Trust Me Read Free

doorman was a more devoted runner than Luke.
    ‘I was up late.’
    ‘Why you bother to live downtown if you never go to the clubs, go out and party?’
    ‘How do you know I don’t?’ Luke gave the guard a half-smile.
    ‘On night shift, I see who parties, who’s been down in the Warehouse District, who’s been on Sixth Street. You never stagger in late.’
    ‘I’m on the internet most of the time right now.’
    ‘Well, get the hell off.’ The guard gave him a grin. ‘Life’s too short.’
    The elevator arrived and Luke said, ‘I’ll try to fix that partying deficit.’
    ‘Not tonight. Your stepfather is waiting for you. Got here a few minutes ago.’
    ‘Thanks.’ The doors closed and Luke punched the tenth floor button. Henry was back again, all the way from Washington, and Luke hadn’t finished the project. He took a deep breath.
    The elevator door slid open and he walked down a short hallway to his condo. The door was slightly ajar; Henry had forgotten to shut it. Typical. He opened the door and called out, ‘Hey, it’s me.’ Luke closed the door behind him and he could hear the scratch of pen on paper, the sound he always associated with Henry.
    Henry sat at the dining room table, his luggage at his feet, writing on a yellow legal pad, a thick book open in front of him. Luke knew better than to interrupt Henry when he was thinking, and Henry’s thoughts could be long, tortured affairs. Henry raised one hand slightly from the table as he wrote, begging for patience, and so Luke went and got a bottle of water from the refrigerator, drank deeply, listened to the scratch of Henry’s pen, looked at the stunning view that faced the lake and the green stretch of Zilker Park beyond.
    ‘Sorry, Luke,’ he said with an embarrassed smile. ‘I’m working on a dozen position papers at once, and all my ideas are sprouting like weeds.’
    ‘That’s too many.’
    ‘I think a lot of change is in the wind. Did you have a good run?’ Henry looked up from the paper. Fiftyish, lean, but with slightly mussed gray hair - standing in stray stalks from his fingers constantly running through it as he spoke - and an equally rumpled suit. Henry never traveled well.
    ‘I only sweat in front of the computer these days.’ He went over and Henry stood and gave him an awkward embrace.
    ‘Well, go get showered and I’ll take you out for a decent dinner. You’ve got nothing edible in that fridge.’ He leaned back, studied his stepson. ‘You’re pale, thin and you need a shave. I’ve been working you too hard.’
    ‘I wanted the research project to go well. But I worry I’m not delivering what you need.’
    Henry sat down, put his glasses back on his face. His nose was slightly crooked - he’d always kidded Luke that it had been broken in a bar fight, but Luke knew Henry had never set foot in a bar. ‘The data you’ve sent me has been extremely … compelling.’
    ‘I’m afraid it’s nothing more than the crazy internet ravings of vicious losers.’
    ‘But you never know when the crazy raving is the seed of something bigger. Something dangerous.’
     
    ‘Collecting crazy ravings isn’t necessarily going to help identify and stop extremists before they turn violent.’
    ‘That’s for me to decide.’
    Luke finished his water. ‘I would like to know who your client is. I want to know who wants to find potential extremists on the internet.’
    Henry folded the paper he’d been writing on, tucked it in his pocket and shut the book. The title of the book was The Psychology of Extremists . Henry’s own masterpiece; he’d written it some years before in the aftermath of the McVeigh bombing, to little acclaim, until 9/11 changed everything and his theories about the mental makeup of terrorists bore fruit. After holding a series of professorships around the world - sort of a traveling scholar, much like Luke’s own father had been - last year he had set up a small but successful think tank in Washington called