The Husband

living?"
    Anson would be offering this information only if he believed that the knowledge would do his brother harm.
    Mitch knew that the glint of vicious glee in Anson's eyes was an argument for continued ignorance, but his curiosity outweighed his caution.
    Before either of them could speak, the telephone rang.
    Mitch returned to the kitchen, briefly considered not answering, but worried that it might be Jimmy Null calling with additional instructions.
    "Hello?"
    "Anson?"
    "He's not here."
    "Who's this?"
    The voice didn't belong to Jimmy Null.
    "I'm a friend of Anson's," Mitch said.
    Now that he'd taken the call, the best thing was to carry through with it as if all were normal here.
    "When will he be back?" the caller asked.
    "Tomorrow."
    "Should I try his cell?"
    The voice teased Mitch's memory.
    Picking up Anson's cell phone from the counter, Mitch said, "He forgot to take it with him."
    "Can you give him a message?"
    "Sure. Go ahead."
    "Tell him that Julian Campbell called."
    The glimmer of the gray eyes, the glitter of the gold Rolex. "Anything else?" Mitch asked.
    "That's everything. Although I do have one concern, friend of Anson."
    Mitch said nothing.
    "Friend of Anson, are you there?"
    "Yes."
    "I hope you're taking good care of my Chrysler Windsor. I
    love that car. See you later."

Chapter 51

     
    Mitch located the kitchen drawer in which Anson kept two boxes of plastic trash-can liners. He chose the smaller of the sizes, a white thirteen-gallon bag.
    He put the blocks of cash and the envelope of bearer bonds in the bag. He twisted the top but didn't tie a knot.
    At this hour, in the usual traffic, Rancho Santa Fe was as much as two hours from Corona del Mar. Even if Campbell had associates at work here in Orange County, they wouldn't arrive immediately.
    When Mitch returned to the laundry room, Anson said, "Who called?"
    "He was selling something."
    Sea-green and bloodshot, Anson's eyes were oceans murky with shark's work. "It didn't sound like sales."
    "If you were going to tell me what you do for a living."
    Malicious glee swam into Anson's eyes again. He wanted to share his triumph less out of pride than because somehow it was knowledge that would wound Mitch.
    "Imagine you send data to a customer over the Internet, and on receipt it appears to be innocent material—say photos and a text history of Ireland."
    "Appears to be."
    "It's not like encrypted data, which is meaningless if you don't have the code. Instead it appears clear, unremarkable. But when you process it with a special software, the photos and text combine and re-form into completely different material, into the hidden truth.'"
    "What is the truth?"
    "Wait. First...your customer downloads the software and never has a hard copy. If police search his computer and try to copy or analyze the operative software, the program self-destructs beyond reconstitution. Likewise documents stored on the computer in either original or converted form."
    Having striven to keep his computer knowledge to the minimum that the modern world would allow, Mitch wasn't sure that he saw the most useful applications of this, but one occurred to him.
    "So terrorists could communicate over the Internet, and anyone sampling their transmissions would find them sharing only a history of Ireland."
    "Or France or Tahiti, or long analyses of John Wayne's films. No sinister material, no obvious encryption to raise suspicion. But terrorists aren't a stable, profitable market."
    "Who is?"
    "There are many. But I want you to know especially about the work I did for Julian Campbell."
    "The entertainment entrepreneur," Mitch said.
    "It's true he owns casinos in several countries. Partly he uses them to launder money from other activities."
    Mitch thought he knew the real Anson, a man far different from the one who had ridden south with him to Rancho Santa Fe. No more illusions. No more self-imposed blindness.
    Yet in this essential moment, a chilling third iteration of the man revealed itself, almost as much a stranger to Mitch as had been the second Anson who first appeared in Campbell's library.
    His face seemed to acquire a new tenant that slouched through the chambers of his skull and brought a darker light to those two familiar green windows.
    Something about his body changed, as well. A more primitive hulk seemed to occupy the chair than he who'd sat there a minute previous, still a man but a man in whom the animal was more clearly visible.
    This awareness came to Mitch