SPYWARE BOOK (28 page)

“We are summarily relieved of this case,” he greatly paraphrased.

“What case?”

“The location and apprehension of suspects in the release of a new, hitherto unknown virus upon the internet.”

She paced again, nodding. “Okay, okay.”

“Okay what?”

“It didn’t say anything about the missing kid case.”

“So?”

“So they missed the meeting. We’re going to do something,” she said, grabbing up her purse and briefcase.

“What?”

“Screw them instead.”

. . . 8 Hours and Counting . . .

Ray knew the end was near when the water entered the trunk. It was cold, but it actually felt good as it soaked his back. He had managed to roll onto his back so that he wouldn’t drowned immediately. He thought seriously about trying to get a drink. He had been raging with thirst all night long, but he dared not turn his face into the water lest he slip and die writhing like a slug that inches too close to the edge of a swimming pool and drowns.

Perhaps, he thought, as the water filled his tiny prison, it would soak into the tape and loosen it somewhat. He didn’t bet on it, though. Duct tape wasn’t made with paper, and the adhesive didn’t loosen immediately either when it came in contact with water. It was designed to hold things together, and it did a damned good job. There were rips in his tape cocoon now, places that he had managed to rub up against sharp edges of the metal trunk, but the tape still held him firmly.

At least the water keeps the dust down,
he thought to himself. He wanted to chuckle, but that might be a fatal move.

Lifting his legs together like a mermaid in a bad movie, he kicked the side of the trunk three times. He had found a spot, through a night of experimentation, that was bowed and hollow like a drum. It made a loud sound that probably annoyed a few crows in the orchard, but had little other effect. Still, it was all he could do.

Then he lay back in the cool water that covered much of his body now. His greatest regret was that he had been unable to help his son.

Another few minutes passed. His body grew adjusted to the cool water and he floated in it somewhat. Soon, however, there would be no space to breathe between the surface of the water and the carpeted floor of the overturned Lincoln’s trunk, which now formed the ceiling of his coffin.

He kicked again, and this time the sound was greatly muffled. The water had risen to where it was dampening any sound he could make. That, almost more than anything, made him give up. If no one could possibly hear him, then he was truly doomed.

He listened to the water as it lapped and gurgled over and around the car. Distantly, he could hear the drone of the big pump house up on the bank nearby. It grew even darker in his prison as the light from outside was cut off. He thought it would be even more grim if the water rose just high enough to cut off his air supply—but not enough to drown him. He wondered if he could suck in a breath from the cracks in the wheel wells.

He wanted to do
something
—
anything
. Just to wait calmly for death was maddening. He decided to savor his last moments of life with a farewell drink. At least he need not die thirsty. He squirmed to one side a bit and sucked in a refreshing draught of cool, gritty water. It tasted like the coldest beer on the hottest day of his life.

He slipped and went in too deeply. For a panicky second, he became that silver slug, thrashing its last in the swimming pool.

Then he had control of himself again. He grunted and heaved himself safely onto his back again. An absurd rush of pride coursed through him as he licked at his tape-burned lips. He had gotten a drink and managed to cheat death for another few minutes. He felt an odd elation at the success. Even though it was hopeless, he kicked the trunk wall again. The sound was that of a great bell tolling at the bottom of the sea.

When he was done kicking, he lay back in the frothing water, sucking air deeply, but it seemed that he couldn’t get enough. He felt exhausted all of a sudden. Could he be running out of air? Panic gripped him, and he kicked more.

This was it, he felt sure. Things were quieter now, sounds were more muffled. He sensed that the water had crested over the top of the car, that he was surviving in an air pocket that couldn’t last as the water deepened further and the oxygen depleted.

He lost himself to panic for a time. He kicked in a frenzy at the trunk wall. He gasped for air, almost blacked out, then felt sick and faint. He fought not to vomit and drown ignobly in his own puke.

He fell back to rest, at the point of exhaustion. It was then that he noticed the water seemed a bit lower than before. He waited, trying to control his gulping of the air. It was so hard to tell what was going on in his cold dark tomb. Several minutes passed, and then a wonderful thing happened.

The lights went back on in the trunk. Daylight shimmied a finger of greenish, reflective light into the trunk again. He would have whooped if he could have. Then he listened closely, but realized he couldn’t hear the pump anymore. It had been shut off.

He relaxed and all but drifted off into an exhausted slumber. Something kept him awake though, something nagged at him.

What was it?

Then it came to him.
Who had shut off the pump?

Adrenalin shot through him. It could be anyone. It could be Ingles, coming back after drowning him to check on the status of the job. It could be Farmer John, just noticing the white Lincoln wallowing in his back forty.

He had to take the chance.

Finding the sweet spot on the trunk wall again, he began to beat it like a drum.

. . . 7 Hours and Counting . . .

Ray heard the most lovely of sounds: muffled voices mixed with splashing. Someone was coming. Someone had heard. Would it be Ingles? Would it be Farmer John? He thought of remaining quiet, but that would be crazy. He had to take this chance to get free. Another might never come.

He kicked the wall of the trunk again. This time the voices cried out to one another. He was sure that he had been heard. He lay back and relaxed as the water slowly drained from the trunk. It felt good to know that he would see the sun again—at least briefly.

Someone knocked on the trunk lid. He tried to cry out, but only a muffled moaning fluttered his lips. He kicked again. This was a good sign. Ingles wouldn’t have knocked, knowing that he was in there.

There was a long delay. Perhaps a minute, perhaps five. He was impatient. Voices spoke to him, but he couldn’t make out the words through the layers of metal and tape.

