To Hunt a Sub Page 17

  He stopped, remembering yesterday’s conversation with Sun. “I need to talk with Dr. Sun.”

  “Before you go, Keregosian is in communication with someone in Hudson. Isn’t that where Sean is?”

  Rowe clenched his fists. He needed to go up there yesterday. “Anything from Annie?”

  James sighed. “If there’s anything I should know, I’ll hear from her. If not, I won’t,” and hung up.

  Rowe settled into a chair between a ruined cardboard box and a shopping bag stuffed with snacks. Sun’s eyes were bloodshot and his thinning hair stuck out like porcupine quills.

  “Eitan. Kali’s caller knew Otto might be able to track submarines. That could only be from us,” he waved a hand indicating the two of them, “last night or Kali and I this morning.”

  Sun sat on his feet in his chair and bounced as his head bobbed, eyes fixed on his monitor, but all Rowe saw was a jumble of words against a black background. “What?”

  “Keregosian sent audio files to Fairgrove of conversations between Kali and me and Kali and you.”

  “They’re bugging her office, I’m sure of it. I just can’t find the device—”

  “They aren’t always from there. Some are from your lab, the hallway, even outside. The earliest one I find is when you returned from Israel.”

  “Is it possible we were each tagged?”

  Sun handed Rowe a palm-sized disk. “Let’s find out. This is an electronic surveillance scanner. If you’re within twenty feet of a recording device, it can find it.”

  Chapter 36

  “She thought it was you.”

  Al-Zahrawi offered a rare chuckle on the other end of the line, but Fairgrove blanched. How could he earn Kalian’s trust if she considered him a danger to her son?

  “I told you to leave him alone.” He squeaked through clenched teeth. “What did you say?”

  “Her suspicions of you began long before today.” Al-Zahrawi ignored Fairgrove’s whining protest. “I gave her a good reason to focus on results, Wynton. Allah cares nothing about collateral damage—is this the term you Americans use?”

  Fairgrove was furious. “Do you not see Otto is our money tree? With my paleoanthropologic connections, we will be modern-day Darwins, revealing the why and how to Nature’s evolutionary pruning. Trust me, Salah. You will soon start a new life with your family in America.”

  Fairgrove paused, impressed with his impromptu speech. How could Al-Zahrawi resist its emotion?

  “Why would I want to live in your depraved country, Wynton? My goal is revenge. Yours is fame. Otto gives us both what we want. Make Ms. Delamagente work faster.”

  Fairgrove tugged at his collar. “How? Brilliance works at its own perspicacious pace!” Fairgrove glowed at his latest epigram. He would repeat it to his students.

  “Motivate her, Wynton, or I will.”

  Thanks to Ms. Delamagente and Dr. Rowe, Al-Zahrawi now knew Otto could locate a sub at sea. No doubt Delamagente would make that her priority with her son’s life at stake.

  Al-Zahrawi had toyed with creating a duplicate of Otto, but his scientists said it would take too long; the auction was in two weeks. That left Delamagente. The longer she took, though, the more time Dr. Zeke Rowe had to stop her. If Fairgrove did not solve that soon, Al-Zahrawi would.

  Al-Zahrawi was bone weary of Dr. Wynton Fairgrove. It would bring him joy to end the infidel’s life. Yet Delamagente was like no woman he had ever met. The way she could connect the oddest pieces of information—it pained him he must kill her.

  Chapter 37

  Kali couldn’t concentrate. A vision of Sean in baggy cargo shorts, backpack slung over a bony shoulder, string base strapped to his back like a refrigerator, quick wave as he raced for the bus that would deposit him at school kept rolling through her memories. She should use the hours remaining before her trip to Hudson either satisfying the Dean’s demands or Zeke’s requests.

  She did neither.

  Zeke declared the call a prank, but she disagreed. She massaged her temples, rolled her neck and glared at the tiny blue flag that was her son’s mobile. It was exactly where it should be, unmoving outside the practice building. He ignored her calls and texts which was pretty much normal, so she did the math. He took an hour warm up on his string bass before a lesson, then ninety minutes with the instructor and an indeterminate amount of time reviewing.

