Qubit, page 33
“Right. It’s simple, really.”
“We give him his daughter. He gives you back control of the SCS. But there’s something I don’t understand.” Anand paused until Vipul nodded. “Why not just send him a nice video clip of his daughter losing a few fingers?”
“That’s wonderfully old school, Anand. The thing is, until we hit the kill switch on the SCS, he’s in a position to hurt us.”
“Hurt us? Detroit?”
“Yes. Our partnerships are borrowing money against our existing positions to finance new ones. Normally, we would be much more conservative about this, but since we know that we’re guaranteed to be in the money, we’ve been very aggressive. As aggressive as possible. So we’re leveraged to the hilt. If I’m assuming the worst, I have to assume that Detroit understands this. He could intentionally make a bad bet and wipe us out.”
Anand crinkled his craggy nose. “I never liked this finance game.” He rubbed his chin. “So why not just shut down the SCS? That way, he can’t hurt you.”
“Because, as I said, it will take months to start up again. Someone has go to each partner and give them updated keys. By the time we’re up again, who knows? Maybe the major brokerages will have upgraded their encryption by then. Even if they haven’t, we lose several months’ worth of gains. Which could easily be several trillion dollars.”
“But you’ve already made so much.”
“We’ve made, Anand. And, yes, we’re rich already. Technically, in fact, I think we’re the richest men in the world. At least on paper. But for what I have in mind, that’s not enough. It’s not about being rich. It’s about changing the world.”
Anand turned down one corner of his mouth in an expression that Vipul had learned meant that he was resigning himself to the situation. “So you’d rather negotiate with him to see if you can keep the SCS up and running…”
“Something like that. But I need to do more than that. There’s no point keeping all this separated anymore. It didn’t work, anyway. And I need Detroit, because Detroit’s the only one who really understands how to use the Wave Nine. And that’s the source of all my leverage. I need to secure Detroit’s cooperation. But without his daughter as leverage…”
“Money?”
“Yes. Money. But he doesn’t really understand money. No, it has to be more than that.”
“What?”
“I need to make him a partner.”
“A partner?”
Vipul smiled. “Yes. At least until we don’t need him any more.”
Jurong East, Singapore • Katya's Apartment
Sunday, May 13th
11:00 a.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
Lock stood in a well-lit hallway, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder, and pressed the doorbell outside Katya’s apartment. He heard a bolt clicking and the door swung open.
“Hi!” chirped Katya, seeming to bounce slightly as she spoke. Lock was surprised she wasn’t angry with him. He’d also never seen her without her hair pulled back. She stepped away from the door and waved Lock inside. “Come in!”
He walked directly to the computer, dropping his duffel bag on the couch.
“So?” asked Katya, bouncing again as she trailed Lock into the apartment. “Ever since I got your text, I’ve been—” She looked down at the duffel bag. “Planning to stay awhile?”
“I can’t stay at the hotel anymore,” explained Lock absently as he looked at a video playing on Katya’s laptop. “What’s this? Can I—I was going to—”
“Oh, I was just reviewing surveillance video,” explained Katya, hurrying over to her laptop. After closing various windows and restoring the screen to the state that Lock had left it, she turned around to find Lock standing very close. Suddenly they were pressed against each other. “Sorry,” she said.
He pushed past her, sat down at the desk, and began typing. “We’ve got some reading to do,” he said, almost speaking to himself.
Katya sat down on the end of the couch closest to Lock. “We do? Did we get the emails? Ever since I got your text, I’ve been dying to know what happened. But first I have to ask—did you follow my instructions for getting here? I mean, exactly?”
Lock slid the chair back slightly and turned to Katya. “Of course.”
“Okay. I just figured you have a lot on your mind…”
“It’s fine,” said Lock brusquely, turning back to the laptop.
“Well? What happened?”
Lock turned back to face her again. “Kafka was able to hijack the SSH session. Sure enough, it was a deputy topology. Kafka took control of the server and changed the password to the deputy email account. He then pulled off all the email to and from the deputy and used the deputy’s private key, which was on the server itself, to decrypt it all. So now, we’re—”
“Wait. The deputy’s email? I thought you were going to be able to decrypt Vipul’s email.”
“Remember, Vipul is communicating with his network of agents via the deputy. So, although we can’t actually read Vipul’s email per se—because we don’t have his private key—we can read the deputy’s, which amounts to the same thing.”
“Oh,” said Katya, looking troubled.
