“So it’s unusual that he’s not answering?” Reznick said.
“More than unusual. But maybe he’s got his headphones on, zonked on Xanax and weed.”
“Does he get his weed delivered to his apartment too?”
“Usually.”
Reznick shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun as he looked up at the fire escape. “And he’s on the top floor?”
Trevelle pointed to a window. “Yeah.”
Reznick opened up his backpack and pulled out his flashlight which he placed carefully in his waistband next to his Beretta.
“What are you doing, man?”
Reznick stepped forward, jumped up, and pulled the iron fire escape down to street level.
“The hell are you doing, man?”
Reznick put one foot on the ancient creaking ladder. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“You breaking into his apartment?”
Reznick shook his head as he began to climb the outside of the building. “The guy might’ve fallen asleep stoned, watching cartoons.”
“I guess. Maybe. Listen, people will call the cops.”
“Relax, it’s New York. This sort of thing happens all the time.” He got to the top floor and looked at Trevelle on the ground. He pointed at a window adjacent to the fire escape. “This it?”
“Got it.”
Reznick peered through the dirt-encrusted window. He could just make out empty pizza boxes, cans of Red Bull, and candy wrappers strewn on the floor. He knocked hard on the window. No answer. He knocked again. “Jesus Christ, never a break.” He tried to lift up the window. But it wouldn’t budge.
He took a knife out of his back pocket. He tried to pry the window open, sliding the knife underneath the wooden frame. But nothing. It was stuck, as if months and years of dirt, dust, and grime had cemented it.
Trevelle shouted up, “He’s very security conscious.”
“Thanks for telling me now.”
Reznick pulled his flashlight out of his waistband and smashed it hard into the window. The glass shattered. He reached through the broken glass shards to the window lock and slid it open. He lifted up the smashed window, careful to avoid getting cut by the jagged glass.
He climbed inside. The smell of stale weed smoke filled the dank air. Reznick looked around. Dirty coffee mugs were lying on the floor. The place was dingy and dark despite it being daytime.
He switched on the flashlight and looked around. He thought it strange that the hermit hacker wasn’t around. There was no sign of any computer equipment.
Reznick headed into the hallway and combed the rest of the apartment carefully. It was a complete mess. Old computer magazines lying around, clothes strewn over chairs and the floor, grungy sneakers. He checked the bathroom. Then a small galley kitchen, with dirty dishes piled high. How could someone live like this?
Movement sounded in the apartment below. No doubt a neighbor who’d heard the breaking glass.
Reznick went back through the apartment and into the living room. He saw a closet at the far end. He opened it up and shone the flashlight inside. On closer inspection, he saw the ceiling contained an attic hatch.
Reznick reached up and pulled the dangling rope. Wooden stairs unfolded neatly into place.
Reznick climbed up the steps into the attic. He shone the flashlight around the darkened space between old oak beams. Then the light caught something moving. A pair of sneakers, swaying in midair. His stomach knotted as the light bathed the far end of the attic. Dust particles backlit from a dirty skylight in the attic roof. Flies and moths buzzing around.
And hanging by a nylon cord from a wooden beam, a twentysomething white guy, eyes wide open but seeing nothing.
Four
Max Charles was clocking his fiftieth lap on the elevated indoor running track of the prestigious New York Athletic Club during his lunch hour. At seventy-eight, he was probably the oldest member working out, but his creaking bones and knee joints didn’t worry him. He ran on, endorphins kicking in. Making him feel good again.
Down below on the basketball courts, J.P. Morgan hedge fund guys were high fiving each other after their game. He noticed their relaxed demeanor, their well-bred features, and all the signs of privilege.
He slowed down and rested up.
Charles felt the sweat sticking to his shirt. He checked his heart rate on his watch. Barely raised. His decades of running, rowing, and walking had left him with more energy than men half his age.
He headed down to the boxing gym and did some serious heavy bag work. Punching, jabbing, moving.
By then he was drenched in sweat. He ended his daily early-afternoon fitness regimen the way he usually did. Twenty laps in the club’s pool.
Afterward, he showered and put on his gray Savile Row suit, pale-blue shirt, navy tie, and shiny black leather shoes. He walked out of the club, said goodbye to Ramono at the door, and headed back toward his office, briefcase in hand.
Charles liked routines. He liked order. He lived an orderly existence. It was only a short five-minute walk to his office in a glass skyscraper on Lexington Avenue. He rode the elevator to his thirty-eighth-floor corner office.
Charles pressed his index finger to the digital biometric reader on the door. A metallic click, and he pushed open the door. It closed slowly behind him, clicking back into secure mode.
He placed his briefcase beside his desk, fixed himself a coffee from the machine as his gaze wandered around his office. The walls showed the world who he was. Black-and-white photos he’d had framed of himself as a boy in New Jersey all those years ago. He’d grown up poor. The oldest of a family of nine. And he had been working since he was a child.
How far he had come from those early years. Hauling crates of fruit from wagons, meat packing—he’d done all the dirty work. And he’d loved it. It was hard, brutal labor. But as a child, he’d been a vital moneymaker for his family. The first time he’d handed over his wages to his mother, she’d cried and hugged him tight, grateful for the money coming into the household.
Now look at him. It was scarcely credible.
Charles sipped his afternoon coffee and stared out the windows onto the bustling Midtown streets below. He’d come a long, long way. Sure, it was just across the bridge to Jersey. But to him, it felt like the end of the earth.
He let his mind drift. He always enjoyed the silence the ten or fifteen minutes after his workout. The peace. It gave him satisfaction to think of how much he had achieved. It allowed him the space for his head to clear and get focused for the rest of the afternoon.
His company, Geostrategy Solutions, was grossing five hundred million dollars a year. Hundreds of employees relied on him. Their families relied on him. He knew all about responsibility. Had since he was a boy.
Charles gazed around the rest of his office. The floor-to-ceiling bookshelf was stacked with biographies of military and intelligence figures. He had written a highly regarded book on Allen Dulles, the first civilian director of the Central Intelligence Agency. More photos of Charles pictured with Kissinger, with the late President George H. W. Bush, and his favorite, one of him and his wife with the pope, taken five years earlier at a private meeting at the Vatican. He cherished the memories.
Where had the years gone?
The reality was that a lot of his adult life had been spent abroad. Serving the United States. But since he had retired from the Agency, he was glad to be back in the city he loved. A brash, crazy city that had an irresistible energy. No wonder everyone wanted a shot at the American Dream. It was available if you worked hard enough and took chances. The immigrants were still pouring in, just like his forbearers from Ireland had all those decades earlier.