Trader of secrets

Chapter Thirty-Six

Do you remember me? I am Joaquin,” said Liquida. He shined a flashlight in Raji’s eyes and woke him up.

“Oh God, not again. Yes, I remember you.”

“Get up. We need to talk.”

“What time is it?” said Raji.

“You can sleep later.” Liquida turned on the lamp on the table and cocked the shade a little so that the light would hit Raji in the eyes.

Fareed threw his legs over the side of the bed and sat up as Liquida pulled over a chair and sat down just a foot or so away from him.

Sleep deprivation had now become part of their tactic. Working like a tag team, Bruno and this new man who called himself Joaquin kept Raji awake all hours of the day and night. They would wake him up every hour with inane questions about the targeting software. Some of the inquiries were technical, things that Bruno and this man would never understand. Someone was feeding them information. Fareed suspected it was Leffort.

“I have been asked to talk to you once more because your situation is becoming very dangerous. The people I work for are running out of time, and unfortunately so are you. We are all running out of time.”

Raji wiped the sleep from his eyes as he looked into the face of this man who spoke so earnestly to him. They were close enough that in the light of the lamp from the table the pocks on the man’s left cheek bore an eerie resemblance to the craters of the moon.

“I want you to understand the seriousness of what I am about to say. Your life now rests in your own hands,” said Liquida. “If you act quickly, make the right decision and are truthful with us, no harm will come to you. On the contrary, when you are finished, you will depart a rich man.

“We know that your friend Leffort cheated you. It is possible that your anger toward him may have clouded your judgment. This is unfortunate, for it has poisoned the pool of trust that might otherwise exist between you and the people I work for. Mr. Leffort deceived everyone. He also cheated my employers.”

Fareed tried to shake the sleep from his head to comprehend what the man was saying.

“Leffort’s theft was discovered some time ago. He tried to cover his tracks, but we caught him. It is for this reason that I come to you now. My employers decided then that they could no longer move forward with Mr. Leffort. He simply could not be trusted. This was unfortunate but necessary. His services are being terminated.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” said Liquida.

“Is he dead?”

“The only thing you need to worry about right now is whether you will be alive in the morning,” said Liquida. “I am going to ask you some questions on two very important issues. I expect straight answers. No stalling and no lies. If you do, you will die. Do you understand?”

Fareed did not respond verbally. Instead he nodded.

“Good. First I need to know if you have the required targeting software, yes or no?” said Liquida.

“Yes.”

“When you say yes, I assume you mean that you have it physically in your possession?”

“Effectively, yes,” said Raji.

“Here we go again. Playing with words,” said Liquida. “Effectively, yes. What does that mean-effectively, yes.”

“It means that I can deliver it to you immediately,” said Raji.

“Are you sure?”

“I am.”

Liquida was puzzled by this. They had searched Fareed’s room thoroughly and everything in it. He was dying to ask him where it was hidden.

“What guarantee do I have that after I give it to you, you won’t kill me anyway?”

“None,” said Liquida. “I can guarantee you that if you don’t, you will be dead within minutes. But what good is it for you and me to sit here making threats?” Now that Liquida had shown him the stick, it was time for the carrot. “We need to talk about the second item. Remember I told you I had questions on two issues?”

“Go on.”

“You may feel a bit more comfortable once we talk about this one. Let’s assume for purposes of discussion that Mr. Leffort will no longer be joining us. My employers have asked me to ask you whether or not you are familiar with… ahh, whatta they call it?… something like pre pro. Target pre something.”

“Pretargeting protocols?” said Raji.

“That’s it.” Liquida pointed a finger at Raji and gave him a toothy grin. “I told them you would know all about it. Right now they’re a little upset.”

“That was Leffort’s department,” said Fareed.

“Yeah, I know. But you and I both know what kind of an asshole he was. The man had a very bad attitude,” said Liquida.

“So what happened?”

“First he takes their money. Payment for some stuff he didn’t deliver. The scientists have to sort it out. When Bruno goes down to talk to him about it, fucker won’t open the door. He’s smokin’ dope and watching porno movies in his room. Last night he calls an escort service and has two women shipped in. The guy outside is asleep so he misses the two ladies comin’ in. This morning one of the women’s got bruises all over her body. She’s threatening to go to the police. So Bruno has to give her a ton of cash to keep her quiet.”

None of this surprises Raji. He had been around Leffort long enough to know about his dark side.