“It makes no difference, Katya,” explained Lock, trying to reassure her. “Neither email really has anything to personally identify Vipul. It’s all just the content. It’s like finding them all printed out somewhere. It’s what’s in the emails that’s important.”
“It would be nice if we could prove that he sent them, though.”
“Even if we had access to his email account, it’s an anonymous account.”
“How do you know it’s actually his, then?”
Lock paused. “I guess I don’t, for sure. I just know that someone accessed it from his office.”
“That’s close enough!”
“And I can tie the deputy account to that account.”
“And you can read the email in the deputy account?”
“Right. Kafka’s decrypting it all as we speak. So we can start going through them.”
ψ
Half-empty boxes of takeout were sitting on the countertop alongside scattered sheets of paper. Lock and Katya sat on bar stools, facing each other.
“If I understand this right,” said Lock, “Vipul gets what must be inside information the night before that he can use in the next day’s trading.”
“That must be the point of the greenmailing,” added Katya.
“Ah. So he held the stock markets hostage to get the inside information.”
“Right.”
“Okay. So, then Vipul takes this information and sends out detailed instructions to his agents. Most of it seems to involve these forward contracts to buy and sell currency.”
Katya jumped in. “At the end of the day, they send him reports back on how it’s going.”
Lock’s brow furrowed. “Here’s the thing. I’ve been doing the math on this. Based on the reports coming back—including the value of the forward contracts themselves—each agent now has a few hundred million dollars in assets.”
“And there are nearly a thousand agents…”
“Which means,” concluded Lock, “Vipul is sitting on several hundred billion dollars in assets right now.”
“No wonder Quartan is under so much pressure.”
“Quartan? I don’t…”
“He’s the station chief—my boss.”
Lock frowned.
“I don’t even think he knew it was this bad.”
“And that was just in two weeks. As long as he keeps getting this kind of inside information, he can generate close to that every week or two.”
“Except that now you have the keys to his money machine.”
Lock ran his fingers through his hair. “Right. So either—”
Katya’s laptop beeped at them from across the room. Lock sprang up from his stool and dashed to the desk.
“It’s from Vipul,” he announced. He felt his insides seizing up, imagining he was about to see a video of Sophie’s fingers being cut off. Or worse.
Dear Mr. Cairnes,
I am afraid we’ve started on the wrong foot, and further, that I’ve, rather tragically, underestimated you. I’d like to start again. Why don’t you come to my apartment tomorrow morning so we can get better acquainted? Say, 8 a.m.? I am sure we can work out our differences.
Regards,
v/r
Lock sank into the desk chair.
Katya was already reading over his shoulder. “Well, you got his attention.”
“I don’t know what I was expecting,” said Lock. “But that wasn’t it.”
Katya placed her hand on his shoulder. “It’s actually written perfectly.” When Lock didn’t respond, she elaborated. “This could mean anything. It could just be a setup, or it could be sincere. It’s reassuring, yet assertive.”
Lock looked up at her, arching an eyebrow.
“Sorry. I notice these things. And you’re going to be glad that I do.”
“I am?”
“Yup. When I help you with your reply.”
“You think it’s a setup?”
“Maybe. It’s easy enough to find out.”
“It is?”
“Counter with Tally Bar. It’ll make perfect sense to him. And if he’s really trying to set you up, he’d never agree to it. Too many cops.”
Lock pulled up the chair and began composing a response:
How about we _
“Don’t say that,” corrected Katya. “Just say when and where. Nothing else.”
Lock began typing again.
Tally’s Bar. _
“It’s just Tally Bar. Not Tally’s. You want to sound like you know what you’re about.”
Tally Bar. 8 a_
“Change the time, too. Say…noon. There’ll be more people around then.”
Tally Bar. Noon.
“Is that good?” asked Lock.
“Oh. Add ‘ask for Ong Goh.’”
Tally Bar. Noon. Ask for Ong Goh.
“Good.”
“Who’s Ong Goh? And why is Vipul asking for him?”
“A friend. A cop. If Vipul is trying to set you up…”
“I see. Shouldn’t I say something about Sophie?”
“No. He won’t be able to respond to that. Not via email.”
“Okay. So that’s it?”
“Yup.”
Lock clicked send. He exhaled and leaned back in his chair. “Am I actually going to do this? Am I actually going to meet him at this Tally Bar?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on his reply.”
The laptop beeped again.