  She sipped water, chewed through two packets of pretzels, cleaned her inbox, and still no movement. Footsteps clattered past her door as students left for the day. Somewhere a phone chimed five times and stopped. Riverside Church’s bells tolled the hour, and the next.

  Nothing.

  She straightened her desk drawers, dusted her shelves, scrubbed her monitor and picked dirt from her keyboard. She ran her fingers through her hair and then thrust them into her lap, laced together to keep them from shaking. Sean probably went to lunch and left the phone. He didn’t take it everywhere like other teens.

  Four and a half hours. He should have responded. She paced back and forth, checked the GPS app to be sure it was still working, and verified her internet connection. Everything worked, but the flag remained stationary. If this was Wyn’s doing, he had sorely misjudged her. Using her research for personal reasons was amoral. Involving her son was unforgivable.

  Or was he warning her? Was the real threat someone he worked with? She needed to find out.

  Every digital device on Columbia’s network required a password that must be changed each semester. Most people chose three related events or people. To determine Wyn’s meant figuring out what he considered important.

  It took seconds to break into Human Resources, rightly guessing the assistant’s three children’s names. A few clicks later, she was reading Wyn’s file.

  Interesting. He had a provisional contract, so they could let him go at any time.

  “So much for high and mighty.”

  She browsed his records with an eye to passwords he would choose. No children, one wife. Too many girlfriends. More than three awards. One house. Forty-five minutes later, she found his curriculum vitae with an extensive list of publications. Only three had ISBN numbers. She input the first and crossed her fingers. She only had three attempts before the system shut her out and reported the intrusion.

  “Oh, he’s too much.”

  Wyn’s face splashed across the desktop, complete with the cocky head tilt he loved, raffish grin, and an open shirt to display a rack of curly dark hair. She clicked Firefox and downloaded a sleuth program from a hacker website she frequented. While she browsed, it would copy his data and erase every trace of her presence.

  She started with email. He communicated often with two online pharmacies, a girl named Lustybusty, and someone called ‘Salah’.

  Kali froze. Was this the ‘Salah’ who contacted her after Alfred Zematis’ death? Surely ‘Salah’ was a common Muslim name? She shook it off, willing herself to move on.

  This was odd. Why did Keregosian forward her emails to Wyn? Was Wyn responsible for her only financial supporter? Kali flinched at that thought.

  She riffled through the ‘Sent’ and ‘Deleted’ files with no luck, and moved to internet searches. He googled Zeke and herself, but nothing else of interest. She’d check the browser History file. Lots of people emptied it, but few remembered to delete the cookies. There she found five sites, all other Universities.

  One more place to visit before signing off. She opened ‘My Documents’. No surprise he mommy-saved everything in a disorganized pile under the root folder. Lecture notes, class outlines, a scathing demand that Dean Manfried fire ‘the imposter, Zeke Rowe’, and a demeaning letter assuring the Dean Kali’s youth and enthusiasm made her a valuable asset to the established researchers at Columbia. There were a few applications for guest lecturer positions and visiting professorships at the Universities he’d Googled. They all seemed to be unsolicited.

  He also had shots of her computer, including her screensaver. According to the date st
amp, he had them a week before their first meeting, plenty of time to decipher the 1’s and 0’s in the message. Without thinking, she massaged her thrumming temple.

  What was this folder—‘History’? Before she could open it, Wyn’s offsite log-in activated. She had less than a minute to back out, verify no trace of her visit existed, and add a backdoor in case she wanted to return. She finished with two seconds to spare, just as Sean called.

  “Mom! My teacher played for the President yesterday. How cool is that!”

  Tears sprang to Kali’s eyes. “You’re OK? No problems?” Her breath came in shallow pants as she fought to control herself.

  When Sean answered, his voice was confused. “Yeah, of course.”

  She forced a smile, though Sean couldn’t see it. “You like the Vitolska’s?”

  “Sure. They’re what I want to be.” He sounded exasperated so she didn’t mention the hoax. “Gotta go. My phrasing in Pines of Rome needs work. See you soon!”

  Heat flared across Kali’s face. She paced the tiny space of her lab, throat raw from emotion, heart pulling back from the brink of panic one shallow breath at a time.