Then suddenly, without warning, the trunk lid fell open and he was rolled out into the canal. There was only about two feet of water in the bottom of the canal, but it was more than enough to cover his head. He thrashed about at the feet of his rescuers, drowning.

He was grabbed like a fish in two powerful hands and hoisted up out of the water.

“He’s alive anyway,” said a deep male voice, the owner of the hands that roughly held him upright.

“Who is it?” asked a female voice.

A face came into his limited field of view. The face was wreathed with concern and surprise. Ray recognized her: it was that she-bitch who had chased him for days now—Agent Vasquez.

Right then Ray thought she was the prettiest woman in the world. His cheeks strained to grin against layers of silver tape.

#

“Vance!” said Vasquez in some surprise as they worked and cut the tape away from his body. They had decided to remove it right there in the canal, before hoisting him out. Even Johansen felt that Ray was too great a burden to carry up the slippery wet walls wearing leather-soled shoes. Good shoes that had been ruined, along with a good suit, by the canal water.

“Should we call in an ambulance?” she asked. Ray struggled to answer, but the tape around his mouth still restrained him.

Soon, his mouth was free. “I don’t need an ambulance, I don’t think. What I need is help in finding my son. Ingles might have left some clue in the house. Justin might even be on the property somewhere.”

Vasquez and Johansen exchanged glances.

“Ah!” said Ray. “Still trying to figure out how I taped myself up and threw myself to the bottom of a canal, eh?”

“It’s not that,” said Vasquez. “Ingles is dead. His body was discovered out along the main road.”

“Shit,” said Ray dully. His resurgent hopes of finding Justin fell greatly. “What about Nog and the other guy?”

Johansen jerked his head toward the front of the car as he worked to free Ray’s upper body. Ray craned his neck to follow the gesture. Nog’s flabby dead arm floated from the driver’s side window. Ray wanted to puke all over again when he thought he had been greedily drinking the canal water directly downstream from poor Nog’s body.

“Poor bastard,” he said. “He tried to save me, you know. Almost killed me in the process, of course, but still... He tried to help.”

“What other guy?” asked Vasquez.

“What?”

“You said, ‘Nog and that other guy.’”

“Oh, yes,” said Ray. “There was a third man. I never saw his face.”

“Do you know his name?”

“Um. No, I don’t think so. But maybe I could recognize his voice if I heard it again.”

“Great,” said Vasquez. “Look, Dr. Vance. You’ve been less than fully up front with us all along.”She began to question him on recent events, and he answered as best he could. He was heartened to see the believing look in her eyes. She might not have liked his story, but she was willing to believe him now.

“I must admit that Nog now seems like an even more likely suspect than you in the virus case,” she concluded.

Johansen was working on his legs now, and with his free, numb hands, Ray tried to help.

“So, am I under arrest or what? I’ll cooperate in any way that I can. All I want to do is find my son, and you can see that I’ve come close. Will you help me?” he asked, without much hope. Surely they would at least want to drag him to a cell. He had resisted arrest too long and there were simply too many unexplained bodies around.

Vasquez and Johansen glanced at one another. “It is true, there are many mysteries here, with only your story to go on... for now,” she said. “Any thinking agent would drag you back to a cell without a qualm.”

“But, we do need your help with our case,” added Johansen.

“With the virus?”

“That would be nice, but that’s not our case any longer,” said Vasquez. “We were—
relieved
from that case. Our case now is the search for your son.”

Ray’s eyes got big and he grinned as he worked one foot free of the sticky mass of tape. “I can’t tell you how good it feels to be out of that damned tape.”

He looked from one to the other with a new perspective. “You’ve got Justin’s case?”

“Yes, your wife asked that we take it on,” smiled Vasquez.

Soon, they were all struggling up the canal embankment. Johansen helped Ray, who could hardly walk after spending a night with his legs taped together.

Vasquez slipped even though she was wearing flats. Johansen darted a hand down to steady her. “You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said.

When they all reached the top, they took a moment to dust themselves off and strip the last bits of tape from Ray.

“I think the key angle is to find this third man,” said Johansen.

“Right, but there is another possible answer,” said Ray.

“What?”

“Ingles told me he sent me an e-mail message. A message that would release my boy.”

Vasquez frowned at that. “I don’t know. Even if that message was sent, the entire internet is failing. I doubt it could have been delivered.”

Ray stared at her. The enormity of what she had just said sunk in. Had Nog really managed to do it? He hardly noticed as Johansen snapped a set of handcuffs on his wrists.

. . . 6 Hours and Counting . . .

“Can we at least try Ingles’ machine?” asked Ray.

Vasquez nodded, following his logic. “Right. Even if the message was lost on the net, a copy should still be on his hard drive.”

“As long as he didn’t erase it,” added Johansen.

“All right,” sighed Vasquez. “Look Vance, I’ll give you an hour, then we have to take you in. There have been two murders and what looks like a third. Johansen, phone in for back-up would you? Someone has to get Nog and that car out of that canal and do all the forensics on it.”

Johansen nodded and snapped open his phone. They all climbed into their car and drove down the dirt road toward the house.

“The virus is still raging on the net then?” asked Ray.

“Nothing seems to stop it. And if you’re right, and the author is now smashed in the bottom of the canal, then it’s going to take even longer to piece together a solution. The damned thing keeps changing its profile. It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen.”

“Nog was truly a genius,” agreed Ray. “He told me something of his work before he died.”He related to her what Nog had told him about the self-evolving software he had written.