Arch Enemy (22 page)

A
ndrea Nyhan frowned as she stared at the list of active processes running on the Acevedo server. It was her job to know each of those scripts backward and forward, including what they did, their priority status, when they were running, and about how much processing power they took up at any given moment.

This was why this particular process was bothering her so much.

“Marvin, come see this.”

Marvin Brainard, fat and fussy, pulled up a chair, scraping along the carpet, and set it down next to her. The chair squeaked under his weight. “What is it?”

“It's this weird background program,” she said. “Shows up as this, here.” She pointed to where it said
btrck.exe
.

“Looks like the backup tracker for XT. There's always a bunch of instances running.”

“That's what I thought,” she said. “But see the name of the process? It's for the older version of the software. They changed the process name in the latest update. See, it's running here, look.” She pointed to another process labeled
ibtrck.exe
. “Somehow they're
both
running.”

“Someone forgot to update their tags. That or it's some of the old software that wasn't scrubbed in the update.”

“Maybe,” she said. “I checked, though. There's nothing left after the update, not even in its original location. And yet there it is. Plus, it's behaving weirdly. The processing patterns are all wrong.”

“That's why we call it a bug.”

“Maybe.” She chewed on her pen. “But if I were to install a worm, this is exactly the way I'd do it.”

“Honey, you're paranoid.”

“Isn't that what we're paid for?”

“Got me there.” He looked at the process log, lost in thought. “Well, I guess there's no harm in running this by Steve. Just in case.”

“Later,” she said. “I'm going to poke at it and see what else I can figure out.”

She ran a number of diagnostics, trying to pin down exactly what it was doing and where it was coming from. The regular tests came out normal. She then tracked the program's location on the drive and navigated to it. If the usual tools weren't working, she was going to decompile it and find out what it did by looking straight at its insides.

She opened her decompiler, hit
Open
, navigated to the program file, and double-clicked it. The computer processed the request for a few seconds and an error message popped up.

 

FILE NOT FOUND.

 

“What the—”

She opened the folder that had contained the file. It wasn't there. She refreshed it, made sure that the computer was displaying hidden files, checked for it through different programs. No dice. It was gone.

She banged on her keyboard.

This attracted Brainard's attention. “Your elusive little process giving you trouble?”

“It's disappeared.”

“What do you mean it's disappeared?” He bent down over her keyboard and performed a few checks.

“I've done that already,” she said. “It's just not there anymore. It's like the program was smart enough to notice that someone had found it out. I've never seen anything like this.”

“Could I have some pen and paper? I'd like to jot this down.”

She handed him a pen from her cup and opened her top drawer for a scrap of paper. She dug through some important documents and found a sheet from a yellow legal pad. She tore a piece off the bottom and gave it to Brainard, who jotted down the names of the processes and their locations on the server.

“I'm going to look into this on my computer,” he said. “I'll let you know if I find anything.”

She exhaled, looking at her screen.

Her attention was drawn to the yellow sheet of paper on her desk, the piece missing from the bottom that she'd torn out to give to Brainard. She frowned. She couldn't think of what it might be. It certainly wasn't hers.

She unfolded it. At the bottom was a phone number, and above it—

 

 

Andrea was struck by nausea. D? As in Dominic? How long had this been here?

Something was very wrong, and she wondered whether she even wanted to find out what that was.

T
he train pulled in to the snowy platform at Wicklow Station, which was a squat yellow stone building with four brick chimneys protruding from its roof. Morgan came out into the cold—a wind more bitter and biting than in Boston—and passed through the station to come to the street on the other side, where Mick Larkin was leaning back in the driver's seat of his 2001 Ford Focus, still baby-faced with his blue eyes reading a newspaper.

He nearly jumped in his seat when Morgan knocked on the window, and then his mouth erupted into a broad grin.

“You don't call, you don't write,” he said as he got out of the car. “You stinking gobshite yank!” They embraced like the old friends they were. “How are ya?”

Morgan got into the passenger seat and Mick pulled out so fast Morgan had to grab the handle. Mick was the only bastard Morgan knew who was crazier than he was behind the wheel.

“How's Nora? Ciaran?” he asked, wincing as Mick had a close shave with a low stone wall.

“He's a downright pain in my ass,” he said. “Smoking, brawling. You should be glad you have a girl.”

If only he knew.

“So, yer here on business, then? Let's get down to it. I found your guy. Lives in Dublin.” Mick grinned ear to ear. “Just like old times, eh? So what're we talking? Terrorist? Murderer?”

