The Unseen (12 page)

Then it would be time to pay a visit to his good friend Donavan.

Even down here, in the bowels of the Metro system, he swore he could still hear the music from above.

But that was impossible.

TEN

DONAVAN WASN'T HOME; LUCAS COULD TELL THAT AFTER A FEW MINUTES of watching his apartment. Amazingly enough, though, the key was still hidden under the planter. When Lucas let himself into the apartment, it was immediately obvious Donavan hadn't been back since his last visit; the nearly empty bag of chips Donavan had left in the hall was still there, undisturbed.

Lucas made his way through the apartment, cataloging images and comparing them to the ones he had in his mind. The bed, still unmade, with one pillow on the floor and the other plumped into a small hump. The dirty dishes next to the sink, unrinsed. The mail, haphazardly opened, sitting on the small end table in the living area.

Donavan hadn't come home after the meeting last night; that was obvious. The question was: Where had he gone? Stayed with Snake or one of the other Creep Clubbers? Or was Donavan avoiding his home, in hopes it would help him avoid Lucas? Possible. Maybe even probable after his walkout the night before.

Wait. Viktor Abkin's house—that's where he had to be. Probably getting more shots for his big “project.” At least it kept him out of the way for the time being; once Lucas talked to Viktor, Donavan's precious project would be done.

Lucas went to the bedroom and woke Donavan's computer, then opened the Web browser.

First he typed in the numeric IP address to make sure the geopatch he'd attached to Saul's shoe was active. It was. Lucas would come back to that later.

He started to leave the site, then thought better of it and checked the locations of the geopatches attached to Viktor, Ted, and Anita again. As expected, Ted and Anita were at the Abkin house, while unsuspecting Viktor whiled away his time at the bar.

Next he pointed the browser at the Creep Club home page. He entered Donavan's username and password, and was relieved to discover it still let him in.

Still no new posts on the page, though. There was no telling when Donavan would sign on and change his log-in information, so Lucas's online link to the Creep Club was already iffy.

He needed a real link to them. Maybe he'd be working with Saul, maybe he'd be working alone. In either case, he was sure he wanted to pay another visit to Creep Club. Eyes wide open this time.

He checked his watch. He'd left his meeting with Saul about an hour and a half ago. Now it was time to log in to Donavan's geopatch site.

He considered, for a moment, whether or not to barricade the front door of Donavan's apartment. Donavan could return at any time, especially since he hadn't been here at all in the last twenty hours or so. But he doubted Donavan would be surprised to see him there; in an odd way, Donavan had seemed to welcome his presence in the apartment.

He was fairly certain the apartment was under some kind of surveillance. Maybe Donavan even had a few tricks hidden inside the walls or ceilings. And again, this did nothing to change his plans. He was only here to use the computer and then would be on his way. He could always return later, when Donavan was back.

The front door was locked; that was good enough for now.

Lucas recalled Donavan's numeric IP address in his mind's eye, then keyed it into the browser window; instantly, a satellite/map hybrid of the greater DC area began to load on the screen. In a pane off the main window, he clicked on a drop-down text box and selected the number of the geopatch he'd affixed to Saul's shoe. A few moments later, a red dot began glowing on the screen as the image zoomed; it stayed stationary as he watched it for a few minutes.

Nodding, Lucas clicked on the history link and traced the geopatch's movements since its activation ninety minutes ago. Looked like Saul had made two brief stops, then a third at his current location, where he had been for the last fifteen minutes.

Lucas made a mental note of the three addresses, filing them away in his memory banks. He had some exploring to do.

AS LUCAS FOLLOWED SAUL'S RECENT TRACKS, HE THOUGHT THE MAN'S first stop was innocuous enough: a local coffee shop, carved out of the lobby of a blue glass building just south of the Washington Monument. Lucas went inside the shop to look around, ordered a latte to give himself a caffeine kick. Brushed nickel tables and chairs circled the L-shaped bar, with bright drop-down lights overhead. Everything in the coffee shop was sharp and angular—no soft curves or lines.

