Measure of Darkness (17 page)

“But the theory is wrong.”

“No, no, the theorem still has an elegant solution,” Elliot insists, using his expressive hands as if shaping calculations in the air. “In theory, it should be possible. But Keener's idea about how to generate a functioning stream of entangled photons—the actual machinery of it—
that
turns out to be totally wrong. They haven't been able to make it work in the real world, and he finally figured out why, and the reason is such, without getting into the math, that it will never work.”

“So the company, QuantaGate, it's a bust?”

Sherman nods happily. “That's about the size of it, yes.”

“What's the word on campus? Do they expect the company to actually go bankrupt?”

“Oh no. Not with that huge DOD contract. We all expect they'll keep milking that for years. Especially now that Professor Keener isn't there to stop them.”

S
he waits until Joey is sound asleep before making her move. The boy had been awake for hours past his bedtime, fretting about his mother, who he calls Mi Ma. He's a smart kid—some sort of musical genius or prodigy—and he knows that something is terribly wrong, how could he not? Spirited away from his piano class and put in the care of strangers, flown halfway around the world and lately locked in what amounts to a luxuriously appointed dungeon for days at a time. What is he supposed to think? He keeps asking why he can't talk to Mi Ma on the phone and there's no good answer, beyond “your mommy is too sick to talk but she'll be better soon.” No surprise, the poor kid has begun to worry that Mi Ma is dead and that no one will tell him the truth.

Joey isn't the only one who knows something is wrong. When Kathleen agreed to help, alerted by a text message from Randall Shane, she was informed that the boy's mother had to be taken into protective custody—some sort of gang problem, apparently, or maybe the mother had been undercover, it was never made clear—and Shane needed someone he could trust to look after her five-year-old son. The strong implication was that
Joey was also in danger and that the only recourse was to lie low for a few weeks while Shane straightened things out.

In the beginning it had all been very exciting. Prior to this, Randall Shane had refused her offers of assistance and eventually convinced her that focusing on missing children wasn't the best thing for her particular situation. She hated the whole concept of getting on with her life, which is what everyone kept urging her to do, it sounded so pathetic and cheesy, but that's what she was doing, like someone slowly awakening from an endless nightmare. Accepting the awful reality that she was alive in the world and her daughter wasn't, and that would never change. Then, out of the blue, an urgent text to her cell, begging for her help. Sent under duress, obviously, because he was in pursuit of some bad guys. Not that he had called them bad guys—in the message he'd referred to them as “foreign agents,” which Kathleen can only imagine are some sort of spies or terrorists. Whatever, she quickly visualized them as the kind of evil, lying monsters who pretend to be good—who pretend to love you—all the while putting a mother in danger and threatening her child. The instruction had been simple: get herself to the Aircenter in Olathe at precisely 11:00 p.m. A man called Kidder would meet her there—he would know what she looked like—and she was to follow his instructions.

It was all very exciting.

Kidder, who seemed to know a lot about Randall Shane, was quite charming at first, and pretended to listen to her opinions of child rearing as they sped through a moonlit sky in a private jet with leather seats and a sleek hardwood interior that she and Kidder had all to themselves. First stop, Seattle, which she recognized
from the Space Needle—Kidder wouldn't say where they were, said it was on a need-to-know basis and she didn't need to know. Then another long flight over open water, the Pacific, obviously, heading for a destination he at first refused to divulge but finally admitted was Hong Kong. Hong Kong! Not that she saw any of it beyond the small windows of the little jet—she was not allowed to leave the confines of the aircraft when, after many hours, it landed on a remote island runway to refuel. Just as well, she'd thought at the time. Considering that she didn't even have a passport. Not that there had been anything like customs. No officials at all while they waited on the tarmac. The pilot and copilot had actually refueled the plane themselves, which Kathleen thought was odd, but they were of necessity all keeping a super low profile, so maybe that's how it was done. Finally they arrived in Hong Kong in broad daylight—she could see the glittering city and the surrounding hills as they came in to land. Again they refueled and in less than an hour a shiny black SUV had appeared on the runway, and a small frightened boy was whisked into the plane and Kathleen had her hands full comforting Joey as they took off and returned to Seattle, and then eventually to the East Coast, where a very similar black SUV had met them at a private airport of some sort and then delivered them here, to the guesthouse of a remote oceanfront estate. Really to the dungeon, because that's where Kidder has been keeping them.

There was a time when she accepted Kidder's lies as part of the deal. It made sense that she would not be informed of everything that was going on, whatever dangers lurked or threatened. Her task was simply to care for Joey, to protect him with something like a mother's love, while Shane did whatever he had to do to protect Joey's
real mother. It had even made sense that Shane would not be able to communicate during this dangerous time, that it was simply too risky. Texts, emails, phone calls, they could all be intercepted, used to locate those in hiding. So she had gone along, let Kidder run things the way he saw fit. After all, Shane had tasked him to be the bodyguard. So when he said he was locking them in the safe room—the entire finished basement had been fitted out as a safe room—for their own protection, who was she to argue? It was scary, but surely Shane and Kidder knew what they were doing.

