Terminated Read online

  I think that’s why I started working late. If I came home late enough, she’d be in bed and I could avoid the striptease. Even then, I’d have trouble sleeping next to a woman I knew to be beautiful, but who had become untouchable. During all of this I stayed faithful—though now I hear she might not have been faithful to me.

  I wondered if we were on the way to a divorce. A wall had formed between us, and I couldn’t figure out how to climb it. I had hoped to pull us back together after Rosetta shipped, but she was dead and I was alone in a big house in the suburbs. Nothing was resolved.

  I moved to the city. As I see now, there were women everywhere, but I didn’t notice them. The whole prospect of being with a woman just highlighted how much I had failed Carol, both in the bedroom and in saving her life. Margaret had reminded me that I had a lot to offer, even with my failings.

  Now, standing on Smoot 182.2, I watched the girl with the nice butt run toward the city. There was no traffic on the bridge going toward Boston, and she was silhouetted against the skyline. I sighed. Maybe I shouldn’t have slept with Margaret. Maybe that was a little whorish. Still, she hadn’t taken off her bra and then propped a pillow between us, and it had been a long time.

  I looked left to the MIT side of the bridge and saw Kevin striding toward me. He was about twenty smoots away, ignoring me and talking on his cell phone. I turned my head and looked toward Boston. What the hell is going on? There was still no traffic on the bridge. I crossed my arms, waiting for Kevin to reach me with the answers.

  A moment passed, but Kevin didn’t show up. I looked back to him. He was ten smoots away, and strolling. He closed his phone and started to take off his jacket. He winked at me and I saw his plan. We didn’t know each other. He’d fling the jacket over his shoulder, stand next to me, and say, “Quite a view, eh?” To anyone else, I would look like a guy being picked up by another guy. A normal day in the city.

  There was some honking coming from Cambridge. Some asshole had stopped his black car in the middle of the road, blocking both lanes. The honking got the black car moving, and it sped down the bridge.

  Kevin had the jacket off. He threw it over his shoulder. As he started to put his phone into his pocket, his stomach exploded into a red mist. I heard a rattling burst of sound. Another rattle, and Kevin’s chest exploded.

  He looked at me, surprised, and stumbled. The black car rocketed past, its rear window closing.

  Kevin took another step and dropped to a knee. His phone clattered to the sidewalk.

  I ran to him. He twisted as he lost control of his legs and fell onto his back. I knelt beside him. Blood poured as if from a bucket. It bubbled and churned in his chest as he gasped.

  He looked into my eyes. I grabbed his bloody hand and he squeezed it. Then he was gone. His blood ran across the sidewalk and covered Smoot 182.2.

  fifteen

  Agent Bobby Miller’s head gleamed in the sunlight as we stood on the bridge. He was saying something in an urgent staccato, but his words rattled around in my head without meaning. I was looking over his shoulder to where they were loading Kevin into a body bag.

  They had found me sitting against the fence on the Halfway to Hell marker, watching Kevin, waiting for him to move. Kevin’s dead eyes stared up into the sun, not wincing or blinking. I had no idea how I had gotten against the fence, just as I hadn’t noticed the circle of people form around Kevin and me.

  Here I was again. The sole survivor. First Carol, now Kevin. They tried to lift Kevin into the bag and his shoulder slipped out of the EMT’s hand. His head cracked on the sidewalk. He didn’t flinch. I said, “I’m sorry, dude. I’m so sorry.” I realized now, too late, that the situation was like nothing I had imagined. I had no idea what was going on.

  There are different kinds of software bugs. Most are simple mistakes where the programmer compared two numbers improperly, or forgot to clean up something in the computer memory. Others are massive miscalculations that can destroy a project. These are architecture errors.

