Part 25 (1/2)
Surf Shop 24-Hour Cyber Cafe Corner of Fifth Avenue and Garfield Street Park Slope, Brooklyn Sunday, August 31, 12:49 p.m.
”Tell me about the girl,” I said.
Caleb Sykes, the nerdy kid who ran the cyber cafe, was sweating bullets. He was seated on a backless stool with the three of us ringed around him and Ghost sitting like a hungry wolf ten feet away. It wasn't exactly thumbscrews and the rack, but that's how he was taking it. I think if I'd yelled ”Boo!” he'd have fainted dead away.
”I already t-told y-you,” said Sykes. Nerves were bringing out a repressed stutter. I felt bad for the kid and believed that he really had nothing to do with anything. Had to go through the motions, though.
”You said she was Korean,” I prompted.
”Yeah. I th-think so.”
”Not Chinese? Not j.a.panese?” asked Top. ”You're sure?”
”I used to date a Korean girl. They don't look Chinese or j.a.panese. They look Korean. But later, on TV ... she looked Chinese. I d-don't th-think it w-was the s-s-s-same g-g-g-”
He couldn't get it out. I told him it was okay, we understood.
”Did she touch anything in the store?” asked Top.
”Like wh-wh-what?”
”Like anything. Can you remember any specific surface she might have touched with her hands, her fingers.”
Caleb suddenly brightened. ”Oh! You m-mean f-f-for fingerprints.”
”Exactly. Take a second, son, and think about it.”
”Um ... just the c-counter and the m-money she handed me.”
”Did she bring her own laptop in?” I asked. ”Was she just using your wi-fi, or did she-?”
”She r-r-rented an hour on D-D-Dell Three.”
”Show us,” said Top.
We stepped back to allow Sykes to rise, but the kid did it carefully as if expecting us to swat him back down in the chair. We didn't. Instead we followed him from the small office we'd been using for the interrogation and into the store. A CLOSED sign was hung in the window. Sykes led us to the table on which was the laptop used by the Korean girl who claimed to be Mother Night.
”This is it?” asked Top.
He nodded.
”You're sure?”
”S-sure I'm sure. It w-w-was on the r-receipt.”
Top fished through the receipts and found the right one, read it, and handed it to me. ”Station eleven.”
Sykes nodded again.
He reached out to touch the closed lid of the laptop for emphasis, but Top caught his wrist.
”Don't do that,” he said. ”Fingerprints.”
”Oh ... r-right...”
We all stood there and considered the laptop. A two-year-old Dell. It was open but turned off.
”How many other people used this computer after the girl?” I asked.
Sykes thought about it. ”S-six...?” he suggested.
Top bent over it and grunted. As he straightened he nodded to the machine. ”See that?”
I did. It was small, but it was there. And it looked to have been carved into the tabletop with a pin. A capital A surrounded by an O.
I waved Bunny over. ”Dust it and bag it.”
Bunny produced a device that looked like a department store pricing gun. When he aimed it at the laptop it produced a cold blue laser light.
”What's th-that?” asked Sykes.
”Digital fingerprint scanner,” explained Bunny. ”Uses a laser to take microfine pictures of fingerprints. There's special software to separate overlapping prints. Does it by determining the orientation, finger pad size, and so on, then it a.s.sembles the pieces into as clear a whole as possible.”
Sykes said, ”W-wow. I watch suh-suh-CSI all the t-time and I never saw anything like th-that.”
Top smiled at him. ”Our boss has a friend in the industry.”
My cell phone buzzed again and I nearly tore my pants s.n.a.t.c.hing it out of my pocket. I wanted to smash the d.a.m.n thing. The message this time was NO ONE LIVES FOREVER.
Ghost suddenly whuffed, and I glanced over my shoulder as a shadow fell across the front window. There were two people standing outside, peering in through the big plate gla.s.s.
They were both young. They were both wearing black hoodies and black sungla.s.ses. They were smiling.
They each held a machine gun.
Sykes had played enough video games to know what AK-47s were.
He said, ”Wh-what...?”
Then the world exploded into a terrible storm of shattered gla.s.s, bullets, screams, and blood.
Chapter Thirty-six.
FreeTech 800 Fifth Avenue New York City Sunday, August 31, 12:51 p.m.
Toys was winding up his presentation about projects he wanted to fund in the more economically depressed areas of Central and South America, particularly of research into diseases of poverty that were doing incredible damage there. When he realized that Junie Flynn was no longer listening, his words trickled off and stopped.