Lock leaned forward, Katya’s hand on his shoulder.
Confirmed. v/r
“I feel like I’m going throw up,” groaned Lock.
Katya leaned down next to him. “Lock, listen. We’ll have you covered. Ong Goh doesn’t want to see—”
“I’m not worried about me, Katya,” he said, jerking upright. “I’m worried about what I’ve done to Sophie.”
Jahanabad (Bihar, India) • Rathod Compound
Sunday, May 13th
8:00 p.m. IST (India Standard Time)
“The doctor says she’s not as bad as she looks,” Abhishek pleaded. He sat across a splintery old work table from Pradeep. The room was poorly lit, but Abhishek could see cracks in the drably painted walls, and the scent of ammonia assaulted his nostrils.
Pradeep was glaring at him. “A broken arm, bruised ribs, a torn ligament, a concussion, not to mention dozens of—”
“She already had the sprained ankle. That was from when she—”
“And that’s not even the worst part. According to the doctor, she was raped. Can you explain that, Abhishek?”
Abhishek shrugged. “You put a pretty girl around a bunch of thugs for—”
Pradeep reached over and slapped Abhishek across the top of his head. “You idiot! Do you even understand the concept of taking a hostage?”
“Usually we end up killing them…”
Pradeep shook his head. “Do you know that Anand called me a little while ago? He wanted to make sure the girl was in good health.”
Abhishek’s complexion blanched. “What did you tell him?”
“What do you think I told him, you idiot! I told him she was fine. But can you imagine what would happen to us if he were to see her like that?” Pradeep pointed toward the half-opened door across the room where the girl lay in a hospital bed, bandages around her head and face, an IV in her arm, and her ankle in a cast, raised up on several pillows.
“Well, he’s not going to. Watch, you’ll see, we’ll get the order to get rid of her.”
“That isn’t the point, Abhishek. Remember when we had to put her on video chat?”
Abhishek looked into the girl’s room and pursed his lips. “You know, Pradeep, you’d think maybe you’d focus more on the positive. I managed to keep her out of the hands of the CBI, didn’t I? At least we still have her, don’t we?”
“That’s your job.”
“I’m doing my job. How was I supposed to know she’d jump out of the car?”
Pradeep took a deep breath. “You’d better just pray that Anand never sees her like this.”
“You know what, Pradeep? That’s the wrong mindset. We’ll do whatever it takes. Put some makeup on her. Dress her up real nice. Give her some happy pills. The point is that we still have her, and she’s alive and well. Everything is going to be fine. You worry too much.”
Jurong East, Singapore • Katya's Apartment
Monday, May 14th
2:00 a.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
Lock stared at the water streaking down the windowpane, blurring the remaining spots of brightness that broke up the night beyond.
Katya’s voice came from behind him softly over the soft tapping of the rain. “Can’t sleep?”
He turned and saw her silhouette in the darkness. “No. Which is kind of amazing because I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired in my life.”
“It’s the adrenalin. You have to learn to control your fight-or-flight response.”
“I can’t help but notice you’re not asleep, either.”
Even in the darkness, he somehow knew she was smiling. “Yeah. Well, I’m not the one who hasn’t slept in three days or whatever it’s been.”
“Feels like a month.”
“Come here and have a seat,” said Katya. He could make out her hand patting the cushion next to her on the couch as she sat down.
Lock walked to the couch and joined her, his frame too stiff to lean back into the cushions.
Katya curled up in the corner. “Tell me about Sophie,” she said gently.
“Sophie?” echoed Lock.
“Yeah. She means a great deal to you.” He was silent for a while, but Katya sat patiently.
Finally, he spoke. “When I think about what I’ve put her through…”
“Don’t think about that. That won’t help. Think about the positive things. Think about what makes her special to you.”
“I can’t not think about that,” said Lock. “It’s in the back of my mind every moment. Sometimes, when I’m focused on something else, like trying to figure out all the angles on this meeting with Vipul, it’s like everything is normal, everything is okay. But the moment I stop thinking about whatever that is…and I remember…she’s somewhere out there, scared and alone.” He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees.
Katya placed her hand on Lock’s shoulder. “You’re going to get her back. Soon.” She leaned in close and whispered in his ear, “Tell me your favorite thing about her.”
Lock slowly reclined into the sofa cushions, Katya neatly moving backward to give him room. He placed his arms on the back of the sofa. “My favorite thing?”
“Or things,” she prodded.
