Chapter 15: Sadness

I LEFT THAILAND as Stefan Nilsson and entered Singapore as Dag Hamar. From Singapore, I flew to Amsterdam and then to Stockholm. Mom was waiting for me and was ready to head home. I enjoyed an evening with the family and we flew out the next morning.

I was still upset about Char. We hadn’t developed a deep loving relationship but meeting, traveling, and making love had gotten us to the point where I thought we had potential. She was even-tempered, bold, and caring. All things I’d come to admire. What she wasn’t, in my opinion, was honest. That’s what got to me.

I know I come up short in that category. I use false identities, avoid investigation, masquerade as something I’m not. All in the name of being a detective. But I never did it to hurt another person. Maybe I was just upset that I’d encountered someone who was better at the game than I was.

Maizie was glad to see me. She jumped into my arms when I walked through the door, knocking the suitcase down the stairs as I dropped it to catch her. She placed a lot of wet licks on my face. Mrs. Prior looked at the dropped suitcase and up the stairs at the two of us.

“Someone is happy you’re home,” she said.

“Two someones,” I said. “It’s good to be home.” Maizie and I headed for my recliner and I sat with the little dog in my lap until we both fell asleep. I knew I’d be jetlagged for a while. I didn’t plan to do anything significant for a few days. My calendar for the weekend was full of dog dates and long walks. Saturday morning, Maizie and I walked to Tovoni’s for coffee and a biscuit. Jackie was happy to see us, too.

“One special Americano and one doggy biscuit coming up.” Maizie got served first. She curled up next to my chair and took dainty bites of the cookie while I sipped coffee and read the newspaper. “You look like you’ve been dragged around the world,” Jackie said.

“Very nearly. I guess, in fact, I have. I just didn’t cross the Pacific. I hit both sides of it, though.”

“Welcome home. Any fun adventures?”

“Sadly, nothing I’m allowed to talk about. It’s a hazard of my work. I have to keep things confidential.”

“Sounds very spy-like. I don’t remember any spies who had such a cute companion as you have, though. I hope you’ll be around for more regular visits for a while. I missed this little lady.”

She’d missed Maizie. I was really just the person who was leashed to her. I guessed that was okay. Jackie was nice but there was no spark between us. I thought we might become good friends, though, if I could stay in town long enough. I wondered how my office on the waterfront was doing. Monday morning would definitely be cleanup time. Maybe I’d hire a maid.

Until then, Maizie and I had some parks to visit.

Maizie was as excited to get to the office as I was. We stopped to see Jackie on the way down the hill but once we left the coffee shop, Maizie was pulling me along. The office was a little stale after almost a month of not being here. The pier is mostly warehousing and dust abounds. I was definitely going to call a maid service. I didn’t even own a vacuum cleaner. I used a roll of paper towels from the restroom to dust my desk and chair before tracking down the ‘Daily Maid’ service. They promised to have a crew to clean my office in the next day and agreed to a weekly schedule. I couldn’t justify them coming in every day. It didn’t get that dirty.

I locked my doors and checked the vault to make sure everything there was running correctly. The air filtration system and air conditioning in the room kept dust to a minimum and I cleaned up anything else I spotted. All my servers were in good shape and I ran maintenance checks on each of them.

I also placed eight unused American Express cash cards in a strong box. Save them for a rainy day.

Tuesday, the cleaners arrived at ten, happy to have a daytime cleaning to do. Two women swept through the office like a tornado, stopping only to praise Maizie and to tell her what a good dog she was. I scooped up my laptop and my dog and moved into the hall while they worked. Bathroom and two offices. It wasn’t really a lot and the two women were done in forty-five minutes. I paid them and they promised to be back at the same time the next Tuesday.

The office smelled fresh. Maizie went to her bed and pawed at it a bit to get it fluffed the way she wanted, then she lay down. I lay on the sofa, looking out across the Sound, and started catching up on the news and information that might lead to another job. It was into this homey setting that Jordan stepped.

“Isn’t this cozy,” he said. Maizie jumped up, barked once and then ignored Jordan, settling in on her bed again.

“I knew I’d hear from you eventually,” I moaned. “I sent you a report that I composed on the airplane. I don’t think there’s anything else I can do.” He sat in a chair across from me and I sat up on the sofa. “Oh, I suppose you want the docs.” I went to my desk and pulled out the manila envelope with Gregory Wright’s passport, death certificate, and birth certificate in it. Jordan glanced through it briefly.

“This is him?”

“It’s who he claimed to be. Frankly, I’ve located so many possible identities that he may have erased himself completely. This is the one he was using at the time of his death. I had enough time before I was forced out of Thailand to check with the hospital. They confirmed it. They sent the body for cremation.”

“No evidence.”

“None.”

“What about his computer? He had to be operating with some kind of power. The code for what he was doing could be valuable.”

“In a dumpster in Chiang Mai.”

“What? You threw it away?”

“He told me, before he died, that he’d coated his SSD with a water-activated solvent capable of eating through the drive in thirty seconds. When I recovered the computer, it had been submerged in saline water for several hours. It seems his nurse didn’t want anyone else to use his code.”

“We should check out the nurse.”

“I’m pretty sure your guys already did.”

“My guys?”

“Jordan, the two who stepped between me and the two agents from what I guess was Russia, though they didn’t identify themselves. If they hadn’t arrived when they did, I’d be on the pointy end of a stick now as they tried to torture information I don’t have out of me.”

“We didn’t have an agent following you there.”

“Hmm. Someone did. If you discover who, say thank you for me.”

“So, there’s no hacker and no computer or secret code. Nothing left but rumors.”

“Rumors?”

“Very hush-hush. No one knows how deep it goes. It seems that several countries have lost the launch codes for their nuclear missiles. Everyone else is on high alert.”

“Damn.” Terry had told me he’d disabled their missiles, but I’d found that hard to believe. It seemed too much of a stretch that he could have gotten so deep into so many countries’ systems. “The Barnhouse Effect.”

“What’s that?”

“Kurt Vonnegut. First story he ever published. Told about a guy who used his mental energy to destroy all the nuclear weapons and then conventional weapons in the world. Hacker X had the same ability. Was there ever any code on his computer to start with?”

“Science fiction. He worked in a digital world and he did digital damage. Nobody’s weapons were destroyed. Even if the rumors are founded, he only took away the codes, not the weapons.”

“Erased their digital identity,” I said.

“Well, I have just one more thing to do,” Jordan said. He opened his briefcase and put the envelope I gave him in it. Then he withdrew another. He handed it to me. “A quarter of a million in Eurobonds and a certificate of paid tax from the IRS. Along with the thanks of our government. Good job, Dag.”

He left me speechless, stopping a second to scratch Maizie’s ears and then leaving without another word.

I felt I was morally obligated to make one more trip. Maizie and I loaded our supplies in the Mustang and headed for Las Vegas. I made the rounds of casinos I’d deposited funds in and cleaned out the rest of the accounts. I hadn’t left that much on deposit, but money sitting in a casino doesn’t earn interest. I had another seventeen thousand in cash cards when I left. Then I drove out to Henderson and the home of Leslie Whiteman. I rang the bell.

“Hello? May I help you?” she asked when she answered the door.

“Mrs. Whiteman, I visited you a couple of months ago,” I started.

“Oh yes. Jason Sanborn. I still get a kick out of that name. What can I tell you that I haven’t already, Mr. Sanborn?” She stood in the doorway, not inviting me in.

“I’m afraid it is what I can tell you,” I said. “I’m sorry I have to report that Terry passed away. I was with him in Thailand at the time.”

She stood there looking nonplussed for a few moments. She took a deep breath and refocused on me.