“So they tell me to go down and visit him, give him some lessons in pain, sweat him a little and find out where the money was he took from them. I go to his room, he won’t let me in. I have to get a passkey from one of the maids downstairs. When I get in, I ask him a question, where the money is, he tells me to get out of the way. I’m blocking his view. He can’t see the people humping up on the screen. When I don’t move, he starts giving me a bunch of crap. How he’s this big-time brain, got all these letters after his name, diploma from this school, honors from that school. Tells me no skinny little wetback is gonna put a hand on him… how he’s going to kick my ass if I don’t move. Then he throws an ashtray, hits me in the head. What kind of society will you have if you put up with that kinda shit? You either have rules or you don’t. One thing led to another. Things got a little out of control. Leffort tried to breathe through a pillow and found out it didn’t work,” said Liquida.

“You smothered him with a pillow?”

“There was nothing else handy.” said Liquida. “I wasn’t supposed to kill him so I didn’t have a knife. Like I told you, the man was an asshole. Let me ask you a question. You worked with him for a long time, right?”

“Yes.”

“So it would be expected that he might share some of his secrets with you, I mean like these protocols.”

“The pretargeting protocols were his responsibility,” said Fareed.

“That’s not what I want to hear,” said Liquida. “It’s not healthy for either one of us right now. Think about this. Right now these people are worried about it, that with Leffort gone they got a hole in the program. If I go back and tell them you know about the protocols, there’s no problem. It makes you more valuable. You turn over the software, and you move on to Mexico.”

Liquida glanced quickly over his shoulder as if someone might be listening outside the door, then turned back to Raji and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I am not supposed to tell you this but the facility is in Mexico, in the Yucatan near Coba. They have been set up there now for over two years. They have several of these people, scientists, what you call, you know the thing what was Leffort…”

“Astrophysicists?” said Raji.

“Yes. They have several of them working there. From what I hear, this is an easy one for you. They probably did most of Leffort’s work for him already.” Liquida spoke quickly. He was still leaning in close, whispering. “I heard one of them say that Leffort had been sending information down to Coba for the last two years. So how much could be left to do? If you give us the software and tell me that you can help out even a little with these protocols, they’ll be happy and you will live. Do you understand? Don’t be a fool.”

Raji wondered if any of it was true. But what difference did it make? If it was part of an elaborate lie devised to gain his trust, that meant they were going kill him anyway, the minute he turned over the targeting software. Fareed had nothing to lose. “I know a little about the protocols.”

“You want to be careful not to undersell yourself,” said Liquida.

“OK. I am very familiar with them. I know a lot.”

“That’s better.” Liquida leaned back in the chair. “That leaves only the first item. The software.” He arched an eyebrow at Raji.

“I would need a few minutes and an Internet connection.”

“So you don’t have them here?”

“They’re online at a remote site. And they’re encrypted. The decryption software is in my computer.”

“So you must download it, is that it?”

“Correct.”

“That can be arranged. It may take a few minutes. Don’t go anywhere.” Liquida smiled, stood up, and pushed the chair back against the wall. He turned toward the door, started to walk, and then suddenly stopped. Like an animal who had picked up the scent of prey, he looked down at Raji. For a moment he gave him a cold dark stare as if he were sniffing the air for signs of deception, trying to read what was going through Fareed’s mind. “You would not be so foolish as to lie to me, would you?”

“No!”

Liquida walked over and rapped twice on the door. Bruno’s man outside in the hallway unlocked it. A second later Liquida was gone. The door closed, and the key turned in the lock once more.

Before it was even shut, Raji stood up from the bed, opened the laptop on the desk, and grabbed his glasses from the drawer in the nightstand. He got his jacket from the armoire that served as a closet and sat down in front of the computer ready for his ritual of transferring notes onto the flash drive.

It could all be a lie. Nevertheless, Raji was desperate to get the information about Mexico onto the hidden drive-the Yucatan near Coba, the two-year lead time. If it was true, the information would rock them to the core. He had no idea where Coba was. But he knew they would find it in minutes once he got the information to them. Satellite overflights would tell them the rest. All that mattered now was to get it embedded onto the flash drive and to do it fast before Joaquin came back.

Raji knew they would never leave him in the room alone with the Internet up and running. Still, there might be a way. After all, in order to download the data they wanted, he would have to do a handshake online with a remote site. They would expect this. If instead of downloading, Raji was transmitting the information from the flash drive in the other direction, would Joaquin or whoever was with him know the difference? It was a long shot. But it was the only chance he had.

Sitting in front of the screen, Raji assembled the paper tent over the port to the flash drive at the side of the machine. He put on his glasses and scratched under the lapel of his jacket once more. In less than ten seconds, the two drives showed up on the margin of the computer screen. He started typing as fast as he could.

If Joaquin came in now, Fareed was dead.