John Reese was putting his shoes on when his phone rang.
“Good morning, Finch. I’m on my way.”
“Don’t bother coming to the library,” Harold snapped. “Go to Chaos.”
“Is that a literary way of telling me to go to hell?”
Finch was in no mood for humor. “The cybercafé …”
“I know, Finch. What’s the problem?”
“Christine Fitzgerald’s number just came up.”
Reese stood up, checked his gun. “I’m on my way.”
“John …”
“Don’t jump to conclusions, Harold.”
“I haven’t seen the girl in eleven years. Eleven days after I find her she’s in danger. That’s not a coincidence.”
“You’re assuming she’s a victim, Finch.”
There was a very brief silence. “Yes,” Finch admitted. “Yes, I am.” His tone implied that he was not budging from that assessment.
Reese nodded to himself. “I’ll call you when I’m there.”
***
Finch’s hands flew over his keyboards. He’d been an idiot. He should have found out everything about the woman that first night. But she’d said please and he’d stopped. Now she was in danger and he was playing catch-up.
He knew, in one part of his mind, that he could not have anticipated this turn of events. That knowledge did not mitigate his irritation.
Reese was right, of course: He had instantly decided that Christine was a victim and not a perpetrator. Given her past, that could be entirely wrong. But without further evidence, he couldn’t bring himself to doubt her.
After all she’d been through, after all she’d survived, Christine Fitzgerald’s life was now threatened, possibly because he’d walked into her coffee bar.
Whatever it took, Finch vowed grimly, he would make sure that no one harmed her.
***
Reese circled the block twice before he found a parking spot up the street from the café. He walked away from Chaos and started a wide circuitous stroll around the neighborhood. There was a lot of traffic, both pedestrian and vehicle, but nothing that looked like surveillance to him. He keyed his phone. “I’m here, Finch. Looks quiet so far.”
“Good.” Finch still sounded tense. “I’ve checked every official channel I can access and every enemy I can think of. I haven’t found any mention of the girl.”
“You don’t sound happy about that.”
“I’d rather know where the threat is coming from.” His keyboard clattered. “The ex-Mrs. Frollich and her boyfriend are still in lock-up. Mr. Frollich seems to be at work. I don’t see any of them having the computer skills to have tracked me to the café. “
“No.” Reese paused to watch a delivery truck. There was no sign of the driver. “I know you think this is related, Finch, but until something pops we need to work this like every other Number. Get eyes on the girl and look for threats in her own life. Give me some background.”
Finch did not argue. “She was born on October 26, 1983. Her parents were never married; originally her name was Christine Buchanan. In the summer of 1988 she was a high school intern at IFT. In the fall of that same year her father was killed in a hostage incident with police, best described as suicide by cop. In March, 2000 her mother was killed in a car accident, best described as suicide by drunk driving. By then, as you know, she was already well on her way to destroying her own life. I already told you how that was resolved.
“After the Towers came down, Miss Fitzgerald changed her name and got her GED. She began to take college course and to travel extensively. Beyond that her history is a bit thin until she started her current business. I’m looking at her finances now, and there’s something very wrong. Chaos Café LLC was formed four years ago and it hasn’t turned a profit yet. Miss Fitzgerald doesn’t draw a salary. In fact, she’s put over fifty thousand dollars of her own money into it every year.”
“Laundering?” Reese wondered.
“No. The funds are going back out in wages, salaries, taxes, insurance. No large chunks, everything trackable. And if she were laundering funds, she could do a lot more without attracting attention.”
“Then where’s she getting the money?”
“That’s a very good question.”
The driver of the delivery truck came out, checked his clipboard, and drove off. Reese continued his stroll until he was across the street from the café. He settled onto the sandstone steps of a closed post office branch and squinted in the morning glare at the smallish, aging building.
He’d been the week before, watching Finch’s mystery woman from the same spot. After the morning commuter rush, just over a dozen old men had arrived. They came separately but sat together on the front patio, clearly long-time companions. They all wore hats, smoked slender, evil-smelling cigars and drank black coffee. They all spoke Russian. Fitzgerald had moved among the tables, chatting with the men and refilling cups from a silver carafe. They’d been teaching her Russian phrases that would have made a merchant marine blush.
This morning the Russians were there, but Christine was not.
Reese glanced through his camera into the café. He couldn’t spot her there, either.
“There’s no mortgage,” Finch said, half to himself. “The property was purchased outright in 2007 by a corporate entity called Cassandra Consulting. Cassandra now rents the business to Chaos for one dollar a year. They also rent the top floor apartment to Miss Fitzgerald and the second floor to an Igor Zubek for the same amount.”
