Shada tucked the roll of foil in her backpack, careful not to let the salesclerk see all that cash inside.
“We have cellophane wrap as well,” the clerk said as he stuffed the fifty-pound note into his pocket.
“Next time,” Shada said. The chances were exactly one in five hundred that she’d just solved her microchip problem, but the foil would shore up those odds. She’d wrap the remaining 499 notes once they were underground. “Let’s go,” she said, and the girl followed her to the door.
“By the way,” asked Shada, “what should I call you?”
“Call me what he calls me: McKenna.”
Shada stopped cold. Had it not been for Jack Swyteck, Shada might never have found out about the teenage girl in the cellar. It had been a sickening realization this morning that the girl in the cellar was the same girl she’d met on the Internet and unwittingly brought into Habib’s web. Hearing now that he called her “McKenna” was more than sickening. It was Shada’s worst fear realized.
She stepped away from the door, found a spot at the counter facing the window, and hit REDIAL on the girl’s cell. Habib answered, and Shada talked fast.
“I have the foil,” she said. “We’re a stone’s throw from the Tower Hill Station. Tell me where to get off the train.”
“First stop on the District Line. Aldgate East. About three minutes.”
Shada was about to answer, then stopped. Through the plate-glass window, she could see all the way across the street. A streetlight enhanced the light of dawn, and the man standing at the bus stop looked just like the guy on the train wearing the black cap. Shada tightened her stare, and even from this distance, it made him look away nervously. There was no doubt in her mind.
That’s Swyteck.
“It might take me a little longer than three minutes.”
She tucked away the phone and grabbed the girl by the elbow. “Let’s go,” she said as they moved quickly toward the other exit.