Set the Night on Fire (12 page)

E
lectronic beeps woke Lila. It was still dark, and she felt disoriented. She checked the clock. Nearly midnight. She was surprised she’d fallen asleep. The beeps sounded again, and she realized it was someone calling her on Skype, the Internet service that turned a computer into a phone. Peabody Stern required all its employees to have their user name as part of their email signature, since one never knew when a call from a trader in Tokyo, an investment banker in Switzerland, or a client on vacation might need to be answered. She’d downloaded it onto Danny’s computer when she moved in.

The incoming call had a unique sound, a little like a European police siren but more cheerful. She hurried to the computer. The call was coming from Jayanthra Angler. Her father’s webmaster. She slipped on the headphones. “Lila Hilliard.”

“Hello, Ms. Hilliard.”

“Thank you for calling, Mr. Angler.”

“Call me Jay.”

“Thanks. You got my email, I assume.”

“Yes, and when I saw you were a Skyper, I decided this would be the most convenient way to communicate. How wonderful to make your acquaintance. How is your father?” His voice had a sing-song cadence and clipped British accent.

“You haven’t heard?”

There was a slight hesitation. “Heard what?”

She filled him in.

“I am so sorry. I had the deepest respect for your father.”

“It’s been . . . hard.” She swallowed. “Jay, I need your help. I’ve been going through my father’s computer files, and I found a tutorial on steganography. Do you know what that is?”

His reply was slow in coming. “Yes.”

Lila sensed there was more. “Would you know enough to have prepared it for him?”

Again a pregnant pause. “I might have.”

At last, she was making progress. “Why? What did he want to hide?”

“That I do not know.”

Her spirits sank.

“Lila Hilliard, my relationship with your father was a business one. If he asked for my knowledge, I was happy to be of service. But I did not ask questions that were not my place to know.”

Lila ran a frustrated hand through her hair.

“Did you read through the tutorial?” he asked.

“Yes. But that . . .”

“From your reading, then, you know you can embed small messages within other data files. Much like a message in a bottle. Except they’re hidden. And if you encrypt them, they’re practically impossible to detect.”

“Those messages . . . they would be embedded in larger files, right? MP3s or digital images, for example?”

“Normally the bigger the file, the better. That way you do not notice a few extra KBs, which would be the text of the actual message.” He giggled in that high-pitched way some Indians do. “You see, you do know something about this.”

“Not enough. Let’s say I think a message has been hidden in a larger file. How would I retrieve it?”

“You would need—in effect—a digital ‘key’ to unlock it. In this case, the same software that the person who concealed the message used. You’d also need the encryptor’s password. And the encryption method they used.”

“Did my father have all those things?”

A momentary pause. “I sent him the software and encryption method several years ago. But I would not know his password.”

Lila shifted. “Well, assuming I could figure that out, where would I look for the embedded message?”

“That is hard to say. It could be anywhere.”

“Where would you look for it?”

Jay was quiet for a moment. “Perhaps someplace obvious. In the open. No one would know it was there, you see, unless your father specifically told them.”

Lila considered it. Her father didn’t have any MP3 files. Or many digital images. Except one. “Jay, he scanned in a photograph . . . oh, about five years ago. Of a group of young people in a park. I have it on a CD.”

“He scanned it in?” Jay asked. “How big was the file?”

She went to the picture and quickly checked the properties. “Says here about 125 KB.”

“Not large enough. If something were embedded within it, an image that small would have become unrecognizable.”

Her shoulders sagged.

“A larger image, say from a website, for example, would work.”

“You mean, like his business website? Hilliard and Associates?”

“It’s possible.”

“Oh god, I think they’re planning to take off everything having to do with my father. Maybe they already have.”

“If so, they’re using a new webmaster. I haven’t been notified about any changes.”

She quickly pointed the mouse to the Hilliard and Associates website. It hadn’t changed. Thank God. “Jay, I need to find out if my father embedded a message on the website. Can you help me do that?”

He didn’t answer.

“It . . . it could be a matter of life and death.”

“I can recreate the software I sent him,” he said after a pause. “And a new tutorial so you can retrieve it. The encryption would likely not be a problem either. I remember suggesting that he use Triple DES.”

“What?”

“It’s an encryption algorithm, a block cipher formed from the Data Encryption Standard cipher by using it three times.”

“I have no idea what you just said.”

He giggled again. “Just remember to enter the words
Triple DES
when you are prompted for an algorithm.” He paused. “However, there is still the problem of the password. And where the message might be. If it is there at all.”

“Actually, I may know his password. He always used the same one for everything.”

Jay sighed. “I warned him not to do that.”

