Leverage

by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  My mind is off and racing. In a business made up of criminals of varying moral and ethical standards, about the only thing they all agree on is that a snitch is the worst of the worst and should be gutted like a flopping fish in the public square. However, playing that angle to flush out a snitch may not be lauded, but it’s not the same thing. There’s got to be more to the story than that.

  “You didn’t stop, did you?” I ask. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Oh, shit. “You’re still—”

  “Quiet,” Nix orders. “The relationship became advantageous for both sides—”

  I’ll bet. Nearly all Bosses that slash and hack their way into power use the police in some fashion or another to take care of their rivals. But it’s something else entirely when you can just call them up and tip them off like that.

  “—and over time,” Nix continues, “we reached an understanding of sorts.” Nix looks around the chamber.

  She doesn’t look nervous, or like she’s done something wrong. She looks like she’s confident in the decision she’s made. Like it was the right one to make.

  I just can’t believe it.

  “So now you know,” Nix says.

  My head’s reeling from this information. A Boss in bed with the Mounties for probably decades. I can’t imagine the fallout. Or the fixes she must have at her ... disposal .... Son of a bitch. “That’s why they’re not looking for us from the boat,” I think out loud. Or why our pictures aren’t all over the place.

  Nix says, “Yes. It’d be quite inconvenient to have the only two survivors from a terrorist attack murdered.”

  Oh, shit. I didn’t even think of that. It makes it one degree less complicated to just kill us.

  “You don’t approve?” Nix asks me dangerously.

  “What the fuck does it matter?” I answer sincerely. “Approve or not, it’s one hell of a piece of leverage that needs to be dealt with.”

  “So you still think you can help in this matter?”

  I nod while I think out loud, “But why are the Dick Unicorns leveraging this now? They must have known about it for awhile.”

  Nix shrugs. “I don’t know.” She then adds dryly, “It’s hard to imagine with your interpersonal skills that they don’t just adore you and wish you nothing but the best.”

  Right. I don’t respond out loud to Nix. But is it that we stole Ham’s code, stole Christina’s code, or had a role in Christina’s murder? One, both, all? Shit.

  Nix asks again, making it clear the question of why doesn’t concern her, “So you still think you can help in this matter?”

  We don’t have a choice because Nix doesn’t have a choice. And based on everything I‘ve just heard, Nix has to have a hit set up for us when we leave the courthouse if I say no. If this knowledge gets out, Nix would face a revolt on all sides. She wouldn’t survive.

  Which means— Fuck. On top of everything else, we’re going to have to put a fix in place with her for when this is all over to keep her from killing us then.

  “Yeah,” I say eventually, “But first I need to understand a few things.”

  “Like what?”

  * * *

  A half hour later, I slam the back door closed as I slide into the borrowed hovercar with Puo and Winn up front. The random fabric shop I took a taxi to from the courthouse drops away below us.

  Puo, in the front passenger seat, turns back toward me. “Welcome back,” he says seriously.

  “You didn’t get any of the audio?” I ask.

  “None,” Puo says. “Between both of your digi-scramblers and her audio-dampener, it was a bit like watching two ghosts trying to grope each other.” Puo thinks for a second. “Must be what the cops feel like.”

  I feel queasy. Nix really must have had a planned hit in place. A digi-scrambler makes sense for me, less so for her since the Boss position by definition tends to be a more public one. But reasonable for her not to want to be seen with me, a future murder victim.

  But the audio-dampener was purely about making sure I couldn’t record the conversation or broadcast it. It was about containing her secret so when she killed me as I left she could be confident that would be the end of it. And my having a Boss as a father or not, keeping that she’s a decades-long snitch quiet would be worth the risk—particularly when there’s no record of the meeting.

  “So what’d you learn?” Puo asks.

  I fill Puo and Winn in on Nix’s snitching, and the Cleaners learning about it to use as leverage.

  Puo understands the full implications immediately as I tell him. Winn can sense it’s serious, but I don’t think he understands the full gravity of the situation.

  When I finish, Puo takes a deep breath. “Whoa.”

  Whoa indeed.

  Puo asks, “Does she know why the Cleaners are coming after us?”

  “No,” I say. “And I don’t think she cares. But I haven’t even told you the best part.”

  “Yeah—?” Puo turns around to face me better. “And what is that?”

  “The Cleaners have an agent at the Royal Mounties. It’s how they learned of Nix’s proclivities. Nix wants us to ferret out the agent so she can deal with them.”

  Winn’s hands tighten around the steering wheel. It’s why he left. I promised him, a surgeon, when he joined that we didn’t kill people or get involved in that. Then his first real job out, we had to expose Paranoid Pete for my father to deal with—it was a kill or be killed situation. Three months later it was the same thing on the west coast with Colvin, only much larger in scale. That’s when Winn left. And now he’s back, and we’re talking about serving up yet another person for a Boss to deal with.

  Puo asks, “How’s Nix know that that’s going to deal with the leverage? They don’t have any digital records? Seems stupid not to.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “I asked that too. The records are in the Royal Mounties local headquarters. She says the Cleaners are content to let the Mounties run security for them.”

