Jeff Abbott - Collision

“You were going to help him get his software business off the ground,” she said and he realized, She bought it, she thinks I’m Pilgrim’s pretend version of me.

“I wanted to help him,” he lied. “Can we talk?”

“I don’t know…” She bit her lip, and now he had to convince her, lie if he had to, or she would shut him out, probably phone the police.

“Listen. Whoever hired that sniper to kill Adam, they could come after you if they suspect he confided in you.”

The door stopped. Now she frowned. “I’m a nobody.”

“Still. If you knew what he knew…”

“All I know is, all his ideas, his software he’d developed, Homeland Security took it all. But…”

“But what?”

“I don’t know what they’re going to do with his research. I don’t want them to steal his work. I want to protect it.”

He needed to know what this research was as well. He pressed his advantage. “That’s exactly what this group at Homeland might do. Access to his software is going to save them millions.” He hoped his bluff made sense. “But maybe I can help you get his property back.”

“Just a minute.” She shut the door and he stood, waiting, for thirty seconds until she opened it again. She was out of breath, as though she’d been running. “Come in.”

Ben stepped inside the house. The rich smell of cinnamon coffee hung like a perfume. Delia Moon gestured at Ben to walk first into the kitchen and he did, realizing she did not want her back turned to him. No sudden moves, he thought, don’t scare her.

She was pretty but her face seemed careworn, as though life had made her suspicious and cautious. “You want coffee?”

“Sure. I really am sorry to intrude upon your grief,” he said, and he was. He remembered how awkward people seemed toward him after Emily’s death. Murder paralyzed everything in your life.

She went to the cabinet and reached for an extra cup. She poured him a cup and refilled her own.

“I hope you don’t mind black,” she said. “I’m out of cream and sugar.”

“Black’s fine.” He took a sip of coffee. The taste sent a surge of heat racing along his bones. It was a moment of calmness, of normalcy, good coffee drunk in a sunny, bright kitchen.

She pulled a gun from the back of her jeans, from under her untucked batik blouse. “Please put your hands on your head.”

He thought: She shouldn’t have given me a hot beverage, I could throw it on her, get the gun from her. Funny how your mind started to work when you were afraid all the time. But he set the coffee down. “I’m not a threat to you.” Slowly he put his hands above his head.

She glanced at the remnant of the plastic handcuff on his wrist. “Lay down on the floor.”

He obeyed. “I don’t have a gun,” he said.

“I never thought I’d use this one. Adam insisted. Me living here alone.” She prodded at him with her foot, along his legs, along the small of his back.

“Delia, please listen to me. There was a man who stole my identity. He pretended to be me. He’s the one who approached Adam. He works for a secret group in the government. Adam found his false identities, the ones used in undercover work, and this man and this secret group came looking for Adam. To discover how he found them, when no one was supposed to be able to identify them.”

She stepped back from him, kept the gun leveled at him. “False identities-” she started to say and then stopped. And he saw the dawn of belief in her eyes.

“You believe me,” he said in shock and she nodded.

The sense of relief-after two days of not being believed-was vast. Someone believing him. He shivered, put his face in his hands. “Thank God. Finally. Thank you, Delia.”

She slowly lowered the gun, two sudden tears inching down her face.

Ben slowly sat up from the floor. “These people he discovered are sort of spies, but they’re not part of the CIA. They do the dirty jobs that the government can’t own. I need to know exactly how Adam found them.”

“Oh, God, he was stupid and brilliant.” She wiped away a tear. “He told me he had created a set of programs that would help track patterns used by people who are using fraudulent identities. He thought it would be useful in tracking terrorists. He wanted to do good. He kept saying we had to find them before they strike.”

“But terrorists aren’t the only ones who try to hide behind false identities and accounts,” Ben said. “It could also apply in finding covert operatives.”

She wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “He talked about stuff like ‘common behavioral patterns’-false names, quickly established and deactivated credit and banking accounts, large cash withdrawals from those kinds of accounts.”

“Brew all the data together and it sounds like a Google to find bad guys.” Ben frowned. “But that wouldn’t work unless you could have access to a very wide array of unrelated databases. Financial, law enforcement, governmental, travel, corporate. The trail any of us leave in our lives is across a quilt of databases that aren’t sewn together.”

“Couldn’t the government get him permission for that?”

“Not without tons of warrants. But he did it. Someone got him the access.”

“Adam wouldn’t try to expose undercover cops or CIA agents or anybody working for good.” She shook her head. “Never. Not on purpose.”

“I don’t believe he knew he was searching for covert government agents. Maybe he was told they were bad guys. Did he ever mention to you that someone wanted to fund this software?”

“He mentioned once, a guy named Sam Hector-that Mr. Hector might fund his research. But this was months ago. I called him today when I realized the government had taken all of Adam’s ideas. I thought he could help me. He said he’d come talk to me about how we could get Adam’s research back from the government.”

“I know Sam.”

“Oh, good.”

“Not really. He dragged his heels on helping me. It wasn’t like him.” He wondered if Sam was feeling his own set of pressures from the government. Maybe Sam knew much more than what he was saying.

“Well, Mr. Hector’s coming here and he’s going to help me.”

And he would do nothing for me that wasn’t under his own terms. What the hell was wrong with Sam? Bitterness rose into Ben’s throat. “Then he must see more value in helping you than helping me. Delia, this is huge. Have you told anyone, the police, about what Adam was doing?”

She made a face. “There was a Homeland woman here, but she acted like I was shit on her shoe.”

“Joanna Vochek.”

“You know her?”

“Yes. She might believe me.”

“She didn’t believe a word I said,” Delia said. “I’m supposed to call her if I remember anything else.” She pushed Vochek’s number at him; he opened the paper, memorized the number. He might need it soon.

He handed her back the paper. “But you believe me.”

She nodded. “Yes. I do.”

The doorbell rang.

“Is Sam on his way over here now?” Ben asked. Delia hurried to the front door.

“Yeah,” she said. She put her eye to the peephole.

Jackie had been sitting in the Mercedes, puzzling over how to get into Delia Moon’s house without a fuss when Ben Forsberg-the civilian from the parking garage last night-pulled up in a white Explorer.

He waited, watched Ben talk his way into the woman’s house. Interesting. He called Hector’s number. No answer. He left a message. Waited a few minutes and Hector called back.

“Her and Forsberg are here together.”

“Then why the hell are you calling me? Kill them.”

“I’m calling because you’re pretty freaking particular about how things are done,” Jackie said. He ended the call and walked out to the house. Rang the doorbell, bold in the daylight. Saw the peephole’s flick of light get eclipsed by whoever was answering the door.