Encrypted (13 page)

Quirk looked at the scrolling letters with new respect
.
“What
mailing list did you get on?”

For just a moment
,
they both stared at the screen with
near
reverence
.
As the lettering sparkled
,
they
could almost truly believe that angels handed down the writing to Isaiah
.

That moment of amazement was clearly over
,
though, as Quirk exclaimed
,
“That’s it!”

Before Ronnie could stop him, her assistant disconnected the call.

* * *

Zach rushed into the tech room
,
with Danner not far behind.

“Line two,” Warp
said, pointing
to the blinking light.

He picked up the phone
.
“Hello?”

But there was nothing
.
Just
a
dial tone.

“Wrong line?”

Warp frantically checked and double
-
checked
.
“No way
.
She was on line two
.
I swear.”

“Maybe it wasn’t even her,” Danner postulated to the freaked-out tech.

“It was either
her
or God…” Warp must have realized
that
he stepped over the line
.
Way over the line
.
“Sir.”

Zach paced as Danner hounded the poor techie
.
“I’m not convinced.”

“Look at this
,
” Warp said as he showed the signal bouncing around satellites like a pinball.

“So?” Danner
scoffed
. “There are several dozen hackers
who
can hide their carrier signal
s
that well.”

“Who else could
do this?”

Warp artificially slowed the sequence of the bouncing, so that each leg of the journey became the segment of a line
.
Then the techie broke it down chronologically
.
Not even Zach could believe what he saw
.
Each segment of the signal’s travel was part of a letter
.
Which spelled out the Robin Hood hacker’s
catchphrase, “Better Luck Next Time.”

Danner sighed
.
“It
was
her
.”

Zach had known that, but now that they were all on the same page, he finally spoke up
.
“Why did she hang up
?
Did she detect your trace?”

“Of course she did,” Warp said
,
and
then rushed on. “But she’s never given a shit about me tracking her…” He glanced
at
Danner
.
“Sorry, sir, but she usually gets off on kicking my ass.”

“True,” Zach jumped in, maybe a little too quickly
.
“Then why hang up?”

Warp looked over all his screens again
.
“I don’t know
.
Maybe something went wrong on her end.”

* * *

The symbols now invaded
all
of their screens
.
Even
the
Tivo’s
light blinked erratically
.
This was bad.

“Seriously, why in the hell would someone spend this much time and energy sending you angel-speak?” Quirk demanded.

Ronnie didn’t want to answer him
.
She was going to get
enough
grief over this incident as it was.

“Well?” Quirk pushed.

She shrugged, trying to downplay her words
.
“It’s considered the Holy Grail of code
breaking.”

“Come again?”

“There is intense debate amongst encryption scholars
—
”

Quirk
glared over his keyboard
at her
.
“
That is to say,
people with
way
too much time on their hands.”

“
Cipher
specialists
are still wrangling over how angelic script should be read
.
Right to left
,
as Hebrew
?
Yet there is some indication that diagonal is the true form
,
and
—
”

“So this
is
some stupid-ass prank
?
”
Quirk sounded indignant
. “
Some guy living at home with his mother, challenging you to a code-cracking contest?”

Her assistant was far too perceptive for Ronnie’s
own
good
.
She had to fess up
.
“More than likely.”

To make matters worse, the symbols accelerated their pace, far
outstripping
her and Quirk’s efforts
.

“That’s it
!
No mor
e chat rooms
for you,”
he said.
Quirk paused
,
and
then looked over at her
.
“For an entire
month
.”

Normally
,
she would balk at such parental treatment, but the damn symbols just kept coming.

“It’s just breached our secondary firewall,” Quirk announced
,
h
is tone dripping with blame.

Unfortunately
,
Ronnie could not argue
.
Someone was seriously kicking them around the yard
.
But who could it be
?
No one from the government
.
This hack was too freestyle
.
Too bold
.
Too flamboyant for salaried work
.
Then who
?
She knew or knew of every hacker of this caliber
,
and none could even come close to penetrating Quirk’s insanely layered defenses.

But that left her with the same question.

Then who?

* * *

After hours at the crime scene, another hour of being raked over the coals,
and
then another chunk of time brainstorming with Warp about why the
Robin Hood hacker
had bailed, Danner had finally sent him home to “cool his heels.” Zach wasn’t even sure what that meant exactly, but
he was happy to leave
.
Get out of the stifling office and clear his thoughts.

Making his way
toward the door, Zach
gave the holding cell a wide berth
.
The old man was another unsettling aspect of an extraordinarily unsettled day
.
But the elderly man
was
turned with his back to the bars
,
sitting quietly
.
Too quietly
.

Despite his desire to go home and get out of his G-man suit, Zach drifted
toward
the holding cell
.
“Hey.” No response. “Turn around.”

Still
,
the old man wouldn’t move
.
And he was mumbling again
.

Grant, of course, didn’t
miss
an opportunity to hurl a bar
b
.
“Want me to grab the
Tas
er
gun?”

Zach ignored the jab
.
S
omething
was
wrong here
.
“Just watch my back.” He put the key in the door
.
“Mr.
Loubom
?”
Still
,
no response
—
just an increase in muttering
.
“Francois?”

Zach just wanted to go home
.
But
,
no
.
This old guy had to be doing some kind of freaky meditation
.
Zach placed his hand on the man’s shoulder
.
“Turn around
,
nice and slow.”

Finally
,
Francois complied, tears in his eyes
.
Then the old man extended a bloody arm
.
What in the hell did somebody do to him
?
Then Zach realized
that
Loubom
had used a pen cap to gouge more symbols into his arm.

“Can’t you see?” he asked
,
obviously feeling that his red
-
soaked arm held some kind of answer
.
“I
must
burn the painting.”

But all Zach could see was blood
—
and more blood
.
He yelled over his shoulder, “Call an ambulance
!
Get me the first
-
aid kit
!
”

Despite the potential danger, he pulled the man’s sleeve back down and clamped his bare hands over the wound to stop the bleeding
.
For the love of
G
od, what had made the man mutilate himself like that?

“They speak to me
,
you know,” Francois said
,
sounding the most sane he had yet
.

But Zach was still concerned
that
he had really lost it
.
“Who?”

The old man locked Zach’s gaze with his crystal
-
blue eyes.

“The angels.”

* * *

Angels
sucked
, or at least whoever was busy cramming angel
-
speak down their throat
s
, sucked big time
.
Quirk was running the defensive
,
while she was trying to counter-hack and break into the intruder’s server
.
That was the theory
,
anyway
.
The reality was that things were not going well
.
Not at all
.

Sweat, actual sweat, poured off Quirk’s brow
.
He was never going to forgive her if his hair gel failed
because of
perspiration.

“Quirk…” She couldn’t believe what she was about to say
.
“Maybe it’s time to admit defeat.”

“Never,” he hissed though bleach-whitened teeth
.
“I
am
lord of the geeks.”

Overall, he might be
.
But right now
,
someone was seriously out-hacking
both
of them
.
Yet, Quirk was taking this
much
harder
.
The system defenses were his babies
.
His domain
.
Someone, somewhere, was outgunning him
.
Simply put, their opponents had cooler stuff.

“Look, I promise never to divulge tonight’s momentary, freakish coup.”

Quirk breathed out sharply through his nose
.
What she suggested ran counter to his
über
-computer geek ego, but the reality was
that
they were beat
.

“Or even tease me about it?” he asked.

“Not even a pun.”

For
a moment she thought
her assistant
would shake his head “no,” but Quirk showed her how much he had grown over the last two years when he gave a sharp nod
.
“Pull the input cables.”