“Flies below the radar. That’s why he’s useful to us. Which reminds me: Don’t believe anything he tells you. He has talents we need, but this man is a manipulative sociopath.”
“Sounds like a great addition to the team.”
The doors opened and Odin brought them down a mildewed hallway past cheap wood veneer doors with no- frills black plaques listing immigration attorneys and mail order companies. Soon they arrived at a door with no plaque at all, only a peephole and a massive dead-bolt lock. None of the neighboring office doors had either.
Odin examined the lock. “An old Medeco biaxial. I should be able to bump this.” He reached into his pocket to produce a small leather case, which he flipped open to reveal an array of tools. He slipped a small brass key out, then took his small Maglite with the end wrapped in duct tape. “If anyone’s coming, cough.”
McKinney raised her eyebrows. “Are you really-?”
“Watch the hall.” He worked so fast, she barely had time to see it. He slipped what looked like a simple filed-down key into the lock, pulled it out slightly, and then gave it a quick whack with the taped end of the Maglite. He then turned the dead bolt as though he had the correct key and entered the office. A glance inside, and he nodded for her to follow.
Before McKinney had time to debate breaking and entering, they were both walking into a low-end reception area without an actual receptionist, just an empty front desk piled with FedEx and UPS packages. She could hear people talking and hands clattering on computer keyboards as they moved down a central hallway. The hallway opened up to a modest cubicle farm with tinny Christian rock music playing on PC speakers somewhere.
“… my savior! Savior! Say-vii-ooorrr!”
Odin walked with purpose, having put away the key and Maglite, and he headed toward the closed office door at the far end. McKinney couldn’t help but catch the eye of one of the office workers, a twentyish white kid with piercings and dyed blue hair. She nodded to him and kept going. He immediately turned back to his keyboard, uncurious.
Before they reached the office door, a heavyset, middle-aged blond woman in jeans and a bright pink T-shirt for a charity 5K came around the corner holding a manila folder blooming with colorful Post-it flags. She slowed. “Can I help you?”
Odin shook his head. “He gave me a key. You his admin?”
“The office manager.”
“Then, no, you can’t help me.” He kept walking straight to the closed door at the end of the hall. It opened up into a sizable corner office containing IKEA furniture, a flat-screen TV, and gaming consoles. The whole office was a mishmash of styles. There were thick folders piled everywhere and stuffed shelves lining the walls, overflowing with fat programming books-dozens of languages and methodologies, from Perl to Java to Hadoop, to pen-testing, and exploiting online games.
The occupant of the office sat in a brown leather chair, talking on the phone with his back to them as he faced downtown Tampa in the distance. His silver-toed cowboy boots rested up on a credenza. McKinney followed Odin inside, still with no clear idea how she should be acting.
Surprised that someone had entered his office, the man put his feet down and rotated his chair, still talking into the phone. “… aged accounts-at least a year. The older the better. And active posters.” He frowned at the office manager, then at McKinney-and then his eyes went wide when he saw Odin. He spoke into the phone. “Hey, man. I gotta take this. Text me when you got ’em. Yeah.”
He hung up and just stared.
Odin nodded. “How are things, Mordecai?”
His office manager frowned. “There’s been some mistake. Mister James is-”
“Get out, Maggie.” When she didn’t hop to it, he shooed her out with ringed fingers. “Now! And close the door.”
She nodded and obeyed, her face taut with humiliation.
McKinney kept her eyes on the man. He was in his mid-twenties, reasonably good-looking, but with the oily presence of a gold-chain salesman in a bad part of town. He wore a denim shirt with embroidery on the chest pockets. His fingers held several rings of similar design. Though he was still young, his hair was thinning, a situation he compensated for with Isaac Asimov-style muttonchop sideburns. He was still staring at Odin with utter incomprehension.
Odin dropped into one of the chairs in front of the desk. “No hello?”
“Thanks for using my real name, asshole. I see you got rid of that bin Laden beard of yours. I barely recognized you. Why the fuck are you here?”
Odin motioned for McKinney to take a seat next to him. “So what is it now-Ryan James? That’s pretty bland for a guy like you.” Odin gestured in their host’s direction. “Professor, this used to be the far more interesting Mordecai Elijah Evans-a very talented member of a U.S. Cyber Command worm squad-part of the Joint Functional Component Command for Network Warfare. Mort here was their pet black-hat. On a short leash under the threat of-what was it again, Mort? — sixty-five years and a two-million-dollar fine?”
“I paid my debt to society.”
“But not your debt to me.”
“You don’t- You’d better not be here for me, Odin. One phone call, and you go away. I have friends now. Powerful, official friends.”
“I need your talents.”
“I don’t work for DOD anymore. I got my package, motherfucker. Legal pardon. A new life.” He gestured to the office. “I’m a legitimate businessman.”
Odin nodded appreciatively. “Yes, very lifelike.”
Evans sneered back at the sarcasm with an intense nasal imitation of Odin’s voice. “Mmm… vera lifelike. Fuck you. I’m not the same person I was back then.”
“Not the same name maybe, but I don’t think you’ve changed. You forget how much I know about you.”
“Leave, or I make a call.”
Odin spoke to McKinney, keeping his eyes on Evans. “Morty here sold zero-day exploits to international criminal gangs-helped advanced technology escape to parts unknown. What we’re dealing with right now might be because of him.”
“I got my deal. They need people like me, Odin. It’s that simple. Door kickers like you are replaceable-or should I say disposable? I am not.” He frowned. “How did you get in, anyway?”
“I kicked the door in.”
“Look, this is all moot. You can’t twist my arm anymore. I’m part of the system now. The system wants you to leave.” He swept his arm dramatically to point at the door. “So leave.”
“I need information. You’re going to help me get it.”
Evans just laughed. “Are you deaf? I’ve got powerful allies, and I don’t work for you.” He put his hand over the multiline phone system on his desk. “One more word, and I make the call.”
Odin leaned forward and produced a black automatic pistol from the waistband at the small of his back. He held it up for Evans to clearly see. McKinney noticed a short exposed barrel with threads at the end of its blocky body. The words USP Tactical were engraved in letters large enough to read on its side.
Evans just frowned at it. “What, are you kidding me?”
Odin produced a metal cylinder from his pocket and proceeded to screw it onto the end of the barrel.
Evans laughed. “I feel insulted by this posturing.”
McKinney grabbed Odin’s shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”
Odin finished screwing on the suppressor. “I’m doing what’s necessary, Professor. I assure you, there’s no other means to secure Mordecai’s cooperation.”
“But you’re making me party to a- I don’t think we need this person so badly that we need to resort to this.”
“Listen to the lady, Odin.”
Odin shook his head but kept looking at Evans. “Mort, would you cooperate under any circumstances other than the threat of physical force?”
Evans chuckled and ruefully shook his head. “You know, I’m going to have to say no to that-in fact, I’m going to say no to physical force as well.” He picked up the handset of his desk phone. “If I disappeared-all these witnesses. Too many cameras. They’d track you down. It would be suicide to lay a finger on me.”
