Exposure (22 page)

“What do you want?” said Hassan.

“Who is the man in the picture?” said Helene.

“Why do you want to know?”

Helene spoke quickly, spitting the words out.

“Because if we don’t find out soon, the agents who are undoubtedly following us will catch us and lock us up for a hundred years – or kill us. I don’t want that to happen without knowing why,” she said. “We know it’s to do with the man of three years ago that you, Bill Bailey, Charlie and Kazuma kidnapped. We suspect he knew something that the US government wants kept quiet. All
we
want to do is find out enough to make them leave us alone.”

“Just talking to you is dangerous,” said Hassan.

“You agreed to meet with us, mate,” said Charlie. “And you know they’re probably watching us. Passing on what you know is the only thing that’s going to keep you alive now. Which is why you’re here.”

“Maybe I’m here to kill you,” said Hassan calmly.

Charlie shook his head. Helene shook her knees.

“No,” said Charlie. “If you wanted to kill us you’d have had it done as soon as you heard we were here.”

Hassan smiled.

“True.” He seemed to be weighing his decision. Then he spoke.

“The man we took was a US citizen: his name Wally Manfred,” he paused as if expecting a reaction from them. “He is – or was – part of an underground team of computer hackers, dedicated to finding out all the dirty little secrets that the US government would rather were kept hidden. The hackers call themselves the Gene Genies. They developed the program that was used by Wikileaks to reveal top secret information on Guantanamo Bay detainees. That’s how powerful they’ve become. Three years ago the Gene Genies were just getting going but they were pretty vocal and the media were starting to take them seriously: Wally Manfred was their founder. My guess is that the spooks thought stopping him would stop the Gene Genies… or he came across something so sensitive that we were hired to remove him.”

Helene was floundering in the excess of information after such a long drought. But something came to her from the morass.

“When you talked to Kazuma you said to him, ‘I can’t believe he worked for them’. What did you mean by that?”

Hassan looked at her, a calculating expression on his face.

“I don’t know why Kazuma trusts you,” he said after a short pause, “but he’s never led me wrong before so I’m going to tell you what I know. A month ago I came across an old article on a website. I was surfing hacker sites for a client. That’s when I saw his photo: Wally Manfred. I recognised him straightaway. The article said that he was working for the US government, specifically the NSA. It seemed so unlikely that it caused a lot of noise in the hacker community at the time. Some people didn’t believe it and thought it was some kind of set up to discredit the Gene Genies. Which is ironic when you think about it. But the point is, the photo was taken
after
we did the job. The US government must have had some serious leverage on him to turn a guy like Wally Manfred.”

Helene shivered.

“What do you think he found out?” she said.

“I’ve been trying to work that out. All I can tell you is that before he disappeared – before we disappeared him – he’d been researching the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the US debt at the end of the First World War.”

Helene looked at Charlie blankly. He shook his head, bewildered.

“Since then I’ve looked everywhere I can think of,” said Hassan, “but I couldn’t find anything else. All other traces of what he’d researched have been pretty comprehensively wiped: I couldn’t say by whom. The trail I could find – Wally Manfred’s one weak spot was that he had – has – a daughter living in San Bernadino. She’s still there. I’ve checked and re-checked her bank balance and there’s been no change in her status in the last three years: no excess money either going into or out of her account and she doesn’t have a new car. So if Wally Manfred has been bought off, the money hasn’t gone to his daughter.”

“But they wouldn’t need to buy him off,” reasoned Helene. “By kidnapping him they’d already shown that they could get him any time they wanted to and, by extension, her. They wouldn’t even need to threaten her.”

“Maybe,” said Hassan, “but there’s something else. Shortly after that photo was taken, Wally Manfred was diagnosed with advanced Alzheimer’s. I tracked him down and ever since he’s been living in a home for dementia sufferers in a retirement village near his daughter. Here’s the weird bit: I’ve checked his medical records and there is nothing, I mean
nothing
that shows he’s had any medical tests whatsoever in the last seven years.”

“Which means what?” said Helene, struggling to take in all the new information.

“It means,” said Hassan impatiently, “that up until the day he was institutionalised, Wally Manfred was as healthy as you or me.”

