Free Death of Secrets by Bowen Greenwood Page B

that’ll keep you safe and keep your career
safe. To me, the obvious thing would be to pull yourself into a hole for a
while – hide, and be impossible to find. Your first instinct was right, you
can’t go to the cops. And you’re also right about being in over your head. If
you can’t fight and you can’t call for help, the only other two options are
‘run’ and ‘hide.’ I’d try hiding first before running."
    "That makes sense," Mike said, looking down into his
beer. "That’s the best I’ve been able to come up with too. I guess I’ll
have to think up a good place to hide. Don’t be surprised if I’m not around for
a while, guys."
    "Of course, there’s the small problem of being in
session," Jacobs reminded him.
    "Yeah, missing a few roll call votes won’t help
much," Mike admitted. "But it’s less of a scandal than going to the
cops would be. I’ll have to work on that part."
    After a few moments of nervous silence between the three of
them, Tilman muttered, "All this kinda makes me feel guilty for worrying
so much about my own problems."
    The Congressman chuckled wryly. "Sorry, I’ve been hogging
all the sympathy. What’s wrong in your world?"
    "Nowhere near the same scale as your problem, Mike, but
one of my guys died yesterday."
    Vincent’s eyes went wide. "One of your employees? That’s
really serious. What happened?"
    "Guy goes up to the roof every single day to smoke. He’s
been doing it for the whole year I’ve had him on board. And yesterday he falls
off." Tilman made a dropping motion with his hand. "Just like that.
Coders," he sighed. "Always in their own intellectual world, seeing
the numbers and the logic but not the ground in front of them apparently."
    Nathan spoke up. "Wait a minute… heavy smoker? It’s not
Krupotnik, is it?"
    "Yeah, but don’t worry, Nate. GigaStar is OK. The code’s
all written already."
    Nathan didn’t push the matter, but he didn’t like it much,
either. Trouble on the GigaStar project would be bad news if Congress got wind
of it. And since Tilman just told Mike, Congress now had wind of it. Mike was
on their side, to be sure, but he was still part of "The Hill," and
letting him know about that wasn’t smart. Their lunch broke up without much
more conversation.
     
    ***
     
    John and Kathy made the walk back toward their hotel. The cobblestone
streets of Georgetown felt surreal to her. This was Kathy's normal life – the
place she lived and played each day. This area was ordinary to her. And yet
last night hadn't gone away, it was still real. She kept hoping she’d somehow
wound up in the twilight zone, and any minute now she’d get zipped away back to
normality. Being in Georgetown made it clear, that was not going to happen.
    Back at the hotel, she and John took an elevator to their
floor. Maybe John had been feeling the same chill she had, Kathy thought.
Whatever the reason, neither of them seemed inclined to talk a lot as the
elevator carried them up.
    The doors opened with a bell and they started down the hall.
    As they did, a man closed the door to a hotel room midway up
the corridor and turned a corner into a maintenance stairway.
    Kathy froze, and grabbed her friend’s arm. "John, did that
look like our room to you?"
    He only nodded, and took another tentative step forward,
wrapping an arm around Kathy’s back. As they neared the door they’d seen the
man come out of, they could see their own room number on it. Kathy’s hand flew
immediately to her mouth, but she managed to stifle her scream.
    Simultaneously, their heads swiveled to trade glances. Waving
at Kathy to stand back, John got the door open and stepped in, scanning around
the room for an intruder. He found none, and wasted no time in taking advantage
of the fact that they’d been lucky and missed the pursuers. "We need to
leave," he said. "Now."
    Kathy thought, This isn’t going to just go away, she thought.
I’m not getting zipped away to the real world. If we want it to end,