The Breaker Read online

  He spoke in complete paragraphs and spun out a vision of advanced robotic manufacturing and complex industrial equipment that would notify a technician when it needed service.

  This was a full decade before the automation revolution was on the cover of Newsweek and the Internet of Things was featured in the New York Times Magazine.

  She remembered Holloway as being driven and arrogant, but with moderately better people skills than the typical undersocialized engineer. At the time, she’d been certain Vince Holloway would soon be running the next big thing. Now, she wondered why she hadn’t heard more about him. She plugged his name into the search bar.

  She found a lot of information from the time Sense Logic was sold, including her own piece. That corporate photo had been used in all of them. But newer stuff? Almost nothing.

  There was a short, flattering Wikipedia entry, clearly written by a paid publicist, with a photo of Holloway at a big glass desk wearing the same polo shirt as in the corporate shot, probably taken on the same day. And an archival Sense Logic website maintained by some tech history geek with too much free time. Sense Logic itself no longer existed, its people and technology absorbed into the new parent company, which was still selling off its unprofitable divisions to survive its earlier irrational exuberance. Capitalism was a bitch.

  Which meant, all told, she had only two pictures of Holloway, and they both showed the same overweight man with the blond ponytail. Maybe he wasn’t her guy after all.

  According to his Wikipedia page, he’d earned 452 million from the sale. But there was nothing more recent.

  So he’d had a really big payday, but what was he doing now? In June’s experience of the tech world, high achievers like Holloway rarely quit working, and each new venture would require some public presence to attract outside funding. Plus these guys usually had fingers in many pies, so it was doubly strange that there were no publicity shots for a board membership or venture fund, not even a charity event. And no social media. In the modern world, it took a lot of effort for a successful person to stay invisible.

  She’d dig deeper when she got her laptop’s databases up and running.

  Maybe his former partners knew how to find him. The other four guys were all over the Internet, which made Holloway’s absence all the more stark. She found them on social media and sent each one a private message with her email and phone number, saying she had a quick background question for an article she was writing. Who knows if they’d ever reach out to her, but she had to start somewhere.

  In the meantime, she went back to Holloway’s Wikipedia page and clicked on the photo, then on the Details tab. The photo credit was listed as “Pinnacle.” She scrolled down to the metadata. The photo copyright was owned by Pinnacle Technologies. She scrolled back up to the file history and looked for Pinnacle’s other Wikipedia contributions. There were none.

  So Pinnacle Technologies was not a Wikipedia regular. It didn’t exactly sound like a name for a freelance photographer. And wouldn’t Holloway have kept the copyright for himself? Maybe he hadn’t paid a PR flack after all. Maybe he’d written it himself. Maybe Pinnacle Technologies was Holloway.

  A simple web search for the company came back with too many results to be useful. Holloway had lived in California, so June went to the State of California’s business portal and plugged “pinnacle technologies” into the search box. Twenty-six results, a much smaller group. Probably not Pinnacle Technologies Orthodontia in Escondido, or Pinnacle Technologies Custom Hot Rods, which had closed in 1988. The only real candidate was Pinnacle Technologies, registered a decade before and still listed as active, with a Sacramento incorporating service listed as the Agent. She knew through long experience that the incorporating service wouldn’t tell her anything without a court order.

  She sighed. All this to track down a random photo credit on a Wikipedia entry. A waste of time. She set the iPad aside. Then picked it up again, and went to a phone directory where she had an account. Sometimes she forgot the simple stuff.

  Still no Holloway, but Pinnacle Technologies had a listing. The address was the same as the Sacramento incorporating service. But the phone number was different.

  June was a reporter, so she did what reporters do. She called the number.

  There was the strange ring rhythm of call forwarding. Finally, she heard a man’s voice. “Hello. How may I help you?” He was neither young nor old, with no detectable regional accent. Like a D.C. newscaster.

  “Hi, is this Pinnacle Technologies?”

  “This is reception. I’m Gary. How can I help you?”

  “Hi, Gary. I’d like to speak with Vincent Holloway, please.”

  “What is your name, please?”

  “My name is June Cassidy. I’m a reporter, working on a story about an incident at the Milwaukee Public Market yesterday. I just have a few quick questions on background, nothing for publication.”

  “Who do you represent?”

  “I’m a technology fellow at Public Investigations, a national nonprofit news organization.”

  “Please hold.”

  The line went quiet. No music, no nothing. Apparently Pinnacle Technologies was a bare-bones outfit. Or maybe it was a philosophical thing, one less distraction for the high-achieving tech professional.

  June’s stomach rumbled. She glanced at the clock and was surprised to discover it was after one. She’d wasted way too much time on this thing. And now she was on a strange silent hold.

  With the phone clamped between her shoulder and her ear, she rummaged through the fridge, looking for something to eat. They’d ordered all that Thai food last night, and the only thing left was half a container of drunken noodles. She opened the microwave and took out her coffee, which was cold again, then dumped the noodles into a bowl and put the bowl in to reheat. When she moved to put the phone on speaker, she realized that Gary had hung up on her.

  Huh. June called back.

