Triggers

“It’s not some sort of reference to you? Maybe your old ZIP code or something?” She pulled out her BlackBerry and went to the USPS site. “Huh,” she said. “It’s not a valid ZIP code. Well, maybe that first ‘four’ isn’t the number. Maybe its, um, the…”

“Preposition,” Seth provided.

“Right. Maybe it’s ‘aim for 2-4-7-4.’ ”

“Well, 2-4-7-4 doesn’t mean anything to me. But if the second ‘four’ is also the preposition—aim for 2-4-7 for the echo—then maybe it’s a time. You know, 2:47?”

“But surely you’d say ‘two-forty-seven,’ then. And, besides, you were shot in the morning.”

“What about 24/7—you know, seven days a week?”

“But he said ‘two-four,’ not ‘twenty-four.’ ”

Seth frowned. “And what’s this about echoing?”

“That is strange. Danbury shot you from inside the Lincoln Memorial. With all that marble around him, it was bound to echo loudly no matter when he took the shot.”

“ ‘Echo,’ ” Seth said. “Suppose it’s not the word; suppose it’s the phonetic alphabet. You know: alpha, bravo, um…”

“Charlie,” said Susan, “delta, echo.”

“Right. So maybe it stands for something that begins with E.”

“Executive?” offered Susan. “Execute? Eliminate?”

Seth’s heart pounded—which hurt like hell. “God,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Two-four-seven. They add up to thirteen.”

“Yes. So?”

He hesitated. Did he really want to reveal the 13 Code to a Secret Service agent? But, of course, in this day of RSA encryption, no one except school kids bothered with simple substitution ciphers. He took a moment to explain how his code worked and talked her through writing up the conversion table on her yellow pad so she could see what he meant:

“There,” he said, when she was done. “A decryption table for the key two-four-seven.”

Susan looked at him like he was crazy. Seth nodded sagely. “They called me mad at the university.”

She smiled. “I’m sure they did, sir.”

Chapter 34

After leaving Professor Singh’s lab, Ivan Tarasov had intended to simply get through his day, trying to think of nothing but his duties as a security guard here at the hospital. He was good at his job, and he liked its repetitive quality: at this time, walk down this corridor, check that the doors to these rooms were properly locked, and—

And there he was. Ivan caught sight of Josh Latimer walking toward him. Seeing him, even from a distance, brought back a flood of Dora’s memories, including the awkward call, months ago, when he’d phoned her—him here in Washington, her over in London, the father who had missed all her school plays and her move to England and her wedding and even the funeral of her mother, calling up to make sure he’d tracked down the right Dora, checking that her maiden name had been Latimer, that she’d been born in Maryland, that her birthday was August 6, and then, once he was sure, explaining that he was her long-lost father, and arranging to come visit her for a face-to-face meeting. And in a little restaurant off Piccadilly Circus, after they’d each tried to compress three decades of life into an hour, he told her why he’d sought her out and what he needed from her.

Memories of what had happened after they’d parted came to him, too. Of her talking it over with her doctor, her best friend Mandy, and her minister, and ultimately deciding she had to do this; she couldn’t deny him.

Latimer was wearing a green hospital gown but blue jeans underneath. As Ivan watched, he turned and entered a room. Ivan’s own path took him by the same room, and suddenly he found himself pushing the door open, entering, and closing the door behind him.

Latimer was sitting in the chair by his bed. Across the street, through the window, George Washington University’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis dorm was visible. Latimer looked up, clearly startled to see a security guard entering.

Ivan felt his blood boiling; the mere sight of Latimer infuriated him. “How could you?” Ivan demanded.

Latimer frowned. “What?”

“After what you did to Dora, to ask her to let herself be cut open for you, to give a piece of her own body to you—how could you?”

Latimer groped on the table next to his chair for his eyeglasses, unfolded them, and put them on. “I don’t know you,” he said. “And you don’t know me. The person reading my memories is a woman—a nurse. Janis something.”

“Falconi,” said Ivan, nodding; he knew the names of all the nurses and doctors here. “I’m not reading you. I’m reading your daughter Dora.”

Latimer said nothing.

“You’re thinking she can’t possibly remember—because if she did, she’d never have agreed to help you. And maybe she doesn’t remember. But I do.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Latimer.

That further infuriated Ivan. “Don’t lie to me,” he said, moving closer. “Don’t you dare lie to me.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Latimer.

“I’m going to tell Dora,” Ivan said. “She deserves to know.”

“You can’t,” said Latimer, rising now.

“Oh?” said Ivan, turning now to exit, and—

Sound, movement, a tugging, and—