Dead Cat Bounce (27 page)

He clicked on the app. It was a relatively simple music trivia quiz. Why did that require so much memory? “This app is supposed to be a music quiz, but it’s too big for that,” he said to his father. “There must be something behind it.” He moved the cursor over the app icon.

“Click on it! Click on it!” David exclaimed impatiently.

“No. Wait,” said Jonah, looking up. “We need to connect to the Internet. If this goes straight through, we’ll need to be ready or we might get shut out.” He cleared the iPod and headphones off the table and put them in the briefcase. Then he plugged in the hotel Ethernet cable. “Ready?”

“Ready,” said David.

Jonah clicked on the app and a new window opened.

YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS.

“No Googling. Smart,” said Jonah.

Question One: Who was God?

“I thought this was a music quiz, not a test of religious philosophy,” said David, as Jonah typed in CLAPTON.

CORRECT,
the system replied.

“Dad, you need to shut it unless you’ve got the answer. It’s a famous piece of graffiti from the 1960s—Clapton is God.”

Question Two: Which band is worth fifteen pounds?

Again Jonah was straight on it: COMMODORES

CORRECT

There was complete quiet now in the hotel room. Jonah focused on the laptop with David on his shoulder.

Question Three: Who were losing their religion?

REM

CORRECT

The window dissolved to say
WELL DONE.

“Well, that was easy,” said David.

NOW ON TO LEVEL TWO

“No. There’s more,” said Jonah before rapidly answering three more questions correctly.

The window dissolved again, coming back with:
YOU COULD BE ME BUT I’M NOT SURE. WHY DON’T YOU TRY THREE QUESTIONS MORE?

Once again Jonah managed to answer the questions correctly. Jonah’s music education at the hands of the Baron had backfired on his teacher.

The window disappeared completely, leaving the desktop image of a blank screen and the toolbar below. “What’s happened? We got them all right,” said David, worried.

“Relax, Dad. Look at the toolbar at the bottom. There’s a new icon.” Jonah put his finger on a shield with a red triplane—the same image he’d seen on the Baron’s stationery and as part of the training tool the Baron had given him so many moons ago. “That’s the link!” said Jonah excitedly. “That’s the access point.”

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” yelled David.

“Patience, Dad. I’m going to change the security settings first so
that anyone else who attempts to enter is blocked. I’ll also be able to see if someone else is trying to get in.”

“Do it, Jonah. Just do it.” His father was now highly agitated.

Jonah’s fingers clattered across the keyboard as he put a new layer over the Baron’s trivia quiz. When he finished he immediately clicked on the shield, holding his breath as a window came up saying, “Connecting to server.” The screen went blank for a moment and came back as a universe-like image of stars and space. In the middle was a new window with a whole new set of files.

Jonah’s breath quickened. They were into the Baron’s servers.

“All right!” David exclaimed. He slapped his son five, grinning. Getting a hold of himself, he said, “Right. Find those files. I’m going to go downstairs to sort out the car. Ring me if there is any sign of anything strange.”

“Hold on,” Jonah replied. He took an envelope out of the briefcase and handed it to his father. “It has the Vespa keys inside. Can you mail it to Creedence? I’ve asked her to pick it up.” The envelope included a more personal letter as well, but that was private and not worth mentioning to his dad. David hesitated, and for a moment Jonah thought he was going to say he should maintain his silence with her. “It doesn’t say where we’re going next,” he added.

His father nodded and took the envelope. “Understood,” he said and headed out of the room.

The Baron was in the back of a chauffeured Mercedes, speeding toward the Northolt Jet Center along the A40. Jez the IT man was on the other end of the phone.

“What do you mean password? There is no password. You know that.”

“Well, there is now. Which means someone’s altered the security.”

“How could they have done that?”

Jez gave a nervous cough. “By cracking the original defense mechanisms.”

The Baron jerked the phone away from his ear as if it had burned him. This was now getting very serious. There was another level of security to be broken before anyone could reach his trading records, but nobody was supposed to be able to get this far. “Can you shut the whole thing down? Pull the plug or something?” he said, trying to stay composed.

