Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

sneaking around trying to hear what we were saying and he panicked and ran?”
    “If it wasn’t the wind, assuming that it was could get us killed.”
    She tried to frame another question, but the cool gusts of air distracted her. Suddenly it was just too much effort to think, to walk, even to stand. It was all she could do to breathe the dark, wet air.
    And then she was breathing that other kind of night, speeding down a long tunnel, free-falling into the deep sleep her body demanded.
    Archer caught Hannah when her knees buckled. She didn’t wake up when he carried her into the house, put her on her small bed, and covered her with a sheet. She didn’t even stir while he took her pulse, counted the steady beat of her life, noted the warmth of her skin, and released her wrist with a slow caress.
    “If you have dreams,” he said softly, “don’t remember them.”
    Quietly he walked out of her room, checked all the locks in the house, and set up some simple mechanical alarms at the doors and windows. Then he sat in the darkness.
    Listening. Thinking. Planning.
    Two hours passed in silence before Archer went to the cell phone that still lay next to Len’s computer. The data had long since been transmitted to Kyle. Archer doubted that his brother would have found out much more this quickly, but any information was better than none.
    Archer punched in a string of numbers. The encoding function blinked.
    Two seconds later Kyle answered. “Our recently deceased half brother was a paranoid son of a bitch.”
    Archer grunted. “Problems?”
    “Not with the wife. Hannah didn’t have any trapdoors or shunts or guards or cookies or anything at all on her computer, not even for banking,” Kyle said. “Her password is ‘Today.’ After that, it was in the clear all the way.”
    Archer didn’t ask how his brother had teased private information out of the virtual world. The last time Kyle had tried to explain, Archer had listened, and listened, and listened, and come away as much in the dark as before. The talent Kyle took for granted was a mountain Archer could admire, but never climb.
    “Our half brother is a different matter,” Kyle continued. “There are some boring files on Pearl Cove, a few scrambled files on pearls as the new miracle cure for everything from cancer to a limp dick, and then nothing but blank walls. He had lots of trips, traps, and bombs laid on for anyone trying to tiptoe through his virtual tulips. Completely toasted two hard drives before I gave up. Anyone who accesses his stuff will have to be a lot better than I am or have more than his entry code to work with. Can Hannah help?”
    “She didn’t even know his entry code. Len wasn’t a sharing kind of partner.”
    “No shit.” Kyle’s voice was ripe with disgust. “You sure he wasn’t working for Uncle Sam?”
    “Recently?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Why do you ask?”
    “There are some very fancy ciphers out there, and Uncle has a lock on most of them. One of Len’s looked kinda familiar.”
    “Have you been playing with Uncle’s ciphers?” Archer asked dryly.
    “Somebody has to.”
    “Don’t get caught.”
    “So far so good. Any chance of Uncle helping us on this one?”
    Archer thought of what April had said. Odds are we wouldn’t be on the same side. “No. Uncle would just as soon we dropped off the pearl scope.”
    Kyle sighed heavily. “Gotcha. I’ll do what I can with the files you sent me. Nothing useful on any Pearl Cove employees yet.”
    “Thanks. How’s Lianne?”
    “Beautiful. She worries about you.”
    “Me? Why?”
    “She thinks you’ve shot more than your share of troubles.”
    Weariness folded around Archer, darker than the night. “Give her a hug for me. A big one.”
    He disconnected and sat in the darkness, thinking about Len’s cutting-edge ciphers and Uncle Sam.
    Odds are we wouldn’t be on the same side.
    Blue on blue on blue, shades and tints, hints and tones, blends and startling curls of a pure primary color; the ocean surrounded Archer and Hannah in a huge embrace. Above them the surface of the water was a shifting, incandescent silver. Below them it was a deeply radiant turquoise. As they drifted with the tide, the bottom took a very gradual slide off into indigo mystery.
    Archer floated about thirty feet beneath the silver ceiling. One of his hands was wrapped around a long line that trailed down from the small lugger Nakamori was piloting through the calm sea. Hannah trailed off the