Chapter Thirty-Three
When Jake had brought her the urn, supposedly from Switzerland and supposedly containing Daniel’s ashes, Diana had finally stepped through a portal from before to after, from together to alone. Holding the urn, she’d realized that she’d never again feel Daniel’s arms around her. Hear his ready laugh when she teased him. Watch pleasure suffuse his face as he enjoyed her body.
Now, looking at Daniel asleep in the chair, his face as tender and vulnerable as a child’s in repose, she wondered if she’d ever really known him at all. If she had, she’d certainly lost him long before he catapulted himself out of her life.
Maybe he’d loved her—for five minutes. But longer than that? He couldn’t love anyone but himself.
One thing was clear: Daniel had never intended to give up hacking. His offer to partner with her and go legit had been a setup designed to gull her into traveling to Switzerland in order to celebrate the transition. He and Jake had had other plans, and she was the witness they needed to make them happen. After that, she’d become the docile, blindfolded helpmate, the princess in the tower whom they needed to bring their plans to fruition.
What could have been worth the betrayal? As if Diana had finally asked the right question, the dinging sound started up again.
“Huh? What happened? Where’s . . . ?” Daniel flailed, looking wildly around the room and tipping sideways, nearly falling out of his chair.
“Whoa, take it easy.” Diana jumped up and grabbed his arm.
Ding-ding-ding. The sound seemed louder, and Diana spotted the source—barely visible in Daniel’s pocket was the tip of the distinctive plastic arc of his Bluetooth receiver. It occurred to her that though cell phones didn’t get a signal in the silo, his computer probably had a voice messaging program like Skype. He’d need a headset like the Bluetooth in order to hear and talk.
“Di?” Daniel looked at her, confused, his pupils dilated.
As she steadied him, she hooked the receiver and slid it from his pocket, folding it in her hand to muffle the sound. “You just fell asleep,” she said.
“Jesus.” Daniel tried to push himself to his feet but fell back, and all the while the damn thing kept dinging. She fumbled with the receiver until she found the button that turned off the sound and pressed it.
“What the hell’s the matter with me? Feels like . . . feels like . . . I dunno . . .” His words slurred together. “Am I sick?” He touched his face. “My computer. Where . . . ?” He put his hands down in the empty spot on his desk where his keyboard should have been and sat there hunched over, his mouth hanging open.
“You’re not sick. You were just exhausted. You fell asleep practically on top of your keyboard, so I moved it aside. See? It’s right over here.”
Daniel glanced over at it. “Log out. Need to log out,” he muttered. “Need to . . . shut down.”
“You already did that.”
“Did I?”
“Remember? Right before you fell asleep. Come on. You need to lie down and rest.”
She wasn’t sure he’d heard her. But then he licked his lips and nodded.
She helped him sit on the floor. “You want to work all night, you should at least put a mattress or a couch in here,” she said.
“Mmmm.” He crossed his legs like a little kid sitting at a campfire. “Jake?”
“He’s in Maryland. For the meeting with Vault?”
“Oh, yeah.” He started to tip sideways. Stopped and looked at her. “What time is it?”
“We have plenty of time. The meeting’s not for another couple of hours.”
“But I need to . . .” Again he tried to push himself up. He was like the blow-up clown toy she’d once had that kept bobbing upright no matter how many times you smacked it down.
“I’ve got it under control. We’ll be ready,” Diana said.
“But . . .” He mumbled something unintelligible.
She knelt beside him and wrapped her arm around him. He smiled and gave her leg a weak squeeze. Rank, coffee-scented breath rose to meet her.
“You don’t need to worry,” she said. “I’m finishing up the presentation. Adding some material I researched. Enumerating the benefits and assessing the downside of doing nothing.” She went on, making it up as she went, allowing her voice to rise and fall in a gentle rhythm like this was a bedtime story. “Don’t worry about Jake. He’s probably in the air. I checked. There’s no weather to speak of in Baltimore. Looks like his plane is scheduled to land on time.”
