Encrypted (12 page)

CHAPTER 5

Undisclosed Location

10:48
p
.
m
.,
MST

Ronnie was wel
l into downloading her fourth bootleg
as Quirk finished packing up the damaged equipment.

“You know…” her assistant
began
in his singsong voice
.
Ronnie braced herself
.
She wasn’t going to like what came out of his mouth next
.
“When we experience these ‘technical difficulties’ during your little ‘training’ sessions, we could take a higher percentage of the total take to keep our profit margin up.”

She gave him a “don’t go there” look.

It didn’t work
.
“I mean, what’s the difference between eleven point four two
two
and
,
let’s just go wild and say, sixteen point one?”

She gave him her “don’t you
dare
go there” look
.
This one worked.

“Fine, fine
.
It’s your paradise.”

Both looked over
at
screen eight
.
An ad for a beautifully tranquil island shimmered back at them
.
Beneath the picture was the price
.
Four point five billion dollars
.
A small price
,
really
,
to pay for your own
country
.

Quirk obviously decided to try a new
tack
.
“You know, someone could swoop in and buy your island out from under you before you fill your coffers.”

“With this information coming up on Google?”

Ronnie ran an
I
nternet search on the island,
and
read the results
.
“The island’s limited fresh water is contaminated with arsenic
.
Malaria infestation wiped out the indigenous population.” She turned to Quirk
.
“And now
,
with the plague stuff I could put in there
?
No one is going to buy this tiny municipality.”

“How did you…
”
Quirk looked at the top of the website
.
“That’s France’s official…” He got up
.
“Whatever
.
I’m out of here.”

The twentysomething checked his hair in a mirror
.
What gay man went outside without checking his appearance first
?

Ronnie grinned. “We should probably pack up tomorrow and run silent for a few weeks before we head to Japan.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Satisfied with his level of beauty, Quirk headed for the door
.
“You’re not coming?”

Swinging her chair back
toward
the computer, Ronnie shrugged
.
“Nah
.
I’ve got to re
-
download that bootleg.”

“You’re not going to call him again, are you?”

She tried to sound innocent
.
Really, really innocent
.
“Who?”

Quirk spun her chair back around
and
pointed to the larger-than-life image of Zach.

“Come on
! T
hat was a phase I went through,” she deflected.

Her assistant seemed thoroughly unconvinced
.
“If you call him, you could give away that we’ve finally been able to patch into their internal surveillance.”

“Calling him didn’t even cross my mind.”
Except
,
like, twelve million times.

“And they’ve upgraded their server
.
Warp may be a government worker, but he’s not stupid.” Quirk searched her face
.
“Today proved that he’s caught on
to our tricks
.
He might just be able to trace us.”

Ronnie tilted her head
.
Trace
them
?
Trace the two greatest cyber minds in the world?

Quirk must have read her mind
.
“Okay, maybe not track us down to this
building
, but at least within a hundred miles.”

“I know, totally, I know,” Ronnie tried to sound extremely convincing
,
since she had already
cued
up the speed dial number for the
El Paso
field office.

Quirk gave her that long, disbelieving look, then sighed
.
“Maybe even
fifty
miles.”

“Got
it,” Ronnie said, trying to sit
perfectly still.

“Okay then, tomorrow,” Quirk said as he walked out, shaking his head the whole time.

T
hank goodness he was gone
!
N
ot a second later
,
a voice came over the
I
nternet connection
.
“
El Paso’s
FBI
field office
switchboard
.
Who
may I connect you with?”

* * *

How many different ways could Zach’s supervisor say that he screwed up
?
Dropped the ball
?
Came up empty
?
The
A
gent in
C
harge was going to have to pull out a thesaurus soon.

“Are you even paying attention, Hunt?” Danner asked.

“Yes, of course.”

Danner scowled, obviously not believing Zach one bit
.
“At some point
,
we’ve got to reassess our strategy.”

Zach sat up straighter
.
He had been waiting for this talk
.
The warm-up to pulling him as the point man on the
Robin Hood hacker
case
.
Trying to keep his breathing steady, he studied Danner’s face
.
Even though his boss was
a ball-b
uster
,
thi
s
wasn’t
easy
for Danner
.

“You’ve had a good four attempts, this last one with a running start
,
and you still haven’t even been able to identify where she was
,
let alone develop a strategy to catch her.”

Before Zach could ramp
up
his well-rehearsed defense, a knock came at the door.

“Later,” Danner said with authority.

But despite the obvious dismissal, Agent Hollinger cracked open the door.

“You deaf?” Danner demanded.

“No, sir…” Hollinger answered. “But…”

Danner didn’t have much patience on a good day
.
“But, what?”

“Well, somebody claiming to be the ‘
Robin Hood hacker
’ is on the line for Hunt.” 

“Yeah, right,” Danner replied
.
“Tell her to throw
us
a couple mil.”

Zach sighed
.
They got at least a dozen calls like this after one of her escapades
.
News spread fast over the
I
nternet of her victories
,
and kooks
always
wanted to take credit.

“Why are you still standing there?” Danner asked Hollinger.

“Um, Warp was pretty excited
.
He said something about the way the signal was being rerouted had her signature.”

Zach was out of his chair
.
She
had
called the office before
.
But it had been months
.
Could it
really
be her
?
He looked
at
Danner
,
who clenched his jaw
and
then nodded
toward
the door
.
“Go.”

* * *

Mu
z
ak
.
Who put
M
u
z
ak
on their hold anymore
?
Obviously
,
the United States
G
overnment
.
While waiting for ever-so-Special Agent Hunt to come onto the line, Ronnie watched yet another plague
report
.
Something about squirrels being a natural carrier
,
or something
.
And of course
,
the
Tivo’s
light was bright red
.
Quirk must have put “bubonic” into his wish list
.
She was so preoccupied with making fun of her assistant that she failed to hear him reenter the cold room.

“Ha
!
I knew it!” he shouted
.
“You have hunk-
itis
.”

How could Quirk have known? Not about the hunk
-
itis
, that was pretty darn evident
,
but that
she
had called Zach tonight
?
Then Ronnie spotted another
“brain child” that h
er assistant
had developed—a
small, per
fectly proportioned helicopter nick-named,
Helo
.
And the worst thing about
Helo
?
He ran silent
.
Well that and
had enough surveillance equipment on it to make the Pentagon drool. That
little punk had used the mini-chopper
to spy on
her
.

“
Shh
…” Ronnie scolded as she put her hand over the phone’s receiver
.

“
Shh
, my ass
.
You’ve got it bad
,
” Quirk countered as he sat down at a keyboard and started double-checking her scrambling
and
making sure the signal was
ping-ponging
off dozens of satellites.

Ronnie was about to scold him, but those damn symbols reappeared.
H
ow
?
She had logged on under a completely different account and accessed a new site
.
How could her stalker find her again?

Working quickly
,
she tried to shut them down before Quirk noticed
.
He was a little bit fussy about the whole unauthorized access into his sacred silicon village.

“Oh, you are so in trouble!” Quirk exclaimed
.
“I told you, no more Limp
Bizkit
!”

Obviously
,
he noticed.

“Don’t worry
.
I’ve got it.”

T
hat declaration might have been a bit premature
.
The
ancient
symbols pulsed and swirled across the entire screen
.
The sight was both beautiful
and
eerie
.
An otherworldly effect.

“Are we being possessed?” Quirk asked,
seeming to
only half
kid
.

“No,” Ronnie answered, still trying to purge the message
.
“The symbols are a modified form of Hebrew.”

“Modified by who
m
?”

“Angels,” she stated
.
“It’s
angelic
script.”