the bureaucracy, Gregor, Moreno, even himself. Damned if he wouldn’t have been better just shooting his stinking way inside the compound. The hell with the goddamn Italians and their corrupt justice system, the hell with Reid telling him to work with the FBI, the hell with everything and everybody.
The office lock was easily manipulated with his small pick and spring. He opened the door and slipped inside, ducking down to avoid the window, which was visible from the pool area.
A leather couch divided the room roughly in half. A desk sat on the opposite side, at the very back of the house. Filing cabinets lined the left wall of the office; an open bottle of wine sat on a small bar next to the window on the far side.
A computer screen sat on a low table to the right of the desk. It was attached to an HP computer below the table.
Nuri crawled over on his hands and knees. When he reached the computer, he took out the USB thumb drive with the virus program and pulled the machine out to locate the USB port. He plugged it in, then turned the power on.
If Moreno found the dog drugged, he’d realize there was a break-in. At that point he would most likely assume the office and computers were bugged and tear them apart. Most experts would miss the virus that he was installing, but there was a chance they wouldn’t. And besides, Moreno might easily decide to take no chances and simply trash the entire computer.
Which meant he would have to start the upload now.
He got back on his hands and knees and looked for the phone line, aiming to tap in and avoid Moreno’s router, which could slow down the transfer. He found the line, and realized the office was wired with an optical line — something he hadn’t expected, but not a problem. He found the small connection box and went to work, carefully unscrewing the cover and pulling the jack out to expose the wiring. He hooked his own in, then ran it up to the computer’s Ethernet port.
A cursor blinked steadily on the screen. Nuri tapped the six digit access code and the rogue program went to work, flexing the computer’s hard drive at a few hundred megabytes a minute.
He considered the dog problem while the hard drive churned. If he could make it look as if the dog had been poisoned, then the mess in the other room and the dog’s sleeping would seem natural.
Not poisoned, but inebriated.
The bottle of wine. The smell might dissipate the scent of the mace as well.
Nuri glanced at the computer screen. The virus needed another twelve minutes to finish.
He went over and grabbed the wine. The bottle was only about a quarter full, but that would do; the dog was already drugged, after all.
Crouching down next to the desk, watching the computer count down, his anger dissipated. He held the bottle of wine to his nose. It was earthy, a fresh red — probably grown and bottled right here.
Nuri felt himself relaxing, just a little. Things were going well. He’d been right about the mafia don letting his guard down. The party complicated things, but only barely. And the dog — the dog was a chance to show his ingenuity.
The computer beeped. The program was done, and sooner than he’d expected.
Leaning to his right over the desk, Nuri looked through the window toward the pool. Moreno was still floating in the middle of the water, a girl hanging on either side of him.
Not a bad life, Nuri thought. Smuggle some dope into the country from time to time, hire international killers to avenge your grandfather, then float the nights away drinking wine and getting laid.
Nuri pulled over the keyboard and typed a new set of letters and numbers:
Curious about what had been uploaded, Nuri followed the command with one for a listing of programs on the hard drive. There were dozens, including a shareware encryption program that he had encountered before. He paged through to the e-mail program and fired it up. It wasn’t even protected with a password.
Then again, how many home computer e-mails were?
Nuri flipped through the most recent bunch. They seemed to concern business, but the details were vague — a ship that would leave port, an airplane flight number, nothing of immediate help. There was also a surprising amount of spam — ads for working at home, better erection pills, and invitations to join dating services.
Spam? Or messages disguised as spam? MY-PID would have to sort it all out.
Nuri closed the program and looked at the Internet cache, examining the list of recent sites Moreno had surveyed. For a guy who could pay for whatever real pleasures he wanted, Moreno sure liked his porn. The cache was filled with images.
“How’s it going?” asked Flash.
“Almost done.”
He paged through, looking for bank account screens. He didn’t see any. But he did find a range of search queries on banks and post offices in Moldova.
Did Moreno have business there?
If so, it wasn’t obvious. The pages left in the queue looked almost random, as if Moreno had been thinking about visiting and was just looking for information.
“Guards are moving around in the little building,” warned Flash. “I think we’re up against a shift change.”
Nuri flipped off the computer. He resisted the impulse to look inside the desk or file cabinets and began crouch-walking toward the door.
He was three-fourths of the way there when he realized he’d forgotten the wine bottle. As he went back for it, he looked through the window and saw one of the girls pulling herself out of the pool.
She wasn’t wearing a top.
She was also heading for the house, as Flash warned a few moments later.
He scooped up the wine bottle and went back to the door to wait for her to pass. But instead of going up the hall as the other girls had, she stopped at the office door and tried the knob.
“Fredo, Fredo,” she called. “
She tried the door again.
“MY-PID, locate Alfredo Moreno,” said Nuri.
“Subject is in the pool.”
“Tell me if he moves.”
“Subject is swimming to the western side of the pool.”
Nuri reached over to the lock and undid it.
“Subject is approaching the house,” said MY-PID.
Nuri took out his pistol. The hell with subtlety. He’d just shoot the damn son of a bitch and be done with it all.
“Nuri?” whispered Flash.
“Stand by,” whispered Nuri.
“I want more wine,” said the woman.
“You’ve had enough I’m sure.”
“Don’t be a prude.”
Nuri raised the gun. He heard a loud slap outside the door.
Then the woman laughed. Moreno laughed. The woman giggled.
The door opened. Nuri stood against the wall, holding his breath as the pair came into the room. He could smell the chlorine fresh on their bodies.
They went straight for the couch, tumbling over the back.
The girl giggled. Moreno told her that she was beautiful and needed to be made love to. She asked for more