“And what does Cassandra consult about?” Reese asked.
“Another good question. The company doesn’t have any internet presence at all. No website, no social media. One phone listing, just a number.”
“Whatever they do, they don’t need to advertise,” Reese said. He let his gaze travel up the front of the building. The building itself was absolutely ordinary. Brick construction, fifty to a hundred years old, narrow street frontage but deep, of the ‘just build the damn thing’ style of architecture. The whole building had new windows, neat and weather-efficient. But the windows on the top floor had intrigued him on his first visit. Unlike the others, they had a faint iridescent sheen. There was some kind of sun coat on them “ designed to keep the sun’s rays from fading the furniture, to keep the apartment warmer in winter and cooler in summer. To keep the neighbors from peeking in. And, if she’d paid for the upgrade, they kept anyone from listening in with a surveillance device. For all he knew they were bullet-proof, too.
Which made him wonder why an apparently ordinary young woman had safe-house quality ballistic windows, and what other security measures she’d taken. It was a level of paranoia he’d come to expect from Finch.
According to Finch’s very brief recounting of their earlier history, at fourteen Christine had been a high school summer intern at IFT. Three years later she’d been a heroin addict who’d hacked IFT’s systems. Finch had found her and put her in a rehabilitation facility against her will. She’d broken out. And that was the last he’d heard of her until the Frollich case.
Finch was convinced that the girl was going to be a victim, and that he was personally responsible for whatever danger she was in. Reese wasn’t convinced of either of those things. She had a history of high-level hacking and serious drug abuse. Though she now owned a cybercafé, there was no proof that she hadn’t continued to pursue either or both of her criminal interests.
Clearly she was using the business to hide something.
“According to the tax returns, Christine Fitzgerald is
Cassandra’s sole employee.” Finch sighed heavily. “This may take some time to unravel. I should have sorted it out right away.”
“I’m surprised that you didn’t, Finch.”
“She asked me not to.”
Reese frowned. “She knew you were looking into her finances?”
“I told you, Mr. Reese, she’s extremely bright. That’s why I asked you not to approach her.”
Which meant, Reese knew, that Finch knew perfectly well he’d spent some time watching her. But John hadn’t gone into the café itself “ yet. “She wouldn’t know me if she ran into me on the street,” he promised. “We may be down to sex, drugs, or espionage, Finch. Are you sure she’s not with the government?”
“There’s no connection that I can find,” Finch answered. ”And honestly, I don’t know where’s she’d find the time. It’s as if she has a whole secret existence. Chaos is everywhere, and Cassandra’s completely hidden.”
Reese smirked. “Kinda like everyone knew she was an insurance executive and no one knew she was a mad genius with a computer.”
Finch sighed. “Exactly like that. And she is very good at covering her tracks.”
“That does not surprise me.” Reese looked across the street again. “This girl is serious about security.”
“I don’t understand. There is nothing in her background that suggests a need for excessive caution.”
Except that she knew you when she was young, Reese thought, and you basically had her committed against her will. That might have made me paranoid into adulthood. He decided not the mention it.
Reese raised his camera and scanned the front windows again. Fitzgerald wasn’t anywhere that he could see her. He stood up, walked across the street and down the side street past the building. There was a fire escape to the two upstairs apartments. From the ground, it looked like the third floor window over the fire escape might be open an inch or two. Reese couldn’t get a good angle to see for sure. At the back of the building was a wide wooden staircase to the back doors. He stopped in the shadow of an alley with a view of the stairs.
Drugs, Reese thought again. Or hacking. Or both. Either of those could put her in danger. And that was before he factored Finch’s visit in. This was not going to be an easy case, any way he looked at it.
He brought out his phone and called Carter.
“Good morning,” the detective said after the first ring.
“Good morning, Detective. I need a favor.”
“That’s the only reason you ever call me.”
“I’m sorry. Some time I’ll just call to chat.”
“Sure you will. What’s up?”
“I need to know if you have anything on a woman named Christine Fitzgerald.”
“Got a middle initial?”
“Try B,” Finch offered. “Or S.”
“Good morning,” Carter greeted him sardonically. “BS first thing in the morning. That’s about right from you two.” There was a brief pause. “Born in 83?”
“That’s her.”
“It’s B, then. Miss Fitzgerald has a lead foot and no respect for parking restrictions. Other than that she’s clean.”
Reese nodded to himself. He scanned the back of the café through his camera lens. Nothing stood out.
“Except …” Carter went on, “…she doesn’t pay her tickets.”
“They’re delinquent?” Finch asked.
