Daniel doesn’t fare any better. Based on his side of the conversation, no one likes him either. Unlike Ellie, however, Daniel reacts with an apparent obliviousness, a refusal to be insulted, that Ellie hopes burns them and lets him live rent-free in their heads at least for the rest of the weekend. Eventually, Daniel shrugs and places his phone back into a pocket, and the two head back out into the sauna of the DC summer.
“You know, maybe we should call it quits on this whole interview thing.” Daniel crosses a name off the list, carefully folds it into a well-creased quarter, then slides it into a pant pocket. “I hate to admit Neeson may be right about anything but, sometimes, obscure but dangerously exploitable behavior is just a bug.”
“There’s only one left, right?” She holds out her hand and, reluctantly, Daniel obliges with the list, now unfolded. “Yes—”
“We don’t need to talk to him.”
“But he’s only about fifteen minutes from here with traffic.”
“Ahdi taught me everything I know about the architecture of the skunkworks and how to verify it.” Daniel takes back the list, folds it, and eases it into a pocket. “He’s as likely to be involved with a covert channel as I am.”
“I thought he was a builder.” She veers toward Daniel’s car, now mere steps away. “Mom used to hold up his handiwork as examples to live up to and made me analyze them.”
“Oh, he is. I mean, he is, too. Maintainers from every universe call on him to sort out issues that no one else can figure out. Idoubt he has anything to do with Neeson, but he can’t have anything to do with this.” Daniel hesitates for a moment, as though the next words need to be shoved out of him. “I’ve known him since I was a kid. If I’m sane, Aunt Vera and Ahdi are the reasons why.”
Ellie stops at the passenger-side door. She turns to Daniel and, for a moment, she wonders whether he can really be that naive. He stares back at her, curious.
“So, of everyone on the list, he’s the one who can design and build a covert channel all by himself?”
Daniel looks utterly betrayed. He tries to speak, but his jaw hangs open. The tiny cry that comes out is wrenching, a dull blade that rips and tears into Ellie. Daniel snaps his jaw shut and swallows hard.
She has never seen him like this. After Daniel moved in, he wasn’t home very much. It hasn’t occurred to her until now where he must have been when he wasn’t home, who must have raised him at least as much as Mom. Ahdi must have been the man Daniel tried so hard to impress with his suit at the reception.
“I’m sorry, Daniel. I didn’t mean it.” The inadequate apology rushes out of Ellie. “All I meant is we should talk to him.”
But Daniel has already composed himself. He’s once again the guy who is utterly unflappable, who refuses to let anything live rent-free in his head. Jauntily, he strides to the driver’s side of his car.
“It sounds so incriminating when you put it that way.” Daniel unlocks the doors. “Besides, there’s a matter of scale. Well, I doubt he’d need an entire team. Maybe just one accomplice? A builder to install the covert channel with him.”
“This is a maintainer you know well. Why don’t you call him up and invite him to dinner? No one is accusing him of anything. He sounds like he’d be helpful in sorting out exactly what happened.”
“Sure.” He shrugs, resigned. “Why not?”
Ellie fiddles with the car’s air-conditioning while Daniel stares at his phone. “Indifferent” isn’t an actual setting but if the air out of the vents is no longer hot, it’s not cold either.
Everything about Daniel’s expression screams “The only way out is through.” He takes a deep breath, taps his phone, then puts it to his ear.
“Hey, Ahdi.” Daniel’s voice, still ridiculously soft, starts an octave too high in excitement before it plummets. “Good to—… She’s here with—… When—… OK, we’ll be right over.”
“Well?” Ellie has given up on the air-conditioning and slumps into the passenger seat.
“He’s invitedusto dinner.”
CHAPTER 9
Ellie can’t tell one house in this neighborhood from another. They’re all gable-roofed single-story structures with an attached single-car garage. Black railings line the steps to every front door. A big window covers the rest of the street-facing side of every house. The only things distinguishing one house from another are color and house number. Even then, there are perhaps only five colors, distributed randomly, and the numbers go up by two with each house.
Daniel pulls his car into one of the many interchangeable driveways with confident ease. The two climb the cement steps to a forest-green metal door, and Daniel hits the doorbell. The door opens and a broad-shouldered man appears. He’s tall—but not Daniel-tall—and burly. Dressed in a tidy faded gray shirt and tan slacks, the man Daniel showed his suit off to at the reception is as neatly put together as a puzzle box.
When his gaze locks on Daniel, a broad grin unfurls across his face and his arms stretch for a hug. Daniel grins back and full-on tackles Ahdi, finally throwing his arms around the man. This probably worked better when Daniel was smaller. On the other hand, Ahdi is still standing and none the worse for wear. If Daniel is the unstoppable force, Ahdi is the immovable object.
The man untangles himself from Daniel and offers Ellie both his hand and his condolences. Ellie accepts the latter with a tremor in her voice she can’t quite iron out. Her mind is crammed with her mom’s stories of Ahdi as a builder’s builder, the times hedelicately manipulated subatomic particles to precisely the correct energy levels, the times he reconstructed gigantic switches through raw force. His grip, though, is as gentle as his condolences.
“Come on in, kids. You must be hungry.” Ahdi heads into the house. “Make yourself comfortable in the dining room. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Ellie and Daniel set aside their shoes. Ahdi has gone far ahead of them. Ellie follows Daniel in.
The house is as well put together and as tidy as he is. It could be a feature in some architectural magazine. Ellie half expects a photographer in the corner preserving an ideal too impractical for real life. Bookshelves filled with books cover the walls of every room Ellie passes through. The book bindings meld into a motley wallpaper that should be at odds with the sleek, clean furniture but for some underlying unity. Ellie wonders if he built them himself. Maybe there is a basement that doubles as a large woodworking shop.
