Sanskrit Cipher: A Marina Alexander Adventure Page 14

  He got to the ground floor and stepped out into the warm summer night. Because it was a college campus, there were floodlights everywhere that in different circumstances he’d consider severe light pollution offenders—but here the illumination was necessary to help keep the students safe. And Eli had never been so happy to have it. No one was around, and there was nowhere for anyone to lurk.

  He’d had to leave his beloved but very recognizable Juanita parked in the garage at home, and had been using the campus bus system and Uber and Lyft all day to get around. Now he was going to have to chance getting Juanita out and onto the road for the drive to Libertyville.

  Confident that he’d kept whoever had been after him in Cincinnati off his trail so far, Eli knew he just needed five minutes to get into the garage, get into the Jeep, and get on the highway without being noticed.

  But as he started down the street on a fast walk to catch one of the campus buses at RAL, he caught movement from out of the corner of his eye. Across Mathews and from behind…someone was coming up fast and silent.

  Swearing under his breath, Eli dug into the pocket of his gym bag, where he’d tucked the small knife he took with him to the jungle. Small but sharp as a wit, the blade would be no match for a firearm, but Eli was banking on the fact that whoever was following him would use a silent weapon rather than one that would draw attention.

  Gripping the hilt in his left hand, he changed his mind about crossing Mathews—he’d head over to Wright and be more likely to catch the bus there. He increased his pace and darted across the quad. The light was lower here, which could allow him to blend into the shadows, and hopefully his pursuer wouldn’t be able to see him as well. If he could reach the bus stop, he might be able to jump onto the bus before the asshole got to him, and then he’d be surrounded by witnesses. And he might be able to jump off at a stop before his pursuer could catch him.

  Across the quad, he started down the wide cobblestone path that ran between the English Building and Lincoln Hall, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. The traffic on Wright was fairly steady, and there was no sign—or sound—of the bus yet.

  Then he heard it—the distinct sound of the bus, squealing and farting from its exhaust pipe as it turned down Wright.

  He ran over the uneven cobbles, the gym bag bumping against his hip—aware that footfalls behind him were coming louder and closer and faster.

  Eli came out between Lincoln and the EB to where the bus pulled up to its stop in front of the bookstore. He cast a glance back to see how far away his pursuer was…and at the last second, Eli darted around in front of the bus instead of getting on it.

  Using the beast-sized vehicle as cover to block him from the view of his pursuer, Eli ran up the middle of Wright. As he heard the bus pull out from the stop a half a block behind him, he bolted back across the street toward the quad, taking cover in the shadows on the north side of the EB.

  Panting, he leaned against the smooth brick wall just behind a stately column and watched as the bus rolled away.

  It was too dark for him to tell whether his pursuer had climbed into the bus—not that he’d gotten a good enough look at the guy to recognize him through a window anyway.

  His only impression had been that of a hatless man wearing unrelieved black and moving with confidence and determination. He’d been too shadowed to tell what his skin color was, but his hair was dark and neither very short nor very long.

  Eli watched the area for another few moments but saw no sign of the man who’d been chasing him among the few pedestrians who strolled past.

  But he didn’t wait too long, and when he left, he didn’t go back out onto Wright. He went back toward the quad, staying in the shadows while moving briskly.

  He’d have to get an Uber—that was the safest way to get himself back home, where he could sneak into the garage and retrieve Juanita and hopefully make his escape without anyone seeing him…then be on his way to Libertyville.

  Which made him pause mentally, for if Jill Fetzer had someone lurking around her house—presumably after the bee—who the hell was chasing Eli here in Champaign?

  Maybe whoever was scoping out Jill’s house wasn’t related to the bee situation after all. That realization made him feel a little less worried about her.

  Because surely there weren’t two people after the bee…?

  He turned the corner sharply and nearly bumped into someone coming toward him—or waiting for him.

