The Pandora Key aka The Hostage Room by Lynne Heitman

Author:Lynne Heitman [Heitman, Lynne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller

21

MAX KRAFT LOOKED LIKE A SCRAPPER. HE WASN’T TALL. He wasn’t particularly big. His arms seemed a little long for his body, and he definitely spent more time in front of his computer than working out. From the looks of him, though, you would want him on your side when a fight broke out. He had the look of a man who knew how to fight dirty, and would. He wore his brown-going-gray hair just long enough to prove he didn’t have to go to work in an office every day. He probably owned lots of safari shirts and no neckties.

I had no idea how long he’d been holed up in room 5 at the Novotel, a twelve-room motel on the Left Bank, but when he opened the door and let me into his room, it looked as if he’d lived there half his life. The smell of warm beer and greasy hamburgers lingered. Torn bags of vending-machine pretzels littered the premises, and carefully arranged light blue Post-it notes festooned the dresser mirror.

He closed the door behind me and went immediately to the window, where he had to move the heavy curtains to peek out. “How did you get here?”

“Cab. I switched twice. There was no one on me.”

“Good.” He turned and held out his hand. “Where is it?”

“Slow down.” I walked over to the dresser mirror and glanced at his notes, mostly names and phone numbers. They looked like contacts. When he saw me perusing them, he scurried over and barged in between the mirror and me.

“How did you get my name?” he asked, snatching the contacts off the mirror, one by one.

“I’m an investigator. I investigated. Do you have the video?”

He pulled a flash drive from his pocket and held it up. “Here’s what you want. Where’s mine?”

I took the drive, slung my backpack around, unzipped it, and pulled out my laptop.

“What are you doing?”

“Do you expect me to just believe you?” I sat on the unmade bed and turned on the computer. “I’m going to watch it.”

He put his hands on his hips, apparently incensed that I didn’t just take the word of an investigative journalist. “Are you sure that unit will even read this drive?”

“If it doesn’t, we have a problem. You’re not getting the 809 list until I’m convinced I’m getting what I need.”

His mouth crimped around the edges. It actually made him look prim, which I knew he wasn’t. He went over and flung himself into the hotel’s one seating surface that wasn’t a bed-a chair in the corner.

“Tell me where you got this,” I said, waiting for my programs to load.

“I told you, I copied it from the laptop that belonged to Roger Fratello, then erased it from the hard drive. As long as that was the only one, this is now the only one.”

“Where is the laptop?”

“I’m not saying.”

That was a problem. I had been around Felix long enough to know that just erasing a file didn’t really kill it. But I was hoping that Roger being dead might buy me some time on full eradication.

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