“Won’t work. Do you remember how you wanted this set up? Bombproof, hurricane proof, the lot. It’s a sealed unit with its own backup power and wireless telecom system. I can pull the plug, but the thing will still run for three more days. The only way is to go in and remove the files directly.”

“Well pull the bloody plug and find the password,” the Baron commanded. He then killed the call and dialed Amelia. “Where are you? I’m nearly there,” he barked. “Looks like they’re into the first level of the files. Tell those goons of yours not to let them leave that hotel.” He was about to hang up when he added, “And I’m going to need a gun.”

David identified the first of Amelia’s “muscle” as soon as he stepped out of the elevator. He was a big man in a black leather jacket, sitting in the lobby pretending to read a newspaper. When David walked past him, the man stood up and followed him outside, confirming
David’s assessment: They had been found. He became conscious of the gun in the waistband of his trousers, pressing against his back. He walked left and left again around the hotel toward the street of shops that bordered the block to the south.

The man followed.

This was good
, David thought. It meant that he was an observer—here to follow, not approach. The question was: How many more were there?

David passed a parked car, a dark blue Mercedes, its driver wearing sunglasses despite the fact that the sun was nowhere to be seen.
Observer number two
, thought David. He walked on without stopping, finding a small supermarket on the corner. He went in and bought a newspaper and stamps for Jonah’s letter, which he also mailed. The big man loitered outside, and David decided that he couldn’t risk collecting the car. He’d have to do that just before they went to the airport. He’d call the rental company when he was back in the room and tell them he was going to be in a rush. He exited the shop and carried on his stroll around the building, endeavoring to maintain a casual air so that the men who’d been assigned to watch them didn’t notice that
he
was now scoping
them
out. At the next corner the leather-jacketed man turned back, but up ahead David spied another man, standing by the rear entrance of the hotel:
observer number three
. David walked past him, and sure enough he picked up the tail and followed along the east side of the hotel until David turned the final corner. There, leather-jacket man was waiting to shepherd him back into the main entrance of the hotel.

So there were three of them
, David thought, one of whom was in a vehicle. They would have to escape through the east fire escape
and would need a backup plan in case they didn’t manage a clean getaway. He called the elevator and headed up to the eighth floor.

Jonah’s anxiety levels were high now. He had hoped to see a big file saying “Trading Records” or something similar. Instead there were thousands of files with only a vague system to organize them. He’d tried searching files by date to see if anything came up from the last few days. Nothing. He’d tried searching the name “Allegro Home Finance.” Again nothing. He was trying “Lightbody” when a red light started flashing in the top right hand corner of his screen and his father returned. He swung around. “They’ve found out about the laptop, Dad.”

“How do you know?” said David, coming over to look at the computer screen.

“See the light? Someone else is trying to get in.”

“Well, I guess we knew that would happen at some point. Good thing you reset the security,” he said, an air of calmness about him that helped soothe Jonah’s nerves. “Anyway, how are you getting on?”

“Nothing yet,” Jonah answered.

“Well, keep plugging away. I need to call the car company and my contact in Africa, Once I’ve done that we’ll decide when to move on.”

Jonah jerked his head up. “We can’t leave until we’ve found the files, Dad. My security won’t last forever, and once they get through, we’ll be shut out.”

“Oh,” said David, still calm. “I see. Well, I know you’ll find it. Now let me make those calls.” He started walking to the other side
of the room to give each of them a modicum of privacy when he hesitated and turned back to Jonah. “Can I borrow your corporate credit card? I reckon it could speed up our progress through the airport when we get there, and even if the Baron traces it, he won’t work out where we are going.”

Jonah handed David his Black American Express card, noting his father’s raised eyebrows and thinking about how weird it was that at long last his dad was showing confidence in him. It only took a false accusation, a scary bunch of Russians, and being forced to run for their lives. Jonah snorted. So that was all he had needed to forge the beginnings of a relationship with his father: the prospect of death!

