Gregg Hurwitz - Prodigal Son

His mother .

He’d used the word now, if only in his mind, the realization sending him further afield.

“X?” Joey said. “You okay?”

Evan came back to the present, mildly surprised to find himself here in Room 15 of the Magnolia South Residential Building. He swayed once more on his feet. Joey’s eyebrows were furled; she was watching him with concern. He shook off his thoughts, seated himself in the present.

“I need an address for Mimeticom,” he said.

“The lab don’t got no address,” Rafael said. “But I can steer you to the founder. Brendan Molleken.”

“A tech guy,” Evan said. “He have a Ph.D.?”

“Handful of them, I’d guess.”

Evan’s eyes snapped to Joey’s as quickly as hers found his. “The doctor?” she said.

Rafael said, “He lives in Atherton.”

Evan firmed his legs, locked in his composure, looked over at Joey.

She shrugged. “I packed for an overnight.”

42The Stranger

Declan firmed the camera once more to his face. The zoom lens, a Canon EF 70-200, was a workhorse. Depth control, image stabilization, even a Super Spectra Coating to reduce lens flare. Best of all it was great at distance with its telephoto lens, ideal for wildlife portraiture.

Or spying on a high-security Veterans Reintegration Center from a half mile away. They were in a rented sedan, Queenie behind the wheel. The red Corvette was too conspicuous even for the outer parking lot. She’d gone with a Corolla from Avis, a muted maroon to match today’s nail polish.

He adjusted the lens, zeroing in once more on the window of Room 15 of Magnolia South. A smear of transparency cleared the fogged pane where the stranger had mopped off the logo he’d drawn.

A familiar logo.

“You sure?” Queenie asked. She tugged at her Big Red gum, let it snap back against her front teeth. She smelled of cinnamon and hair spray. You can take the girl out of Philly.

“I’m sure,” Declan said.

“Well, I’d say that’s a red flag. Should we call the doc?”

Declan lowered the camera, kept his gaze locked on the chain-link fence and the building’s back side beyond. “We should.”

Two rings to a pickup. That infuriatingly calm voice. “Yes?”

“We’re in position to move on the second target,” Declan said. “Someone intriguing swam into our net.”

“Duran?” Even the doctor couldn’t hide his eagerness.

He’d backed off a bit after Declan had texted him pictures of the co-worker’s fragmented body. Barely a trace of blood, since most of the damage was skeletal. Declan had posed the man flat on his own carpet next to his La-Z-Boy, a chalk outline gone cubist. The doctor wasn’t bloodthirsty, not per se, but he was willing to be in the name of ambition. He had concerns, and they had to be sated.

If Declan and Queenie didn’t deliver Duran soon, they would pay a price. Declan clicked the phone to speaker, set it in the cup holder.

“Not Duran,” Declan said carefully. “A stranger. Who is familiar with Mimeticom.”

“How do you know that?”

“I saw it with my own eyes.”

“Who is this stranger?”

“I don’t know. Couldn’t get a clear view.”

“Is he alone?”

“From our vantage he appears to be.”

“Did you see his face?”

Declan watched the vehicles exiting the base. A Humvee filled with airmen. Fat guy on a motorcycle. Family in a Suburban. “Not clearly. Watched him through a fogged-up window.”

“And your assumption is that he is the one helping Duran?”

“That is indeed my assumption.”

Queenie laced her fingers, reversed them, and stretched like a cat, her arms stiff over the steering wheel.

“Well,” the doctor said, “it’s a good thing I delayed you in getting to the second target. Now we have more data.”

“Yes we do,” Declan said. “We are so very appreciative of you.”

Queenie side-eyed him. Careful, little brother .

“Can you follow the stranger?” the doctor asked.

More vehicles flashed through the gate, drifting up the blacktop and past the parking lot. Officer in a spit-shined Lexus. Two dykes in a pickup. A food-services truck driven by a wetback.

“We can’t get a surveillance position to identify him when he exits the building, so it’s unlikely.”

“I’ll provide you with more dragonflies. So you’re better equipped for your next run-in. And there’d better be a next run-in.”

“Understood.”

“When are you handling the second target?”

The gate arm lifted once more, letting out an old-school van filled to the brim with kids. Guy and his teenage daughter in a white Sentra. Elderly dude in a boat of a Caddy.

“Tomorrow,” Declan said. “First thing.”

43Cuddle Huddle

Joey’s online excavations had revealed Dr. Brendan Molleken to be an enigmatic man. Grew up in Akron, Ohio, dueling Ph.D.s from Caltech and a raft of honorary doctorates on top of those. He’d founded and sold a string of artificial-intelligence companies, each for mogul-size hunks of cash. Wired magazine had termed him “the reclusive visionary.”

Joey had dug up relatively little aside from that. No interviews, no TED Talks, no rousing commencement addresses. As opposed to many of his fellow tech luminaries, Molleken seemed to make a point of remaining low-profile.

Evan and Joey had scouted his three-story Atherton mansion at dusk, taking note of the catering trucks and party planners rolling up to the residence. A Friday-night soiree would provide complications. But also opportunities.

They’d bolted back to the Stanford Park Hotel and made arrangements for Evan’s solo return. Another quick online spin had acquainted Evan with what to expect at the event: the founder and venture-capital crowd on full sybaritic display.

He coasted back up the street in an Uber now, the estates looking even more stately at night, uplit and grandiose.

A San Francisco chill had crept down the peninsula, giving him a good excuse to wear gloves. His looked sleek and stylish, fine leather disguising the steel shot stitched into the knuckles for maximum impact in the event the evening got sporty. At Molleken’s place the party was already in full swing, luxury cars rotating through the quartz-stone circular driveway. A gaggle of snow machines turned the manicured front garden into a winter wonderland, a red carpet carving through the faux powder, fringed with models dressed as sexy Santa’s helpers. A platoon of publicists manning a Citizen Kane –worthy banquet table out front checked IDs assiduously.

Evan thanked his driver and got out at the street, passing through the massive wrought-iron front gates unmolested. He’d left his truck a few blocks away, wanting to arrive under other cover. His attire was Bay Area founder-casual, a Giants hat low over his eyes, a pair of well-loved 501s, and a hoodie he’d picked up at the Gap. He’d shoved a thin line of chewing gum beneath his upper lip to thwart any facial-recognition software that might be in play and put in contacts that turned his eyes an arresting blue.

The contact lenses, which Evan had acquired from a connection at a global corporation’s augmented-reality lab, served an additional function as a digital camera. The sensors embedded in the flexible electronics could differentiate between conscious and unconscious blinking patterns. Every time he blinked purposefully, a live stream would be fed to Joey’s laptop.

When in Silicon Valley, do as the Silicon Valleyites.

The ratio of women to men was extreme, as much as five to one, and there seemed to be a radical aesthetic differential as well. Evan drifted toward the red carpet with a stream of others who’d arrived via ride-hailing services. The portly guy ahead of him threaded through the high-end cars that the valet had left displayed in the driveway, four stunning younger women in a tight orbit around him. A swirl of hair bird’s-nested the man’s bald crown, which he patted with a handkerchief as he leered at the other women on the check-in line.