The Pandora Key aka The Hostage Room

39

I SWAPPED THE TWO HARD DRIVES WITHOUT ANY COMPLICATIONS. Harvey, Hoffmeyer, and Kraft watched closely as I did it. Kraft plugged in the auxiliary battery Tatiana had bought, and they all continued the vigil as I turned it on. When it got to the point where the operating system was supposed to load, everything stopped. The token was still on the table. I fit it into the slot and pushed. When it engaged, the system began to load. It was so quiet in the room, all I could hear was the low whistle in Harvey’s breathing and the sound of the computer at work.

The system loaded, and when it got to the next screen, I looked over at Harvey and smiled. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Harvey never lied, and Rachel had, in fact, held back one last secret. “What’s the password?”

“Yaryna.” He spelled it for me.

“Who is that, Vladi’s girlfriend?”

“His mother.” An idea that carried its own special meaning, given that his brother had shot her to death.

When the computer was ready to go, it looked like any other used by every other schlub in the world who used Windows. This one ran Windows 2000. It had a desktop screen with icons and not a single clue to what might lie beneath its bland exterior.

I started working through the directory. All the files had cryptic names like 104bkl2sign. There were columns of them, one after another. I didn’t know what I was looking for, so it would be hard to know if I’d found it. What would the financial files look like? Would the information be in code? I scavenged around in the cyber-haystack, clicking files randomly, hoping one would be the needle. I gave up and went to the search function.

“Harvey, if you were putting together a map to a financial fortune, what would it look like?”

“It would have the names of banks, the addresses, the names and numbers of contacts at those banks. It would have account numbers and passwords. Unless the money is all in cash, it would have a list of investment interests and investment vehicles.”

“Bearer bonds? Like that?” I typed in “bearer bonds” and hit enter. Nothing. I tried “serial number.” A list of files came up. That was a hopeful sign. I started opening them. They were Excel documents, spreadsheets with exactly the information Harvey had described. Locations, account numbers, passwords, and, best of all, balances.

“I found it.” Everyone knew that, because they were clustered around behind me watching the screen, but I had to say it anyway. I couldn’t help but feel excited.

“Well done,” Harvey said.

Hoffmeyer tapped me on the shoulder. He wanted to cut in. We switched places. He emptied a bag on the desk next to the machine and went to work. There was a three-and-a-half-inch disk, what felt like a relic now. There were a couple of jewel boxes for CDs and what looked like a load of different kinds of adapters and batteries. He had come prepared to attack that machine in whatever way necessary. As it turned out, it had a USB port, so all he needed was a flash drive. He had several and the software to make the computer recognize it. I could have used it in Paris.

He started to close all the files I’d opened but paused on the last one. He produced a notepad and a pencil and copied down three random account numbers with passwords and contact information. He tore off the page and passed it to Harvey.

“Would you mind checking these accounts? I’d like to make sure it’s all there.”

I found the cordless phone and gave it to Harvey. God only knew where all the cell phones had gone to. Hoffmeyer was copying the files to the flash drive. About ten minutes passed as he worked through all the files. He typed quickly and clearly knew his way around a computer.

Harvey finished his call. “It is all there and more. The money has compounded quite nicely over the past four years. I have written the new balances here. I think you can expect the same from all the investments.”

He passed the paper back to Hoffmeyer, who folded it in half and slipped it into his front breast pocket.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“What?”

“Were you a hostage, or were you part of it?”

“Buy the book,” Kraft said. He had found the bag Thorne had taken from him, pulled out his reporter’s notebook, and started scribbling. He was no longer tied up, and it did cross my mind that it would not have been out of line to smack him.

“I was both,” Hoffmeyer said.

“I don’t understand what that means.”

“The whole thing was a bad idea from the start, a low-percentage play.” He nodded in Thorne’s direction. “I told him that. But he was doing it no matter what I thought. He liked the intricacy of the plan, the elegance of the solution. He was going to send someone else, but I decided to go. I went to make sure no citizens got hurt.”

“The hijackers didn’t know you were part of it?”

“I had my reasons for not identifying myself to the Martyrs Brigade. Isn’t that right, Cy?”

He had been the first to notice that Thorne’s eyes were fluttering open. It took two tries before he could get his chin off his chest and was in a position to take in what was going on around him. He saw Hoffmeyer and blinked a few times. A sly smile broke across his face. “Am I looking at a ghost?”

“Hello, Cy. I wish I could say it was good to see you.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“Thinking about it.”

Thorne didn’t seem too worked up by the concept. He adjusted his weight from one side to the other and winced as he did it.

Hoffmeyer was keeping one eye on his files and one on Thorne. “Still having problems with that hip?”

“No more than I ever did. What are you calling yourself these days?”

“The consensus in the room is Hoffmeyer.”

Thorne let his head loll back and roll around until his neck cracked like a big knuckle. Then he straightened up and yawned. “Where have you been keeping yourself?”

“I was surprised that you never came looking.”

“You were officially dead. We sent Carmopolis to check. Remember him?”

“He was a fuckup.”

“Yeah, he’s dead. He told us he had a positive ID on you. I found out later he spent that week in Thailand shacked up with a hooker and never even checked. It’s hard to find good people.” His expression turned almost wistful. “Somehow, I knew you were alive. All those years it nagged at me. When the Zormat thing hit, it opened everything up again. I got a little misty.”

“You missed me?”

“I didn’t think I would, but we were friends for twenty years. I did miss you. I made a nice tribute to your memory. I hope you get to see it sometime.”