“I guess he didn’t listen. As usual.” It was her turn to laugh. “Tell me, how did you and my father meet?”

“I suppose . . . well, you could say it was a family affair.”

“Excuse me?”

“My father knew your father.”

She frowned. “How? You’re in India.”

“That’s correct. In Sri Ganganagar. It’s not far from Delhi.”

“Did your father come to Chicago?”

“Your father came to India.”

“My father traveled to India?” Lila couldn’t hide her surprise. “When?”

“Let me see. My father lives with us. I will ask.”

“Oh, don’t wake him.”

Another laugh. “It is almost noon here.”

“Of course. I’m sorry.”

Through her headphones she heard the murmur of voices.

Then Jay came back on. “My father says it must have been in 1968 or 1969.”

Lila’s shoulders gave an involuntary twitch. Her father had never told her he’d gone to India. “Where did he go? Who was with him? I’m sorry for all the questions, but I had no idea he’d done that.”

She heard more soft murmurs. Then, “He came with one other young man. They traveled to Rishikesh.”

“Rishikesh?”

“It’s in Northern India near the Himalayas. It’s considered a holy city for Hindus. On the Ganges river. It’s where the Maharishi’s ashram was.”

“Maharishi?”

“Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He taught transcendental meditation. My father worked at the ashram when your father visited.”

Lila dimly recalled reading something about the Beatles and others flocking to India to study meditation during the Sixties.

“Does your father remember the other man who came with him?”

More conversation off mike. Then, “My father can’t remember the name of the young man, but says he was tall, with dark hair down to his shoulders. Very slender.”

“Was . . . was it Dar Gantner?”

More talk, then Jay came back on. “Yes. My father says that was his name.” 

Lila stiffened. Dar Gantner had gone to India with her father. Why? Was it just a youthful adventure, kids backpacking through Europe? Or was it something else? “So how did you end up managing his website?”

“Our fathers liked each other. They stayed in touch with the occasional letter and card. Then after I taught my father how to email, they corresponded more frequently. Once my father told your father what I was doing, your father hired me.”

Lila nodded to herself. It made sense. Her father always talked about the importance of connections. Circles within circles. Between people, ideas, time. She remembered a BBC series with British science historian James Burke. Burke apparently came up with hundreds of fascinating and clever connections to explain progress and society. Since those were the days before Netflix or OnDemand, she’d had her father’s permission to stay home from school if it ever came on TV.

“Jay, thank you so much. I’ll wait for the software.”

He asked her a few questions about her computer and promised to send it within twenty-four hours.

T
he lobby of Danny’s condo building was a tiny room with mailboxes on one wall and a table underneath. Lila crept downstairs the next morning to get the mail. Everything looked normal. No one hanging around the lobby. No one loitering on the street. But a package lay on the table. A small, padded manila mailer. Her name and address were written by hand, and there was no return address. The postmark said Chicago. Her heart started to race. Should she touch it? What if it was some kind of booby-trap? What if it exploded when she opened it? She left it where it was and started back upstairs.

Then she stopped. What if the package contained information about who killed her family? Or who was pursuing her? She went back to the table and stared at the package. Nothing seemed to be ticking, and it looked lightweight. She picked it up by a corner. Nothing happened. She took it upstairs, put it on the kitchen counter, and stared at it some more. She shouldn’t open it.

She opened the knife drawer and pulled out the knife she liked. She approached the mailer holding the knife aloft. She took a breath. Then, slowly, gingerly, she sliced through the packing tape covering the ends. Nothing happened. She carefully opened one end. So far, so good. She opened it wider and rummaged inside. Her fingers touched bubble wrap. As she eased it out of the package, a scrap of paper fell out too. It said:
Sharp edges. Handle with care.

She removed the bubble wrap. A tool of some kind, sheathed in white cardboard. She tore off the cardboard and found another piece of paper inside with the word
Directions
. She put it aside and picked up the tool. There was a ring at one end, a small, stubby but sharp blade at the other. It looked like a small Exacto knife.

She grabbed the directions, scanning them for an explanation.

“You are now the proud owner of a HideAway knife,” it read.

Proud owner?

A sketch of the knife in a human hand followed. She slipped her fingers through the ring. It felt like a pair of scissors. She unfolded the directions. The knife had been invented by a woman who knew from experience that a woman’s physical strength might not be enough during a struggle. The HideAway was easily concealed, yet accessible, and you could hang on to it during a fight. Another sketch showed a woman holding the knife aloft. Lila mimicked the sketch and made a few slashes.