“Oh my God!” said Helene quietly as the realisation sank in. “We have to find that poor man!”

Charlie nodded. “Yes, whatever he knows, that’s the key to this.”

Hassan shrugged. “Yes, I think so. Whatever it is – it’s big. NSA big.”

“Will you help us?” said Helene.

Hassan looked at her levelly, the failing sun lengthening his shadow into an alien spindle.

“I already have. I’m done. I’m just a businessman these days. I have a good life: I’d like to keep it that way. They’ll leave me alone now.”

“You seem pretty sure of that,” said Helene, bitingly.

Hassan smiled. “I am. I’ve passed the baton: they’ll follow you now. I’m past history.”

Helene nearly choked.

“You… you’ve set us up!”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Hassan, curling his plump lip. “You got what you wanted. I got what I wanted: that’s a fair trade.”

Helene was breathless with indignation.

“He’s right,” said Charlie, breaking his silence. “We’ve got what we need: it’s time for us to go.”

But Helene wasn’t finished yet.

“Don’t you care about Wally Manfred?” half choking as she spat out the words.

Hassan almost laughed out loud.

“No! Why should I? All I care is that I never hear his name again.”

“But why did you tell us and not Kazuma?” said Helene, her voice becoming shrill.

“Who says I didn’t?”

Helene’s mouth dropped open in shock.

Hassan walked away leaving her and Charlie to the night.

Chapter 15

The aeroplane began its final descent. Helene peered out of the dirty window and was rewarded by the sight of a wide, flat valley, ringed by yellowing hills and a summer blue sky.

Passengers had been cheerfully informed by the captain that the temperature in San Bernardino was currently a pleasant 88
o
F which Helene worked out was about 31
o
C: still considerably cooler than Bahrain and with a welcome lack of humidity. She felt as if she’d been damp ever since she’d left Hawaii.

Charlie woke up as the wheels touched the tarmac and the small jet bumped and shuddered to a standstill. He looked relatively refreshed considering they had just travelled for 24 hours, leaving their Manama villa in the early hours, travelling east and re-crossing the dateline in the process. Technically it was two days later. Or was it? Helene’s tired brain refused to cooperate.

She’d spent most of the journey typing up her notes, trying to create a narrative thread, honing her questions, refining her theories. She hadn’t been able to go online during the nightmarish tangle of flights, so whether or not the NSA were still communicating via the website was unknown to her. Truthfully, Helene had been appalled by what Hassan had told her. She and Charlie had discussed the ramifications at length – with few conclusions. Neither could work out why Wally Manfred was still alive when it would have been so much easier – and cheaper – to have killed him. It wasn’t as if the efforts had subdued the Gene Genies: if anything the reverse was true.

“Looks like we’re here,” she said, rather pointlessly.

Charlie nodded but didn’t speak.

Helene eased her stiff body out of the economy bucket seat and stretched slowly, an orchestra of creaks joining her in sympathy. Charlie moved with his customary felid grace. He reached into the overhead locker and pulled out a smart, canvas shoulder bag and a jacket: his entire complement of luggage. Everything else had been jettisoned at Manama. Helene was similarly unencumbered, reverting to her grab bag and a change of underwear. She was wearing a new wig, cut into a blonde bob, and feature sunglasses; Charlie made do with an LA Galaxy baseball cap that he’d picked up when they’d changed planes in Los Angeles.

Helene hadn’t been happy when he’d shown her the new passport. She was now travelling as ‘Mona Samovar’. She couldn’t say whether she was most annoyed at being named after a teapot or by the implications attached to the first name. He didn’t say and she didn’t ask: which was beginning to sum up their present relations. He was travelling as ‘Jack Duncan’, a carefully neutral name.

First they had to find a car. Easy enough. The airport boasted a choice of six rental companies. The shuttle bus took them direct to a massive parking lot. A line of chesty saloons, covered in a fine film of dust, were paraded in front of them.

