The Unseen (19 page)

Lucas watched her eyebrows furrow as she read, and in the secret history he was inventing for her, this meant she was pondering the Great Questions of who she was, wondering where she'd gone wrong.

Mother Teresa picked up the section of the paper she was reading, held it in front of her and unfolded it, giving Lucas a clear view of the front page.

It was the Metro section of the paper, and a large photo occupied about a quarter of it.

A photo of his own face.

He caught part of the headline—MAN SOUGHT FOR—but that's all he could read before Mother Teresa refolded the paper and started another story.

Lucas sank to the floor of the utility closet, abandoning his peephole, abandoning his invented history for Mother Teresa.

His face.

In the newspaper.

How? Why? Officially, he didn't exist to the government. To anyone. He had no identification, no driver's license, no social security number. He moved from odd job to odd job, always getting paid under the table in cash or panhandling.

But that hadn't stopped Donavan or Saul from discovering him, had it? And now, his photo was on the front page of the Metro section.

Wait. Saul. Had to be Saul. After all, Saul had managed to discover him, track him, enlist him. And now, after a trip to Saul's home, he had a good idea the man was selling secrets to someone. Saul had to be behind this, trying to flush him into the open for . . . he wasn't sure what.

Without bothering to check the bathroom, Lucas clumsily stumbled out of the utility closet, surprising a young man in a hooded sweatshirt at the sink. The young man eyed him for a few seconds, his eyebrows arched in a question.

Numbly, Lucas looked around him. Back inside the utility closet, he saw a WET FLOOR sign and an empty mop bucket. Quickly, he grabbed the sign and slid it out onto the bathroom floor, then wheeled the bucket out after it. “Hard to keep this floor clean,” he mumbled.

The young man at the sink finished washing and nodded, but said nothing. He dried his hands with a paper towel and threw it into the trash before disappearing out the bathroom's front door.

Lucas stood silently for a few moments, feeling the sweat trickle down his forehead as he collected his thoughts.

Lucas stepped up to the sink, splashed some water on his face and dried it. He studied his reflection in the mirror, looking for an answer that didn't appear. Okay, if he was going to step out into the donut shop—let alone the rest of DC—and if his face was plastered on the front page of the paper, it was probably best to change his appearance in some way.

That meant he'd have to go upstairs again. He swung off his everpresent backpack and unzipped the outer pocket, where he kept some gloves and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. He pulled the cap down over his head. Not exactly a wig or a change of hair color, but it was something.

He returned his attention to the backpack and pulled out a pair of wraparound sunglasses from a side pocket. Hiding the eyes, he knew, was the key to a disguise; without the eyes, people couldn't distinguish faces as easily.

With the cap and sunglasses in place, he replaced the pack on his back and went out into Dandy Don's. No one appeared to notice him leaving the bathroom, which was good.

At the counter, he greeted the young woman with short-cropped, kinky hair and heavy black-framed glasses. She offered a thousandwatt smile and asked what she could get for him.

He ordered an old-fashioned and a cup of coffee, and picked up a copy of the paper from the display near the counter. The young lady looked at the front of the paper, then at him, and announced his total. He thanked her and paid, retreating to a corner by the door.

Across the room, Mother Teresa was gathering up the kids, getting ready to leave.

Lucas bit into his donut, sipped his coffee, and folded open the paper, finding the Metro section.

There was his face again. Blown up, a bit out of focus and pixelated, but recognizably him. Obviously a still from a security cam somewhere. But where? MAN SOUGHT FOR QUESTIONING IN DISAPPEARANCE, the headline read. Below it, he read the story:

Metro police are searching for a man described as a person of interest in
a kidnapping case involving two principals of ATM2GO, a DC-headquartered
company.

The kidnapping victims, identified as Anita Abkin and Ted Hagen, were
reported missing Saturday morning after Viktor Abkin, also a principal at
ATM2GO and husband of Anita, found a ransom note in his home and
agreed to a secret meeting with the alleged kidnapper at a local club.

