Lee Vance - The Garden of Betrayal

I was confused again.

“This repeater thing was hooked up to our phone also?”

“No. The recordings were made in lots of different places, not just in our apartment. A bunch of them sound like you’re talking to people at restaurants, or in the street.”

“How’s that possible?”

“I asked Gabor. He thinks someone reprogrammed your cell phone.”

“You can do that?” I asked, stunned.

“A cell phone is just a simple computer and some memory attached to a radio. The computer has an operating system, like every other computer. All someone has to do is physically get hold of your phone and make changes to the operating system. Then the phone becomes a bug, like the repeater, recording everything you say and transmitting it to the server. You said you lost the phone last Friday, right? And that it was returned on Monday? That’s more than enough time for it to have been reprogrammed.”

Son of a bitch. I should have known better than to believe in cell phone-returning Good Samaritans in New York City.

“Have you noticed that your phone hasn’t been holding a charge well recently?” Kate asked.

“I replaced the battery Wednesday morning, because it died overnight.”

“The recording function can be programmed to be voice-activated, so it will capture everything you say, instead of just your calls. Gabor said hacking a phone like that makes it consume a ton of battery.” She shook her head. “I’m going to have to send him some cookies or something. He was really helpful, and he’s going to be upset when I don’t show this weekend.”

“Bottom line, our network’s bugged, and my phone’s bugged.”

She nodded.

“And I’m guessing that we’re out here on the fire stairs because you think our apartment might be bugged as well.”

“It’s possible. And I didn’t want you to bring your pants or anything else, because we can’t be sure that it’s only your phone. Lots of small things can be microphones-a button, or your belt buckle, or something in your shoes. But the phone’s the best, because you charge it up every night, and it can transmit over greater distances, and-”

“Because I carry it around with me everywhere,” I said, finishing her sentence.

“So, what’s going on?” she asked quietly.

“I wish I knew. You said you had some idea when the bugging started?”

“The oldest files on the server were from Sunday night, which means at least since then. It could be longer, if someone’s been erasing stuff, but I don’t think too much longer, or I would have noticed.”

Sunday night. Before I generated the scoop on Nord Stream, before I met with Theresa Roxas, and before I had my falling-out with Walter. It didn’t make sense. There wasn’t any reason for anyone to have been that interested in me last week.

“Just to be clear, how sophisticated do you have to be to do something like this?”

She shrugged.

“It’s like a lot of things in the tech world-simple in concept but tough to get right. I could probably do it if I had enough time, but whenever you monkey around with hardware at the BIOS level, or try to get different systems to communicate, you’re going to have a million tiny problems to work through. Whoever did this seems to have gotten everything right, so I’m guessing they’re experienced.”

Her mention of experience brought Frick and Frack to mind again. But if Walter had been monitoring my conversations and my e-mail, he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Alex had introduced me to Theresa Roxas. My head ached. I was missing something big-nobody would have gone to these lengths on a whim. There had to be some deeper pattern to events that I wasn’t perceiving.

“Is that everything?” I asked.

“You were expecting more?”

We shared a weak smile.

“How much of this have you told your mother?”

“Nothing yet. She went to bed early. She seemed upset.”

“I tried to get her to open up to me about San Francisco.”

“And?”

“And it’s complicated.” I slapped my knees with both hands, attempting to project more confidence than I felt. “We can talk about that later. Come on. It’s time to go.”

“Go where?”

“To pick up your mother and move to a hotel until we figure out what’s going on. Someone’s already broken into our apartment once. I don’t want to take any chances.”

She nodded, her face troubled.

“There actually is one more thing. This probably isn’t the right time, but I’d like to ask you about it.”

“Shoot.”

“These past couple of days, I’ve felt there was something important you weren’t telling me. That’s the other reason I thought maybe you were spying on me-because I had the sense you were keeping a secret. Is there anything else I should know?”

She looked at me searchingly.

“Kate…” I said, unsure how to begin.

She gasped, a hand flying to her face.

“It’s about Kyle, isn’t it?”

I wrapped an arm around her and gently lifted her upright.

“It’s nothing definitive. Let’s go find your mother. I’ll tell you everything on the way.”

Kate ran down the location of Claire’s charity event while I threw on some old jeans and a pair of ratty tennis shoes, mindful of her caution about listening devices. The breakfast was at the Parker Meridien hotel, on West Fifty-seventh Street. I brought her up to speed on everything I’d been doing with Reggie as we rode downtown in a cab, again omitting the beating I’d given Vinny. Like Claire, Kate wept when I told her what the e-mail Reggie received had said.

The ride to the hotel took us about fifteen minutes. Kate went hunting for Claire in the hotel’s reception rooms while I used a lobby pay phone to try Reggie’s numbers. Both his office and cell kicked to voice mail. Recounting the morning’s events to his machine, I felt my rage mounting again. Forget the eavesdropping-someone had broken into my home. I asked Reggie if he could enlist some forensics guys to dust for fingerprints and do whatever else they did. I wanted to catch whoever it had been, and to make sure they paid the price.

The Meridien was a good hotel, and convenient, so I booked a suite for the week, assuming that would give us enough time to have our apartment swept clean and figure out what had been going on. Kate showed up with her mother as I was pocketing the plastic room keys. Claire had dressed more Park Avenue than Upper West Side for the benefit, in a navy dress, black pumps, and a wide, black, patent-leather belt. Her hair was loose around her shoulders. She looked young, and vulnerable, and frightened. I reached for her hand. She took it and clung tight.

Our rooms were too contemporary for my taste, with odd inversely colored photographs of flowers on the walls, but they were also airy and light, with rooftop views of the southern skyline. We settled at an asymmetric breakfast table beneath an oversized close-up of a pale green rose while Kate reexplained the bugging.

“So, this has something to do with your work?” Claire asked, turning to me when Kate had finished. She looked pale but composed.

“It must, although I can’t imagine what. I don’t want either of you to be concerned, though. I have a call in to Reggie. He and I will figure this whole thing out and take care of it.”

Kate glanced at her mother.

“You and Reggie are going to take care of it. So Mom and I should just hang around here at the hotel and wait. Maybe book a massage and a pedicure.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I said, stung by her sarcasm.

“Isn’t it?” Claire asked quietly.

I hesitated, afraid of getting them involved in anything dangerous, but recognizing that I’d made things worse between me and Claire in the past by being overprotective.