Yes, the clerk had told them, they were all latest models and yes, they all had SatNav and air-con as standard: automatic, naturally. Charlie paid a week’s rental in advance, although ‘paid’ was rather a loose term these days. Helene slumped gratefully into the armchair-size seats and he blasted the fetid air with super-cooled air-con.

He punched in the address for Arrowhead Springs and they cruised out of town past a McDonalds’ museum and small shopping mall. A sign proclaimed: San Bernardino – 99
th
largest city in the US. Helene wondered irrelevantly who had made 100
th
.

The road rose up into the hills, snaking past arid foothills, scrubby vegetation, and very little else. Occasionally a huge truck carrying livestock passed them, if the air holes in the sides were anything to go by. Helene felt a brief pity for the animals inside that were soon to be carcasses. She knew how they felt.

As they climbed higher, she was immediately struck by the bizarre appearance of an enormous rock formation. It looked primitive, almost manmade.

“I can see why this place got its name,” said Charlie.

Helene nodded silently.

On the side of the mountain a natural formation of eroded soil and rock marked out a gigantic arrowhead, pointing directly at the unusual combination of hot springs and cool mountain water at the foot of the hill: the eponymous Arrowhead Springs.

The road whisked them past the outcrop and Helene wondered what it must have looked like to the Native Americans who had lived there centuries before the palefaces arrived. Well, like an arrowhead, obviously, but she wondered if they’d been aware of the healing properties of the sulphurous hot springs. Probably: she reckoned that hippies in the seventies thought they’d invented homeopathy and holistic thinking, but really they were only picking up the threads of centuries of knowledge, most people having been blind-sided by the immediate and obvious benefits of medicine and scientific study. Helene could certainly vouch for the improving soak in Kotohira’s onsen, although the soothing water didn’t seem to have done much to improve Matsumoto’s milk of human kindness. Better not think about that: better not think about the blood on the floor…

Helene shook her head and tried to concentrate on what she was going to say to Wally Manfred’s daughter. It was hard to think past, “Hello”, let alone plan a subtle strategy that would encourage the daughter of a kidnapped computer hacker to talk. What had Charlie said about Hassan? We’ll have to wing it.

Eventually the SatNav informed them that they had reached the end of their journey: they were still less than forty minutes from the airport.

Charlie pulled into a long, snaking estate, fringed by a parched ring of mature trees. The houses were older than Helene had expected; 1930’s one-storey buildings, large units but with surprisingly small gardens, the wooden frames shoulder to shoulder as if preparing to circle the wagons and ward off some surprise attack.

One of the smaller houses caught Helene’s eye.

“This is it,” she said, “3744 Elder View.”

The house had an air of sadness, if not outright neglect. The lawn had been mown but not recently; the shutters had been painted, but a couple of years back; the windows had been washed once but were now covered with the omnipresent dust.

Charlie parked across the street and half a block up. They were watched by a small group of bored children, playing in the street, their rag-taggle of bicycles abandoned on the brown verge.

One of the bolder ones yelled out, “Who you come to see?”

Helene turned round and smiled.

A small, tanned face with a grubby nose looked up at her owlishly. She suspected that this child should have been wearing his spectacles but refused to do so. He fancied himself as the leader, so Helene decided to humour him. The boy wiped his hand across his face, spreading the snot in a glistening snail trail. Helene was revolted and amused at the same time.

“Do you know Barbara Manfred?” she said.

“She won’t speak to you,” said the snotty child.

“Why’s that?” he said.

The child looked up and up as Charlie’s height cast him in shadow.

“She don’t like people, mister, specially not strangers. My mom said she’s got blues, but I ain’t never seen her wear nothing blue.”

“Does she have any friends?” Charlie asked carefully. “Maybe people who come and visit her sometimes?”

The boy shook his head and Helene noticed that the other children were silently agreeing from a safe distance.

“Naw. She don’t want no friends. Just them men who come sometimes, but I don’t think she likes ‘em much, cuz they never stay long.”

“Who do you think they are then?” said Helene softly.

“My pa says they’re the Feds and that Miz Manfred is a retired bank robber. I don’t think girls can be bank robbers, can they?”

The rest of the dusty children shook their heads in unison. Equal opportunities wasn’t a term they were likely to learn around here.