Qubit, page 6
“Oh boy.”
“Yeah. So pretty quickly I was able to gain access to their machines, which had the SSH keys I needed. I logged into the jump box and then started watching traffic from there. That gave me the addresses of a bunch of other machines. I probed each to get the distros and then wrote a quick crawler to pull everything that wasn’t standard for the distros or known packages. Which wasn’t hard because it’s basically just piping the output of a file audit to SCP.”
“Right. So then you’d have all the files from the engineering network.”
“Indeed. I still needed to Torrent cracked versions of a couple of CAD packages, Microsoft Office, things like that, so that I could actually read the files. But, yeah, I got everything. I also pulled all the source code. I spent a day looking through it all. It was fascinating. There’s a few things I don’t quite understand. There was a long argument captured in an IRC transcript about whether a secondary electrical field was necessary to—well, that’s a whole different discussion—anyway, it was hard to tell what the outcome had been. I looked again through the CAD drawings. It seemed they’d somehow avoided the need for the secondary electrical field, but I don’t quite understand how. Either that, or the CAD drawings are out of date.”
“Wings, boys!” announced Vicky.
“Thank you, Vicky,” said Kafka, looking at Lock with an arched eyebrow.
“Yes, thank you, baby,” agreed Lock, giving Vicky a wink.
Kafka rolled his eyes. “So…do you have enough to actually build the damn thing? Because that would be really fucking cool if you did.”
“I think so.” Lock took a savage bite from a chicken wing. “I guess I’m about to find out.”
5
* * *
East Detroit • The Lab
Thursday, January 25th
10:00 a.m. EST (Eastern Standard Time)
Kirin’s black Mercedes SUV pulled up in front of a three-story red-brick building, the base of which was covered in half-hearted graffiti. Behind them was an overgrown field. To one side was a parking lot, and to the other, a boarded up home that looked like a strong wind might blow it down.
“I suppose it doesn’t look like much. But there’s lots of space, and it was cheap. The first floor’s just about ready,” Kirin informed him.
Lock got out of the car and followed Kirin across the icy concrete toward a pair of rusty metal doors with a chain looped through the handles, and an opened padlocked dangling from one end. It was a bitterly cold, gloomy day. Kirin still wasn’t wearing an overcoat, and nearly fell twice in his leather-soled Italian loafers. The chain rattled as he opened the door. “Of course, Raj and Sanjay are already here.”
The doors creaked open. Lock walked in first, his eyes adjusting to the darkness.
“It’s the second door on the right,” said Kirin. Lock took a few tentative steps forward. The floor was dirty and the paint had nearly peeled off the walls. Kirin walked past him and then stopped farther up and swung open another door. “We’re going to install a keycard system next week. But for now…it’s not like there are other tenants or anything.”
“You bought the whole building?”
“Real estate in Detroit…” began Kirin, shrugging.
“I didn’t mean to put you out. I didn’t know you had another place already lined up.”
“No, no, it’s fine. We should have thought to get something closer to your apartment. Come on in.” Kirin gestured with his still-gloved hand.
Lock walked into a large room with fifteen-foot ceilings and a row of windows spanning the outer walls. The floors had been washed and painted, and the walls had been completely stripped down to the bare brick. Large metal columns rose up to the ceiling every forty feet or so, like great trees in a strange brick-and-metal garden. In one corner were three desks and a work table, along with a small stack of routers and computers, with tiny red and green lights glowing and flickering. A sinew of cables bound together with ties ran up and into a pipe that disappeared into the wall.
Two men wearing dress shirts and khakis turned from their desks and stared at him expectantly. The first had glasses and curly black hair, and the second had very round eyes and was, unbelievably, wearing sandals.
Kirin walked toward the corner with the desks, which seemed overwhelmed by the scale of the room. Lock decided that they could set up a nice BMX pipe without disrupting the office area in the least. “These are your assistants,” Kirin was saying. “Rajender and Sanjay. Rajender will help you with the more technical tasks. Sanjay is here to help you with other things. Errands. Ordering parts. Whatever you need.”
Lock stepped forward to shake their hands, but both men looked at him as though he was holding a knife. Then the first one, with the glasses, relaxed and extended his hand. “I’m Rajender,” he said. “You can call me Raj.”
The second one did the same. “I’m Sanjay.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Lock sincerely. They seemed like nice enough people. The sandals were a bit strange, but they both looked earnest enough. When Kirin had told him he’d have assistants, he’d been a bit worried. What if he couldn’t trust them? What if they weren’t able to keep up with him? But between actually seeing the office and meeting Raj and Sanjay, Lock’s mind was at ease. This was workable. It might even be enjoyable.
“What do you think?” asked Kirin, who was obviously pleased with himself. “They’re still working on things. Like I said, we’ll have the keycard system in place next week. We’re upgrading to fiber for the network. We’re already rated for all the power you asked for, so that isn’t an issue. The heating system is in need of some maintenance but—”
“It’s fine, Kirin. It’s great, actually. The only thing…I see the servers. That’s my new laptop, I take it? Okay. But…where is the rack?”
Kirin looked sharply toward Raj and Sanjay. Lock immediately regretted asking.
