But God, he prayed it didn’t come to that for more reasons than one.
Bending down, he hit the switch on the CPU and cut the boot-up off before the inevitable password-protected sign-in screen flashed. Going in under the operating system’s radar, he took control, scrambled the IP address, and jumped onto the World Wide Web.
The XOps computer system was a monolith set up by the best experts he’d been able to recruit, whether they’d been MIT graduates, fifteen-year-old arrogant little shits, or multinational hackers—and each and every one of those big brains had been silenced by means of leverage…or the cold embrace of the earth.
After all, the builders of your castle knew your secret escapes—and he’d especially not wanted anyone in the organization to be aware of the hidden path he now took into the network.
Eventually, someone would probably discover he’d snuck in and out using a ghost admin account, but it would be weeks, months—maybe not ever—
He was in.
A quick check of the clock in the corner of the screen told him he had no more than sixty seconds before he ran the risk of being identified as a concurrent user.
He needed less than thirty.
Putting his hand in his pocket, he took out the SanDisk he’d bought on the way here from the gift shop. Punching the thing into the USB port in the front of the machine, he initiated a data download that was nuclear in its scope, but relatively self-contained in terms of bytes.
Not a lot of operatives, after all, and their missions were short and to the point.
And talk about intel—the files were the lynchpin of his self-protective exit strategy: he’d set up this comprehensive information cache, along with its auto-updating function, the moment the XOps computer systems had been put into service. It was just as important as the weapons and the cash he’d hidden in New York. And London. And Tangier. And Dubai. And Melbourne.
In his business, the emperor stayed on the throne only as long as he could hold on to his power—and you could never be sure when your base was going to erode.
In fact, the return of his memory told him all about how he’d guarded his influence, hoarded it, nurtured it, kept himself alive and in control…until he’d begun to stink from the filth of his deeds; until his soul—or what little of a one he’d had—had withered and died; until he’d become so emotionless he was practically an inanimate object; until he’d realized that death was the only way out, and better that he choose the time and the place.
Like in a desert, in front of a witness…with a bomb that he’d rigged to do the job.
Guess he hadn’t been in control of everything, though, because Jim Heron hadn’t left him where he’d lain and so he hadn’t died according to schedule.
Without Heron’s interference, though, he wouldn’t have eventually met Mels.
And he wouldn’t be using this information in the way he was going to.
This felt like the better outcome.
Except for the losing Mels part, that was.
Just before he signed out, an abiding curiosity got to him. With a quick shift, he pulled out of his shadow account and his little secret locker of information—and signed in for real, using an account he had set up for one of his administrators about six months ago.
It was still active. And the password hadn’t been changed—which was stupid.
Going into the personnel database, he typed in a name and hit return.
In the center of the gray screen, a tiny hourglass spun slowly, and seemed to do that weightless rotation forever. In reality, it was probably less than a second or two. The data that flashed next was Jim Heron’s profile, and Matthias quickly scanned the orderly notations.
He wasn’t worried about this activity getting traced—and it would. Operatives were going to show up at this particular computer ASAP.
Naturally, they would know it was him, and they wouldn’t be surprised.
The next profile he reviewed was his own, and he went back to Heron’s again before he signed off. He wasn’t sure exactly what was wrong, but something stuck with him, something that just wasn’t right. No time to figure it out, however—at least not in this office.
Matthias jacked out and crushed the flashdrive in his fist. After shutting down the comp, he popped open the door, looked to the left and the right, and stepped into the hall. Walking off, he—
“Can I help you?” a female voice demanded.
He paused and turned around. “I’m looking for Human Resources? Am I in the right place?”
The woman was short and stocky, built on the lines of a dishwasher or maybe a file cabinet. She was dressed in a steel gray suit, too, and her hair was cut right at the jawline, like she felt as though she had to prove that she was all business, all the time.
“I’m the head of HR.” Her eyes narrowed. “Who exactly are you here to see?”
“I’m applying for a waiter position in the restaurant? The front desk sent me here?”
“Oh for godsake.” Ms. VP looked like she was going to boil over on the spot. “Again? I’ve told them not to refer you guys here.”
“Yeah, I know—shouldn’t I be meeting with the hospitality manager or something—”
“Take this hall here out to the lobby. Go past the restaurant—until you’re almost at the fire exit. There’s a door marked ‘Office’—you’re looking for Bobby.”
Matthias smiled. “Thanks.”
She wheeled away and started marching in the opposite direction, the muttering suggesting she was already on the phone with whoever she was about to bitch-dial.
Have fun with that, he thought as he strode out.
Chapter Forty-nine
“You okay, big guy?” Jim asked as he carried Dog back up the stairs to the apartment over the garage.
The little man had been guarding the place all night, keeping everything as it should be, his eyes as fierce as his fur was not.
Up in the studio, Jim put the animal down and went over to the kitchen. “Just kibble this morning, sport. Sorry. But I’ll bring you back a turkey club, ’kay?”
As Dog let out a chuff of agreement, Jim figured deli sandwiches were probably not the best diet, but life was too short not to enjoy something as simple as what you liked to eat. And Dog loved ’em.
Running water in the sink, he rinsed out a small red bowl and refilled it. Putting the thing on the floor next to a cup and a half of Eukanuba, he stepped back and let Dog sniff around, take a test bite, and settle into his breakfast.
With the meal in progress, Jim walked over to the door and took out his cigarettes. Lighting up on the landing, he exhaled and braced one hand on the rail.
The reporter was at work; he’d checked on her as soon as he’d left the Marriott. And given that there was no sign of Devina anywhere, and the tracer spell remained up and rolling on both Matthias and the guy’s female, he’d decided to head back here and make sure all was cool.
Now he wasn’t sure what to do…except listen to Dog crunch.
Off in the distance, a truck traveled over the road on the far side of the meadow, going at a steady pace. Closer by, crows cawed to one another on the pineboughs. Behind him, Dog kept working his jaw.
Everything was so damned tranquil, he nearly jumped out of his skin.
It was on his second coffin nail that he realized he was waiting for Nigel to make an appearance. That British dandy always seemed to show up at critical times, and now felt like one: Jim couldn’t believe what Ad had done. The self-sacrifice, the mission critical, the man-up. On some level, it was unfathomable.
Eddie would have been really proud of the guy.
But what were they going to do now? Jim still didn’t know where the crossroads were, and Devina was undoubtedly getting up to something.
“Nigel—my man,” he muttered on the exhale. “Where are you.”
