Flicking

reach her..

  And as if on cue, her phone rang. She recognized the San Francisco area code, 415. It couldn’t be Code. He was wanting to meet in New York. She let it go to voicemail, but the caller did not leave a message.

  The bus really was the best way, and she’d have to use cash.

  She looked around the small store, at men and women in suits, popping in for a quick morning refresher, at the Mexican servers behind the counter bantering in Spanish. Would she ever be able to walk anywhere without worrying that she’d be killed? She didn’t even know what she’d done, let alone why someone would want to kill her. It couldn’t be for uploading the movies, could it? The only other explanation was Beehive. And that was pretty flimsy too. Kill her over two hundred and fifty grand? You’ve got to be joking.

  Time crawled across her watch at the slowest rate since that date with the student cameraman. It was ridiculous. If Code didn’t call in the next hour, she’d have to get on that bus. Frisco wasn’t safe.

  Andrea jumped up from the little table, grasped her hair in a pony tail and expertly snapped a band around the unruly mass. She walked out onto the street, circling into one shop after another, warily keeping an eye on the bank of phone booths in the middle of the pedestrian island. Her fingers idly flipped pages in a map store as she strained for her phone to ring.

  How long until the police had a warrant and could locate her phone? Another hour? Did they have it already?

  Her phone rang, sending an electric current through her wiry frame. No caller ID.

  “Hello?” she answered.

  “You wanted to talk to me?”

  She could hear a strong Italian accent in the voice.

  “Who is this?”

  “I’m Code. 70mm told me to call you. He thinks I want to bang you.” The voice chuckled over tension.

  “Yes.” She breathed in deeply. She would have to trust it was him. She didn’t have time for any security shenanigans. “Give me your number now. I’ll call you from a phone booth. I’m certain my phone is tapped.”

  The voice read the numbers in slow digits. A Boston number, she thought.

  “I’ll call you right back.”

  She ran from the store, nearly leaving her purse on the table where she’d been reading. At the phone booth she dropped in five dimes she’d gathered for the purpose and dialed the number.

  “Pronto?”

  “Is this Code?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Bunny.” She gasped in a breath. “Just listen to what I tell you to do. I don’t have much time. Wherever you are, find a phone booth, and tell me the number on it. I will call you there. I’ll wait on the line while you look.”

  “Ok. Too bad we can’t vader.”

  “I know.” She laughed nervously. She could hear walking sounds over the scratchy cellular connection. “I feel like I’m in a spy movie.” Her eyes glanced over the phone, trying to keep her heart from racing too much. “Does not accept incoming calls.” Shit. His had better. “Have you found one?”

  “It’s a little tricky. I’m in an—“

  “Don’t say,” Andrea shouted.

  “Oh, sorry.” He paused. “There’s one. One sec.” She could hear feet running. “Ok, the number is…” She wrote it down.

  “Does the phone accept incoming calls?”

  “It doesn’t say anything about it.”

  “I’ll call you. If you don’t hear anything in five minutes, call me back. Bye.”

  She hung up, and dialed the number. This was it. She clenched her teeth, and scrunched her eyes.

  The number rang.

  “Hello, Code here.”

  “Thank God. It worked.”

  “So what’s going on?” Code said.

  “I want to ask you that.”

  “I don’t know either. People are dead. My family’s dead.”

  “Oh god.”

  “Yes.”

  “We can’t talk now. They’ll get this number in a few minutes. I’ll just give you my new cell phone number and call me once you have a new cell phone. And for god’s sake, throw the old one away. And never use it to call the new number, or the police will just trace down your number from my number, and bang, they’ll have you.”

  “I know. I’m a hacker too, you know. What do you mean police?”

  “There’s no time. I’m in danger.” She gave the number, hung up the phone and turned around.

  That was it, she was outta here. She tossed her brand new, one month old Samsung phone into a garbage can after wiping the memory and locking the keypad. She’d liked the silly backgrounds it did. She stopped at an ATM, and withdrew $450, the daily max. Back at the garage she picked up her overnight bag from the trunk of her car and walked the six blocks to the bus terminal. That, she told herself, was her old life over. Sorry mom, I can’t call you. Please forgive me. She didn’t relax until the 10:25 bus to ‘New York and points East’ pulled onto the Bay Bridge.