“Her laugh for one.” Lock smiled wistfully. “When she laughs, she’s not messing around. She laughs from her belly. Sometimes she laughs so hard and so loud, I think she’s going to rupture something. I love the fact that she doesn’t hold back, you know?”
“That’s nice.”
“And she’s bold. Courageous. She’s not afraid of anything.” Lock’s head fell slowly to his chest. “She’s probably afraid now, though.”
“But you know she’s going to get through it. Tell me about a time she was courageous, Lock.”
He made a half-laugh, half-sob sound. “I remember once,” he said, sniffling, “right before I went away…she must have been four. Our neighbors came by to ask if we’d seen their little boy. We said, ‘sorry, we haven’t.’ They said, ‘okay, can you please let us know if you see him and tell him to come home?’ Before I know what’s going on, Sophie has her little bike out—you know, one of those little girl’s bikes with the training wheels. She’d just graduated from a tricycle. I remember, we got it for her fourth birthday. Anyway, I see her rolling down the sidewalk on this little purple bicycle—her favorite color for years was purple—and she’s calling out his name. I mean, as soon as she heard that he’d gone missing…”
“She wanted to help.”
Lock inhaled deeply and then seemed to hold his breath. “She’s good like that, you know.”
Katya reached over and grabbed a box of tissues from her coffee table. She handed him one. “Why don’t you lie down now?” She got up and patted the pillows at the opposite end of the sofa. Lock slowly lay down on his side, still wiping his eyes with the tissue, while Katya moved to the desk chair next to the couch.
“After I came home, you know, from prison…Karen wouldn’t let me see her. She never brought her to visit me in jail. She didn’t want Sophie to see me like that. And I was glad, you know? Because I didn’t want her to see me like that either. But…I missed her.” Lock buried his face in a pillow and let out a muffled moan.
Katya got up and knelt in front of him. She wrapped her arms around his head and shoulders and gently shushed him. “You’re going to get her back,” she whispered in his ear, running her fingers through his hair. “She’s going to be just fine, Lock. And you’re going to rest now, okay? Because you need to be strong for her, right? So you need to sleep now. I get up every morning bright and early, and I’ll make sure you’re up. But right now, you need to sleep. You need to rest, to be strong for your daughter.”
“We give him his daughter. He gives you back control of the SCS. But there’s something I don’t understand.” Anand paused until Vipul nodded. “Why not just send him a nice video clip of his daughter losing a few fingers?”
“That’s wonderfully old school, Anand. The thing is, until we hit the kill switch on the SCS, he’s in a position to hurt us.”
“Hurt us? Detroit?”
“Yes. Our partnerships are borrowing money against our existing positions to finance new ones. Normally, we would be much more conservative about this, but since we know that we’re guaranteed to be in the money, we’ve been very aggressive. As aggressive as possible. So we’re leveraged to the hilt. If I’m assuming the worst, I have to assume that Detroit understands this. He could intentionally make a bad bet and wipe us out.”
Anand crinkled his craggy nose. “I never liked this finance game.” He rubbed his chin. “So why not just shut down the SCS? That way, he can’t hurt you.”
“Because, as I said, it will take months to start up again. Someone has go to each partner and give them updated keys. By the time we’re up again, who knows? Maybe the major brokerages will have upgraded their encryption by then. Even if they haven’t, we lose several months’ worth of gains. Which could easily be several trillion dollars.”
“But you’ve already made so much.”
“We’ve made, Anand. And, yes, we’re rich already. Technically, in fact, I think we’re the richest men in the world. At least on paper. But for what I have in mind, that’s not enough. It’s not about being rich. It’s about changing the world.”
Anand turned down one corner of his mouth in an expression that Vipul had learned meant that he was resigning himself to the situation. “So you’d rather negotiate with him to see if you can keep the SCS up and running…”
“Something like that. But I need to do more than that. There’s no point keeping all this separated anymore. It didn’t work, anyway. And I need Detroit, because Detroit’s the only one who really understands how to use the Wave Nine. And that’s the source of all my leverage. I need to secure Detroit’s cooperation. But without his daughter as leverage…”
“Money?”
“Yes. Money. But he doesn’t really understand money. No, it has to be more than that.”
“What?”
“I need to make him a partner.”
“A partner?”
Vipul smiled. “Yes. At least until we don’t need him any more.”