  “Hello. How may I help you?” The same even, neutral voice.

  “Hi, Gary. My name is June Cassidy with Public Investigations. I think we got disconnected. I’m holding for Vince Holloway? About the Milwaukee Public Market? Off the record?”

  Pause. “There is no person here by that name.”

  “Then why did you ask me to hold when I called for Vincent Holloway? Mr. Holloway is the owner of Pinnacle Technologies, correct?”

  Another pause. She was afraid he’d hang up again. “Wait, Gary, wait. Please, just one more question, off the record. Can you describe Mr. Holloway? For example, what color hair does he have?” But she got no answer. The line was dead.

  Seriously, Gary needed to work on his people skills.

  June was willing to admit that it might be a wrong number, an artifact of the Internet scrape. Plus she’d basically pulled Pinnacle out of her ass anyway. And it wasn’t unusual at all for people to hang up on June. People who actually wanted to talk to a reporter usually had an axe to grind. Which was fine with June, as long as they answered her questions. She didn’t even mind if they lied. That was part of the job, to sort the bullshit from the truth.

  She reviewed the conversation in her head. What had Gary actually said? Had he even acknowledged that the number was for Pinnacle? Or that Holloway was even associated with that number?

  Honestly, she didn’t even mind if they dodged her questions. She usually learned something from the pattern of their evasions.

  The only way she didn’t learn something was if there was no conversation at all.

  Maybe Gary was good at his job after all.

  10

  PETER

  Peter walked out to his truck at dawn, still thinking about the break-in the night before, and the missing video sunglasses. His phone rang in his pocket.

  “What’s up, Franny?” His elderly neighbor had probably seen him from her post at her front window. Peter set his ala
rm for seven every morning just to check her porch light.

  “Can you stop at Otto’s on your way home?” Otto’s was a local chain of liquor stores.

  “Already?” As far as Peter could tell, Fran subsisted entirely on scotch and Girl Scout cookies. He’d bought her a liter bottle of the Famous Grouse just last week.

  “Don’t get smart with me, kiddo. And get the good stuff, not that cheap crap you bought last time. I’m almost ninety-eight, you know.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Anything else? Maybe some vegetables? A can of soup?”

  “Oh, no. Just grab some of those spicy Cheetos I like.”

  “Sure thing, Fran.” She’d made it this far, she must be doing something right. Or else she was some kind of medical marvel, held together by alcohol and preservatives.

  He got to Bliffert Lumber just as they opened. He picked up new heavy-duty deadbolts and jamb plates for the house, as well as a few 2x10s to replace the rotten floor framing in the Washington Heights project. The heavy planks were too long for the truck, and they hung off the back farther than he liked, but he didn’t have far to go.

  The Toyota was a work in progress. He’d gotten a deal on it because the steel cargo box was rusted out. After stripping the cargo box down to the chassis, he built a new wooden bed, then wired in fresh taillights to replace the old, although he hadn’t gotten around to welding up the overhead rack.

  He returned home to replace the deadbolts on all three doors, as he’d promised June the night before. It still bothered him that he couldn’t find any tool marks where the thief had gotten in. If June hadn’t left the door unlocked, then the guy was a real pro. That wasn’t good.

  The rain began as he drove west toward Washington Heights, feeling the long 2x10s bounce with every pothole. On the Vliet Street bridge, police cars lined both rails, overflow parking for the Third District station on the far side. It was just after shift change and uniformed officers clanked out to their cruisers, carrying their duty bags and coffee, shoulders up against the weather. Peter faced front and tried to look like an upstanding citizen, the kind of man who went to church twice a week and paid his taxes early.

  He had no claim to any of that.

  When he and Lewis had chosen the project house on 53rd Street, proximity to the cop shop had been a plus. Statistically, Lewis said, neighborhoods were safest near a police station. The single woman or young couple who were the most likely eventual buyers of the renovated house would like that.

  Peter had driven across that bridge every day for a month with no real concern. Even the most dedicated police officers had more important things to do than compare every person they met to the faces on the FBI’s email bulletins and wanted posters tacked to the station’s bulletin board. They didn’t even know Peter was in the state, let alone the country. And with every month that passed, new criminals would do new stupid things, new posters would get layered over the old, and Peter would become even more invisible. A normal day carried zero risk for a wanted man, as long as he stayed out of trouble.

  Peter reminded himself of this again now, as a uniformed sergeant eyeballed him from the curb. Peter nodded at the man, showing respect for the law as he braked for the light. All around him, cruiser doors thumped shut. In the rearview, he watched the sergeant’s Crown Vic pull out and roll up behind him.

  Peter’s wipers went back and forth. Finally the light changed and Peter stepped on the gas, hoping the Crown Vic would turn left or right. It stayed right behind him. Past the station, Peter thumped through yet another pothole and felt the boards bounce on the flatbed. He touched the brakes again and glanced at his mirror at the exact moment the sergeant turned on his overheads.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  He pulled into the parking lane with the Crown Vic thirty feet back, feeling his heart thump in his chest. He rolled down his window and waited while the sergeant sat in the cruiser and punched Peter’s plate into the computer.

