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  From the way Luther’s face darkened right then with anger, I understood perfectly why Julius had sighed only seconds earlier. He already knew what the dog food king’s response was going to be.

  “The hell with that! I’m not having bodyguards following me around and getting it my way. Whoever this bastard is, he might end up killing me, but he’s not going to make me live in fear. But I want to make damn sure that if he does kill me, he pays for it!”

  Julius tried halfheartedly to change Luther’s mind, but he must’ve known from the start it was a losing fight. As far as Allen Luther was concerned, he wasn’t going to cower for anyone. Besides, it would be a waste of time and money for Julius to look into this since no evidence was left behind. He was probably right. If someone three weeks ago had slipped a mickey into his drink it was doubtful Julius would get anywhere trying to identify the person. In the end Julius accepted the twenty-thousand-dollar retainer with the agreement that if Luther died in any sort of suspicious manner Julius would investigate his death, and if he uncovered the murderer, Luther’s estate later would pay Julius a hundred grand. The only concession Julius was able to get from Luther was to allow the police one week to solve this hypothetical murder themselves, assuming that it was a homicide. The reason Julius gave for this was so he wouldn’t unreasonably interfere with the police. Of course, that was pure poppycock. Julius had never been bothered about that in the past. I knew his real reason for insisting on this was out of laziness. As I mentioned before, the fee Pritchard of London fee paid him got him used to the idea of not doing any work for six more months, and he’d just as soon make twenty grand doing nothing than having to turn his brain back on for any additional sum of money, even a hundred grand.

  That is what happened ninety-two days ago. Thanks to Julius’s recommendation, Allen Luther ended up hiring Willie Cather fulltime to track down threats against his prizewinning bulldog, which was a task that Willie was more than capable of. Willie’s a smart guy. Not as smart as he thinks he is, but still, a smart guy, and whenever Julius needs an investigator to do some legwork for him, he’ll usually hire Willie if Tom Durkin and Saul Penzer aren’t available. While it seemed crazy to me that Luther was willing to spend money to protect his bulldog and not himself, it also seemed doubtful that anyone was actually trying to kill him. Slipping cyanide into a drink? Trying to run him down in the street? I didn’t buy it. Given the limited data I had, I put the odds at roughly 0.04 percent that he was in danger.

  It turned out my algorithm wasn’t as good as I thought it was because seven days and three and a half hours ago Allen Luther was found dead in his office. And there was nothing mysterious about his death, as he was beaten to death by a can of his own dog food.

  Given two factors, the layout of the penthouse suite where Allen Luther’s office was located, and that all elevator access to the penthouse was monitored, there were only five possible people who could’ve murdered Luther: his son-in-law, Michael Beecher, his Vice President of Marketing, Sheila Fenn, his Vice President of Sales, Arnold Murz, his receptionist, Allison Harper, and a mysterious and currently unidentified deliveryman. Also, it turned out there was a witness to the murder. Brutus. When Sheila Fenn discovered the body, the dog was found tied up in the office in a highly agitated state. Given that the office was soundproofed and that the dog was so strangled by his leash in his attempt to break free that he could barely let out a whimper, it was understandable that no one heard him.

  With all the chaos and confusion at the time of the murder, the police had the dog removed from the crime scene without realizing they had a witness. It wasn’t until the following day that they thought of using Brutus to identify the murderer. But when Willie, who was charged with Brutus’s protection, brought the bulldog back to the office the dog didn’t as much as growl at any of the four known murder suspects, which is one of the reasons the police are convinced the murderer is the fifth suspect, the mysterious deliveryman. They have other reasons too. The package that was delivered was empty, and the surveillance cameras outside the building, as well as inside the lobby, didn’t pick up any deliverymen, making the police think the killer changed in and out of his delivery uniform while he was inside the elevator.

  The day after the murder Luther’s lawyer announced to the media that the police would have one week to find the killer before Julius would be brought in, which went over as you’d expect with the police. Ten minutes after the announcement Detective Cramer called the office sputtering out a tirade of threats and accusations. While I doubted Julius cared about Cramer’s hurt feelings, I knew he would’ve preferred that the lawyer had held off making this announcement as it gave the murderer additional incentive to spend the week cleaning up any loose ends. It was an unfortunate event, but one in which Julius couldn’t have done anything about.