  An architecture error meant that you had completely misunderstood the situation before you had started writing your code. It was like learning that your twenty-page midterm paper on World War I was actually supposed to be about World War II. When I was a project lead, I hated to hear about architectural errors because they meant that we were well and truly fucked. They meant that we had no idea what was going on. Kevin being killed in front of me told me that I had an architecture error. I had been working based on the assumption that this was a sim …

  “Hey, Tucker. Tucker, are you with me?” the agent asked.

  I blinked and looked at Kevin. “They’re taking him away.”

  “I know, man, I know. Look, let’s get you home. We can talk in my car.”

  “No,” I said, “I can walk.”

  “You can’t walk. Look at yourself. You look like one of the living fucking dead. I’ll give you a ride home.”

  I looked down at my clothes. The polo shirt and chinos were covered in blood. I even had blood in my socks. I said, “OK, Agent Miller, thanks.”

  He said, “Call me Bobby. I hate that Agent Miller crap. Wait here.”

  Bobby walked over to a police van and pulled out a bundle. He walked back to me and tossed me the bundle, saying, “Put this on. It will keep the blood off my seats.”

  It was a jumpsuit like the forensic guys were wearing. I put it on. It was too big, and I had to bunch the legs up at my ankles.

  Bobby and I got into his Honda Accord and we headed down Mass Ave. He had been smart to get me away from the bridge. My mind was starting to clear, though there were still flashes of red reappearing before my eyes and bursts of gunfire echoing in my ears.

  Bobby said, “Kevin didn’t tell you anything?”

  I said, “No. Just that I had screwed things up and that it was dangerous. He was pissed off that I’d gotten a job with Nate to look at Bronte. Do you know what he was talking about?”

  “Me? No. As far as I knew, Kevin was just chasing a porn ring.”

  “What’s wrong with porn?”

  “Apparently the girls weren’t actors. It was pretty dark shit.”

  “What does that have to do with Carol or with Rosetta?”

  “None of this makes any sense to me. I thought Kevin was nuts.”

  “It seems he proved you wrong.” I looked out the window at Symphony Hall.

  “By getting himself killed.”

  “I think it was my fault. I shouldn’t have gone to work for Nate.”

  “It’s not your fault. Shit happens.”

  I said, “You think it’s a coincidence? He gets shot just as I get a job?”

  “Yeah. I can’t see how they connect. I can’t even see how his investigation connects. All Kevin and I did was walk around and talk to people at MantaSoft about Alice Barton. We got your name and Kevin said he would handle it.”

  “So you know about my alibi.”

  “Hell, yeah. You were being cougared. God bless, man, God bless.”

  I decided not to mention who the cougar was. I decided not to do anything until I had some idea of what was going on. Rule one of holes: When you’re in one, stop digging.

  I asked Bobby, “Were you there when someone talked about my wife?”

  He shot his eyes at me, then back to the road. He said, “Yeah.”

  “Did you hear the part about her being a lesbian?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who said that?”

  “Can’t tell you.” Bobby parked in front of a hydrant at the end of Follen Street and we got out.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I said.

  “C’mon,” said Bobby, “I’ll walk you up to your place.”

  “There’s no need.”

  “You got me thinking. You talk to Kevin, Kevin gets killed. Maybe you’re next. I want to make sure nobody’s up the
re waiting for you. I’d feel like a dumb fuck if I dropped you off and then had to drive all the way back here for a crime scene. Besides, we have more to talk about.”

  We climbed the three narrow flights to my apartment, Bobby in front. Five steps up, reach a landing, five more steps, reach an apartment, five more, landing, five more, apartment, five more, landing, five more, my place.

  Bobby was huffing and puffing. “Jesus, do you live on the roof ?”

  “Just under it. It’s only one more flight. It’s got a patio.”

  We reached my apartment. I unlocked the door and Bobby opened it, gun in hand. I watched from the doorway as Bobby looked one way, then started to walk toward the other. He peeked into my office, opposite the kitchenette. It was an excellent hiding place. Empty. He looked in the bathroom and bedroom.

  “All clear,” he said, holstering his gun and walking back to the front door.

