Pattern Recognition

25. SIGIL

Starbucks, she thinks, seated in one near Blue Ant, beneath exactly the same faux-Murano pendulum lamps they have in the branch nearest her apartment in New York, is a strange place in which to feel this upset.

She and Boone have managed to get here via some highly uncomfortable and basically nonverbal form of decision-making, Cayce not having wanted to stay at Blue Ant for a second longer than she needed to, and now he's waiting for their order at that same round-topped drink-delivery counter they all have.

The decor somehow fosters emotional neutrality, a leveling of affect. She can feel it actually starting to calm her down (though perhaps that's simply a matter of its familiarity) but then he's there, placing their lattes on the table. “So why doesn't Starbucks drive you crazy,” he asks, “if excessive branding's the trigger?”

She glares at him, struck dumb with the irritation she feels. “You look angry.” He takes the seat opposite her.

“I am. Aside from Hubertus having hooked up with Dorotea, and Dorotea having my therapist's notes, I'm questioning whether I can work with you.”

“I think I understand.”

“I didn't like it, in the car, when you took the lead with Bigend —”

“I'm sorry. I got ahead of myself, there, but I was pissed off that he'd turned up that way. I assumed you were too.”

And she had been, actually.

“Now you've told him what I thought had been going on with Dorotea. Without consulting me. I'd shared that with you, not with him.”

“I assumed you were sleeping —”

“You should have called me!”

“And I knew that Franco and Max were sitting in a car diagonally across the street from your friend's place.”

“They were? When?”

“When I went round at one in the morning to have a look.”

“You did? Why?”

“To see if you were okay.”

She stares at him.

“That was when I called Bigend and told him what was going on, and that I thought these guys were working for Dorotea. He called her, then. He knew she was in London. I don't know what he said to her, initially, but inside of ten minutes, Franco was on his phone and then they were gone. I hung around for a while, decided you'd probably be okay, went to Bigend's hotel. We had a very early breakfast, then Dorotea joined us for coffee.”

“Haven't you slept at all?”

“No.”

“And you were there when he made his deal with Dorotea?”

“I wasn't there when they negotiated the finer points of the deal they'd made on the phone. I was there to hear her story, though, so I know that Franco and Max were on their way back here almost as soon as you asked Mainwaring for a flight. They actually followed us in from the airport. Hubertus missed that, by the way. He doesn't really concern himself with that level of detail.”

It's starting to sink in that if he did break her confidence, with Bigend, it was only in order to ensure her safety. Not that she's feeling any safer at the moment. “But what if she's still lying? Still working for whoever it is.”

“She could be. Hubertus is a gambler. A very methodical one, in his way, but still a gambler. He's banking on understanding her better than they do. These Russians, Cypriots, whatever they are, probably all they can offer her is money. Or, as Bigend himself suggested, when he told me what he was doing, they might turn her again, more easily, with a threat.”

“What do you mean?”

“She couldn't enjoy her career move very much if she were dead.”

“Aren't you being overdramatic?”

“People who have Russians from Cyprus hire corporate espionage types for them can have a flair for drama. Particularly if they turn out to be Russian themselves.”

“Is she still in contact with them? Are they Russian? Who are they?”

“She spoke with him last night. So far, today, she's dodging contact.”

“Why did you use the plural, before? 'Them'?”

“She feels it's an organization of some kind. The Russian is the only one she's met, but she's spoken with several others by phone. They debrief her, basically. She thinks they're all either Russian or working for them.”

She thinks about this, trying to get her head around at least the largest corners. It's not easy. “And do they know about you?”

“Only from the hug in your friend's phone, and then only that Hubertus wanted you to meet me. And they photographed us, by the canal. And they must know that that was me on the scooter, in Roppongi. Unless, that is, you've told someone else, particularly on that Camden phone.”

“No. I haven't. What about my cell phone, if Pamela was working for Dorotea?”

“Dorotea says no. There wasn't time. Mainwaring took the phone from a batch Blue Ant has on hand. Dorotea would've tried to do something with that, if she'd been given time. Your iBook was purchased about a block from here, by their tech-support kid, and I've talked to him. He unpacked it, made sure it worked, loaded whatever Hubertus wanted you to have, and gave it to Mainwaring as she was going out the door. And I couldn't see anything when I checked it in Tokyo. What else did she give you?”

