Challenge (13 page)

54.

With four of them in the hotel room—Steel, his mother, Kaileigh, and Marshal Larson—the space felt unusually small and confined. Five, if you counted Cairo, which Steel did.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” his mother scolded. “What were you thinking?”

“The code is a quote from the Bible,” Steel said, directing this at Larson. “Genesis, twenty-three. Verses three through four.”

“The minister,” Kaileigh said.

“He
read
that verse—the code!—on television.” Steel knew this was significant.
“That
is what this is all about: him reading the code like that.”

Larson appeared agitated. He grabbed his cell phone, his eyes were darting about in controlled excitement. He moved away from the conversation, his voice low. But Steel overheard: “We’ve got a development on the Bible verse.…”

Steel realized they’d already known it was from the Bible. He wondered for how long. He wondered how much else they knew that they weren’t telling.

Larson returned a moment later.

“You knew it was from the Bible,” Steel said.

Judy Trapp shot her son a disapproving look, and he knew this had to do with the tone he’d used. But he wasn’t thinking about being polite; he could only think of that poor woman tied up in the photo.

Steel said, “They used the preacher to get the code aired on TV. That way all sorts of people could hear it.” He’d read how terrorists used broadcasts to wake up sleeper cells, to time their attacks. “Is something bad going to happen because of him reading that code?”

“We don’t know,” Larson said gently. “But that’s certainly our concern, Steel, yes. The quote from Genesis could be what we call a trigger. It may have started something that we can’t stop. Our people are working on it.”

“But you said it was finances,” Judy Trapp blurted out. “You said this gang was helping terrorists with financing.”

“Seriously?” Steel asked excitedly. “Real terrorists? Are you
kidding
me?”

“I said,” Larson corrected her, “that the gang is
believed
to be aiding terrorist organizations with their financing. We suspect that’s the case, but lacking sufficient evidence—”

“So the code has something to do with money from—” Steel said.

“Don’t interrupt!” Judy Trapp said, interrupting.

“Mom! I’m trying to help here.”

“And you have helped, Steel,” Larson said. “You too, young lady.”

“I don’t see how saying a code on TV helps give terrorists money,” Kaileigh said.

Steel said, “The code must be a bank account or something like that. G, two, three, three, four.” He asked Larson, “Am I close?”

“We don’t know, Steel. We’re working on it. No one knows. These things can take a long time to figure out, even with the best minds and the fastest computers.”

“What’s the letter G?” Kaileigh asked.

“What do you mean?” Steel asked.

“What number?” She began saying the alphabet aloud, “A…B…C…” and holding up a finger for each letter. She reached G and had seven fingers held up. “Seven-two-three-three-four,” she said.

“It’s not a phone number,” Steel said.

“Too short for a bank account, right?” Kaileigh said.

“We’re working on this,” Larson repeated. “Give your mother and me a minute, would you, please?”

“You can go out onto the balcony,” Judy Trapp told the kids.

“Can we take Cairo?” Steel asked.

“No, not on the balcony. And shut the door behind you, please.”

The kids went outside and slid the heavy glass door shut.

“I’m sorry,” Judy Trapp said.

“They’ve been a tremendous help. FBI agents—your husband’s team, for all I know—are on their way to the church to speak with the minister. The NSA is working on decrypting the code. Transmissions like that—using the televised church service—are either used to secretly alert a lot of people at the same time, or as a means of separating power: no one person has all the information. But we’re still in the dark. There’s nothing more any of us can do here. As much as I’d like to say it’s okay for your son to compete in the challenge, we feel at this point the best thing for all concerned is for you to return home. We’ll fly you—privately—for the sake of your security. And our men will guard your house until this is over.”

“That could be a long time. You just said so yourself.”

“It’s best. If these people believe Steel knows more than he actually does…it’s not good for anyone. Our people are evaluating your long-term safety.”

“Just what does that mean?” she said, clearly irritated.

“There are certain precautions—”

“We are
not
going into witness protection, if that’s what you mean! We are
not
starting our lives all over, disconnecting from our families.” She crossed her arms tightly. “I don’t even want to
think
about that.”

“Sometimes,” Larson said cautiously, “that’s the only choice. I’m not saying that’s the case here. But we all want what’s best, what’s safest, for Steel. Your husband would, of course, be a part of any decision—”

“I don’t want to hear anything more about it,” she said. “We are not turning ourselves into nonpeople. This is not happening! All he did was try to return a briefcase to a woman who’d left it…” Her words trailed off and she held back tears.
Terrorists.
The thought of it turned her blood cold. “What’s happened to us?” she muttered, her voice quavering.

The balcony door slid open.

Judy Trapp called out harshly, “We did not say you could come back in!”

But Steel raised his voice and covered most of what she said. “The Power Poker Pay Five!” he shouted into the room.