Jurong East, Singapore • Katya's Apartment
Sunday, May 13th
11:00 a.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
Lock stood in a well-lit hallway, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder, and pressed the doorbell outside Katya’s apartment. He heard a bolt clicking and the door swung open.
“Hi!” chirped Katya, seeming to bounce slightly as she spoke. Lock was surprised she wasn’t angry with him. He’d also never seen her without her hair pulled back. She stepped away from the door and waved Lock inside. “Come in!”
He walked directly to the computer, dropping his duffel bag on the couch.
“So?” asked Katya, bouncing again as she trailed Lock into the apartment. “Ever since I got your text, I’ve been—” She looked down at the duffel bag. “Planning to stay awhile?”
“I can’t stay at the hotel anymore,” explained Lock absently as he looked at a video playing on Katya’s laptop. “What’s this? Can I—I was going to—”
“Oh, I was just reviewing surveillance video,” explained Katya, hurrying over to her laptop. After closing various windows and restoring the screen to the state that Lock had left it, she turned around to find Lock standing very close. Suddenly they were pressed against each other. “Sorry,” she said.
He pushed past her, sat down at the desk, and began typing. “We’ve got some reading to do,” he said, almost speaking to himself.
Katya sat down on the end of the couch closest to Lock. “We do? Did we get the emails? Ever since I got your text, I’ve been dying to know what happened. But first I have to ask—did you follow my instructions for getting here? I mean, exactly?”
Lock slid the chair back slightly and turned to Katya. “Of course.”
“Okay. I just figured you have a lot on your mind…”
“It’s fine,” said Lock brusquely, turning back to the laptop.
“Well? What happened?”
Lock turned back to face her again. “Kafka was able to hijack the SSH session. Sure enough, it was a deputy topology. Kafka took control of the server and changed the password to the deputy email account. He then pulled off all the email to and from the deputy and used the deputy’s private key, which was on the server itself, to decrypt it all. So now, we’re—”
“Wait. The deputy’s email? I thought you were going to be able to decrypt Vipul’s email.”
“Remember, Vipul is communicating with his network of agents via the deputy. So, although we can’t actually read Vipul’s email per se—because we don’t have his private key—we can read the deputy’s, which amounts to the same thing.”
“Oh,” said Katya, looking troubled.
“It makes no difference, Katya,” explained Lock, trying to reassure her. “Neither email really has anything to personally identify Vipul. It’s all just the content. It’s like finding them all printed out somewhere. It’s what’s in the emails that’s important.”
“It would be nice if we could prove that he sent them, though.”
“Even if we had access to his email account, it’s an anonymous account.”
“How do you know it’s actually his, then?”
Lock paused. “I guess I don’t, for sure. I just know that someone accessed it from his office.”
“That’s close enough!”
“And I can tie the deputy account to that account.”
“And you can read the email in the deputy account?”
“Right. Kafka’s decrypting it all as we speak. So we can start going through them.”
ψ
Half-empty boxes of takeout were sitting on the countertop alongside scattered sheets of paper. Lock and Katya sat on bar stools, facing each other.
“If I understand this right,” said Lock, “Vipul gets what must be inside information the night before that he can use in the next day’s trading.”
“That must be the point of the greenmailing,” added Katya.
“Ah. So he held the stock markets hostage to get the inside information.”
“Right.”
“Okay. So, then Vipul takes this information and sends out detailed instructions to his agents. Most of it seems to involve these forward contracts to buy and sell currency.”
Katya jumped in. “At the end of the day, they send him reports back on how it’s going.”
Lock’s brow furrowed. “Here’s the thing. I’ve been doing the math on this. Based on the reports coming back—including the value of the forward contracts themselves—each agent now has a few hundred million dollars in assets.”
“And there are nearly a thousand agents…”
“Which means,” concluded Lock, “Vipul is sitting on several hundred billion dollars in assets right now.”
“No wonder Quartan is under so much pressure.”
“Quartan? I don’t…”
“He’s the station chief—my boss.”
Lock frowned.
“I don’t even think he knew it was this bad.”
“And that was just in two weeks. As long as he keeps getting this kind of inside information, he can generate close to that every week or two.”
“Except that now you have the keys to his money machine.”
Lock ran his fingers through his hair. “Right. So either—”
Katya’s laptop beeped at them from across the room. Lock sprang up from his stool and dashed to the desk.
“It’s from Vipul,” he announced. He felt his insides seizing up, imagining he was about to see a video of Sophie’s fingers being cut off. Or worse.
