James Patterson - Blindside

She said, “If Natalie’s in Estonia, she’s with a hacker named Henry.”

“Henry.”

“His real name is Endrik. Endrik Laar. Henry’s just the Anglicized version of his name he prefers. I’m pretty sure he’s from Estonia originally. He’s there now, at any rate.”

“Who is he? What’s he look like?”

Jennifer thought about it for a moment. These computer people didn’t just spout off. They considered questions and the best way to answer. Finally she said, “I guess Henry is about thirty. He’s a little on the short side. Not even five eight. He used to be as skinny as a rail, but now he’s muscular. I mean absolutely ripped. Part of it is because he trains with some former Olympian from Germany. Part of it is steroids. I think that’s what changed his personality. He used to be the typical funny, nice, young computer guy. But he’s changed.”

“How so?”

“It started with his moods. As he brought in more and more money, it was like he realized how much power he had. Then he hired people specifically as enforcers. They were the ones who kept all the programmers from talking to the police. I think it’s worked pretty well. To my knowledge, he’s never been arrested.”

“Why would Natalie be with Henry? Are they an item?”

“That’s a complicated question. Henry had relationships with all three of the female programmers during the time I worked with him, here in New York. A girl from Latvia named Svetlana. Natalie. And me.” She stared at me to see if I was shocked or would offer any judgment.

I said, “I remember what it’s like to be young. I don’t care about any consensual relationship. But I am trying to get a handle on if Natalie was forcibly taken or ran away to be with her boyfriend.”

Jennifer said, “It’s hard to say. Natalie was into Henry for a while. When we first started working with him, we thought we were doing something special. Exposing secrets. Forcing businesses to admit when they were cheating people. But pretty quickly Henry figured out the real money was in essentially blackmailing retailers. He’d knock out their website for an hour, then tell them to pay some outrageous sum or he’d knock out the website for three days.”

“But he couldn’t knock it out permanently.”

Jennifer gave me a flat stare. “Amazon does more than six hundred million dollars in sales a day. Do you think if some hacker who proved he could knock them offline asked for five million dollars to leave them alone they wouldn’t go for it? Henry does it all the time. And by setting up his bank accounts in money havens like Belize, Switzerland, and the Cayman Islands, it makes it impossible to find him.”

I put down the pad and crossed my legs. “What is Natalie like?”

“Nice girl. Very close with her mother. When you told me her mom hadn’t heard from her I knew something was wrong.”

“Is she a hacker, too? Does she enjoy cracking systems?”

“We all enjoy breaking security systems. She is more into creating the algorithms than actually cracking the systems. She never seemed to care about money, either.”

“Do you think she’s in trouble?”

Jennifer didn’t have to think about this one. She looked me right in the eye and said, “Yes.”

CHAPTER 42

ALICE AND JANOSstepped through the door of Brew. They didn’t try to hide or be subtle. No one knew them. Their rough plan involved waiting until Jennifer and the cop left and then somehow luring them to a secluded area. Eliminate both of them. Then flee.

What the plan lacked in details it made up for in boldness.

Alice said to Janos, “You shoot the cop. Don’t hesitate once we get them outside. He doesn’t look like someone you want to screw with. I’ll deal with Jennifer.”

Now, as she stood by the front door of the coffeehouse, she took a moment to appreciate Jennifer completely. It wasn’t just that she was pretty and stylish. This girl was dead-on smart. Alice would see what all those brains did for her with a wire around her throat.

She and the cop looked like they were talking pleasantly. The tiny tables left little room for anything but a cup of coffee.

She thought about Henry, too. He shared the same superior attitude as Jennifer. Alice wondered how he’d react once he heard that Jennifer was dead. She had a story to cover herself and Janos. She liked the idea of that Estonian asshole mourning over his lost Asian love.

Alice let her eyes scan the rest of the coffeehouse. It seemed like a lot of students. The place was wedged between City College and Columbia University. There was no shortage of smart young people to frequent a hipster coffeehouse like this.

She noticed everyone had a computer. Most people didn’t appear to be casually browsing Facebook, either. They had their noses buried in screens and were tapping away at keyboards.

Oscar had been right. This place was a hangout for hackers.

Alice looked at the line to order next to the counter. She wouldn’t mind a cup of tea.

She glanced down the counter until her eyes fell on two men. They were both grinning at her.

At almost the same time she saw them, Alice heard Janos exclaim, “Oh, shit.”

It was the two crazy Dutchmen who worked for Henry. Her text to Henry must’ve had more of an effect than she thought.

Then she saw both men slip off their stools. A moment later, she saw the guns in their hands.

CHAPTER 43

AS I DIGESTEDJennifer’s words, I looked up, and again I noticed the two men at the counter, the ones dressed like Europeans. One was tall with his blond hair tight and neat. Both of them were in decent shape, if dressed a little oddly.

I’d noted that their eyes had followed me as I walked in. Now I noticed they were smiling at a couple who’d just stepped in the front door.

Something wasn’t right about it. I couldn’t put my finger on it immediately. The shorter of the two men, a guy about thirty-five with long, stringy hair, put his hand behind his back. It was a common movement and normally wouldn’t draw notice. But I was on alert. And, to me, it was the definition of a furtive movement .

I took a moment to inspect the couple who had just entered. A man and a woman dressed in dark, casual clothes. There was nothing unusual about them, except for the fact that an unknown couple had entered Thomas Payne’s building the night he was killed. And been with him in the train station. I kicked myself for not requesting a copy of the surveillance footage from Ed Arris.

Once the two of them noticed the men at the bar there was a distinct, silent confrontation.

Then the men at the counter drew guns.

I acted completely out of instinct, as if one of my own children were sitting at the table with me. I dove out of my seat, scooping up Jennifer Chang on the way. We landed hard on the polished floor and slid a few feet into another table.

I would’ve heard the cursing and comments of the people we had bumped into except the screams of the people near the counter drowned them out.

I didn’t have to look up to see what was happening. This wasn’t the eighties. New Yorkers were not used to guns coming out inside coffeehouses. A wave of panic swept over the small place.

The screams were completely masked by the sound of the first gunshots.

CHAPTER 44

IN THAT SECONDbefore Alice could react, but after she’d seen the Dutchmen, Christoph and Ollie, she froze. It wasn’t fear. It was shock. And confusion. There was no reason for those two psychopaths to be here. Unless Henry had decided to cancel their contracts permanently.

Alice heard Janos mumble, “What the hell?” She felt him move as he reached for his gun. In an instant, her plan fell apart. She had relied on her plans for almost a decade. Her strength in this business was that she was a planner. Most of the people working for criminals like Henry gave little thought to their jobs. Point them in the right direction and they killed someone.