I looked at Hoffmeyer, and I realized what had been familiar about him. It wasn’t his face. It was his voice. I had heard it before-on Lyle’s interview tapes. “You’re Tony Blackmon.”

“Not for a long, long time now.”

“I thought-” Back to Thorne. “You said-”

“He was dead? He was supposed to be.” He looked at Hoffmeyer. “But I have to admit, it is good to see you.”

“How’s Maggie?”

Thorne gave a que será será shrug.

“Have you seen your kids?” Hoffmeyer offered a sad smile and shook his head. “Or do you still consider them to be a liability?”

That piqued Harvey’s interest. “How so?”

“Over time, Cy came to see his family as a vulnerability. He never wanted any of his enemies to use them against him. Cy can’t be vulnerable, so he created a lot of distance from them.”

“Blackthorne is my family. It used to be yours. Why didn’t you come back?”

“And give you another crack?”

“I expected you’d be back to kill me.”

“I’m not like you, Cy.”

“You used to be.”

Harvey and I looked at Kraft, but it was clear the only people in the room who knew what they were talking about were Thorne and Hoffmeyer. Kraft stopped his scribbling long enough to ask what we all wanted to know. “Another crack at what, Hoff?”

“Cy had a side deal with the Martyrs. Besides hijacking the plane, they were also supposed to kill me.”

I reached over and tapped the arm of Harvey’s chair. “I knew it. Didn’t I tell you that?”

“I shouldn’t have done that.” Thorne looked contrite. “It wasn’t smart. But you would have gone down as a hero. You should see the crystal eagle I had commissioned for you.” He gave me the chin. “She was impressed. Go ahead, tell him.”

“It’s impressive. Why didn’t the Martyrs kill you?”

“Because I was the only one who knew what to do when everything went all to hell. They couldn’t kill me. Every terrorist group and insurgency in that part of the world started showing up and trying to hijack the hijacking. It was a circus.”

“One of the hostages told me you tried to save them.”

“I did what I could. It never should have happened. I can’t defend my part in it, or in any of the other things we did. But when it was all over, I didn’t want to do it anymore. I had the chance to disappear, and I took it.”

“I never took you to be weak-willed, Tony.”

“One man’s conscience is another’s weak will. I had a lot of time to think while I was on that plane. I spent time talking to those people. They weren’t soldiers, Cy. They were citizens, and they were scared. They had no way of dealing with what was happening to them. The ones who died burned to death. It was ugly, and it wasn’t right.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t right.”

“You should have come in for counseling. Or you should have stayed dead.”

“You’re right. I should have stayed dead. But then Max came to see me, and we started talking about the book. I liked that idea. I figured I owed you one.”

“It wasn’t the billion dollars that flushed you out?”

“It makes for a nice bonus.” He opened and checked more of the files. He’d been working as he talked to Thorne. They must have been the last, because he pulled out the flash drive and put that into the pocket of his trousers. Just when I thought he’d made a mistake and left copies on the laptop, he pulled out a second flash drive and made a backup copy, this time moving all the files off the hard drive. Had Drazen and Vladi done the same, they would have avoided a lot of trouble. “Friends,” he said, zipping his bag. “It’s been a pleasure. Max, do you need a ride somewhere?”

“Just get me someplace where I can write. Where are you going? Can we go over some of this?”

“Wait a second.” I got caught on the handles of Harvey’s wheelchair trying to get out from where I’d been wedged behind it and the couch.

Hoffmeyer was collecting himself to leave. “Do you mind if I retrieve my weapons?”

“No, go ahead. Look…” I pushed Harvey forward a few inches and freed myself to charge out into the middle of the room. “You can’t leave. What about Drazen? You’re taking the money we’re supposed to give him.”

“Right, right. Sorry.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a business card. “Call the FBI. Tell them to look in this safety deposit box. They’ll find the weapon used to murder the FBI agent. It has Drazen Tishchenko’s fingerprints all over it. Or if you want, you can strike a deal with Drazen. Tell him to forget about the money or you’ll take what you know to the feds. Either should work.”

He handed me the card. There were notes scrawled on the back. When I turned it over, it was Roger Fratello’s business card from Betelco. Holding it gave me chills.

For a dead man, Roger was very busy. “Where did you-”

The unmistakable click of a round being chambered interrupted, and I looked up to see Hoffmeyer about to shoot Thorne in the head.

“What are you doing? Don’t kill him.”

“He’ll come after me.”

Thorne, again, seemed wholly unconcerned. “He’s right.”

“You can’t just kill him.”

“I can.”

“Don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” I thought about what Harvey had said, that there had to be a difference between us and them. Maybe that was true, maybe it wasn’t. All I knew was I didn’t want him to shoot a man who had his hands tied behind him. “Because you’re not like him anymore.”

Hoffmeyer tilted his head. I watched him caress the trigger. Without moving the gun, he crouched down next to Thorne. “I won’t kill you today, but that doesn’t mean I won’t kill you. And don’t ever forget that I know Maggie, and I know your kids, and I can find them if I have to. Grandkids, too.”

Thorne tried not to show it, but his casual expression grew just a shade more forced.

“Don’t come after me, Cy.”

Hoffmeyer stood up and backed off, but his shoulders tensed, and he spun around and aimed at the doorway a split second before I saw what he had either heard or felt. No one had been watching the door, which explained how Drazen Tishchenko and his man Anton were able to materialize right in our midst.