The Witnesses Read online

  If he’s very, very lucky, he’ll be on the computer in just a few minutes, and no one will ever, ever know.

  CHAPTER 23

  Lance Sanderson tosses and turns, Teresa deeply asleep next to him.

  He admires his wife in so many ways, including how she can instantly drop off to sleep. She’ll be reading a magazine or a book and will then put her reading material down, give Lance a quick kiss, and say, “Night, honey. I’m off to sleep.”

  And within a minute, she will be deep asleep.

  Oh, to have that power!

  He stares up at the ceiling. Memories come back to him, the memory of that last full day in Tunisia, when everything went wrong.

  The dig site is three years old, about fifty or so kilometers from the famed ruins of Carthage, which are situated near Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. It is in a remote section of a desert near the P11 highway, and Lance and his graduate students, along with local laborers, are excavating an estate that may or may not have belonged to a prominent Carthaginian official before the Romans sacked the city in 146 BC.

  On this day the sun is overhead and very bright. His two graduate students from Stanford, young men who still have the vigor and enthusiasm he remembers from his own grad school days, are gone off to a day’s worth of errands to the nearby port city of Bizerte. Teresa and Sam are under a flapping canvas tarpaulin, cataloguing and photographing some of the artifacts—coins, broken pottery, cooking vessels—that he and his crew have recovered. Teresa has been quiet this morning, only saying she has something to discuss with him later at the morning break, and he puts it out of his mind. Poor honey is probably still upset at the stench coming from their shared chemical toilets.

  And Sandy? Lance smiles to himself. Sandy is Sandy, sitting in a corner on a folding camp chair, reading and reading, ignoring her surroundings, only bestirring herself to find something new to read.

  The surroundings are familiar to Lance after years of work, digging and cataloguing: carefully dug square pits, grid lines set up with strings and white tape. Some of the laborers are bent over at work, with Karim, the cheerful site supervisor, overlooking it all. A couple of bored militiamen carrying AK-47s sit under their own small tents and sip tea all day long.

  There had been the briefest tussle earlier over the pay, but that had been quickly settled via the most common North African economic practice—haggling.

  Lance takes a long swig of water from his own canteen, starts walking down to the excavation site to see how the latest dig area is proceeding. A wall had been found two days ago.

  And he looks up to the tent and—

  Sam and Teresa are bent over a long wooden table, both examining a piece of pottery that may or may not be from Greece, and—

  Where’s Sandy?

  Where’s his little girl?

  He whips his head around. The dig site is mostly flat, except for a line of hills about a hundred meters away. A dirt road to the main collection of tents leads off to a poorly paved road that leads to the government highway, and—

  If Sandy is anywhere near here, he would be able to pick her out immediately.

  But she’s missing.

  “Sandy!” he yells.

  He starts running to the tent, as Teresa looks up, her face frozen in fear.

  “Sandy!”

  And a scream wakes him up.

  He’s in Levittown.

  Teresa is sitting up next to him.

  The screaming goes on and on.

  Teresa leaps out of bed, saying, “Oh, God, it’s Sandy!”

  Lance races out of the bedroom, right behind his wife.

  CHAPTER 24

  Sam Sanderson feels like a ninja or a secret agent, sneaking across the side lawn, going up to the other house. The grass is wet from the evening dew and he scampers up to the front door. It’s easy to see because of the streetlights and lights from the other houses in this boring place.

  He goes up to the brick steps, tugs at one of the bricks, then another, and, yes, the third brick is the one! It comes free, and he pokes his hand in and comes up with a key, attached to a small piece of string.

  There.

  He goes up to the door, looks around, opens up the storm door, puts the key in the lock, and…

  Yep.

  He’s inside!

  He steps in, trying to be quiet, and he remembers to close the door behind him. For just a moment he feels scared, guilty, but it passes. The neighbors are gone, everything’s quiet back at the other house, and he just wants to get in long enough to go online for a while.

