by Tiffany Snow
“Two hours from touchdown.” He glanced at me and Clark, but didn’t seem surprised to see strangers there, not even bruised and bloodied strangers.
“Get ahold of the doctor and send him up here,” Zane said. “And set this one up on a computer.” He gestured toward me.
The man scurried to do Zane’s bidding, and before long I was ensconced at one of the workstations while Clark was sitting on a couch, being examined by the same tall doctor who’d attended me.
“China, this is Rey. Rey, China,” Zane introduced the man to me. “He’ll tell you what we need you to do and monitor you to make sure it gets done without you doing anything you shouldn’t. If you do step out of line, he’ll be the one to inform me, who’ll inform that guard over there.” He pointed to the one by Clark. “He’ll make life most unpleasant for Slattery.”
Not exactly the motivational speeches I was used to. “Fear does not inspire loyalty,” I said.
“Maybe not,” he said with a shrug. “But fear gets results, which is all I’m interested in.” He walked away.
I turned to Rey. “So why the timetable?”
“Because the guy whose name is in that database is going to land at JFK in two hours. His father is paying us to get his name off that list before he lands.”
“Wouldn’t it have been better for him not to fly here before confirmation that his name has been removed?” I asked.
“It would,” he sighed. “But he’s a Saudi big shot and used to people catering to his every whim. He thought this would give us greater impetus to get the job done.”
“He’s not wrong about that,” I mumbled. “What’s the name?”
Rey handed me a piece of paper with a name, birth date, and country of citizenship on it. “That’s the one.”
It wasn’t a name I recognized, which was a good thing. We’d kept our own list at Vigilance, and my near-eidetic memory helped when going through data. I hoped it really was just one of those things where the guy was a harmless, rich idiot.
“Time?” I asked. Rey glanced at his watch.
“One hour, fifty minutes until touchdown.”
One of my favorite things to scoff at on television was shows where a character throws out the words “So I hacked in to” fill-in-the-blank, as if it were as easy as making a telephone call. Bones was a favorite target of mine, as much as I could relate to Dr. Brennan. Angela—starving artist turned computer maven—was forever tossing off the “So I hacked in to” phrase.
The truth was, hacking was a tedious process that was akin to standing on a busy street, outside a locked door, with surveillance cameras filming you, and trying key after key until one worked. The Internet wasn’t a private place, and the more prime the target, the more defense measures were in place to watch for intruders, deter them, and hunt them down.
It was an art form that took intuition, cleverness, subterfuge, and sheer audacity. I’d learned how to do it out of curiosity, and I had a talent for it. But I didn’t make a habit of it. For one, my conscience wouldn’t allow me to break in to secure networks just to see if I could. And second, I didn’t want to constantly be looking over my shoulder for that one time I made a mistake—because mistakes were inevitable.
After a while I glanced over at Clark, who had his shirt off, and Dr. Jay was sewing up the wound in his arm and had hooked up an IV. But Clark was watching me with single-minded focus. The expression on his face said he was not fazed by what was going on around him, but was . . . guarding me. It was the best description I could come up with.
“Thirty minutes,” Rey said. He’d settled into the chair next to me, essentially watching over my shoulder. It irritated me. I hated being watched when I worked. At least he wasn’t asking questions. That would have been worse.
I’d gotten into the network and had found the server hosting the database, but still needed to crack the security on the database to edit the tables. My fingers flew over the keys as I concentrated.
“Ticktock, ticktock.” The voice at my ear made me stiffen. “You’re not as good as I thought you’d be.” Zane was leaning over me, braced on the back of my chair.
“It’s the FBI,” I retorted. “I’m going as fast as I can.”
“Here’s some added incentive,” he said, then straightened and nodded at the guards.
One of them shouldered the rifle he was holding and removed a handgun from its holster at his hip. He racked the slide, then held the muzzle to the back of Clark’s head.
