"Dr. Hudson?" His voice was low, a pleasant baritone.
She stopped herself from taking a step back. She was here to meet him, after all.
"Mike? Mike … Hammer?"
He stepped forward, revealing a thin, pleasant-looking face. He looked smart and exhausted, with red-rimmed eyes and deep lines bracketing his mouth. The lines looked recent. Well, yes. If he was pursuing a story that had gotten two people killed, might unleash a worldwide pandemic, he had every reason to be stressed.
"Yes. And you are Dr. Kay Hudson."
She nodded then reached for his outstretched hand. At the last minute, she realized he was holding it palm up. Not to shake hands but to receive something. Kay handed over the flash drive. Mike's long, pale fingers closed over it, then he raised somber eyes to hers. Two people had died for that flash drive, as he well knew.
"Did you make a copy?" he asked.
Kay shook her head. "I tried. But it was so strongly encrypted I simply couldn't. I couldn't even read the data. Priyanka said to get it to you if something happened to her and that you could decrypt it."
Mike nodded solemnly. "Yeah. I can decrypt it. And if I have problems, one of the people I work with used to work at the NSA."
Kay just then realized that the hard encryption was Priyanka's way of shielding her. Priyanka didn't want Kay to be in danger, only to act as a courier.
The message had come two days after Priyanka's death, like her friend rising from the dead. They'd set up a message board in Tor under an untraceable account they both had the password to. The messages were always in draft.
Kay had logged on, simply to read some of Priyanka's old posts. Priyanka had been on someone's trail and her usual sense of humor had deserted her lately.
Kay missed her so much and wanted to read some old posts, just to feel near to her friend. But what she found was a new post, sent the day after her funeral, with a video attachment.
"Kay," her friend said solemnly on her computer screen. "If you're reading this, it means something happened to me. I'm sorry to ask this, but this is what you need to do." Suddenly her friend's face broke into an uneven smile, tears welling in her eyes. "Help me, Obi-Wan Kay-nobi. You're my only hope."
They were both Star Wars nerds and hearing Priyanka say that, Kay had burst into tears.
"There-there will be a lot of science data on the flash drive," Kay said hesitantly. "If you have any trouble understanding the data, you can count on me to-"
"I have a double PhD in biochemistry and computer science from Stanford," Mike said.
"Oh!" Kay's eyes widened. "I'm sorry, I-"
He waved her apology away. "No need to be sorry, you couldn't know. And I'm sure if I didn't have a strong bioscience background, I'd have needed help. I have a rough idea what's in the data. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am."
Meaning-people high up in the nation's science and health establishment had gone over to the dark side of the force. It hurt Kay's heart to even think of it.
"Is there anything in the data that can be linked back to you?" he asked.
Kay shook her head. "I don't think so, but really, I have no idea. Certainly Priyanka wouldn't want to endanger me. But … " she hesitated. She didn't know Mike Hammer at all except through his articles. But Priyanka trusted him and so should she. "Some of the data probably came from my lab. Not much but some."
He nodded. "I'll anonymize as much as I can, but I can't promise that nothing will be traced back to you."
Kay took in a deep breath. "Understood."
"I think it would be a good idea for you to go underground, or away, for a while."
"A while?"
She'd expected this. Feared it, too. Whistleblowing didn't have a great tradition in terms of enhancing lifestyle. Most whistleblowers ended up fired, their reputations trashed, colleagues avoiding them. Some ended up dead, like Priyanka.
She'd put in a preemptive request for a two-month leave. It hadn't been accepted yet. If she disappeared before it came through, it would cost her at the very least her job. At first that thought had cut her like a knife, made her bleed. But now that anger had taken over, the pain was less piercing
His lips thinned. "Yeah. I don't know how long it would be. Whoever came after Priyanka and Bill Morrell will come after me, only I know how to defend myself and nobody knows my real identity. But you're different, you have a high profile, you're in the business, a lot of people know you were Priyanka's friend. At a rough guess, I would say that if your name doesn't pop up in the first ten days after publication, you could maybe consider yourself safe."
Kay nodded. "I asked for a two-month leave when I received Priyanka's message." Kay bit her lip and looked to the side for a moment. Mike said nothing. He knew that the message had come after Priyanka's death and that the pain would still be raw. "My request hasn't been accepted yet, but I think it will. Actually … " She hesitated.