The Blue Nowhere by Jeffery Deaver
She opened the door and gestured.
A moment later Elana's staunch, unsmiling mother walked into the room. She was leading a small boy, about eighteen months old, by the hand.
Jesus, Lord . . . Gillette was shocked. Elana and Ed had a baby!
His ex-wife sat down in the chair once again and hauled the youngster up on her lap. "This's Ed."
Gillette whispered, "Him?"
"That's right."
"But . . ."
"You assumed Ed was my boyfriend. But he's my son. . . . Actually, I should say he's our son. I named him after you. Your middle name. Edward isn't a hacker's name."
"Ours?" he whispered.
She nodded.
Gillette thought back to the last few nights they'd been together before he'd surrendered to the prison authorities to start his sentence, lying in bed with her, pulling her close. . . .
He closed his eyes. Lord, Lord, Lord . . . He remembered the surveillance at Elana's house in Sunnyvale the night he escaped from CCU--he'd assumed that the children the police saw were her sister's. But one of them must have been this boy.
I saw your e-mails. When you talk about Ed it doesn't exactly sound like he's perfect husband material. . . .
He gave a faint laugh. "You never told me."
"I was so mad at you I didn't want you to know. Ever."
"But you don't feel that way now?"
"I'm not sure."
He gazed at the boy's thick, curly black hair. That was his mother's. He'd gotten her beautiful dark eyes and round face too. "Hold him up, would you?"
She helped her son stand on her lap. His quick eyes studied Gillette carefully. Then the boy became aware of the Plexiglas. He reached forward with his fat baby fingers and touched it, smiling, fascinated, trying to understand how he could see through it but not be able to touch something on the other side.
He's curious, Gillette thought. That's what he got from me.
Then a guard stepped into the room and told them visiting hours were over. Elana eased the boy to the floor and stood. Her mother took the child's hand and Ed and his grandmother walked out of the room.
Elana and Gillette faced each other across the Plexiglas divide.
"We'll see how it goes," she said. "How's that?"
"That's all I'm asking."
She nodded.
Then they turned in separate directions and, as Elana disappeared out the visitors' door, the guard led Wyatt Gillette back into the dim corridor toward his cell, where his machine awaited.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
In writing this book, I've taken some significant liberties with the structure and operation of federal and California state law enforcement agencies. I wish I could say the same for my depiction of computer hackers' ability to invade our private lives, but I've got bad news: It happens with alarming frequency. Some of the computer specialists I spoke with felt that a program like Trapdoor probably couldn't be written at this time. But I'm not completely convinced--upon hearing their opinions I couldn't help but think of the senior researcher for one of the world's biggest computer companies who in the 1950s recommended that his company stick with vacuum tubes because there was no future for the microchip, and of the head of another international hardware and software manufacturer who stated--in the 1980s--that there'd never be a market for a personal computer.
For the moment we can assume that a Trapdoor-like program doesn't exist. Probably.
And, oh, yes, the chapter numbers are in binary form. Don't feel bad--I had to look them up too.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As one's career in this business lengthens so does the list of those for whom a novelist feels undying gratitude for their herculean efforts on his behalf: David Rosenthal, Marysue Rucci, George Lucas and everyone at my top-notch U.S. publisher, Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books; Sue Fletcher, Carolyn Mays, and Georgina Moore, to name just a few at my superb U.K. publisher, Hodder & Stoughton; and my agents Deborah Schneider, Diana McKay, Vivienne Schuster, the other fine folks at Curtis Brown in London, and movie-wizard Ron Bernstein, as well as my many foreign agents, who've gotten my books into the hands of readers around the world. Thanks to my sister and fellow author, Julie Deaver, and--as always--my special, enduring gratitude to Madelyn Warcholik; if it weren't for her you would just have bought a book containing nothing but blank pages.
Among the resources I found invaluable (and thoroughly enjoyable) in writing this novel are the following books: The Watchman and The Fugitive Game by Jonathan Littman, Masters of Deception by Michelle Slatalla and Joshua Quittner; The New Hacker's Dictionary by Eric S. Raymond; The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll, The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling, Bots by Andrew Leonard and Fire in the Valley by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine.
JEFFERY DEAVER is a former attorney and creator of fictional detective Lincoln Rhyme; the novels in the series have been called "masterpieces of modern criminology" (Philadelphia Daily News). Handpicked by Ian Fleming's estate to carry on the James Bond literary tradition, he released the #1 international bestseller Carte Blanche in 2011 to rave reviews. Among his numerous stand-alone novels is The Bodies Left Behind, winner of the 2009 Best Novel of the Year award from the International Thriller Writers organization. Visit the author on Facebook or go to www.jefferydeaver.com.
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AUTHOR PHOTO (c) CHARLES HARRIS/CORBIS
ALSO BY JEFFERY DEAVER
Carte Blanche
Edge
The Burning Wire*
Best American Mystery Stories 2009 (Editor) The Watch List (The Copper Bracelet and The Chopin Manuscript) (Contributor) Roadside Crosses**
The Bodies Left Behind
The Broken Window*
The Sleeping Doll**
More Twisted: Collected Stories, Volume Two The Cold Moon*/**
The Twelfth Card*
Garden of Beasts
Twisted: Collected Stories The Vanished Man*
The Stone Monkey*
The Blue Nowhere
The Empty Chair*
Speaking in Tongues
The Devil's Teardrop
The Coffin Dancer*
The Bone Collector*
A Maiden's Grave
Praying for Sleep
The Lesson of Her Death Mistress of Justice
Hard News
Death of a Blue Movie Star Manhattan Is My Beat
Hell's Kitchen
Bloody River Blues
Shallow Graves
A Century of Great Suspense Stories (Editor) A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime (Editor) Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Introduction) *Featuring Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs **Featuring Kathryn Dance
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright (c) 2001 by Jeffery Deaver
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ISBN 978-1-4516-8792-7
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Jeffery Deaver, The Blue Nowhere
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