  Peter had been worried about this moment for nine long months. His driver’s license was supposed to be clean and legitimate, straight from Lewis’s contact at the DMV. But the only way to know was to put it to the test. Which was going to happen any minute now.

  The static began to hum louder.

  Peter had gotten pretty good at spending time inside. The prospect of prison was something else entirely.

  He was acutely aware that most fugitives were caught not committing new crimes, but during a routine traffic stop or a background check for a new job. If the license wasn’t legit, the sergeant would almost certainly escort Peter to the station, take his prints, and plug them into the system. Federal alarm bells would ring loud enough to hear on the moon.

  None of these thoughts damped down the static rising into his brain. Left unchecked, the crackle of nerves would escalate his war-wired fight-or-flight reflex into overdrive. Which would not help Peter look like a respectable citizen. It didn’t matter how legit the license if the sergeant thought he was a meth-head.

  Or if they’d run facial recognition on the low-res market video and the software had somehow spit out his name. And the sergeant’s morning briefing had included Peter’s picture.

  He focused on his breath, slow and deep, in and out. This was one of the tools he’d learned to try to calm his revved-up limbic system. Hello, old friend. We can do this. Just hang on to your shit a little longer. Or things will get a whole lot worse.

  11

  By the time the sergeant finally stepped out of his car and adjusted his equipment belt, Peter’s muscles were tight as bridge cables, but the white sparks were holding steady.

  The sergeant stopped just behind Peter’s left shoulder. It gave him a full view of Peter’s body and the interior of the truck, but Peter couldn’t make any offensive moves without twisting awkwardly in his seat and telegraphing the whole thing. Not that he would go kinetic on this guy, a block from the District Three station. Definitely not. Breathe in, breathe out.

  “Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?”

  “No, Sergeant.”

  “You have a brake light out.”

  “Really?” Peter turned to get a better look at the officer. He had a square head and a mustache like a push broom. Peter had never had good luck with mustache cops. “I just replaced them when I built the flatbed. Maybe the rain got into the wiring, or the potholes knocked something loose. You mind if I get out and take a look?”

  He hoped his DIY attitude would help. Law enforcement was a blue-collar job, and the police were often sympathetic to guys who worked with their hands.

  The sergeant shook his head, but his eyes stayed locked on Peter’s face, as if he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. “Stay in your seat, sir. License, registration, and proof of insurance, please.”

  “You bet.” Peter’s wallet was in the open forward console. He took out his fake license and handed it over. “The paperwork’s in the glove box. I’m going to reach for it now.” Peter had been on the other side of this kind of work, manning checkpoints in Baghdad. He knew how to keep the temperature down. Not that it helped with the static right now.

  “Slowly, sir.” Maybe the sergeant had been over there, too. At least he didn’t have his hand on his pistol.

  Peter pulled the paperwork and held it out, speckling in the rain.

  The sergeant took a long moment to examine Peter’s license, then compared the photo with the face in front of him. “Sit tight, Mr. Murphy.” He walked back to the Crown Vic in the rain while the lightbar flashed red and blue.

  Why had Peter driven past the cop shop, today of all days? Just to show his big brass Marine Corps balls? It didn’t have to be the crappy market security cameras that got him. What if they’d caught the gunman overnight? Along with his computer and the high-def footage streamed from the video sunglasses?

  If they’d found Peter in the federal database, it wasn’t just a problem for Pe
ter. It was a problem for June, too. And Lewis. The static sparked higher, threatening to fill his head. Breathe, goddamn it.

  He told himself that he’d go quietly. He’d get a good lawyer and do it the right way, serve the time he had coming. That’s what he told himself.

  But then, he’d said the same thing the last time, before he’d kicked his way out of an Icelandic police car and taken down four Icelandic cops with a baton because he couldn’t keep the werewolf under control.

  Even the idea of prison, of years in a concrete cube without sight of sun or sky, under the control of a system designed to break the souls of even the hardest men, was enough to set the werewolf growling and turn the static’s sparks into frantic lightning.

  No matter what he told himself, Peter knew the truth.

  He was one of those wolves who’d chew off their own leg to get free of the trap.

  Finally the sergeant returned with his paperwork. “Mr. Murphy, do you own this vehicle?”

  Oh, crap. Lewis liked to make fun of the beater truck by calling it the Redneck Cadillac, so it was easy to forget it was registered in Lewis’s name, or rather in the name of the corporation that owned his rental properties. “Actually, Sergeant, it’s a company truck. Let me call my boss. Or you can call him, obviously.”

  The mustache twitched. “Let’s see if you can solve your brake light problem first. I’ll give you five minutes.”

  Peter felt the flush of relief and grabbed a multi-tool and a roll of electrical tape from the console. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

  The light assembly wasn’t loose or damaged. He popped the cover, but the inside was dry and the gasket looked intact. He squirmed under the back bumper and followed the wires toward the rear harness where they met the wires from the good side. In the light of his phone, he saw that the plastic harness had cracked, either opening the circuit or shorting it with water. Maybe a stone from the road, maybe just a bad part. Bad luck.