Noah froze as a chill descended his spine. He lifted his hands off his keyboard, staring at the blue dot. Slowly he turned his laptop around first one way and then the other, looking at all the expansion slots. He didn’t see anything, but that didn’t relieve his fear. Knowing what he did about computers, he instantly knew he’d been hacked, perhaps with Spyware and a Keylogger. Someone had read his incoming email, meaning they had also been reading his outgoing email. Someone was spying on him, digitally watching him. Could it have something to do with the two men who had taken turns following him? In his mind’s eye, he saw the face of the African American he’d confronted. Then Noah remembered the woman from the MIT library describing the men who had come for Noah’s thesis as attractive. Could they have been the same men following him, and if they were, why would the FBI be following him? If they were FBI?
If someone was monitoring his computer use in real time, Noah was relieved he hadn’t tried to look up Ava’s hospital employee record. His next thought was the realization that the break-in yesterday hadn’t been for spare change and a Percocet prescription, but rather to bug his computer. Quickly, Noah reached forward and pressed the power button, turning the blasted laptop off. He got up and went to the window. He couldn’t help but worry that whoever had broken into his apartment could be close, watching him physically as well as digitally. There were a few vans double parked on Revere Street. As crowded as Beacon Hill was, it was difficult for electricians, plumbers, and other services to ply their trades. There was never any place to park. So there was no specific reason to suspect any of the vans were there for malicious purposes, but they could have been.
A wave of paranoia spread through Noah, making him painfully aware of his absolute vulnerability. The thought again occurred to him that perhaps the hospital was behind all these shenanigans to buttress their case against him. But he dismissed the thought as totally unrealistic. The issue of a possible minor ethical violation a decade ago on a thesis project hardly warranted continuous and possibly illegal surveillance. Noah searched for something bigger, more sinister, but what? Nothing came to mind other than his questioning Ava’s competence, irritating her lobbying boss. But that seemed ridiculously far-fetched. He even mockingly laughed at the idea that the Nutritional Supplement Council might be taking issue with Noah’s questioning Ava’s ability with an advanced laryngoscope. It was an absurd notion.
But there was one thing Noah was certain about: he did not want to remain a sitting duck in his isolated apartment with its door busted. Anyone could walk in at any moment by just giving the door a forceful push. Besides, if his computer was bugged, which was 99 percent certain as far as he was concerned, the apartment itself could be bugged. Someone could be literally watching him at that very moment. With that thought in mind, he glanced around the room, knowing how small a wireless, wide-angle video recorder could be and how easily it could be hidden.
Making a snap decision to vacate, he leaped up and dashed back into his bedroom. Getting a backpack out of his closet, he tossed in some toiletries and some clothes. He then changed into his whites, or the usual outfit he wore as a surgical resident. Although he hadn’t thought of all the potential repercussions, his immediate plan was to go to the hospital and hole up in the on-call suite with its lounge and multiple bedrooms. He didn’t know how long he would be able to get away with staying there, as rampant as hospital gossip was, but he thought he’d feel safer than he did in his apartment.
He grabbed his cell phone. His hospital tablet was already in his jacket pocket. He left the laptop on the folding table but took the time to align it as he normally did. He even opened the lid slightly so that when he returned he could tell if someone had disturbed it.
After a quick glance around, trying to think if there was anything else he should take, he went out into the stairwell. It was then that he thought about rigging something so that he could tell if his door was opened while he was away. But then he accused himself of being overly melodramatic. What he’d done with the computer was enough. It was the computer tampering that upset him. It suggested sophistication.
He closed his apartment door gently to avoid further damage. Unless someone looked carefully, the split wasn’t obvious as the major jamb damage was on the inside. With his backpack slung over his shoulder, he rapidly descended the stairs. As he neared the bottom, he slowed as the view out onto Revere Street came into focus through the small decorative panes of glass in the upper section of the front door. His view was limited to the car parked directly in front of his building. He didn’t see any pedestrians, which concerned him. At that time on a summer afternoon there were usually people all over Beacon Hill.
Descending the remaining steps, Noah opened the door. A young woman in cutoff jeans and a halter top popped into view not six feet away, heading down the street. She warily glanced up at Noah, as if she was wondering why he was standing motionless in an open doorway. In the next instant, she was gone.
From Noah’s perspective, seeing the girl was reassuring. Still, he felt decidedly uneasy. Leaving the building door ajar, he descended the three outdoor steps within the building’s exterior alcove. His intention was to look up and down the street. Since it was a one-way street coming up the hill, Noah looked in that direction first. What he saw was not encouraging. Three buildings down was a black late-model Ford van with two men in the front seats. It didn’t look like the usual service truck. It was too new and shiny and had an out-of-state license plate. Worse yet, the moment Noah appeared, it lurched forward with a squeal of its tires and came rapidly in Noah’s direction.
As fearful and keyed up as Noah was, he reacted by pure reflex. A second later he was back inside his building, slamming the door, throwing the deadbolt, and taking the stairs at a run. Outside he heard the Ford van screech to a stop, which only increased his panic. He didn’t bother using his key on his own door but rather just broke through it using his shoulder. He slammed the door behind him and pulled the couch over in front of it. He knew it wouldn’t prevent someone from coming in, but it might at least slow them down.
Without another second’s hesitation, he ran into his bedroom and over to the window, throwing up the sash. A moment later he was out on the rickety fire escape, plunging down the narrow metal steps and leaping into the building’s postage-stamp-size yard. After first tossing his backpack over the ramshackle back fence, Noah scaled it himself, dropping into the neighboring yard. He did the same thing with a series of dilapidated fences that defined an entire warren of tiny backyards behind the four-and five-story buildings that lined Revere Street, the adjacent Grove Street, and the parallel Phillips Street. Although Noah had never been in the courtyard, he had been able to see a good portion of it from his bedroom window over the years. What he was counting on was finding an exit that he hoped would eventually lead out onto Phillips Street.