After another half an hour of searching, Jonah still hadn’t found anything. He could hear that his father had finished on the phone, so he called him over. “Dad,” Jonah said, “I need a new set of eyes on this. Maybe you can see something that I can’t?”

David came over and took Jonah’s place in front of the screen while Jonah poured himself another cup of coffee and stretched.

“What am I looking for?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” said Jonah. “Where would you put something you didn’t want found?” He took a sip of his coffee.

“I’d put it in the safe in my study,” David reasoned aloud. “No, I wouldn’t. I’d put it in a bank’s safe. One of those Swiss banks that are famed for their privacy.” He stared at the screen. “Is there a digital equivalent of a Swiss bank safety deposit box?”

Jonah took another sip of coffee. “There are places that will host your servers, but I don’t think there’s a specific high-security hosting service. Unless you count the military or the Secret Service, but
I doubt they rent out space to people somehow….” As he said it, an idea sparked in his brain:
The military? The Baron. Baron von Richthofen
.
That could be it!
“Here, let me sit down again,” he said, putting his coffee cup on the desk and pushing his father out of the seat.

“What is it? What is it?” demanded David impatiently.

In the dock at the bottom of the screen was an icon of a red triplane. Jonah had seen it many times before. It was the icon for the Baron’s personally designed video game, the one that he’d given him in the case with the letter “A” on it. Over the last four years Jonah had played it hundreds of times, but never managed to beat the Baron. He’d always thought that it was fixed in some way.

“What are you doing?” David inquired.

“I’m going to see if his files are protected by the military. The iTunes quiz was set up with answers only the Baron would know, theoretically. I think he’s put the files somewhere where only he, as his avatar Baron von Richthofen, can fly.”

The game appeared on the screen, providing the usual choices of: “New recruit,” “English Dumkompf,” or “Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen.” This time Jonah chose von Richthofen. The screen rotated and came up with a list of missions. This was new. He scrolled down, weighing his options: “Champagne Charlie Carnage,” “Eton Rifle Ruckus,” “Hooray Henry Horror,” the list went on. It was basic stuff, but the theme was clear, save for one: “Prophet and Schloss.”
Was it a play on profit and loss?
Jonah hit the button quickly, reckoning he had to behave like the Baron, which meant minimal hesitation. The screen faded out and came back with a scene of pilots running toward various planes parked in a field, the red Fokker at the front.

The game began.

Jonah went into a zone of complete focus as he maneuvered the Fokker and shot his opponents out of the sky, one by one. He was flying the Baron’s plane and using the skills the Baron taught him to literally beat him at his own game. It felt bittersweet. It didn’t take long for him to eliminate all of the opposing pilots, except one, who was standing on the ground waving his hands in supplication; his plane had been winged and forced to crash land. But somehow Jonah’s screen started to fade, his life draining away.
Why was he dying? What had he missed?
He took a deep breath. He couldn’t simply think like the Baron; he had to
be
the Baron. His mind raced.
What would he do?
He would take no prisoners.

That was it!
The pilot on the ground had to die! Jonah turned the plane around and bore down on the figure below, who started to run.

The pilot might as well have stayed in place. Any attempts at escape were too little, too late; Jonah had him in his sights. He fired and the pilot was ripped to pieces by the force of the bullets from the machine gun. Jonah held his breath.
Was he right?
The screen strengthened again, and the plane began to fly on its own, low toward some heavily forested hills where Jonah could see a castle. The plane circled the massive structure once and then landed on a grass runway and came to a halt. The von Richthofen character stepped out and removed his leather helmet as he walked toward the huge door. He pushed the door open, and the image before Jonah faded back to the regular desktop.

Jonah’s eyes flicked across the screen. There, on the right, was a new hard disk icon named “Schloss,” the German word for castle. He
breathed deeply, in through his nose and out through his mouth, suddenly aware of his father leaning over his shoulder.

“You’ve done it, my boy. You’ve cracked it, you bloody genius!” He banged Jonah on the back in excitement.