for hours. “Bedtime?”
Edison wagged his tail and looked meaningfully at the door. The dog didn’t think it was healthy to sit here this long. He was right, of course. But he didn’t have to go to the bathroom. When he did, he stood by the door and gave a bark to let Joe know it was important. Just a single bark, because Edison, or Joe, was well trained.
“It’s going to be a while, buddy,” Joe told him. “Sorry.”
Edison gave him a skeptical look and wandered out toward the kitchen. A crunching sound indicated he had found a midnight snack.
Joe scrolled through the reports he’d just generated. It was unmistakable. The National Security Agency was submitting millions of match requests.
What was their source material? He found that, too. They’d submitted surveillance footage from all across the country—people going into stores, people crossing the street, people leaving church, people eating at McDonald’s. Any of those requests would have been normal, but so many of them at once meant they had tapped into thousands of surveillance cameras and were looking for automated matches of the millions of people who appeared on the videos. Those people couldn’t all be criminals or terrorists—the vast majority of them were innocent. But they were still being tracked.
Millions of innocent people were being tracked.
And Joe had created the monster.
Chapter 15
Vivian checked her phone. She’d been pacing the corridor outside of Mrs. Tesla’s suite for hours. The woman hadn’t come out, although a room-service cart had gone in. Vivian had intercepted it outside the door, searched it, and patted down the bewildered Hispanic waiter.
The elevator dinged, and she tensed, as she had about a hundred times over the course of the evening. So far she’d watched a drunken couple practically have sex in the hall, a bored businessman with a briefcase head straight to his room, four guys in black T-shirts who smelled like pot and couldn’t stop laughing stumble to their room, and a guy lugging what she swore was a monkey in a dog carrier.
Dirk stepped out of the elevator, and she relaxed. He was here to replace her, and she had trusted him with her life for years.
A police officer by day, he sometimes moonlighted for Mr. Rossi’s security company. Mr. Rossi was Tesla’s lawyer. She’d met Tesla when Mr. Rossi had hired her to protect him. But Tesla had given her the slip and disappeared underground—reappearing with the agoraphobia that still plagued him. If she’d kept an eye on him as she should have, he’d be fine today.
“Yo,” Dirk said. The circles under his eyes looked darker than usual, and his jeans and white shirt looked as if he’d slept in them. Not his usual dapper self.
Dirk looked that way only when he had girl trouble, a condition that cropped up about every six months. Dirk had commitment issues.
“Long day?” she asked.
He shrugged and looked around the empty corridor. “Better than yours, by the looks of it.”
She filled him in on the situation, then took the elevator down. This time she didn’t feel so awed by the lobby. The people here weren’t different from anyone else, except they had more money to burn.
She turned up her collar and started walking toward Grand Central in the warm night. Even though it was late, people swarmed around her on the sidewalk, some dressed in formal evening wear, others in grungy torn jeans and covered in piercings. Lucy would look like that if their mother weren’t so strict.
She tapped out a text message to an informant she’d been cultivating at Grand Central. If she didn’t get a response, this was likely a wasted trip. Still, it felt good to be walking and actually getting somewhere instead of just wearing down the carpet.
A few blocks later, she got an answer.
Good. He was sober enough to type, and he hadn’t lost or hocked the phone.
She arranged to meet him in front of Pershing Square restaurant. She was starving, and he
Edison wagged his tail and looked meaningfully at the door. The dog didn’t think it was healthy to sit here this long. He was right, of course. But he didn’t have to go to the bathroom. When he did, he stood by the door and gave a bark to let Joe know it was important. Just a single bark, because Edison, or Joe, was well trained.
“It’s going to be a while, buddy,” Joe told him. “Sorry.”
Edison gave him a skeptical look and wandered out toward the kitchen. A crunching sound indicated he had found a midnight snack.
Joe scrolled through the reports he’d just generated. It was unmistakable. The National Security Agency was submitting millions of match requests.
What was their source material? He found that, too. They’d submitted surveillance footage from all across the country—people going into stores, people crossing the street, people leaving church, people eating at McDonald’s. Any of those requests would have been normal, but so many of them at once meant they had tapped into thousands of surveillance cameras and were looking for automated matches of the millions of people who appeared on the videos. Those people couldn’t all be criminals or terrorists—the vast majority of them were innocent. But they were still being tracked.
Millions of innocent people were being tracked.
And Joe had created the monster.
Chapter 15
Vivian checked her phone. She’d been pacing the corridor outside of Mrs. Tesla’s suite for hours. The woman hadn’t come out, although a room-service cart had gone in. Vivian had intercepted it outside the door, searched it, and patted down the bewildered Hispanic waiter.
The elevator dinged, and she tensed, as she had about a hundred times over the course of the evening. So far she’d watched a drunken couple practically have sex in the hall, a bored businessman with a briefcase head straight to his room, four guys in black T-shirts who smelled like pot and couldn’t stop laughing stumble to their room, and a guy lugging what she swore was a monkey in a dog carrier.
Dirk stepped out of the elevator, and she relaxed. He was here to replace her, and she had trusted him with her life for years.
A police officer by day, he sometimes moonlighted for Mr. Rossi’s security company. Mr. Rossi was Tesla’s lawyer. She’d met Tesla when Mr. Rossi had hired her to protect him. But Tesla had given her the slip and disappeared underground—reappearing with the agoraphobia that still plagued him. If she’d kept an eye on him as she should have, he’d be fine today.
“Yo,” Dirk said. The circles under his eyes looked darker than usual, and his jeans and white shirt looked as if he’d slept in them. Not his usual dapper self.
Dirk looked that way only when he had girl trouble, a condition that cropped up about every six months. Dirk had commitment issues.
“Long day?” she asked.
He shrugged and looked around the empty corridor. “Better than yours, by the looks of it.”
She filled him in on the situation, then took the elevator down. This time she didn’t feel so awed by the lobby. The people here weren’t different from anyone else, except they had more money to burn.
She turned up her collar and started walking toward Grand Central in the warm night. Even though it was late, people swarmed around her on the sidewalk, some dressed in formal evening wear, others in grungy torn jeans and covered in piercings. Lucy would look like that if their mother weren’t so strict.
She tapped out a text message to an informant she’d been cultivating at Grand Central. If she didn’t get a response, this was likely a wasted trip. Still, it felt good to be walking and actually getting somewhere instead of just wearing down the carpet.
A few blocks later, she got an answer.
Good. He was sober enough to type, and he hadn’t lost or hocked the phone.
She arranged to meet him in front of Pershing Square restaurant. She was starving, and he
Similar Books