“Seven minutes before I redecorate with your boyfriend’s brains.”
10
Fear and frustrated rage made my hands shake, but I didn’t doubt for an instant that Zane would do it. Clark’s life was quite literally in my hands.
Pushing aside my emotions, I concentrated on the work. The database the FBI was using wasn’t proprietary, and there had been a security vulnerability published just last week about this particular product and version. If the database hadn’t yet been patched, I could exploit that hole. A query against the database gave me the information I needed, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d caught a break.
A database isn’t like a spreadsheet, but like a maze of tables that are all interconnected, referring back to one another. Deleting one record from one table would do nothing except compromise the data and alert administrators that someone had tampered with it. A restore from backup would undo everything I did. I had to figure out the map of the database and structure my query to modify and delete the specific data, not leaving anything corrupted, and I had . . . I glanced at the clock on the computer monitor . . . two minutes left in which to do it.
I dropped into my zone, blocking out all sound around me and seeing only the words on the screen. My fingers flew over the keyboard, querying the structure and tables of the database, then memorizing the results it returned. Thank God whoever had designed the thing hadn’t gotten fancy with table names.
Over a dozen tables would need to be modified to delete this particular name from existence, and the query I wrote was more than ten lines long by the time I sent the command to execute. I waited, barely breathing, counting the seconds inside my head.
One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . .
The blinking cursor returned. QUERY COMPLETE. TWELVE ROWS MODIFIED.
I let out my breath in a huff. “Done,” I said loudly, then turned around in my chair to Zane. “It’s done.”
He smiled. “Right down to the wire. Impressive.”
“Call off the gun,” I demanded.
He took longer than I wanted before nodding at the guard holding Clark at gunpoint. The guard unchambered the round, then put the weapon back in his holster.
The anger I’d kept compartmentalized while I worked now broke free. I stood and got in Zane’s face.
“You’re a real asshole,” I hissed. “Someone like you should be careful of the enemies you make. They might come back to bite you in the ass.”
He had the audacity to laugh. “You mean like you? You’re about as threatening as a Chihuahua.” Then he patted my head.
I gasped in outrage and jerked away. My fists were clenched in impotent rage. I hated Zane with every breath I took.
Everyone was watching us. Rey, Dr. Jay, the two guards, and Clark, who looked like he wanted to tear Zane limb from limb.
Zane’s cell phone rang. Completely unfazed by my anger, he pulled his phone from his pocket and glanced at the screen. “It’s my wife,” he said. “Gotta take it. You know how it is.” He winked and smiled, casually turning away as he answered. “Hey, babe, what do you need? I’m a little busy—”
She interrupted him and I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but she was obviously upset.
“Slow down, start again,” Zane said. “What’s going on?” He listened. “No . . . no, I didn’t change anything.”
Turning away, I headed toward Clark. The doctor was removing the IV from his arm, and Clark pulled his shirt back on, grimacing slightly. I sat next to him on the couch.
“Will he be okay?” I asked the doctor, who nodded.
“You did a good job getting the slug out and cleaning the wound,” he said. “I sewed him up and gave him an antibiotic in case of infection. He also has a couple cracked ribs, I believe, but they’ll heal on their own. The rest is just abrasions and contusions.”
“Good.” I smiled when Clark glanced at me.
“What did you do?” Zane asked, his voice tight with anger. He’d walked over and now stood a few feet away, still with his cell at his ear.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, barely summoning enough interest in his plight to bother responding.
“My wife can’t leave our house,” he said.
“Why would she want to leave?” I asked, frowning. “You live in a luxury mansion just built last year, with all the bells and whistles.”
Zane tapped a button on his cell, putting his wife on speaker. “Tell me what’s happening, honey.”
“It’s been going on for a couple of hours,” she said, her voice tinny from the speaker. “At first, I thought it was just a problem in the wiring, but now . . . now it’s forty degrees in here, and I-I’m locked in.