The meeting between Viktor and the alleged kidnapper was caught on
security cameras at Split Jacks and turned over to authorities, on Saturday
morning.

Abkin said he received a threatening phone call from the alleged kidnap
per shortly after finding the ransom note on Friday, and agreed to meet at
Split Jacks. After the meeting, he went directly to police to report the crime,
turning over the note and opening his home to investigators.

Police have since gathered security camera footage from the lounge where
the two met, enhancing the images released to the public on Saturday. Police
also hinted at other gathered evidence, but refused to disclose its nature,
citing the case as an “ongoing and developing investigation.”

Viktor Abkin commended the police department's fast work in a state
ment released late Saturday. “I intend to fully cooperate with investigators,
and all of us at ATM2GO want nothing more than to see Anita and Ted
safely returned.”

The subject in question is described as . . .

Lucas stopped reading, turned to look at people around him. No one was staring. Mother Teresa, her two kids in tow, was walking out the front door of the shop.

He closed the paper and tried another bite of the donut. Between the first bite and the second bite, it had somehow lost its flavor. Lucas chewed slowly a few times before washing it down with a sip of coffee. But even the coffee now tasted bitter.

Viktor. He never would have imagined it . . . and yet, he should have. It was obvious, from their meeting, that he was a man looking only for the best angles for himself. Now he'd been able to finger Lucas for kidnapping his wife and business partner. Probably had his life insurance claims already filed as well.

And Lucas had done quite a bit to help him. He'd been in Viktor's house twice, leaving physical evidence—most likely a fingerprint or two, since Lucas hadn't exactly been careful while inside the home. He'd called Viktor's cell phone number, which would be verifiable with records. He'd have to ditch the TracFone now; he'd never be able to use it again unless he wanted to advertise his location to the police. He'd met with Viktor at Split Jacks, helpfully allowing his image to be recorded on security cameras.

Lucas propped his elbows on the table and rubbed his face. Time to plan his next move. Even with something as simple as a baseball cap and sunglasses, he wasn't horribly concerned about being recognized; as always, everyone looked, but few people saw. But physical evidence might lead a trail back to him at some point. He'd never been fingerprinted or booked into a police station. He didn't exist to the federal government. And that was just what he wanted. Still . . . perhaps something in the records from the orphanage? He didn't recall any specific tests or samples, but most of those memories were fuzzy.

This simply meant he would have to be more careful and plan his next moves. Viktor had added a huge wrinkle to all of this by putting Lucas in the middle of a police investigation, and that meant Viktor would need another visit.

But then, that's exactly what Viktor and the police would expect him to do. Which meant, if he did nothing for now, he'd confuse the issue. Keep quiet long enough, and he'd possibly convince the police it was time to take a closer look at Viktor's story.

There was a catch with that, of course: Lucas didn't know if the other two were, in fact, missing. Strike that. He was pretty sure they were missing but unsure if they were still alive.

If they were, waiting might not be the best option. True, they had been plotting to kill Viktor, but that didn't mean they necessarily deserved to die. In any case, he didn't feel any particular need to stick his neck back into a three-ring circus of people who were plotting to kill each other.

He stood and walked to the door, hearing the young lady at the counter call out a “Thanks!” over the tinkling of the attached bells.

Viktor would have to wait, he thought as he headed toward the Metro. The unwelcome publicity complicated matters, certainly, but it really had no immediate effect on him. He would let Viktor slide; right now, Saul was the priority. Then, the next Creep Club meeting.

Talk about the wrong priorities.

LUCAS DEPOSITED THE OLD TRACFONE IN AN ALLEY DUMPSTER, FOUND A kiosk, and bought a new one.