  Eli had an instant of shock and realization, but that wasn’t enough time to react. The man reached out, caught him by the throat with a bare hand, and pressed hard.

  Eli’s world shuttered black as his knees gave out.

  Twenty-One

  When Eli opened his eyes, the moon was blaring right into his gaze, blinding him. He blinked rapidly and looked away before he realized it wasn’t the moon but a streetlight shining down on him in the quiet July night.

  He was sitting half propped against some bushes that he recognized as being a hedge growing along the foundation of the English Building.

  He felt achy and out of sorts, but there weren’t any specific injuries on his body. He pulled himself easily to his feet. Whoa. The earth moved for a sec, then righted itself just as he remembered what happened: a man dressed in black reaching toward him with a brief, efficient move. And then nothing.

  Immediately following that flashback was the stark realization that his gym bag—the bag with Patty’s tablet in it—was gone.

  Eli swore violently in Spanish and stamped his foot for emphasis.

  Just great.

  He felt around his pockets and was relieved to discover that the assailant hadn’t taken his mobile phone. When he checked it, he saw the time—Madre, he’d been out for at least fifteen minutes—then called Jill.

  She answered immediately. “What’s wrong? Where are you? Are you on your way?”

  “Not yet. I got delayed. I just wanted to make sure everything was all right on your end.” He thought it best not to fill in the details of his experience, for Jill was already freaked. Out.

  Now that he knew she was safe and that whoever was after Patty’s notes about the bee was here in Champaign, he felt more relaxed.

  The asshole got what he wanted, and so he had no reason to bother Eli again. And although Eli had lost Patty’s tablet, he knew he should be able to access her backup via the cloud with a little help from IT. In the meantime, he needed to meet Jill.

  And, he supposed, starting off down the street at an easy jog, it was definitely time to return the call from Detective Perle from back in Cincinnati. Eli had a lot to tell him.

  Twenty minutes later, Eli and Juanita were barreling up I-57 toward Chicago and her suburbs. He’d done a little what he thought of as Jason Bourne movements—doubling back and around—just to make sure no one was following him, but when Eli finally got onto the highway, the road behind him was dark and empty, and it stayed that way for a long time.

  Juanita had just had an oil change, and she was running pretty smoothly for a fifteen-year-old Jeep with three hundred thousand miles, and whose rear bumper was attached by a trio of bungee cords. Eli’s friends teased him that he obviously had no problems with commitment because he wouldn’t even consider trading in his beloved for a newer, sexier model. Why should he, when she was all broken in and he knew every purr and growl and rumble she made? Plus, the seat was perfectly broken in to the shape of his butt.

  While driving, he first made a call to the IT help department at UIUC. He needed to make sure someone grabbed Patty’s data and notes off the cloud before the asshole who stole her tablet hacked into it. Because it was a university, where work and technological issues happened at all hours of the day, the call was immediately answered by a perky sounding young woman…

  …who wasn’t inclined to help Eli get into someone else’s account on the basis of a simple phone call.

  “I’m sorry, sir, I’m not able to do that,” she said in a perky, rather tinny voic
e. “Every university account is confidential, and I’m not able to grant access to anyone without proof of identity.”

  “I can prove my identity—”

  “But you’re not the owner of the account,” she replied in a very reasonable, still perky tone.

  “I’m her graduate advisor,” he said in his own reasonable tone. “And she—Patricia Denke—just died over in India, so she isn’t going to care if I get access to her notes.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t just take your word for it, you know? We have security issues here, strict security rules, and—”

  “Look, uh—what’s your name again?” He usually tried to remember the names of any faceless person he spoke to for things like this, but his brain was a little fried at the moment.

  “Rindy.”

  “Look, Rindy, I was assaulted earlier tonight and someone stole Patty Denke’s tablet from me. I just want to make sure whoever stole it can’t use it to get to her notes on the cloud and delete them.”