“The lights won’t come on, but the televisions won’t turn off,” she continued. “They’re all blasting the same channel. The hot tub is boiling, and I’m afraid to go in the kitchen. The appliances are all on and I can’t turn them off.”
“Oh yeah,” I said, “you’ve got one of those smart houses, right? Everything’s hooked up to a central system that you use voice control for, right?” I leaned forward, asking conspiratorially, “I don’t suppose your wife knows Mandarin Chinese, does she? I bet that would help.”
Zane’s face turned purple in mottled rage.
“Wait, I found a door unlocked,” his wife said, sounding relieved. “Oh thank God, it’s the garage. I’ll be able to drive out of here, Zane.”
Zane’s face went from red to white in an instant. “No, wait—”
“Zane, the cars! They’re all running! And I can’t . . .” There was a rattle and thumping sound. “I can’t get out of the garage now. The door locked behind me.” Panic threaded her voice. “Zane? Can you hear me? I’m locked in the garage. All three cars are running. What do I do?”
“Oooh, that sounds bad,” I said casually. “Those remote auto-starts are so handy, right? But carbon monoxide poisoning can be a real danger. Three cars running with exhaust inside an enclosed space for two hours? I bet that air is already heavily contaminated.” I shook my head in mock sadness.
“Zane?” His wife’s voice was panicked.
Quick as a flash, he raised his arm to hit me, and just as quickly, Clark caught it before he could land a blow.
“Try that again and I’ll break your arm,” Clark said.
The guards looked unsure as to what to do, while Rey and Dr. Jay just watched. As I’d told Zane before, fear didn’t inspire loyalty. They weren’t going to put their lives on the line for him, that was obvious. And it seemed as though they didn’t particularly care very much as to what the outcome of this standoff would be. They merely watched with interest.
“How does it feel?” I asked Zane. “To know someone you love is in danger? That their life is in someone else’s hands? Someone who doesn’t give a damn what happens to them?”
“I didn’t kill him,” he said. “He’s alive and well, right next to you. I kept my word.”
“Yay, you,” I deadpanned. “Give me the name. Give me the name and I’ll consider giving you your house back. Otherwise, well, carbon monoxide isn’t a bad way to go. You just . . . fall asleep. Tell your wife she may want to remain standing as long as possible.”
“Zane? I can’t hear what’s going on. Can you fix this? Help me.”
“If my wife dies, I’ll kill you.”
“If you kill us, your wife is still dead,” I said, my voice hard. “Give me the name.”
His jaw worked as though he was chewing on the words. He glared at me, unblinking. But I wasn’t fazed and stared back. This was a bad man, an evil man, with no conscience. I wasn’t surprised he was taking longer than he should to contemplate his decision, and I felt a brief pang of sympathy for his wife, married to a man like that.
She began to cough and that spurred Zane. “Danvers,” he spit out. “Mark Danvers. He was in charge of Operation Gemini. Now let my wife go.”
“I’ll let your wife go once we are beyond the front gate,” I said. “I’m not about to give up our only leverage just so you can have us shot on the way out.”
“How do I know you’ll let her go?”
“You don’t,” I said, echoing his earlier derisive response. “But then again, you don’t have much choice.” His wife coughed again. “I’d suggest making a decision quickly. It doesn’t sound like she has much time left.”
“Let them go,” he told the guards, then to us he said, “Get out and don’t come back.”
I got up in his face. “Gladly,” I hissed. “And remember, you made an enemy today. We’ll call this a draw, but if you ever come near me or Clark again, I’ll take this fucking place apart piece by piece.”
Clark relieved the guards of their rifles, handing me one, as well as the handgun. “It’s been real,” he said to Zane. “And I hope you learned your lesson.”
“What’s that?” Zane called out as we headed out the door.
“Never piss off a Chihuahua.”
Clark drove while I took care of Zane’s wife, turning off the cars and remotely opening all the garage doors. I watched on their surveillance camera as she stumbled outside and took a few deep breaths. Other than shaken, she looked fine. I disconnected from their system.
