from that part of myself, even if I could.”
She only smiled at that, which made me want to scream.
“Angela, let me start over with you,” Dr. Johnson said. “You tend to go all in, on just about anything. Am I right?”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“Has anyone ever spoken to you about impulse control? Or prescribed any medication for that kind of thing?”
I paused, actually taking it in. Impulse control? Medication?
“I thought we were supposed to be talking about George and Eve,” I said.
“I’m merely suggesting that it’s possible you’ve succeeded so spectacularly in spite of these tendencies, not because of them,” she went on. “In which case, just imagine what you might accomplish without them.”
I couldn’t argue with that and wasn’t going to. Her logic wasn’t the problem. It was her timing. I just didn’t want to be having this conversation.
She went on. “I’m not telling you to pretend there’s no crisis,” she said. “But maybe this sequestration will help you pull back on the throttle a bit. Just take a conscious breath or two. Give your mind some space to process all of this.”
“Do I have a choice?” I asked, looking around my little cave. “I’m in the ultimate time-out here.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s lost time,” Johnson told me. “It’s just a matter of what you want to do with it.”
On that we agreed fully. I couldn’t wait for her to leave.
She stayed a little longer anyway, offering something to help me sleep (no, thank you) and asking about a convenient time for her to “drop by” again. Like I was going anywhere soon. The fact that I got all the way to the end without completely losing my shit felt like as much of an accomplishment as I could hope for.
Finally, she got up to go. I walked her out to the hall and promised that I’d think about everything she’d said. Then I shut myself up in my room and turned back to the real task at hand:
Hacking my way out of this corner I’d gotten myself into.
CHAPTER 73
ANOTHER STRING OF messages was waiting for me after my session with Dr. Johnson.
The first one just read FYI.
Then came a screen capture from a Twitter account under the name JustCuz.
Hey @FBI! Any luck finding #EveAbajian? Didn’t think so.
The tweet, stamped for five thirty that morning, had been posted with the picture of Eve they’d sent me the night before, mouth taped and eyes wide. It gave me the same hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach as it had the first time I saw it.
And there was more. The third message was a link to a CNN story with the headline FBI ABDUCTION TWEETED BY ALLEGED KIDNAPPERS.
Authorities are following up on a disturbing tweet that appeared briefly online Wednesday morning. The single posting, from an account held under the username JustCuz, referenced the unconfirmed kidnapping of a Boston-area FBI employee and included a graphic picture of the alleged victim. The tweet has since been taken down by Twitter.
CNN has learned that the victim in question is Eve Abajian, a cybersecurity analyst and consultant with the FBI’s Boston field office. Witnesses confirmed that police were called early this morning to the street outside of Abajian’s home in South Boston, where the body of retired federal agent George Yates was found in his car, following an apparent execution-style shooting. Calls to the FBI for comment were not immediately returned.
My little safe house was starting to feel like a bomb shelter. Everything was blowing up out there and I was stuck inside, listening to the explosions.
These guys knew exactly what they were doing. They knew the tweet would be taken down, and they knew it wouldn’t matter. Once it got out, the media machine would treat it like the catnip it was meant to be.
What do you want from me? I messaged back.
I didn’t expect a quick answer, but I got one.
We want you to help us disappear.
Disappear? What did that mean?
How? I asked.
Cable this phone to any networked computer at the FBI. We’ll take care of the rest.
That’s when I knew I was talking to the other guy. The one I’d started to think of as the Engineer, as opposed to the Poet. This one was all business and no chat.
What about Eve? I asked.
You do your part and she walks away.
Why should I believe anything you say? I wrote.
Not my problem, he answered. Your call.
They had to be making this up as they went along. They couldn’t have known