  Sam walks into a place that smells new and clean, unlike the dump they’re living in. He doesn’t mind camping out, like they were doing in Tunisia, but that place back there…ugh.

  He goes through a wide and clean kitchen, and there, on a table in a little nook, is a laptop hooked up to a large-screen display. A couple of night-lights are on, and the light over the stove is lit up as well, meaning it’s clear going.

  He sits in the big chair, scoots forward, and smiles. The computer is a MacBook Pro. Just like the one he has back home in California. Sweet!

  Sam powers it up and the screen flickers to life, starting with the Apple logo, and then the desktop comes into view, and, along with everything else, there’s the little icon for Safari, the Apple web browser.

  Double-click there, and Google comes up, and maybe he should figure out what that piece of metal and plastic is that’s in his pocket, but, no, that’s for later. He types in his Gmail account, and signs in, and…

  Score!

  Look at that.

  He’s in.

  Wow.

  It’s been a long, long time…

  He starts tapping, answering one email and then another, and then there’s one from his best bud, Toby, and he writes to him, Toby, you won’t believe what’s going on and it’s been some scary shit, and believe it or not, I flew on my first helicopter ride and…

  Sam stops typing.

  He feels like something weird is going on.

  Was that a noise out there?

  Or a light?

  He finishes the email, sends it, shuts down the computer, and starts out of the house.

  Darn it, he wanted to spend at least an hour here, but now…

  He’s scared now.

  Scared of being caught.

  Suppose the man or the woman who lives here, suppose one of them got sick?

  And they came back home right now? With him in the house?

  How could he explain that?

  Sam stops at the door, peers out.

  The driveway’s still empty.

  Good.

  Maybe…

  Well, he could go back. He was just scared. That’s all.

  A wuss.

  But still…

  Maybe he could come back tomorrow night, now that he’s done it once already.

  He steps out, locks the door, puts the key back under the loose brick, and, again, like a ninja or a secret agent, he races across the lawn, back to where he’s supposed to be.

  A shadow comes toward him and he screams and is tossed to the ground.

  CHAPTER 25

  It’s a race down the hallway outside of their bedrooms and Teresa wins it, bursting into Sandy’s bedroom. She’s standing at the foot of the bed, screaming, wearing a long Winnie-the-Pooh nightshirt and in bare feet, and Teresa scoops up her daughter and Lance says, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong? Did you have a bad dream?”

  His wife picks up on what he’s just said, and she kisses the top of her head, stroke’s Sandy’s hair, and says, “It’s okay, honey, it’s okay. Was it a bad dream? Was it a bad dream?”

  Sandy squirms free from her mother’s grasp. She’s panting so hard that she’s almost hyperventilating, and she says, “The bad man got Sam! The bad man got Sam! The bad man got Sam!”

  Lance goes out of Sandy’s room, opens the door to Sam’s.

  It’s empty.

  “Sam!” he yells. “Sam!”

>   The bedroom window is open. Lance strides forward, leans his hands on the sill, pokes his head out. “Sam, you out there?”

  Teresa comes in, holding Sandy by her shoulders as she stands before her mother. The young girl has stopped screaming. Her face is red and is set. “Is he here? Is he?”

  “No.”

  Lance goes out of Sam’s room, goes into the kitchen, the small living room, and—

  No Sam.

  “Sam!”

  He checks the bathroom.

  Empty.

  Teresa comes up, still holding Sandy.

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And…where’s Jason?”

  Lance is stunned. How in God’s name had he missed that?

  “Jason! Where are you?”

  Teresa’s eyes well up. “Lance…what’s going on? Where are they?”

  A loud slamming noise startles them all, and Lance steps back as the rear door to the little house flies open. Jason strides in, face screwed up with fury, dragging young Sam in by his T-shirt collar.