  Puo raises an eyebrow at that. It’s an interesting choice, but not necessarily a dumb one.

  “They don’t think they can get it out?” Puo asks.

  “Not without risking their human asset,” I say, having already thought about it.

  “Are we really going to do this?” Winn asks, his voice tight.

  A lot of emotions suddenly vie for my attention. Frustration, petulance, defensiveness, compassion, understanding. “No,” I say neutrally. “We’re going to steal the records from the Mounties—”

  “I knew it,” Puo swears. “I knew you were going to say that.”

  “Yeah?” I ask. “What am I going to say next?”

  Puo answers without missing a beat, “Puo’s a genius. He’s indispensable. We have no chance without him. We’re going to listen and do everything Puo suggests.” Puo pauses to take a breath.

  “You done?” I ask.

  Puo tilts his head up as he thinks.

  “Anyway,” I say. “Yes. We steal the records, and that removes the leverage.”

  “So,” Winn says, only slightly more relaxed from a few seconds ago. “All we have to do is break into the Royal Mounties headquarters and steal their files.”

  “And any backups,” Puo says.

  “Yup,” I say. How hard could it be?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ON THE FACE of it, breaking into a Federal building is a really, really, dumb thing to do. Like asking-a-cop-for-an-escort-after-robbing-a-bank-in-their-plain-sight dumb. And normally, I wouldn’t even entertain the thought of it. But the threat of losing your life and getting caught in the middle of a possible war is a powerful motivator.

  Puo, Winn and I are back in Puo’s musky room after my meeting with Nix. Puo’s back on his computer carefully poking around the Mounties’ unclassified system using the Indian woman agent’s info. He’s already pulled the visitor request logs and the approved vendors lists and is searching through them.

  Winn and I stand at our now customary places behind Puo.
I’m leaning up against a dresser, while Winn stands off behind Puo’s left shoulder with his arms crossed.

  “So,” Winn asks, picking up our conversation from a few minutes ago, “we need to break into a high-security room that’s on a closed network?”

  “Yup,” I say. Fortunately, Nix told us the room number (although not its location) and her intelligence source is pretty good: the Mounties themselves—it’s great when the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.

  The afternoon sun tries to push its way around the edges of the blocked-out windows. And after four days in this house, this room needs a cleaning, and some air freshener. It’s starting to smell like a box of dirty laundry.

  Winn continues, “And we’re going to run a desensitizing campaign on that high-security room by tripping the alarm every ... ?”

  “Twenty-seven minutes,” Puo answers without looking up. Puo continues to run his finger down a list on the computer screen.

  “Can you see my confusion?” Winn asks.

  “Nope,” I say cheerfully, although I do.

  “If it’s on a closed system,” Winn asks, “how can we trip the alarm?”

  “Puo, my fine friend,” I say, “explain it to the man.” I stop bouncing my leg up and down as I lean back against the dresser—too much nervous energy. The bouncing was rattling one of the drawers.

  Puo says, “It’s not technically a closed system although it’s about as close as you can get. Alarm messages still need to be sent to the guards. So a path exists to send messages over the network.”

  “Got it,” Winn says quickly. “You’re not actually tripping the alarm—you’re just sending the messages to the guards.”

  Puo taps his temple and then points at Winn. “Which will start at twenty hundred tonight, after everyone’s gone home for the day.”

  By oh-eight-hundred tomorrow morning, the guards are going to be scrambling to tell the daytime security managers, “Them darn alarms need fixin’.” And the guards won’t be responding to those alarms with nearly the alacrity they’re supposed to.

  “You find it?” I ask Puo. He’s searching through the approved vendors list to find who the Mounties are going to call to fix their alarm system.

  “Half of it,” Puo says. “Phillips & Jones is the company. Still searching the visitor logs for who they send out.”

  While Puo’s doing that, I pull up Phillips & Jones on my tablet. I start browsing around Phillips & Jones’ public information on the internet to see what other people have to say about them in various forums.

  The company is a second-generation, high-end security tech firm, catering mostly to government contracts and some high-end residential compounds. You can tell a company that prides itself on exclusivity when their contact page doesn’t tell you anything useful, like a phone number or email, just a physical address that’s mandated by law.

  “Got it,” Puo says. “Rose Phillips has signed in the last two times as the rep. That’s as far back as the logs go—three months.”

  “They list a phone number for her?” I ask.

  “Nope,” Puo says. “But the company profile on the approved vendors list does.”

  “Let’s have it,” I say.

  Puo rattles off the number for me and I dial it.

  “Phillips & Jones,” a neutral-toned male voice answers.

  “Good afternoon,” I say. “My name’s Lynda, Joseph Raney’s personal assistant. He received this number from an associate of his about upgrading his private security at his Shaughnessy Heights home. He was told to ask for Rose.”

  “Good afternoon, Lynda,” the receptionist says. “Do you know which associate gave him this number?”

  “Unfortunately, no. Mr. Raney often just leaves a task list for me to complete when I get in. All that’s listed is ‘make an appointment about upgrading security’ and a number.”

  There’s a brief silence on the other end. I’m sure they’re not supposed to forward calls like this without the reference. But a home in Shaughnessy Heights is the wealthiest part of town, and being deferential while being discerning is always a balancing act when catering to the wealthy.

