AFTER I LEFT WENDY’S, I COULDN’T GET TO FELIX’S FAST enough. I would have called him, but I was busy beeping Kraft. I did it three times before I pulled into the parking lot of Felix’s complex. On the last try, I punched in my call-back number and followed it with 911. Surely he couldn’t ignore the universal code for near hysteria.

When the elevator at Felix’s building proved too slow, I took the stairs, climbing all seven stories without a pause. By the time I hit five, my legs were jelly. By the time I made it to his apartment and found Felix draped across the lime-green beanbag chair, I could barely stand.

“Hey, Miss Shanahan.” As soon as he saw me, he set aside his laptop and popped to his feet. “Guess what? Guess what I found out? I was looking into that stuff you asked me about, the vory, and you know what? Do you know what I found out? It’s kind of hard to believe. I don’t know whether it’s true or not. It could be true, I guess.”

“Felix…” I held up my hand-breathing was an issue. I knew from experience that I had to stop him, or at least slow him down, or he would just roll on and leave me in the dust. Besides, I needed a moment to collect myself. “Give me a second, okay?” I poured myself into his only other seating option, a canvas chair, and closed my eyes. I’d raced over from Wendy’s and Drazen so fast, I hadn’t had a chance to think about what had just happened. When I started to think about it, to feel the enormity of what I was involved in, I decided I’d rather talk. I opened my eyes, and Felix was right there looking at me. Whatever he had to say, he was excited about it, but I had to get my piece said first.

“I just had a meeting with Tishchenko. He’s not looking for Roger. He’s looking for-”

“The lost fortune. I know. That’s what I was trying to tell you about. The lost fortune of Drazen Tishchenko. Pretty cool, huh? Sounds like Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, or one of those really old Indiana Jones movies.”

“Are you talking about the billion dollars that was supposedly on Vladi’s laptop?”

“Hey! Miss Shanahan, you heard about this?”

“I did. How did you?”

“I found it in Russian chat rooms. They have them over there, too. You have to put all the pieces together, and a lot of it was in archived threads, and I had to use translation software, so I’m not sure I got all of it. Translation software is, like, so bogus. Half the time, it’s completely wrong, and the other-”

“Felix, get to the good part.”

“You asked me to check into the vory, and I did, and I thought they were really interesting with the tattoos and everything, and then you said you’d met one, and I was really curious about him, and so I checked him out. There’s a lot out there on Drazen Tishchenko. He is one intense dude.”

“It was on the laptop, right? A list of files…a map to the fortune…two copies…one for Drazen and one for his brother…” I trailed off so he could pick up the thread.

“Exactly. It was, like, a treasure map, because if you had the computer, it would lead you to the money, only Vladi’s copy got lost when he disappeared.”

Treasure map. I had used that phrase with Kraft, and he had laughed at me. “What do they say about Drazen’s? What happened to his copy?”

“Eaten by a computer virus.”

I had to smile. He had given me the first true moment of satisfaction I’d had in a long time. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not kidding. After Vladi disappeared, Drazen went to find his list, and the file was corrupted. According to the story, Drazen loves porn, and you know what happens when you go to those porn sites. You’re bound to catch something. He got some kind of virus that crashed his hard drive.” He shook his head. “Should have used protection.”

I looked over at him. He was trying to hide his grin, but his ears had turned red, which was his way of blushing. Dan was definitely rubbing off on this kid.

“I guess Drazen was a little hasty when he whacked his computer guy.”

He went from blushing to stricken. “He whacked his computer guy?”

“More like his money guy. What does Russian urban legend say about how Vladi disappeared?”

“One night, he was visiting America and just vanished off the face of the earth. His billion dollars vanished with him.”

“Not necessarily.” I pulled out my Wendy’s napkin with the model and serial number Drazen had given me. “This is the computer where the files resided four years ago. Tishchenko is confident they will still be there. He says they can’t be moved. That’s what I came to ask you about. What would make it so files can’t be moved?”

He took the fast-food document and nodded as sagely as a twenty-something kid could. “That’s how hardware-based encryption works.”

“As opposed to software-based?”

“Right. Software encryption stores the critical information in memory, which means in the end, someone like me can go in and grab it.”

“Critical information like a password?”

“Uh-huh. Hardware encryption encrypts every sector and byte, and it doesn’t leave temporary files and directories unencrypted, which software usually does. In fact, if it’s what I think it is…” He went back to the beanbag, pulled his laptop into position, and started pounding, referring to the napkin for the numbers. When the results came up on the screen, he took in a quick breath, sucking it through clenched teeth. “Oh, man.”

“What?”

“First of all, that porno virus story can’t be true, not with this kind of encryption.”

“What kind?”

“I can’t say for sure, but he could have used something like a KryptoDisk system, which would totally defend it from your average virus. It’s military-grade encryption. The only thing that unlocks it is a cryptographic token.”

“A token?”

“Four years ago, it probably looked like a thick credit card. Here, you can see.” Sensing, perhaps, that he had more energy than I did, he brought his laptop over and showed me the photo on the screen. “You plug it into a slot in the side, the operating system loads, and everything comes up as normal.”

“Is there any chance the files could have been erased or written over without the token?”

“No, except, well…usually, there’s a recovery password in case you lose the key, because if you do, you’re pretty much screwed. But you have to have one or the other or sometimes both to get in. It’s also pretty-”

My phone started to twitter. I whipped it out of my front pocket. Private call, which was how Kraft’s calls had been coming in. I flipped it open.

“Alex Shanahan.”

“What the fuck do I have to do to keep you from calling me every half hour?”

Despite my dislike for Kraft and his battery-acid disposition, it was thrilling to hear his voice. I got up from the chair. Somehow, it made me feel more ready to deal with him if I was on my feet. “I have something you’ll want. I can’t put you in touch with the other reporter, but I have something better. I have his story and all his research notes.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Then fuck you. This man’s son was murdered by Blackthorne, and he took a tremendous risk leaving this stuff with me right before he quit his job, packed up, and fled the city. So, if you want it, let’s talk about a deal. If you don’t, stop wasting my time.”

He had no response to that. Maybe if he couldn’t say something nasty, he said nothing at all.

“The research he gave me includes taped interviews with Tony Blackmon. I haven’t heard all the material, but in what I heard, he talks about Thorne’s background and the things that drove him over the cliff. He calls him Cy, by the way. Did you know that?”

Still no response. I had either shamed him into silence, which had to be hard to do, or he was interested.

“He talks about Thorne’s motives and his own motives. According to the reporter’s notes, he also gives names and dates and describes a bunch of the group’s illegal operations. If this is what you’re writing about, you want this stuff, and there is nowhere else to get it. Blackmon is dead.”