Private Paris (Private 10)

“Quite a piece of technology,” Petitjean said. “Must have cost a small fortune to engineer. Very James Bond. Took a bit to figure it out, but I did.”

He turned the lighter upside down. He used a paper clip to press against the bleeder valve at the center of the flame control dial.

“There was actually butane in it the first time I tried,” the scientist said. “And that kind of threw me, until I…”

He used his thumbnail to turn the dial clockwise. Setting the paper clip aside, Petitjean took the lighter by both ends and tugged. It separated into two pieces, and revealed, sticking out of the bottom piece, a USB micro-B connector similar to the one that attaches a charger to my camera.

“It’s a data storage device,” Vans said.

“And heavily encrypted,” said Petitjean, who looked irritated that she’d spilled the beans. “I tried to hack my way in, but it was beyond my skills.”

“And mine,” Vans said.

I looked at Louis. “Le Chien?”

He smiled and said, “Excellent idea. We’ll put the Dog on it.”

Chapter 63

11th Arrondissement

11:35 a.m.

THE BRAIN-INJURED HACKER cradled an iPad connected to the memory stick and went into slow orbit around the perimeter of his apartment, completely ignoring Louis and me as he probed the method of encryption.

Louis shifted gears and put in a call to our French legal team regarding Ali Farad. I got on the phone with a Palo Alto, California, company that provides twenty-four-hour data backup services for Private offices around the globe, and authorized it to move a copy of all of Private Paris’s files to a secure virtual office where we could access them.

I called Justine, too. It was 2:35 in the morning, L.A. time, but she picked right up. The Dog orbited past me while I got her up to date on Kim Kopchinski’s kidnapping, the lighter, and the raiding of Private Paris.

“Private the focus of an anti-terror investigation,” Justine said. “A disaster.”

“Tell me abou

t it,” I said.

“What about Farad?”

“Louis swears by him. And his record is immaculate. Not even a rumor of Islamic radicalism.”

“But you said the police hinted that they had more than a rumor?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“I honestly have no idea,” I said, glancing at Louis, who was in the Dog’s kitchen intently listening to his cell phone.

“Has news of the raid gotten out?” Justine asked.

“Not that I know of,” I said.

“Could be time to hire a publicist who specializes in crisis management,” Justine said. “Have something ready in case it does come out.”

“Maybe,” I said. “How’s Sherman?”

“Slightly better,” she said. Wilkerson had remembered her when she visited the night before. He also remembered that three men wearing masks had assaulted him in his house. They had wanted to know where Kim was.

“Sherman kept asking me if you had her safe,” Justine said. “I told him you were working on it, and that seemed to undo his progress. He got very agitated and angry with me—shouting, even—and the nurses asked me to leave.”