Lock In (Lock In, #1)(36)

“I thought you said he was slow.”

“He was slow,” Begay said. “Doesn’t mean he wasn’t nice.”

* * *

“This keeps getting more f*cked up as we go along, doesn’t it?” Vann asked me. It was seven thirty in D.C. and from the ambient sound around her I could tell she was in a bar again, possibly picking up from last night on her quest to get laid. I was in the Window Rock Police Department, at a spare desk, using my inside voice.

“We have two choices at this point,” I said. “We have to believe that either a guy who couldn’t get a job pushing a mop is also a savant Integrator who somehow lured Nicholas Bell into that hotel room on the pretense that he was a tourist looking for a thrill, or we have to believe that someone tricked this poor son of a bitch away from his home, implanted a neural network in his head, and then convinced him to play along with their plan, whatever that was, which somehow involved Bell.”

“And then commit suicide,” Vann said. “Don’t forget that.”

“How can I forget?” I said. “I talked to this guy’s family today.”

“On a brighter note, I got a judge to okay our record pull for Bell and Kearney,” Vann said.

“And?”

“Bell’s don’t tell us anything we didn’t already know,” Vann said. “Bell just signed a long-term contract with Lucas Hubbard, as in, just today. He is also first call with a bunch of well-off Hadens when he’s not tied up with Hubbard. And then he does piecework for the NIH, just like every other Integrator. Well, until next Monday, when Abrams-Kettering kills that little program.”

“What about Kearney?” I asked.

“He’s got a long-term contract, too,” Vann said. “And as it happens, his is with one Samuel Schwartz, lead counsel for Accelerant.”

“That explains last night,” I said.

“You lost me,” Vann said.

“Hubbard and Schwartz were at my dad’s little soirée last night,” I said. “Hubbard was riding Bell, but Schwartz was riding a woman Integrator. Said that his usual Integrator had a previous engagement.”

“Yeah, blowing up Loudoun Pharma,” Vann said. “Who was the woman Integrator?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You know it’s not polite to ask.”

“Go through the D.C. Integrator listings,” Vann said. “You’ll find her.”

“So, Bell with Hubbard and Kearney with Schwartz,” I said.

“What about it?”

“Doesn’t that seem a little coincidental?” I asked.

“That two Integrators involved in weird shit on the same day work for the two most powerful people at the same corporation?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Honestly?” Vann said. “Yeah. But here’s the thing about that. There’s ten thousand working Integrators in the whole world. Maybe two thousand of them are in the U.S. So there aren’t that many of them to go around. D.C.’s got maybe twenty in the area. Meanwhile there are probably a hundred thousand Hadens in the area, because Hadens flock to urbanized areas that can support them. One Integrator for five thousand Hadens. You’re going to see a lot of overlap.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Definitely,” Vann said. “If you want to start making connections, we’re going to need more to go on.”

“All right, one more data point to throw at you,” I said. “Medichord.”

“What about it?”

“Medical care and services company,” I said. “Has the contracts here in the Navajo Nation.”

“Okay,” Vann said. “So?”

“Medichord is part of Four Corners Blue Cross,” I said. “Guess who Four Corners Blue Cross is owned by.”

“If you say Accelerant, you’re going to make me unhappy,” Vann said.

“Have another drink,” I suggested.

“I’m pacing myself,” Vann said. “I want to be able to feel later tonight.”

“A lot comes back to Hubbard and Schwartz and Accelerant,” I said. “We have too much piling up for it to be coincidence. I mean, hell, Schwartz is even Bell’s lawyer.”

“All right,” Vann said. “But let me say it again: If you’re going to suggest Schwartz was somehow complicit with the Loudoun Pharma bombing you’re going to need more than an Integrator contract. And you’re forgetting that when the bombing was going down, Schwartz was at a party with one of the most famous men on the face of the Earth and an FBI agent who, if hauled up in front of a court, would have to admit to seeing him there. You are his alibi, Shane.”

“There is that,” I said.

“Plus Baer was actually Kearney’s client,” Vann said. “He contracted with him three times in the last two years. It’s evidence of a prior relationship.”

“Not all of my ideas are going to be gold,” I said.

“Stop thinking for the evening,” Vann said. “You’ve done enough for the day. When are you coming back?”

“I’m about to finish up here,” I said. “The Window Rock police are letting me park my loaner threep here for a couple of days in case I need to come back. Once that’s squared away I thought I might try visiting that place I’m renting a room in.”