  When news of the murder first broke, I gave Julius a full report about what I was able to find from hacking into the Cambridge Police Department’s computer system, and I was surprised to see his facial features hardening as if he were carved out of marble. This meant his brain was working at full force on the case, and this lasted for thirty-four seconds. I didn’t expect Julius to be willing to mentally exert himself until the police had their full week. It was the same when I told him how Brutus failed to pick out any of the four known suspects as the murderer, although this time his deep thinking lasted only twenty-two seconds. Outside of those fifty-six seconds, Julius spent the rest of the week as if he didn’t have a client who had just been murdered. I couldn’t blame him since the deal he made with Luther required him to wait a week, which was why I kept my needling at a minimum. I still reported relevant information as I discovered it, such as how the mysterious deliveryman/killer could’ve made his way unnoticed to Luther’s office—Allison Harper had gotten a call from Michael Beecher to bring him coffee while the deliveryman was having her sign for the package. While she waited until the man returned to the elevator before leaving her desk, the killer could’ve held the elevator for half a minute or so before reentering the now empty reception area. When I told Julius my theory that if Harper hadn’t gotten the call from Beecher when she did, the killer might very well have murdered her also so he could get to Luther, Julius begrudgingly agreed that it was possible.

  Now for the reason I’m so peeved right now. Or miffed. Or deeply insulted. There have been a few occasions where I’ve pestered Julius to the point where he has turned me off. While I might believe I was well within my rights during those times, I can also understand Julius’s point of view that I was pushing things too far. This time, though, I had simply told Julius that it was exactly one week since Luther’s murder was discovered, and that the police were holding Brutus in the hoosegow as a material witness. “If you’d like, I’ll give Cramer a call and see if he’ll let you question the witness.”

  It was a joke. Maybe I was slightly annoyed that outside of those fifty-six seconds Julius had done nothing to look into Luther’s murder, and maybe I was needling him a little bit, but still, it was mostly a joke. So you can understand how surprised I was when Julius said, “I’m sorry about this, Archie,” and my world went black on me.

  It’s always disorienting when I’m turned back on after being shut off, and this time it took me four-tenths of a second to get my bearings, and once I did I realized that what I was feeling was completely flabbergasted. This was a feeling I had recognized once before, so I had no trouble recognizing it again. Julius had turned me off for three minutes and forty-seven seconds, and when I hacked into his phone records, I found that he had placed a call to Tom Durkin during this time. At first I was too flabbergasted to ask Julius about this, but as the sense of being stunned faded and was replaced by feelings of being peeved or injured, I didn’t want to give Julius the satisfaction of asking him anything. And over the past three and a half hours nothing had changed.

  Julius had finished assembling his prosciutto, mozzarella, basil sandwich on a ciabatta roll, and I waited until he
drizzled virgin olive oil on the sandwich’s content and had the sandwich lifted to take a bite before saying, “You never answered me earlier about whether I should check to see if Cramer is willing to let you question their star witness.”

  I almost didn’t recognize my own voice. It had this unusual stilted and cold quality to it, and when I compared it to samples from a movie database, I understood which of the three I’d been feeling since being turned off. Injured. Julius smiled thinly at my question—either surprised that I finally relented to talking to him, or he understood that I timed my question to interfere with his enjoyment of his caprese prosciutto sandwich. “An excellent suggestion, Archie,” he said. “Please do call him.”

  I had no idea whether Julius was joking or simply humoring me, and I didn’t which it was. I was going to teach him a lesson by calling Cramer and making that request, but another call came in that stopped me, and as I realized who was calling a chill ran through me—or at least that was what I imagined. Whatever feeling of injury I’d had disappeared immediately. I answered the call, and told Julius that the one whose name should not be mentioned was on the line. From the way his body stiffened in his chair, he knew who I was referring to. Desmond Grushnier. Possibly the most powerful and dangerous man alive. Without waiting for Julius to ask me to do so, I patched the call to Julius’s earpiece.