Something like Saul himself.

Lucas sipped at the latte—hotter than molten lava—as he pulled up the image of the computer map in his head. The next location he'd known immediately when he'd seen its address: the Lincoln Memorial.

It wasn't exactly a short walk from where he was—almost a mile—but he felt like hoofing it. Walking would give him some time to clear his mind, keep him off the Metro for a while.

Half an hour later, he stood in front of Honest Abe, looking up at the giant marble face. The mammoth statue of Lincoln, he thought, looked sad, as if seeing something that disappointed him.

Lucas took another sip of the latte, now only slightly cooler, and walked to the top of the steps, standing by one of the giant columns to take in the general area. Trees and lawn stretching away from him, leading to the Walking Mall's shimmering sheet of water. Washington Monument and Capitol Hill, wavering in the hazy distance.

His eye stopped on a long, low concrete bench adjacent to the base of the steps. It felt right: it was open, offering a long view in any direction. This felt, to him, like a place Saul would . . . would what?

He wasn't sure of that. Yet.

He walked down the steps to the bench, sat on it. Yes, Saul had been here. After another sip of the latte, he decided to give up on it and stood to walk it over to the nearest trash can.

He looked across the long stretch of the Walking Mall, toward Capitol Hill on the other end. His next destination was near the Hill, and he'd already done a bit of research on the address. A government office building, but no online records to indicate exactly what kinds of offices the building housed. A quick Google search revealed no private businesses or official government divisions using the address.

He moved north toward the Foggy Bottom Metro stop, where he could catch the Orange or Blue Line to Capitol Hill; he had less than an hour to work with if he was going to make his meeting with Viktor at Split Jacks.

He listened to his feet shuffling on the pavement as he walked, replaying the events of the past few days in his mind. Immediately, the world around him began to squeeze in. For a moment he wished he were in a dark, smooth place—a cool place—with his menagerie of totems surrounding him. The photos, the wonderful photos, the smiling faces and the scarf and the trinkets.

Lucas made himself take a few deep breaths as he continued walking. Had to keep it together right now. The itch was there, to be certain, but he could live with the itch for now. He'd be back home tonight.

A few blocks from the Metro stop, he went into a giant brick office building whose entrance was guarded by a spraying water fountain, feeling tiny drops of the water pricking at his face like grains of sand as he walked by. Inside the building, he moved confidently to the stairs and down them to the basement.

He'd spent a lot of time in this section of town, to be sure. He was, after all, something of a permanent tourist. He'd come here from . . . well, from the orphanage, drawn by the bright lights. But like anyone else, he wanted to see all the machinations of government, the memorials and statues and gardens and cemeteries. So he'd infiltrated many office buildings in this area, and the images of the buildings—their floor layouts, their utility grids—were carefully filed away inside his mind.

In the basement he pushed open a glass door, obviously not the original door to the basement, and went into the darkness beyond. After a few steps, just as he'd remembered, a motion detector flicked the light switch and illuminated the way for him. He took a right just past some built-in storage areas framed by wire and came to a door marked Danger: Electricacal Hazard in big, bright letters.

Most people shied away from danger signs. Lucas knew there was little danger from electrical hazards behind the door; instead, there was a short passageway that led to an underground tunnel and, eventually, a door to the Metro system.

A few minutes later he stood in a Metro car, crowded on all sides by commuters, their faces mute masks of indifference, headed to Metro Center or L'Enfant Plaza to catch different lines to their homes in Maryland or Virginia.

He let his gaze drift around the car, focusing on the distinct faces, trying to picture what their homes must be like. This one, a stocky man with a perfectly coiffed head, he imagined in a small condo. A divorced father of two, he sat forlornly in his seat tonight because this wasn't a weekend with the kids. The condo would be immaculate, because this man—Lucas decided his name was Dexter—was fastidious, ordered. The living room would be more of a great room, with a large picture window out the front and—

Lucas shook his head, consciously clearing his thoughts. Something was wrong inside his own mind; usually, when he invented these elaborate stories for the people he watched, he focused on their lives and loves. Now, he found himself fixating on their homes, wondering what they looked like inside, how the people he stared at would interact with their surroundings.