From there, he made his way back to his secret stash near the Washington Monument. After his first meeting with Saul, he had jettisoned the briefcase onto the tracks. But he had kept the files, discs, and wrapped packages, all packed away in the basement of an abandoned building. Now it was time to check on those; there might be clues that would tell him what his next steps should be. How to prepare for his next Creep Club meeting. How to prepare for his next Saul meeting.

For a man who loved to be alone, he was finding himself in a lot of meetings.

After a ride on the Metro, Lucas exited the underground tunnel and made his way to the old brick building. Instead of entering the building, however, he casually walked on the sidewalk in front of it, baseball cap low over his face and sunglasses hiding his eyes. He had to check out the vicinity, make sure the area wasn't being watched.

A quick sweep of the perimeter didn't show any obvious signs of surveillance crews or stakeouts. It had been a few days, and he thought it unlikely the stash would be watched for more than fortyeight hours with no sign of him anywhere.

Of course, that was before his face had been plastered all over the front of today's paper.

He cut down the alley, pushed aside a garbage can, and boosted himself through the basement window of the building. In a few minutes, he had uncovered the stash and now took a closer look at the contents.

He knew these items would be marked, tracked. After all, if people such as Donavan had easy access to things like geopatches, there was no telling what kind of technology was available to spooks who worked for the federal government.

He leafed through the dossier of papers. Background information and files on people known to be members of Creep Club. About half the files were complete; the others were sketched in with photos and some rudimentary information. A few had absolutely nothing on them except a name on the file tab.

He paged through the files, searching, and was surprised to find no folder—empty or otherwise—prepared for Donavan.

He put aside all the files, unwrapped a small rectangular package, and revealed a cell phone. He smiled. As if he were going to use a phone given to him by a government agent. Or a government spy, as the case might be.

The next package was a box with a few DVDs, tube-cams, a miniGPS system, and a couple other pieces of electronic equipment he didn't immediately recognize.

He set all this aside and turned to the last package. He unwrapped it and stared at it for several seconds.

He had no idea what it was.

It was a cube, roughly the size of one of those old Rubik's cube puzzles, but solid. It felt like it was made of granite or marble or something similarly cold and hard. Its surface was the darkest black he'd ever seen—so black it seemed to actually suck light from the immediate vicinity.

The appearance made him expect the cube to be heavy and solid. And yet, it was light. He held the cube up to his face, shook it lightly. He thought something inside shifted, but he couldn't be sure.

A quick examination of the cube's exterior surfaces revealed no buttons, no clasps, no hinges. It was smooth and solid everywhere. Something told him this cube was a container holding something important, but he had no idea what. Or how to get to it.

With a tinge of regret, he wrapped the cube in its paper again, shoving it and all the other items back into his secret hiding spot behind the bricks.

Nothing immediately useful to him in Saul's packages, but he hadn't expected there to be. More than anything, he felt he had needed to take a look at the items before contacting Saul again; for now, he had to play along with the whole charade. Until he had more information on Saul and what he was involved in, Lucas had to look like he was working with him.

After hiding the packages and replacing the bricks, Lucas went back to the nearby Metro tunnel and took the train to L'Enfant Plaza station, where he walked across the giant tile floors and found a quiet bench near the corner. He pulled out his new TracFone and dialed Saul's number from memory.

After one ring, the line connected, but no one spoke. Lucas waited a few seconds before speaking himself. “I'm calling for Saul.”

Lucas heard a creaking sound on the line, a chair maybe, then Saul's unmistakable voice. “Got something for me?”

Lucas watched people hurrying toward the gates that would carry them elsewhere. “Maybe.” He paused. “How about we meet?”

“When?”

“Now.”

“Now works. Where you at?”

Lucas smiled. “As if I'd tell you.”

Saul chuckled. “Just because I'm a government agent doesn't mean you can't trust me.”

Which government?
Lucas asked himself quickly before pushing the thought away. He looked out the window and saw the giant white spire that was visible from almost anywhere in the DC area. “Let's make it easy,” Lucas said. “Meet me at the Washington Monument in half an hour.”