  I walked. “Thanks.” I started to strip off the jumpsuit, but noticed my fingernails. They had dried blood under them. My hands were covered in red-brown stains. I needed to wash my hands before I touched anything. Bobby followed me to the bathroom sink.

  Bobby said, “We gotta talk. About what happened on the bridge.”

  “You know what happened.”

  “No,” said Bobby, opening a notebook. “I know that we found Kevin dead on the bridge with you next to him. I know that you mumbled something about a car and I let it go because you were in shock. But you look like you’re feeling better now and I need more.”

  “What more?”

  Kevin’s chest exploding flashed across my mind as I washed my hands. There was more under the fingernails. I found a brush and started scrubbing. I said, “I don’t know what to tell you. Kevin was sauntering toward me with his jacket over his shoulder and then …”

  “‘Sauntering’? Why do you say ‘sauntering’?”

  “Because he was casual, like we didn’t know each other. There was this little, I don’t know, mechanical burping sound and …” My vision filled with Kevin’s chest exploding as my brain rewound and reran the killing. The video in my head was slowing down with each repeat.

  I continued. “I remember a button popping off his shirt and flying off the bridge. Then there was that sound again and there was more …” A shuddering gasp took hold of me.

  Bobby put his hand on my shoulder. He squeezed and said, “You’re doing great.” It reminded me of Kevin doing the same thing. My breathing slowed.

  I said, “He looked so surprised. And hurt. Like his feelings were hurt. He went to his knees and I grabbed him. That’s when the black car drove by.”

  “What kind of car.”

  “I don’t know. A big car. Black.”

  I watched the video in my mind again. “I saw a gun pull into the car as it went. There wasn’t any smoke coming off it. How could there not be smoke?”

  We were silent. The video kept restarting, replaying. Sauntering … bullets … black car. I kept groping for something I could have done to make things come out different. I caused this. I knew it. I’d gotten Kevin killed because I didn’t know what was going on.

  Bobby said, “Did you see the license plate?”

  “No.”

  More silence. I finished scrubbing and started to pull off the jumpsuit. Kevin’s blood covered my shirt. I pulled off the shirt and showed it to Bobby. “You need this?”

  Bobby shook his head. I grabbed a facecloth and scrubbed blood off my neck. I looked deeply into the mirror. My hair was flecked with blood. I’d never be clean. I asked, “What do we do now?”

  Bobby said, “We? We don’t do anything. You just sit tight until we catch someone, then we’ll need you at the trial.”

  I walked past Bobby into the kitchenette and pulled a white plastic garbage bag out from under the sink. I stuffed the jumpsuit and the shirt into the bag.

  I said, “Sit tight? What do you mean ‘sit tight’?”

  Bobby had followed me to the kitchenette. He sat on one of the tall chairs and said, “You know. Just live your life.”

  I leaned on the counter. “Live my life? What’s that mean?”

  “Do what you were doing before any of this happened.”

  “I was helping Kevin before any of this happened.”

  “Well, you’re not helping me. Just walk away.”

  Walk away? The thought of quitting stirred something deep in my mind. It was a feral thing that had been born when I found Carol on the kitchen floor. I had locked it away, afraid of what it wanted me to do. I got distracted from it when the cops accused me of Carol’s murder. Then I had moved to the city and had forgotten about it. Now the thing emitted a low growl.

  I said, “Walk away? That’s bullshit.”

  “What?”

  “Carol was murdered and I walked away. I was at work when some guy slit her throat. I should have been home protecting her.”

  Bobby said, “Fuck that. Guy like that would have killed you too.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Not maybe. Definitely.”

  “I’m not walking away.”

  Bobby took a deep breath. He looked at Click and Clack the hermit crabs, tapped on their tank. They ignored him.

  Bobby said, “He saved your life, you know.”

  I asked, “Who? Kevin?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How?”

  “You told me that he pretended he didn’t know you, that he threw his coat over his shoulder like he was just enjoying the day.”

  “Yeah.”

