“So how did these Nazi chemists encode it?”

“With a well-tuned piano, and a microphone, and an oscilloscope.”

“Is that the only way?”

“Not now. Now it’s much easier. You could head down to Radio Shack and buy a digital keyboard and a MIDI interface. You could tune the keyboard down to A equals 428, and play scales, and read the numbers right off the LED window.”

Perez nodded.

And sat back.

And smiled.

16 - JEFFERY DEAVER

16

JEFFERY DEAVER

“No leads.” Emmett Kalmbach and Dick Chambers were supervising the search of the suite at the Harbor Court, which had been rented by Faust under a fake name. Naturally, Middleton reflected sourly, cell phone at his ear; the man was a master of covering his tracks.

“Nothing?” he asked, shaking his head to Felicia Kaminski and Jack Perez, who sat across from him in the diner.

“Nope. We’ve gone over the entire place,” Kalmbach said. “And searched Vukasin’s body. And some bastard with a weird tattoo. Name is Stefan Andrzej. Oh, and that Mexican your son-in-law took out. But not a goddamn clue where Faust might’ve gone.”

“The binoculars Felicia told us about?” Kaminski had explained about Nacho’s game of I-spy out the window, and the bits of conversation that had to do with deliveries and technical information. “They were focused on a warehouse across the street but it was empty.”

“So he’s taken the chemicals someplace else.”

“And we don’t have a fucking clue where,” the FBI agent muttered. “We’ll keep looking. I’ll get back to you, Harry.”

The line went dead.

“No luck,” Middleton muttered. He sipped coffee and finished a candy bar. He told himself it was for the energy; in fact, he mostly needed the comfort of the chocolate. “At least I gave Faust the wrong information about the code in the music. He can only get so far with the gas.”

“But with trial and error,” Kaminski asked, “he could he come up with the right formula?”

“Yeah, he could. And a lot of people’ll die—and the deaths’d be real unpleasant.”

They sat silently for a moment then he glanced at Perez. “You looked pretty comfortable with that Beretta.” As he had with the Colt when he took down Eleana Soberski.

His son in law laughed. “I stayed clear of the family business in Loseiana. “But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t aware of the family business.” A coy smile. “But you know that, right?”

Middleton shrugged. “I ran a check on you, sure. You were marrying my daughter . . . If there’d been a spec of dirt in your closet, Charley wouldn’t have a hyphenated name right now.”

“I respect looking out for kin, Harry. I’ll be the same way with my . . . ” His voice faded and he looked down, thinking, of course, of the child they’d almost had. Middleton touched his arm, squeezed.