  “I’m really sorry, sir—”

  “Doctor,” he said, still keeping his voice smooth but deciding it was time to pull rank. This was, after all, a matter of life and death. “It’s Doctor Eli Sanchez—”

  He heard a shocked intake of breath. “Did you say Eli Sanchez?” The voice came out a little squeaky now.

  “Yes, Eli Sanchez. I’m Patty Denke’s advisor, and—”

  “The beetle guy? Who worked with the FBI? You were on NatGeo, weren’t you?”

  Thank heaven for National Geographic, their interest in the copper beetles, and UIUC pride. “Yes, that’s me.”

  “Oh, wow, I can’t believe I’m talking to you! I just thought that was the coolest thing ever—the copper beetles that caused the big blackout? And a deadly disease? Who’d have thought it! And you got to work with the FBI? You helped avert a terrorist attack.”

  “I did…and—can you keep a secret?”

  “Yes.”

  “I really, really need to secure Patty Denke’s account and all of her notes, because it’s—now please don’t repeat this—very possibly a matter of national security.” He lifted his eyes to heaven and added mentally, Sorry.

  “Oh.” She was quiet, and for a moment Eli thought he’d lost her. “Well…”

  “Someone might try to hack in to get or destroy those notes, and we have to make certain they’re copied—and protected. Even if you can’t let me have them”—he could worry about getting access later—“we have to make sure they’re copied and protected. Can you at least do that?”

  “Hold on a minute.”

  He waited, holding his breath and praying as the trusty Juanita trundled along and Rindy clattered away on her end of the line. He tried not to get too anxious, thinking about the possibility of an unknown hacker deleting the files as he drove along, helpless to stop them because of a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense…

  Finally—after three mile markers—Rindy came back on the line. “All right, Dr. Sanchez, I looked it up and it turns out you’re an authorized user on Patricia Denke’s account.”

  He was? Well, wasn’t that convenient. Hmmm.

  “So now what?”

  “Now, if you like, I can transfer all of her files to your account—”

  “That would be amazing. Because I’m driving right now, and it’s kind of urgent.”

  “No problem, Dr. Sanchez. I’m doing it right now. If you can just verify your identity for me…”

  So, still chafing with impatience, he went through the process of confirming he was who he said he was. Finally, twenty-seven minutes after he first made the call, Rindy (his new favorite person) confirmed that she’d transferred all of Patty’s files to Eli’s own account.

  “I can’t thank you enough for helping me out,” he said.

  “I’m really glad I was able to,” she replied in such a way that confirmed his suspicions: he hadn’t actually been an authorized user on Patty’s account—at least until about fifteen minutes ago.

  After he finally disconnected with Rindy, Eli made his overdue call to Detective Perle, who, unsurprisingly, didn’t answer his phone at one o’clock in the morning (Eastern time). But Eli left a detailed message about what happened in his hotel room and how things had hardly gotten any better since he returned to Champaign.

  He didn’t mention the bee element (because even Eli hardly believed someone would kill over an Apis bee), but he figured he could fill in that information if he and the detective ever had an actual live conversation. He guessed if he left that information on the voice message, the detective would think he was a little paranoid.

  As he disconnected the call, though, Eli realized that whatever was going on was now occurring in two different states—Ohio and Illinois—and that meant the Feds would need to be involved, not the local police.

  And he happened to know a Fed…who just happened to be stationed in Chicago; at least, last he’d heard. Special Agent Helen Darrow was sharp, intelligent, calm, and utterly professional—for all he knew, she’d been promoted back to Quantico or somewhere. He’d gotten to know her during the copper beetle debacle (as Eli privately called it) that ended up with his and Marina’s escape from the Amazon jungle hideaway of the Skaladeskas.

  He’d call SA Darrow in the morning and let her know what was going on. At least she wouldn’t think he was a crackpot.

  Besides, he had proof that someone had definitely tried to kill him back in Cincinnati. And he was lucky he’d only been knocked out tonight instead of killed…

  Eli frowned, squinting in the darkness—not in order to see better, but to think better.

