they’d visited.”
He sighed. “I really thought they’d hunker down and keep their mouths shut until we were completely ready. You know how those people love their reputations. But then you came along and started rocking the boat. Savage began acting crazy, and the others became…unreliable. We’ve had to push up our timetable, and shut some mouths.”
“Your timetable?” Matt tried to get a look at the map taped to the tabletop. It was upside down from his point of view, but he could see it was a point of land jutting out into the joining point of two rivers. Somehow, it looked familiar, but Matt couldn’t place it.
“You’ve got to forgive me but I still have no idea what you’re talking about,” Matt said. “What were the virtual vandals doing for you, besides causing confusion?”
Rob Falk gave him that shark’s smile again. “If they confused you, then they did their job perfectly. Cat and her not-so-diplomatic friends were supposed to raise a fair amount of hell to keep the law’s attention on them.”
He paused, and thumped his fist down on the map. “While all the time, they were opening a way for us to get into the Gardens at Carrollsburg.”
Chapter 17
“
Matt knew his voice was too loud, but he couldn’t help it. At last he recognized the map on the Buzzards’ command-post table.
He’d seen it on his computer only a few days ago. It showed the layout of the Gardens at Carrollsburg, the gated community Sandy Braxton’s father was making so much money from.
But what could Rob — and his fellow gangbangers — possibly want with anything there?
He wondered as much out loud.
James and Rob laughed.
“I’ll show you,” the gang’s computer whiz said. He stepped round to his patched-together computer and began inputting orders — on a keyboard! Matt hadn’t even seen one of those outside of a museum.
How old is that thing? Matt wondered.
Old or not, however, it worked. A grainy, fuzzy hologram swam into view over the computer system.
Matt recognized it as a briefing map, the sort of visual aid shown to troops about to go on maneuvers — or on a real attack. It was a larger version of the map on the table, showing the point of land at the junction of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. Instead of showing streets, however, this map was broken into large, vividly colored areas. The tip and eastern side of the peninsula were colored blue with a red and white border. “That’s Fort McNair — an Army base,” Rob explained. “From there up the Potomac to the Tidal Basin, there are expensive condominiums.”
Then he pointed at a green area covering most of the remaining land in the peninsula. “The Gardens at Carrollsburg — a regular garden spot now. Gated community, rush-hour hovercraft service up the Potomac, just lovely. Named after the town of Carrollsburg, which stood on this land before the city of Washington was even thought of.”
Falk grinned at the prisoners, the light reflecting from the holo turning his face into a devil’s mask. “But in between the colonial town and this outpost of gracious living, the area had another name.”
Matt remembered. “Buzzard Point,” he said.
The gang member gave Matt a surprised look. “Very good,” he said. “And you said you weren’t coming up with anything.”
“One of the Leets in school — his father invested in the development. The name came up again when I was trying to track down kids who might have been involved with your vandals. Their addresses seemed to cluster in certain zip codes — Georgetown or the Northwest, or 20024 in the Southwest. That seems to be where the diplomats are found….”
Matt’s voice trailed off as he realized that these were the people Rob had a special reason to hate. They’d cost him his mother, his father’s job, his school, his whole life.
But Falk didn’t fly off the handle. He simply nodded. “Before all those…nice people…moved in, this area was home turf for the Buzzards. Get it now? The gang took its name from the neighborhood.”
“Not the prettiest handle,” James growled, glancing around at the ruined walls surrounding them. “But then, it wasn’t the prettiest neighborhood, either.”
Rob turned back to the holo-map glowing in midair. “Go a little farther north, and it still isn’t.” He pointed to a large, bright orange blob across the top of the peninsula. “This whole area is still waiting to be renovated. Part of it will be an expansion of the Gardens at Carrollsburg, but other developers are getting into the act, too. The people who lived here were moved out, but the bulldozers haven’t come in yet.”
He ran his finger around the irregular orange borders. “All this space between those rich, fat diplomats and the gentrified neighborhoods coming down from the Mall and Capitol Hill.” Then his hand punched through the orange empty area. “Sort of like a no-man’s-land, cutting off the whole Carrollsburg gated community.”
His voice sounded faraway, thoughtful, but his face was tight. “They think they’re so safe behind their gates and their security. Ha! That stuff is as solid as Swiss cheese. Cat and her friends have riddled the place with trapdoor programs. I can get into dozens of home systems in there now. And those computers all tie in to the hardware that runs the whole development.”
There was an ugly, scary light in Rob Falk’s eyes as he turned to Matt and Caitlin…and this time it didn’t come from the garish colors of the holographic map he’d been pointing to.
“I’ve got dozens of doors to reach in and cut their communications, turn off their alarms, kill their power. I can lock those precious gates of theirs, stranding them inside.” His voice took on a gloating tone. “Or I could open those gates up to let in a couple of hundred uninvited guests.”
Matt’s eyes shot from Rob to his new friend James.
“We got Buzzards from all around the Beltway gathering here,” the gang warlord assured him. “All of them will be carrying.”
“Carrying?” Caitlin said.
James gave her a scornful look. “Guns, girl. What you think we’d be carrying?”
“They really don’t have enough guards in the compound,” Rob said.
“Just enough to sit on their fat butts at the gates and direct traffic,” James agreed.
Rob laughed. “But then, who’d expect an invasion in such a classy neighborhood?”
“It’ll be the biggest rip-off in Washington history,” James boasted.
“At least since the British burnt down the White House in 1814.” An ugly look of triumph covered Rob’s face. “House after house full of diplomats — and not one of them will have any immunity.”
“You’re crazy!” Cat Corrigan burst out.
Matt gave her another look. He might agree with her, but he knew it wasn’t healthy to point out facts like that to crazy people.
“Even if you pull off this ‘rip-off’ you’re talking about,” Matt said, “you’ll have more than the police after you. You’ll have people whose reach doesn’t end with the D.C. line. The State Department will have to get involved if you molest diplomats. And the rest of the feds will be right behind them — the Attorney General, the FBI, Net Force, and who knows what other agencies?”
“You left out the Congress, rushing to rescue Senator Corrigan’s little girl,” Rob Falk said mockingly.
“We got it figured out,” James assured them. “In quick, slap those rent-a-cops down, grab what we can, then out even quicker. Before the big shots know anything happened, we’ll be spread all over the Beltway. It’s like a guerrilla war, baby. They won’t know where to look to find whoever is responsible.”
Rob Falk leaned forward. “But just in case, we’ll provide the perfect high-profile fall guys for the media and politicians to blame.”
He poked contemptuous fingers at Caitlin and Matt. “Think of the fun some people could have carrying on about a bunch of wild diplo-brats, a Senator’s daughter, and a military bureaucrat’s wannabe son, all taking a walk