She went on and on, inventing status updates. Little by little she felt Daniel go limp. She eased him the rest of the way down onto the floor. He turned over and curled up. She took off her jacket, folded it, and slid it under his head.
Then she waited. Daniel’s eyes were closed. His breathing evened out. When his computer beeped, she slowly got to her feet and went over to it. Another message-waiting alert had popped up on Daniel’s screen. This time it was a voice mail.
She hooked the Bluetooth over her ear, turned it back on, and clicked open the message. “New message, marked ‘urgent,’ ” said an electronic voice. A pause. Then: “Dr. Kennedy? This is Ashley Highsmith. You treated me at Neponset Hospital and left me your business card?” Ashley’s voice sounded decidedly odd. Lighter and breathier. “I’m running a hundred-and-three-degree fever and”—she coughed and wheezed—“my chest aches.” In the background, Diana heard a mockingbird singing. That had to be Pam’s birdie clock. “My fingers and toes are swollen. Please. Call me.” The phone number she left was Pam’s.
When the message finished playing, a window popped up asking Diana if she wanted to return the call. She glanced quickly at Daniel. He was snoring. But before she could click yes, an e-mail message from Jake appeared. He’d sent it just seconds earlier, at 2:31 P.M. An hour and a half to go, just in time for him to get to Bethesda for the meeting. His message to Daniel began:
Plane delayed. Finally at BWI. Did u c? ^5!
On the next line was a link. Diana clicked and a news article came up.
DNA evidence proves the impossible
Federal law enforcement officials confirmed today that DNA collected from blood evidence at the scene of a recent bank robbery matches the DNA of a woman who died five years ago after undergoing a bone marrow transplant. When asked how this was possible, officials had no comment.
This was worthy of a high five? Diana read the rest of the article, then read it again, trying to wrap her head around the implications. Blood evidence at a crime scene matched a woman who’d died after undergoing a bone marrow transplant. How was that possible?
Diana rocked back in her chair. The implications were staggering. Every defense attorney in the country would be saving that news clip to read to their next jury, proof positive that DNA analysis was unreliable. Talk about instant reasonable doubt, and it could infect every case that involved DNA evidence. Daniel would have called it sabotage in defense of privacy.
Surely it was no coincidence that the file stolen from MedLogic was a DNA profile, or that one of the files she’d opened on Volganet was a DNA profile too. Many of Gamelan’s clients would have had DNA profiles of patients stored in their databases. How many of them had Jake and Daniel amassed?
Diana retraced her steps, looking for the DNA profile she’d found earlier. It didn’t take long. In the same directory, there were hundreds and hundreds more.
Now she understood why Jake and Daniel had been desperate to ensure that Gamelan’s relationship with their newest client got off to a smooth start. Working with Vault would give them access to thousands more profiles—Vault stored the health records of federal prisoners, civil servants, and elected officials. Anyone who’d had a DNA swab, or fertility treatment, or registered to donate a kidney or bone marrow. Possibly even elected officials whose DNA had been collected just in case their remains had to be identified.
Diana knew how easy it would be to alter the records in a DNA database, merrily swapping one person’s profile for another’s. Corrupt DNA databases—you’d only need to hit a couple—and you could upend Big Brother. To someone like Daniel, as the slogan went, that was priceless.
But with Daniel and Jake’s usual thoughtless, scattershot approach, not every person who found himself implicated by DNA evidence would be dead. Innocent people would find themselves standing trial and others would get away with murder. And if the scheme was discovered, Diana would surely look as if she’d been partner to the conspiracy, if not the ringleader.
Now she understood why they’d had to bring her in. She’d given them no choice. The minute she’d intercepted that DNA profile from MedLogic, she’d outlived her usefulness. When she found Volganet, she was a hairsbreadth from figuring out what was going on. By bringing her in, Daniel must have thought he could control her. After all, she was isolated, alone. And she still had to be in love with him, didn’t she?
Diana glanced down at Daniel. His eyelids quivered and his shoulders twitched. He was having a bad dream. Poor baby. But whatever was going on in his sleep, it was nothing compared to what he was going to wake up to.
She found the screen that had popped up and returned “Ashley’s” call.