Dear Mr. Cairnes,
I am afraid we’ve started on the wrong foot, and further, that I’ve, rather tragically, underestimated you. I’d like to start again. Why don’t you come to my apartment tomorrow morning so we can get better acquainted? Say, 8 a.m.? I am sure we can work out our differences.
Regards,
v/r
Lock sank into the desk chair.
Katya was already reading over his shoulder. “Well, you got his attention.”
“I don’t know what I was expecting,” said Lock. “But that wasn’t it.”
Katya placed her hand on his shoulder. “It’s actually written perfectly.” When Lock didn’t respond, she elaborated. “This could mean anything. It could just be a setup, or it could be sincere. It’s reassuring, yet assertive.”
Lock looked up at her, arching an eyebrow.
“Sorry. I notice these things. And you’re going to be glad that I do.”
“I am?”
“Yup. When I help you with your reply.”
“You think it’s a setup?”
“Maybe. It’s easy enough to find out.”
“It is?”
“Counter with Tally Bar. It’ll make perfect sense to him. And if he’s really trying to set you up, he’d never agree to it. Too many cops.”
Lock pulled up the chair and began composing a response:
How about we _
“Don’t say that,” corrected Katya. “Just say when and where. Nothing else.”
Lock began typing again.
Tally’s Bar. _
“It’s just Tally Bar. Not Tally’s. You want to sound like you know what you’re about.”
Tally Bar. 8 a_
“Change the time, too. Say…noon. There’ll be more people around then.”
Tally Bar. Noon.
“Is that good?” asked Lock.
“Oh. Add ‘ask for Ong Goh.’”
Tally Bar. Noon. Ask for Ong Goh.
“Good.”
“Who’s Ong Goh? And why is Vipul asking for him?”
“A friend. A cop. If Vipul is trying to set you up…”
“I see. Shouldn’t I say something about Sophie?”
“No. He won’t be able to respond to that. Not via email.”
“Okay. So that’s it?”
“Yup.”
Lock clicked send. He exhaled and leaned back in his chair. “Am I actually going to do this? Am I actually going to meet him at this Tally Bar?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on his reply.”
The laptop beeped again.
Lock leaned forward, Katya’s hand on his shoulder.
Confirmed. v/r
“I feel like I’m going throw up,” groaned Lock.
Katya leaned down next to him. “Lock, listen. We’ll have you covered. Ong Goh doesn’t want to see—”
“I’m not worried about me, Katya,” he said, jerking upright. “I’m worried about what I’ve done to Sophie.”
Jahanabad (Bihar, India) • Rathod Compound
Sunday, May 13th
8:00 p.m. IST (India Standard Time)
“The doctor says she’s not as bad as she looks,” Abhishek pleaded. He sat across a splintery old work table from Pradeep. The room was poorly lit, but Abhishek could see cracks in the drably painted walls, and the scent of ammonia assaulted his nostrils.
Pradeep was glaring at him. “A broken arm, bruised ribs, a torn ligament, a concussion, not to mention dozens of—”
“She already had the sprained ankle. That was from when she—”
“And that’s not even the worst part. According to the doctor, she was raped. Can you explain that, Abhishek?”
Abhishek shrugged. “You put a pretty girl around a bunch of thugs for—”
Pradeep reached over and slapped Abhishek across the top of his head. “You idiot! Do you even understand the concept of taking a hostage?”
“Usually we end up killing them…”
Pradeep shook his head. “Do you know that Anand called me a little while ago? He wanted to make sure the girl was in good health.”
Abhishek’s complexion blanched. “What did you tell him?”
“What do you think I told him, you idiot! I told him she was fine. But can you imagine what would happen to us if he were to see her like that?” Pradeep pointed toward the half-opened door across the room where the girl lay in a hospital bed, bandages around her head and face, an IV in her arm, and her ankle in a cast, raised up on several pillows.
“Well, he’s not going to. Watch, you’ll see, we’ll get the order to get rid of her.”
“That isn’t the point, Abhishek. Remember when we had to put her on video chat?”
Abhishek looked into the girl’s room and pursed his lips. “You know, Pradeep, you’d think maybe you’d focus more on the positive. I managed to keep her out of the hands of the CBI, didn’t I? At least we still have her, don’t we?”
“That’s your job.”
“I’m doing my job. How was I supposed to know she’d jump out of the car?”
Pradeep took a deep breath. “You’d better just pray that Anand never sees her like this.”