Lately she's come to doubt not only Kidder, but the whole purpose of the mission. Kidder lies about everything, even when the lie serves no purpose that she can see, and he has a creepy quality that extends much deeper than his routine lewdness. There's something about him that scares the hell out of her, that makes her flesh crawl. Would Randall Shane, a real gentleman, the kindest and most decent human being she'd ever met, would he really employ a man like Kidder? Or was the whole thing some sort of con, initiated by a text message that she now realizes could have originated from anywhere, and which had caused her to react immediately, obeying the request without question.

There's only one way to find out what's really going on, and if, as she fears, she and Joey are in danger, not from some nameless “foreign agents,” but from Kidder himself. Somehow she has to contact Randall Shane, or at the very least see if she can find out what he's involved in. There are no phones in what she has come to think of as the dungeon. Plenty of jacks but no phones. Supposedly to prevent any calls being traced back to the source. The cable connection is dead, too, meaning that she hasn't even seen the news in almost two weeks.
Because, Kidder has explained, having the cable turned on would indicate that the guesthouse is occupied, and might therefore draw attention to them. Asked if she could possibly have a radio to listen to, Kidder hadn't even bothered to make up an excuse, he'd simply refused.

That's when she knew she had to come up with an escape plan. With Kidder gone for hours at a time, leaving them locked in the so-called safe room, she's had plenty of time to explore. So far she's found a couple of what she hopes will be useful items. The first, a small adjustable wrench in the drawer of a bedside table. The second, and this isn't so much of a find as a discovery, she managed to trace the cable back to the connection box where it enters the basement.

The coaxial cable has been disconnected at the connection box, not turned off. Another Kidder lie. Which she already knew because she had heard, faintly but distinctly, a live TV broadcast coming out of his room one night. The son of a bitch was listening to Leno, laughing along like some laugh-track moron, that's what inspired her to check out the cable in the first place.

It had been simple enough to test. Using the little wrench, she reattached the cable connection, turned on one of the TVs with the sound already down and there it was, broadcast television, in HD no less. Because she never knew when Kidder was going to return she quickly turned the TV off and disconnected the cable and reattached it only late at night, when she barricaded herself in the bedroom she shared with Joey. Figuring if Kidder broke the door down she'd still have time to turn the TV off and pretend like she was scared of the foreign agents and that's why she'd blocked the door.

For two nights running she's been switching between CNN and a local news station out of Boston, reading the
closed-captioned crawl with the sound down. Nothing so far. Lots of news about celebrities and politics, but no mention of anything that gave a clue about what Shane might be up to. Not yet.

It feels just a bit like praying at an altar, but instead of lighting candles she's illuminated by the silent TV screen. Bathed in light and waiting for the word. Waiting for something, some indication from the world outside.

Please, God, give me a sign.

Late that night her prayers are answered and it changes everything, everything.

I
t is almost impossible to accurately describe Mrs. Beasley's Strawberry Surprise, other than to say that it involves a pastry crust that probably has a stick of butter in each serving, and that the element of surprise is not simply an intriguing name for the dish, but key to the taste experience. Sherman Elliot, departing from his normal diet of microwaved man food, was reduced to moans of pleasure and rolling his eyes at each bite, and then gasping like a boated fish after the last crumb vanished into his yearning mouth.

Speaking of fish, the grilled wahoo was—and this was no surprise—
wahoo!
worthy. So, an exemplary dining experience, and one that a half-starved grad student will no doubt never forget. It turns out that prior to inviting Elliot to join us, Naomi had arranged for him to make a voluntary statement to the FBI, and encouraged him to go back to his apartment and resume his life.

“Everything you have to say on the subject has been entered into official record, which means there would be no point in anyone, certainly not a bullying rent-a-cop, dragging you off for further questioning,” Naomi says, escorting him to the door. “It will be clear to anyone who
cares to check that you never worked for QuantaGate and never knew the details of whatever device they've been attempting to perfect. Your part in this affair is over. Go back to your life, Mr. Elliot. Live long and prosper.”

He appears shocked at her turn of phrase. “You're a fan?” he asks.

“Always had a thing for Vulcans.”

She offers her hand. He takes it, bowing slightly, as if auditioning for a part he never expected to play. “What can I say but ‘wow.' And thank you.”

After the door is shut and firmly locked behind him, I go, “Really? You're a
Star Trek
fan? Since when?”

“I enjoyed the most recent movie, the one where they're all quite young. Before Captain Kirk wore a girdle.”

“And you came across Sherman Elliot how?”

She shrugs. “By posting a query on the grad student forum. Mr. Elliot was one of a dozen who responded, and seemed to have formed the most interesting impressions of the last days of Joseph Keener.”

“So you never left the residence, or your desk, for that matter.”