“Nerd,” said Morgan. Mick shot him a puzzled glance. “Stumbled into something he shouldn't have, and now he's marked for death.”

“You wanna save him?”

“What I need is to catch whoever's after him. The people behind this have resources. I don't even know how far it goes.”

“You never asked if it was dangerous,” Mick said. “You just asked if it was right.”

“You haven't even asked me that.”

“I know you,” said Mick. “I don't have to.”

“Well, it is. Gonna be dangerous, I mean.”

“Good.”

“At least let me pay you,” said Morgan.

“Fook you,” said Mick, extending the words at least three syllables past their regular carrying capacity.

He'd always been a proud son of a bitch.

Mick reached in the back seat and picked up a heavy black duffel bag, putting it in Morgan's lap. “Here's the hardware you requested. Although I don't know how the hell you can afford all this stuff.”

“Two words,” said Morgan. “Expense account.”

“Seriously?”

“One of the perks of working for the private sector.”

“You'll have to put in a good word for me one of these days,” Mick said.

Morgan rooted around inside the bag. The first thing he pulled out was the Bullard T4Max thermal imager, a handheld device in a blue plastic casing with a lens on one side and a screen on the other that was somewhat reminiscent of an old home movie camera. This was the Cadillac of its class. It felt solid in his hand. Super high saturation temperature, wide field of view, high-res.

“This'll do,” said Morgan.

Added to the imager was a handheld parabolic listening device (
good enough
, Morgan thought), a professional-grade lock-pick set, and a gun in its holster along with two magazines. A Walther PPK. He pulled it out to inspect it.

“Put that back inside, you fookin idiot!” Mick yelled. “You can't be seen with that.”

“What? We're in the car.”

“My car, my rules.”

“It might help if you didn't attract the attention of the police by driving like a maniac.”

“Like I said, ‘my car—' ”

“Your rules. Got it.” Morgan lowered the PPK into the bag. “Well, thanks for the gun.”

“I remember how partial you were to that wee little piece,” he said.

“Much appreciated,” said Morgan as he inspected the weapon inside the bag. He then examined each of the thirty picks in the kit, each with a different head, and the six different tension tools.

He and Mick talked all the way up to Dublin, about old times and trading war stories they hadn't yet exchanged. It was just under an hour before Mick brought the car to a stop across the street from a low brick apartment, just north of the River Liffey.

“That's it,” he said. “Second floor.”

“Think he's home?”

“Records show he works at home, gets food delivered,” said Mick. “Not much in the way of spending outside the house. This fella doesn't get out much.”

Morgan pulled out the thermal imager and pointed it at the apartment.

“I'm getting nothing,” said Morgan.

“Are you sure that thing is working?”

He turned the lens to the neighboring apartment. It clearly showed the figure of a woman, in the fluid reds and yellows of the infrared signature. Then he turned it back to point at Quinn's.

“There's no one in there,” Morgan reiterated.

“No one alive,” said Mick.

“What do you think?” said Morgan. “Move in?”

“After you.”

They got out of the car and went to the door of the apartment building. Morgan waited for a lull in foot traffic and drew his lock pick and tension tool while Mick kept a lookout—ready with his police ID in case anyone spotted them. European locks could be a heck of a lot harder than American ones—they tended to come standard with features that resisted lock picking, like mushroom-shaped pins that had false catches. This lock turned out to be that kind. But Morgan had practice. Hard as it was, it still took him under a minute to get it open.

They came inside and Mick closed the door behind them. They crept up the stairs to Quinn's door. Morgan grabbed the lock pick from his pocket, but when he touched the door it creaked open. The lock was busted.

Morgan and Mick walked inside the apartment, and the first thing that was obvious was that someone else had gotten there first. The apartment was completely turned over—all drawers pulled out, all cushions cut open, the floor strewn with papers and objects.

What didn't help at all was that Quinn didn't seem to be particularly neat to begin with. Dishes were piled high in the sink, their smell pervading the apartment, and food delivery boxes were piled on one corner of the counter.

“Christ, this fella really didn't get out much, did he?”

“If there was anything to be found, someone else has found it,” said Morgan.

“What about Quinn?”

Morgan took the lead to look at the bedroom and bathroom. “It's clear,” he said, relieved. “He's not here.”

Morgan walked back to the living room and examined Quinn's computer rig. Three monitors were suspended above the desk, with a very sophisticated-looking keyboard and freestanding mouse pad. The chair was one of those expensive ergonomic things.

