The Widow File (25 page)

Booker bit back a sound of disgust. Wasn’t that just typical? The client had been more than willing to take Marcher’s life, had spent the money with no more anguish than he’d have felt tearing open an envelope. But the instant his own life was at risk? Suddenly the moral thunder of injustice pounded across the universe.

“Do you have any idea what the plan is?”

“I haven’t heard much. They’re getting very quiet around me. They’re waiting for a signal from their agent that the girl has the file.”

“She’s not just going to turn it over to them.”

“They have someone on the inside, someone she trusts. They know she’s scared and alone. They keep saying her profile says she’ll come to them.”

When Dani walked back into the restaurant, she made a decision. If she survived this, she would never play poker with Choo-Choo. He sat with his long legs crossed, his blond hair catching the low light of the restaurant, laughing with ease at something Ev was telling him. Ev spoke with animation, her hands flying, her cheeks flushed, the words pouring from her. Dani almost hesitated to interrupt them until Choo-Choo looked up and his eyes widened just a fraction, just enough to send an unmistakable cry for help.

“How’s Tom?”

“Busy,” Dani said, settling back into her seat.

Ev laughed and Dani could see the redhead was getting drunk. The number of beer bottles on the table had doubled. “I never would have taken you for the slutty type, Dani. I thought you were serious with that guy Ben, but Choo-Choo’s been telling me all about your hot new mystery man.”

Dani glanced at Choo-Choo, who gave an innocent shrug. He hadn’t told Ev about Tom. “I like to keep my private life private.”

“No such thing,” Ev said. “Privacy, there ain’t no such creature. I got to pee. Again. Never should have broken the seal, eh Choo-Choo?”

He laughed with her, his smile dropping the instant she turned her back. “Okay, two things. One, Ev is a bad drunk and a lightweight. Two, she is bat-shit crazy. The only good part about having her with us is that if someone starts shooting, we can use her as a human shield. Tell me you had a better time with Tom than I had going down that rabbit hole.”

Dani almost admitted she’d had a nice talk with Tom but realized how strange that would sound. “He says I’ve got a file, a widow file is what he called it. He doesn’t know what it is or what it looks like but he says that I might be able to use it to stop whoever’s behind this. He says it could be a picture, a microfiche—”

“Microfiche? Do people still use that?”

“Like I know?” Dani kept watching the hallway to be sure Ev wasn’t returning. “Should we wait until she’s gone to look for it?”

“Good luck with that. She’s already promised me solemnly, and I do mean solemnly, that she is not going to leave our side until this job is done.”

“Shit.” Dani unbuttoned her outer shirt and dragged the pouch onto her lap. “Then let’s just do this. Maybe she’ll know what it is we’re looking for. She worked with Hickman. Maybe he gave her some kind of clue.”

“Let’s not bring up Hickman, okay?” Choo-Choo shook his head. “If she didn’t like him when she was sober, you should hear her with a few beers in her. She’s called him everything but a pedophile. Says he’s a coward and a traitor. Trust me, don’t get her started.”

“Thanks for the tip.” For what felt like the hundredth time, Dani unpacked the materials, white pages first, then assorted objects. She held up the Tootsie Pop wrapper. “Would this hold a microfiche? How big is a microfiche?”

“Smaller than a regular fiche?” He took the wrapper from her and held it up to the light. “It could be teensy. Depending on who designed the tech, it could fit under your fingernail.”

Dani held the Ho Ho wrapper up to the light as well, seeing nothing but printed letters through the shiny paper.

“You guys got the munchies or something?” Ev dropped down in her chair. “What’s with the snacks?”

Choo-Choo nodded at Dani. They had no choice but to include Ev in their search. “We think the whole reason we’re being chased is a file and that it’s hidden somewhere in this stuff.”

Ev squinted at Dani. “You think you’ve got the Widow File?”

“You know about that?”

