Page 113 of The Chain

“Time is of the essence. Soon they will change their Wickr ID and we will have no way of directly communicating with them. And that recent break-in has given me pause,” Erik says. He writes something down on a piece of paper. “This is my new burner-phone number. I will need you to make a decision soon.”

Rachel takes the number and looks at him and then at the war memorial behind him. A line of verse goes through her head, that one about Colonel Shaw riding on his bubble, “waiting for the blessèd break.”

We’re all riding on our bubbles,she thinks,we’re all waiting for the blessèd break.

She offers Erik her hand. He shakes it.

She gets up from the bench. “We’ll have to think it over,” she says.

55

Erik goes back to his office at MIT feeling good.

He has some hope at last after the long information drought that has hollowed him to the bone. This is a chance. The game is well and truly afoot now and those bastards are going to get theirs.

He had thought that he was going to have to take out a newspaper ad in theNew York Timeschallenging The Chain to call him or he would reveal their existence. But they would not have responded to the ad, and, worse, sooner or later they would have found out who placed it, and thus his life and his daughter’s life would have been in grave jeopardy.

Rachel is right to be nervous about antagonizing The Chain, but better her than him, he thinks, and then he immediately feels guilty about this thought.

It’s us against them. All of us. Rachel. A godsend, meeting her. She’s smart too. Such superb insights.Of course he should have focused on Boston. Most of the data points he has are in New England. Those potential hits he discovered in Colorado and New Mexico are outliers.

Yes. This is real progress.

Almost with a lightness in his step, he gets into his battered Chevy Malibu and drives out of the MIT staff parking lot.

He doesn’t notice the stressed-looking woman watching him through her windshield. He doesn’t notice her follow him home to Newton.

Perhaps he shouldn’t be unduly alarmed. He’s not the only person being followed.

He hasn’t quite moved to the top of the to-do list just yet. If he were to take a few days off or go on vacation or something like that he might be safe.

But unfortunately for Erik the fire is in his belly now and he has no idea that his movements and, more important, his Google searches are being monitored, recorded, and sent for processing to The Chain.

56

Tom, Cheryl, Oliver, Margaret, and little Anthony are on a Caribbean cruise to celebrate Tom’s promotion to senior special agent.

Tom and the whole organized-crime division of the Boston field office have been getting a lot of positive attention in the press. The Patriarca crime family, originally from Providence and once so powerful in Boston, has been crippled by rats, wiretaps, and sting operations. The Winter Hill Gang has been broken up, and Whitey Bulger himself is on the run. Tom is quite the golden boy at the Bureau. Sure, he has his temper issues, but who doesn’t? He works hard, and this vacation is well earned.

Tom booked the family a junior suite near the promenade deck. For some reason little Anthony has his own bunk, while the older children, Margaret and Oliver, are forced to share a bunk.

Margaret and Oliver actually don’t mind that much, and Anthony’s attempts to lord it over them are quietly ignored.

The ship visits Nassau and leaves at dusk with a fireworks display. The cruise is nearly over and they are steaming toward Miami. It’s really been a great trip.

Anthony feels a hand on his arm in the middle of the night. It’s Margaret.

“Shhh,” she whispers. “There’s something really cool I have to show you on the deck.”

“What?” Anthony replies sleepily.

“It’s a surprise. A secret. It’s really cool, though.”

“What is it?”

“Maybe you should go back to sleep. It’s only for big boys. Oliver is up there now.”

“Is it a whale?”