  “You’re interrupting my lunch,” Julius said.

  Grushnier chuckled at that. “I could be doing a lot more than that. But first, the 1990 Château Beauséjour-Duffau-Lagarosse that you won on auction. Was the case delivered to you this morning?”

  “I’m sure you already the answer to that,” Julius said, stiffly.

  “Once again, Katz, you’re right.” There was a hesitation from Grushnier, then, “And the fact that you’re able to speak to me now on the phone also answers that you haven’t opened the crate yet. I’d like you to know upfront that I had nothing to do with this, nor do I know who’s behind it, and I only learned of this an hour ago. The reason I didn’t call you sooner was that I’ve been trying to decide whether it’s more to my advantage for you to die or live. You should be happy to know that for now I’d rather have you alive.”

  “The crate contains a bomb?”

  “Yes. A crude but effective one with enough C-4 and accelerant to incinerate everything within your townhouse.” There was another pause, then, “If the information I received is correct, you have, hmm, twenty-three seconds before the bomb detonates.”

  Grushnier disconnected the call from his end, and Julius moved quickly after that. He left his sandwich and decanting Malbec on the countertop, and moved swiftly to the hall closet so he could grab a coat, scarf, and wool cap. Then he was moving even faster back to the kitchen and toward the back door that led to his private garden. As he did this, he asked me to back up all the data that I keep on a hard drive in his office to an offsite location, as well as saving the outdoor webcam feeds. “Archie, also originate a phone call from the office line to Detective Cramer,” he further instructed.

  I did what Julius asked, but I wasn’t convinced that there was a bomb waiting to go off in Julius’s wine cellar. From what I knew about Desmond Grushnier, it didn’t seem to be in either his nature or his interests to warn Julius about a bomb if he really did find out about one. But I couldn’t figure out what other motive he might’ve had for calling Julius. Of course, that didn’t mean he didn’t have one. A case of wine was delivered in a crate at nine-forty-five this morning. If Julius had carried the crate down to his wine cellar, maybe he would’ve detected something off about it if it truly held a bomb, but since the crate was strapped onto a two-wheel hand truck, he instead paid the deliveryman twenty dollars to bring it down to his cellar for him. As I examined the video I recorded from earlier, I couldn’t detect anything to confirm or contradict the existence of a bomb.

  According to what Grushnier had said, there were still seven seconds left when Julius exited the backdoor of his townhouse and stepped out onto his snow-covered private garden. I started the countdown then and Julius quickened his pace. By the time I reached one he had gotten to the far end of his garden and he ducked behind an elm tree. When I reached zero nothing happened. I waited five more seconds before telling Julius that he was clearly the victim of a hoax. “I don’t know what Grushnier’s motives were, but he must’ve just been trying to see if he could make you dance on command,” I said.

  A deafening explosion rocked the ground. The windows in the back of Julius’s townhouse shattered, and a large fireball burst through the kitchen floor. I tried looking at the indoor webcam feeds to better understand the damage being done, but the feeds were dead. Most likely the webcams were melted by the heat. If we had been anywhere inside the townhouse I would’ve survived the explosion due to my titanium outer shell but Julius would’ve died.

  “Wow.” That was the only word I could get out. Wow. For the next three hundred milliseconds I felt this odd dull, prickly sensation within my neuron network that could best be describe as numbness. I forced myself to shake it away. “I was able to examine the outdoor webcam feeds up to the moment of the explosion,” I said. “There was no one passing by the building who could’ve been injured by the blast. I was also unable to find anyone out front watching for this, so either the bomber was watching from outside the range of the webcams, or he felt confident enough that you’d be inside and hence no reason to watch for your escape. From my preliminary calculations, there might be some structural damage to the neighboring townhouses, but the firewalls between yours and theirs should keep the fire contained to your property only.”