It frightened him, this new feeling. Frightened him the way a new junkie might be afraid of the next score: you want it, oh yes, but you're trembling because you want it.

He dropped his gaze to the floor, closed his eyes, tried to appear as if he were getting a bit of shut-eye on his own commute.

But behind his closed eyelids the cinema of imagined possibilities continued to play, and by the time he arrived at the Capitol South stop his mouth was dry and metallic.

The way a junkie's mouth would feel in the midst of a deep craving for another hit.

Saul's building—or what Lucas assumed to be Saul's building—was an old one several blocks from the Hill. That meant it would have room in the utility chases, as well as unused spaces and other creases where he could fold his body into the building itself.

It was past typical office hours now, but he didn't really believe this was a typical office, did he? Officially, at least in terms of Google and phone listings, no business or government agency used this building. Even its location seemed to isolate it; in a largely residential area, it was surrounded by row houses rather than other commercial buildings. And yet here it was, heavily fortified with scanners and guards just inside the front entry and signs posted on the building's exterior warning “unauthorized personnel” to stay away. He loved those kinds of signs; they always led to easy entries.

He took out his spotting scope for a closer look. Inside, on three of the building's five floors, he saw fluorescent lights illuminating office spaces. Still plenty of light right now, at least an hour or two from sunset, but people seemed to turn on overhead fluorescents from force of habit. That meant there was probably still a fair amount of activity inside. Even at this hour. Even on a Friday night. Interesting.

He checked his TracFone; he didn't have long before his meeting time with Viktor. Lucas was regretting even agreeing to see the guy. Why get involved in something potentially complicated and messy? This was exactly why he avoided most interactions with others. Invariably, it led to something more complicated.

And yet, maybe that was part of the reason, wasn't it? Because he'd had no personal contact with much of anyone for years. A chance to make up for his past transgressions.

Whatever those might be.

He sighed, knowing he would have to leave this building for later exploration. Maybe it would be a quick meeting with Viktor, and he could get back here for some initial recon. Maybe he could find a computer at an Internet café and log on to Donavan's geopatch site to track Saul's most recent movements. Provided Donavan hadn't discovered a few of his geopatches moving and deleted the entire site.

Split Jacks it was, then.

ELEVEN

IT WASN'T THE KIND OF PLACE LUCAS WOULD BE DRAWN TO NORMALLY. Or even drawn to abnormally, for that matter. The sign above the door was a stark, black-and-white thing: the words SPLIT JACKS stacked on top of each other in big block letters, with a large notch of white cut out of the middle in a jagged slit. A split in the words, then; someone was trying to be clever.

Behind the garishly lit neon of the front door, a decidedly mundane bar, of sorts, waited. It wasn't one of those classic old establishments, family run for generations, with a giant, thick-wood main bar and the feel of history in the air. Neither was it a sparkling new club, awash in shining metal and glass.

It was stuck somewhere in the middle, trying to be a bit of both and succeeding on neither count. Old diner-style stools topped with red leather were mounted to a sticky floor in front of a fake-wood bar mirrored with panels of chrome here and there.

At the far end of the long, rectangular space was a hallway, probably leading toward the restrooms and a few illegal card tables and a phone room with sports books. A name such as Split Jacks, after all, would be no accident.

He scanned the room, breathing through his mouth to keep the cloying mix of sweat and stale cigarettes out of his nostrils. Plenty of people in the bar, but he could tell the festivities hadn't hit full stride yet.

He began walking down the long, metal-plated bar, scanning faces. About halfway back he saw the angular face he was looking for, seated in a booth just across from the bar. Viktor was on his cell phone, a glass of caramel-colored liquid with a wedge of lime—more of a dull yellow than the proper green—jammed haphazardly on the rim. A few file folders sat on the booth seat next to him, papers spread out on the table.