“How does Drake know this guy’s behind it?”

Hansen shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he recognized him during the attack.”

“But why? Why would Fuller attack Drake?”

“I have no idea how he would even know of Drake’s existence. But maybe he got wind that Drake was trying to cure psychopathy.”

Erin stared at him blankly.

“If psychopathy were cured,” explained Hansen, “this would have a big negative impact on an arms dealer. If his best customers suddenly grew a conscience, stopped buying weapons, and started singing folk songs around the campfire, this would be very bad for business. And Fuller is a psychopath himself. Like you said, the last thing they want is to be cured. So what would a brutal, powerful, psychopathic arms dealer do if he found out Drake intended to rid the planet of this condition?”

Erin had to admit that if the attack was real, this reasoning did provide a logical underpinning for it. Perhaps even a compelling one.

“That’s all I know about Steve Fuller,” said Hansen. “So now it’s your turn.”

Erin stared deeply into his eyes. She had the feeling he knew more, but decided not to press. For now. Her gut told her that if he was withholding information, it was only because he didn’t perceive it to be relevant. And the fact that he didn’t seem to be a talented or practiced liar was a hugely positive personality trait in her book, and a great change of pace after working with the world’s smoothest liars for so many years.

Erin launched into the story of how she happened to know of Steve Fuller, beginning with his call, when he posed as someone trying to recruit her to his company, Advanced Science Applications. When Erin described the events in the church parking lot, and how she had escaped and made it to Tucson, Hansen listened with an expression of awe, and was unabashedly complimentary of her courage and resourcefulness.

When she had finished she said, “The timing of Fuller’s call is just as unlikely as everything else. I assumed the Wall Street Journal article had been the trigger, but the trigger for what? And why?”

“What Wall Street Journal article?”

She told Hansen how the paper had republished her thoughts on a device to remotely identify psychopaths, the interview that had originally drawn Drake to her.

“For some reason,” continued Erin, “I had just assumed you—meaning you and Drake—had seen it. But, anyway, I guess this wasn’t the reason for the call, after all. Fuller must have already known about the cure. Although I have no idea how.”

Hansen rubbed his chin absently in thought. It was now almost three o’clock, but neither had any awareness of the passage of time, or of the many groups of students and faculty that had come and gone, scurrying around them unnoticed like a large and noisy group of ants. They had maintained their position at the table while hundreds of others zoomed in and out and around, as though they had been filmed using time-lapse photography.

“Not necessarily,” said Hansen finally. “The Wall Street Journal article would have been enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“Enough to get Fuller interested in recruiting you. Think if you really could perfect the psychopath detector you described in the article. That would be quite a valuable tool.”

Erin shook her head. “I thought so too when I proposed it. But it turns out there are far too many ethical issues for it to ever be used.”

“Maybe so,” said Hansen, “but that wouldn’t trouble a psychopathic arms dealer. And this device would be far more valuable to him, even, than to the normal person. Many of the people he deals with on a daily basis—terrorists, dictators, and even their intermediaries—are psychopathic. But some are not. It would be useful for him and his people to be able to identify those who have a conscience from those who don’t. In his dealings with potential customers and when recruiting subordinates.”

“Okay, I can see that. He reads the article, decides this would be a useful tool, and tries to get me to perfect it away from a university. Having no idea that I abandoned this project before it began years ago.”

“So you agree to meet with him. Then what?” Hansen threw out his hands, as if unable to find his way forward. “How do we go from that to where we are now?”

Erin’s eyes widened. “They were monitoring me prior to my meeting with them,” she said in alarm. “That’s how they found me in the church lot. So it isn’t a stretch to believe they were monitoring me the entire time I was in San Diego. Even before they contacted me. Why not? Gathering intel, getting a sense for my personality. Deciding the best levers to push to get me to come aboard their fictitious company, either by using a carrot or showing me the stick.”

“So when you called Drake from San Diego, they were listening in?”

Erin nodded. “I can’t be certain, but I’d sure bet on it.”

“Do you remember what you said?”

“Not exactly. But I was furious about his Hugh Raborn deception.” She frowned deeply. “And I’m positive I told him I had come to San Diego because we had succeeded. Because we had the cure.”

Hansen blew out a breath. “That would do it,” he said. “Fuller’s people monitored you because he wanted you to build a remote diagnostic test. But when they learned that you and Drake had developed a cure instead, that must have thrown Fuller, proud psychopath that he is, into a panic. You went from a possible asset to a threat.”

“And if they traced my call to Drake, this would explain how they found him. And why they attacked.” It was all beginning to make a sort of twisted sense. “But why wait?” asked Erin. She knew this could still be an elaborate hoax concocted by Drake and Hansen. But she had no other choice for the moment but to assume it wasn’t.

“They were able to schedule an innocent meeting with you. They probably decided to get as much information from you as they could before they attacked. They just didn’t count on you being so suspicious. Or so elusive.”

“That makes sense. But after they lost me, why didn’t they hit Drake then?”

Hansen thought about this, but couldn’t come up with a good answer.

Erin, on the other hand, arrived at an answer to her own question, and a chill went up her spine. She leaned closer to Hansen. “The reason they timed this the way they did just hit me, Kyle.” An anxious look appeared in her eyes. “It’s because they’re here,” she said, making a small circle with her head, a gesture meant to encompass the entire food court. “Right now. Patiently waiting until we aren’t in a crowd to take us out.”

17

ERIN GLANCED AROUND furtively, focusing especially on fit men who were older than the typical student. Fuller would have someone surveilling them, keeping track of them in the sprawling food court, following them when they left and making sure to alert others outside to their position when they did.

“I’m not sure I understand,” said Hansen. “Are you saying they waited to strike at Drake because they hoped you’d keep this meeting?”

“Exactly. So they could, um … reacquire me. They expected Drake to be meeting with me, so they could take us both out at the same time. Without any warnings being exchanged between us. When they discovered you had made the trip to Tucson instead of him, they must have decided to do this in stages.”

Erin realized as she said this that they had probably recovered her phone from the pickup truck into which she had launched it. In this case, Fuller would have known that Kyle Hansen was coming to meet her rather than Drake. But this wouldn’t have mattered. They just had to delay their strike on Drake until she and Hansen were in sight. If their attack was 100 percent effective, Drake wouldn’t be able to alert Hansen that anything was amiss. The two of them would be blissfully ignorant and easy pickings. But even if Drake did inform Hansen of the attack in Yuma, which he had, they would either fail to ferret out that the danger extended to their own location, or be unable to extricate themselves, even if they realized they were surrounded.