Was this a warning . . . or a message? She slid the knife off her fingers. The directions made Lila think that perhaps—just perhaps—the knife wasn’t sent by an enemy. But then, who? Aunt Val was in South America. Brian? The insurance adjusters? Her father’s estate lawyer? None of them had any idea Lila was in danger.

She started to pace, thinking about the people she’d met recently. The fire investigators, James Redaker, his wife Natsumi. Then there was the man on the motorcycle, and the man who’d thrown himself on top of her. She’d assumed the stranger was just a passerby, a good Samaritan. But what if he knew she was in danger and was there to protect her? No . . . that was crazy. That would mean he knew who she was. Where she lived. Which meant he might have been following her.

She stopped pacing. Someone had been stalking her. In the Loop and in Evanston. She’d thought it was an enemy. But what if it wasn’t? She picked up the directions. They included a website for the HideAway knife. She took the paper back to the computer. She would email the website. Insist they divulge who sent it to her.

She opened Danny’s browser. His homepage, a news website, was the same as hers. It was the way she assured herself, especially after 9/11, that her world was intact, that no disaster had occurred since the last time she went online. Knowing her twin did the same thing triggered a twinge of regret. Despite their differences, she and Danny did have a connection.

The homepage of the website was crowded with images, headlines, and banner ads. Lila entered the URL for HideAway Knives and was just about to hit “enter” when one of the images stopped her.

It was a photo of a young man with a megawatt smile. Darkly handsome with longish hair and sideburns. He wore a white shirt with an alligator emblem on the pocket. A tennis racket was slung over his shoulder.

She knew that man! He was one of the people in the photo with her parents and Dar Gantner. The photo from forty years ago. She rooted around for the photo on the computer and opened the file. Yes, there he was on one end, standing next to her father. His face was partially in profile, but she could see the same features, sideburns, even the same alligator emblem on his shirt. She went back to the photo on the website and read the caption. “Senator Ted Markham, Democratic candidate for president, as a young man. Click here to read an interview with the candidate’s father.”

She clicked. Two new photos popped up. The first was an elderly man with stern eyes, bushy eyebrows, and a military bearing: federal judge Stephen Markham. The second was a current shot of Ted Markham on the campaign trail shaking hands. His sideburns were shorter now and nicely grayed. He looked older and more solid, but his face was unlined, and he was smiling broadly. His sleeves were rolled up, and his jacket was slung over his shoulder, like the tennis racket forty years ago.

According to the article, Markham was doing well in the polls but hadn’t clinched the nomination. A liberal Democrat, he’d been raised in southern Wisconsin, then attended the University of Michigan—just like her father and Dar Gantner. While on campus, Ted had been active in antiwar politics. He claimed to have been beaten and arrested at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Lila bit her lip. Gantner was, too.

Unlike Gantner, though, Markham found his way back into the system. He entered law school at the University of Wisconsin, and after graduating, clerked in federal court. He moved to the state prosecutor’s office, and eventually was elected District Attorney of Dane County. Five years later he ran for the U.S. Senate and won. He decided to run for president three years into his first term.

The senator’s father, Judge Stephen Markham, was a former politician, too, albeit with a less storied career. After running—and losing—an election for governor, he decided his skills were best used in the judiciary. LBJ agreed and appointed him to the federal bench in 1966.

Lila rubbed the side of her neck. Too much was coming at her at once. She had to slow down, review where she was. She’d started tracking down the people in the photo in an effort to find her mother’s family. She’d managed to identify Dar Gantner, and now Senator Ted Markham. She had no idea of the relationship between them, but Michigan had to be the link—all three, including her father, had been there at the same time.

But that didn’t mean either Gantner or Markham knew her mother’s family. In fact, it was possible they didn’t know her mother at all—they could have all come together just for the photo. How many times had Lila posed for photos with people she barely knew, just to commemorate an occasion?

On the other hand, Senator Ted Markham was a powerful politician. Presumably with powerful connections. If he did know her mother, he could undoubtedly do more for her than she could on her own. But why would he? A man running for president had far more important things to do than help the daughter of someone he once posed with in a photograph.

It all depended on the relationship between Markham and her parents. Which would take time to figure out. Time she didn’t have. Someone in a nearby apartment laughed, startling her. She let out a breath. She had to discover who was trying to kill her. She cast an impatient glance at the clock. Where was that software?

* *

The steganography tutorial arrived later that night, along with instructions on how to download the software. Jay had created a special page on his website just for Lila. She saved the software to her computer and brewed a pot of coffee.

Jay had speculated that a message—if there was one—might be embedded on her father’s business website. But where? It was a daunting task. Hilliard and Associates’ website contained pages and pages about the company’s background, bios of officers and staff, plus a series of client case histories and photos.