“They’re being waived.”
“Someone’s fixing her tickets?” Reese mused. He’d seen the local patrol officers stop into the café, probably for free coffee and pastries. But that wasn’t the kind of grift that made multiple tickets vanish. “Who?”
“Checking,” Carter muttered. “Looks like CCU.”
“Computer Crimes Unit,” Finch said. “That’s … interesting.”
“Can you find out why?” Reese asked.
“There’s nothing in the system,” Carter said. “But I have a friend over there. I’ll take her a bagel, see what she knows.”
“Send me the bill,” Finch said.
“Yeah, okay. And what would that address be?” Carter teased. “Hey. Something else. It might be nothing, but your girl got mugged this week.”
“What?”
“Monday,” Carter said. “Outside a library. The report says a guy in a ball cap and sunglasses held her up at gunpoint. He took a little over forty dollars in cash and a necklace that was worth less than a hundred.”
“Was she hurt?” Finch asked.
“Doesn’t look like he even touched her. Just a nice professional armed robbery. She wasn’t going to report it; the librarian called it in. I’m sending you the report number.”
“What about a juvie record?” Reese asked.
“I’m not seeing one.”
“Thanks, Carter.” Reese shut down that call. “Finch?”
“I’m looking at the report,” Finch answered. “Exactly as Detective Carter described it. Nothing to indicate that it’s anything significant.”
“Like your visit to Chaos,” Reese answered. “Could be something, could be nothing.”
“There are no coincidences, Mr. Reese. Both of those things almost certainly play into whatever danger she’s in now.”
Reese nodded to himself. “Finch, I don’t think the girl is home.” He dialed the number that was painted over the back door of the café.
“Chaos,” a female chirped briskly.
“Hey, is Christine there?”
“Who?”
“Scottie,” Finch prompted.
“Scottie,” Reese corrected. “Is Scottie around?”
“She’s at a meeting. Wanna leave a message?”
“I’ll call back.” John clicked off the phone. “Finch? Any
idea where she went?”
“She’s got a cell phone,” Finch answered, “but I can’t find any way to track it. I think she’s got it turned off.”
“No one leaves home without their cell phone turned off,” Reese said.
“Unless they don’t want to be tracked.”
“Mmmm.” Reese looked at those windows again. Sex, drugs, or espionage, he thought again. Very discrete escort? Wrong neighborhood for high-end clients, and if she wasn’t bringing them home, why the privacy glass? Drug dealer or drug maker? More possible; definitely the right neighborhood for that. Spy? Also possible. If she wasn’t government, maybe some variety of private-sector espionage.
Cassandra Consulting. Your doom foretold. Maybe she was a fortuneteller.
“Got her,” Finch finally said. “She left the apartment almost an hour ago. There was a cab waiting for her.”
“Where was she going?”
“Still working on that. It is not a particularly good camera angle.”
“I have faith in you, Finch.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m going to have a look around her apartment.”
“Be careful, Mr. Reese. It would be better if Miss Fitzgerald didn’t know we were prying into her personal affairs again.”
“I’ll use my usual discretion.”
“That’s what I’m worried about.”
Reese glanced around; there was no one paying attention. He climbed the steps quickly, planning to pick the lock quickly and be out of sight.
The door to Christine Fitzgerald’s apartment was heavy-duty steel, painted a cheery sky blue. It had a standard lock, but also a separate electronic bolt with a keypad. It was top of the line. He leaned down to look at the bottom of it. The reader was biometric. Finch’s scanner wouldn’t work; this lock wanted a code or a thumbprint. He could get through it if he needed to, but not quietly or neatly. For the moment he didn’t touch it. “So much for a quick look around,” he muttered.
“Problem, Mr. Reese?”
“If it makes you feel any better, she’s being elusive at this end, too.”
He started back down the steps, thinking about trying the fire escape. Before he got to the second floor landing, the door opened and a very large man stepped out. He was six inches taller than Reese, a hundred pounds heavier, maybe fifteen years older. He had a big flat middle-European face and a significant mustache. Reese recognized him as one of the night baristas. “Help you?”
“I was looking for Christine. Scottie.”
“Think she went out a while ago.” The man looked him up and down, obviously taking mental notes.
“I was supposed to meet her for breakfast. But I, uh, I forgot where. And she’s got her phone turned off.”
“She does that,” the man allowed. “Doesn’t like the government following her around.”
“The government follows her around?”
The man frowned at him. Reese knew it was the wrong thing to say; he’d given away that he didn’t actually know the woman. “You want to leave a note or something?”
“Ummm …”
His phone rang. Reese glanced at it, clicked it on. “Hey, Scottie.”