“Would you really have done it?” Clark asked. He was watching the road. It was dark by now and my stomach growled. The fast food had been a long time ago.
“Done what?” I had a dozen missed calls, and the texts were piling in.
“Let her die.”
I glanced up from my phone in surprise. Of all people to question my motives and conscience, I hadn’t expected it from Clark.
“No, I don’t think so,” I answered truthfully. “I’d like to think I wouldn’t have. At the time, I was . . . angry. Enraged. Furious.”
He snorted. “Yeah. I got that. Remind me never to pat you on the head.”
I smiled and shook my head. “It wasn’t that. I mean, not just that. When they held a gun to your head, and he treated you like a punching bag, so casual with your life . . . I wanted revenge. I wanted to make him feel the same helpless fury and despair that I had felt.”
He didn’t say anything and I squirmed a little in my seat.
“It’s not a pretty part of me,” I said. “Frankly, I didn’t know I could be so . . . angry and . . . and—”
“Ruthless?” Clark finished.
I nodded. “Yeah. I guess that’s the word.”
“You don’t work for the Gap, sweetheart. This business ain’t for the fainthearted.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about my actions, but I did know that we were both alive and out of PFG. My cell rang as I was scrolling. Jackson.
“Hey,” I answered, “did they let you out of the hospital?”
“I’ve been out for hours. Where the hell are you? I’ve been worried sick. So is Mia.”
Oh noooo . . .
“Um, I know, and I’m sorry. I didn’t have a signal where I was so I couldn’t call you.”
“Where were you?”
Really didn’t want to go there. “I’m on my way home. I’ll tell you all about it then.”
“Come to my place instead.”
I glanced at Clark. “Um, I will, I just . . . need to go by my house first and see Mia. I hate that she was worried.”
“Fine, but then come. I have information about the assassination attempt.”
“Okay. See you soon.” I ended the call and turned to Clark. “Jackson says he has information about the shooter.”
“Did he say what it was?”
“Not yet. Said he’d tell me tonight.”
“You’re going over there?”
“Of course. I haven’t seen him since we woke up in the hospital. I’m worried about him.” And that wasn’t all. I needed his arms around me, needed the normalcy Jackson now represented. Clark had turned my world upside down in two days. I craved my routine.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure you are. That makes sense.”
His words were common enough and easily said, but his hands had tightened on the wheel. I felt like there was tension between us, though I didn’t know why.
“Are you angry?” I asked. “Or hurting?” The doctor had patched him up and given him the antibiotic, but no pain medication that I could see. Not even ibuprofen. “You can have another one of my pain pills tonight.”
“I’m fine,” he said, glancing at me. “You can keep your pain meds.”
I nodded and left it at that.
Mia was waiting for me, and boy, was she in a snit.
“You could’ve left a note,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and blocking the door into the house. “I’ve been worried sick.”
“I have an excuse,” I said. Clark stepped from behind me into the light, a rifle slung over each shoulder and the handgun tucked into the front waistband of his jeans. I jerked my thumb. “Him.”
Clark gave a thin-lipped smile and waggled his fingers at her. “Hiya, Mia.”
Mia’s eyes narrowed. “Asshat,” she greeted him. “You’re causing trouble for Aunt Chi again, aren’t you.”
“Don’t be rude,” I admonished her. “Let us in. I’m starving.”
Reluctantly, she moved aside, eyeing Clark with the look of someone watching a misbehaving toddler.
“I made dinner,” she said, heading into the kitchen. “Just in case you got home in time.”
I sniffed appreciatively, my mouth watering. “Mmm, spaghetti and meatballs?”
“Your favorite,” she said, taking down another plate and setting it alongside the other two already on the table.
“Technically, not true,” I said. “But of the Italian dishes that you’ve attempted, it’s definitely the best.”
