Marnie seemed to consider it.
“We should assume the Group has the resources to do that,” Dryden said. “They were smart enough to catch Brennan, whatever kind of snooping he would have done. He was going to trip some kind of alarm, at some point in the future.”
“And the Group found out about it today,” Marnie said.
“Yes.”
Marnie shut her eyes for a second, exhaled slowly. “Okay. So he dug into some account of theirs, and a flag went up, and they found out. Sorry, he would have dug into some account. But personal accounts are one thing—you really think these people could have flags for Google searches?”
“For certain keywords, maybe,” Dryden said. “You’re an FBI agent, you must know about monitoring ISPs for suspicious activity. People looking up how to make nerve gas, that kind of thing.”
Marnie nodded. “We have software for it. I guess the Group could, too. But why would they flag that name?”
“Because they know Curtis stole their e-mails. And they should assume anyone he met with has read through them, and seen those articles about Eversman. Googling him would be an obvious move, on our part. And a predictable one.”
Marnie thought it over. Her eyes went past him, tracking slowly along the row of computers nearby.
Dryden said, “We might be easy for their system to spot, if we Google that name. There might be nobody else running searches for it these days. Eversman doesn’t get elected for another nine years. How many people were looking up Barack Obama in 1999?”
“If they really are monitoring it,” Marnie said, “and we sit down and do a search…”
“Then they would have known about it hours ago. Whoever they sent to kill us would already be here right now. They’d probably know the exact time of the search, and which computer would be used, based on its ISP address. Someone in here, or in the parking lot, would be watching that computer and waiting to see who comes along and sits down at it.”
Dryden stood staring at the computers, thinking it all through. Would the Group have sent people to both the scrapyard and this library, two locations within a few miles of each other, in the span of an hour or less? Why not? Multiple leads, multiple responses.
He rubbed his eyes.
“What do you think?” Marnie asked.
“I think Claire’s going to die if I don’t find her, and I think if the tables were turned, she’d take this risk for me.” He looked at Marnie. “But that doesn’t mean you should have to risk it, too. I’ll take a shot at it myself. I’ll try to play it safe—just Eversman’s last name and whatever keywords seem worth a try. Wait near an exit. If it goes bad, just get out. Get the machine and get away, okay?”
He took his keys from his pocket and pressed them into her hand.
For a second she made no move to take them. Then she simply nodded.
*
Dryden browsed a table of old books on sale for a quarter apiece while Marnie made her way to the shelves off to the left side of the room. There was a fire exit over there. Dryden waited another minute and then turned to the computers, twenty feet away.
It crossed his mind to wonder if choosing one at random would make any difference, in terms of faking out whoever might be watching, but the idea fell apart almost at once. There was no way to pull a feint here: Whichever computer he chose, that would be the one the Group learned about, hours before. Cause and effect, presented by M. C. Escher.
He thought about it another five seconds and then gave it up and walked straight to the nearest computer. He pulled the chair out and—
A girl in the reading area screamed, and someone shoved a table hard, scraping its legs on the floor.
Dryden spun fast, his eyes locking like gun sights on the commotion, even as his hand shot for the Beretta hidden under his shirt—
It was just kids screwing around.
A ten-year-old boy had scared a teenaged girl with a picture in a science book: a full-page blowup of an insect’s face.
Her cheeks flushed, the girl straightened her chair and table back out, then swatted the kid on top of his head.
Dryden turned and spotted Marnie among the shelves. She was staring at him, her face tense, her own hand just dropping back from under her coat, where her Glock was holstered.
She held his stare for another second—and then she walked out from the shelves into the open space of the library. She cleared her throat and spoke loudly enough for the entire room to hear:
“Excuse me, everyone?”
Chair legs scraped. Fifty-plus heads turned toward her.
“Sorry to bother you,” Marnie said, “but can anyone here tell me who Hayden Eversman is? I’ve got it stuck in my head and I can’t remember where I heard it.”
Most of the crowd just looked annoyed. An older woman who looked like she might be the librarian stood up, maybe meaning to give Marnie a scolding, but a male voice spoke up first.