  CHAPTER 26

  Gray Evans is stretched out on a hotel bed, relaxed, comfortable, with a woman named Vanessa resting next to him on a pillow, looking at him, her finely manicured nails tracing circles on his chest.

  “You doing okay?” she asks.

  “Fine.”

  “You interested in more?”

  “How much time do I have left?”

  She raises herself up, revealing an impressive set of curves, pulls a length of red hair from her face, and checks out the clock radio.

  “Another fifteen minutes. If you want.”

  She settles back down, and Gray remembers that old, old joke from way back: you don’t pay a prostitute to stay, you pay her to leave when you’re done.

  Still…it was nice to have some female company for a while, to refresh and recharge his batteries before he resumes his job.

  His iPhone starts ringing.

  Vanessa says, “You want me to answer it?”

  Gray gives her his best smile. “You want some broken fingers?”

  He rolls off the bed, grabs his iPhone, goes into the bathroom. He looks back and says, “Stay on the bed, all right? That’s what I’m paying you for, to do what I want…and I want you to stay on the bed.”

  She stretches and smiles and says not a word.

  Inside the bathroom he turns on the faucet to help mask his voice, answers the phone, and it’s Abraham, his researcher.

  “Got a hit about ten minutes ago.”

  “Fantastic,” Gray says. “Tell me more.”

  Abraham chuckles. “Over the open air? For real? I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, I’ll come over right now.”

  “Please…I’m going back to bed,” Abraham says. “Come over tomorrow after nine a.m. and I’ll give you the information.”

  “Solid?”

  “As a rock.”

  Gray says, “Why don’t I come over now?”

  Abraham chuckles again. “I don’t meet clients at night. You know that.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you at 9:01 tomorrow.”

  “That’s a date.”

  Gray hears the call disconnect and says to the dead air, “Oh, one more thing. Can you tell me where you got the hit from?”

  No answer, of course, but he moves to the bathroom door and swings it open. He startles Vanessa, who’s been standing right there, a hotel robe wrapped around her. Vanessa’s eyes are wide and she looks like a little girl being caught doing something naughty by her teacher.

  Gray smiles, steps by her, and goes to the hotel room door.

  Makes sure it’s locked.

  Vanessa moves away from him, sits on the bed.

  “Look—” she starts.

  Gray puts a finger to his lips, shushing her. He switches on the television, finds an HBO movie, and boosts up the volume.

  “Honey,” he says, and then says the last words she will ever hear. “All I told you to do was to stay on the bed.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Lance catches his breath. “Okay, what the hell is going on here?”

  Jason propels his son—his son!—forward into the kitchen and says, “I was outside, maintaining a surveillance position. Approximately fourteen minutes ago, I saw your son depart his bedroom via an open window.”

  Lance feels like his legs have just morphed into solid stone. “Sam, is that true?”

  “Dad, he hurt me! He hurt my shoulder!”

  Lance says, “Sam, did you sneak out? Did you?”

  Sam is defiant. “I’m bored! I wanted to go outside. Is that a crime?”

  “No,” Lance says. “But we have to…we have to do things to stay safe.”

  Teresa has her arms around Sandy, whose face is cool and impassive. She says, “Your father is right, Sam. We have to…we have to stay together, to be safe.”

  Sam’s face is still screwed up in young defiance, and Jason says, “There’s more.”

  “More?” Lance asks. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  Jason is standing still and collected, like a military professional making a report. “Sir, after your son left the house, I observed him going to the Barnes’ house.”

  Teresa says, “Who are the Barnes?”

  Lance says, “The young couple that lives next door. Not the dirty old man.”

  “Dad—”

  Lance says, “Go on, Jason.”

  “Sir, I observed your son go to the front steps of the Barnes’ house. Apparently there is a house key hidden in the brick steps leading in. After retrieving the key, he gained entrance to the house.”

  Teresa put a hand to her mouth. “Sam!”