  Bobby said, “Well, it worked. The guy with the machine gun didn’t know you were together, so he let you live. Kevin saved your life.”

  “I suppose.”

  “So don’t fucking waste the gift. Quit working on this thing at MantaSoft and go back to your life.”

  “Don’t you get it? I have no life. My wife is dead, my best friend is dead. I’m the last one left standing. Waste the gift? The only gift Kevin gave me is the chance to catch the bastard who did this to him. I’ve got to earn the gift.”

  Bobby said, “Earn it how? By getting yourself killed? There’s better ways to handle survivor’s guilt.”

  “Kevin told me that the key to solving Carol’s murder would be knowing why Nate fired me. I’ll bet that’s the key to Kevin’s too. This isn’t the time for me to quit. It’s time for me to get serious.”

  Bobby’s face and bald head started to turn red. A vein pulsed along his right temple. He said, “Look, I get the whole ‘Avenge me’ thing, but you just saw Kevin get blown away by a fucking machine gun. From your description, it was a Heckler & Koch. That motherfucker fires fifteen rounds a second. How are you going to fight that? With your good looks?”

  “I’m not quitting.”

  “Yes! You fucking are!” Bobby slammed his hand on the kitchen counter. The sound ricocheted through my head like a gunshot. I winced.

  “I’m not quitting. I’m going to help.”

  “Who are you going to help?”

  “You.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  This wasn’t working. I decided to take a different approach.

  “Listen to me,” I said. “Rosetta is a distributed decryption system that harnesses a legion of zombie computers to create a massively networked supercomputer. It can decrypt a message based on a 2048-bit key in ten hours using a simulated quantum computer algorithm, and it can decrypt a 1024-bit encoded message in three hours.”

  Bobby stared at me. I continued, “Now, if you can tell me what I just said, then you’re right. You don’t need me.”

  Bobby put his hands on his hips, looked at Click and Clack, and swore to himself, “Goddamn, motherfucker, shit!” He stalked around my apartment, muttering. He looked back at me and said, “You’re probably going to get killed.”

 
I said, “I need this to end, one way or the other.”

  More stalking, more muttering, then silence. Bobby returned and said, “Well, if you’re going to walk into the lion’s den, you should know where the lions are.”

  I asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you should know your enemies. The guy who told us that Carol was a lesbian was this British guy named Roland Baker.”

  “Damn it! I hate that guy.”

  “Yeah, well, he hates you too. So watch out for him,” Bobby said, reaching into his shirt pocket for his business card. He gave me the card. “You run into any trouble at all, you call me.” He paused and shook his head. “Now comes the tough part.”

  “What?”

  “I have to call Kevin’s wife, Charlene.”

  My breath tightened. I said, “Yeah. Me too.”

  We shook hands, and Bobby left me standing in my apartment. Now that he was gone, I wasn’t feeling so brave. My plan to catch Carol’s killer had rested entirely on finding out why Nate fired me. I’d counted on Kevin to tell me what Nate’s answer meant. Now I wouldn’t know.

  I looked at the clock. I was having dinner with Nate in an hour. I needed a shower. I needed to get rid of these bloody pants. I emptied my pockets. Key, wallet, BlackBerry … and cell phone. I never carried a cell phone. I used a BlackBerry.

  I examined the phone and realized that it was Kevin’s. He was holding it when he died, and dropped it when he got shot. I must have picked it up on the bridge and stuffed it in my pocket.

  I held the phone in my open palm, feeling its weird energy. It was the last thing Kevin touched before he died. The person on the other end of that call was the last person to hear his voice.

  I pictured the scene, Kevin talking on the phone. He had looked happy and relaxed. He had been talking to a friend.

  If Kevin had been talking to a friend, that person’s name would be in the phone’s address book. I clicked through the keypad menus and found the list of phone calls. The last call had been to someone in Kevin’s address book. Someone close enough to Kevin to have her name recorded.

  Why would Kevin have been talking to Dana Parker?