Morgan knelt to check the computer. It had been opened and the hard drive removed.

“Bust,” said Morgan. “There's nothing here for us.”

Mick's phone beeped. “We're not out for the count yet,” he said. “We just got a hit on Quinn's car at a traffic camera in a town called Dunboyne.”

“Our boy's on the run,” said Morgan.

“I'm calling my guys and getting them to cross-reference Quinn with anything in connection to Dunboyne. See if I can get any hits on credit cards or anything like that.”

“Meanwhile—”

“We go to Dunboyne,” said Mick. “Let's collect our man.”

A
lex spent the afternoon going over the
final
details of Francine's story in a dingy room in Thoroughgood Hall, which housed the
Inquirer
's headquarters. Between stacks of old copies of the newspapers Alex fact-checked the text, on a five-year-old Mac machine, and vouched for its veracity with the editor in chief. It was written, polished, and set to run on the front page of the next day's
Inquirer
.

“Well, kid,” Francine said, giving her a pat on the back, “You're about to make my goddamn career.”

Alex walked outside feeling victorious. This was going to work. She was going to nail the bastards.

Night had fallen, and Prather was all the way across campus, but Alex was beyond any annoyance or discomfort. Everything paled in comparison to the sense that she had won. She was so exhilarated that she decided to go the long way around, where a series of grassy knolls offered an unreal view of campus in the light of the waning moon.

That turned out to be a mistake.

She paid no heed to the approaching car. Everything was too beautiful. When it came to a stop, she figured the driver was going to ask for directions or offer a ride to the poor crippled girl out there on her own. She smiled, amused by the driver's imagined condescension.

When she turned to look at the driver, she realized too late that the correct feeling at that moment was fear.

Assistant Coach Adam Groener.

She looked around. There was no one to call for help. Not a single person, not a car, not an evening jogger. People were inside, huddled against the bitter cold.

“Good evening, Alex.” His voice was friendly and jovial. “Not a very nice one for a stroll, though.” She didn't stop, and so he drove alongside her, keeping pace with her halting walk.

“Good enough for me,” she responded.

“Where are you going? Why don't you let me give you a lift?”

“I'm fine. It's not far, and I'd rather walk.”

“There isn't anything
around
here,” he said. “Wherever it is, it's far.”

She didn't answer.

“Hey, look. I think we got off to a bad start. I just wanted to talk to you, clear a couple of things up. Some things I think you might have misunderstood.”

“I'd really rather not.”

“Come on,” he insisted. “Hop in!”

“No thank you.”

“Get in the car.” He dropped his feigned friendliness, and his voice carried outright menace. “Get in the car or I'll make you.”

Alex turned away from the car and hobbled onto the grass, going down a hill that was just too steep for comfort. She didn't have a chance in hell of outrunning him even if he wasn't in a car. But if the son of a bitch wanted her, he was going to have to work for it.

“Help!” She screamed, taking out her cell phone. “Help!” She dialed 911. She heard it ring once before a meaty paw snatched it away from her, ended the call, and threw it far away into the snowy slope. It disappeared into the darkness.

“Help! He—” This time he put one hand over her mouth and the other around her waist so that her arms were pinned against her body. Her crutches fell onto the snow as he dragged her back to the car.

She reached for the knife in her jacket pocket, switched it open, and slashed Groener's arm as hard as she could with her pinned arms. He hollered in pain and released her, but without her crutches, she just fell into the snow, ice crystals biting her cheek. He grabbed her again, leaving her father's knife in the snow.

“I'm gonna make you regret that,” he growled in her ear, and dragged her all the way back to the car.

He tossed her onto the backseat as if she were a bag of golf clubs. He bound her hands with zip ties and gagged her with a sock. She shifted so that she might at least see where they were going, but her cast made it impossible for her to move without the help of her hands, so instead she got to look at the tan pleather of the backseat, lit up yellow in the passing streetlamps.

“I told you to stay away,” he said. “I warned you this wasn't your business. Now you've forced my hand and I have no choice.”

“Is that how you justify it to yourself?”

He didn't answer. Alex's mind raced for a way out. She pulled her hands apart, but the ties holding her hands together just bit into her skin and did not give way. Her mind raced for any way to cut them. She regretted pulling her knife on him now. She was hasty. She hadn't thought it through.

“What are you going to do to me?”

He didn't answer. But he didn't have to. There was no going back from this for him.

He was going to kill her.