House on Fire

71

I was fairly certain no one had seen me climb or descend the hotel’s exterior. Hotel security was what I worried most about, and I hadn’t seen any of them. But as I was stuffing the ropes and carabiners and such back into my backpack, a florid-faced, thick-set guy strolled past. He didn’t seem to notice me, but something about him got my attention. He looked like a retired soldier.

I made a mental note.

I was hungry by then — I hadn’t eaten since the lobster tail at lunch — and was planning to order room service when I got back to the suite and saw that Sukie was gone. There was only a note, on hotel letterhead — Join me at dinner downstairs xx. I found her sitting alone at a table set for two. She was drinking coffee and looking at her phone. She was wearing a white blazer over a white T-shirt and white pants with sandals.

I called over the waiter and ordered a New York strip steak, medium rare.

When the waiter had left, she said, “Want to tell me what you’ve been up to?”

I smiled. “Better for you if I don’t.”

She furrowed her brow, shook her head. “Really?”

I looked around the dining room, saw her father sitting at a big round table with Megan and Fritz. The others were probably big shots in the sales department. This was their event. They were hosting the CEO.

Then someone approached Conrad Kimball. Dr. Zubiri was saying something urgent. Kimball looked receptive. He was nodding, almost rhythmically. Then he appeared to ask something, and Zubiri replied.

I had a fairly good idea of what they were talking about. If Zubiri was doing what we’d agreed upon, he was telling Conrad that a reporter had called him, asking about the suppressed Tallinn study. That the reporter had a copy.

Conrad leaned to his left and muttered something to Fritz. Then the two men stood up and left the dining room.

If I had figured out Conrad Kimball correctly, he would be heading directly to his hotel suite to confer with Fritz. Zubiri had provoked a crisis; now Conrad would be huddling with his security chief in his suite. Talking aloud, near one of my recording/transmitting devices, about the Tallinn study. I wouldn’t have to return to retrieve the devices; they would broadcast out compressed files every thirty minutes, send them via text message.

I’d be electronically eavesdropping on Conrad Kimball.

Sukie and I returned to the suite, and about thirty-five minutes later, my iPhone lit up. I’d just received a text containing a compressed audio file.

The crisis conversation was under way.

People really do generally behave in predictable ways. Conrad and his security chief were talking, and I was capturing their words. I listened to a moment of the audio file through my AirPods to make sure the recording was working:

Sukie passed through the sitting area where I was listening with my AirPods, right around the moment when her father spoke her name on the recording. It was disorienting.

I took out my earphones. “I think I have what I need,” I said.

I noticed that a red blinking light on the room phone had just come on. I pointed out to Sukie that one of us had a message. I called the front desk.

“Yes, Mr. — Brown?”

“Yes.”

“You have a message from a Mr. Heston. He left his mobile number.”