“Of course I do. I work with Maureen, remember?” Her face flushed darker as she leaned in. “I’m the one they called, not you. I’m the one who needs to get that file back to them. Not you. That file is going to save Maureen’s life and if you have it, you better believe it’s mine.” When Dani and Choo-Choo only stared open-mouthed at her rant, she dropped her head. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m so worried about Maureen. I’m so worried this is all going to go wrong. I can’t let her down. I can’t. I owe her my whole life.”

“Okay,” Dani said softly, sliding over a stack of phone records. “You take these. Go through these lists and see if anything jumps out at you, any numbers you recognize, any dates or times that stand out to you.”

“From Marcher’s phone?” Ev’s face regained its sour scowl. “What the hell am I going to learn from that?”

“You met Marcher, right? You’ve been to his lab. You’ve seen how he worked.”

“Yeah, he was another freaking freeloader.” Ev flipped through the pages without looking at them. “Came to this country from South America, like Mexico or someplace, probably illegal. He got a free ride to school and then spent the next ten years bashing the country that gave him everything.”

Choo-Choo gave her a withering glance. “Was he from Argentina?”

“Yeah maybe. Argentina, Guatemala, something like that.”

Dani pointed to the many receipts from the Argentinean steakhouse. “That might explain these. Maybe he was homesick?”

“Or maybe he was in collusion with some underground figures from Argentina. I don’t think we’re going to learn that from his dinner order. Let’s try the photos.”

Hickman had taken snapshots of the laboratory from several angles. Whole walls were covered in writing that only a scientist could decipher. “If that’s the Widow File, we’re going to need someone a lot smarter than
me to read it,” Dani said, thumbing through the photos. One picture showed a close-up of a worktable covered in party food. Little plates of nuts and what was probably fois gras on crackers and other party foods littered the surface. Around the edges, Dani could make out what looked like dollhouse furniture—tiny wire tables and chairs, as if a miniature café had been set up around the food.

“What was this party, Ev? And these decorations?”

Ev squinted at the picture and shrugged. “They were always celebrating something at Swan. Seemed like every time someone farted or didn’t blow up the lab, out came the champagne and party food. Hickman loved it. His cover was an equipment salesman and he hung out in that lab a lot. I can’t tell you how many times he reported in smashed after sitting around after hours with Marcher drinking champagne.” She shook her head in disgust. “I can’t stand the stuff. Tastes like perfume and feels like an ax in your head the next day.”

“But what are these little chairs?”

Choo-Choo held the photo up for better light. “Oh, I had a girlfriend who used to do that.”

Ev snorted. “You had a girlfriend? I thought you played for the other team.”

He buried his previous look of disdain under a dry smile. “Teams shmeams. I never worried about what team I was on, Ev, as long as I got a chance at bat.” He shifted in his seat, his body language cutting off the oblivious redhead. “She used to make whole little cafés out of the cork cages. Here,” he reached for the caged cork on the table. “See these little wires? They’re not all one piece. If you have the dexterity—to say nothing of the time and sobriety—you can unwrap those wires and make little sculptures. Obviously Marcher was so inclined.”

He showed her the edges of the wire where the ends had been loosened and twisted into a heart on one side and an elaborate curlicue on the other. After being manhandled in the pouch for so long, however, the shapes had lost their precision and the wire cut into the base of the cork.

“Different champagnes have different kinds of wire,” Choo-Choo explained. “Some are silver, some gold, some are even green. Simone used
to make entire sets of chairs and tables and ottomans. She would insist we keep drinking until she had enough for a teeny tiny party.”

Ev grunted. “This is fascinating. Really. What next? Barbie dolls?”

He ignored her. “And the little cork caps are unique to each brand as well. Simone liked White Star, so we had many nights of a full constellation. This cork,” he looked at the small metal cap above the cork, “is Veuve Clicquot, a tasty little champagne. I always liked—”

“Did you say Veuve Clicquot?” Dani asked, leaning in.

“Yeah, probably just the yellow label, but still plenty drinkable. Why?”

Dani rubbed her hands over her face then reached for the cork, turning it to see the cork cap. “Veuve, that’s French. For widow.” She held up the cork to see the smiling face of a white-haired woman.

