Orphan X

42 The Inside of a Conspiracy Theorist’s Mind

Five-twenty and still no ping from Katrin White’s GPS signal.

Locked down in the Vault, Evan raked through the databases, scouring every corner of the universe for trails that might lead to Danny Slatcher or locations he’d used in the past. He dug and pried, trying not to watch the clock.

His mistrust of Katrin might have cost her her life.

With ex-Orphans on his trail, Evan had had to doubt everything and everyone, see the lie beneath every sentence, betrayal beneath every smile. Over the past two weeks, he’d been pulled increasingly into the ordinary world with all its human complications, real people with real problems, and it was harder and harder to tell what was authentic and what was a strategic simulation of authentic. He’d charted connections and coincidences, creating webs of partial logic that resembled nothing so much as the inside of a conspiracy theorist’s mind. Assessing the genuine in the everyday was his particular blind spot, as he had never lived in the everyday. Katrin did. And his inability to decipher the language of the everyday, to read her correctly, might prove to be the tear in the fabric that would unravel them both.

This mission had been a death trap from the start, the foundation caving in beneath his feet, the Commandments crumbling one after another. Only one mattered anymore, the Tenth and most holy Commandment: Never let an innocent die.

He pounded at the keyboard, hacking through files as if forging through brush with a machete. But Slatcher lived up to his reputation. Traceless. Invisible. A ghost.

Six oh-seven and still no ping from Katrin White’s GPS signal.

Evan cocked back in his chair with an aggravated sigh. Only now did he realize that Vera had died. The aloe vera plant, companion through so many adventures and witness to his sins, had turned brown and brittle. He lifted her from her bed of pebbles. The size of an artichoke, she fit neatly in his palm, as light as a bird’s nest. She deserved more of a send-off, but she got only the trash compactor. When he looked up, he saw that the living wall, too, was expiring, a wide swath of the herbs long gone, the floor beneath dusted with fallen leaves and sprigs. The drip system looked to be clogged, another repair to add to the list along with the katana’s scabbard. He stared into the malnourished rise of plants as if it were a mirror.

The wall and Vera were the only lives fully in his care, and he hadn’t even managed to keep them afloat.

Seven-sixteen and still nothing.

He debated reviewing his own past assignments and missions to determine which had given rise to someone seeking vengeance in the form of Danny Slatcher, but there were too many, and every last one had left a contrail of lethal enemies.

Three past eight. Nothing and nothing.

And then he spotted something.

But not on the monitors he’d been focused on.

One of the south-facing outdoor surveillance cameras picked up two men approaching the loading dock where Evan had squared off with the brothers earlier in the day. These men were big specimens in dark, loose-fitting clothes, tattoos showing on their hands and necks. Evan initiated the facial-recognition software, but it was too dark behind the building for a clean capture.

They wouldn’t be outside long.

As they approached the security door next to the giant roll-up loading gate, one of the men pulled out a pick set and the other went up on tiptoes. As the second intruder reached up, a thin piece of metal flashed in his hand. Evan knew what it was immediately — a magnet shaped like a stick of Wrigley’s chewing gum. Each exterior door of Castle Heights was alarmed with a mag strike in the gap between the top of the door and the frame. Sliding a magnet to cling to the top strike would ensure that no broken-connection alert would be sent when the door opened.

Which it promptly did under the ministrations of the pick set. The two men vanished inside, holding their total time in the outdoor camera’s field of vision to under ten seconds. A skillful team.

This was not their first entry.

A few inches from Evan’s mouse pad, the matte black Wilson 1911 waited in its holster.

He clicked to locate the appropriate interior camera, picking up the two-man team hustling through the rear service corridor. There was enough light inside to capture their features, the facial-recognition software scrolling the results across the screen.

Michael Marts and Axel Alonso.

Evan’s eyes swept their criminal histories. They’d worked together since their late teens, a string of petty B&Es culminating in the robbery of a taxi driver. That bought them five years in Chino, but they’d been released early — four months ago — for good behavior.

They were in the service elevator now, riding up.

Keeping his eyes on the screen, Evan reached across the desk, his hand claiming the holstered gun. He clipped it at his hip and rose, leaning over the monitors, setting his knuckles on the sheet metal.

He moused over to the sentencing report for the robbery in the first degree and clicked to bring up the name of the prosecutor.

District Attorney Mia Hall.

The confirmation sent a prickle through the nerves of his back. The men were coming after her for putting them away.

Sure enough, the service elevator stopped at twelve.

Evan brought up a hall camera just in time to catch the men strobing by en route to Mia’s place. He could no longer pick them up. Castle Heights had no eyes on the door of 12B, which meant that Evan didn’t either.

His heart was hammering. Impatience simmered, a low boil.

He stared at the blank RoamZone. Nothing from Katrin. He had to be ready to move the instant that ping came in. That was his contract. His law. The sole thing he’d been honed to do for two and a half decades.

But Mia. And Peter.

What could he do? What could he not do?

He realized that — for the first time — the answer would lie neither in his brain nor in his training but somewhere else.

A security alert sounded on one of his screens.

A balloon, bumping against his bedroom window. Magic Markered across it in bold letters: SKARY MEN R HERE. HELP.

The men were inside her apartment already. Their focus would be on guarding that front door.

Evan started out of the Vault. Then froze, agitated, his hand pressed to the hidden door.

A lifetime of training told him he couldn’t reveal himself to Mia. That would risk not just the mission.

It would risk everything.

And yet.

Could he risk not doing this?

It wasn’t really a choice.

He’d go, all right.

Just not through the building.