“I ordered it and it was supposed to be here today,” said Sanjay quickly. “I will call the supplier right away and find out why it isn’t here already.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” said Lock, eyeing Kirin warily. “I was just curious…it’s not crucial right away.” He had more questions, but he didn’t want to cause trouble for his new assistants. He turned to Kirin. “I think we’re good.” He rubbed his hands together. “I’m ready to get to work.”
Kirin smiled and spread his arms. “Wonderful. We are eager to see what you can do.”
Renaissance Center (Detroit Riverfront) • Coach Insignia Restaurant
Friday, January 26th
11:00 p.m. EST (Eastern Standard Time)
Lock picked up Samantha at her apartment in Roseville at 7:30 sharp and took her out to Coach Insignia on the seventy-second floor of the RenCen. It was the first time in over a year he’d been on date, longer than that if you didn’t count going out to The Firehouse or Steve’s Soul Food with Mandy. She certainly hadn’t.
He’d met Samantha two nights earlier at Mad Dog’s while celebrating his advance. He remembered Kafka telling every one of the few people who were at the bar on a Wednesday night that Lock was going to be rich. In hindsight, that didn’t seem like such a good idea, but it had somehow culminated in Kafka forcing Lock to promise to “take her” — meaning Samantha — “someplace nice.” And so here they were.
Samantha was attractive enough, thought Lock, although he wasn’t usually big on dye-job blonds. She had chubby cheeks, but it worked for her, especially when she smiled. The problem was that they didn’t seem to have anything to talk about, and Lock couldn’t stop thinking about how easy it had been for him and Mandy to talk. He’d never taken her to a nice place like this. Or anyone, really. Maybe things would loosen up after a few glasses of wine. Or perhaps he’d splurge on a good whiskey.
Lock ignored the first three phone calls. With the fourth, he whispered an apology to Samantha, who was staring into her freshly delivered glass of wine as though perhaps she might be able to dive in and swim away. Lock grabbed his phone and turned toward the window. The city of Windsor, laced and shimmering with white and gold electric light, beckoned from beyond the dark chasm that was the Detroit River. There was only one reason his ex-wife would keep calling like that—if something had happened to Sophie. “What’s up?”
“Lock,” replied Karen. “Thank God. Is Sophie with you?”
“No.”
“She isn’t?”
“No.”
“Oh God, Lock. I’m freaking out. I don’t know where she is.”
The gears in his gut begin to grind. “She’s not answering her phone?”
“No.”
“What about Krista?” asked Lock, referring to Sophie’s best friend.
“She isn’t either.”
“When did you see her last?”
“This morning. When she left for school. Krista always comes to pick her up.”
“Okay. Uh…” Lock heard a voice in the background.
“Dennis thinks I should call the police.”
“Jesus. Uh…”
“I’m freaking out here, Lock.”
“Yeah, me too. I mean, it’s probably nothing, right? She’s probably fine. But…just in case.”
“Okay. I’m going to call the police.”
“All right.” Lock hung up the phone.
Samantha was sitting up, looking at him intently. “Is everything okay?”
Lock ran his fingers across the stubble that was forming on the top of his head. “No. Well, probably. But…no. Sophie’s missing. Or not answering her phone.”
Samantha arched her eyebrows. “Sophie?”
“My daughter.”
“Oh. I—”
“Let me think.” Lock closed his eyes.
“Sure, sure, I’m sorry,” said Samantha hastily, shrinking back into her glass of wine.
Lock could hear Kirin’s voice. Think of your daughter. Think of her future. Her security. He picked up the phone and dialed. He heard Kirin’s voice answer on the other end. It sounded unusually deep. “Hello, Lock.”
“Hey, Kirin.” Lock suddenly felt foolish.
“What can I do for you?”
“Uh…I don’t know where my daughter is.” Lock cringed.
“Your daughter? I’m sorry to hear that.”
“You don’t, uh—no, of course not. I’m sorry to bother you.”
“It’s quite all right. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“Good night,” said Kirin. Lock clicked off and stared out the window.
“Can I make a suggestion?” asked Samantha, after a moment.
“Sure, please,” said Lock, who began thinking about how to wrap up their date as gracefully as possible.
“Is Krista her friend?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’ve called Krista, right?”
“Yeah,” said Lock, pursing his lips and tapping his hand lightly on the table.
“Can you call Krista’s parents?”
“No. I don’t have the number.”
“Do you know where they live?”
“Well…yeah…I’ve picked her up and dropped her off a few times.”
“Maybe you should just drive over there.”
Lock stared at her for a moment. “You’re right.”
ψ
Lock stood at the front door, feeling stupid again. It was nearly midnight. He was probably going to wake everybody up. On the other hand, if Sophie was really missing…he knocked on the door and shivered and waited.
Krista’s parents are doing all right, he thought. This place was almost a big as Karen and Dennis’s new place. He looked back to his beat-up Ford truck and saw Samantha peering out of the driver’s-side window, looking on with interest. He turned and knocked again. He heard voices and footsteps and bolts and chains coming undone. The door opened and a sleepy-looking man in University of Michigan sweats opened the door, standing two heads taller than Lock. “Yeah?”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” began Lock, realizing the stoop was lower than the doorway. “I don’t think we’ve met…I’m Sophie’s dad.”