  The man who had been trying to break into his hotel room obviously intended to use the syringe, which was filled with enough sufentanil to murder a horse. But the man who’d accosted Eli tonight had merely (merely!) tweaked that certain spot in the neck, dropping him like a bag of rocks…and leaving him basically unharmed. Less a gym bag with some apparently sensitive data, but unharmed nonetheless.

  Eli had assumed it was the same person…until now. Because if it was the same man, why so murderous the first time, and more lenient (for lack of a better term) on this second assault? If anything, one might think it’d be the other way around.

  Eli stared at the never-ending ribbon of highway, dotted regularly and rhythmically with the pale orange glow from streetlights, and tried to remember everything he could from each incident. Was it the same man?

  His first instinct was no.

  No…when he closed his eyes (only briefly; he was, after all, driving) and tried to imagine each of his attackers in turn, the memory didn’t feel the same. The first man seemed broader and maybe not as tall as Eli; the one tonight had given more of a long and lean impression.

  Both had dark hair, and neither had skin of pale white, though it was hard to tell whether either had brown, tan, or olive skin…

  A sharp image popped into Eli’s mind just as he passed Kankakee. A gloved hand—the left hand—reaching toward his throat…the black sleeve above it, pulling back a little to reveal a swatch of bare skin on the attacker’s wrist…a swatch of skin interrupted by a tattoo.

  Yes. There’d been a tattoo. Eli was sure of it. Right on the back of the wrist. Letters or maybe numbers in a neat row. He tried to bring focus to the memory, to drill down to the screenshot in his mind and identify what was written in the ink…

  Damn. Now his head hurt.

  But at least he’d figured out something helpful. And when he thought about the man who’d been there at his hotel room door, Eli simply didn’t have the same impression. Had that man even been wearing gloves?

  He couldn’t remember. Not for certain.

  But now that Eli concluded he’d been attacked by two different men, his moment of relief for Jill’s safety evaporated. There was no reason to think the two men were working together—or separately. It was simply impossible to know. But what he did know was that if the non-murderous one was in Champaign, where was the one who wanted to kill him?
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  Juanita swerved a little as he grabbed for his phone and fumbled to call Jill Fetzer.

  He just needed to know…he needed to know she was all right.

  But Jill didn’t answer.

  Twenty-Two

  Libertyville, Illinois

  July 10, just after midnight

  Jill wondered for the millionth time whether she’d been right to trust this Eli Sanchez person.

  She didn’t have any reason not to trust him—after all, he was a friend of Ghomie’s, whom she not only trusted but had actually dated for a short time (when she was twenty years younger and about the same poundage lighter, pre-marriage and divorce)—but this whole situation was so beyond her norm that she spent the entire time second-guessing herself while she was waiting for the guy to show.

  What else was she going to do while sitting in the well-lit all-night diner she’d chosen for their meeting place? She’d done a search on Dr. Eli Sanchez, who was apparently some seriously hotshot insect professor from the University of Illinois who’d supposedly helped save everyone from some deadly copper bugs a few years ago. Who could have imagined a James Bond-type entomologist?

  From the pics she found online, Jill had to admit he was attractive, if you liked the long, lanky, and dreadlocked or ponytailed type. He wasn’t at all nerdy looking, like one would expect an entomologist to be, and she figured if she was going to be going on the run with a guy, it wouldn’t hurt that he wasn’t bad to look at.

  The idea of actually going on the run made her stomach pitch and drop a little. She didn’t know what was going to happen, but she was pretty sure she didn’t want to go on the run—even with Eli Sanchez.

  Once she’d exhausted the Google results about Sanchez, Jill found she couldn’t focus on any of the games or apps on her phone. She didn’t want to watch the news that blared from the single television screen—the current story was about some horrific, single-vehicle semitruck accident in Ohio. From what she could tell, the driver had basically been smeared all over the highway beneath the wheels of his rig.