Дэвид Балдаччи - Long Road to Mercy

When she had tried the last possible combination, and nothing had worked, she sat back in frustration.

Blum, who had dozed off on her bed, awoke a minute later. Rain was drumming down on the roof of the one-story motel.

“No luck, I take it?” Blum said groggily.

“Apparently, his brother’s family wasn’t important enough to warrant being the basis for his all-important password, nor did his list of files have any clues that worked.”

“Well, I’m starving. I saw a diner down the street when we were coming here.”

They drove over, parked behind the building, and went inside.

They ordered their food and sipped their coffees as the rain continued to pour.

Blum looked out at the gloom. “My God, is it always like this here? I’d get suicidal. I need sun.”

“They get rain and then they get sun. And then they get fall and then they get snow.”

Blum shivered. “No thank you. Is that why you moved to the Southwest? For the weather?”

“I almost moved to Montana or Wyoming.”

“My God, do you know how much snow they get?”

“The weather wasn’t the deciding factor.”

“What was then?”

“I already told you. The people or lack thereof.” She glanced over at Blum, who had her coffee cup halfway to her lips. Pine explained further, “I don’t like crowds.”

“How would you define a crowd?”

“Pretty much anyone other than myself.”

“Well, I’m sorry if I’m crowding you then,” said Blum, sounding a bit hurt.

“Actually, Carol, I sort of consider us one unit, so when I say me, I include you, and vice versa.”

“You know, when I had six kids at home, and several of them still in diapers, I longed to be by myself, for just a few minutes, even. It seemed like every second of my life, someone was calling my name, demanding that I do something for them.”

“And now?” asked Pine curiously.

“Now, I live by myself. I wake up alone. I eat alone. I go to bed alone.” She glanced at Pine over her coffee cup. “I wouldn’t recommend it, I really wouldn’t. Crowd or no crowd. Sometimes it’s as simple as another human being keeping your feet warm in bed, or fetching you some aspirin because your head is splitting. I mean, really.”

Their food arrived and they ate in silence, each lost in her own thoughts.

As they finished up Blum said, “What are you thinking about?”

“The case. My career. Whether either or both are over.”

“You ever think about a career outside the Bureau?”

“No.”

“I’m a Leo. The lion. We’re stubborn control freaks with a streak of kindness. But we adapt. I think you can, too. Are you a Leo? Or are you another sign?”

Pine stared at her without answering.

“I said are you—” began Blum. She froze when Pine jumped up and threw some cash down on the table for their meals.

“Let’s go.”

“What’s up?” said Blum as she and Pine raced back to the motel.

“In answer to your question, I’m a Capricorn.”

Pieces of paper containing scribbled words were all over Pine’s bed. Blum was actively helping her in her task by feeding her words that Pine then inputted to her computer program.

“When did you download this software?” asked Blum.

“As soon as I failed at getting the password manually,” Pine replied, her fingers flying over the laptop keys. “I’ve been crunching passwords all this time, with no result. But it helps a lot if we can narrow the parameters of what the password might be. And maybe we can finally do that.”

Blum set down the last piece of paper. “Okay, I think that’s everything.”

“Let’s see if we’re going to get lucky.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I haven’t been lucky in like twenty years.”

Pine hit a key on the laptop. “Here goes.”

The program started sorting through possible password combinations.

“What made you think of Capricorn?” asked Blum.

“I was wondering why Priest would have chosen that name for a nonexistent company. I don’t know if he’s a Capricorn too or not, but it was the only lead I could think of. But until you started talking about being a Leo, I never even considered it. So, if it works, you get the credit.” She paused and looked at the screen. “Damn.”

A password had just been typed in and the screen started to change.

“We nailed it,” said Pine.

“What was the password?” asked Blum.

Pine looked at the password box. “Something unbelievably complex, but everything except the letters w and m are connected to the sign of Capricorn.”

“And what do the letters w and m refer to?”

“Probably to Billy and Michael. William would be Billy’s real name. Which goes to show that Priest did value his nephews, at least to the extent that he would include them in a password.”

“What the hell is that?” said Blum.

A picture had appeared on the screen. Pine scrolled down page after page. They were all very technical drawings. She stopped at one ominous diagram and hit some keys to enlarge it. She read the language on the screen next to the device.

“That’s... those are Korean characters.”

“Can you understand what it says?”

“No, but I can find a translation really fast.” She wrote some of the characters down on a piece of paper and then went online to a translation site and input the Korean characters. The translation was almost instantaneous.

“ Fissile material,” said Pine slowly. “Fissile? That has to do with nuclear material.”

Blum sat back on the bed. “Dear God. Is North Korea going to... nuke us?”

“If so, that might explain David Roth’s involvement. And Sung Nam Chung’s. Is this the North Koreans’ backup plan in the event the peace talks cratered? Hit us with a nuclear weapon?”

“But if the North Koreans are planning something like that, how do you explain the military chopper taking the Priest brothers away?”

Pine shrugged. “Maybe they know about the plot and are trying to trace it back to its source.”

“So, do we show this to, I don’t know, the FBI director?”

“We have no proof that any of this is true. If we go in with this, we might disappear.”

“But people don’t just disappear in this country.”

“Tell that to the Priest brothers.” Pine fell silent for a moment. “And even if we get proof, I’m not sure who we should take it to.”

“What do you mean?”

“The DD did his best to have me called off this case. And he never would have done that without the approval of his boss and his boss’s boss. In fact, this might go all the way to the top, Carol.” She stared pointedly at the woman. “And I mean all the way to the very top .”

Neither woman said anything for a few seconds, as they both seemed to let the enormity of this possibility sink in.

“But we have to do something ,” Blum finally said.

Pine nodded in agreement. “We have to find David Roth, for starters.”

“How?”

Pine said, “He was last seen in the Grand Canyon. Wait a minute. There’s more to the file.” She scrolled down some more pages until she came to something different.

“That looks like a map,” she said. “It has latitude and longitude markers.”

“Agent Pine, that looks like the Grand Canyon.”

She paled. “Shit, it is.” Pine turned a shade whiter as she stared at the map. “Do you... do you think the North Koreans somehow planted a nuke in the Grand Canyon?”

“And Priest and Roth found out about it?” said Blum.

Pine nodded. “That must be why Roth wanted to get into the Canyon. To find the bomb.” Her phone buzzed. It was a text. “It’s from Oscar Fabrikant. He’s in Russia.”