Arizona
Kate sat at the desk in their second hotel room, tapping her fingers against her chin and staring out the window. This one was on the first floor and she was determined to keep a better eye on what was happening outside.
Now that they knew Lyle was in the area they would start combing the area, and she wanted to be able to drop out of sight if they came to check out this hotel.
“This room has a kitchen,” Lyle said. He was lying on the bed next to the air conditioner. He had it blasting on full, making the room cold.
“The oven doesn’t work,” she replied.
He sat up. “That’s an oven? I thought it was a dishwasher.”
“Why would they have a dishwasher in here?”
“Why do they have an oven?” Lyle asked.
“In case you want to cook something.”
“But it doesn’t work.”
“You just have to lift the top off to work the burners and…never mind,” she said.
“Even the mini-fridge isn’t cold,” Lyle said, lying back down on the bed and crossing his hands over his stomach. “What’s the world coming to when hotel rooms include a fake kitchen just for aesthetics?”
Kate didn’t have an answer. They sat in silence for a few more minutes.
“Your face looks terrible.”
“Oh does it?” Lyle said, touching his swollen cheek. It was black and blue now, and puffy. “It hurts like hell.”
“Especially when someone reminds you of it, right?”
He looked up at her, frowning. “You aren’t a nice person, are you?”
“Not really,” she said with a shrug.
“So what’s your interest in this?”
“Huh?” Kate asked.
“Why are you involved?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I think it’s personal for you,” Lyle said. “I think you don’t really like what’s happening, but you especially don’t like Victor. What did he do to you?”
“It’s complicated.”
“A past lover?”
She laughed. “Not a chance. Do I detect a hint of jealousy?”
“From me? No way,” Lyle said.
“Mmhmm.”
“So, what’s the story?”
Kate was silent for a moment. “I don’t tell the story.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s personal, and I don’t give out personal details.”
“You know everything about me,” Lyle said. “Why can’t you tell me something about you?”
“Because you are a mark,” she said.
The words came out harsh, a lot meaner than she’d intended, and she instantly regretted it. In the reflection from the window, she could see Lyle’s hurt expression.
“Oh,” he said, lying back on the bed.
Kate opened her mouth to apologize and then hesitated. Finally, she spoke. “Look I’m sorry—”
“No, it’s fine,” Lyle said flatly. She could hear the hurt in his voice. “You saved my life because you need my help. So what do you need help with?”
“Figuring out who they will attack.”
“If you let me use your laptop, I can get into my employer’s system and start fiddling around.”
“It’s too dangerous,” she said. “By now your login credentials are compromised and if you try anything they’ll track you here.”
“I wasn’t planning on logging in,” Lyle said. “I know how to use the backdoor.”
Kate thought about it for a second.
“Okay,” she conceded. “Try to find a way in and look around for any information that might be useful. Do you need any help?”
“No,” he said.
She bit her lip and sighed. “All right. I’m going to go take a shower.”
“Okay,” Lyle said. She started walking toward the bathroom. “Hang on.”
“What?” she asked.
“Those two drone pilots they picked up earlier,” Lyle said, typing. “One has family that doesn’t live too far from here.”
Kate froze. “I thought they lived in Florida.”
“They moved a few months ago,” Lyle said. “You don’t think they might want to use them for leverage, do you?”
Kate hurried to the door, cursing the bad luck. “Stay here.”
She doubted she would make it in time.
2
Kate found herself driving alone down the interstate, frustrated that she’d missed the Intel about Jack’s family. She’d been so off-guard and unprepared for this entire situation that she was being sloppy. Normally, she wouldn’t have missed something like this.
Of course, she’d entirely missed Victor trying to kill her.
Which was why she wasn’t behaving normally. In previous jobs with a client or asset similar to Lyle, she would tie him up in the bathroom or on a chair in the room and leave him until she was done with whatever she had to take care of. There was no way she would trust him, let alone give him her computer and possibly get them both caught.
And, why the hell did it bother her that she’d hurt his feelings?
She sighed as she pulled into the driveway where Jack’s family lived. The house was quiet and empty, and she knew she was too late. The back door was closed but showed the telltale marks of a crowbar where someone jimmied it open.
There were signs of a scuffle inside where the wife had fought back, but they had subdued her quickly. Upstairs, Kate found empty bedrooms but saw nothing useful.