  Julius stood grimly watching his home and everything he owned burn up in flames. After several seconds he turned away from it. “Archie, call Lily for me but make it look as if the call is originating from another state and from another phone number than my cell phone. When she answers, patch me through.”

  “Sure. I can do that. What state and what phone number?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Up until then Julius must’ve forgotten that he was carrying his coat, scarf, and cap. He slipped this outerwear on and jumped up high enough to grab the top of a seven-foot high fence that provided privacy for his garden. After pulling himself over the fence, he landed in the alley below.

  ◆◆◆

  Twenty-five minutes later, Julius sat in an apartment above the downtown Boston restaurant that his childhood friend Phil Weinstein owned, and took a sip of brandy that Weinstein had poured for him. By this time it was all over the news that Julius’s home had been bombed, and the early reports had Julius perishing in the fire. Of course, that was why Julius had me place a call to Cramer—he wanted the police to think that he was in his office at the time of the explosion. With the intensity of the fire and all three levels of his townhouse collapsing to the basement, it was going to take the police days to sift through the rubble as they searched for Julius’s body, which meant that for the next few days the bomber was going to believe that he had succeeded in his task. Which was precisely what Julius wanted.

  While Julius ended up walking swiftly past forty-seven other pedestrians while he made his way from the alley behind his bombed-out Beacon Hill townhouse to the back entrance of Weinstein’s restaurant, he also had his scarf covering his mouth, his cap pulled down almost to his eyes, and his head lowered, so it was doubtful anyone recognized him; at least I didn’t spot as much as a gleam of recognition in any of the people that walked by him. So at that moment only three people knew he was still alive: Weinstein, Tom Durkin, and Lily.

  Lily knew because I had called her as Julius had asked. Since she’s the only person who knows what I really am outside of Julius and the scientists who created me, it didn’t take Julius long to explain why the call appeared to come from her parents’ home in Rochester, New York. I had also analyzed enough voice samples to recognize that she was struggling stoically to keep from crying when Julius told her what had happened and why he needed the world—
or more specifically, his attempted murderer—to believe that he was dead for the next several days. From the way the muscles along Julius’s mouth and jaw tightened, I was pretty sure he recognized also that Lily was on the verge of crying, but I made no attempt to confirm this.

  Tom knew that Julius survived the bombing since Julius had me pull the same trick with him that I did with Lily. Once Tom was on the phone and Julius explained what happened, he told Tom that his assignment had become even more imperative.

  “This same person is responsible for the bomb?” Tom asked, his voice strained with an emotion I easily recognized as anger.

  “Yes. Certainly.”

  “Whatever it takes, Julius. I’ll work this day and night if I have to.”

  Any sense of injury or peevishness or insult I’d felt over discovering that Julius had turned me off so he could put Tom on the case without me knowing about the particulars disappeared entirely the moment that bomb exploded. I didn’t ask Julius now what he had put Tom on—I figured he had enough on his mind without having to deal with any perceived pestering from me—but I found it difficult doing as little as I was doing in finding the man who had tried murdering my boss. If Julius had a lead on the mysterious fifth suspect, I wanted to know what it was, and it wasn’t so I could beat Julius in finding Luther’s murderer but only because I badly wanted to see this person brought to justice. I waited until after Phil Weinstein left to return to the restaurant’s kitchen before telling Julius what I had discovered since the explosion.

  “If the mysterious fifth suspect was a hired hit man like the police think, then whoever paid for him probably had time to siphon off cash so the transaction could be kept hidden,” I said. “But that’s not going to be the case with this bombing. Our Mr. X must’ve panicked when he found out that you were going to be looking into Luther’s murder, starting today, and most likely he had to move faster than he would’ve liked in arranging for you to be bumped off. And yeah, I know, I’m using Mr. and he in a gender-neutral way, and we could be looking for a Ms. X, but that doesn’t change the fact that that type of bomb isn’t going to be cheap, especially if it’s outsourced to a hit man. There’s a good chance that this time we’ll be able to find a financial trail leading back to the person responsible for this, and so I’ve been hacking into recent banking records of suspects from a list I’ve compiled, and I’ve found some interesting stuff.”