“You know what, Pradeep? That’s the wrong mindset. We’ll do whatever it takes. Put some makeup on her. Dress her up real nice. Give her some happy pills. The point is that we still have her, and she’s alive and well. Everything is going to be fine. You worry too much.”
Jurong East, Singapore • Katya's Apartment
Monday, May 14th
2:00 a.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
Lock stared at the water streaking down the windowpane, blurring the remaining spots of brightness that broke up the night beyond.
Katya’s voice came from behind him softly over the soft tapping of the rain. “Can’t sleep?”
He turned and saw her silhouette in the darkness. “No. Which is kind of amazing because I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired in my life.”
“It’s the adrenalin. You have to learn to control your fight-or-flight response.”
“I can’t help but notice you’re not asleep, either.”
Even in the darkness, he somehow knew she was smiling. “Yeah. Well, I’m not the one who hasn’t slept in three days or whatever it’s been.”
“Feels like a month.”
“Come here and have a seat,” said Katya. He could make out her hand patting the cushion next to her on the couch as she sat down.
Lock walked to the couch and joined her, his frame too stiff to lean back into the cushions.
Katya curled up in the corner. “Tell me about Sophie,” she said gently.
“Sophie?” echoed Lock.
“Yeah. She means a great deal to you.” He was silent for a while, but Katya sat patiently.
Finally, he spoke. “When I think about what I’ve put her through…”
“Don’t think about that. That won’t help. Think about the positive things. Think about what makes her special to you.”
“I can’t not think about that,” said Lock. “It’s in the back of my mind every moment. Sometimes, when I’m focused on something else, like trying to figure out all the angles on this meeting with Vipul, it’s like everything is normal, everything is okay. But the moment I stop thinking about whatever that is…and I remember…she’s somewhere out there, scared and alone.” He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees.
Katya placed her hand on Lock’s shoulder. “You’re going to get her back. Soon.” She leaned in close and whispered in his ear, “Tell me your favorite thing about her.”
Lock slowly reclined into the sofa cushions, Katya neatly moving backward to give him room. He placed his arms on the back of the sofa. “My favorite thing?”
“Or things,” she prodded.
“Her laugh for one.” Lock smiled wistfully. “When she laughs, she’s not messing around. She laughs from her belly. Sometimes she laughs so hard and so loud, I think she’s going to rupture something. I love the fact that she doesn’t hold back, you know?”
“That’s nice.”
“And she’s bold. Courageous. She’s not afraid of anything.” Lock’s head fell slowly to his chest. “She’s probably afraid now, though.”
“But you know she’s going to get through it. Tell me about a time she was courageous, Lock.”
He made a half-laugh, half-sob sound. “I remember once,” he said, sniffling, “right before I went away…she must have been four. Our neighbors came by to ask if we’d seen their little boy. We said, ‘sorry, we haven’t.’ They said, ‘okay, can you please let us know if you see him and tell him to come home?’ Before I know what’s going on, Sophie has her little bike out—you know, one of those little girl’s bikes with the training wheels. She’d just graduated from a tricycle. I remember, we got it for her fourth birthday. Anyway, I see her rolling down the sidewalk on this little purple bicycle—her favorite color for years was purple—and she’s calling out his name. I mean, as soon as she heard that he’d gone missing…”
“She wanted to help.”
Lock inhaled deeply and then seemed to hold his breath. “She’s good like that, you know.”
Katya reached over and grabbed a box of tissues from her coffee table. She handed him one. “Why don’t you lie down now?” She got up and patted the pillows at the opposite end of the sofa. Lock slowly lay down on his side, still wiping his eyes with the tissue, while Katya moved to the desk chair next to the couch.
“After I came home, you know, from prison…Karen wouldn’t let me see her. She never brought her to visit me in jail. She didn’t want Sophie to see me like that. And I was glad, you know? Because I didn’t want her to see me like that either. But…I missed her.” Lock buried his face in a pillow and let out a muffled moan.
Katya got up and knelt in front of him. She wrapped her arms around his head and shoulders and gently shushed him. “You’re going to get her back,” she whispered in his ear, running her fingers through his hair. “She’s going to be just fine, Lock. And you’re going to rest now, okay? Because you need to be strong for her, right? So you need to sleep now. I get up every morning bright and early, and I’ll make sure you’re up. But right now, you need to sleep. You need to rest, to be strong for your daughter.”
