Chapter 24
twenty-four
Back at the Blue Chestnut, I encrypt the whole interview, navigate the inn’s creaky wifi, and send it to Logan.
I upload everything to our Cloud server overnight, but I want Logan to see this sooner rather than later.
De Leon, who was probably shadowing me all day in his creepy-ass way, shows up with fish and chips while I’m working.
If I never see another deep-fried fish fillet again after this trip, it’s too soon.
I’m picking batter off my haddock when Logan calls. “Holy shit.”
“I think we’ve got her, don’t you? I still want to try to track down the kid who’s birthday it was, but I think we’ve got her.”
“We’ve got her, Maxie, come home.”
“Give me three more days. See if I can track down this Pete Clarke.” That still gets me back a week before my bumble’s gala. Plenty of time to polish up my dance moves.
“Three days,” Logan agrees. “No more. I fucking hate how exposed you are.”
“No sign of a tail today,” De Leon grunts, loudly enough for Logan to hear him.
“Put me on speaker for a tick, okay?” Logan asks.
I set the phone on the nightstand between the beds where we’re eating and tap on the speaker. De Leon mutes the news program he was pretending to watch.
“Myles, in your professional opinion, is Max safe staying another three days?” Logan asks.
De Leon grunts.
We both wait him out.
“He’s as safe as I can make him,” De Leon finally says.
“I think we shook them off in Tiverton. There are a lotta little b-and-bs and small holiday lets between here and there. I made reservations all the fuck over the place, under all sorts of names. It’ll take them a while to work their way here, particularly if they’re checking each place visually.
Would I rather leave tomorrow? Yeah. But I think we’re okay here for seventy-two hours. ”
“Thank you, Myles,” Logan says. “I appreciate everything you’ve done.”
De Leon grunts again and goes back to his chips.
I pick up the phone and tap off the speaker, grimacing at the greasy fingerprint that leaves behind. Fucking fried everything in this country.
“Any questions I should’ve asked and didn’t?” I ask as I tuck the phone into my neck.
“I’ll listen to it again and let you know. Nothing that immediately jumped out at me. Amazing job, Max. I know you like to stay in the background, but you have a real gift for interviews, mate.”
“No way. I’m straight back to the backroom after this. I barely finished that interview with Fred Evans without choking up. Fuck, she’s done a number on that guy.”
Logan sighs. “It was me he saw with her.”
“Yeah, I know. His problems are not on you, man.”
“I know that. He just looked . . . fucking awful, Maxie.”
I chew my lips, still feeling as though I kicked the man when he was down.
“He’s got two more months on one of those electronic anklet things for breaching a restraining order Miranda got on him.
I told him once he gets it off to take the first flight to Spain and find his daughter.
Get free of Miranda and her toxicity. If he does or not, that’s his choice.
But there’s something out there for him.
He doesn’t have to rot away in that hole, pining away for her.
That’s some fucking Wuthering Heights shit he was selling himself. Nothing to do with you, Lo.”
“Yeah.” Logan takes a deep breath and lets it out, a whoosh in my ear. “Stay safe, Maxie. Promise me if you haven’t found birthday boy by tea-time day after tomorrow you’re on De Leon’s plane.”
“Promise. I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to be. This whole country is a mold factory. My laptop’s mildewing.”
Logan laughs. “See you soon, mate.”
He hangs up so I don’t have to. I let the phone slither down onto the bed beside me.
De Leon cracks open a can of diet cola and offers it to me.
“Kind of defeats the purpose,” I say, taking the soda. “Why are you getting diet coke if you’re eating fish and potatoes that have been fried in freaking lard?”
“I like the taste,” De Leon answers. “How do you find someone named Peter Clarke in a country where every other bugger is named Peter or Clarke?”
Telling him the truth—now that I have access to the NHS database, the easiest way to find the right Peter Clarke is through his medical records—would land me in jail for a long time if De Leon decided to whisper it in the wrong ear.
Instead, I shrug. “Known associates, just like the cops. No reason to reinvent the wheel.”
“D’you know you take a breath on every eighth word when you’re telling the truth and every fifth word when you lie?” De Leon asks.
I glare at him and keep my mouth shut while I think that through.
“Bullshit. It depends on the length of each word.”
De Leon smirks. “Yeah, that was a lie, though.”
“Whatever.”