“I have located her,” Finch said.
“Oh, good. I’m just running a little late myself, I’ll be right there.” He gestured to the man. “Found her, thanks,” he said. He eased past him and continued down the steps. “Where?” he asked Finch.
“She has a breakfast meeting with a man named Jared Rickel. I’m sending you the address.”
“Who’s Jared Rickel?”
“He’s the senior partner at Cantum, Rickel & Piros Financial. CRP wired twenty-five thousand dollars to Cassandra Consulting late yesterday. For services rendered, whatever that may mean.”
Might still be an escort or a drug dealer, Reese mused. He glanced at the address on his phone. “I’m going back to Wall Street. Do I need my good suit?”
“Not for a breakfast meeting, I wouldn’t think. If it goes longer than that I’ll bring it to you.”
Reese growled under his breath and headed for his car.
As he pulled out of the parking spot, a battered green Chevy pulled into it.
***
July 1998
Nathan Ingram wasn’t in his office, but his laptop was still on and his jacket hung over the back of his chair. Harold flopped into the side chair and pulled the laptop over to him.
“Please don’t change my password again,” Nathan said when he returned.
Harold grunted. “You shouldn’t leave it on, you know.”
“I’m not shutting down my laptop every time I go to the men’s room. What are you looking for?”
Harold glanced up from the screen. “One of your Red Shirts just about got herself leveled in the cafeteria.”
Ingram scowled. He was very proud of his fledgling high school internship program. He’d recruited the top twenty students in the city, chosen from over 700 essay submissions. The program had a long, fancy name that Harold hadn’t bothered to learn. But since Nathan had elected to dress all his eager mini-interns in dark red monogrammed polo shirts, and since everyone but him considered them completely expendable, they had very quickly come to be called Red Shirts. “Which one?”
He held his hand straight out, level to the floor. “The little one.”
“Chrissy,” Ingram said immediately. “Brown hair, glasses?”
“That’s her.” Harold leaned forward to watch the screen more closely. He’d accessed the right surveillance camera; now he searched for the right time. “I thought they were supposed to be juniors and seniors. That girl can’t be more than ten.”
“She’s fourteen,” Ingram corrected. “And she’ll be a junior in the fall. St. Mary’s.”
“Hmm.” Harold found the right time frame. He wound back just a little, then watched the replay from the overhead angle. He’d been waiting in line. The girl had been leaving the cafeteria and she hadn’t been paying attention; she was rubbing her forehead as she walked toward the door. She carried a slender paperback in her other hand. But Gwen from HR wasn’t looking either; she was chatting, as always, talking over her shoulder, and she’d run squarely into the child.
Fortunately neither of them had a tray in their hands. The book went flying, and Harold made a one-in-his-lifetime athletic catch to grab it out of midair. But the intern hadn’t appreciated the catch, because Gwen had thrown her arm up, trying to keep her balance, and the girl had cowered back, covered her head with her own arms.
And then just as quickly she straightened up, took her book “ The Gulag Archipelago “ back from Harold, muttered an embarrassed apology, and hurried out.
It had been so brief that Harold hadn’t been sure he’d seen it. But it was definitely there on the tape. “Does St. Mary’s know she’s being abused?” he asked quietly.
Nathan looked at him steadily. “That’s part of why she’s here.”
“You can’t save everyone, Nathan,” Harold said mildly. He was accustomed to Ingram’s grand world-redeeming initiatives, and he knew there was no point in arguing over them. But he was also adept at avoiding becoming enmeshed in them.
“Maybe not. But I can save this girl.” He opened a drawer, pulled out a file folder. “She’s smart, Harold. Really smart. Read her essay. Avatars and Aliases. She has some very original ideas about the future of identities on the internet.”
Harold made no move toward the file. “If you say so.”
His friend’s enthusiasm was undimmed. “I’m telling you, of all of them, that’s the kid to watch. She’s going to be a rock star. And she’ll be our rock star. I’ll bet you a hundred bucks, Harold, ten years from now you thank me for getting her on board when I did.”
Harold glanced at the folder. Nathan had been an unrepentant optimist for a long as he’d known him; that didn’t make him a fool. The folder was worth a look. But not while Ingram was watching; no point in encouraging his crusading ways. “Keep your money, Nathan.” He gestured with his head towards the screen. “Get her some glasses that don’t give her a headache.”
“Aww, see, Harold, you do care.” Ingram chuckled. “Fine. I’ll take care of it. But I’m telling you, that one girl could make this whole program worthwhile.”
Harold rolled his eyes and went on to other things.
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