But there have already been … repercussions … for the people who’ve done this. And there are many more to come.”
“Yeah, don’t worry, kid, we’ll make ’em sorry,” Landers said, and he clapped Noah on the shoulder a little harder than required for a simple friendly gesture. “Hey, at least somebody got laid out of the deal, am I right?”
At that moment Noah had never felt any more like punching another man in the face, nor any less physically capable of doing so. So he only sat there, eyes down, thinking how good that might feel.
“Gentlemen,” the old man said, “could you leave my son and me alone?”
Landers gathered his things and on his way out he paused to whisper for a few seconds at Arthur Gardner’s ear. Charlie Nelan stayed where he was, in the chair next to Noah.
“You too, Charlie, if you would.”
“I’d like to stay.”
The old man had been cleaning his pipe and was now refilling it, and he let his silence provide his answer. Charlie got up, put a hand on Noah’s shoulder and squeezed, then left the room and closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER 31
Arthur Gardner’s office suite was rumored to be the quietest place on the island of Manhattan. It had been designed that way, as an environment of uninterrupted solitude, completely free of unwanted outside sounds. There was no street or city noise, not a whisper from the heating or cooling vents, no intrusion on the ears from the bustling office floor outside.
The reading rooms of the New York Public Library just across the street were as loud as a bus engine by comparison. This place immersed you in a deep-space quiet you might imagine to exist within the thick steel walls of a bank vault or the inside crypt of a sealed mausoleum. All that echo-dampened stillness made any interior sound seem exaggerated and unnaturally distinct—the scritch of the flint in his father’s lighter, the hiss of the glowing tobacco in the bowl of his pipe, the steady metal workings of the ancient mantel clock on the corner shelf.
Most people missed the meaning of this peculiarity. It wasn’t simply the quiet that was important to Arthur Gardner. His own sounds were probably music to his ears. It was the noise of other human beings—the reminders of their existence—that was what he wanted to avoid. He’d said it more than once: if he stepped out of the house one morning and by some miracle all the people were gone, that would be his fondest wish come true. That’s how much he loved to be alone.
The two of them had been sitting for over a minute in that dead, cottony silence when Noah finally mustered the courage to speak.
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
“There’s no need to apologize to me.”
“Really, I’m sorry—”
“No need, I said.” His father set his pipe in its rest and leaned back in his chair. “It was more an insult than an injury, the idea that they managed to use you in an attempt to damage our company and our clients. We’ve known of these people, of course, and we’d thought we were adequately prepared, but they surprised all of us, didn’t they? And I must say”—now there was a strange little smile on his face—“this avenue they chose, the seductive infiltration by this girl, it shows a great deal more ingenuity than I would have expected, given the source. It was inspired, really. Ruthless though it was.”
“I should have known better.”
“Nonsense. Wiser men than you have fallen, and to far less able enemies. Monarchs, captains of industry, senators, sitting presidents, very nearly.” He picked up his pipe, tapped it on the desk, and set about the ritual motions of lighting it again. “Let’s put it behind us. I’m afraid we have other pressing matters to discuss.”
In a quick look back over the years Noah was certain he could have counted the number of actual, heart-to-heart conversations with his father on the digits of a single hand. Now it looked like another one was coming, and frankly, he wasn’t in the mood. The shock of it all was fading and now he was angry, and hurt, and sick, and in dire need of a meal and a long rest to try to wash this giant mess away.
“I’m not a hundred percent right now, Dad. What is it that we need to discuss?” His father had made threats of retirement many times in the past, but somehow this didn’t feel like one of those.
“Something is going to happen tomorrow morning, Noah. Something that will be the beginning of quite a change in the way things are. This weekend’s developments, this theft and the accompanying threat of exposure, have served only to further convince the parties involved that now is the time for this—this course correction.”
“What’s going to happen?”
For a few seconds the old man seemed uncharacteristically at a loss for words.
“This young woman—this Molly Ross and her people. Do you understand the difference between the world as they see it and the world as it really is?”
“I’m not sure I understand very much right now.”
“If they spoke with you at all then I’m sure you received the full picture from their warped point of view. Their proud ethos is generally the first thing to pop out of their mouths, or some variation on the theme.” The following words were delivered in a deep tone of mocking reverence. “‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal—that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights—life, liberty,’ and so on. That is the rallying cry of the modern-day American armchair patriot, and it’s a stirring turn of phrase, I must admit.
“But I came to understand at an early age that Thomas Jefferson himself couldn’t really have believed what he’d written in his Declaration. No slave owner could. Nor could any man with his intelligence, and his great knowledge of history, believe himself to be equal in any way to the ignorant masses of his time. He was preparing to do battle with an empire, maki
ng his case against the divine right of kings, so he brazenly invoked the Creator on his own behalf. He proposed that God was the source of these inborn rights of man, and that, contrary to the popular mythology of the times, the Almighty would not be on the side of the British royalty if the conflict came to war.
“That these rights were granted by God, it wasn’t the truth, you see, it was what Jefferson needed to say to give his revolution the moral authority to proceed. But he also must have known he was putting far more faith in the common people than they’ve ever shown the courage to deserve.”
Noah was trying to imagine what possible urgency this subject could have right now, though he didn’t see a choice but to sit there and stay with it. “You think Jefferson was wrong, then.”
“Oh, I think he was right to try. There’s a tale from those days, at the close of the Constitutional Convention, in which someone asked Benjamin Franklin what form of government the people would be given, a republic or a monarchy. Do you remember what Franklin replied?”
“ ‘A republic,’” Noah said, “‘if you can keep it.’”
The old man nodded. “If they could keep it, yes. Such a thing had never been attempted before, not on the scale these men proposed. It was a bold experiment whose outcome was far from certain, and it could have worked. But its founding premise was also its great weakness: that these common people of the United States, for the first time among all the people in recorded history, could somehow prove capable of ruling themselves—to hold on to the fragile gift they’d been given. And time and again they’ve proven they’re not equal to the task.”
“So what are you telling me, Dad?”
“Let me ask you, Noah. Put their complete incompetence in self-government aside for the moment. Do you believe that people, human beings, are basically good? That—as your loyal friend Molly would no doubt preach to us—all they must do is awaken and embrace liberty and the highest potentials of mankind will be realized?”