“Whaddo you think, Max, that I’m going to call my mate the Crown Prosecutor? I’m in the same gray area you are. I don’t want anyone looking too closely at my methods. I know you’re a hacker. You don’t see me condemning you for it. Certainly not the way you condemn me without knowing shit.”
I rub my hand over my face. “Okay, I’m sorry if I was hard on you.
I know you’re ex-special forces and I know special forces do things that are difficult to live with afterwards.
I’ve seen a more . . . settled side to you on this trip.
I still think you should take it easy with the daddy/little thing, but I won’t ride your ass about it. ”
“And the hacking?” De Leon asks.
“You do not quit, do you?”
De Leon shrugs. “Somethin’ we got in common.”
“Yes, I’m going to hack Peter Clarke’s current location.”
“How?”
“Fuck’s sake, Myles, what does it matter?”
“Told you, I like learning new things. It occurs to me that I’ve had a gen-u-ine hacker sitting next to me for over a week and you haven’t taught me how to steal one fucking credit card number or break into a single defense department database. What kinda hacker are you?”
“The kind that doesn’t steal credit card numbers. Well, except Logan’s. And that was only for leverage in case he didn’t ask me to be his best man.”
De Leon laughs. A real laugh that makes it all the way into his eyes.
“Nor do I fuck around with defense department anything. I want to see my fortieth birthday. However, I may have fucked around with the NHS database. I thought Germans were good about centralized records where an individual is identified by a single number from birth to death, but they’ve got nothing on the NHS. ”
De Leon salutes me with his diet coke. “True. Smart. Probably more information than the Social Security database, too.”
“Another database I do not fuck with. Homeland’s just a little tense about it.”
“What’s the lure of it, Max? You know, hacking? Is it the thrill of breaking the law or—”
I shake my head. “It’s never been about that.
I’m better with machines than people. They make sense to me.
People don’t. A machine never judges you.
Never gets annoyed when you don’t know the right thing to say.
Computers don’t abandon you. They’re always there, and when they’re not, I’ve learned how to fix them.
Working with computers, networks, security systems .
. . it makes the world make sense. I can control it. ”
De Leon nods. “I understand that.”
I stuff a handful of fries into my mouth, not at all sure why I’ve told him so much.
“These fuckers who are after you, what do they want?”
I swallow down the lump in my throat that’s not all potatoes.
“Physical security systems. I have some pretty specialized knowledge about a system that’s widely used by people who buy from the defense department.
I learned to crack it in the Navy. They want me to shut it down so they can go in, get whatever they’re looking for. ”
“And all this.” He waves a hand in the air, presumably indicating all the security. “This is better than just doing another job for them.”
“First of all, it’s never the last job. There will always be one more.
I told them the last job was the last job.
I even gave them the programs I’d developed.
It wasn’t enough. If I don’t stick to my guns, it will always be one more and one more and I’ll never be free of it.
Second, did you do any jobs with . . . collateral damage? ”
De Leon takes a sip of soda and swirls it around in his mouth before answering. “Yes.”
“My last job for them . . . three kids. They died. That’s on me. I won’t do it again.”
De Leon sighs. “Look, Max, I’m not disagreeing with you. We’re meant to protect civilians. That’s why I went into the SAS. I’m guessing that’s why you went into the Navy. I sure as fuck did not go in to watch women and children die. But you can’t save everyone.”
The bleakness in his tone as he says the last sentence makes my chest clench.
“You can try,” I say. “I can try. And I can avoid taking jobs from asshole mercs who don’t care about who they hurt.”
De Leon nods and picks at his chips, which must be going cold by now. Mine are. Disgusting.
“It’s kind of like the daddy thing, isn’t it?
” De Leon asks, examining a cold chip. “Do you think that’s why it appeals to us?
Because we weren’t able to save everyone.
But maybe we can get a do-over with one person?
If we can keep one little safe, maybe everything else we’ve seen and done, maybe it’s okay? ”
I hear the hitch in his voice at the end. I don’t look over, don’t try to stare him down. I just let him know he’s not alone. “Yes,” I say. “It’s more than okay. It’s a win.”
One thing I love about Brits? They stay put.
Pete Clarke has moved a whole sixteen miles away from where he grew up, to the historic city of Exeter. I infuriate De Leon by doing the tourist thing on the way to the interview, but the likelihood I’ll ever be back here is slim to none. I don’t want to miss the famous cathedral.