  “Are you alright?” How long had Eitan been there? He leaned quietly against the doorframe, fixing Kali with those deep, all-seeing eyes of his.

  “A hoax, Eitan. Why are people so cruel?”

  “They prey on the human propensity to believe what is easiest, not necessarily smartest. Isn’t that your selling point for Otto? That he draws conclusions without emotion?”

  Sun gazed at one of Kali’s many Lucy pictures. In this one, Lucy and Raza hunted, what some scientists considered scavenging, awaiting the leftovers from a Scimitartooth’s kill. Behind them, hidden in a dense patch of shoulder-high scrub, stood a male Homo erectus, spear canted, muscles rigid, eyes pinpricks, and mouth a tight gash across his weather-beaten face.

  Behind him, upwind, oblivious to the two-legged predator, grazed an Hipparion.

  Kali kept this as an example of early man’s ability to weigh choices: a scrawny, bony primate who couldn’t escape, or a fat, meaty fleet-of-foot mammal with a herd for protection.

  A frown creased Sun’s smooth forehead. He didn’t have to say a word; Kali understand.

  What Sun learned from a father who deserted his wife and four-year-old son to travel the world with a wealthy widow was to follow the path of least resistance.

  In middle school, Sun analyzed what attracted girls and determined football stars had the best luck. He went out for the team and ended up the towel boy. That got hugs and kisses from the cheerleaders, but no dates. The closest he got was doing their math homework while they went out with the players.

  In high school, a pretty girl asked for help preparing for a math competition, but Sun turned out to be a horrible tutor. He couldn’t explain how the answers appeared to him, the magnificent patterns and shapes that pulsed from the page. The pretty girl’s face lit up, but nothing this easy could impress her. When the instructor asked him to join the Mathletics, he agreed for two reasons: The pretty girl promised to drive with him and the teacher agreed to discuss all three volumes of Tesla’s Complete Works.

  By the time he graduated, he came to an epiphany: Most people didn’t feel the beautiful numbers that called out to him in their pretty combinations. He got excited when the clock read 14:22 or the speedometer on his car shouted 36912 miles, or 112358. Or when his speed matched the tachometer. He used his favorite palindromic prime—134757431—for PINs.

  He loved tables, spreading page after page with their sweet patterns waiting to be discovered. Graphs bored Sun. They drew conclusions about what was important, which usually wasn’t. When he read, he didn’t grab words one at a time, left to right, but gulped them in whole phrases and organized them. Patterns spoke so much more elegantly than a collection of syllables.

  When the California Institute of Technology’s Center for Advanced Research offered him a scholarship, he turned it down. He craved a challenge and theoretical calculus wasn’t—until he met a professor in the computer science department. There, Sun discovered the quest to understand phenomena that couldn’t be replicated.

  He played his wife’s picture one more time, for a total of three--the smallest Fibonacci prime and a good stopping point.

  “Hello, sweetheart…”

  Chapter 38

  “Kali! I heard about your son.”

  Fairgrove elbowed his way past Rowe who was reviewing Kali’s safety measures while traveling to Sean’s concert. He asked Annie to tag along, but the agent was following a lead she hoped would unravel the case. He wanted to bring Duck’s friends in, but Kali refused so Rowe settled for dropping a GPS tracker disguised as a pen into her purse and crossing his fingers she wouldn’t lend it out.

  “Is he OK?” Other than a five-o’clock shadow, Fairgrove looked fresh and crisp in a navy sport coat, baby blue shirt, and tasseled loafers. He’d even taken time to add a flower to his lapel.

  Something unreadable flicked across Kali’s face. “Yes, it was a hoax.”

  “How’d you hear, Wyn?” Rowe kept his tone casual, but narrowed his eyes.

  Fairgrove’s eyes fluttered. “From someone in the cafeteria, I think.”

  Wrong answer. No one was privy to the call except Kali, Rowe, and James. Fairgrove smoothed his eyebrow, adjusted his boutonnière and raised a finger. Rowe couldn’t resist.

  “You have a thought?”