“It’s a billboard across the street!” Kaileigh said, trying to point but getting her arm tangled in the gauze curtain.

“The lottery!” Steel said.

“This week’s payout is…” Kaileigh untangled herself and leaned her head outside. She fought with the drapes again and faced Larson. “Forty-five million dollars. It’s on an electric sign on the billboard.”

“Maybe the terrorists plan to win the lottery,” Steel said. “Five numbers. Lots of money.”

“Don’t be silly,” Judy Trapp said. “They’d have to rig…” But she didn’t complete her thought. Instead she found herself eye to eye with Larson. He looked troubled.

As Larson put the pieces together, he spoke quickly. “They used the church service to pass the code to a person who knew what it was for. They couldn’t call him or e-mail him with the code, because those can be traced. They couldn’t let anyone in the gang know who he was, because that kind of money is far too tempting. They had one loyal person they trusted, and they isolated him, waiting for this moment. His winning the lottery had to be totally unconnected to these people, so it couldn’t be questioned once he won. By using the televised church service, there was no way anyone would know who he was or where he was or what he had in mind.” He paused. “It’s brilliant.”

Then he recovered.

“I need to make a phone call,” he said.

55.

“Freakin’ kids,” Larson said to Hampton, his front-seat passenger. “You understand that they beat the NSA—the freakin’ NSA—to the solution?”

“I hear you,” Hampton said, holding on for dear life. Larson was driving at a ridiculously high speed through the streets of Washington. He’d just run his third red light. “So I take it the reason you’re driving so fast is on account we got something when we ran that number?”

“We asked the lottery people to access their accounts: Power Poker lotto number seven-two-three-three-four was purchased a few minutes past ten this morning: immediately after the church service went off the air. At a minimarket off Canal Street, southwest.”

“Not the best part of town.”

“No.” Larson swung the car to the right, throwing Hampton into the door. Hampton double-checked his seat belt and locked the door.

“This is for tonight’s drawing?”

“Correct.”

“So they kidnap this preacher’s wife and hold her until hubby broadcasts their code for them. Some guy they have planted over here—a sleeper agent—buys the lotto ticket, and surprise, he wins.”

“He can give that money to whomever he chooses,” Larson said. “And it’s a pile of money.”

“So the national lottery ends up financing terrorists,” Hampton said.

“They must have loved the irony of that. How easy does that make things for them? We
hand
them the money they need.” He yanked the wheel again, and again Hampton was thrown against the door.

“I’m driving on the way back,” Hampton said.

56.

Two Big Gulp cups rolled around the convenience store’s parking lot like kittens in a game of chase. Oversized handwritten posters in the store’s floor-to-ceiling windows proclaimed:

50% OFF 64 OZ. SODA
GO NATIONALS!
USA NEWS ON SALE HERE!

The posters covered much of the glass so that you couldn’t see into the store. But a weird, sterile light glowed from inside, and Larson caught himself squinting as he entered.

The woman behind the counter was a Big Gulp herself. She had round, red cheeks, tightly set, pinprick eyes, and puffy arms.

“Help you?” she said in what could pass for a baritone.

Larson displayed his credentials announcing he was a U.S. marshal. He enjoyed watching people’s faces when he did this: sometimes eyes widened in awe, other times a look of panic spread across a face, putting Larson on alert. The woman behind the counter seemed unimpressed and even less interested.

“I need to ask you a few questions,” he said.

“That’s original,” she said.

“About a lottery ticket.”

“Wish I could tell you which one will win, but you’re plum out of luck, fella. You gotta buy one and take your chances, same as everyone else.”

Larson looked up at the ceiling. “I’d like to view your security tapes, if you don’t mind. Ten-eighteen a.m., this morning. And I need your lotto receipts from between ten and eleven.”

“What the heck?” she said, clearly puzzled.

“Work, that’s what,” he said, trying to downplay his interest. “All I really wanted to do when I got up this
Sunday
morning was put on a sport coat and go chasing lotto receipts in this charming neighborhood.”

“Culmination of your dreams, I imagine,” she said.

“Something like that.”

“The security video’s on a machine in the office.” She jangled some keys in front of him. “I’d help, but I can’t leave the register.” She kept an eye on Hampton, who was roaming the chips aisle.

“He’s with me,” Larson said. “How do I work the equipment?”

“What do I know? Only way I know to make it work is to see it here,” she said, pointing under the counter. Larson craned to see she had a view of four small TV monitors beneath the counter. “There ain’t no TV back there,” she said. “Probably some kind of switch got to be throwed, or something.”

“I’ll take a look.” Larson eyed Hampton, who nodded. Hampton would keep an eye on the clerk while Larson visited the office.

