“Of course,” she said, wasting no more time talking and hustling away from the bar. “Good to see you, Peter.”
“Wait, I wanted to—”
His voice vanished in a sea of conversations muted by the pulsating rhythms of techno mix.
Hawk leaned forward and spoke loudly in Alex’s ear. “Carlos? Really? I thought you’d come up with something a little more appropriate than that.”
She smiled and shook her head. “Be glad I didn’t go with something less imposing like Melvin.”
“I don’t really care,” Hawk said. “But seriously, what was that all about at the bar with Peter?”
“It’s nothing. He’s a nosy character, so I wanted to get out of there before he started grilling you. He’s rather protective of me in a big brother kind of way.”
They hustled up the steps and strode over to Ian, the infamous Helenos-9 when he was online. He wore a white polo with his collar popped up and a pair of sunglasses. When he stood to greet Alex, Hawk was struck by just how short the hacker was. However, he seemed to not even notice Hawk.
But the strangest thing about Ian was the plump, white rat perched on his shoulder.
“Business or pleasure?” Ian asked Alex after giving her a hug.
“Business,” she said.
“Is it urgent?”
She nodded.
“Come with me.”
Hawk and Alex followed him around the corner to a small room with a pair of couches. The glass forming the outside walls were opaque enough to keep out any peeping Toms.
Ian gestured for them to both sit down and locked the door before taking a seat across from them. He held the back of his hand near his right shoulder and allowed his rat to walk off it. Hawk watched with wide-eyed amazement as Ian scooped up the rat and cuddled with it.
“What do you need help with?” Ian asked, dispensing with any formalities.
She placed the flash drive on the coffee table and slid the device to him. “It requires a RSA 4096 bit encryption key. Think you can crack it?”
Ian picked it up and studied the device. “How soon do you need it?”
“Tomorrow.”
He drew back and shook his head. “No way. Do you know how difficult these things are to get into?”
“I do. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here. My skills have vastly improved since we last worked together.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good,” Alex said. “And I’ll need to come with you.”
Ian handed the device back to her. “That’s a deal breaker for me. I’m not about to let you see where I live and work.”
“Fine, but you better not let the device out of your sight.”
“Agreed,” Ian said. “Are you prepared to pay my fee?”
She nodded. “Is it still two hundred thousand Euros?”
“Two fifty now.”
“Two fifty?”
“Inflation.”
“I’ll give you three hundred if you can get this back to me within twenty-four hours,” Alex said.
“Fair enough,” Ian said as he pocketed the drive. “I’ll email you the wire instructions. Half of it up front.”
“You’ll have the money within the next fifteen minutes,” she said as she stood. “I’m counting on you, Ian.”
“Darling, have I ever let you down?”
Alex shook her head. “But let’s not start now. This is by far the most important project I’ve ever been a part of.”
“You know I’d do anything for you.”
Ian replaced the rat to its previous position and then hugged Alex again. He offered a polite nod at Hawk, never once asking who he was or what he was doing here.
As they descended the steps, Hawk eased up next to Alex and spoke in her ear so she could hear over the music.
“That was weird,” he said.
Alex was already on her phone, inputting the information required to wire fifty percent of Ian’s fee.
“You didn’t tell me the guy had a pet rat,” Hawk said.
“There are some things that are best not to tell you about and simply let you experience them,” she said.
“So, now what?”
“Now, we wait. And in the meantime, we dance.”
Hawk sighed and followed Alex onto the floor, hoping that he could satiate her desire with no more than a song or two. But he knew that wasn’t going to happen.
* * *
WHEN IAN RETURNED to his apartment, he dialed a number on his cell.
“What do you have for us?” the man on the other end asked.
“They showed up here, just like you predicted, Mr. Sinclair,” Ian said.
“In that case, I’m sending you the file to pass along to them right now.”
Ian smiled. “And the twenty million Euros?”
“I’ll have my assistant wire you half now and the other half when you hand over the physical device. I’ll have her text you the address for delivery.”
“Excellent,” Ian said before he hung up. He shoved the drive into his top drawer and closed it.
The night was still young.
CHAPTER 6
Charette Mesa
Mora, New Mexico
BLUNT HUNKERED DOWN on his seat, a converted five-gallon paint bucket, and poured piping hot coffee into the cap of his thermos. He watched the steam rise off the top before taking a sip.
“Ah,” he said. “Now that’ll put hair on your chest.”
George Wickham, the deputy director of the Secret Service, chuckled. “If it put hair on my head, I might join you.”
Blunt winked at him. “It obviously doesn’t do that, does it?”
“Perhaps it’s delivery method.”
“Delivery method?”
“Yeah, J.D., technological innovations have come a long way since that thermos of yours was manufactured about fifty years ago.”
Blunt grunted. “When I find something that works, I don’t change.”
“That’s how you become a fossil,” Wickham said.
Blunt shrugged as he drained the rest of his coffee. “You’re only a fossil if you can’t be effective. And I think based on our results we’re pretty damn good at what we do.”
“Is that why we’re both reeling from the attack on the White House?”
“I’ll admit that wasn’t pretty,” Blunt said. “But we tried to warn your boss. He wasn’t having any of it. And he’s the fossil now.”
“Touché,” Wickham said as he took Blunt’s thermos lid and filled it with coffee. “So, what are