She decided to start with the images. Opening her father’s bio page, she right-clicked his photo and saved it in a new file. Then, following the instructions in the tutorial, she opened the software, then dragged the photo of her father into it. She right-clicked it and selected
Reveal
. 

She hesitated when asked for the password. The password he always used was
Casey49
, his name and the year of his birth. He’d disclosed it to her and Danny years ago, in case an emergency called for immediate access to his files. She sucked in a breath, typed in
Casey49
and pressed
Enter
. A command asked her to re-enter it. She did.

A moment later, a command asked for the encryption algorithm. She was elated. The password worked! Brimming with relief, she typed in
Triple DES
. Then,
Reveal
. And waited to see if anything was hidden on her father’s photo.

Nothing came up. She sagged, then repeated the same process on another photo of her father shaking hands with a client. Nothing. She did it again on photos of the other partners and senior staff, again with no results. Then she moved to some of the logos of his clients, methodically repeating the same process. Nothing.

Three hours later, hopelessness set in. Lila had no guarantee she was searching in the right place. What if he’d embedded his message on a client’s website? Or another unrelated website? Or none, for that matter? She still had no idea if she was looking in the right place. Time was growing short. She checked her email to see if there was a reply from the HideAway people. Nothing.

She stood up. It was after two in the morning. She hadn’t been outside in over  twenty-four hours. Fatigue and desperation were sapping her energy. She felt like she was looking through the back end of a telescope, the images small and blurry, barely perceptible.

She went into the bedroom and turned on Danny’s small TV. It was tuned to CNN. Now that she knew who he was, Ted Markham seemed to be all over the news. Tonight he was marching in a torchlight parade honoring breast cancer survivors and stressing the need for more efficient health care.

She snapped off the TV and burrowed under the blankets, watching the patterns from passing headlights creep across the ceiling. Once this was over, once the danger had passed, she would resume the search for her mother’s family, and her first call would be to Ted Markham. She wondered if her father’s name would be enough to get her past his handlers. Her father had never mentioned him, which was puzzling. If they’d been close, shouldn’t she have heard Markham’s name, at least once or twice?

The bedcovers bunched up around her legs. She kicked them off. Her father had so many connections. It was his gift, they said—the ability to bring people together. No question it had helped him grow his business. But over the years the important connections—emotional, intimate ones—had eluded him. For example, he never remarried. As far as she knew, he’d hardly even dated. All those connections, and yet, where did they lead?

Something scraped against her consciousness. The thought was familiar; she’d come across it before. She sat up in bed. Something told her to mentally trace it. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing it to come. Where had she heard it? Connections that led nowhere. Interwoven. Overlapping. Braids.

When she got it, she threw the covers aside and leapt out of bed. She ran to the computer and clicked onto her father’s website. The logo of Hilliard and Associates was a stylized Celtic knot. She’d always wondered why he chose it. Its intricate pattern of entwined braids and knots looped back on itself, going nowhere. Looking at the interlaced threads now, though, you could argue just the opposite. That the patterns were circles within circles, with links and connections to everything. Like her father.

A burst of energy kicked in, and Lila quickly copied the image and dragged it into the software. She entered the password, typed in the encryption method and clicked on
Reveal.
Something was there! It was the name of a file:
bcinfo.txt

Her hands shaking, she went back to the tutorial. It instructed her to use the
Save As
command so she could save the file on her desktop. She did, then double clicked to open it. The entire contents of the file was:

www.Hilliardetal.com/bc

Her eyes widened. It wasn’t exactly a website, but she was fairly sure she knew what it meant. Her father wanted her to go to a special location on the Hilliard and Associates website. She entered the proper URL, including the slash (/) and the letters “bc.”

She was taken to a page containing a PDF file. Opening it required a password. She typed in the same one. The filed opened. It was a scan of an official-looking document. She leaned forward.

Certificate of Live Birth. May 15, 1970. 10:35 p.m.

That was her birthday—hers and Danny’s. And 10:35 was the time her father said she was born. Danny had come two minutes later. This was her birth certificate. She read on. She barely registered the sudden whine of an engine outside.

Female. Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

 She squinted. In the box where the father’s name was required, “Casey Hilliard” was printed. In the box for the mother’s, the name was “Alix Kerr.”

She gasped. Alix Kerr? Her mother was Alice, not Alix. Monroe, not Kerr. She stared at the document, blood shouting in her ears. Sebastian Kerr was the department store mogul whose store was bombed by Dar Gantner forty years ago. Alix must be Alixandra, his daughter. The girl who was killed when the bomb went off at the store.