He walked for fifteen minutes.
The semi-industrial landscape fringing the Hudson River soon gave way to superhigh residential towers and the Chelsea neighborhood below.
Reznick caught sight of a hunched figure in the distance. The skinny black kid was sitting on a wooden bench, headphones on, backpack at his feet, shades on. He wore a gray sweatshirt with a hood, dark jeans, and black sneakers and exuded a cool anonymity. Reznick figured the kid was in his late twenties, early thirties max. He walked toward him and sat down.
Trevelle took off his headphones. “Appreciate you coming, man.”
“You sounded more than a little shaken up on the phone.”
“You could say that.”
Reznick turned and looked at Trevelle, who was peering over his sunglasses. His bleary eyes reflected lack of sleep, and they darted from one side to the other, as if he expected someone to walk up and attack him at any moment.
How likely that was, was something Reznick needed to determine. He let his gaze wander farther down the High Line. Tourists taking selfies, skyscrapers all around. It all seemed innocuous. “OK, we are where we are.”
Trevelle looked around, then raised the wrist wearing his watch. “Wearable prototype jammer. Can’t be too careful, but we should be able to talk securely here.”
Reznick stared at the watch. “And that blocks all signals?”
“It’s been activated and we’re safe. For now.”
Reznick waited until a couple ambled past before he spoke. “So what’s this all about? I mean really about. Someone has sure put the fear of God into you.”
Trevelle bent forward and picked up the backpack at his feet. He unzipped it, reached in, and pulled out a MacBook Air. He flipped open the lid, logged on, and maneuvered the laptop so Reznick could see it. “I need to warn you, I’m going to play a video clip. And it ain’t nice.”
“Hit it,” Reznick said.
Trevelle pressed play and the footage began.
Reznick watched the screen. Masked men with flashlights scoured an industrial building that looked like a warehouse. “Where is this?”
“This is my workspace. My home. Same place you visited a few years back, in Overtown. I live, work, and do everything there.”
“I thought it was supposed to be off the grid or something?”
“So did I. I’ve never had one intrusion in all these years.”
Reznick stared at the screen. “So who are those guys? And how did they find you?”
Trevelle shook his head. “No idea who they are. Faces covered, very professional. How did they find me? I’m guessing they could have followed a friend of mine who was staying with me. He’s the one they killed. At first, I thought maybe he was their target. He’s an acknowledged leading light in signals intelligence. He might’ve popped up on the radar of some bad dudes. But then . . .”
Reznick watched as the men went around gathering up computers and hard drives. Though the sound was low, he could hear them speaking in a foreign language.
“Fernandez had his own gear with him. As far as I can tell, they only took my stuff.” Trevelle gestured at the screen. “This is when it gets crazy.”
A masked man hauled a frightened, bespectacled twentysomething into view and pointed a gun at the young man’s head.
“That’s Fernandez,” Trevelle said, shaking his head. “Can’t believe it.”
Reznick stared at the screen. The masked man pulled the trigger, and Fernandez dropped like a stone, blood pooling on the concrete floor. A wave of revulsion washed over Reznick. He had done the same to high-value targets in Afghanistan and Iraq. Time after time. But to see a young kid, who’d probably done nothing wrong, neutralized like that sent an icy chill down his spine.
Trevelle closed the screen and returned the laptop to his backpack, zipping it up once more. “He was my closest friend in the world.”
“How exactly did you know Fernandez?”
“We met at MIT. And we both worked at the NSA around the same time. Different facilities at Fort Meade. But we met up for coffee, and beers on the weekend. He stayed in Naples with his parents most of the time.”
Reznick nodded. “Dumb fucking luck that he was staying with you.”
“He’s been trying to raise funding the last few weeks from some firms in Miami and Silicon Valley. He was talking about buying a cheap industrial space in Overtown and turning it into a cybersecurity hub. He had visions of employing hundreds, maybe thousands of people, as contractors for the government. He talked about hiring smart kids from the area—kids who were otherwise susceptible to gangs and drugs—and training them.”
“You said at first you thought he was the target. But now you don’t?”
“No, I don’t. Maybe. Shit, I don’t know.”
Reznick squinted as the glass towers surrounding them reflected the fierce sun. “Don’t beat yourself up. Whoever those guys were after, his death wasn’t your fault.”
Trevelle shook his head and sighed.
“You mentioned a file that was sent to you. Tell me about that.”
“God, I wish I could turn the clock back. I thought I was doing a favor for a friend by agreeing to decrypt the file. A friend of mine here in New York, David. He was sent the encrypted files from a hacker friend in Germany.”
“Why couldn’t the friend in Germany have accessed the information?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes we share these files with friends or associates, covering our tracks, that kind of thing. We have them analyzed, and then when it’s agreed, they might be released to the outside world.”
“You’re talking WikiLeaks?”
“Precisely.”
“So this friend in New York, not Fernandez, he sent you the file?”
“Yeah, he sent the file just over a week ago. He was inundated with requests to decrypt and analyze sensitive files. He was swamped. So, he sent it on to me. I never got it, which seems strange now that I think about it. So yesterday, it’s before dawn, I’m sitting in an all-night diner.” He looked at Reznick and shrugged. “I don’t sleep too well. Anyway, this friend, David, messages me, asking if I’d looked at the file yet. I tell him to send it again. The same time it arrives, I get the alert that those guys are creeping around my place.”
“Have you spoken to this friend in New York since this happened?”
Trevelle hesitated. “I was heading up here to see him in person, but I’ve been so freaked out, I wanted to talk to you first. I sent him a message—nothing specific, just a hey, wanted to touch base about a project, but no reply. That’s not unusual, though. If he’s deep into a hack, sometimes I don’t hear from him for weeks, or months.”
“I need to know more about the file. What kind of file is it? What does it contain?”
Trevelle leaned forward, unzipped the backpack again, and flipped open the MacBook.
Reznick watched as the kid signed in to a virtual private network, this time accessing the internet via a secure server in Germany. Two passwords were inputted as random metadata scrolled across the screen. Trevelle typed in one more password. The weird gobbledygook file dissolved, and the decrypted file appeared before Reznick’s eyes. Trevelle turned the screen more toward Reznick. “Check it out.”