More than a little frustrated with herself, Kate picked up the house phone, dialed 911, and left it off the hook. She slipped back outside, careful to make sure none of the neighbors saw her.
Safely in her rental and on the freeway again, she relaxed. She felt her phone start vibrating.
“Anything yet?” she asked.
“I know who the mole is,” Lyle said. “One of the VP’s. I got into his email, and he’s been talking to some people. They are vague, but I know they are talking about the backdoor.”
“Okay,” she said.
“He references a warehouse in Arizona in one email. I’m trying to track it down and I’ll let you know as soon as I figure out how it relates. Did you find Jack’s family?”
“Gone.”
“Damn,” Lyle replied. “Do you think…do you think they’ll be okay?”
Kate didn’t have a good answer. “I hope so. I’ll be back in half an hour.”
“All right. I should have the warehouse location by then.”
3
Beck sat at the terminal beside Helen. He was running a skeleton project that was similar to the network she wanted to hack to show her how the connections worked. She was incredibly smart, picking up on the small details a lot faster than he had expected.
“All of the security services use two way bit stream connections, but we need to override the internal framework to allow it to transmit and receive simultaneously.”
“So they built it with extra overhead?”
“It’s bad design,” Beck agreed, “because it means we can hide our own commands in output functions.”
“Wow,” Helen said, leaning forward to see better, “I could never have found that.”
“With a built-in lag period, by the time we communicate with the network, it already sent out our fake override code. Then we can embed a new admin into the system and log in through it.”
“And once we are on their network, we can bridge the connection to Markwell’s software servers and run all the relays from there,” Helen said. “That’s perfect.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Beck said. “I’ve looked at Markwell’s network, and it’s way more sophisticated. We can’t brute force our way inside.”
“We already have that taken care of,” Helen replied.
“Oh?” Beck said. “You have a backdoor in the code?”
She nodded. There wasn’t any point in lying.
They sat for a minute, looking at the computer. Suddenly, Beck said, “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“This,” he said, gesturing toward the computer. “You don’t seem like…the others. Why are you a part of this?”
Helen hesitated. “I have my reasons.”
“What reason could you possibly have that justifies killing innocent people?”
“We are attacking a military base,” Helen said. “No innocents.”
“You honestly believe that?”
A moment passed. “No,” she said. “I suppose I don’t. But I don’t have much choice.”
“No,” Beck said. “I don’t have much choice. You have all the choice you could want. Just leave.”
“I can’t,” she replied.
“Why not?”
“I just can’t,” Helen reiterated. He could tell he was hitting a nerve. She wasn’t a killer.
“What are you going to do with Jack?”
“Let him go,” she said, “after we finish the job.”
“What about me?”
“Probably let you go as well,” she said. “You won’t serve any purpose once we’re done.”
“Probably,” he echoed. “Can you, at least, tell me what’s going on? What are you actually doing?”
She didn’t respond. She got up and headed out of the room, leaving Beck alone. He thought maybe he’d pushed her too far and annoyed her too much, but after a few minutes, she came back. She had Jack with her, and he looked just as confused as Beck did.
Beck ran over and gave Jack a hug. “I’m sorry, man. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Jack said. “It’s not your fault.”
Beck turned to Helen. “What’s going on?”
“Victor is still out. William and Francis are watching the exits.”
“Okay,” Beck said, confused. “What does that mean?”
“It’s in Texas,” she added. “The target is a little town called Cottonwood Heights.”
“Why there?” Beck asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Victor told me it was a military installation, but I don’t believe him.”
Jack let out a sigh. “Why are you telling us?”
“Because I don’t know what is going to happen to you two, and if either of you are able to escape I want you to warn them.”
4
“Why don’t you just let us go?” Jack asked.
“I can’t,” Helen replied, “because they have your family. If I let you go, they’ll hunt you down, kill your family and then kill me.”
“My family? Are they okay?”
“They are fine,” Helen said. “And they will remain fine as long as Beck keeps helping.”
Jack looked at Beck. “Don’t worry,” Beck said. “I would never do anything to jeopardize your family.”
“Why are they doing this?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know,” Helen said. “Look, this is the best I can do. Hurry up and say your goodbyes to each other because I need to get Jack back in his cell before they know something is up.”
Jack gave Beck another hug and then followed Helen down the hall. “Why are you helping us?” he asked.
She was silent, then gestured for him to head into the cell. Jack did, and she locked it.
“Because I know how important family is.”