  Lance says, “Hold on, you mean—”

  Jason goes on, speaking over Lance. “After entering the house, I lost sight of your son. But I did see movement within, and I saw a computer being turned on. The glow and light were unmistakable. And I saw the outline of your son sitting in front of the computer. I then approached the house and the computer screen went dark, and your son exited.”

  The kitchen falls quiet. Lance stares at his boy, who blinks his eyes and looks away. Teresa is just quietly shaking her head. Jason catches Lance’s eyes.

  “Sir?”

  Sandy speaks to her younger brother. “Sam, you’ve been naughty. I’ve told you to stop being naughty.” And she falls quiet.

  Lance says, “Sam…you know the rules. We…we can’t go online. That’s why Mom’s laptop has been disabled. It’s too dangerous.”

  Sam says, “I didn’t do it.”

  Teresa says, “But Jason says he saw you.”

  Sam steps over and joins his mother and sister, looks back at Jason. “Yeah…I was there…but…I turned on the computer…and I waited…and I got scared. I remembered the rules. So I turned it off and ran outside.”

  Lance sees something strange going on with Jason’s face, like he’s wrestling with some struggle he can’t vocalize.

  He says, “Sam? Are you telling the truth?”

  Sam says, “Yes! You know I am…you can trust me…”

  Lance’s heart aches. His boy…versus what Jason saw.

  What to do?

  Lance says, “Sam? Did you go online? Did you put us in danger?”

  Jason still looks…guilty. The man looks guilty.

  Sam says, “Dad…I didn’t. Honest.”

  Another few seconds pass.

  Lance says, “All right, I trust you, Sam. C’mon, let’s get you to bed.”

  Teresa pats Sandy on her shoulders. “Yes…all of us, let’s go to bed. And, Jason…thank you. Thank you for keeping us safe. Sam…” She tugs at his near ear, making him squirm. “I swear to God, you do anything like that, ever again, I’ll break you. Got it?”

  One last look at Jason. The man should be happy at being complimented by Teresa, but no.

  He doesn’t look happy at all.

  CHAPTER 28

  Two hundred sixty-five miles to t
he southwest of Levittown, New York, in a quiet office building in a crowded suburban office park, a government employee named Williams yawns as he monitors newsfeeds from various cable networks from across the globe. One of the open secrets of the intelligence agencies in the United States is that they get the bulk of their emerging information the same way everyone else does: from television.

  Williams yawns again. He has the overnight shift and hates it. He wants to make a difference, wants to fight extremism, and so far, all he’s done is ruin his sleep patterns and watch too much television.

  Damn, it’s like he’s back in college…

  Except in college he had a better room.

  This room is square, functional, with flickering overhead lights, and it’s stuffy, like the air in here hasn’t been refreshed since this new, disturbed millennium began years back.

  His phone rings, and he sees it’s the internal line, one that can only be accessed from within the building.

  He picks it up. “Williams.”

  “This is Cauchon.” A female voice. “Domestic observation.”

  “Go,” Williams says, picking up a pen.

  “We have a breach of internet protocol, for an individual named Sanderson, Samuel. Occurred thirty-seven minutes ago. He’s under covert protection in Levittown, New York. Make the necessary notifications.”

  “Got it,” Williams says.

  He goes to his keyboard, goes through the department’s intranet system, finds the covert protection order for SANDERSON, SAMUEL—a ten-year-old boy!—and notes who he needs to contact.

  The guy known as “the Big Man.”

  He gains a secure outside line for his telephone system, calls the Big Man at home.

  No answer.

  He tries the Big Man’s office.

  No answer.

  He calls the Big Man’s personal handheld device, issued by the same group Williams works for.

  It rings, rings, and then it’s picked up.

  “Sir, this is—”

  The voice is a recording. “You know who this is. Leave the message. Off.”

  Williams clears his voice. “Sir, this is James Williams, calling from Department G-17. We have a breach of internet protocol for a…Sanderson, a Samuel Sanderson. This is your official notification.”