“No need,” she says. “Teddy was a big help, of course, pointing me in the right direction. By the way, Elliot wasn't the only grad student who thinks that Professor Keener failed in his quest to design a functioning quantum computer. The belief is widely held in the physics department, and these are not people afraid of expressing opinions, to say the least. So I don't think Mr. Elliot was ever really in danger from our friends in the stealth helicopters.”

Jack Delancey has just returned from the washroom. He's fastidious about his white smile, and usually carries a little traveler's toothbrush in the inside breast pocket of
his suit jacket. His grin is freshly scrubbed. “That was interesting,” he says. “Security cops threatening students with rendition. Makes you wonder.”

“Indeed,” says Naomi. “Much to discuss. Anyone interested in joining me for a small brandy in the library?”

When we're all seated and sipping from the tiny crystal glasses—she's not kidding about the “small” part— Naomi leans back in her leather armchair and kicks off her heels. “I trust no one is offended? Good. These have been killing me all evening.”

Teddy looks as if he'd like to join her in the shoeless department but, at a glance from Jack, thinks better. A woman in sheer stockings is one thing, a man in socks quite another. Addressing herself to Jack, Naomi says, “If my recollection is correct, you have an acquaintance employed by Gama Guards. Anything of interest there?”

Jack, looking wry and thoughtful, eases back in his own chair. “I didn't think so. Like Wackenhut, they supply security guards to corporations. Basic rent-a-cops. My acquaintance retired from the sheriff's department, went into middle management at Gama Guards, recruiting retired law enforcement officers much like himself. No chance of advancement—that goes to the younger career guys—but he's happy enough, collects his paycheck, takes all his vacation days.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Not in my old pal's department. But in light of what the kid said, we need to dig deeper. It doesn't surprise me that the professor would have been paranoid about his own guards checking up on him—that's part of their job, after all—but when it comes to seizing sensitive materials and documents during a felony investigation, that should have been the FBI, or at the very least the
state police. Not private-sector goofballs who get off on threatening students. This doesn't pass the smell test.”

“Teddy?” Naomi says.

“Deep background on Gama Guards,” our young hacker says, standing up, his brandy untouched. “I'll get right on it.”

Jack watches him go, waits until he's clear of the room and then says, “The kid gets better every day. I had my doubts when you first brought him aboard, but no longer. If we could fix that ridiculous hairdo he'd be perfect.”

“I rather like the 'hawk,” Naomi says plainly. “Back to the matter at hand. In light of what Mr. Elliot had to say, I can think of at least three possible variations that need to be explored. One: Keener failed, and someone who wished to keep that failure a secret arranged to have him silenced. Two: Keener was lying to his grad students as a kind of smoke screen, hoping that the message of his failure would be picked up by the kidnappers, who would then have no reason to keep holding his son as leverage for his cooperation. Three: some variation on the above, which involves Keener going to extraordinary lengths to recover Joey, and engaging in actions that have not yet come to light, but which marked him for execution.”

“You mean he tried to double-cross someone?”

“Or some government,” she suggests.

I say, “Everything we know about this guy suggests he was a bad judge of people. Couldn't read them. And nothing suggests he was good at lying. Maybe that got him in trouble. Either someone believed him about his project being a failure, and killed him, or someone didn't believe him, and killed him.”

“Or we're missing something huge that's staring us right in the face,” Jack says. He starts to add something
and then stops, a dark expression passing like a cloud across his handsome features.

He means Shane.

What if we've got it all wrong?

 

Kathleen Mancero lies awake on the twin-size bed, a yard or so from the bed where Joey sleeps soundly, his breathing as easy and regular as clockwork. After hours of playing almost frantically on his keyboard, head bobbing inside the headphones, he finally crawled up on the bed, allowed her to read him a story and then promptly fell deeply asleep. Joey may be a musical prodigy—he won't let her hear what he's playing as he thumps the keys, so it's hard to know for sure, not that she's any judge of classical music, anyhow—but in all other respects he's a typical little boy, and shares with most children that amazing ability to sleep soundly when all around them the world is falling apart. How she envies that gift, to sleep in the face of adversity, to escape from the constant fear.

Kathleen may never sleep again, her mind electric with what she finally learned from the silent TV, courtesy of a closed-captioned local news broadcast.

Randall Shane has been hospitalized in Boston and is under arrest for the murder of Joey's father, who had hired him to find his missing son. Until that moment she hadn't even known Joey's last name, but the breaking-news description of the dead professor confirms all her worst fears.

She's been used, tricked into thinking that she was helping Shane, when in fact she's been assisting the kidnappers. She has no idea what's really going on—there are suggestions in the news blogs that Professor Keener had been suspected of espionage—but one thing she does
know for sure. Kidder terrifies her. Not because she cares so much about her own life—everything has been such a struggle since her daughter was taken that death is no longer something to be feared—but because she's convinced that Joey is in terrible danger. Not from the “foreign agents” Kidder so knowingly alludes to, but from Kidder himself. There's a palpable darkness about him, a vibe of pure evil. He's planning to kill them both. She can feel it in her bones, in every beat of her heart.

She has to find a way to save Joey, even if it kills her.