  “I’m sorry,” the male receptionist finally says. “But without knowing who gave the reference, we’re not allowed to proceed.”

  I add a worried note to my voice, “It’d be really good if I could take care of this without having to bother Mr. Raney.”

  “Again, I’m sorry. Once you have the reference, you can call back and I can help you then.”

  “Please,” I say, my voice takes on a desperate tone, “I already screwed up once this week. Can I at least make an appointment conditional on the reference? That way I can go to him with something concrete.”

  “I’m ...” he starts to say.

  “Sympathetic?” I add helpfully. “I’ll call back with the reference as soon as I have it, and if not you can cancel it.”

  One heartbeat later he says, “Mmm, I’m not supposed to. But so long as you understand it will be canceled—”

  “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! Can she meet tomorrow?” Which would be Wednesday.

  “No,” the receptionist says, “she’s booked tomorrow and Thursday—”

  The Northwest Canadian Security Expo. Phillips & Jones showed up on their list of companies when I was just surfing the internet for information on them.

  The receptionist continues, “—Friday?”

  “Sounds good. What time is good for her?”

  “Ten a.m.”

  “Done. And thank you so much again.”

  He warns me again about calling back as soon as possible to give the reference and we hang up.

  “You find a number for Rose yet?” I ask Puo.

  Puo nods and points to a number on the screen.

  “You’re up Winn,” I say. “Call Rose and pretend to be from the Expo to confirm her attendance tomorrow.”

  Winn looks between us and then digs into his jeans pocket for his new tablet. He dials the phone and then stands facing us.

  I’m not sure why I picked Winn over Puo to make the call. All that was necessary was that it was a different voice on a different number from mine, so the receptionist and Rose won’t suspect anything on the off chance they discuss it.

  “Hello, Ms. Phillips,” Winn says, “this is Wade Fletcher with the Northwest Canadian Security Expo. I am calling to confirm your registration for tomorrow and—”

  Winn straightens up and crosses his free arm across his body as he listens to her response.

  “My apologies, ma’am,” Winn says neutrally. “The number was listed on the registration form. We’ve had some last minute requests for booth space and I was asked to call and verify—”

  Winn leans his head back and clenches his fist.

  “Ma’am— Ma’am—” Win cuts in louder. “We all just want the expo to be a success—”

  Winn starts shaking his head in frustration. “Ma’am! This is a volunteer gig. And I do not appreciate the tone and demeanor you are taking with me for what should’ve been a routine call— My name?”

  At this point, both Puo and I are trying to wave Winn down. The point was to confirm her presence, not raise red flags in her mind so that she contacts the expo to confirm.

  “Ma’am,” Winn says switching his voice to resignation, “my name is Volunteer.” Winn raises his free hand and waves goodbye. “I sincerely hope that you enjoy the expo and that we do not run into each other. Goodbye.” Winn hangs up the phone.

  “Yeesh,” Winn says, “what a nasty piece of work. Please tell me we’re going to put some egg on her face.”

  I quirk an eyebrow at his use of “we,” but also nod. Yeah. Yeah we’re going to put some egg on her face.

  * * *

  It’s nice when the person on the other end of a game or con turns out to be an asshole. It gives an extra feeling of accomplishment, like you’re helping the larger universe in balancing things out.

  “Is it working?” I ask
Puo on the comm-link the next morning at eight a.m. about the tracking chip Winn’s about to plant. We’ve already pulled this trick to slip past the Mounties’ security once, so we’re pretty confident it’s going to work again. I pull my gray knit winter hat tighter over my head against the cold. I want to make sure this trip isn’t wasted.

  Winn should already be at the expo scouting the floor and preparing for our cold rendezvous. Things were ... tense between us last night. It kept feeling like there was an elephant in the room and Winn was searching for a way to point it out. So, naturally, I hung close to Puo and avoided Winn and changed topics regularly.

  “Yeah,” Puo answers distractedly, “it’s working.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask about his distraction.

  “They’ve called the vendor again,” Puo says. “That makes three times.”

  Puo’s little present to the Mounties has been sending alarm messages from the high-security room every twenty-seven minutes, starting after business hours last night. The guards are getting a little antsy to stop the false alarms.

  Puo’s been delaying and rerouting their calls to the vendor to make sure only one message gets through at the most advantageous time for us. But that’s not what Puo’s worried about. Three times is someone getting desperate, and desperate people tend to complain loudly about the injustice they’re suffering to anyone who will listen—like Rose Phillips for example.

  “Hmm ...” I say. “Block access to her messages and spoof calls to the office?”

  Puo gives a umph, and then grunts, “Nice.”

  We’re operating in a timed window, which means we don’t have to have a long-term or permanent fix in place. We just have to make sure we’re clear in the desired time frame. And in this case that means preventing Rose from suspecting (or at least confirming) something is in the works.

  The biting cold air cuts through my many layers as I walk along the street with my head down. The high-rise buildings on each side of me funnel the wind for an unpleasant walk. That and the cold accentuates the scent of asphalt and cigarette butts—always a nice combination in the morning.