“Yes, Sophie.” He offered his hand and Lock shook it. “Is everything okay? Did you need to talk to her?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Did you need to talk to Sophie?”
“Uh, she’s here?”
Krista’s father just stared at Lock for a moment. “That’s why you’re here, right?”
“We weren’t sure where she was…”
He gave a knowing smile. “My name’s Dylan,” he offered.
“Lochan. But people call me Lock.”
“I’ll get Sophie for you,” said Dylan. “Come on in.” He turned in the direction of a stairwell behind him.
“No, no, that’s fine, Dylan. Thank you.” Lock half turned back toward the street and then turned back again. “No need to wake them. We’ll get the full story tomorrow, I’m sure.”
Dylan faced the door again. “You sure?”
“Yeah.” Lock began to back toward the street again.
“Well…it was nice to meet—”
“Actually, if you wouldn’t mind…” Lock had turned back yet again and taken a step toward the door. “Can I just…I’d just like to check on her. I know it probably sounds silly—”
“Not at all. Come on in.”
“I don’t really want to wake her or anything. I just want to…”
Dylan put his arm on Lock’s shoulder. Even on a level surface, Dylan’s height made Lock feel like a little kid. “No problem.”
Lock stopped in the doorway and motioned to Samantha. One minute.
The two men went up the stairs where they were met by Krista’s mother, Kara, whom Lock had met before—except her hair hadn’t been falling in her face, and she hadn’t been wearing a faded blue bathrobe. Whispered greetings were exchanged and the three parents made their way down a long hallway to a room with a closed door, upon which was hung a stenciled sign that read “Krista’s Room.”
Dylan knocked at the door. “Krista?” he whispered. When there was no answer, he cracked the door open a few inches, then motioned Lock forward.
Lock stepped into the bedroom. In the shaft of light from the hall, he could see the shape of the girls’ bodies lying side-by-side on the bed. He recognized Sophie’s backpack on the floor next to the bed. He took another step into the room, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. He felt Dylan standing beside him.
He heard Krista’s voice. “Dad?”
“Hey, sweetie. Sophie’s dad is here. He didn’t know where she was.”
Sophie’s voice was next. “Dad?”
“Heya, kiddo. Sorry to wake you. We didn’t know you were staying over here.”
“Seriously? I told Mom this morning before I left for school.”
“Well, you know…and then you didn’t answer your phone.”
Lock heard the sound of a deep sigh. “My battery died.”
“Okay. It’s fine. I just wanted…good night, Cleopatra.”
“Good night, Dad.”
Lock turned to leave the room. “Cleopatra?” he heard Krista asking, as Dylan closed the door.
ψ
Lock got in the car and put it in drive. “She was there the whole time.”
“That’s good.”
“Her phone was dead.”
“Did you call Karen?”
“Shit. No. I’ll call her right now.” Lock fished his phone out of his pocket. “Hey, Samantha?” he said, looking at her from the corner of his eye.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. And…sorry to end our date like this.”
Samantha smiled and placed her hand on his. “It’s okay. This is more important.”
Singapore Financial District
Monday, January 29th
10:00 a.m. SGT (Singapore Time)
Katya looked down at Anson Road, twenty-two floors below, bristling with cabs and commuters. She raised her gaze to the building directly across the street, at the offices of a certain South China Finance Group, LLC, the sole officer of which was one Vipul Rathod. The reflected morning sunlight made it difficult to look directly at the buildings, and the windows were tinted anyway. She couldn’t see the people working inside.
But she could hear them.
She turned to the lone desk, which had come with the office she had rented only the day before. The office hadn’t, however, come with the laptop, radio scanner, antenna, or telescopic camera equipment. Katya sat down in front of the laptop and went through a few of the conversations displayed on her screen. She allowed herself a small smile.
She was up and running on Vipul Rathod.
Of course, she still wasn’t precisely certain why. She heard Haruo’s voice in her head, something that happened all too often. There’s nothing to understand, Katya. That’s exactly the problem. As far as she knew, Haruo had no more background on the Rathod family than she did. They’d never come into play in their current investigation into Triad influence on otherwise friendly governments. Which meant, whatever clues Haruo had zeroed in on, they were about Li Mun.
Her gaze wandered to the large radio antenna by the window where cell signals were channeled and then sent through a radio scanner, which picked out individual texts and conversations and fed them into her laptop. From there, the voice data was converted so that everything was in the form of text. Then it was indexed to make it easy to search for key words and phrases. In turn, that would help her piece together the meanings of the various argot and codes that Vipul and his organization used to communicate.
She wondered if Haruo appreciated her work on the Triad. She was only a small part of a much larger investigation, but she was getting results. And she was so much better at this than she had been when she first started, so much better than most of the field agents out there. But it seemed all anyone noticed was how long it took to get results. Haruo always wanted more, sooner. She appreciated the fact that he pushed her. But a pat on the back might be nice once in a while, too.
