Jeffery Deaver - The Blue Nowhere

Gillette was also being asked to help track down a particularly dangerous computer virus, known as Polonius, which had made its first appearance in the past week. The virus was a demon that would make your computer go online by itself and transmit all of your past and current e-mails to everyone in your electronic address book. Not only did this create major Internet traffic jams around the world but it resulted in a lot of embarrassment when people received e-mails not intended for their eyes. Several people attempted suicide when affairs, cases of sexually transmitted diseases and shady business practices were revealed.

What was particularly frightening, though, was how the computers were infected. Aware that firewalls and virus shields will stop most viruses, the perpetrator had cracked into the networks of commercial software manufacturers and instructed their disk-making machines to insert the virus into the disks included in the software packages sold by retail stores and mail-order companies.

The feds were running the case and all they could determine was that the virus had originated from a university in Singapore about two weeks before. They had no other leads – until one of the FBI agents on the case wondered aloud, "Polonius – that's the character from Hamlet , right?"

Gillette recalled something Phate had told him. He'd dug up a copy of Shakespeare's plays and learned that, yes, it was Polonius who'd said, "To thine own self be true…" Gillette had them check to find the time and date of the first occurrence of the virus; it was late on the afternoon of the day that Patricia Nolan killed Phate. When her colleagues had called the first FTP site he'd given her, they'd unwittingly unleashed the Polonius virus on the world – a farewell present from Phate.

The code was very elegant and proved to be extremely difficult to eradicate. Manufacturers would have to completely rewrite their disk manufacturing systems and users would have to wipe the entire contents of their hard drives and start over with virus-free programs.

Remember that line, Valleyman. That's advice from a wizard. 'To thine own self be true'…

On a Tuesday in late April, Gillette was sitting at his laptop in his cell, analyzing some of Shawn's operating system, when the guard came to the door.

"Visitor, Gillette."

It would be Bishop, he guessed. The detective was still working the MARINKILL case, spending a lot of time north of Napa, where the suspects were reportedly hiding out. (They'd never been in Santa Clara County at all. Phate himself, it seemed, had sent most of the advisories about the killers to the press and to the police as more diversions.) Bishop, though, stopped by San Ho occasionally when he was in the area. Last time, he'd brought Gillette some Pop-Tarts and some apricot preserves Jennie had made from Bishop's own orchard. (Not his favorite condiment but the jam made excellent prison currency – this batch, in fact, had been traded for the Walkman that could be turned into a modem but would not be. Well, in all likelihood wouldn't be.)

The visitor, however, wasn't Frank Bishop.

He sat down in the cubicle and watched Elana Papandolos walk into the room. She was wearing a navy blue dress. Her dark, wiry hair was pulled back. It was so thick that the golden barrette holding it together seemed about to burst apart. Noticing her short nails, perfectly filed and colored lavender, he thought of something that'd never occurred to him. That Ellie, a piano teacher, made her way in the world with her hands too – just as he had done – yet her fingers were beautiful and unblemished by even a hint of callus.

She sat down, scooted the chair forward.

"You're still here," he said, lowering his head slightly to speak through the holes in the Plexiglas. "I never heard from you. I assumed you'd left a couple of weeks ago."

She said nothing in response. Looked at the divider. "They added that."

The last time she'd been to visit him, several years ago, they'd sat at a table without a divider, a guard hovering over them. With the new system there was no guard; you gained privacy but you lost proximity. He would rather have had her close, Gillette decided, remembering during her visits how he'd loved to brush fingertips with her or press his shoe against the side of her foot, the contact producing an electric frisson that was akin to making love.

Gillette now found as he sat forward that he was air-keying furiously. He stopped and slipped his hands into his pockets.

He asked, "Did you talk to somebody about the modem?"

Elana nodded. "I found a lawyer. She doesn't know if it'll sell or not. But if it does, the way I'm handling it is I'll pay myself back for your lawyer's bill and my half of the house we lost. The rest is yours."

"No, I want you to have-"

She interrupted him by saying, "I postponed my plans. To go to New York."

He was silent, processing this. Finally he asked her, "For how long?"

"I'm not sure."

"What about Ed?"

She glanced behind her. "He's outside."

This stung Gillette's heart. Nice of him to chauffeur her to see her ex, the hacker thought bitterly, inflamed by jealousy. "So why'd you come?" he asked.

"I've been thinking about you. About what you said to me the other day. Before the police showed up."

He nodded for her to continue.

"Would you give up machines for me?" she asked.

Gillette took a breath. He exhaled and then answered evenly, "No. I'd never do that. Machines are what I'm meant to do in life."

To thine own self be true…

He expected her to stand up and walk out. It would have killed a portion of him – maybe most of him – but he'd vowed that if he had a chance to talk to her again he'd never lie.

He added, "But I can promise you that they'll never come between us the way they did. Never again."

Elana nodded slowly. "I don't know, Wyatt. I don't know if I can trust you. My dad drinks a bottle of ouzo a night. He keeps swearing he's going to give up drinking. And he does – about six times a year."

"You'll have to take a chance," he said.

"That might've been the wrong thing to say."

"But it's the honest thing."

"Reassurances, Gillette. I need reassurances before I even begin to think about it."

Gillette didn't respond. He couldn't present her with much compelling evidence that he'd change. Here he was, in prison, having nearly gotten this woman and her family killed because of his passion for a world completely alien to the one that she inhabited and understood.

After a moment he said, "There's nothing more I can say except that I love you and I want to be with you, have a family with you."

"I'll be in town for a while at least," she said slowly. "Why don't we just see what happens?"

"What about Ed? What's he going to say?"

"Why don't you ask him?"

"Me?" Gillette asked, alarmed.

Elana rose and walked to the door.

What on earth was he going to say? Gillette wondered in panic. He was about to come face-to-face with the man who'd stolen his wife's heart.

She opened the door and gestured.

A moment later Elana's staunch, unsmiling mother walked into the room. She was leading a small boy, about eighteen months old, by the hand.

Jesus, Lord… Gillette was shocked. Elana and Ed had a baby!

His ex-wife sat down in the chair once again and hauled the youngster up on her lap. "This's Ed."

Gillette whispered, "Him?"

"That's right."

"But…"

" You assumed Ed was my boyfriend. But he's my son… Actually, I should say he's our son. I named him after you. Your middle name. Edward isn't a hacker's name."

" Ours? " he whispered.

She nodded.

Gillette thought back to the last few nights they'd been together before he'd surrendered to the prison authorities to start his sentence, lying in bed with her, pulling her close…