He beckoned now, searching Contrell’s known associates, past residences, former cellmates. Nothing raised a red flag. A few hours later, the watered-down vodka sat forgotten beside the mouse pad, pepper grinds floating like ash.

Through the DMV site, Evan grabbed the license-plate number of Contrell’s Buick Enclave. Another series of backstage maneuvers got him into the vehicle’s GPS records. He printed out the data captures—longitudes and latitudes listed in an endless scroll.

As the LaserJet spit out page after page, he started breaking down the pauses between the Enclave’s movements.

Contrell’s destinations.

Evan’s work was not done.

The Tenth Commandment: Never let an innocent die.

5. The Eyes of the Data-Mining Beast

5

The Eyes of the Data-Mining Beast

The room could have been anywhere. Midway up a high-rise. At the distal end of a mansion’s wing. Underground, even.

It was big.

The size of a movie theater, but without the rows of chairs. There wasn’t a screen.

There were hundreds of them.

Lining three walls, stacked top to bottom, the most elaborate display of computing power this side of DARPA. Each monitor scrolled an endless stream of code. The screens were the eyes of the data-mining beast; the banks of servers bunkered behind the bomb-resistant fourth wall were the brain.

Guttering light from the monitors strobed across the dim room, living camouflage. It was hard to see anything aside from the screens. Everything melted together—the rugs, the consoles, the sparse furniture. Even the few visitors with clearance to enter—usually a not-fully-read-in engineer making tech adjustments—seemed to disappear, fish blending into rippling water.

Charles Van Sciver liked it in here. Liked it for the darkness, through which he could drift alone and unseen.

There were no windows. No mirrors either, not even in the adjoining bathroom. He’d covered them up. The occasional visitor was made to stand at a distance so Van Sciver could stay bathed in the protective anonymity of the flickering lights.

It was safe and contained in here. Just him and his algorithms.

It wasn’t fair to say that all the computing power was directed at locating Orphan X.

Only 75 percent.

Or 76.385, to be precise.

After all, as the head of the Program, Van Sciver did have other mission responsibilities.

But none as important as this.

For better than a decade, Evan had been the top asset in the entire Orphan Program. He didn’t merely know where the bodies were buried. He had buried most of them.