“Did you find it?” Ev lunged across the table but Dani whipped her arm back, the cork out of reach. “Give me that!”

“We don’t even know what it is, Ev. This is a cork, not a nuclear warhead. We’ve got nothing to bargain with if we don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with.” Ev lunged again and Choo-Choo caught her arm, twisting it behind her back at an ugly angle.

“Sit down, Evelyn.” His voice was pure Choo-Choo, a sultry purr, but with an edge Dani had never heard before. “We are in this together. Stop being so grabby.” He jerked her wrist harder until she sat back in her chair. “Are we going to play nice?”

“You do that again and I’ll rip your head off.”

He waved her off. “Save it for the finale.”

Dani examined the cork. Champagne corks were bigger than regular wine corks but they were hardly spacious. She read the writing on the cork and checked the shaped wiring to see if she had missed anything in the scrollwork. “Nothing. I hope I’m not undoing some kind of high-tech monkey puzzle by unwrapping this, but here goes.” She twisted the wire until the heart opened at the bottom, revealing gouges in the base of the cork. She worked carefully, loosening the wire around the base until the metal cork cap lifted slightly from the cork. Slipping the cage off, she set it on the table and used a fingernail to pry off the little metal cap. Underneath, cut into the surface of the cork, was a hole perfectly shaped to fit the tiny USB drive hidden there.

“I’ll be damned,” she said, picking the drive out of its bed. The hole had been cut with a precision she could appreciate, being familiar with jobs like this. “I didn’t know they made drives this small. It’s not much bigger than my thumbnail.”

Choo-Choo held up his hand to prevent Ev from lunging once more. She made a sound that sounded an awful lot like a growl. “We’ve got it,” she said. “Let’s call them and make the exchange.”

Dani tried to stay calm. “We still don’t know what exactly we’ve got. This cork has gone through quite a bit today. We need to check to make sure the data on here is still intact. Or do you want to hand this over to the killers, have them find out it’s empty, and watch them put a bullet between Maureen’s eyes?”

“If you guys are stalling,” Ev sounded much more sober than she had a second ago, “if you’re trying to play an angle with me, you will die regretting it. Do I make myself clear?”

Choo-Choo jerked in his seat, as if he would grab her again, and Ev flinched. He smirked at her and turned back to Dani. “We need a computer. They have a computer.” He nodded toward two couples huddled over a table in the corner arguing over something they had seen online. A laptop sat open and forgotten on the edge of the table. Ev saw it too. Before she could rise, Choo-Choo stopped her with a solid hand on her wrist. Dani wondered just how much that wristlock had hurt a moment ago, because Ev didn’t seem to want to repeat it.

“I’ll get it,” Dani said. She made herself sound as mousy as possible to the drunk foursome, rambling out some story about needing to find out if her sister’s flight was coming in and not having her phone number and other human communication shortcomings. The woman handed her the laptop after making her swear she wouldn’t download or upload anything “risky.” Dani almost laughed at that. “I promise,” she said.

Back at the table, she plugged in the small drive. It held only one file but it was big. When she opened it, the computer stuttered under the command, finally bringing up a document over twenty-five pages long complete with photographs beside long columns of text. Dani found she couldn’t focus on the faces or the text below them. Her eyes would not leave the silhouette of the bald eagle that sat between a badge and a banner
that read
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
. The only other word she saw was superimposed over every page:
CLASSIFIED
.

She heard a whistle of air leave Choo-Choo’s slack mouth as the page populated itself with data. He read the names and he reached out to scroll down the page. “I know who that is. Him too. Him. He’s dead.” He muttered under his breath, speaking only to the computer. “Him, is that the guy who… ? Oh my God.”

Ev tapped the side of the laptop. She’d moved in very close when they’d been distracted and now had the gun pointed at them. “Give that to me right now. This is what’s going to keep Maureen alive. It’s going to keep us all alive. Give it to me.” Dani nodded and Choo-Choo pulled the computer onto his lap. “What are you doing, Choo-Choo? Give it to me.”