The Devil's Code

I found a nice patch of trees, got out of the car, and buried the AK a couple of feet down, kicking some dead leaves over the raw soil. Back on the highway, two or three miles from the gun’s grave, I wiped the shovel and tossed it out the window into the roadside ditch.
    S hooting somebody from ambush is not exactly the all-American way of doing things, but I was more intent on survival than etiquette. When I got back toward Dallas, I called the Denton Police Departmentnon-emergency line. A woman answered—“Denton Police, can I help you?”—and I said, “Hi, this is Jack Hersh from the Morning News. Can you tell me who’s handling that shooting a couple of days ago at the Eighty-Eight Motel?”
    “I, uh, think that’s Sergeant Frederick. He’s out right now . . .”
    “I’ll check back,” I said. “What’s Sergeant Frederick’s first name?”
    “Hal.”
    “Thank you.”
    G ot back to Bobby.
S TILL TROUBLE ?
    Y ES . B USTED C URTIS M EANY . S AY HE WILL CHAIN TO MANY MORE HACKERS . N EVER HEARD OF HIM . Y OU ?
    N O . H AVE THEY BUSTED ANYBODY WE KNOW ?
    N OT SINCE L ADYFINGERS .
    N EED HOME PHONE NUMBER FOR S ERGEANT H AL F REDERICK OF D ENTON P OLICE D EPARTMENT .
    W AIT ONE .
    A moment later, he was back with the unlisted number. Bobby is very deep in the telephone system.
W HAT HAPPENS ?
    W ORKING . A NY MORE ON SATELLITES ?
    Y ES . B UT MAY MISS NECESSARY INFO . P OSSIBLY CAN RECONSTRUCT . D O YOU HAVE ACCESS TO A M M ATH DOCS ?
    N O .
    W ILL TRY TO CRACK COMPUTERS FROM HERE .
    T AKE CARE . T HEY ’ RE WATCHING .
    A ND YOU TAKE CARE .
    I stopped once more before heading back to the motel. From an outside phone, I called Hal Frederick’s number. He answered on the fourth ring, sounding cranky. “Yeah?”
    “Sergeant Frederick? I have a tip for you.”
    “Who is this?” Even crankier.
    “A benefactor. You’re investigating the shooting at the Eighty-Eight Motel. About two hours ago, there was a shooting in Dallas, a man named Lester Benson. He’s been taken to the hospital with a wound in the thigh. If you check, you will find that he has another recent bullet wound in one leg. He was the man who was shot running out of the Eighty-Eight after the murder. If you check his blood DNA against the blood you found in the parking lot, you will find a match.”
    “Who is this?”
    “Remember the name. Lester Benson. He was admitted to the hospital a couple of hours ago. The Dallas police should have the details,” I said, and dropped the phone back on the hook.
    If that didn’t create some serious heat, I’d just pack up and head home.
    I had no more ideas.

 25 
    ST. JOHN CORBEIL
    C orbeil smeared his face and his hands, pulled the black hat on his head, and shuffled across the parking lot to the Emergency Room at Health North. Inside, a nurse behind the reception station glanced at him, an old man, maybe black—certainly black, with the X baseball hat on his head—as he looked uncertainly around and then shuffled down toward the patient rooms.
    “Excuse me?” she asked. “Are you looking for somebody?”
    “Bafroom,” Corbeil said. “Men’s room.”
    “Do you have a family member here?”
    “My wife. Upstairs. Kicked m’ ass out ’fore I could pee.” Corbeil had to keep it short: he didn’t sound that much like an old black man.
    The nurse bought it. “All right, then. Just straight down the hall. On your right.” She went back to her paperwork, and Corbeil shuffled down the hall.
    Took the elevator, up four floors, turned out in the hallway, and walked down to the right. Room 411. The door was shut, but not locked. He stepped inside. Hart had said there was only one bed . . .
    One bed with a man sleeping. In the ambient light from the window, he could see Benson lying on his back, one leg suspended in a trapeze, a saline drip hooked into his arm. Corbeil reached into his pocket, took out the cigar tube, slipped out the needle inside, jabbed it into the saline bag, and emptied it. Enough sedative to kill an elephant.
    Well, he thought, looking down at Benson, he was supposed to be sleeping . . .
    H e couldn’t hang around. He had a long way to go this night.
    Down the elevator, out through the Emergency Room entrance, driving back home. Scrubbing his face with clean-up packs from a barbecue joint, in case he met somebody in his apartment stairwell. But he met no one.
    He glanced at his watch: A long way to go. In the bathroom, he washed his face and hands,