“Nothing.” Then she remembers. “Blue Ant expense card. Visa.”

“Then you might want to assume they have that number. I'd ask for a fresh one.”

“The guy who tried to take my bag, in Tokyo —”

“Franco. A potential weak link.” He takes a phone from his pocket and checks the time on its screen. “But he's on his way to Heathrow now to catch a flight to Geneva. Bigend's ticket. He's going to recuperate and have a really expensive Swiss surgeon take a free look at his nose. Out of the way and handsomely remunerated for it. The other guy gets two weeks in Cannes plus a nice bonus. Less likely to talk to Cypriots, whoever. We hope. These hired-help situations always have the potential for problems.”

“And what will Dorotea tell the man from Cyprus?”

“That Bigend has hired her. No way to hide it. The press release is going out now. They'll suspect he's buying her off, of course, but she's a player.”

“What about her phone, the one Bigend got her on? How do you know that wasn't bugged?”

“He'd given it to her himself, at some point, and told her not to use it, just keep it charged and turned on, in case he needed her. Although the problem with cellular isn't that your phone's been bugged, usually, but that someone's got your frequency. Inherently insecure, unless you're encrypted.”

“And you came to Damien's at one in the morning to see if I was safe?”

“I couldn't sleep.”

She puts her coffee down. “Thank you.”

“Are we even, now? Do you think you can work with me?”

She looks him in the eye. “Only if you keep me in the Boone loop. I have to know what you're actually doing. Can you do that?”

“Within practical limits.”

“What's that mean?”

“I'm leaving for Columbus, Ohio. This evening. If I get lucky, I may not be able to risk telling you exactly what's happening. You may have to read between the lines, until we get face time.”

“What's in Columbus?”

“Sigil Technologies. Watermarking for all forms of digital media. Website very pointedly doesn't say who their clients are, but friends of mine say they have a few big ones.”

“You think they watermarked the footage?”

“Seems like it. I sent Taki's number to my friend at Rice. Once he knew what he was looking for, he could come at it from a different angle. That number is definitely encrypted in segment seventy-eight. But the way it's done, he says, is distinctive, and points to a certain school of thought. He says that a part of that school of thought is known to have found a home at Sigil Technologies.”

“And what do you do when you get there?”

“Shoulder-surf. Social engineering.”

“Are you good at that?”

“In certain contexts,” he says, and sips his coffee.

“You sent your friend Taki's T-bone?”

“Yes. Using what he's learned about seventy-eight, he can try a number of different things. It might link each one to a point on the map. If it is a map.”

“It looks like a map. I know someone,” thinking of Darryl, “who's going to try giving it to a bot that only looks for maps. If it's been lifted from some actual city, we might get a match.”

“That would be good, but what I'm after, now, is the nature of Sigil's involvement. Do they get each segment from somewhere, watermark it, and send it back? If they do, and we can find out where it comes from, or where they send it, we might have your maker.”

“Would they have to actually view it, to watermark it?”

“I don't think so, but I want to find out.”

“How do you propose to do that?”

“I'm turning up on their doorstep as the representative of a small but very successful firm that's recently developed a need for nondetectable digital watermarking. That'll be a start. Why do you want to know whether they'd look at it?”

“There are footageheads everywhere. Or someone doing that work could become one, through exposure. There might be someone who already knows what you're looking for.”

“There might be. But we'd have to advertise, wouldn't we?” He's right.

He checks the time on his phone again. “I've got to go.”

“Where?”

“Selfridge's. I need a suit, fast.”

“I can't imagine you in a suit.”

“You don't need to,” he says, standing, small leather suitcase already in his hand. “You're unlikely to ever see me in one.” He smiles.

But I'll bet you'd look good in one, something in her says. It makes her blush. Now it's her turn to stand, feeling incredibly awkward. “Good luck in Ohio,” she offers, reaching to shake hands.

He squeezes, rather than shakes, simultaneously leaning quickly forward to kiss her lightly on the cheek. “Take care of yourself. I'll be in touch.”

And then she's watching him go out the door, past a girl with Maharishi parachute pants embroidered with tigers who, seeing the expression, whatever it is, on Cayce's face, smiles at her and winks.