baby, not let anything happen to the baby. The baby, the baby, the baby! What's so damn important about my baby? The tentacles?' She heard her voice rising in pitch and volume but couldn't help it. 'What? Somebody tell me! Somebody stop lying to me for just half a fucking minute and tell me!'
By the end she was screaming.
Dr. Landsman turned to the nurse and nodded. Dawn saw a syringe in her hand, saw her plunge it into the IV tubing and empty it. She reached over to rip out the line but Dr. Landsman grabbed her wrist and held it.
'Relax, Dawn. You're hysterical. It's a postpartum mood disorder. You're imagining things. This will relax you.'
She struggled, but the strength seemed to leak out of her. A moment later she had to lie back. She fought to keep her eyes open but they refused to obey. She heard Dr. Landsman saying something to the nurse but his voice was too far away to understand…
6
'Mister Tuit?' someone called as Russ stepped off the elevator.
He mispronounced it as Too-it. Most people did.
'It's 'Tweet,' ' he said. 'Like that thing you do on Twitter.'
The guy gave him a blank look. Under his topcoat he was thin as a memory board and looked like he had a black BB embedded in the middle of his chin.
Then he blinked and said, 'Sorry, Mister… Tuit.' This time he got it right. He extended a hand. 'My name's Belgiovene. I'm with the Operation.'
That was how they referred to the project-the Operation-and it involved some of the most satisfying work he had ever done. The National Reconnaissance Office, manned by DoD and CIA personnel, operated the nation's reconnaissance satellites. As such it was under constant attack by foreign hackers. It had secretly gathered a group of veteran hackers-Russ among them-to do some white-hat work, challenging them to push the hacking envelope, to take the most vicious worms and trojans hurled against the NRO's computers and make them worse. Then find defenses against them. And then develop a virus to breach those defenses. And then a firewall to block that attack. And on and on.
But as for this guy really being with the NRO, Russ wasn't so sure.
'How do I know that?'
The guy pulled out an ID folder and flipped it open to reveal his NRO ID. It looked good, but Russ still wasn't satisfied.
'How come you're meeting me out here and not in there?' he said, jerking his thumb down the hall to where the security teams worked.
The NRO had installed them on the sixth floor of this office building on West Houston. To earn their salary, the teams were required to put in eight-to-five days, but they often stayed late-sometimes all night if things were rolling. Russ appreciated the generous income, but the potential bonus he'd been offered meant more than money.
'Because the Operation is closing down and your team will be finishing up without you.'
Russ felt like he'd just been shoved into a black hole.
'Like hell!'
He started for the office door.
'Wait!' Belgiovene called out behind him. 'It's not what you think.'
Russ ignored him. Something wrong here. He'd done primo work for the Operation, given it his all. They couldn't He was halfway to the door when it opened and Hart, overseer of the teams, stepped out.
'Oh, Russ. I see you've met Belgiovene. Good news, eh?'
'Good news? I'm being canned and you call that good news?'
Hart looked flabbergasted. 'Canned? Who said anything about-?'
'A misunderstanding, I'm afraid,' Belgiovene said, joining them. He put a hand on Russ's arm. 'We're moving you to a different project.'
'Yeah,' Hart said. 'This one's done. Just a matter of tying up loose ends. You're too valuable to waste on scut work.'
The praise shot a blast of relief through Russ.
Belgiovene said, 'We're very impressed with your work. And… there's another matter I need to discuss with you.'
'What?'
'The terms of your parole?'
Relief morphed into exhilaration. Was he finally going to stop paying for that bank hack?
'You mean-?'
Belgiovene raised a hand. 'Not here.'
'What? Oh, right. Sure. Where?'
'It's best we talk in private. We will have to meet with people. It is a delicate procedure. Judicial egos are involved-not local, but federal. We keep our promises. You've delivered your end, so we'll deliver ours. We'll get this done.'
Russ followed him toward the elevator, feeling lighter than air.
7
'I'm falling apart,' Munir said.
They sat in his kitchen while they waited for the phone to ring, and he did feel as if he were crumbling, physically as well as emotionally.
'You're under unimaginable stress,' Jack said as he bandaged Munir's hand in thick layers of gauze to make it look injured. 'You've got a guy out there trying to break you.'
'Well, he's succeeding.'
'You can't let him win. You've got to hold on. You've got a wife and child somewhere out there depending on you.'
He sensed Jack was not comfortable in the cheerleader role. And he shouldn't have been. He wasn't very good. Motivational speaking would not be a good alternate career choice.
'But what good am I to them? I'm not good for anything. This has made me realize how isolated the three of us have become. We became a self-sustaining unit: Barbara, Robby, and me. And now they're gone and I'm useless without them. You're all that's holding me together.'
'I didn't sign on to hold anyone together,' he said. 'That's your responsibility.'
After finishing the bandage, Jack rose and went to the refrigerator where he removed the bag with the amputated finger.
'Where are you going?' Munir said.
'The bathroom, to give this a little wash. We want this to be as convincing as possible, and you don't strike me as the type to have dirty fingernails.'
Munir shook his head. Jack thought of everything.
When the call finally came, he ground his teeth at the sound of the hated voice. Jack stayed beside him, gripping his arm, steadying him as he listened through an earphone he had plugged into the answering machine. He had told Munir what to say, and had coached him on how to say it, how to sound.
'Well, Mooo-neeer. You got that finger for me?'
'Yes,' he said in the choked voice he had rehearsed. 'I have it.'
The caller paused, as if surprised by the response.
'You did it? You really did it?'