  “Why, yes.” He turned is back to Rowe in an obvious effort to exclude him from the conversation. “Allow me to make a proposition, Kalian.” He stepped closer and Kali cringed which Fairgrove didn’t seem to notice. “Let’s take Auto Otto—what a clever name for his portable identity. I just came up with it.” Kali rolled her eyes and Rowe struggled to contain his laughter. “Let’s take Auto Otto to Olduvai,” East Africa, the Cradle of Mankind, considered the most prolific repository of hominid artifacts. “I have friends there interested in Otto’s results.” He lowered his voice. “If Otto confirms accepted beliefs, it will legitimize our research. If he contradicts it, you can rework his algorithms before you submit to Dean Manfried.”

  His use of the word ‘our’ rankled Rowe, but Kali ignored it. Rowe stepped in front of Fairgrove. “Is that always your goal, to ensure results agree with established wisdom?”

  Kali glared at Rowe and turned to Fairgrove. “I’m not ready to show my work to the world—”

  “I’ll be with you, dear.”

  He shuffled into Kali’s space, but she didn’t waver. “Thank you, Wyn, but I’d feel terrible if I hurt your reputation.” Before he could respond, she added, “I’m off,” and fled.

  “Kalian! Would you like company?” No answer. “I guess she didn’t hear me.”

  “Kali needs your help like a submarine needs diesel fuel.”

  Fairgrove spasmed and stomped out without a backward glance.

  Chapter 39

  Tuesday

  Rowe awoke moments before his alarm. He hadn’t slept well, his dreams populated with images of Tomahawks reigning down on disbelieving citizens, their ravaged cries drowned out by the screaming whoosh and roar of cruise missiles. Trident submarines that should be America’s last best defense were now her greatest enemy. His eyes felt sticky and his head like a jar of damp cotton.

  He needed coffee.

  James texted last night that two more subs called in. That made six. No one expected all the subs to make contact before Friday’s deadline. The only hope to save those crews was for Rowe and James to stop Al-Zahrawi.

  Fairgrove was the weak link. He saw himself as a disruptive force, but was more a malignant tumor. Yesterday’s verbal sparring had been calculated to send him whining to his handlers. When he stormed out of Kali’s lab, Rowe followed. He thought he got lucky when Fairgrove immediately placed a call, but James traced it to a sophomore anthropology major who apparently was unavailable for dinner with the renowned Dr. Fairgrove. He then drank his meal at a local bar and went to a movie—al
one. Rowe stuck with him through an awful Hollywood conspiracy that attracted only a handful of viewers. He was thrilled when Fairgrove left half-way through and went home. When his lights winked out, Rowe joined James for a beer.

  “Would you run Gunner through NCIC, Bobby?”

  Moments later, they had a list of twelve hundred two names, mostly white supremacists and military journalists. Since Stockbury had no photo, Rowe spent the rest of the evening thumbing through bios while watching Kali’s GPS tag on his phone and listening to James’s take on fashion.

  When James left for a date, Rowe went home. He was asleep by 1am.

  Five hours later, he blew through his morning workout wondering if the sixth sense that had served him flawlessly as a SEAL was another casualty of the torture. Used to be, instinct pointed him true north. In this case, he was reacting to events, always a step behind.

  He and James agreed to drop in on the Vitolska’s. The man who attacked Rowe in Israel was Russian and Gunner’s accent was Russian. Doubtless it wasn’t a coincidence.

  Rowe made instant coffee with hot tap water, gulped one mouthful and another, and felt the caffeine sizzle through his body. God he loved the first cup of the day. According to GPS, Kali remained exactly where she should be, which bumped his stress down a notch. Annie left him a text, but he couldn’t reach her.

  He scanned his email, but Griff—Dr. Josiah Griffin to United States Naval Academy Midshipmen—hadn’t returned his call. He taught submarine warfare at USNA and knew more about magnetic anomaly detection than anyone on the planet. The six-week induction of first-time Midshipmen—called Plebe Summer—was a bad time to reach him, but too much hinged on sub magnetics to wait. If he didn’t hear from Griff soon, Rowe would drive to Annapolis, Maryland and find him somewhere on the USNA yard.

  No need to follow Fairgrove today. When Ajit hacked Fairgrove’s OnStar, he was with a fellow paleoanthropologist on their way to the man’s Harvard office. That would keep them busy all day. For the sake of redundancy, James was taping their conversation through Fairgrove’s phone.