Crux

64 STORM WARNINGS

Wednesday October 31st

Holtzmann spent Wednesday at the office in a daze. He accepted the well wishes on his return to health, pushed through messages and meetings, delegated tasks, assured Barnes that he was working hard on back doors.

Anne fought with him that night. It was one-sided. He let her rant at him about his secrets, question why he’d really gone to Boston, whether he was fucking Lisa Brandt, whether he’d fucked her when she was his student, whether he really believed the conspiracy theories he was spouting. He didn’t defend himself. He was too tired for all that, too far gone in his own world. Instead he apologized to his wife, again and again, then slept on the couch.

Thursday November 1st

Holtzmann woke Thursday morning to two pieces of news.

First, Zoe’s storm track had bent further, sending it almost directly northwest now, aiming it squarely towards Washington DC. The Mayor of DC had ordered an evacuation of the city. The governors of Virginia and Maryland had ordered evacuations of counties in the storm’s path. The DHS and other agencies had backed up those orders, commanding only essential personnel to stay. Holtzmann wasn’t among them.

Second, a new message on the Nexus board, just minutes old.

[Friday night, during the storm. Staffing will be bare bones. A fire alarm will go off in a different wing of your building. Get your friends out. Get them to Pecan Street. A white van will meet them.]

Holtzmann stared at the message, read it again and again. Someone else. They had someone else inside. Someone who could pull that alarm.

But they needed him too. He’d have to stay, to find some way to free Rangan and the children, without being caught himself.

Three hours later, Anne was gone. She’d woken, then started packing for evacuation. He’d told her he was staying. She’d screamed at him, then pleaded with him, alternated between the two, telling him he was going mad, telling him he was throwing his life away, throwing her life away. In the end, she’d gone without him.

Noon on Thursday now. Wind was picking up outside. In less than thirty-two hours, he’d be breaking prisoners out of ERD Headquarters. Madness.

There was one other piece of madness to attend to. He picked up the phone, dialed Claire Becker.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Claire, it’s Martin Holtzmann.”

“Martin… Anne said you had a fight…”

“Claire, I’m looking for any files Warren may have left behind. Anything from the early days of the ERD, or even further back, from his time at the FBI.”

“Martin… I know Anne thinks I’m crazy. But I think they killed him. To keep him quiet.”

“I know, Claire.”

She went silent for a moment. Then, “You believe me?” Her voice sounded girlish – vulnerable.

Holtzmann sighed. “I don’t know. But I don’t think you’re crazy. And I don’t think it’s impossible.”

She responded with relief. “Oh my God, thank you, Martin, thank you, thank you–”

“Claire,” he cut her off. “What I’m looking for in Warren’s files… If I found it, it would be the opposite of keeping him quiet. You understand?”

There was silence across the line again. Then Claire Becker spoke.

“We’re about to leave, Martin. In the evacuation. The girls are almost finished packing. If there are any files, they’d be in Warren’s office. I can give you the door code…”

An hour later he was on his way to the Becker home.

Holtzmann punched the door code into the panel inset on the Beckers’ front door. The lock flashed green at him, and its motor whirred as the deadbolt slid open.

He pushed open the door. “Hello?” he called out.

There was no answer.

It felt wrong, being here. He hadn’t set foot in this home since Warren died. Nothing for it.

Holtzmann padded into the main room, leaning on his cane, then pushed himself up the stairs to the second floor. Something made him move in a hush, an eeriness about the place. His friend had lived here. And now that friend was dead.

ERD had been here, he was sure, cleaning up after Becker. What could he hope to accomplish? But he had no other leads.

He pushed open the door to Warren Becker’s office and stepped in, cane in hand. It felt like entering a mausoleum.

The room was tidy. Wooden shelves lined the wall, filled with mementos, display plates, paper books. A single window gave light. A large wooden desk sat below the window. A circular carpet covered most of the floor. Two doors led to a washroom and a closet, respectively.

Holtzmann sat behind his friend’s desk. It still felt wrong, being here. But he had to.

Pictures of Claire and their daughters decorated the desk. Everything was tidy. There was a workstation atop it, a four-inch black cube with a handful of ports, a large flat display and a keypad. There was a space where his secure terminal would have been, undoubtedly cleaned away by DHS.

Holtzmann activated the workstation. Password-protected, of course.

The desk drawers were unlocked. Holtzmann rifled through them. Papers, nothing classified. A personal slate, also password-protected. Pens. Medals and commendations that Becker never displayed. A drink drawer with a half-full bottle of Laphroaig, glasses, an empty ice bucket.

He emptied each drawer, tapped their bottoms and backs and sides looking for some false compartment. He felt ridiculous, an amateur doing a job for professionals. Warren Becker had been a professional. Holtzmann was not.

He gave up on the desk, moved to the shelves. One by one he pulled down the mementos, the books, searching for a false cover, something hidden between the pages, a false back or side or top or bottom to a shelf.

Nothing.

The carpet caught his eye next. But when dropped to his knees and rolled it up, he found nothing but wooden floor boards beneath. None came loose. None sounded different than the others when he rapped on them.

The bathroom revealed toiletries, cleaning supplies, and nothing else.

The closet was no better. Golf clubs. Spare shoes. A jacket missing a button on the sleeve. He searched all of it, looked for some secret compartment or hidden memory chip or something. He tapped his cane against the walls of the closet, searching for some hidden space.

Nothing.

Nothing nothing nothing.

Holtzmann collapsed back in the chair, frustrated. He’d been here for hours now. He was tired and hungry. He still craved an opiate hit that he had no way to deliver. It would feel so good to just unwind…

Wait.

Holtzmann opened the drink drawer again. The bottle. He pulled it out. It looked… different. He’d seen Warren pour Laphroaig at the office. The bottle he’d poured it from wasn’t quite the same as this. He turned it over in his mind, scanning the label. There it was. “Bottled in 2029.” Eleven years ago.

Had Becker really been sipping from this same bottle for all those years?

Holtzmann worked the cap off the bottle, brought it to his nose. It certainly smelled like whisky.

He capped the bottle, turned it over in his hands again. Why would Becker keep this bottle all this time? Not drinking it? Or perhaps drinking and refilling it?

Sentimental value?

He turned it over again and again, running his thumbs over the bottle’s surface as he did, wondering, wondering.

And then he felt it.

He turned the bottle back. Somewhere… There. His thumb brushed over a corner of the label. And he felt something. The tiniest bump. Could it be?

Holtzmann brought the bottle close to his face. Was there a tiny irregularity there? Was the corner of the label just a bit loose?

He pried one finger nail under the edge of the label, tugged just a tiny bit…

And the label peeled back. And there, underneath it, was a tiny gold sliver. A tiny memory foil. A gift from Warren Becker.