  Foul

  The rough sound of thrash metal rasped through the darkened room. A bank of computers lined the wall on one end. Three laptops were attached to broad LCD monitors. Cables and glowing power supplies snaked across the desk. Devices of indeterminate purpose in metallic cases connected in odd stacks.

  “He’s totally gone you goomba. How the fuck did that happen?” the hunched figure shouted into a microphone, the words sharply edged by fear.

  “I can’t hear you there, mate,” said a voice from the speakers. “Could you turn off that distortion?”

  “It’s not distortion, you nimrod. It’s protection. Vadering, got it?”

  “Turn it off.”

  The figure clenched it’s hand, then typed something into the keyboard. “Not going to happen. I gotta protect myself, especially against you. Not that you can find me or anybody for that matter.”

  “Chill out, will you? This is a simple matter. We’ll find him soon enough. Your job is to sit tight and wait for developments.”

  “Yeah. You are nuts. I’m supposed to scare this guy, make him reveal his sources, get under his skin, but you can’t find him. When you plannin’ to make this nightmare end?”

  “What did I tell you?” The voice took on menace. “You will follow orders. I run this op, not you. Don’t forget it.”

  The figure shook its head. “I’ll put you in jail if you mess with me. Got it?”

  “We’ll have track of him as soon as necessary. In the meantime, don’t call me anymore, and SHUT THE FUCK UP!” The line cut off.

  IRC LOG: INTERCEPTED 5-OCT 15:02 UTC

  : Urgent. We must act.

  : Is anybody bloody there?

  : Hello?

  : Checking in.

  : Hi. Sorry. Was busy.

  : Somethings happening, and if we don’t act fast we might get tagged.

  : Don’t get excited. Stay put. What is happening?

  : Shit, sorry. Have to go. cross heart.

  : Hello?

  : u there?

  USER EXITS CHANNEL

  : FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  USER EXITS CHANNEL

  ENCRYPTION KEY CHANGES. LOGGING TERMINATED

  Sifting

  Dorian walked across the dull polished expanse of the terminal after finishing his call with Bunny, his mind racing. What did this girl really have? Could she lead him to the people who had killed his family? And what kind of danger was she in. His breast bone pinched; muscles all over his body strained. He had so much to do: find a hotel, buy a phone, find Bunny, meet her, lots of hoping she wasn’t dangerous. How would he survive? He’d have to stay low to the ground. Maybe she was as scared as he was. What a jumble!

  Dorian passed a news stand, glancing over at the world papers. Nothing special. Another bomb by the Tamil Tigers. The World was a cazzata as always. Suddenly he remembered. He walked to the nearest garbage can, throwing Tara’s phone into it.

  “Thanks for that,” he said, as he came up to Tara slumped sleepily on an airport bench. “Needed to make
that call. Unfortunately, I have bad news.”

  “What?”

  “I lost the phone. Right after I made the call. I don’t know what I did with it. I’m so sorry.”

  “You are a disaster. I guess I didn’t need it right now. But you’ll have to get me a new one when we get back to London.” She smiled wanly.

  “With pleasure.” He picked up his carry-on and both roller bags. “We’ve got to get to the city. No time to lose.”

  Tara hauled herself up, and looped her hair behind her ear. “I’m ready.”

  Outside the sun shone in sharp angles through the fall afternoon, the air drier and crisper than in London. They joined the long taxi line for the forty-five minute drive to Manhattan.

  “Take us to a hotel near Washington Square Park,” Dorian instructed the cabbie once they got to the front of the line.

  “Yeah, I know where it is. So which hotel you talkin’ about?”

  “One with a vacancy.”

  The whole ride to Manhattan, the driver had a Yankees game playing at full volume that Dorian hardly noticed, and Tara dropped straight to sleep. As the cab pulled onto First Avenue, Dorian ordered the driver to stop.

  “I need to get something before we continue. You wait here.” He patted Tara, who nodded sleepily.

  “I ain’t got all day.”

  “I’m paying you.”

  “I’m on a fixed rate.”

  “Then turn on the meter.” Dorian jumped out, and ran into a cell phone store. He bought the cheapest pre-pay phone he could find, and a number to go with it. Fifteen minutes later he emerged with a new, anonymous cell phone thanks to fifty bucks and a grandmother’s address in Nyack.

  Thirty minutes later they dropped exhausted onto a lumpy bed in a tiny room.

  “This is where students go when they break up with their