He found an old dusty videocassette recorder sitting on top of a black metal file cabinet. It was running. He pressed STOP on the front and set it to REWIND, and then followed the cables up to the drop ceiling. It took him a moment to find the switch on the machine marked TV/TAPE, but once he did, he punched it and returned to the front of the store.

He and Hampton stood at the register and looked down at the small TV screen. It alternated every five seconds between shots of the gas pumps and a view of the register. Larson noted the time in the upper corner as 12:25 p.m. He returned to the office and rewound the tape, shouting back and forth with Hampton until the time stamp read 10:15 a.m. Then together they waited and watched as a man entered the store and approached the register. He was a white guy, mid-twenties. Hard to get a good look at his face, but Larson thought the wizards at the FBI could enhance the shot and improve their chances. It took him five phone calls and a fax from the store owner to take custody of the videotape without a search warrant. How, or even if, it might help, he wasn’t sure. All they had was the back of a head. But it was more than they’d had an hour earlier.

57.

Steel not only had an elephant’s memory, he had the ears to go along with it: he could hear things clear across a room, which played to his benefit as his mother consulted Larson across the Grand Hyatt lobby. He’d also learned lipreading by muting the television while replaying movies he’d seen four and five times. He didn’t make it public knowledge, but he could practically recite
High School Musical
from start to finish. The result was that he oversaw his mother’s conversation with Larson, and overheard it as well.

Judy Trapp: Can’t you just let him compete? I checked with the judges, and they have no problem taking him in the afternoon session.

Larson: We’d rather get you back home. Safer for everyone. The sooner the better.

Home?
Steel thought.
Who was headed home?

Larson: It’s incredible that Steel and Kaileigh broke the code, and we were able to locate the lottery ticket bought for that number combination. But the trail has gone cold. We’ve failed to identify the individual in question. For your son’s safety, it’s important we move you as quickly as possible. There’s no predicting these people. We’d rather err on the safe side.

Judy Trapp: But he’s worked so hard. Come so far. His father…

Steel’s brain deciphered her lips and he felt a chill race down his spine.
What about my father?

Larson: The decision is made, I’m afraid. As soon as we round up Steel, we’ll move you to transportation at the back of the hotel. I promise you’ll be quite comfortable. The government views Steel as an important witness. You’ll like the treatment, I think.

Judy Trapp: But the challenge…

Larson: I can’t
make
you do this. It’s voluntary protection. But the offer is there right now. I can’t guarantee how long it will remain on the table.

Judy Trapp: Is that a threat, Marshal?

Larson: Not at all! Not intended in the least. I just know my bosses, that’s all. An offer like this…the private plane, the full-protection team. They aren’t made that often. It means we’re taking your case seriously, and so should you.

Judy’s eyes searched the room and found her son staring at her. For a moment there was a profound connection between them—one that Steel misunderstood, as it turned out.

He hurried to the ladies’ room and kicked on the door. “It’s me,” he said. “We gotta get outta here!” He toed open the door a crack and shouted more loudly, “Kaileigh, it’s me!” A woman gave him an inquisitive look as she left the room. Steel excused himself. “A friend of mine,” he said. He felt like adding, “She’s hiding from her Nazi nanny who’s here because she stole a pile of cash and ran away from home.” But the woman was gone, and Steel’s toe was still holding the door open a crack when Kaileigh appeared.

“They’re sending me home,” Steel said.

“What?”

“I know. And there is
no way
I’m going home right now.”

“You’d better not.”

“So we gotta go.”

“Where? How?”

“I saw the briefcase at the church.”

“Yeah? So?” she said.

Steel patted FIDOE tucked under his arm. “So,” he said echoing her, “someone dropped it there. At the church. Someone left that briefcase there, and I’m guessing I know who it was.”

“The guy.”

“Yes, the guy. And FIDOE can follow him,” he said, rubbing his invention as if it were a genie. “FIDOE can detect four parts per million in a cubic inch of air. We can
do this.”

“What do you want to follow him for?” she asked. “We’ve been trying to get away from that guy.”

“Once the preacher did as he was told, there were only two possibilities. One, the guy returns to the preacher’s wife and lets her go. Or two, he returns to the preacher’s wife and—”

“Kills her,” Kaileigh said in a whisper. “She’s served her purpose. Why keep her around as a witness?”

“But FIDOE can find her. I know it can.” He glanced toward the busy lobby. “No matter what, if I stay around here I’m history. We’re both history: your nanny is going to find you sooner or later.”

“She’s
not
my nanny.”

“Are we going to talk about this, or are we going to do something?”

“Okay, but if FIDOE actually works, if we actually find this guy, then we call the marshal. I am not going to end up like the preacher’s wife.”

“Agreed,” Steel said. He pointed to an exit at the end of the hall. “We’d better hurry.”